Minimize.exe
Posted 8:14 PM

Have you ever written a Windoze console program and wished that it would minimize itself? I have. I have a zillion console programs that run at various times of day. I like to have them run as desktop apps - to view progress, but I don't like logging in to my server to a screen cluttered with console programs.

To solve this problem, I wrote 2 line, 5 k program called "minimize.exe". So now, at the start of my console apps, I just type "minimize". Probably someone will tell me that there's already a visual basic script active-x object that comes with XP that will do the job. So be it.

Source code is here.

Labels: programming, windows

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Built a better WHOIS.exe
Posted 9:47 PM

Sick of the crappy do-it-yourself alternatives and web gui's, I built a nice multifunctional WHOIS tool that does recursive lookups and automatically gets the correct international server based on the TLD. It also looks up IP address ownership.

For a Windows binary click here. For Linux click here.

Full source code is here. Feel free to modify the code, and/or email any changes/suggestions.

Labels: programming, windows

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kill.exe hanging/crashing
Posted 11:11 AM

For whatever reason, the version of kill.exe shipping with Windows NT/2000 would hang/crash on one of my servers. I think it was the code that got the "module name" for a match that was breaking (not sure, since it's not open source).

I hastily rewrote "kill.exe". At first, I thought I was crazy to think that "kill" was the culprit. But, indeed, my version kills things nicely or prints an error, and the version shipping with the reskit (or wherever I got it) doesn't.

When given a nonnumeric argument, it searches process executable names and it only gets a match if it matches up to the "." or up to the end of the name. IE: you can "kill calc" or "kill calc.exe" but you can't "kill calculator" or "kill cal" and expect it to match. It kills pids if the first argument consists, entirely, of digits.

Here's the source. And here's the binary.

Labels: windows

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You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If...
Posted 3:29 PM

This made me laugh. And I read the whole thing. Which means, probably, I am one.

Oh, and I use Robin Kier's K9 on Windows and bogofilter in Linux. Spam is not a problem if you use these free and functional tools.

I fear I've found the FUSSP.

Labels: anti-spam, windows

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