Messages

6476

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« on: March 29, 2010, 04:44 PM »

@ TomTrottier and @Deozaan: I could be wrong, of course, but I gather that all current adblockers download the ads and related crap regardless anyway, which consumes bandwidth. They just don't display the crap, that's all. Ars technica, however would seem to be insisting that we actually must have that crap displayed on our screens, which is why I tell them to "get lost".

Interestingly, there was one ad-blocker - defunct now, but the one that probably started it all - which actually sent requests to the server to NOT send specific advertising-related material. It was called JunkBuster (junkbuster.com and junkbusters.com) and was developed by Anonymous Coders and Junkbusters Corporation. This system (it ran as a proxy server on the client) is no longer maintained, but it is mentioned in Electronic Privacy Information Center.

I started using JunkBuster in 1997/8, as I was working as an expat in the Philippines and later in Thailand, both of which had crappy telelcomms infrastructures. Connection to the Internet was usually via dial-up voiceband modem, and connection speeds with the Internet could be incredibly slow, regardless of whether you had the latest newfangled 56K dial-up modem. At that time, the advertisers were starting to flood the web with advertising, and people had started to create web pages with very little real content and lots of whirling and flashing gizmos - these, as now, were all major bandwidth hogs, and I couldn't afford to have them. JunkBuster was a lifesaver for me then. It was brilliantly designed.
With JunkBuster, you could:

• spoof your http header (mine said I was using an obsolete Macintosh, with the obsolete Mosaic browser), and included my email address as "<[email protected]>"
• update/add to your block-list (using Regular Expressions) to make it just right for you
• share your block-list(s) with other people (this was very useful, for me)
• block cookies and control whether you responded to them
• keep cookies in a "cookie jar"
• share cookie jars with with other people (clever idea)
• send someone else's cookies to a server, from a shared cookie jar (brilliant idea; thereby completely frustrating the concept of cookie tracking)

There were various other JunkBuster features, but the above would give you some idea of the scope of it.
The JunkBuster site is no longer maintained, and JunkBuster was largely superseded by GuideScope, and that was later superseded by NoScript and AdBlock - which do not send requests to the server to NOT send specific advertising-related material. That is, they don't help your bandwidth any.

I would dearly love to have the ability to do the same sort of things though - e.g., maintain cookie jars, send requests to the server to NOT send specific advertising-related material - as I still wish to retain my anonymity when surfing and I still have to pay for bandwidth (so I want to be thrifty about that).
I wonder, is this something that the Donation Coder people could help with?

If anyone is interested, you can download the JunkBuster install file of the last version, which includes the source code (JunkBuster 2.0.2 - ijb20.zip) from here. I think it needed redeveloping when SSL was introduced, as it did not work very well with SSL switched on (and we all tend to use that now, by default).

6477

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« on: March 27, 2010, 08:04 AM »

The ars technica article on adblocking was an amazing 1,101 words long, adding up to what some people (not me, you understand) might say was impressively specious - if not downright fallacious - reasoning, with begging thrown in for good measure and all intended as an attempt to substantiate an otherwise unfounded and insubstantial POV whilst at the same time attempting to twist the arms of the readers into conceding to that POV.

Some people might particularly notice the implicit and powerful threat:

"We've done a test and you know what? If you don't unblock our ads, then we'll...we'll jolly well take our toys away, and boy! - will you be sorry then! Try to read our site then, sucker!"

Those people might go on to add that whatever content they wish to appear on their PC monitors, what is deserving of their finite cognitive surplus and what they wish to pay for with their finite and hard-earned cash is largely up to them and that no amount of coercion or implied threat is going to alter that, so get lost.

6478

Mouser's Zone / Re: suggestion for a simple utility

« on: March 18, 2010, 09:31 AM »

@delcacho: If you get xplorer², then you will not only be able to do what you are wanting in your post, but you will get what is arguably the best file manager on the planet and which can do heaps of stuff you never dreamed of or did not realise you needed until you tried it (e.g., powerful batch file renaming, single panes or dual horizontal or vertical panes, robust copy/move functions, synchronised "mirror" scrolling, and much, much more. It also replaces the OS' Windows Explorer.
xplorer² has a "Lite" version (free) and a Pro (paid for) version. I'd recommend that you try the Lite first then go for the Pro, as, in my experience, it is extremely good value. I have been a happy user of this product - in its earlier and current incarnations - for several years. It must have saved me heaps of time and trouble over the years and it has become an indispensable tool for me.

xplorer² can be found at www.zabkat.com     

6479

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.3.2]

« on: March 16, 2010, 03:49 AM »

@Perry Mowbray: Could you help please? Same as dortom, I have been unable to recover from the last update, which seems to have now wiped my 11 time zone settings, and I am unable to reset them as the drop-down lists are empty. I don't see how to fix this.

6480

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« on: March 16, 2010, 02:03 AM »

This discussion is beginning to remind me of the discussions around the pros and cons of the 8250/16450 UARTs (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) which were being developed in the '80s for analogue modems. A key constraint there seemed to be the buffer throughput speeds of modems using single, and, later, double-buffering technology.

6481

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« on: March 14, 2010, 03:57 PM »

Putting aside the possibility of this XP limitation being a "conspiracy" for a moment:   

The ARS technnica post is rather informative. I might put them back into my Google Reader subscriptions after this. (I had removed them after their what I thought was an extremely stupid article on ad-blocking.)

Just in case you have not already seen it, in the comments below the ARS technica post, there is provided this rather elegant work-around:

Metzen | Thu Mar 11, 2010 12:13 am | permalink
Windows XP works just fine with properly aligned partitioned drives. The only part it fails with them is with the initial "blue screen" install process as that is hard-coded for the 63rd 512byte offset. But you can get around it. I know this because when I worked at HP we had this issue. Microsoft's solution was some registry tricks in WinPE to format the drive the "XP" way, but we found ways around it while maintaining the proper alignment.
The trick we used was:
   1) Install XP first
   2) ImageX XP to another HDD or over the network
   3) Reformat the drive and install Vista
   4) Copy XP to the hard disk
   5) Setup bcdedit to dualboot XP

And for just XP we would skip the Vista install but use the new Vista bootloader as opposed to ntldr. It worked just fine, and we got the "faster" properly aligned partitions.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/923332
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931760

DrPizza  below that makes this comment:

That's an interesting workaround--rely on Vista to do the stuff that needs to be large-sector aware, but then just stick with XP. And I bet it's quicker than running WD's alignment tool, too. Good idea!

6482

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« on: March 14, 2010, 04:00 AM »

@Darwin: If you say you "don't think the quote is accurate", do you mean that I may have misquoted it? I just checked and it seems to have been correctly quoted. However, if you disagree with the article I quoted, then that's another matter and you might be better referring to the author. I did read through the whole thing and I couldn't see anything wrong with the author's apparently expert analysis - and he actually substantiates (tests and proves) what he is talking about - but then I am not qualified to debate it as it is not really in my field.
To get to the article, try the link provided in the post above.
Here it is:
Licensed Memory in 32-Bit Windows Vista

6483

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« on: March 13, 2010, 09:11 PM »

@f0dder and @Innuendo:
My apologies. I made a mistake in my post above and have corrected it. Where I wrote "XP" it should have read "Vista".

@Innuendo: It is categorically not my theory, and it would appear to be fact in any event.
To substantiate this, I have added a relevant reference to my post above. The reference is to a separate post on a rather academic site called "Geoff Chappell - Software Analyst". The post goes into considerable detail on the access block and how you can actually hack the kernel to access all that extra RAM (but it may invalidate your Windows licence).   

When I started working in ICL in 1970, I was already qualified in accountancy and law, but ICL gave me some further training: assembler (PLAN IV on ICL 1900 mainframes) programmer training, and training in the ICL sales and marketing approach. I would in particular refer to the concept of "Lock-in" that we were taught about in the sales training. Understanding this concept gave me an added insight into corporate strategy that enabled me to take an advisably cautious and cynical view of the players' actions in the IT industry. Working in IT and as an IT and management consultant, I have since then seen some unethical corporate behaviours - sometimes borderline legal and sometimes downright illegal - that would make your hair curl. The latest of these was in 2007, and was leading to an international corporation knowingly planning to commit an offence against the laws in a foreign country in order to fraudulently claw back tax grants from that country's coffers - pure profit. The corporate executives signed into the idea and had even had identified which foreign statutes and other laws they were intending to circumvent or breach.

By comparison, the sort of unholy alliance I was suggesting above would be a relatively trivial example of this, and calling what I posted "conspiracy theory" could seem a tad excessive. Regardless, it would seem to me that the empiric evidence leads to the conclusion that "business ethics" is an oxymoron and a figment, and consumers ignore this at their peril.

6484

Living Room / Re: First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« on: March 13, 2010, 09:05 AM »

@Deozaan:

"...probably by the time these HDDs become mainstream, Windows 8 and Ubuntu 13.4 and OS XI will be out and one of them ought to be better than XP by then."

Hear, hear.
It is still not beyond the bounds of credibility that this whole 512 v. 4096 bytes thing is nothing more than a crafty collusion - an unholy alliance - between Micro$oft and the hardware manufacturers.
Think that's unlikely?
Remember:
(a) The MicroSoft and HP email exchange covering up the serious performance constraints in Vista.
(b) It was Microsoft who deliberately crippled XP Vista so that it could not address more than 4GB of RAM. (Now, who on earth would have thought they would have done anything like that?)    

Added 2010/03/14 1523hrs:
Re point (b), please refer: Licensed Memory in 32-Bit Windows Vista

That 32-bit editions of Windows Vista are limited to 4GB is not because of any physical or technical constraint on 32-bit operating systems. The 32-bit editions of Windows Vista all contain code for using physical memory above 4GB. Microsoft just doesn’t license you to use that code.

Well, to say it that way is perhaps to put words in Microsoft’s mouth. I say the restriction to 4GB is a licensing issue because that’s how Microsoft’s programmers evidently have thought of it. The 4GB limit is retrieved from the registry by calling a function named ZwQueryLicenseValue, which is itself called from an internal procedure which Microsoft’s published symbol files name as MxMemoryLicense. If you remove this check for the licensed memory limit then a restriction to 4GB is demonstrably not enforced by other means. Yet I must admit that I have not found where Microsoft says directly that 32-bit Windows Vista is limited to 4GB only by licensing. The supposed License Agreement doesn’t even mention the word memory.

6485

General Software Discussion / Re: Back again: focus flicker ...

« on: March 05, 2010, 02:40 PM »

@barney: In my comment above, I made the implicit assumption that the focus flickering was governed by the system registry, but I suppose that it could be governed by the video graphics processor settings or process priority (or maybe a mixture of these?).

I Googled "steal focus in Windows 7" and came up with lots of items. It's evidently a problem for some Windows 7 users, and the usual fixes seem to be to change the registry settings or the video graphics processor settings. Some of the articles try to con you into running some dubious free "This'll Fix IT" PC tuning  software (I wouldn't touch 'em with a bargepole), but there are some useful tips as well.

In case you have not already seen this particular tip, I have copied below from a post by mirandalee at sevenforums.com, here.

Windows 7 - window focus issues (windows 7 pro x64)
1. Open Start >> Run and type regedit
2. Navigate to the following path:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
3. Modify the existing value named ‘ForegroundLockTimeout’, modify the value to 0. (this value will cause the application to take the focus instantly.)
4. Exit everything and restart Windows and hopefully it fixes your focus problem like it did for me.

However, if the above assumption (that the focus flickering was governed by the system registry) is wrong, and if you have drawn a blank with that anyway and with tweaking the video graphics processor settings, then that could leave the process priorities as being worthy of checking. They might, I suppose, somehow be fluctuating, resulting in priority interrupts as the priorities of different processes change. Or maybe a hardware interrupt? The only tool I use for monitoring stuff like that is Microsoft Sysinternals' Process Explorer. You could test whether process priority was a factor by setting the process priorities using Process Explorer or DonationCoder's ProcessTamer (it's a really useful tool) and observing the results in Process Explorer and by checking the behaviour of focus in the process windows.

6486

General Software Discussion / Re: Back again: focus flicker ...

« on: March 05, 2010, 06:03 AM »

@barney: I had a similar - though not identical - problem (running Windows XP SP3 on a laptop with a Centrino Duo processor). Some applications were trying to "steal focus" or priority in the User Interface.
I don't know what caused it - it just started to happen one day - but I fixed it with Tweak UI - which is a component of the Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP.
You can download the separate Power Toys (e.g., such as Tweak UI) from here: http://www.microsoft...oys/Xppowertoys.mspx

Steps:
   1. Install and then start up Tweak UI.
   2. Click to expand the "General" branch on the tree in the LHS of the Tweak UI control box.
   3. Click on the "Focus" branch on the tree.
   4. Play with the settings to "Prevent applications from stealing focus".

I think it changes settings in the registry. I don't know where the settings are or what they are.
You may need to do a user logoff and on again, or reboot, when changing Tweak UI settings, before they affect your system.
Anyway, it worked for me. Hope it helps you.
I'd be interested in your feedback on this, if you try it.
You may have to go back and repeat these steps if something (some program or other) keeps persistently changing the settings back in your registry.

6487

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.3.2]

« on: March 01, 2010, 05:52 PM »

Yes, it looks as though my 11 zone settings have been blown away too.
Now when I invoke TimeZone, I see 11 slots all showing the current (local) time - that's all (i.e., no location name).
The preferences seem to have been lost/deleted and I am unable to set them anew in the preferences - the functionality is not there. Yet it still recalls my 11 slots. Odd.

Bother!   

6488

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.3.2]

« on: February 13, 2010, 10:24 PM »

@Perry Mowbray and mouser:
Yes, I put the TimeZone plugin into a folder I created called "FARRTimeZone", in the Plugins directory - the latter being where the installation instructions said to put it. I think the instructions did not define the correct name to be used for the folder that was to be put into the Plugins directory.

Funnily enough, I originally had it named as "TimeZone", but after studying the Plugins directory, I realised that there seemed to be no file-naming convention/standard for the folders in the Plugin directory. I supposed (incorrectly) that the dcupdater (when it was provided for this plugin) would probably be set to look for and use the name "FARRTimeZone" for the folder, since that was how it was sometimes referred to in the notes.

Where mouser indicates above that he had:

"...not automated the procedure of placing a plugin into it's proper place...for initial unpacking of the plugin by the user"

- though that (automation) would probably help avoid a repeat of this type of error by myself or others, the problem was no major big deal for me.

I'm still a happy TimeZone user!   

6489

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.3.2]

« on: February 11, 2010, 05:49 PM »

@Perry Mowbray: More feedback on the FARR TimeZone plugin.   

1. Why it crashed on update: (as per post above)
I had put the TimeZone plugin into a folder called "FARRTimeZone".
When you got DcUpdater to install/update the TimeZone plugin, you had it set so that it put it into a folder called "TimeZone".
I think that got FARR trying to update and run 2 instances of the TimeZone plugin. Result = FARR crashed and when I restarted it, TimeZone was all "wrong" (it had lost my settings).

My fix for this:
    (a) Delete the folder called "TimeZone" (which contained the TimeZone default settings from DcUpdater's latest update).
    (b) Rename folder "FARRTimeZone" to "TimeZone" (this folder contained my personal TimeZone settings).
    (c) Restart DcUpdater, which installed the TimeZone update into the "TimeZone" folder and preserved my settings.
Here is a picture of the folders in my FARR Plugins directory after this:


2. You've done a better job than Google!     
Today, I was playing about with the Google-developed Google Desktop clock gadget called "Time Around the World" (which looked quite nice).
Guess what? It gets the time wrong (and it's not easily fixable by the user).
I would hazard a guess that at least one problem with that is in it not being able to account for "local time" for me being New Zealand Summer Time (1 hour difference).

Kudos to Perry Mowbray.     

6490

Living Room / Re: How can we *share* Donationcoder.com better in 2010?

« on: February 10, 2010, 01:44 AM »

If you take my experience of Wikipedia, I would recommend that you consider using a Google Knol rather than Wikipedia.

Anything you put up in Wikipedia  is potentially subject to the inconsistent whims and editorial control of a bunch of faceless, self-appointed "editors" whose expertise and qualifications are unknown and and thus of dubious credibility. This means that when they do make an editorial change, it could be (often is) wrong, as they are not necessarily qualified to judge correct material on any/all subjects.

I say this after the experience of putting quite a lot of effort into building, maintaining and contributing to several Wikipedia entries on different topics. After the experience of some separate moronic pieces of ignorant POV edits and sheer vandalism and/or spamming of some of the entries, I decided to migrate the most important entries to Google Knols and sadly abandoned the hopeless chore of trying to maintain the Wikipedia entries in a correct and pristine state. Knols are under your control and that of other authors to whom you give editorial read/write access. To date I have created 8 Knols, one of which won some kind of award (it was on Nolan's Model).

That is why I would recommend that you consider using a Google Knol rather than Wikipedia.

6491

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.3.2]

« on: February 08, 2010, 06:00 AM »

@Perry Mowbray: I can confirm that dcupdater picked up and installed TZ v1.3.2 OK just now.
Only one small snag: After the TZ update was installed, FARR crashed, but I restarted FARR and the new TZ was identified by my Zone Alarm and all is working fine.

FARR and the updated TZ are still working fine on my laptop (Windows XP).
Thanks again.            

6492

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.2]

« on: February 05, 2010, 02:49 PM »

@Perry Mowbray: TimeZone was already a very good plugin. It has just become a superb plugin.       
Nice work.

6493

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.2]

« on: January 28, 2010, 06:29 PM »

@Perry Mowbray: Wow! Many thanks!   
Now I can have all 11 time zones displayed. I haven't needed more than that in a while.
Much better using TZ - zero tediousness. Otherwise I would have to go to timeanddate.com, then login BEFORE I can select and view my personal clock.

6494

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.2]

« on: January 28, 2010, 07:02 AM »

@Perry Mowbray: Thanks. I did promise to report back. TZ seems to be working correctly on the main timezones I am interested in (see screenshot below). As you can see from the The Personal World Clock page (timeanddate.com), I am interested in checking up to 11 time zones, so a max of 5 in TZ is OK but not ideal (for my needs).

Thanks for a great plugin, and thanks for fixing it so swiftly.

6495

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.1]

« on: January 27, 2010, 07:30 AM »

@Perry Mowbray: Thanks Perry.
That works just fine - problem fixed!                 

Will play around with it a bit and let you know the result.

6496

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.1]

« on: January 25, 2010, 06:59 AM »

OK. Thanks. Got it now. Must have missed it before.
C:\...\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\FARRTimeZone\Data\log.txt

6497

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.1]

« on: January 25, 2010, 04:17 AM »

@Perry Mowbray: Logging was already turned on, but I cannot see anything resembling a log file in the directory
C:\...\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\FARRTimeZone

What is the filename and extension of the log file supposed to be please?
WHERE (i.e., what directory) is it supposed to be?

Thanks.

6498

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: TimeZone [Update version 1.2.1]

« on: January 23, 2010, 10:32 PM »

Just reporting that I still can't get this plugin to work properly.
It has to be a bug in the time calculation as it persists in being exactly 12 hours off.
I would make a guess that it is not picking up my system's regional time setting correctly.
Have therefore de-installed the plugin.
Below is a screenshot of the plugin as at 1726hrs (NZ local time).

6499

General Software Discussion / Re: "Renaming" a list of names (not files)

« on: January 12, 2010, 07:02 AM »

@tomos: Sorry - I should have said that you don't need to use Excel. The string handling works just fine in Google Docs spreadsheet also and probably would in Open Office spreadsheet (though I have not tried that).

If this were a regular chore that I needed to do, then I would automate it and retain the work as separate sheets in a workbook using something like Excel/Google spreadsheet.

The other suggestions in this discussion look like more fun, but seem a tad overly complicated for easy repetitive automation of such a basic task.

(Heh. I had to stop myself from suggesting you use string handling routines in Fortran.)       

6500

General Software Discussion / Re: "Renaming" a list of names (not files)

« on: January 10, 2010, 07:46 PM »

Or, you could just copy paste the strings (names) from Word to an Excel spreadsheet, and if Excel does not automatically set them into columns but just one column, then you could maybe save time and treat each cell as a compound name with
" " (space character) as a delimiter.

Then you could use Excel's string-handling functions.
For example, with a string which has a compound name "Firstname Middlename Lastname" something like:
Search compound name for First name: =LEFT(A2,SEARCH(" ",A2,1)-1)
Search compound name for Last name: =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-SEARCH(" ",A2,1))

If ZZZ is always the last string in the compound name and you want it to become the first string, then this would be a relatively simple exercise to extract and sort out in Excel, and then it would be automated for the next time you needed to do it.