The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

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Archive for the ‘Power User’ Category

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Win32 build of less 530

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/11

Since I do not have a C or C++ build environment, I was looking for the less 530 release for Windows.

I found it via these links:

Searching for less 530, I bumped in these links as well:

  • [WayBack] `less` performs differently when invoked from Bash and from Git – Unix & Linux Stack Exchange 
    • When invoked via git, it does not restore screen content
  • Cause: [WayBack] Git – git-config Documentation: core.pager

    core.pager

    Text viewer for use by Git commands (e.g., less). The value is meant to be interpreted by the shell. The order of preference is the $GIT_PAGER environment variable, then core.pager configuration, then $PAGER, and then the default chosen at compile time (usually less).

    When the LESS environment variable is unset, Git sets it to FRX (if LESS environment variable is set, Git does not change it at all). If you want to selectively override Git’s default setting for LESS, you can set core.pager to e.g. less -S. This will be passed to the shell by Git, which will translate the final command to LESS=FRX less -S. The environment does not set the S option but the command line does, instructing less to truncate long lines. Similarly, setting core.pager to less -+F will deactivate the F option specified by the environment from the command-line, deactivating the “quit if one screen” behavior of less. One can specifically activate some flags for particular commands: for example, setting pager.blame to less -S enables line truncation only for git blame.

    Likewise, when the LV environment variable is unset, Git sets it to -c. You can override this setting by exporting LV with another value or setting core.pager to lv +c.

 

–jeroen

Posted in Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

Vaccineer de kinderen die je wilt behouden, om de verspreiding van besmettelijke ziektes te voorkomen

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/11

[WayBack] EenVandaag op Twitter: “Vaccineren was het afgelopen jaar onderwerp van discussie, ook op social media. Deze video over polio-patiënt Roelofje werd in 2018 het meest bekeken op onze Facebook-pagina.”

Vaccinatiegraad is helaas nog onder de 95% in veel gebieden van Nederland.

Een aantal gebieden is het nog veel lager, waardoor ze geen kudde-immuniteit meer hebben waardoor het verspreidingsrisico enorm versterkt.

Gerelateerd:

 

 

 

–jeroen

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Posted in Awareness, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Why We Should Change The Rhythm Of Business | Corporate Rebels

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/11

This should be on the reading list of every corporate manager: [WayBack] Why We Should Change The Rhythm Of Business | Corporate Rebels:

The problem arises when people bring their accounting background and mindset with them into business management. Decimals no longer works very well when the focus is on a future with lots of dynamics and uncertainty.

…

The solution is simple: (1) Targets must have natural deadlines; (2) Forecasting must be dynamic or rolling; (3) Resource allocation must be dynamic; and (4) Performance evaluation must take place when work is completed.

Or as Marjan Venema quoted:

“Yes, something is definitely wrong, but maybe more in the finance manager’s head than with the fisherman’s work rhythm!”

–jeroen

via: [WayBack] “Yes, something is definitely wrong, but maybe more in the finance manager’s head than with the fisherman’s work rhythm!” – Marjan Venema – Google+

Posted in Development, LifeHacker, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

On Windows 7 and 8.x too: Completely disable Windows 10 telemetry collection – twm’s blog

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/10

From [WayBack] Completely disable Windows 10 telemetry collection – twm’s blog:

So I don’t forget: According to an article in c’t magazine, disabling the “DiagTrack” service (“Connected User Experience and Telemetry”) will completely disable user tracking in Windows 10. They also say that they did not see any negative effects.

Source: [WayBack] Telefonierverbot in c’t 01/2019 page 172 (in German)

I saw at least one system where the service is not shown when you run Services.msc: it did not list DiagTrack, nor Connected User Experience and Telemetry. How awful is that!

The service can also be installed non older Windows versions: [WayBack] Just found DiagTrack running in Services – Tips and Tricks

Sometimes, it gets re-enabled. I think this happens during major Windows updates.

To inspect, stop and disable

Run all commands from the console the below bold commands. The non-bold text was the output on my system. If instead of the cmd.exe console, you run a PowerShell console, then remove the bits PowerShell -Command " and " at the start and end of each command.

The first command does not require an Administrative (UAC Elevated) command prompt; the last one does.

However, the first command, needs the | Select-Object * bit as otherwise most of the fields will not be displayed, excluding for instance StartType.

powershell -Command "Get-Service -Name DiagTrack | Select-Object *"


Name                : DiagTrack
RequiredServices    : {RpcSs}
CanPauseAndContinue : False
CanShutdown         : True
CanStop             : True
DisplayName         : Connected User Experiences and Telemetry
DependentServices   : {}
MachineName         : .
ServiceName         : DiagTrack
ServicesDependedOn  : {RpcSs}
ServiceHandle       :
Status              : Running
ServiceType         : Win32OwnProcess
StartType           : Automatic
Site                :
Container           :

On an Administrative command-prompt:

powershell -Command "Set-Service -Name DiagTrack -StartUpType Disabled"
powershell -Command "Get-Service -Name DiagTrack | Stop-Service"

Two notes:

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Posted in Batch-Files, CommandLine, Development, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

GitHub – DevExpress/testcafe: A Node.js tool to automate end-to-end web testing.

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/09

In my list of things to play with: [WayBack] GitHub – DevExpress/testcafe: A Node.js tool to automate end-to-end web testing.:

A Node.js tool to automate end-to-end web testing.
Write tests in JS or TypeScript, run them and view results.

https://devexpress.github.io/testcafe

  • Works on all popular environments: TestCafe runs on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It supports desktop, mobile, remote and cloud browsers (UI or headless).
  • 1 minute to set up: You do not need WebDriver or any other testing software. Install TestCafe with one command, and you are ready to test: npm install -g testcafe
  • Free and open source: TestCafe is free to use under the MIT license. Plugins provide custom reports, integration with other tools, launching tests from IDE, etc. You can use the plugins made by the GitHub community or make your own.

Related:

  • [WayBack] A node.js tool to automate end-to-end web testing | TestCafe:

    Use TestCafe to write tests in JS or TypeScript, run them and view results. TestCafe runs on Windows, MacOS, and Linux and takes 1 minute to set up.

  • [WayBack] TestCafe: Web Testing Framework | DevExpress

    100% web-based functional testing framework with integrated visual test recorder, remote device testing, and natural JavaScript API

    • From download to recording your first test in less than 5 minutes — installer automatically configures your environment.
    • With TestCafe, you can run tests in any browser that supports HTML5 (including IE9+, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera).
    • TestCafe is operating system agnostic so you can run tests on Windows, Mac or Linux machines.
    • Run tests on remote computers and mobile devices.
    • Run tests in multiple browsers and on multiple machines in parallel.
    • Run tests in the background on any machine.
    • TestCafe allows you to test web pages that require Basic and Windows HTTP Authentication.

Via:

Screen materials below the fold.

–jeroen

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Posted in Development, JavaScript/ECMAScript, LifeHacker, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Testing, Web Development | Leave a Comment »

Lifehack: solving jigsaw puzzles on whiteboards

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/07

I was a bit amazed that “lifehack” “jigsaw puzzle” “whiteboard” – Google Search returned zero meaningful results.

I got at this “lifehack” via two different paths.

The first one had been simmering in my head because my mentally retarded brother has periods where he loves solving jigsaw puzzles, and periods he does not.

A while ago, he (and being his custodians: we too) had a few rough years that took us a while to help alleviate. There were a lot of symptoms, like anxiety, mixing fantasy and real life, much shortened attention span, mix-ups of both short-term and long-term memory, and a lot more. His life structure was falling apart, which resulted in a lot of puzzles to be started and abandoned shortly after.

It put a lot of pressure on us, which meant my idea of trying to “store” his unfinished puzzles somewhere never took form.

The second one came when towards the end of that period, he got back into a jigsaw puzzle solving period. But this time, he could retain solving focus for a few days in a row.

I tweeted about that in Dutch, showing my amazement. But he was still not back his former level of solving, nor level of understanding.

So close to the Christmas days, he got himself a duo-jigsaw puzzle: two 1000 pieces puzzles in one box. Not being aware of the consequences, he opened both plastic bags and put them in the box.

Back in the days (almost a “Once upon a time…“) quality puzzles had pieces with smooth backs, usually printed in one colour per puzzles. Those times are over, we live in a mass production world, where every penny – or less – is shaved off in a drip-feed method like way, meaning the backs are just roughened cardboard all in one colour.

So we needed to find a way to solve two puzzles at the same time, including a place to store them when he was not staying with us.

He had been using puzzle mats, which all have drawbacks, some of which are in the video below, including:

  • pieces get damaged
  • sticking mat material sticks dust even better than puzzle pieces
  • mats usually come folded and take ages for the fold to disappear
  • inflatable tubes deflate over time because their plastic is porus
  • elastic straps are too cheap for their elasticity to last
  • cannot be used on flat areas smaller than the mat

Basically I needed portable large flat areas with slightly raised edges.

While showering – always a great time to get ideas – it occurred to me: magnetic whiteboards are flat, had raised edges, relatively sturdy, portable, thin, easy to store (because stackable).

Being magnetic makes it easy to stick a cotton cloth (say a large bed pillow case) to top or bottom so they would not scratch the underlying table, or to protect the puzzle from dust.

I choose a 90×60 cm whiteboard, which Amazon.de does not deliver to The Netherlands, but Amazon might deliver it to yours:

So I got a set of these: [WayBack] bol.com | Whiteboard Magneetbord 60x90cm which was EUR 27 back then, but immediately rose to EUR 28+ after buying (:

Related tweets

The last tweet is my brother after having spent like 40 hours on this 750 piece Ravensburger “bergbauernhof” puzzle over a couple of months, now spent 2 days in a row puzzling and making way more progress than the first 25+ hours. He was proud, and we were too, as this was the first time in about 2 years he could focus on such things for such a long time in a row.

The first tweet is on him getting a Jan van Haasteren 19083 set of two 1000 piece puzzles without him realising there are two:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Running BBS Door Games on Windows 10 with GameSrv, DOSBox, plus telnet fun with WSL – Scott Hanselman

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/07

Reminder to self: see if I ever can resurrect my old BBS and FidoNet node that was based on at least:

  • FrontDoor (by Joaquim Homrighausen)
  • RemoteAccess (by Andrew Milner)
  • GoldED (by Odinn Sørensen)
  • A FOSSIL driver (forgot the name)
  • A Fidonet NodeList Compiler
  • a Message Tosser

Maybe a good place to start: [WayBack] Running BBS Door Games on Windows 10 with GameSrv, DOSBox, plus telnet fun with WSL – Scott Hanselman

I already wrote a few times about me being on Fidonet, and BITNET in the late 1980s:

A few email addresses I have been using in that era:

A tag-line from me in that era (I blanked out the phone number as it now belongs to someone else):

    o _   _  _   _   _             voice:  +31-2522-XXXXX (19:00-22:00 UTC)
   / (_' |  (_) (_' | |            snail:  P.S.O.
__/                                        attn. Jeroen W. Pluimers
                                           P.O. Box 266
jeroenp@rulfc1.LeidenUniv.nl               2170 AG Sassenheim
jeroen_pluimers@f521.n281.z2.fidonet.org   The Netherlands

Related:

–jeroen

Posted in BBS, dial-up modems, FidoNet, History, MS-DOS, Power User, Windows | Leave a Comment »

HMpaal.nl: exacte (Google maps) locatie van een hectometerpaal op een A of N weg

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/07

Handig: [WayBack] HMpaal.nl.

Behoorlijk exact (veel exacter dan andere bronnen) voor locaties van hectometerpalen langs A en N wegen die door rijkswaterstaat beheerd worden.

Zie ook:

Voorbeeld:

[WayBack/Archive.is] HMpaal.nl A9/R/36.9/a 

–jeroen

Posted in LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

gpg creation and sign Gino’s Key ($1785651) · Snippets · GitLab

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/04

Boy it was a long time ago that I did anything with gpg. Here is how to generate and sign keys.

[WayBack] gpg creation and sign Gino’s Key ($1785651) · Snippets · GitLab

And here to check your email confguration:

[WayBack] Home – dmarcian Founded in 2012 by the primary author of the DMARC specification, dmarcian is dedicated to upgrading the entire world’s email by making DMARC accessible to all. dmarcian brings together thousands of senders, vendors, and operators in a common effort to build DMARC into the email ecosystem.

–jeroen

Posted in *nix, Power User, Security | Leave a Comment »

Why is “finite” in “infinite” pronounced differently than plain “finite”?

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/04

December thoughts: [WayBack] Why is “finite” in “infinite” pronounced differently than plain “finite”?… – Jeroen Wiert Pluimers – Google+

Q

Why is “finite” in “infinite” pronounced differently than plain “finite”?
As a partially word-blind person, those differences make natural languages very hard for me to grasp.
Especially because Dutch “eindig” is pronounced the same in “oneindig” (and German “endlich” the same in “unendlich“)

A

  • Randy Tapson's profile photo
    Randy Tapson+2
    My guess is that it’s easier to say. They were probably pronounced the same 500 years ago but over time it became easier (lazier) to say 3 short vowels (because they are all the same sound) versus 1 short and 2 long. I’d be very interested in hearing what the old English pronunciation sounded like.
  • Wolfgang Rupprecht's profile photo
    Wolfgang Rupprecht+2
    Steven Pinker has a great talk on irregular verbs. In a nutshell certain words when put into a typical sentence are too much of a tongue twister. If the word or phrase is used enough people develop shortcuts to make them easier to say. The interesting aspect that he identified is that if some word falls out of common usage the pronunciation becomes regular again. People forget that they can say it the easier way. His talk is about irregular verbs, but the concept is much more general than that.
  • Kim Nilsson's profile photo
    Kim Nilsson+1

    Two great explanations, which both boil down to the truth and fact that people are lazy and languages adapt over time.

    English spelling is from the 15th century, but pronunciation has changed.

    Norwegian has tried to update their spelling to be closer to the actual use, and also removed duplicate “spelling” of the same sounds.

    Some languages are sponges, and fill up with words from other languages, and either keep the sounds or change them a little, even if they don’t conform to their own language. Others, like Icelandic, create brand new words for everything.

–jeroen

Posted in History, LifeHacker, Power User | Leave a Comment »

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