Recent Posts

1751

Living Room / Re: The end of the hard disk

« Last post by 4wd on July 21, 2015, 10:05 PM »

An 8TB single drive is a beautiful thing.

-superboyac (July 21, 2015, 04:26 PM)

Until it dies.

1752

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Facebook messenger tool to read all items in a long chat

« Last post by 4wd on July 21, 2015, 10:02 PM »

I don't use FB so can't test it but this post from July 2015 might get you what you want: Read the first message you ever sent.

1753

Post New Requests Here / Re: Need a script to auto detect display

« Last post by 4wd on July 16, 2015, 08:48 PM »

4wd your script does exactly what I needed. ...  Thank you so much.

-glasskuter (July 16, 2015, 10:09 AM)

You're welcome, actually you don't even need the script, it can all be done in the shortcut, ie. change the Target field to:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. %SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -noprofile -executionpolicy bypass -Command "Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName WmiMonitorBasicDisplayParams | Out-Null"

Attached below.

1754

Post New Requests Here / Re: open websites inside a folder from windows explorer

« Last post by 4wd on July 15, 2015, 10:25 PM »

Works fine here on 8.1Pro x64.

Change it to:

Code: Text [Select]

1. rem @echo off
2. chcp 1252
3. pushd "%~1"
4. for /f "usebackq tokens=*" %%a in (`dir /b /a-d *.url`) do (start "" "%%~a" && %windir%\system32\ping -n 1 -w 3000 1.1.1.1 >NUL)
5. pause

What does it show in the output?

1755

Post New Requests Here / Re: Need a script to auto detect display

« Last post by 4wd on July 15, 2015, 09:33 PM »

I guess it depends how you read it:

... I am always having to go to screen resolution and  "detect display"
so that I have the proper resolution..

-glasskuter (July 14, 2015, 03:27 PM)

I read it as the system doesn't automatically detect the native resolution of the monitor, (so defaults to 1024x768 or something), because DDC isn't being resent/requested on switch-over, so telling the system to go identify monitors should get it resent and fix the resolution.

@glasskuter: Can you clarify what you mean, (eg. you need to set resolution also)?

1756

Post New Requests Here / Re: Need a script to auto detect display

« Last post by 4wd on July 14, 2015, 10:44 PM »

If you open a Powershell console you can try the following:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName WmiMonitorBasicDisplayParams

Attached is a script with the command and a shortcut to run it.

You should get something similar to the following output, (output for each monitor connected):

Code: Text [Select]

1. Active                        : True
2. DisplayTransferCharacteristic : 120
3. InstanceName                  : DISPLAY\VSCD920\5&22dca72a&0&UID261_0
4. MaxHorizontalImageSize        : 41
5. MaxVerticalImageSize          : 26
6. SupportedDisplayFeatures      : WmiMonitorSupportedDisplayFeatures
7. VideoInputType                : 1
8. PSComputerName                :
9.  
10. Active                        : True
11. DisplayTransferCharacteristic : 120
12. InstanceName                  : DISPLAY\DEL4005\5&22dca72a&0&UID262_0
13. MaxHorizontalImageSize        : 34
14. MaxVerticalImageSize          : 27
15. SupportedDisplayFeatures      : WmiMonitorSupportedDisplayFeatures
16. VideoInputType                : 1
17. PSComputerName                :
18.  
19.  
20. Press a key to exit ...

If it works and you don't want the output:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName WmiMonitorBasicDisplayParams | Out-Null

1757

Living Room / Re: TV shows thread

« Last post by 4wd on July 10, 2015, 07:19 AM »

Any "The Prisoner" fans here?

-Renegade (July 08, 2015, 08:13 AM)

One of my favourite shows, I've been to Portmeirion^w a number of times.

Another series I watch through every couple of years is UFO^w, I rather enjoy it but probably not everyone's cup of coffee.

This post from IMDB that I grabbed many years ago sums it up perfectly 

Author: mikerichards from Milton Keynes, Bucks, UK
14 August 2003

Well Hello!

Well Hello!

So you're interested in SHADO. Well I don't blame you, where else can you wear fabulous new synthetic materials, kill aliens and spend the night partying like its the 1970s?

You said that the swinging youth of the 1960s wouldn't be seen dead in the army. There was no way that you would be so square as to cut your hair, replace the tie-die flares with fatigues and cut back on the medallions.

And we listened.

Yes we've created a whole new paramilitary organisation just for the swinging generation. Why not sit back as I introduce SHADO - the coolest bunch of cats outside of the Stones. If you'll excuse me while I change into my beige jumpsuit and matching sideburn accessories... ...now let's hit the road in my SHADOmobile - notice its swooping lines, fins and gull-wing doors that make it a complete pain to park when doing the shopping at Sainsburys'. SHADOmobiles come in all sorts of fabulous colours not found in nature, including metallic brown, surgical appliance pink, ozone-eating green and a shade of yellow that just screams 'fashion'.

Neat!

Welcome to the way-out SHADO headquarters. I have privileged access thanks to my identity chest medallion. A movie studio? So you noticed our cunning disguise! Believe it or not the whole SHADO operation is run out of the basement next to the props cabinet. That room over there? Well that belongs to Commander Straker - a man well accustomed to the peroxide bottle and not too masculine to refuse a little eye shadow.

If you join us I'm sure he'll have you over for a chat, a drink or two and perhaps something else entirely. A medical? Of course there's a medical, SHADO operatives have to be at the peak of physical perfection, you just never know when you'll have to dance 'til dawn.

Let me just make one point clear. SHADO is an equal opportunities employer. We're always looking for top totty to slip into something suitably clinging.

Yes girls, SHADO needs you!

As a new recruit you will start off delivering coffee to our male leads, after you have mastered that task in regulation 9 inch heels you'll be ready to move on to moving pieces of paper from one side of the room to the other all the time looking absolutely fabulous.

At SHADO the sky is quite literally the limit for liberated women! If you master coffee delivery and paper sorting you could be shortlisted for our Moonbase which keeps a look out for intergalactic UFOs intent on spoiling the party.

Don't frown, you won't look nearly as pretty. You're probably thinking that lunar gravity will play havoc with your totally groovy haircut and you'll have to put the miniskirt in the closet. But you're forgetting - this is SHADO, where fashion comes first.

Not only will you be safe from solar flares, laser guns and alien abduction in our super-slinky silver jumpsuits, knee-high boots and metallic purple wigs but you'll be irresistible to those walking adverts for Blue Stratos - the SHADO interceptor pilots. When you're ready to cut a rug the whole ensemble converts to a silver miniskirt in moments! And remember, we don't care if you want to burn your bra - in fact it'll be an advantage.

Still not convinced about Moonbase? Well here are two words to make up your mind.

Inflatable furniture.

Seriously. It's shot like a porn movie, the stories are sometimes dreadful, acting is robotic and even the effects aren't always great. But for a slice of nostalgia back to a period when someone cut the brakecables on good taste and when restraint and decency went through the rails, down the cliffside and exploded at the bottom - UFO is completely unmissable. And Gabrielle Drake is quite stunningly beautiful, why she never became a bigger star is beyond me.

Go on, its Austin Powers versus the Martians.

1758

General Software Discussion / Re: Gmail SENT MAIL Confusion

« Last post by 4wd on July 10, 2015, 06:57 AM »

It might help if you told us how you access your Gmail account, ie. via an email client using IMAP/POP or via the web interface in a browser.
And precisely which Sent Mail folder you're talking about, ie. the one on Google's servers or the one in an email client.

1759

Post New Requests Here / Re: REQ: Convert/Export Certain Browser's "Groups" as Chrome Bookmarks

« Last post by 4wd on July 10, 2015, 12:57 AM »

In case you or anyone else feels like adding additional features in the future, such as reverse converting back from html to cgp, I'll still more than welcome them.

-Cocoa (July 01, 2015, 02:39 PM)

Something for you to test: HTML2CGP

Still in Powershell, has a simple GUI:



Extract all files to a folder somewhere and double-click the shortcut to run.  You should see the normal PoSh command window open then hide and then the GUI opens.

Two buttons, self-explanatory, the Output: line will have simple instructions, (choose file/folder), progress messages, (converting file xxx, etc), as well as show where the output went.

I've changed it so that it uses whatever the system character encoding is for the input and output, (at least I think I have, it's a bit hard to test since I'm stuck with English ).

eg. If your system is set for Simplified Chinese then it should read/write the .cgp files in that language.  However, if your system is set for OEM437, (or something), and the files are Simplified Chinese characters and ANSI encoded, then you'll get something indecipherable.

That's what I got anyway, even though I'm set to OEM850 the output files were byte identical to the original input files after converting to HTML and then back to CGP, so in theory it should work.

Requires Powershell v4, should open a requester if you haven't got it (haven't got anything to test it on).

1760

Living Room / Re: Does this exist? [NON-Software ideas]

« Last post by 4wd on July 07, 2015, 10:56 AM »

That Amazon page had a link to the one I had:
http://www.amazon.de...0KNM12SDGF52YXB9W2WJ

1761

Living Room / Re: Does this exist? [NON-Software ideas]

« Last post by 4wd on July 07, 2015, 08:06 AM »

I got one similar to this:

http://www.walmart.c...ng-Keyboard/41299786

-MilesAhead (July 07, 2015, 07:55 AM)

Got one of those but stopped using it as the chrome plating was flaking off, enough crap gets into the netbook without bits of metal adding to the problem.
Also, unless you bend it so that it's supporting itself on the desk/etc, I think you'd be putting a fair amount of stress on the USB port solder joints having to support it's weight.

Had another one that had a coiled lead from the USB plug to the LED and clipped on the top of your screen, that was OK until the clip broke 

1762

Living Room / Re: Does this exist? [NON-Software ideas]

« Last post by 4wd on July 07, 2015, 07:48 AM »

looking for a keyboard light that does not use USB

-tomos (July 07, 2015, 07:23 AM)

Make all your Desktop and window backgrounds solid white

1763

General Software Discussion / Re: Is robocopy faster than Windows GUI to "Move" files between drives

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2015, 11:49 PM »

Odd than you tossed in the MT option  I was just playing with that and actually got WORSE results.  I did not try long enough to track down why but i could run it on the same folder with or without the MT (set to 32) and with it on i slowed to a crawl.  With it off, it runs pretty fast just not as fast as I would have expected.  The other difference i THINK i saw was that with the MT on, it seemed to "choose" to do larger files first.  No sure about that but that was my first thought as to why it seemed slow.
With it OFF it seems to run file to file in a direct file-listed by name order. There are so many options.. I have never used it before having set up all  i ever needed with the right switches in Xcopy until lately.  I am sure it is better i just have to learn the "ropes"

-questorfla (July 05, 2015, 11:34 PM)

It's never "OFF" - you have the choice to run 1 or more threads, by default it is 8.

And, like it says, you should use the /LOG option to redirect output.

It might pay to play with Richcopy first, (Robocopy's GUI counterpart), so that you can try the various options without continuously editing a command file.

Also, the MOVE command won't move folders, so you'd have to recurse the folder structure, recreating it in the destination as you go if needed, (another reason why Robocopy is better).

1764

General Software Discussion / Re: Is robocopy faster than Windows GUI to "Move" files between drives

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2015, 10:17 PM »

Also, w.r.t. Robocopy, if you look at the options (robocopy /?) under /MT (if you want to play with multi-threading):

---------------------------------
/MT[:n] :: Do multi-threaded copies with n threads (default 8).
               n must be at least 1 and not greater than 128.
               This option is incompatible with the /IPG and /EFSRAW options.
               Redirect output using /LOG option for better performance.
---------------------------------

ie. Don't have it writing to the console.

1765

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2015, 10:10 PM »

**Minor caveat when running the Sysinternals SDelete.exe tool, is that in the process of "Zeroing Out the Free Space" it will cause a Dynamically Expanding .vhdx to expand to its full configured size. So if you're overlapping the physical drive space by double-booking it ... This will byte you in the ass.

-Stoic Joker (July 05, 2015, 08:43 AM)

Would using cipher /W <drive> be any better?

1766

General Software Discussion / Re: Is robocopy faster than Windows GUI to "Move" files between drives

« Last post by 4wd on July 05, 2015, 09:41 PM »

You can set Robocopy to use multiple threads, (Win7+ ; by default it is 8), having said that, most likely the problem will be that all the operations are being performed on the same source and destination concurrently which probably leads to a bit of head thrashing on a HDD.

You could try reducing the number of threads Robocopy uses with the /MT:x parameter, (x is the number of threads required between 1 and 128).

Possibly start at /MT:2 and increase by one until you see performance drop off.

mkdir isn't needed for Robocopy, it'll create folders as it goes and it should skip any files that have already been copied (options permitting) according to the table here.

BTW, if you're going to use Robocopy where there's any chance that the files will already be opened then it will fail on those files, (it won't access open files).  You can get around that by either using:
1) ShadowSpawn (which is a replacement for Hobocopy below) which will create a VSS copy before running Robocopy, or;
2) Hobocopy which was a less featured version of Robocopy that could use the VSS, (written by the author of ShadowSpawn).

1767

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by 4wd on July 03, 2015, 11:24 PM »

Has anyone else had activation issues with 10? All 5 of mine were activated up to build 10158, but even after switching to the updated key, neither build 10159 or 10162 will activate for me.

-Stoic Joker (July 03, 2015, 06:42 AM)

FWIW, I just installed 10162 in a VM using the Pro key and it activated itself no problems.

1768

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 4wd on July 03, 2015, 09:34 PM »

(see attachment in previous post)
N.C. company rolls out new Bubble Wrap that won't pop

-Arizona Hot (July 03, 2015, 04:52 AM)

... recently developed a new type of its protective wrap called iBubble Wrap that is flat and airless ...

... If you press one the bubbles the air will just shift to another sector of the column ...

1769

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Software with this feature

« Last post by 4wd on July 03, 2015, 08:56 PM »

I'm wondering why file size matters, because wouldn't the date be off by even a few seconds if it's two different copies of a file?

-TaoPhoenix (July 03, 2015, 02:39 PM)

Which date are you referring to?

Each file/folder has three: Created, Modified, Accessed

The Created date is the most unlikely to change so if you're just looking to match a date, name, and size, with no requirement as to contents then that is the one you'd most likely choose.  However, if you're wanting to merge two backups of the same files then you'd probably go for Modified.

And as an example to your question: Sync folders by renaming files

@DyNama only wanted to match on size, date, time and extension - it all depends on the requirements.

1770

Living Room / Re: reverse smilie (:

« Last post by 4wd on July 03, 2015, 08:45 PM »

It makes more sense in RTL langauges than in LTR languages.

-Renegade (July 03, 2015, 02:01 AM)

Or people from the Antipodes (:

1771

Living Room / Re: Be prepared against ransomware viruses..

« Last post by 4wd on July 02, 2015, 09:30 PM »

The conspiracy theorists among us would put forward that the new commercial tools available to specifically prevent Cryptoware were written by the people that created it in the first place.

Constant revenue stream and big panic extortion payoffs - win-win situation 

1772

Post New Requests Here / Re: REQ: Convert/Export Certain Browser's "Groups" as Chrome Bookmarks

« Last post by 4wd on July 01, 2015, 08:16 PM »

(^ ^!) I think with about a hundred lines flashing past in the span of a few seconds for all the cgps I had to convert, I would need to have super humanly fast reading speed, rather than slower, to catch that 1 line at the beginning.

-Cocoa (July 01, 2015, 02:39 PM)

DOH!  Sorry, forgot I was dealing with a serial bookmarker 

UPDATED: I've moved it to the bottom.

In case you or anyone else feels like adding additional features in the future, such as reverse converting back from html to cgp, I'll still more than welcome them.

Should be easy enough to go the other way since the .cgp format is even simpler.

BTW, I'm curious about the workings of the program you found that could perform encoding conversions. Could you provide a link to the original?

I didn't need it, Powershell does the necessary conversion - all you need to do is tell it what the input character encoding is (in this case gb2312 - here's a list) and what output encoding you want (UTF-8).

I was going to use the other program if I continued on with using a normal command file.  I've since deleted it but here's a simple Powershell script that does the same thing - paste below into a file called X2UTF8.ps1

There's no error checking, so you need to get encoding and file paths correct.

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. <#
2. .SYNOPSIS
3.    Converts text files to UTF-8
4. .DESCRIPTION
5.    Reads text file according to encoding specified, saves to UTF-8 file.
6. .PARAMETER
7.    <input encoding> - encoding of original file.
8.    <infile>         - file to convert.
9.    <outfile>        - output file.  
10. .EXAMPLE
11.    PS> X2UTF8.ps1 gb2312 input.txt output.txt
12. #>
13.  
14. Param(
15.     [String]$Encoded,
16.     [String]$SourceFile,
17.     [String]$Destfile
18. )
19. $Buffer = Get-Content $SourceFile -Encoding byte
20. $Encoding = [System.Text.Encoding]::GetEncoding($Encoded)
21. $String = $Encoding.GetString($Buffer)
22. Out-File -FilePath $Destfile -Encoding utf8 -InputObject $String

Open a Powershell console and call as: .\x2utf8.ps1 <encoding> <input file> <output file>

eg.  .\X2UTF8.ps1 gb2312 D:\test\12_31-03.47.29.cgp K:\test.txt

1773

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Task Manager total resources for multiple instances?

« Last post by 4wd on July 01, 2015, 06:17 AM »

It says on Technet I have to get W 8.1 to install PS 4.0

-MilesAhead (July 01, 2015, 05:45 AM)

Not according to this Technet page.

Windows PowerShell 4.0 runs on the following versions of Windows.

• Windows 8.1, installed by default
• Windows Server 2012 R2, installed by default
• Windows® 7 with Service Pack 1, install Windows Management Framework 4.0 to run Windows PowerShell 4.0
• Windows Server® 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1, install Windows Management Framework 4.0 to run Windows PowerShell 4.0

I never like PS anyway. 

That's just the age old fear of the new and unknown talking 

1774

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Task Manager total resources for multiple instances?

« Last post by 4wd on July 01, 2015, 03:31 AM »

Edit: got it to stop giving an error.  But when I run the script it just comes back to the prompt.  No busy cursor, no output no nothing.

-MilesAhead (June 30, 2015, 03:33 PM)

Given what @Cocoa has just gone through with my Powershell script here, it may pay to check what version you're running and update if necessary.

To check the version, open a Powershell and enter: $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

You should get 4.0 if you're running the latest.

1775

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Change (sub) folder(s) date based on newest/oldest file in the folder

« Last post by 4wd on July 01, 2015, 03:24 AM »

UPDATE: v0.3.1.5
Fixed: Wasn't properly migrating date when recursion was active.