Little My

Un temps, Little My était mon petit surnom pour Kalia. Ici Rebecca a tout à fait la tête.

I referred to Kalia as Little My for a while on this blog. In this photo, Rebecca looks a little Little Myish.

Lego

Grandma a apporté un pirate en Lego pour Kalia. Malheureusement elle n'a pas eu le temps pour jouer avec pendant que Grandma était là.

Après coup on a ouvert le paquet ensemble, et elle m'a étonné (à nouveau) parce qu'elle a su suivre les instructions pour le monter toute seule, comme une grande.

Mais elle est grande - ça va vite...

Grandma bought a Lego pirate kit for Kalia, but she didn't have time to play with it while they were here.

We opened it together the other day, and she surprised me by following the instruction all on her own.

This growing up thing is happening too fast...

Pop & Grandma

Photo prise juste avant le départ - d'autres à suivre.

A l'aéroport on a bu un café dans le nouveau restaurant 'Altitude'. Très classe, avec vue panoramique sur la piste d'atterissage. Ca vaut le détour.

Photo taken just before I drove Pop & Grandma back to the airport with Kalia.

At the airport we had a coffee in the new 'Altitude' restaurant. Very swish with panoramic view of the runway - recommended if you've got time to kill.

Tough call ... Choix difficiles

Aujourd'hui on a dû annoncé deux nouvelles difficiles à nos deux familles. Le week-end prochain il y a une première communion en Italie, et mi-juillet il y a une fête de famille en Angleterre. On a décidé qu'on n'ira ni à l'une ni à l'autre.

Notre aventure le mois passé nous a montré nos limites en ce qui concerne les grandes voyages avec petits enfants. Dans le temps ça me faisait rien de faire Suisse-Toscane (ou même Suisse-Bretagne) d'un trait de nuit, puis une petite grasse matinée et hop!

Je n'ose pas dire que je me fais vieux, mais je me fais fatigué. Et Madame aussi.

Et puis les filles doivent toujours beaucoup s'adapter. Ca faisait mal au coeur au mariage de devoir les réveiller quand elles dormaient, puis essayer de les faire dormir n'importe où.

Alors on va essayer de 'rester tranquille' ce coup-ci. Les filles grandiront, les choses seront autrement, le temps des grands voyages reviendra.

Today we had the difficult task of announcing 'bad' news to our respective families. Next weekend there is a first communion in Italy, and mid-July there is a family 'do' in the UK. We've decided not to go to either.

Our wedding adventure last month showed us our limits as far as long journies with little children is concerned. In times past I thought nothing of driving non-stop overnight from Switzerland to Tuscany, or even Switzerland to Brittany - just a little lie-in at the other end and I was good to go.

I daren't say I'm getting old, but I've got a bad sleep deficit. Madame too.

And long journies oblige the girls to do a lot of adapting too. It was horrible at the wedding seeing them try to sleep in the most unconducive circumstances, then having to wake them up again to go somewhere else.

So this time round we're ducking out, and we're going to try to take it easy. The girls will grow, things will change, the time for big 'adventures' will return.

Theology

Je n'ai toujours pas lu 'The Shack', et j'avais promis une réponse à ma famille concernant ma relativisation de l'importance de la théologie.

J'ai déjà mentionné le blog 'Internet Monk' - je regrette profondément pour ceux qui ne lisent pas l'anglais que ce blog ne soit pas disponible en français (j'avais un vague souvenir que c'était traduit en espagnol, mais je ne retrouve plus les liens).

Bref, il a écrit un article intitulé "Il vous faut jeter une partie de votre théologie". A lire absolument.

C'est frustrant de découvrir que quelqu'un d'autre a déjà pensé la même chose que moi, et l'a écrit mieux que je pourrais.

I'm afraid I still haven't read 'The Shack', and I owe an answer to my family concerning my disparaging remarks about theology.

I've already mentioned the 'Internet Monk' blog - you really should look there regularly, it is very good indeed, there was a post the other day about christians and science - with amazing comments!

Anyway, go and read "You Need To Get Rid Of Some Of Your Theology".

It's frustrating to discover that someone has already thought your thoughts, and written them better than you ever could. It keeps happening to me...

Back to work ... Au boulot

Hier soir mes parents sont partis se reposer après 6 jours de babysitting intense.

Et nous devrons reprendre l'habitude de nous occuper de nos filles !

Kalia et Rebecca se sont bien amusé avec leurs grand parents, et les grand parents semblent avoir survécu aussi.

Des photos bientôt...

We took Pop and Grandma to the airport yesterday evening, off home to rest and recover after 6 days of babysitting.

Now we've got to get used to looking after our kids again!

Kalia and Rebecca had a good time playing with their grand parents, and the grand parents seem to have survived too.

Photos forthcoming...

Visitors ... Visites

Oui, Pop & Grandma sont arrivés ce soir, pour faire du 'babysitting' !

Pas encore de photo - et pas certain qu'ils auront le loisir d'en prendre !

Pop & Grandma arrived today, come for a few days babysitting.

No photos yet, and I don't know if they'll have time for taking any!

Zucchero

Kalia sur son vélo qui commence à lui aller un peu petit.

En regardant à la maison, j'ai trouvé qu'il y avait une petite ressemblance avec Zucchero.

Kalia on her little pink bike, which is getting decidely little.

Looking at the photo afterwards, I thought she looked a bit like Zucchero.

Wery hot indeed ... Quel cuisson?

(Dès qu'elle transpire, les cheveux de Rebecca se bouclent de façon étonnante)

Il fait chaud ici ces jours. Hier on a cru qu'on aurait un peu de répit avec les gros nuages qui approchaient en grognant depuis le Valais, mais ils sont passé du côté des Rochers de Naye, et on a continué à transpirer. Kalia et Rebecca ont eu beaucoup de mal à s'endormir, même si elles étaient claquées.

D'après la météo, très chaud encore aujourd'hui, puis tempête(s) demain... Ensuite ça devrait revenir dans des températures un peu plus 'normal' - au moins pour un temps.

(Rebecca's hair goes into tight curls whenever she gets hot).

Very hot here over this long weekend (bank holiday on Thursday, day off Friday). Excellent holiday weather, but this afternoon in the office (no air conditioning) will probably be a bit uncomfortable - time to start wearing a skirt?

Forecast says we'll get a reprieve - in the form of a storm - tomorrow, and then more reasonable temperatures after that.

Swings ... Balançoires

Just a photo ... Rien qu'une photo

Twitter

Vous avez surement entendu parler de Twitter, en tout cas ça fait longtemps que j'en entends parler. Mais c'est seulement il y a un mois que je m'y suis inscrit, sans grande conviction, mais en me disant que je devrais au moins essayer avant de juger.

Ironiquement, c'est peu avant les évènements d'hier que je suis arrivé à la conclusion que le retoure sur investissement de Twitter n'en vaut pas la peine. Je ne parle pas de leur investissement, mais du mien. Le temps que ça bouffe est trop élevé par rapport aux bénéfices que j'en tire.

Pour les incultes, en une phrase je dirais que Twitter est un mélange de blog (je parle au monde), de chat (c'est en 'temps réel'), de sms (je suis limité à 140 caractères par 'tweet') et Facebook (je peux découvrir des connaissances de mes connaissances, etc.). On saisi des mini-messages (qui sont censés être du style 'je suis en train de...'), et ceux qui ont décidé de nous 'suivre' voient les messages, et on voit les messages de ceux qu'on a décidé de suivre. Simple!

J'ai commencé en suivant @scobleizer (qui parlait de Twitter sur son blog depuis des mois), et son ami @loic. C'est des férus de 'bruit', et en produisent suffisamment pour m'en lasser assez vite. J'ai aussi essayé @BarackObama, mais il n'a plus rien dit depuis son éléction. @garyandnico m'a informé par mail qu'il s'y était mis, peu après que j'ai commencé, à travers qui j'ai retrouvé @RonAtBibleBase. Avec @matrad (la seule personne que j'ai retrouvé sur Twitter en me disant "sûrement qu'il y est"), ce sont les seules trois personnes que je connais personnellement. Ensuite j'ai suivi aussi @codinghorror, dont je suis le blog depuis longtemps, et qui est fondateur de stackoverflow (site pour programmeurs). Et aussi @jonskeet, un autre programmeur dont je suis le blog (et dont j'ai acheté un livre).

D'autres bloggeurs-devenus-twitterers que j'ai suivi sont @johnbattelle, @reynolds, @zedshaw, @samuel_d_jack, @damonpoole.

J'ai suivi deux 'célebrités' - @stephenfry & @eddieizzard.

Si je porte un regard neutre et critique sur ce que j'ai découvert depuis, je dirais que le seul truc de vrai valeur sur lequel je suis tombé grâce à Twitter c'est ce blog (en anglais, je regrette). La seule personne que j'ai 'connue' à travers Twitter avec qui je voudrais continuer à communiquer est @Teifion, qui a eu l'idée de créer un service Twitter (@stackalert) un peu près en même temps que moi. Peu de choses pour je-ne-veux-pas-imaginer-combien d'heures perdues.

Donc, pour suivre des individus, ou envoyer mes propres messages, je trouve que Twitter n'a juste pas marché pour moi. Par contre, il y une autre utilisation qui est intéressante, qui est d'utiliser ce qu'ont écrit les autres sur Twitter pour 'sentir' l'état actuel d'un sujet. Plusieurs sites d'infos ont commencé à utiliser cette méthode lors d'événements particuliers - notamment le Guardian, BBC et Telegraph (si je me rappelle bien) lors des manifestations du G20.

Un site qui permet de faire sa propre 'soupe' de tweets est Twitterfall - par exemple, pour savoir ce que le monde est en train de dire de Paris, essayer ce lien.

Enfin, je m'y mettrais surement à nouveau un jour, mais avec un autre regard. M'en vais maintenant envoyer un dernier message à @Teifion pour lui donner mon adresse email !

(PS: Il m'a fallu plusieurs jours pour venir à bout de cet article, d'où un certain décalage. Par ailleurs, je découvre que j'arrive encore à éditer mon blog depuis le travail - mais il ne faut pas le dire trop fort!)

I guess you must have heard of Twitter by now, in any case, I've been hearing about it for a while now. But I only actually signed up just over a month ago, with no great conviction, I just figured I ought to try it before passing judgement.

Ironically, it was just before yesterday's happenings évènements d'hier that I came to the conclusion that the Return On Investment of Twitter is pretty low. I'm talking about my investment, not theirs. It's simply that the ratio of time spent to real benefit was rather too high, for me in any case.

For the ignorant, in a nutshell Twitter is like a cross between a blog (I broadcast to the world), internet chat (it's 'live'), text messages (limited to 140 characters per 'tweet'), and Facebook (I discover 'friends' of 'friends'). You write little messages (which are supposed to answer the question "what are you doing right now?"), and those who've opted to 'follow' you see your messages, and you see the messages of those who you've decided to follow. Simple.

I started out by following @scobleizer (who had been going on about Twitter on his blog for months), and his friend @loic. They are 'noise' lovers, and generate a lot of it themselves, so I gave that up fairly quickly. I also tried following @BarackObama, but 'he' hasn't tweeted anything since the election. @garyandnico sent me a mail saying they'd signed up shortly after me, and via them I found @RonAtBibleBase. Together with @matrad (the only person who I found on Twitter by looking for him) those are the only three people who I actually know personally. I also followed @codinghorror, who's blog I've been reading for ages now, and whos is a founder of stackoverflow (a programming Q&A site). And also @jonskeet, another programmer who's blog I read (and who's book I bought too).

Other blogger-twitterers I have followed include @johnbattelle, @reynolds, @zedshaw, @samuel_d_jack, @damonpoole.

And just two celebrities- @stephenfry & @eddieizzard.

But if I step back a bit and weigh my month's experience on Twitter, I'd say that the only really valuable thing that I've acquired is a link to this blog. The only person that I've 'got to know' via Twitter and with whom I'll probably continue to communicate with is @Teifion, he came up with the idea for a Twitter-based web service (@stackalert) at the same time as me. So, not much to show for I-don't-want-to-know how many hours wasted.

So as far as I'm concerned, for following people or sending my own tweets, Twitter just didn't work for me. Having said that, there is another used of Twitter which is interesting - instead of following what a few people are saying about anything, it is possible to follow what 'everyone' is saying about a particular subject. Quite a few news sites have started using this approach when there are big 'events' on - like the G20 (I think the Guardian, BBC and Telegraph had reporters out 'tweeting').

A cool site for making your own tweet 'soup' is Twitterfall - for example, to see what people are saying about Paris right now, try this link.

I'll probably continue to 'dip in' from time to time, but definitely won't be checking every 30 seconds of the day and night. Only thing left to do now is send my email to @Teifion.

(PS. It took me 5 days to finish this post, so might be slightly chronologically challenged.)
(PPS. Discovered that I can edit my blog from work after all - but keep it quiet!)

Off air ...Silence radio

Ce matin, arrivé en premier au boulot, j'ai eu le privilège de découvrir que le département IT avait installé un nouveau filtre stalinien - ce qui expliquait la coupure de service tout hier après midi.

Du coup accès Gmail coupé, accès Google Talk coupé, accès Twitter coupé, accès YouTube coupé, accès Facebook coupé (je m'en sers pas, m'enfin). Evidémment, l'utilisation de ces sites pendant les heures du travail est moyennement défensible, et je ne prétends pas avoir toujours été plus blanc que la neige dans ce domaine. Mais en l'occurence, on utilisait Talk intensivement en interne pour communiquer entre collègues. Cela signifie aussi que si vous m'envoyez des mails en journée, vous ne devez plus vous attendre à une réponse de sitôt. Ceci, et aussi ce blog risque d'être mis à jour moins souvent, ou avec des messages plus lapidaires (pas un mal, diront certains !), puisque avant je faisais pendant les pauses.

First into work this morning, I had the privelege of being the first to discover that the IT department had installed a radical new web filter (which would explain why 'the internet was down' all yesterday afternoon).

So, no more Gmail, no Google Talk, no Twitter, no YouTube, no Facebook (not that I ever use that). Obviously, the right to use these sites during working hours is difficult to fight for, and I can't say I've always been whiter than white. However, we used Google Talk all the time for communicating between colleagues. The upshot is that if you send me mails in work hours, don't expect me to answer straight away any more. And blog updates will be shorter and sparser, I suspect.

Fail ... nul

(C'est une 'ancienne' photo de Rebecca, que j'avais téléchargé il y a longtemps, en prévision pour un article qui s'intitulait "vérité versus réalité", à voir je ne vais jamais m'y mettre, alors je vous laisse imaginer)

L'autre soir, on a eu un téléphone d'un vendeur pour une compagnie d'assurances maladies. J'ai pris l'appel, et après le baratin, j'ai dit qu'il y avait effectivement une assurance qui nous manquait, pour les dents des enfants, s'il pouvait me faire parvenir des informations. Il m'a répondu que malheureusement sa mission, ou son mandat, était d'organiser des rendez-vous pour les assureurs chez les gens.

Fin de communication.

Ca pour de la vente ratée, c'est bien ratée. Il tombe sur un client qui VEUT quelque chose que son entreprise vend, mais ça ne rentre pas dans le script pré-établi.

En revanche, aujourd'hui, Madame est allé chez un opticien débordé à Lausanne, qui avait un fil d'attente 'longue comme ça', mais qui a bien pris le temps de discuter et la servir comme il faut. (Pas étonnant qu'il y ait autant de monde, pour finir).

(This is a very old photo of Rebecca, which I uploaded a while ago, with a potential post titled "truth vs reality". Looks like I'm never going to get round to writing that one, so I'll just let you imagine it...)

Had a cold call this week from health insurance salesmen. After a bit of verbal jousting I admitted that there was one thing I would be potentially interested in (dental insurance for the girls), if he could send me the bumf.

He said, "Sorry, my mission is to arrange for salesmen to come and visit, not send out information".

Fail!

On the other hand, today Madame went to our favourite optician in Lausanne, where the were tons of people waiting, but the staff there took the time to be chatty, friendly, helpful and professional. Not surprising there were so many customers!

(In case you didn't know, 'fail' has sort have become a noun, on the internet at least).

Read this ... A lire

C'est en anglais, mais ça vaut le détour (essayez la version traduite par google peut-être?).

Jesus: The Glory of the Christian Journey.

Reaction

De retour au boulot après mes 4 jours de 'vacances'. Je confirme ce que j'ai dit il y a 3 jours, j'ai passé un bon temps avec mes deux filles, et c'est dur-dur le retour!

Surtout que Kalia était malade cette nuit, alors je n'ai pas dormi des masses.

Assis avec ma main sur son dos courbé par les vomissements, c'était pas une expérience que je souhaite renouveller trop souvent. Mais ces jours-ci je me suis dit combien je suis reconnaissant envers Dieu pour mes deux enfants, parce que ça me permet d'expérimenter toute cet amour qui 'sort de moi'.

This blog post annoyed me, so I reacted in the comments - see if you can find me (it's not that hard).

Back to work after my four-day 'holiday'. I confirm what I said three days back, I had an excellent time with my two daughters, and it's hard coming back to the grind.

Kalia was sick last night, so I didn't get much sleep. Sitting with my hand on the arching back of my retching daughter was not an experience I would care to repeat too frequently, but I reflected at some point over these last few days that I am so greatful to God for having children, because it allows me to experience so much love 'going out of me'.

Moving Users folder in Vista

Pas de version française, désolé !

(Apologies to regulars, this is not an interesting post!)

Introduction

Now that I've finally managed to do it, my blogging self can't resist the temptation to explain how (in the vein of the unreasonably popular headlamp post).

If you search for this subject, pretty much all paths lead or refer to the same web page on Joshua Mouch's blog, where there is a fairly comprehensive step-by-step how to. However, reading through the (pages of) comments, I noted that there were some unhandled issues with 'symbolic links'. Which is where this post comes in.

Disclaimer

(Read this stuff, it's not your usual yada-yada.)
- This seems to have worked for me, but I've only been running it for couple of days.
- I'm running Vista Home Premium, in French.
- I did this on a new machine, soI had zero data or configuration to lose.
- If you have no way of restoring your system if things go pear-shaped, or you don't trust it enough to test it, venture no further.
- If anything goes wrong, you're on your own, I'm a programmer, not an IT specialist (I had to start over at least 5 times)
- The 'solution' I found involved complications which may not exist on other systems, I've included the extra detail here, which you will have to wade through.
- This post is loooong, sorry. And no pictures (except the totally unrelated introductory picture).
- Broadly-speaking there are three ways of doing this, I only explain one here.
- UPDATE: Upon reflection, I realise why doing this may NOT be a good idea. The plan was to be able to backup and restore the system and data separately. The problem is that the Users folder contains both data AND system stuff. And now that I've got the Users folder on another partition, I can't back it up with the system, which means that if I ever have the disk go down, I'm going to have trouble restoring the users configuration. Ho-hum, MirrorFolder is probably going to be the solution...

Nitty-gritty

You could just skip this bit and go to the instructions, but one is generally well advised to understand what is going on. I do provide a script to automate a part of the grunt work, but it doesn't 'just work' without help.

The basic problem/question is how do I get the Users folder on another drive/partition in Windows Vista? (If you've got to here and you're wondering why anyone would want to do that, you must be really bored!) For me, the main motivation is being able to backup system and data separately. My old PC got progressively slower and slower with time, even though I didn't install that much new software on it. If I can restore the system without losing my data, that means I can always roll back all the bloat/temp stuff, and (hopefully) keep the system nippy. This will mean maintaining a log of all new programs installed, then periodically rolling back to the last backup, and reinstalling the programs and re-doing a backup. Whether I manage to be that disciplined is another question.

Why can't I just cut and paste the Users folder? Well, one problem is that Windows is using bits of it, so you can't move them. The other problem is that even if you did move them, Windows would still be looking for them in the old location, and nasty things happen.

One solution is to modify the installation parameters to set a non-default location for the Users folder. As far as I can tell this is the only clean 'Microsoft' solution. Unfortunately I couldn't do this, because I bought an Acer which just dumps a disk image of a pre-installed Vista.

The solution on Josh Mouch's blog is to 'trick' Windows and progressively move the Users folder a bit at a time. Basically by first telling Windows to put new users in the new location, then logging in with a new user and copying across the other users. As you can see, it's a bit 'dirty', and on top of that, without tweaking it breaks Windows Update.

The other solution that is hinted at in comments is to use the Vista installation disk to 'boot into Recovery mode' and then move everything in one go. This basically means that you get access to all the files and folders, without Windows 'holding' on to them, so you can do what you want. The problem with this method is that 'symbolic links' don't get copied automatically, and you have to recreate them (and their access rights) by hand. I tried this, but at the end couldn't get access to some folders and figured that I'd got it wrong, so re-initialised my system.

So what's a symbolic link? It's kind of a software teleporter. It tells the file system 'from here, go somewhere completely different, but make it look like it's here'. So C:\Documents and Settings doesn't actually exist on disk, it's a symbolic link which points to somewhere else. This is heavily used in Vista to reproduce the 'expected' system paths for older systems, so that old programs will still work. So not reproducing them won't break Vista, but could potentially mean some programs won't work properly.

I must just say in passing that they are all hidden symbolic links, which seem evil to me. I started over 3 or 4 times because I kept ending up with folders that I didn't have access to. It took me a long time to work out that even in normal Vista I didn't have access to the folders, they are part of the backwards-compatibility spaghetti that I shouldn't even have been seeing - except that I had followed the instructions on the blog which told me to change the settings to show all hidden and system files...

So basically, I came up with a script which writes the script to do the copying and recreation of those symbolic links. My script is complicated by the fact that my hard drives are SATA, and the Vista recovery disk didn't have the drivers on, which meant I had to load them separately, which in turn meant that all the disk letters were offset. (Did I mention that it took me a long time to get this working?) This means that my script has to allow for different drive letters between 'normal' running and 'script' running.

Oh the last thing is the really clever bit (not of my invention), which is to create 'one link to rule them all' which makes Windows believe that D:\Users is still in C:\Users...

OK, that said, let's roll...

Instructions

You will need:
- Internet access
- A blank DVD & something to write to it with
- A USB stick
- Potentially, the appropriate disk drivers for your machine
- The script below
- To be comfortable with DOS commands
- To have read these instructions before starting, preferably

1. Download the Vista recovery disc from here (it is a torrent file, so you need to follow the instructions for downloading it, and burning it to disk)

2. Try booting from the DVD, if you see a drive in the list, you are rocking, if not, you're going to have to find the drivers somewhere, copy them onto your USB stick, and hit Load Drivers to go and get them and load them.

3. Select the drive in the list. The next step will invite you to choose a login. If you haven't enabled the Administrator account, I wouldn't use that one.

4. Next, DO NOT hit the big Install button, but at the bottom, click on the Repair option.

5. Now hit the command line link, and have a nosy around to work out what the drive letters of your different drives/partitions are. In my case, I have 5 USB drives, and I had to load the drivers separately, so my C: and D: became I: and J: in recovery mode. This is important!

6. Now boot normally. Open a command prompt and run the following command:

dir /a c:\users > c:\dir.txt

7. This creates a directory listing which the script below will 'eat'

8. Open up the file and check what the prefix of each directory listing is, in English it is " Directory of...", in my case it was " R,pertoire de".

9. Save the script below to a file "script.vbs" at the root of your C: drive

10. Modify the repprefix parameter in the file to reflect the value discovered in step 8 (space included)

11. Check the sourcedrive and targetdrive values. If you had the same driver problem as me in recovery mode, modify the alt values accordingly.

12. Save and run the vbs file (double click it, I think)

13. Have a look at the script.bat file, it starts with a robocopy command, which copies everything except symbolic links (lots of sources on the internet say you can't use robocopy to copy the symbolic links because there is a recursive link under Users. This is true, but even without that link, when robocopy copies links, it creates real folders, not links). Then there are a load of commands which recreate the links one at a time, copy the permissions and set the hidden attribute (confession, I assumed that all the links are hidden, but never checked). Finally, the script renames the Users fold to _Users, and creates a symbolic link from C:\Users to D:\Users.

14. Now boot from the DVD again, do all the same steps (2-5) to get to the command line. Navigate to C:\ (or whatever the equivalent is), and run script.bat.

15. Depending on how much data you have, it could take a while.

16. Note that the script doesn't delete your existing Users folder, it just renames it, so if anything does go wrong, you should be able to delete the symbolic link (rd C:\Users), and rename your Users folder back.

17. One last thing to do, boot back normally, open regedit.exe to edit the registry, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and change %SystemDrive% to D: (or whatever) for Default, ProfilesDirectory and Public. The open ProfileList and correct the ProfileImagePath for the existing users (the ones with long SIDs). This is apparently necessary for Windows Desktop Search.

18. Hope it works for you.

'# Perform dir /a c:\users > c:\dir.txt
'# place this script file in c:\ too
'# double click to run it
'# run resulting script.bat from recovery mode
repprefix = " R" & Chr(130) & "pertoire de " ' Modify to your language
sourcedrive = "C:\"
targetdrive = "D:\"
altsourcedrive = "I:\" 'leave same as target drive unless otherwise indicated
alttargetdrive = "J:\" 'leave same as target drive unless otherwise indicated

inname = "dir.txt"
outname = "script.bat"
juncname = "[jonction]"  //After copying from web, replace [] with angle brackets!!!
linkname = "[symlinkd]"  //After copying from web, replace [] with angle brackets!!!
userroot = "Users"

set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

' construct batch commands for saving rights, then link, the recreating rights
Function GetCommand(curroot, line, typ, keyword)
' first need to get source and target
pos = Instr(line, keyword) + Len(keyword)

tuple = Trim(Mid(line, pos))
arr = Split(tuple, "[")

oldtarget = Replace(arr(1), "]", "")
oldlink = curroot & "\" & Trim(arr(0))

' need to determine if we are pointing back to old disk
newlink = replace(oldlink, sourcedrive, targetdrive)
if(Instr(oldtarget, sourcedrive & userroot)) then
    newtarget = Replace(oldtarget, sourcedrive, targetdrive)
else
 newtarget = oldtarget ' still pointing to original target
end if

' comment
out = "echo " & newlink & " --- " & newtarget & vbCrLf
' save permissions
out = out & "icacls """ & replace(oldlink, sourcedrive, altsourcedrive) & """ /L /save " & altsourcedrive & "permissions.txt" & vbCrLf

' create link
newlink = replace(newlink, targetdrive, alttargetdrive)
if typ = "junction" then
    out = out & "mklink /j """ & newlink & """ """ & newtarget & """" & vbCrLf
else ' typ = "symlink"
    out = out & "mklink /d """ & newlink & """ """ & newtarget & """" & vbCrLf
end if

'set hidden attribute
out = out & "attrib +h """ & newlink & """ /L" & vbCrLf

' apply permissions
shortlink = Left(newlink, InstrRev(newlink, "\") - 1) 'icacls works strangely - non-orthogonal for restore
out = out & "icacls """ & shortlink & """ /L /restore " & altsourcedrive & "permissions.txt" & vbCrLf

GetCommand = out & vbCrLf
End Function

Sub WriteToFile(file, text)
ForWriting = 2
Create = true
set outfile = fso.OpenTextFile(file, ForWriting, Create)
Call outfile.Write(text)
Call outfile.Close()
End Sub

outtext = "ROBOCOPY " & altsourcedrive & userroot & " " & alttargetdrive & userroot & " /E /COPYALL /XJ" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf

set intext = fso.OpenTextFile(inname)
while not intext.AtEndOfStream
line = intext.ReadLine()
if Instr(line, repprefix) then
    curroot = Replace(line, repprefix, "")
elseif Instr(line, juncname) then
 outtext = outtext & GetCommand(curroot, line, "junction", juncname)
elseif Instr(line, linkname) then
 outtext = outtext & GetCommand(curroot, line, "symlink", linkname)
end if
Wend

outtext = outtext & "icacls " & altsourcedrive & userroot & " /L /save " & altsourcedrive & "permissions.txt" & vbCrLf
outtext = outtext & "ren " & altsourcedrive & userroot & " _" & userroot & vbCrLf
outtext = outtext & "mklink /j " & altsourcedrive & userroot & " " & targetdrive & userroot & vbCrLf
outtext = outtext & "icacls " & altsourcedrive & " /L /restore " & altsourcedrive & "permissions.txt"

Call intext.Close()

Call WriteToFile(outname, outtext)

MsgBox("Done writing to " & outname)

House husband ... Homme au foyer

J'ai pris congé ces deux derniers jours de la semaine pour permettre à Madame de suivre un séminaire sur "la résilience". J'ai donc le plaisir a-priori-mitigé-mais-pour-finir-authentique de jouer à l'homme au foyer pendant 4 jours.

Il est vrai que je n'en suis qu'à 1 jour et demi, mais se lever à 8h30 le matin plutôt que 6h, c'est déjà un luxe. De plus de se faire faire des câlins par deux petites moustiques toutes chaudes, c'est pas mal non plus. En plus s'il fait beau, petit promenade le matin, retour à la maison, faire à manger, sieste, resorti... que veulent le peuple ?

Le fait que ce n'est que pour 4 jours et non 18 ans rend sûrement plus supportable.

Sur cette photo, vous voyez Kalia et Rebecca qui s'occupent. Dès qu'on met de la musique (les astucieux et connaisseurs sauront détecter quelle musique), Kalia "met la princesse" et danse. Rebecca danse aussi parfois.

J'ai aussi pu avancer un peu l'installation du PC que j'ai acheté après Noël. Ce qui m'a bloqué pendant des mois c'était une manque de temps, mais aussi mon acharnement à vouloir mettre le répertoire 'Users' sur une autre partition. Pour finir j'ai réussi, mais c'était épic et vaudra un article pour lui tout seul...

I took these two days off work to let Madame go to a conference about 'Resilience' (if that even exists in English). So I have the potentially-doubtful-but-actually-delightful-pleasure of being house husband for four days.

Admittedly, I am only at day one and a half, but getting up at 8h30 instead of 6h is luxury, for starters. And getting snuggly cuddles from two warm little bundles is pretty good to. Then if its nice weather a little walk in the morning, home for lunch, then a nap, then out for a walk again... what more could you ask for?

Knowing that it's only going to last 4 days and not 18 years probably makes things more bearable.

On this photo, you can see Kalia and Rebecca occupying themselves. As soon as we put music on (the sharp-eyed connaisseurs will be able to detect which music it is), Kalia "puts on the princess (dress)" and dances. Rebecca dances too, sometimes.

I'm also actually starting to install the new PC I bought at Christmas. What's slowed me down is mostly lack of time, but also the fact that I absolutely wanted to get the Users folder on another disk/partition. I think I actually managed to do it, but it was an epic challenge, worthy of it's own post...

Can't write, won't write ... Ecrire à l'ancienne

Je viens d'écrire deux cartes d'anniversaire (chez nous c'est Madame qui achète les cadeaux et les cartes, mais Monsieur qui écrit les cartes, avec plus ou moins d'inspiration), et me suis à nouveau rendu compte combien d'effort il faut pour écrire avec ces petits machins-bâtonnets qui se perdent entre les doigts et font des écarts involontaires sur le papier.

Mon histoire avec la mauvaise écriture remonte aussi loin que mon histoire de ne pas aimer l'école. Ca a commencé à se gâter quand on m'a introduit à l'écriture liée. Avec le recul, je me rends compte que le problème de fond était esthétique : je trouvais que l'écriture liée qu'on nous apprenait était laide - pour mes yeux de 6- ou 7-ans. Les p et b étaient ouverts, pour commencer, et les s étaient méconnaissables.

Alors au fil du temps j'ai développé mon gribouillage à moi, qui a été décrit (par mon prof préféré) comme 'une araignée shootée au LSD'.

Au moment donné - je ne sais plus précisément quand - j'ai abandonné même un semblance d'écriture liée, et mon écriture est redevenue scripte-sauf-quand-je-vais-trop-vite-et-ça-se-mélange.

Et puis les ordinateurs sont arrivés dans ma vie! Ma première expérience avec un logiciel de traitement de texte était WordStar durant un stage dans une petite entreprise (Agathos), mais ça n'a pas fait une grande impression. Je pense que c'est à Exeter University que je m'y suis mis sérieusement, d'abord avec mon fidèle OPD, puis ensuite avec Word 2.0 sur les vieux 386 du département d'ingénieur.

D'un seul coup, rédiger était un jeu d'enfant. J'étais lisible ET présentable (après une première réaction de dégoût, la plupart des gens admettent que mon écriture est lisible, même si ç'en a pas l'air).

C'était pendant mon séjour de trois mois à l'ICAM alors que j'avais quelques semaines de battement - pendant qu'ils se décidaient quoi faire de moi - que je me suis mis à apprendre à dactylographier. (Ca et jouer au jeu Vikings - mon préféré de tous les temps). C'était avec un vieux programme dont je ne me rappelle pas le nom (c'était pas Typing of the Dead!). C'était je crois en partie inspiré par un professeur américain qui avait dit lors d'un cours que la seule chose vraiment utile qu'il avait appris à l'école c'était dactylographier.

Et voilà qu'aujourd'hui je suis un dactylo professionnel, pratiquement parlant. D'accord, je suis un programmeur, et souvent les programmeurs disent que ce n'est pas la vitesse à laquelle tu tapes qui compte, mais la vitesse à laquelle tu réfléchis. Mais c'est généralement ceux qui tapent avec deux doigts qui disent ça. Je dis que si tu dois arrêter de réfléchir pour taper, ça ne va pas non plus. (Puis trouvez moi une analogie avec une autre profession où on peut dire la même chose).

Il y a un long article (in English) ici qui maintient ce point de vue, et qui finit par proposer l'autre moitié du problème - c'est que la majorité des programmeurs ne savent pas lire, non plus !

Enfin, mon écriture 'à la main' devient de plus en plus mauvais, et pénible - au point où ça fait mal aux doigts !

I just sat down to write two birthday cards (Madame is responsible for present and card buying, yours truly writes the cards, with varying degrees of inspiration), and realised again just how much effort it requires to write with those little stick-like things that get lost between your fingers and make unexpected squiggles all over the paper.

My history of bad writing goes back pretty much as far as my history of not liking school (maybe they're more related than I thought?). It started to go pear-shaped when I was introduced to 'joined-up' writing. In retrospect, I realise that the fundamental problem was aesthetic: the joined-up script we were supposed to learn was ugly - to my 6- or 7-year old eyes. The p's and b's weren't closed, for starters, and the s's were weird as well.

And so I developed my instantly-recognisable scrawl, once described (by my favourite teacher) as being like 'a spider on acid'.

At some stage, I can't remember when, I completely abandoned all semblance of joined-up, and my writing went back to seperate-letters-except-when-I'm-going-too-fast-and-they-get -joined-up-or-generally-mangled.

Then along came computers! My first exposure to a word processor was WordStar during a work experience at a company called Agathos, but it didn't really hit me. I think it was at Exeter University that I started seriously, first using my trusty OPD (funny, I'd forgotten I ever had one!), then going on to Word 2.0 on the engineering departments old 386s (I think).

Suddenly, writing rocked. I was legible and presentable (after their initial reaction of disgust, most people that might handwriting is legible, even if it doesn't look like it's going to be).

It was during my three months exchange at ICAM that I was at a loose end for the first few weeks, when they didn't know what they were going to get me to do. Apart from playing Vikings, I (using up my whole life's quota of foresight?) decided to learn to touch type, using some old program who's name I can't remember (it wasn't Typing of the Dead). I think it was inspired by a visiting American professor who said that the only useful thing he learnt in high school was how to type.

And now here I am, a professional typer, for all intents and purposes. I mean, ok, I'm a programmer, and programmers typically like to say that it's not how fast you type, it's how fast you think. But the ones that say that generally type with two fingers. (Try and find me an analogy with any other profession where that logic works.)

Here's another point of view (warning, some bad language, and a VERY long post, where he posits that the OTHER half of the problem is that most programmers don't know how to read either!)

Ho-hum, so to sum it all up, my writing is becoming progressively worse - to the point where it's now even a question of muscle fatigue.