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MRGRIM

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Posts posted by MRGRIM

    Windows To Linux Jump

    in Applications & Coding

    Posted

    Ditching Windows to Run Office on Linux... humpf? I also scratched my head when people decided to ditch Mac OS to run Windows on their Mac's

    Try OpenOffice, Microsoft Office Live Workspace or Google Docs?

    Otherwise I fail to see the logic in dumping Windows in the first place.

    Ipad Or Tab?

    in Everything Else

    Posted · Edited by MRGRIM

    It sounds like your mind is pretty much made up, so I think there is very little anyone can objectively add to this discussion. I personally see “pads” as a bit of a fashion statement, much like I see ‘most’ apple products. I personally think buying any Mac product with the justification of “taking notes” (especially when you’re posting it on a technology related forum) to be slightly farcical!

    I did a 4 year software engineering degree (the course was based more on the ‘design’ and management aspects rather than actually learning a specific language, and the modules overlapped a number of other courses e.g. DBA) during my 4 years I can only think of a handful of times were I actually took notes, 90% of my lecturers put their course notes and material on blackboard (usually before the actual lectures) people would then do one of the following, 1 download and view on a laptop, 2 print the slideshow and physically write on it or 3 use a notepad.

    I personally never found a need to make notes; I didn’t come out of University with the best degree (1st) but came out with a 2nd, not bad considering by the end of my course I’d had enough of learning.

    If you’ve got £400+ to burn on a pad then do it (however try and justify it without ‘taking notes’ and does it become ‘because...’), however I personally found taking anything electronic into a lecture to be distracting to both myself and those around me.

    Youtube Video

    in Everything Else

    Posted

    Hi Guys,

    I posted this topic just before the forums got screwed so I guess it got lost during the roll back. I've made and published my first YouTube video, I used Adobe Premier for the first time in some 10 years and I've forgotten a lot of what I once knew.

    It's only a product unboxing (and not a very exciting product at that), however I had fun making it and plan to make some more videos in the future (just general goofing around videos and nothing serious) but I'd appreciate if you had any input or even some tips as Adobe Premier is a massive application, I'll look for some tutorials at some point, but I'm very keen at the moment to simply 'find' my own way round the application.

    Please leave your feedback here

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bbt1MtMYiI

    Implementing A Server?

    in Business and Enterprise IT

    Posted

    Dell locks you in with their internal footprint, unless things have changed. Wait till you see what the upgrade costs are, then you might have second thoughts. After the capacitor debacle, it would be hard for me to even think about getting Dell.

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/1...tm_campaign=rss

    Absolute poppy cock, what possible problems will you have with upgrading? On ALL critical systems you’d be foolish not to have 3 year NBD warranties (last time I looked, which was a few days ago when I posted some info on this, the upgrade from 1 year [standard] to 3 year was something like £200)

    The only problems I have ever had with Dell systems are as follows, a 5 year old Optiplex I gave to my parents had a motherboard failure which I had to fix by buying a replacement board off eBay.

    A graphics card in my friend’s 3 ½ year old Dimension packed in and he tried to replace it with something more modern only to have the PSU issue (not enough power) he couldn’t buy an off the shelf PSU so had to buy a less powerful GPU.

    Memory, Processors, GPU, NICS, and Drives can all be replaced just as easily as any other manufacturer. Upgrading disk drives on a Dell PERC Array is as per any other array, replace the drive and rebuild the array.

    Implementing A Server?

    in Business and Enterprise IT

    Posted

    Also, don't piss around building your own server, go to Dell or HP and get a small, cheapish server, with a warranty. I would recommend a HP ProLiant MicroServer running SBS or Server 2008 R2, or if NIX then Openfiler+SME support. Windows is piss easy to recover data from, especially if you use software RAID1.

    I've noticed that HP and Dell are throwing out some 'entry' level servers rather cheaply now, not sure if they are glorified desktops, but still, I was surprised.

    Implementing A Server?

    in Business and Enterprise IT

    Posted

    I'd look at some kind of NAS, prehaps some of the guys here can comment on FreeNAS e.t.c but I know for a fact that the NetGear ReadyNAS NV+ we have here would do the job for you.

    The SBS Setup I was talking cost around £4000, not including any Client Licenses e.g. XP PRO (assumed this network will be a running XP Home)

    Implementing A Server?

    in Business and Enterprise IT

    Posted

    As Infiltrator has said, I would go down the SBS route. Really easy to setup and manage.

    Go to Dell and spec up a server with Raid 1 Array and Raid 5, Install the OS on Raid 1 and then stuff all your documents under Raid 5.

    You'll be able to use Active Directory (AD) to setup Share Folders and apply Group and User permissions (so HR has access only to HR Folder, Owner has access to everything e.t.c) You'll also be able to use logon scripts so people in Accounts automatically get the Accounts printer installed for them.

    I'd also configure Document Redirection and Offline files for all your users, this provides your client documents backup you required (does this by moving "My Doucments" to a network location)

    As for backup all of this up? There are hundreds of software products that will schedule your backups for you (I'd recommend Backup Exec, however we are using Acronis at the moment - and I hate it)

    If you are doing this on a Super cheap budget < $1000 then I'd look at some of the Netgear ReadyNAS products, they use Raid-X and can provide document protection similar to what is described above, however it won't be as slick.

    Also in order to fully intergrate with AD all your client OS's will need to be Business class or Better (Professional or Ultimate)

    Vb Encryption Help

    in Applications & Coding

    Posted

    This is a Module I found online and have been playing around with (I will cite the author later If I can dig out the bookmark I originally got it from)

    Dim TDES As New TripleDES()
s_Password = TDES.Decrypt(s_EncryptedString)

    Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
Imports System.Security.Cryptography

Public Class TripleDES
    Private key() As Byte = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24}
    Private iv() As Byte = {65, 110, 68, 26, 69, 178, 200, 219}

    Public Function Encrypt(ByVal plainText As String) As Byte()
        ' Declare a UTF8Encoding object so we may use the GetByte
        ' method to transform the plainText into a Byte array.
        Dim utf8encoder As UTF8Encoding = New UTF8Encoding()
        Dim inputInBytes() As Byte = utf8encoder.GetBytes(plainText)

        ' Create a new TripleDES service provider
        Dim tdesProvider As TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider = New TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider()

        ' The ICryptTransform interface uses the TripleDES
        ' crypt provider along with encryption key and init vector
        ' information
        Dim cryptoTransform As ICryptoTransform = tdesProvider.CreateEncryptor(Me.key, Me.iv)

        ' All cryptographic functions need a stream to output the
        ' encrypted information. Here we declare a memory stream
        ' for this purpose.
        Dim encryptedStream As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
        Dim cryptStream As CryptoStream = New CryptoStream(encryptedStream, cryptoTransform, CryptoStreamMode.Write)

        ' Write the encrypted information to the stream. Flush the information
        ' when done to ensure everything is out of the buffer.
        cryptStream.Write(inputInBytes, 0, inputInBytes.Length)
        cryptStream.FlushFinalBlock()
        encryptedStream.Position = 0

        ' Read the stream back into a Byte array and return it to the calling
        ' method.
        Dim result(encryptedStream.Length - 1) As Byte
        encryptedStream.Read(result, 0, encryptedStream.Length)
        cryptStream.Close()

        Return result
    End Function

    Public Function Decrypt(ByVal inputInBytes() As Byte) As String
        ' UTFEncoding is used to transform the decrypted Byte Array
        ' information back into a string.
        Dim utf8encoder As UTF8Encoding = New UTF8Encoding()
        Dim tdesProvider As TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider = New TripleDESCryptoServiceProvider()

        ' As before we must provide the encryption/decryption key along with
        ' the init vector.
        Dim cryptoTransform As ICryptoTransform = tdesProvider.CreateDecryptor(Me.key, Me.iv)

        ' Provide a memory stream to decrypt information into
        Dim decryptedStream As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
        Dim cryptStream As CryptoStream = New CryptoStream(decryptedStream, cryptoTransform, CryptoStreamMode.Write)
        cryptStream.Write(inputInBytes, 0, inputInBytes.Length)
        cryptStream.FlushFinalBlock()
        decryptedStream.Position = 0

        ' Read the memory stream and convert it back into a string
        Dim result(decryptedStream.Length - 1) As Byte
        decryptedStream.Read(result, 0, decryptedStream.Length)
        cryptStream.Close()
        Dim myutf As UTF8Encoding = New UTF8Encoding()

        Return myutf.GetString(result)
    End Function

    Public Function StrToByteArray(ByVal str As String) As Byte()
        Dim encoding As New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()
        Return encoding.GetBytes(str)
    End Function 'StrToByteArra

    Public Function ByteArrayToString(ByVal ba_ByteArray As Byte()) As String
        Dim dBytes As Byte() = ba_ByteArray
        Dim s_String As String
        Dim o_Encoding As New System.Text.UTF8Encoding()
        s_String = o_Encoding.GetString(dBytes)

        Return s_String
    End Function

End Class

    Hdmi Cable?

    in Everything Else

    Posted · Edited by MRGRIM

    I bought a HDMI cable from ASDA (it was the only store close to me that was open past 10PM on a Friday, and I Really wanted to set my new Cinema system up) for £2.99, works like a champ!

    For the record, I bought 1 SCART cable x years ago, I imagine I'll be replacing the HDMI with xxHDMI-ULTRA 3.0 in 5 years, If it breaks before then then I guess I'll but another £2.99 cable.

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