Tigerfarm

Windows 7 Service Configuration Optimization

2010-04-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

Once Windows 7 is installed, I reduced the number of services that start on boot up. To decide which services to stop, I walked through the list of services on BlackViper.com's page titled Windows 7 Service Configurations. since my work computer has McAfee for security and protection, I turned off more Windows security features than you may choose to do.
Click to see my settings: Automatic, Disabled, Manual

Note, Windows 7 is my choice of operating system for new hardware because of the difficulties with drivers on newer computers for WinXP. WinXP is still my choice of OS but I prefer spending my time using a computer than working our driver issues. And, Windows 7 is OK. With time and more experience, I am sure I will like it.

Your Computer Files Worth $100 to You?

2008-07-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Save your files, photos, movies, movie clips, documents, programs, software onto a USB drive. Don't use DVDs and CDs for backup, get an external USB drive.
Example, I bought a Maxtor 160gig drive for $80. My hard drive on my desktop and laptop are both 80gigs. Total files backed up from both computers is less than 80 gigs.
Pros:
* Easy: plug the USB drive into the computer, it becomes another drive on your computer, drag and drop directories onto your USB drive.
* Faster to copy files and directories onto the USB drive than to backup to a DVD or CD.
* Compact, my USB drive and cable is a smaller then my 12 DVD carry case and yet 160gigs is larger storage than 35 DVDs, or 200 CDs.
* Easy/fast/convent read and write.
* Can copy multiple gigs from one computer to another fast and easy.
Cons:
* An initial out lay of $80-$130 for the drive. But is not your photos, documents and other much worth much more?

Suggestions:
* From time to time, backup the USB drive files onto an offsite computer. This secures your data in case of a total loss, example house theft or fire.
* For photos, I upload my recent best to Google photos, example, picasaweb tigerfarm. So I have my photos on my computer and on the Google computers.
* For convenience, buy the USB drive that does not require an external power supply.
* Use the sync software that comes with the hard drive, or use some kind of backup strategy such as the one following.
Backup Strategy:
* Move your static files, files that do not change, to a common directory.
Example, I have graphics directory for my photos, movies, clips, and music.
I created a directory called graphicsStatic. Under graphics static, I have sub directories based on date of backup. Now, my graphics directory is just for new files.
* I backup both my graphics and graphicsStatic directories. Backup graphicsStatic once. The graphics directory backup when feel the need.

Note, there are 2 basic types of USB drives:
1. No external power supply, the power for the drive is from the USB port. These drives are small is physical size and smaller in disk size for the money.
Example: when on sale in the San Francisco Bay area, $80 for 160 gigs, $100 for 250gigs.
2. External power supply which requires the drive to be plugged into the wall power, and plugged in to the computer USB for data transfer. These drives are larger, 500gig and 1 terabyte are common.
Disadvantage is time and inconvenience to plug into the wall power when you want to use it.

GWT Widgets

2008-07-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

GWT's basic widgets are, well, functional. To see them, click here.
GWT-Ext extends the widgets to amazing depths. To see them, click here.
To extend GWT, GWT-Ext uses ExtJS which has a library of JavaScript widget such as tabs, trees, buttons, etc. ExtJS is a popular JavaScript library. If you are familiar with the Dojo Toolkit, ExtJS has some similarities.
I have enjoyed coding in GWT and have posted samples and how to on Tigerfarm.dev.java.net. GWT is the only tool I know of that allows us Java programmers to program Web 2.0 front ends using our Java programming skills.
I will try out GWT-Ext.

Use an iframe Tag

2008-03-13T22:05:00.001-07:00

The HTML iframe tag is interesting, it is like embedding a web page with in a web page.
Go to URL:
Go to URL: TigerFarm Google Picasa photos
Go to URL: TigerFarm Flickr photos
Go to URL: TigerFarm Training Content web page
Go to URL: TigerFarm Source for this blog

Testing Blog HTML

2008-03-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

This is blog for testing what I can put into a blog. To see the source, view the source from your browser.

Test JavaScript in a Blog

Test an iframe to http://blogs.sun.com/tiger/resource/gwtFormTags/index.html

Test an iframe to http://blogs.sun.com/tiger/resource/gwtFormTags/iframe.txt

Display Email Passwords with Crack

2008-01-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

I recovered my company internal password from my Thunderbird email client using a password crack program. After traveling, I found I had forgotten my password. I could still get my email because my password was stored in my email client. I Google'd for an email password crack program, found one at NirSoft, downloaded, scanned the download for viruses - none - installed and ran the program. To my surprise my passwords stored in Thunderbird were displayed within 2 seconds. This is no slight on Thunderbird because:

The NirSoft software is made to crack many email packages such as Outlook Express, Microsoft Outlook, and others.
To properly secure my Thunderbird passwords, from Thunderbird, I selected Tools/Options/Privacy and set a master password to encrypt my passwords. Now the NirSoft software cannot display my passwords, I'm safer.

This was an eye opener to know how not safe my passwords were, and now are more secure.