Messages

4976

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 41-09

« on: October 11, 2009, 04:48 PM »

#9 - Well...NVidia is supposedly quitting the graphic chipset business. All that architectural know-how isn't going to just go away.

There's already been some  projects that successfully demonstrated clustering  multiple NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards to produce an inexpensive (<$4k USD) bespoke supercomputer.

-40hz (October 11, 2009, 01:03 PM)

If they used ATI Radeon 5800s they could halve the number of cards and cost

*DISCLAIMER: 4wd does not own stock in AMD/ATI Corporation, (but wishes he did).  He does own ATI hardware and much prefers it over nVidia...............so there! 

4977

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 41-09

« on: October 11, 2009, 06:54 AM »

9.  Oh great, not only will there be the 'Program Files x86' directory but also a 'Program Files x64' for 64bit apps on 128bit Windows.

I can't wait until the 2048bit version 

4978

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9

« on: October 09, 2009, 12:21 AM »

btw I have interpreted the explanation to mean:
On the "Drives" toolbar:
- left click on a drive button opens in the left lister
- right click on a drive button opens in the right lister

Is that right? Has anyone here got that working?

-Lefax32 (October 08, 2009, 01:58 PM)

Here's my drive toolbar, which I have down the left side of any lister I open: Left click opens to left side, right click opens to, (or opens), right side.

Extras: MMB on the Net button will list available domains (WORKGROUP, MSHOME, etc)
           RMB on Root = My Docs in active lister
           MMB on Root = My Pics in active lister

Other locations, LAN etc, are absolute referenced.

Top sect is stuff that doesn't change, Root, network, etc.  Next is fixed/removable HDDs, and bottom is removables. CD/DVD, flash.

4979

General Software Discussion / Re: Does initializing a USB hard drive format the data (in XP)?

« on: October 08, 2009, 02:16 AM »

You could always get your friend to reformat the drive as FAT32 to be more compatible with pretty much any OS.

4980

Living Room / Re: How do I rotate a movie 90 degrees?

« on: October 07, 2009, 02:08 PM »

Barring rotating the monitor - which is lossless

Avidemux - Transform->Rotate filter

4981

General Software Discussion / Re: At last: MP3 Lossless!!!

« on: October 07, 2009, 07:26 AM »

Also I should say that half of the files listed at the previous link, are surround files!

-Curt (October 06, 2009, 11:26 AM)

MP3 Surround isn't really new, it's been around since 2004 as a standard, see here.

And I used to use the Aud-X MP3 Surround VirtualDubMod 1.6.0.0 and codec 2 or 3 years ago.

4982

Living Room / Re: DIY - Home made in-car camera mount

« on: October 04, 2009, 08:48 PM »

Excellent idea!  I'll give it a go next time I go 4wding, usually I just drive along with one hand, holding the video camera in the other

That's one thing I love about the Canon cameras, (I have a A720is), the ability to expand their functions using the CHDK firmware.

I have a complete journey from the top of Hong Kong's Victoria Peak to the Star ferry terminal by double-decker bus, (32min), that I really should get around to doing something with one day.

4983

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« on: September 29, 2009, 07:46 PM »

Another idea that could appeal to the geek in you

Install a VIA Artigo a1000 into a spare 5.25 bay and use a KVM to switch.

4984

General Software Discussion / Re: -Recklessly- remove hardware (from USB)

« on: September 29, 2009, 12:02 AM »

Even with "optimize for quick removal", I'd still use "safely remove" to be 100% on the safe side. That will ensure all data is flushed and the filesystem is clean, and will notify you if there's programs still trying to access the device.

-f0dder (September 27, 2009, 11:57 AM)

Amen. However, it is extremely frustrating when Windows refuses to eject a device despite there being no open handles to it. I find that in this case, there are no adverse effects to simply yanking the device.

-Ehtyar (September 27, 2009, 06:24 PM)

I haven't experienced that?

However, I find that tortoisesvn's cache service often has a lock on an usb drive - killing the process fixes the problem

-f0dder (September 27, 2009, 06:38 PM)

I used to get it a fair bit which I attributed to the "Shell Media Handler" in XP.  According to nlite info it can be responsible for keeping a lock on media files, (it's used for popup media file info and thumbnails of video files, IIRC).

However, ever since I started removing it and all the WMP components about the only thing that now holds a lock is Everything, (I should probably go through it's prefs and specify exactly which drives to only index....but it's so much easier to just exit it ).

4985

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 38-09

« on: September 21, 2009, 05:44 AM »

*applause applause applause* - That was a great read 4wd

-Ehtyar (September 20, 2009, 03:18 PM)

Thank you, I do have my moments...........usually when I've forgotten to take my medication

4986

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 38-09

« on: September 20, 2009, 12:10 PM »

Honestly, I don't consider number 7 to be wrong.
The first warning will let people know they have their computers infected with something and are a problem for the rest of the society. If they choose to ignore the warning and not fix the computer or take it to the shop, they are unplugged from the internet.

-jgpaiva (September 20, 2009, 08:30 AM)

Maybe so, but what they are doing is targeting the victim not the perpetrator.  Also, notoriously, a warning will most likely be by a means where reception wasn't guaranteed, (eg. normal mail or email) - both can go missing.  I know, I've had it happen and it's normally always for something important.

There are situations where computers are on 24/7 and the owners are not contactable, (eg. they're on holiday) - should they be disconnected because a warning went unanswered, thereby taking down a possibly income producing machine?

How will the ISP distinguish between a bot and a machine doing valid "bot like" things?

Who gets to pay the, (current for Telstra), minimum $90 reconnection fee?

The theory is good but the application is wrong - it would be better if they spent the money on educating people so it didn't happen in the first place.

But this is all academic, as soon as the $43b RuddNet is installed to every house and the mandatory ISP based filtering is installed for everyone.....virii, bots, porn, dissent, etc will be a thing of the past and we will indeed live in the "Lucky Country".

Something similar happens with cars (in portugal): if your car doesn't pass on the inspection, you must fix it. If you're caught driving it without the inspection in order, the car is apprehended.

Your analogy would be more correct if your car failed to pass the inspection due to malicious intent by another person - leaving you with the expense of fixing or reclaiming your car while leaving the original perpetrator free to do it again.

4987

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 38-09

« on: September 20, 2009, 07:51 AM »

7.

"Dear Mr Rudd, I have decided that the 900 Ruddbucks you generously gave me is in no way compensation for the irreparable harm that you and your cabal of technologically illiterate, backward gorillas wish to inflict upon this nation.

I hereby request that I be no longer forced to pay taxes from this moment on as I no longer wish to finance such an inept bunch of cretins.

I might conceivably reassess this situation in the future if and when you have come to your senses and started investing in education.....you know, what we used to go to school for back in the last century."

Yours sincerely,
F.U. Rudd   (no relation)

4988

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« on: September 16, 2009, 11:25 PM »

It really is strange that you have such a adverse reaction to a common industry standard practice which is even recommended on some memory manufacturers support forums (one would thing they'd know better).

-Stoic Joker (September 16, 2009, 08:53 AM)

I don't have an adverse reaction - I just pointed out that some pencil erasers can leave a residue and it's something I wouldn't do - so I gave a couple of  alternatives.

TBH, these days I use the most simple form of cleaner you can get...a clean sheet of A4 printer paper.  I use it for contacts because it's abrasive enough to remove most contaminants without being so abrasive that it causes undue contact wear, (eg. I also use it for cleaning the heads on my video recorders).

Regarding the gold contacts, yes I realise they are not pure gold but I can also say that any problems I've had regarding gold contacts have been purely the fault of the connectors they were incorporated into, eg. manufacturing flaws creating insufficient contact tension or damage to the connector/contact.  Of course, YMMV.

But, all that aside, I'm sorry if it looked like I was trying to demean or nullify your suggestions in any way - I too have found your posts informative.

Addendum: I just thought I'd add this so you can see where I'm coming from: Removing Tarnish from PCB Pads, Holes, Contacts, and Connectors
Please bear in mind that it's referring specifically to the end point of soldering the cleaned area - running your stick of RAM, etc under a tap to remove the microscopic detritus left by using the eraser probably isn't a good idea, (IMHO, neither is blowing it unless you're using a clean, dry air supply).

So, yes the eraser is quick, easy, millions of techs all over the planet use it - I just said I wouldn't use it because of the crap some leave behind.

4989

General Software Discussion / Re: Cyclic Redundancy Error on CD/DVD

« on: September 16, 2009, 10:46 PM »

But in this case "Cyclic Reduncancy Error", is a whole new thing i m coming across, once i got this error on my Hard Drive and i just Defraged the problem.

-hulkbuster (September 16, 2009, 09:24 AM)

As f0dder mentioned, you've probably run into Sony's ARccOS protection.  Corrupt data sectors are deliberately put onto the DVD to prevent copying - and it worked.....for all of a week probably

Use the free DVDFab Decrypter to copy the contents onto your HDD.

4990

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you touch-type or hunt-and-peck?

« on: September 15, 2009, 07:12 PM »

Four fingers, working hard.

-mrainey (September 15, 2009, 04:10 PM)

I can go to six in a pinch  

Regarding the need to type to submit reports in school, etc: maybe if they went back to making them submit reports in writing they'd learn to spell.

4991

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« on: September 15, 2009, 06:45 PM »

Haven't built an Intel box in a long time (I use AMD stuff all the time). Is that VCORE normal for Intel? It is a lot lower than AMD (usually about 1.7V)

-Carol Haynes (September 15, 2009, 06:18 PM)

Actually it's not that much lower, my Phenom II runs at ~1.4V and mostly at ~1.0V, (because it's bored and I don't give it enough to do apparently).

The later CPU dies, (45/65nm), run at a lower voltage generally.

4992

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« on: September 15, 2009, 03:49 PM »

What kind of pencils have you been using?

-Stoic Joker (September 15, 2009, 07:20 AM)

I don't use erasers at all, there isn't any point because...

Alcohol isn't going to do anything to the oxidation layer that coats the contacts after time.

...gold doesn't oxidise in air.  If the gold contacts on your RAM sticks are oxidising you have other environmental problems.

Sure reseating the memory a-few-times will scratch/gouge a conductive path in the oxidation usually ... But it's not guaranteed especially if you have a less than perfect (slightly loose, etc.) memory slot.

Then you have a problem with your memory slots which should be fixed since any cleaning of the RAM contacts will be a temporary fix.

4993

General Software Discussion / Re: video editing software

« on: September 15, 2009, 03:33 PM »

lol, that was my thought too.. moreover his only other post so far is about a windows registry cleaner, sounds very spammy.

-lanux128 (September 15, 2009, 06:01 AM)

Strange spam - referring to a free program that's not able to do what the thread's about. 

4994

General Software Discussion / Re: video editing software

« on: September 15, 2009, 05:57 AM »

I m using Media Player Classic i think this is best video editing software.

-harminder (September 15, 2009, 12:50 AM)

MPC is playback only, apart from applying some on-the-fly video effects it can't do any video editing.

4995

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« on: September 14, 2009, 08:26 PM »

Might not hurt to clean said components (just their contacts) with a pencil eraser when reseating them.

-Stoic Joker (September 14, 2009, 05:57 PM)

Never heard of that, but will add to my: ToDos

-jammo (September 14, 2009, 07:27 PM)

I wouldn't do that, some pencil erasers leave a residue which can then cause problems.

If you must clean them physically, use a clean lint free cloth and some isopropyl alcohol.  Otherwise, unplugging/plugging them in a couple of times will more than clean the contacts sufficiently.

Of course, take all necessary ESD precautions before starting all this.

4996

General Software Discussion / Re: video editing software

« on: September 14, 2009, 08:18 PM »

AviDemux along with ffmpeg or mencoder is an excellent, free, solution.

-Ehtyar (August 28, 2009, 05:53 AM)

Avidemux is currently my preferred editor for simple things, (I use an old version of Vegas for more complex things, eg. video/audio resyncing).

I think you'll find that most of the codecs in Avidemux are based on ffmpeg, (as is mencoder IIRC), via libavcodec.

About the only really annoying big bug, (which has been mentioned in the forums by myself and others), I find with Avidemux is it's complete inability to create an AVI file bigger than 4GB that works.

4997

General Software Discussion / Re: Cyclic Redundancy Error on CD/DVD

« on: September 14, 2009, 08:05 PM »

The only thing that's worked for me, and worked surprisingly well at that, is polishing the disks with brasso. I've had a success rate of around 75%. Software can only do so much if your disk is truly effed up.

-nosh (September 14, 2009, 08:24 AM)

This should be the last resort, though, as you risk damaging the discs more than you fix them

-f0dder (September 14, 2009, 11:07 AM)

I've actually used Brasso on more discs than I can remember over the years, not one has come off worse and I'm always able to get them to a condition in which the data/video/audio will be read error free.

About the only ways you could risk damaging the disc using Brasso are:
a) You're using the equivalent of sandpaper for polishing - I use old clean t-shirts or towels.
b) You're doing it with the disc resting on a rough surface thereby possibly scratching the reflective layer.
c) You polish the disc in the wrong direction.
d) The scratch you're trying to polish out is way too deep.
e) You rapidly get fed up, develop tennis elbow and hoe into it with a angle grinder in frustration.

Using Brasso is not a fast fix, I've spent an hour+ on one CD I bought secondhand just to get it to play in a CD player.  It went from looking like a road map of Los Angeles to almost brand new store bought condition.

Note though that it's only good for physical damage to the polycarbonate side of the disc: scratches, pits, etc.

I've found that CRC errors are generally caused by a poor disc write or defects in the reflective layer or recording chemical layer, (poor disc quality).

4998

General Software Discussion / Re: Cyclic Redundancy Error on CD/DVD

« on: September 14, 2009, 03:22 AM »

I use IsoPuzzle for CD/DVD recovery - only works for data discs, so no good for video or audio.



That good thing I find with it is that you can try different drives, (because some drives are just better than others at reading discs), and just import any recovered blocks back into the main recovery ISO.

I h tried POWER CD/DVD RECOVERY, but that piece of Program is good for Scratched CD/DVD'S, it takes too long to retrieve the DATA: i simply exit the program.

-hulkbuster (September 12, 2009, 11:15 PM)

Although if you're not willing to wait for a program to work.....is there really a point?

4999

Living Room / Re: Carrier Pigeon faster than commercial ISP

« on: September 12, 2009, 12:04 AM »

I tried to find a link but google is failing me, or I'm failing it

-Kamel (September 11, 2009, 10:09 PM)

The search: Google

The site:

5000

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« on: August 12, 2009, 10:22 PM »

BTW, I really liked the "Slow Driver must pull over" Federal Law in the USA

-4wd (July 10, 2009, 12:31 AM)

Hey - what law us that?  I might have to start writin' some tickets!

-mwb1100 (August 12, 2009, 09:32 PM)

The last time I was in the US of A, (2003), traveling up the west coast and down through the inner-western states, there were road signs on any section of road that had a reasonable incline stating:

"It is a Federal Law that slow traffic allow other traffic to pass."

Or, along those lines.

They weren't old signs, (having been left from a bygone era, etc), and there were enough of them not to assume an isolated incidence.

This might be what I'm thinking of: Slow Vehicles Use Turnouts

I'm positive that the ones I saw stated "Federal Law" in them.