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  1. Mercutio

    Is my drive toast?

    DFT normally runs a single test and progresses sequentially through each drive that has been selected for testing. DFT actually works on all brands of spinning drives and definitely does see externally-attached disks. It also doesn't have a stupid "I can only show one screen full of drives at a...
  2. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Well, I know what I'm getting for my office full of Microsoft Office Master / 50 Shades of Grey fans.
  3. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    dd, what if anything are you using for an antenna/aerial for your installations? Do you just have clear line of sight in all cases?
  4. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    Clocker's problem is a poorly configured proxy server on his work machine. He doesn't have any way to control it, so there's no way for us to fix it. Your daughter's laptop on the other hand might be benefiting from the general graphics reprioritization in Windows 8, which is where that whole...
  5. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    That looks like a WISP-class device rather than a point to point bridge which I think is all I need. I suppose I'll have to email someone at Ubiquiti.
  6. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    One of my customers pays for me to have Uptimerobot. I frequently know about outages before they do but holy crap can it be annoying if someone is having a bad ISP day.
  7. Mercutio

    Is my drive toast?

    The NAS drives mostly seem to be fine in my experience. Your current drive will probably even survive well enough to do a normal disk imaging with TrueImage/ImageX/HDDclone as long as you tell them to ignore errors beforehand. Usually, a drive that's entered a failing state on reallocated...
  8. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    So I'd be looking at getting a dish, a PoE injector if I want to run it outdoors and probably a Rocket M5 AC Lite on each end? That seems completely reasonable.
  9. Mercutio

    Best free anti virus

    Well that makes rather more sense now, doesn't it? Though the article I read still makes me want to shank someone.
  10. Mercutio

    Best free anti virus

  11. Mercutio

    Longer-haul wireless

    I have a classroom site that is presently served by the world's slowest DSL. On a very good day (as in, I saw it one time while the telco people were on premises), it speedtests as high as 384kbps but is normally in the 128 - 192kbps range. I have two other sites within three and a half miles...
  12. Mercutio

    What happened to P5 ?

    Just to the general Storageforum.net site. I said that we as a community held him in highest regard, particularly for his contributions to support and technical topics and for his work with the Folding At Home project. I mostly thought it was important to say that we all lost something.
  13. Mercutio

    What happened to P5 ?

    I sent a letter to the address I was given for Mark's brother on Monday expressing our collective condolences.
  14. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    I'd like to say that there will be a disc-based upgrade but I suspect that it will be complicated. Microsoft will probably force upgrades through the Windows Store as it did from 8 to 8.1.
  15. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    I suspect the bigger problem for some people is having to wear another pair of glasses in the first place.
  16. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    I went to a real-deal IMAX at Chicago's Navy Pier for one of the screenings. For those there isn't a non-3D option. I'd very much like for 3D to die but I think theaters like the justification for increased ticket prices.
  17. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    Do you still have control of the old server? You could probably throw a host redirect (HTTP error 301) and force it to the new IP. Otherwise you don't have any control over what his client is doing.
  18. Mercutio

    Host migration support

    Even if he's running through a VPN, Windows (since Vista) has been smart enough to direct traffic not destined for the VPN end point through your normal internet connection. It's probably a poorly configured proxy server, though I have no idea what kind of blecherous configuration would have a...
  19. Mercutio

    Windows 10

    In a move that probably doesn't surprise anyone, the new build of Windows 10 says specifically says that Windows Media Center will no longer be supported. I can't think of a Windows-based DVR alternative off the top of my head. Both SageTV and BeyondTV have also dropped support.
  20. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    Update: Having seen it in every permutation of IMAX, 3D and not: Stick with not. The 3D actively makes the movie harder to follow.
  21. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    Today was Avengersmas and so I went and I saw it. And I'll see it again tomorrow and also Saturday because I can't ever get all my friends in the same place at the same time. A tiny, special classical music nerd moment: the Kyrie from Arvo Part's Berliner Messe is the plaintive, gorgeous choral...
  22. Mercutio

    Something Random

    There's probably still a lot of money to be made in commoditizing analytics (and then turning it in to something an MBA can use the pivot table function in Excel to manipulate so they can feel like they contributed to the process). Machine Learning is something that's been "Any Day Now" probably...
  23. Mercutio

    gateway NV570P touchscreen going crazy

    Windows 8 needs to be able to start normally to get to safe mode. Yes, you're right, that is retarded (in the actual dictionary definition sense). With regard to OEM media, if you need it just let me know and I'll make an ISO and put it someplace where you can download it. It would behoove you...
  24. Mercutio

    Something Random

    General IT is weird in that area since the skills that make a person useful aren't easily developed from an academic curriculum . Which is why someone like dd can be a great IT guy with no academic background but tons of people with Master's degrees in IT management can barely do anything but...
  25. Mercutio

    gateway NV570P touchscreen going crazy

    Sounds like a bad digitizer to me. I think that's normally something that has to be replaced with the screen, or you might be able to get a screen that just doesn't have the touch capability. On a laptop I'd guess it's probably not essential functionality. Good news about it being an Acer: The...
  26. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I was a CS major also, but it doesn't sound like sed would want to be one. I liked the classroom work a lot more than I liked the reality of being a working developer myself. I put myself through a lot of misery for a degree that, while I appreciate it, I also don't use to any appreciable...
  27. Mercutio

    Merc's Useful Tools of the day

    It's a bit of a wash, really. But ninite is definitely limited to the .exe files you might have for it. I happen to have some with the set of internet helpers, but I don't have the perfect combination for every environment I support. On the other hand, it was pretty trivial for me to whip up...
  28. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Truth.
  29. Mercutio

    Merc's Useful Tools of the day

    Have I mentioned Chocolatey.org here? I don't think I have. It's a *nix style package manager for anything that's new enough to have Powershell and .NET 4 on it. Run this from an Administrative Command Prompt: @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object...
  30. Mercutio

    Excruciatingly slow writing to external disks

    I should also say that file copies in Windows 8 are different beasts from Windows 7. They're prioritized differently and they seem to be sort of universally faster on new Windows than older ones. It's probably not a reason to upgrade for most people but I do know this is a problem that will fix...
  31. Mercutio

    Excruciatingly slow writing to external disks

    That's actually really interesting. I spent a lot of time a few years ago ensuring that my file paths didn't exceed MAX_PATH after having a ton of problems because of the way I organize music. I've never heard of that one. Thanks. With regard to performance differences for USB enclosures, I...
  32. Mercutio

    Excruciatingly slow writing to external disks

    I've found that I'm better off copying tens of thousands of tiny files using Teracopy or even xcopy rather than Windows Explorer. Big files usually average to be about the same regardless of copy method, but if I'm copying 30,000,000 jpgs someplace, the differences can be enormous.
  33. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I'd suggest something like statistics or accounting that's applicable to a lot of roles. You can prove you're a qualified IT person with professional certifications if you feel the need and the tech they'll teach you at a four year school will probably be outdated and/or not relevant to the...
  34. Mercutio

    Android phones: Tips, tricks?

    Android 5 was also a huge let down for my Nexus 7. I'm not sure if it's Lollipop in general or something specific to the devices where I've used it, but I've been extremely unimpressed in my contact with it.
  35. Mercutio

    Post your photographs here

    I went to a comic convention over the weekend. I decided not to take any photos. It doesn't make any sense for me to bother when there are people running around with pro-grade gear and my own shots aren't in any way remarkable. Almost every photo I've taken in the last year was either a picture...
  36. Mercutio

    Soldering problem

    Let's just say my father had some anger management issues.
  37. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I'm sorry to hear that, sed. Especially that you've done the work in your college prep courses but that you won't be getting the credit for them. If there's any bright side to this, it's that you're nearly in a place where you can become independent anyway. You only have to put up with another...
  38. Mercutio

    Soldering problem

    I've been knocked out a few times and I've had a few good sized electrical shocks. I've even had diagnosed neurological problems. But my hands don't shake at all. Maybe your wife knows somebody to check with on that matter, dd?
  39. Mercutio

    Storage Review?

    Howdy Helldriver. It's nice to see you again.
  40. Mercutio

    problem Dying Computer

    I don't believe that enthusiast boards typically get many product refreshes. I don't think the volume is there to support it.
  41. Mercutio

    problem Dying Computer

    dd, I've had one Gigabyte and one Asus fail. Fortunately, I was able to send the Asus back to Amazon. The Asus would just intermittently not detect any installed RAM and was basically DOA from the moment I got it. I've got another Gigabyte and one Asrock mATX board in service now. I always tell...
  42. Mercutio

    What happened to P5 ?

    If anyone would like to contribute some words, I'm probably going to mail something to P5's brother next week. I think it might be easier to print off comments.
  43. Mercutio

    problem Dying Computer

    Unfortunately, I think it's more likely the latter. I'm two for four on having to RMA X99 motherboards so far and I'd put good money that Lunar's PSU of choice cost as much as a low-end laptop. Those aren't the kinds of problems I associate with high end PSUs.
  44. Mercutio

    problem Dying Computer

    Is the BSOD message at all consistent?
  45. Mercutio

    problem Dying Computer

    Aren't you kind of heavily OC'd? Did you turn that down or off yet?
  46. Mercutio

    8TB and no helium

    I'd like to know if the 8TB model has the same behavior as the 5TBs with regard to performance over long sustained writes. I'm not sure if that's visible from a benchmarking app, but I definitely notice it if I'm copying a lot of data to one.
  47. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I've long maintained that their only worthwhile purpose is as very expensive construction material.
  48. Mercutio

    Something Random

    All I can say is that it was fascinating. I got a unique peek behind the curtain. If you ever have the opportunity, it's a worthwhile experience.
  49. Mercutio

    8TB and no helium

    Have you had an opportunity to check drive performance yet? I'm curious to know if it has the same issues as the 5TB models.
  50. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I participated in a Google usability study today. I can't discuss anything specific that I saw, but it was a fascinating process.
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