How-To Run Programs On FAT32/16 Drives As Another User

Flash drives come from the factory FAT-formatted. This is recommended for purposes of speed and extending the drives life, AFAIK. If you want to run a portable application (Eg. one that doesn't require installation) from an external or flash drive, and you use Windows in a multiple user mode as recommended by Microsoft (where you use the computer as a regular user and install programs and perform maintenance as the administrator account), you're stuck in a predicament. Programs stored on FAT file-systems are not able to run as a user with different credentials (which means as the admin in the case of certain utilities which require direct disk access, MyDefrag for example). It's Microsoft's fault for not backporting certain things to the File Allocation Table (couldn't they store the extra ntfs stream data or extant data inside a text file in each directory)?

A solution I've found is to place the shortcut on your Desktop or Start Menu and modify the shortcut's properties to run as a different user (go to right-click, properties, shortcut, Advanced,  and select "Run with different credentials"). In the case of working on someone elses computer you can create a batch file on the portable drive itself which has the runas command, eg "runas /user:administrator Mydefrag.exe scripts\OptimizeMonthy.Myd". That's it!

Techreevu's Google Voicehub Can Dial Letters!

I couldn't remember the number for Slydial so I typed 267-slydial directly into the Google Voice Desktop-based dialer I use (now called VoiceHub, originally called Lev's Google Voice app???). And no, there's still no way to actually place calls through the Internet only unless you were one of the fortunate few who got a Gizmo5/Gizmo Project account before they were bought by Google, AFAIK. Dialing by letters doesn't work on the GV web interface, so apparently the Techreevu app is doing the conversion.

Should I keep these Google Voice related posts here or move them over to my Google Voice Fanatic Blog? What do the three readers of my blog think?