I’ve been using Sync Toy, a free download from Microsoft, to synchronize files. It’s a fairly comprehensive synchronization tool that doesn’t deserve the term "toy" in its name. You can create folder pairs that have one of the following relationships with each other:
Synchronize - New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.
Echo - New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.
Contribute - New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions. This is the same as Echo without the deletions.
(Note: Apparently there are other choices in other versions of Sync Toy, but these are the choices available in Sync Toy 2.0 Beta built 10/12/2007).
I primarily use this tool to make an exact copy of my web sites, picture, music, family documents, favorites, etc. on an external hard disk. Things don’t change too dramatically and therefore I don’t really need a full backup solution; just a way to have a copy on another medium. Therefore I always choose Echo for this purpose.
The one problem I hadn’t solved was to run Sync Toy automatically on a regular schedule. I found a nice article at PC Hell that describes how to do this:
The solution described there involves creating a task in Scheduled Tasks that runs Sync Toy with the -R switch. One change that you’ll need to make with 2.0 is to run SyncToyCmd.exe instead of SyncToy.exe with the -R switch.
Well, I finally did it. I upgraded from WordPress 2.3.2 to 2.6. I hadn’t planned on doing it today, but something happened to all my blogs that were being hosted on 2.3.2 (except for one - weird) that served up an HTTP 500 error page when navigating to the site.
Of course, upgrading was not without its pitfalls. There is a bug in 2.6 (don’t know about previous versions) when hosted on IIS where it serves up a 404 page when there is an index.php in the permalink. This is now due to be fixed in 2.6.1. The workaround is to specify category and tag basenames on the Permalinks settings page. Works like a charm.
Another problem I ran into was that I couldn’t log in to my blog. After typing the password it would click a couple times and then give me the login page again. Like a dufus, I deleted the contents of the user_pass field for my user thinking I could log in with an empty password. WRONG! After trying several different things, I stumbled upon a tutorial for resetting the password in phpMyAdmin. It finally let me in.
There are a number of things that don’t work well in WP 2.6, so now I’m off to fix those. One of the problems includes the display of the Pages widget on Firefox. I suspect this to be a problem with my theme rather than the widget, but you never know.
I’ve been hitting an odd problem on my Vista desktop machine for quite some time now where an error messaging stating that EXCEL.EXE "is not a valid Win32 application" when trying to launch Excel if I’ve been running for a while (e.g. several days or a week). I looked on the net and in Microsoft’s forums (still in newsgroups - what a pain) and couldn’t find a solution. Turns out Microsoft engineers have been working on a fix for a while and they’ve finally released it. Check out InfoWorld’s article on this.
I can’t wait for this to be released. I had to reboot just yesterday due to this problem.
I’ve been encountering problems in Vista on my multi-monitor equipped desktop computer where the resolution would get reset to 800×600 or 1024×768 on one or both monitors when unlocking in the morning. Sometimes it would happen in the middle of the day. Changing the resolution back would sometimes work but often wouldn’t let me set it higher than 1600×1200. One common denominator seemed to be if a lot of memory was currently in use (e.g. by the database app I’m developing, Visual Studio, Internet Explorer 7, Outlook, etc.). In those cases it was more likely to happen and more unlikely to be able to fix it.
After a brief search on the Internet, I found several references to the Transient Multi-Monitor Manager. This is an application that is started by Task Scheduler to make it easier for mobile PCs to reconfigure their displays when plugging external monitors into them. The workaround suggested in several places is to disable the task. An especially good article was made by netsaber.
Wait for the status of the TMM task to change to Ready.
Click Disable in the lower-right pane.
UPDATE 26-Jun-2008:
When I logged in to my machine this morning the resolution my second monitor was set to 800×600. I guess disabling this task doesn’t completely fix the problem. If you find a solution, please post it in the comments.
UPDATE 25-Jul-2008:
I haven’t had any trouble since my last update. Everything is working great and my resolution has been stable with no resets.
I was catching up on Joel Spolsky’s blog Joel on Software and ran across his discussion of podcasts on his new venture with Jeff Atwood called stackoverflow.com. In the podcast I read (#8) Jeff made reference to his belief in strong opinions, weakly held. It goes something like this (from Bob Sutton):
A couple years ago, I was talking the Institute’s Bob Johansen about wisdom, and he explained that – to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward – they advise people to have “strong opinions, which are weakly held.” They’ve been giving this advice for years, and I understand that it was first developed by Instituite Director Paul Saffo. Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to “see” and “hear” evidence that clashes with your opinions. This is what psychologists sometimes call the problem of “confirmation bias.”
Jeff adds this:
[W]henever I post in a strong voice, it is also an implied invitation to a discussion, a discussion where I often change my opinion and invariably learn a great deal about the topic at hand.
I feel a kinship with Jeff as I have been known to express strong opinions but have also almost always been willing to change my opinion given new data. Jeff’s statement about the implied invitation is true of me as well; I expect that people who have a don’t agree with what I am saying will stand up for what they believe in or for their position.
However, I worry - as does Jeff - that my practice of expressing strong opinions can get in the way of getting the message across; this is something I continue to work on, not always successfully.
I finally got email working again from this site. You can now email posts and pages to yourself or to others you think might be interested. My apologies to all those that attempted to send pages/posts by email unsuccessfully. Please try again.
Windows Explorer (aka the Shell) in Vista (as in XP before it) provides folder templates which display the contents of folders in predefined ways. The shell in Vista has been "improved" with a feature that "sniffs" the contents of a folder to determine which template to use if one has not been specified.
If you use Vista, you may have noticed that when you open or navigate to a folder that it thinks the folder contains photos. Sometimes it gets it right but all too often it gets it wrong.
In addition to the various desktop and laptop computers in my household, I also manage a couple servers, one of which runs Windows Small Business Server 2003, which is located in my garage. Typically I connect to it using Remote Desktop Connection using the /console switch so that I can manage it as if I was at the console.
For the past week or two (maybe longer, I’m not sure) I’ve been frustrated that when I try to connect to the console from my Windows Vista desktop I get a new Terminal Services session rather than connecting to the console. Today I finally decided to figure this out.
It turns out that, due to some changes in Windows Server 2008 and to some ambiguity in the /console switch, Microsoft has made some changes to the mstsc command. The change that relates to my problem is that they’ve renamed the /console switch to /admin.
Here are the following are the examples of /console’s significance in the past and why the scenario does not apply for Windows Server 2008:
In Windows Server 2003, the /console option was used to connect to the session on the physical console (session 0), because some applications could not install and/or run in any session other than session 0. In Windows Server 2008, the windows components are re-architected, so that only services run in session 0 and applications do not need to run in session 0. So, the administrator does not need the /console option for this purpose.
In Windows Server 2003, the /console option was also used for the purpose of reconnecting back and resuming work in the user session on the physical console. In Windows Server 2008, this option is not required to get reconnected to existing session on physical console. Please refer to the blog post on console behavior differences for details.
In Windows Server 2003, the /console option was used for administering the server remotely without consuming a CAL. In Windows Server 2008, /admin option serves this purpose.
So, the /console option is not needed while connecting to Windows Server 2008. The /admin switch can be used to connect to physical console of Windows Server 2003.
Note that this change affects the mstsc.exe command on Windows Server 2008 AND Windows Vista SP1 but not Windows XP.
NextGEN Gallery Review - Displaying Images - Album
Galleries can be organized into albums to present multiple groups of images to your visitors.
[album=id,mode]
id = the ID of the album (e.g. 1).
mode (extend or compact) = options for how tod display the gallery; extend displays each gallery in the album on its own row with its description; compact displays multiple galleries per row without descriptions. This parameter is optional.
The album shortcode displays the galleries in an album on the page. Galleries appear in the order in which they are placed on the album admin page. There are two album views available. In both views the image selected for the gallery on the gallery’s admin page is displayed. If none is selected, no image is displayed.
Extended view
In the extended view (mode = extend), galleries are displayed on separate rows. Each row consists of the title listed above, the gallery image selected on the admin page for the gallery, the description of the gallery specified on the admin page for the gallery, and the number of photos in the gallery.
Photos taken by my daughter Bethany when she was in Salamanca, Spain on a study abroad program.
56 Photos
Compact view
In the compact view (mode = compact), multiple galleries are displayed on each row in the style of Flickr. Each row consists of as many galleries as will fit. Each gallery is displayed as a column with the gallery image on top, the gallery title in the middle, and the count of photos below that.
To display the contents of a gallery, simply click on the gallery title or on the gallery image. If the Deactivate gallery page link option on the Gallery options page is checked, the contents of the gallery will be displayed on the same page.
If the option is unchecked, make sure you have selected a page that displays the gallery (i.e. specifies the gallery shortcode with the ID of the gallery) or the page will simply refresh.
Wishlist / Caveats
It would be nice to have a default image displayed if no image is specified on the gallery’s admin page.
If the gallery is not associated with a page and the Deactivate gallery page link option on the Gallery options page is unchecked, the page refreshes and the contents of the gallery is not displayed. It would be preferable to behave as if the checkbox is actually checked.
It would be nice if gallery parameters could be specified to albums. You’ll notice on this page that when you click on the gallery in one album that both are expanded.
It would be nice if the number of galleries displayed horizontally could be specified when using compact mode rather than just relying on HTML formatting.
The ImageBrowser viewer is a nice way to view one image at a time from a gallery and cycle through each one.
[imagebrowser=id]
id = the ID of the gallery (e.g. 1).
The imagebrowser shortcode displays images in a gallery one at a time in a large format. You can move to another image in the gallery by clicking on the Back or Next links below the image. Click on the image to view a larger version. The Alt / Title text for each image is displayed above it and the picture number in the gallery is displayed between the Back and Next buttons.
