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5551

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 22, 2010, 03:08 PM »

Corporate IT departments hopefully have at least one person who has read and understands the MS white papers on how to setup a network.

Mid sized company networks (like the ones I see daily never do, and) tend to be a train wreck; growth never allows enough time for organization (until it's too late - Then I show up, and tend to sigh alot...).

Small companies (I see these too) that use work groups and working servers, are doomed. There is just no right way to do that in this day and age.

Home users can either just backup the user folder, or redirect the folders they use back into Documents (ala XP) and back that up. Or use some manner of imaging strategy as the tweaker/power user types do. For home users the method isn't really important ... the frequency is. Only exception is (in my experience) restoring from a multi session CD backup always fails. I once met a fellow with 3 complete sets of a CD backup...(9 CDs total)...all of which were full, yet failed to restore a single file. The external USB/FireWire/ESATA drives do seem to work well enough however.

I've got the purchasing managers home comp on the bench right now ... hundreds of family photos ... and a failing drive. They were going to do a backup - when they had time...

5552

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - POST YOUR MUG PHOTOS HERE

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 22, 2010, 12:14 PM »

Took pic of cup at office with phone ...(next step)... Now we'll see how long it takes my to get it off the phone.

5553

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 22, 2010, 10:28 AM »

I haven't done imaging for years, but I've been contemplating getting into it again... also, when I do a clean reinstall, I do want the format to get rid of any leftover junk and have a fragmentation-free clean slate.

I'm not really sure what you mean by leftover junk...anything on the drive that is unwanted is delete-able (I assume I'm missing something).

-Stoic Joker (January 21, 2010, 06:00 AM)

System Volume Information

-f0dder (January 22, 2010, 07:50 AM)

...Which contains one metric boat load of system recovery snapshots and etc.

Hm... For some reason I ws thinking that the install cleaned that out. *Shrug* but it can be deleted if need be. I don't do it frequently enough to quip off the top of me head, but I'll play with it this weekend if I have time.

5554

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines - 4 Free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 22, 2010, 05:52 AM »

the registration appears to be needed to use the built-in iso burner (the exe file that is downloaded).

-nudone (January 22, 2010, 05:33 AM)

Ah! I see.

but it looks like you can just extract the iso from the download (exe file) as i've just done that with winrar.

(oops)...And that would be how I missed it.

Thanks

5555

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Partition Manager 10 for Virtual Machines - 4 Free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 21, 2010, 05:21 PM »

Cool thanks, but if the download is a bootable .iso, what exactly do I do with the registration code I signed up for?

5556

Living Room / Re: any (Nokia) mobile phone maven's out there?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 21, 2010, 05:09 PM »

I've got a Nokia 6555 and copy of PC Suite v7.1.18 that I used while making some ringtones for the wife & I (Damn if I'm paying $4 for a 3 second sound byte). It was a year and a half ago, so I don't recall how well it went... But it's still installed so it couldn't have pissed me off that bad.

Never thought of using it for an MP3 player, I've got a Zune I never use for that.

5557

Living Room / Re: I hate Valentine's Day!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 21, 2010, 06:04 AM »

I'm with you Z! ...But luckily my wife gave up on me years ago, so I'm off the hook as it passes by unnoticed.

5558

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 21, 2010, 06:00 AM »

Imaging is much faster than a reinstall - not only the OS installation process itself, but also the task of installing (and configuring!) third party apps.

-f0dder (January 21, 2010, 03:50 AM)

True, but I've need to reinstall the OS on my primary machine once since 1999 (when Win2k came out), and that was due to a hardware (motherboard) failure. I installed Vista 3 years ago when I built this machine, then upgraded to 7 when it came out. Anything questionable is done with VMs.

I see Client machines killed in all sorts of ways on a regular basis, and they never have images or backups. So it's always a fun game to deal with the aftermath of what went wrong (hence the above solution).

I haven't done imaging for years, but I've been contemplating getting into it again... also, when I do a clean reinstall, I do want the format to get rid of any leftover junk and have a fragmentation-free clean slate.

I'm not really sure what you mean by leftover junk...anything on the drive that is unwanted is delete-able (I assume I'm missing something). Clean installs are not fragmentation free (pagefile will be in 3-5 pieces etc.). Obviously they're less fragmented then my sudo-parallel method. But if you're a stickler for data layout (I am), it'll still need a few passes from PerfectDisk before it's bounce-a-quarter-off-the-bed tight.

5559

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 20, 2010, 10:16 PM »

I've never really been a fan of imaging, unless you are transfering an existing system to a new HDD. On a fresh/clean install the format is not necessarily required. Using XP as an example.

Boot to WinPE (or other CLI) and on C: run the following commands
attrib *.* -h -r -s
del *.* (Just to kill the boot files) Granted this assumes no files we stored on the root of C:
ren progra~1 PROG_OLD
ren docume~1 DOC_OLD
ren Windows WIN_OLD

Reboot to XP install disk and run normal clean install - Even tho the old OS is still there, it's invisible to the installer. I do this frequently if there is a question about how/where to find drivers for oddball hardware. Or if I'm pressed for time and don't want to copy XGB of what not back and forth.

5560

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 20, 2010, 06:19 PM »

The thing that really needs to be asked/addressed here is what is being separated, and why. The OP states that:

Every respectable backup guide these days will tell you that the most robust scenario, and one that will minimize the chance you will one day cry, is to keep your data well separated from the system and software.

Now while that is true, one needs to look at the context to really understand what it means. With a server there are performance concerns that require certain type of applications/data to be segregated to prevent fragmentation from bringing the whole shebang to a crawl. Which is why partitions are used to keep log files, databases, & etc. from scattering everything everywhere. So on a server where rapid restores are a must, the partition breaks make things less stressful. But, on a workstation, from a backup perspective, what does multiple partitions really gain you? In reality... nothing. Backup software does just fine following folder trees (and there's no real rush).

Manufacturers trying to out low-ball each other flooded the market with XP machines that had 256MB RAM, a "recovery" partition, and no install media. When the machines started getting a bit old, and XP memory requirements increased a bit, these machines unanimously celebrated by scuttling a hole in the drive right where the pagefile wasn't anymore. Sure, the recovery partition was "safe" on its own partition...but the drive was trashed which rendered it useless also. So keeping your data on a separate partition doesn't really in-and-of-itself solve anything. A separate physical disk, would, but that's not a cure-all either. All of the scuttled-to-death hard drives had one thing in common. They all trashed the pagefile's location, and My Documents was never an issue to recover.

So now you're thinking but viruses could eat my files...Yeah...and hiding them is going to help how? The last really aggressive file eater was Snow white; it ate a very large segment of CBS's archives...which I'm reasonably sure were not in anybodies My Documents folder. Hiding your porn stash might keep mom out of it...but a really aggressive bug, will only take a few milliseconds more before it starts chewing up your stash. In which case software based "real-Time" mirroring, only guarantees that you will have two identical copies of the same damaged file.

Other random "incidents" - Well if you really knew better ... it wouldn't have happened in the first place. But that's kinda the point of backing up (on a regular schedule) to external media. Not to mention that "emergency" reinstalls do not actually require formatting the drive, so even if I do manage to hose the OS I'm still not going to lose anything (parallel installs are quite easy).

Sure nobody's perfect, and anything I have that is extremely critical gets a multi-site backup. Once to my server, and once to the office server. The rest is just backed up to the (local) server.

Do I keep my documents in the default location? No it is on a separate working partition. But that is solely a maintenance issue driven by the high level of fragmentation caused by some of my activities. This allows the contents of the OS partition to remain a bit more static (Circular fixed size logs don't change size).


One thing I thought to add is that mirroring or any other RAID based disk configuration are only availability solutions that prevent the need for downtime and a restore operation if a disk fails, which maximizes uptime. They do not replace or even mitigate the need for a regularly scheduled back to external media.

5561

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 20, 2010, 06:03 AM »

The my whatever folders were moved out of the (My) Documents root because too many company networks were having issues with backing up users music file collections.

I keep all of the (work related) user documents folders redirected to the server which has a RAID 5 array & is backed up (to tape) every night. With XP I have to either split out the music/movie/etc. folders to LM so they don't waste backup time/space. With Vista/7 this is already done...and that is precisely why it is done. I don't care if a user wants to store some or all of the contents of their MP3 player/or camera on their workstation. I just don't want to have to deal with the tape media requirements to backup all that crap on a nightly basis ... Because "the company" doesn't give a damn if somebody loses their music collection

As an aside, most users tend to panic if they are faced with more than one of something. So for the universal (calm) simplicity of the common man... manufacturers put everything in one (drive) place. This keeps it nice and simple for clueless users & support people alike.

Think about it for a second. There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Johnny average gets to pick any letter he wants for a "data storage" partition. The box dies (as they sometimes do). Johnny hasn't a clue what a partition is...or what he chose to call it last year...

...Do you want to take that support call???   (I don't)

Some thing just have to be designed based on the lowest common denominator.

5562

Living Room / Re: Snow Leopard - Slow Network Printing

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 18, 2010, 08:01 AM »

I have read of quite a few situations where Apple WiFi network speeds have been really bad (and not just for printers) so it could be the WiFi connection itself. What happens if you use an ethernet cable to connect to the router where the printer is connected?

-Carol Haynes (January 18, 2010, 07:09 AM)

Ethernet cable wasn't an option. But the network speed appeared to be ok (best I could tell on a Mac). The user ran an internet speed check (across the WiFi) and came up with a solid 16/5Mb rate... Sure it ain't LAN speeds, but it's certainly fast enough to get a print job transfered in less than a half hour.

Failing that it could be the HP driver - I have a love/hate relationship with HP software (mostly I love to hate it) which is flaky and annoying at the best of times!

Me too!

Try downloading and installing a different version (try the latest build if you haven't already, if you already have the latest build try reverting to an earlier build).

Chalk another one up for Mac-tastic nightmares ... there is no other option. HP says to use the Universal Print Driver that comes with 10.6.2. (and gives no other option)

Apple (kind of) admits there is an issue with Snow Leopard's network printing ... but says nothing clear on what if any fix there is.

5563

General Software Discussion / Re: Just discovered a HUGE annoyance in Windows 7

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 17, 2010, 02:45 PM »

swap cables?

-mouser (January 17, 2010, 01:27 PM)

When dual monitor setups start getting cagey, that is (in my experience) the simplest option.

5564

Living Room / Re: Snow Leopard - Slow Network Printing

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 17, 2010, 12:31 PM »

Fair enough... (I did ask for it)

5565

Living Room / Snow Leopard - Slow Network Printing

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 17, 2010, 12:10 PM »

Greetings
    Okay Joker's asking a Mac Question, and yes you're all allowed to laugh at me for it...

Here's the deal:
    Customer bought a refurbished HP Color LaserJet 3800n from the company I work for. It has been throughly checked out & performs flawlessly on a Windows network... However. The customer has an Apple AirPort WiFi network with two OSX 10.6.2 (Snow Leopard) laptops. Being a "network" install, I got roped into doing the setup. Fortunately, I've been futzing with Linux quite a bit here lately so I wasn't completely lost on the install (I used the HP JetDirect/socket option, which both Apple & HP support pages state is the correct option).

    The printer works, sending a Word document, in a reasonably normal period of time. But. Trying to send a picture (1.4MB .jpg) from Adobe PhotoShop (or the Mac picture viewer) takes roughly half an hour (this is not an exaggeration). My Win7 machine at the office will print the same image to the same printer in 15 seconds.

    I'm guessing at this point this is an Apple issue - Googling brings up several (hundred) hits that also imply that this is the case. However there is absolutely no consensus on what the cause/solution might be. ...And I'm not real comfortable just having-a-go at the machine for fear of screwing it up.

    So, does anyone have any (preferably first hand but I'll take what I can get...) insight into what may be going on? I'm reasonably sure that it is not a network performance issue, and (at this point) that the problem lies with the Mac. What I don't know is what (if anything) can be done about it.


Side Note: When the customer connected the printer to their Mac via USB it printed fine (which I'm guessing gets Adobe off the hook). It is only the network printing performance that is suffering (horribly...). However being that this is a laptop, a USB connection is not an acceptable permanent solution.

5566

General Software Discussion / Re: Tweaking IE to prevent further attacks (for now)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 10:46 PM »

JavaScript was initially developed by Netscape, and was named LiveScript then. But because everybody was hype-OD'ing on Java, some schmuck decided it should be renamed, although JavaScript has very little resemblance to Java. The language has later been standardized as ECMAScript, and Microsoft's dialect is called JScript. Iirc flash's ActionScript is also based on ECMAScript.

-f0dder (January 16, 2010, 05:41 PM)

Now that's the kind of honest answer I can appreciate. (but seriously) I've never really had a compelling reason to investigate distinctions between them. And considering (if it walks like a duck...) they both tend to annoy me, they both get stuck on the same shelf.

Most of the Java based programs I've run into have been crude looking, slow, and generally flakey. This includes high dollar vertical market applications that really should have a more polished behavior for the money they cost (not to mention none of these people seem to have the slightest clue how to do version checking properly). The only reason (I can think of) to create a full blown application out of Java would be if one was trying to (Fire-Drill) rush something cross platform to market. I have in the past tried coding in Java, but quickly found C++ to be (much less aggravating) more durable in the long run.

JavaScript is actually kinda cool, even when seen outside browsers - you can do some pretty funky stuff with it

I have used JavaScript for some things on web pages like input validation or data pumping information between frames in a form. but only as a last resort. (being that you said "fun" I'll skip the why, but...) How the hell would you use it outside a browser?

5567

General Software Discussion / Re: Tweaking IE to prevent further attacks (for now)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 05:35 PM »

sir you are entirely incorrect.

-Krishean (January 16, 2010, 04:02 PM)

Yes, you mentioned that earlier ... Thanks for over stressing the point.

java is made by sun microsystems
javascript has nothing to do with sun microsystems (read the wikipedia article, you will be educated)

Then perhaps they should have been more careful when picking a name, or maybe (just maybe) I like lumping the together because they tend to go hand in hand as a gleefully exploitable nuisance. Either way you should watch your tone if you wish your input to be accepted well.

sun buying mysql is not what you have to worry about, what you have to worry about is oracle buying sun

Wasn't aware of that, but I usually have better things to do with my time than keep track of who bought who this week. Oracle hasn't managed to annoy the crap outa me as of yet ... So I see no reason (thus far) to fear their influence. Sun on the other hand, is on my "list".

5568

General Software Discussion / Re: Tweaking IE to prevent further attacks (for now)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 03:04 PM »

First, JavaScript != Java - big difference (I'm sure you already know that, and are just being a bit imprecise in your post). AFAIK a whole bunch of exploits have been targetting vulnerable old Java JVM versions (old versions aren't removed when you upgrade to latest, and java applets can specify specific versions to bind against >_<), while this exploit is JavaScript.

-f0dder (January 16, 2010, 02:12 PM)

Right, but Java & JavaScript both = Sun ... Which is who pisses me off. Frankly I'm rather horrified that they purchased MySQL, as I'm afraid they'll screw that up too.

Yeah, ActiveX is mentioned as well; dunno if scripting in IE is implemented with ActiveX, if the exploit is mixed JavaScript/ActiveX, or if the exploit is only in JS but uses some ActiveX objects to do further work... too bad the details are so vague.

My money is on the last one, but that's admittedly due to a general mistrust/dislike of Sun. Details damnit ... we need details.

DEP is nice, yes, but there's still a few apps here and there that have issues with it - I had to turn off systemwide DEP after a while . Guess it made sense not to have it on by default in IE7, were probably too many browser plugins that were crappily written? It does seem to be 0% overhead though, which is a nice thing; and while it's not complete waterproof solution, it does indeed limit the attack vectors shellcode have.

IESpell gave me issues with IE7 & DEP, but fortunately the combo works perfectly in IE8 so I'm a happy guy. I try to avoid dependancy on plugins as I spend too much time on other people's computers... (site work) ...Ya gota know how to work with what's there. But I'm a big fan of the 80/20 rule and DEP fits that to a T.

5569

Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 02:34 PM »

I finally got the time to pull the cable for the service department so everybody is now hard wired at 100Mb

-Stoic Joker (January 16, 2010, 10:43 AM)

only 100Mb? If you took the effort required to run cabling, I hope you ran at least cat-5e

-f0dder (January 16, 2010, 01:29 PM)

Of course, but the machines came with what the machines came with, and while the backbone is Gigabit the rest of the network doesn't need to be.

How fast does HomePlug go these days? I thought they were up to around 200Mb/s, at least by specification... I wonder how fast you can go, though - probably depends not only on the quality of your power cable wiring, but also how clean voltage is supplied by your power company?

Building wiring condition/quality can be a factor, but it isn't too critical ... If building power is stable enough to keep the lights from flickering constantly and a the computers running reliably ... It's probably good enough.

Clean power isn't really that much of an issue (beyond the above obvious), as the devices communicate by (basically) creating their own "localized distortions" in the power flow.

About 8 years ago, Intellon the local company that invented powerline networking had an opening for a Network Administrator that I applied for. During the 2nd 4 hour interview I got a complete tour of the facility and was quite impressed with both the people and the pride they put into their product. During the interview, my would be boss mentioned that the bigest (speed) issue they had environmentally was bad grounding...which could easily be fixed with a screw driver. (I did not get the job, but...) I had the opportunity to verify this live when I first deployed the PowerLine connection test at the office. Precisely as I was told (during the interview) reseating/retightening the grounds in the panel cured the speed/stability encountered during the initial setup after which it remained bullet proof for the duration of the test.

5570

General Software Discussion / Re: Tweaking IE to prevent further attacks (for now)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 01:55 PM »

Hm... So we are on the same page. Odd that the OP mentions restricting ActiveX if it's supposed to be a JavaScript bugg. Java irks me on so many levels I reflexively see red every time it screws up (again...).

I've been using DEP religiously since it first appeared because it had (instantly) proven to be effective, uses 0 resources, & is idiot simple to implement (until Java VM marks all its memory as writable and blows the entire concept into the weeds).

I generally tell people if something strange happens while browsing (regardless of where):
Stop, and immediately run a check with MalwareBytes (or preferred equivalent).
do not click OK or cancel (usually both install), close stray windows with Alt+F4, or let the scanner deal with the really pesky ones.
do not (ever) reboot...because most malware depend on that reflexive behavior to set their hooks in the system.

Strangely, malware based support issues dropped by over 60% when I started giving this speech to clients.

5571

Living Room / Re: where does XP store its logs?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 01:24 PM »

I have opened event viewer and am not finding anything in there.

-techidave (January 16, 2010, 11:05 AM)

Meaning the logs are empty? or there is nothing pertaining to the crash listed? Generally when I see this type of thing it ends up being a power issue. Dead/dying battery backup, brownouts with no battery backup, or failing/overheating power supply.

If you just need a tie breaker, make sure automatic restart on error is disabled so you can see it BSOD. Then if it still reboots without a BSOD ... Its got to be a power issue.

5572

Living Room / Re: Need NAS Enclosure recommendation

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 10:43 AM »

I've had great luck with it in the past even with the old original 10-14Mb units.

-Stoic Joker (January 15, 2010, 10:32 PM)

What kind of throughput did you get?

I'm thinking of replacing the only WiFi linked computer with a pair of HomePlug units.

-4wd (January 16, 2010, 01:43 AM)

While I don't have specific numbers (it's been awhile), assuming that the building has at least half way descent wiring... You get what you pay for. Our office building was originally divided up into smaller (Boutique) shops (we have the whole complex now), so the wiring has been shall we say butchered (this was the test environment). I used 2 of the original 14Mb units to add 3 workstations in the service department. The service techs routinely accessed the server for pdf manuals (5-30MB in size) drivers, and our (rather bandwidth intensive) order tracking software (which is not exactly written well IMO) without any hiccups.

I finally got the time to pull the cable for the service department so everybody is now hard wired at 100Mb but the speed improvement (vs. usage requirement) was negligible. The owners of the company now use the units at their home as a replacement for a badly unstable WiFi solution (stucco kills WiFi every time) and they're thrilled with it.

5573

General Software Discussion / Re: Win 7 XP Mode is Hardware-Dependent

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 10:14 AM »

If it has already been posted (considering it's an awfully key detail) it's still well worth repeating.

5574

General Software Discussion / Re: Tweaking IE to prevent further attacks (for now)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 16, 2010, 10:04 AM »

Stoic Joker: still, from what I see the exploit only requires you to visit a malicious site, not to manually run any .exe, .pdf, whatever. Hack one banner server and insert the exploit... *b00m*. It's also a bit scary how many versions of IE it affects... 6->8?

-f0dder (January 16, 2010, 07:25 AM)

Well, new does imply something that was never noticed before. So if it effects v8 there's really no reason it wouldn't be backward compatible with older versions going back to when the flawed feature was originally included.

I didn't miss this comment I'm just interpreting it a bit differently (I suspect):

"It could also be possible to display specially crafted Web content using banner advertisements or other methods to deliver Web content to affected systems," Microsoft said in the statement.

That still implies to me a bit of (click the banner) culpability on the part of the user. Either way IE has many native blocks in place for which problem child plug-ins are allowed to run on a page on a case by case basis. I leave most of the multimedia flashy crap blocked by default (which makes for faster browsing), and enable it only as I deem necessary. (as example) If a site can't be navigated without flash enabled (rare but it happens) ... I assume the sites creator is an idiot and move on.

One of the things that has always annoyed me about reports like this is the succinct lack of detail on what exactly should be turned on, off, or watched for to mitigate the exposure.

5575

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 - POST YOUR MUG PHOTOS HERE

« Last post by Stoic Joker on January 15, 2010, 10:39 PM »

Not sure if that means we should "bear the mugs" or "mug the bears"? 

-Perry Mowbray (January 15, 2010, 07:15 PM)

As I recall, either one will get you arrested in at least 7 states.

Unfortunately, I took the Coffee Mug to the office...where there is no camera. But if the camera here doesn't explode I can try posting my mug later.