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Articles
Q. How can I watch an Adobe Flash file
without a Web browser?
by John
Savill
5.26.08
A. Many sites provide Flash Video (FLV) and
Shockwave Flash (SWF) formatted video files. There are FLV and SWF
plug-ins for Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) and other Web browsers. To
view FLV and SWF formatted files without a Web browser, you need a
standalone player with FLV and SWF plug-ins. You can download a popular
FLV and SWF player, Wimpy Desktop FLV Player, at www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_standalone_flv_player.html.
There are also a number of commercial and free FLV players available
(some might play SWF or other files, as well), including
- Web Anatomy's Web Flv Player, which is available at flv-player.web-anatomy.com/. The Web FLV player supports FLV, MPEG-3, MPEG-4, and
H.264-formatted video files. Web Anatomy offers a free Web Flv player
and standard, extended, and master commercial versions.
- Applian Technologies' Applian FLV Player 2.0, which is available at
applian.com/flvplayer/.
The free Applian FLV Player supports FLV-formatted files.
- martijndevisser.com's FLV Player, which is available at www.martijndevisser.com/blog/flv-player/. The free FLV Player supports FLV, MPEG-4, and H.264-formatted
files.
Q. Why doesn't Network Connections
properties show the Client Services for NetWare I'm trying to
uninstall?
by John
Savill
5.27.08
A. I've heard from several people who tried to
remove Client Services for Netware effects but couldn't find it listed
under the adapters' network properties. The solution is to force a
client reinstall, then follow these removal procedures:
- Open the Start menu, then Control Panel. Double-click “Network and
Sharing Center,” and click “Manage network connections.”
- Select your network, and click Install.
- Make sure Client is selected, then click Add.
- Select “Client Service for Netware,” then click OK.
- Click OK to accept the computer restart.
If your goal is to enable workgroup fast user-switching, try the
following procedure:
- Access the computer 's Local Policy by opening the Start menu,
selecting Control Panel, double-clicking Administrative Tools, and
double-clicking the Local Security Policy shortcut.
- Expand Local Policies, and select Security Options
- In the right pane, select Interactive logon: Do not require
CTRL+ALT+DEL. Make sure it's set to Enabled.
Q. What is the quickest way to get an
object count in Windows PowerShell?
by John
Savill
5.28.08
A. In my April 15, 2008, FAQ ("Q:
How can I use Windows PowerShell to get a count of all of my machine's
services?"), I created a service count using a Foreach loop,
which increased a counter by 1 for each object returned from the
Get-Service command, as the following code shows:
get-service | foreach {$t=0} {$t
+=1} {"Total services: $t"}
A number of readers pointed out that I should've used the Measure-Object
cmdlet with the following commands:
get-service | measure-object |
select count
The output would be:
Count
-----
152
If I hadn't included the | select
count command, the computer would have outputted other counts
that don't apply to what I wanted, such as information about averages,
sums, maximums, and minimums of the values passed.
Q. How do I determine exactly how long
a cmdlet or script block will take to execute in Windows
PowerShell?
by John
Savill
5.29.08
A. You can use the Measure-Command cmdlet to
display a cmdlet's or script block's exact execution time. The following
command and output shows the time it takes to execute the Get-Services
cmdlet:
Users\john> measure-command
{get-service}
The output would be:
Days : 0
Hours : 0
Minutes : 0
Seconds : 0
Milliseconds : 12
Ticks : 120351
TotalDays : 1.39295138888889E-07
TotalHours : 3.34308333333333E-06
TotalMinutes : 0.000200585
TotalSeconds : 0.0120351
TotalMilliseconds : 12.0351
The output from the actual command (Get-Services) isn't shown, so you'd
pipe that output to a file.
Q. How do I access attributes of
objects piped to other expressions?
by John
Savill
5.30.08
A. When you use objects created out of expression
output, you can access the object's individual attributes using the
($_.) syntax. This syntax is used in the following example, in which I
list all processes using a working set of more than 100MB of memory. The
command is
Users\john> get-process |
Where-Object {$_.WS -gt 100MB }
The output is
Handles NPM(K) PM(K)
WS(K) VM(M) CPU(s) Id ProcessName
------- ------ ----- ----- ----- ------ --
-----------
221 21 85932 173084 286 1,413.35 3956 dwm
1136 83 300952 287540 537 1,814.53 18568 iexplore
4812 139 144088 173488 560 1,051.71 4812 OUTLOOK
810 37 151460 148220 295 463.00 316
svchost
Notice that I accessed the passed object's working set attribute. (If
you wonder why Microsoft Internet Explorer--IE--is using nearly 300MB of
memory, it's because I'm watching the first season of Lost in HD from
the ABC Web site as I write this. I've never seen it before and thought
I would give it a go.)
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