Messages

251

Developer's Corner / Re: Your First Programming Language vs Now

« on: June 13, 2017, 11:28 AM »

My first programs were written in GWBasic.  The first one that was actually useful was just a console program with a menu to calculate how much of each ingredient to put in the mix to conjure up this hot glue we had to mix for test batches at the research lab where I worked.  You could put in the weight of any ingredient or the total weight you wanted to produce of the glue.  We were doing it using a calculator.  Fortunately the PC in work also had a 5 1/4" floppy so I could run my program.  It was just faster and more convenient to hit a menu number then type in an amount.  Since the ratios never changed I never had to update the code.

Then I did the QuickBasic 3.0 compiler before moving on to Turbo Pascal, C and assembler.  Eventually C became C++.  Most small hotkey type utilities now I do in AHK and/or AutoIt3.  Now and then I try to keep my hand in with something C++ to keep up on the language changes.

Ironically I tried the freeBasic compiler for a time.  It has so many compatibility modes to let you compile code be it comma function call style or with parens.  I had a hell of a time just making basic(no pun intended) WinAPI calls as I could not seem to get my head around the external declarations.  Just too frustrating.

My older brother worked for DEC and showed me a few things in Pascal.  At the time the conventional wisdom was "structured programming."  When OOP came out at first I thought it was no biggie.  Just another wrinkle added onto structured programming.  My brother thought it was a "scam" and dismissed it.  When I got the idea of OOP I convinced him it was not just some new jargon to sell new textbooks but had a lot of power.  When I gave a few hypotheticals how polymorphism could be applied he saw the potential and got into C++.

But I was never an application programmer.  I identify more with Leo LaPorte because he went through a similar journey.  He learned several programming languages including assembler just to learn how computers worked and write his own utilities.  But he never cranked out code for a living.

252

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: June 07, 2017, 07:10 AM »

MilesAhead - I actually never realized Daniel Craig was not "tall/tough". I actually enjoyed his portrayal as Bond, I thought he was one of the better Bonds, excluding Sean Connery of course.

-exjoburger (June 06, 2017, 01:51 PM)

Wow!  This is weird.  I remembered a quote from the guy who played the "wire in the watch" killer "Grant" in From Russia With Love that Connery was so much bigger that he had to stand on a box to film the fight scenes.  When I just visited IMDB it has Robert Shaw from The Sting and Jaws as Grant.  I guess I didn't recognize him because he had blond hair in From Russia With Love.  When I was a teenager I must have watched that film a dozen times.  I never made the connection to Robert Shaw when I saw his other films.

253

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: June 06, 2017, 01:29 PM »

Taking a break from some of the books I'm plodding through on my Kindle (Columbine by Dave Cullen, Steve Jobs by
Walter Isaacson), A book I'm currently reading is:

Persuader by Lee Child (A Jack Reacher novel) 

I haven't seen any of the Tom Cruise movies, but the description of Jack Reacher has him at six foot five or so - and I keep on thinking how much bigger taller and tougher the guy in the novel is in comparison to the actor.

-exjoburger (June 06, 2017, 01:05 PM)

I feel the same way about Daniel Craig in the Bond films.  At least Sean Connery was a physical match for the character.  Roger Moore was probably too much of a sophisticate.  But even so he had some size to him.  You could believe he would win a lot of the fights.  Craig needs to carry a machine pistol to a fist fight to stand a chance. 

254

Living Room / Re: Password Managers ... vs. Not

« on: June 06, 2017, 11:39 AM »

Password hygiene has nothing to do with "customer serving the service", but you're right that there's a balance - that balance is between how much effort you put into securing credentials for Site X vs. how much it would hurt if that set of credentials are breached.

-f0dder (June 06, 2017, 10:21 AM)

I disagree.  By insisting on funky characters that make you shift mode on touch keyboards they can always say you made a typo when entering.  Even if they are the ones who changed what you typed.  It amounts to asking the service provider for permission to use your own account.  Just like you have to ask the bank for permission to access your own money.  It is kind of like the rulers calling themselves "public servants."  Talk about cynicism.  Oh yeah, billionaires just shell out millions of their own $$ to "serve" others.  Right!

255

Living Room / Re: Password Managers ... vs. Not

« on: June 06, 2017, 07:06 AM »

Of course the above is simplistic, and you can do things like uppercasing and other character manipulations - but an extended alphabet will always require (quiiiite a bit) more effort for a string of the same length.

-f0dder (June 06, 2017, 02:44 AM)

I'm sure that technically you have foundation for your argument(s).  But people live day to day fine with getting home from work and using a house key to get into their house/condo/apartment.  It does not stress them that a guy with a couple of battery powered drills can drill out the front door lock in about 30 seconds if he has practiced the procedure.  But the owner/renter can get in his own place in the most likely event terrorists are not waiting inside.  There's a balance point past which the customer exists to serve the service instead of the other way around.  We have already tipped the scales in many areas.

256

Living Room / Re: Password Managers ... vs. Not

« on: June 06, 2017, 07:02 AM »

@MilesAhead - I hear ya man ... Some of this stuff - necessary as it may be - is just a flat-out royal pain-in-the-ass.

-Stoic Joker (June 06, 2017, 06:34 AM)

If you hear the phrase "for your protection" you know it's going to be shoved sideways.   

257

Living Room / Re: Password Managers ... vs. Not

« on: June 05, 2017, 04:30 PM »

Plain bruteforcing has to search a much bigger keyspace than a smart dictionary-based attack.

-f0dder (June 04, 2017, 09:37 AM)

See your previous comment about off line attach modes.

-MilesAhead (June 05, 2017, 06:57 AM)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here? I thought you were wondering why "unmemorable passwords" were any better?

-f0dder (June 05, 2017, 11:02 AM)

My point was that although passwords that are made of actual words were more vulnerable than those "secure" generated ones, if you do not limit the number of attempts at cracking them then nothing is secure.  Also the same thing applies to hijacking the encrypted database.  If the brute force method can be applied offline then just because the passwords have no vowels and some numbers and symbols sprinkled in that will not long delay the cracking.  Especially with cheap computing power.  Seems to me setting delays on IPs and domains generating invalid logon attempts would be more secure.

Then the main worry might be somebody flubbing logins to your account just to get it shut off for a time.  Kind of a perverted denial of access.  But even then there should be some indication where the attack is coming from.

To me it is similar to these fast food joints where you have to hop skip and jump to their "system" in order to place your order.  When everything is owned by four holding companies there is less "competition" and customer service than when Mom and Pop have to worry you will go around saying their service sucks at their one variety store.  This seems to be analogous to the online situation these days.  You have to include uppercase letters, lower case letters, punctuation and numbers, plus pass gas twice, in order t log on.  IOW, it stinks for a reason.

258

Living Room / Re: Password Managers ... vs. Not

« on: June 05, 2017, 06:57 AM »

Plain bruteforcing has to search a much bigger keyspace than a smart dictionary-based attack.

-f0dder (June 04, 2017, 09:37 AM)

See your previous comment about off line attach modes.

259

Finished Programs / Re: HTML Garbage Tag Removal

« on: June 03, 2017, 10:21 AM »

StripHTML is a great app, but I believe it takes out ALL the HTML tags. I need only a specific opening/closing tag removed.

The files aren't that big. Most are a few hundred lines of code. For each book, there's usually two or three dozen files.

I'm really just looking for a dirt-simple AHK script or regex code. Doubt I'm savvy enough to handle something like SED.

-pulphero (June 03, 2017, 10:11 AM)

Why not grab one of those freeware "regex tester" programs?  You put in sample text, and a regex.  Hit the Go Button and it shows the results.  Most regex I get by trial and error myself.  I don't use it often enough to predict what will happen.

Here's one from sourceforge but there are a bunch of them out there:
https://sourceforge....rojects/regextester/

260

Finished Programs / Re: HTML Garbage Tag Removal

« on: June 03, 2017, 10:00 AM »

How big are the files?  Perhaps this web applet is good enough?

http://www.striphtml.com

Edit:  Hmm, seems to do nothing.  Perhaps it only works if there are html header or body tags.  I don't know.

Also I got this from "sed one-liners site:"

 # remove most HTML tags (accommodates multiple-line tags)
 sed -e :a -e 's/<[^>]*>//g;/</N;//ba'

sed is a very powerful free stream editor.  It can do many things way faster than an interactive edit session.  There are free versions for Windows:
http://gnuwin32.sour...net/packages/sed.htm

The page of "one-liner" sed scripts:
http://sed.sourceforge.net/sed1line.txt


The idea is the file to be modified is fed into sed via command line redirection usually, and the output redirected to a new file.  It modifies the file in one shot.

261

Living Room / Re: Password Managers ... vs. Not

« on: June 03, 2017, 07:53 AM »

It seems the entire premise of using unmemorable passwords is that if the password is easy to remember, then it is likely made up of common words.  Therefore it is vulnerable to dictionary attack.  I have a couple of questions

1) Why is the server allowing thousands of attempts on your account so that the entire dictionary is traversed until a successful hit is achieved?

2) What is to stop the dictionary attackers from just using permutations of numbers and letters just like the unmemorable password generators produce?  If the server is going to allow thousands of logon attempts to the same account why not just brute force it?

Lately there seems to be a tendency to make using the internet and computers generally nearly more of a pain in the ass than it is worth.  Especially with phone logon it is a real pita to have to fat finger passwords with mixed case letters plus numbers and funky symbols.  It just seems like it is getting to the point where everyone can get into my account but me.

Anyone else have that feeling?

262

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« on: June 02, 2017, 10:03 AM »

A piece on Miles Davis that aired on 60 Minutes.  There are a couple of music video clips as well as Morley Safer's interview and commentary.

263

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 12.15's source code has been leaked online

« on: June 01, 2017, 11:26 AM »

I am not the one patching and compiling it. The OP of the post located at http://forum.timsky....ic.php?f=5&t=138 is doing that.

-Zero3K (June 01, 2017, 09:58 AM)

 

Just trying to inject a little humor. 

264

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 12.15's source code has been leaked online

« on: June 01, 2017, 09:43 AM »

If you are "fixing" Opera how about tackling the chromium-based Opera so that it properly imports and exports bookmarks including favicons?    I am not sure of the status of chromium-based Opera source though.

The only way I found to get bookmarks with favicons without manually visiting hundreds of sites, into Opera was to copy the Bookmarks file from Slimjet over the Opera generated one.  It is hard for me to believe with all these generations of browsers such basic things are still sticking points.

265

General Software Discussion / Re: win32pad (editor) windows are suddenly all set to "always on top"! How to fix?

« on: May 31, 2017, 06:52 AM »

@MilesAhead: I don't have a multi-monitor setup.

-brotherS (May 30, 2017, 04:56 PM)

What you wrote was "switched off the monitor" but I saw it plural somehow.  My bad.   

266

General Software Discussion / Re: win32pad (editor) windows are suddenly all set to "always on top"! How to fix?

« on: May 30, 2017, 03:52 PM »

Aaaaand the problem has returned. 

-brotherS (May 30, 2017, 12:17 PM)

I have almost zero experience with Windows 10.  I was part of the Insider Program but to install and get it to run on a Laptop inside a VM took all day.  It was just too time consuming.  But I recommend the Windows Ten Forum while continuing to pursue the thread here.  I'm sure many of the regulars there have multi-monitor setups.  They may have a clue what is causing the intermittent behavior.

267

General Software Discussion / Re: win32pad (editor) windows are suddenly all set to "always on top"! How to fix?

« on: May 30, 2017, 07:28 AM »

It sounds like you may have picked up some prankware.  Have you done any scans such as Malwarebytes anti-malware?  I am not familiar with that editor but if it uses an .ini file to save settings it is possible the value could have changed somehow.

If there are no malwares found a reinstall(if it is the installer version) may clear it up.
Also if you are running any kind of window management utility such as WinSize2 or similar a change could have occurred there somehow.

Edit:  by the way, what version of Windows are you running?  Windows 8.x and later has the Desktop as sort of a child window(anything that has that new fangled Start Screen the Desktop has quirks.)  Sometimes running the program As Administrator can get around it.  No idea why the sudden change though unless you picked up some prankware.

268

General Software Discussion / Re: Cookies click driving me crazy

« on: May 26, 2017, 07:05 AM »

I just came across this wonderfully geeky cookie disclaimer which popped up in the bottom right corner of my browser window:

-Deozaan (May 25, 2017, 04:13 PM)

Looks like the site is running on apache.  You got the skinny straight from the "root." 
Instead of the "goody two shoes" cookeis msg I would like to see the hard nosed justification for tracking cookies.  Not that you get a "personalized experience" but that they get "gross increased 25% over the same quarter last year." 

269

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« on: May 23, 2017, 11:14 AM »

Carol, 8,00 posts; mouser gets canonised

-tomos (May 20, 2017, 03:15 AM)

I just hope nobody glues him to the dashboard.  That can be hotter than hell during the summer.   

Edit:  Oh, and congrats Carol on the post count.   

270

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: WHAT LICENSE KEY ? LOAD OF CRAP

« on: May 20, 2017, 07:35 AM »

While that first post was amusing to read, judging by some of the responses it seems to me that the o.p. has achieved his goal.

-cranioscopical (May 20, 2017, 06:25 AM)

A picture is worth a thousand words.   

271

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: WHAT LICENSE KEY ? LOAD OF CRAP

« on: May 19, 2017, 11:38 AM »

If this is how the OP treats the author of free software he's been using for years just imagine how he treats his employees!  If there are any besides himself that is.   

Glad I don't work for that guy!   
Indentured servitude will never die apparently! 

Now that I'm wide awake I can decide what to do for lunch. 

272

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« on: May 12, 2017, 07:37 AM »

Sonny Fortune - Africa
from In The Spirit of John Coltrane

273

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« on: May 09, 2017, 05:58 PM »

Relaxation/Meditation stuff

274

N.A.N.Y. 2017 / Re: NANY 2017: CSearcher - A simple and fast free non-indexing search program.

« on: May 09, 2017, 07:09 AM »

I think this is the bug you are experiencing. I will fix it in a new release I'm preparing.

-hugo nabais (May 09, 2017, 04:11 AM)

275

N.A.N.Y. 2017 / Re: NANY 2017: CSearcher - A simple and fast free non-indexing search program.

« on: May 08, 2017, 01:10 PM »

(sorry about the bug on 1.5.1.0, I should have made a final test)

-hugo nabais (May 08, 2017, 12:52 PM)

I tried the latest update and it does open without the error dialog.  One thing I have run into though is dialogs opening behind the main form.  Since they are modal and covered by the main form the program will not accept input.  Any mouse click generates a "ding" sound.  To close the program without using Task Manager requires mouse hover on the Taskbar Button and hitting the close 'x' on the dialog window.  In this case I tried to add patterns with the Add Button.  The dialog opened behind the main form instead of on top.

In case it makes any difference I am running Windows 8.0 64 bit OS.