[dba-Tech] Getting used to Windows 8

I've been living in Windows 8 pretty much exclusively since I purchased
this new laptop, and I'm growing used to it. Once you get the hang of it,
it's actually pretty cool, especially since I learned how to extend the
monitor to include the attached 23" flat-screen monitor. I must say that
8GB of RAM is a big help. Earlier today I ran VirtualBox and Ubuntu and
dragged that to my big monitor, and it worked a charm.

Apparently MS is responding to complaints, with a Windows 8;1 version.
Since I just bought this laptop recently, I wonder whether I'm entitled to
a fresh update to 8.1, or whether MS wants more money for the update.

What was really nice after installing Oracle VirtualBox and Ubuntu was the
speed of the VM. I overrode the default assignments, giving the VM more RAM
than the default (I gave it 2GB when the default was much smaller), and I
must say that it flies almost as quickly as a

What I need now is what I refer to as an Octopus. It plugs into a USB port
on one end, and spreads out into about 5 "child" USB ports -- this I think
I need because I have so many USB devices that the only way to connect them
all is this avenue.

Has anyone any experience with such an octopus? If so, does it slow you
down?

It appears that this new laptop supports USB 2.0 but one of my external
drives supports USB 3.0. What is required to upgrade the laptop to support
USB 3.0? In the case of my old late desktop it was simple: drop in a USB
card and that was that. But how to achieve the same in a laptop?

Back to the main topic: getting used to Windows 8. For us old-timers it is
a huge leap. But a few days of persistence pay off, and I am becoming
acclimatized. At the moment I have Alpha Anywhere running on the big
monitor and gmail running on the laprtop monitor. I've already tried
running Access and Alpha Anywhere similarly and it all works splendidly and
I am a very happy camper, although still a tad confused but growing used to
this new environment..

Now all I have to do is locate the last season of Breaking Bad and I'll be
the happiest camper in the world.

But I am still unable to locate how to invoke a command window. Previous
responses to this question included URLs which lead to third-party crapware
in which I despise. What I want is a traditional command window ala Win7
and previous, so I can run cmds and batch files etc. I cannot seem to find
how to do this,  At this moment, my problem is double claims on port 80,
and I need to resolve this I have been told to open a command window and
then run "netstat -o", which will list which apps are claiming which ports,
ant then change at least one of said apps to claim another port such as
3307 instead of 3306. I have no idea how to do this. At the moment, I can't
even figure out which app is claiming ownership to 3306.

I'm 65yo, semi- retired, and well past the age of rapid learning'. If you
have a suggestion for how to identify who's occupying various ports and how
to change them, I would be most grateful. This begs the question, Why don't
the various installers detect ports a;ready claimed and suggest
alternatives? IMNSHO this is illustrative of bad design. Intelligent
software should detect ports in use such as 80 or 3306 and suggest
alternatives, such as 8081 or 8080.

Is this too much to ask? I want all the software to know the occupied
ports, and then to recommend an alternative port number. For example, if
8080 is already c;laimed, the software ought to be smart enough to
recognize this, and then to suggest available uncompromrized ports.

I don't know how to resolve these conflicts, aside from the VM approach,
which  guess is OK for local experiments

-- 
Arthur
Cell: 647.710.1314

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is
by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We
cause accidents.

-Nathaniel Borenstein<http://www.quoteland.com/author/Nathaniel-Borenstein-Quotes/63/>