Digital ByWay

Vista – 129 years to compress a folder

2009-02-04T21:14:00.001-06:00

I had made a backup of my system prior to installing a new 1TB drive. I did this about a month ago and contemplated deleting the backup as I think I have everything I need but, I thought hey, I can recover some space by compressing the folder. So I clicked the compression checkbox on the folder properties and let it go. I knew it was going to take awhile and I was prepared for that but, I wasn’t prepared to see 47166 Days and 15 hours remaining.

I figured this must be some miscalculation so I let it run for an hour or so. It now says 47166 Days and 14 hours. What???? I’m sorry but, I don’t know if I’m ready to change my will to ask my grandchildren who aren’t even born yet click OK when the compression finishes in 129 years.

I think I’ll let it run overnight and if it hasn’t gone down a few decades I’ll click cancel and just delete the files. I can’t wait to try this in Windows 7.

VPN errors on Vista SP2

2008-11-16T19:40:00.001-06:00

This was really annoying. After installing SP2 I could not connect to the several VPN sites I need. After contacting Microsoft here is the resolution they provided that worked. I’m posting here to save others the trouble I went through.

First turn on RAS logging to diagnose the problem. You’ll need to open an administrative shell (cmd) to run these commands.

create a trace:
netsh ras set tracing * enabled
try your VPN connection (i.e. failure)
netsh ras set tracing * disabled

Look in your \windows\tracing folder for RASGCW.LOG
If you see a string like:
ConnectThread:RasDialDlg failed with error: 800

This should fix your problem. You’ll need to reinstall some drivers.

first uninstall:
netcfg -u ms_l2tp
netcfg -u ms_pptp

then re-install:
netcfg -l %windir%\inf\netrast.inf -c p -i ms_pptp
netcfg -l %windir%\inf\netrast.inf -c p -i ms_l2tp

That’s it. Let me know if you had this problem as I am curious.

bluestring - photo mashup and sharing

2008-10-02T23:45:00.001-05:00

Here's another photo sharing web site I ran across that is in beta. What's different about bluestring is they are also a mashup so you can upload your photos to them or simply reference your files from photobucket, picasa, webshots or AOL Pictures. Once you have your photos linked in which is a fairly painless process you can create simple slideshows with sound. The site is flash based and does a good job of making photo management easy with their simple user interface. Just select photos from "My Media" and drop them on the slideshow filmbar, add some music and it will generate your slideshow you can share with others. The slideshow gets the job done but, it's no animoto. I'll keep an eye on this site as I think there may be some more good features coming. They have a good start and the keeping it simple model is working for them.

Shwup - simple photo sharing with a twist

2008-06-11T22:54:00.001-05:00

We are all too aware of the run of the mill photo sharing sites out there Flickr , Snapfish, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, etc.. They have some nice features but, sometimes sharing, and only sharing, with the people you want can be a little difficult.

For example I may go to a party and want to show just those friends the pictures and also allow them to add to the collection with their photos. With other services I can show them to the world, force my friends to create an account just to see them and still they may not be able to add their photos to the collection.

Along comes shwup it's like misspelling show up (these web 2.0 names, I think I'll wait for web 3.0 with spell-checker but, I digress). With shwup I can create the album and add the e-mail addresses of my friends then either upload the photos or grab them from Flickr, Picasa or a few other sites. My friends get the e-mail and can go online and see the photos immediately, no signup, no waiting for e-mail verifications, Easy peasy. If they want to contribute they'll need to create an account however. I can create other albums just for family members to view and do the same thing. Only the people I invite to view the photos can see them so I can keep family photos for family and my kids soccer photos just for the soccer mom's & dad's.

They also have a feature that takes up to 15 of your photos and makes a quick movie out of them with different themes and music. It's a nice touch but, may be limiting if you have lots of photos to share.

Overall a pretty nice site, simple with limited flair but, a few nice touches. It's still in beta so there may be more in the works.

QuantCast - Tracking Photography E-commerce Sites

2008-05-07T13:40:00.010-05:00

I recently came across Quantcast and I'm amazed at the level of analytical information that is available for free. For example here is how the top photography e-commerce site rank. Notice PrintRoom.com seems to be gaining some traffic in May but, PhotoReflect.com still has the most visitors.

They also provide information relevant to advertisers such as demographic breakdown including: gender, age, ethnicity, income level. Global traffic vs US is also useful. The data can be quite accurate for sites that have included the Quantcast code but, even those that don't are estimated by panel participants and ISP data.

It's interesting to see what sites make up the top 100. There are the usual suspects but, some names you have probably never heard of. If you create an account they also offer advanced search features which will find similar sites to ones that you like, demographic information, or by numerous other criteria.

PicArtia - Create a Photo Mosaic

2008-04-30T21:02:00.002-05:00

We've all seen those photos created with other photos to make a photo mosaic. PicArtia allows you to create your own mosaic from a photo that you upload to their site. Once uploaded you select from one of their galleries of photos to use as the tile pieces. It would be cool if you could also upload your own photos for the tiles but, they do not offer that for obvious reasons (bandwidth, and they have probably already pre-processed the gallery photos for matching). After you upload your photo and choose the gallery their servers crank away creating your mosaic. You'll receive an e-mail when it's done with a link to download up to an 8.7 megapixel image for free. Other sizes are available for ordering up to a 140 megapixel image for $9 US. It's fast an easy and if you love the style it's a good way to experiment.

Prism - Have your Web Apps without the Browser

2008-04-14T22:30:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting app coming from the Mozilla folks. They are providing a mechanism call Prism to run any web apps like gmail, google calendar, salesforce, etc.. as a windows app. Now it's not really doing anything all that special but, it's interesting to see the integration with the desktop. You can create links that show in your start menu or desktop that popup your web app of choice in it's own window; no address bar, navigation, etc.. since all that should be handled by the web app. It appears to be somewhat lightweight (around 20 meg installed), starts up quick and has minimal UI (mostly the standard window frame). They claim it's a counterpart to Abobe AIR and Silverlight but, I describe it more as a browser without the typical browser UI. Something fun to check out anyway...

Top Sites for Product Price Monitoring

2008-03-25T22:41:00.002-05:00

Have you ever bought something expensive or even somewhat expensive only to realize later that you could have gotten it cheaper after the price guarantee period is over? There are many sites out there you can go to for price matching (froogle, pricegrabbr) but, monitoring them is a pain. The sites listed here will notify you either by e-mail or RSS feed if the price changes. If the store you purchased from has a price guaranty you can then request a refund.

I tried these sites out when I bought a DVD player from Amazon. They all provided the information I needed to get a refund. Amazon appears to be very good about price matching, even multiple times. I did it twice and the last time was only for about $6 which they refunded promptly. Here's the list in my order of preference.

4. Price!pinx is a price change site that uses e-mail to alert you of any price drops. They claim to work with most web sites and I verified they did with a few including Amazon and Apple.com. They do not support ebay or gap.com. You will need to install a !pinx toolbar in your browser to use the site. From the product page you create bookmark, select the product price and click the !pinx button. From then on your product will be monitored. I didn't really like installing another toolbar but, if you are a frequent shopper it may be worth your while.

3. PriceShout.com allows you to build a personalized price tracking site. You can monitor prices with an RSS feed to see when prices change or item become in-stock. You specify the items and criteria you are interested and PriceShout does the rest. They monitor a good list of online stores including Amazon, newegg, buy.com, ebay and appear to add more frequently. The RSS feed method was nice.

2. RefundPlease works only for Amazon but, is easy to use. You grab the ISBN or ASIN number from the product page enter the purchase date and your e-mail and your done. Since Amazon says they only will price match for 30 days it appears that is as long as they monitor. I've actually gone out as 47 days and Amazon still price matched. Something to keep in mind.

1. PriceProtectr monitors 90+ stores to find the lowest price for a product. Stores include Costco, Best Buy, Amazon and Sears. You start by copying the address of the product you bought and pasting it into the site to look it up. Then you enter your e-mail address to start monitoring the product. Anytime the price drops you get an e-mail. I liked this site the most as I didn't need to register or install a toolbar and they were quickest to send price drop notifications.

Check them out to maybe get some cash back on your next major purchase.

Sprout Builder - Online Flash Creation

2008-03-04T20:52:00.004-06:00

Sprout Builder is a website for creating Flash presentations. The interface is of course developed in Flash which makes the site very user friendly. Here's an example of what your can do:

Note that Sprout Builder is a not a full fledged Flash editor like CS but, does give you a good set of creation tools. They also have pre-built templates to get you started and effects like shadows and glows to add some polish. It looks like they are just getting started but, already have a very powerful tool. They provide code to embed on your website (just like the link above) so you can easily add your final product to your site. They will also track the links so if your "sprout" appears on many sites you can get reports on the usage. Overall it's a very cool concept.

FanBox - Not really a fan

2008-02-26T16:20:00.003-06:00

FanBox is an interesting concept. They have created a virtual desktop that runs in your browser. They give 2Gb of space free to upload your existing files. It's a nice idea and may be a solution for those without a computer but, it seems a little silly to log into my virtual desktop from my laptop to get at files and applications that I already have available. It's a very impressive interface in that it's not just a flash app like you see everywhere but, uses dynamic HTML. They are also trying to add some social networking features that I don't quite get yet. I am annoyed that now that I have signed up I get a couple e-mails a day from FanBox users. I'm not sure how this feature works but, I can't seem to turn it off other than to add FanBox to my spam bucket. The e-mails always ask irrelevant questions like "Do you like Musicals?" Who cares. If you commonly use a public computer because you don't have your own then check it out otherwise stay away.

Update Your Router Firmware with Tomato

2008-01-29T22:43:00.000-06:00

Wow! This is something I hadn't really tought about but, I'm sure glad I stumpled on to Tomato. Tomato is a firmware update for the popular Linksys WRT54G/GL/GS routers. I just happen to have the WRT54GL.

So this most obvious question is "why would I want (or need) to update my router firmware?" I suppose if you are just average Joe Computer User and your wireless network is working fine the answer is you don't. However if you are like me and want to have greater control over you router including: boosting transmit power, viewing bandwidth graphs, port forwarding, QOS support, site blocking, scripting, scheduling and a whole lot of other stuff I don't understand yet. It basically blows away the standard LinkSys firmware.

I love being able to quickly look at bandwidth graphs to determine how my internet has been performing over periods. I frequently do large uploads so I can see what my max upload speed is. I've also setup to recycle my router weekly, added some port forwarding, setup QOS so I always have bandwidth for VOIP, increased my transmit power so I now get 4 bars on the patio (woohoo!) and lots of other tweeks.

If your in the mood to experiment (note: always may a backup of your current firmware so you can go back) give it a try.

Music for us Slackers

2008-01-14T22:19:00.000-06:00

I've found my new favorite radio station to listen to. It's actually many radio stations depending on what my mood is. It's Slacker.com. In one word this site is AWESOME! They just have great radio station selections and are always playing the best music that I want to hear. Occasionly I'll hear something I don't like and I can click a button to NEVER hear it again. Genius! I've played around with some other sites like LaunchCast and Rhapsody. They are both good but, it's seems like it takes forever before they "learn" what music I want to hear. That's good for some people but, us slackers just want good music now. Best of all the site is free!

There are a few limitation such as you can only skip 6 songs an hour but, I seldom have an issue with that. The artist lineup is pretty broad with the obvious exceptions (beatles, etc..). I'm listening to the Alternative Hits Radio (Red Hot Chili Peppers, White Stripes, Panic at the Disco) as I write this so as to not fall asleep. Rock on.

They are also working on a to-go device that looks promising but, a bit pricey. So if you need some tunes, don't have alot of cash, and don't have time to build a "collection" checkout Slacker Personal Radio...

Need Online Storage - Meet Mozy

2008-01-10T14:41:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know I've talked about online storage before but, Mozy is a little different. It's more of a backup solution that just plain file storage. I still use my OnmiDrive for storing files I want to have available at work and home but, I'm currently using Mozy to backup my entire home network. I already have a solution for backing up my data from several computers to removable drives but, what if they fail or are lost? I know I can buy more removable drives or use RAID to give me some redundancy but, what if the house burns down or they are stolen!

Mozy gives me some piece of mind to $4.95 a month that all my data is safe. Sure I may never need to do a restore but, if I do I'm covered. I think they call that insurance. They are by far the cheapest for the amount of data I need to backup. Their unlimited plan for home users CHEAP. I have around 150 Gb of critical data to backup (photos, videos, financial docs). And probably another 300 Gb that would be nice to have backed up. One thing to note: you'll need a fast connection to get your stuff up there. It took me over 2 weeks to upload 150 Gb. Once it's up there though the incremental backups are fairly quick and are scheduled during downtime.

So if you are looking for more than just a standard storage solution Mozy is probably one of your better bets. They are an EMC company so they (and your data) should be around a while.

Cool E-Cards for the Holidays

2007-12-14T15:08:00.000-06:00

It's that time of year again when I start receiving lots of generic e-cards from friends and family. The are mostly a photo (warm fire, snowing scene, santa and his reindeer) along with a few words wishing merry and so forth. This year spice it up a notch. HD Greetings is a new site that offers video (stop-motion animation, 3D and cartoons) of interesting holiday themes. But, thats just where you start. You can also add your own photos, select music and of course enter your holiday greeting.

Here are a couple samples:

Give them a try this holiday season...

Free 1Gb Online Drive

2007-12-12T22:34:00.001-06:00

There are lots of online storage sites out there but, Ommidrive may work the best. I've tried their service on both the Mac a PC platforms and it seems to work flawlessly. In both environments you install a small OS extension that adds a "OmniDrive" disk icon to your desktop. You can then copy files to your drive and they will be available just like they were on your hard disk. There is also a web interface so you can access your files from any computer. They have several space options from free (1G) to $199.00/year (50Gb). The 1G storage is adequate for storing your critical financial documents but, not for your entire photo and video collections. Once word of caution: The free version does not support SSL so you will want to encrypt your documents prior to uploading. If you need a good free online storage solution for your precious documents this may be the site for you.

Locate all site visitors. Fast. Free.

2007-12-11T11:47:00.000-06:00

ClustrMaps is a analytics site that provides a location map of your site's visitors. You'll see I added it to the right sidebar on my main page. It's pretty cool and easy to setup. They provide the HTML code that you will need to paste into your website and that's all you'll need. It takes a day or so for any visitors to appear in your map but, after that you'll start seeing red dots for visits. It's kinda cool. There are currently in beta but, it seems to work well enough. The map is free for less than 2500 visits and they have monthly plans above that starting at $1.99.

Check it out...

GoogleTube - Video of the Day

2007-12-04T16:02:00.000-06:00

GoogleTube Video of the Day

This guy picks a different video everyday from You Tube. Some are very interesting. Others just weird. Selections like Skateboarding in a Giant Bowl Filled with Balloons and Deep-Fried Thanksgiving Turkey Disaster.

Who could ask for more...

Social Networking for Millionaires

2007-12-02T22:21:00.000-06:00

I suppose we all knew it would come to this. There are social networks for students, executives, pet owners, surfers, grandma's and now the Millionaire/Billionaire types. aSmallWorld is of course by invitation only. The hoity toity like to keep the common fold out of their cliques.

Although us commoners can only guess at what may be behind the curtain, it begs the question. If you are a billionaire, do you really a website to help you network? Apparently Harvey and Bob Weinstein (Miramax Films) think so as they made a minority investment. Various analytics sites report only around 600 visits a day to the site. Wikipedia has some overview information but, nothing too exciting; rules to keep unwanted people out, anti-harassment, etc. The biggest draw seems to be the classified ads. I can see them now.

     Mansion on the Riveria priced to move - 75 million
     Gently used Yacht, single owner - 35 million
     Used Volvo, 30,000 miles - free to deserving person

Ah, if I could only get in, that Volvo would be mine. Reports are you can buy a membership on eBay, but I was unable to locate any. Anyway, I'm sure if the found out you would quickly be ousted. We'll I guess I'll have to stay with Facebook and Linkedin for now.

Anyone have millionaire making stock tips?

FFFFOUND! image bookmarking

2007-11-29T17:11:00.000-06:00

FFFFound! is a cool concept. It learns what types of images you like and creates albums of recommendations for you. Anyone can add images but, only images recommended for you are displayed in your album. They are currently in private beta so you can't register at this time but, you can still check out the site. Here's how they sum it up:

FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!

Stay tuned for them to go live.

Blogger Photo Slideshow

2007-11-28T23:09:00.000-06:00

Blogger Play is a really cool concept. It's basically a photo stream of every new photo posted to Blogger. Watch it for a while and you'll see an eclectic mix of photography from snapshots of kids, street signs, high-end web page screen shots, logos, and even some more risque visuals. It doesn't appear to be monitored for content so keep the kids away.

Find a photo you're interested in? Click it to be taken to the blog post that tells the story behind it.

Check it out when you have some time to kill.

Smart Resizing added to FotoFlexor

2007-11-04T21:50:00.000-06:00

FotoFlexor recently added a new feature called "Smart Resize". Now that term seems fairly commonplace with most image editing applications and generally refers to the way the pixels that are thrown away are handled, anti-aliasing, etc.. FotoFlexor uses the term in a new way. Their smart resize allows you to essentially crop out portions of the image that are NOT along the edges. Here's an example:

To get this to work you need identify areas you want to keep and also areas you want to remove using their masking tools. The smart resize will then collapse the image around the areas you want removed while keeping the areas you want preserved untouched. The tool works well when you have sufficient image detail that does not have a regular pattern. Also you will want to limit the number of areas you are trying to preserve as it can deteriorate the image such that it appears blocky. This tool can be useful with the right photo but, may have limited overall usefulness.

Give it a try and you decide.

I Want Candy, errr. Sandy

2007-11-01T17:32:00.000-05:00

I Want Sandy!. Not it's not an old Bow Wow Wow song. It's a new website to manage your schedule. Sandy is your personal assistant who will remind you of special events r your daily schedule. Notifications are sent via e-mail to your cell phone to let you know whats coming up on your agenda. You can even get daily or weekly schedules sent. So how does Sandy know what's on your schedule? You can ether add appointments, reminders or to-do's using the web interface or send an e-mail to Sandy and she will add it to the apporpriate area. You use natural language to communicate with Sandy in the e-mails you send. For example:

Remind me to take out the trash in the morning
Remember doctors appointment on Friday

You can also ask Sandy questions like:

Lookup doctor's appointment

There are also more commands like forget, update and tags like @todo, @done, @archive that you can use to manage your items via e-mail or your cell phone.

I've been using it for about a week now and it works very well. So it may be time to meet Sandy to help with your schedule.

Microsoft not a one trick pony

2007-10-30T12:48:00.000-05:00

Hulu - TV coming to a PC near you

2007-10-29T22:07:00.000-05:00

Hulu.com. Is this just another YouTube clone? At first glance maybe but, if you dig a little deeper not so much. True, they have just started a beta but, from the looks it may be what iTunes really wanted to do with video. Instead of short clips, hulu will offer full length videos of popular shows from the major networks including: The Office, Prison Break, Heroes, My Name is Earl, King of the Hill, Saturday Night Live, etc, etc.. This could be huge! They have the backing of serveral big internet names like AOL, Comcast, MSN, MySpace, and Yahoo.

The video player looks cool, a little iTune-ish with simple thumbs and descriptions. They intend to spend a lot of time developing a good experience. It also looks like it may just be for windows only to start. We'll have to see.

The beta has just started and their is limited content available but, hopefully in a few months they will have everything lined up and ready to take on the big boys.

Stay tuned..

Online Photo Resizing? mypictr

2007-10-20T23:49:00.000-05:00

I suppose there is a need for this sort of thing but, I'm not sure how widely it's used. mypictr allows you to upload a photo and crop it. Then you download it to your computer and your done. They don't host the image so you can't link to it as your avatar or profile pic. So you'll then need to upload it again to the site you want it to appear. Here's the blurb from their site on why you should use them:

Imagine following situation, you are about to create a new profile at a new social network and the size of profile picture is limited to a custom width and height. You would probably search for a software which will allow you to adjust your picture to the right size. With mypictr you don't need to search for the software, all you need to do is to upload your large picture, pick a right size (or custom size) and download a smaller profile picture.

I suppose you can make that argument but, it's hard to not find "software" freely available, often coming with the OS, that won't crop an image. Even Microsoft Paint has easy enough tools to crop. So is this just a site to do something "because we can" or does it serve a real purpose?

thoughts....