Tag Archives: Reference

Lockup when using Nawcom’s Mod CD / Empire EFI / iBoot

Posted by on November 23, 2010 No comments

I’m in the process of making my machine dual boot Windows 7 and OSX.  I was having some trouble getting the Nawcom Mod CD to do anything other than freeze.  Pressing F5 crashes the installer, as does selecting a device to boot from.   This is an issue stemming from the Empire EFI swap CD they’re working from, as several variations were showing the same behavior.

The disc started working normally once I disabled two extra JMicron SATA controllers integrated into my motherboard, as well as my unused IDE controller.  I’m guessing that there is a driver missing from the boot CD that makes it unable to handle those JMicron controllers.  I haven’t had the chance to cycle through each one to see if a specifc one is causing it, or if it’s just the IDE or just the JMicrons.

In any case, if someone else has this issue hopefully they will stumble across this post.  Now to figure out why I’m getting a Kernel Panic before I even see the install screen…

Fast output into TextArea

Posted by on October 7, 2010 No comments

Note: The example here has been written in VBScript, but the principles should apply to JavaScript as well.

While I was working on the KML generator for work, I wanted a text log to show errors if they came up.  The information wasn’t important enough to save to a file, but it needed to be displayed to the user.  However, as the HTA would go through data, the speed at which the log file would update would become slower and slower, eventually appearing to lock up.  Considering it was dealing with approx. 500kb across three CSV files, this was not acceptable.

Here is a simplified version of the HTA script:

<HEAD>
  <TITLE>KML Generator</TITLE>
  {Omitted}
</HEAD>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="VBScript">
Do Until (conditions)
  {Code}
  realTimeOutput.value = realtimeinfo.value & "Message. " & vbCrLf
  Loop
</SCRIPT>
<BODY>
   <textarea id="realTimeOutput" readonly>Waiting for data.</textarea>
</BODY>

The code in red is fine for a quick addition, but terrible for fast successive additions to the textarea.  The content of the textarea was being copied, the addition appended, then the entire value was being written back in.  So, after several searches and attempting other re-workings of that same idea, I found this method of doing it:

realTimeOutput.appendChild(document.createtextnode("Message" & vbCrLf))

In this case everything (except vbCrLf) is carried out via DOM functions, allowing the text to be appended into the textarea without copying everything already in there.  The speed difference was very apparent, as what would come to a near-lockup was now instant.  It seems unusual to create a new text node just to add text, but it’s the only way to update the textarea via the DOM.  In a more memory-sensitive environment, you could assign the node to a variable and null it out as needed. But honestly, at that point I’d ask why VBScript is still being used.

Setting Network Type for Hamachi Connections

Posted by on September 22, 2010 No comments

Recently ran into an issue with Hamachi / Windows 7 where I couldn’t set the Network Type for the Hamachi connection.  I use Windows Firewall, and wanted to specify the Hamachi network as “Home.”  However, the normal option to change network type wasn’t there in Network and Sharing Center.  It just said “Unidentified Network” with blank space underneath:

Network and Sharing Center - Before

It turns out, Windows 7 (and I assume Vista) will do this when there is no Default Gateway set up on the network.  For Hamachi, this can be set to the same address as their DHCP server: 5.0.0.1.  To avoid having to manually enter an address, this should be entered separately in the Advanced TCP / IP settings window:

Advanced TCP / IP settings window

That window is accessible through the “Advanced” button where you would normally set a static IP address.  After that, the option was available, and the network was no longer listed as unidentified:

Network Sharing Center - After

Just another reference post.  Hope this is useful!

Sources:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/215-63-change-network-type
http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-networking/4416-how-change-network-type-2.html#post21820