The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Katsunami]

Samba v1 has been slated for deprecation since 2009, officially deprecated since 2012, and omitted from installation in Windows 10 since 2017. In one of the next upgrades, it will be removed completely.

Everything starting with Windows Vista (which, incidentally, is already out of support for two years because it's over 10 years old) supports at least SMB v2. Windows 8 and up support v3.

So yeah, trying to still use SMB v1 is not very future proof.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

The only thing I have found for my Windows 10 laptop and Andriod devices to connect together is Solid Files Explorer. It uses Samba 2.0 instead of 1.0 which my laptop refuses to use now it's updated past 1709. However you have to figure your profile username and use your password to it. There's a cmd command: "whoami" to find out your username of your Windows 10 profile. Without quotes of course.

Whoami is a *nix command in origin. Your ID will be whatever you specified when you installed Windows. I'm simply "Dennis" here for my usual account, but have a test account that differs.

I use Solid Explorer here among others. I looked at ES File Explorer in the past, but it got sold and the new owners promptly got annoying with ads and privacy violations. I use Solid Explorer 2, with Material Design, but the purchased unlock for the original version works on v2 as well. It has a dual pane option that is a good fit for a tablet with bigger screen real estate.

The concern is the support for the SMB/CIFS protocol Samba uses. Samba is actually up to v4 now, and supports Active Directory and Windows NT domains.
______
Dennis

[BetterRed]

It often seems to me that the more dependent we get on digital communication networks the less we get done. At least one of our big telcos or banks seems to have a major outage every week.

A subscription TV service (a Singapore SWF owned telco) paid FIFA for exclusive rights to broadcast the World Cup here, but they had to hand over those rights to an Australian government funded free to air broadcaster (SBS) when their system kept falling over.

BR

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

It often seems to me that the more dependent we get on digital communication networks the less we get done. At least one of our big telcos or banks seems to have a major outage every week.

I've been lucky about that. I see next to no major outages.

A subscription TV service (a Singapore owned telco) paid FIFA for exclusive rights to broadcast the World Cup here, but they had to hand over those rights to a government funded free to air broadcaster (SBS) when their system kept falling over.

I think I've lost count of the number of cases I've seen of servers being unable to handle the load for major offerings and dying horribly.

One that amused me years back was folks reporting on MR that the Phildelphia Free Library site was down. (I grew up in Phila., lived a few blocks from the main branch, and worked there at one point as a page.)

As it happened, the library's site was up and running. But like most libraries, the Philadelphia library partnered with a service called Overdrive for eBooks. The library bought physical copies of paper books from publishers, and licenses for the electronic versions from Overdrive. Access the library to borrow an eBook, and your request got sent to Overdrive. Overdrive checked to see whether there was an unused license for that volume, initiated a download if so, or told you all copies were out on loan and you'd have to wait if not, as you would with a physical book.

That year, it appeared lots of folks found eBook readers unedr their Christmas Tree, and promptly accessed the library in January to borrow eBooks. Overdrive's link couldn't handle the volume and fell over. They got the servers and bandwidth upgraded to handle the volume, but it was amusing while the problem lasted.
_______
Dennis

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Samba v1 has been slated for deprecation since 2009, officially deprecated since 2012, and omitted from installation in Windows 10 since 2017. In one of the next upgrades, it will be removed completely.

Everything starting with Windows Vista (which, incidentally, is already out of support for two years because it's over 10 years old) supports at least SMB v2. Windows 8 and up support v3.

So yeah, trying to still use SMB v1 is not very future proof.

Yes but sadly my favorite andriod file manager only supports v1.0 so I have to use Solid Files to connect to my Laptop. I have an XP netbook as you recall there's no hope for it and the laptop to talk. My work around is the external on my Vista PC. Move what's needed there. It communicates with anything.

Solid Files does have an option to switch between Samba v1.0 or v2.0 my only complaint is the double column design. I prefer a single detailed list.

Sent from my XT1528

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Whoami is a *nix command in origin. Your ID will be whatever you specified when you installed Windows. I'm simply "Dennis" here for my usual account, but have a test account that differs.

I use Solid Explorer here among others. I looked at ES File Explorer in the past, but it got sold and the new owners promptly got annoying with ads and privacy violations. I use Solid Explorer 2, with Material Design, but the purchased unlock for the original version works on v2 as well. It has a dual pane option that is a good fit for a tablet with bigger screen real estate.

The concern is the support for the SMB/CIFS protocol Samba uses. Samba is actually up to v4 now, and supports Active Directory and Windows NT domains.
______
Dennis

Most people don't install Windows it comes preloaded. You set up a Microsoft account which can trunicate your email address so whoami is a good way to find out what it is.

I've yet to see an andriod file manager use anything past v2.0

1.0 was blocked in 1709 because it became a huge security risk with ransomware. So hopefully Android developers will start updating their apps to use the newer protocols.

ES File Explorer is maleware in my opinion last good version before it was sold uses samba 1.0

Sent from my XT1528

[badgoodDeb]

... computer "fell over" ....

Is this a more European term, or a newly current term that I've not run into yet? My computers crash, choke, wedge (or occasionally go belly up) but I've not heard the phrase "fell over" before.

Just wondering.....

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Yes but sadly my favorite andriod file manager only supports v1.0 so I have to use Solid Files to connect to my Laptop.

Which file manager is your favorite?

Solid Files does have an option to switch between Samba v1.0 or v2.0 my only complaint is the double column design. I prefer a single detailed list.

Take a closer look. Solid is configurable here. One device it's on is a recycled cell phone I don't use as a phone. It's essentially a Wifi-enabled PDA with a decent camera. Something else gets used to place/receive calls. Run in portrait mode, Solid is single pane because of small screen. Turn it to landscape and I can get dual pane.

I prefer file managers than can show source and target directories when I'm moving/copying/deleting stuff, so Solid is a win here.

You might also look at Amaze. Amaze is an open source file manager with a single pane view. See https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ze.filemanager or https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.amaze.filemanager/

(F-droid is a repository of open source Android apps, with a client you can use on your device to browse and install from Fdroid. Some apps like Amaze are available from both sources. Pick one source. They have different digital signatures, so you can't install from the Play Store and upgrade to another version from Fdroid or vice versa.)
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Most people don't install Windows it comes preloaded. You set up a Microsoft account which can trunicate your email address so whoami is a good way to find out what it is.

Whether you install or or it's pre-loaded is irrelevant. When you first start it up, it asks you to create an account. The name you provide for the account is your user ID. You don't even need to use whoami if you have the Login screen set to display when you boot up - the default userid will be shown on it.

I've yet to see an andriod file manager use anything past v2.0

They may not, because no need. It's just that Samba itself is currently at v4. A machine running Samba can be a domain controller on a Windows network, manage Active Directory resources, and be nodes on WinNT domains.

Android file managers just need to use SMB to access Windows file systems.

1.0 was blocked in 1709 because it became a huge security risk with ransomware. So hopefully Android developers will start updating their apps to use the newer protocols.

We can hope, but it's not something I'd bet money on.

ES File Explorer is maleware in my opinion last good version before it was sold uses samba 1.0

I wouldn't go that far in describing it, but I dropped it. You can buy a pro upgrade to remove ads (and I did for Solid), but IIRC, the privacy problems persist.

Pity. It used to be the pick of the file manager litter.
______
Dennis

[drjd]

Originally Posted by Blossom

However you have to figure your profile username and use your password to it. There's a cmd command: "whoami" to find out your username of your Windows 10 profile. Without quotes of course.

Originally Posted by Blossom

Most people don't install Windows it comes preloaded. You set up a Microsoft account which can trunicate your email address so whoami is a good way to find out what it is.

Wow!
The above hints worked! I used the command 'whoami' on my laptop and found that windows has actually truncated my username to a five letter word like 'xxxxx' while I had set up my Windows 10 with my microsoft email ID as username. (And normally, I use the email IDs successfully to access between three different laptops in the home network.)

So I used the truncated username with the password for mail as a login from ES File Explorer Pro on my phone... and the miracle happened! I was able to access the file system, both shared partitions of HDD on my laptop!

I followed the same 'whoami' procedure from other laptops and found that the usernames have been truncated there too. Using them, I could access all the laptops from my Android now!

Unfortunately, Solid File Manager (trial ver.) failed to show the network places, but ES File Explorer Pro (paid ver.) is working fine.

Tons of thanks, Blossom, for pointing me in the right direction, and to all the friends who expressed their valuable views.

PS: Why not vice-versa? Now I have to research the remaining part of the puzzle: If I can see and access the file systems of all my laptops from all the phones connected on the network, why I can not see or access the file systems of a phone from my laptops? ie., my laptops do not discover the android phones in the network.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by drjd

Wow!
The above hints worked! I used the command 'whoami' on my laptop and found that windows has actually truncated my username to a five letter word like 'xxxxx' while I had set up my Windows 10 with my microsoft email ID as username. (And normally, I use the email IDs successfully to access between three different laptops in the home network.)

So I used the truncated username with the password for mail as a login from ES File Explorer Pro on my phone... and the miracle happened! I was able to access the file system, both shared partitions of HDD on my laptop!

I followed the same 'whoami' procedure from other laptops and found that the usernames have been truncated there too. Using them, I could access all the laptops from my Android now!

Unfortunately, Solid File Manager (trial ver.) failed to show the network places, but ES File Explorer Pro (paid ver.) is working fine.

Tons of thanks, Blossom, for pointing me in the right direction, and to all the friends who expressed their valuable views.

PS: Why not vice-versa? Now I have to research the remaining part of the puzzle: If I can see and access the file systems of all my laptops from all the phones connected on the network, why I can not see or access the file systems of a phone from my laptops? ie., my laptops do not discover the android phones in the network.

Wonderful you got it working! That trunicate issue is very common now since 1709.

My understanding on PC to Android is you must be running a server on your andriod device like ftp. Then you access the device through a browser like any other ftp server. There may be another way I haven't researched it enough. I don't need it as long as my Android can access the computer, the other way around isn't needed. There's always Bluetooth although it's file transfer system isn't as reliable.

Sent from my XT1528

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Whether you install or or it's pre-loaded is irrelevant. When you first start it up, it asks you to create an account. The name you provide for the account is your user ID. You don't even need to use whoami if you have the Login screen set to display when you boot up - the default userid will be shown on it.

Dennis

You do need whoami if you use a email address or a long username to log in. Windows 10 will trunicate it and that's why Android File Managers can't see the samba share.

Sent from my XT1528

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Which file manager is your favorite?
______
Dennis

I've tried them all then went back to using a very old copy of E.S. File Explorer because no other has a send feature and that is valuable when you have multiple Android devices. I also have Solid Files and my third is simply called File Manager but it's branded by different big name device companies. I'm picky.

Sent from my XT1528

[drjd]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Wonderful you got it working! That trunicate issue is very common now since 1709.

My understanding on PC to Android is you must be running a server on your andriod device like ftp. Then you access the device through a browser like any other ftp server.

Yes, I can access the android running a ftp server, but I can only see the contents of it's main memory, not the SD card.

Originally Posted by Blossom

There may be another way I haven't researched it enough. I don't need it as long as my Android can access the computer, the other way around isn't needed. There's always Bluetooth although it's file transfer system isn't as reliable.

Sent from my XT1528

Although one way access from android to laptop is enough for file transfer, but ideally there should be two way access in the utopian universe.

Thanks again, Blossom.

[tempest@de]

moving the rant incorrectly started in the vent and rant thread

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Were these documents only for internal distribution?

I once had a user complain that email she had sent to a remote company location wasn't getting through. She had attached a multi-megabyte attachment to an Outlook email. What she didn't know was that remote location connected to the main office via a 56K dial-up modem. I had to kill her message at the mail server, and tell her to burn it to a CD and send that by messenger to the location.

Even after broadband became ubiquitous, problems still arose. How big was the attachment? Could the recipient get an attachment that large? Don't assume that everyone can receive what you can send...
_____
Dennis

Yes they are, they are in the program, and they are send to the parties trough the program or they are printed, but when in print I must ensure that all the content of the print version is equal to the digital file as it as a validation system that the recipient can use to check the document is indeed real and complete, this is so the defendant later on can’t say that he didn’t receive some document that was part of the letter sent to him. This is what I think most users don’t use, and baffles my mind, for me it makes perfect sense to do it this way as I know It’s kind of an insurance against false claims.

Before the update, everything that was already in the program didn’t count for the size of the final document, so I could make a document with how many attachments I needed and the size of each one didn’t matter has only the first user to put it in the system had to ensure it could be uploaded, now everything counts, but what its really bad is that the system doesn’t tell you what size the files are, so to know that, I have to download the files to my pc, check the size, compact them using an external tool, upload them to the system and then I can make my document. And unfortunately some off the files are quite big has they have images and manuscript parts that weight a lot more than plain text. And I no longer can use the trick to split the document in parts and upload each one to the system to later put them all in the final document as it now counts the size of each one.

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

The first part is the real problem. The system works as designed, but nobody says that the design is right, especially when you're changing a system and the new one perhaps is "very cool software"but it is worse designed than the previous one. You don't know how fast you are tired or saying to the IT guy that yes, it works as designed, but somebody has designed with his or her ass. And hey, I'm in both fields, as I design software but I use it. I'm very tired of those nice "features" which are a crappy design done by somebody who never has used the software.

You nailed it, some of the new changes included new color tags, very nice, and they are even useful as you know with a glance if some conditions have been met, but I rather have no colors so I could skip the runaround the attachment situation.

Regarding to the helpdesk I know they are IT guys so I don’t expect them to know how to work the system has I do, but I expect that if they don’t know what I’m talking about they tell me so and they try to learn and help to solve the problem and that’s what I consistently don’t see.

I have a hope that sometime in the distant future the higher ups recognize we are now worse than before and the attachment situation is reversed or at least changed.