MyComputingArt

LAN messaging with XMPP protocol (jabber) to chat or to copy and paste links and texts in rdp sessions

Here is how I satisfied my need to have a LAN messaging program, not really to chat with other users on the same LAN, which I could do, but to copy and paste links or texts between a rdp client and a rdp server when copy and paste from/to clipboard does not work in rdp sessions, for instance with some Android rdp clients.

These are the programs I used:

Openfire 3.9.3 on the "server" (which can be a simple Windows pc): a realtime collaboration server using XMPP/Jabber
Miranda IM 0.10.23.0: a multi-protocol instant messaging client
Xabber 0.9.30b: an Android Jabber client

See full post ...

Posted by: Z24 | Wed, Aug 27 2014 | Category: /software | Permanent link | home
Tagged as: android, chat, client-server, configuration, howto, jabber, messaging, network, phone, rdp, software, xmpp

How to get rid of the message asking to restart the computer after installing Windows updates

If you use automatic updates, sometimes you get the tray icon which notifies you that some Windows updates are available, so you accept to download them first, and install them later; then, sometimes the installed updates require you to restart the computer, but you want to postpone the reboot, and every few minutes you get the same annoying popup message requesting you to reboot. How to get rid of this message?
Just run services.msc and stop Automatic Updates service. It's as simple as that.

Posted by: Z24 | Wed, May 04 2011 | Category: /windows | Permanent link | home
Tagged as: howto, windows, xp

How to associate username and SID

To know which is the username associated with a known SID (Security Identifier), open the registry (regedit.exe) at this location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.

Registry editor with SID keys (62k)

Each SID key has a ProfileImagePath string whose value is the user path which contains the username.
To know which is the SID associated with a known username, select the ProfileList key and search the username.

There is also a SysInternals command-line utility which shows the SID associated with a known username:

C:\>psgetsid Z24

PsGetSid v1.43 - Translates SIDs to names and vice versa
Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

SID for WAM2\Z24:
S-1-5-21-1993962763-2139871995-725345543-1003

or the username associated with a known SID:

C:\>psgetsid S-1-5-21-1993962763-2139871995-725345543-1003

PsGetSid v1.43 - Translates SIDs to names and vice versa
Copyright (C) 1999-2006 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Account for WAM2\S-1-5-21-1993962763-2139871995-725345543-1003:
User: WAM2\Z24

Posted by: Z24 | Wed, May 04 2011 | Category: /windows | Permanent link | home
Tagged as: command-line, howto, windows, xp

How to restore user profile

While I was logging on from a remote console through RDP I've got a message telling me that the user profile is damaged. I was able to log on and I lost all the settings: desktop, menu and all the settings of the various applications, as if my user had just been created; that means, the user registry was corrupted and it has been replaced with the default user registry.

Event Viewer reported these error messages:

DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. for C:\Documents and Settings\Z24\ntuser.dat

Windows has backed up this user's profile. Windows will automatically try to use the backed up profile the next time this user logs on.

Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off.

I don't know what would have happened logging off and on again (the original profile would have been restored automatically?), by the way I recovered it this way:

I created a new user, just to be sure to be able to logon if something went bad
I rebooted into linux
I copied the user registry file C:\System Volume Information\_restore{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}\RPyy\snapshot\_REGISTRY_USER_NTUSER_S-z-z-zz-zzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzz-zzzz to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\ntuser.dat:
the x's in the restore path are hex digits and yy is a number: the exact restore path where to look in should be the one with the most recent date and time before the date and time of the unsuccessful logon, i.e. yesterday's date if the error happened at today's first logon;
S-z-z-zz... is the user's SID (see how to associate username and SID);
and USERNAME is the username
I also copied the file _REGISTRY_USER_USRCLASS_S-z-z-zz-zzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzzz-zzzzzzzzz-zzzz from the same path to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\UsrClass.dat

At the next logon my windows settings and my applications settings came back!

Posted by: Z24 | Wed, May 04 2011 | Category: /windows | Permanent link | home
Tagged as: howto, windows, xp

How to catalog audio files (MP3, OGG, etc.)

This is one of the many ways to keep order amongst audio files and to catalog them. The purpose of cataloging is to have an instrument to always know where a MP3 or OGG file is, if it has been backed up on cd or dvd, how many audio files or hours of music there are on disk, nonetheless to generate playlists by genre or author or by other criteria.

I name the audio files using this schema: Author - Title.mp3. When they are many, a big help come from tools to rename multiple files at once, such as Total Commander Multiple rename function (Ctrl + M) (Total Commander is shareware)
sometimes a MP3 editor to cut and paste pieces of MP3s can be useful, for instance when you bought a remix cd and you want to keep on the disk the single songs, or you want to cut a boring piece at the begin or end of a song (some techno remixes are long and boring at the begin, but great after the first 1 or 2 minutes). A fast and very small editor is mp3DirectCut.
correct the ID3 tags of title and author to make them identical to those in the file name: this way all MP3s will be displayed in the same way in MP3 players such as Winamp (for Windows) or XMMS (for Linux) and in the car audio system display (if some MP3s miss the ID3 tags or have them all uppercase or all lowercase). To do that, a useful program is ID3-TagIT: select the files, then select the menu item ID3-Functions, Filename -> Tag ver. 2 and type <A> - <T> (artist, hyphen, title) or whatever you like, then ID3-Functions, Filename -> Tag ver. 1 and still <A> - <T>; finally File, Save to apply the changes
I lower the bitrate to 128 kbps when it's too high, for instance 320 kps. Why? It would occupy too much space while having no hearable advantages (for my ears). The program I use is CDex: Convert, Re-encode Compressed Audio Files; the encoding options can be customized in Options, Settings (the encoder, the bitrate, etc.).
To see the bitrate of many mp3s at the same time, Windows XP Explorer is very useful: View, Choose Details, Bitrate; the files can be ordered by bitrate, selected and moved in another folder, so that when you have to reencode them with CDex you can select all the files in the "wrong bitrate" folder instead of selecting the "wrong bitrate" files one by one.
when some mp3s have a volume that's too high or too low compared with the average, with MP3 Gain the volume can be normalized to the dB specified (I use 96.0 dB): Track Analysis to see the current dB, then Track Gain.
if I'm going to add a bunch of mp3s to my collection and I want them to have the same date and time (to know they came together), I touch * them in the temporary folder they stay before moving them to my collection folder: touch.exe is a command coming from unix which sets the current (or the specified) timestamp to the specified files.
organize the audio files in folders as you wish, for instance by genre or author.

Now the audio files are well organized on the disk. I used to import mp3 data in a spreadsheet and with a few macros I got statistical data and created playlists:

first I generate a list of mp3s with MP3 Lister, a tool which can be configured to export all the ID3 tags you want in the order you want, and it can create a txt, csv or html list
then I import the text file in a spreadsheet (I wrote a macro to make the import automatic).
I wrote other macros to automatically order the MP3 files, check for duplicates and generate playlists by genre.
m3u files (Winamp playlists) are simply text files containing a mp3 path and file name on every row.

Currently I use foobar2000, a player which creates playlists, shows statistics and updates played songs to last.fm.