Messages

4676

General Software Discussion / Re: ConnectFusion Download Accelerator

« on: October 05, 2010, 11:02 PM »

Just wondering, what would you like to see added?

For anything big that I need to leave downloading overnight I still use WellGet, also last updated in 2005, and it offers a lot more options than ConnectFusion.

Also, both ConnectFusion and WellGet will run without installing, just extract the installers and run the executables.  They both leave traces in the registry, (their settings), so can't truly be called portable/stealth.

4677

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: STEAM: Left 4 Dead & Left 4 Dead 2 - US$10.19 for both

« on: October 05, 2010, 10:43 PM »

 

Shows you how much I look in this forum.

Sorry Deozaan 

Thanks for the answers guys.

4678

Found Deals and Discounts / STEAM: Left 4 Dead & Left 4 Dead 2 - US$10.19 for both

« on: October 05, 2010, 09:48 PM »

As per the subject - Midweek Madness sale.  I'm thinking of seriously whipping out the credit card here, however I have one question for which I can't seem to find an answer.

Can you play Steam games in a multi-player LAN environment without having to be connected to the internet?

eg.  If I take my PC to our LAN night and the others were running a L4D2 multi-player game, would I be able to join if I'm using a Steam based version of L4D2 and had no internet access for validation.

Or are Steam games purely single player if there is no internet connection?

4679

General Software Discussion / Re: Format NTFS from DOS!

« on: October 03, 2010, 10:10 PM »

I was hoping someone would come up with that suggestion i.e., Load DOS DISK and format the drive, well my friend it ain't any good since the drive is already a NTFS partition

-hulkbuster (October 03, 2010, 02:28 PM)

My circle is expanding  (PS. How will I recognise you in the street?)

Honestly, yes I goofed suggesting it, (add fdisk and it's fine though, just tried it here with my laptop - delete partition, create, format - although my laptop only has 2 partitions), and I apologise if the tone of my response was unsavoury in any way.

But also honestly, the statement 'I was hoping someone would come up with that suggestion ...' implies you were setting a trap and is counter-productive to asking for help.

All the various responses to your query could have been avoided by adding: "I want to do this with a view to restoration of an OS image.", to your OP.

In which case, everyone would have responded that a format isn't necessary.

Please correct me ,,,,,i have no idea or is it not so necessary to format prior to restoring.

As f0dder and I both mentioned, an image-based restore will wipe whatever is there but only on the sectors that are overwritten.  Some image software can zero any unused sectors.

Files that were fragmented before the image was taken will be fragmented after the restoration.  Files that were stored in the MFT will still be there, (deleted or not).
It is better to defragment before creating an image of your OS.  (Added: Defragging the system offline is even better - locked files will no longer be locked.)

Also, if you're concerned about any left over data, (eg. for security purposes):
- before your restore then you can do the full format, (as per your OP), or
- use a program to wipe unused sectors, (including deleted files in the MFT), before you create your image.  (I recommend doing it after a defrag.)

I've used Moo0 Anti-Recovery and it has worked very well, nothing recoverable after a deep scan with Recuva or Restoration.

Again, sorry if my tone was offensive but as I recently mentioned to someone here, I get irritated rather quickly if I have to play 20 questions to discover what the real question was, (or should have been).

Spoiler

People can be too secretive

4680

Living Room / Re: OMFG! Beauty of the Web...

« on: October 03, 2010, 07:18 PM »

Another secret message

Spoiler

Your exclamation was directed at the speed of the download not the content of the site....which isn't measured in fps.

4681

Living Room / Re: OMFG! Beauty of the Web...

« on: October 03, 2010, 12:16 PM »

It took exactly how long I calculated it would.

Spoiler

2426.88/45 = ~54 seconds

Big deal........

Spoiler

- and then it took a lot longer once you realise that, as usual, it's just a web-loader.

4682

Living Room / Re: Firefox Stability Issues

« on: October 02, 2010, 10:11 PM »

Oooppss!  Spoke too soon, whatever they did in the update yesterday totally hosed my Minefield install.  Couldn't browse anything without it crashing.

Forgot to mention, I'm using Minefield x64 builds with the x64 Flash beta - definitely walking on the dark side here

EDIT: Found the problem, the OptimizeGoogle addon no longer can be coerced into running 'nicely'.

4683

General Software Discussion / Re: Format NTFS from DOS!

« on: October 02, 2010, 09:12 PM »

So summing up:

You need to be able to boot into DOS in less than 10 seconds and do a full NTFS format prior to restoring an image of your OS.

Correct?

If so, then you can boot with a boring old DOS floppy and issue a full format command.  It doesn't matter what filesystem you format it in, it will be wiped when you restore your OS image.

However, if you mean that you will be restoring files and not a complete OS image, then:

Boot with a DOS floppy and issue a full format command.  It doesn't matter what filesystem you format it in since when you choose to install the OS you can then do a quick format into NTFS - the result will be the same.

If you're now going to say that you don't have a floppy drive then the answer is:

In the amount of time spent downloading the relevant DOS files, prepping a Flash drive, copying the files to it and then rebooting to use it - I could have booted off a XP CD and partitioned/formatted the drive.

How to boot from a USB Flash drive.  Partitioning/format tools here.

Just a question: Why do you need to do a full format before restoring your OS?

4684

Living Room / Re: Firefox Stability Issues

« on: October 01, 2010, 11:17 PM »

Running Minefield 4.0b7pre - no problems, (apart from a couple of my favourite addons no longer working).

4685

Living Room / Re: Why do we go out of our way to be unhelpful in forums?

« on: October 01, 2010, 11:08 PM »

Please no! I can't stand that woman!

-Deozaan (October 01, 2010, 09:06 PM)

Just for you:

NSFGF

@superboyac:
I have a better question: Why don't people who ask questions in forums provide enough information for a helpful response?

(Instead of having to play '20 Questions' almost all the time.)

4686

General Software Discussion / Re: Format NTFS from DOS!

« on: October 01, 2010, 10:55 PM »

Is there any reason you can't just boot from the Windows CD/DVD, (eg. Windows XP CD), into a Recovery Console and issue a Format, (and/or DiskPart), command?

No 3rd party software involved.

4687

General Software Discussion / Re: Application Virtualization - Make your applications portable

« on: September 18, 2010, 03:02 AM »

It seems pretty nifty. You can apparently install in a sandbox and make the app portable from there without actually installing it.

This is how I have been doing it anyway manually - maybe Cameyo can do it automatically and save me some work.

-brahman (September 18, 2010, 02:45 AM)

I haven't had a look at the latest beta, I know it was discussed/requested.

I use a VM with a base XP-SP3 + .NET OS to capture installs using Cameyo - then just revert to the base snapshot after transfering the package out of it.

4688

General Software Discussion / Application Virtualization - Make your applications portable

« on: September 17, 2010, 10:43 PM »

For those that are interested in making their applications portable, there's a new kid on the block - well, it's been around since April but I haven't seen anyone mention it here.

Cameyo - Free Application Virtualization



Very easy to use and you end up with a single executable application 'package' which seems to run ok on other Windows OSes, (providing the necessary dependencies are there of course).

A slightly cheaper alternative to ThinApp.

Addendum: From browsing the forum, you can add a parameter to the executable command line to remove the temporary files from the host system: "yourapp.exe -remove".
Also, the latest beta can be downloaded from here.

EDIT: Change the subject to be a little more descriptive.

4689

Living Room / Re: HDCP Cracked - Is HD Content doomed due to lack of DRM now?

« on: September 17, 2010, 07:51 PM »

It must be real!

4690

Living Room / Re: Tipping - Why does this appear to be a "requirement"?

« on: September 17, 2010, 09:16 AM »

Some info to figure out.

This is US government, so it's a CF.
http://www.dol.gov/w.../minwage/america.htm
http://www.dol.gov/d...ages/minimumwage.htm
http://www.dol.gov/e...faq/esa/flsa/002.htm

-cmpm (September 16, 2010, 07:54 AM)

So basically:

if minwage > (wage + tips) then
  wage = (minwage - tips)
else
  inc tax
end if


Where: wage = what the employer pays employee
           tips = what the customer pays employee
           minwage = what the employer is too cheap to pay employee
           tax = universal constant

4691

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a portable document and info management tool

« on: September 16, 2010, 09:18 AM »

Not sure if you can make the freebie portable,.....

-cmpm (September 16, 2010, 06:54 AM)

Extract the downloaded setup executable with UniExtract, then extract the Tabbles.msi with UniExtract.

Run the Tabbles.exe program, select your language, click OK, enter the dotTech serial and Bob's your uncle.

I didn't take any notice of where it put the serial, (eg. %appdata%, .\ - doesn't appear to be in registry), but it ran without installing so it shouldn't be too hard to make it fully portable.  I'll have a look later today since it's now 0020.

I'd hardly call it portable though since it requires .NET v4.

4692

Living Room / Re: Tipping - Why does this appear to be a "requirement"?

« on: September 13, 2010, 10:00 AM »

^ Wow... thanks for that info.  I never knew that, and am planning a cruise currently...  of course, whether or not I'll be able to take it in the next decade is still up in the air...

-wraith808 (September 13, 2010, 09:22 AM)

I should clarify that this might only apply to the cruise line we used this year, (C***a - did I say that?), but where one does it I'm sure there's others.

See here for a bit of info.

And while you're there get a cheap deal

4693

Living Room / Re: My portable HTPC project

« on: September 13, 2010, 12:19 AM »

yes, it is the simple answer.  But i'd like it to be a box I can open up and mess with.  I might want to put more connectors and stuff.  basically, I want a regular pc tower, just in the smallest form factor possible.

-superboyac (September 12, 2010, 09:51 PM)

How about:





AMD Athlon II 235e (45W)
Silverstone SUGO SG05 case
Coolermaster Gemini II heatsink - Legacy product, may be hard too find.
ZOTAC GF8200-C-E

Carry it around in one of these: Silverstone SUGO Pack.

This is my headless Usenet/BitTorrent downloader and PVR.  The front 120mm fan isn't used, the only fan running is the PSU 80mm but the loudest thing is the resonant hum from the HDD and only because I don't have any padding between the PC and "sounding board", (aka, my desk).  System temp is around the 27C mark almost all the time.  The only time a keyboard/mouse or monitor is plugged into it is for BIOS updates, system install or anything I can't do over RDP.

Storage is: WD 3.5" 750GB Caviar Green for downloads and a WD 2.5" 160GB Scorpio for TV captures, ODD is an Optiarc AD-7590S.
The WiFi module isn't installed because it's connected to Gb LAN.
I've only used that particular ZOTAC board because I had a spare AMD AM2+ processor and RAM otherwise I would have chosen the ZOTAC GF9300-K-E or ZOTAC H55ITX-A-E for the PCIe x16 slot and then used it as a LAN gamer also.

If that case is too small, then I'd recommend the Silverstone SUGO SG04-FH, then you can also choose from Micro-ATX motherboards.

4694

Living Room / Re: Tipping - Why does this appear to be a "requirement"?

« on: September 12, 2010, 11:30 PM »

Speaking with a server in the USA, I found out that the hotel simply took the gratuities that were tacked onto the bill. Servers never saw it, or much of it anyways.

-Renegade (September 12, 2010, 07:37 PM)

If you want to see an example of where this is prevalent, go on a cruise.

They add a Service Charge of US$9-11 per day per person, that's irrespective of whether there is more than one person in a cabin, (reduced workload on the cabin stewards, laundry, etc you would think).  This is open to negotiation at the end of the cruise but realistically, how many people would actually bother?

At the end of a cruise you get a performance rating questionnaire of the various areas/staff of the ship....on the last cruise we found out how this actually worked.

The very first question, (besides name/cabin naturally), is how you rated the cruise overall, from Not Very Good through to Excellent.  If you didn't tick Excellent then that resulted in your calculated, pre-paid Service Charge being kept by the company and subsequently deducted from the amount distributed among the various service staff.
They were never told why, all they know is for some reason they get less money in their pay packet.

You could bag the company all you like in the following questions but unless you answered the first with Excellent no one got anything.  This includes cabin stewards, chefs, waiters, laundry people and all the people you never get to see.

4695

Living Room / Re: Does Flash or java make websites suck?

« on: September 12, 2010, 01:12 AM »

e.g. The local Dominoes Pizza site is all Flash... And unusable.

-Renegade (September 11, 2010, 11:47 PM)

That's OK because the pizzas could be classed as inedible

4696

Living Room / Re: How do you add a post in a Google Groups thread???

« on: September 12, 2010, 01:05 AM »

As Jim says, try the Reply to author link - it all depends how the Group Owner has it set up.  You've got nothing to lose.

I spent 30 minutes trying to get my test group to look the same as your OP but couldn't; either both Reply links were there or they weren't.  It might be some combination that I didn't stumble across.

4697

Living Room / Re: How do you add a post in a Google Groups thread???

« on: September 11, 2010, 03:32 PM »

4wd, this isn't Usenet - it's a Google Group. I have used Usenet for many years (and still do using Agent Forte) and I do realize that Google purchased DejaNews and/or all its archives, but Google Groups doesn’t follow Usenet conventions. I can also understand why people would like it to do so - I do! But in the meantime if Superboy wants to post to the MLO group he has to do it in Google Groups. I don’t believe there is anyway to reply to the group via Usenet. Although he can reply to it via email if he has elected to receive posts via email.

-J-Mac (September 11, 2010, 12:48 PM)

I know it's not a Usenet group - I never said it was.

Not sure why you are replying for him there with Usenet examples.

The example I gave just happened to be a Usenet group because it illustrated Googles own criteria for replying to a group, any group, as specified in the link I gave in my last post - both a Reply and Reply to author link should be available.

OK, here's a non-Usenet example - just for a test I created a Google Group using their default settings:



Note the Reply and Reply to author link.  As I said in my first reply, it depends on what settings the Group Owner has set.

PS. I was logged in via another account as a normal user not the 'manager' when I took that screengrab.

4698

Living Room / Re: How do you add a post in a Google Groups thread???

« on: September 11, 2010, 08:01 AM »

It's very simple - that "Reply to Author" link is how you reply. What makes you think that it sends a private message instead of a reply? Did you try it?!?!

-J-Mac (September 11, 2010, 02:23 AM)

Because that's how it should work in a normal newsgroup, (not using Google Groups).  When you 'Reply to author' it doesn't get posted to the newsgroup.

Works for me every time. It has nothing to do with the owner not wishing anything! Where did that come from?

Replying to groups

What happens when someone hits "Reply" to a post?

When someone clicks the "Reply" link on your group's web page, the reply will always be sent to the group. To reply to the author from the web page, click the "More options" link near the top of the message, then click on the "Reply to author" link.

I can only think that if by 'Replying to author' all your posts end up in the group thread then that is the way that the person who set up the group, (not Usenet group), wants it to work.
If it's also happening when you do it through Googles interpretation of Usenet then that is wrong and it makes me even happier that I use client programs for all my Usenet stuff.

Google Groups is not a great discussion board format by any means, but one thing it is? Pretty simple to use!

The problem is they have obfuscated it by combining what are essentially message boards with Usenet.

4699

Living Room / Re: Should I buy a tablet pc, ipad, netbook, or other?

« on: September 09, 2010, 11:20 PM »

USD35 Tablet for Students



If they could get these to store for US$50 I'm sure they'd sell by the millions.

Hell, I'd buy two or three even though I'd prefer a real notebook.

4700

Living Room / Re: The Weather...

« on: September 09, 2010, 08:14 PM »

You'll need to have a really good arm to bean me from Dandenong as I'm in Toorak.

-Renegade (September 09, 2010, 06:44 PM)

Since I've got a height advantage I better dust off the trebuchet^w then I guess.  


PS. That's Mount Dandenong to you