Recent Posts

801

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Script type to build an email body line by line

« Last post by Shades on March 10, 2017, 09:07 AM »

Just make sure that when you decide to drop the whole RTF thing and make an HTML-based mail body, you keep the HTML layout as simple as possible. Forgo the use of CSS as much as you can, because if you think browsers on computers, tablets and/or smartphones can suck, you haven't had the "pleasure" of making HTML content look the same in mail clients.

Better use simple HTML v4.0 stuff.  The above isn't valid if you just create a file only with a set of links...but once that list gets spread around, there will soon be someone telling you to make something look visually pleasing, add the company logo, etc., etc. You'd think you had a headache till now?

I need to transport builds of from different versions of our software and was asked to make a dynamically generated mail message with logo, layout and all...in batch and send it (to be in line with the rest of the procedure). Serious levels of frustration getting things to look the same on multiple mail clients, browsers and devices, I now get completely why people use mail-list companies and their software to send visually pleasing mail messages.

For the sending part, I tried Blat, but had more success with CMail. Ah well, both are freeware.

802

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool that immediately shows boot time problems?

« Last post by Shades on March 09, 2017, 10:24 AM »

I remembered.   but also managed to find the wrong site to link to.    It all evens out, I guess...

803

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool that immediately shows boot time problems?

« Last post by Shades on March 09, 2017, 08:14 AM »

Apologies, I think I linked to the wrong website 

Here is a link (MajorGeeks) where you can download the Soluto installer.

804

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool that immediately shows boot time problems?

« Last post by Shades on March 09, 2017, 07:58 AM »

IainB was talking about the tool: Soluto (MajorGeeks)

This tool shows you exactly how long each part and/or program in the boot procedure took...and where you can make the most gains. Pay attention to programs in the boot process which require access to internet to function. If there is VPN software installed, virtualization software installed or both, the Windows system registers multiple network cards with which it can work. Thing is that these network cards are accessed in order of priority, not all at once.

It could be useful to change the order of priority, because most network traffic uses the TCP protocol for the actual communication. This is an old protocol, which can wait for a maximum of 30 seconds before it assumes a network connection is bad. During that waiting period, the rest of Windows is waiting too. This TCP waiting period cannot be adjusted using the GUI in Windows, Microsoft has never made it part of any configuration setting anywhere in any version of Windows.

Only in the registry it can be adjusted, but is not advised to do so, unless you really know what you are doing. In any case, if the order of priority is set in such a way that only the last network card is able to create a working connection during boot, the TCP protocol can introduce long wait times in the boot procedure. If there are more than one piece of software that requires internet access during boot, TCP will introduce the same waiting period each time.

A tool like Soluto will give you a much better idea of where to look for solving long boot times.

Edit:
An alternative to soluto: BootRacer (free for non-commercial purposes)

When you cleared up the boot mess, it is likely helpful to put up software that lets the owner of the system know when new installed software makes its way into the boot procedure again.
Tools like WinPatrol, Sterjo Startup Patrol or SpyBot Search 'n Destroy can help with that.

Edit 2:
Adjuste the Soluto link.

805

Living Room / Re: The joy of seeing a first time forum poster

« Last post by Shades on March 08, 2017, 07:53 PM »

@6DecadesOld:

...I'll bet that is actually a "W" slightly tilted on the left side, right? 
___________________

-6DecadesOld (March 08, 2017, 04:25 AM)

From my perspective, I think the answer to your question might depend on how many shots of whisky one has had.

-IainB (March 08, 2017, 06:17 PM)

Or how you fell from the bar stool... 

806

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool that immediately shows boot time problems?

« Last post by Shades on March 08, 2017, 07:47 PM »

Although software is the most likely cause of the boot problems, a dying hard disk can seriously p.op the party, no matter if its content is regularly defragged. Heck, the controller chip that enables the hard disk to communicate with the rest of the hardware can also be failing.

Investigating boot problems with AutoRuns is a very good idea. From the same company you can also get a tool, called: Process Explorer. With that you can see which all processes that are currently running...in a more extensive way than the standard Windows Task Manager does. This software also shows you how much I/O (Input/Output) that system has to process. There is cause for worry when the system isn't doing much and I/O remains high. I/O is one of the main causes of a computer being slow.

The other main cause of slowing a computer is a high value at the 'Interrupts' section of Process Explorer when the computer isn't doing anything. That is a clear sign the hardware starts to "fight" for attention of the CPU, literally bogging everything down. You notice this already in normal operation of the system, and even more so during boot.

The tools AutoRuns and Process Explorer are free, do not require to be installed and are part of of a suite of tools (also free) with a lot more gems inside.

807

Living Room / Re: myactivity.google

« Last post by Shades on March 07, 2017, 11:06 PM »

You don't run a firewall on your Android devices?

Anything that I'm sure doesn't require net access to function doesn't get it - this includes a clock.

-4wd (March 07, 2017, 10:14 PM)

NTP is a good reason for a clock to access the internet...is it not?  But I agree on the general gist.

808

Living Room / Re: Hidden Netflix Marathon Gems to Watch Online

« Last post by Shades on March 06, 2017, 08:37 PM »

Season 2 of 'Stranger Things' is already in the making/on the editing table... 

809

General Software Discussion / Re: alternative bullet-proof ways to print over home (or remote) puters

« Last post by Shades on March 06, 2017, 07:44 PM »

What type of printer is it? Professional printers either come with their own network card included or have a space inside their case to add a networking device.
Nothing but rock-solid experiences here.

It is more likely you have a consumer model printer or maybe a pro-sumer model.
Especially when you share those printers over a Workgroup type of (Windows) network, printing is more often than not flaky on any machine, beside the machine that actually connects to the printer.

Even so, there are some things you can do to make it more stable. It sounds a bit counter-productive, but please bear with me.

In my case I have a simple Samsung Laser printer that I have shared on a LAN with 20 machines. The printer is connected to a Windows Server 2008 R2 machine. My machine runs on Windows Server 2012 R2 and my machine has never any problem with printing through the LAN. First thing I do is to creating a credential to a standard non-admin account on that Win 2008 machine, but I do this in the 'Credential Manager', which you can find in Control Panel. If you are on Windows 7, I believe it is called Credential Vault or something like that.

First I create an entry in there with the IP number of the Win 2008 machine (+ login name/password), then another entry but now with the name of the Win2008 machine. Then I make sure that the printer isn't configured on the Win2012 machine. I also make sure that the Win2012 machine didn't connect for a long time to the Win2008 machine or a full reboot to make sure no existing connection between these two machines exist. Note: you need to repeat this for any user account separately.

Now I open Windows Explorer on the Win2012 machine and access the Win2008 machine using its IP like so:   \\(IP number)   
In Windows Explorer I see next to folder shares also the printer icon. After I right-click on that icon, I get a menu where either the option 'Connect' or 'Connect to this printer' appears. I left-click on that option and a screen opens that tells me it installs the printer drivers and after a few seconds the printer is ready for use.

Writing the above took longer than the actual actions you need to take. People always use the 'Add printer' in the 'Devices and Printers' panel and always keep coming to me asking if I can print something, because it isn't working (anymore) on their system...again! You shouldn't. I stopped caring about this a long time ago, if they don't want to learn, you earned all the printing misery you get.

Any computer on your network has to resolve the other machine names in your LAN network. However, if you have a DHCP server configured in such a way that any machine gets the same IP address no matter where it is located, it is faster and less error prone to skip the name resolving and directly go to the IP address of the machine that shares the printer. Guess what...printing becomes a much more solid experience.

If you can't be arsed to look up the IP number, you can still fall back to using the machine name (and let Windows resolve things) in Windows Explorer and connect to the printer that way. Now printing becomes a solid experience.

Long story short:
Don't fill in the required credentials when Windows Explorer, but instead use the Credential Manager from Windows to configure connections (printing or other wise) to any machine in your LAN. And don't use the 'Add printer' option, but connect to the printer just like you do with any network share.

Of course, there is also software like this...

810

Post New Requests Here / Re: Help to install a java script or similar CRGREP

« Last post by Shades on March 05, 2017, 08:18 PM »

Sometimes it is possible to use Java-based applications when you simply copy the java executables (with their standard folder structure!) in a folder acceptable by the Java-based application.

Oracle SQL Developer and DataStax DevCenter (Cassandra/NoSQL) are good examples. When Java isn't installed on your system and you run these software applications, an error message screen tells you that the java executable cannot be found and tells you also the folders where it looks for the Java executables. If you simply download the Java version that you need (JRE = Java Runtime Environment / JDK = Java Development Kit) and extract it (NOT install!!!) into one of the folders suggested by the software, you have a fully working application without the need to install Java.

The above can also be handy if you need a very specific Java version installed for one application and a different Java version for another application. Find out which application is able to run without Java installed and extract the required Java version in one of its acceptable folders and run the software at least once (to set all the paths correctly for that particular Java-based application). Then install the Java version for the other application and you should be able to use each Java-based application with their corresponding Java version. Of course, if both applications can run without having Java installed, then don't install Java at all.

With Java applications it is very common that you need a very specific version of Java and you cannot deviate (much) before it (seriously) affects the Java-based application. This is why working with Java-based applications can be complicated, do you update and risk the application not function anymore as you expect (best case scenario) or not at all (worst case scenario)?

A setup like explained above requires that you yourself need to keep an eye out for Java and/or application updates. This is also why I don't like Java-based applications. Dependency-hell (all over again)...

811

Living Room / Re: The Keybase Filesystem

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

The reason I mentioned ports being blocked, I now have the same problem as you do. And the only thing that happened between a working keybase system and the current situation is a power failure. I leave that system running at night as it performing a time-consuming task, but in the morning I found it was off. Rebooting the PC wasn't a problem, but it looks like it isn't able to log into keybase. After I checked back in 15-20 minutes or so, the loading screen was gone.

Trying to login again using the tray icon results in the same loading screen, which takes the same amount of time to disappear again.

This is what the keybase application log looks like on my system:


And these entries look more like connection problems to me.

812

Living Room / Re: The Keybase Filesystem

« Last post by Shades on March 04, 2017, 07:13 AM »

Assuming that Keybase is showing you the loading screen while it tries to establish the connection in the background...perhaps the train of thought is too simple, but did you install something lately that might conflict with the port Keybase uses to establish the connection?

For example: if I want to start a test web server on my Windows machine, I need to kill Skype first, because it hogs either port 80 or port 443. After the test server started up, I can start Skype back up again and both tools work without any problems.

Something similar could happen on your system.

813

Living Room / Re: The Keybase Filesystem

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

How are those keys generated in keybase?  It could be the case that such keys can be regenerated if the persons behind keybase use the unique values that occur in your system, such as the code of how the HD registers itself in Windows (not type/model number, it is quite a long and unique code), MAC address(es) of your NIC(s), user account that is used for installation, your keybase username/password etc. 

All of those are indicators that you are still you and you are using the same system, so the base of trust is still there. With that in mind I can imagine keys could be regenerated. Though it would be better that you ask the people behind keybase if keys can be regenerated. Or perhaps their FAQ will tell you.

Myself, I am a proponent of wiping everything clean when removing software using Revo. Usually, the bigger the name of the software suite you want to remove, the amount of registry entries and files they leave behind is bigger too. That Oracle XE story, Revo removed over 100 file and entries. Adobe and MS Office are also messy.

After seeing that I began to use and appreciate portable software so much more...

814

Living Room / Re: The Keybase Filesystem

« Last post by Shades on March 03, 2017, 05:43 AM »

No problems here with auto-update here either (Win 10). After reading the GitHub thread, how do you uninstall? While a lot of software does uninstall itself relatively well, most software doesn't, even when using the 'Programs and Features' in the control panel.

Seriously, use a tool like Revo Uninstaller Pro (free an commercial license available, can be used as a portable app) or similar software and see for yourself how badly most software uninstalls itself. I started to use this type of software after unsuccessfully trying to re-install Oracle (XE) software for hours. One time uninstalling it with Revo (in my case) and re-install worked the first time around. Since then, the portable app version of Revo has been part of my toolkit since and don't even bother trying to uninstall any software without it anymore.

The Revo software creates a system restore point first, then starts the official uninstaller that comes with the software and when that is finished, it asks you how extensively it should look for remainders in registry and file-system. Personally, I always use the most extensive option. After a while (depending on size of your registry and available computer resources) the registry is searched through and you get a list of entries that can be removed safely, then a similar procedure starts for the file-system. Only then you have properly uninstalled software and you have seen for yourself how badly software behaves with their standard uninstaller.

Just saying.

815

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

« Last post by Shades on March 01, 2017, 11:49 PM »

Isn't all of the above easily and quickly solved by making a new thread 'Dark humor and worse' in the basement section of the DonationCoder forum? It would be out of sight (and mind) for members who don't go there and/or filter threads in this forum. And others with a peculiar sense of humor can still make their jokes.

Me personally, I would appreciate such a thread for what it is. And would make me visit that part of the forum more often. Now I wouldn't have mixed dark humor with silly humor in the same way as IainB did, or go on as long he did. But now the tone in this thread seems to go to the other extreme: getting rid of it completely. And that isn't right either.

Separate threads appear to me the quickest/easiest way to let both exist.

If you must know:

Spoiler

What is family friendly? The Disney way, shielding loved ones from everything bad life throws at your family? Or (mentally) prepare those loved ones for the parts in life that suck absolutely? 
In my case, I would definitely have liked more preparation, because ;ife already has thrown a lot of crap my way. At age 13 all my grand parents had passed away and my parents lost our house, at age 25 my mother passed away, 3 weeks later my father had a new girlfriend, 10 years later my father also passed away. One year later, divorce. And a few moths back, on the last month I needed to pay for piece land I bought 10 years ago, someone committed suicide using a tree on my piece of land. With all these experiences under my belt, I happen to think you can be better prepared, if you are able to laugh about jokes regarding misery and death. If you don't have all these experiences or worse, consider yourself blessed...and don't put that much grief towards someone less fortunate, who chose laughter as medicine against their misery.

To get this thread on its way again:
How many (musical) notes are there in salami? 

Spoiler

2...la and mi

A man enters a construction store and orders 15000 stone bricks.
The clerk asks:
"15000 bricks...are you building a house?"
Customer:
    "No...a barbecue"
"You don't need so many bricks for a barbecue..."
    "I live on the 12th floor..."


Mom against little Johnny:
"What?!? Did you eat caterpillars today?
Little Johnny:
"yeah, tomorrow I want butterflies in my belly..."


A shark father and his son look from a distance some swimmers in the ocean.
Father says: "Son, put your fin half out of the water and swim fast to that group of swimmers, go around them, then leave!"
The son does his fathers bidding.
After a while, the father says:
"Son, put up your whole fin out of the water and do the same again!"
Again, the son does his fathers bidding.
A few minutes later, father shark says:
"Ok son, now we both go and eat those swimmers!"
Now the son says:
"But dad, we could have done that already..."
"No son, they taste better after being scared sh.tless..."

816

Living Room / Re: Intercepted Email?

« Last post by Shades on February 27, 2017, 09:21 PM »

If you are able, try to save the mail message in question as an *.eml file and use a text editor to take a look at the content of this file.

You do this to take a proper look at a mail message. Mail clients can be tricked into showing a sender that isn't the actual sender. I know that Outlook 2013 and 2016 have a p.ss poor excuse of a 'Show message source' option. Even an up-to-date Thunderbird mail client isn't so able to the actual message source. Hence, save it as a *.eml file and take a look at it with a text editor.

Not only will you learn much more about where the message comes from. This site explains with an example spam message how you should interpret the information shown to you in the message source.

And as MilesAhead already said...never click links in mail messages. Especially not if these messages come from organizations which have access to your bank account. Better log intro the website of such organizations by typing in the URL yourself in a separate browser session, preferably in a virtual machine you created & configured for the sole purpose of logging into your bank.   

By clicking on such links you are either whisked away to a malicious look-a-like website that records your bank info or receive malware that does the same.

817

Living Room / Re: Removing Spam classification from your mail server

« Last post by Shades on February 24, 2017, 07:18 PM »

Currently I am experiencing a somewhat similar problem. I also run my own mail server and rent a static IP address from the biggest telco here in Paraguay. MxToolBox site shows me that I am flagged by only one, in my case SPAM RATS Dyna.

The instructions on the MxToolBox website are quite clear, first check if there are no viruses and/or malware. Then check if all the records (MX) and proper returns (PTR) are configured correctly on your end and/or by your ISP. Once your done, most of the anti-spam organizations allow you to rid your IP from their list. They will keep an eye on you for a x amount of time, but if nothing happens again in that x amount of time, all goes back to being fine.

At least, that is how the story is supposed to go.

In my case the SPAM RATS Dyna website states that the whole C-block of IP addresses to which my IP belongs is being blocked. And because of that, no option to remove myself from that list is provided.

The telco states that there is nothing wrong at all, so it will be a long time before my IP will be removed. On previous cases the story above did work as intended.

Now, ISP servers make use of those spam list and as there are a lot of list providers, most ISPs only use 2 or 3 of these list. The SPAM RATS Dyna isn't a popular list in Europe, where most of my mail communication takes place, so the spam block hardly affects me. Mail to the US on occasion does bork.

Please take a look at the source of bounced messages, you will see a lot of error codes. Servers usually respond with the reason why a message bounced, but often also provide you with the (exact) name of the list they are using. You could then ask the owner/maintainer of the receiving mail server to make an exception for your IP, or perhaps even persuade them to use a better spam list provider. This might go easier if you can provide them with web shots from the steps you have taken to be removed from that list and the unwillingness of the spam list provider to do so.

The MxToolbox website allows you to create a free account where your IP is periodically checked against a subset of spam list providers to see if there is a problem. You'll have to upgrade to a paid account for the full set. If your server is flagged by multiple spam lists, you have a bigger problem. This would be why you look up mail server responses from bounced mail(s).

Sorry I have no better response, my problems with spam lists have been rather easily solved until now... (knocking on wood).

818

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Vole Word to Website Professional

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2017, 08:38 AM »

http://ckeditor.com/
https://www.tinymce.com

WYSIWYG editors:
Microsoft Expression Web
http://bluegriffon.org/

819

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Vole Word to Website Professional

« Last post by Shades on February 13, 2017, 11:29 AM »

As I am much more familiar with Joomla! then with WordPress, I still imagine that a lot (if not all) of the editor extensions available for Joomla! are also available for WordPress. Some of those extensions really crank up the editing options at your disposal. More than enough to cover all your needs. then, after you are finished with creating your document, you can still export these HTML-based documents easily to different file formats.

HTML is usually much easier to generate automatically and is easily converted to different file formats. Converting other file formats into HTML is usually a lot more problematic and hardly ever results in clean HTML.

820

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Vole Word to Website Professional

« Last post by Shades on February 12, 2017, 04:49 PM »

No, I haven't used it. However, more often than not you get much more HTML than is strictly required when you let a WYSIWYG word processor create your HTML. Not only do you get more, it is also messy, as in difficult to maintain.

There are other systems that make the creation of online documentation easier. From the "good old days": FrontPage allowed you to do this. Recently I was busy with upgrading the wiki software I am using. In my search I discovered 'BlueSpice'. This is based on the MediaWiki software and comes in a Community and Enterprise version. While not perfect, the Community version does supercharge the MediaWiki software. It makes creating/editing online content much easier. The visual editor that is included in BlueSpice has all that you need (including a content context menu) for simple word processing.

It comes by default with with an exporter to PDF (for a single page or collection of pages), but an exporter for the ODF file format is available too (BSD license).

To make the MediaWiki software work you need web server software that supports PHP and a MySQL database server. XAMPP is a collection of software that contains all the requirements for the MediaWiki software and more.

Caveat: XAMPP is only fit to use on your local PC or LAN, because it is setup for development of websites and not for hosting of websites. There are more than enough alternatives for XAMPP, but the warning remains valid, because these alternatives are also setup for development, not hosting.

For the record: no affiliation, just a happy user (of XAMPP, MediaWiki and now also BlueSpice).


Most people are sufficiently adept with word processors, so I do understand that people would like to use familiar software to create HTML documentation. And that they think this is a smart idea too. But if you the garbage HTML those editors produce, you will want to run away screaming...especially when you "inherit" such documentation and are asked to "clean it up".
   

821

Living Room / Re: Prevent screen lock

« Last post by Shades on February 11, 2017, 06:58 PM »

Then don't copy it to the desktop?

Caffeine does not require installation, just copy it to a location where your user has write access and run it from there. Nothing more is necessary (for Caffeine to do its job, I mean).

Who is still using that method of doing things on the desktop? Next time you tell me that you use the trashcan to "store" and "retrieve" files too.
My dual monitor setup has only the trashcan icon on it, so you could call me prejudiced...

Besides all of the above, if your user account on the remote computer is so limited in what it is allowed to do, why would you even want to keep the remote connection open for longer than the allotted time?

822

Living Room / Re: Prevent screen lock

« Last post by Shades on February 11, 2017, 09:24 AM »

You have tools that mimic mouse movements and/or key-presses to prevent the lock screen from appearing. 'Caffeine' is such a tool. To my knowledge it is freeware and doesn't require installation.

But be advised, remote connections can still be dropped if there is no activity for a certain amount of time. This 'certain amount of time' is configured by the admin that enabled the remote connection for you. It should be possible to ask this admin to give your user account more of this 'certain amount of time', if you need this. Don't expect too much though, idle remote connections are a possibly huge security breach, definitely a bandwidth drain and costly (license-wise) if you connect remotely to Windows Server 2008/2012/2016.

 

823

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Windows Deal dead in the water?

« Last post by Shades on February 09, 2017, 07:42 AM »

Shareware-on-sale
GiveAway of the Day

If that is what you mean.

824

General Software Discussion / Re: Help! My Firefox has lost Bookmarks Menu + the bookmarks!

« Last post by Shades on February 07, 2017, 08:57 AM »

Hard disks can be "fickle beasts" and when data resides in a spot that the hard disk has trouble reading/writing to, all kinds of strange things can happen in the software trying to read/write this data. Hence my suggestion of a bigger/better/faster drive. I also should have mentioned the cloning. You have types of cloning software that uses its own bootmedia (specifically not Windows) before it gives you options to clone your disk.

Usually this kind of software is able to retrieve data where Windows (even after using CHKDSK) fails to do so. Be also aware the when you use a different version of CHKDSK when you try to repair disks/partitions in the Windows GUI or when you use the command-line version. The command-line version is the most powerful of the two.

So if you haven't done so, I would suggest to use the command-line version to see if your data is moved to a more readable/writable spot on your hard disk. And then see if you can access/copy/move your bookmarks in the way you are accustomed to.
 

825

General Software Discussion / Re: Help! My Firefox has lost Bookmarks Menu + the bookmarks!

« Last post by Shades on February 06, 2017, 06:40 PM »

Sounds like your hard disk is developing problems. So that will be the only thing you will need to change in your computer. A lot cheaper than a new PC. Unless you are fed up with your current computer, that is what would do. Actually, replace it with an SSD model and you will come to the conclusion your old(ish?) computer still has a lot of life in it. I did the same with my 9 year old system and is now more than adequate for the simple tasks I assign to it.