Reverse Push Start

Did you know you can push start a car in reverse?

This morning, I was reading an article about how to jump start a car (mentions the classic push start at the end). It brought back fond memories of the day I was stuck at the top of Pearl st (a bit of a hill at the end there) and for the first time ever push started a car. With the transmission in reverse, and my foot on the clutch, I just let it roll down the hill into oncoming traffic (there was a cop stopping said traffic a little ways out). As the car picked up speed, I let the clutch go.

The trick, it turns out, is to STOP the car once you’ve started it. Funny that, once you get the engine engaged and turning, it starts providing its own energy. After a brief moment of surprise, I brought the car to a stop, put it in first and was off to a mechanic.

Anyway. A random story.
Chris

If you don’t believe me, the interweb can confirm

How to Map a Folder to a Drive Letter

Last week, I reformatted my ThinkPad. Usually, I create two partitions for a Windows implementation, one for the OS (C:\) and one for data (E:\). This time around, I did something wrong when executing the restore and now have a single C: drive … Too lazy to rerun the restore process, I decided to make lemonade.

In an effort to utilize the structure implemented by Windows, Program Files are in C:\Program Files, rather than E:\Program Files. Personal data are organized in My Documents and work data are organized in My Work, rather than a custom structure on the E: drive (ok, My Work is a slight deviation). With one exception, things are OK so far.

Here’s the problem. I write a lot of automation scripts for work (meaning I’m on a command line a lot). The command line prompt usually looks something like this beautiful thing:
'C:\Documents and Settings\[me]\My Work\Projects\[projectname]\[subfolder][\subfolder2][\...]‘
Oddly, the GUI world isn’t all that bad… Thanks to Executor there are aliases for my most accessed folders. Really, the only place this is an issue is on the command line.

[Li/U]nux, and by extension, OS X, allow one to create links between files using the ln command. Alas, a similar utility does not exist in Windows land. (truth be told, SysInternals has something similar, but it comes with a few complications.)

Enter SUBST:

Using SUBST, one can create a virtual drive that maps to a folder. Not as powerful as ln, but still very useful.

SUBST P: "C:\Documents and Settings\[me]\My Work\Projects\”

Now all my projects are readily accessible. Less than 10 keystrokes gets me from an empty desktop to any project, on the command line. Taking it a step further, a simple Perl/VBScript/AutoHotKey script will allow me quick access to map specific projects (and SharePoint Folders) to the letters of my choosing. (Two steps further and a startup script maps a couple drives automatically)

It turns out, if you work with it, not against it, Windows is only mostly bad. I’m constantly learning new tips and tricks built into the OS that allow almost as much flexibility as *nix.

Cheers,
Chris

For the GUI inclined, the folks at NT-Wind have a free utility called Visual Subst which does similar.

How to Map a SharePoint Folder to a Drive Letter

A long time ago, I learned how to map a SharePoint folder to a drive letter. Apparently, SharePoint is an evolved implementation of WebDav, so it’s really quite simple:

NET USE [drive]: “[URL]“

If you have a SharePoint server, MySharePointServer.com and it has a folder ‘/MyProject/SharedResources’, then you could go to ‘http://MySharePointServer.com/MyProject/SharedResources’ and deal with the less than zippy web interface … or you could map the folder to a drive letter and access the files natively:

NET USE S: "http://MySharePointServer.com/MyProject/SharedResources"

Last bit of wisdom: Apple OS X and Linux both have WebDav clients. I haven’t tried it, but in theory, you can similarly access SharePoint folders in either OS. For once, Microsoft has developed a solution that plays nice with others.

Cheers,
Chris

For the less textically inclined, you can also right click on ‘My Computer’ -> Map Network Drive and perform a similar action. Similar GUI methods exist in OS X and Linux.