Mapped drives: Disconnected until double clicked

I have a few scripts that transfer files to my Apple TimeCapsule, which I've mapped as Z drive on my HT-PC. A lot of times the mapped Z drive will show as "disconnected" until I double click it. Then everything starts working as expected.

Obviously this defeats the whole purpose of automating things...

The solution is this little gem: MapDrive

Set it up as instructed, and you're good to go. Easy peasy.

I've got mine set up in:

• Windows startup folder
• A file that runs before starting up XBMC

ES File Explorer: Mount Dropbox as Virtual Drive on Android

On Android, instead of using the official Dropbox app, you can use ES File Explorer (free) to mount the cloud storage as a virtual drive.

This means that you can now copy/paste/delete as usual and use those files like you would any other on the device.

For RetroArch, playing games stored in the cloud or transferring game saves is a piece of cake! You can carry on playing from where you last left off on another device.

This also works for other cloud services like Box.com and Google Drive.

DosBox Portable on XBMC with RomCollectionBrowser

To get DosBox Portable working with RomCollectionBrowser, I ended up making a separate config file for each game and setting up RomCollectionBrowser like so:

<RomCollection id="12" name="DOS">
    <emulatorCmd>D:\DOSBoxPortable\DOSBoxPortable.exe</emulatorCmd>
    <emulatorParams>-noconsole -conf "%ROM%"</emulatorParams>
    <romPath>D:\DOSBoxPortable\Data\settings\*.conf</romPath>

...

    <useEmuSolo>True</useEmuSolo>

...

</RomCollection>

You HAVE to use solo mode.

To disable the PortableApps splashscreen, copy the ini file from Other\Source to root
and change DisableSplashScreen=true

These settings would probably work for other add-ons/front-ends (like AdvancedLauncher or Hyperspin)

uTorrent Watch Folder: Auto Labelling

uTorrent allows you to specify Watch Folder: Any torrent files in this folder will automatically get added.

If you set a Dropbox folder as a watch folder, you can now remotely add torrents to download!

The problem is though, that these don't get labelled and thus, they do not get sorted into separate folders.

This is where the uTorrent Auto Labeller comes in
https://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=100212
https://github.com/nesler/uAL

Stick the torrent files inside nested folders in the main watch folder and it'll automatically label them according to folder name!

* Note: the forked repositories have fixes the main one has not pulled in yet, so grab the program from the last updated fork


UPDATE: uTorrent Version 3.4.5 Web UI causes high CPU usage when monitoring for deletion
http://miscee.blogspot.com/2015/12/utorrent-webui-causing-high-cpu-usage.html

RSS + uTorrent: automatically download torrents

Autodownloading torrents using RSS is dead simple.

Select Feeds on the left bar

Click Add RSS Feed button. 

Paste the URL in, give it a name, and make sure "Do not automatically download all items" is selected.

I use the following as feeds:

http://www.dailytvtorrents.org/rss/allshows

http://www.ezrss.it/feed/

http://showrss.karmorra.info/feeds/all.rss

When the feeds have loaded, right click and add your favourites

(more details: http://www.utorrent.com/help/guides/rss)

100% disk usage in Windows 8

Using a clean install of Windows 8 x64, I've been noticing an unusual behaviour recently: 100% disk usage at random times for varying periods.

This meant that everything would become completely unresponsive!

The culprit turned out to be the Windows Update background service. While installing updates in the background the disk usage would spike up to 100%.

The only way around is to change the option in Windows Update to download the updates, notify you, and then let you install the updates when you want to. 

I tell windows to install the updates when I'm not going to be using the laptop for a while or at night before shutting it down. No more random disk usage spikes while I'm trying to work!


Update:
The issue can also arise from a failed process in a Hyper-V machine running in the background. Rather than showing it as it's own process, Windows simply encapsulates it under System (which can cause confusion).

A Better Offline Mapping Application for Nexus 7

I used to use OsmAnd, but it really sucks for a number of key reasons:

• offline address search barely works
• you need to specify the municipality instead of the general city

I came across a much better app: CoPilot Live

There's a 14 day free trial, and then you can purchase the app for $10.
After the free trial, the voice guidance and turn-by-turn navigation get disabled. The rest of the app continues to function. I purchased it because I want those features, and it's really inexpensive for what you're getting!

I've probably wasted more in gas in the last few days trying to use OsmAnd for offline routing.

Having used CoPilot Live for 5 days in 4 different cities in Canada, I'm VERY happy with it.

There are some things I've noticed:

• Odd routing at times (but that may just be due to tricky intersections or one way roads)
• When a street name changes from one to the other over the course, it won't always tell me the name I see on the street. (but then when I miss the turn, it recalculates the route!)

Some minor annoyances:

• When looking at the map, it doesn't easily show me green patches for parks (like on Google Maps)
• I wanted to stop and enjoy the day at a small park and couldn't find something nearby easily on there, so I switched over to Google Maps offline cache to find it
• I can't rotate maps to any direction using two fingers like on Google Maps

UPDATE:

When you purchase a license, it is associated to the device. 

I purchased the license while on my tablet, and when I loaded the application on the phone, it wouldn't recognize the license. So either purchase a separate license or continue use the free features on the secondary device.