Recent Posts

1626

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 23, 2014, 09:22 AM »

The first hard drive (C) on the computer should be an SSD.  These are super fast, and affordable when the sizes are small (250 gb or so).  This will be your Operating System drive and where (most of) your program files get installed.  My philosophy is that this drive is too small to hold everything, and too unreliable to hold your documents.

-mouser (March 22, 2014, 02:57 PM)

If you're running a server, make sure your temp and logfile directories are all residing on another standard drive too. I'd suspect all that constant reading and writing is probably not too healthy for an SSD. And servers generate a lot of logging and scratchpad activity.

Just my  

-40hz (March 22, 2014, 03:51 PM)

Okay, first off I agree with you. I'm not a huge fan of SSD either. But... If the Temp file is on a more reliable - longevity wise - "Standard" (e.g. slower) drive, then it stands to reason that any process that is dependent on doing its workload in/out of the temp folder would then be restricted to/by the performance of the lower speed (presumably) mechanical drive. So wouldn't that negate the purpose of using a SSD? ...Or am I missing something?

I'm thinking that with the huge amounts of memory in machines these days are making the PageFile an almost moot point, so anything active in memory will most likely stay there. Then why not push the high traffic and ephemeral work areas off onto the higher speed (and arguably grenade prone) disk to keep the overall disk failure data loss exposure down? Sure you might - damn the luck on timing - lose the latest changes on the current project...but you're not going to lose all the projects in the folder next to it.

Lightning fast boot times might - well yeah okay they are - be important for laptops and tablets. But for a desktop that has a much longer typical running cycle the extra 30 seconds is really that big a deal. The same thing could also be applied to application load times, laptop/tablet...gotts to be zippy ... Desktop...not so much.

1627

Post New Requests Here / Re: REQ: HTPC Util - Hide Desktop for x seconds while program is being executed.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 21, 2014, 03:13 PM »

More useful yes, simpler? Getting it to close consistently when the application that is opening doesn't know it's supposed to tell it to exit just strikes me as a bit problematic - But then again perhaps I've just been traumatized by my previous foolish attempts at getting a return value from ShellExec(...). So I figure to avoid the whole message loop peek-A-boo bit just leave it running.

*Shrug* Just a Thought man

1628

Post New Requests Here / Re: REQ: HTPC Util - Hide Desktop for x seconds while program is being executed.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 21, 2014, 02:38 PM »

Instead of trying to workout complex timings and shortcuts, why not just have a full screen borderless black/blank window running all the time to hide the desktop. A single plain window wouldn't take much of anything to have running and MCE could (/should be able to) easily grab focus away from it.

If the taskbar was set to auto hide then it couldn't give away the ruse, and an embedded graphic could be added to the window to make it look like something is/was about to happening.

1629

Developer's Corner / Re: Very Cool A* (Astar) Project

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 21, 2014, 11:58 AM »

Obligatory Wikipedia page for the A* search algorithm

-ewemoa (March 21, 2014, 04:32 AM)

Thanks, I needed that.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was fun to play with for a half an hour at lunch.

1630

General Software Discussion / Free Harley Davidson Engine ScreenSavers

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 20, 2014, 09:46 AM »

Okay maybe it's just me, but if anyone else likes to se how engines work these might be cool.

Harley Davidson TwinCam & Evo Engine ScreenSavers (free)

http://www.animatedp...ston.com/TwinCam.htm
http://www.animatedpiston.com/Evo.htm

Note: the solid red background was a really bad choice, but the animation is great.

1631

Living Room / Re: OneNote now on Mac as well, +FREE everywhere, + Cloud service powered.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 20, 2014, 07:00 AM »

Granted it's (more than) a bit Rube Goldbergian but if preexisting local notebooks can be opened, but changes have to be saved to Sky/OneDrive ... Won't the sync feature sync the notebook file back to/with the local machine? Or is that possibility being actively blocked?

1632

General Software Discussion / Re: How link to pix in Tumblr?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 20, 2014, 06:48 AM »

BTW, when I've got a million windows open and want to close them all at once, is there a shortcut command for that?

-bit (March 16, 2014, 07:39 PM)

If you still have the default grouping enabled, you can right click the group stack is the taskbar and select 'Close group'. You will get a batch of 'Close all tabs?' prompts but can select 'Always close all tabs' to avoid that.

1633

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: BitDefender Leap Year Sale - Any Product for $29

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 19, 2014, 11:45 AM »

Well doesn't that just suck all the fun out of Personal Computing. So now in essence the AV companies that are supposed to be protecting you (despite an industry wide rather pathetic track record), are simply becoming yet another more insidious attack vector.

That makes about as much sense as marrying your rapist just for the comfort of knowing exactly who is constantly drilling you in the ass ... What the hell happened to the exit only policy?!?

1634

General Software Discussion / Re: What the Heck is Happening to Windows? Article on Windows 8 Disaster

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 19, 2014, 11:31 AM »

Keyboard should be semitransparent

-kilele (March 19, 2014, 08:16 AM)

Damn! Now that would be handy! Especially when working at a command prompt where the input tends to be at the bottom of the screen and behind the keyboard. So you end up just having to guess if you typed it right until you can close/minimize the keyboard before restoring it to hit enter.

1635

General Software Discussion / Re: Can a VM OVA be converted to a VHD?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 18, 2014, 01:40 PM »

Yes stumbled across that little detail right after posting the question. Although from what I read it's a .tar file *Shrug* Either way after changing the file extension WinRAR popped it open with no problem. I found the VMDK file inside and the MS Virtual Machine Converter Solution I'd found initially is converting it now.

Don't know if the &%#^$ thing will boot afterwards ... But it looks like I'll get to try.

1636

General Software Discussion / Can a VM OVA be converted to a VHD?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 18, 2014, 12:05 PM »

Greetings
    Much as this sounds like a simple question...it apparently isn't. I'm trying to demo a "Virtual Appliance" (made by major manufacturer that won't be named) that is delivered - exclusively... - as an Open Virtualization Format Archive (OVA) file. Now MS has a utility that will happily convert a VMDK file to a VHD, but it won't touch an OVA file ... And best I can tell neither will anything else that I've found so far.

    The OVA file is an archive that contains an Open Virtualization Format (OVF) file that is a native export of (I think it was) the Citrix XenServer. However the free Citrix converter wont touch this thing, and nor will the free VMware converter.

    Now while just asking the major manufacturer's sales guy what I'm supposed to do with this thing normally makes sense...said sales guy hasn't yet responded to any of my requests - which started Friday - for said interaction. Did I mention that "The Brass" at both ends happen to really like said manufacturer...so switching to someone with better phone skills ain't an option.

   So... Here I am hoping someone here has had occasion to run into this predicament and recalls a solution to either convert directly from OVA to VHD/VHDX, or at the very least just extract the OVF from the OVA so I can (bank shot) convert that a few times into something that might actually boot when I load this thing and click start in the Hyper-V Manager.

Thank you,

Stoic Joker

   

1637

General Software Discussion / Re: Syncovery/SFFS open to suggestions for support for various cloud services

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 18, 2014, 07:11 AM »

Granted I know nothing about this software but after poking around their site a bit I already like them. I'm currently on the fence about exploring cloud based backup options (for ~2TB), so I hit the purchase link to see what the cost of this puppy was. While I was racing for the usual sales/marketing hide the salami game that pervades everything these days. 2 clicks in I found the most unbelievably crystal clear description I do believe I've ever seen. https://www.syncover...cgi?co=am&step=2 (hopefully that link will work).

Standard vs. Professional editions, it quickly and concisely cuts to the list of what Standard Edition doesn't do, which makes the edition decision painlessly simple ... Why the hell can't everybody do that?

1638

General Software Discussion / Re: Screen Calipers is currently free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 17, 2014, 03:57 PM »

Same measure size in pixels concept but SC is considerably more versatile.

-Stoic Joker (March 17, 2014, 01:07 PM)

I know what versatile means... but what do you mean?  Does it have free rotation?  Not just horizontal and vertical?

-crabby3 (March 17, 2014, 01:17 PM)

Yes, it has free rotation. It also - via creatable/changeable skins - allows the caliper jaw length/size/shape to be modified.

Versatile enough?

-Stoic Joker (March 17, 2014, 01:30 PM)

For some applications, I guess, but I don't think I ever needed to measure pixels diagonally.   
Is this all Screen Calipers does?

-crabby3 (March 17, 2014, 01:44 PM)

I didn't either think I would either until I ran into some odd shaped stuff that required diagonal measurements. And basically yes, but it does it very well.

If you're not worried about the diagonal stuff, v1 is still (freeware) available for download if you dig a bit.

1639

General Software Discussion / Re: Screen Calipers is currently free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 17, 2014, 01:30 PM »

Same measure size in pixels concept but SC is considerably more versatile.

-Stoic Joker (March 17, 2014, 01:07 PM)

I know what versatile means... but what do you mean?  Does it have free rotation?  Not just horizontal and vertical?

-crabby3 (March 17, 2014, 01:17 PM)

Yes, it has free rotation. It also - via creatable/changeable skins - allows the caliper jaw length/size/shape to be modified.

Versatile enough?

1640

General Software Discussion / Re: Screen Calipers is currently free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 17, 2014, 01:07 PM »

a couple of people have said that Screen Calipers had difficulties on 64-bit Win 7. One said he solved the problem, by installing new video drivers.

For the record: I have Screen -Calipers -Compass -Protractor and -Shapes, on 64-bit Win 7, with no problems. All purchased on offers.

-Curt (July 23, 2012, 04:04 PM)

+1 - I've been using Screen Calipers (v1.0 and up) for years on x64 XP/03/Vista/7 and never had a problem with.

-Stoic Joker (July 24, 2012, 06:55 AM)

Is Screen Calipers similar to a pixel ruler?   

-crabby3 (March 17, 2014, 12:57 PM)

Same measure size in pixels concept but SC is considerably more versatile. Mind you this is based on an ~7sec analysis of PR because I'd never heard of it before. But the caliper style and digital readout of SC just makes it to handy for me to look at alternatives (never fix what works).

1641

General Software Discussion / Re: [INTERVIEW] John McAfee's New Cognizant App Puts an End to Spying

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 17, 2014, 12:03 PM »

I was considering a smartphone lately, I think you've just helped me make my decision (against).
Will be interesting to hear reports from users.

-tomos (March 16, 2014, 11:08 AM)

I do a lot of work in the mobile space at both the API and marketing level. I can tell you... it's worse than anything you hear in the news. I can't post details as I'm under NDA.

-Renegade (March 16, 2014, 11:12 AM)

I bet. But eventually it becomes exhausting to try to out think ALL of them. I am one of the many who just have to chip off what I can and hope that it's not worth a 3 letter agency going nuclear on lil ol me while risking their true capabilities.

-TaoPhoenix (March 16, 2014, 04:18 PM)

Unfortunately that's just what the 3 letter crowd is counting on, people that are too busy, tired, and or badly uninformed about how intimately technologies are becoming integrated/inserted into their lives.

As 40Hz has said in many places before, "This is a people problem not a technology problem". Sure security on the internet (and etc.) is something that people in general need to pay more attention to. But after a certain point - which is where we're all at with the feds and the internet - it's like not being able to trust the voltage coming out of the wall because the power company is actively trying to fry all you shit.

(Who saw the Walking Dead last night?) How do you deal with people that are just to dangerous to trust?

1642

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 14, 2014, 11:37 AM »

Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.

-Stoic Joker (March 14, 2014, 07:11 AM)

...

The day SETI succeeds is the day SETI (as a public science project) will cease to exist.

-40hz (March 14, 2014, 07:58 AM)

Yes, but at least we'll know that when SETI shuts down...The Invasion is only months away ... So we get a little something out of that deal.

P.S. ^That^ is why I suck at being an optimist.

^ So just think what it will be like if they ever find intelligent life on this planet.

-Vurbal (March 14, 2014, 10:36 AM)

Yeah, like that's ever going to happen.

1643

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 14, 2014, 07:11 AM »

+1 on the high 5 - Holy Shit! That's Funny (and true)!

-------------------------------------------------------

Sadly if the US government wasn't wasting so much time peeking in our backyards and panty drawers, they'd of had time to grab a few shots of the rest of the planet and we'd know where that Malaysian plane went.

News flash for the NSA: The plane isn't on friggin FaceBook ... So zip up your flies, go out side, and do some real work for a change.

1644

General Software Discussion / Re: Quick and Easy way to change all IP's for several Maped drives

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 13, 2014, 02:06 PM »

@SJ - Just thinkin'...Samba 4 now has the ability to act as a basic AD DC...

Never tried it personally. Have you? 

-40hz (March 13, 2014, 01:29 PM)

  Might be fun to play with, but I'm still trying to get Samba installed on something in a VM so I can play with it properly. I tried getting TinyCore TCL installed in a VM at lunch today...but never did find an install button in the damn thing. CD.iso booted fine, right to DT ... But the VM's HDD is raw and the install shortcut isn't where the instructions said it should be.  Derp!

1645

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 13, 2014, 01:16 PM »

...And the wind chill at 100mph is murder I tell Ya.

-Stoic Joker (March 13, 2014, 11:25 AM)

Need to get some leathers. 

-crabby3 (March 13, 2014, 11:37 AM)

I've had the same leathers for over 20 years. They work fine...but only so well. What I need is Tropical Breezes instead of this Arctic shit we been getting lately.

-Stoic Joker (March 13, 2014, 12:03 PM)

You wear colors as well?      My part of the Big Chill already came and went.  It's back up to a Tropical 75 with a light breeze. 

-crabby3 (March 13, 2014, 12:19 PM)

Hehe No colors, I'm not much on the pack mentality, and I don't follow orders worth a damn.

You're way down south, I'm central FL, so the afternoons here are nice...but morning sucks. By the time I got to Main St. last Saturday at 9am, I looked like Giampy's ^cat^.

1646

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 13, 2014, 12:03 PM »

...And the wind chill at 100mph is murder I tell Ya.

-Stoic Joker (March 13, 2014, 11:25 AM)

Need to get some leathers. 

-crabby3 (March 13, 2014, 11:37 AM)

I've had the same leathers for over 20 years. They work fine...but only so well. What I need is Tropical Breezes instead of this Arctic shit we been getting lately.

1647

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 13, 2014, 11:25 AM »

.. and those still battling winter
 (see attachment in previous post)

-crabby3 (March 13, 2014, 09:39 AM)

Loved this one. I'm so tired of cold weather I could scream. Christ, I didn't run all the way over to Daytona Beach for Bike Week so I could see girls walking around dressed in parkas FFS! ...And the wind chill at 100mph is murder I tell Ya.

1648

Non-Windows Software / Re: LINUX: Free book for the Tiny Core Linux distro

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 13, 2014, 07:17 AM »

May be some hints here?

  http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php/topic,12544.msg68122.html#msg68122

-ewemoa (March 12, 2014, 10:30 PM)

Cool! Thanks man! ...Now all I need is time.. (eek).

1649

General Software Discussion / Re: Quick and Easy way to change all IP's for several Maped drives

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 13, 2014, 07:11 AM »

client to gateway, of course.  Otherwise it would not be blocked.    ISP's just want to be paid for Business se even if it is only occasionally
As stated:  Users is at HOME.  That is why the issue.  If they were on a business internet, no problem.

-questorfla (March 12, 2014, 06:34 PM)

Crap, totally missed that bit. Still it shouldn't matter what the ISP blocks with a VPN, as all the LAN protocol requests should be router through the tunnel...not raw through the internet where it could be blocked.

As for the WDN, I haven't had any problems with it lately.  Like for 4 or 5 years?  Should I have?  Of course, I did add the referenced QDN to the matching IP in the Hosts file correctly in both the server and the client systems (I have never known why the Server would need to know its own name but I was told to do that once a long time ago and it solved the problem once and for all).

-questorfla (March 12, 2014, 06:34 PM)

It's rather sadly common for people to botch the name resolution on a WDN configuration. If AD can't properly identify itself, it can't authenticate its own activities...and tends to self destruct in very creative ways. constant replication errors (even with a single DC), difficulty joining machines to the domain, and slow client logins are common signs of a bad DNS configuration. I've seen workstations take 20min from login to desktop due to improperly configured DNS on a WDN.

As for all the mapped drives, that has always been a complaint of my own.  Technically hese could all be subfolders of the main USERS folder with permissions mapped.  I inherited this mess running on Server 2008 R1 and am just trying not to rock the boat too hard.

-questorfla (March 12, 2014, 06:34 PM)

File sharing is a very bandwidth intensive activity (lots of status and file information going back and forth) that was designed with a 100Mb LAN in mind. So multiple mappings through a tunnel is a huge performance killer. If the VPN clients are configured properly (e.g. share access is going through tunnel) you may actually be having timeout issue due to the excessive share access traffic. In the past I've used an internal access only FTP to allow access to a file server through a VPN to avoid bottlenecks (but that too has its drawbacks).

1650

General Software Discussion / Re: Quick and Easy way to change all IP's for several Maped drives

« Last post by Stoic Joker on March 12, 2014, 12:31 PM »

Worse, if you run as admin in windows 8,  for some odd reason the drives you create with net use as admin can then only be accessed when logged in as admin 
windows 8 seems to have changed a lot of the way mapped network drives are configured

-questorfla (March 12, 2014, 11:39 AM)

That's what session isolation does. Running as Admin (or an admin users acct) loads and modifies that users profile only. And drive mappings are of course profile specific, not system global. But you really shouldn't need admin rights to map a drive. Typically use of a login (not start up) script would be the easiest way out. Have the script first delete the mappings and then create them in a non-persistent fashion so any issues that arise can be resolved by simply rebooting.

Another thing to consider is do you really need 5 separate mapped drives?? IIRC and assuming you do have a server server DFS does work in a workgroup and is an excellent way of bringing discontiguous storage locations into a single target.

...This was only a simple workgroup, not a Domain setup.  I never did find out what was IN the ULTIMATE version that was not in the Regular Version but it sure as heck worked that way.

-questorfla (March 12, 2014, 11:39 AM)

I always laugh before cringing when I hear this. While workgroups are "simple" to setup, they are a complete and total nightmare to maintain because everything has to be done again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again... (infinity) ...Even for the most tiny and trivial changes. Which is why they are typically not done. Actually nothing is ever done after this "simple" configuration is tossed out of the box until something goes horribly and catastrophically wrong.

Less than 10% if all the workgroup networks I've encountered in the field had properly working NetBIOS name resolution.

While I'm at it, tell me this.  Do you know of any way to set a router such that all traffic originating on port 445 is re routed to another port so that people whose ISP's block 445 can connect their VPN and map to a servers sshared folders?  The SMB protocols require port 445 which many ISP's block.  Supposedly to give you better "security"  yet the same ISP does not bother to be so "protective" if you have a business account.  Then the port is NOT blocked.  What it mostly does is prevent people from working at home on their Home internet unless they pay extra to get Business Internet (or rather pay extra to Unblock those ports)

-questorfla (March 12, 2014, 11:39 AM)

If this is a gateway to gateway VPN there should be static routes that send all LAN protocols through the tunnel. If this is a client to gateway VPN - you have my sincerest sympathy - it should be a gateway to gateway VPN.