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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

3D printing with PayPal, and other useful 3D printing links

quorten

2019-08-15

Categories: 3d-printing  
Tags: 3d-printing  

So yes, there is DirtyPCBs which is one way to 3D print with PayPal without creating an account on the host’s website, but are there other ways? It would be nice to not have to ship from China, to have something more local. Apparently not. In general, PayPal is hated by the 3D printing community, as evidenced by these articles.

20190815/DuckDuckGo 3d print with paypal
20190815/https://3dprint.com/159318/prusa-paypal-service-problems/
20190815/https://3dprint.com/130939/gizmo-3d-printer-paypal/

While I’m at it, I found some other useful links on 3D printing that I thought I should save.

20180815/https://all3dp.com/1/best-online-3d-printing-service-3d-print-services/
20180815/https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/paypal
20180815/https://k3dprint.org/

This is a commercial custom shoe maker that uses 3D printing. If you have some specific design in mind, E-mail with your request. Hooray!

20180815/https://fusedfootwear.com/

The end of Windows Phone

quorten

2019-08-15

Categories: random-software  
Tags: random-software  

Too bad I didn’t get to this subject earlier. Microsoft Officially killed off Windows phone in 2017. No more Windows Phones means that there are really only two mainstream mobile phone operating systems left: iOS and Android. Tough luck to try to put a third one into this ecosystem by any means.

20190814/https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/11/15952654/microsoft-windows-phone-end-of-support

Run remote Powershell commands and copy files

quorten

2019-08-14

Categories: windows  
Tags: windows  

How do you run remote Powershell commands? Easy, like this:

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName ... -Credential username

Make sure PSRemoting is enabled.

20190814/DuckDuckGo winrm interactive command line
20190814/https://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-run-powershell-command-on-a-remote-computer
20190814/DuckDuckgo Enter-PSSession authentication
20190814/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/enter-pssession?view=powershell-6

Copy to/from via winrm:

$SourceSession = New-PSSession -ComputerName ... -Credential username
Copy-Item -FromSession $SourceSession -Path $srcPath `
  -Destionation $destPath -Recurse
Copy-Item -ToSession $SourceSession -Path $srcPath `
  -Destionation $destPath -Recurse

20190814/DuckDuckGo powershell copy item from winrm session
20190814/https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/poshchap/2015/10/30/copy-to-or-from-a-powershell-session/

Read on →

Defunct peer-to-peer software of times past

quorten

2019-08-14

Categories: random-software  
Tags: random-software  

Very seldom do you hear the general public talk about advanced software technology. And when they do, they often times have a twisted and highly inaccurate understanding of how the technology works. The old order of peer-to-peer software operating during the late 1990s and early 2000s couldn’t be a better example. For the most part, in modern times, peer-to-peer software has fallen out of the purview of the mainstream media and is largely considered defunct in popular culture. At least that’s what my understanding is. For all peer-to-peer software that has entered the purview of popular culture, all of it was shut down by court orders. Virtually all of the remaining peer-to-peer software operating in the modern era is somewhere deep within geekdom: Windows software updates, Blizzard Updater for World of Warcraft, open-source software updates, content distribution network nodes, and so on.

As for the Wikipedia articles on the subjects, there is clearly a subjective bias on standpoint, leaning more heavily toward the geek culture than the mainstream culture, but a read through the Talk pages does bring in more of the viewpoint of popular culture.

20190814/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer_file_sharing
20190814/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster
20190814/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grokster
20190814/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Download_This_Song
20190814/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LimeWire
20190814/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:LimeWire

CentOS hostnamectl and NetworkManager static IP

quorten

2019-08-14

Categories: unix   centos  
Tags: unix   centos  

In recent versions of CentOS, there are new command line tools to perform old sysadmin tasks. Do you want to change the hostname of a machine? Rather than using the hostname command, the hostnamectl command is the new preferred way to do this.

Do you want to assign a machine a static IP? The semi-old way was to disable NetworkManager so that you could set the static IP the classic way via /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/..., but nowadays you can also configure static IPs via NetworkManager, thus obviating the need to disable NetworkManager to perform this configuration. Use nmcli to perform command-line configuration of NetworkManager.

20190725/DuckDuckGo hostnamectl
20190725/https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/7/html/networking_guide/sec_configuring_host_names_using_hostnamectl

20190725/DuckDuckGo nmcli set domain name
20190725/DuckDuckGo nmcli connection modify search domain
20190725/https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/336727/centos7-network-manager-is-using-wrong-search-domain#336730

20190802/DuckDuckGo networkmanager assign static ip
20190802/https://askubuntu.com/questions/246077/how-to-setup-a-static-ip-for-network-manager-in-virtual-box-on-ubuntu-server

Inaccurate birth certificates and pension fraud correlated with longer life expectancy

quorten

2019-08-12

Categories: misc  
Tags: misc  

Wow, I’ve suspected this for quite some time, but I didn’t see stronger verification until now: In the old days, people didn’t really know exactly how old they were because they didn’t create accurate birth certificates. But, it goes further than that. Most people who claim to live to the age of 110 are probably making false claims, sometimes even fraudulent ones.

20190811/https://www.vox.com/2019/8/8/20758813/secrets-ultra-elderly-supercentenarians-fraud-error

Windows equivalent of Linux system calls? No.

quorten

2019-08-10

Categories: unlipic   windows  
Tags: unlipic   windows  

So, it’s super slick to use Linux system calls in assembly language programs, and now I am thinking about extending my re-implementation of an Apple II style “monitor” program as a means of a operating system independent machine code type-in. So, does Windows have an equivalent to Linux system calls such that I can use it to create ultra-compact Windows programs? Unfortunately, no, just as I have been suspecting. No, no, you have to link against some Windows library, and that Windows library will provide the necessary routines to make the actual system calls by number, which differ by the version of Windows and are not held constant in any way.

20190810/DuckDuckGo windows assembly language system call
20190810/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21074334/windows-system-calls
20190810/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2489889/system-calls-in-windows-native-api

Type-in arbitrary binary files on various operating systems

quorten

2019-08-08

Categories: unlipic  
Tags: unlipic  

How do you “assemble” a type-in program on modern Unix? How about some of the older but once popular operating systems?

  1. vi – type-in special characters and save. MS-DOS edit: the binary mode might be adequate.

  2. bash – write a shell script to convert hex type-in to binary.

  3. perl – same method as bash, but different language.

  4. python – same method as bash, but different language.

  5. web browser – similar to bash method, but using Javascript. Then download the binary file produced, via a data URI. May not work with some old browsers, unless server-side assistance is used.

  6. PowerShell – similar to bash method, but using PowerShell.

  7. bat files, NT cmd scripts – similar to bash method, but using bat or cmd files.

  8. vbs files – similar to bash method, but using Visual Basic Script (VBS).

  9. MS-DOS DEBUG – as its name suggests, for the sake of debugging, you get direct access to a hex byte code editor. You can type hex byte codes into memory and execute the produced program, or you can save to a file. You can even save to direct disk blocks.

Read on →

Print queue software

quorten

2019-08-08

Categories: random-software   3d-printing  
Tags: random-software   3d-printing  

Out of interest, I saw that there happened to be a certain “Preton saver” software on my work computer. What is that? It is another print queue manager. Oh, wow, now that reminds me. Paper Cut was the print queue manager software used at University of Minnesota CSELabs as it was called back in 2015. Now in 2019, it is named something more like IT Public Labs. Preton Saver looks kind of outdated compared to Paper Cut.

Interestingly, Paper Cut also has additional features for “specialty” job ticketing: anything from poster printing to 3D printing.

20190808/DuckDuckGo preton saver
20190808/https://www.preton.com/
20190808/DuckDuckGo paper cut
20190808/https://www.papercut.com/products/mf/job-ticketing/