Recent Posts

2451

General Software Discussion / Re: biz-network BACKUP choices and strategies

« Last post by Shades on June 25, 2009, 12:49 AM »

There is backup software on the "other side", which already does fulfill all your needs. These tools have track records for years, are used by businesses/enterprises and are for free(minus the installation and configuration time of course). The "other side" is Linux and here are the contenders:
- Rsync (very popular, usable in scripts, extremely dependable, reasonably easy to setup).
- Bacula (popular, usable in scripts, extremely dependable, beyond the basics its setup is hard to very hard).
- BackupPC (moderately popular, usable in scripts, very dependable, easy setup).
- Rdiff (Python script, popularity unknown to me, usable in scripts, very dependable, reasonably easy to setup).

Some of these software packages have Windows client software available directly or indirectly (cygwin). The Python script can also be used directly on Windows as well (according to the manual).

Business backup solutions using Windows has in my experience already proven to be become expensive very quickly, especially when reliability (24/7) is a must.

2452

LaunchBar Commander / Re: In Search of A Shutdown/Reboot/Hibernate App

« Last post by Shades on June 25, 2009, 12:17 AM »

How about ZenKey?

According to its website it could be the solution for the request from the original poster.

2453

Living Room / Re: XP Reinstall - some thoughts - be prepared

« Last post by Shades on June 24, 2009, 12:41 AM »

Unless you start/boot from a bootable Windows CD (for example: BartPE) and then copy the complete content of the C drive, I wouldn't trust the "copy all files to external HD"-method. Windows has a nasty habit of locking several files which could prove to be real party crashers.

Now I have seen that the portable Ubuntu version on my Windows (XP SP2) does copy/delete files that are locked by Windows when you tell it to. Although this behavior is (very, VERY!!!) dangerous, it did help me get rid from a nasty "critter" on another Windows PC.

While I could suggest that a portable linux version would be ideal for copying the complete contents of a drive or partition, it is still true that Linux can not be 100% trusted when writing to a NTFS partition (as this filesystem is not native to Linux). Personally, I didn't experience any problems with NTFS writing, but your mileage may, can and will vary.

2454

General Software Discussion / Re: The Dude! - free network monitor

« Last post by Shades on June 21, 2009, 09:52 PM »

@PhilB66:
That is the first picture of her showing in Google Image...hmmmmmmm 

2455

General Software Discussion / Re: Prank Software

« Last post by Shades on June 21, 2009, 03:23 PM »

BSOD screen saver you could always get from Sysinternals. Likely they still have it.

2456

Living Room / Re: Triumph of the Nerds - John Hodgman Roasts Obama

« Last post by Shades on June 21, 2009, 08:12 AM »

Indeed, very entertaining.

Funny, the Mac commercials really require this particular "PC"...

 

2457

General Software Discussion / Re: How to find MAC address of 'invisible' hardware?

« Last post by Shades on June 20, 2009, 04:04 PM »

When I come back to this, I'll repeat that search from Linux, prolly a Live CD.  Right now, I just cannot afford the time - I've yet to find a really fast search utility for Linux.

You could download: portable ubuntu. After unpacking and executing 1 .bat file you can use ubuntu 8.04 next to Windows at the same time. It was Ubuntu 8.04 when I downloaded it, but you can upgrade if you want. Maybe the author already has done this upgrade already.

The only thing I had to edit were two files because I wanted to mount all my partitions at boot time. If you don't have more than one partition or mount them only when needed, you don't need to change anything. The C:\ partition is recognized by default (and will very likely hold the address you seek).

2458

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by Shades on June 18, 2009, 03:03 PM »

Another forum:  www.afterdawn.com

Avi2DVD is the name of the tool. It can create a DVD from practically any format, with quite extensive menu builder, option to add chapters and subtitles etc. Freeware. And that site has a tutorial showing you how to create a DVD with Avi2DVD (amongst a lot of other tutorials).

DeVeDe is also a tool that is recommended on AfterDawn.

2459

Living Room / Re: IE to be removed from Windows 7 in EU

« Last post by Shades on June 15, 2009, 09:02 PM »

The head of the EU division that hands out these is a (vicious) Dutch political lady, her name is Neelie Smit-Kroes. Now I know that her term in (that) office is almost served up, so maybe it could be that MS wants to put egg-face thingy over the EU and hopes that they stretch this long enough to get a more milder head of office.

Admittedly putting egg now seems not such a smart move when the EU position is "refilled", but hey...what does MS know that we don't?

2460

General Software Discussion / Re: How to find MAC address of 'invisible' hardware?

« Last post by Shades on June 14, 2009, 04:02 PM »

Since the introduction of Windows Vista the networking software was completely rewritten by Microsoft (in previous versions of Windows they were 'borrowing' that kind of code from BSD). Therefore this code will be included in Win7 as well.

Having first hand experience with setting up a wireless network using Vista (without SP1) I can tell you that I was (very) badly impressed with the stability of the wireless connection, while my own laptop (XP) was running fine in the same network.

To me it appears that the new network software is not only more extensive but also more 'sensitive' than the old software, although I hear that Win7 has improved in that field.

Now I don't have a clue how your router has been setup, but when setting up my ex-girlfriend network I enabled the WPA, limited the amount of DHCP users able to connect to this router to the absolute minimum (in her case 1) and enabled the MAC address filtering.

Mac filtering is not that useful because it takes hardly any effort to find software that will change this for you. Come to think of it, maybe that kind of software is able to help you getting rid of it (in the case of a false entry) or at least point you in the right direction. Here are some links SMAC, MACmakeup, Technitium MAC Address Changer or see here how to do it manually.

2461

General Software Discussion / Re: looking for a simple firwall app

« Last post by Shades on June 13, 2009, 11:29 PM »

wipfw is the software you need when you want a firewall that is light on resources.

Why light? Because it does not have a GUI (one of the heritages of the BSD operating system variants it originates from). This is definitively not an easy firewall to configure, but is very safe.

Now I believe that there some enthusiasts who developed some kind of GUI for it, but I never did actively search for that software.

2462

General Software Discussion / Re: How to find MAC address of 'invisible' hardware?

« Last post by Shades on June 13, 2009, 01:23 AM »

Yep, I'm totally in agreement with 4wd. Elimination is the most sure way of finding the culprit.

2463

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by Shades on June 13, 2009, 01:07 AM »

Everybody here forgot about 'V'? (Aliens who take over the world)
It was well done for the times this show aired.

off topic:
@40Hz
no signal? init 0?
You lost your muse?

2464

Living Room / Re: Looking for P2p file sharing for personal use

« Last post by Shades on June 12, 2009, 09:17 PM »

When taking you previous posts into account (about registration), I shouldn't have made the suggestion. Sorry about that  

However, it is the only one I have some experience with.  

2465

Living Room / Re: Looking for P2p file sharing for personal use

« Last post by Shades on June 12, 2009, 08:19 PM »

You could try: QNext

They have a free version with which you can do file sharing through P2P.

2466

Living Room / Re: IE to be removed from Windows 7 in EU

« Last post by Shades on June 12, 2009, 08:11 PM »

As I understand it MS should have made Windows 7 less dependent on IE and include some other browsers (FireFox, Opera, Chrome) next to the IE icons. More MS does not need to do in Win 7 (for their EU customers at least).   

It's all about choice and a (more) open market in the EU mindset.

 

2467

General Software Discussion / Re: How to find MAC address of 'invisible' hardware?

« Last post by Shades on June 12, 2009, 07:50 PM »

Go to a dos box (Start - Run - 'cmd'), in that box type the following: 'ipconfig /all'
This command will show you an extensive overview of the configuration from every NIC in your local PC. Check if the culprit MAC address is there. Repeat this for every PC in the network.

This is exactly the reason why DHCP servers were invented.

Ah, 4wd was faster.

2468

Living Room / Re: Troubleshooting an XP bootup lockup

« Last post by Shades on June 08, 2009, 12:32 AM »

Checking the event log when problems occur in your system is always a smart thing to do. Also, when you experience unexpected behavior from your machine, check also the size from all available event viewers in your system (normally those are: Application, System, Security).

WinXP pro sets those values by default to 512Kbyte and when those event logs are full, your computer will start to behave unexpectedly. A cleaning option is available through the context menu (right click) and is also a smart thing to do. It is also possible to expand the size of these event loggers, but if your computer is not running critical applications that should not be necessary.


On the second part of your question (getting WinXP up again) the answer will be no.

Why? Licenses do not transfer. Although the hardware and license are correctly matched, the license holder is...well,  not you. Expect problems (re-)activating WinXP through Microsoft when that is necessary.

2469

Living Room / Re: What's your favorite drink?

« Last post by Shades on June 08, 2009, 12:05 AM »

I had once the pleasure of tasting the contents of a one liter bottle of Old Molson's Dew single malt whiskey, introduced to me on an evening of tasting different whiskey's (amongst friends). Amazing...that bottle was also the first that was emptied that evening. That I still remember, there were quite some friends and each one brought a bottle.

2470

Living Room / Re: Battery Backup - Get One

« Last post by Shades on June 07, 2009, 11:51 PM »

@westom:

Maybe you can shed a light on this matter for me as well (at least if you don't mind explaining). But first I should thank you for the tip of the ground line through the foundation instead of cornering around it. I know for a fact that this happens a lot on construction sites.

Ok, the question. I was always told that you will improve grounding tremendously by creating a diamond (similar as in playing cards) with grounding poles. The distance between poles should be calculated because the type of earth has an effect on the calculation as well as the angles from the diamond shape.

Is the diamond also a myth?

Oh, you would likely understand it already but I should mention that the connecting lines between the poles also are in the earth and not "switched" in the electric closet. Each house in Holland has a special closet inside the house that holds the meters for energy consumption (electricity, gas and water), circuit breakers, grouping switches and main water valve. Most of the times the land based telephone line and cable (TV/radio) are also coming into the house through that closet.

2471

Living Room / Re: Battery Backup - Get One

« Last post by Shades on June 07, 2009, 04:28 PM »

@westom:
After taking a look you were more or less right about reaction times, however I found a schematic (near the bottom of the page) which explains better what I meant. The page I link to is translated by Google, the original is in Dutch.

If you don't want to read, the best reaction time is 1.2 µsec, which is a lot faster than the values you suggest. Then again, in that region of Holland there were only two ways you were without electrical power:
1 - because of your own stupidity (creating a short)
2 - failing/forget to pay the bill

The electrical grid over there is great and is one I sure miss here in Paraguay (where the grid still uses 110 volt and people stare at you sheepishly when talking about grounding and 'noise-free' power without fluctuations). 

2472

Living Room / Re: Battery Backup - Get One

« Last post by Shades on June 07, 2009, 03:19 PM »

In Holland any electrical installation you can think of has to be grounded...by law. Insurance companies don't even pay if your house burns down because of an electrical failure if no proper grounding is in place.

Thunderstorms that form over land have trouble passing over a (significantly) large body of water. When I was living in Holland I leaved in an area with tall trees and three churches (300 meter radius) and next to a channel used as an international shipping lane. Although we didn't have that much storms, the ones that were there stayed for a long time (before those were able to pass over the body of water.

What I can tell you is the it is very impressive to see a church tower getting hit by lightning. One of the church towers was only 40 meters from my house. I cannot remember having any problem in any electrical equipment caused by lightning. And never used devices as UPS.

Now I have to say that electrical installations have circuit breakers that react when too much power goes through them, when they are used for prolonged periods at (near) max capacity and also when the "level" of the ground alters (for example: when you are making a short circuit, but also if the voltage level of the iron pole in the ground changes). The last trick is done with magnetism and works faster than any UPS, MOV or Protector without degrading. These breakers are expensive, will set you back 100 US dollar for a single line that carries 240 Volt and a max of 16 Amp. A house that is fitting for a standard size family in Holland has to have 5 of those (safety regulations).

Don't know if that kind of breakers are available and/or used in the US.  

There is quite some interesting material on the subject of grounding electrical installations from all different types and sizes. And they require quite some mathematical knowledge as well.

2473

General Software Discussion / Re: Can somebady help me with an ISO burning question?

« Last post by Shades on June 06, 2009, 12:07 AM »

Don't know if it is the tool or not, but I always use LCIsocreator to create iso's from (bootable) existing disks. It's a brilliantly simple and small portable app not bigger than 60Kbyte.

The resulting iso's I could burn with Nero 7 which came with my new SATA DVD burner without any problem. However I deinstalled Nero 7, because they didn't learn from the errors in Nero 6. Actaully, it is the same crap, only more of it.

2474

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by Shades on June 05, 2009, 11:50 PM »

Maybe she should start playing different roles...in all the series she played in (that I know (Firefly, Sarah Connor Chronicles) she is a psychosomatic personality.

i think she is so good in that she chases even the "money men" away   

However, I love her work...Firefly FTW!

2475

Living Room / Re: Flight simulator site avsim.com loses 13 years of community data to hacker

« Last post by Shades on June 03, 2009, 08:30 PM »

@phitsc:
Actually, you shouldn't keep the two NAS systems literally next to each other...different parts of the house would be a lot better. What if the room that contains both NAS systems suddenly thinks it has to become an aquarium? No backup and mouser coming to visit and checking all those nice little 'fishies'....