Recent Posts

751

ProcessTamer / Re: UAC still requires permission...

« Last post by Shades on July 11, 2017, 12:02 AM »

I apologize if my previous post did not communicate my thought in the way I intended. There were some keywords in Jakeman's posts where I reacted upon.

Software that prevents applications from hogging the CPU can be seen as a medicine that fixes the symptom, but not necessarily the cause. Around 3 weeks ago, my system started to hog the CPU excessively and it appears that the WMI service is causing this. So if you can prevent such excessive hogging by simply restarting a few Windows services (which takes about 10 seconds on this Dual Core PC) then why not try it and see if that helps in getting back the performance you expect from your hardware.

What I find weird is that the WMI service starts to freak out after any application starts to demand (slightly) more than average amounts of computational resources. ProcessTamer, ProcessLasso and similar software can help, but in my mind it is better to get rid op the cause first, before you start fixing the symptoms.

So if there is no reason to start ProcessTamer, using whatever UAC setting or not, all the better.

752

Non-Windows Software / Re: Linux File Manager With A Preview Panel and Favorites catalog

« Last post by Shades on July 10, 2017, 10:19 PM »

There is a Linux file manager: Krusader. It looks like Directory Opus 4.x did on Amiga and it works with 2 panes and looks like it can use different views per pane. It has been a year or two ago that I played with this file manager in Linux. My use of Linux is only on Server editions, where I on purpose do not install anything GUI-related, so there is no use to have Krusader installed...the only allowance I make is for Midnight Commander.   

753

ProcessTamer / Re: UAC still requires permission...

« Last post by Shades on July 10, 2017, 10:08 PM »

Regarding the hogging of the CPU:
When watching 1080p videos or listening to 320KBps MP3s, my old 2.6GHz Dual Core (4GByte RAM) clunker starts to act up. For no apparent reason I see with Process Explorer that all available computing resources are fully used up and video/audio starts to stutter. After I terminate  Foobar2000 or PotPlayer, about 60% (on average) of available resources are still being used, but now by the Windows Management Instrumentation service.

A little bit of Google research revealed that this service and the services that depend on the WMI service are actually started in the wrong order. So I created a little batch script that stops the WMI service (and dependent services and restarts these services. Sometimes I must execute it more than once, but afterwards I don't experience any stutter anymore.

So if your system is suddenly consuming a lot of computing resources, you could apply this trick instead. Although it sounds a bit silly, it works like a charm on my system and it might work on your system too.

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. NET STOP iphlpsvc
2. NET STOP UALSVC
3. NET STOP Winmgmt
4. NET START Winmgmt
5. NET START UALSVC
6. NET START iphlpsvc

Those are the names of the services that need to restart in Windows 2012. While I don't think these service names are different in Windows 7, I wouldn't be surprised if they are.

Regarding the installation location:
Whether you install software on or off the C:\ partition, as long as Windows is able to access that location, Windows as a whole and that piece of software remains working just fine.

For years my systems contain at least 4 different partitions, the 1st is only for Windows itself, the 2nd is for the programs I install, the 3rd for the data I make and/or manage and the final one is just for temporary file storage. The rationale behind this strict separation is that I take a lot of work out of the hands of the NTFS file system this way. Now it only needs to taker care of finding the ideal positions of files on each partition and afterwards the content om partitions 1 and 2 will barely change.

The file system only needs to do a little content "house-keeping" on partition 3 and the temporary files on partition 4 can easily be discarded, so those files don't matter at all. This structure keeps systems lean and mean, even after years of operation. Many on this forum and real life think I am way too extreme with this divvying up, but I see only advantages. Besides consistent speed, it also makes backing up data much easier.

Anyway, Windows will work fine. You might encounter software that "expects" certain software to be in a certain location, but that is usually software written in a way that is not according to Microsoft's guidelines. Properly written software really doesn't care where it is installed.

754

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by Shades on July 10, 2017, 09:16 AM »

Depends on whose computer you're storing them on.  This is a spurious argument facilitated by people as it distills it down to anyone's computer with any security in place, and it's just wrong.

-wraith808 (July 10, 2017, 08:08 AM)

It is not completely wrong. Besides, what type of data are you backing up and is it possible to get into legal trouble? For example: you work from home and store by accident or as an ad-hoc transfer solution, store your work on your cloud account. In my case, I would get into serious legal trouble, even for the briefest of time that work would be on any server other my own or at the customer. You better make sure something similar doesn't apply to your personal situation when you (accidentally) mix work/private stuff using any cloud solution.

Which level of security you cloud solution provides is not the issue or, for that matter, the legal team they employ to keep the data you store on their servers safe. Legal ramifications of simply "misplacing files" could be much, much more problematic than any cloud solution is worth.

Spoiler

Of course, cloud file storage solutions are no option for me, because of the unreliable power grid and as a consequence spotty internet connection (sub-station generators running out of fuel has happened several times already), make the cloud a very crappy solution here in PY. And there is latency to consider when the cloud is accessible. In the main cities of PY this is managed much better, I have no doubt, but that is not where I live.

755

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by Shades on July 09, 2017, 11:35 AM »

If your backup solution synchronizes your local content with the cloud content, then yes, your cloud files can be just as corrupt as your local ones. It depends on your detection rate (how quickly you detect any file is corrupted by virus/malware or media error) and the rate of synchronization (how often do you synchronize your local data with your cloud data).

If your backup solution uses synchronization in combination with versioning, the time constraints on detecting corrupted files is less demanding, but still very important. At least you have an earlier version to fall back upon. Of course, this is moot when you don't detect file corruption quickly enough, because your good copy of the file is still overwritten, depending on the amount of file versions your backup solution can handle.

Now, you can cover your behind a bit by using incremental backups (also known as: deltas), that way you have a (hopefully good) base copy of your backed up files and the incremental backups will only have the altered files since the previous incremental backup, all the way back to your first backed up files. An incremental backup set is usually quite fast to make and doesn't require that much storage space. However, such a backup is useless without all the previous incremental backups and the original base copy.

Now you want to use portable hard disks, so your choice of media is ok enough regarding storage capacity and writing speeds. Still, it might not be such a bad idea to have a copy of the original base copy on write-once media, such as DVD-R or DVD+R or writable BluRay discs. And store these carefully in a controlled environment off-site. The rationale is that no virus or malware can alter your base copy on these discs, because of their write once functionality.

With all of the above in mind, you must define for yourself how important the data you are backing up is to you. For very important data (for example: digitized photo's or tax returns) it could be a good idea to do all of the above. Less important files you could only cover by incremental backups, etc, etc.

This is called a backup strategy. To execute such a backup strategy takes quite a lot of work and (self-)discipline. What is worse, you also need to make sure you can retrieve your backed up data. Something you really don't want to find out when you actually need to restore files. You can test by doing full restores in a virtual machine or bare-metal system you have laying around. This can be time-consuming task too.

You could save yourself quite a bit of time by selecting a random set of files in a backup set and restore these in a VM/bare-metal PC. If successful, you can believe that the remainder of files in the backup will be restorable too. you could also generate hash codes from the files you want to backup and verify these hash codes with the hash codes generated from the files you have restored. Hash code checking is a decent enough method to use in backup solutions that are highly automatized.

Any backup strategy must cover the questions:

• how important are the backed up files to me?
• how often do I want to create backups? (real-time, hourly, daily, weekly, etc)
• where do I store my backups? (safe, off-site, cloud, etc)
• how often do I verify the created backups

When you have defined that for yourself, you also have a much better idea about which software to use (including the level of automatization). I ended up using Bacula (open source enterprise solution), which can do all of the above, but it was really dreadful to setup. Afterwards it has proven to be very reliable. It allowed me to do full backups and incremental backups of both Linux and Windows PCs at varying synchronization rates completely automatically for on-site and off-site storage on hard disks and write-once DVDs.

Personally, I don't have much faith in cloud solutions for file storage, specifically here in Paraguay. To me, the cloud is only useful for quickly ramping up computing resources when needed. Anyway, that is completely different discussion. The only reason I mention this is that the cloud is not part of my backup strategy. But I am sure you can make Bacula work with the cloud as well, if you so desire.

Having said that, Bacula has a steep learning curve, is Linux-based and requires you to install a client on a Windows PC before you can use it to backup, so it is not everyone's cup of tea. Now I haven't looked at the back-up options included with Windows since Windows Vista came out, but I remember Fred Langa's reasonably positive comments about such options in his Windows Secrets newsletter contributions.

756

Finished Programs / Re: FINISHED: Hourly chime software (like Cuckoo for Mac)

« Last post by Shades on July 08, 2017, 10:13 PM »

After a quick peek in the code, the sound is played on the hour (the interval for that function starts from 00:00)

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. next:=A_YYYY A_MM A_DD A_Hour 00 00
2. ...
3. nexthour:=next
4. nexthour+=1,Hour

The above should make that clear.


Is Winamp configured as the default player? Or not? Do you have different audio-devices installed in your computer? I ask, because there can be some (unintended) configuration confusion going on, when this is the case. And could explain the silence.

757

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Shades on July 05, 2017, 11:02 PM »

[ Invalid Attachment ]

Can You Spot The Hilarious Problem With This Wedding RSVP Card?

-Arizona Hot (July 05, 2017, 07:29 PM)

Come on, everyone knows that after the first 12 years the meat goes bad...

758

General Software Discussion / Re: Obtain a program list ordered by installation date in windows 8.1

« Last post by Shades on July 05, 2017, 08:12 PM »

The Revo Uninstaller software (v2.0) can easily show you the date of applications being installed and even sort the list applications accordingly. It also can export this list in html and txt format.

759

General Software Discussion / Re: Modern forum software: Discourse

« Last post by Shades on June 29, 2017, 09:39 PM »

My bad, I just saw a pricing page on the Discourse site and couldn't be bothered to go and look for more info (not even on the same page apparently  ). While the SMF forum software might look a bit outdated to some, I like its functionality. While I can appreciate "form over function" in some cases, I am more of a "function then form" guy.

760

General Software Discussion / Re: Modern forum software: Discourse

« Last post by Shades on June 29, 2017, 12:04 AM »

If Discourse would be applied into Donationcoder.com, would that also not be to gut the whole forum section and surrender it completely to the organization/company behind the Discourse software?

Granted, that would likely take away a load of traffic and subsequent costs. And as such it might be an option to consider. Now I have no clue about the monthly stats or costs donationcoder makes, but I assume that it is between 100k and 500k monthly page views. That would require donationcoder to pay discourse 200 US Dollars a month for their 'Business' plan. Not that cheap. 2400 US Dollar a year buys a nice hosting plan with quite some bandwidth.

So you hardly save in costs, give away the control from a big part of this site to a 3rd party and introduce an extra point of breaking serving a forum that is barely an improvement on the system you already have in place and has proven itself.

Personally, I don't find Discourse to be that nice looking. Previous posters already mention other features in the Discourse system they consider to be flaws. As I don't participate with sites that use Discourse (because it is always disabled by the uMatrix plugin from my FireFox browser) I can't really tell. Yet I gladly take their words for it.

And indeed, web applications are more often than not a (p.ss) poor substitute for a desktop application. I run my own mail server and have installed a web mail interface, but only 1 person in the company actually uses this interface and only when he is not in. I simply do not have the time to waste on the daily load of mail I need to process in any web mail client.

Now there are also good experiences with web-applications. Jira is really great for issue tracking and with all the Skype problems lately, it was pleasant to know and work with MatterMost (on-premise). Heck, I would even say that using WebMin for managing (headless) Linux servers could be seen as a good thing.

Back to the point: There is hardly and benefits in using Discourse, not cost-wise, not feature-wise and you add the disadvantage of having an extra point of failure for your website's functionality. Just for the "pretty"? Now where can I sign up for such a deal...

761

General Software Discussion / Re: Some governments simply don't give a sh**

« Last post by Shades on June 25, 2017, 10:48 PM »

Decent ISPs/domain hosters inform you a month before your domain subscription expires and becomes available to be picked up by any interested party. That is at least my experience with ISPs/domain hosters in the Netherlands and Paraguay...for more than 15 years.

So I don't know where you host your domains, but if you are bombarded by such messages, than it is possible that your hoster doesn't care much about your business or that you have registered domains that are in high demand. Either way, vote with your wallet and move your domains to a hoster that does respect your business. Moving a domain between different hosters can take up to 24 hours, depending on how quickly these changes are picked up by the (global) master DNS servers.

You are right about company names. If memory serves, Easeus was there before Eassos. Anyway, both make quite similar products, I'll admit that. PartitionGuru (Eassos) has helped out of pickles that Easeus software wouldn't. And in most cases I needed to use this type of software on computers that were not connected to the network/internet, so if either company puts out software that "phones" home, I don't care too much. PartitionGuru functions fine without such a connection.

If you want to block such software, use a managed switch or router, which allows you to setup one or more virtual LANs that are not allowed to access the internet and park the computer you want to edit with Easeus or Eassos software for the duration in such a virtual LAN. Problem solved.

Router software such as OPNsense or pfSense even allow you to configure the internet settings for each network card (or group of network cards) that connects to such a router. These routers allow a whole lot more configuration options and I am sure that you find your ideal network setup if you spend some time with either OPNsense or pfSense.

If you must know the content of the data transmitted, use software like WireShark in combination with NetworkMiner to find that out. WireShark is the vastly more powerful tool, but it comes with a steeper learning curve than NetworkMiner. Still, both allow you to capture network traffic and store this for later investigation if you wish. For boyh you must have a good understanding of how network traffic is build up (layered), because if you don't, you will quickly get lost in the mountain of info that is presented to you.

Most software is "phoning home" for one reason or another nowadays anyway and I don't think the Chinese government spies on you in worse ways than other governments do. The Chinese are just more up front with it, that is more or less the only difference. An easy remedy to prevent traffic to/from the internet is to remove the gateway setting from the computer you think runs software that phones home. Without that setting there is simply no internet traffic possible. At all.

Removing that setting (for a short period of time) hardly affects internal network traffic, so you can still work/play on your own network.

762

Living Room / Re: Stumped - can anyone help? Laptop drive issue

« Last post by Shades on June 25, 2017, 07:57 PM »

Does BartPE still exist?  With that software you could create a WindowsPE like boot-disk or pen drive, with a lot of helpful 3rd party tools already "baked" into it. Many moons ago, in the XP era, I did create such a disk and it was pretty helpful. Still, the 'HiRens Boot CD' is more powerful in getting access to data on hard disk and/or removing limitations. The Knoppix liveCD's were also very helpful to access both Linux and Windows partitions in those days. Neither of these two free boot CDs were that hard to use.

Linux has no problem reading from disks with NTFS. Writing to that filesystem could be a problem under Linux, depending on the combination of Linux and NTFS versions. Using an older version of Linux with the NTFS version from Windows 10 could cause write problems. But if both are more or less of the same period, even writing to NTFS isn't that big of a deal. Because of that I will say that if your WindowsPE disk won't do what you need it to do, by all means try a Linux based boot disk.

Limitations build into Windows are often easily circumvented by simply booting from Linux. 

763

Living Room / Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

« Last post by Shades on June 25, 2017, 07:28 PM »

Tabs...are just fake spaces. 

764

Living Room / Re: Stumped - can anyone help? Laptop drive issue

« Last post by Shades on June 24, 2017, 02:16 AM »

Not sure if it helps, but you could try to use a piece of software, called: PartitionGuru.  It comes as feature limited freeware, but it might help you to access the data of the drive when you take it out of the laptop, into a dock connected to your computer.

As you say, the drive is correctly recognized by the Windows management software, but won't allow you access. Software, such as PartitionGuru, might give you that access as it can circumvent standard Windows controls. Perhaps it could be an idea to use a linux liveCD to access the data from that docked drive. If you can't beat Windows into submission with Windows based tools, liveCD's might provide the proper (read-only) stick. It all depends on how the data access is locked.

The advantage of this is that you won't have to open the laptop in ways you are not comfortable with. Still, if you are able to clone the disk first, do so. And use the tools and skills of your choice on the cloned copy.

765

Living Room / Re: Stumped - can anyone help? Laptop drive issue

« Last post by Shades on June 23, 2017, 11:57 AM »

Is there a CD/DVD player in the laptop using a SATA connector?

If so, you can use an external (and separately powered) USB dock that allows you to connect it with a standard SATA cable. I got one of those from an U.S. embassy auction sale (a bi-annual thing here in Paraguay) and it works well.

That way you can connect 2 drives on the laptop and start cloning to have a backup.

Disadvantage is that you will likely need to open the laptop. Depending on make and model, that could be a damaging operation. With that I mean too "plasticky" laptops don't close up nicely anymore after they have been opened.

766

Living Room / Re: Slashdot asks: How Do You Prepare For The Theft Of Your PC?

« Last post by Shades on June 19, 2017, 08:50 PM »

Most computer gear will be wiped anyway. Easier to sell without incriminating evidence of a previous owner, which could be contacted by the new owner and the seller being pointed out to the police by the buyer.

The above is only true for simple "smash and grab" burglary. If you are victim of a planned out burglary, assume that info on your laptop/computer will be used against you.

A fence is not happy about police attention and without fences, thieves have a much harder time getting money for the things they steal. That is why you get much harder penalized in the Netherlands for being a fence than a thief.

Besides, it is very hard to protect any (computer) system when the criminals have physical access. Competent software that simply removes the password from a computer account is one internet search query away...

Encryption and 2-factor-authentication will make it harder for prying eyes. Harder, but not impossible. But in most cases that is way too much effort for thieves that are out for quick money, which is most of them.

Most consumer computer gear isn't that popular, as it varies too much in value given the amount of effort it takes to steal. Wallets, watches, jewelry...much less effort and very little variation in value, because that kind of stuff is hardly protected by devices that can be tracked. Makes selling it easier for the fence as well.

767

Living Room / Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

« Last post by Shades on June 18, 2017, 08:54 PM »

Consistency with indentation, no matter in which IDE/editor you open your code in, is really helpful, especially in multi-programmer projects. A tab can be set to whatever default, depending on user preference and software to edit code with. And it is easy to add an accidental tab that won't show up in one piece of software and disrupts indentation in another.

Spaces do not cause such problems in any editor/IDE in whatever (regional) language. And using spaces hardly takes up that much extra storage on disk. My anecdotal experience is that using spaces works better/consistently within whatever versioning system I have tried over time. But that can be just me.

768

Living Room / Re: Developers who use spaces make more money than those who use tabs

« Last post by Shades on June 18, 2017, 03:06 PM »

Spaces. Of course.

And each time a "tabbed" file is encountered, every tab is converted to 4 spaces (which would be the follow-up for the 'spacers' among us)!

769

General Software Discussion / Re: PDF viewer that reopens files after crash

« Last post by Shades on June 10, 2017, 10:53 PM »

Windows does keep track of most recently opened files in a list. Not sure if Windows uses MRO or MRU entries in the registry for this.

Anyway, double-clicking on the entry of the PDF document that was most recently opened, I would consider to be the universal solution. Of course, there are limits to the amount of entries in this list, so it is possible that the most recently opened PDF file is "bumped out" of this list. Which happens quickly enough if you open lots of files all the time.

Perhaps there are tools that can adjust the default limitations that Windows applies to this list. But I'm too lazy to look any of these up.

770

Living Room / Re: RESOLVED: Please help me figure out this CD

« Last post by Shades on June 09, 2017, 05:43 PM »

As this topic is tagged as resolved, but isn't closed just yet, here is my contribution for those that need searchable results in the future:

There is quite a lot of software still available that helps you with retrieval of data from damaged CD's, DVDs and BluRay disks.

• IsoBuster  - Their freeware version is one I have used often myself and was very helpful to me, especially after I got a DVD burner from the Netherlands here. Much better device than any of the brands you can get here in Paraguay.
• Roadkil’s Unstoppable Copier  - this one I am familiar with, and would come in handy for retrieval jobs that I could run overnight.
• CD Recovery Toolbox  - Result of a Google search.
• IsoPuzzle  - Result of a Google search.
• CDCheck  - Result of a Google search.
• Dead Disk Doctor  - Result of a Google search.
• Recover Disc  - Result of a Google search.
• Force Copy Beta  - Result of a Google search.
• Copy Cat 3.0  - Result of a Google search.
• AnyReader  - Result of a Google search.
• CD Roller  - Result of a Google search.

Most of these are shareware tools and allow use of a subset from their features after their trail-period ends. But there are some (linked to) freeware items as well.

771

Living Room / Re: Why Running May Be Good for Your Back

« Last post by Shades on June 09, 2017, 12:59 AM »

I was always told (in the military) that traing your abdomen is also a good way to prevent all kinds of back pains. This, because the muscles in the abdomen can then take over from sore muscles in the back. From that point of view, it wouldn't be too big a jump that those front muscles also keep discs further apart and relieve that type of pain.

Sit-ups (done properly!) is usually the easiest accessible method, but if you have the option, take up swimming in Olympic size (or half-sized) swimming pools. Or much smaller swimming pools which have a system in place that generates a variable current. The same concept as a treadmill for running.

Swimming is good as it provides a full body workout, but without the impact on the joints you use for running. Your buoyancy relieves much stress on painful joints and Swimming builds up muscles, which relieve pain even more. 100 Meters swimming should compare to a brisk walk of 2 kilometers or 5 kilometers of cycling at normal speeds. In a pool of sufficient size it hardly matters if you "cheat" by using your legs to push you off.

I have met lots of competition swimmers and water polo players. None of them complained of back pains and even in later stages of life, most were able to keep up their youthful physique. Just saying that swimming is a good way to keep the whole body in shape, without putting stress on your joints.

772

General Software Discussion / Re: Intelligent Time Zone display (online or local)

« Last post by Shades on June 08, 2017, 03:16 PM »

http://everytimezone.com/
https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/
http://www.timezoneconverter.com/index.php
http://www.worldtimezone.com

Perhaps the links above provide what you seek.

For completion's sake:
http://www.timetemperature.com
http://time.gov/

773

General Software Discussion / Re: Intelligent Time Zone display (online or local)

« Last post by Shades on June 07, 2017, 09:04 PM »

Edit:  you already mentioned the website I always use   

774

ProcessTamer / Re: when Explicit Rule set to Force Low, application still running at 90% cpu...

« Last post by Shades on June 07, 2017, 12:21 AM »

Since I have ProcessLasso installed, my computer remains quite usable during video-encoding. For my video-encoding tasks I use VidCoder (a Handbrake fork with an easier interface). And I must say that it a quite well-behaved video-encoder, because if you would start other tasks, the resource consumption from VidCoder would reduce and allow those other tasks to be executed without too much of a hassle.

A few days ago, there was an offer to get ProcessLasso Pro v9.0 for free, so I installed it again and usability did improve more.

Perhaps it would be an option for you to use a more well-behaved video-encoder and in combination with your BES installation you have a (much) more usable system too.

My video encoding tasks usually entail ripping my DVDs with the x265 (HEVC) encoding format or re-encoding previously ripped x264 content in case the DVD became unreadable in the mean time. VidCoder does an excellent job in both use-cases.     

775

General Software Discussion / Re: Still using Chrome? Enjoy being watched.

« Last post by Shades on June 02, 2017, 10:38 AM »

And with the popularity of BYOD the two can get crossed up really fast. i.e. Why did the NSA ban Hasbro furbies from their offices? (same reason..)

-Stoic Joker (June 01, 2017, 06:52 AM)

Whenever I see a furby, I think "target practice". As I was in the military, when those things were popular in the Netherlands and our instructor provided a set of those for us at the gun range from our base.