I believe there is no super-hidden cache folder or “low integrity” cache folder introduced by IE 7.

The Google Chrome cache folder name is exactly called “cache” and it’s not a hidden folder.

In my Vista Ultimate SP1 machine, the Chrome cache folder is exactly in this path:

C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Cache

As you locating it in Windows Explorer, remember to replace <user-name> with your Windows user name.

However, this explicit cache folder is not the only one location used by Google Chrome to keep the temporarily Internet files, i.e. the “caches” that speed up web browsing experience.

Where does Google Chrome cache temporarily Internet files?

Unlike IE7 or Firefox, Google Chrome doesn’t cache or keep temporarily Internet files in master cache folder that is either with or without sub-folders.

While running in Windows Vista SP1, Google Chrome caches or keeps the temporarily Internet files in two locations (as far as I notice now), i.e.

• the explicit Google Chrome cache folder that I said just now,
• the Windows Vista “temp folder” in respective user’s directory, i.e.

  C:\Users\<user-name>\AppData\Local\Temp\

What kind of temporarily Internet files are kept in Google Chrome cache folder and Windows temp folder?

I didn’t go into detail on this question. If you do, please comment to share.

In brief, I found some Javascripts, web pages, pictures, etc, are kept in the explicit Google Chrome cache folder, but appears with a different file name and there is no file extension given to identify their file type.

Most of the “files” in this explicit Google Chrome cache folder are of small file size. It seems to me that only temporarily Internet files lesser than 4MB will be kept here.

So, those large YouTube video or FLV file contents are not likely in this folder.



Then, where does Google Chrome keeps the large YouTube video or FLV files?

Yes, they are kept in the Windows temp folder! And I find that Google Chrome consistently caches the FLV (Flash Video) files in Windows temp folder as fla409A.tmp kind of file name (where the initial file name is fla, followed by alpha-numeric characters and ended with .tmp file extension.

For your testing, try to watch a lengthy YouTube video (probably 4 minutes or longer) in Google Chrome. For example, this LockerGnome “super lengthy” video that last for 52 minutes (about 72.2 MB).

While the video is playback, press F5 to refresh the Windows temp folder that list files sorted by “date created” option - in Google Chrome version 0.2.149.30, you could see the YouTube video being cached in Windows temp folder (not that explicit Google Chrome cache folder) is gradually taking up disk space. And, the cached YouTube video is not named as “get_video”, “get_video[1]“, etc.

Last question: Could you retrieve or copy the YouTube video or any FLV files cached by Google Chrome in Windows temp folder?

I tried to copy but failed with an error message “The action can’t be completed because the file is open in another program”.

So, I thought to close the Google Chrome and back here to copy. But, the cached FLV files are automatically “housekeep”, almost as soon as I close the Google Chrome!

Google Chrome cache technique is defensive!

Although you could use YouTube downloader program or manually retrieve the YouTube video direct download link to keep a copy of the video for your mom who only like to watch them on the classic TV + player set, you might need to use non-Google Chrome web browsers to retrieve the FLV files on some less popular video hosting sites, via the web browser cache folder technique.

Though, SWF-Export is not a “giant”, as the program itself is merely taking up 16384 bytes or 16.0 KB of disk space in my NTFS hard disk that formatted by Vista Ultimate!

SWF-Export doesn’t require special installation or complicated setup, means that you just double-click SWF-Export to run directly! And, it works even without installing any Microsoft Office program on the host system.

So, SWF-Export can extract the interactive Shockwave flash (SWF) that embedded in a Microsoft Excel 2007 document (*.xlsx), regardless Microsoft Office 2007 is already installed.

Summary of features in SWF-Export v1.8.0.5:

• Extract / Export SWF (Shockwave flash) object from Microsoft Word document (*.doc or *.docx) or Microsoft Excel document (*.xls or *.xlsx) - it’s compatible with the latest Microsoft Office 2007.
   
• Simple user interface and 100% in English.
   
• The running SWF-Export is no longer “hidden” from Windows Flip 3D, ALT+Tab hotkey, or Windows Task Manager.
   
• Rename SWF-Export.exe is allowed - no more “Program name error!” window.
   
• Automatically save the exported SWF object into a file with SWF file extension (The *.swf file can be opened / playbacked in web browser or uploaded to blog for sharing).

Once again, thank you Levente for sharing SWF-Export at WalkerNews.net - click here to start downloading SWF-Export v1.8.0.5 (the md5sum of SWF-Export.exe, not zip file, is e2520633ea21107ea92ab861028f2f14)

And, it’s my pleasure to have one on last Friday, a Hungarian who named Levente sent me a freeware called SWF-Exporter for sharing with the rest of WalkerNews.net readers!

^{A freeware SWF-Extractor sent by a Hungarian.}

Similar to Vista MUI Tools that developed by Same Frank, SWF-Exporter is also green, close-source freeware (at least my Kaspersky IS 7.0.1.325 at home and office are both happy with it).

^{SWF Extractor - A freeware program used to extract SWF object embedded in Microsoft Excel and Word document.}

SWF-Exporter is also a standalone program:

• No installation required (i.e. double-click to run directly)
   
• No need installation or present of any Microsoft Office programs, including Microsoft Excel or Word (as mentioned by Levente in another email).

What about the negatives? Well, here are some of the minor restrictions in SWF-Exporter:

• You can’t simply rename this tiny program. Otherwise, SWF-Exporter will exit with a “Program name error!” window (as shown in the screenshot of email).
   
• While the program is running, I can’t find it in Windows Flip 3D or the Application view in Windows Task Manager.
   
• Because of previous point, it’s a bit hard to bring the running SWF-Exporter back as active window after clicking Show Desktop. If you do this, you’ve to run Show Desktop again and minimize all other program windows one by one until SWF-Exporter is seen again. Another way is to terminate it from Windows Task Manager Processes view.

Overall, I found it really useful for the purpose. Simple user interface, tiny size, and ultra-portable! Thank you Levente for sharing SWF-Exporter - Download SWF-Exporter freeware!

I am sure there are plenty of Chinese web sites offer such calendar online (ask Google, this “Oracle” knows).

But, if you interest reading Chinese Lunar calendar day, I’ll suggest you to download a copy of Microsoft Chinese Date and Time installer (ICalClkSetup.msi) for your Windows-based computer, be it a Windows XP or Windows Vista (and I believe it works fine in most Windows editions).

Microsoft Chinese Date and Time (微软中国日期和时间) was released on the 23th of October, 2004, as a value added calendar utility for genuine copy of Windows XP.

Other than capable to display Chinese Lunar calendar day, the calendar utility also displays up to 5 different clocks, including the local system time clock! This is what you could have in Windows Vista too, which supports displaying multiple clocks for different time zones.

I kinda like this features, especially when I travel across different time zones with the Dell Latitude that running complimentary copy of Vista Ultimate SP1.

Oh, by the way, the coming Mid-Autumn festival is on 14th of September, 2008. And the next Chinese New Year is on the 26th of January, 2009.

[ Download Microsoft Date and Time, (China version) ]
[ Download Microsoft Date and Time (Hong Kong version) ]

For those who are serious, I would like to recommend you the best-seller titled “A brief history of time”, written by the great physicists Stephen Hawking.

Without going too far, let us learn some basic knowledge about time zone :-p

While most of the countries referring single time zone for respective nations, they are some countries using multiple time zones, simply because the territory of their nation spanning a wide geographical areas.

Such “big” countries are like USA, Russia and Australia. Although territory of China spanning over multiple time zones as well, the China government practice to standardize all of the states in one single time zone (i.e. GMT+8).

If it’s too hard for you to visualize the world clock on the world map, you may refer to this simple Shockwave Flash gadget provided by ClockLink.com:

You could click here to generate a World Clock map for to embed in your blog too.

Although the official download site doesn’t spell it out explicitly, Virtual CloneDrive Version 5.3.1.2 (updated on 12th of June, 2008) is compatible with 32-bit Windows Vista and supports CCD, DVD, IMG, ISO, UDF, BIN CD image format.

Indeed, the Virtual CloneDrive Revision History file installed by the setup program shows that Virtual CloneDrive supports Windows Vista since version 5.2.0.2 (released on 28th of October, 2007). The latest version 5.3.1.2 fix data integrity problem in Windows Vista and added new option to use buffered I/O.

Personally, I prefers MagicDisc (the MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD-ROM emulator), because it’s GREEN freeware (version 2.6, build 093) and supports so many types of CD image format, which includes BIN (CDRWin), IMA/IMG (Generic disk images), CIF (Easy CD Creator), NRG (Nero - Burning ROM), IMG/CCD (CloneCD), MDF/MDS (Fantom CD), VCD (Farstone Virtual Drive), VaporCD (Noum Vapor CDROM), P01/MD1/XA (Gear), VC4/000 (Virtual CD), VDI (Virtuo CD Manager), C2D (WinOnCD), BWI/BWT (BlinkWrite), CDI (DiscJuggler), TAO/DAO (Duplicator), PDI (Instant Copy).

How to turn on Virtual CloneDrive buffered I/O option?

By default installation, there is a Virtual CloneDrive icon created on Desktop.

Double-click the icon to bring up Virtual CloneDrive setting dialog box (as shown in the screenshot), where you can turn off the Virtual Sheep icon that appears next to the virtual CD drive in My Computer, turn on the option to auto-load last CD image or enable the buffered I/O feature.

How to mount/load a supported CD image in Virtual CloneDrive?

Open up my computer, right-click the virtual CD drive (by default installation, the Virtual CloneDrive is denoted with a sheep icon), go to Virtual CloneDrive menu and select Mount (to load CD image) or unmount (to unload the mounted CD image).

The mkisofs package comprises of few tiny but really useful programs to deal with CD image, i.e. isodebug, isodump, isoinfo, isovfy, mkhybrid, and mkisofs.

Out of all these programs, mkisofs is particularly useful in this post, i.e. its ability to efficiently create CD image of directories or filesystem in Linux.

This is not about creating ISO image from a CD-ROM, which can be easily accomplished with dd command (a simple, legacy command in most Linux/Unix system).

Some of the points to dump a directory content into an ISO image format:

1. You could easily burn the ISO image format of directory content onto a CD-ROM
    
2. It’s much efficient to manage the ISO image of directories that contain few thousands of tiny files, either to transfer it over the network (via scp command, ftp protocol, shfs system, samba file sharing, etc) or copy between local filesystem, as there is less overheat of maintaining transfer status for those few thousands files in the session.

Simple example of using mkisofs

For example, to dump the content of DB2 Workgroup v81 directory into a standard CD ISO-9660 filesystem image with file name called DB2Wkg.iso:

mkisofs -o DB2Wkg81.iso DB2Wkg81

To create CD ISO image of directories that contain long file name or non-8.3 format (particularly if you want to burn the CD image for use in Windows system), use the -J option switch that generates Joliet directory records in addition to regular iso9660 file names. For example, to create CD image of Vista SP1 directory:

mkisofs -o VitaSP1.iso -J VistaSP1

In my test, mkisofs takes less than 10 seconds to dump a directory that contains 4870 files totalled to 328MB.