Windows 8

Might be worth a few minutes:

http://blog.laptopmag.com/6-ways-to-...in-windows-8/3

Windows 8 automounts ISOs in their own virtual drives. That makes things...interesting.

EDIT
It even mounts OS backups as their own virtual drive :haha:

It does automatically? I downloaded an iso file then downloaded Daemon Tools Lite to mount it to install what I'd downloaded. I never noticed it being automatically mounted.

Not saying it couldn't be mounted from Windows manually, but it didn't appear as a drive until I got software to do it.

For ISOs you don't need stuff like Daemon Tools anymore. Simply double-click on the file.

Just double-clicked it and it said there was an error mounting it. Daemon Tools had no error.

Then you have a shit package. My ISOs, I double click on them and they open up in windows explorer, and automatically create a virtual drive listing in My computer. To unmount, right click on the virtual drive in my computer and select eject.

Looks like 7zip is going the way of WinRAR for me.

On a related note, I wanted to try writing an app for the Modern UI. As I'm a teacher, a classbook-type application came to mind - stuff like grades, reminders, infos about my pupils, schedules and all that stuff.

Tiny problem that I had: I need to store that data somehow in a format that makes sense. Usually I'd do that in a database. I mean, this stuff is the poster child for relational mappings - schedules have classes, classes have pupils, pupils have grades, reminders and notes... but HTML 5 has only this thing called an "indexed db" which does not do half the stuff I need.

Internet comes to the rescue: An implementation of the SQLite database in Javascript! Awesome!

I think the reason it failed to mount was simply because it was already mounted with Daemon Tools. After unmounting it in that and double-clicking on it, it then mounted fine.

Guess I can uninstall Daemon Tools now.

If you've only got ISOs then, yes, you can uninstall Daemon Tools.

Minor gripe from my side:
So now I've got this database residing in memory. However, at some point the app will be suspended and I want to recover this database after reactivation.

No problem, the database can be exported as an array of numbers (bytes) and thus simply writing them to disc is an excercise of writeBytes() and a bit of async promises chaining.

Reading the file, however, was not so trivial due to the shitty documentation. There is no direct "readBytes" of a file.

Instead you have to create a Stream and then use the method readBytes() of the data stream. Only problem: The usual method of fileContent = dataStream.readBytes(buffer.length) did not work. Why?

Easy - it has to be written like this: dataStream.readBytes(fileContent)

There's the slight problem, though, that this method expects fileContent to be an array of numbers again. Now, Javascript is a weakly typed language. I mean, I can make fileContent an Array, certainly, but I can't tell it to make an array of numbers. And if I simply pass an array, the array stays empty.

Workaround:

Code:

---

for(var i=0; i < buffer.length; i++) {
  fileContent.push( dataStream.readByte() );
}

---

Now, that I think about it, I could possibly also use a while-loop. Have to look into the return values of readByte();

Okay, figured it out with the help of some helpful guys over at thedailywtf.com:
The Javascript-implementation of Microsoft now sports typed arrays!

Which means that Javascript now is a semi-strongly typed language. Nice.

One major improvement for me is Task Manager. I've always liked using it, and as far as an Operating System goes this is the sort of thing it should do well - not browsers etc which third parties can suffice with. Task Manager is much improved in Windows 8.

One oddity though is earlier today "System" was running disk usage of 99% for a good few minutes.

Wonder if that covers the defrag or indexing. I always disable the indexing service.

But I do agree with the way the new task manager is. Makes disabling boot up programs make easier.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/1...-microsoft/?hp :noob:

Just discovered that Windows 8 dropped DVD playback :bulb:

Do not despair

http://lifehacker.com/5961825/retrou...egular-windows

silly question...
how do I turn off the apps that I tried out, but dont want to use (but don't want to delete) like the email app? Without logging out of the other apps?

edit:
figured it out, the right swipe menu changes per program :\

Two weird queries:

1: I've downloaded one app - a radio one TuneIn. When the app is on the screen its one volume but when I switch back to Desktop mode (to have the radio running in the background) the volume plummets so I have to turn the master sound up louder. Any idea if this is a function of the app itself for some reason, or Windows? Bit frustrating to have it blast out then whimper out.

2: Got some video files which are *.divx - fair enough for previous versions of Windows I've had to download DivX (which I don't like doing, they always want to spam loads of crap with it) but Windows 8 plays it natively. Great. Except it only plays it natively on the new Video app - *.divx won't be accepted as an extension on Windows Media Player (and if I force it to play on Media Player its not playing properly, has a green bar at the bottom). I don't understand if it has the Codec why have it as an option for one player but not the other?

For anyone that is tired of the shitway Windows 8 handles administrator access: http://www.computerperformance.co.uk...r-activate.htm
That's how to make the admin account accessible, so if you trust yourself to not be a fucking moron with your computer, I can't help but suggest it.

I have spent days trying to get gamebooster, Star Wars The Old Republic and my Sidewinder X4 keyboard (a Microsoft product!) to work together. I finally gave up after I discovered that windows 8 wouldn't autolaunch the keyboard software at startup if I told the individual program to run with admin access. Logging directly into the admin account fixed all my problems.

Seems as if my Windows installation caught some crapware (uTorrent, I'm looking at you!) and now starting a browser/opening a new tab takes several seconds.

Will try the "refresh" method and see how that goes.

Probably not related but on startup as well as waking Windows seems to load almost instantly (don't know if that's due to 8 or the machine) but if you load Firefox, then the Firefox window appears but then "pauses" for upto 30 seconds. After that its fine for the rest of the session.

I get the hunch that Windows is starting before its fully ready (rather than leaving you waiting for a full boot) but then pauses things if need be until its finished in the background.

Well, that's usual for Windows. But my problem really was lagging internet browsers all over.

Refreshing did fix that. And while I was at it, I sym'linked the User folder to a different drive. Should spare some room on my SSD for programs (the process can hit one major failure mode, though, if you don't take care. It's not for the faint of heart!)

Okay, for the sake of diversity and not getting too cozy on any given platform, I'm going to check out a Microsoft store and see what this Surface is like.

OneNote is the killer app for any portable computer being able to use a Stylus, by the way. At least if you have to take notes on a regular basis.

We use OneNote at work to teach all our classes now :heart:

This is why Windows + client harddrives + app store won't work.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/12...-app-purchases
http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...gWindows8Games
http://www.extremetech.com/computing...hases-and-more

Not easy, but not hard either, from the way it looks.