Today I thought I would show you a neat trick you can do with your PC or laptop and a blank CD or DVD.  Using something that Microsoft calls their Live File System, you can create or format a blank disk that will then allow you to use that disk (while it is in your disc drive) just like you would use a floppy disk or USB flash drive.  You can copy files to and from the disk, erase files you no longer need, etc.  All without “burning” files like you might be used to, just drag and drop right from Windows Explorer or whatever your favorite file manager might be.

There are some caveats with this, it appears that creating these disks is something you can do on Windows 7 machines only.  However, once created, they can be read on Windows versions going back to Windows XP and in some cases even Windows 98.  There is a URL at the bottom of the article that will take you to a Microsoft page with more information.  In addition, the reason I so far have only said CD, DVD and disk without getting specific is because you can create this kind of disk on standard writable media (-R) as well as re-writable media (-RW) meaning the list of disks you can format for mobile data storage starts to get kinda long, like so: CD-R, CD+R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, or DVD-RAM.

The process for setting up a disk for this kind of use is quick and easy, you simply insert your blank disk into your drive and wait a second.  If you have autoplay enabled, you know where your CD’s that you insert start automatically, you will get a window that pops up asking you how you want to use the disc, like a USB flash drive, or with a CD/DVD player (like a normal writer).  If you don’t have autoplay enabled, simply open Windows Explorer or My Computer and locate your CD or DVD drive.  Double click on it and you should receive the same window asking you how you want to use the disk.

Once you see the window, make sure that use “Like a USB flash drive” is selected and then press next. You will then get a message that the disk is being formatted.  Just wait and watch, and after a minute or two it should be complete and will disappear.  Once the formatting windows goes away you are done and ready.  You should now be able to drag and drop files to and from the disk, delete any that you want to, and manner of good stuff like that.  I hope you find this useful!

Get more information at Microsoft’s site

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I wanted to post a followup to an earlier post about Windows and disabling the Hibernation feature.  The original power was useful because in many circumstances (like most desktops) you don’t need to or want to hibernate your system.  So, you can save some disk space (upwards of the amount of RAM in your PC) and some performance overhead of managing that hibernation file, by disabling the hibernation function or feature.  You can read that one here.

Next thing I thought about was, what if you do need that hibernation function?  Well, naturally you can do the opposite of that earlier article to enable hibernation if it isn’t already, although usually it is by default.  But also, you can specific how big the hibernation file (hiberfil.sys) is compared to how much memory you have in your machine.  I would imagine if the file is set to less than your memory it must do some compression and maybe leave some non-essential stuff out, but I don’t know for sure and I am not sure if it’s worth digging into too deeply.  However, if you have some binary real estate (disk space) to spare, and you don’t have too much memory in your machine (you guys with 16GB or something need to ditch Windows and run Linux), set it to 100% and rock out.

Just like the enable and disable, you use the powercfg.exe command, and interestingly enough, still use the -H switch.  But instead of just On or Off, you add another switch ‘-Size’ and a number between 50 and 100 to equate to anywhere between 50 and 100 percent of your memory.  According to what I read, you can’t choose less than 50% or, obviously, more than 100%.  So, I set mine to 100% (it was at 75% by default) and am going to see how well it works.  If I see anything that warrants it, I’ll post a follow up as to whether or not it’s a good idea.

OK, the command to set you hiberfil.sys size to 100% would be:

powercfg.exe -H -Size 100

And there you have it, it’s just that easy!  Hope it helps

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Here is a helpful tidbit for anyone that might need it.  It’s something I used now and then, often enough that I remember the command, but not often enough to remember the exact syntax LOL  At least if I post it here it will be easy to find.  What am I talking about you ask?  Well, enabling and disabling hibernation in Windows.  If you are running a desktop, you most likely don’t need to hibernate your machine.  You can if you want, but I for one don’t want to lose the extra few gigs of disk space taken up by the ‘hiberfile.sys’ hibernation file.  Not to mention the system resource usage and overhead of keeping it updated.

OK, getting down to business, on Windows Vista and Windows 7, you can enable or disable the hibernation function easily by using the ‘powercfg’ command with the ‘-H’ (hibernation) option.  Here are a couple of examples:

powercfg.exe -H off

This turns hibernation off naturally, and:

powercfg.exe -H on

Will turn it on, and just that easily too!

I hope this little trinket of wisdom comes in handy for you.  Enjoy!

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Recently I have been having trouble with my NetFlix instant watch service.  On several occasions I get odd DRM errors telling me that the date on my PC is set to (insert current date here) and to check and make sure it’s correct, which it is.  I don’t think I am the only person having this problem because when I fired up trusty ol’ Google, I found lots of other folks complaining about and seeking solutions for NetFlix DRM errors as well.  Not all of them shared my exact error number, but they all sounded faily similar in what was happening.

As I searched, I found a few things to try and although none helped me, some helped other folk so I will list them here anyway.  Finally, the explanation and solution that worked for me actually made a lot of sense once I digested it, and I bet it will help some of you out there as well. 

Read the rest of this entry »

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I thought I would post some information about a project that I started a few months ago called nix32.  It’s hosted on SourceForge for the most part, with a handy website that I host myself mainly because it’s just easier to manage that way.  The basic goal of this project is to create native command line tools for Windows that operate much like the commands that we know and love from Linux and UNIX.  Things like ls, mv, cp, df and so on.  I have become so used to, comfortable with and productive with the UNIX/Linux command line environment, that when I have to leave it behind on Windows, it’s pretty tough.  Not just changing from what I am used to, but also because I think the command line of a UNIX/Linux server is much more powerful and flexible than the Windows command line, even including the power shell.

I have been working on the more popular commands, and I have a few basics out now with basic functionality.  I hope to have more and better (improved) tools in the future.  I am writing everything in PERL and then compiling each one on Windows as a standalone exe using tools from ActiveState, and so far, they run very nicely.  It’s all completely open source, you can download the PERL scripts as well as the executable files if you want to take a look or help improve them.

Now, I know you can get similar results with other projects and products out there, CYGWIN comes to mind first.  However, that’s a whole separate shell and almost a little mini-Linux setup in and of itself, especially looking at the directory structure after it’s installed.  Here with the nix32 project I wanted to have native Windows executables that you can stick in your path somewhere and call right from the Windows Command Prompt, without ever leaving the Windows environment and without having to install anything.  So far that is exactly what we have, just copy the files somewhere, make sure it’s within or added to your PATH variable, and you are good to go!

So check it out, see what you think, spread the word and maybe even help out a bit and crunch a little code too.  Do whatever you feel and keep both feet on the wheel … or, keyboard maybe. 

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As technology moves ever onward, getting more and more complex, it becomes more and more important to know what you have and what it can do.  In this case I am talking about graphics cards and figuring out what Shader Model it supports.  I am seeing more and more games that have not only memory and processor requirements listed, but also things like what Shader Model and DirectX version your hardware supports.

I ran into this recently and although the DirectX version is easy enough to find out, the Shader Model was a bit tougher.  So, after working through the problem and gathering some information from around the ‘net, I have put together some instructions and a handy reference chart for you that should make figuring this out a bit easier. Read the rest of this entry »

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