MyComputingArt (circa 1993)

Fri, 26 Sep 2008

Opening notebook Toshiba Satellite Pro SP4270

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[/hardware] permanent link

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5

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[/hardware] permanent link

Thu, 21 Aug 2008

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

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Thu, 10 Jul 2008

How to mount an image file and access image content
To get access to the content of a virtual machine image or a ISO file, follow these steps:


[/linux] permanent link

Sun, 04 May 2008

How to broadcast audio with Icecast
You need to install Icecast and Winamp with the Shoutcast plugin for Winamp.
In this howto I explain:

See full post ...


[/software] permanent link

Sun, 20 Jan 2008

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.

  1. 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)
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. 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.
  5. 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 89.0 dB): Track Analysis to see the current dB, then Track Gain.
  6. 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. Using a spreadsheet it's possible to get statistical data and create playlists:
  1. 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
  2. then I import the text file in a spreadsheet (I wrote a macro to make the import automatic).
  3. 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.

[/software] permanent link

Sat, 22 Dec 2007

Regular expressions pattern options

In regular expressions there are some constructs that influence the way a pattern is matched:

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3Com OfficeConnect ADSL Wireless 54 Mbps 11g Firewall Router

This 3Com product has many functions: router, firewall, adsl modem, wireless access point, 4 port switch. 3Com chose to give two names to its products: a name for the market (as the long name in the title), which identifies the purpose of the product and is not changed when a new model replaces the older one, and a model name, a number which identifies the specific model.
The "ADSL" term in the name is particularly useful to specify that it's a adsl modem too, with a RJ-11 port that would connect the router directly to the phone line, through a RJ-11 cable, just like any adsl modem; in fact I found several routers that were capable of routing the adsl signal but were equipped with a RJ-45 port instead of a RJ-11 port: they were not DSL modems and needed to be connected to an external DSL modem. Checking the rear of the product, maybe on the user guide, can help making sure the router is a DSL modem too.
I will review two 3Com OfficeConnect ADSL Wireless 54 Mbps 11g Firewall Router models, the older 3CRWDR100A-72 and the newer 3CRWDR101A-75.

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Sun, 09 Dec 2007

Asus MyPal A686 PDA with GPS

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[/hardware] permanent link

Mon, 03 Dec 2007

Running Windows XP in Xen from its own partition
Some months ago I made some experiments with Xen and I succeeded to install and run Windows XP as a guest using Xen 3.0. In that case Windows was located in a single file and was installed through Xen. My purpose now is to make Xen running an already installed Windows from its own partition. Just to be more specific, this is my machine configuration:

I want to log into linux and run my existing Windows XP from its own partition on the EIDE disk.

See full post ...


[/linux] permanent link

Mon, 26 Nov 2007

Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 amd64 and Windows XP in Xen 3.0

I am coming from a bloody week of wrestling against packages, bugs and "make world"s trying to run Xen in Ubuntu 6.06 amd64 on an AM2 3800+ and to make a Windows XP Pro domU.
I searched on the web some resources that would explain how to run Windows on Xen and I found some very good tutorial that unfortunately don't fit exactly my configuration and my purpose. These are the sites I took as a basis for my setup:


These are all the steps I did and the problems I encountered during this Calvary :-) (I come from Windows with a little linux/unix background):

See full post ...


[/linux] permanent link

Mon, 29 Oct 2007

Scythe Ninja Plus rev. B

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[/hardware] permanent link

Zalman ZM-MFC1 fan controller

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[/hardware] permanent link

Noctua NH-U12F

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[/hardware] permanent link

Fri, 21 Sep 2007

Launching control panel dialogs from command line

It is possible to directly open the control panel configuration dialogs writing commands in the Run dialog or in a dos prompt window:

control command in Run dialog (10k)
control admintools: open Administrative Tools
control date/time: open the Date and Time properties
control desktop: open the Display properties
control color: open the Display properties and go to Appearance tab
control folders: open Folder Options
control fonts: open the Fonts properties
control infrared: open the Infrared properties
control keyboard: open the Keyboard properties
control mouse: open the Mouse properties
control netconnections: open Network Connections
control telephony: open Phone and Modem Options
control printers: open the Printers properties
control international: open the Regional Settings
control schedtasks: open the Scheduled tasks
control userpasswords: open the User Accounts properties
control userpasswords2: open the Advanced User Accounts properties
control: open the control panel

If the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon disappears, the control command can help:
control hotplug.dll: open the "Safely Remove Hardware" window

Every *.cpl file in the Windows directory can be opened with the control cplfile command:
control vp7dec_settings.cpl: open the On2 VP7 Decompressor Settings, if VP7 codec is installed.

Moreover, some cpl files accept two arguments:
control cplfile[,[@first][,second]]: the first argument indicates the function (if a cpl file controls multiple functions), the second argument indicates the tab of the window to display.
control main.cpl,@0,2: show the 3rd tab of the mouse properties (main.cpl controls mouse and keyboard, @0 is for mouse properties, 2 is the 3rd tab)
control main.cpl,@1,0: show the 1st tab of the keyboard properties (@1 is for kbd properties, 0 is the 1st tab)


[/windows] permanent link

Sat, 15 Sep 2007

Windows Remote Desktop (RDP)
Windows Remote Desktop allows to remotely get a Windows session on a Windows XP/2000/2003 machine on which it is enabled from any machine running the RDP client: the RDP client asks the name of the machine and the user and password and then the client opens a window showing the desktop of the server machine.
I'll show:

See full post ...


[/windows] permanent link

Sun, 24 Jun 2007

Recover "Logical sector size is 0" with dd
A few hours ago while I was using my pc suddenly Windows froze completely (mouse was stuck and Ctrl+Alt+Del did nothing). It's not astonishing but I was quite surprised because such a freeze never happened since I began using Windows XP on my new pc.
The problem appeared at the reboot: grub, the bootloader on /dev/sda, showed this error message:

13 : Invalid or unsupported executable format

I have a dual boot configuration with Windows XP booting from a EIDE disk and Ubuntu booting from a SATA disk, so I entered Ubuntu, successfully; /dev/hda1 (the Windows partition) was not mounted while /dev/hda5 and /dev/hda6 were; attempting to mount it resulted in

Special device /dev/hda1 does not exist

At reboot I started Windows XP Recovery Console from the Windows CD and tried CHKDSK.EXE, and this was the outcome:

The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems

I booted again linux to launch fsck and see it fail:

Logical sector size is zero.


Then I found the solution in ubuntu forum: 
root@am2:/home/z24# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/defmedia/bkup_fat32_hda1.img bs=512 count=2048000 conv=noerror,sync
2048000+0 records in
2048000+0 records out
1048576000 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 43.61 seconds, 24.0 MB/s

root@am2:/home/z24# dd if=/defmedia/bkup_fat32_hda1.img of=/home/z24/sector6.bin bs=512 count=1 skip=6 conv=noerror,sync
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.011544 seconds, 44.4 kB/s

root@am2:/home/z24# dd if=/home/z24/sector6.bin of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1 conv=noerror,sync,notrunc
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 0.030644 seconds, 16.7 kB/s
Explanation: In the original post the partition that was just backupped with dd was also checked with losetup and mount. Thanks a lot to the ubuntuforums user Onlymee for his post!
Update 13.09.2008
The same problem happened again today and gave me the opportunity to complete the series of error messages :)
The first, at boot time, was the same:

grub: 13 : Invalid or unsupported executable format

Mounting the partition (mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt):

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda1, missing codepage or other error

dmesg | grep sda1

VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sda1

But fdisk -l /dev/sda shows the partition table.
fsck.vfat /dev/sda1 (executed from Ubuntu 8.04 alternate cd)

Cluster size is zero

The solution was exactly the same: copy the sixth sector back to the first. And voilà, it booted.
[/hardware] permanent link

Sun, 17 Jun 2007

Mounting a second fan on the back of the case (Antec SLK3000B)
With the summer approaching, I am making some experiments trying to cool my pc as much as possible while keeping it quiet. Now, airflow in the case is made by 2 fans: the intake fan, a Papst 4412 F/2GLL, pulls air inside the case from the front, the exhaust fan, a Antec Tricool coming with the SLK3000B, pushes air out to the back; in addition, the psu fan pulls air from the top of the motherboard through the psu to the back.
Since I bought a second Papst 4412 F/2GLL, I tried positioning this fan in different locations to see which one conributes the best to the cooling. One of these is the back of the case, in the bottom, where there would be additional cards: it pushes air out of the case through the back slots.

See full post ...


[/hardware] permanent link

Tue, 12 Jun 2007

Hard disk suspension in an Antec SLK3000B
The main problem of the Antec SLK3000B case is it converts hard disk vibrations to noise, and this is the most annoying noise coming from my pc when the fans are set at the lowest speed. In the SLK3000B the hard disks lay in a cage with grommets that are supposed to dampen the vibrations of the 7200 and more rpm hard disks.
The trend spreading amongst silencing modders is to suspend the hard disks in the air to avoid contact between the case and the hard disks.

See full post ...


[/hardware] permanent link

Fri, 20 Apr 2007

Accessing and changing the registry from outside Windows
Problem: I got myself locked out of my pc
Solution: access the registry from outside Windows and change the account lockout settings

After enabling Remote Desktop access to access from my notebook to my pc through my wireless LAN, I was playing around with account locking settings to defend from possible brute force attacks coming through the WLAN (supposing the attacker cracked the WPA-PSK password): I set the lock so that after two failed attempts to login the account would be locked until the administrator (me) unlocks it manually.
I wanted to adopt such a security measure for RDP access only, but unfortunately the account lockout policy is valid for any login attempt, being it local or remote.
Then, as a slight security measure, I also disabled the administrator user (my user is already an administrator and an attacker should also find a valid username).
I mistyped the password twice and I got myself stuck: administrator and guest were disabled and my account was locked.
After rebooting, at the logon screen there were no more users, so that the "To begin, click your username" sentence on the left sounded like a joke, having absolutely nothing on the right.

The solution was obvious:

  1. try to access and change the registry from linux (I have dual boot)
  2. manually restore a previous version of the registry

I solved using Offline NTPassword & Registry Editor, an offline regitry editor on a boot disk; I made the floppy, rebooted and then I started looking in the registry the affecting keys, but it was not necessary: there's a feature to edit the accounts, and that allowed me to enable the administrator.

I also found dumphive, a useful program to dump the registry hives to text files.

Instead on www.beginningtoseethelight.org there's plenty of Windows NT, 2000 and XP low level settings and hacks, I would say "all about the registry": for instance, where and how users and passwords, including account statistics and policies, are stored and encoded in the SAM hive of the registry, and a schematic explanation of the registry structure; and don't miss the other sections of the site, they're enlightening too.
About the second option, there's a Microsoft article that explains how to manually restore the registry to a previous state.

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Fri, 16 Mar 2007

FileDate Changer

FileDate Changer
License: freeware
Author: NirSoft
Install: no
Size: 50 KBytes
Requirement: Windows 95 or later, comctl32.dll

With this very little tool you can change the Created/Modified/Accessed dates of one or more files at the same time.

See full post ...


[/software/windows] permanent link

Convert

Convert
License: freeware
Author: Josh Madison
Install: no (optional installer available)
Size: 560 KBytes (153 KBytes compressed)
Requirement: Windows 95 or later

Convert is a compact and simple unit conversion program: it converts distance, speed, pressure, temperature, time, volume, angle, area, mass, power, and many more measure units, and it allows to create custom conversions.

See full post ...


[/software/windows] permanent link

Panorado Flyer

Panorado Flyer
License: freeware for private use
Author: Karl Maloszek
Install: yes
Size: 250 KBytes (114 KBytes installer)
Requirement: Windows with COM support

Panorado Flyer is a compact program that gathers GPS coordinates from Google Earth and writes them into images EXIF information.

See full post ...


[/software/windows] permanent link

CamStudio

CamStudio
License: freeware
Author: RenderSoft
Install: yes
Size: 8 MB (1.3 MB install), 33 KB codec
Requirement: Windows 95 or later, comctl32.dll

CamStudio is a free screen and audio recording tool and comes with a swf flash converter and a lossless codec.

See full post ...


[/software/windows] permanent link

Sat, 17 Feb 2007

AMD Cool'n'Quiet
I'll try to answer these questions:

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[/configurations/both] permanent link

Sun, 11 Feb 2007

.htaccess: an example of the Apache per-directory configuration file
Using bloxsom as my weblog designing application, I had to provide some settings to the Apache .htaccess configuration file to fine-tune the usage of my site:

  1. tell Apache to load index.cgi in addition to the default index.htm
  2. rewrite the requested address adding www. if it's omitted
  3. rewrite the requested address adding index.cgi if it's omitted

See full post ...


[/configurations/both] permanent link

Sat, 28 Oct 2006

Remove XP Pro or Win Server 2003 bandwidth limit
Run Group Policy (gpedit.msc) and go to Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Network -> QoS Packet Scheduler and change "Limit reservable bandwidth" to "Enabled" with a value of 0%. By default it appears disabled but read the description and you'll discovered it's enabled with a value of 20%.
[/configurations/windows] permanent link

Sat, 21 Oct 2006

Seeing MySQL queries, just like MS SQL Profiler
Just execute mysqld with the --log[=filename] or -l[=filename] command-line option. If filename is omitted, hostname.log will be created in the mysql data directory.
Or edit my.ini adding log=filename line (i.e. if you use WAMP).
Then restart mysqld.
[/configurations/both] permanent link

Mon, 09 Oct 2006

Debian on Windows with VMWare, Linux applications in Windows using X server
With this little and very simple tutorial I will explain what I did to:

See full post ...


[/windows] permanent link

Sat, 16 Sep 2006

Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake 32 bit on Windows XP with Qemu, Qemu networking, Linux applications in Windows using X server
With this little tutorial I will explain what I did to:

See full post ...


[/windows] permanent link

Sun, 10 Sep 2006

WAMP & Perl - Windows Apache, MySQL, PHP with CGI scripts written in Perl
I need Perl to run Blosxom, an open source and free CGI script to create blogs.
So I installed WAMP5 1.6.4a and ActivePerl 5.8.8.817 with MSI installer.
I already have my site on my disk, so I told my site directory to WAMP during the setup procedure and then I pointed my browser to http://localhost/index.cgi but it displayed the cgi instead of executing it.
This is what I did to make it work:

See full post ...


[/configurations/windows] permanent link

Blosxom: How to insert a fixed path for images in Blosxom
I wrote some post on my new site created with Blosxom and I wanted to insert some images that I put in a directory called images under my website address root.
I found different solutions:

See full post ...


[/configurations/both] permanent link

Wed, 30 Aug 2006

Install and boot Windows on a second hard disk
I have a SATA disk and a EIDE disk, I installed Linux on the SATA disk and now I want to install Windows on the EIDE disk.
Because Windows must be installed on the disk that boot first, I entered BIOS and changed the boot order as this:
cdrom
EIDE disk
SATA disk
Then I installed Windows on the EIDE disk.
I want to configure dual boot this way:

I changed BIOS boot order as it was previously (SATA disk before EIDE disk) and booted Linux, then I added these lines to /boot/grub/menu.list (on Ubuntu or Debian; if grub is not installed try apt-get install grub): 
title WinXP
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
That means Windows believes the EIDE disk is the first and SATA is the second, so it's happy and if I reboot and choose WinXP from grub menu it starts.
[/windows] permanent link

Sun, 27 Aug 2006

Running PHP scripts from command-line with WAMP (Windows Apache, MySQL, PHP)
On my old pc I installed Apache, MySQL and PHP singularly, and I made some PHP scripts to be runned from command-line, like this: 

c:\php\php -f myscript.php
On my new pc I installed WAMP5 1.6.4, all was running fine (phpMyAdmin, my local website, php scripts pointed to by the browser) but php scripts launched by command-line reported 
Fatal error: Call to undefined function mysql_connect() in myscript.php
Obviously I changed the php path to c:\wamp\php\php but with no results.
Solution: change the command to 
c:\wamp\php\php -c c:\wamp\apache2\bin -f myscript.php
The -c option tells php to search php.ini in the directory specified, and that's needed because WAMP puts php.ini in Apache bin directory, while with a PHP regular installation php.ini is located in the php.exe directory.
[/configurations/windows] permanent link

Pausing a command
How to pause / suspend / sleep a running command in a terminal?
Press Ctrl+S
How to resume the paused command?
Press Ctrl+Q
[/linux] permanent link

Execute a command at shutdown
To dismount TrueCrypt volumes at shutdown and reboot time, I created a script, put it in/etc/init.d/ and symlinked it into the needed /etc/rc?.d/ directories using update-rc.d.
Here is the detail:

See full post ...


[/linux] permanent link

How to rename multiple files from bash
Rename all *html files to *test: 

for x in `ls *html`; do mv $x `echo $x | sed -e "s/html/test/"`; done

Bash for: 
for var in some-list ; do command ; done

[/linux] permanent link

Tue, 15 Aug 2006

About
This blog is born in August 2006 and it's about computing science: software reviews, configurations, tutorials, howtoes, for both Windows and Linux, hardware reviews, problems and relative solutions, tips and tricks, and everything else I get through in my computing related life.
The name ComputingArt was born as a "Computing Articles" contraction, but as pointed out by my friend csdk, it reminds to "Computing Art".
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