Recent Posts

4151

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« Last post by 4wd on October 06, 2011, 06:29 AM »

Hehe, I'm not sure his current location is in .AU.

-lotusrootstarch (October 06, 2011, 06:21 AM)

You're right, I did assume he was still in Toorak....still, no excuse for not checking StaticIce 

4152

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« Last post by 4wd on October 06, 2011, 06:17 AM »

I didn't see any Synology NAS available locally, ....

-Renegade (October 06, 2011, 05:37 AM)

Repeat after me: "I must remember to try StaticIce before I type these things."

UMart - 16kms straight down the freeway.

4153

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« Last post by 4wd on October 06, 2011, 12:23 AM »

Continuing my campaign on "perspective"...

-Renegade (October 05, 2011, 09:12 PM)

I know the answer to that one:

Spoiler

=1

4154

Living Room / Re: POE: Power over Ethernet confusion

« Last post by 4wd on October 02, 2011, 07:50 AM »

4wd beat me to it! (4wd - the Man! )

-40hz (October 02, 2011, 07:25 AM)

The advantages of being in the light while ya'll in the dark

Important Note: If you do build your own, pay close attention to voltage drop since sending DC current over any distance can create a fire hazard if you exceed safe maximums. Especially with something as thin as the 24AWG wire your standard CAT-5/6 cable uses. And if you don't know enough about electricity to know what voltage drop is, you probably shouldn't be building your own.

Very good point 

4155

Living Room / Re: POE: Power over Ethernet confusion

« Last post by 4wd on October 02, 2011, 02:06 AM »

The device has to either be made to utilise PoE or you can use a breakout box to separate the power feed from the Ethernet cable before connection to the device.

Here's an example on ebay along with a connection diagram: PoE Passive Injector/Extractor

4156

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... someone using CAD software

« Last post by 4wd on September 26, 2011, 10:26 PM »

That'd prolly be humorous if I understood it   .

-barney (September 26, 2011, 10:09 PM)

In Search Of...^w
IMDB


EDIT: Just dated myself 

4157

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... someone using CAD software

« Last post by 4wd on September 26, 2011, 10:04 PM »

Going to have to change your name to Leonard I think 

4158

Living Room / Re: Would you trust this ... ?

« Last post by 4wd on September 25, 2011, 08:18 PM »

@Ath: Thanks!  I suspect 4wd's comment about mail2web pre-dating Gmail and other Web mail interfaces probably means it also pre-dates SSL, though they should now catch up and add it.

-rjbull (September 25, 2011, 11:19 AM)

Already there, just use https://www.mail2web.com - if you can believe Wikipedia, HTTPS was created in 1994, (3 years before mail2web), by Netscape but not formerly specified until 2000.

4159

Post New Requests Here / Re: Toggle Touch Screen

« Last post by 4wd on September 22, 2011, 12:03 AM »

This might be a rather silly question, (not having a tablet I'm allowed at least one though), but if you turn off the touch screen how is the stylus going to work?

Doesn't it rely on the touch screen for positioning?

Otherwise, if you want a suggestion: Use Ath' WinButton program and devcon.  Create one button to disable the touch screen device and another to re-enable it.

4160

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... a way (Excel macro?) to convert Lat-Long co-ordinates

« Last post by 4wd on September 19, 2011, 08:54 PM »

Could we have a sample of the various formats you're receiving them in, say 10 lines or so?

You may also want to take a look at GPSBabel, if you can put each format of coord into it's own text file, (ie. one file for each format type), you may be able to batch convert.  (EDIT: GPSBabel is portable, no need to install it, run it from a Flash drive.)

Also, there is GPS Visualizer - online coords converter/plotter/etc.

4161

General Software Discussion / Re: Advice Needed: Fixing Pentium 4 PC with Conficker virus

« Last post by 4wd on September 18, 2011, 08:54 PM »

Before you toss out the optical drive you could try cleaning the lens with a camera lens blower brush, (like this).

That's assuming it's the normal tray type laptop drive where the lens is exposed when you eject the tray.  You never know, it could be as simple as dust stopping the laser from reading the disc.

4162

General Software Discussion / Re: schedule emails

« Last post by 4wd on September 18, 2011, 07:11 AM »

very nice, since it works, this is what is needed, but it has a major drawback: it is online and it won't work if I am offline!

-kalos (September 18, 2011, 04:28 AM)

Correct me if I'm wrong but if you want emails while you're offline that kind of implies you either need to run an email server on your machine, (which is pretty simple, I do it on my XP Pro machine - just the supplied MS SMTP Service), or direct inject into your email programs database somehow.

eg.
Set up the SMTP Service under IIS components, this page shows you how to use a DOS commands to set an email for delivery, then just have your email client poll the SMTP Service to receive them.

EDIT: I think I missed out the other half of the equation somewhere there, ie. the POP server.

4163

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by 4wd on September 18, 2011, 06:46 AM »

That does indeed sound strange, just tried 10.0.1.x here and it never went above 10% - usually around 5-6%.

This on a Athlon 235e XP system, (CPU didn't even change up from it's 800MHz lowest frequency stepping).

4164

General Software Discussion / Re: Video Software Query

« Last post by 4wd on September 17, 2011, 01:03 AM »

Freemake Video Converter says it can do what you want, (last point in the list on the site) - I've just used it for conversions and it did quite a respectable job.

4165

General Software Discussion / Re: Advice Needed: Fixing Pentium 4 PC with Conficker virus

« Last post by 4wd on September 16, 2011, 07:52 PM »

Once you get a working CD, you could try CureIt! LiveCD.  It's built every day with the latest virus definitions included.

I've used it previously with good results.

4166

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Windows 7 boot management more broken than ever?

« Last post by 4wd on September 16, 2011, 07:41 PM »

Apparently it was a bit to early in the morning for subtlety

-Stoic Joker (September 16, 2011, 11:36 AM)

Seems to happen to me a lot the last few years. 

4167

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Windows 7 boot management more broken than ever?

« Last post by 4wd on September 16, 2011, 09:30 AM »

Well that answer looks good on paper, but...

-Stoic Joker (September 16, 2011, 06:49 AM)

The questions I answered were:
1) what was it for, and
2) how you boot into it.

And I did mention that you had to be able to boot from that partition in order to use it, (in a kind of off-hand way).

4168

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Windows 7 boot management more broken than ever?

« Last post by 4wd on September 15, 2011, 09:07 PM »

That's the million dollar question

And after a little experimentation the answer is.......[drum roll].........F8

As usual, press F8 as you boot then choose Repair Computer.  It boots into a WinPE environment, (the files are stored in the 100MB area).

Didn't ask for the DVD at all.

4169

Living Room / Re: Would you trust this ... ?

« Last post by 4wd on September 15, 2011, 08:27 PM »

Gmail can do this too, right? Or are their target consumers not supposed to know about web mail? I think you can even send from the non-Gmail SMTP address.

-daddydave (September 15, 2011, 01:10 PM)

This service was started at a time when GMail, (and a lot of web-based mail), didn't exist and a lot of people used the email address provided by their ISP - many of which didn't provide a web interface to email.

EDIT: The part below is a general reply, not related to the daddydave quote above.  (Just thought I'd add that for the sake of clarity.)

Put it this way:

If you need to access your email and
a) you don't have your 3kg laptop with Thunderbird because it was stolen along with all your carefully downloaded private emails, and
b) you don't have an email service with a web interface, and
c) all you've got is is your portable version of Tor/Firefox on a USB stick and you're at some disreputable internet cafe in Nigeria....

What are you going to do?

It's your choice whether you trust them or not.

I don't have a problem given what they provided me with in the past and the subsequent problems that arose from that use, ie. none.

It was asked whether you would trust that particular site; for that particular site, my answer is yes.

If it's that much of a concern whether they have access to your email account; forward it all to another with a different address/password and access that one.

4170

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Windows 7 boot management more broken than ever?

« Last post by 4wd on September 15, 2011, 08:03 PM »

IIRC from trawling the web a year or so ago, Windows 7 puts its recovery programs there - so you can get to the boot fixing stage without a DVD, (or I should say the Windows fixing stage since if you can't boot you can't get to the recovery programs).

EDIT: And after a quick search again, it also stores the Bitlocker components - so if you've Bitlocked your system drive and you remove the 100MB partition, I'll guess you'll be SOOL.

Nowadays I do exactly what SJ and 40hz do, unplug the other drives or make sure they have no primary partitions or space for them.
Only ever one drive with primary partitions on my system.

4171

Living Room / Re: Would you trust this ... ?

« Last post by 4wd on September 15, 2011, 07:17 AM »

I can't speak for them as of right this minute but I have used their service when I was overseas in the UK in 1997, 2000 & 2003.

I never had a problem with it and I've never had mysterious, unexplained weirdness with any email account I used via mail2web.

4172

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« Last post by 4wd on September 14, 2011, 06:09 PM »

Yes, that's probably the first most important question to answer:

Do I want:
a) storage that will always require a host computer with a specific connector to work or;
b) a NAS that requires just a power cord and network connection and that can be taken anywhere and used with no special requirements?

Having lugged along various external drives to LAN nights and friends homes over the years, I'd go for a mini tower based NAS every time now.

But if you never envision it being connected to another computer or being able to access it from another device, (without having to turn on your main computer to interface it), then a big old box of dumb HDDs might be your thing.
 

4173

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« Last post by 4wd on September 13, 2011, 06:27 PM »

I'm liking this.  Here's a question about the cabling:
1) If I do a SATA to SAS thing, can I get away with just one cable connecting the storage tower to the desktop?

-superboyac (September 13, 2011, 03:01 PM)

Infiniband connectors support a maximum of 4 devices, see Wiki^w - under Architecture (SFF 8470).

I'm not saying you can't do it, just you probably can't using the normal Infiniband cables.  Addendum: Unless you use 2 port multipliers - then you only need 1 cable.

2)  Let's say I want to put the DAS in another room.  How would I connect the DAS to my desktop?  The SAS or SATA or eSATA cables are only a few feet maximum.  So would I have to connect the tower to my router, which would bring it to my desktop?  Or does that change the whole setup into a NAS and now I need to have a motherboard, OS, etc. on the tower?

Maximum length of eSATA is indeed a few feet, 6.6 feet or 2 metres.  SAS is a little longer.  From Wiki again:

Because of its higher signaling voltages, SAS can use cables up to 10 m (33 ft) long, SATA has a cable-length limit of 1 m (3 ft) or 2 m (6.6 ft) for eSATA.

However, remember you're trying to work with SATA HDDs, not SAS HDDs which use a higher signaling voltage.  So I'm guessing that you might have trouble trying to push it past 3 metres unless there is an active SAS host/client on the ends of the cable.

To get 10 metres from it you might have to go:

PC---SAS Host Controller---10 metre Infiniband cables---SAS Client---SATA HDDs

(SAS Client is probably not the correct terminology but it illustrates the idea of an active component rather than a simple passive adapter.)

What I suggested is:

PC---SATA/SAS Adapter---3 metre Infiniband cables---SAS/SATA Adapter---SATA HDDs

4174

General Software Discussion / Re: Case of the missing partitions when downgrading from W7 to XP

« Last post by 4wd on September 13, 2011, 02:11 PM »

^ +1 here.

An alignment problem is more likely to cause a slow down in the data transfer rate.

Given it appears to be an IDE drive, I would have thought it's unlikely to suffer from mis-alignment since it will probably have 512b sectors.

But if you'd like to check the alignment of your drive, try using the following:
Dell Advanced Format HDD Detection Tool

C:\dell\drivers\R306204>C:\dell\drivers\R306204\DellAFDT.exe
Model:                                        SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Serial#:                                      S13PJ1KS315664
Advanced Format:                              No
Partition Alignment:                          Aligned
    Partition 1:                              Aligned [D:]
Identify Data Word 106:                       0x0
Identify Data Word 117:                       0x0
Identify Data Word 118:                       0x0
Identify Data Word 209:                       0x0

Model:                                        SAMSUNG HD103UJ
Serial#:                                      S13PJ1LS310988
Advanced Format:                              No
Partition Alignment:                          Aligned
    Partition 1:                              Aligned [U:]
    Partition 2:                              Aligned [Not assigned]
Identify Data Word 106:                       0x0
Identify Data Word 117:                       0x0
Identify Data Word 118:                       0x0
Identify Data Word 209:                       0x0


C:\dell\drivers\R306204>

The second drive above has 2 partitions, both aligned but only the first appears as a normal volume - the second is purely a Truecrypt volume and appears as Raw.

I can unhide it with any partition tool and it will show up for that session, but after a reboot it is gone into hiding again.

-brahman (September 12, 2011, 07:08 AM)

Is that only from within XP?

Have you checked the partitions Hidden flag when the OS is offline, (ie. boot from Parted Magic, Paragon Partition Manager, etc) ?

4175

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« Last post by 4wd on September 13, 2011, 01:08 PM »

<<Equipment to purchase>>
Storage Unit:
istarUSA storage tower
http://www.istarusa....amp;model=DAGE840-ES
8-bay
2TB x 8 = 16TB
additional internal cables?
additional external cables?

-superboyac (September 12, 2011, 12:06 PM)

Well, it doesn't get much simpler:

Internal cables: 8 x SATA to SATA HDD cables, ie. normal SATA cables.
External cables: 8 x eSATA to eSATA cables.

You require 8 eSATA ports on the computer, one for each drive - in this type of wiring situation I'd forget about RAID if you were thinking of it, too many chances for a cable to be dislodged.

It's the same as stacking 8 separate external eSATA enclosures one on top of the other.

I don't know whether you've noticed or not but:
DAGE840DE-ES - Trayless
DAGE840-ES - The one you selected, doesn't say trayless.

Alternative using their products:
Storage end:
1x DAGE840DE-2MS - 8 bay trayless storage tower using the following as inputs, (not the ones it comes with.)
2x ZAGE-D-4SA70 - These as a replacement for whatever comes with the box.

PC end:
2x ZAGE-H-4SA70 - Adapts 4 SATA ports to one Infiniband/Multilane connector.
2x CAGE-AAMM05 - Infiniband cables: RaidAge, Addonics, etc.

You'll also need 8 spare SATA ports in your computer but you would have needed them anyway for the box you selected, so a good quality multi-port SATA controller, (there are alternatives to this, eg. SAS controller with Infiniband output or SAS to SATA adapter).

The above only requires 2 external cables.