Daily Cup of Tech

In my previous post, a user commented that it would be cool to be able to launch a web page from an autorun.inf file.  So, I took it upon myself to do just that.  I wrote a little program that will do just that!

Download WebLaunch and save it on the root of your USB drive.  Then, create an autorun.inf file on the root of your drive with the following contents:

[autorun]
open=WebLaunch http://www.dailycupoftech.com
action=Open Website

You can set the http://www.dailycupoftech.com portion to any website you want and you can tweak the autorun.inf file to be as funky as you wish.

There you go, Shoban!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/11/11/launch-website-from-usb-autoruninf/trackback/

A few weeks ago, I ran across a couple of articles about a university in Holland that was having difficulty getting all of their Microsoft patches out to all of their systems. What did they decide to do?

Buy more servers? Nope!

Increase bandwidth? Nope!

Use a program that has been essentially outlawed in North American universities? Yep!

The university decided, on the advice of their IT consultant, that they would use bittorrent to deploy the patches.

This really got me thinking about how I would go about creating my own U.Holl server (as I like to call it). These are some of the thoughts that I have come up with.

The Server

Just to add a really strong sense of irony, I would probably build the U.Holl server on Linux, most likely Ubuntu with a typical LAMP installation. Then, for ease of management, I would install a tracker such as phpMyBittorrent or something similar.

In the tracker software, I would create several different categories based on the target systems that I would use. For example, there would be Windows XP, Windows Vista, Office 2007, etc. categories. Each category would have its own RSS feed.

The Clients

Each workstation or server that was to receive updates using bittorrent would have a copy of uTorrent running in the background. This would be critical. You would also need to tweak uTorrent so that it automatically ran an installation script r program each time it finished downloading a new patch. This script would also schedule a reboot at 3:00 AM (or whatever time you wanted) since it seems almost every hotfix from Microsoft needs to reboot the system.

A potential install script might look like this:

The trick to automatically downloading files is to subscribe each uTorrent client to the proper RSS feeds given out by the server. This way, each system only gets the patches it needs.

Potential

I think that this type of a delivery system has great potential. You could even use it across slow bandwidth links or to deploy other software, not just patches.

This is a project that I am hoping to spend some time on over the next while but I am looking for your input/suggestions now so that I can hopefully avoid some pitfalls later. Any input would be greatly appreciated!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/06/12/diy-bittorrent-patch-server/trackback/

Well, it took over a year, but we now have definitive proof that the Lost USB Drive application works! When I launched the Lost USB Drive Experiment in early June of last year, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I had all but forgotten about the experiment.

So, imagine my surprise when I had this in my inbox this morning:

Dale,

I recently took over Costa Coffee Eastleigh and have found your USB Memory stick, I’m not sure how long it has been here but if you would like to pop in and collect it I will put it to one side.

Thanks

Matthew
Store Manager

Costa Coffee
27-29 Market Street
Eastleigh
SO50 5RG

To be honest, I was a little shocked! But, at the same time, this totally made my day! Just goes to prove that there are some honest people out there and that a little ingenuity can go a long way!

If any of you are in the area of Matthew’s store, go in, congratulate him on his honesty and integrity, and buy the biggest, most expensive coffee on the menu! Way to go, Matthew!

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2008/06/11/long-lost-drive-found/trackback/

This is such a simple idea and script that I’m putting the whole thing out there as open source immediately! Essentially, I was looking for an easier way to perform simple calculation quickly. I thought that all of the tools for calculations are there already, I just need an easier way to access them. So, I wrote the Command Line Calculator.

Really, all this script does is take whatever you type after it and then feed it into the built in Windows Calculator. So, if you want to find out what 45 times 99 was, you would simply type clcalc 45*99= and then press the Enter key. This will open up the Windows Calculator and then enter the equation that you want calculated. Then, it will display the results.

To install the Command Line Calculator, simply download it and save it in your Windows directory (usually C:\Windows). Then, you will be able to access it from the Run.. command (pre-Vista) or the Search (Vista). It is also available from the command line “DOS box”.

If you are interested in the source code, here it is:

;clcalc
#NoTrayIcon
 
Dim $Keystrokes
 
Run("calc.exe",@WindowsDir)
 
If $CmdLine[0]<>1 Then
	Exit
Else
	$Keystrokes = $CmdLine[1]
	WinActivate("Calculator")
	WinWaitActive("Calculator","",5)
	Send($Keystrokes)
	Exit
EndIf

Download this code: clcalc.au3

Like I said, not rocket science but useful nonetheless.

Trackback link - http://www.dailycupoftech.com/2007/05/18/dcot-apps-command-line-calculator/trackback/