Messages

26

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: June 03, 2013, 09:04 AM »

Both the Linux CD's booted but refused to run.
Knoppix gave a 'cannot find the file system' error.
Ubuntu got as far as 'loading kernel' and never got any further.

The AHK script did nothing.

27

Living Room / Re: Any one else have a bad Window update?

« on: June 03, 2013, 06:23 AM »

Mine last updated about 3 weeks ago, no problems.

If you've got an installation disc try running SFC before you try updating again.

28

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 15 Preview

« on: June 03, 2013, 05:27 AM »

barney,

I think the bottom line with IE is that it is no longer necessary although as far as I am aware it cannot actually be removed from the OS.

I only ever use it in XP for MS Updates, solely because it is easier. I could simply update from the notifications but the website provides more information if I need it.
Even though I have never updated FF beyond 3.6 if I want to take it out of the sandbox it normally runs in I can either change the user agent or use IE Tab and access MS with that.

I do not question that later versions of IE are safer than previous ones but again I come back to the point of how you use it.

That does not mean that you cannot get caught out but that is true of any version of any browser.

I would never advise other people not to update IE in the same way that I would never advise other people to follow some of the other computing practices I use, nor would I change them.

Why are people still using Opera at all?

Personal choice?

29

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: June 03, 2013, 04:49 AM »

One way to check would be to load a Linux LiveCD and try the beep command.

-4wd (June 02, 2013, 08:37 PM)

I've got several of those kicking around, I'll give it a try once I find an English translation of your link. 
(Most of that means nothing to me.) 

(It appears I have Ubuntu 6.06 and Knoppix 5.1.1. the rest are Rescue Discs.)

Just had a look at the MB Manual:

System warning speaker (4-pin SPEAKER)
This 4-pin connector is for the chassis-mounted system warning speaker.
The speaker allows you to hear system beeps and warnings.

It's probably a remote shot but I wonder what happens if I try beep.sys in XP Mode, I know it's there?

30

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 15 Preview

« on: June 03, 2013, 03:49 AM »

@pilgrim
There is IE8 for XP.

-fenixproductions (June 02, 2013, 04:57 PM)

I know.

I would advise to upgrade not because IE8 is a lot better but because other software may use its libraries (and hence be vulnerable to any of its exploits).

What other software? If you are talking about within the OS or OS related, XP was designed with IE6 and in spite of dire warnings I have never seen it stated that updating IE was essential.

I have a lot of software that has never been updated for a number of reasons, some I only have a license for a specific version, some the later versions have either become bloated or been changed in some way.
One of the most recent was Avira which earlier in the year removed the option to choose when to update the product, if I reach the point where it no longer works or definition updates are no longer available I will move to something else.

I am sure that nobody here would disagree with the statement that there is no such thing as 'complete security'. I have a range of security measures in place that probably go beyond what many people use and the last untoward thing I found on any of my computers was a tracking cookie, that was several years ago.
I am under no illusions that my systems are impregnable but I believe that more important than what version of a program you have is how you use it.
There are a small number of exceptions to that, Java for one, but I would not include IE in that group, in fact the only reason I updated to IE7 was because I preferred it.

I have no doubt that in years to come the same things will be said about IE* that are now being said about IE6 and there will still be large numbers of people who use the older versions without any problems.
I am not against updating things I just think that the issue gets out of hand at times.

New is not necessarily better, or safer. It's a question of balance and what I feel is right for my computers and the way I use them. If one of my systems did get exploited that's down to me, no-one else.

31

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: June 02, 2013, 10:26 AM »

It's a really weird site

-app103 (June 02, 2013, 09:41 AM)

I thought it said something about being in Vienna, perhaps it should have said Transylvania instead? 

32

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Updates

« on: June 02, 2013, 03:37 AM »

But that begs the question, how do you know what's superseded and safe to delete?

-Tinman57 (June 01, 2013, 05:35 PM)

If it was still needed it wouldn't be picked up.

33

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: June 02, 2013, 02:51 AM »

Just in case anyone else has troubles downloading the file, I attached it to this post.

-app103 (June 01, 2013, 11:42 AM)

Thanks for that, I tried from a couple of other IP Addresses and they were blocked as well.
I no longer had the original download from last year and the files I had didn't contain the source, probably because I knew I would never understand it. 

34

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: June 01, 2013, 10:24 AM »

OK. Tried all the options, nothing worked.

Found the folder where I had worked on this before and BEEPx was already in it, I thought I recognised it when I ran it.
The date on the folder was July last year so I must have looked into this a couple of months after the PC was built.

For those more technically minded than I am I have some questions:

In Windows 7, Beep was rewritten to pass the beep to the default sound device for the session.
This is normally the sound card, except when run under Terminal Services, in which case the beep is rendered on the client.

1) The above quote was among the many things that I have read on this subject and the section I have highlighted in BOLD caught my attention.
I cannot pretend to understand the significance of this but if there is an exception is there no way to make use of it to trigger the onboard speaker?

2) From looking into the information on BEEPx, in particular the README in the download, it would appear that he has defined the problem and the program is his attempt to solve it.
If I am not mistaken the source code for BEEPx is available. As different people often approach the same problems from different perspectives has anybody got the time to have a look at it and see if it gives them any ideas?

35

Living Room / Summer Holidays

« on: June 01, 2013, 06:12 AM »

The beginning of June; a time when, if they have not done so already, a lot of people start thinking about a summer holiday.

It's many years since I had a decent holiday; the last time I went away I even came back earlier than I had expected to.
I got time off for good behaviour.

Although money was short when I was a kid, (so was I) my parents always made sure we got away each year.
When I was very small we were always going to places I'd never been to before so there was always something new and exiting to see and do.
And I always found my way home, eventually.

When I got older I had the opportunity several times to go abroad. Although I didn't speak any foreign languages I was always impressed by how friendly everybody was, waving at you as you drove past.
I must admit it was a bit nerve-racking at times though, as they all seemed to want to drive on the wrong side of the road.

Many years later I remember the first time I ever went on a plane. I wasn't scared of flying as such but I have never been comfortable with heights.
I could never wear Cuban heels for instance, and I've always been glad that I never grew any taller.

As the plane was ambling down the runway to take off I happened to look out of the window, I was sitting just behind the wing.
I wasn't thinking about air pressure or physics or anything like that so when I saw the end of the wing begin to bend I was concerned.
I remember turning to the person next to me and saying "I'm not at all sure about this, the damn thing's flapping its wings to get off the ground!"
It reminded me of Orville in The Rescuers.

Of course if you're travelling a very long distance especially to another continent, flying is really the only way to go.
And going by plane is a lot less wearing on the arms.

In recent years budget airlines have made a tremendous difference to the way people travel.
I've never been on one myself, I got put off when I was told that Ryanair's planes had outside toilets.

This is another extract from Pilgrim: A Brief Hystery.

36

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: June 01, 2013, 04:10 AM »

Thanks for the replies, I'll try them later.

app103,

I had already seen your first link but I have long thought that if the internal speaker beeps at all there must be a way of triggering it although I never got beyond that point.

I cannot access your second link or the direct download link, http://www.waldbauer...l.php?download=beepx, they are both blocked.
I am offered the option to enter an unblock code which is provided, but when I do it just takes me back to the same page?

Welcome to waldbauer.com - vienna
If you were redirected here, you - exactly your IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - is blocked.

You can try remove yourself by copy the key
4B354D47365954 into the field below.

We apologise for any inconvenience.

I cannot find the file anywhere else so I will have to try again later using a different IP Address.

37

General Software Discussion / Re: 64 bit Standalone Stack or alternative?

« on: May 31, 2013, 11:17 AM »

I took a couple of screenshots to show what I mean.

38

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Bring back the BEEP!

« on: May 31, 2013, 08:24 AM »

I have been deliberating on whether to post about this for some time, partly because it has been written about many times on the Internet and so far it has been considered impossible.
But as I have first hand experience of, there are some very talented people on DC who have managed to find ways of replacing what MS have removed, so:

In Windows 7 MS removed the ability to use the MB speaker for system beeps.
My MB has a plug-in speaker as opposed to a built-in speaker which beeps once at POST and that is it.

I have tried the suggestion of changing the beep.sys file(s) for the XP one but it made no difference.
Windows 7 Pro x64 actually has two of them:
C:\Windows\System32\drivers\beep.sys
C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-beepsys_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_201592fa214e4f02\beep.sys
I have tried changing them one at a time and both at once, still no difference.

Given that I, a) have a system speaker and, b) know that it works can anyone come up with a way of using it.

My reasons are simple:
Unless they are in use my external speakers are always off.
I have a couple of alarm/calendar/timer programs that are meant to use the system beeper.
I have a tiny little program that allows me to create sounds/tunes to play through it.

Any takers?

39

Post New Requests Here / Re: Turn a batch file into an AHK script.

« on: May 31, 2013, 07:57 AM »

Thanks for the update.

I sent the details off the day before yesterday and am awaiting a reply. 

(and it'll take a while)

At least there is a working solution, which is more than MS have provided. 

40

General Software Discussion / Re: 'Home' and 'End' and 'FN'.

« on: May 31, 2013, 07:46 AM »

Did you run KeyTweak after you rebooted to see if the remap was still there, (it detects any active remappings)?

-4wd (May 31, 2013, 07:22 AM)

Yes, everything appeared to have worked except for the actual keys.
The first couple of times I tried it was picking up the same mapping with and without the FN key.
When it did finally pick up a difference it was just by 2 on the last digit in each case.

As I said earlier it wouldn't surprise me if this was specific to the model.

I'll give it another try when I get a chance but if it is showing all the right indications and still not working?

41

General Software Discussion / Re: 'Home' and 'End' and 'FN'.

« on: May 31, 2013, 06:30 AM »

Update.

I tried both the programs that I downloaded without success.

KeyTweak appeared to do the job, it recognised the mappings and created new registry keys but when I rebooted and tried the keys nothing happened, with or without the FN key, they simply appeared to have been disabled.

SharpKeys threw up error messages on all the keys I mentioned in the last post claiming they had 'unrecognised mappings'.

I've not got around to looking into this any further but I remember coming up against issues in the past that seemed to point to some of Samsung's own software preventing modifications.

42

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Updates

« on: May 31, 2013, 05:56 AM »

I sorted out cleaning software a long time ago and rarely look at anything new, but a short time ago I read a review of KCleaner.
As it is portable and also has an 'Analyse' mode when run manually I gave it a try.
To my surprise it turned up quite a few files on both XP and 7, the majority of which were MS Update related.
Having looked through the list to make sure there was nothing that was needed I let it run and have had no problems.

I would not recommend running it automatically, at least until you have sorted out what it finds.
Nor do I think it is something worth running frequently, CCleaner plus CCEnhancer find most of the regular stuff.
But I definitely think it is worth running after installing MS Updates each month.

43

General Software Discussion / Re: 64 bit Standalone Stack or alternative?

« on: May 31, 2013, 03:50 AM »

I'm not sure I got it right. What do you mean by a toolbar with just one icon?
But I'm aware that you can assign any folder as a toolbar in Windows 7's Superbar.

-ajfudge (May 31, 2013, 01:00 AM)

When you create a toolbar on either XP or 7, provided you have more than 3 items in it, by default the first 3 appear next to each other in the taskbar.
If you unlock the tasbar and push the toolbar to the left (assuming you have the taskbar at the bottom of the screen) you can close it down to show just 1 icon and the arrows for the menu.
This means you can put 2 toolbars in the same space it would normally take for 1.

I already have 2 toolbars on my PC's, Quick Launch and PPTP VPN's, now that I have VIndicator I shall add at least 1 more on 7 for L2TP VPN's.
On my Netbook (XP) I don't have any toolbars because they take up too much room so I modified the folders on the right-hand side of the Start Menu and put the most used shortcuts there.

I have Coolbarz hidden on the left of my screen containing shortcuts to various screen tools and Tray Commander Lite in the System Tray with shortcuts to backup, cleaning, encryption, and LV programs.

The only shortcut on any of my Desktop's is for the Recycle Bin.

44

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 15 Preview

« on: May 31, 2013, 03:16 AM »

IE can hold its own these days, spoken as a user and developer. You're only a fool if it's a version older than 9

-allen (May 30, 2013, 01:55 PM)

I guess that makes me a fool. 

On XP I stayed with IE 7 (+IE 7 PRO).
Windows 7 came with IE 8, I never saw anything in 9 that interested me. When 10 came out I updated, 20 minutes later I was back to 8 and intend to stay there.

On XP I only use IE for MS Updates, on 7 I can't even remember the last time I opened it.

45

General Software Discussion / Re: 64 bit Standalone Stack or alternative?

« on: May 30, 2013, 10:50 AM »

I tried 7stacks without installing it but I took one look at the background/layout of the window that popped up from the taskbar and dumped it.

I've just been having a look at the issue of toolbars on the taskbar and learned some interesting things.
(I expect everybody else knew about them years ago.) 

It's possible to create a toolbar that only shows one icon regardless of how many items it actually contains, plus the arrows next to it.
It's also possible to to put a folder into a toolbar that will give you a tree view and therefore access to, any subfolders.

I'm not sure if there is a limit to this but it strikes me that you could, for one thing, move the 'Programs' folder to a toolbar and do away with the need for third party software to replace the default start menu.

46

General Software Discussion / Re: 64 bit Standalone Stack or alternative?

« on: May 30, 2013, 07:48 AM »

Does anyone use 7stacks?

According to the website it will work with XP on.
Also according to the website in Vista and Windows 7 it uses Aero which I have disabled.
Given that XP does not have Aero I am assuming it is not an actual requirement.
Can anybody confirm that?

47

Living Room / Re: Quick blog/site (for images) where I'm contactable *without having to join*

« on: May 30, 2013, 06:29 AM »

Something I found a long time ago to allow people to contact me without providing my email is THIS.

I put it at the bottom of my one and only attempt at a webpage.
Nobody has ever used it,  then again I doubt anybody has ever found it. 

48

Post New Requests Here / Re: Turn a batch file into an AHK script.

« on: May 30, 2013, 05:13 AM »

I'm not talking about rasdial failing every time, just the time I want, (VIndicator), to use it.

-4wd (May 30, 2013, 04:14 AM)

Sorry, looking at it this morning I realise I was thinking back to when I was using a separate batch file to run each VPN and using rasdial to start them.
The only place that rasdial appears in a batch file now is in the main Internet Toggle file as 'rasdial disconnect', to shut down any PPTP/L2TP VPN that might be running.

I also realised that using VIndicator the VPN's do not require any separate batch files so I have deleted the folder containing them, I should have done that when I changed the shortcuts. 

49

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 15 Preview

« on: May 30, 2013, 03:28 AM »

"...you will see new versions coming at much, much faster pace than it was with the classic, Presto-based line."

-TaoPhoenix (May 29, 2013, 03:42 PM)

If I had needed a reason to stop updating that's it. I stopped updating Firefox at v3.6 and it's still my default browser.

When the practice of faster browser updates started it made me think of a row of little boys standing in line trying to see who could get it highest up the wall.
I know a lot of these companies were started by people who were young at the time they started them, but it looks like most of them are never going to grow up.

Not to mention the fact that so many of the changes are at odds with what many users, long-time users, want.

50

Living Room / Re: SSD's - How They Work Plus Tips

« on: May 29, 2013, 09:25 AM »

You need to do your research and buy with care.

I spent nearly 2 months looking into parts for my newest PC before I ordered anything.
I wasn't certain to begin with that I would get an SSD, in the end it came down to Corsair or Crucial, as I was going for their RAM I settled for Corsair.