Notes

I want to disable internet connection for Steam in Windows 7. How can I do this? (Steam offline mode is not an option for me) After change firewall rules, Steam is automatically adding his own firewall rule, for private and public connections. With both, allowing and blocking rule on the list, firewall is allowing Steam to connect. Is there any other way to block internet connection for application in Windows? I dont want to install any other firewalls. It would be great to enable and disable this connection via command line. Answer You can use the Windows hosts file to redirect any requests to the Steam service to your local machine ( localhost or 127.0.0.1 ). Those requests will be going straight into the void and Steam will not have any way to work around this issue, except for changing the servers they connect to (which you can block then, as well). You can find out which servers to block using Wireshark, or you can just google and try to find a list of Steam service IPs. This

I try to change my desktop wallpaper and I cannot choose a different folder from the one I chose at first... When I first installed W7 I changed the wallpaper by right-clicking in the desktop and choosing Customize (maybe it's not correct because I use the italian version) and then Change Wallpaper in the bottom and finally I browsed for a folder with some images in and chose the wallpaper. When I do the same exact things now, the folder I select in the final pass is not selected: I mean its pictures are not shown and it doesn't appear in the drop-down list. I can put a specific picture as a wallpaper by selecting it through Explorer, and some times (not always) the folder shows in the drop-down list. Is there any possible solution to this? Answer Had the same problem with not being able to browse for a different folder for background images. Turns out it happened after I removed the Pictures library. Simply using the 'Restore default libraries' command seemed to solv

I would like to block some websites to improve my productivity. Is there any way to block some sites in Google Chrome, preferably an extension or so? It doesn't have to be "airtight" blocking (hey, it is for myself), but just deny access when I find myself accessing that page. Note that editing my host files is not possible. This seems to be the only solution that comes up when googleing for it.

I know it is possible to create a sofware AP in windows 7 using command prompt: netsh wlan set hostednetwork ... But is it possible to set such a network not to broadcast its SSID? I realize that this does not gain any security - or may even make the system more secure, but I am not asking about security here. I want to know if it is possible, through the netsh command interface, to hide the SSID. If my client wants to hide the SSID, then I will make them aware of security implications, but in the end it is their decision. Answer The question of Goro is NOT about security. To answer the question I'd add that when you read the documentation , you can't see any mean to hide the SSID. It's not a functionality which seems to be implemented.

Assuming I have a machine with Windows / Mac / Linux OS installed that's connected via Ethernet to an unknown device (e.g.: router, another computer, LAN printer), how can I figure out that device's MAC address?

I've got both Windows 7 and Ubuntu (finally) installed on my laptop. For the sake of comfort, I usually hibernate Windows instead of shutting it down. And I think when using Ubuntu regularly, there will be times when I do that to quickly switch from Windows to Ubuntu to check or do something quickly and then want to continue my work on Windows. 1) Are there any problems with hibernating both Windows and Ubuntu at the same time? I should probably also mention that I created an extra partition which I use to access from both Windows and Ubuntu. I would like to put my www directory of my test web servers on that drive, so that I can work on that stuff both from Windows and from Ubuntu. 2) So - is this a good idea and what do I have to be careful with? EDIT: One important sidenote I forgot: I want to share a Mozilla Thunderbird profile directory on a shared drive. Does that change anything?

I've downloaded an application that is a command-line application, and want to put it somewhere where I can run it from the command-line without having to type the path explicitly. What are the conventional paths used for something like this? /usr/bin ? Are there different options, one if I want it for all users, and one if I want it for just a particular user, like my administrator account? Or should I put it in its own directory under the Applications directory, and add it to the path? If so, which file controls where the path is set? Answer Core answer: you probably want /usr/local/bin . Depending on how recent your macOS is, you may need to update your default $PATH . See below for further details. UPDATE 12-01-2018 At some point since I wrote my original answer, Apple changed its default $PATH . As a result, a lot of what I say below is irrelevant to recent Macs. If you type echo $PATH in a terminal, and /usr/local/bin is first, then you can ignore everything below about

I am running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit with Hyper-V and Intel VT-x virtualization technology enabled. When I try to run VirtualBox 64bit, Windows goes into a BSOD. When I run VMware it shows an error. Why can't VirtualBox and VMware run with Hyper-V enabled? Please explain with all details you have including hardware and software. I want to know the internal cause of this error. Here are some findings of mine. Most sites suggest adding a boot entry with BCDedit or to disable Hyper-V with BCDedit. e.g. Creating a "no hypervisor" boot entry , Run Hyper-V and VirtualBox on the same machine . But I can run QEMU with Hyper-V . Qemu does not show any error with Hyper-V and runs smoothly. Answer VirtualBox and VMware Workstation (and VMware Player) are "level 2 hypervisors." Hyper-V and VMware ESXi are "level 1 hypervisors." The main difference is that a level 2 hypervisor is an application running inside an existing OS, while a level 1 hypervisor is the OS it

What is the best way to convert from an EPS formatted vector graphic to an SVG formatted graphic using only freely available tools? Answer You should be able to open the EPS in inkscape and save as SVG from there. Make sure to save as Plain SVG not inkscape SVG for better comparability. Adobe illustrator can do the same thing, its not free, but the trial version is.

I know that an application is a program that you interact with on the desktop, but what exactly are processes and services? Are services classified as processes or is it the other way round? Answer Application: Application software, also known as an application or an app, is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. So, you are right. An application is something that the user interacts with. Process: A computer program is a passive collection of instructions; a process is the actual execution of those instructions. Several processes may be associated with the same program; for example, opening up several instances of the same program often means more than one process is being executed. Processes then, is what is actually making the application do something. Service: Local implementations in software. Basically, a service is something that is usually built into the OS itself, and is designed to not have any user interaction. Examples This is really how

The reason I am asking this is because I am curious if there can exist a virus in the computer without me ever being able to know it exists. To be more specific, a virus that emits no signs of any sort. Answer There is a class of malware that can hide itself completely from the operating system known as a rootkit . Rootkits are used to hide the evidence of other malware at work and are embedded very deeply in the operating system. Because of their deep embedding they are able to manipulate process lists, filesystem tables and other important structures on-the-fly. By manipulating filesystem structures in memory they can return false or misleading results for directories, specifically not showing files related to the main malware itself. The files are there, and booting into an uninfected operating system such as a Linux LiveCD will show the files though, as they have to be stored somewhere. Similarly, rootkits can simply drop certain processes from being reported to programs such as

I am specifying a custom user agent in Google Chrome in order to access a legacy web site on my company's intranet (the site is needlessly requiring IE). I created an application shortcut for the site and added the --user-agent parameter to the shortcut. If I launch this shortcut without Chrome already running, things work fine. However, if I launch the application shortcut when another Chrome window is already open, the --user-agent parameter is ignored and the normal user-agent is used. So, it appears that whatever user agent string is used when the first Chrome window is opened is what will be used for all future windows or application shortcuts. Is there any way to get around this behavior? Answer What you can do is create multiple profiles. This means that windows will not be shared, and likewise with favorites, cache, home-screen content, cookies, etc., but you'll be able to make your shortcut work the way you wanted it to. First, follow the steps in this article here

I have 1 long column in an excel sheet. I want to split that 1 column into multiple columns. The multiple column split should happen after every 10 entries. So if there are a total 80 cells in my original column I want them to be split into 8 columns each having 10 cells. I am not well-versed in VBA so I won't be able to follow hints, but I might me able to modify a sample code. My Question Begins Now I have searched SU and found this topic How to Split one column in Excel into multiple columns of 55 rows It has the following command =INDIRECT("Sheet1!R" & (COLUMN()-1)*55+MOD(ROW()-1,55)+1 & "C1", FALSE) I modified it to =INDIRECT("Sheet1!R" & (COLUMN()-1)*10+MOD(ROW()-1,10)+1 & "C1", FALSE) I understand the first parameter to INDIRECT should be the source where I want to pick the value from so it should be of the format "Sheet1!RnnnCnnn" where 'nnn' are the row and column numbers. Can someone please explain

I ran past my storage allocation with Dropbox yesterday. After cleaning-up my folder, I have plenty of space again. However, Dropbox shows that it cannot sync a file because there is no space, yet when I check the website or other machines linked, I see the file there - with a green check. Is there a way to clear this message? Can't sync "7linux_tuning.mp3": out of space in your Dropbox But I am only using: 93.6% of 6.2 GB used The file in question is only 30MB, and should fit fine (and, in fact, does). Answer This may sound like a stupid question, but do you have enough space on your physical drive? Since Dropbox acts as a folder on your physical drive there has to be enough space on that drive as well for it to sync. It sounds like you're saying the file does fit on your physical drive by your saying "The file in question is only 30MB, and should fit fine (and, in fact, does)." but I wanted to just throw this first easy solution out there for you. Edit:

My brand-new install of Word 2007, which had been working just fine, suddenly refused to save any files. I'd hit Ctrl-S, and it wouldn't complain but it wasn't saving. Then upon exiting, Word would ask if I wanted to save. I'd click on Yes, and the same pop-up would appear, endlessly, until I chose Cancel. Also, on opening files, Word gave an error message about not being able to access a TEMP file. Exact wording: "word could not create the work file - check the temp environment variable". Answer A look at the folder C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office (where of course MyUserName is my user name), showed that the folder was encrypted. I decrypted it, and -- bingo! -- Word worked perfectly again. This was on a 3-year-old laptop with a fresh disk re-image (OS=Win7) from the helpdesk at work. Weirdly, that folder is encrypted on my desktop at work, and everything works fine there.

How can I know what software is used in authoring, generating the result PDF document? For example MS Word, latex/dvipdf, PDF Creator, etc. Can PDF hold such information? Answer There are Producer and Creator fields in the PDF metadata, but they aren't required to be populated, or accurate.

I have a series of PNG image files that I want to convert into animation. What is the best way to convert them into a GIF? Also I have tried various tools to convert them into a video file (like ffmpeg), however they produce a poor quality video. Using the Video Sequence Editor in Blender produces the desired quality however I do not know how to automate this. (Using ImageMagick's convert takes too long, is there a way to speed it up?)

I am using µTorrent v2. Is it possible to remove a file from µTorrent when a download has finished automatically? I want to keep µTorrent open rather then closing it down. Answer Instead of just stopping at the point of completing a download, here are a few options (which I think uTorrent will also support) -- they are torrent friendly. Limit upload rate Stop seeding after a specific seeding ratio (like say 100%? or, 10% if you are not friendly). Setup alternate upload rate when not downloading (meaning when you have probably completed all your downloads)

I have a list of mp4 files which are of kb's or of at max 4 MB (they were actually gifs but downloaded as mp4).So when I concatenate them using a list of them the video don't work as all of them are of different sizes (resolution wise ) and all of not are in vertical order.So any help with that matter and also I f someone would be kind enough to tell me the FFmpeg command to convert this mp4 list to gif 's without losing quality.Thanks in advance

Is there a way to look up patterns inside an MS Word document instead of an exact match? I have a document where all decimals have been written as / instead of . . For example, 1.02 has been written as 1/02 , because Persian typography uses / instead of . for the decimal point. As / is not only used for decimals, and it has other applications, for example, fractions, percentage, etc., is there a way to find a pattern like N/M within a word document, where N denotes a decimal and M also shows another decimal number? Answer like 'N/M' within a word document, where N denotes a decimal and M also shows another decimal number Just for a search you can use ^#/^# as your search parameter. Under the more options, and find Special , there are some other options that can be helpfull. Nb: ^# , is one decimal place so if you are looking specifically for x/yy then it would be ^#/^#^# etc. to Replace, This is a better option , perform search with ([0-9])/([0-9]) and replace wi

I'm trying to debug hardware issues, and my first target is the SSD hard drive. However, the drive does not have SMART enabled, and pretty much all recommendations for checking SSD health include using SMART-related tools. I'm using an ASUS EEE; here's some info: $ smartctl -i /dev/sda smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-linux-3.5.4-1-ARCH] (local build) Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net === START OF INFORMATION SECTION === Model Family: Asus-Phison SSD Device Model: ASUS-PHISON SSD Serial Number: Firmware Version: TST2.04U User Capacity: 8,069,677,056 bytes [8.06 GB] Sector Size: 512 bytes logical/physical Device is: In smartctl database [for details use: -P show] ATA Version is: 5 ATA Standard is: Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated Local Time is: Tue Oct 2 14:45:58 2012 CEST SMART support is: Unavailable - device lacks SMART capability. Any ideas?

I'm studying IT and in my current class am learning the basic MS-DOS commands (CD, DIR, TREE, etc...). At the school, I'm using Windows 7, and I don't know how, but I'm still able to run the old EDIT command in DOS. However, in my Windows 8 (64-bit version) laptop I'm not able to run this command. I know that it's kind of silly to ask for that once I can use a common text editor like Notepad or Notepad++ , but only as a way to recreate the environment hat I have in class I'm looking for a way to use the EDIT command. I've heard some people talking about DOSBox or ExDOS as a solution, but I don't know them.

I'm running Windows XP SP3. The embedded graphics controller is the Intel GM45 Chipset / Mobile Intel 4 Series Express. The OEM drivers (it's a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop) are provided only up to 6.14.10.4990 (Dell driver code R203389). I usually like to stick with OEM drivers on Dell stuff, since they often have tweaked it for the specific machine. But I needed to run an app that refused to run on the old video driver (it's dated 2009). So I went to Intel's site, downloaded the newest driver (6.14.10.5355), and installed it. It's working fine except...the screen seems a little "warmer" than usual. I.e., my whites seems slightly reddish. Oh, its ever so slight, in fact my friend was unable to confirm, but then he doesn't look at this screen every day. Its not enough that its 100% conclusive but it definitely seems to be a little warmer. However the gamma/hue corrections do not seem to have changed, at least the driver panel reports them the same. I'

I have asked this question before, but admittedly in a terrible way, so I am asking this again. So here I am once more. I am making a program in VBA Excel - or better, combining a certain worksheet with actions and parts of code to make something that works like a stand-alone program. Part of it involves the binding of a number of images (tens of them) to a certain macro, on click. I have created the said images through the "Developer"->"Design Mode" button. The images are named in the fashion: Image1, Image2, Image3... etc. What I want is, if, for example, I press Image1, the subroutine Action(1), is called. If I press Image100, I want the subroutine Action(100) to be called. Therefore, I want to call the Action Subroutine passing a value according to which image is clicked, in the example I gave you, according to its name. With a quick search, the first way I found out to make this work was the one below: Sub Image1_Click() Call Action(1) End Sub That was

Possible Duplicate: DVD player Ubuntu 9.10 Hello everyone, in serverfault. I just have a question? I have a load of cisco videos, that I enjoy watching. The format is wma. Is there any good wma formats out there. I have been reviewing a few, I just would like to hear it for you guys. Sorry I am using ubuntu 9.10

We've all seen that ads strewn across the web that tout the ability to increase the speed of our computer by 200%+. Obviously, these don't work. But what is the real way to speed up and optimize your computer? What program(s) actually work? Answer Putting Linux-evangelism aside, reinstalling Windows helps but it's not for the faint of heart. Windows is known to become bogged down by many small installations and incomplete uninstallations. CCleaner as mentioned helps, but sometimes you've got to use tougher means. For mom's pc, CCleaner is certainly fine. For my own pc, reinstalling is better. I have made a disk image of my newly installed Windows + favorite apps, so it's a matter of 30 minutes to get back up and running (after making proper data backups).

If I enter for example "block 59.164.0.0/20" as a firewall rule. Does that mean it blocks the IPs 59.164.0.0 to 59.164.0.20 or does it mean something else ? Answer This is in CIDR notation ( Classless Inter Domain Routing ). 59.164.0.0/20 is the same as 59.164.0.0 to 59.164.15.255 In reality though, you will only be able to use 59.164.0.1 to 59.164.15.254 for assigning to hosts.

In Windows 7, Win can be used to raise an auto-hidden taskbar. In Windows 8, Win overwrites the entire screen with the Start Screen. Is there a keyboard shortcut in Windows 8 to display the Taskbar once it has been auto-hidden? Update: thanks to Tom for the answer. A recent post on the Windows Team Blog has a comprehensive list of system keyboard shortcuts for the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. Answer Either hover it, or press WIN + T to activate the current application on the task bar. There also doesn't seem a quick way to access the lock screen information, I bet they might facilitate accessing the different things using hotkeys. Because it is indeed a pain...

I have a single kernel with 2 menu entries in grub like following: Boot(gfx) Boot(text) First entry boot the fedora in graphical mode running the gnome. Second entry boot the fedora in text mode. First thing is working fine but i want to know how to do the second thing. i added 3 at the end of second entry in syslinux.cfg and after booting it dropped me at console asking for login. So how to autologin in runlevel 3 and start autostart an application(e.g python script)? Answer The following solution is for Fedora 13, not test on other versions. Open tty.conf in /etc/init/ and replace the following line exec /sbin/mingetty $TTY with exec /sbin/mingetty --autologin root --noclear $TTY The above change will do an autologin for you. Now change the .bash_profile file and add entries to autostart your application, for example: cd /MyApp python MyAppStart.py The solution is tested and working well. Note: The above solution is not mine, a friend suggested it to me, So all credit goes to him.

I'm trying to run a Win7 exe that's on a network share (a Linux CIFS server). The share was created by a non-admin (see Windows 7 problem to access shared folder ). I can read and edit and write files in the folder containing the exe. I can read (i.e., copy) the exe. But when I try to run the exe, either by double-clicking and OK'ing the UAC dialog, or by right-clicking "Run as administrator", I get: Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item. Must I copy the exe to local disk before I can run it? I followed the recipe at the (not yet accepted answer for) How can I run an EXE from a Network Share? , but that appears to grant only read permissions, not exe permissions. (Distantly related: Cannot Run .exe from Network Drive .) Answer This is expected (although unusual) behaviour. When you run a program from a network share, it can be done in a few ways. The share is mapped to a networ

I have a PST (Outlook archive) file containing all my messages after recovering them using Kernel Outlook Repair, but the recovery program has saved all the actual emails as as .msg attachments on each message in the PST. Is there any way to extract all the attachments from a PST archive? Answer There's a freeware program from NirSoft that might help: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/outlook_attachment.html OutlookAttachView scans all messages stored in your Outlook, and displays the list of all attached files that it finds. You can easily select one or more attachments and save all of them into the desired folder, as well as you can delete unwanted large attachments that take too much disk space in your mailbox. You can also save the list of attachments into xml/html/text/csv file.

I want to get list of all words from aspell dictionary. I downloaded aspell and aspell polish dictionary, then unziped it using: preunzip pl.cwl I got pl.wl : ... hippie hippies hippiesowski/bXxYc hippika/MNn hippis/NOqsT hippisiara/MnN hippiska/mMN hippisowski/bXxYc ... but they appear with sufix like /bXxYc or /MNn . These suffixes are defined in pl_affix.dat , which looks like ... SFX n Y 5 SFX n a 0 [^ij]a SFX n ja yj [^aeijoóuy]ja SFX n a 0 [aeijoóuy]ja SFX n ia ij [^drt]ia SFX n ia yj [drt]ia ... It is connected to the declination and conjugation. How can I add to the first list all forms (with all corresponding suffixes as defined in .dat file ) ? BTW: I need this list to spell-checker jazzy . Answer Give this a try: aspell -d pl dump master | aspell -l pl expand > my.dict Edited to match corrections in comment.

I installed Windows 10 on my Leonovo Miix 3 (with keyboard dock). Most things wok fine. One thing is driving me up the wall, I've tried all sorts. When you press and hold the WinKey down, it treats it as a repeat key press like it would do with a regular key, e.g. holding 'g' produces 'gggggggggggggggg' ... this is causing problems because it means I have to do my WinKey combinations (i.e. snapping left/right) before the start bar pops up There are only Windows drivers for Windows 8.1 for this device, and even those do not have specific keyboard/dock drivers. Only software utilities which I have tried! Any ideas? Answer The Synaptics drivers have been causing problems with Windows 10. Check if your laptop uses a Synaptics touchpad. If it does, uninstall the drivers. As OP mentioned in the comments, you will lose touchpad features such as gestures. Hopefully they release an update for Windows 10 that will fix this, but for now uninstalling will fix the Windows key

Is it possible to have VNC running on ubuntu to share just 1 application running on the desktop instead of the whole desktop? Thank you. Answer Yes. x11vnc (available in Ubuntu's repositories somewhere) has a command line option (-id) which allows you to only share one window. Note that the window will appear without decorations, and resizing the windows may cause issues. You can use the xwininfo to find the window id. Basic steps: Run xwininfo from a console. It will change your cursor. Click on the window you want to share. xwininfo will print out the window id. Run x11vnc -id "id from xwininfo" replacing "id from xwininfo" with the appropriate id.

I've got a large table that is already organized using filters etc. I'd like to add a summary underneath certain columns that contain the number of distinct values in that column. There's no function =COUNTDISTINCT(A2:A100) so what can I do instead? (Excel 2003) I can't exactly use answers to this similar question because I don't want to modify the table or the filtering. I need an addition in the worksheet, not a modification . Answer =SUMPRODUCT((A2:A100 <> "")/COUNTIF(A2:A100,A2:A100 & "")) will do it without having to use an array formula.

I have six MP3 files I would like to put on a CD. They should be playable in all stereos so I guess I would need them in WAV format(?). I have Windows XP. What is the easiest way to make my CD? Answer You don't need to do any conversion. You can use CDBurnerXP : Create Audio-CDs create Audio-CDs from mp3, wav, ogg, flac and wma files add single or multiple tracks from existing audio-CDs directly to your new compilation without ripping tracks before (add cda-files) play audio-files with integrated audio player gapless audio-CDs supported (disc-at-once-mode) import M3U or WPL playlists support for ReplayGain import CUE sheets create mixed-mode discs CDBurnerXP is freeware (requires Microsoft .NET framework for versions 3.5 and above).

Running ntsysv on my CentOS terminal show both ntpd and ntpdate checked. Is it redundant to have both service to run at start-up? Answer They do different things. ntpdate is what you might consider "one shot mode". It runs once and updates the clock if it receives a response from the remote ntp server. ntpd runs continuously and adjusts the clock slightly to account for drift and to stay in sync with the remote ntp server. ntpd (by default) will not make any adjustments greater than 2 seconds. It's common to run ntpdate at system boot to ensure the clock is in sync and then run ntpd to keep it in sync. If for example when your computer boots, the clock is off by 3 seconds then ntpd would assume that it's too great a jump to adjust, and therefore do nothing. Your system would then drift even further out of sync.

The light blinks faintly about once a second. It is slowly driving me insane. How do I find out which program is causing this, so I can disable it? Acer 5274 laptop/core i3 Windows 7 Home Premium Hitachi HTS545050B9A300 hard drive Answer It may be the operating system polling the optical drive to see if you have inserted anything - the hard disk and optical disk share common circuitry and so the LED may apply to both. You could try turning off autoinsert notification (Device Manager - look at the properties of the optical drive) and autorun. A bit more info here: .../cdtTipAutoRun.htm (broken, replacement: http://web.archive.org/web/20100527203945/http://www.base40.com/cdtTipAutoRun.htm )

Fedora 12 ext4 file system I have just done a upgrade. And I get the message below. I am not sure that I don't have enough on my boot partition to install the new kernel. When I try and upgrade I get this message: There are unfinished transactions remaining. You might consider running yum-complete-transaction first to finish them So I run the yum-completed-transaction and I get the message below: [('installing package kernel-2.6.31.6-166.fc12.i686 needs 9MB on the /boot filesystem', (9, '/boot', 8469504L))] Not removing old transaction files I am wondering if this is because I don't have enough disk space on the boot drive. However, when I check I have more than 9mb. [root@steve-fedora ~]# df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on /dev/sda7 9.9G 3.4G 6.5G 34% / tmpfs 754M 564K 754M 1% /dev/shm /dev/sda6 74M 52M 18M 75% /boot /dev/sda9 26G 803M 24G 4% /home Many thanks f

I am trying to figure out if it's possible to search through code and stop at lines that contain Chinese characters?

Possible Duplicate: Extremely high disk activity without any real usage Occasionally, like several times an hour, my hard drive will appear to lock up: Task Manager will show 100% active time with read and write speeds of 0. I can still switch between open windows, but anything that requires a disk access will stall for around a minute until the hard disk starts working properly again. It happens at apparently random intervals, and only happens in Windows 8. Not 7, nor Linux. It is probably not a problem with the disk itself: This is a relatively new hard drive, and S.M.A.R.T. is showing no errors. Only happens in Windows 8: not any other OS that has used the same partition, or different partitions. So, what is going on? How can I fix this? Note: this is a different problem then this one: Extremely high disk activity without any real usage My task manager would look similar, but Average Response Time, Read Speed, and Write Speed would all be 0.

I was wondering whether anyone knew of a way to stream music throughout a house on a budget? I want to avoid spending any money on this (eg. I don't want to buy a d-link style device). It would be ideal if I could use my existing hardware and some open source software. I have three old(ish) PCs knocking around. I'm happy to stick either Windows or Linux on them. They can all be hooked up to speakers. The ideal solution would result in: the same audio being heard from every device (eg. when you hear a beat on one device, you'd hear it at the exact same time on another (so you don't get any echo)) I'd be able to control the source application (eg. the songs lined up) with my iPhone. I realise I'm being cheeky with those two wishes - but you never know your luck. Am I asking for too much, or is there a piece of software/protocol out there with this purpose in mind? I've been searching for sometime now, but haven't had any joy. Thanks in advance.

I need to do a lot of copying of various files to various folders. I can add all my copy commands to a bash script and then run that, but then I must wait until it finishes if I want to add more commands to that copying "queue". Is there a way I can run commands as a queue and sort of add more commands to that queue while things are running? Explained in a different way, I want to start a long running task. While that is running I want to start another one that does not actually start until the first one is done. And then add another after that last one and so on. Is this possible somehow?

After making an error installing windows, I now have two entries in the Windows 7 boot loader, one of which is incorrect. How can I remove it? I've seen some entries recommending EasyBCD, but can't it be done easily without 3rd party software? Answer The easiest way to remove an entry in the Windows 7 Boot Configuration is to use msconfig. To launch msconfig: Click Start In the Search text box, type msconfig Launch msconfig by selecting it from the search results above the search text box. After msconfig is launched: Go to the Boot tab Slect the boot entry you want to delete. Click the Delete button and then click OK. source

I have an HP Laptop (Core i5, 8GB RAM, 320GB HDD) running Windows 8.1 (x64), that recently got the Sality.AU Virus. The OS had only just been installed, and a friend downloaded the drivers and put them on a USB for me. As it would turn out, the USB had the Sality.AU Virus, and my PC went crazy with Windows Defender warnings as soon as I plugged it in. After cleaning the virus with Windows Defender, my HDD constantly spins at 100%, even though I have almost no programs (only Torch Browser, Rainmeter and the default OS programs) open. I have tried the solutions at these two pages on this site to no avail. I have also searched the Internet with my problem, and had some pages tell me that my HDD is faulty, some tell me that my Windows is faulty, and others tell me that I installed bad programs, which I can't have, since I have installed all the same programs on my other Toshiba laptop. My Task Manager gives me the following information: and Speccy also says that my HDD is "Good&q

How much data (in megabytes) does Skype consume in a 1 minute audio call? And how much data does Skype consume in a 1 minute video call? Is it fixed or does it vary with the mobile version or PC version of Skype?

I would like to know if there is a keyboard shortcut for switching the search engine in the search bar in Firefox. The current way to do is clicking on the down arrow beside the icon, but I am looking for a quick keyboard shortcut. Checked the Firefox help, it just has this regarding the switching of search engines in search bar. I need this, as I need to frequently switch between Google and the internal intranet search engine. Answer Click at the icon Select "Manage Search Engines…" Select the search engine you want to set a shortcut for Click on "Edit keyword…" Give a shortcut, e.g. "g" for Google Now you can type into the address bar the chosen search shortcut followed by what you like to search. Example: g weather berne . To switch to the address bar with the keyboard, use the shortcut Ctrl + L . You could also open a new tab ( Ctrl + T ), because it sets the focus to the address bar automatically. By the way: this works for nearly all search fields

Is there a way to programmatically cause a BSOD on Windows XP and newer versions? How? BTW just to clarify, this is not for malicious purposes. The client requested to be able to shut down/reboot a terminal on their LAN this way. When I asked why, they said because it's faster than a normal reboot... :) (I'm curious which part of "programmatically" do those people not understand who migrated this to Super User. Duh.) Answer The keyboard driver(s) can be told to cause a BSOD: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters or (for older PS/2 keyboards) HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters And there set a REG_DWORD named CrashOnCtrlScroll to 1 . After the next reboot you can force the blue screen by Ctrl + ScrollLk + ScrollLk . The bug check code will in this case be 0xE2 (MANUALLY_INITIATED_CRASH). If you really want a programmatic method, you need to find a hole in some driver on that machine or write and install a simplistic driver

I've experienced some strange noisy sound in my laptop. I can't definitely tell it's from the fan, but I think so because hdd failure sounds are different. The laptop is Dell latitude e6410, its hard disk and its cooling fan is next to each other so I can't distinguish where the sound comes from. Here is the sound: https://youtu.be/3ud-5u_jJnk , sometimes it runs continuously. It's not overheating. I've checked the temperature and it's around 50 - 60 celsius. It's maximum degree is around 100, so it is not the cause of heat. I also tried disassembling the fan but it has two plastic weldings which I can't open. I tried using blower and using a brush to clean out dust but the sound continues. Is it definitely the fan? then should I replace it or can I try something else? Thank you in advance! Answer I have the exact same laptop model and the exact same issue. It is the fan blades rubbing against the fan's housing. I was able to open up the fan as

When I installed the last Windows update, all seemed fine except it got stuck doing the restart. I waited about 5 minutes then used the power button. Startup was normal. But then when I told it to shut down it closed the programs then went to the "Shutting Down" screen and just stays there. Disk activity lights aren't showing any activity. Here is a screen grab of the most recent updates: Before I do anything I wanted some input. Question: Any ideas of how I can figure out how to fix it? Answer I found the answer by using Google into StackExchange. Turns out this is a more common problem than I thought, affecting multiple versions of Windows starting with Vista. After reading all the posts I could find there was one common theme: Memory management. For my situation it turned out to be a paging file problem. The solution that worked is pretty simple: Click on the Start button (I use Classic Shell so it looks like a Windows 7 menu), then right-click on This PC and selec

I need help with an Excel formula. I am trying to create an MPG tracker for my company vehicles, and I would like the results of a formula to remain blank until all the relevant data has been entered. I have my starting mileage in cell B9, my ending mileage in cell C9, and my total miles in cell D9. I would like the total miles cell (D9) to remain blank until I have entered my ending mileage at the end of the day. The current Formula I have entered in cell D9 now is: =C9-B9 . See the below screenshot. Answer You can try using IF , OR and ISBLANK like this: =IF(OR(ISBLANK(B9),ISBLANK(C9)), "", C9-B9)

As I understand, when hosting a webserver with Apache and PGP, the three settings within php.ini that determine the maximum upload size are: memory_limit post_max_size upload_max_filesize As I have read, memory_limit must be greater than post_max_size and post_max_size must be greater than upload_max_filesize . From there, the lowest, which would be upload_max_filesize would actually be the true limit for upload size, within Apache settings anyways. So, if the above is true, is it true to state that the true maximum file size that can be uploaded to a webserver through PHP running with Apache is equal to the physical memory on the device hosting? Aside from disk writing limitations, i.e. how NTFS limits file size to 4GB per file? The reason I am asking this is my post_max_size and upload_max_filesize are set to 4096M but while files slightly less than 1GB upload without a problem files over 1GB do not. So would memory_limit be a contributing factor in something like this? Answ

I have a laptop with Windows 7 and with a good bluetooth interface, and with a very bad (and overloaded) wifi device. My laptop is connected to the network through a simple, IP-based home network cable. This is what I want to share with bluetooth to other, bluetooth capable devices (mobile phones, other laptops, etc). Thus, what I want, that other devices could use the network of my Windows 7 laptop, using it as a bluetooth access point. Is it somehow possible? My bluetooth is pretty good configured (I can move files, I can connect to bluetooth networks, etc), but I can't see any option to make a bluetooth network access point. What I essentially want, is similar to the netsh start wlan hostednetwork trick in the case of wifi, but this time with bluetooth. Of course, any gui-based or command line solution, even with non-standard software would be okay. Is it somehow possible? What I don't want: I don't want to use wifi. Answers suggesting to use wifi are unacceptable. I do

I got a new laptop with 4GBs of ram, expandable to 8GBs. It has 1 4GB stick DDR3 PC3-12800 at 1600Mhz. I can't seem to find another one exactly the same locally, the closest I've found is 1 4GB stick DDR3 PC3-10600 at 1333Mhz. So my question is, I know they will both run at the slowest speed, so even if I have more available RAM it will become slower. Is the performance loss big enough to make the upgrade not worth the hassle? Answer If your laptop currently accesses the memory at its maximum speed (800MHz for default for DDR3 PC3-12800) and you add additional memory at a slower maximum speed then: Both SoDIMMs will run at the least common dominator. Benchmarked speed for RAM access will drop Actual OS performance will increase as long as your OS can access all the memory. (E.g. no 32 bit windows and more than 4GB RAM).

I have one Windows 7 desktop that seems to be stuck on an APIPA address. It can see the other computers in the workgroup, but seemingly only communicate via IPv6 (see below), and can't access outside the LAN. The problem began today after completing a Windows update. Troubleshooting so far has already included: -Ipconfig release/renew -Uninstalling/reinstalling the NIC driver -Checking device manager for "hidden" NIC drivers (none) -Flushing DNS and ARP -Resetting winsock and ipv4 using netsh -Manually assigning an IP address on my subnet -Doing a system restore to before the Windows update -Restarting DHCP client service -Disabling Windows Firewall -Unloading TrendMicro -Malware Bytes scan I tried unplugging the ethernet cable from that PC and putting it in a laptop and it connected fine, got a proper IP, and connected to the internet (yes, I disabled WiFi on the laptop before testing). Currently, when I try to ping another legitimate address on the network or the router

I'm looking for an OSX application that allows you to view the clipboard data in hex format. So if, for example, there's an image copied to the clipboard, then the app shows me the image data in hex form (i.e., "unformatted") Is there an app out there for OSX that can do this? CLCL works, but unfortunately it's Windows only. Answer Apple has provided sample code in the form of a project to create an app called "Clipboard Viewer" which does exactly what you're looking for. Don't know where I put my copy of the project, but here's a copy of the app: http://www.markdouma.com/developer/ClipboardViewer.zip

I am the administrator on my PC. There is another local account on this PC. I just want to know, if I wish that the other will not be able to view D and E drive, then what should I do? How can I prevent the other user from using the D drive? I have tried the "stop sharing" from the computer management, but the other user still can open the D drive. I am on Windows 10 Pro OS. Answer Right-click the file Properties Security Modify Add or remove user rights. If needed, remove anyone but you. People will still be able to see D and E drives, but they won't be able to access them. By the way, "Stop sharing" will only stop your computer from sharing these drives on the network, it does not have any effect locally.

I just noticed that I have a file called ~ in my ~ -directory. $ ls -la ~ ... -rw-r----- 1 x1 x1 733962240 Mar 1 17:55 ~ ... Any idea how I can mv or rm it? Answer The pretty much ultimate solution when it comes to files that can't be deleted by normal means: ls -il The first column will show the inode number of the files. find . -inum [inode-number] -exec rm -i {} \; This will delete the file with the specified inode-number after verification.

How does the ping command really work? Specifically where does the ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) come into picture? I was asked this question in an interview and I was not able to come up with a scenario when ARP could be used. Answer If you really want to understand, there is an excellent (very well written) white paper here: http://images.globalknowledge.com/wwwimages/whitepaperpdf/WP_Mays_Ping.pdf Here is the summary -> Ping (Program on the application layer) -------> Opens a 'raw' socket to IP Layer ------> IP layer (Layer 2 on OSI) packages ICMP packet and sends it Since there is no TCP layer in between, the Ping (program) has to monitor all the incoming ICMP packets and filter only the one's from the destination. Hope that helps.

My school requires a proxy for all internet access. If you want to use the internet, it is impossible to not use a proxy. This makes it a problem for many programs that don't seem to let you enter proxy settings. How can I use Steam when I am behind a proxy? Is it possible to somehow enter the details into a configuration file, or force it to get the settings from Internet Explorer? If not, does software exist for creating a 'virtual' network adapter which will pass all traffic (or all protocol x traffic) through the proxy? Although I am facing this specific problem on Windows 7, solutions for all operating systems are welcome. Answer Check out Proxifier . Combined with an SSH tunnel, you should be able to get most programs through any proxy. My school (and all the others in my state) have a quite elaborate web filtering proxy set up which blocks most ports on the other side of the proxy. I managed to get around it using a combination of the programs mentioned above on

I would like to virtual machines to be able to communicate with each other. I needs to configure network interfaces according to the following schedule: In this case, suffice it to any machine assign the IP address using the command ip addr? And I will add ip route on BST routers? All systems are running on virtual machines. Host is Windows. BST1, BST2, Eagle-Server - Debian machines PC1, PC2 - Windows machines I'm using VirtualBox Edit My config: Eagle: ip addr add 192.168.254.1/24 dev eth0 ip route add 10.10.10.4/30 via 192.168.254.253 dev eth0 ip route add 172.16.200.0/24 via 192.168.254.253 dev eth0 ip route add 172.16.255.0/24 via 192.168.254.253 dev eth0 BST1 ip addr add 192.168.254.253/24 dev eth0 ip addr add 10.10.10.6/30 dev eth1 ip route add 172.16.200.0/24 via 10.10.10.5 dev eth1 ip route add 172.16.255.0/24 via 10.10.10.5 dev eth1 BST2 ip addr add 10.10.10.5/30 dev eth1 ip addr add 172.16.255.254/24 dev et

In Windows 8.1, I am using Robocopy to save 2 servers' data onto a dedicated PC's storage space. The data volume is 147,314 files in 4,110 folders (66,841,845,760 bytes). All 3 involved PCs feature an i7 CPU with 4 cores and are in a 1 Gb network. The target's Storage Space (mirrored and striped on D:) is realized using a 4 x 4 TB JBOD case. Due to the CPUs' 4 cores and hyperthreading I was expecting, that the Robocopy switch /MT:8 would work best, and that more than 8 threads would be overkill due to not beneficiary thread management. I tested this. I list the fourth test series' data here (duration in mm:ss): 1 thread: 59:19 2 threads: 39:12 4 threads: 29:13 8 threads: 24:36 16 threads: 24:19 32 threads: 24:27 Granted, the few seconds using 16 threads are negligible, but they are consistent in all test series, i.e. not due to more loadwork on the less than 16 threads test (unless this was the case in all 4 test series). Also note, that 32 threads are almost