A bunch of tech questions

Over the past couple of weeks of organizing, backing up and converting the data on my computer, and I've got quite a few questions, so try to answer whatever you can.

1.) I have a bunch of photos on my computer that have been moved around in some sort of way that doesn't give me access to them.

If I try to view the photos, copy them or even move them, I get "access denied."

How can I get access or even view them?

2.) Is there any bulk image converter that preserves Exif data? That's the stuff that tells everything about a picture: Camera model, resolution, shutter speed, and most importantly, the date.

I would love to downgrade the quality of my 1GB of photos to something more handy, but the only software I've found that actually keeps the Exif is just general editing software that can only do 1 image at a time.

3.) Also, can you recommend any bulk audio conversion software?

4.) What's a good push-to-talk chat client? As in, your voice is only broadcasted to the other person when you're holding a button.

5.) I know how to dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows by splitting the disk pretty much in half, but is there a way to make a shared partition? Like a folder that works for both operating systems?

6.) Is there a good file sharing site that just links directly to a file (especially a video), rather than trying to download it, like this? (That link will always try to download it if you're on IE or Safari) Omploader.org seems nice, but I don't like the fact that you can't create an account to control/delete your uploads.

7.) Can you somehow make a copy of the filesystem of your entire computer? I don't mean copy all of the files on your computer, just all their names, sizes, and locations, to be stowed away in case the computer crashes. After all, a lot of the storage capacity of my computer is taken up by things I could replace just by knowing their name and location: music, most videos, and programs.

1.) I have a bunch of photos on my computer that have been moved around in some sort of way that doesn't give me access to them.

If I try to view the photos, copy them or even move them, I get "access denied."

How can I get access or even view them?

Open CMD and cd to the folder. Type "dir /q" to get file owner information.
Is it a Paint.NET issue trying to read it? Try opening with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to view them.

5.) I know how to dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows by splitting the disk pretty much in half, but is there a way to make a shared partition? Like a folder that works for both operating systems?

Format a FAT32 partition. Both NT and Linux should have rwx access. It will just be a matter of mounting/unmounting the partition in Ubuntu (though I wouldn't be surprised if it mounted automatically in that thing).

Open CMD and cd to the folder. Type "dir /q" to get file owner information.
Is it a Paint.NET issue trying to read it? Try opening with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to view them.

No, Paint.NET is just the first program I found that gave me a nice "access denied" popup, Picture and Fax Viewer just gives me "no preview available" and I use a non-default program for moving/copying files and I didn't want to confuse people. How do I get to the folder by "cd"ing? I really don't know how to do anything with the command prompt other than copy text into it.

Thanks for the partition tips, I'll save it for when I'm feeling more active and courageous.

[color="#000080"] You have to go:

Code:

cd directory
cd directory

etc.

You can dir /p /q /w etcetera to get the archive list. [/color]

Also, you can link to mediafire directories or Box.net directories, but you can't stream a video.

I guess I'm not included in "everyone?" But 11/29/09 might be the date that I screwed up the pictures by moving them out of 100MLT09 and into photos 4 04.

5.) I know how to dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows by splitting the disk pretty much in half, but is there a way to make a shared partition? Like a folder that works for both operating systems?

You can't just use your Windows partition for that? Unless I'm an anomaly, Ubuntu should be able to mount it just fine. (my Windows partition is NTFS)

Also try http://www.ext2fsd.com/ which allows you to mount ext2/ext3 (Linux) partitions in Windows. That means you can essentially access your whole drive from either OS. Convenient.

Of course, keep in mind that Windows apps still only run in Windows and Linux apps only run in Linux. (barring such things as WINE and emulators which don't help for already installed programs anyway)

You can't just use your Windows partition for that? Unless I'm an anomaly, Ubuntu should be able to mount it just fine. (my Windows partition is NTFS)

Also try http://www.ext2fsd.com/ which allows you to mount ext2/ext3 (Linux) partitions in Windows. That means you can essentially access your whole drive from either OS. Convenient.

Of course, keep in mind that Windows apps still only run in Windows and Linux apps only run in Linux. (barring such things as WINE and emulators which don't help for already installed programs anyway)

 Spoiler

So I'm guessing that on a computer with a lot more memory you'd give ~20GiB to Ubuntu and the rest to Windows at this step? I don't think I would be installing more than 20GiB of Linux programs, and I've heard that it's not too hard to resize partitions once you've got them.

PS: I know this is kinda unrelated, but how is WINE "not an emulator"? It seems like it takes programs and attempts to run them like the original OS would run them, which is kind of the definition of an emulator.