Handbrake free/GPL video transcoder – works great to transcode videos.
http://handbrake.fr/
February 5, 2011
Macrium Reflect – hard drive imaging software
Macrium Reflect is a windows imaging software like Acronis. http://www.macrium.com/
Pretty good especially that it has a FREE version too that serves basic needs very well
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
Infrarecorder – windows cd/dvd burning
Infrarecorder – free cd/dvd burning software – works great.
http://infrarecorder.org/
Wireshark
Wireshark is the de facto standard network traffic analyzer. Its available under GNU GPL.
http://www.wireshark.org/
Inssider – Wifi tool
Inssider is a very very nice and useful free Wifi network tool http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/
Helps you analyze the different wireless networks available, signal strength, channel, overlaps etc
(This could be considered as an alternative for netstumbler which might have been revived by its author at http://stumbler.net/)
BandwidthController – network traffic management
Windows tool that allows to control bandwidth used by different machines in the network. http://bandwidthcontroller.com/
- Useful to restrict bandwidth and also to test how applications would behave based on available bandwidth
- Used it once a couple of years ago. works great. There is a free single user versionhttp://bandwidthcontroller.com/download.html
January 25, 2011
powershell array, add, remove elements
Arrays are convenient to use but like in any language adding removing elements dynamically is not very efficient. It is more efficient to use System.Collections.ArrayList or generic List class (instantiating generics is another topic) than Arrays
PS > PS > [array]$names = @() PS > $names += "Q" PS > $names += "picard" PS > $names += "spock" PS > $names += 10 PS > $names.Count 4 PS > $names[2] spock PS > $names[6] PS > $names Q picard spock 10 PS > PS > $names.count = 2 "Length" is a ReadOnly property. At line:1 char:8 + $names. <<<< count = 2 + CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PropertyAssignmentExceptionPS > PS > $names.GetType() IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType -------- -------- ---- -------- True True Object[] System.Array PS > $names[4] 10 PS > $names[4].GetType() IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType -------- -------- ---- -------- True True Int32 System.ValueType PS > $names[2] spock PS > $names[2].GetType() IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType -------- -------- ---- -------- True True String System.Object
When declaring an array of one, it might not be an Array
Consider an array of arrays, an array of two elements, each element is in turn an array
PS> $a = @( @("row1-a", "row1-b", "row1-c"), @("row2-a", "row2-b") )
PS> $a.count
2
PS>$a[0].count
3
PS>$a[1].count
2
Now an array of one – not what we would normally expect
PS> $a = @( @("row1-a", "row1-b", "row1-c") )
PS> $a.Count
3
$a becomes just array of three strings instead of an array of 1 element, to get this you have to start the array declaration with a comma
PS> $a = @(, @("row1-a", "row1-b", "row1-c") )
PS> $a.Count
1
Starting an array with more than one element with a comma is fine, it does not add an extra empty element at the beginning 
References:
http://www.vistax64.com/powershell/13950-how-add-entries-array.html
http://www.powershellpro.com/powershell-tutorial-introduction/variables-arrays-hashes/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1390782/jagged-powershell-array-is-losing-a-dimension-when-only-one-element-exists
http://www.justaprogrammer.net/2011/03/30/an-array-of-one-item-in-powershell/
January 17, 2011
powershell from cmd, msbuild, return value
Returning a value from a powershell script
exit <returnvalue>
Use return value in other environments like cmd, msbuild
When running the script from other environments like cmd or msbuild we normally use
powershell.exe <scriptname.ps1>
this does not get the actual error value returned from the script, the return value from this command will be ’0′ if there was no error or no return value and ’1′ if the script exited with an error value. To get the actual error value returned from the script use
powershell.exe <scriptname.ps1>; exit $LastExitCode
References:
http://blog.brianhartsock.com/2009/10/20/using-powershell-scripts-from-msbuild-scheduled-tasks-etc/
http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tips/archive/2009/05/18/returning-exit-code-from-script.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/soever/archive/2010/07/14/returning-an-exit-code-from-a-powershell-script.aspx
See Also
December 21, 2010
MS SQL Server multiple instances, jdbc connection error
Recently a colleague of mine ran into the issue where she has more than one instance of SQL Server running (of course on different ports), able to connect with SQL Mgmt Studio, service instances running fine but JDBC applications are not able to connect – encounter an “…jdbc.SQLServerException … Connection refused …”
- Learnt that the SQL Browser Service has to be running - this is not required for a single instance. Multiple sql server instances need the sql browser service to be running for proper connection from clients
Did not find many links related to this when trying to fix the problem 
but searching for sql browser service and jdbc now brings up some useful information
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1946
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181087.aspx (via http://bytes.com/topic/sql-server/answers/808470-sql-server-browser-service)
October 8, 2010
CrystalDiskMark – disk benchmark software
Neat simple tool that lets you check your disk performance from ‘Crystal Dew World‘.
There are couple of other tools on the site – not tried them though. All distributed under modified BSD license.
CrystalDiskMark – http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html
(Note: install also prompts to install PC Matic – PC Pitstop free scan which is another 3rd party program to test overall performance and is not from CrystalDiskMark)
