Recent Posts

476

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2019, 10:22 PM »

rule of thumb, no one should ever touch electricity...

-Target (March 07, 2019, 11:18 PM)

Shocking revelation, that.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 12:04 AM)

That lightning wit on display, eh?

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 12:20 AM)

These kinds of remarks are a bit of a jolt!

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:21 AM)

Ohm my word, I knew you all wouldn't be able to resist.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 08:39 AM)

That comment really Hertz.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 09:49 AM)

And so it should! After all, we are discussing the crown joules of mouser's demesne.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 02:46 PM)

I think that there is a potential difference that you re-fuse to see that I can't relay between our alternating current conversations.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 04:04 PM)

We're poles apart and, to be direct, at the risk of seeming a growler, that kind of thinking comes close to analog ic. You really should keep an ion it.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:07 PM)

come on guys, try to remember this is a DC forum...

-Target (March 09, 2019, 08:54 PM)

AC your problem. 

-wraith808 (March 09, 2019, 09:25 PM)

Un-phased by all of this...

-Shades (March 10, 2019, 04:39 AM)

Trust you to pylon!

-cranioscopical (March 10, 2019, 12:45 PM)

pretty sure you guys have ground about as much as you can out of this

-Target (March 10, 2019, 06:03 PM)

No one would fault mouser if he set an impedance on the frequency of off-topic conversations on this circuit and placed a demand on us to cut it short.

-wraith808 (March 10, 2019, 07:09 PM)

Or he lets us go on by extension, cord-ially....

-Shades (March 10, 2019, 11:57 PM)

could go either way, though I fully expect him to arc up soon

-Target (March 11, 2019, 03:06 AM)

Would we want to have him amp up about this?

-Shades (March 11, 2019, 07:34 AM)

The mains part of this powerful conversation sure went off the rail, didn't it?

-skwire (March 11, 2019, 10:34 AM)

Only a third of it.

-wraith808 (March 11, 2019, 10:42 AM)

This conversation's spark is fading, so wire you giving it more continuity?

-skwire (March 11, 2019, 02:22 PM)

I can't tell—do you approve of such conduct or not?

-cranioscopical (March 11, 2019, 02:32 PM)

I feel a need to insulate myself from that line of questioning.

-skwire (March 11, 2019, 03:03 PM)

then watt will you do?

-Target (March 11, 2019, 06:52 PM)

I personally volt that we end this now.

-wraith808 (March 11, 2019, 07:38 PM)

Come on Wraith, stay on the bus!

-Target (March 11, 2019, 09:28 PM)

I'm feeling sad for Wraith, his message won't relay.

477

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2019, 07:34 AM »

rule of thumb, no one should ever touch electricity...

-Target (March 07, 2019, 11:18 PM)

Shocking revelation, that.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 12:04 AM)

That lightning wit on display, eh?

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 12:20 AM)

These kinds of remarks are a bit of a jolt!

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:21 AM)

Ohm my word, I knew you all wouldn't be able to resist.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 08:39 AM)

That comment really Hertz.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 09:49 AM)

And so it should! After all, we are discussing the crown joules of mouser's demesne.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 02:46 PM)

I think that there is a potential difference that you re-fuse to see that I can't relay between our alternating current conversations.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 04:04 PM)

We're poles apart and, to be direct, at the risk of seeming a growler, that kind of thinking comes close to analog ic. You really should keep an ion it.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:07 PM)

come on guys, try to remember this is a DC forum...

-Target (March 09, 2019, 08:54 PM)

AC your problem. 

-wraith808 (March 09, 2019, 09:25 PM)

Un-phased by all of this...

-Shades (March 10, 2019, 04:39 AM)

Trust you to pylon!

-cranioscopical (March 10, 2019, 12:45 PM)

pretty sure you guys have ground about as much as you can out of this

-Target (March 10, 2019, 06:03 PM)

No one would fault mouser if he set an impedance on the frequency of off-topic conversations on this circuit and placed a demand on us to cut it short.

-wraith808 (March 10, 2019, 07:09 PM)

Or he lets us go on by extension, cord-ially....

-Shades (March 10, 2019, 11:57 PM)

could go either way, though I fully expect him to arc up soon

-Target (March 11, 2019, 03:06 AM)

Would we want to have him amp up about this?

478

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Shades on March 10, 2019, 11:57 PM »

rule of thumb, no one should ever touch electricity...

-Target (March 07, 2019, 11:18 PM)

Shocking revelation, that.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 12:04 AM)

That lightning wit on display, eh?

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 12:20 AM)

These kinds of remarks are a bit of a jolt!

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:21 AM)

Ohm my word, I knew you all wouldn't be able to resist.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 08:39 AM)

That comment really Hertz.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 09:49 AM)

And so it should! After all, we are discussing the crown joules of mouser's demesne.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 02:46 PM)

I think that there is a potential difference that you re-fuse to see that I can't relay between our alternating current conversations.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 04:04 PM)

We're poles apart and, to be direct, at the risk of seeming a growler, that kind of thinking comes close to analog ic. You really should keep an ion it.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:07 PM)

come on guys, try to remember this is a DC forum...

-Target (March 09, 2019, 08:54 PM)

AC your problem. 

-wraith808 (March 09, 2019, 09:25 PM)

Un-phased by all of this...

-Shades (March 10, 2019, 04:39 AM)

Trust you to pylon!

-cranioscopical (March 10, 2019, 12:45 PM)

pretty sure you guys have ground about as much as you can out of this

-Target (March 10, 2019, 06:03 PM)

No one would fault mouser if he set an impedance on the frequency of off-topic conversations on this circuit and placed a demand on us to cut it short.

-wraith808 (March 10, 2019, 07:09 PM)

Or he lets us go on by extension, cord-ially....

479

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Shades on March 10, 2019, 11:57 PM »

Oops, forgot to quote....

480

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by Shades on March 10, 2019, 04:39 AM »

rule of thumb, no one should ever touch electricity...

-Target (March 07, 2019, 11:18 PM)

Shocking revelation, that.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 12:04 AM)

That lightning wit on display, eh?

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 12:20 AM)

These kinds of remarks are a bit of a jolt!

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:21 AM)

Ohm my word, I knew you all wouldn't be able to resist.

-skwire (March 08, 2019, 08:39 AM)

That comment really Hertz.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 09:49 AM)

And so it should! After all, we are discussing the crown joules of mouser's demesne.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 02:46 PM)

I think that there is a potential difference that you re-fuse to see that I can't relay between our alternating current conversations.

-wraith808 (March 08, 2019, 04:04 PM)

We're poles apart and, to be direct, at the risk of seeming a growler, that kind of thinking comes close to analog ic. You really should keep an ion it.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2019, 08:07 PM)

come on guys, try to remember this is a DC forum...

-Target (March 09, 2019, 08:54 PM)

AC your problem. 

-wraith808 (March 09, 2019, 09:25 PM)

Un-phased by all of this...

481

Developer's Corner / Re: Looking for a way to increase load on system to simulate OOM

« Last post by Shades on March 09, 2019, 06:49 PM »

I was just mentioning it, because I have such a development machine in a network from the company that also manages the production server from that particular client. And access only at request. 

482

Developer's Corner / Re: Looking for a way to increase load on system to simulate OOM

« Last post by Shades on March 07, 2019, 07:20 PM »

Is there no debugger on the production machine?

With the Embarcadero RAD Studio software there is a piece of software (PIA server, if memory serves me) that you need to install on the production system and after that you can use the debugging environment from your own system to "hook" into the production system. Does the debugger software you use have a similar feature?

Such a solution does presume that you have full access to the production system. Not sure how such a solution would hold up if the production system is cloud-based.

I think I mentioned this software before, but here goes: API Monitor  This might give you a better idea of why process is running out of memory. It is portable freeware, so no installation required.

483

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Shades on March 06, 2019, 08:47 PM »

While having the most up-to-date software on your computer is usually an excellent idea, the LifeHacker article doesn't say anything about the reason why. Just that you should do this, because they say so. Call me a rebellious fool or whatever, but when I read such garbage, I am inclined to do just the opposite.

Then again, I don't use Chrome on my PC's...where 99.9% of my internet surfing takes place anyway. My systems are really a 'No Chrome'-zone. As I have Android with Google Play, Chrome comes with that like the unwanted stepchild and gets treated as such, because I am not allowed to remove it from my phone.

484

Living Room / Re: Is there any compact portable browser?

« Last post by Shades on March 03, 2019, 11:18 AM »

I recommend just pulling Frederic Meunier's build from here. Lynx only takes about 4mb of disk space. 

-x16wda (March 02, 2019, 04:43 PM)

Didn't work on my Windows 10 PC (64-bit).

485

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Shades on March 03, 2019, 11:09 AM »

[ Invalid Attachment ]

Canada’s Magical Polka-Dotted Lake is an Otherworldly Sight to See

-Arizona Hot (March 02, 2019, 10:59 PM)

It is also crap to play 'Twister' on. 

486

General Software Discussion / UTP cable pin-outs confusion

« Last post by Shades on March 03, 2019, 11:03 AM »

Let me begin with two statements:
1 - There is no general hardware section in the DC forum, so I chose the next best general section.
2 - I make my own UTP cables, for almost 15 years already.

Google wasn't that helpful regarding my question. Most of the (CAT5e) cables I prepared in the beginning are still in use today. I know about TIA568A and B cable pin-out standards. My preference is B.

However, lately I see cables on different locations appear that use a different pin-out. All the pairs are next to each other, instead of switching cables from different pairs as the 568 standards suggest. These are definitely not cross-cables or straight cables either. I know about the differences between the CAT5e/CAT6/CAT7 cable categories, but I am not aware that this had implications on the cable pin-out.

Other forums tell me that this isn't the case, sites like this one tell me that this isn't the case, so now I am getting confused. There is not much necessary to accomplish that, I know. But still, can anyone here enlighten me about the subject or point me to documentation?

487

Living Room / Re: Kill me if you want (buying good, cheap and pretty two hard disks)

« Last post by Shades on March 02, 2019, 02:11 PM »

Hardware in laptops is pretty set during the design period and in 99.9% of cases cannot be altered once production has started.

The hardware parts in the laptop have their physical limitations and some imposed by not willing or being able to get licensing right for certain functionality in the hardware parts. There is also expectation of the manufacturer. Most people don't have/want hardware support for the latest/greatest hardware, if that means that they have to pay (a lot) more for laptops. And as laptops prices are always a fight to the bottom, whatever the manufacturer can skimp on, they will.

2 TByte as max storage capacity means they can save quite some money on licensing/patents etc. On a general note: 10 TByte drives are more intended for use in desktops/servers, not laptops. Servers/desktops have more options to get rid of excessive heat. Something that laptops by definition have not. Besides that, 10 TByte storage in a laptop...never a good idea. Chances of data-loss or theft become way too high. And if you really have such huge files to process, you will be much more productive on a properly outfitted workstation than on any laptop.

As the forums say that you can use the drive, how do they mean that? The BIOS/UEFI hardware in your laptop may be limited to 2 TByte. So it may be the case that you cannot use all of the drive, or only have partitions on it that are limited to max 2 Tbyte. So regarding usability of 10 TByte drives in your Asus laptop, you better ask what is meant by being usable and if that fits with your expectations. Likely those are not matched.

Laptops, they are better than nothing....but not by much.


 
 

488

General Software Discussion / Re: Recovering my space in the phone memory

« Last post by Shades on March 02, 2019, 01:17 PM »

All the Android phones I have had access to (ranging from Android 5.x to 8.x) all connected just fine through USB and appeared as drives in Windows explorer where I could copy stuff from and to the phone without any special software on the phone or Windows.

The folder structure in an Android phone takes a bit of getting used to, but isn't difficult. Those were phones from brands Huawei, Samsung, Kyocera and a vague Chinese brand name that I forgot.

So you do not need o get/install software on your phone or computer. I am sure that there are pieces of software that make it a bit easier, but you can easily do without. On a side note, I did activate developer mode (an Android feature) on each of the phones.

Any gathers a lot of garbage quickly when taking photos and doing a bit of WhatsApp. These folders are easy to find and their content is quickly transferred to your computer, where that data can be included in your backup routine. You could store those photos online and access these when you want to show them through your phone to someone.

489

Living Room / Re: Is there any compact portable browser?

« Last post by Shades on February 25, 2019, 09:29 AM »

All browsers blow up in size, especially when you plan to use extensions.

Portable browsers often store (part of) their cache in a folder inside their main folder. So i would purge the cache first and see how much storage space is being cleared up.

If storage space is an essential requirement, disable cache entirely. But that will affect your browsing the internet. in lots of ways.

Buying a bigger HD or other storage device should not break the bank. In case of a hard disk in a laptop or desktop, you can pretty simple clone the old hard disk onto the new one.
Diverting cache folders onto a portable HD could be an option (if that portable HD remains connected).

And if another storage device isn't an option either, delete stuff from it that you don't need. Or move stuff that you haven't opened in 6 months or more onto a (marked) dedicated pendrive or portable HD.

490

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by Shades on February 24, 2019, 08:28 PM »

Finally found my next PC...

Spoiler

OverclockersUK is selling a gaming PC that costs almost as much as a Tesla Model 3: for $43,000, filthy rich enthusiasts get a tower that is actually two systems in one, comprising three NVIDIA Titan RTX GPUs, a liquid-cooled and overclocked 18C/36T Intel Core i9-7890XE and 8C/8T i9-9700K, 144GB of DDR4 RAM, eight 2TB Samsung SSDs, and a 2000W power supply.

link.

-cranioscopical (February 24, 2019, 07:29 AM)

Not even one i9 9900K CPU for that "kings ransom"? That price difference won't break the bank for the people wanting to purchase such a computer. Because with that amount of "horsepower" you want to game on it. Half of it already makes for a monster of a workstation for practically any task.

Heavier workloads should be run on purpose-built servers anyway.

491

N.A.N.Y. 2017 / Re: NANY 2017: Calculor - A Live, Handy, Dandy, Inline Calculator

« Last post by Shades on February 19, 2019, 08:20 AM »

Who uses log anyway?

-BGM (December 25, 2016, 10:36 PM)

Yule find out one day...   

-cranioscopical (February 16, 2019, 09:19 AM)

...and you'll get fired up!

-Shades (February 17, 2019, 08:41 AM)

You guys can stick those puns somewhere.

-BGM (February 17, 2019, 09:22 AM)

And then it ends up to be a match...

492

N.A.N.Y. 2017 / Re: NANY 2017: Calculor - A Live, Handy, Dandy, Inline Calculator

« Last post by Shades on February 17, 2019, 08:41 AM »

Who uses log anyway?

-BGM (December 25, 2016, 10:36 PM)

Yule find out one day...   

-cranioscopical (February 16, 2019, 09:19 AM)

...and you'll get fired up!

493

Living Room / Re: Review Pendrive Microdrive usb 3.0 128 GB

« Last post by Shades on February 17, 2019, 08:18 AM »

Heat is to be expected when a lot of reading and writing onto any drive, whatever form or shape.

Most are designed to get rid of this excess heat sufficiently fast enough, while not being too uncomfortable to carry around in a pocket. If a drive does not heat up, perhaps not much reading and/or writing is going on. Unless there is a active cooling element on your drive there, temperature will vary, depending what you are doing on it.

There are pen drives that show up as very big, but actually have (much) less capacity. Some even apply the trick that when a file is written to that drive with a size that exceeds the actual capacity (but not the reported capacity), it just starts to overwrite the file from the beginning of the drive. So if you generate a file with numbers that follow up on each other, you will know quickly enough if your pen drive either fails to generate the specified size or that it overwrites the file from the beginning.

Simple, but effective check to see if you have bought a drive with the promised capacity or not.

Often there are other indicators that should make you wonder if it is too good to be true. Take a look at differences in font of the sticker that indicates the size. Yes, some vendors are cheap enough to use generic stickers on which the promised capacity is added in a not matching font. Same is true for other forms of packaging.

But that capacity for that price? From a not so reputable source? Yeah, that sure sounds like it is way too good to be true.
 

494

Living Room / Re: Review Pendrive Microdrive usb 3.0 128 GB

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2019, 08:31 AM »

There are tools that generate text files of any given size. you should create one such text file directly on that drive and see if the resulting file messes up.

That would be the simplest test to see if the capacity is as promised.

495

General Software Discussion / Re: Slow Windows load even with SSD

« Last post by Shades on February 13, 2019, 09:29 PM »

Are you sure nothing crept into the startup sequence of your Windows installation? 

If for instance something got placed there that insists on "phoning home", but fails to do so, that something could wait till 30 seconds before it fails and allows the startup sequence to continue. That max of 30 seconds is a remnant of the TCP protocol and this is by design. Anyway, if you have more than one of those items in that sequence, that adds up quickly. There might also be software in that sequence that want to write logging or other things to it's own database, which might not be accessible at that particular moment in the startup sequence. Such things can introduce long waiting times too.

SSD's need TRIM, not a defragger. And sufficient free space in each of the partitions you or the Windows installer created on it. 10% to 20% of free space in the partition(s) of your drive keeps the drive and the file system (NTFS most likely) much "happier".

Besides, for "funsies", you should introduce a 30 second wait into the boot sequence. In your mind that feels much longer than it actually is. Same with loading a page from the internet. No matter how fast, it quickly feels slow regardless. Yet when you start a task that you know can take time, a possible extra 30 seconds doesn't seem that bad. Why perceive the same amount of time so differently while working on a computer...

You could try to boot your system in safe mode and see if that is also slow.
When that is also the case, it is most likely you'll need to dig into Windows and its event viewer to find out what kind of errors occur in that startup sequence.
If safe mode is fast, then it is most likely that one (or more) item(s) in your startup sequence is the culprit. In any case, you should have a better idea where to start looking for the actual cause.

** edit ** 
Ah 4wd was faster. The suggested tools in his post are very helpful in disabling items in your startup sequence.

496

General Software Discussion / Re: Text comparison tool with most robust similarity/moved block detection

« Last post by Shades on February 10, 2019, 01:24 AM »

ExamDiff Pro  and  BCompare are good off-line comparison tools. Can also keep track of changes in different folders and both come with decent text editor built-in. The latest incarnations of these software packages should have no problem with applying fuzzy logic to the content being compared.

Or did I misunderstand and you only consider on-line diffing solutions?

497

Post New Requests Here / Re: NetTraffic xml export to Excel

« Last post by Shades on February 10, 2019, 01:15 AM »

why export to XML?

The netflow protocol has its own format and (free) reporting tools for about any operating system available. Most decent router software suites have this as standard built-in. Call me silly, but the router device in your home or company is the true connection hub where all traffic goes through, making it the most efficient location to track any and all traffic on your network.

Reports can be exported to excel, HTML, csv. Functionality that is built into the reporting tools by default. Some of these reports allow you to export the content in whatever shape or form. And most router software and reporting tools have the option to take the content coming in through netflow and display it graphically, using time-lines, statistics and/or charts, practically in real-time, keep track of history etc.

Collecting and processing of netflow data can be done on the router itself or on a dedicated (virtual) server, if you so wish. The ISP I worked for had such software already installed on the NT4 windows box assigned to my care. That software was already so complete and capable, so is was also used to bill the customers of that ISP. That was still in the days where you had to pay for the amount of data you pushed/pulled to/from the Internet.



So I don't know what problem Nettraffix is trying to solve here, just by by using XML as export.

498

N.A.N.Y. 2019 / Re: NANY 2019: Shorthand 3_2

« Last post by Shades on February 06, 2019, 07:27 PM »

IF EXIST / IF NOT EXIST

That should help you find out if a file exist or not and apply conditions you like in the main batch script. If, for instance, you have a (short) static list of include files, you could could dedicate a section in your main batch script to generate a secondary batch script with the files that are there to copy. Then let the main batch script call this secondary script, which can now copy all existing files and when the secondary batch script is finished, you can let the main batch script delete the secondary script.

I do that to generate my HTML mail message, which is deleted after the command line mail client is done sending that generated message. And as long as you don't need passwords, it is pretty handy way of doing things.

And then you'll find out that you can achieve the same in PowerShell (or Linux shells) because these have much better support for pipes.   

499

General Software Discussion / Re: some useful but less-known software. share your list!!!

« Last post by Shades on February 05, 2019, 09:30 PM »

RSSHub seems to me to be an online RSS newsfeed reader.

For those (like me) that want an application on their computer to do the same....RSSOwl. Freeware that comes as installer but also in portable format. It is based on the Eclipse IDE, so you'll need java. But there is also a portable version of Java available, which you use with RSSOwl. At least that is how I digest a thousand or so of RSS news entries each day.

500

N.A.N.Y. 2019 / Re: NANY 2019: Shorthand 3_2

« Last post by Shades on February 05, 2019, 09:11 PM »

You couldn't be more wrong.

If batch files are your thing, I found a lot of help and/or hints at the website of Rob van der Woude.

Downloading? From a website? Or a personal cloud drive?

Because of the inherited environment, a few batch scripts that are very important to the reeling and dealing of this company are in my care. And I have expanded their functionality significantly.

Spoiler

One element of that script is the transfer of software builds from a computer in Europe to South America where I reside.

Does such a scenario apply to your request? If so, I'll explain what I did. First, I made a server from old PC parts laying around, put Ubuntu Server LTS on it, installed WebMin and NextCloud on it and made that server face the Internet. On the other end I used several different protocols (FTP, FTPS, SFTP, SCP, WebDAV) to see what was the fastest method of transfer. In my case that was WebDAV (and with a really big margin), so the choice for NextCloud on my end was easily made. 

On the other end I had to maintain a batch script that makes checkouts from a CVS server, which was already old software in 1995, but it is still in use and the people working with it really do not want to change. On that end I really had no other option than continue with batch. Anyway, the checkout is done by batch, the building process is now also done using batch and then the my transfer batch script comes into play.

There is nice way to do transfers with command line tools. I did find a tool called CarotDAV, which is dead simple to use software for transferring files manually through the Windows GUI. It really is and you can use it also to connect it to Google, DropBox, OneDrive etc., as well. But the only software I could find with command line support was WinSCP. That is a pretty powerful piece of software for transferring files. But it sure isn't fast. It was faster to log into the server and use CarotDAV to make a manual transfer than to do it by batch script with WinSCP.

In my situation CarotDAV was always finished between 10 and 15 minutes, while with WinSCP (which supports the all the FTP, SCP and WebDAV protocols) it would always take between an hour and an hour and a half. But some 10 months ago a new build of CarotDAV came out, which has now also command line support (and a progress meter).

So now, when a build is started it is checked out, archived, put in a local repository, transferred to my environment, put in my local repository and specific other folder for automatic regression testing (done by another script that is not batch, because "dog fooding" and with that specific script language it is easy to generate reports from the huge battery of regression tests which also need to be sent by mail to several people). And when the transfer has been successful, the transfer script also generates a HTML mail message with build specific content to several people. All automagically without any further user interaction, besides a person initiating the build.

What I can tell you is that no-one should ever want to use batch scripts in this way. It is messy script code at best and has cost me way too much time troubleshooting to make it reliable. Development and troubleshooting all had to take place within a text editor and the command-line box that comes with Windows. No IDE of any kind

You'll learn to appreciate the Linux command line shells or PowerShell from MS so much more after an exercise like this. Be sure of that.

Well, you could generate in the main batch script another batch script for handling the download from either a specific or generic list of files then CALL it at the appropriate time in the main script and when done with the download you make the main batch script clean up that generated batch file. You will need the transfer tools you plan to use already in place on the necessary computer(s) to make that as "smooth" as possible.

But security-wise it is a flawed method. Not too big of a deal when you retrieve stuff from your own cloud drive or something like that, but in a security conscious environment, that method is best to be considered a 'no-no'.