Recent Posts

1401

General Software Discussion / Re: Scary Driveby Attack / Mysterious failure / Other

« Last post by Shades on April 18, 2014, 10:29 AM »

Checkdisk does its best work when it runs before Windows is fully started, but apparently it is logged. This is what I found on the internet:

Open the Event Viewer...

Start | Run | Type: eventvwr | OK
Look in Application | Listed as Information |
Event ID: 1001
Source: Winlogon
[[Description: This includes file system type; drive letter or GUID, and
volume name or serial number to help determine what volume Chkdsk ran
against. Also included is whether Chkdsk ran because a user scheduled it or
because the dirty bit was set.]]

[[When Autochk runs against a volume at boot time it records its output to a
file called Bootex.log in the root of the volume being checked. The Winlogon
service then moves the contents of each Bootex.log file to the Application
Event log.]]

[[This file states whether Chkdsk encountered any errors and, if so,
whether they were fixed.]]

1402

General Software Discussion / Re: Scary Driveby Attack / Mysterious failure / Other

« Last post by Shades on April 17, 2014, 12:16 PM »

As far as I know, a defrag will not do much for you with regards to bad blocks. Checkdisk does move blocks of data around after it cannot repair bad blocks on your disk and marks these so the filesystem will not use them anymore.

That is at least the concept behind it. But often the capabilities of the software falls short and you have to resort to 3rd party software. HDSentinel, HDDscan (and for real pro's: MHDD) come to mind.

1403

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Shades on April 15, 2014, 10:30 PM »

Clearly the one responsible for the cover didn't eat enough gifted children....

Or in case of Photoshop, should that not .giffed children?

1404

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

« Last post by Shades on April 15, 2014, 12:54 AM »

The Best Offer - Avery intriguing story about an older auctioneer that is selling the inventory of a younger woman who inherited all her antiques after her parents died... This is a movie that you should see without any knowledge beforehand. But very good acting from Geoffrey Rush. Not a boring minute in this 2 hour movie.

1405

General Software Discussion / Re: Need a way to modify a Subject Line in Outlook Email using Scripts or Rules

« Last post by Shades on April 14, 2014, 10:22 PM »

Most mail server software already have a spam-filter build in. For postfix (linux) that would be spam-assassin, if memory serves me right. And you can configure there if mails marked as spam automatically get *** SPAM *** added to the subject line. With the default configuration of Exchange 2010 I know that there are limits in how much messages can be sent per minute, just so you don't trigger anti-spam measures that are in place either internally or externally. Most professional email solutions will have something similar I'm sure.

Depending on your geographic location different organizations patrol the web marking you as a spammer when they see that is needed and then you'll have to prove to that organization that you aren't before they remove the block on all your (outgoing) mail. Had that happen twice to me, because some kid had installed a cheat or something for an online game he was playing. 

You should be able to access the logging. From there it shouldn't be that difficult to see who is the responsible user. If there is no such option, it sounds like you are at the mercy of either IPSWITCH or those "guardians".

Ah well, this is another example (for me) that shows you shouldn't depend too much on 3rd parties that over-promise and under-deliver, which is the bulk of cloud service providers (to me).

1406

General Software Discussion / Re: The right organization (WE views and a particular need)

« Last post by Shades on April 13, 2014, 03:28 PM »

Tomos is right. Windows Explorer Although its library functionality is a big improvement, it is not extensive enough for your needs. And with that we enter into the realm of alternative file managers,

Directory Opus is the only one I am really familiar with, so I'll focus on that one. Within Opus you can create your own layouts that you can apply on any set of folders and files. Sorting, different types of columns etc. you'll find it. Together with the manual and an adventurous spirit, you'll find out how. Besides that you will likely discover many more ways to alter your way of working with folders/files once you the the hang of it.

Maybe its pre-configured views already do what you want.

The filesystem of Windows quite powerful. However, support for displaying two files with the same name in the same folder, but a different date is not possible (if I understood your description correctly that is).

  

1407

General Software Discussion / Re: Create Local & Cloud copy of the same files on multiple computers & stay synced

« Last post by Shades on April 11, 2014, 08:45 AM »

Port forwarding could be an option. Version control software (Mercurial, Git, SVN or even the venerable CVS) works fine whenmultiple people work on the same set of files. This type of software keeps track of who changed what and when, contains a server (using default ports that might or might not be blocked by the ISP) and are open source.

Once you get used to it (which doesn't take that long) and your users provide each commit with a meaningful description, you'll have no problem going back to a version of a file that works and there is no need to play the blame game anymore. You'll wonder how you or your organization could have ever worked without it.

The users do not need access to shared folders on the server this way and each user will have only one (1) copy of the files locally. Each committed change is stored in a folder on the server and the files from that folder can be used as you see fit.

I seriously advise you to get all the necessary heads around the concept behind these systems. 

1408

Living Room / Re: WinXP is officially dead!

« Last post by Shades on April 08, 2014, 08:05 PM »

Lately a thought entered my head.

Now that Windows is much more restrictive and uses more and more the policy 'our way or the highway' regarding the installation and managing of software, it appears to me that there is now more or less one way to do things on your system.

This makes computing more stable and at first view, safe.

Until that way is breached, that is. And I have been long enough around MS software that I dare to say that this not an 'if' but a 'when'.

True, Windows XP is tricky to secure because of all the (well documented) holes, but the one way fits all method of doing things has it's drawbacks as well. In both cases the (not so savvy) end user will be damned.

So, I don't have much to say against (savvy) people that can't or won't upgrade. And I'll continue to pretend all is well in lala-land, also known as Windows Server 2012 for the time being. 

1409

Living Room / Re: Off topic but does anhyone know wherei can get a Guaranted real JAVA installer

« Last post by Shades on April 06, 2014, 04:56 PM »

When using anything from Oracle, you'll not escape Java. :-(

However, there is where you need to go to get the original installers/patches/upgrades for anything Java-related, I'm afraid.

www.oracle.com will get you there.

1410

Living Room / Re: are wireless projectors just a bandwidth hog?

« Last post by Shades on April 06, 2014, 08:15 AM »

Video-streams with mostly static images shouldn't consume that much bandwidth. Most PP presentations use those, so that wouldn't be my biggest concern regarding bandwidth consumption.

Youtube video's are a different matter and depend on selected resolution and the school's bandwidth. Especially when each class room needs to have their own YT feed and the school itself needs the bandwidth to communicate with the main administration servers on geological different locations.  Prepare to be in shouting matches between all school departments suddenly vying for bandwidth.

That is of course when the school has no fiber connection(s) to the internet.

1411

Living Room / Re: are wireless projectors just a bandwidth hog?

« Last post by Shades on April 06, 2014, 07:59 AM »

So....you want to use these beamers as torture devices on your students?

As you might have guessed...not a big fan of PP presentations, especially by people who think they have a clue about presentation or "readers".

1412

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer - LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.11.01 - Apr 23, 2009

« Last post by Shades on April 06, 2014, 06:52 AM »

If the machine is older, the thermal paste between the CPU and the metallic structure (heat sink) on which the CPU fan is mounted might be too old.

A fresh layer of such paste (after thoroughly cleaning off the old paste on both the CPU and the heat sink first!) would help bring it down a few degrees more. An after-market air-cooler for your CPU would bring the temperature even more. Check the big tech sites for reviews and "shootouts" of such models in (very) different price ranges.

Of course, there is water cooling and much more extreme full immersion solutions...in case you have money to burn and want to "play" with hardware.

[bad joke]
And if the machine still lives after that, you could try Linux on it.
[/bad joke]

1413

Living Room / Re: are wireless projectors just a bandwidth hog?

« Last post by Shades on April 06, 2014, 06:35 AM »

Well, no. But any videostream is bound to gobble up bandwidth, no matter where it goes. A videostream you would like to show on a beamer has a big resolution and (too much) compression is likely not desired if picture quality is of concern. If the stream contains a text-based powerpoint presentation with voice over, less bandwidth is consumed.

Besides, what kind of WiFi is in the classroom? Has each room an allotted amount of bandwidth or do you apply a fair-use-policy?

1414

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

« Last post by Shades on April 03, 2014, 06:37 PM »

Renoir - Story-wise, it is an interesting movie. The beautiful locations where this is filmed, won me over though. There is a lot of functional nudity in this movie, as naked 20-somethings were the favorite subject of the painter.

Filth - Inept detectives/hint-of-evil detective movie. You follow the trail of a Scottish detective, ruthless on his way to the top. Good movie, good cast and funny if you like the 'schadenfreude' he's dealing out to everyone. And the end I didn't expect, but in hindsight, inevitable.

1415

General Software Discussion / Re: Repairing Windows 7 from the recovery console

« Last post by Shades on March 29, 2014, 08:30 PM »

Which is it? XP or Vista?   

1416

General Software Discussion / Re: Help please! - Unable to install MS SQL Express 2012 on laptop.

« Last post by Shades on March 29, 2014, 08:29 PM »

Although Windows 7 comes standard with PowerShell, it still can be that the version on your system does not meet the demands of the SQL Server 2012 installer. It doesn't hurt to check and update if need be.

Providing Express as an afterthought I don't know. For years MS gives you Express versions of their development software and that has helped them a lot with snaring/trapping developers. A tactic the Oracle database guys took over and it worked for them too. So Microsoft can't and doesn't stay behind in this field of software.

However, they should have taken a better look at how Oracle did it. Their installer works with a lot less hassle, all dependencies are already integrated and when it is finished you have a nice web-interface to manage the test DB that has been setup for you.

On my system SQL Server 2012 Express installed only after missing dependencies were downloaded and installed. I found the management interface a lot less newbie friendly when comparing to the Oracle XE product. It's not difficult, especially for those who work with MMC consoles regularly.

1417

General Software Discussion / Re: Repairing Windows 7 from the recovery console

« Last post by Shades on March 28, 2014, 09:16 PM »

Changes in the chipset will indeed trigger the Windows activation system. And it sounds like the HP is too different from the Dell. Luck of the draw there.

What is the problem of the HD in the HP? Does the hard disk not spin up or it does but isn't recognized?
If so you might want to take it out and check if the HD has standard SATA connectors. If that is also true, then I would carefully check the connectors on the HD itself.

At one point in time I could fix a HD with physically broken, but not completely snapped off SATA connector (the data part) by placing the drive in a an upright position and carefully reconnecting the data cable on the connector and gluing the cable to the drive. Gravity and glue keep the drive running till this day.

You said that the HP drive experienced physical stress from being hit, so there could be an off chance that only one or maybe both connectors are broken.

1418

General Software Discussion / Re: Help please! - Unable to install MS SQL Express 2012 on laptop.

« Last post by Shades on March 28, 2014, 07:44 PM »

This is the info from the installer with which I successfully installed SQL Server 2012 Express with all standard options on Windows 7 which does have .NET 4 already installed.


On a side note: Oracle states that the Oracle XE 10 version does not work on Windows 7 anymore. And the installer that I downloaded at that time indeed doesn't. However, I received through other ways a similar installer with the same name and all, but it is 5 bytes(!) bigger...and guess what, works like clockwork on Windows 7.

I learned thus, that it is unwise to think installers to be the same, even if they share the same name and apparently the same version, just because the vendor says so. For years now I make sure that I see the exact number of bytes from any file I encounter within my file manager. You'll spot differences far more quickly that way.

1419

General Software Discussion / Re: Help please! - Unable to install MS SQL Express 2012 on laptop.

« Last post by Shades on March 28, 2014, 05:51 AM »

I will take a look t the size of the installer I used for SQL Express. As I am testing the full product now,I don't recall the exact version number anymore from the installer. What I do remember though is that it was not much more than 1 GByte and I'm quite sure it didn't include SP1.

But if that installer does work, upgrading later to SP1 is likely less problematic than your current situation.

1420

General Software Discussion / Re: Help please! - Unable to install MS SQL Express 2012 on laptop.

« Last post by Shades on March 27, 2014, 08:33 PM »

There is no way you can provide us with the actual error message? To see where in the installation routine it fails?

According to this MSDN page .NET 3.5 is one of the requirements. Now I don't know which version you run, but it might be possible that you encounter problems because of incorrect versions or a mix-and-match that bums out the SQL 2012 Express installer.

If that is the case, there is a trick that might help:

• Download the full installer for the .NET you require, not the web installer!
• Stop the Windows Update service
• Use Explorer (in Admin mode) to go to 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET'
• Rename the folder 'Assembly'
• Start the Windows Update service
• Install .NET
• Retry installing SQL Server 2012 Express

1421

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Shades on March 27, 2014, 07:49 PM »

She's a CCB ?

Spoiler

Cold Calculating Bitch

1422

General Software Discussion / Re: Help please! - Unable to install MS SQL Express 2012 on laptop.

« Last post by Shades on March 27, 2014, 02:25 AM »

Could it not be that Home Premium is the problem?

Currently I am running a trial of SQL Server2012 after running SQL 2012 Express for a while now on a Win 7 PC that only has a 2GHz Athlon II/2GB RAM in it.

Anyway, I do think that SQL Server products run best on Windows Server editions. And if you are planning to do that, please do consider Server 2012 R2 instead of 2008 R2, because it behaves way more nimble on my server box than 2008 R2 ever did.

1423

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Word under attack. Don't open RTF files!

« Last post by Shades on March 26, 2014, 01:58 PM »

Ooops. Then I am in trouble.

In my defense: I need to send and receive encrypted mail in 3rd party software for (very) specific B2B traffic. This is actually the law in the Netherlands (participants in this traffic have to comply, else they can expect heavy fines or even exclusion which means bankruptcy).

Unfortunately that requires extended MAPI(this is by Microsoft design) which is only supported in Outlook, which requires me to do a (partial) Office installation on a server.

But I do recognize the irony in this. To be able to communicate securely I need to install software known to be insecure and destabilizing a Windows installation.

1424

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 25, 2014, 11:01 PM »

She says only one thing: Joule be sorry for what you just said...

1425

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 25, 2014, 08:17 PM »

More efficient, yes. But I'm not that sure about the amount of power being consumed.

- RAM consumes a lot of power nowadays, because it needs to read and write very fast.
- A hard disk consumes a lot of power, because it reads and writes quite fast (at least as fast as the mechanics allow for).
- A pen drive consumes hardly any power, but forget fast reading and writing.

Guess where an SSD fits in this list. Now there are advantages with the SSD. Although it draws a lot of power, it doesn't do so the whole time. Not in a similar fashion as a mechanical drive has to, at least. So yes, more efficient it will be, but don't underestimate the power consumption when it's active.

And you are completely right about the quality of the PSU in a PC and the quality of the power that "feeds" the CPU. Proper grounding your grid works wonders, using small power groups also helps a lot. In the Netherlands an average house uses about 5 16 Ampere circuit breakers. Usually one for the (master) bath room, one for the kitchen, one for the living/hallway/toilet, one for the bedrooms/attic/toilet, one for the washing machine and one for a garden/shed.

All these small grids practically do not affect each other, whenever there is an appliance connected that is known to generate spikes in a grid ((older) fluorescent light elements, washing machine, dish washer, micro wave, power tools, blow dryers). Saves you already a lot of headache and the appliances that are more or less permanently attached to the 220 Volt grid really last longer. 

You really should take a look sometimes with a scope to your power grid when it is in normal use. You would be amazed how "dirty" the power in your house is.