BeatificaBytes

The Joys of Computing

Author: vletroye

  • Expand a Synology RAID 0 Volume with bigger disks using VMWare…

    I had 2 x 2TB disks in a RAID 0 Volume on my DS713+ and wanted to replace them with 2 x 3TB… My first idea was quite simple: move the 2TB disks from the DS713+ into my PC, next to the 3TB disks, clone those 2TB onto the 3TB disks and resize the data partition… Unfortunately, googling for users’ feedback on such an operation, I finally felt that it could possibly be no such a real piece of cake… So, I used my second idea: “Backup” the DS713+ into a Virtual Synology, replace the 2TB with the 3TB in the DS713+ and “Restore”.

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    I decided to not try the “partition resizing” approach because it seems that expanding next the Volume to use the free space on the partition could be difficult (if possible at all). I will for sure try that idea later with dummy data. But for now, I wanted a peace-of-mind-solution. So, I did:

    1. Create a Virtual Synology (a DS3612xs with DSM 5.0-4528) with enough space,
    2. Enable the Network Backup Service on that DS3612xs
    3. Clean-up as much as possible on the DS713+ (DSM 5.0-4528 update 1)
      1. Disabled the camera in Surveillance Station and  deleting all the recordings
      2. Stopping Plex, Video Station, Audio Station and Photo Station
      3. Deleting all the movies from \\<DiskStation>\video (As those are anyway backuped on my main server)
      4. Deleting all the musics from \\<DiskStation>\music (As those are anyway backuped on my main server)
      5. Keeping however the photos to not loose albums’ settings and thumbnails (as those would require days to be recreated!)
    4. Backup as much as possibly from the DS713+
      1. Using the native “Backup & Replication” feature, but also
      2. “Exporting” the Configuration of the “Surveillance Station” and Copying the extra licences (not the default one)
      3. “Exporting” all the complete zones’ settings from the “DNS Server”
      4. Taking note of the information not backuped:
        1. “QuickConnect”
        2. “External Access”
        3. “Network”
        4. “Security”
        5. “Notification”
        6. “Application Portal alias”
      5. Taking note of:
        1. All the Packages installed:
        2. The custom “Package sources” configured in the settings of the Package Center
      6. Backuping Wordpress
        1. Stopping first WordPress
        2. Taking a Backup of the database wordpressblog via a full “Export” with phpMyAdmin
      7. In addition, to be 100% safe,I also took a full copy of
        1. the Plex’s configuration & settings: \\<DiskStation>\Plex\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server
        2. the WordPress installtion: \\<DiskStation>\web\wordpress
        3. All my “customized” stuff
    5. Replace the 2 x 2TB with the 2 x 3TB in the DS713+
    6. Reinstall DSM 5.0 on the DS713+ with the same name and admin’s password as previously
    7. I reinstalled WordPress, Plex, DNS Server and PhotoStation, but I did not configure them and stopped them! (Actually, I don’t know yet if installing them before the restore was required… — to be checked).
    8. Enable the Telnet Service in “Terminal & SNMP”
    9. Restore manually the information for
      1. “QuickConnect”
      2. “External Access”
      3. “Network”
      4. “Security”
      5. “Notification”
    10. Restore the Backup made on the DS3612xs. It included:
      1. All the Shared Folders selected to be backuped
        1. Shared Folders recreated when installing a Packages are renamed!
      2. The “File Services” settings
      3. The “Users”
      4. The “Groups”
      5. (I don’t use the Directory Services)
      6. The “Regional Options”
      7. The “Task Scheduler”
      8. The “Application Portal” alias
    11. Reinstall the other Packages.
    12. Import manually the DNS zones exported previously (via “Create” > “Import zone”).
    13. Fix issues with “Surveillance Station” if any.
      1. I had to delete the camera restored with the Backup in “Surveillance Station” (weird as I successfully restored such backups in the past…)
      2. Add manually my extra licences
      3. Import manually the Configuration settings I exported previously.
    14. Restore manually the database of WordPress via phpMyAdmin and start next WordPress. It should not prompt you anymore to configure it.
    15. Check that the expected content has been restore in the various Shared Folders: photo, Plex (music and video if not cleaned-up), etc…
    16. Delete all Plex’s plugins (hidden folder \\<DiskStation>\Plex\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server\Plug-ins). They will be reinstalled automatically when you will start Plex. I have indeed noticed that various features do not run fine anymore in the Administration site otherwise. Ex.: choose language when editing libraries or fixing incorrect match, choosing providers, etc…
    17. Start all Packages currently stopped.

    Here after, the steps to create a Virtual Synology:

    Click to Read More

    1. Take the latest Boot Image iso available to start a “DSM” in a VMWare (Nanoboot-5.0.3.2 DSM 5.0-4528 x64) here.
    2. Take next the latest DSM pat Image (DSM 5.0-4528) here.
    3. Get the Synology Assistant from here and install it.
    4. Use VMWare Workstation 10 to create a new VM (You may create a Shared one to be able to run it remotely if you want):
      1. Create a “Custom (Advanced)” virtual machine
      2. Linux, version “Other Linux 2.6.x kernel 64-bit”
      3. With 1 processor, 2 cores
      4. 1024MB Memory
      5. Using a Bridged network
      6. LSI Logic Controller
      7. SCSI Disk Type
      8. And a large new virtual disk fully allocated (for performance reason)
    5. Instead of starting the new machine immediately, edit the settings: the CD/DVD must be changed to use the Iso Boot Image donwloaded at step 1.
    6. Next, edit the “.vmx” file created by VMWare next to the VM: Add this line just after the first one: bios.bootOrder = “cdrom”
    7. Now start the VM. It shows a menu with various entries named “Nanoboot-5.0-4528 xxx”. Pick the one to “Install/Upgrade”.
    8. Run next the Synology Assistant. It will find a “DiskStation” not yet installed. Select that one and right-click to “Install” it.
    9. When prompted for the Installation File, pick the pat file downloaded at step 2.
    10. Proceed until the installation is completed (Give a name to you new Synology. No need however to setup a QuickConnect ID).
    11. Enable the Backup https://www.synology.com/en-us/support/downloadService via the Start Menu > Backup & Replication > Backup Service > Enable Backup Network Service.

    You are now ready to backup your actual Synology.

    And icing on the cake, here is how to access the DSM and data still available in the old RAID 0 Volume (I.e.: on the two old 2TB):

    Click to Read More

    I did create a second Virtual Synology with the RAID 0 volume still available on the two old 2TB! Doing so, I will still be able to access all my data and settings if by any chance some have not been correctly restored.

    1. Take the latest Boot Image iso available to start a “DSM” in a VMWare (Nanoboot-5.0.3.2 DSM 5.0-4528 x64) here.
    2. Get the Synology Assistant from here and install it.
    3. Use VMWare Workstation 10 to create a new VM (You may NOT create a Shared as those do not support physical disks. Also you better have to run VMWare as Administrator otherwise adding physical disks could be disabled):
      1. Create a “Custom (Advanced)” virtual machine
      2. Linux, version “Other Linux 2.6.x kernel 64-bit”
      3. With 1 processor, 2 cores
      4. 1024MB Memory
      5. Using a Bridged network
      6. LSI Logic Controller
      7. SCSI Disk Type
      8. And add the two old physical disks. Notice: the order is important. If they are not in the correct order, the DSM won’t start and report a disk access failure. No panic: simply swap the disks and retry 😉
    4. Instead of starting the new machine immediately, edit the settings: the CD/DVD must be changed to use the Iso Boot Image donwloaded at step 1.
    5. Next, edit the “.vmx” file created by VMWare next to the VM: Add this line just after the first one: bios.bootOrder = “cdrom”
    6. Now start the VM. It shows a menu with various entries named “Nanoboot-5.0-4528 xxx”. Pick the one to “Install/Upgrade”.
    7. Run next the Synology Assistant. It will find your old Synology “Migratable”. Select that one and right-click to “Migrate”. The RAID 0 Volume is detected automatically and the DSM should load. If it fails around 50%, swap the physical disks and restart the VM. They are probably not in inserted in the correct order (I did swap them physically in my PC – as using bays- but I could have removed them from the VM configuration and re-added them in the right order).
    8. NB: installing with the option to download the latest DSM version failed. I had to download and use the pat file DSM 5.0-4528 available here.
    9. Give this new Synology a unique name and disable any service that would conflict with one already running somewhere else.

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  • TFS TeamBuild doesn’t copy references (Assemblies)

    As a TFS administrator, I often have to solve the same issue again and again: new developers complain that referenced assemblies are not dropped by TeamBuild although locally, Visual Studio copies those references into the bin folder… The trick is to set the property “Copy Local” = “False” on the references to be copied, Save the project, reset the property “Copy Local” = “True” and Save again the project.

    Click to Read More

    We have experienced this issue at least with VS 2010 – TFS 2010 and VS 2013 – TFS 2013. I have to say I don’t remember about VS 2008 – TFS 2008  and VS 2005 – TFS 2005.

    Project’s “Copy Local” property is the one that indicates if a file reference must be copied or not in the output folder. The value of that property is stored in a tag <Private> in the project file (.csproj, .vbproj, …). Ex.: <Private>true</Private>

    The problem is that VS does not add this tag for references whose ‘Copy Local’ property is ‘true’, ‘true’ being the default value for file references added on assemblies not in the GAC. It only adds this tag if one changes the property value to ‘false’. Later, if one sets the value back to ‘true’, the tag is kept but its value is changed.

    This is a problem because MSBuild, run by TeamBuild to compile the projects, assume that the value of a “Copy Local” property is ‘False’ if the tag <Private> is not found in the project file.

    So, the trick is to force VS to add the tag for all references added with ‘Copy Local’=’true’. This can be done as explained above:  set “Copy Local” = “False” on the required references, Save the project, reset “Copy Local” = “True” and Save again the project.

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  • Increase internal storage memory for Apps on Galaxy SII

    I had two main reasons to replace my good old Galaxy SII (GT-I9100): I wanted a larger screen and much more space for the Apps. But since yesterday, only one reason remains: a larger screen. I ave indeed successfully increased the storage for the Apps from 2GB to 6GB thanks to a tutorial from “Techotv“.

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    Samsung Galaxy S2 has 16GB of internal storage out of which 14GB space is available, but not the entire available capacity is usable for apps installation. Unlike modern smartphones like Galaxy S4, our galaxy S2 has two internal partition, known as Device Memory (about 2GB) and USB Storage (the rest i.e. about 12GB). Device memory is the location where apps are usually installed. USB Storage is the location where data (apps data like those of games), user files are stored. So, even though you might have lots of internal storage space available, you might face storage issues during apps installation because you’ve just about 2GB available for apps. In this tutorial, we’ll see how we can increase device memory partition and decrease usb storage partition to accommodate as many apps as we want on our beloved Galaxy s2 smartphone.

    Posted => here <= on JANUARY 3, 2014 by SAURABH

    Important Notices:

    1. This tutorial is for Samsung Galaxy SII (GT-I9100) model only !!!
    2. Backup all contents of your android phone including pictures, music, videos, call logs, SMS, etc… as this process will completely format your mobile. Possibly enable next Google’s Automatic Backup and Restore features so all your Apps, Contact, Calendar and Settings will be automatically re-installed.
      1. Go to Settings > (Personal) Back up and reset.
      2. Check the options “Backup up my data” and “Automatic restore”.
      3.  Never put all the eggs in one basket. Use another backup tool next to Google. Also notice that Calls logs, SMS, MMS are not backuped by Google.

    Prerequisites:

    1. Download Odin3 v1.85 program from Techotv and unzip it. Samsung Odin is the ROM Flashing tool for SAMSUNG Android Smart phone and tablets devices. Including Samsung Galaxy SII, etc. Other official versions are available here.
    2. Download Philz CWM Recovery for Galaxy SII from here. The ClockWorkMod Recovery (CWM) is a replacement recovery option for Android devices. It’s used as being better than the Stock android Recovery. A Recovery is a bootable partition that has the recovery console installed where you can find tools to help repair (recover) your installation as well as install system (OS) updates, delete all user data and files, etc… On Galaxy Samsung SII, you can access the Recovery by turning off the mobile and pressing next simultaneously Volume Down + Home + Power for a few seconds.
    3. Download the Partition files (PIT) from Techotv and unzip them. A PIT file is a Partition Information Table that can be used to re-partition the phone’s internal memory space.
    4. You phone doesn’t need to be rooted but this tutorial is assumed to work both if you have rooted your device or already installed a custom ROM. NB.: Android needs to be rooted to get the full control on the device, various features being indeed usually locked by default to prevent among other users’ mistakes, etc…
    5. You need a PC with the Samsung Drivers for Galaxy SII installed, otherwise the connection required by Odin to flash the mobile won’t succeed (although the mobile is detected by Odin).
      1. Install “Kies” from Samsung (available here) to get those drivers on your PC.
      2. Don’t RUN Kies after the setup. It could interfere with Odin. If required, kill all its related processes using the Task Manager (via Ctrl–Shift–Esc).
      3. If drivers are not installed, you will be stuck within Odin on the step “<ID:0/003> SetupConnection..”

    Go go go!

    1. Launch ODIN program.
    2. Turn off your mobile.
    3. Press mobile’s Volume Down + Home + Power buttons together for few seconds.You will enter the Recovery mode.
    4. Press Volume Up key when prompted on the phone screen to continue in download mode.
    5. Connect your phone to computer. You’ll see one of the rectangular boxes in ODIN turned yellow indicating that the program has detected your phone.
    6. Click on PIT button within Odin and select one pit file. I have chosen for the 6GB PIT file as I store anyway music and video files on micro-sd card instead of internal storage and want a lot of place for my Apps!
    7. Hit on PDA button within Odin and select Philz CWM Recovery file.
    8. Keep selected the Options “Re-Partition”, “Auto-Reboot” and “F. Reset Time”.
    9. All other Options must be unchecked.
    10. Hit on Start button.
    11. You will see Messages displayed by Odin… The process is completed once the message “<OSM> All threads completed. (succeed 1 / failed 0)” appears. You should also see a green rectangular box with the message “PASS!”.
    12. If Odin is stuck on “SetupConnection..”, try each of the following tips:
      1. Check that Samsung Drivers are installed (See “Prerequisites”) and Kies stopped.
      2. Connect your mobile on another USB port.
      3. Use a shorter USB cable.
      4. Remove the battery of your mobile for 5 minutes.
    13. Unplug your phone from computer.
    Odin Storage Extension on Galaxy SII
    Odin Storage Extension on Galaxy SII

    Check the outcomes:

    1. Go to phone storage settings and check if the device memory has increased and USB storage space adjusted accordingly. You may be required to format USB storage before it is shown in storage setting. I had to do so as requested by a notification.
    2. If the new storage setting is still not visible on your phone, then do factory reset either from recovery (volume up+home+power keys together in phone off state) or from phone settings (Setting > Backup and Reset > Factory reset). I had to do it.
    3. If storage is still not increased, flash stock Samsung firmware or custom ROM for your phone. I didn’t have to do this!

    Google started automatically to restore all my Apps, Contacts, Settings, etc… I only had to reorganize my Apps on the “desktop”…

    10.000 thx to SAURABH from Techotv.com for this tutorial. Thanks to him, I have only one more reason to buy another smart phone, which is not enough regarding my own criteria 😥

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  • SoundBlaster Audigy 2 NX USB – Cannot Unmute

    I have a very old SoundBlaster Audigy 2 NX USB (produced in 2002) and wanted to reuse it on my laptop, as I needed an optical audio output for some testing purpose. Unfortunately, it didn’t produce any sound… until I discovered that the Main volume was disabled in the Configuration pane.

    Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX
    Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX

    Click to Read More

    I was first impressed that, once that external audio card plugged on my PC (Windows 8.1 x64), Windows found, downloaded and installed drivers for it. I was actually not expecting such an old card to still be supported by Windows 8.1.

    But soon I noticed the “Mute” led that was on (red). And indeed, I was unable to get sound from my speakers 🙁

    Pressing the Mute button on the card, or using the remote control to unmute the card didn’t succeed. The led never turned off.

    Finally, I found that I had to:

    1. Right-click the speaker icon in the systray
    2. Select “Playback devices”
    3. Set the “Speakers” : “SB Audigy 2 NX” as “Default Device”
    4. Possibly set “Headphone” : “SB Audigy 2 NX” as “Default Communication Device”
    5. Double-click on “Digital Audio Interface” : “SB Audigy 2 NX” to access its properties
    6. Go to its tab “Levels” and enabled the speaker of the “Main Volume”, sometimes also named “Sum”. If it is already enabled, disable it first and then re-enable it!
    Config Audigy 2 NX
    Config Audigy 2 NX – named “Sum”
    Config Audigy 2 NX
    Config Audigy 2 NX – named “Main Volume”

    This is going to turn off the “Mute” led immediately. But if you press the Mute button on the card or mute it with the remote control, you will again not be able unmute it physically. You will have to redo the step 6 here above!

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  • Multiple concurrent Remote Desktop session for Win 8.1: Overwrite System Files

    I usually patch the Remote Desktop service to allow multiple simultaneous connections.But trying to do so on Win 8.1 results in an error message: “Access denied: You need permission to perform this action.”. The solution is to take owner ship of the file…

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    1. First, get the patched RDP service termsrv.dll here.
    2. Then, take owner ship of the existing termsrv.dll: takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\termsrv.dll
    3. Next, grant you access on that file: cacls C:\Windows\System32\termsrv.dll /G <YourAccount>:F
    4. As termsrv.dll is currently loaded, rename it into “-termsrv.dll”
    5. Finally, copy the patched file into C:\Windows\System32\
    6. Restart the PC.

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  • Change your Reply Address in the default Android’s Email app

    When configuring the default Android’ EMail app, you have to set an “account” to access your mailbox. In most cases, you are using the email address of that mailbox. And by default, the EMail app will use that email address as the “sender” of all your mails. If you don’t want people to reply to that email address you should have set a “Reply Address” as “account“.

    Click to Read More

    You have to remove the account already created and reconfigure it:

    1. Start the Email App and open the Settings (Where you can see your account(s))
    2. Click on the “Delete” icon and select the account to be reconfigured with your “Reply Address”. Then press “Delete”.
    3. You will get a Warning like “Deleting this account also deletes all of its messages, contacts, and other data from the devices”. Be sure that all those data are also on your server so they are not lost. Only the local copy will be deleted.
    4. Now, click on the “+” icon to recreate your account.
    5. Type now your “Reply Address” as account, instead of the actual email address used to access your mailbox, with a dummy password (required to enable the “Next” button). Then, click on “Next” (possibly after ticking the option “send email from this account by default”.
    6. On the next screen, select your type of account (Pop3, IMap, Exchange)
    7. Next, as “user name”, type the email address used as actual account, with its password, to access your mailbox.
    8. Finally, complete all the other parameters as usual

    Et voilà.

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  • Use Filebot to rename media files (and folders)

    FileBot
    FileBot

    Since I am using Plex, I don’t spent time anymore to rename correctly the movies. I am only using their title for the parent folder. For series however I have, per PLEX requirement, to prefix each episode with the name of the serie + SxxEyy where xx = season and yy = episode number. I decided however recently to do some clean-up on the filenames (rename them with the exact movie title, the movie year, the video format, the audio format, etc…). As Plex can’t do that, I am using Filebot.

    Click to Read More

    In the past, I was a great fan of Media Browser 2.x. I was using MetaVideoEditor to download the metadata for my movies. When MetaVideoEditor ended to work (not updated anymore to download the metadata from the providers), I looked for alternatives. Alternatives to MetaVideoEditor but also possibly to Media Browser. I found Plex, coming with a media server for Synology, a media player for HTPC or Samsung TV, and its own metadata downloader. I found Plex much more mature than Media Browser 3.x and I loved that Plex Server was running on my NAS. Plex was based on XBMC but much simpler to configure and much more user friendly, especially for kids. And its metadata downloader was perfect. There was however one difference with MetaVideoEditor: it was not renaming the media file with their title, episode number, etc…

    But that’s not an issue as I found Filebot, a TV and Movies renamer much better than any other similar software! It’s really amazing! It renames not only movies and episodes but also subtitles, audio files, poster (jpg, …), metadata file (xml, nfo) and checksum files (SFV, MD5, SHA-1, ED2K).

    Filebot can query various providers to fetch the rename of your files: TheTVDB, AniDB, TVRAge, Serienjunkies, TheMovieDB, IMBd, OpenSubtitles. And icing on the cake, it can rename those files using your own format. I.e. you can define which information must be used to rename the files including media info extracted from the files thanks to the well know library mediaInfo. You can also call functions to transform this information like removing or replacing blanks and special characters, etc…

    Ex.: if you use a format like this one to rename a file “The.Man.from.earth.Ripped.by.MySelf.from.BlueRay.XYZ“: {n} ({y}) {vf} {af}, the nale will become “The Man from Earth (2007) 720p 6ch” because “n” is a tag replaced by the name of the movie fetched from one of the provider mentionned above. “y” is the movie year. “vf” is the standard video format. “af” is the audio channels. See more tags here.

    Notice that you MUST install Java x64 on your machine if you have Windows x64. Otherwise, filebot will fail to load mediainfo’s libraries. You will see the following error when trying to use custom pattern to rename the files: “BindingException: “vf”: Could not initialize class net.filebot.mediainfo.MediaInfoLibrary.“

    Also, asking filebot for information, in a command prompt run in C:\Program Files\FileBot, you will clearly see that there is an issue. It thinks you are on a Windows x86:

    C:\Program Files\FileBot> filebot -script fn:sysinfo FileBot 4.1 (r2245) JNA Native: 4.0.0 MediaInfo: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Unable to load library ‘mediainfo’: Native library (win32-x86/mediainfo.dll) not found in resource path ([file:/C:/Program%20Files/FileBot/FileBot.jar]) Jun 02, 2014 12:54:34 AM net.filebot.archive.SevenZipLoader requireNativeLibraries WARNING: Failed to preload library: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no mingwm10 in java.library.path 7-Zip-JBinding: net.sf.sevenzipjbinding.SevenZipNativeInitializationException: Failed to load 7z-JBinding: C:\Program Files\FileBot\7-Zip-JBinding.dll: Can’t load AMD 64-bit .dll on a IA 32-bit platform chromaprint-tools: fpcalc version 1.1.0 (C:\Program Files\FileBot\fpcalc.exe) Extended Attributes: OK Groovy Engine: 2.3.2 JRE: Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.7.0_51 JVM: 32-bit Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM OS: Windows 7 (x86) Done ?(?????)?

    Go to the manual download page of Java to get the x64. Otherwise, using a x86 browser, you would get the x86 version of java by default.

    1. Once filebot installed, run it and select the “Rename” tab.
    2. Drag and drop the media files to be renamed in the “Original Files” tab. If you want to renamed series, drag & drop the root folder (For Plex, this folder has the name of the serie and contains one subfolder “Season xx” per season.). Notice that it will take time to load all the files but you won’t see any progress bar or spinning hourglass. Be patient!!!
    3. Once the files loaded, you will see an icon next to each one (on the right) mentioning the type of file (jpg, mkv, nfo, xml, …). Each of those files will be renamed. This will therefore maintain the “link” between the existing metadata and the media itself, for players like XBMC, etc…
    4. Right click on the “Match” button to select “Preference”. There, select the language of your media. “Titles” will be fetched from the providers in that language.
    5. Right click on the “Match” button to select “Edit Format” (if you want to customize it). It opens a “Format” window
    6. At the bottom of that window, click on the button “Switch to …” to select the type of media you are going to rename: Movie, Music or Episode.This is important as all tags don’t works for all type of media. Ex.: the tab {e}, “Episode Numbers”, does not exist for movies or music. The type of media you have selected is display in the title bar of the window.
    7. Bellow the format, click on “(x)=” to select one sample of media. It will show you the media information retrieved with the mediainfo library. This preview can help you to find the Tag you need for you custom format.
    8. Now, type you own format. Various samples can be found here. For my series and my movies, I am using respectively: 
      {n.replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, "'").replaceAll(/[:;]/, "-")} - {s00e00} - {episode.title.replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, "'").replaceAll(/[:;]/, "-")} [{vf}.{vc}.{ac}]
      {n.replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, "'").replaceAll(/[:;]/, "-")} ({y}) [{fn.match(/3D/)+"."}{fn.matchAll(/H-OU|H-TAB|HSBS|H-SBS|Half-SBS|Full-SBS|F-SBS|SBS/).join('.').replace('Half-','H-').replace('Full-','F-').replace('TAB','OU').replace('HSBS','H-SBS')+"."}{vf}.{vc}.{ac}] {" CD$pi"}
    9. Once the expression to format completed, click on Use Format. This will close the window.
    10. Right click on Match and select the provider to be used (depending on the type of media to be renamed). Filebot will immediately start to fetch the meta data from that provider and display a preview of the New Names. You will see a spinning icon in the upper right corner indicating that the operation is in progress.
    11. Once completed, you can check that everything is fine in the preview before clicking on “Rename” to execute the actual renaming.

    Filebot can not only rename the files but also move them if you include a path in the format. Ex. to move Avatar.mkv into a folder like X:/Movies/Avatar Collection/Avatar (2009) /Avatar (2009).mkv, use a format like: X:/Movies/{n} ({y}).

    I use the following expression to renamed the folders of my movies:

    ../{n.replaceAll(/[:;]/, "-")} ({y})/{n.replaceAll(/[!?.]+$/).replaceAll(/[`´‘’ʻ]/, "'").replaceAll(/[:;]/, "-")} ({y}) [{fn.match(/3D/)+"."}{fn.matchAll(/H-OU|H-TAB|HSBS|H-SBS|Half-SBS|Full-SBS|F-SBS|SBS/).join('.').replace('Half-','H-').replace('Full-','F-').replace('TAB','OU').replace('HSBS','H-SBS')+"."}{vf}.{vc}.{ac}] {" CD$pi"}

    Actually the folder is not renamed, but the file is moved into a new folder instead. So, there are plenty of empty folders remaining on the system (or folder that contain only files not renamed with the movies…). To delete them run the following “groovy script” provided by filebot (in a cmd prompt run as administrator):

    c:\Program Files\FileBot>filebot.exe -script fn:cleaner "\Path\To\Your\Movies" 2> filebot-error.log 1> filebot.log

    If you don’t want to cleanup the empty folders without checking what will be deleted, run the same script in ‘test’ mode first and look at the log file…

    c:\Program Files\FileBot>filebot.exe -script fn:cleaner "\Path\To\Your\Movies" --action test 2> filebot-error.log 1> filebot.log

     

    Notice, “Advanced Renamer” can also do it but it’s not as easy. One has indeed to use javascript within “Advanced Renamer” to get access to the complete exif information. it means that a Filebot’s tag as simple as {vf} becomes in Advanced Renamed:

    [js]var format = ”;
    var w = item.exifToolValue(‘ImageWidth’);
    var h = item.exifToolValue(‘ImageHeight’);

    if (w == 0) {
    format = ”;
    } else if (w &amp;amp;lt; 1280) {
    if (h &amp;amp;lt; 576) {
    format = ‘SD NTSC’;
    } else {
    format = ‘SD PAL-SECAM’;
    }
    } else if (w &amp;amp;lt; 1920) {
    format = ‘HD 720p’;
    }
    else if (w &amp;amp;lt; 3840) {
    format = ‘HD 1080p’;
    }
    else if (w &amp;amp;lt; 7680) {
    format = ‘UHD 4K’;
    }
    else {
    format = ‘UHD 8K’;
    }

    return item.newBasename + ‘(‘ + format + ‘)’;

    [/js]

    Download: http://www.filebot.net/

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  • Asus P9X79 Pro and Surround Audio 5.1: Get sound from Side Speakers

    I have an old Creative Gigaworks ProGamer G550W – a 5.1 Surround System – connected to my Asus P9X79 Pro, and I have never been able to configure my Audio Playback Device as an actual 5.1. But I recently found a step by step procedure posted by “EomaMY” on the forum of Asus’ Republic of Gamers that works like a charm.

    Click to Read More

    The problems with the “Realtek HD Audio Manager” (installed on a clean machine, i.e. immediately after a fresh install of Windows 8.1 x64) were:

    • I had cracking noises in the Center Speaker (See here). I had no such noises with the Microsoft default drivers.
    • with the “Realtek High Definition Audio” Speakers configured as a “5.1 Surround” in the “Playback Devices” configuration pane of Windows, I never got any sound from the Speaker Pair connected either to the Rear Speaker Jack or to the Side Speaker Jack.
    • with my Speakers configured as a “7.1 Surround“, I didn’t get sound from the Speaker Pair if connected to the Rear Speaker Jack. But I got sound from this Speaker Pair if connected to the Side Speaker Jack as far as I was disabling the “Rear Pair” in the “Speaker Setup“. Unfortunately, with such a config, I was not getting any sound from the Rear Pair when playing 5.1 movies within Plex Home Theater.

    So, I did follow EomaMY’s procedure:

    1. Try and re-plug your rear cable back to the rear port.
    2. Uninstall the audio drivers.
    3. Reboot.
    4. Let windows install the standard “windows” drivers, DO NOT install the realtek drivers yet.
    5. Reboot
    6. Now install the latest Realtek audio drivers from Asus (not Realtek, those didn’t work for me). Rear cable should still be plugged in rear port.
    7. Reboot
    8. Open up Realtek control panel. Now go and change rear cable to side. A notification should pop out.
    9. Test the 5.1 setup.

    5.1 works now fine, including with Plex, and without cracking sounds in the Center Speaker anymore  8)

    I did copy/paste here above the procedure of EomaMY. Only notice that I used the Audio Drivers 6.0.1.7335 found on Asus Support webpage for Notebook. This version is more recent than the Audio Drivers 6.0.1.7023 found on the specific Asus Support webpage for P9X79 Pro.

    Notice that it’s physically correct to plug the 5.1 “Rear Speakers” in the “Side Speaker Jack”! Indeed, “surrounds” have always been on the sides but nomenclature and general usage vary and confuses the terms. Reading information from Dolby.com, I keep in mind that:

    • In a 5.1 system, the ‘Surrounds’ are on the sides.
    • In a 7.1 system, the ‘Surrounds’ are on the sides while the ‘Rears’ are the ‘Surround Back’.

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  • Software Uninstaller: Revo

    Revo Uninstaller
    Revo Uninstaller

    Since a long time now, I am used to uninstall software with the free version of Revo Uninstaller. First, it can remove software that do not appear in Windows’s installed software” list or whose classic uninstallation failed. Next, it comes with an advanced “Cleanup” feature to remove any registry entry or files left by the software after its uninstallation.

    Click to Read More

    The free version does not monitor your PC to capture actions made by installer… So, it does not make your PC slower.

    Usually, I know the name of the application I want to uninstall, so I use the Search Box to find it instead of scrolling among 100th of Icons. That feature was the main reason why I started to use Revo with previous versions of Windows, in addition to the fact that the information displayed was more complete than within Windows’ native uninstaller.

    I use Revo only to uninstall apps… But the free version does a bit more:

    • With the Hunter mode, you can drag the Hunter window over desktop icons, quick launch toolbar, system tray icons, or program’s window to get access to menus to uninstall, kill, locate, … the focused application. This is unfortunately not working fine on my PC. For some reason, the Hunter window is unable to identify the focused applications…
    • It also comes with an AutoRun Manager to disable/re-enable startup applications, run them, kill, them, etc… However, I am still used to CodeStuff Starter and Procexp for such tasks.

    I admit also that with Windows 8.1, the native “Uninstall a Program” is now as user friendly as Revo. In addition, I noticed that Revo doesn’t display all the installed software anymore, at least on Windows 8.1 🙁

    The only reason why I am still using Revo is because Windows is missing the advanced “Cleanup” feature that removes orphan files and registry entries.

    Download: http://www.revouninstaller.com/revo_uninstaller_free_download.html

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  • File Recovery Software: Recurva

    Recuva
    Recuva

    Recuva is IMHO the very best Recovery Software. It is user friendly and much more effective than many other freeware I have tested. And it comes with a free version that is only missing the “support” service.

    Click to Read More

    How has never deleted files by accident and only noticed after making his Recycle Bin empty? Or how has never reinstalled Windows for formatted a drive before backuping his important files?

    With Recurva, there is still a “good” chance to recover some of the “lost files” if not all…

    Concretely, Recurva has simple wizards to

    • Undelete files on your computer
    • Recovery from damaged or formatted disks
    • Recover deleted emails
    • Recover deleted iPod music
    • Restore unsaved Word documents
    • Deep Scan for deleted files when quick methods doesn’t find them
    • Securely delete files you want to erase forever

    Recurva also comes with a portable version.

    Download: https://www.piriform.com/recuva

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