Vista – 129 years to compress a folder

I had made a backup of my system prior to installing a new 1TB drive.  I did this about a month ago and contemplated deleting the backup as I think I have everything I need but, I thought hey, I can recover some space by compressing the folder.  So I clicked the compression checkbox on the folder properties and let it go.  I knew it was going to take awhile and I was prepared for that but, I wasn’t prepared to see 47166 Days and 15 hours remaining. 

I figured this must be some miscalculation so I let it run for an hour or so.  It now says 47166 Days and 14 hours.  What????  I’m sorry but, I don’t know if I’m ready to change my will to ask my grandchildren who aren’t even born yet click OK when the compression finishes in 129 years. 

I think I’ll let it run overnight and if it hasn’t gone down a few decades I’ll click cancel and just delete the files.  I can’t wait to try this in Windows 7.

VPN errors on Vista SP2

This was really annoying.  After installing SP2 I could not connect to the several VPN sites I need.  After contacting Microsoft here is the resolution they provided that worked.  I’m posting here to save others the trouble I went through.

First turn on RAS logging to diagnose the problem.  You’ll need to open an administrative shell (cmd) to run these commands.

create a trace:
netsh ras set tracing * enabled
try your VPN connection (i.e. failure)
netsh ras set tracing * disabled

Look in your \windows\tracing folder for RASGCW.LOG
If you see a string like:
     ConnectThread:RasDialDlg failed with error: 800

This should fix your problem.  You’ll need to reinstall some drivers.

first uninstall:
netcfg -u ms_l2tp
netcfg -u ms_pptp

then re-install:
netcfg -l %windir%\inf\netrast.inf -c p -i ms_pptp
netcfg -l %windir%\inf\netrast.inf -c p -i ms_l2tp

That’s it.  Let me know if you had this problem as I am curious.

bluestring - photo mashup and sharing

Here's another photo sharing web site I ran across that is in beta.  What's different about bluestring is they are also a mashup so you can upload your photos to them or simply reference your files from photobucket, picasa, webshots or AOL Pictures.  Once you have your photos linked in which is a fairly painless process you can create simple slideshows with sound.  The site is flash based and does a good job of making photo management easy with their simple user interface.   Just select photos from "My Media" and drop them on the slideshow filmbar, add some music and it will generate your slideshow you can share with others.  The slideshow gets the job done but, it's no animoto.  I'll keep an eye on this site as I think there may be some more good features coming.  They have a good start and the keeping it simple model is working for them.

Shwup - simple photo sharing with a twist

We are all too aware of the run of the mill photo sharing sites out there Flickr, Snapfish, Shutterfly, PhotoBucket, etc..  They have some nice features but, sometimes sharing, and only sharing, with the people you want can be a little difficult. 

For example I may go to a party and want to show just those friends the pictures and also allow them to add to the collection with their photos. With other services I can show them to the world, force my friends to create an account just to see them and still they may not be able to add their photos to the collection.

Along comes shwup it's like misspelling show up (these web 2.0 names, I think I'll wait for web 3.0 with spell-checker but, I digress).  With shwup I can create the album and add the e-mail addresses of my friends then either upload the photos or grab them from Flickr, Picasa or a few other sites.  My friends get the e-mail and can go online and see the photos immediately, no signup, no waiting for e-mail verifications, Easy peasy.  If they want to contribute they'll need to create an account however.  I can create other albums just for family members to view and do the same thing.  Only the people I invite to view the photos can see them so I can keep family photos for family and my kids soccer photos just for the soccer mom's & dad's. 

They also have a feature that takes up to 15 of your photos and makes a quick movie out of them with different themes and music.  It's a nice touch but, may be limiting if you have lots of photos to share. 

Overall a pretty nice site, simple with limited flair but, a few nice touches.  It's still in beta so there may be more in the works.

QuantCast - Tracking Photography E-commerce Sites

I recently came across Quantcast and I'm amazed at the level of analytical information that is available for free. For example here is how the top photography e-commerce site rank. Notice PrintRoom.com seems to be gaining some traffic in May but, PhotoReflect.com still has the most visitors.


They also provide information relevant to advertisers such as demographic breakdown including: gender, age, ethnicity, income level. Global traffic vs US is also useful. The data can be quite accurate for sites that have included the Quantcast code but, even those that don't are estimated by panel participants and ISP data.

It's interesting to see what sites make up the top 100. There are the usual suspects but, some names you have probably never heard of. If you create an account they also offer advanced search features which will find similar sites to ones that you like, demographic information, or by numerous other criteria.

PicArtia - Create a Photo Mosaic

We've all seen those photos created with other photos to make a photo mosaic.  PicArtia allows you to create your own mosaic from a photo that you upload to their site.  Once uploaded you select from one of their galleries of photos to use as the tile pieces.  It would be cool if you could also upload your own photos for the tiles but, they do not offer that for obvious reasons (bandwidth, and they have probably already pre-processed the gallery photos for matching).  After you upload your photo and choose the gallery their servers crank away creating your mosaic.  You'll receive an e-mail when it's done with a link to download up to an 8.7 megapixel image for free.  Other sizes are available for ordering up to a 140 megapixel image for $9 US.  It's fast an easy and if you love the style it's a good way to experiment.

Prism - Have your Web Apps without the Browser

Here's an interesting app coming from the Mozilla folks.  They are providing a mechanism call Prism to run any web apps like gmail, google calendar, salesforce, etc.. as a windows app.  Now it's not really doing anything all that special but, it's interesting to see the integration with the desktop.  You can create links that show in your start menu or desktop that popup your web app of choice in it's own window; no address bar, navigation, etc.. since all that should be handled by the web app. It appears to be somewhat lightweight (around 20 meg installed), starts up quick and has minimal UI (mostly the standard window frame).  They claim it's a counterpart to Abobe AIR and Silverlight but, I describe it more as a browser without the typical browser UI.  Something fun to check out anyway...