Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Ironwood]

What do people use for incremental copying of files if they can't use DFS ?

Like, If I have two folders in different locations and I want to update the second one with only changes ?  I'm using SychroniseIT right now and it's doing odd things and copying shit it shouldn't need to...

[apocrypha]

I use FreeFileSync.

Be warned, the installer has Yahoo! toolbar AIDS.

[Trippy]

rsync

[Viin]

Dropbox.

[Yegolev]

rsync

I figure if someone is working on Windows they hate themselves, so this is a valid answer.

As for my question, I'm in about the same boat that I was a year ago in regard to turning my home movies into playable bluray discs.  At this point I've decided that the device firmware of modern devices isn't going to work with the authoring software that came with my camera, and so I'm forced to consider spending even more money on a tool that will get the job done.  Before I wade into C-NET or something, does anyone have any tips or suggestions?  I'm certainly not going to avoid a linux-based solution, either.

[Salamok]

rsync

I figure if someone is working on Windows they hate themselves, so this is a valid answer.

As for my question, I'm in about the same boat that I was a year ago in regard to turning my home movies into playable bluray discs.  At this point I've decided that the device firmware of modern devices isn't going to work with the authoring software that came with my camera, and so I'm forced to consider spending even more money on a tool that will get the job done.  Before I wade into C-NET or something, does anyone have any tips or suggestions?  I'm certainly not going to avoid a linux-based solution, either.

Is there a reason why you want them on bluray disks as opposed to say on a media server (or even youtube) and able to be streamed to wherever? 

[Yegolev]

Is there a reason why you want them on bluray disks as opposed to say on a media server (or even youtube) and able to be streamed to wherever? 

Yes.

[Ironwood]

rsync

Actually, I knew I was going to get this answer and I wish to hell it was an option.

Sometimes the right tool for the job is in someone elses toolbox in another country.  Ah well.

[Salamok]

pretty sure you can run rsync on windows with cygwin

[Ironwood]

How sure can you be without capitals ?  EH ?  ANSWER ME THAT !!!

 

[Yegolev]

Well, there is a rsync in the download list.

[Salamok]

Well, there is a rsync in the download list.

THIS!

[Lantyssa]

pretty sure you can run rsync on windows with cygwin

You can.  I used to do that for machines back at UH.

Edit:  I used this:  cwrsync.  Looks like they may have given it a GUI now, too.

[Ironwood]

I have to PAY FOR THIS ?  DAMN YOU SIR !!

 

[Lantyssa]

Only if you use the fancy GUI.

[Cyrrex]

Need some help:  My son's PC seems to be having problems with Windows 7 at the moment...when it boots up in normal mode, it seems to go to the desktop just fine, but you can do literally nothing except move the mouse around.  Cannot boot a CD from this state, either.  Have tried to go into Safe Mode and do a restore, and that seems to boot up to an empty desktop and then hang.  In Safe Mode itself, all the usual stuff seems to work in that mode (can open windows, internet, etc.), but oddly it won't let me run a Windows disk for a re-install...not sure the CD drive is working at all, but I haven't tested that with other discs.  Is the optical drive even supposed to work in Safe Mode?  Can't remember.  At the same time, when I tried to reboot the machine from the DVD drive to start reinstallation, it doesn't seem to recognize it at all.  It seems to give up on installing from the disk and then just attempts to boot normally.

Any thoughts?  I started to think faulty power supply, but then why does it seem to work in Safe Mode.  And then when I think faulty optical disk drive, that doesn't explain why Windows isn't working in normal mode.  And yet, I cannot boot from the disk drive at all.  I am stuck.  I build all of our PCs, and I have not run into something like this before.

[apocrypha]

Try making a Win 7 installation disk on a USB key and boot from that, or just a USB boot disk. Could be the SATA interface is fucked?

[Cyrrex]

That was pretty much going to be my next option (other than opening the case and making sure the connection to the dvd is working).  I find it strange and unlikely that I would have both a drive issue and a windows issue at the same time...unless something else was also going on.

[Cyrrex]

Come to think of it, I have an external DVD drive I can use first, which would be easier then messing with a USB.  Will have to try that.

[Trippy]

Need some help:  My son's PC seems to be having problems with Windows 7 at the moment...when it boots up in normal mode, it seems to go to the desktop just fine, but you can do literally nothing except move the mouse around.  Cannot boot a CD from this state, either.  Have tried to go into Safe Mode and do a restore, and that seems to boot up to an empty desktop and then hang.  In Safe Mode itself, all the usual stuff seems to work in that mode (can open windows, internet, etc.), but oddly it won't let me run a Windows disk for a re-install...not sure the CD drive is working at all, but I haven't tested that with other discs.  Is the optical drive even supposed to work in Safe Mode?  Can't remember.  At the same time, when I tried to reboot the machine from the DVD drive to start reinstallation, it doesn't seem to recognize it at all.  It seems to give up on installing from the disk and then just attempts to boot normally.

Any thoughts?  I started to think faulty power supply, but then why does it seem to work in Safe Mode.  And then when I think faulty optical disk drive, that doesn't explain why Windows isn't working in normal mode.  And yet, I cannot boot from the disk drive at all.  I am stuck.  I build all of our PCs, and I have not run into something like this before.

Can you get to the Event Viewer?

[Cyrrex]

I can, for all the good it does...might as well be in Martian.  What am I looking for?  Main errors up are System Control Manager and Distributed COM.

External drive not working.  Not recognizing Windows CD (could be an issue with the CD, but I have used it before).

[Goreschach]

Install linux on a usb, try booting into that and see what happens. If the cd drive is still inoperable you can rule out any kind of virus or software misconfiguration.

[Trippy]

I can, for all the good it does...might as well be in Martian.  What am I looking for?  Main errors up are System Control Manager and Distributed COM.

External drive not working.  Not recognizing Windows CD (could be an issue with the CD, but I have used it before).

When you say not recognized do you mean the disk spins but nothing is executed? Or does the disk not even spin?

As for Event Viewer do you see any Critical errors?

[schild]

Cookies in the new Steam client are turned off in the browser so I can't check out through PayPal. Looks like LORD GABEN doesn't want me buying Rogue Legacy and Surgeon Simulator.

Hilarious.

[Cyrrex]

I can, for all the good it does...might as well be in Martian.  What am I looking for?  Main errors up are System Control Manager and Distributed COM.

External drive not working.  Not recognizing Windows CD (could be an issue with the CD, but I have used it before).

When you say not recognized do you mean the disk spins but nothing is executed? Or does the disk not even spin?

As for Event Viewer do you see any Critical errors?

Disk spins, but not recognized.  Same happens with both internal and external drives.

As for critical errors...does that imply the ones with the red triangle?  Because that would primarily be those two listed above.

[Salamok]

Anyone have some personal experience based thoughts they would like to share on wireless ac?

[Yegolev]

I want to import a CSV into Excel but it's too big.  I'm not sure what my options are during import.  Can it be imported into separate tabs?

[Salamok]

I want to import a CSV into Excel but it's too big.  I'm not sure what my options are during import.  Can it be imported into separate tabs?

I don't think so, my first reaction would be to just tail the file to slice it into manageable chunks then import those individually.  It isn't elegant but you would probably be finished and on your merry way in pretty short order.

[Hammond]

I want to import a CSV into Excel but it's too big.  I'm not sure what my options are during import.  Can it be imported into separate tabs?

Have you just tried opening it in Excel not importing it? And like Salamok said probably using tail to chunk it up is the simplest solution.

[Yegolev]

Looks like the final answer is: Just deal with these 450 individual CSV.  It's some amount more of work, but less so than writing a report generator.

[Salamok]

Looks like the final answer is: Just deal with these 450 individual CSV.  It's some amount more of work, but less so than writing a report generator.

That is terribad, in this case i would import the file into.an SQL compliant database and generate reports from there. Theoretically you could even connect directly to the CSV file from Excel vía ODBC and pull data in that way but Excel is not tuned to deal with 500 million row data sets so i would not even attempt to use it.

[Yegolev]

I did consider it but the small scale means using Access or something else in that league.  We would all rather use awk.

[Salamok]

I did consider it but the small scale means using Access or something else in that league.  We would all rather use awk.

Mysql copy the file local and import it then use phpmyadmin as a report writer.  If you already have a linux workstation it takes like 5 minutes to get lamp+phpmyadmin on it.  I guess it comes down to if you are trying to build a solution or just solve the current problem once.  If the latter you just grab the closest hammer you are familiar with, get it done and move on.

[Yegolev]

I might do that if I was the end user, but after some discussion the guy actually using the CSV seems fine doing it by what I consider the hard way.  This is actually a semi-completed project that I was working on before my promotion, and in reality I'm doing that account favors since the client isn't paying us for engineering services.  Now, if they get serious about creating some decent report, then I'll look at the mysql since that seems like the best idea.

[Morat20]

Probably the wrong place for it, but I have a large XML file that contains (among other things) two tags "title" and "url" (or something similar). Which, of course, are a bookmark title and URL.

I ONLY have this in an XML file (which is a backup of some favorites thing).

I need to scrape those two fields and write them out into something freakin' chrome can import, with the goal of eventually getting it into my stupid android phone. For reasons I am NOT sure of, my old Droid didn't sync my bookmarks (or it somehow got hosed -- everything else synced fine) so when I got my new phone, I've got squat for bookmarks.

The reason I have only the XML instead of the actual favorites/bookmarks from the old phone's browser is I never rooted my old phone, and for reasons that totally escape me, my old phone's browser (Opera, I think) decided NOT to store the bookmarks on the SD card (like I thought) but in a folder on the phone proper -- one that can only be seen if you have root.

Which I don't.

*grumble*. Any suggestions? Or am I pretty much just gonna have to write a quick scraper to yank these out and format them chrome bookmark style and drop it in the right spot on my new phone?