Google+

Yay, I got invited to Google+ on day1. Great to have friends working at Google :p

Running PowerShell from NAS without Prompts

It's been more than a year since I bought my QNAP TS-439 Pro NAS. Slowly I moved away from storing files locally and nowadays I store everything in there, backing up nightly to a Drobo box via front USB Interface.

Today, I wrote a powershell script that was only a couple of lines long to dump Docsis Diagnosis Info of my Modem (See DocsDiag). It simply prints verbose info on a file that has date + time stamp.

$cmd = "java -cp docsdiag.jar docsdiag -vv"
$zaman=get-date -uformat "%Y.%M.%d_%H.%M"
$dosya="modem.diags_" + $zaman + ".txt"
Invoke-Command -ScriptBlock { invoke-expression $cmd } |out-file $dosya

I stored the file in my "HomeShare" which I map from my NAS. When I ran the script I got the familiar Execution Policy warning that you would see if you download a script file from internet, "OR", if you run the script from a network location.

Security Warning
Run only scripts that you trust. While scripts from the Internet can be useful, this script can potentially harm your computer. Do you want to run Z:\scripts\powershell\cable\get-ModemInfo.ps1?
[D] Do not run [R] Run once [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "D"):

If you're doing this at your office, and your devs need to run scripts from Network Location, then you would probably use GPO to set Execution Level for these scripts and use Internet Explorer GPO settings to define your network (possibly using your domain name as in *.foobar.com) as Local Intranet.

For a home user like me, however, without a domain but with network storage, solution is to make changes manually:

1. Set Execution Policy to either RemoteSigned (recommended) or Unrestricted. For this, launch PowerShell as admin (right click start as Admin) and type
   
   

   Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned or Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

   
   I know some people may not feel easy about setting scripts to Unrestricted but I write my own scripts, do not download from Internet and run them. As long as I am on the terminal, I can bypass this check anyway.
   
   
2. I defined my NAS in "Local Intranet" in Internet Explorer Zone Settings. I have several mappings from my NAS, and use both IP address and an alias when mapping drives, so I added both:
   In IE, Tools > Internet Options > Security > Local Intranet > Sites, Clicked Advanced and

• added file ://qnap (qnap is an alias in my c:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc\Hosts file for my NAS IP)
• added 192.168.1.10 (IP address of NAS)

This did the trick. I no longer get the prompt. Funny thing is that Cablevision came by today replacing my old Cable Modem which was running Docsis 1.1 with one that's running Docsis 3.0. An then I found out that I can no longer query my modem using DocsDiag utility because apparently ISPs are now blocking SNMP.

Update [07/02/2011]
What a difference switching to Docsis 3.0 modem did! Speed test is rarely reporting under 14Mbit/s even on busy evening hours. 

On Hacking Windows with Scripting Tools

It's been a while since I installed my new PC and as I install more and more apps over time, the list of those that creep into system start-up increases. so, I ran ever-useful Autoruns and deleted the unnecessary ones.

It's not always easy to recognize what each executable is all about. E.g. "JMB36X IDE Setup" is the title of an app here: %windir%\RaidTool\xInsIDE.exe. At the end, it was harmless and I had it probably b/c I have a JMicron JMB36X chipset on the motherboard and vendor installed all the utils (Although I did not have a RAID config).

Anywho, sometime ago I had noticed that "gathernetworkinfo.vbs" was scheduled to run every week on my Win7 and tracked it down to a Microsoft script but while looking up its uses I found a good white-paper from Sans.org titled "Using Windows Script Host and COM to hack Windows". All that stuff is even more relevant as PowerShell is gaining in popularity and thanks to .NET PowerShell has even more power than WScript ever had.

Nexus S Battery Awesomeness!

In my previous post, I mentioned how upset I was with Google Maps and specifically with Latitude as it was draining battery of my Nexus S. I was fully charging the phone over night and finding the battery hitting 10% in about 8 hours even if I did not use the phone at all.

OK, here is the awesome news. After 31 hours I still have 33% left on battery!!!! Just to get the screenshots of this, I installed the JDK and Android SDK (it's a shame I had to go through all that just to get a screenshot).

I updated many apps in the last couple of days so I am not really sure what exactly caused this incredible improvement but I am hoping it will stick around.

Sad State of Optimum Cable

Typical night-time pain :( This has been going on for almost a year. Day time speeds approach 15Mbit/s but that does not help as most folks  would really need it in the evening.

Using Latitude on Android? Bad move...

Google's Latitude has been around for a while. It only made sense for me once both my wife and I started to use Android (Google Nexus S). With Google Latitude, it was possible to keep track of each other and coordinate life events better...

Unfortunately, I noticed that my battery was going down much quicker and "Battery Used" reports were pointing to "Maps". As I was not really using maps or gps, I suspected Latitude, which is part of Google Maps suite, was the cause.

I posted a question on Google Mobile forums asking if anyone else was seeing the same issue. Only one person reported the exact same issue and also suggested to log out of latitude. Tested it and confirmed that it worked well, which makes the latitude and possibly the history feature the culprit. Filed a defect here. Hopefully, they will fix it soon, I like to be able to use it again!

Never ending Flash Plugin Issues

I've been using Google Chrome since the first day it was available for download and has made it my primary browser at home. It's been causing me some grief when I tried to upload files in gmail for sometime (nothing gets uploaded) and I have opened a case with Google.

My bug report was then merged into another one related to "Flash". Since then, I learned that it's the Adobe Flash Plug-in that's causing the problem. There are several threads, that are still going on for about a month now and it is not clear whether the issue is yet finally fixed.

In a similar case, after I upgraded several Macs to OS X 10.6.7 and installing Firefox 4, people started to complain. Upon investigation, we found out that Flash plug-in was the culprit and disabling it would fix freezes.

Here are the link on latest flash issues:

• Chrome: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=75627
• Firefox : http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/798754

Oh wiki, wiki!

I was cleaning up some old bookmarks and came across "School of Athens" wiki link. The picture is a great piece of art.... and then I saw this!

I went ahead and fixed it. Here is my revision. What would Wiki do without me :p

Amazon App Stores

As expected, Amazon announced their "App Store" today for Android, and Apple sued them for using "App Store". Meh, what's new?

Here is something I did not expect though... I visited Amazon's app store and installed a couple of apps like "Wifi Analyzer". I still use AppBrain.com to find out if there are newer versions of my apps. It always detects updates faster than Google's Android Market (i.e. Google's App Store).

AppBrain showed me that there was a newer version of "Wifi Analyzer". I clicked to install, AppBrain transferred request to Google's Android Market but installation failed. I checked the error, it was something like ~"bad signature". This is troubling because it means that if I want to have the latest version, I will either have to wait for Amazon App Store to have the updated version, or uninstall it and re-install from Google's App Store.

I guess it makes sense that if you buy an app from Amazon App Store, you cannot use Google's App Store to upgrade it. I wish this was not the case for free apps though. Maybe some day Amazon and Google will work out a deal so that user may use either App Store for upgrades.

Cypherpunks

I came across an absolutely fascinating article on cryptome.org titled "The Cypherpunk Revolutionary". It's about now famous Wikileaks founder Julian Assange but also a bit about Cypherpunk community.

Wikipedia article on Cypherpunk mailing list Phil Zimmermann, the creator of PGP. I remember using it in early 90s. E-mail was uncommon in the country I was working in (and internet not existent), so many people were using a single e-mail address for both personal communication and to a lesser extend for business. I was using PGP to communicate with my wife (then girl-friend).

Bram Cohen is another familiar name from the mailing list. I remember reading in the 2005 Wired article titled "The Bittorrent effect": "Cohen in fact has Asperger's syndrome, a condition on the mild end of the autism spectrum that gives him almost superhuman powers of concentration but can make it difficult for him to relate to other people".

And, then there is John Gilmore, who has such a long list of activities like founding EFF, Cypherpunks, alt usenet groups, who also got involved in what later became DHCP. what a resume, eh?

Take a look, fun read!

What can Chase tell others about you?

This post is not really about technology but something that may interest you if you are a JP Morgan Chase customer. I was looking at Privacy policy and noticed this table:

Reasons we can share your personal information	Does Chase Share?	Can you limit this sharing?
For our everyday business purposes – such as to process your transactions, maintain your account(s), respond to court orders and legal investigations, or report to credit bureaus	Yes	No
For our marketing purposes – to offer our products and services to you	Yes	No
For joint marketing with other financial companies	Yes	No
For our affiliates' everyday business purposes – information about your transactions and experiences	Yes	No
For our affiliates' everyday business purposes – information about your credit worthiness	Yes	Yes
For our affiliates to market to you	Yes	Yes
For nonaffiliates to market to you	Yes	Yes

Apparently, you can exercise your federal rights to limit what Chase may share with non-affiliates.

To limit our sharing

Call 1-888-868-8618 – our menu will prompt you through your choice(s) or Visit us online Please note: If you are a new customer, we can begin sharing your information 30 days from the date we sent this notice. When you are no longer our customer, we continue to share your information as described in this notice. However, you can contact us at any time to limit our sharing.

Links may not work properly, I would suggest to logon to Chase Web site and check for privacy and security section for more info.

WoW & Rift

Many long-time World of Warcraft (WoW) players (blink*) are (gulp!) 'bored'. The latest expansion is already "old content" after three months. Many stopped doing heroics as there is nothing to buy with Justice or Valor points. Achievement freaks are still finding stuff to do of course but excitement is gone. The fact is, there is not much to do right now until 4.1 delivers new content.

There is that never-ending question whether there will be another MMO that can beat WoW? Many believe that it will not happen, WoW is an anomaly, it's unique. That may very well be the case but this is a lucrative business ( 12 month * $15/month * 10 million players = $1.8billion a year), and there will be new-comers!

Welcome Rift! It was launched today in US. Rift is yet another MMORPG which aims to combine successful components of all others that came before it. Trion, the company behind Rift, claims 1 million account sign-up. Actual numbers of sales are not known yet.

It's kinda funny to see discussions like this on whether damage meters are required or not but there was a post there that made my day. There is no question on my mind that WoW would not be so successful without thousands of add-ons. Anyone who spent some time in Elitist Jerks theory-crafting site knows that the mathematics behind WoW is mind-boggling.

I think performance-counters (be it damage meters in games) are necessary for people who would like to improve themselves. It may feel good to be in la la land for a while but most people would need to satisfy their hunger for achievement, for being a better person (at something). So why others do not want them? Check this out!

Win7 Hotfixes

I came across a repository of Windows 7 hotfixes here. I do not recall exactly where I saw it but I also found a list of all Pre-SP2 (i.e. Post-SP1) hotfixes, that looked like this:

• Windows6.1-KB2495523-x64
• Windows6.1-KB2495655-x64
• Windows6.1-KB2495786-x64
• Windows6.1-KB2496290-x64
• Windows6.1-KB2496820-x64
• Windows6.1-KB2498993-x64
• Windows6.1-KB2502789-x64

There was no description so, I created a simple Powershell script that attempts to scrape the title of relevant KB articles. It seems to work OK, so posting it here.

# Get-HotFixTitles
## I saved the file with a list of hotfixes in the current folder as hotfixes.txt
$no=gc .\hotfixes.txt |%{$null,$kbno,$null=$_ -split '-';$kbno} | %{$_ -replace 'KB',''}
$wc=New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$kb="http://support.microsoft.com/kb/"

$result = $no | % { 
            $url= $kb+$_
            $content=$wc.DownloadString($url)
            $regex=[RegEx]'<h1 class="title">(.*?)</h1>'
            $title=$regex.Matches($content) | % { $_.Groups[1].Value }            
            
            new-object PSObject -Property @{ 
                kb    = "KB"+$_
                url   = $url
                title = $title
            } 
            
        }
      $result |select kb,title| ft -a

###   or you may pipe the results to a csv if you prefer that
      $result |export-csv .\results.csv

I like dot sourcing when working with such stuff so I can slice and dice it further on the command line using the Custom Object I built:

. .\get-HotfixTitles

Then simply use $result. E.g.

$result | ?{$_ -match "GP"} |select kb,title | out-gridview

Windows 7 SP1 does not want to sleep

I received my Systemax machine a couple of days ago. It came with Windows 7 x64 Home Premium Edition. I downloaded Windows 7 x64 SP1 from MSDN and installed it. Last night, I wanted to put it into sleep and suddenly got a BSOD  "Internal_Power_Error"

I immediately suspected SP1 to be the cause b/c it had shutdown just fine the night before I installed SP1. There was not anything in the system logs to give me a clue. A bit of search on Microsoft sites shows that some people are seeing the exact same behavior after installing SP1 with similar specs[1]

At work, I use RSAT. So reading it in Directory Service blog that it was NOT possible to install RSAT after SP1 was already bad news for SP1, this just added to that bad taste.

There is documentation here to troubleshoot Internal_Power_Error. Interestingly, first param stops at x08 while in my case it was x09.

The other interesting bit was that crash dump file was not generated. This hotfix is supposed to fix that. I installed it and noticed that I could now put the machine into sleep. Problem was that it did not come back up from it.

Another suggested workaround was to disable "Allow Hybrid Sleep" in Power Options (see screenshot above). I tried that and and also changed the Bios Power setting so that 'hitting "space bar" would Power up the machine'. That seems to work for me. I can now put the machine to sleep and bring it back up by hitting space bar.

[1] Here are my specs:

• Asus Sabertooth x58 Motherboard (common)
• Intel core i7-950 3.06GHz 8M 1366 CPU
• 12GB DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800 Memory
• 2 x 1GB Radeon 5770 Card in ATI Crossfire
• 24x DVD-RW w/ Lightscribe
• 1 TB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s Hitachi HD

Update (03/05/2011):
Microsoft now has a KB article titled 'Windows 7 does not go to Sleep'. It does not cover BSOD I had but has some good suggestions. I especially liked the Powercfg command line query and disable methods:


To see the list of all devices that can wake the computer, run the following command:
> Powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

HID-compliant mouse
HID Keyboard Device
HID Keyboard Device (003)
Realtek PCI GBE Family Controller

To disable a specific device from waking the computer, run the following command, or use Device Manager:

> Powercfg -devicedisablewake "devicename"

nVidia GTX 460, but which one?

A couple of days ago, I mentioned that my eVGA GTS 8800 512 had gone corrupted. Falcon Northwest techs replied to my e-mail (I love how informative and friendly their responses are) and confirmed that eVGA tech recommendation on GTX 460 would be a great replacement, it would fit in just fine if I got with a <9" card and my Power Supply Unit (PSU) should be able to carry the load just fine (It's 500Watts).

So, I started reading reviews on these cards. This review from GuruD3.com is a bit dated but talks in great details about several GTX 460 cards and is a good read to understand the landscape.

Maybe conventional wisdom would dictate I go with a different brand than the one I had problem with. I did not. I loved how quite the card was. The fact that Falcon NW guys chose eVGA over others gave me more confidence. Plus, there is no such thing as never-failing-hardware-manufacturer.

For example, I liked the output options of PNY video cards and used several in the past but most of them developed fan-noise after a year or two. So, I gave up on them. If a company is using cheap mats and lowering the quality, they lose in the long run. PNY is still around, so maybe it was just that series, or it was my (lack of) luck. I am sure there are millions of PNY users out there with no issue whatsoever (and in full disclosure I still have a PNY card running on one of my much less used PCs after 9 years - oh yes sometimes I have to endure the fan-noise but it goes away after a while!).

Again, I wanted to go with a card, that is silent, performant and has good warranty. I learned that eVGA has lifetime warranty on some series (oh I am sure I will remember to register this time). Even these did not make the choice easy, as there are several eVGA cards that fit the bill.

Then I decided that I did not want an overclocked one, it's not need that for my use-case and I believe it taxes both the system (need more power / more heat) and the life of card. Finally, my choice is a non-overclocked eVGA GTX 460 1 GB card in the -AR series from buy.com which seems to have the best deal (hmm, it's really annoying me that they have a typo in the tile. It says "INVIDIA" instead of "NVIDIA". How could they miss that???).

I wish I had a BSOD

I never thought I would say that but after my PC froze today, I found myself looking at a garbled boot screen and realized my video card had gone bad  as well as bad sectors on the boot disk. If this was a BSOD, it would probably be a driver issue which would not be too hard to fix but now I have to replace the video card in the minimum. Bah!

I opened up my PC (Fragbox from Falcon Northwest I bought  mid-2008) to see if anything got loose (I know... it's wishful thinking), but of everything was seated properly. Then checked out serial number of the video card (nVidia GTS 8800) and called EVGA. To my surprise, someone picked up the phone. I had already read on their web site that my card had a lifetime warranty. So, I asked about it and was told that I was out of luck b/c card had to be registered in the first 30 days of purchase. Apparently, Falcon Northwest had not done it of course, neither did I...

I sent an e-mail to Falcon Northwest support to ask what would be a good replacement card. Because of the shape of Fragbox, I want to make sure I buy a card that would fit in seamlessly.

Then, I started looking for a replacement PC (Cannot keep Cho'gall waiting :p). Ever since I had issues with my Fragbox last year, I had that on the back of my mind. I was thinking about new Talon from Falcon NW. It's pretty decent and had great reviews. This time though, I acted like an impulse buyer and did all my shopping in about two hours. Here is what I ordered: Systemax Sys CrossFire. Looking forward to it.

Android Google Contacts: "Other Contacts"

I bought a pair of Google Nexus S phones for my wife and myself. As I use Google for my pics, contacts, docs, e-mail etc, I love the device!  Integration to all the Google services are done by simply entering your Google account the first time you power on your Android device.

I've been spending some time on Google App Market and other app sites like AppBrain.com and AndroidTapp.com to find out the apps that I need, as well as getting tips from friends who are either Android users or know about cross-platform (i.e. Blackberry - iPhone - Android) apps.

Today, while tinkering with a cross-platform messaging app named "WhatsApp", I noticed that some of my contacts were not showing up on the phone. That seemed weird. I checked Google.com/contacts and noticed that they were  showing up under "Other Contacts" instead of "My Contacts". I have the option to move them but I do not know who else is in the "Other Contacts" category.

I wondered what caused this and upon a little google'ing, I found out that both Gmail and Picasa creates accounts under "Other Contacts". Picasa has always been problematic when it came to sync'ing with Google Contacts for me. Apparently, Picasa had a bug in v3.8 and that caused all this mess. Issue is fixed in Picasa so that it does not now keep on moving contacts to "other contacts" but the damage is done. Comparing the number of "All contacts" to "My Contacts", I figured out that I am missing about ~100 contacts. They have also been removed from the groups I had created.

If worse comes to worst, I will need to export both lists and write a PowerShell script to figure out the delta that I have to move back and regroup them. Publish Post

I love Picasa but always had two gripes with it:

• Face Recognition is excruciatingly slow when # of pics are large(have more than 50K pics) and not so intelligent (hello, I just tagged the same person 10 times already for the pics that were taken minutes apart, do the rest please?)
• Cannot write the tagged info into the pic (have to use a third party tool called AvPicFaceXMPTagger)

Adding to the list: I really do not need other apps to mess with my Google contacts!

Screenshot Capturing App

Just wanted to drop a note about a nifty little app called "Greenshot"... Recently, I was writing an article and needed to take some screenshot and do minimal editing to make instructions clearer.
Of course, Snag-it, from TechSmith is the leader and hands down the best tool for such things but it's not free and I could not justify buying it to myself as I rarely need to use it at home.

Greenshot is a free, open-source alternative, that did the job well. When you launch it, you will notice a new tray icon ( menu is shows on the left). It then detects when you hit "Print Screen" key in Windows, and allows you to specify the area you would like to capture. Once done, you can put annotations like some text, arrows, and shapes (circle some text, etc.) and save it as .png or .jpg (is anything else being used these days?)

That's it. If you are looking for an alternative on Windows, give it a shot.

Windows 7 Tweaking: God - Mode

This is from LifeHacker: Five Best Windows 7 Tweaking Applications

I loved the God-Mode tweak. You enable it by creating a folder on your desktop with a name like this:

God-Mode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

It renames itself and icon changes to "Control Panel" Icon.

You can rename it as you like afterwards. Once you open up, you see tons of settings that you can change (see a scample below)
.

SlimDrivers & Realtek Audio Issue

I was looking for a tool to update drivers on my pc automatically as it's too much of a trouble for me to look up each and every device and search for updates on vendors' site. I used Device Doctor in the past and it was OK with XP but mostly screwed up on Windows 7. I saw an article @Lifehacker which mentioned a new beta software called SlimDrivers and decided to test it out.

It found my USB card reader, Intel USB host controller, network card, GEForce 8800 GT 500 had old drivers and updated each one of them without any issues. It nicely suggest to create a Restore Point, in case you forget. It also suggests (well kinda force you) to reboot. It was not really needed in case of Network Card so, I think they are not really checking if the reboot is required.

The problem started when it updated my Realtek Audio Drivers. I suddenly lost the Realtek Audio Manager after the upgrade, so when I connected my headphone, for example, it would not be detected. As mine came with the Intel DG43GT motherboard, I went to intel's site and downloaded the drivers instead of rolling them back. This worked fine except that in the front of the computer it would only recognize the recording input.

I found this thread @Tom's Hardware Forums where many people had the same issue. Solution was to "disable front panel jack detection".

While at it, I also updated BIOS using Intel's Windows based update tool. Worked like a charm.