A neat looking utility that acts as a Front End for previously mentioned RoboCopy. Check it out!
March 30, 2009
March 23, 2009
Laments of a Sound Card
I have a Dell M70 laptop running Windows Vista. Every time I install Vista on this machine, the sound gets sort of weird. It usually takes Vista two tries to find the proper drivers for my device (SigmaTel C-Major Audio). Once it does, though, everything goes alright.
Well, the other day, my sound simply stopped working. At first I thought this was due to Windows Updates as some updates had just been installed. So I did a system restore…and they came back! Unfortunately, I’m on a Windows domain and group policy dictates my updates automatically install (doh!). So updates go again and I proceed to do a system restore. But this time, I remove myself from the domain quick like a rabbit so I can manage my own updates. Except…now the sound device fails…again.
So it wasn’t the updates that did it, which is weird. I decide to get the hardware checked…my hard drive in another laptop: sound fails. Another hard drive in my laptop: sound works. Ok, so it’s not hardware. Now, by this time the errors have gotten worse. At first I could install drivers to my heart’s content and I would simply get error messages when I try to play any audio and the little red “X” by my sound device in the system tray. Now the errors are more along the lines of “Something is WAY messed up, I can’t install that driver.”
Fine. Windows Vista CD, coming right up. I don’t want to reinstall Vista…that’s a pain and I would have to reinstall and configure all my software, which I don’t want to do. After reading up on a couple online suggestions, I try doing an sfc /scannow (just in case), which does some stuff, but doesn’t really work.
So I boot up my CD and open up the recovery console. Too bad I can’t figure out how to restore system files. I’ve done that once but I forgot what I did. Instead, I opt for an repair install by booting into Windows and choosing “Upgrade” when the CD autorun pops up. This allows you to “Upgrade” Windows Vista to Windows Vista. I go through all the stuff and then I can’t upgrade…because my version of Windows is newer than the one I want to install…because I have SP1 installed.
So, an hour later, SP1 is gone and I try again. Finally I can do the upgrade! (No, uninstalling the service pack did not fix my sound). The upgrade takes like an hour and a half and replaces all my system files. BUT, my sound finally works…sort of. Now my audio jack doesn’t work! Yes, those are somewhat software controlled. My laptop speakers work, but no external devices get audio – it just turns off the speakers. So the Vista driver failed miserably. After about another half hour of trickery I manage to get the Vista drivers gone and install the official XP drivers for the card, which actually works!
After something like two system restores, domain removal, customizing Windows updates, several driver install attempts, swapping hard drives, SP1 uninstall, repair install, about 100 more Windows Updates destroyed by the repair install, and a cumulative total of way too many hours (like 10 or 15), my sound finally works. Maybe it would have been quicker to reformat…
March 16, 2009
Click for a much larger view.March 9, 2009
zParts – Electronic Parts Inventory System
Got a bunch of electronic parts and desperately need a way to inventory them? Worry no more! I’ve been working on a system meant just for that. You can organize your resistors, capacitors, microcontrollers, and whatever else in any way you want with the very customizable zParts. It is 100% free and 100% spyware and virus free as well!
Download
Screenshots:
zParts main parts browser
Resistor Calculator
zParts has an extensive help system
Create a new category and customize zParts
March 3, 2009
Recursively Delete .svn directory [Windows]
Here’s a quick and easy way to delete that pesky .svn directory (recursively) so you don’t have to do it. This is useful when rearranging your subversion folders or for just removing old SVN data you don’t need anymore. Just create a .bat file with the following text, place the file into the main directory, then run it. It will delete all the .svn folders in the current directory and all those under it:
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%G IN ('DIR /B /AD /S *.svn*') DO RMDIR /S /Q "%%G"
