David L. Farquhar, computer security professional, train hobbyist, and landlord
Sometimes you need to ping sweep a network. I have a batch file for that, but what if your list isn’t continuous? In that case, there’s a better tool for you. Here’s my favorite free Windows ping sweep tool. It’s easy to use, small, and standalone, requiring no installation.
XXCOPY vs XCOPY: Which do you like? Both of them are extensions of the DOS command COPY. Think eXtended Copy and eXtended eXtended Copy. Two extendeds are better, right? Yep.
I had an issue in a document with a hyperlink to an existing file. The file existed on a network drive, so the link worked fine… until someone with different drive mappings than me had to look at the document. Then the link didn’t resolve and the person got an error message. A confusing error message. It turns out it’s tricky to make a Word hyperlink UNC path.
Fixing it wasn’t as easy as it should have been. Read more
I see tons of guides out there claiming to tell you how to convert AVI to WMV for free. Then they give you instructions that don’t work before pitching you some $80 tool to do it. You can’t convert AVI to WMV with VLC, but you can do it with another free tool called FFMPEG. Here’s how.
The most reliable free way to convert AVI files to WMV for free is using a command line tool called FFMPEG. It’s not as easy as having a GUI, but it works. WMV isn’t the ideal video file format, but there are times you need it.
In case you haven’t noticed, I blog a lot. And I learned the hard way that if my blog posts don’t have pictures, no one ever clicks on them. Since I have a day job, I tend to write in bulk, and that means I tend to deal with images in bulk. Here’s how I resize images in bulk in Windows 10.
The classic application Irfanview, a favorite image viewer among long-time Windows users, includes a bulk rename feature. Here’s where it hides and how to use it.
Windows 10 is greedy about some of its file associations. My favorite JPEG viewer is Irfanview, but Windows 10 doesn’t make it easy to use it by default. Here’s how to change Windows 10’s default JPEG viewer to something lighter-weight than the default Photos app. I like Irfanview because it’s lightweight and surprisingly powerful, but this trick works for other apps too. Here’s how to change Windows 10’s default image viewer.
With very few exceptions, only applications installed from the Microsoft store are eligible to be set as the default viewer for image files. To set your default picture viewer to something like Irfanview, you have to install it from the store first to make it eligible.
On older machines, and even sometimes on not-so-old machines, Windows Explorer can get sluggish, and painful to use. It may happen suddenly and it may be happening all the time. In either case, here’s how to fix it when Windows Explorer gets slow.
My power flickered and my computer restarted. Everything seemed OK, but then I noticed my audio wasn’t working. If your experience Windows 10 audio not working suddenly, especially when you haven’t changed anything, here are some things to try.
Sure, the problem could be a driver, or your volume knob, or a cable problem. But if your audio stopped working suddenly, it’s more likely that Windows just decided to change outputs on you, and that takes about 10 seconds to fix.
The C:\Windows\Logs directory has tons of useful information in it, but it’s all in the obscure ETL file format. What’s an ETL file, why did Microsoft switch to this format, and how do you open the file to read it?
ETL stands for Event Trace Log, and they contain information from kernel events generated by Tracelog. Windows uses them because they are more efficient than logging in plaintext.
I had an issue with my Windows 10 Start Menu not working when I click on the Windows button on the screen or my keyboard, on two separate machines within two days of each other. The fix is easy enough but most people way overcomplicate it. Here’s the no-bull guide to fixing the Windows 10 Start Menu.
To fix the Windows 10 Start Menu, all you need to do is restart Windows Explorer from Task Manager. You can fix it in 30 seconds or less and get on with your day.