The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

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

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Removing double quotes from variables in batch file creates problems with CMD environment – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/06

Thanks [WayBack] Mr. Rick for the answer as this is exactly the bit I needed:

Input:

set widget="a very useful item"
set widget
set widget=%widget:"=%
set widget

Output:

widget="a very useful item"
widget=a very useful item

[WayBack] Removing double quotes from variables in batch file creates problems with CMD environment – Stack Overflow

This trick is convenient in cases like this:

set LocalHostsFile="%windir%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts"
set LocalHostsTemplate="%LocalHostsFile:"=%.template"

The above replaces ALL double quotes with nothing.

If you want to smart replace (like done when de-quoting CSV), you need a bit more complex code like described in [WayBack] batch file – Remove quotes from named environment variables in Windows scripts – Stack Overflow, where you basically have two options:

  • assigning inside a for loop
  • assigning inside a subroutine

Both work because parameters used like %~x do get their quotes removed; you cannot use that syntax on plain variables.

–jeroen

Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Scripting, Software Development | 3 Comments »

Odroid-C1 (and likely others): fixing the textmode cursor on the physical console

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/05

Somehow the Odroid C1+ does not support a blinking hardware text cursor. Which means that when you logon to the console in text mode, it is really hard to edit the command-line or text files a there is no visual clue where the cursor is.

It took me to find out the cause, but odroid C1 console no “hardware cursor” got me there: [Archive.is] Arch Linux ARM • View topic – ODROID-C1: No hardware cursor in terminal. The odd thing is that sending escape sequences like mentioned in [WayBack] Cursor Appearance in the Linux Console LG #137 didn’t fix the problem either. For instance, these didn’t help at all:

echo -n -e '\e[?17;14;224c'
echo -e "\e[?16;0;64c"

I tried similar ones from [WayBack] VGA-softcursor.txt as well, but they failed too.

Since I usually ssh into the box, doing without a console cursor usually is no problem except when you run into network trouble and really need the console.

Fixing it took a bit longer to find out,  but refining to  “odroid C1” console no blinking cursor got this as first hit: [WayBack] ODROID Forum • View topic – fbcon cursor. And it came down to going to the second page of the first archived link above. So I had a kind of “duh” moment. Anyway, at [WayBack] Arch Linux ARM • View topic – ODROID-C1: No hardware cursor in terminal – pagee 2 is the below code which got me a nice large light-blue cursor:

infocmp >> ~/terminfo.txt
sed -i.bak -e 's/?0c/?112c/g' -e 's/?8c/?48;0;64c/g' terminfo.txt
tic terminfo.txt
tput cnorm

These are the commands used:

–jeroen

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

Changing the network from public -> private in Windows 10 is way to convoluted (works for 8.1, 8 and 7 too)

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/05

I often wonder why do they make changing the network location more difficult in each Windows version.

Anyway: for Windows 10, the secpol.msc way still works even though by default you now need to use a command prompt or the Windows-R key-combo to start it as typing it in the “Ask me Anything” search often gets you to bing (the search is too slow to figure out it is available locally even if you’re running a machine with SSD).

So from [WayBack] Top 10: Windows Firewall Netsh Commands (via: Windows Server content from Windows IT Pro), this still works in Windows 10:

a secpol.msc way that is easy:

  1. Press Win+R, then type secpol.msc
  2. Click on “Network List Manager Policies”
  3. Double-click on your network
  4. Optionally give your network another name
  5. Click on “Tab Network Location”
  6. Set “Location Type” to “Private”

Go back to Network and Sharing Center to check the result.

In Windows 10 there are half a dozen other ways: [WayBack] Network Location – Set to Private or Public in Windows 10 – Windows 10 Tutorials

  • Option One: To Change a Network Location in Settings app
  • Option Two: To Change a Network Location in Registry Editor
  • Option Three: To Change a Network Location Local Security Policy
  • Option Four: To Change a Network Location in PowerShell
  • Option Five: To Change Network Location of Current Network Connection in PowerShell
  • Option Six: To Change Network Location of Current Network Connection using a VBS file

I like this PowerShell script too via [WayBack] networking – How do I force Windows 10 to see a network as private? – Super User:

## Change NetWorkConnection Category to Private
#Requires -RunasAdministrator

Get-NetConnectionProfile |
  Where{ $_.NetWorkCategory -ne 'Private'} |
  ForEach {
    $_
    $_|Set-NetConnectionProfile -NetWorkCategory Private -Confirm
  }

–jeroen

 

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 | Leave a Comment »

Is memory ballooning a thing from the past or still current?

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/02

I wonder with the current memory pricing and amounts of memory that host machines have: is memory ballooning a thing from the past?

–jeroen

[Archive.is] Virtualization: What is memory ballooning? – Quora

Posted in Hyper-V, Power User, Proxmox, Virtualization, VMware, VMware ESXi | 1 Comment »

Finding out when your domain password will expire :: Active Directory :: Admin Tips :: Windows 7 :: Windows Server 2012/2008/2003/2000/XP/NT Administrator Knowledge Base :: KBase Tips :: WindowsNetworking.com

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/02

Here’s how you can find out when your domain password will expire.

net user %USERNAME% /domain

It figures this out for the current logon domain (so it doesn’t work cross-domain) but it is a great help, especially when filtering out just the password information:

net user %USERNAME% /domain | findstr "Password"

This can be done in a more complex way with dsquery or adinfo that are tools to query

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Power User, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 9, Windows Server 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Vista, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »

Does this company still exist today? ; DROP TABLE “COMPANIES”;– LTD

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/01

About a year ago, this company was incorporated: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10542519

; DROP TABLE “COMPANIES”;– LTD

[WayBack] ; DROP TABLE “COMPANIES”;– LTD – Overview (free company information from Companies House)

via: [WayBack] From the Trololo-Dept: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10542519 – Kristian Köhntopp – Google+

–jeroen

Posted in Database Development, Development, Power User, Security | Leave a Comment »

GetPublished – Author Information

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/01

One day I must re-publish these papers:

Author Information

ID: 1454
First name: Jeroen W.
Last name: Pluimers
User name:
Biography: Jeroen Pluimers has had a long history in software development ranging from high-level knowledge-based systems to low-level communcation. After discovering his love for teaching, he started one of the first Delphi consulting firms in Europe, and has been speaking at national and international conferences ever since. He presents on Delphi, C#, the Microsoft .NET Platform, and Linux. Jeroen is a Certified Delphi Developer and Borland Certified Instructor. Jeroen’s strength is in getting totally different technologies to work together. He likes to integrate different languages, platforms, frameworks, and databases. As a bug hunter and idea generator, Jeroen has contributed to many products such as Developer Express? Component Development Kit and Borland Delphi. In his free time, Jeroen plays percussion in a world-famous marching band. He also enjoys reading fine books and sampling foreign cuisines.
Image not available

[WayBack] GetPublished – Author Information

From the referencing pages:

Administrating and Configuring Linux for Kylix

Intermediate paper for Delphi programmers starting to use Linux. It explains how to use and integrate Linux and Kylix with Windows and Delphi.�

The Delphi Developer’s Guide to C#

As a Delphi developer, you will find C# easier to learn than you might have thought. Get a head start with this revealing presentation.�

Choosing COM, CORBA or SOAP: What Do they Share and What Sets them Apart

This session describes COM, CORBA and SOAP, indicating what they share, what sets them apart, and how you can choose among them.�

CASE STUDY: ReCruit — Matching and Administration for Recruitment

This session provides a demonstration of ReCruit, including a discussion of its development and deployment process. ReCruit was built using Delphi and InterBase.�

–jeroen

Posted in BorCon, C#, Conferences, Delphi, Development, Event, SOAP/WebServices, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Happy “check your backups day”; does your restore process work? And how is the rest of your admin process doing?

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/02/01

Today is [WayBack] Check your backups Day! started by @CyberShambles in dedication of the @Gitlab outage on 20170201.

Please check your restoration process now. As people screw up and accidents happen (I know first hand from a client).

Why isn’t this date on January 31st? Long short story: the failure started that date, but restoration took most of 20170201. So February 1st it is.

Others will follow and GitLab wasn’t alone, as a few days before soup.io had to restore a 2015 database backup.

It all comes back to

Nobody wants backup.

Everybody wants restore.

which made it to the 2008 [WayBack] adminzen.org – The Admin Zen and has been attributed to various people including [WayBack] to Kristian Köhntopp and [WayBack] to Martin Seeger who told Kristian Köhntopp that it was coined by Sun’s Michael Nagorsnik at one of the early [WayBack] NuBIT. Martin was there; he knows (:

The oldest mention of the phrase I could find was in 2006 by Volker Bir at [WayBack] Spy Sheriff – so how do people get infected w/ this thing?.

Keeping clients in the loop

Since soup.io hosts their updates blog on their own platform, the restore resulted in the post prior to [Archive.is] Update after crash ;) – Soup Updates sort of ironically being the mid-2015 [WayBack] Give us your money! – Soup Updates. Usually dogfooding is a good thing though.

During such a downtime, it is crucial to stay in touch through alternative channels. Soup.io didn’t do a good job on their twitter account: they only announced the “update after crash”, not being down, why or progress.

They also deny the WayBack machine access to updates.soup.io because of [WayBack] robots.txt because how they redirect through /remotes, but luckily Archive.is doesn’t care about that and has less old updates.soup.io archived as recent as end of 2015.

GitLab did a much better job on their GitLabStatus account.

Postmortems and organisation culture.

Everybody can screw up, and usually a severe outage happens even when everybody tries to do the right thing. The only way to learn from it is to have [WayBack] Blameless PostMortems and a Just Culture – Code as Craft.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in DevOps, Power User | Leave a Comment »

Which class memory management model would you prefer for Delphi?

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/01/31

An interesting discussion on ARC and classic memory management in Delphi and ideas on hybrid ways: [WayBack] Which class memory management model would you prefer for Delphi? Or better, which one would fit better for your needs? – Malcon X Portela – Google+

–jeroen

Posted in Delphi, Development, Software Development | 9 Comments »

Life Beyond Distributed Transactions – ACM Queue

Posted by jpluimers on 2018/01/31

This article focuses on how an application developer can build a successful scalable enterprise application when he or she has only a local database or transaction system available. Availability is not addressed, merely scale and correctness.

I’m re-reading [WayBack] Life Beyond Distributed Transactions – ACM Queue as it such a great article.

Via: [WayBack] Pat Helland on scaling: If you are not willing to pay the cost of distributed transactions, what options do you have and what are the costs associated with this choice – Kristian Köhntopp – Google+

Executive Summary: embrace uncertainty. It can’t be avoided.

–jeroen

Posted in Design Patterns, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

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