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Thanks for the very informative report !
I used to use "Drive Snapshot" (commercial, 30-trial available) [^], from Denmark, but with Win 7, for whatever reasons I forget, I went over to using the Windows built-in back-up tool. While Drive Snapshot is now listed as supporting 8/8.1, it appears not to have been updated since February, 2014: no idea about how it would play with Win X.
When I did use Drive Snapshot, it was blazing-fast, and the you could open the drive back-ups it created without mounting, or installing, to access files/folders, which was quite useful.
cheers, Bill
«I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center» Kurt Vonnegut.
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I use CloneZilla. The UI is not brilliant, but it works well and creates a single file.
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In case you came across news articles about "The Batteriser", a new product to "extend disposable battery life by 800%" and didn't know if it's trustworthy: Dave Jones, Aussie Electrical Engineer, debunks it in a video on his EEVblog Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iEshd6izgk[^]
tl;dw: it's not 800% more battery life but 800% more marketing
If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't. — Lyall Watson
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There's no way it's going to be trustworthy: I mean, look at the name! I assume it wraps your devices in brown envelopes and lets them hold World Cup competitions?
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Quote: it's not 800% more battery life but 800% more marketing
Snake oil salesmen!
How do we preserve the wisdom men will need,
when their violent passions are spent?
- The Lost Horizon
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In a VBS file:
Dim username : username =
(It was after a fair bit of SQL work, so I reckon I can be excused this once)
cheers
Chris Maunder
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You're using VBS. There is no excuse.
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:cough: dim programmer :cough:
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Very good, but can you spot the bug?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I am going to have a guess that because you used 'myusername' and not "myusername", the actual value applied to username was 'myusername' (or possibly 0) instead of myusername.
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Almost there.
The error was correct: it needs ", not '. However, it just throws a syntax error.
So staring at var='value' and being told it's a syntax error was doing my head in. Did I forget a semi colon? Did I not declare the variable? Are my quotes not balanced? Did I use a backtick instead of a quote (I'd been doing Markdown, too, so my head was getting seriously fuzzy).
And then the penny dropped.
Interesting how you see what you expect to see.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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At least I spotted the quote issue, its been a while! I thought it might have silently failed hence the rest of the statement
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Chris Maunder wrote: Interesting how you see what you expect to see.
IMHO, this is the way we all perceive the world around us.
This is perhaps the cause for so much dissension and fight all around
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Indeed: You read the code you meant to write...
You are not alone; far from it.
Except in using VBS, of course.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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That just shows two things:
1. You're not using an editor with syntax highlighting.
2. There aren't any comments in that VBS
"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability!"
Ron White, Comedian
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Wrong on both counts.
Take a look at the snippet I posted. It's syntax colourised in the same way it shows in the editor.
Again: the brain sees what it thinks it should see. And it thought that the green highlight means string. Even though there was a dark red string 5 lines above it.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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You're using VB.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
- You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
- When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Last employment was a fiasco so I resigned and took a short holiday. Now I'm back and starting the rounds of interviews.
First problem: After the last experience, I don't trust employers, and I don't trust the recruitment process.
Second problem: Companies want vampires (male, young, passionate, pale, sleep all day, code all night, live on coffee).
Interview: Sonic the Hedgehog in a natty shirt sells Google-like startup environment with a big budget, Agile, and coffins in the basement. Daily scrums. Pair programming. TDD. Code quickly and through the night because you're passionate, fail quickly. Throw code away and start from scratch because requirements changed 2 seconds after you completed the app. Structure kills vampires innovation. Chaos! That is what we need.
I smile politely and tell them I'm not the vampire they're looking for. I'm thoughtful, analytical, structured and pedantic female. I'd flood trainees with too much information. My perfect work environment would contain only me, because interruptions kill productivity. I leave the interview feeling like BatCoder - I'm the coder they need but not the one they deserve.
I confidently tell the recruiter we had a lovely chat but they won't invite me back.
Voice mail today: They LOVED me. I'm through to the next round (online testing FTW )
... What?!?! Did tech sanity prevail over marketing hype? Or does my relatively low salary expectations/availability/ experience/knowledge/gender/dry humour appeal? And do I take a chance that this might work out, or decline?
Gah!! You'd swear I had to consider a marriage proposal and I haven't even passed a test yet
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Ri_ wrote: I don't trust employers, and I don't trust the recruitment process.
Trust no one, ever! Ok, there are exceptions to that but none in the workplace.
Ri_ wrote: Voice mail today: They LOVED me. I'm through to the next round (online testing FTW )
Online testing is very hit-and-miss but good luck!
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Start laying down some of your own rules if you are not pressed for the job! Do I get an office, can I spec my workstation, do I get admin rights! Just some basics, you should then find out if they are serious.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Ri_ wrote: Companies want vampires (male, young, passionate, pale, sleep all day, code all night, live on coffee). Decent companies nowadays are more interested in what they call 'behaviours'(urgh horrible buzzword) rather than eidetic memory at interview.
It's much better to be a no-b*llsh*t type communicator at interview as although it is flattering to be offered a place, working in a crappy environment sucks much more than having to look a bit longer for that decent job(speaking from past experience here ).
I have turned down people with 1st class degrees who answered every technical question perfectly but who were incapable of a smile or a laugh, at one of my try to help them relax jokes(I may have just identified why they were unable to relax...), at interview over people who have some ability to communicate but may not be as technically qualified.
That's because I know when it comes to the crunch I would much rather work with someone who has some ability to communicate than a savant who may be technically brilliant but is inflexible.
Good luck finding a job/environment that works for you!
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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When they told me about the online tests, I asked, "Is it open book?" They thought I was serious.
Sigh. My sense of humour might need some fine tuning
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Ri_ wrote: First problem: After the last experience, I don't trust employers, and I don't trust the recruitment process. This will help to resolve your confusion over...
Ri_ wrote: Voice mail today: They LOVED me. Certainly they did. See ?
Ri_ wrote: I'm through to the next round (online testing FTW ) My uneducated guess is that this is the post-interview version of "Click Here To Apply" i.e., if you're not a young white male, then they need something tangible; i.e., an empirical data set that demonstrates that you aren't the sister-in-law of the receptionist's friend for whom they really created the job in the first place. (Place into the Babel speak translator, legal verbiage transformer, then tested on the lawsuit shield defender: "She did not score as highly as the other candidates on the exact same test.")
I would find it very interesting if the test actually gives any semblance of an accurate reflection of the thinking skills that the chosen employee would in fact be required to execute; particularly if that's a mostly techno-nerd type of position.
I would like to encourage you to do yourself, and the people in that company (and those of us reading) a favor and take the online test. Let us know if any of this comes true or not.
(Psychic trance moment, please play some woo-wee-zoo-ee theremin sounds and read on)
That test will have 3 questions that are even partially relevant to the needed job skills, and 37 questions which are from barely tangential technical disciplines of which you, and everybody else on earth, have absolutely zero knowledge.
(With the sole exception of the receptionist's sister-in-law.)
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My sister-in-law was trying to change the thread in her Brothers sewing machine. She spent 20 or so fruitless minutes trying to get the machine to accept the thread and get it through the complex path it has to take to get to the needle. Finally, my son (a computer geek - internet security) went over to help her. He fought with it for a few minutes and then took the only geeky remedy he could think of. He powered the machine off and then re-booted. Worked like a charm. He said that, obviously, Brothers must be using MicroSoft software to drive their machine!!!
Dave.
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