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  • FileNotFoundException Java

    - by Troels Hansen
    Hi, I'm trying to make a simple highscore system for a minesweeper game. However i keep getting a file not found exception, and i've tried to use the full path for the file aswell. package minesweeper; import java.io.*; import java.util.*; public class Highscore{ public static void submitHighscore(String difficulty) throws IOException{ int easy = 99999; int normal = 99999; int hard = 99999; //int newScore = (int) MinesweeperView.getTime(); int newScore = 10; File f = new File("Highscores.dat"); if (!f.exists()){ f.createNewFile(); } Scanner input = new Scanner(f); PrintStream output = new PrintStream(f); if (input.hasNextInt()){ easy = input.nextInt(); normal = input.nextInt(); hard = input.nextInt(); } output.flush(); if(difficulty.equals("easy")){ if (easy > newScore){ easy = newScore; } }else if (difficulty.equals("normal")){ if (normal > newScore){ normal = newScore; } }else if (difficulty.equals("hard")){ if (hard > newScore){ hard = newScore; } } output.println(easy); output.println(normal); output.println(hard); } //temporary main method used for debugging public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException { submitHighscore("easy"); } }

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  • Fail to start windows after Ubuntu 11.10 install

    - by user49995
    Computer: HP Pavilion dv7-6140eo OS: Originally Win7 I recently decided to try out Ubuntu, and I decided to dual-boot it with Windows 7. First I googled some how-to's, then I downloaded Ubuntu onto a memory stick and made a second partition (I originally only had one partition that I shrunk and used the unallocated space to install onto during the Ubuntu install). During the install I set format type to xt4 (or something, it was the default option), chose the "in the beginning" option and set the last option as "\". The install was successful. Although, when I restarted my computer I weren't able to choose which operating system to start; it went right into windows. After showing the windows logo for half a second before rebooting, I get a blue screen (see bottom of the page). Trying to fix it, I deleted the newly made partition I had just installed Ubuntu onto (seeing it wasn't working either). This made no difference. I proceeded with installing Ubuntu again, so I would at least have a functioning computer, and now Ubuntu works fine (on it now). The only difference on start-up is that I get a Grub window asking me to between several options including Linux and Windows 7 (loader). Now, if I choose Windows 7, I get the message "Windows was unable to start. A recent software or hardware change might be the cause". It recommends me to choose the first option of the two it provides; to start start-up repair tool. The second option being starting windows normally. If I start windows normally, the same thing happens as earlier. My computer does not have a windows installation CD. Although, it has (at least it used to, if I haven't screwed that too up) a 17gb recovery partition. In addition I made an image of the computer onto a external hard drive when I first got it. Though, I have no idea how to use either. If anyone has any idea how I can make windows work again or reinstall it (already backed up my files) it would be greatly appreciated. I still prefer to dual boot between the two functioning operating systems, but I will settle for a functioning windows 7. Thanks a lot for any replies. Blue screen: A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. If this is the first time you've seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: Check for viruses on your computer. Remove and newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configures and terminated. Run CMKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer. Technical information: **STOP: 0x0000007B (0xFFFFF880009A97E8,0xFFFFFFFFC0000034, 0x0000000000000000,0x0000000000000000

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  • Rebuilding a Mac Mini (early 2009)

    - by Kelly Jones
    This weekend I decided to rebuild the family’s Mac Mini.  It’s the early 2009 model and I hadn’t done it since we got it in March of 2009.  Even worse, I had done the import data step (or whatever Apple calls it) which brought over all of the data files and apps from our previous Mac.  AND that install goes back to before 2005, as far as I can remember.  SO, to say that “cruft” had built up in the operating system, is probably a bit of an understatement. The rebuild went pretty smoothly, especially since I had a couple of spare hard drives.  I hooked up a spare USB drive and formatted it for use with the Mac.  I then used Carbon Copy to clone the internal hard drive onto the USB drive.  (Carbon Copy is a great little app that I used several years ago and I was happy to see it was not only still around, but updated as well.) Once I had my backup, I shut down the Mac and replaced the internal hard drive.  I had purchased the hard drive last fall to use with my work laptop, but I got a new work laptop (with awesome dual SSDs) so I wasn’t using it anymore.  The replacement drive (Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive) has more than double the original’s capacity and is also faster.  I’ll have to keep an eye on the temperature, since that 7200 drive will run hotter. Opening the Mac Mini is not for the easily intimidated!  That cool little case is quite the pain to open.  Luckily, OWC put a video together here.  After replacing the drive, I then installed a clean copy of OS 10.5 using the DVDs that came with the Mac.  After the OS, it was time to reinstall the apps.  I downloaded some of the freeware, just to make sure I had the latest versions.  For the rest, I just copied from the backup cloned drive to the new drive.  (I love the way most Mac apps are written – with almost everything contained within a “package” that I can just copy from one drive to another.  MUCH better than the Windows way of using shared DLLs and the registry to store critical pieces that the app needs in order to run!) The whole process took longer than I would have preferred, but it was long overdue.  It definitely “feels” faster, especially boot time and application launches.

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  • Another C datatypes question

    - by b-gen-jack-o-neill
    Hello. Well, I completely get the most basic datatypes of C, like short, int, long, float, to be exact, all numerical types.These types are needed to be known perform right operations with right numbers. For example to use FPU to add two float numbers. So the compiler must know what the type is. But, when it comes to characters I am little bit off. I know that basic C datatype char is there for ASCII characters coding. But what I don´t know is, why you even need another datatype for characters. Why could not you just use 1 byte integer value to store ASCII character. If you call printf, you apecify the datatype in the call, so you could say to printf that the integer represents ASCII character. I dont know how cout resolves datatype, but I guess you could just specify it somehow. Another thing is, when you want to use Unicode, you must use datatype wchar. But, what if I would like to use some another, for example ISO, or Windows coding instead of UTF? Becouse wchar codes characters as UTF-16 or UTF-32 (I read its compiler specific). And, what if I would want to use for example some imaginary new 8 byte text coding? What datatype should I use for it? I am actually pretty confused of this, becouse I always expected that if I want to use UTF-32 instead of ASCII, I just tell compiler "get UTF-32 value of the character I typed and save it into 4 char field." I thought that text coding is to be dealt with by the end, print function for example. That I just need to specify the coding for the compiler to use, since Windows doesent use ASCII in win32 apps, I guess C compiler must convert the char I typed to ASCII from whatever the type is that windows sends to the C editor. And the last thing is, what if I want to use for example 25 Byte integer for some high math operations? C has no specify-yourself datatype. Yes, I know that this would be difficult since all the math operations would need to be changed, becouse CPU can not add 25 Bytes numbers together. But is there a way to do it? Or is there some math library for it? What if I want to compute Pi to 1000000000000000 digits? :) I know my question is pretty long, but I just wanted to explain my thoughts the best I can in English, since its not my native language it is difficult. And I believe there is simple answer to my question(s), something I missed that explains everything. I read lot about text coding, C tutorials, but nothing about his. Thank you for your time.

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  • Add / Remove the default documents of IIS7 using vb.net 2.0 windows application

    - by Senthil S R
    Hai, I wrote the coding for add / remove the default documents of IIS7 in vb.net 2.0 windows application using Microsoft.Web.Administration.dll. The coding is working fine. After adding a new document, the messagebox showing that newly added document name. Simillarly if I remove any document, the messagebox not showing that document name. So that I am saying, the coding is working fine. Now the problem is, I can't see the newly added document name in II7 Manager GUI. The next proplem is, my website not access that newly added document. Please can any body suggest for these problems. What the mistake I did the vb.net 2.0 windows application coding and what are the modifications I need to do? Thanks in advance.

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  • i need help in OCR

    - by miplz
    Hi, i need create a program in VB using OCR, but i cant find any example of the coding. can anyone tell me where to find the coding or anyone have the coding.please help me. Thank you

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  • Is N-Tier Architecture only the physical seperation of code or there is something more to it?

    - by Starx
    Is N-Tier Architecture only the physical separation of code or there is something more to it? What sorts of coding do we put in Presentation Layer, Application Layer, Business Logic Layer, User Interface Logic, Data Access Layer, Data Access Object,? Can all the layers mentioned above give a fully functional N-tier architecture? For example: Whenever a user clicks a button to load a content via AJAX, they we do coding to fetch a particular HTML output and then update the element, so does this JavaScript coding also lie on a different tier? Because If N-tier Architecture is really about physical separation of code, than i think Its better to separate the JavaScript coding also.

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  • Your favorite time-off between programming.

    - by Harsha
    I am sure all coding pundits here will have one (or multiple) ways of spending some time-off between hectic coding sessions just to relax. Would love to hear from you all as I am a newbie and want to take little breaks (non-physical) from coding and do things which actually help me focus again. Thanks.

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  • How to use BCDEdit to dual boot Windows installations?

    - by Ian Boyd
    What are the bcdedit commands necessary to setup dual boot between different installations of Windows?5 Background i recently installed Windows 8 onto a separate hard drive1. Now that Windows 8 in installed i want to dual-boot back to Windows 7. i have my two2 hard drives: So you can see that i have my two disks, with the partitions containing Windows: Windows 7: \\PhysicalDisk0 (partition 03) Windows 8: \\PhysicalDisk2 (partition 1) What i'm trying to figure out how is how to use bcdedit to instruct the thing that boots Windows that there is another Windows installation out there. Running bcdedit now, it shows current configuration: C:\WINDOWS\system32>bcdedit Windows Boot Manager -------------------- identifier {bootmgr} device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume2 description Windows Boot Manager locale en-US inherit {globalsettings} integrityservices Enable default {current} resumeobject {ce153eb7-3786-11e2-87c0-e740e123299f} displayorder {current} toolsdisplayorder {memdiag} timeout 30 Windows Boot Loader ------------------- identifier {current} device partition=C: path \WINDOWS\system32\winload.exe description Windows 8 locale en-US inherit {bootloadersettings} recoverysequence {ce153eb9-3786-11e2-87c0-e740e123299f} integrityservices Enable recoveryenabled Yes allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075 osdevice partition=C: systemroot \WINDOWS resumeobject {ce153eb7-3786-11e2-87c0-e740e123299f} nx OptIn bootmenupolicy Standard hypervisorlaunchtype Auto i cannot find any documentation on the difference between Windows Boot Manager and Windows Boot Loader. Documentation There is some documentation on Bcdedit: Technet: Command Line Reference - Bcdedit Technet: Windows Automated Installation Kit - BCDEdit Command Line Options Whitepaper - BCDEdit Commands for Boot Environment (Word Document) But they don't explain how edit the binary boot configuration data If i had to guess, i would think that a Windows Boot Manager instructs the BIOS what program it should run. That program would give the user a set of boot choices. That leaves Windows Boot Loader do be a particular boot choice, that represents a particular installation of Windows. If that is the case i would need to create a new Windows Boot Loader entry. This means i might want to use the /create parameter: /create Creates a new boot entry: bcdedit [/store filename] /create [id] /d description [/application apptype | /inherit [apptype] | /inherit DEVICE | /device] So i assume a syntax of: >bcdedit /create /d "The old Windows 7" /application osloader Where application can be one of the following types: Apptype Description BOOTSECTOR The boot sector application OSLOADER The Windows boot loader RESUME A resume application Unfortunately, the only documentation about osloader is "The Windows boot loader". i don't see how that can differentiate between Windows 8 on one hard drive, and Windows 7 on another. The other possible parameter when /create a boot loader is >bcdedit /create /D "Windows Vista" /device "The Quick Brown Fox" Unfortunately the documentation is missing for /device: /device Optional. If id is not set to a well-known identifier, the option that is used to specify the new boot entry as an additional device options entry. Since i did not set id to a well-known identifier, i must set /device to "the option that is used to specify the new boot entry as an additional device options entry". i know all those words; they're all English. But i have on idea what it is saying; those words in that order seem nonsensical. So i'm somewhat stymied. i don't want to be like Dan Stolts from Microsoft: I found no content that was particularly helpful when I hosed my machine by playing with BCDEdit. This post would have been ok if there was much more detail especially on the /set command OSDevice, etc. So once I got my machine fixed, I documented the solution and the information is here.... i mean, if a Microsoft guy can't even figure out how to use BCDEdit to edit his BCD, then what chance to i have? Bonus Reading BCDEdit Command-Line Options Bcdedit Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7 System Will NOT Boot After Making Changes To Boot Manager Using BCDEdit Visual BCD Editor4 Windows 7 and Windows 8 RTM Dual Boot Setup Footnotes 1 Since the Windows 8 installer would have damaged my Windows 7 install, i decided to unplug my "main" hard drive during the install. Which is a long-winded explanation of why the Windows 8 installer didn't detect the existing Windows 7 install. Normally the installer would have automatically created the required entries for dual-boot. Not that the reason i'm asking the question is important. 2 Really there's three drives, but the third is just bulk storage. The existence of a 3rd hard drive is irrelevant to the question. i only mention it in case someone wants to know why the screenshot has 3 hard drives when i only mention two. 3 i arbitrarily started numbering partitions at "zero"; not to imply that partitions are numbered starting at zero. i only mention partitions because i don't see how any boot-loader could do its job without knowing which partition, and which folder, an installation of Windows is located in. 4 i'm asking about BCDEdit. i tried Visual BCD Editor. It seems to be a visual BCD editor. That is to say that it's a GUI, but still uses the same terminology as BCDEdit, and requires the same knowledge that BCD doesn't document. 5 For simplicity sake we'll assume that all installation of Windows i want to dual-boot between are Windows Vista or later, making them all compatible with the BCDEdit and the binary boot loader. The alternative would require delving into the intricacies of the old ntloader. Nor am i asking about dual booting to Linux; or how to boot to a Virtual Hard Drive (vhd) image. Just modern versions of Windows on existing hard drives in the same machine. Note: You can ignore everything after the word Background. It's all pointless exposition to satisfy some people's need for "research effort" before they'll consider being helpful. Some people have even been known to summarily close questions unless there is research effort. Some people have been know to close questions if there is too much research effort. Some people close questions when i put the note saying that they can ignore everything after the Background out of spite. Some people are just grumpy.

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  • Troubleshooting PC

    - by srand
    After playing PC games after a few hours I decided to take a break. When I opened up My Computer in Windows 7 I noticed I one of my drives had disappeared. Thinking it was just a glitch, I tried to restart. Upon restart, the BIOS took forever to get through (I didn't notice my disappeared hard drive in the listed drives) and the computer seemed stuck at the "Starting Windows" screen. I hard shut down everything. Opened up the case, used canned air to clear the dust out and made sure all devices were snugly in place. I hooked everything up and powered on. This time, after a few seconds the computer restarted (nothing showed up on screen either). After its restart, the computer didn't do anything. The hard drive indicator light was on the whole time. What happened? :( PC Specs: Windows 7, 3GB RAM, Core 2 Duo, 3 Hard drives

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  • Troubleshooting PC

    - by srand
    After playing PC games after a few hours I decided to take a break. When I opened up My Computer in Windows 7 I noticed I one of my drives had disappeared. Thinking it was just a glitch, I tried to restart. Upon restart, the BIOS took forever to get through (I didn't notice my disappeared hard drive in the listed drives) and the computer seemed stuck at the "Start Windows" screen. I hard shut down everything. Opened up the case, used canned air to clear the dust out and made sure all devices were snugly in place. I hooked everything up and powered on. This time, after a few seconds the computer restarted (nothing showed up on screen either). After its restart, the computer didn't do anything. The hard drive indicator light was on the whole time. What happened? :( PC Specs: Windows 7, 3GB RAM, Core 2 Duo, 3 Hard drives

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  • Two SATA HDDs connected using a Black Duet HDD Docking Station via eSATA to my Laptop, second drive

    - by leeand00
    Hi I am using a BlacX Duet HDD Docking Station to connect a 1TB WD Caviar Black SATA HDD (WD10000LSRTL) and a HITACHI SATA DESKSTAR (0S00163) to my G51VX (BestBuy) laptop via the eSATA port. When I plug in both HDDs in to the Docking Station, connect the docking station to my laptop and start Windows 7 (64-bit Ultimate), only the HDD in the first drive in the port actually shows up in My Computer and Disk Management. If I swap the drives positions I can get them both to work, but never at the same time. I also checked in the bios settings on the laptop, under Advanced-IDE Configuration-SATA Operation Mode, and it displays: SATA Operation Mode: [Enhanced] AHCI Port0 [Hard Disk] Device: Hard Disk Vendor: ST9320421AS LBA Mode: Supported S.M.A.R.T.: Supported AHCI Port5 [Hard Disk] Device: Hard Disk Vendor: Hitachi HDS721010CLA332 Size: 100.00 GB LBA Mode: Supported S.M.A.R.T.: Supported There should be a third drive, but I'm not certain why it is not being picked up. Additionally, before I played around with the settings in the IDE configuration, it used to display the DVD as well.

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  • Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS on Hyper-V 2012

    - by user137533
    I have the following scenario: Hyper-V 2012 server core installation. On top of this i created a virtual machine on which i tried installing Ubuntu Server 12.04 which should not have any compatibility issues according to what Microsoft and Ubuntu are saying (although it is not officially supported). I start, run the installation and everything is ok, no problems detecting the network device or the hard drive (unlike debian which didn't even detect the hard drive). Once the installation is complete it asks me to reboot, it unmounts the "dvd drive" and reboots. Once it tries to start again i get the following error: Boot failure. Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in the selected Boot device. It seems to not be booting up from the virtual hard drive. The hard drive is set up in SCSI mode, nothing mounted on the IDE controller (no iso image or anything else. Does anyone have any ideas on what i can do to solve this?

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  • Lost disk space in Windows 7, cannot find the missing

    - by Tsanders
    My hard drive is complaining it is low on disk space, but a strange thing seems to be happening: Explorer reports 10Gb of available space (on a 120 Gb hard disk), chkdsk in the command prompt does the same but if I use a disk space tool such as SpaceSniffer or WinDirStat, only 50Gb of data is found. My guess is that there somehow is a hold on a large block of disk space (but that's just a guess) because of a prior very large (40 Gb) download attempt that didn't complete. There isn't 40Gb of files on the drive (hidden or visible), yet Explorer insists that something is there. How can I claim back this hard disk drive (without formatting my hard disk)? SpaceMonger is providing a clue, reporting four unscannable folders which add up to 43Gb: C:\RRBackups C:\System Volume Information C:\Windows\Csc\v2.06 C:\Windows\System32\LogFiles\Wmi\RtBackup Does anybody know what these folders are for, and how I can claim back at least some space? Restore point claims about 4Gb, so that doesn't seem to be the main problem.

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  • Windows Recovery Console - forgot password

    - by Jason
    I upgraded to Windows XP SP3, which immediately "broke" the laptop - it never booted with SP3 on it. I put in the Windows XP install disk I had originally used to set up the laptop, and it ran for a while, then said there's no hard disk present, so it can't continue. BIOS still sees the hard disk. I put the hard disk in an external USB case, and I can read/write to it with the other laptop. I then put the hard disk back in it's laptop, restarted with the Windows CD, and tried to get into the Recovery Console, but I forgot the password and can't "log on" to the drive. I'd also like to know if I can fix the broken files (which ones?) from the other laptop (via USB), and if I can "log on" to an external disk with the Recovery Console. (Also, the data won't fit on my other laptop, and I don't have all the install CDs for software on the disk.) Any help appreciated.

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  • Migration from XP to Windows 7 using recovered HD

    - by KenK
    Is it possible to migrate the Windows XP Pro 32 bit operating system, applications etc from a USB external drive which is the recovered hard drive from that failed system to my new desktop computer with Windows7 64 bit system? In doing so, I would like to set up the new computer with the OS and all general applications on the primary 1TB hard drive while the secondary 1TB hard drive to have nothing else but graphics programs and gaming applications complete with their related files and add-ons. What will I need to accomplish this task efficiently and economically?

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  • Raid HDD Boot up

    - by user234695
    My server is Power Edge 1950 running server 2008 32Bit, using 3 Physical SAS HDD as a Virtual 2 Disk configured for RAID5, with partition of C drive as OS and D drive as Data. Planning to format and install Server 2008 R2 64Bit so I insert a New Physical disk and configured as RAID5 and clone the C drive and D drive to the new hard disk. Now I need to test that the new hard disk is able to boot windows and work as expected. How do I test, I am not able to boot the windows by choosing the new harddisk, the bios show only the existing HDD, not the new one. Also, if I remove the old three hard disk, and leave the new harddisk and then am I able to boot the device, if I do this does my existing RAID5 configuration and data on the hard disk still remain.

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  • Good Free Backup Tool - with provisos

    - by vaccano
    I have seen some Backup Questions around. But they are not quite what I am looking for. I would like to have a back up of my entire hard drive (to an external drive). I would like it to be the kind that has a base backup then just backs up the changes since the last backup. I would like it to be able to have a fully restorable image of my hard drive (not just key files). Lastly I would like it to be free (or super cheap). (The above requirements are important, but I will have to drop them if they up the price as my boss will not pay for them.) I have a Solid State Hard Drive 250 GB backing up to a 1TB external hard drive using Windows XP.

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  • Run a BitLocker protected Windows 7 installation on VirtualBox from physical drive

    - by djechelon
    I have a broken laptop with its hard drive intact. I'll be getting it repaired in a few days but I must continue my work possibly uninterrupted, so I chose to run the OS in another working laptop (I can't just transfer documents). My question is really simple: Can I create a virtual machine in VirtualBox (under Linux) that uses the physical hard drive mentioned above which is encrypted with BitLocker? I have the restore key at hand, of course. I wouldn't like to mount the hard disk as primary hard disk for laptop (and run 7 as primary OS), but that could be the final choice if virtualizing is not an option. Thank you.

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  • Is it possible to have a wireless in-house NAS with wireless data transfer rates of equivalent to SATA speeds?

    - by techaddict
    Basically I would like to know, if it is possible to set up an NAS in my house to be accessed wirelessly, that can reach equivalent real-life data transfer speeds to USB 3.0 or an internal SATA hard drive. I have been wanting to do this for some time ( a couple of years now). Basically, this is what I want to do: Plug in a number of hard drives in an array, somewhere in my house, to be left plugged in and never have to be monitored. Ideally several terabytes. Whenever I am home, to have my computer and laptop configured to automatically find the NAS, as easy as plugging in an external hard drive - except completely wirelessly. Data transfer needs to be as seamless and quick as having added another internal hard drive in my laptop. Moreover, data should be able to accessed without having to copy it over - I should be able to wirelessly access the NAS and browse files, and open files directly from the NAS. For example, say I wanted to open a video - I should be able to play the video that is located on the NAS, directly from the NAS, completely wirelessly. If I wanted to open a .pdf file, I should be able to open it and read it directly from the NAS, as if it were located on my physical internal hard drive. Cost is important as well. Please tell me what equipment I need for this to be possible. I know you geniuses out there who can tell me if this is possible.

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  • hardlinking takes a lot of space

    - by mr_schlomo
    I made an rsync incremental backup script for my server that will copy a MySQL database backup and a specified folder path to a remote server. Here's the code on Github. Code excerpt from lines 53-57: ############### Create most current hand link echo "Creating most current hard link on backup server $most_recent_backup_link" ssh $remote_backup_server rm -rf ${most_recent_backup_link} ssh $remote_backup_server cp -alv ${remote_backup_folder}/backup-${backup_folder_name}/ ${most_recent_backup_link} I'm having a problem with creating the most current hard links on the backup server (lines 53-57 in the program). Everything works, and rsync only copies about 1-2MB of data. But the hard link copy process uses about 30MB of data. I get a huge laundry list of files that haven't changed and the only ones that have changed are very small in size. Normally this isn't a problem, but when you backup every hour, the backup should be as small as possible. For example, the last backup I did, rsync transferred 1.3MB. But the backup directory grew 35MB. Why are the hard links taking up so much hard drive space?

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  • Disable Acer eRecovery system

    - by Joel Coehoorn
    The meat of this question is that I'm looking for a way to either require a password before using a recovery partition or "break" the recovery partition (specifically, Acer eRecovery) in a way that I can later "unbreak" only by booting normally into windows first. Here's the full details: I have a set of new Acer Veriton n260g machines in a computer lab. A lot work went into setting up this lab to work well - for example, Office 2007 and other programs needed by the students were installed, all windows updates are applied, and a default desktop is setup. All in all it's several hours work to fully set up one machine. Unfortunately, I don't currently have the ability to easily image these machines, and even if I did I would want to avoid downtime even while an image is restored. Therefore, I've taken steps to lock them down — namely DeepFreeze and a bios password to prevent booting from anywhere but the frozen hard drive. DeepFreeze is an amazing product — as long as you boot from the frozen hard drive, there is no way to actually make permanent changes to that hard drive. Anything you do is wiped after the machine restarts. It lets me give students the leeway to do what they want on lab computers without worrying about them breaking something. The problem is that even with the bios locked and set to only boot from the hard drive, these Acers still have a simple way to choose a different boot source: shut them down and put a paper click in a little hole at the top while you turn it on again. This puts them into the "Acer eRecovery" mode. This by itself is no big deal — you can still power cycle with no impact. But if you then click through the menu to reset the machine (we're now past the point of curiosity and on to intent) it will wipe the hard drive and restore it to the original state. Of course, a few students have already figured this out and reset a couple machines. That's unfortunate, but inevitable. I don't want to destroy the ability to do this entirely (which I could by repartitioning the drives to remove the recovery partition) but I would like a way to require a password first, or "break" the recovery system in a way that I can "unbreak" only if I first un-freeze the hard drive in DeepFreeze. Any ideas?

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