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501

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.

502

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?

503

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.

504

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.   

505

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.

506

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'.

507

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

« Last post by Shades on February 04, 2019, 07:06 PM »

Keypirinha:
http://keypirinha.com/

Deadbeef (for Linux):
http://deadbeef.sour...forge.net/about.html

-panzer (February 04, 2019, 10:28 AM)

Keyirinha - dat is a Brazilian drink/cocktail, which has gotten me several times into trouble. In a similar fashion as shots of tequila... 

508

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

« Last post by Shades on February 04, 2019, 06:38 AM »

The error message states there is no closing quote. The quote character indicated by the arrow seems out of place. Please remove it and run the AHK script again.

509

UrlSnooper / Re: Problems to find Link for mp4 Videos on 4Players.de

« Last post by Shades on February 03, 2019, 04:48 PM »

The start of a new year is also the time of year where new versions of a website are introduced. Are you sure the website still uses the same structure of web pages? Or that changes are made in the way their web pages show their content? Or that it has changed to a different web host? Still uses the same backend system for their articles? Or still uses the same web server software?

All those things can have an impact on the functionality of URLSnooper. Usually this means that you need to take a look at the current configuration of your URLSnooper for this site and check if revisions in your configuration are needed.

Perhaps the cookie notifier has changed on that website and prevents URLSnooper to work. Also keep in mind that more privacy related laws in the EU have been activated this year and that has could have caused some websites to make changes to their inner workings as well.

In short, the timing of your error seems to be related to any of such changes at the end of the website and not on the side of URLSnooper. This is not to say that there is no problem with URLSnooper, but the timing of your error is suspect as well.
   

510

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

« Last post by Shades on February 03, 2019, 11:53 AM »

Do you have AutoHotKey installed?  If yes, what is the version? I think it is a pretty safe bet you have AutoHotKey installed, because of mentioning radial menu as a tool here in this thread. So I assume there is a conflict of AutoHotKey versions occurring when you try to start shorthand.

511

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

« Last post by Shades on February 03, 2019, 08:05 AM »

That error means the folder structure in which you have placed Shorthand cannot be found during the initial execution of Shorthand.

Replace the current content from file 'start.bat' with:

@ECHO OFF
SET shortHandFolder=%~dp0
START %shortHandFolder%app\AHKv2_x32.exe %shortHandFolder%shorthand3_ahk2.ahk
SET shortHandFolder=


That should fix your problem (if you do not have spaces in folder names). And if it doesn't, try the following:

@ECHO OFF

SET shortHandFolder=%~dp0
START "%shortHandFolder%app\AHKv2_x32.exe" "%shortHandFolder%shorthand3_ahk2.ahk"
SET shortHandFolder=

512

General Software Discussion / Re: [Splasm Software] Why can't I tab to the TYPE field?

« Last post by Shades on February 02, 2019, 03:56 PM »

@tutu11:

Guidelines state that all fields (where you can fill in or adjust content) must be accessible by using the tab key. Preferably in order of sequence.

Not much the end-user can do about this, except notify the author of the software and request for a new build in which this omission is fixed. It is normally a very simple/easy fix. Once the tab key setup is in place, programmers barely check if something in the tab key order is going wrong after they adjust the content in the screen. And is is usually not necessary to do such a check from a coding standpoint. So those checks do not happen too often at the coders side.

513

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

« Last post by Shades on January 30, 2019, 10:43 PM »

The MassiGra software does not seem to have an option to change the language to English. That makes the software much harder to use for users that are not familiar with the Japanese language. I assume it is Japanese, because the download file is hosted on a Japanese server.

514

General Software Discussion / Re: email clients - special limited use

« Last post by Shades on January 29, 2019, 09:27 PM »

If I understand your post correctly, you wish to have a a big collection of all mail messages you receive with multiple accounts, using different software and/or profiles in one software client.

Then I think that MailStore Home is your best bet. You can collect mail in your preferred mail client for each account and once a day you can sync the received mail from these clients into MailStore Home. Afterwards you can use the search functionality in MailStore Home to find the messages you seek. Using a similar concept with my mail client of choice Thunderbird in combination with MSH and have amassed a collection of 18 GByte in mail messages. Searching with MSH through 18GByte is faster than with Thunderbird and because you have more/better search options in MSH, the returned results are much more relevant as well.

MSH is freeware, but there is also a MailStore Server version which is commercially licensed. But with that one you can connect to all your mail accounts and let it collect mail messages on your behalf, so no need for synchronizing anymore.

Mails collected by MailStore Home/Server can be exported as mail messages again in all the most popular mailbox formats (for 'TheBat!', 'Outlook', 'Thunderbird' and quite some more mail clients). If mail is part of your workflow, you should not be without MailStore Home.

No, I'm not affiliated in any way to that company in any way or form, just a happy user.

515

General Software Discussion / Re: Switching.social

« Last post by Shades on January 27, 2019, 09:19 PM »

I'm running a Nextcloud server (v13.x...still need to migrate it to v15, although v13 still gets updated) on a old Linux box. Until this point, I must say that it is a very good experience. Has a lot of features in and off itself, but can be expanded with 3rd party mods. In my setup hardly any mods have been added, I mainly use it to transfer files to it from another continent by script using CarotDAV.

For my intends and purposes it is such a good solution that I didn't bother looking at anything else anymore.

However, if you look for something less resource intensive, WebDAV is pretty simple and you could simply enable the WebDAV mod from the Apache web server software. And I'm sure it is a pretty standard feature on the other main web server software packages (IIS, NGinX). That is the most basic version of a web drive you will ever get. but not really recommended if security is of any concern. Nextcloud comes with already with pretty decent authorization options and offers more options for extra security if you so desire.

516

Living Room / Re: Refurbished or used internal hard disks 3½ 6TB-12TB

« Last post by Shades on January 17, 2019, 07:42 PM »

The bigger the drive, the bigger the back you need to have for when (not if) it fails.

Second hand drives I would only use for data/content I am prepared to lose. In my (anecdotal) experience I have had nothing but trouble with refurbished stuff. Not worth the few bucks shaved of the purchase price. Maybe that has something to do with this part of the world. I am certain that the South American continent gets the rejects from the production lines for the (Western) European/US markets.

517

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android 6.0 tablet recent windows close all?

« Last post by Shades on January 15, 2019, 07:20 AM »

Even my Kyocera Brigadier phone with Android 5.1.1 has that 'close all' button. And when you press it, wait a few seconds to give apps time to close and then reopen that screen, not one of the apps has been terminated. Manually closing any of the apps in that screen results in the app reappearing in the screen in a random location. So it looks safe to say that this functionality may only work properly from Android 6.x.x or higher.

518

General Software Discussion / Re: Portable Menu launcher colour rectangles

« Last post by Shades on January 13, 2019, 06:25 PM »

Well, Windows 8.1 is still supported. So you could use that.

And as far as I know you can enable this functionality within Windows 10 as well.

519

Post New Requests Here / Re: Folder Organizer/Sorter

« Last post by Shades on January 13, 2019, 09:21 AM »

Belvedere might help out with this task at hand.

And here are some free (but donatable) alternatives, like DropZone (from our resident member: skwire),  DropIt   or a commercially licensed one:  FileJuggler.

These will help out with sorting your files. Keeping them sorted will already you a lot in identifying what is what before you even have to open an archive to see what it contains. This works best with new downloads, but all pieces of software allow you to create rules for filtering and some can even automatically rename them according to your rules.

520

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

« Last post by Shades on January 12, 2019, 12:43 PM »

oh, the system_list entry there is not required for searching. Those are just used for scoring. I think it's more likely that results from earlier searches didn't find those other drives, because "Everything" wasn't finished building the index yet. Could you remove the additions from system_list and see if you can confirm my thoughts?

-Maestr0 (January 11, 2019, 02:32 PM)

You were right about the alterations I made to the ini file. Those appear to be unnecessary.

521

Living Room / New game console to play actual board games with.

« Last post by Shades on January 07, 2019, 08:18 PM »

Board games going digital, but in a new and pretty interesting way, using a dedicated gaming console device. As Mouser is interested in board games, I assume this French upstart will tickle his curiosity:

https://www.wizama.com

522

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

« Last post by Shades on January 07, 2019, 06:44 PM »

alternatively, I guess I could use code like this (but if the long paths work with the quotation marks, I don't see the need):

[Select]

@echo OFF

SET ShortHandFolder=%~s1
START %ShortHandFolder%app\AHKv2_x32.exe %ShortHandFolder%shorthand3_ahk2.ahk
SET ShortHandFolder=

-Maestr0 (January 06, 2019, 09:37 AM)

Whenever I use the quotes the following screen appears:



And I am sure the application to be used to run the .ahk script has been defined with:  START "%ShortHandFolder%app\AHKv2_x32.exe|"

When expecting people to use folder and/or file names with spaces, you normally use ", of that I am very well aware. Why Windows now trips over this, that puzzles me.

523

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

« Last post by Shades on January 07, 2019, 06:35 PM »

I can expand on that.  First I tried the search term 'look' and I got results but only from the C:\  partition. Then I added the highlighted text (I have several pen drives, each with it's own drive letter) to  the ini file and now the same search term returns results from multiple partitions.

524

General Software Discussion / Re: [Win][Suggestions needed] Ensure network shares are connected reliably at login?

« Last post by Shades on January 06, 2019, 04:40 PM »

Maybe it is even smarter to extend the script from 4wd to include:
net use X: \\SERVER\Share

X:           =  drive letter
\\SERVER = computer name or it's IP address. With the IP address, which barely changes in a LAN, no extra subsystem is needed to translate to an IP address. Faster and more reliable.
\Share     = the name of the share

That recreates the share and if the connection already exist it should make Windows mark the connection as active.

You can also go on with it in a blunt matter and remove the connection (net remove X:) every time you turn your system off and as one of the first things in your startup procedure you simply recreate the connection again.

UNC is always preferable, just as 4wd suggested. Much less of a hassle.

Another tip that could make your situation better is the following:
Open Control panel, then open credential manager and add windows credentials for the NAS device (IP address, user name and password). Once such a credential is created Windows will use those immediately instead of trying to make a connection using the credentials of the user account you used to log into Windows itself. Normally this procedure doesn't take much time, but you can shave time off when you create such a credential.

Always remember that TCP/IP are old protocols and that they were designed for unreliable networks. That means a TCP connection can wait for a max of 30 seconds before it marks a connection/session as bad. While that is the extreme, all the times TCP waits does add up and might take you out of the connection window allowed to connect to your share.

525

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

« Last post by Shades on January 06, 2019, 09:04 AM »

I downloaded the 3.2.0.27 version and tried to execute it. That experience warranted the following suggestions:
- the content of the 'start.bat' file contains / as folder separator. That didn't fly on this version of Windows (10.0.16299 Enterprise edition), had to be \.
- the content of the 'start.bat' file could be improved upon:
    @ECHO OFF

    SET ShortHandFolder=%~dp0
    START %ShortHandFolder%app\AHKv2_x32.exe %ShortHandFolder%shorthand3_ahk2.ahk
    SET ShortHandFolder=

- Now the folder you executed the script in, is captured and there is no way for Windows to get confused about where to look for files. The last line is there to clean up the content of the variable and emptying variables causes them to be removed from memory.   
- Do not use quotes |(in the START line) if AHK has never been installed on the system. Windows 10 will ask you which application it needs to use to execute the ahk script (even though that is clearly specified).
  (caveat: I never use folder names with spaces in it. Not in file names either if I can help it.)
- All my portable applications are stored in a separate folder not located on the C:\ partition. Same as my data. I'm weird that way. So I had to add these partitions to the ini file myself. Maybe I overlooked things, but I didn't find an option to add those partitions in the GUI. Not that big of a deal though.

After these changes it did work as expected. So thanks for a nice piece of software.