Windows

Exporting Clips Off A Dahua NVR…

Posted on by dk

I recently had an unfortunate episode requiring the exporting of a clip off a Dahua NVR, but I needed someone else to do it… (and no, I was not in jail, trying to instruct someone else to pull exonerating evidence off some CCTV, if that was what you were thinking)…

My original method of using the in-built web UI off the NVR, manual streaming conversion via VLC Player (after fiddling with it for a temporal configuration change to “enable” playback of .dav files) was just not going to “cut it”…

So, once I had the time, I waded into the battle of the forever-changing, forever-beta nature of Dahua firmware, software and hodge-podge end-user solutions…

SmartPSS

There happened to be a “new” version of the SmartPSS software (v2.002.0000008.0.T.190801); which was supposedly released a month ago (2019/08/01, as of writing this). This software was “supposed” to have had some (old) “enforced 1 hour video export” bug fixed. However, I was pulling my hair out as to why I could not seem to limit the video clip I chose to export. I finally found my clue and therefore am posting this here for posterity (actually, to enable other people to follow the same instructions to do this).

Continue reading →

A Weasel for WSL…

Posted on by dk

So I have been using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) for a while now (specifically, the “Microsoft’ed” version of Ubuntu 18.04).

Recently, I have had to use my local desktop to handle some git stuff, and I decided to do so within WSL. First up, I ran headlong into access problems – I run PuTTY Pageant and did not want to explicitly run ssh-agent inside WSL, not to mention maintaining a duplicate of my private keys in the WSL environment(s).

Well, agent forwarding was made for a reason, so I immediately set off to find a solution.

Continue reading →

My PC Is Suffering From Insomnia…

Posted on by dk

Quite a while back, my Windows 10 PC installed malware updates mandated by Microsoft, and it subsequently failed to resume from S3 sleep, for reasons which I did not have the time to investigate. I skirted the issue by disabling S3 sleep in BIOS, leaving only S1 sleep states available, which still worked…

About a week or two back, I started realising that my computer would not go to sleep at all…

I needed to find the root cause and cure its insomnia; something was preventing Windows from going to sleep…

Continue reading →

Microsoft: All You Beta Testers Belong To Us… (or “The Case of The Useless Drive”)…

Posted on by dk

With the shift to a more “app-like”, “force an update down your throat whether you like it or not” attitude from Microsoft, they have also seemingly shifted their testing stance and shafting their customers, taking from Xiaomi’s playbook: You are now our beta tester.

You Have a New (largely useless) Drive!

One of my family members have been complaining that an “E” drive suddenly appeared out of the blue. Navigating to it using Windows Explorer or via the command prompt shows it as empty, but, Windows Explorer shows the drive as “nearly full” (red bar), and Windows 10 continuously complains that the “E” drive is “full”…

Nothing in the Disk Management Microsoft Management Console “applet” could allow me to remove the drive letter, showing the partition type as an “OEM Parititon” – one of two that Microsoft littered on the already-small SSD like so many rabbit droppings (two other partitions are by the laptop manufacturer).

Continue reading →

Windows Refusing to “Open With” Using Notepad++ Portable…

Posted on by dk

So, fed-up with an outdated, “sanctified” version of Notepad++ “published” by the IT team at my workplace on my work laptop, I uninstalled the published version, grabbed a copy of the portable version (choose the appropriate .zip or .7z package) and proceeded to live happily ever after…

Well… Not quite… Whenever I attempted to use Windows Explorer’s “Open with…” context menu option, attempting to select the Notepad++ portable’s executable would not have any result – the dialogue would just continue to sit there…

After some soul Google searching, I stumbled across the solution.

The registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\notepad++.exe\shell\open\command was still pointing at the uninstalled, (now) non-existent executable. Pointing it to the correct location made Notepad++ show up immediately as one of the selectable applications.