Messages

26

General Software Discussion / Re: How necessary is the UAC in Windows 7?

« on: July 19, 2011, 02:47 PM »

I forego security software (minus Windows Firewall) and just use my head, and sandbox things I don't know about (game trainers come to mind). I'd rather have an on-demand solution, rather than a constantly-running solution. I want the computer to be as snappy as possible/output the highest FPS possible/boot up faster than I can sit down and get comfortable. The only time I install an anti-malware app is when I suspect I've been too trusting to something I shouldn't have, or if I just want to make sure I've got a clean slate.

Anyways: I've only had UAC save me once, and that wasn't really much of a save either; I knew I was stupid and gotten myself infected already, UAC just stopped a minor change. I keep it off even though I never do any system changes (except app updates, or Steam game installs), it interferes with CCleaner/Defraggler running via Task Scheduler. Up until I figured out UAC was messing that up, I had it turned on (a few months). It doesn't really provide much protection though.

27

General Software Discussion / Re: How necessary is the UAC in Windows 7?

« on: July 19, 2011, 02:27 PM »

I'm using the default created user account, which I would assume is administrator-level. I'm not totally sure how that works out, but over multiple machines, it works the same for me. Win Firewall and MSE are good (I'd keep Malwarebytes handy though, MSE doesn't catch a lot of off-the-wall stuff). Neither one will stop changes to crucial system settings, though.

If you want to drop UAC, I'd get a VM or sandbox tool (I use Sandboxie). Run unknown software in sandbox, if it's bad, kill the sandbox, delete contents, done.

28

General Software Discussion / Re: How necessary is the UAC in Windows 7?

« on: July 19, 2011, 02:15 PM »

You could run the apps as Administrator (right-click menu) to alleviate the problems and only get prompted once. UAC isn't a huge help if you don't go around the depths of the internet downloading everything ending in .exe, but it can sometimes catch something trying to run in the background that wants to change something and you didn't want/it *is* malicious.

FWIW: I have UAC off. My dad's machines have it on.

29

General Software Discussion / Re: Annoying experience with non-pirated software

« on: July 16, 2011, 09:36 PM »

I haven't had this issue, but I've had the equally annoying problem of having a game download to 100% but stop a few KB short - of course it happens with a really big game, that I'm really excited to play (like GTAIV- 16GB, and I was less than 10KB short, and no quick fix would help). You have to delete all the game data, and restart the download. This commonly happens when you switch download servers mid-download (so instead of my local server, USA - Phoenix, as it tends to run slow at times, I switch to say, a Canadian server).

What I do now, honestly, is I'll torrent the games first to see if I like them, if they are worth the cash, then keep them until I purchase the game and it is ready-to-go. In the meantime, I have a copy of the game on-hand, launchable whenever. I have two copies of Just Cause 2 installed; one torrented, one from the recent sales on Steam. I've yet to move my savedgames over and make sure everything works.

And (I would presume) Steam can't have an optional update system because then you'll have people exploiting known game bugs and managing to get online, and you can't lockdown online functionality of one game without the game supporting it. And who is going to code that in when you get automatic updates anyways?

30

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: July 13, 2011, 06:12 PM »

Good news updates first:

So I've setup the Mac now to be the media hub, using SugarSync to sync between my gaming machine, my netbook, and my file archive/storage server. It syncs my iPod Nano (4th generation) with iTunes and my Samsung Intercept (Android phone) with doubleTwist.

The iBook is about the same speed as my little Asus netbook, with about the same battery life (the netbook battery deteriorated really fast) so I take the netbook when I want mobility, and the iBook when I want a large screen and a simple user interface (all my friends ask "where is iTunes?" when I hand them the netbook ).

So I've got a gaming machine for when I want to have a frustration-free experience, or vent frustration from a prior experience (I'm really liking Sanctum). I have the iBook for media consumption and synchronization, and messing around with. I have the netbook for mobility/web browsing/IMing and light gaming. And my server continues to chug along for when any of these three machines need to archive some old files. I'm really liking how this is working.


But I bring new gripes, do not distress!

I had a strange issue, which Google reveals to be somewhat common, where the iBook would not shut down, reboot, or log off. It came down to Finder (Mac's equivalent to Windows Explorer) freezing and locking up the login process. You can't "force quit" (End Task) Finder, because it is basically the entire UI, minus the Dock, so it is hard coded to not offer that option. After a bit of searching around, I reset the Open Firmware (BIOS) and PRAM (not sure how this is different from Open Firmware, I guess OF is the interface but the PRAM holds the settings? Ugh.). That, with a run of OnyX (all-around OSX maintenance tool) seemed to clear it up.

I am also getting random "Recovered Files" in my Trash (Recycle Bin) after runs of OnyX and rebooting. I empty the Trash, reboot, and more files come back. This can occur over nearly half a dozen reboots. Not sure what that's about. Nothing has broken yet, though.

Additionally, last night, after watching The Bourne Ultimatum, I tried to log onto Skype; I found it was in permanent Offline mode. I tried BlackFire (Xfire client) and it said there was no internet connection. Opening Network Preferences, it said "AirPort has a self-assigned IP address and may not be able to connect to the internet." After a few words and wondering to myself why the fsck it is self-assigning instead of using DHCP like normal, I spent 45 minutes running around my room (at 3AM) messing with the router, modem, iBook, my phone (to see if the internet was actually working), and my gaming computer (to access router/modem setup pages). I went to sleep annoyed and confused, figuring that maybe the router would terminate the DHCP lease overnight and give the iBook a new IP. I woke up, and no dice. Digging around for another half hour, I found that the OSX Firewall might be the problem. It was set to what is essentially "Ask on all incoming connections" mode. I flipped it to "Allow all" (off, basically), the iBook got it's new IP, flipped it back, and it's working now. From what I read, it is a bug in Tiger and Leopard (and beyond, I would assume, as Leopard still gets security and functionality updates AFAIK) and has been known for some time (3+ years). That's really going to bother me if it becomes a recurring issue.

Oh, and another thing that's going to annoy me to no end that I didn't really think about until this morning: Apple is just as stupid as Microsoft was with XP: the firewall is OFF BY DEFAULT (image). Holy crap.

31

General Software Discussion / Re: Google+

« on: July 10, 2011, 06:05 PM »

Can I ask why people are hesitant to reveal who they are?

I just don't get it. Really. I don't mean to be an idiot about this. I just don't get it.

-Renegade (July 10, 2011, 04:53 PM)

I don't want people I do not know to be able to find out in 2020 what I have been doing when I was young.

-Tuxman (July 10, 2011, 04:56 PM)

I get the point of privacy and whatnot, but I never tried to keep online and reality separate. I don't put a ton of information out, but if you aggregated information from just a few websites, you could get a pretty good look into my "real" life. Yeah, it's probably not the smartest thing to do, but if someone digs up something years from now about me, I'll defend my viewpoint (even if it changed). And I'm not interesting enough to have to worry about someone sitting outside my door peering in the window in the wee hours of the night

32

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: July 10, 2011, 05:37 PM »

heh. Been there, done that!

Had I checked in here a month ago, I'd have found this thread sooner, and I could've given you my disks for Leopard. My Mac bit the dust just after I bought the OS upgrade, and I would've been HAPPY to package my set of Leopard disks and send it to you at no charge. Really! It's brand new and has never been opened. If you like, I can offer to send them to you anyway.

-grapeshot (July 10, 2011, 05:25 PM)

I would really like that the disks I had, and a couple Windows disks, seem to have magically walked off (along with a large amount of game disks, including my copy of The Sims 3 ). Funny how stuff disappears when you have a little sister and her friends come over and you come back to have a room that (by some feat) looks worse than when you left it. I just found my phone's microUSB cable today. It was MIA for almost a week.

I went out and got iLife 09 only to find that iMovie won't run on PPC Macs, because of some retarded restriction. I ended up using Pacifist to open the package files and manually install iMovie, then edited some hex values to ensure it would skip the Intel-only check. Runs fine. Marketing gimmicks

I'm having fun with iWeb, even though it feels so peel-and-stick and like it was made for someone that is like I-just-found-the-internet-LOL. Haven't messed with iPhoto (opened it, was not interested, Quit) or Garageband yet. It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out how to make iWeb not make ALL PAGE TITLES ALLCAPS. Whoever thought that was a good idea should be beaten and then fired, and then beaten again en-route to the parking lot.

So far, the computer itself, the DDR RAM, and iLife are all the money I've put into it. Hopefully that's it.

33

Finished Programs / Re: Idea: App that keeps track of money you find

« on: July 09, 2011, 11:04 PM »

I've taken a stab at this, and I give you "Tracker of Found Money 1.0.0.0":

-kyrathaba (July 09, 2011, 07:42 PM)

Looks really good! I'll have to remember to download it next time I find some change

34

Finished Programs / Re: Idea: App that keeps track of money you find

« on: July 02, 2011, 06:36 PM »

Sounds like an interesting idea, I can't code worth anything in Java (took two college classes in it and learned lots, but nothing actually applicable or practical for real-world use) so I can't help ya out on the smartphone (Android) front. For Windows, it could be done somewhat simply in .NET (VB/C#), but I couldn't do anything fancy with graphing and whatnot. If nobody else shows an interest, I might take it up, but there are much smarter people here that could do this a million times better than myself. Hopefully someone will take this on, I really like the idea

35

General Software Discussion / Re: Google+

« on: June 29, 2011, 07:59 PM »

Although I'm more hermit than social guy, the only time Facebook makes the news is when it gets people into trouble (much like Twitter). And without the filters and categories that Google+ project is introducing here, Facebook is too often used against you. For example, divorce lawyers mine your Facebook page to use it against you -- "You friended Becky, you bastard!" Or employers use it to find out that you're not a god-believer... oh wait, Facebook has NO option for telling the world you're an atheist! But if you're a tongue-speaking snake handler, you're covered.

With this Google+ project, you could conceivably let only those you want know what you want them to know or see. Much safer.

-zridling (June 28, 2011, 11:35 PM)

Not that I want to defend Facebook in any way, as I hate the entire idea of it but all my idiot high school friends use it so it's the only general grounds for communication. Anyways, I don't see how anyone with two brain cells can't figure out how to lock down their Facebook profile from unwanted eyes (though I have a lot of friends with one brain cell, apparently).



I have things as locked-down as possible. I've got HTTPS enabled and multifactor authentication as well. Unless I add you, all you see is my name, gender, and display picture.


Anyways, G+ sounds interesting. I'd trust Google more than FB, simply because Google has been around long enough to handle user data properly and are competent in what they do. That, and Google already has a moderately large amount of information about me. Not that I'm overly interesting anyways.

36

Living Room / Re: Geocities Returns!

« on: June 26, 2011, 04:14 AM »

The yellow and red color combo was pretty horrid, but then the addition of Comic Sans just made it so much worse. The music adds a nice touch as well.

.....

Spoiler

I used to make websites like these back when I was in 7th/8th grade. Tech class required you to maintain an intranet website to (theoretically) keep you from gaming/other slacking off after doing the day's work. Man, was I fond of animated images. And the buttons that changed color when you rolled over them with the mouse... and the music. I had that too, ambient music for the home page. I even had a "made with notepad" button almost exactly like that, because I was the only one in the class to mess with the raw HTML (outside of Frontpage 03).

And you all thought that website authoring style died in the 90s. HA! It lives on (until 2006/2007, at least)!

I am ready for my beating now

37

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: June 21, 2011, 10:22 PM »

Yeah, but that $50 gets you a professional Apple techno-genius with genuine Apple screwdrivers and a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you just donated a whack of cash to the Church of Jobs.

Speaking of... Why the Hell aren't Apple product purchases tax deductible as charitable contributions?

Hasn't Apple registered as a religion yet?

 

-Renegade (June 21, 2011, 09:18 PM)

  

38

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: June 21, 2011, 07:47 PM »

I called up MacMedia (a nearby "Apple Certified Retailer") while running errands yesterday to check on the cost of a 1GB DDR 2700 stick for the iBook. Without naming the price of the stick itself, I was told that the "installation cost" would be $50. I about cracked up right there amidst rush hour traffic. I asked what the cost would be without their fancy "installation" and couldn't get a straight answer from the guy.

I then drove over to Fry's Electronics and went in and inquired what their cost would be (I just wanted the stick, not some crazy red carpet installation crap) and the cheapest they had was $37 (before taxes). I told the guy straight up "I'm not that desperate for a freaking GB of memory for an old iBook" and walked out.

Newegg sent me an email today about their summer sale promotions. Nothing interesting much, but it got me looking at memory costs. They have what I need for $30 with no shipping costs. I scanned through other emails from them and found a coupon code for 10% off all Notebook Memory that expires at midnight tonight. So now I sit and wait, $27 poorer, for my 1GB stick of RAM. When it arrives, I'll see if I can't do some benchmarks or something to compare against, just for laughs.

Talk about a ripoff though, $50 just to take the keyboard off (pull 2 levers and lift it), undo 4x small Phillips screws, slide the RAM in, re-tighten the screws, and slide the keyboard back in. Damn, I'd do that for like $5 for someone and STILL feel bad about overcharging them. Some people...

39

Living Room / Re: Non-tech, off-the-wall topic: Gasoline/Petrol, does grade matter?

« on: June 21, 2011, 01:49 PM »

Oshyan: Valid point as to why it could be I'm not seeing a difference. Though, at this rate, I'd be the happiest person ever to get 12MPG

40

Living Room / Re: Non-tech, off-the-wall topic: Gasoline/Petrol, does grade matter?

« on: June 21, 2011, 12:59 PM »

For instance, when you think you will have to stop at a red light, leave the gas alone, and let the vehicle drift to a stop. Do not increase your speed and hit hard brakes upon the red light.

-eleman (June 21, 2011, 01:52 AM)

I usually do that, because of the weight the truck will drift along around 35-40MPH (the usual speed limit here) for a quarter mile easily. I've gone through a tank driving very very economical, and very "non-economical" and I didn't notice any difference in how many miles I got out of the tank. This is confusing me; is it using up extra fuel even when I'm not telling it to?

Every car comes with an owner's manual that specifies the octane that should be used. Follow that as your guide. Too low and as mwb1100 said, you'll get knock & ping, which isn't good for your engine. Too high will also not do your car or wallet any good. Both will shorten the life of your car.

-app103 (June 21, 2011, 02:25 AM)

It says use standard Unleaded, which kind of surprised me for something that size. Other than the crappy fuel economy, there aren't any problems with it at all. It's disheartening to drive something in such good condition but you can only drive 3 blocks and back for ~$3.41

Maybe the truck is in need of a tune up!      You don't say if the pickup is four wheel drive or not but that will affect your mileage.

My 2001 Chevy S-10 4.3L V-6 Extended cab gets around 17 city to 22 highway.  I sure thought I would get better than that when I bought it.

Vehicles are rated for mileage under the best of conditions, of which, we will never see out in the field.

This could go on and on but to avoid an ... I am done commenting on it.   

-techidave (June 21, 2011, 05:43 AM)

I mentioned it to my dad about 2 weeks ago and he told me we'd take it down and get it done "soon." So it may not see one for several months

It is a 2x4, also. He last had an AWD "dually" truck (two rear wheels per side) so I have no idea what he got in that thing.


CWuestefeld:
I am surprised I was able to understand that. Useful information, summarized. I dunno about my dad sometimes, but he brought it up a few months back when I complained so I figured I would mention it. All I can vouch for is the awkward equal usage of gentle vs mashing acceleration.



So essentially it would only help if the engine demanded it or was changed to utilize it, which it is not. So it would simply be additional wasted money?

41

Living Room / Non-tech, off-the-wall topic: Gasoline/Petrol, does grade matter?

« on: June 20, 2011, 10:25 PM »

Okay, I know this is wayyyy off the beaten path of anything even remotely tech-related, but it's been itching at me for a while. I hope it isn't too non-techy for DC

As some of you may know, I'm a teenager. And, as you also may know, teenagers tend to drive. A lot. All the time. Sometimes every day! And while most of them drive a small vehicle like a Honda Accord, a Ford Escort, or something of the like (from who I know), some of them can occasionally be seen in not-so-gasoline-friendly vehicles. Such is the case for myself. Almost every other day I go hang out with friends in my dad's vehicle: a 2001 Chevy Silverado HD2500 crew cab pickup truck. And being such a large vehicle, it consumes gasoline fast enough that one may think that the gasoline is literally set ablaze in the tank when you turn the key in the ignition.

My dad tells me the fuel economy is the same going uphill pulling a trailer full of cattle, or downhill with no trailer with no cattle, and the wind pushing you down. I have verified the fact that mashing the gas at green lights, versus gentle take-offs, has absolutely no noticeable effect on fuel consumption either (this was done with several tanks of gas to nullify other factors in play). Aside from obtaining a smaller vehicle (which I am in the process of doing ) I need to increase the fuel economy on this truck for the time being, so I started to wonder if the fuel grade matters enough to put Plus or Premium in instead of standard Unleaded?

TL;DR
Does the grade of gasoline/petrol you put in your vehicle make a noticeable impact on fuel economy, and if so, where do you go to purchase said fuel? I'm stateside so not sure if anyone outside of the US can help my specific problem, but you could help someone else by posting regardless

-Brandon

EDIT: Right now, I'm getting 6 miles to the gallon. The truck is rated for 8. Even if I can pull it back to 8 that is a 25% increase in money staying inside my wallet.

42

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: June 19, 2011, 02:35 PM »

Ah there is nothing like the 'just use it' nature of the Mac.

Glad you are having fun - but try posting some of this onto a Mac forum and I bet you will get some strange comments 

-Carol Haynes (June 19, 2011, 07:46 AM)

Indeed, although I don't think "strange" would be quite the word to use there

You do *not* want to activate FileVault
Here goes my experience

-jgpaiva (June 19, 2011, 08:24 AM)

Oh lord, ugh. I knew it did a copy-then-delete process, but jeez .... wouldn't that problem be circumventable by FV just deleting the un/encrypted files as it de/encrypts them, instead of doing it all in one go? You would think it would check the amount of free space and give you an option.

Regardless, I need to remember to never mess with that again, seeing as the drive is only 60GB (and I'm using about 30 of that right now).


Oh, and strangely enough, upgrading to Leopard dramatically increased flash-video frames per second (with no changes to Flash, still on the latest version of 9). It gets choppy now and again with some videos (I'm only using YouTube for this thus far) but it is for very short bursts and, for the most part, is no longer a horrible torturous pain to watch. Not sure if that has to do with hardware acceleration (I believe I read somewhere about Leopard taking advantage of the GPU to do 2D processing, kind of like Vista started, but I could be wrong).

43

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for advice, tips, wisdom: Adding my 1st Mac into the [tech] family...

« on: June 18, 2011, 09:04 PM »

After a long, very VERY annoying and anger-inducing supposedly 5 minute trip to go locate a Dual-Layer DVD (and coming home 3 hours later with an 8GB ADATA flash drive), I have upgraded the iBook to Leopard. Snow Leopard (and Lion, for that matter) is Intel-only, so this is the "end of the road" for Apple upgrades and non-security updates for it. I'm debating throwing another GB of RAM into it (to max it out at 1.5GB), as it is usable and not much slower than it was with Tiger (it is not really "slow" but I'm used to my 6 core Win7 box with an SSD in it ). I'm learning a bit here and there on what does what and what breaks this functionality (gonna keep that USB stick in a very safe place!) so I'll have to decide that over the coming weeks.

I've customized things and tweaked items here and there; the logon screen shows information about me, my phone number, and that the computer is "NOT FOR SALE" in case I walk away from it in a not-so-trustworthy location and it happens to walk off and land on Craigslist or a pawn shop or the like. Prey is also is installed to assist with that (gotta love Prey ). Found out that Truecrypt can't encrypt the OSX boot drive (like it can for Windows), and that FileVault (OSX's Home folder encryption system) is buggy and not as secure as one may be lead to believe. I'm also diving into the Open Firmware (what, if I am understanding correctly, is Apple's version of the BIOS, basically) and seeing what I can do in that as far as locking it down right now. Maintenance and security are what I want to learn about first and foremost

I took it to the Apple Store at the nearby mall, and the guy I talked to chuckled and said "I can't do even basic diagnostics on this for you, it's too old. I can't even order parts if something breaks or goes bad. [...] If it is a software issue, bring it on in and we can help you with that, but as far as hardware goes, you're on your own." I assume all their software tools for testing hardware are Intel-only now. He was nice enough to point me to MacMedia (one of which was just built about a mile south of the mall) whom can "probably still help" me with hardware issues. So far, no problems (battery life is amazing as well).

Overall, I'm not regretting this at all (yet). It's a bit depressing to look at my bank account and know that I could have almost double what it is right now if I hadn't done all this, but I'd still call it "worth it."

EDIT: You aren't supposed to be able to boot PPC-based Macs from USB, but I didn't want to pay $12.50 + tax for 10 DVD-DL disks that I would use one of and then the rest would sit, hence the USB drive. The Leopard disk image was ripped from a friend's old Leopard DVD (who upgraded to Snow Leopard a few months back and gives me all his old tech stuff). I couldn't find the disk last night so I had to go through this huge convoluted process to get an ISO onto the iBook and turn it into a DMG and the DMG into a compressed DMG, then load it onto the ADATA stick, then get it to boot...  

44

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« on: June 18, 2011, 12:20 AM »

According to this talk, you are wasting your life if you don't own a SSD: http://www.livestrea...19-8aaf-35a839b6ecaa

-mouser (June 17, 2011, 09:03 PM)

love it

45

Living Room / Re: VIDEO: Pixels by Patrick Jean

« on: June 16, 2011, 09:40 PM »

Epic!

46

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« on: June 14, 2011, 08:47 PM »

As it stands, I have Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (7.84GB) on the SSD

-wreckedcarzz (June 14, 2011, 12:35 PM)

How appropriate. 

-steeladept (June 14, 2011, 07:48 PM)

 

47

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« on: June 14, 2011, 01:07 PM »

Ughhh, my mom works out in Lichfield Park (about 15 miles west of here, not far at all!) and both Qwest and Cox refuse to run lines from the north side of the road (newly populated over the last couple of years with housing) to the south side (ranch she works at) so she went from AOL (ughhhh ) to HughesNet, against my IMMENSE amount of criticism of them, their crappy service, and insane pricing scheme (instead of my recommendation of a 3G dongle with a cell service provider). She complains all the time.

</topic de-railing>

48

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« on: June 14, 2011, 12:48 PM »

I'm on the Members map. I think that would tell you more than anything I could say.

-Arizona Hot (June 14, 2011, 12:47 PM)

Jeez, you're way out there O_O

49

Living Room / Re: Ideas for web site

« on: June 14, 2011, 12:44 PM »

Ahhhh, what a long way DC has come! 

* Stephen66515 wonders what DC will look like in another 6 years!

-Stephen66515 (June 12, 2011, 08:16 PM)

Yeah, I registered here Sept 3rd of 05, and I've seen quite a bit of change (I remember the topic about forum search, even!) and lots of people come and go, but DC is still true to what it started for. That is quite an accomplishment to keep such respect and formality in an open area of discussion, not to mention all of the great software, knowledge, and companionship that has come about because of it.

Sidenote: WTF happened to Wordzilla?!?!?!

50

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« on: June 14, 2011, 12:35 PM »

I moved swap, Desktop, Documents, Music, Movies, Downloads, and all but a couple games to the 1.5TB HDD. Anything that I was concerned about that had a cache location option got moved (game patch files, Second Life game cache, etc). Temp stays, main user folder stays (just full of virtual folders pointing to the moved ones anyways), AppData stays, etc. As it stands, I have Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (7.84GB) on the SSD and still have 3.33GB free (of 29.8GB).