Mount Disk Images using virtual cd controlpanel
By Martin English | March 8, 2010
Have you ever tried mounting an .iso image (a CD or DVD image) on Windows XP ? You end up needing 3rd party software, you’ll most likely have to reboot since it installs a driver, and you end up allocating a huge chunk of memory to what is really a very simple task.
I’ve just been reminded (via Hack Your Day) of the simplest, safest, way to mount an .iso image. The program, supplied by Microsoft, is only 23K program, and comes with a 9K sys file driver.
The one downside is that this file is not actively supported by Microsoft, meaning they are not developing it, and probably won’t accept any support requests for it. However, I’ve used it extensively on Windows XP (SP 3) and Daniel Pataki of Hack Your Day is using it on 32bit Windows 7 and it works perfectly for him.
First of all, download winxpvirtualcdcontrolpanel from the Microsoft servers. It is a self extracting zip file, so just execute it, and tell it to place the files in a folder. I stored them in a folder in my Program Files folder, as if it were a normal application.
To install the program and it’s driver:
1. Execute VCdControlTool.exe
2. Click “Driver control”
3. If the driver is in the same directory as VCdControlTool.exe, it will be found automatically. Otherwise click the “Install Driver” button is available, navigate to the %systemroot%\system32\drivers folder, select VCdRom.sys, and Open it, then click “Start”.
4. Click OK.
5. Click “Add Drive” to add a drive to the drive list. Ensure that the drive added is not a local drive. If it is, continue to click “Add Drive” until an unused drive letter is available.
6. Select an unused drive letter from the drive list and click “Mount”.
7. Navigate to the image file, select it, and click “OK”. It works OK with mapped network drives, as well.
You may now use the drive letter as if it were a local CD-ROM device. You can close the application as soon as the image has been mounted, but if you want to unmount the image, just restart the exe and click unmount, or stop the service in the device manager. That’s it, task done, no memory footprint, not bloatware, nothing, just a mounted disk, wonderful!
While the initial installation may seem more technical, it is quicker than Daemon Tools or Power Iso or something like that. Furthermore, the light weight means there’s much less impact on your system.
Thanks, Microsoft!
Topics: Microsoft, Productivity, Technology | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisAnalysis of climategate emails
By Martin English | January 18, 2010
I have always been sceptical about the more extreme claims of the Global Warming True Believers. However, despite news media and left wing politicians using the climate change issue to bludgeon the economy, I really had believed the underlying science.
However, many people saw the climategate emails as proof that the science had been manipulated. One blogger has done something very few people have done. He has read every single of the 1,000+ Climategate e-mails. He has a lengthy 4,500 word blog post on his findings. Poneke introduces it by saying:
This is the longest and most important article I’ve yet written for this blog and I make no apology for its 4600 words — more also than in any newspaper article. As a journalist, I believe the Climategate emails have exposed one of the most significant news stories of the decade. As the mainstream news media has so far barely gone beyond giving those who wrote them and their supporters time and space to deny their undeniable contents, I present here an extensive journalistic account of what they actually say in the context of the dates and events in which they were written, with full links to all the emails.
His conclusions:
Having now read all the Climategate emails, I can conclusively say they demonstrate a level of scientific chicanery of the most appalling kind that deserves the widest possible public exposure.
The emails reveal that the entire global warming debate and the IPCC process is controlled by a small cabal of climate specialists in England and North America. This cabal, who call themselves “the Team,” bully and smear any critics. They control the “peer review” process for research in the field and use their power to prevent contrary research being published.
The Team’s members are the heart of the IPCC process, many of them the lead authors of its reports.
They falsely claim there is a scientific “consensus” that the “science is settled,” by getting lists of scientists to sign petitions claiming there is such a consensus. They have fought for years to conceal the actual shonky data they have used to wrongly claim there has been unprecedented global warming this past 50 years. Their emailed discussions among each other show they have concocted their data by matching analyses of tree rings from around 1000 AD to 1960, then actual temperatures from 1960 to make it look temperatures have shot up alarmingly since then, after the tree rings from 1960 on inconveniently failed to match observed temperatures.
The emails show that some of them at least concede in private that the world was warmer 1000 years ago (in the Medieval Warm Period) than it is today, but the emails also show they had to get rid of the MWP from the records to claim today’s temperatures are unprecedented.
They show Team members becoming alarmed and despondent at global temperatures peaking in 1998, then slowly falling to the present, while publicly trying to hide the fact that there was a peak and now a decline.
Revealingly, they show them even smugly nominating each other for prestigious awards, using factually wrong details in the information sent in nominating letters in support of the awards.
He looks at the peer review process:
AGWarmers parrot the mantra that their view is supported by learned articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and that peer-reviewed contrary views cannot be found. The Climategate emails conclusively show that the Team control the peer-reviewed literature, to the extent they “peer review” each other’s reports, and veto publication of research they do not support, bullying the editors and owners of scientific journals.
Worse, though, is the emails’ revelation that even material they put into the hallowed reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was not peer reviewed, and knowingly shabby.
Poneke’s full post is a must read. It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media. Has any major news organisation assigned a reporter to read all 1,000 e-mails?
Topics: Australia, History, New Zealand, People, Politics | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisSynchronise Lotus Notes with Google Calendar
By Martin English | January 11, 2010
There’s a lot of software for synchronising various webmail or MS Outlook Calendars with Google Calendar. However, there’s not that much around about synchronising Lotus Notes calendars….
At the moment there are three methods that I have used or know of.
goosync
I use a Nokia N95. It synchronises it’s calendar with Lotus Notes using the standard s/w that came with the phone. I use a product called goosync to synchronise the phone with my google calendar. They provide a free trial period, and various levels of service / payment after that.
For those using an iPhone the 3g is supported by goosync, but without one myself, I can’t help you getting the lotus notes calendar to the phone.
Device setup guides are at http://goosync.zendesk.com/forums/31074/entries.
awesync
awesync is (currently free, due to being in beta) software that synchronises your Lotus Notes and Google calendars. Some of the features include:
- Automatic scheduled synchronization at defined intervals of time, or manual on-demand synchronization;
- Full two-way synchronization, or one-way with defined data source, i.e. either Notes to Google, or Google to Notes;
- Comprehensive conflict handling – newest wins, or defined data source overwrite;
- Selection of one or more Google calendars for synchronization.
lntogooglecalsync
An entry on Intoiphone talks about an open source tool, hosted on sourceforge, called lntogooglecalsync that synchronises directly from your Lotus Notes Calendar to Google Calendar. The original web page is quite old, so I checked the Intogooglecalsync site and its still under development (for example, the original release didn’t support auto-sync, but it now does).
Summary
I find the combined method – Lotus to Nokia, and Nokia to Google to be sufficient for my needs. However, this is because 99.9% of my calendar originates from Lotus. The other pieces of software may be more relevant if you have updates flowing both ways.
Please feel free to add any other utilities (free or not) for synchronising Lotus with with Google calendar or any other Google products in the comments.
Topics: Enterprise, Google, Productivity, Technology, Work | 1 Comment »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisWordpress 2.9 notes
By Martin English | January 5, 2010
Batch Plug-in Update in Word Press
When Word Press introduced one click upgrade for pluggins, it was like Christmas in July. But this time maybe on the actual Christmas or perhaps slightly earlier with the release of Word Press 2.9, we will now be able to upgrade multiple pluggins with one click from our WordPress Admin Panel.
Optimize/Repair Database Functionality
WordPress has added a new feature to the core which allows you to repair and optimize your database. In order to activate this function, you will need to add this line in your wp-config.php
define(‘WP_ALLOW_REPAIR’, true);
Once you have added it, you will now be able to run the script which is located at this URL:
WordPress Recycle Bin / Trash
One useful thing most desktop operating systems have is the trash bin or recycle bin. WordPress has now added similar functionality; instead of permanently deleting posts, pages, and the comments, you can now trash it and then later on empty the trash once you are completely done with what you were doing. By default WordPress will empty the trash every 30 days, but you can change the time limit by simply entering the following code in your wp-config.php:
define( ‘EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS’, 10 );
Image Editor
The image editor is something that a lot of users were waiting for and it is included in this release. This editor will let you make simple changes such as cropping, rotating, scaling, etc.
Ability to add Post Thumbnails
You have probably seen many sites displaying posts on the homepage with a post thumbnail. Or many sites having the post thumbnail next to each post in their index. Before version 2.9, it was done through custom fields. In this release, you can simply add the thumbnail when writing the post and displaying it in the template is even easier.
In order for you to have this functionality available in the admin panel, you must have a theme that supports this function. However, a quick way to add it now is to visit your theme’s functions.php and add the following code:
add_theme_support( ‘post-thumbnails’ );
Once you choose the thumbnail, you display it on the template using the following code:
<?php the_post_thumbnail( ‘thumbnail’ ); ?>
Extend User Contact Info
The WordPress user profile page is quite old and many new networks have gain popularity such as twitter and facebook. Prior to version 2.9, it was really hard to add a custom field in the contact area, but thanks to Joost De Valk for his contribution, now this feature is available.
Simply open your functions.php and add the following function:
<?php
function my_new_contactmethods( $contactmethods ) {
// Add Twitter
$contactmethods['twitter'] = ‘Twitter’;
//add Facebook
$contactmethods['facebook'] = ‘Facebook’;return $contactmethods;
}
add_filter(‘user_contactmethods’,’my_new_contactmethods’,10,1);?>
This will add extra fields in your user profile pages.
You can display these on author profile page by using the normal $curauth variable or the_author_meta variable.
New Excerpt Filter
Up till WordPress 2.8.6, if you added the_excerpt code in the loop, it would display content with a 55 word limit and once the word limit was reached, it would add [...]. With this new ability, You can now specify a function and control both excerpt word count, and the more text. Implement this by opening your theme’s function.php file and add the following code:
// Changing excerpt length
function new_excerpt_length($length) {
return 60;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_length’, ‘new_excerpt_length’);// Changing excerpt more
function new_excerpt_more($more) {
return ‘…’;
}
add_filter(‘excerpt_more’, ‘new_excerpt_more’);
All thanks goes to Ramiy for suggesting this feature.
oEmbed making Embedding Easier
Thanks to ViperBond007 that this feature was added to the core of WordPress 2.9. It is a specification that allows media providers like Flickr, YouTube and others to provide data for consumer applications like WordPress about media.
There are many many more features that are being included in this version. To see a full list check out version 2.9 page in the codex.
Topics: Open Source, Personal, Productivity, Technology, Web / Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisPresident Sarkozy requests a VIP box for Rugby match
By Martin English | January 4, 2010
click on image to see correspondence in higher resolution
Topics: Technology | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisGenerate MD5 Checksums on Windows
By Martin English | November 21, 2009
How do you know, for sure, that the file you’ve download has been transferred correctly ? The UNIX (and by extension, internet) standard has, for years, been checking the md5 hash. Now, there’s plenty of info on the web about creating or checking MD5 or SHA-1 checksums for UNIX or Linux users, but not very much about doing the same on Windows.
If you want to create or verify MD5 or SHA-1 checksums on windows, have a look at Microsoft’s FCIV tool.
The File Checksum Integrity Verifier (FCIV) is a command-prompt utility that computes and verifies cryptographic hash values of files. FCIV can compute MD5 or SHA-1 cryptographic hash values. These values can be displayed on the screen or saved in an XML file database for later use and verification.
The FCIV utility has the following features:
* Supports MD5 or SHA1 hash algorithms (The default is MD5.)
* Can output hash values to the console or store the hash value and file name in an XML file
* Can recursively generate hash values for all files in a directory and in all subdirectories (for example, fciv.exe c:\ -r)
* Supplies an exception list to specify files or directories to hash
* Can store hash values for a file with or without the full path of the file
Topics: Microsoft, Productivity, Security, Technology | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet Thisvia Cracked.com – A Review of the Pirated Copy of Windows 7 I Bought On eBay
By Martin English | October 12, 2009
The official release of Windows 7 is only a few weeks away, and if you’re anything like me, you’re probably asking yourself what effect this will have on your lives. Will the gates of Heaven open up and a consort of large breasted angels descend to guide you into computing heaven? Or will it be more of a low key affair, maybe involving the cast of Friends and a degrading video?
via A Review of the Pirated Copy of Windows 7 I Bought On eBay | Cracked.com.
Topics: Humour, Microsoft, software | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisRSSCloud enabled feed ?
By Martin English | September 14, 2009
From RSSCloud.org:
In the early days of RSS, we had the idea that instantaneous updates would be the next step.
That was 2001. It took a little longer than we thought, but now with “realtime” as the Next Big Thing, it’s time to reboot all that stuff.
A week or so ago, all wordpress.com blogs became ‘cloud enabled’. At it’s most basic, this means adding an extra tag into their RSS feeds. It’s important because of new tools like Dave Winer’s River2 aggregator, that will collect your RSS feeds in real time. As opposed to waiting for your users / readers / aggregators to poll your sites.
As mentioned in Dave’s Post, you can use the new rssCloud plug-in on any Wordpress blog that you host and it adds a cloud element to your feed and handles notifications for subscribers.
So thats what I’ve done….
Update: the plugin is adding the correct tags in my RSS feed. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way a line is being inserted at the top of the feed, which inbreaks (amongst other things) how firefox interprets it. based on what i’ve read about the plugin, this is something particular to MY implementation. FWIW, I’ve also tried Fix Rss Feeds plugin.
Update 2: I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a problem with my theme 
I have the same plugins running in another blog, on the same server, at the same release of everything. And the RSS feed for that blog doesn’t have the blank lines.
Topics: Technology | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisRecover the password from a Microsoft Access Database (mdb)
By Martin English | September 1, 2009
Today, I had to do a password recovery from a Microsoft Access 2003 Database. Obviously, my first port of call was Google where I found a free utility from NirSoft called Access PassView which worked wonderfully well.
The author of Access PassView does suggest that it has a few limitations;
- It does not work with Access 2007 (accdb) files,
- In Access 2000/2003 (aka XP), it cannot recover passwords that contains more than 18 characters,
- It’s only able to recover the main database password. It cannot recover the user-level passwords. However, it did allow me to open the file.
Topics: Technology | No Comments »
Share on FriendFeed Tweet ThisStandalone WordPress URL Shortener
By Martin English | August 19, 2009
Using a standard Wordpress (2.5+) installation, the la petite url WP plugin allows the user to create shortened, unique, permalinks to their content using a combination of lowercase, uppercase, and numeric characters, which originate from their own domain name. By default la petite url generates a 5-character combination of lowercase letters only, for ease of use in entering on a mobile device or handset. Which URL would you rather explain to a friend or new acquaintance in person?
http://extrafuture.com/2009/04/08/on-url-shortening/
or
http://extrafuture.com/msfxe
Topics: Technology | No Comments »
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