Recent Posts

276

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a batch file to create a hyperlinked png or jpg image.

« Last post by questorfla on April 25, 2015, 12:06 PM »

Hmm.  
OK  I'm game.  If this works I promise I will never doubt your prowess.
 

Replies to questions:
No it  does not have to go through Outlook i just need to get it to them via email
However, i am afraid there may be a slight issue in that it isn't html,  it is an email like i sent you.
the png image is in the body of the email  I will look for your reply have not looked at email this am yet

The output of the batch is a PNG image.  Or could be a jpg i guess but i have not tried embedding hyper-link in jpg )
The Manual part is copying the png into an open email and anchoring the hyper-link into it

277

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a batch file to create a hyperlinked png or jpg image.

« Last post by questorfla on April 24, 2015, 11:30 AM »

Thanks ATH.  I will try this today and let you know but it should work.  I searched all over for the windows native function to apply ctrl+v and found nothing.  Nor anything to activate Paste from within an email (other than writing a custom Outlook script which i had no idea how to do)

278

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a batch file to create a hyperlinked png or jpg image.

« Last post by questorfla on April 24, 2015, 01:47 AM »

Down to last step if i can make it.
Need to activate "control+V" or "paste command" from within the batch file.
the deafult paste from location is the clipboard which would have the file needed so if i can run it, the file would insert(ie: paste) right where i want it in the body
I can get all the way to the body of he email, everything is done, it is addresses, notations made, subject written as needed, I guess COULD do it as an attachment but that would be be as impressive

I just want t be stubborn about it 
Thanks for the help getting to here.  The setup looks impossibly complex and i never thought it would get this close.

279

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a batch file to create a hyperlinked png or jpg image.

« Last post by questorfla on April 24, 2015, 01:26 AM »

Thanks 4wd!  You ALMOST got me there.  That link has a lot of the arcane wigged out architecture for it.
It is working now ALMOST.
the strctest sense of ot is this structure:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\OUTLOOK.EXE"/c ipm.note /m "[email protected]&subject=test%20subject&body=test%20body" /a c:\wusa.txt

A few canges to some places got me very close this actuallty does work believe it or not.  the strikeout needs t be chaged out course
the subject etc easy to see how to edit
the body is the final hurdle as i want to put there the contents of the clipboard.  Atthe time this is run, the image is alrady held inthe clipboard and i normally chose paste to add it
so the final part "body=?" to copy contents of clipboard to body.  Then the coup de gras would the addition of the hyper-link.  If this works I think it would be a recipe for scriptng never before used for anything

I am barely runnig on just the memory of coffee from hours ago. so this may have to sleep for the night

280

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a batch file to create a hyperlinked png or jpg image.

« Last post by questorfla on April 24, 2015, 12:28 AM »

Thanks shade.  Mailto is the function use to get outlook to open a new email.  It works very well.  But getting the image into the opened email is going to be either AHK or ???
I have looked ever where for a command to grab a file and put it in the mail.  It  is SO easy to do  copy and paste or any number of screen capture programs leave exactly what i need onthe windows clipboard where a paste command is all it takes.
This is a straight up Window setup MS Outlook and all.  I know what needs to be done but am short on the "how to do it" department.

Once I get the image into the email then i think i am in unknown territory needing to use VBA scripting to manipulate items in an email which will probably kill the whole thing.
Once upon a time, you could simply embed hyper-links in images anyway but the only ones that can do that now (as fas as  know) are "favicon.ico" files
Maybe there is a way I can copy the favico.ico file into the email but not sure it would even function as a web-link if done that way?  Never tried that.

This is one of those exercises in effort that probably are not worth anything other than to find out if it can be done?

281

General Software Discussion / Using a batch file to create a hyperlinked png or jpg image.

« Last post by questorfla on April 23, 2015, 09:38 PM »

This may be answered somewhere but everything I have tried fails at the point of use.
I have a batch file that performs various functions and i the final steps creates a link to a page on a website that is output as a text file along with a image file named "invitation.png".
Once completed, I have to open Outlook, start a new email, paste in the 'invitation.png', right click it, choose add hyper-link, then paste in the hyper-link from the text file.
This works perfectly ... but is tedious when done often per day.
 
Being a big fan of automation and having a working batch file that already creates all the necessary parts, I am looking for a way to combine the final "done by hand" part.
But apparently automating the insertion of a hyper-link into an image file which is then sent via an email is beyond anything I can follow. I tried most methods I could come up with but  did not get any that worked.

Given that I have the necessary parts, is there a scripting maneuver to get this hyper-link embedded into the png file and put the whole thing into the body of an email ready to send? 

282

General Software Discussion / Re: Best VM Creation Solution

« Last post by questorfla on April 04, 2015, 09:36 PM »

Sounds like a good plan to me Shades.  I wasn't looking forward to the excercise for sure.  Just tired of listeng to the gripes about slow access times. You are 100% correct on the DB design but I am stuck with it.  Very proprietayr and VERY profitable for the company that owns it.  Once you get in, you are practically "stuck"  trhe companies we have approached to covertto their product have all quoted more to convert the db to a standard foremat than the want for their software. 
They all say the one we have is so abnormalthere is no way to automate the process and it would take hand entry.  I am abotu ready to recommend that they do it anyway.  The company who owns what we have does almost nothing to it.  Nothing but collect license fees yearly for support which, when i can get it, want additional charges for doing anything.  Currently their backup is "broken" and after a week of getting the same .bak file with the same size and same date they acted like no big deal, he tried changing one thing, and then said  "wait another week to see  how it goes".
Not me. I installed my own backu program as their module is definitely worthless right now.  If we go two weeks without a backup and it was something I knew about , i would get the blame (and i should!  If I could do something about it and don't.. so I did!) .  This does not fix the original problem though and hey gavce me no insight into the WHY it wont run.  Windows error logs show a VSS error at the scheduled backup time every night now for the past 2 weeks.  Yet when i run a backup on the same DB with another software it works fine.  No errors.,
The DM was more of a wishful thinking thing.   As it is, until the existing problems are solved I sure cant run it on a VM either.

283

General Software Discussion / Best VM Creation Solution

« Last post by questorfla on April 04, 2015, 01:24 PM »

I am thinking about creating a VM soluton for a small SQL Express server.  The system is small, runs a 3GB SQL-Express DB that accesses a 20GB data-pool.    A crop of recent issues with regard to access time and a few others have left me trying to find a way to watch every step to see where the problem is occurring.  Thinking it through, I thought of the possibility of using a VM as the primary engine to do the job to start with. 
I would need to be able to mirror the actual DB as often as possible to a physical disk for insurance against data loss but having never tried this on anything I thought i would see if anyone else had.
Our last email provider was using VM's to emulate each mail-server they handled but I have no idea what they were using to host everything on.

This is such a small DB on a system that does nothing else i just wondered if it would even be possible and if so what it would take to run it.  Current Host OS is Server 2008R2 X64 on a system with 16GB RAM Dual-core processor

284

General Software Discussion / Best SQL Express DB backup Software (SQL Express 2008)

« Last post by questorfla on March 29, 2015, 08:04 PM »

Just wondering if anyone has had positive results from any of the many possibilities for getting a SQL Express DB backup

I have a need to temporarily use something other than the DB's internal backup of a SQL Express DB.  It normally runs its own backup  every night and i keep copies of what it backs up.   Unfortunately, it is having issues of some kind and until they can resolve them I would like to be able to keep some kind of backup even if it isn't the one they normally keep.
Hopefully, this will be resolved by Monday or Tuesday but until then it has already been several days of me making copies of their backups  but the event logs say those may not be good.



Thanks

285

General Software Discussion / Re: Process to automate testing of a large email list to remove non working ones

« Last post by questorfla on March 14, 2015, 06:04 PM »

How about another approach?  Set up a filter on incoming mail to put all the bounces into a Bounced Folder or forward them to the account of one lucky person?  Or maybe a dummy email account. Just check the bounced ones for errors in the address.  Those with no error process to acquire new contact info.

-MilesAhead (March 14, 2015, 04:03 PM)

Not a bad idea but wont solve the problem.  I need to preempt the errors from occurring .  Due to the way this database program works, any error files cause the thing to stop until someone fixes the problem.  Maybe I am not saying the question correctly. 

This is involving a database that is already loaded with all these records.  This is not incoming email nor outgoing email at this time.  It is an issue of having all the email addresses in all the records be correct or at least "good" and valid email addresses before the system tries to pull a data run for the user and when it does, and hits records with invalid emails, it causes issues for the people who pulled the reports. 

I need to either fix or remove those records with bad email addresses so that errors do not occur at all.  To that end, I have extracted ALL addresses with links back to the records they go to.  If i can find the ones that are incorrect or at least show up as "invalid" to outlook, then I can pull all the attached record into a folder and ..Yes..Hopefully... I can then pass it along to someone else.

286

General Software Discussion / Process to automate testing of a large email list to remove non working ones

« Last post by questorfla on March 14, 2015, 02:46 PM »

I have   a huge list of email addresses that are all part of  system used to maintain contact with people we have worked with in the past.

Since some of these names are pretty old, their contact info is out of date.  When we send out an group of updates to them several always get returned for bad addresses but they are scattered and make it difficult for anyone to stop what they are doing, hunt down the bounced ones and see if we need to try contacting them a different way or if maybe someone entered the name wrong to start with.

I can pull every email address in the database into a single list and I know of several services I can use to singly enter each email to check them one at a time and make note of those that are incorrect.  This would be an extremely long task.  I have seen on line services that offer to do it for you with lists of up to 100 names but I am not sure this would be a good idea to hand off these lists to an on line service I do not know personally.

I am looking for a program that would allow me to do the same thing on our own system or at worst, a way to automate the single-file one at a time method.  AHK maybe but I am not that familiar with it.  I don't mind buying a program that would include other nice features such a separating the lists by alphabetic or other and into working and non working address lists.

Does anyone know of anything specific that might be able to do this?  The input list could be in Excel or text or whatever is needed.   Same for the output.

Thanks

287

General Software Discussion / Moving Server 2008R2 to new hardware while keeping the current configuration

« Last post by questorfla on March 11, 2015, 12:12 PM »

Please consider that there is no such thing as a stupid question because this sounds like it qualifies as one .

If someone has ever managed to get something like this to work, I would appreciate just knowing it is possible.  Or Not.  But please, no need to tell me this is not a normal setup as I knew that when I first saw it.  But I am told it has worked like it is since before I got here and I would like to keep it working for as long as I can.

Trying to convince them to do the right thing is not an option.  They don't have the funds for a Dell PowerEdge Server.  I only mention this because I know this is not the way it was meant to be, but this is a small 'Mom & Pop" setup.   They only want to keep what they have working but I do not want to shop on Ebay for used components.

It is running a Server OS only because of a single SQL program that was custom written for them originally on Server 2000.    The OS was upgraded once to 2008-R2 before the company that wrote the software was no longer around
The system has no other roles, does not use AD nor a Domain.

Lately the old system is producing too many hardware faults and I would like to migrate the whole setup to a more "modern" hardware configuration, but this "server" was originally built on what I would consider a normal Desktop computer with a dual core AMD processor, not a real 'Server' system.   But it only has to run that one SQL program and no other server roles.

If it keeps doing the only task it has done reliably and is never used for anything else,  that is all it has to do.  If I could "move"  this whole configuration onto a new Intel I7 with 32GB of RAM it would solve any hardware glitches and probably last longer than the need for it.  They cannot afford to replace it with a "Real Server"  need but I can get a new I-7 System for not much money.   I can also clone the working setup on another drive but I have never done such  with a Server OS and transitioning from an AMD based system to an Intel architecture may not be possible using a cloned installation.

Before I waste a lot of time trying to do the impossible and was wondering if anyone had ever done so successfully.
 
 

288

General Software Discussion / Re: Best program for filtering access to website by IP address

« Last post by questorfla on March 02, 2015, 10:58 AM »

https://www.malwareb...usiness/antimalware/

I guess this is a new product maybe?  Anyway it said it was to be used as I am using it.
This is not a big deal, just an annoyance as MBAM plainly told me it blocked the malicious IP so I guess I could just ignore that even though the warning appears maybe 40 times in 5 minutes or less.  My plan was to do the same thing we did on the mail server with IPBAN.   But I am not sure they even have a current product.  2013 was the last year I see anything about them.

289

General Software Discussion / Re: Best program for filtering access to website by IP address

« Last post by questorfla on March 02, 2015, 02:22 AM »

I'm sorry I guess i am not being clear on this yet.
The websites are more like Private FTP sites.  They are each reached by a different name in the web-link.  Going to the main IP gets you nowhere as it is blocked.  You have to enbter the sdite through a specifric ip/site name/sub-site/sub-site folder.
It is true that all these ARE served by the Same IP.

Malwarebytes alerts me when that IP is pinged or in other ways hit by an IP it considered "malicious"  I have no idea how it determines that but I trust the program.
There would be hundreds maybe thousands of legit IPS that give me no problem but i get an alert flag every time an IP considered as Malicious attempts to connect.
Whether it is trying to use the main ip, a subset of the domain entry points or whsatever, malware bytes it telling me i dont eant that IP connecting at all forany reason

I have seen these same warnings on a regular system doing nothing unusual.

I just wanted to see if "I" could block the IP address myself without depending on MBAM to do it.
on OUR web server we used to have a program called IP-BAN that would let you specific whole groups of IP's to simply deny access to to avoid DOS attacks

We are not having issues it just annoys me to see the MBAM waring popup

290

General Software Discussion / Re: Find all files in a directory that match a list of names and make copy of each

« Last post by questorfla on March 01, 2015, 10:28 PM »

My vote is for Masochist!~!

I just loaded the Gnu Win toolbox and am trying to state the issue is "sed" or some other Gnu tool
The FIRST thing I did which i am now very glad of was to take the 100 websites using the files in their DB;s Off-line long enough to extract a copy of every pdf file so i could search without fear of loss.

All the files that were missing are in the Websites which while active I cannot do much.
Working with a "copy" gives me a lot more confidence
So I am considering doing the same thing to the actual file NAMES that I did to the file LIST
change all the & to any other "unique" character or phrase so i can run those last ones and be done with it.

If there WAS a way to do a quick hash of the filename and run it against the hash of the names in the list, that SHOULD also be a working solution
you wrote you code so tight though i Dont know where i can insert the hash conversion to use the results for comparison rather than the name itself.
Can you "spread it out a little" for "Scripting for Dummies?"  Give me room to insert the conversion into the loop?  it runs so fast now that I see only a blur.  I removed the @echo off due to the run time with no response and i needed to see what was going on in order to find that "_" that he had used a " " instead.

291

General Software Discussion / Re: Find all files in a directory that match a list of names and make copy of each

« Last post by questorfla on March 01, 2015, 06:30 PM »

sort of
It turns out there is one small slitch as stated above.
In the end, i stil have several hundred fiules that DO have the & sign in them
If i had a way to compare hases of the files instead of names i could get by this
otherwise it is back to "by hand" on those that have the "&"

Thanks for reminding me i had another post  which forum was it is so i can move/remove/merge the two

292

General Software Discussion / Re: Find all files in a directory that match a list of names and make copy of each

« Last post by questorfla on February 28, 2015, 07:09 PM »

Doesn't like '&' in the file names but it seems to work:

Code: Text [Select]

1. @echo off
2. set source=C:\source
3. set dest=D:\dest
4. set list=C:\list.txt
5. pushd %source%
6. for /f "tokens=*" %%a in (%list%) do (echo.%%a && call :FindIt "%%~a")
7. goto :End
8.  
9.  
10. :FindIt
11. for /f "tokens=* usebackq" %%b in (`dir /b /s /a-d-s-h "%~1"`) do (call :DoIt "%%~dpb" "%~1")
12. goto :EOF
13.  
14. :DoIt
15. set str=%~1
16. set str=%str:~0,-1%
17. set file=%~2
18. rem NOTE: omit /MOV to COPY instead
19. robocopy "%str%" "%dest%" "%file%" /MOV
20. goto :EOF
21.  
22. :End
23. popd

-4wd (February 27, 2015, 09:10 PM)

WORKED  and true about the &  many thanks!
4wd wins again.

293

Post New Requests Here / Skwire: Posted this in General and thought it might be more in your ballpark

« Last post by questorfla on February 28, 2015, 10:52 AM »

https://www.donation....msg376459#msg376459.
Using a list of filenames to find those exact files in a folder of thousands.

4WD has offered various options and i have been through a multitude of other boards.  In most case they all use a variant of robocopy or xcopy but for reasons I cannot explain, i am not having much luck.  So far, I have not managed to get anything to find and copy even 1 file.  Yet I can manually find each with no problem using windows Search by pasting the filename into the search box.  The directory being searched contains over 60,000 files and i have to find 1300 specific PDF files.  The match must be "exact" because there are often variation of the same name that may only be off by one letter or a single "."  
The Best search would probably be a hash tag for the searched item to match the hash of the filename found but that wold start getting into some serious programming.

Of these 1300 files, most will be in a single directory of the 60,000 "file-mix" but the rest will be in older backups of that same "pile of files" so I will need to use the same setup more than once.

Oddly, my "memory" seems to recall that I have had to do this before and at the time did finally find a working solution but it must have been long ago or I am even imagining it.                (wishful thinking?  or a desire to feel "senile" I guess)

294

General Software Discussion / Re: Find all files in a directory that match a list of names and make copy of each

« Last post by questorfla on February 28, 2015, 10:33 AM »

this is my own addition to the mix.  I still don't have it working as needed but the windows command "Findstr" is made to search for files using a list of names.
I have not yet figured out how to get it to look only for file NAMES though instead of looking through the contents of the files.
Also, the default options of what to do with a match do not include sending a copy to another folder.
I just thought if I threw this in, someone might know of a combination of switches to get it to work with a name like:
 "Herman, George a List of Favorite Publications.pdf" and over 1000 more like it.

295

General Software Discussion / Re: Best program for filtering access to website by IP address

« Last post by questorfla on February 27, 2015, 10:31 PM »

That seems like kind of an odd thing to need for a web server ... How much unwanted traffic are you getting??

Chances are if it's that high, there is a reason for it that needs to be solved...not filtered.

-Stoic Joker (February 26, 2015, 06:15 PM)

not so much but it is annoying to see malwarebytes blocking a single ip as Malicious when it hits the sites over and over.
there are 100 sites total on one server

296

General Software Discussion / Re: Best program for filtering access to website by IP address

« Last post by questorfla on February 27, 2015, 07:13 PM »

Not sure how good it is yet, but will know soon.
The product fits the bill to a "T" and if it works they will be selling one to me for sure.
It is exactly the tool needed.
IF  it works
BeeThink  IP Blocker.

297

General Software Discussion / Find all files in a directory that match a list of names and make copy of each

« Last post by questorfla on February 27, 2015, 06:15 PM »

I have the list of names of missing pdf files that are all mixed up in a folder of other files.

I need a way to :
Search through the entire directory recursively looking for a match to each name in the list
if it finds one, make a copy of it and put it in a folder on c:
I can put them where they belong by copying that folder to a different system

I tried Robocopy as this>      "for /f %%f in (list.txt) do robocopy c:\source d:\dest %%f  "

But it dies so fast i barely see a flash.

I could have sworn i already had a program or script to do this but can't find it.

Thanks for help.

Thanks "4wd"
Problem solved

298

General Software Discussion / Best program for filtering access to website by IP address

« Last post by questorfla on February 26, 2015, 02:30 PM »

Looking for opinions on which application is best at keeping the traffic down somewhat.  MBAM has begun reminding me that there are bad placs out there.  Tghis is a small website that is only up for the people who work here to use.  If i blocked every IP not in the USA it would nto hurt anything.  May not help in the event anyone was intent on access anyway but beter to put my finger in the dike if it slows down the water even a little.   

We used to have a program called IP Block that we ran back when we hosted our on email server  but not sure it it would be appropriate for an apache web-server.

Thanks

299

Living Room / Re: "Renaming" a Windows 8.1 system that already has Office 365 installed

« Last post by questorfla on February 25, 2015, 02:25 PM »

I guess I am really more concerned about the data on the system than any one program.  I have known people who changed the system name and found that they no longer had an account on that computer.   And all their files moved to a location they cannot access while logged into the new computer name.  I haven't had the issue come up for years as no one ever looks at it now anyway unless they are playing around in Desktop mode.  The name is just what it is and I figure best to leave it alone.  Changing the USERS name I have no issue with at all and I know exactly what happens when you do that.  Changing the computer's name though...

I'm just checking to see if anyone knew any specific reason one way or the other or whether best to just leave it alone.  Usually anything in Windows that takes more than 2 clicks to access is best left as is .  Though I agree my worries about 365 should be groundless as the login is made to not be specific to any one system.  

300

Living Room / "Renaming" a Windows 8.1 system that already has Office 365 installed

« Last post by questorfla on February 24, 2015, 06:53 PM »

This is a question that was brought up and i am no longer sure of what to reply with.   I have a user at the office who wants to "rename" their laptop.  This the the "Name" that shows up under advanced system properties <Computer Name>.   This name is not used anywhere that I know of in our Network in a specific manner and I would have no problem telling them to go ahead.

But I am no longer certain that there might be some link to this arbitrary name in a way that it "COULD"  create issues with their Microsoft Licenses and Office 365 setup in some manner   I told them to wait until I could post this message to get more input.  Better safe than sorry.

Can anyone tell me if there is any reason why this one place should remain exactly as it was when the laptop was first turned on and that name was entered?  As I said, it has no direct meaning to me, the local network,  or anyone else here but I am not so sure that it is not already in some way linked to their Windows 8.1 licensing and Office 365 licensing.  The local network is only a Work-group, not a Domain.  But I have seen people do this before and have "glitches" afterward that would make me stop and think before just outright changing that name which is actually irrelevant other than personal preference to me.