Training the Next Generation of IT Engineers
As the family ‘professional-geek’, I get all the tech support phone calls.
One of my family members (we’ll call him ‘R’) called me the other day somewhat put out and frustrated with his latest computer purchase. The new computer he was setting up for someone else had Windows 7 installed on it.
“I just got used to the XP interface and they had to go and change it all. Why’d they do that?!?” he gasped in exasperation.
The Windows 7 Desktop
Windows doesn’t come with a simple command-line differencing tool as does UNIX/Linux. This is unfortunate because even Windows has to do some scripting from time to time and comparing files manually, correctly, is a pain. Here is a short list of options that I am aware of for differencing files on a Windows system.
- MS-DOS Tools
- fc
- windiff
- Windows Power Shell
- compare-object
- Win32 versions of UNIX utilities
- unixutils – diff.exe
- Third Party Utilities
- WinMerge GUI
MS-DOS Tools
The file comparison tool, fc.exe comes with Windows and can perform an ASCII or binary file comparison:
fc file1.txt file2.txt
The windiff.exe tool does the same comparison, but within the Windows GUI. For Windows 2000, 2003 and XP, this tool is in the Support Tools kit, or the Resource Kit for older versions of Windows. The windiff.exe tool can also compare the list of files in folders.
Windows Power Shell
Windows 7 comes with PowerShell, you have to download it for all other versions. Within the powershell are “command-lets” and one of those is compare-object. To compare the contents of two files, you have to use this long, complicated setup:
compare-object -referenceobject $(get-content C:\test\testfile1.txt) -differenceobject $(get-content C:\test\ testfile2.txt)
Win32 Versions of UNIX Utilities
There is a bundle called “unixutils” that is a Windows 32-bit port of the standard UNIX utilities. I prefer these so much, I actually make a point of installing it on any workstation I use frequently.
diff file1.txt file2.txt
Third Party Tools
There are also several third party tools, but the one that seems to work best is called WinMerge, which is free and open source.
Screenshot: WinMerge file comparison utility
We have 2 PCs behind routers in geographically separated networks. What is the best practice to connect those two PCs together as if they were connected locally in a LAN. Is VPN the answer and how do I setup a VPN network connection? Do I need a VPN server or something? Thank you for such wonderful site.
Read More: InetDaemon’s Answer to the VPN Question
My personal WordPress workflow:
- One-time Setup (First Time User)
- Bookmark the New Post page.
- Click Tools
- Drag the Press This link to toolbar
- Copy the Press This link and the New Post link to all browsers
- Spontaneous Post Ideas
- Dream up an idea for a post
- Click the New Post bookmark in my browser
- Dump my idea
- Click Save Draft
- Ideas from the World Wide Web
- Browse the net for ideas
- Click Press This
- Dump a couple of sentences on why you chose to post on the item
- Click Save Draft
- WordPress has a built-in “next post” function. Use a theme that supports it.
- If you have an idea for a series of posts, create placeholders for them all at once so the “next post” keeps them together.
- Multiple posts created in order can be read in sequence automatically
- Use the <!–more –> tag on your front page.
I use something like this:
<!–more FULL ARTICLE: Teaser for the rest of the article–> - Use the <!–nextpage–> tag to break the post into multiple pages if you go beyond a couple of paragraphs.
- Always Save Draft so you can take a break, come back later and do a proper job of editing.
- Schedule your posts. You may not blog regularly, but you can post regularly. Regularly scheduled postings gets your readers in the habit of coming back on specific days to look for new posts.
- Click the Edit link next to “Publish immediately”
- Set a future date
- Click OK
- Posts will appear automatically while you’re busy with something else.
This process allows me to capture my post ideas, flesh them out and schedule them to appear in series at a later date.