Hokie
Hokie's JournalReally Microsoft? This is the best you can do with FTP servers in Windows?
Background:
When I went into the consulting business 15 years ago I registered a domain with a hosting company and purchased server space. The main purpose was to get my own email server. I chose Inmotionhosting. They have been fine. One of the things I get with my package is unlimited storage. I have pretty much retired now so I do not need anything but the email server any longer. I know I could swithc everything to Gmail and probably pay a small fee to Google but I have not been motivated to do that.
FTP Servier:
My Inmotion account includes FTP, Wordpress and a bunch of other things I do not use. I have used FTP a few times. I set up a subdomain with a weather page based on my Davis weather station and CumulusMX running on a Raspberry Pi. CumulusMX has a very good forum with people there who know Linux very well who will help. I used WinSCP and FTP to upload the weather page files to my server space. You can check it out: My Weather Page
I decided it might not be a bad idea to use my server space for an offsite backup for the several computers I have, especially my photo collection and business files. I wanted to be able to add the server space as a mapped drive or network location in Windows Explorer. I had done that before to share a 2 TB SSD attached to my Raspberry Pi running Samba. That's when I first began to really hate Windows. I could not get the shared resource to work. I could ping the RP but could not open the SSD folders. It turned out to be an obscure setting in group privileges that I had to change. Windows would work with Windows server but not a Linux server the way it was set in Windows 11.
I set up a network location for my FTP site. Windows even gives you the format when you tell it you want to set up an FTP server. The format is "FTP://mydomain.com". That worked after I figured out the Inmotion instructions forgot to tell you the server address has an ftp. in front of it.
I proceeded to upload a fairly large folder of photos using Windows Explorer and it worked very well. The trouble started when I decided to open some of the photos after the upload completed. When I clicked on any file Windows tried to open it up in MS Edge browser. Edge cannot do FTP so it just shows the startup page. I checked the file properties and Explorer recognized it was a .jpg file. I figured this must be an issue with the Default Apps setting. I made sure that .jpg files opened with the Photos app. I tired again and it still tried to use the useless MS Edge to open the file.
I went back to the default app settings and looked at the setting for FTP protocol. The only choices are MS Edge or my FTP software WinSCP. If I choose WinSCP all I can do when I click on a file is download it. Then I can navigate to the download folder and open it with Photos. What a PITA. Why can't Windows just open a file that it knows is a .jpg in Photos?
I decided to see how Linux handles FTP servers. I have an older PC that runs Linux Mint. As I guessed Linux Mint opened the server and let me save my user name and password. I made it a Favorite. I clicked on one of the photos and it opened right up. I tried other files and they opened in the default app too.
The lesson once again is that Windows works with Windows resources (maybe) but if you want to go outside of Windows you are on your own. I am sure there is some registry tweak or something I have missed but that's for another day. Maybe there is a way I can set up a server on my Inmotion server using something other than FTP that Windows works better with? If someone has experience in these things I am all ears.
My "atomic" wall clock jumped ahead by 20 minutes yesterday
When I got up yesterday I found my wall clock that is set by the WWVB time signal from Colorado had advanced by exactly 20 minutes. I had to manually reset it. Did anyone else experience this with one of these clocks? This clock has been the most reliable of any of these I have owned. Maybe I went through a time warp?
Installing WIndows 11 on Unsupported Hardware
There are several methods out there that are supposed to let you install Windows 11 on hardware that fails the Secure Boot/TPM and hardware requirements. I cannot seem to get them to work because MS seems to have blocked the downloading of Windows 11 Iso file. Could someone try to go to this site and see if they can get to the point of actually downloading the Iso file?
I am trying to download the English-US 64 bit version.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11
Here is the error I get:
We are unable to complete your request at this time. Some users, entities and locations are banned from using this service. For this reason, leveraging anonymous or location hiding technologies when connecting to this service is not generally allowed. If you believe that you encountered this problem in error, please try again. If the problem persists, you may contact Microsoft Support – Contact Us page for assistance. Refer to message code 715-123130 and 7377c0e0-d492-4026-aa5b-9f47808e0f25.
Did Yahoo remove my home page?
This morning when I opened my browser I noticed My Yahoo, my home page for over 30 years was gone. It instead it is redirecting to the generic Yahoo home page yahoo.com. Is this intentional or is something broken on Yahoo?
Congratulations to the DU team one and all!
At least for me the forum is performing very well tonight. Much better than '20 or '22. Of course I will never forget the hack in '16.
Medallion Signature Verification
I just went through two days of pure hell trying to find a bank to do a Medallion Signature Verification for a document I needed to send to Fidelity. I went to six bank branches (three of which I am a customer) and either they no longer provided the stamp or only did it for customers. I ended up driving three hours round trip to a Fidelity office in Naples where they accepted the form w/o the Medallion stamp since it was their document.
The form was a simple two page document to allow me to transfer money to my adult daughter's Fidelity account from time to time in excess of the default limit. On this particular form Fidelity requires a Medallion signature guaranty on a paper document. A simple notary is not acceptable.
The experience also taught me how hard it is to call a bank branch. On most of them I never was able to navigate voice automation hell and get to a real person.
Does anyone watch Peacock TV on the Samsung app?
I watch Peacock TV using the Samsung app on my 3 year old QLED TV's. Some channels have no sound. It started a couple of weeks ago. One channel in particular with no sound is the one that carries the Dan Patrick Show and Rich Eisen Show. The app works on Firestick and Chrome TV. I have tried a bunch of things like rebooting the TV and reinstalling the app.
Optum Rx Mail Order Pharmacy is terrible
I am on a Medicare Advantage plan offered by AARP/United Health Care. They use Optum Rx for mail order prescriptions. I changed from the UHC Medicare Supplemental plan to the Medicare Advantage plan at the beginning of 2021.
On the Supplemental plan CVS handled mail order prescriptions. I never had a single problem with them. When I switched over in January my first problem was that Optum RX said they could not port over my prescriptions that still had remaining refills from CVS. OK, no problem, I had my doctor write all new scripts to Optum. One of my prescriptions is for a combo high blood presure med. It is a generic for Exforge or Alodipine/Valsartan/Hydrochlorothiazide. I had never experienced any problem getting it from two other mail order pharmacies.
I waited for weeks on the BP medication and all Optum could tell me is that it was out of stock. No they did not know when it would be in stock. So finally when I got down to a week's worth of pills someone at Optum RX finally said they could fill it with individual prescriptions for the components. However my doctor would have to wrote new scripts. So that is how I proceeded. Now I had to take two extra pills every day.
Last month at my six month checkup I asked my doctor to try to see if I could get the combination drug again. So he apparently wrote the prescription for Exforge, which is the brand name. Optum RX first sent me an email saying order needed a clarification from the doctor. The next email said the order was cancelled. The third email said they were filling the Exforge order and the cost was $1450 for a 90 day supply! The cost of the generic I was supposed to be getting was $0.00. The fourth email said the prescription was under review.
This is a simple medication that I have taken for over 10 years and never had a problem getting. Now Optum Rx is wearing out my patience. I have checked the AARP forums and others have found them to be terrible as well.
Now I have no clue what is going on. Their customer service folks are polite but are all ESL clueless and spend the last 5 minutes on the phone trying to get you to say they have solved the issue (they never do) and making sure you give them a good rating.
Windows keeps removing the Firefox shortcut from my task bar
This is a weird one. On one of my computers Windows keeps removing the Firefox icon from my task bar. It is an older (2011) HP desktop running Windows 10. It doesn't happen on another HP desk top nor on my laptop.
When it happens the icon turns to a white rectangle and no longer works. I delete it then drag the Firefox icon on the desktop down to the task bar to add it back. I have the lock task bar choice checked in settings.
Can't figure why the NYT isn't calling Arizona
Biden is up over 90K/3.4% with 98% reporting
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Member since: 2001Number of posts: 4,350