tinyapps.org / blog

Download Windows and Office ISOs from Microsoft #

quickly and easily with Jan Krohn's Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool:
"This tool allows an easy and comfortable way to download genuine Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 disk images (ISO) directly from Microsoft's servers, as well as Office 2007, Office 2010, Office 2013, Office 2016, and Office 2011 for Mac.*

"In the past Microsoft provided disk images for many of their products through their subcontractor "Digital River". These downloads were pulled in early 2014. Afterwards, Microsoft made a limited selection of downloads available on their TechBench site. Our tool accesses that TechBench site, and unlocks a large number of hidden download files on it."

*In my testing, only Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Insider Preview, Office 2013, Office 2016, and Office 2016 for Mac were available. However, there is this promising note on Jan's website:

"Removal of Windows 7 and Office in Version 5.00: These downloads have been blocked by Microsoft. We're working on an update."

/windows | Jun 03, 2017

Incremental disk image backups with auto-pruning, encryption, and more #

Veeam Endpoint Backup was recently upgraded and renamed to Veeam Agent for Microsoft Windows. The freeware edition is even more powerful than before; here are just some of the features:

Backup

Restore

Recovery Media

More

Notes

/windows | May 31, 2017

Encrypt and decrypt files in GPG without keys; #

that is, using only a symmetric cipher:

Create an encrypted copy of foo, saving it as foo.gpg in the current directory:

$ gpg --symmetric --cipher-algo AES256 foo
Enter passphrase:
Repeat passphrase:

Create a decrypted copy of foo.gpg, saving it as foo in the current directory:

$ gpg --output foo --decrypt foo.gpg
gpg: AES256 encrypted data
Enter passphrase:
gpg: encrypted with 1 passphrase

Create an encrypted copy of foo, saving it as foo.asc in the current directory in ASCII-armored format (suitable for pasting into email, etc):

$ gpg --symmetric --armor --cipher-algo AES256 foo
Enter passphrase:
Repeat passphrase:

Same as above, but send output to stdout instead of saving as foo.asc:

$ gpg --symmetric --armor --cipher-algo AES256 --output - foo
Enter passphrase:
Repeat passphrase:
-----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

jA0ECQMCpjdNrpTC689g0kYBkyRd+aGyQwt8sZu+OvEilyCnXd6RiYMXM75MlSb+
OCZnMy6hBhGxvJ7R23HCkNPg76X8dH4O8k5kYtuQwL9fZL8akSY0
=uWsn
-----END PGP MESSAGE-----

Decrypt foo.asc, sending output to stdout:

$ gpg --decrypt foo.asc
gpg: AES256 encrypted data
Enter passphrase:
gpg: encrypted with 1 passphrase
hello, world!

Notes:

/nix | May 30, 2017

Renaming files in OS X for Windows or Unix compatibility #

Free

While the above approaches should cover most use case scenarios, none of them address all of the possible naming issues in Windows.

Fee

/mac | May 16, 2017

Apple Keyboard (A1243) - Function Keys Not Working #

The Apple Keyboard (A1243) was introduced in 2007 and rechristened Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad in 2009. Almost a decade later, it is still sold under the same name and model number.

However, there have been two different order numbers for this keyboard with separate system requirements:

The only cosmetic difference between the MB110LL/A and MB110LL/B is the icons on the F3 and F4 keys:

MB110LL/A MB110LL/B
MB110LL/A F3 & F4 keys MB110LL/B F3 & F4 keys

/mac | Apr 29, 2017

OS X: Rich text editor with regex #

Bean has been under constant development for years; it's been listed on the OS X page since version 0.94 (current version is 3.2.9). In addition to supporting a host of file formats (rtf, rtfd, plain text, webarchive, doc, docx, and odt), Bean is the only rich text editor I have found for OS X which also supports regex find/replace.

/mac | Apr 27, 2017

Saving colorized output from Bash #

even from programs like testdisk, in which output may span many separate screens:

Text-based output:

  1. Install aha: $ sudo apt install aha
  2. $ sudo testdisk | tee >(aha --black>output.html)
  3. After quiting testdisk, type exit on the command line. Find output.html in the current directory.

Graphic-based output:

  1. $ sudo apt install imagemagick ttyrec gcc x11-apps
  2. $ git clone https://github.com/icholy/ttygif.git
  3. $ cd ttygif
  4. $ make && sudo make install
  5. $ ttyrec
  6. Run desired command(s), e.g., $ sudo testdisk
  7. Type exit when finished
  8. Convert ttyrec's output file (ttyrecord by default) to tty.gif in the current directory: $ ttygif ttyrecord

Sources & More

/nix | Mar 05, 2017

Resetting an HP OfficeJet 5740 #

Notes

Support and Engineering main menu entries

Support Menu (Press Back/Return 4 times)

Some potentially useful/interesting options:

Engineering Menu (Press Home, Back, Home, Home)

Some potentially useful/interesting options:

Links

/misc | Mar 04, 2017

Windows keeps reverting to high contrast mode #

If Windows keeps changing back to high contrast mode despite repeated attempts to change in Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Personalization and disabling all options under "Choose a High Contrast theme" in Control Panel > All Control Panel Items > Ease of Access Center > "Make the computer easier to see", head to the Lock Screen > Ease of Access icon at bottom left > and turn off High Contrast.

/windows | Mar 01, 2017

Preparing a Mac for resale or donation (Sierra edition) #

  1. Deauthorize Mac in iTunes, turn off Find My Mac, sign out of iCloud, and sign out of iMessage.
  2. Securely erase internal storage, install macOS, create temporary admin account (e.g., tempuser), install apps and updates, etc.
  3. Log in normally as tempuser and run:
    $ sudo dscl . -delete /Groups/admin GroupMembership tempuser
    $ sudo dscl . -delete /Users/tempuser
  4. Restart in Single User Mode and run:
    # fsck -fy
    # mount -uw /
    # rm -R /Users/tempuser
    # rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
    # shutdown -h now

Sources

Regarding iLife and iWork apps

/mac | Feb 18, 2017

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