Messages

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ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer - LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.10.01 - Mar 28, 2009

« on: March 30, 2009, 08:40 PM »

The trick to getting a program to run at startup with Vista is to create a scheduled task for it.

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Living Room / Re: Graphics Tablets - opinions (nudone, hamradio, tomos etc. care to chime in?)

« on: November 20, 2007, 03:41 PM »

If you want 1:1 then you should get one of them Cintiq monitors with the tablet built into it. They would be sweeeeeeet.
In general, tablets don't offer a 1:1 mode although you could probably tweak the settings to get it if you really want. The scale factor isn't really a big issue though, and many new tablet users find a smaller tablet easier to control.

I have an AIPTEK tablet and also use a Wacom Intuitos2. The difference in smoothness, stability etc is fairly negligable. The biggest difference (apart from size) is the drivers. The Intuitos has much better drivers allowing just about every parameter to be tweaked, for individual applications. The AIPTEK driver is very basic, with little more than scaling adjustments and button assignments. I have heard that the drivers for the newer Graphire series (and presumably the bamboo) has been dumbed down and is also very basic.
The AIPTEK stylus however is utter crap, made out of thin cheap plastic that is very easy to crack (mine is bandaged up) It requires a battery, but battery life is around a year so that's not a big issue. The Intuitos stylus is solid, well weighted and requires no batteries. It also has tilt sensitivity.
For serious graphic work, nothing beats the Intuitos. For anything less, the AIPTEK is fine and is quite good value for money. I think the Intuitos cost about 7 times the AIPTEK. The Graphire was around double.

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Living Room / Re: Windows Install Date Thingie: I made it!

« on: November 06, 2007, 03:26 PM »

Nothing wrong with WMI. You are using some region-sensitive conversions in there.

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Living Room / Re: Windows Install Date Thingie: I made it!

« on: November 06, 2007, 08:06 AM »

What WMI class are you using?

With Win32_OperatingSystem.LastBootUpTime I get the correct boot time as a datetime

With Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_System.SystemUpTime I get the correct uptime in seconds

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Living Room / Re: Windows Install Date Thingie: I made it!

« on: November 05, 2007, 10:51 PM »

Definitely something wrong in 1.2

BTW, that 4yrs 5mths is without backups and I have never even used safe mode. For some reason it has always refused to boot up into safe mode

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General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« on: September 09, 2007, 09:09 AM »

Mouser, I don't really see how MS could have done it any other way. Prompting for a 'compatability mode' that allows access would break the concepts that limited users shouldn't be able to modify the program files directory and that different user accounts should have individual settings. Although it may have been good to include a few different options since there is clearly no one size fits all solution.
In the end, Microsoft have for a long time been telling developers they should not store program settings in the program files. It was completely undermining the user accounts system, and it got to the point where they decided they needed to do more about it.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in (nice blog post)

« on: September 09, 2007, 08:23 AM »

In the end, ad supported websites is a business model. If it works, it works. If not, then a different business model will have to be used. There is nothing morally wrong about this - it is simply a part of the free market economy. Business models in many industries are being constantly forced to change.

Personally, I don't go out of my way to blanket block all ads, but if one is annoying me I might block it. I don't remember ever (intentionally) clicking on an ad. I guess my immediate response is cynicism when I think someone is trying to sell me something.

In my mind, ad supported websites can be basically divided into 3 categories:
1. Sites that put up content in the hope of attracting visitors so that they can make a profit off the ads. I don't feel particularly sympathetic for these. If the content is truly valuable then they will be able to find a way to make money off it. If not, then they probably dont deserve what they're getting now. (But they are perfectly entitled to it.)
2. Sites that use ads primarily to recover costs. These are the ones that are most likely to suffer from ad-blocking. Still, there are other ways to recover costs, and if people value the site then it should still remain possible for it to continue.
3. Sites that do not need the profit from ads, and just throw them in to make a bit more on the side. These are the sites I couldn't care less about. OTOH, they are also probably the sites that don't particularly care if the ads are blocked.

In the end however, you will probably just see the ads getting more and more integrated with the sites content until it is impossible to seperate them. Like the way tv shows are getting in-show overlays and product placement to combat ad-skipping.
Some sites will continue to grow, some will fall. Some will become too annoying and push all their traffic away. In the end that's life. It's not up to the general public to babysit the webmasters.

P.S. Renegade: that system you describe would potentially deadlock. You would get browsers that hold off requesting the ad because you haven't yet served them what they have requested, and your server holding off serving the content because they haven't yet got the ad. Unless you used scripting to post-load the real content (also asking for trouble IMHO)