Recent Posts

651

General Software Discussion / Re: any bug tracking tool suggested?

« Last post by Shades on February 24, 2018, 01:54 PM »

You want (or need) to host the solution yourself or not?

While not free or open source, I heartily recommend Jira. The other projects mentioned by wraith808 are very good and mature issue-trackers, but the interface and manageability of Jira is awesome. They have a cheap plan of 10 USD/month for a max of 10 users and prices go down if you need to add more people. There is also their solution that you can host on your own hardware.

In any case, Jira is already very feature complete and if you put in the time, you can manage every aspect of the workflow you like or need. And if things are still missing, you can make your own plugin(s) or get one from their shop. Which is mainly filled with plug-ins that other 3rd-party companies have made and they offer these either freely or with a commercial license.

Jira is a product from the Atlassian company and integrates very well with other Atlassian products. Been using Jira (self-hosted) for more than 10 years already and it is really an excellent tool for keeping track of issues, it integrates very well with 3rd party version tracking of files out-of-the-box, keeps track of time spent on issues, generating reports, graphical overviews and lots more. Never had one inkling of using anything else since.

Atlassian software, that truly is money well spent. No affiliation, besides being a happy user.

652

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: StackNotes

« Last post by Shades on February 23, 2018, 07:55 PM »

I plan to add a "mail" plugin (either to send a note or a complete padfile) using BLAT CLI; i have the prototype for this, i just need to adapt the code.

-YannickDa (February 23, 2018, 04:09 PM)

Just as a side note: I have always encountered issues when trying to use BLAT within a CLI environment. Then I found an alternative in CMail. This worked beautifully from the get-go. If you can get Blat to work for you, good. But if not, you don't have to spend a lot of time looking for a more than excellent alternative. 

653

Living Room / Re: Peculiar windows problem

« Last post by Shades on February 14, 2018, 04:37 PM »

Clone the current hard disk onto another one. Remove the current drive and put the cloned drive into the PC. If all went well, your system should boot up without any issues. Windows usually doesn't complain if the only hardware change in the whole computer is the hard disk.

The problematic drive can now be coupled to another PC that uses the tool MHDD for a really thorough check. This check can take hours, depending on the storage capacity of the disk, but you will have a much better understanding of what is wrong on your disk and where (on the surface(s)) these occur.

If these errors occur close to the beginning of the disk or at the end, you can use the MHDD tool to re-adjust the size of the disk, so it will be impossible for any operating system to access such a bad section ever again. The reduced disk can likely be re-used this way. Still, if you reduce the capacity of the disk, you will lose all the content of that disk, yes or yes.

CHKDSK is a tool that makes Windows work with a bad disk. CHKDSK manages/repairs content that has been malformed or misplaced, mainly by misused computers. That part of the concept "disk repair" CHKDSK does well. However, when the hard disk itself has actual issues, CHKDSK doesn't do so well. In those cases you'd better use proper tools like MHDD to investigate and optionally manage the problems on the disk. MHDD has a steep learning curve and can be dangerous in untrained hands.   

654

N.A.N.Y. 2018 / Re: NANY 2018: Clicador- A simple and fast free auto clicker

« Last post by Shades on February 12, 2018, 06:19 PM »

That can be your NANY 2019 entry.. NANY 2018 is over.

-mouser (February 12, 2018, 12:59 PM)

Ok I misunderstood the time frame.

Please delete this entry.

-hugo nabais (February 12, 2018, 01:01 PM)

To my understanding, the person creating the thread can also change the title of the thread any given moment. Removing the thread because of a minor change from 2018 to 2019 should not be necessary.

655

General Software Discussion / Re: How can i get a 'Desktop ALERT' to pop up, when i have New email in Outlook Exp6

« Last post by Shades on February 10, 2018, 08:48 AM »

How about a separate/external mail checker?  It should notify you of new messages and open your default mail client once you click on the pop-up.

And if that one doesn't do what you want, here is a collection of alternatives.


* Edit:  I really should read the whole thread, A suggestion, similar to mine was already given. I didn't remove my post because of the alternatives. *

656

Developer's Corner / Re: The Faery Tale Adventure: A personal history of making a video game

« Last post by Shades on February 06, 2018, 10:12 AM »

A friend of mine was totally into that game at the time it came out for his Amiga. He even spent weeks making a huge hand drawn map (to scale) from the terrain/island the game played on. 

657

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Shades on February 06, 2018, 09:14 AM »

In my network with a dedicated router (& firewall) PC, a few switches and a total of 45 PC's (Linux, Windows and FreeBSD, 70% is bare metal, the remainder is virtual) there is no problem hooking up PC's for LAN gaming. or anything else for that matter. 

Was it an old(er) game that you were using for the LAN gaming? I remember old(er) games having options for LAN gaming, using a serial connection, by using IPX/SPX and also the TCP/IP protocol. There are ways to transfer IPX traffic over the TCP/IP protocol, but that is all from yesteryear. Still, by using HomeGroup, you might have enabled the IPX traffic to travel over TCP/IP. On the other hand, new(er) games only use TCP/IP anymore.

Homegroup has always been disabled in my network, Onedrive file sharing implies the cloud, which for most is not their own LAN, which makes it practically forbidden in my network. Windows (10) file sharing wizards aren't needed or used either. Linux PCs communicate just fine using Samba. Network printing and scanning, it all working pretty much out of the box. Are you sure your network is configured ok? No double NAT going on anywhere?

To do networking well, it requires a fair amount of studying. It is an interesting field in the world of computing and if you choose to become a network specialist, you can (usually) make very nice sums of money.

Be that as it may, most people can't or won't spent time on networking basics and rely on wizards and automated systems like HomeGroup to do the work for them. It is my personal (and perhaps not so humble) opinion that you shouldn't rely on these automatic systems and figure it out for yourself. Yes, it is a headache in the short run, but you'll benefit from it later.

658

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Shades on February 05, 2018, 06:31 PM »

It sounds like the last option, yet to my understanding I do not have 2FA activated. And I didn't get 2FA-like messages after re-approving my set of 3 devices. As I am not into the cloud, there is only a small amount of re-approving, so it didn't take too much of my time, but long enough to boil up a rant.

But for someone who has a lot of devices registered, that would become a major pain in the neck. Not that the manner is wrong, I can see some sense in that when you enable 2FA, it might be best to start all over with the administration of the devices. Still, I think the programmer(s) made it easy for themselves by just offering their favorite option, and not a more common sense option with per device enable/disable 2FA...as most more advanced users have been accustomed to for years in Windows, Linux and Mac.

The kids at Google seem to apply the concept of "lazy loading" to "lazy coding" (yes, these are not the same, but somehow it sounds right).

659

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Shades on February 04, 2018, 09:29 AM »

another new development is rising on the Windows 10 front....

http://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/151582/exclusive-windows-10-s-dead-long-live-s-mode

What would the S stand for?
Simple?
Simpleton?
Scandal?
Scoundrel?
Segregated?
"Special"?
Stupid?
Stinker?
Skool? (tibe error made on purpose)
Semi-functional?
Silly?
Sad?
Shoddy?
Shifty?
Shady?
Sinful?
Sorry?
Sorrow?
Suffer?
Sickening?
Somber?
Substandard?
Synthetic?
Slumped?
Startling?
Stirring?
Spanking?

If you managed to read this far, you will have grokked by now that I'm not a fan.

660

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Shades on February 04, 2018, 08:49 AM »

Sort-of off-topic:
wonder if successful would we get windows phones again (I like mine but the lack of apps can be a pain)

-tomos (February 04, 2018, 04:58 AM)

Here is to hoping. After being exposed to Android for a while now, I would be more than happy to get a new Windows phone again.

[rant]
Really, some UI steps that Google puts into Android are an abomination. And is it really that difficult for Google to remove 1 device from your list of approved devices? Instead you must eliminate all devices and re-register each device one by one....ff-ing amazing job, Google! I wonder how many people are bothered enough to do this. But it would be a safe assumption to state that most people just say: 'F... this' and don't do anything. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of your "security".

Seriously, the person(s) who thought this to be a good UI design, deserve to be taken behind the shed (and their final thought to be: "Aha, so that is how a functional UI works on the device that is putting this bullet in my head").

[/rant]

661

General Software Discussion / Re: WSUS Offline Update 11.1.1 not downloading Updates for Win7?

« Last post by Shades on February 03, 2018, 05:11 AM »

Have you tried to remove all updates/patches/downloads that are linked to sysinternals and retry? All the tools on the SysInternals website are also available as separate downloads, but also as one whole zipped archive. Then it is called: SysInternals Suite  and this 23MByte download (give or take) shouldn't be a problem, even for bandwidth starved types of internet connection anywhere in the world.

Personally, I always download the suite whenever there is a new version of it, because I deem this software to be essential on any Windows installation. As far as I know, any of the software from SysInternals is updated irregularly, so you don't need to redownload the same tools over and over whenever you decide to use WSUS.

When taking a look at your screenshot, it appears that the WSUS software is not able to download directly from the sysinternals website. Whether that is a configuration problem on their end or on yours, is not that clear. Not to be offensive or anything, but it is more likely that the configuration mistake occurs on your end.

Please take into account that it won't be long anymore before Microsoft pulls the support plug on Windows 7 very soon, meaning that Microsoft completely stops making any patch/update/download for Windows 7. Microsoft really wants you to migrate to Windows 10 and without any type of support for Windows 7, you probably should...from a security standpoint, at least. Then there is the debate about (lack of) privacy with Windows 10...but that is a different can of worms...and there appears to be no end to that supply of cans in the future.

Anyway, after support for Windows 7 stops, your problems with Windows 7 updates through WSUS will automatically stop too. You might consider that the proverbial 'silver lining'. 

662

Official Announcements / Re: New DonationCoder, New Ideas

« Last post by Shades on January 22, 2018, 07:52 PM »

That is always the problem...finding the topic you want to write about. even on a weekly basis that can give you a lot of stress already.

Many, many moons ago, I got a job as writer of daily articles for an internet portal. Got that because the people in charge liked the game reviews I wrote for them (when not working my day job in the Army). When my contract was up, they asked if could start immediately at their company. Writing at your own pace about things you like, that isn't difficult or a burden.

Dailies about things you like and don't like, that is whole different ballgame, though. Wasn't fun for me...and I ended up going back to game reviews and articles about computer-related subjects & news. Won't do dailies again, even if there was a salary in it for me.

A suggestion that might be fun to work on and read about: What if DC would copy the concept of xlcd's 'What if..." column? A person asks a question and the creator of xlcd will go through lengths to answer it in a fun/technical/entertaining way.

Having a pool of writers to choose from, that might result in interesting reads and the writer tasked with a specific question can have or take the time he/she needs to dig in and produce a nice article. Mouser then can place whichever articles he wants whenever it pleases him. Less stress on the writers and Mouser. Just a thought.

663

General Software Discussion / Re: Can I make a Live Win XP USB.

« Last post by Shades on January 19, 2018, 05:54 PM »

BartPE...that used to be the tool to create a bootable Windows XP CD/DVD. Done that myself in a distant past.

Links:
http://ask-leo.com/h...cd_using_bartpe.html
http://www.instantfu...dows-xp-live-cd.html

Even a youtube video:  https://www.youtube..../watch?v=78gKzcuq-dw

There was an alternative tool, WinBuilder, that was supposed to be able to do the same. Never tried it myself, so ymmv.

Link:
http://www.intowindo...e-live-xp-cd-how-to/

That should get you underway.

664

Living Room / Re: Looking for Data Recovery Service

« Last post by Shades on January 17, 2018, 06:33 PM »

Me neither. Maybe you think it to be silly, but did you try standard disk imaging software (to clone the disk bit by bit onto a new drive) with the portable hard disk in upside down position?

I have seen that silliness work on 2 different occasions, quite some years back now. Once in a company I worked at and once in a PIII computer I owned.

665

Official Announcements / Re: Server having trouble sending email to hotmail and att addresses - Jan 16, 2018

« Last post by Shades on January 17, 2018, 06:26 PM »

Take a look at website: www.mxtoolbox.com

It shows you on how many different blacklists this domain is registered on. Use the links from their overview to request being removed from each blacklist (separately, I'm afraid). The free version verifies your domain against 30 or so blacklists. If you pay, that list becomes much longer.

Found that website to be very helpful when problems arose with my own mail server.

666

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 free upgrade loophole closing in December

« Last post by Shades on January 14, 2018, 07:32 PM »

Weird. Now I'm not denying you experience the problems you experience, but it is the first time I heard of it and I have been using Windows 7, XP, 8.1 and Server 2012 machines to connect through VPN to RDP to Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Server 2008 and Server 2012 machines for hours and hours on end, without any issues of any kind. And yes, that includes even sessions where I VPN/RDP to one system to another system in another network on a different location and then need to use Citrix to access yet another computer in another location. A mish-mash of connections that I sometimes have to go through, because of a legal minefield that do not allow me access directly.

But no crapping out of RDP through VPN in any combination.

667

Living Room / Re: Laptop monitor screen to box pc via cables?

« Last post by Shades on January 11, 2018, 07:27 AM »

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Convert-a-Laptop-LCD-into-an-External-Monit/

That shows you in general what you need to do to turn a laptop LCD screen into a monitor that you can use with a desktop or other laptop. It isn't easy and not cheaper than buying a new one.

668

Living Room / Re: bicycling suddenly a British speciality?!

« Last post by Shades on January 10, 2018, 09:31 AM »

That video is old news. Several cyclists have cut their sporting career short when they applied this concept to their bike(s). And rightfully so. Still, the idea and execution is excellent, but not for sports. The consumer market would benefit greatly from this concept. And likely much more money to be made. As I am Dutch and grew up using bicycles a lot, I would even consider using such a bike here in Paraguay. Traffic can be very problematic here and a commute that lasts 20 minutes without traffic can easily take a1 to 1.5 hour with traffic.

With such a bike traffic wouldn't be any problem anymore, I would get (more) exercise than I do now and I won't be sweaty all over after using the bike. With the amount of sun hours here in this country, I think iit is possible to charge it using solar energy alone, during work hours. The model of bike that is used in the video above, I wouldn't use. A city bike would make much more sense, as you can easily pick up your daily groceries too. Without wasting time finding a spot for your vehicle and hoping no-one else dents your car. I see only advantages with this concept. Bicycles that have a way to assist their user have a few things in common. They are all very ugly to look at and it is easy to steal the parts providing the assistance. Hence you pay a lot for insurance of such a bike. All of that is gone with this concept.

669

Living Room / Re: Happy New Year 2018 - Share new years resolutions or best practices?

« Last post by Shades on January 03, 2018, 08:17 PM »

I didn't peg him for being a hack, but you had to chisel away that layer of veneer...

-Shades (January 03, 2018, 11:26 AM)

just what is it you're implying?

-Target (January 03, 2018, 04:13 PM)

That your actions not always appear above board?

670

Living Room / Re: Happy New Year 2018 - Share new years resolutions or best practices?

« Last post by Shades on January 03, 2018, 11:26 AM »

that sure wood screw things up a bit, and if it wasn't for you we miter got away with it!

-Target (January 01, 2018, 11:17 PM)

The jig's up! You're a bit of a hack but I'm sure you'll be coping… in some crummy joint.

-cranioscopical (January 02, 2018, 01:29 PM)

I didn't peg him for being a hack, but you had to chisell away that layer of veneer...

671

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Shades on January 02, 2018, 10:18 PM »

Does anyone here use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)?

-Arizona Hot (January 02, 2018, 04:45 PM)

Not me. Currently I manage 8 (non-virtual) Linux servers, 1 FreeBSD server and 3 Windows servers (and at least 20 Windows workstations and a set of MacBook Pro machines). One of the Windows servers I use as daily driver and I use Putty and/or SmarTTY on Windows to manage the non-Windows machines.  If I have a task for a Linux machine, I'll use a Linux machine to do it with.

WSL has no other real use than for a developer who wants to keep all his/her development on one single machine. Nothing wrong with that, but I like to use the PC's I have at my disposal to do stuff. Because one machine is doing one thing, another computer can be instructed to do other/different stuff. I like to think I am more effective that way.

Still, if WSL works for you, then great. To me it is a solution in search of a problem.

Virtual Desktops are also mentioned in the Quora question. VDs can be used effectively if you only have one screen at your disposal. But once I got a second monitor, I never looked back at VDs. Not even once. Swapping between VDs can and will break your concentration. And you will always encounter one tool missing in your currently open VD and if you need to swap between VDs because of that...meh, the second monitor made me much more productive. Again, that is something I like to think. Never actually measured this.

672

Living Room / Re: Happy New Year 2018 - Share new years resolutions or best practices?

« Last post by Shades on January 01, 2018, 08:28 PM »

And the year is off to a plane start already...

673

Living Room / Re: Happy New Year 2018 - Share new years resolutions or best practices?

« Last post by Shades on January 01, 2018, 07:35 PM »

And all together, they can form a band saw...

674

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android: (Wired) File Transfers from PC

« Last post by Shades on December 19, 2017, 09:07 AM »

Desktop computers are usually not equipped with a wireless networking card. BlueTooth is also not a given on a desktop. And both of these connections are very slow when compared with transfer speeds accomplished by a cable. A cable already being used to slow-charge the battery in your phone. While writing this down, I realized that the smartphone I currently have been using for 7 months or so, has never been charged with the original phone charger, but with the exact same cable that has been charging my Lumia (still came branded as a Nokia) for four years.

There is no doubt in my mind that Wireless transfer is deemed more popular with the general populace, but when people would take the time to measure transfer speeds between a cable and wireless, they would favor a cabled connection. Then there is the bonus of the battery being charged as well. It takes about 2 hours to get my phone from 20% charge to fully charged.

Since my desktop has 8 USB ports readily available, I don't mind sacrificing one to have my USB transfer/charging cable permanently attached. In about 2 seconds or less my Android  6.0 phone is connected by USB and in my case the phone is configured to act as a standard pen drive after being connected this way. It might take just as long to set up a wireless connection between devices through a wireless connection, but that will drain your battery and takes longer.

WiFi is just a (and definitively not THE) solution for people that don't want to see a cable.

675

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Explorer crashing

« Last post by Shades on December 10, 2017, 06:17 PM »

Personally, I divide the storage space of my hard disks up in partitions. In my anecdotal experience, Windows doesn't do much adjusting of file/folder rights (also known as ACL) on partitions that are not the C:\ partition. I always yank user related data from the partition where Windows is installed and put those on a different partition. I also make partitions for generic data storage and even one dedicated to Temp/TMP files.

Never have I experienced ACL changes in these partitions after updates. Honesty demands that I never looked for such changes, but if everything remains working like it is configured, there has not been a real reason to do such research. Resetting my default software for specific file extensions, that does happen and is really not appreciated.

From your description I gather that things go bad after explorer.exe tries to access functionality encapsulated in file: ntdll.dll. Perhaps it might be a good idea to make a hash from a known good copy of the exact same version of that specific file and compare that hash with the hash from that file on the computer where you encounter this error.

If those do not match, that file has been compromised. Can be damage, can be that explorer.exe runs out of allotted waiting time for that specific functionality it needs from ntdll.dll, it can be lots of things. Even if they match, that file can be compromised by a bad/(too slow) block on the hard disk itself.

For that last scenario I even have an example of what happened to me not one week ago. While making backups from an Oracle database server (on Windows), I suddenly get a BSOD. After that, the database wouldn't start at all anymore. Reading out S.M.A.R.T. data from the hard disk causing the problem, no problem whatsoever. Looking at the Oracle logs, I see ORA-03113 errors appear (related to file I/O errors). Doing a complete CHKDSK (command-line version) on the offending hard disk, again no problem detected. Still, Oracle keeps complaining. It wouldn't even allow me to purge content from certain files, which is the common resolution for this problem.

In the end I cloned the hard disk bit for bit onto a brand new hard disk, then Oracle did allow me to purge these files and the database runs fine again. Further investigation on the offending hard disk (which was deemed in excellent health by S.M.A.R.T. and Windows itself) revealed that the blocks where these files actually reside on the hard disk had an access time greater than 500 milliseconds. While in essence nothing was wrong according to Windows and S.M.A.R.T., I still ended up with an useless database (located on a 3 year old hard disk).

Something similar might be happening on your system too. If your Windows installation even allows it, you could try to make a copy of the ntdll.dll file in the same folder where you find it. You might be able to rename the original 'ntdll.dll' to 'ntdll.org.dll' and rename the copied file back to 'ntdll.dll'. That way the file has relocated to a different and hopefully good functioning part of your hard disk. If you can now go through your reproduction steps without a problem, you have (temporarily) fixed your problem. I still would consider buying a new hard disk ASAP, clone your old disk onto the new disk and re-purpose the old disk for keeping non-essential data.