Too old for technology… NOT!

You are never too old to learn a new skill or hobby.

This winter, I had one of my computer students attempt to teach me to knit. Needless to say, I was dropping stitches, pulling the yarn too tight… it windows was an absolute nightmare. I was frustrated that I could not master the simple skill of a basic knitting stitch. It definitely humbled me and made me think of how many of my students get frustrated in class with computers. Do I left click or right click? How many times do I click? It enlightened me to be more patient when the same student asks the same question over and over and over. The statement “I’m too old to learn” is hogwash!! Help is out there! I can attest, I love working with my senior citizen students more than any other demographic.

Click the link below to read the full article.

via Too old for technology… NOT!.

Create a Secret Hiding Space in Windows

How to create a secret hiding space for your data within Windows.
by The Windows Club

The Windows operating system offers many tweaks and tricks. If you are aware of these, then you can complete your tasks quickly and in a simple way. You may never need to use any third-party software, if you are good at using those tricks. Among those many tweaks available, I will let you know, how to hide data in a secret text file compartment, created using a Notepad in Windows 8 / 7.

We normally save our bank account numbers, credit card numbers, important passwords and so on, in text files and place them on our desktop to access them easily. But, if your system is being shared with others, then there is chance of this information being compromised.

What I suggest is, follow this method of hiding data whenever necessary and remove those text files immediately once you are done with your work, as once anything is made, there are many ways to break it. This method makes use of the Alternate Data Streams of the NTFS file system, which Windows supports.

Article Continued Here

Error deleting – File name is too long

I am almost positive you have run into this error before. Recently I have had 1000s of files like this.

Where did they come from? Both times it was a hidden cache folder for DropBox and AeroFS. I had been playing with both to see if I wanted to use them to sync my files.

Well, I found a simple way to blow these away in one shot, and you can use a tool within windows to do it.

It seems that robocopy can handle these long file names. What you do is you create an empty folder, and then use it to synchronize the copy while telling it to delete all the files that do not exist in the source (Your empty folder)

So if you are running into this, and just want the whole folder gone, get to a command line and create an empty folder.

I created one at c:empty

And lets say for our example here the offending folder is c:BadFolder

You would call robocopy like this:

robocopy c:empty c:badfolder /e /mir

The /e tells it to visit all sub folders even if they are empty, the /mir will tell it to delete any file or folder that does not exist in c:empty – which is everything.

So there it is. A simple trick to get around those pesky files that windows says are too long – no special tools needed.

What are the 5 tips of a productive developer?

1) Don’t optimize.
The impulse to optimise is usually premature. Clever solutions to squeeze performance increase complexity and undermine the end goal. Get the code working. Optimise just that code that needs it, at the end.

2) Do optimize for simplicity
You can optimise for execution speed. You can optimise for space. But the most precious thing you should optimise for is your own time. Optimise for readability, and understandability. If you have to stop and ask yourself, “how does this work?” or “why isn’t this doing what it should do?” – you have just wasted your time.

3) Much fancy academic CS is bogus
Some college based computer science methods should be used with care. Many papers describe methods which are super optimised around one case. Not all are bogus, but the benefits in many papers are often over-stated. And if you adopt the solution, you may find the benefits do not justify the costs.

4) The simplest abstractions are usually best
The real enemy in being productive is the mind of the programmer. The more “cognitive load” you place in your head, the less productive you become. So complexity is the enemy. Whenever possible, adopt simple dumb solutions. He talks a lot about iterating through arrays, rather than smarter data structures. If you can keep it all in your head, you will be faster. You can’t keep it all in your head if there is this ton of complexity.

With each new class/method added to your code, the complexity can increase not linearly but exponentially. Deleting code is therefore always better than adding code. Don’t put stuff into functions when it could be inline.

5) Don’t write generalised code
Over generalised super flexible code is often a waste of time. It’s usually harder to maintain and a source of potential bugs. Hard coding isn’t bad if your code is doing one thing.

Ref.: http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-5-tips-of-a-productive-developer

Tell Everyone to BackUp

By Leo Notenboom

In an editorial post a few years ago, I bemoaned the state of backing up. The post, entitled “Why don’t people back up?” discussed the many varied (and somewhat reasonable) reasons individuals might not be backing up their precious data.

I also discussed many scenarios in which people lose that precious data completely and forever… scenarios in which a backup solution would have protected them in some way. In fact, almost any backup solution would have helped. As I say in What backup program should I use?, “Asking what backup program to use is very much like asking, ‘What’s the best exercise program?’ The best program for exercise or backup is whichever one you’ll actually do.”

Anything is better than nothing.

The good news is that more people are backing up – or at least attempting to.

The bad news is that we still have a long way to go to get more people to back up. I know this by the number of panic-stricken emails I receive.

Article continued here