Trapdoor

How to expand a Windows VM disk

2025-03-09T21:26:00+00:00

I like to keep my VM guests reasonably tidy and minimise how much they encroach onto the host, but this means sometimes I run into the need to enlarge the VM's drive.

Note that these instructions assume that there are no snapshots. These can be handled, but it gets more complicated.

With the VM off, go to the Virtual Media Manager in Virtualbox
Expand the drive size by dragging the slider
Boot from a GParted live cd (or similar)

$ sfdisk -l /dev/sda
Desk /dev/sda 60GiB, 64424509440 bytes, 125829120 sectors
Disk model: VBOX HARDDISK
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x359d5cbf

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *         2048    104447    102400   59M  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          104448 103811496 103707049 49.5G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAST
/dev/sda3       103813120 104853503   1040384  508M 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
$ sfdisk -F /dev/sda
Unparitioned space /dev/sda: 10GiB, 10739515392 bytes, 20975616 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

    Start       End  Sectors Size
104853504 125829119 20975616  10G
$ echo '+20975616' | sfdisk /dev/sda -N 3 --move-data
...

Refresh gparted and expand sda2
CLI equivalent (although the gparted live CD doesn't have growpart installed, so you will have to run apt-get update && apt-get install cloud-guest-utils first):

$ growpart /dev/sda 2
$ ntfsresize /dev/sda2

Escaping PHP

2010-01-30T18:10:36+00:00

There are various escaping methods in PHP, named according to PHP's usual naming convention (which I think involves a blindfold):

htmlspecialchars - a partial htmlentities. Quotes can be selectively converted. Translates only necessary characters: & " ' < >
htmlentities - translate ALL possible characters into html entities. Quotes can be selectively converted.
urlencode - replace everything but [a-zA-Z0-9_.-] with %hex and spaces as +. The format is application/x-www-form-urlencoded; the format used by post forms. This is different from RFC1738
rawurlencode - as per RFC1738 (difference is the spaces).
addslashes - escape ' " \ NUL with \
addcslashes - escape with \ any chars in charlist. 0, a, b, f, n, r, t and v are escaped literally, anything else is escaped as octal.
convert_uuencode - uuencode
base64_encode - base64 encode

Date Formats

2010-01-30T18:04:41+00:00

PHP

Component -> UNIX timestamp (seconds)

int mktime ( [int hour [, int minute [, int second [, int month [, int day [, int year [, int is_dst]]]]]]] )

UNIX timestamp (seconds) -> Component

array getdate ( [int timestamp] )

Key	Description	Example returned values
"seconds"	Numeric representation of seconds	0 to 59
"minutes"	Numeric representation of minutes	0 to 59
"hours"	Numeric representation of hours	0 to 23
"mday"	Numeric representation of the day of the month	1 to 31
"wday"	Numeric representation of the day of the week	0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday)
"mon"	Numeric representation of a month	1 through 12
"year"	A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits	Examples: 1999 or 2003
"yday"	Numeric representation of the day of the year	0 through 365
"weekday"	A full textual representation of the day of the week	Sunday through Saturday
"month"	A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March	January through December
0	Seconds since the Unix Epoch, similar to the values returned by time() and used by date().	System Dependent, typically -2147483648 through 2147483647.

UNIX timestamp (seconds) -> Formatted string

string date ( string format [, int timestamp] )

Javascript

Date object constructors

Date()                                          //Use the current date and time
Date(dateString)                                //String format is "month day, year hours:minutes:seconds".
Date(year, month, day)                          //Year is 0 to 99, Month is 0 to 11, Day is 1 to 31
Date(year, month, day, hours, minutes, seconds)

Date object -> components

d.getHours();    //0-23
d.getMinutes();  //0-59
d.getSeconds();  //0-59
d.getMonth();    //0-11
d.getDate();     //1-31
d.getDay();      //0-6
d.getYear();     //Years since 1900
d.getFullYear(); //YYYY
d.getTime();     //ms since epoch

Date object -> UNIX timestamp (milliseconds)

d.getTime();

UNIX timestamp (milliseconds) -> Date object

pre. var d = new Date();
d.setTime(...);

MySQL

Passing dates to MySQL

INSERT INTO datetable (adate) VALUES ('2006-06-06');
INSERT INTO timetable (atime) VALUES ('21:55:01');
INSERT INTO bothtable (atdat) VALUES ('2006-06-06 21:55:01');

Data Types

DATE ''YYYY-MM-DD ('1000-01-01' to '9999-12-31')''. Can be assigned as string or number.
TIME ''HH:MM:SS ('838:59:59' to '838:59:59')''. Can be assigned as string or number.
DATETIME ''YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS ('1000-01-01 00:00:00' to '9999-12-31 23:59:59')''. Can be assigned as string or number.
TIMESTAMP ''YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS ('1970-01-01 00:00:00' to '2037-something')''. +0 to get as number

Functions

''CURDATE()'' returns 'YYYY-MM-DD' or YYYYMMDD.
''CURTIME()'' returns 'HH:MM:SS' or HHMMSS.
''DATE(expr)'' returns the DATE part of expr.
''DAY(date)'', ''DAYOFMONTH(date)'' 0..31
''DAYNAME(date)''
''DAYOFWEEK(date)'' 1(Sunday)..7(Saturday)
''FROM_UNIXTIME(timestamp)'', ''FROM_UNIXTIME(timestamp, fmt)'' timestamp is seconds since epoch
''DATE_FORMAT(date,fmt)''

Specifier	Description
%a	Abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%b	Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%c	Month, numeric (0..12)
%D	Day of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...)
%d	Day of the month, numeric (00..31)
%e	Day of the month, numeric (0..31)
%f	Microseconds (000000..999999)
%H	Hour (00..23)
%h	Hour (01..12)
%I	Hour (01..12)
%i	Minutes, numeric (00..59)
%j	Day of year (001..366)
%k	Hour (0..23)
%l	Hour (1..12)
%M	Month name (January..December)
%m	Month, numeric (00..12)
%p	AM or PM
%r	Time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM)
%S	Seconds (00..59)
%s	Seconds (00..59)
%T	Time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%U	Week (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week
%u	Week (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week
%V	Week (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with %X
%v	Week (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with %x
%W	Weekday name (Sunday..Saturday)
%w	Day of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday)
%X	Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %V
%x	Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %v
%Y	Year, numeric, four digits
%y	Year, numeric (two digits)
%%	A literal ‘%’ character
%x	x, for any 'x' not listed above

Ranges for the month and day specifiers begin with zero due to the fact that MySQL allows the storing of incomplete dates such as '2004-00-00'.

Postcode Validation

2010-01-30T17:49:18+00:00

Regular Expression to match valid postcode format:

/^\s*([A-Z]{1,2}[0-9][A-Z0-9]?)\s*([0-9][ABD-HJLNP-UW-Z]{2})\s*$/i

This is according to the PAF digest as published by Royal Mail (2003).

Features:

Leading and trailing whitespace ignored (can remove \s* from beggining and end if there is a trim() function. JS does not have one)
OPTIONAL whitespace separating outcode and incode.
Any separating whitespace is not pre-stripped, therefore if it is provided it can help detect invalid codes, which would by chance become valid if the space were ommited.
Matching is case-insensitive (can remove the i flag if the case is known).
The letters C,I,K,M,O,V never appear in the incode, and the regular expression checks this.
The outcode and incode are reliably captured.

Shortcomings:

If a space is not provided, and the incode is mis-typed, it may still form a valid postcode:
Intended: A12 3BB (A123BB without space)
Typed: A12BB (missed 3)
Matched: A1 2BB (Valid, but different postcode) There is no way to avoid this, it is a flaw in the design of the postcode, due to the oft-omitted space.
Partial postcodes are not matched.
It would be relatively easy to make the incode optional.
Most applications requiring partial matches will have RM postcode data to hand, and can use that to match.

Nifty Algorithms

2010-01-30T17:34:25+00:00

Array Intersection

O(n+m) on pre-sorted arrays

Arrays must be sorted
Start at the beginning of both arrays
Compare elements
If they are equal, add to intersection and advance both pointers
If they are not, advance the pointer of the smaller element

  var a[] = {2,4,6,8,10};
  var b[] = {1,2,8,9,11,12};

  var intersection = new Array();

  var i = 0;
  var j = 0;

  while(i<a.length && j<b.length) {
    if (a[i] == b[j]) {
      intersection[] = a[i]; // or b[i], obviously
      i++;
      j++;
    } else if (a[i] > b[j]) {
      j++;
    } else {
      i++;
    }
  }

libfdms 0.9.0 released - First release of libfdms

2009-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Stripped code from FDMS-FS
Major refactor to use volume,program and track handles
Added functions to obtain non-audio data such as the signature and tempo maps
Added functions to obtain raw data for debugging

Downloads

Binary: FDMS-0.9.0-Linux.tar.gz

libfdms 0.9.0-win32 released - Win32 Version

2009-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

.dll
.h for all compilers
.lib for mingw32
.def for MSVC

Downloads

Binary: FDMS-0.9.0-win32.zip

FDMS-FS 0.4.1 released - Fixed bug causing truncation of audio

2008-07-16T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Fixed bug which caused 24bit audio to be truncated to 3/4 length

Downloads

Binary: fdmsfs-bin_0.4.1.tar.gz
Source: fdmsfs_0.4.1.tar.gz

Decorum 0.5.1 released

2008-06-30T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Build sub-dependencies unless @build="false"@ is specified

Decorum 0.5.0 released - Recursive class-path from jar manifests

2008-05-20T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Unless @expandclasspath="false"@ is specified, recursively add jar Manifest Class-Path attributes to the output class path

Decorum 0.4.12 released - Bugfix release

2008-05-19T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Fixed inverted logic in id check. How did this happen?
Refactored dist jar matching code and fixed to match most recent jar

Decorum 0.4.10 released - Bugfix release

2008-04-20T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Fixed bug in id comparison

FDMS-FS 0.4.0 released - Major refactor

2008-04-20T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Major code tidy
64bit support
Portability improvements
Working D2424, D160 and 64bit host support.
Many bug fixes and some significant refactoring.

Many thanks to Mario DeFacendis for debugging this with me.

Downloads

Binary: fdmsfs-bin_0.4.0.tar.gz
Source: fdmsfs_0.4.0.tar.gz

Properties 0.11.0 released

2008-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Version 0.11.0

Decorum 0.4.9 released - Added ability to skip build but still calculate deps

2008-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Added ability to skip build but still calculate deps

Downloads

Binary: decorum-0.4.9.jar

Decorum 0.4.7 released - Bugfix release

2008-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Fixed overzealous dependency skipping (added id matching)

Decorum 0.4.4 released - Check dependencies only once

2008-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Added check for previous decorum instances so we don't check deps more than once

Decorum 0.4.5 released

2008-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Version 0.4.5

Decorum 0.4.2 released - Quick hack to check modification times

2008-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Quick hack to check modification times

Decorum 0.4.1 released - Improved messages to include all failed dependencies

2007-09-13T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Improved messages to include all failed dependencies

Decorum 0.4.0 released

2007-08-14T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Version 0.4.0

JLaunch Initial release released - Initial release

2007-07-12T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Fixed jlaunch compilation problems and made type detection more portable

Downloads

Binary: jlaunch_0.8.1_i386.deb

FDMS-FS 0.2.2 released - 24bit support, Fixed SEGV, General tidy

2007-05-21T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Fixed SEGV for incomplete images
Bit width and sample rate selectable
Tidied tree and makefile
Updated docs

cup.vim Initial release released - Initial release

2007-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Initial release

Downloads

Binary: cup.vim

Properties 0.8.3 released

2007-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Version 0.8.3

Downloads

Binary: properties-0.8.3.jar
Source: properties-0.8.3-src.jar

Properties 0.8.2 released

2007-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Version 0.8.2

FDMS-FS 0.2.1 released - Fixed bug which filled silence segments with junk

2006-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Fixed bug which filled silence segments with junk

FDMS-FS 0.2.0 released - Conversion from ripper

2006-10-26T00:00:00+01:00

Changes

Added fdmsfs to Makefile
Improved usage message
Created readme

Properties 0.8.1 released

2006-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Version 0.8.1

Properties 0.8.0 released

2005-11-26T00:00:00+00:00

Changes

Version 0.8.0