Author: Raffael

Show all drives in command prompt

Posted by Raffael on Posted in Tutorials, Windows 7, Windows 8 Tagged , , ,

windows cmdIf you work with the Windows command prompt and want to copy files from or to a USB flash drive, then you get a problem. So how to show all drives in the commandline (cmd) from Windows? Without a list of all the drives you won’t know the drive letter of the USB flash drive and without this you won’t be able to access it.
The cmd itself doesn’t provide a command for listing all available drives. However, you can get this task done by using wmic, a command line program, which provides you access to the WMI classes by command line. And so the solution to the question is quite simple.
To show all drives in the cmd use the following command:

wmic logicaldisk get deviceid, volumename, description

List all drives in cmd

How to increase storage on TP-Link WR703N with ExtRoot

Posted by Raffael on Posted in Hardware Hacks, Linux, OpenWrt, Tutorials Tagged , , , , , ,

tp-link wr703n with thumbdriveA few days ago I wrote about how you can flash OpenWRT on the TP-Link WR703N router and build a ~20$ cheap OpenWrt router this way. OpenWrt actually works quite well on the WR703N, but in retrospect the following problem arises.
Unfortunately the WR703N has only 4MB flash (memory), so (depending on the selected image/firmware) after installing OpenWrt there will be just about 900 kB of free memory available. If you now want to install one or more extensions for OpenWrt, which in my opinion is one of the main benefits of using a OpenWrt system, you will be confronted with “no space available” messages in really no time. One solution to “bypass” this problem is to “ExtRoot” your router.
ExtRoot is a functionality that can be used to outsource the OpenWrt file system of […]

How to create an ext4 partition on Windows

Posted by Raffael on Posted in Tutorials, Windows 7, Windows 8 Tagged , , , ,

Today I’ve got a quick software tip for you. The tool that I like to show you is MiniTool’s Partition Wizard Home Edition. It is a freeware for partitioning and formatting hard disks and flash memory (memory cards, USB thumbdrives, etc.).
Why do I mention this tool here? Because it gives you the possibility to partitionate and format your drives into various Linux formats (ext2, ext3, ext4) directly on Windows. This can be very useful when, for example, a USB flash drive in ext4 format is needed, but you don’t have access to a Linux PC. (Certainly, you could load, burn and boot from a Linux live DVD, but I think to use Partion Wizard for Windows is smaller, faster and therefore easier in this case.
Create an ext4 USB flash drive on Windows
After you’ve downloaded and installed Mini Tools’ Partition Wizard, we can begin with our short tutorial. If you have […]

Quickly search, find and start any application with Synapse for Linux

Posted by Raffael on Posted in Linux, Linux Mint Tagged , , ,

Today, I want to show you an application for Linux, which at least in my eyes, is very helpful for you daily work. It is called Synapse and is an application launcher for Linux.
By using a specified key combination, by default ctrl+spacebar, you can open a smart-looking input mask. In this input mask you can enter not only the names of applications you want to start, but just about everything you can think of. When typing, Synapse scans your files in real-time and shows you all possible results.
If you enter for example the first letters of a songname,  so Synapse suggests you to either open the song in a media player, queue it up on the media player or to open the folder which contains the song.
Also every text you put into the search mask, can be used as query to Google. Programs may also be started. As you’ll have […]

How to manage autostart applications on Linux Mint?

Posted by Raffael on Posted in Linux, Linux Mint Tagged , , , ,

Today I was faced with the question of how to manage the autostart of applications on Linux Mint. At last there’s no startup folder on Linux as it is on Windows.
To put it in a nutshell. To manage startup applications is as easy as any other experience with Linux Mint.

Press ALT+F2 (this hotkey opens the “Run command”-window)
Write “gnome-session-properties” into the run command textbox and press the enter key.

Linux Mint Autostart