Category: How-to

How to encode and decode Base64 in VB.NET

Because sometimes you just need a string with ‘normal characters’ instead of funky ones…

Public Function EncodeBase64(input As String) As String
	Return System.Convert.ToBase64String(System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(input))
End Function

Public Function DecodeBase64(input As String) As String
	Return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(Convert.FromBase64String(input))
End Function

Have a nice day!

Accessing an old router

Would be a waste to toss an old wifi router that still works…
However it could be a problem to access the admin page because the HTML presenting it is so old that it just won’t show up in a modern browser. It just will not render correctly, tabs empty, buttons and links don’t show.
So, google to the rescue and land here.

My issue was with a Sitecom WL153 but the solution presented simply worked.

“My solution was to download and use an old version of Firefox Portable – no installation required and can run as an unprivileged user. I would suggest you search around for which versions of the browsers will work with your devices.”

For me the 2013 version of Firefox 25 worked like a charm…
Problem solved!

Have a nice day!

Robocopy Quirks

Old-fashioned, but I still use batchfiles to automate tasks on my computer. One of them is a backup mirroring script, using the robocopy command. Recently I wanted to add a folder from C:\Program Files\appname\ to the backup, so I added the following line to the backup-script:

Robocopy "C:\Program Files\appname\" "\\SERVER\Backup\LAPTOP\appname\" /MIR /XJD /R:8 /W:15 /MT:32 /BYTES /V /NP /LOG:log-LAPTOP-appname.log

However this did not work, what’s the problem? Who knows… but the solution is to add a space before the closing end-quote. So just use:

Robocopy "C:\Program Files\appname\ " "\\SERVER\Backup\LAPTOP\appname\ " /MIR /XJD /R:8 /W:15 /MT:32 /BYTES /V /NP /LOG:log-LAPTOP-appname.log

On another note, check this, and use (also note the * and not *.* !!!):

"C:\Program Files\7-Zip\7z.exe" u -r -up0q3r2x2y2z1w2 -mx=0 -password Z:\somefile.zip "C:\Somefolder\*"

That’s all folks!
Have a nice day…