Posts

Install Cygwin on Windows

Cygwin is a Linux command line emulator. https://cygwin.com/install.html Once it is installed, you will need to manually install other packages to let you build the software. Take the warning seriously: do not install everything, you will download hundreds of gigs of software you do not need. Rather install the specific dependencies. Once cygwin is installed, it will not, by default, set your home directory (home folder) to c:\users\yourname However, generally you DO want to do that, so you can use linux commands on your own files. To set that, follow the steps here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1494658/how-can-i-change-my-cygwin-home-folder-after-installation Starting with Cygwin 1.7.34 , the recommended way to do this is to add a custom  db_home  setting to  /etc/nsswitch.conf . A common wish when doing this is to make your Cygwin home directory equal to your Windows user profile directory. This setting will do that: db_home: windows Or, equivalently: db_home: /%H Simply type
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Fake flash disks

Believe it or not, you get fake flash disks. What these do is they misreport their capacity. So, they might say they are 500 GB in size but actually they're only 14 GB, and really they're 16 GB drives that failed quality control. Wish.com is particularly bad in this regard; literally every single drive I've bought from there has been fake flash. To test a drive to see if it is fake or lying about its size, try use f3 (fight flash fraud). https://fight-flash-fraud.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ It's a commandline utility available for mac and linux that lets you test a drive and program it to "learn" its actual/true usable size. It does this by testing every block, and when it starts getting write failures (or read verification failures), it marks that as the actual end of the disk. I've found that regardless of what size a fake flash disk says it is, it is usually 12-14 GB in size, never what it actually says. As the story goes, if it seems to good to be true,
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Useful windows software

 This page will list useful windows software. I will update it periodically. The items listed below are in no particular order of preference. They are identified as item title / purpose. Abex PowerPoint to Word - converts PPTX to DOCX APFS for Windows by Paragon Software - lets you read apple APFS drives Paragon hfs+ for windows - lets you read apple HFS+ drives Affinity Designer - alternative to Adobe Illustrator Affinity Photo and Gimp - alternatives to Adobe Photoshop (Gimp is free) Cygwin - a mini linux command line for windows. I will post a separate post about how to make it default to your home directory (c:\users\myname\) because it doesn't default there. Deltacopy - rsync, to copy differences between two folders Greenshot - more flexible screenshots, lets you automatically save-as iCloud - to link your PC to iCloud Inkscape - free alternative to Adobe Illustrator Notepad++ - a good text editor PdfTk - to manipulate PDFs SmarTTY - a good SSH client Telegram and Whatsapp des
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powershell commands for bitlocker to unlock drives

use manage-bde command to check status of D drive. 1. open admin command prompt (run powershell as administrator) 2. Run below command: manage-bde -status D:           [assuming D: is the bitlocked drive] 3. Try this, if it shows volume is locked. manage-bde -unlock D: -pw if you have a password then use password to unlock it. 4. If you have recovery password, then try this: manage-bde -unlock D: -rp xxxxxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxx where xxxxxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxxx is the 48 digit recovery password.
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Attach SMB (samba) drive to windows machine

Linux side: after adduser to add the user mySmbUser , run sudo smbpasswd -a mySmbUser sometimes you may need to use the file username map = /etc/samba/smbusers Check you have at least shared the home directories in smb.conf: [homes]    comment = Home Directories    browseable = yes    read only = no    create mask = 0775    directory mask = 0775 Restart smbd to force it to see the new users:  sudo service smbd restart When mapping a drive, select the "connect using different credentials" option on windows. This is the key point. And then provide the IP address of the server.
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Stopping adverts bothering you in your web browsing experience

Stopping spammy web adverts An effective way to stop or reduce adverts on your computer is to edit the hosts file that defines your DNS servers (effectively, trick your web browser into not downloading them in the first place).  On Apple and other UNIX-like machines, edit the file /etc/hosts like so: sudo vi /etc/hosts On Windows the file is C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts The trick is to create DNS entries for the offending sites by pointing them at your own machine (127.0.0.1). Since your machine won't understand the request, it will simply reply with a 404 error and the advert won't appear (it will be a blank placeholder). On Apple you also have to run  sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder  sudo dscacheutil -flushcache  Simply include the entries I identify on my personal website, www.ostrowick.co.za - look under the blog page menu item. Some companies on this list are not advertisers per se but contain content I don't like.
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