The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

April 2026
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Test for modern Internet Standards like IPv6, DNSSEC, HTTPS, DMARC, STARTTLS and DANE.

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/11

Cool: [WayBack] Test for modern Internet Standards like IPv6, DNSSEC, HTTPS, DMARC, STARTTLS and DANE.

Their motivation and background: [WayBack] About Internet.nl

–jeroen

Posted in Encryption, HTTPS/TLS security, Power User, Security | Leave a Comment »

🔎Julia Evans🔍 on Twitter: “ssh tips… “

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/08

Great work by [WayBack] 🔎Julia Evans🔍 on Twitter: “ssh tips… “

[WayBack] ssh tips JPG

Via:

Some more tips:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in *nix, *nix-tools, Communications Development, Development, Internet protocol suite, Power User, SSH, ssh/sshd | Leave a Comment »

Roderick Gadellaa on Twitter: simple app that (re)sets the volume of the TV to 8% of the max volume every time you turn it on.

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/08

[WayBack] Roderick Gadellaa on Twitter: “In case anyone who owns an Android TV is interested: I’ve built a (very, very) simple app that (re)sets the volume of the TV to 8% of the max volume every time you turn it on. #androidtv #tools…”

[WayBack] Roderick Gadellaa on Twitter: “Some instructions: – You have to sideload it (google is your friend: “how to sideload app on android tv”) – You have to start the app once. It won’t show up on Home, so go to Settings > Apps > TvVolsetr > Open – Android TV 7.0 Nougat or higher required”

[WayBack] Roderick Gadellaa auf Twitter: “Some instructions: – You have to sideload it https://t.co/8aK0bmXXFl – You have to start the app once. It won’t show up on Home, so go to Settings > Apps > TvVolsetr > Open – Android TV 7.0 Nougat or higher required”

Follow only the images links from [Archive.is] “how to sideload app on android tv” – Google Search, as the others point to phishing sites.

This image link for instance is useful: [WayBack] How to Sideload Apps on Android TV: Android TV is an excellent product for anyone who wants to expand their current living room setup—it makes easy work of streaming most content, has a slew of games (that are actually worth playing), and is relatively inexpensive. But what happens when an app you want on your TV isn’t available for your device?

Download: [WayBack] tvVolsetr.apk

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Android, Android Devices, Mobile Development, Power User, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

OKI C332/MC342 – reset (short) device name, location, asset number and contact name

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/08

I’ve found out that the only way to reset the below fields on an OKI printer is to

go to the printer main page at http://192.168.124.34 (use the IP address of your own printer here)
logon as Administrator (on an OKI C332 that’s user admin which has default password 999999, on an OKI MC342 the password is aaaaaa)
go to the page http://192.168.124.34/setupfrm.htm (use the IP address of your own printer here) as that page can potentially be skipped during login
update these fields:
- Device Name
- Short Device Name
- Asset Number
- Contact Name – Administrator

Image source: [Archive.cs] Checking or Changing the Settings of This Machine from a Computer (MC853, MC873)

–jeroen

Posted in OKI C332, OKI Printers, Power User, Printers | Leave a Comment »

Why a study with only 7 respondents can be good – from Dutch paper “De Volkskrant”

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/07

[Archive.is] Waarom een onderzoek met maar 7 respondenten toch goed kan zijn | De Volkskrant: Denkfouten in het hedendaags ontwerp gefileerd door innovatie-expert (en cabaretier) Jasper van Kuijk. Deze week: gebruikstest.

Google translated in English.

TL;DR

Quantitative studies often require large numbers of respondents, but quantitative studies can be done with a very small group.

While quantitative studies often will get you just one result (I rate this application a 7 out of 10, or with this A/B change, click through increases by 5%), qualitative studies will get you much more specific comments like “the main menu is cluttered”, or “the design is slick” (translated from the Image in the article).

Extensive research was done for a 2003 published paper [Archive.is] Beyond the five-user assumption: Benefits of increased sample sizes in usability testing which you can read as PDF [WayBack].

Via

[WayBack] Jasper van Kuijk on Twitter: “Mijn ‘Hoe moeilijk kan het zijn?’ van vandaag. Waarom voor gebruiksgemak een gebruikstest met 7 participanten nuttiger is dan een enquête met 1500 respondenten. #HMKHZ via de @volkskrant”

[WayBack] Ionica Smeets on Twitter: “Hear, hear! Aldus een wiskundige die heel wat jaren nodig had om waarde van kwalitatief onderzoek in te zien…”

and

–jeroen

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Posted in Development, Software Development, Testing, Usability, User Experience (ux) | Leave a Comment »

Fiber cables: speed and connectors

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/07

Similar to the CAT# designation for speed categories, fiber cables have an OM# designation. [WayBack] OM1 fiber, OM2 fiber, OM3 fiber and OM4 fiber overview explain this well, and has this quote and image tables:

There are four kinds of multimode fibers: OM1 fiber, OM2 fiber, OM3 fiber and OM4 fiber. The letters “OM” stand for optical multi-mode.

Both OM1 and OM2 work with LED based equipment that can send hundreds of modes of light down the cable, while OM3 and OM4 are optimized for laser (eg. VCSEL) based equipment.

I have combined the tables in html as:

OM1 OM2 OM3 OM4

Maximum distance for 100 Mbit/s 2000m 2000m 2000m 2000m 100BASE -FX

Maximum distance for 1 Gbit/s 275m 550m 550m 1000m 1000BASE-SX

Maximum distance for 10 Gbit/s 33m 82m 300m 550m 10GBASE-SR

Maximum distance for 40 Gbit/s not specified not specified 100m 150m 40GBASE-SR4

Maximum distance for 100 Gbit/s not specified not specified 100m 150m 100GBASE-SR10 / 100GBASE-SR4

Diameter 62.5/125µm 50/125µm 50/125µm 50/125µm

Jacket coulors (often also cable colours) Orange Orange Aqua Aqua

Optical source LED LED VCSEL VCSEL

Bandwidth 200MHz*km 500MHz*km 2000MHz*km 4700MHz*km

	OM1	OM2	OM3	OM4
Maximum distance for 100 Mbit/s	2000m	2000m	2000m	2000m	100BASE -FX
Maximum distance for 1 Gbit/s	275m	550m	550m	1000m	1000BASE-SX
Maximum distance for 10 Gbit/s	33m	82m	300m	550m	10GBASE-SR
Maximum distance for 40 Gbit/s	not specified	not specified	100m	150m	40GBASE-SR4
Maximum distance for 100 Gbit/s	not specified	not specified	100m	150m	100GBASE-SR10 / 100GBASE-SR4
Diameter	62.5/125µm	50/125µm	50/125µm	50/125µm
Jacket coulors (often also cable colours)	Orange	Orange	Aqua	Aqua
Optical source	LED	LED	VCSEL	VCSEL
Bandwidth	200MHz*km	500MHz*km	2000MHz*km	4700MHz*km

Unlike CAT cabling, fiber cables can have various connectors, of which SC and LC are the most common as explained in [WayBack] SC vs LC—What’s the difference? which has this quote and image table:

Size: LC is half the size of SC. Actually, one SC-adapter is exactly the same size as a duplex LC-adapter. Therefore LC is more and more common in central offices where packing density (number of connections per area) is an important cost factor

Handling: SC is a true “push-pull-connector” and LC is a “latched connector”, although there are very innovative, real “push-pull-LCs” available which have the same handling capabilities like SC.

The History of Connector: The LC is the “younger” connector of the two, SC is wider spread around the world but LC is catching up. Both connectors have the same insertion loss and return loss capabilities. Generally, it depends where in the network you want to use the connector, no matter SC or LC, even the other different kinds of connector.

In html:

Name Mating
cycles Ferrule
size Typical
insertion loss
(dB) IEC
specification Cost Ease
of
use Application
features

SC 1000 Ø 2.5mm
ceramic 0.25-0.5 61754-4 $$ ••••• Mainstream, reliable, fast deployment, field fit

LC 500 Ø 1.25mm
ceramic 0.25-0.5 61754-20 $$ ••••◦ High density, cost effective, field fit

Name	Mating cycles	Ferrule size	Typical insertion loss (dB)	IEC specification	Cost	Ease of use	Application features
SC	1000	Ø 2.5mm ceramic	0.25-0.5	61754-4	$$	•••••	Mainstream, reliable, fast deployment, field fit
LC	500	Ø 1.25mm ceramic	0.25-0.5	61754-20	$$	••••◦	High density, cost effective, field fit

–jeroen

Posted in Ethernet, Network-and-equipment, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Named Pipes unit for Delphi | Mick’s Mix

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/07

[WayBack] Named Pipes unit for Delphi | Mick’s Mix by Russell Libby, for which (Apr 7, 2013) Francoise Piette has updated this source code for Delphi XE3 and put it on his website at [WayBack] OverByte – Blog Source Code as [WayBack] IpcUsingPipes.zip.

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Automating the closing of the Creative Cloud signing and ABBY FindReader for ScanSnap 5.0 dialogs

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/06

Every time my scan VM logs on I get the dialog on the right.

Every time I finish an OCR scan, I get the dialog below.

There are two reasons I want to close the ABBY dialog:

While open, it will keep both the original PDF and OCR PDF files alive.When after a while, Windows updates auto-reboots the machine, before clicking the OK buttons I have to manually check if the conversion succeeded before removing the non-OCR PDF.This is time consuming.
While open, it still consumes a lot of system resources: about 100 megabyte for a simple single monochrome A4 page. Much more for complex, multi-page or colour documents.When scanning a lot of document this causes the system to run out of memory, after becoming much much slower because the truckload of Window handles and underlying threads drags Windows down.

I do not want to fully get rid of these dialogs, as often being aware of the progress is important, and I always forget how to re-enable things. If you can do without the dialogs, then try these:

Finding the Windows and controls

I did use one nice feature of AutoHotKey: their Windows Spy utility, which is implemented as a AHK script: [WayBack] AutoHotKey-scripts/WindowSpy.ahk at master · elig0n/AutoHotKey-scripts · GitHub. In the past this was a separate executable, so do not start looking for that any more. You can get it either after a full install of the [WayBack] Releases · Lexikos/AutoHotkey_L · GitHub, or by extracting from the most current AutoHotKey.zip from [Archive.is] AutoHotkey Downloads.

Related:

[WayBack] Changes & New Features | AutoHotkey

1.1.27.00 – December 25, 2017

Changes:

Replaced AU3_Spy.exe with WindowSpy.ahk.

…

[WayBack] autohotkey – What is AU3_Spy.exe? Where can I find it? – Stack Overflow

Search for Spy in

[WayBack] AutoHotkey_L/script2.cpp at master · Lexikos/AutoHotkey_L · GitHub

[WayBack] AutoHotkey_L/script_autoit.cpp at master · Lexikos/AutoHotkey_L · GitHub

[WayBack] AutoHotkey_L/script_gui.cpp at master · Lexikos/AutoHotkey_L · GitHub

This gets these for the Create Cloud and ABBY windows:

Automating the click

I contemplated about using AutoIt (freeware, but closed source) or AutoHotKey_L (the current active fork of AutoHotKey).

AutoIt is now closed source, forked in the past as AutoHotKey, which has a lot of half backed – usually poorly documented – scripts needing you to learn a new API wrapper around existing Windows API functionality.

So I reverted back to using the Windows API using Delphi: a simple repeat loop, to check for the existence of the underlying processes, windows and controls, plus some logic to terminate then the user stops the application (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-Break), logs off, or Windows shuts down.

Releated Windows API keywords and posts:

Terminating in time:
- SetConsoleCtrlHandler and HandlerRoutine parameter dwCtrlType values CTRL_C_EVENT, CTRL_BREAK_EVENT, CTRL_CLOSE_EVENT, CTRL_LOGOFF_EVENT and CTRL_SHUTDOWN_EVENT.
  - Remember that the HandlerRoutine is called in a separate thread, implying you should be very careful with what you do. Best is to only set some flags. Worst is to go GUI handling (DO NOT CALL ShowMessage HERE!)
- Delphi related:
- [WayBack] Handling the OS shutdown event using WinAPI describes the SetConsoleCtrlHandler for console applications, the service related RegisterServiceCtrlHandler and RegisterServiceCtrlHandlerEx calls and the Windows messages to watch for GUI applications: WM_QUERYENDSESSION and WM_POWERBROADCAST.
Checking for processes, windows and controls:
- FindWindow
- a

I could have used AutoHotKey with these hints to get it working:

[Archive.is/WayBack] ControlClick – Syntax & Usage | AutoHotkey: The ControlClick command sends a mouse button or mouse wheel event to a control.
- [WayBack] How to click a specific button on a window with autohotkey? – Stack Overflow
- [WayBack] Locating/Clicking buttons in a Windows Application – Ask for Help – AutoHotkey Community
[WayBack] AutoHotkey Webinar- Various ways to use AHK to automate tasks in Windows (videos below the fold)
[Archive.is/WayBack] OnExit() – Syntax & Usage | AutoHotkey: The OnExit function specifies a callback function or subroutine to run automatically when the script exits.
[WayBack] AutoHotKey: Introduction
[WayBack] Repeating things
[WayBack] Category:AutoHotkey – Rosetta Code
[WayBack] Wait for window to open then use WinGetTitle. – Ask for Help – AutoHotkey Community
[WayBack] Wait for a window to finish loading – AutoHotkey Community
[WayBack] How to wait for a window to appear – Ask for Help – AutoHotkey Community
[Archive.is/WayBack] Process – Syntax & Usage | AutoHotkey
[WayBack] AutoHotKey script to automatically close a window when it opens – Super User
[WayBack] Waiting for a button – Ask for Help – AutoHotkey Community
[WayBack] wait till window opens then wait till it closes – Ask for Help – AutoHotkey Community
[WayBack] windows – AutoHotKey – ellegant way of waiting until a system dialog box becomes able to accept keystrokes? – Super User
[WayBack] I want to create an AutoHotKey script that waits for a window and sends some keystrokes to it, but the keystrokes are repeating by default – Super User

MacOS

Note that when you run on MacOS, you need an alternative like for instance the video below shows via [WayBack] Stop ScanSnap From Prompting You When You Scan.

–jeroen

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Development, Fujitsu ScanSnap, Hardware, ix100, ix500, Power User, Scanners, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 8.1 | Leave a Comment »

Batch files: deleting first/middle/ending parts of environment variables

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/06

Batch files are often a pain to write, but you cannot always rewrite them in PowerShell.

The pain below is about deleting parts of environment variables in batch files.

I’ll just redirect to and quote from posts that can way better describe this than I do:

[WayBack] Check if Batch variable starts with “…” – Stack Overflow made me find
[WayBack] windows – Batch – Delete Characters in a String – Super User

[WayBack] CMD Variable edit replace – Windows CMD – SS64.com

The variable _test containing 12345abcabc is used for all the following examples:
::Replace '12345' with 'Hello '
   SET _test=12345abcabc
   SET _result=%_test:12345=Hello %
   ECHO %_result%          =Hello abcabc

::Replace the character string 'ab' with 'xy'
   SET _test=12345abcabc
   SET _result=%_test:ab=xy%
   ECHO %_result%          =12345xycxyc

::Delete the character string 'ab'
   SET _test=12345abcabc
   SET _result=%_test:ab=%
   ECHO %_result%          =12345cc

::Delete the character string 'ab' and everything before it
   SET _test=12345abcabc
   SET _result=%_test:*ab=% 
   ECHO %_result%          =cabc

::Replace the character string 'ab' and everything before it with 'XY'
   SET _test=12345abcabc
   SET _result=%_test:*ab=XY% 
   ECHO %_result%          =XYcabc


:: To remove characters from the right hand side of a string is 
:: a two step process and requires the use of a CALL statement
:: e.g.

   SET _test=The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog

   :: To delete everything after the string 'brown'  
   :: first delete 'brown' and everything before it
   SET _endbit=%_test:*brown=%
   Echo We dont want: [%_endbit%]

   ::Now remove this from the original string
   CALL SET _result=%%_test:%_endbit%=%%
   echo %_result%
All the examples on this page assume the default Expansion of variables, if you are using DelayedExpansion then you can choose to change the variable references to !_variable! instead of %_variable%

One advantage of DelayedExpansion is that it will allow you to replace the % character, it will still have to be escaped as %% but the replace action will then treat it like any other character:

Replace the letter P with a percent symbol:
Setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
_demo=somePdemoPtextP
_demo=!_demo:P=%%!

Remove spaces from a text string

To delete space characters use the same syntax as above:

SET _no_spaces=%_some_var: =%

–jeroen

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Want to use SmartPointers in Delphi? Use the Spring4D one: it is unit tested and optimised

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/01/06

A while ago, there was a nice discussion on smart pointers at [WayBack] Smart Pointers – Generics vrs non-generic implementastion – RTL and Delphi Object Pascal – Delphi-PRAXiS [en].

Conclusion from that:

many people think that reference counted interfaces are the same as Smart Pointers
(basically Smart Pointers are the next level and of course they are based on reference counting)
there are a lot of Smart Pointer implementations, but few have a test suite, nor are optimised , nor easy to use
The combo Shared/IShared<T>/TShared<T> from Spring4D has all of the above advantages
in order to optmise Smart Pointer implementations, you really have to well know the effects of modern Delphi language constructs on the compiler in various target platforms

The discussion mentioned above includes both feature and speed comparisons.

I was a bit amazed that at CodeRage 2018, Marco Cantu introduced yet another smart pointer implementation: one worse than existing implementations, and one with only basic demonstration code, leaving out a test suite.

There have many posts on my blog about smart pointers (see the list below), but Spring4D smart pointer implementation has been around for such a long time that any well respected Delphi developer by now should use them. The source is at Shared/IShared (search for {$REGION 'Shared smart pointer'} at the current repository).

This list below on my Smart Pointer related blog posts might not be fully complete, but at least mentions that by now you should be using Spring4D.

Delphi: using IInterface to restore cursor at end of mehod (prelude to a memento that executes any code at end of method). which mentions Smart Pointers as the next level of such IInterface usage.
Some great reads from Barry Kelly, which lists a series of great posts that document compiler internals, and explains why they cannot be changed because so much code relies on them
If you were using Managed / IManaged in Spring4D, be aware they got renamed to Shared / IShared
How and when are variables referenced in Delphi’s anonymous methods captured? – Stack Overflow
Spring4D – Shared, Weak references
Smart Pointers code that compiles in FPC and Delphi

Some comments on the CodeRage 2018 demos

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Conference Topics, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, Software Development, Spring4D | Leave a Comment »

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Test for modern Internet Standards like IPv6, DNSSEC, HTTPS, DMARC, STARTTLS and DANE.

🔎Julia Evans🔍 on Twitter: “ssh tips… “

Roderick Gadellaa on Twitter: simple app that (re)sets the volume of the TV to 8% of the max volume every time you turn it on.

OKI C332/MC342 – reset (short) device name, location, asset number and contact name