this is a test

hooray!

A quickie tech tip for Windows users… I have to admit, this was a new one to me and I’ve been using Windows  since 3.1. I’m kind of embarrassed by not already knowing this. 

I was recently working on a project which required me to be working on two different machines – my development machine, and the second local machine which had access to the remote server where I needed to deploy the changes. What this meant was that I would work on some code, then swivel in my chair to look at the other monitor with other keyboard/mouse, and either drag’n'drop the affected files to the remote server again or copy-then-paste the file again. 

The whole process is slightly annoying, but nothing too terrible. One of my coworkers and I were discussing a different matter the other day and I was working on this project while he and I talked. As he watched what I was doing he asked “Why don’t you just copy the file once again then just keep pasting it after you update it?” Um… because I didn’t know that would work? I suppose I should have, though. 

See, I know that when you typically move files in Windows you don’t REALLY “move” the data to a new location on the hard drive. The system merely grabs a reference to the file and then, in the case of a “move”, will merely flag where that data should now be logically accessed in your drive’s directory structure. But it doesn’t actually move the bits somewhere new. The same is true for copying from one location to another, whether the destination is on a local or remote machine over a network drive. If you “copy” the file, you will store the reference to the file’s location. If you paste, the system will at that time go get all data contained within the file and copy it to the new location. What this means is that you can keep changing the source location without having to re-copy it after every change – on each paste, Windows goes and grabs the full contents from the source before actually writing data to the new location. 

I guess you do learn something new every day.

This past week has been pretty crazy, with work running me ragged the end of last week and the holiday weekend being surprisingly busy amidst its lack of any real structure, planning, or activity. It was the perfect time for everyone in my office to get a three-day weekend though, the way the end of the summer has been going we’ve all been a little under the gun and showing the signs of stress. It felt really good to get away from the office for that extra day and just enjoy hanging out with the wife and baby. We also hit the outlets (Clinton and Westbrook both) where we made out like bandits during Labor Day sales, racking up HUGE amounts of clothes for Kayleigh’s fall/winter wardrobe on the cheap; Sunday we hit the RockCats double-header with Stephens & Tina; Monday was fairly relaxed, and I spent part of the afternoon over at Kim & Rich’s helping put up some sheet rock on the wall they’re building to make their “second bedroom” an actual second bedroom in their condo.

A recent discussion with some people online created a bit of a link exchange discussing some interesting/funny music tracks and/or videos. While Baby Got Back and My Humps get honorable mentions, I think Gin ‘n Juice by The Gourds deserves top billing personally. One of my buddies had me listen to the track only a few weeks ago when I saw him out on the disc golf course, so it was funny to see the song had a bit of a cult following online as well. Check it out embedded below.