Discovering Symbolic Links

October 22, 2011 in Tech Talk & Other Thoughts by Brian Thompson | No comments

A while back I was trying to do symbolic links in Windows 7 like you can do in Linux.  I didn’t try too hard as I really didn’t have a good need for it at the time.  Well I recently found a good need for symbolic links so I looked a bit harder.   Not too long later I came across several sites that recommended Link Shell Extension.  After messing around with this a while I can say this does exactly what I want….almost.

For my use I want to be able to share some pictures on FTP for friends to download, but I don’t want to let the FTP program, Filezilla, have access to all my pictures.  I also dodn’t really care to have pictures in two places (my pictures folder and in the FTP folder).  With symbolic links I am able to keep the pictures in my personal pictures folder and then create a symbolic link in the FTP folder.   Now I only have one copy of the pictures on my computer and my FTP folder can only see the pictures that I’ve linked.

Before using this I did a quick test.  If you delete the symbolic link the files are not deleted, but if you go into the folder that is linked and delete a file within it the actual file is deleted.    For how I don’t think I need to use hard links as programs seem to work fine with the symbolic (or soft) links.

The one thing that I was hoping to do was to link files from my external hard drives shared through my ww-drt flashed router.  It seems though that the link shell extension program will only work with local files.  For now not a big deal, but I’ll probably keep my eyes out for a solution.

 

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Setting up UltraVNC

October 17, 2011 in Tech Talk & Other Thoughts by Brian Thompson | No comments

I’ve found UltraVNC to be a great free program to maintain the computers that we have.   I’ve now setup all of our computers to use a fixed IP address and each has their own server port.  Our router now fowards the external port calls to each PC.  I’m now able to log in from outside computer or my phone to the computers.

Recently, when I installed uVNC I ran into a problem where once I was logged in the computer wouldn’t respond to any of my inputs.  I checked the settings and the “Disable user inputs” was not checked.  After quite a while I gave up.  I completely uninstalled uVNC from both computers.

When installing I choose to do a full install, downloaded the mirror and vista drivers (though I don’t know if I really use or need them, and choose to not have it setup as a service but rather application mode instead.

Because it was in application mode I opened up the “Edit Settings” icon that came with uVNC.  This is where I think I discovered the problem.  When the application opened I noticed that it loaded all of the old settings (a good thing), but I noticed that the “Disable user inputs” was selected.   Weird since I know it wasn’t selected beforehand.

Well I started up the server side and logged in on the viewer side.  No problems, everything worked just fine.  From there I selected to load it as a service and now I’m all setup.

A couple of quick notes, make sure that you have the firewall disabled or the proper ports configured correctly.  Related to the last note, make sure your networks are setup with the right type Home or public as the firewall rules run may be different for each type.

 

 

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Issues loading Windows 7

October 17, 2011 in Tech Talk & Other Thoughts by Brian Thompson | No comments

What I thought would be a 1 hour task took closed to 10 frustrating hours.

I completely wiped my entire computer and re-established the RAID system.  When I bought Windows 7 upgrade I created a boot CD and thought I’d just put that in and install windows.  Well the install went through just fine until I had to enter my product code.  Apparently since I bought the upgrade I needed to have another verison of Windows already installed.  So no problem I figured I would just use the Vista CD that came with my computer.  Well it isn’t a bootable disk which posed as a problem.  I attempted to create a USB boot disk following a few instructions from web sites, but that didn’t seem to work.

I decided to cheat a bit then.  I re-isntalled Windows 7 using my disk and then found a product code online that worked for a Dell (32KD2-K9CTF-M3DJT-4J3WC-733WD — XXXXX-OEM-8992671-00524 — DELL).  I made sure to keep my computer offline as I imagine the product code is banned by Microsoft.

Once Windows 7 was installed I used my legal Windows Vista 32-bit CD and did a full clean install.  From there I then did a full install to Windows 7 64-bit using my paid product code.

So in total it took 3 installs to get my PC back working, but in reality it took me about 12 attempts to get there.  Not a fun time to get back up and running and I’m really disappointed to find out that Dell didn’t give me the tools to install Vista on my own.

September

October 1, 2011 in BLT Updates by Brian Thompson | No comments

My monthly blog streak is now 2!  September was another fast month.  We began with a fun Labor day weekend.  Our friend Gilbert was back in town for a night which meant trouble at Fat Face Fenners.

Another exciting event this month was the Labor Day Sales for mens suits.  After having one suit for the last few years I finally got another one along with two new sports coats, some shirts and ties, and a belt.  This was good timing as I had a brief encounter with the VP of Boeing and looked pretty snazzy in my new outfit.

The following weekend, we made a road trip to Tuscon for a quick get away.  Lisa hadn’t been back to see her alma mater since she graduated.  We had a great first evening with my cousin Jeff, Michelle, and baby Cliff.  Saturday we walked around campus, saw Lisa’s sorority house, and laughed repeatedly as Lisa jumped in excitement each time she saw an old bar that she used to visit!  We had some lunch and drinks in the downtown area.  The Dintleman’s made a brief appearance, but it was a little too hot for Cliff’s taste.  We made a stop at the bookstore to get some new shirts.  Then back to the hotel to change and had a few beers at the hotel bar, which used to be called the Regal Beagle (“it hasn’t been called that for a really long time”…said the bartender).  This really made Lisa feel old!!!!  I guess it has been 10 years since she graduated college.  By this time most of our crew was together, Josie, Abalos, Susan, Amelia, Lisa, and I.  Our psuedo-tailgate was at Champions and then we went to the Stanford vs UofA football game.  Jeff and his friend Bill met us at the game.  Such a good time with a Stanford win!  Finally the night got pretty loud at Dirt Bags and the Trident bar.  We had a lot of fun in Tuscon and had a great time seeing everyone.

The next weekend we went to a big rock concert called the KROQ Epicenter.  I don’t think Lisa cared for the music much, but I had a great time.  An unexpected surprise was hearing the old singer from House of Pain sing “Jump Around” with his old DJ present.

For the last week, Lisa had Thurdsay off so I decided to skip out of work early and we had a nice walk along the beach and steaks for dinner.

Looking at our calendar the rest of the year looks to be busy with trip for Lisa to Phoenix, a visit to Denver, I’m in DC for work for a week, a visit to Rollie and Jeni’s new home and the Stanford vs Oregon game, Thanksgiving in Farmington….and work somewhere in between.

 

August Happenings

August 23, 2011 in BLT Updates by Brian Thompson | 5 comments

Hello family and friends!  I created this blog a long time ago with the intentions of sending out monthly updates about Lisa and I.  This will be the first one.  Hopefully I get better at this.

We had a really busy August.  Lisa has a new gym, Equinox, and spends a couple hours a day there.  She is a workout machine.  She has also discovered these protein pancakes…a little weird for me, but she loves them

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