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Topics - nudone [ switch to compact view ]

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101
i went to the local computer shop today to enquire about a budget system that someone has asked me to sort out for them.

the interesting part was that the store owner assured me that a typical single xp license is for 3 machines - that being 3 machines that you own personally. so, his recommendation was to get the key for the xp license from the machine that the person already owns (the fact they currently own windows 98 doesn't help much) and then just use it to validate xp on the new machine.

something he does regularly he says.

is this information correct or is this going to lead to more troubles later on when the new machine starts going through all that windows genuine advantage stuff, i.e. i don't want to have to start sorting out a problem that shouldn't have been there to start with (although i'll probably get paid for the trouble of doing it).

102
Living Room / tip: check your mouse before going to red alert.
« on: February 17, 2008, 04:17 PM »
a couple of days ago my computer suddenly started acting strange - like it had a mind of its own.

i'd be dragging a window across the screen only to have the cursor suddenly lose its grip on the window. or, i'd try and move icons around and they wouldn't move at all - or they would if they were in a certain area.

i suspected that either the pc was infected or a piece of hardware was about to fail.

after pondering on the doom scenario of the pc dying i eventually thought i better swap the mouse for another. whilst doing that i noticed a thin white hair (must have been a dog hair) covering the lens on the underside of the mouse. i removed it and everything now works perfectly again.

maybe it was coincidence. it does seem a little odd that the hair was effecting mouse clicks but i shall just assume that somehow the camera information the lens picks up was going crazy and some how sent the mouse funny.

moral of the story: keep your mouse clean - even optical ones.

103
i once put this question forward in the irc channel and obviously sounded like a lunatic as i thought donationcoder.com kept going down regularly.

f0dder gave me an answer/solution but at the time i didn't really understand what he meant.

anyway, here's the question again:

why can't i access donationcoder.com (or anything related to the url) when the site is still up and working perfectly. this happens to me on an almost daily basis - usually first thing in the morning. and then, by magic, after an hour or two everything suddenly starts working as you'd expect - without any messing about from me.

after stubornly accepting this problem for a couple of years i decided to use a proxy today - and, of course, everything worked fine.

i only have this problem with DC - it doesn't even affect the other websites that are hosted at DC - it's only the donationcoder.com url stuff.

does my computer hate me and simply won't allow me to view DC sometimes or is it something beyond my control?

104
(i know of a util that is similar to what i'm about to describe but it doesn't have the same features. i can't remember the name of it at the moment.)

the general idea for this util is that it would make your desktop/screen larger than the physical output you see on your monitor.

so, if you have a monitor set to 800 x 600 resolution, the actual screen that the operating system is generating could be 1024 x 768 - you simply only see an 800 x 600 section of the larger output at any one time. as i said, i know there are utils that do this already.

the feature i'm suggesting is that the underlying larger screen would be 'draggable' in a similar way to how graphic editing software works with images that are zoomed in.

typically, graphic editing programs allow you to drag the image around the screen via a convenient key toggle. you simply hold down the 'spacebar' and then move the mouse cursor at the same time - this then moves the image in the same direction as the cursor.


what i'd like to be able to do is have a large working area that extends beyond the boundaries of my monitor. i could then arrange my open programs that i'm working with on this large working area - so that nothing overlaps - and then 'drag' the large area around when i needed to view a specific program.

you may suggest i use virtual desktops instead. i've tried but i never quite seem to get on with them. i think that having a large screen i could quickly drag or nudge back and forth would be more intuitive to use. it would require other features like 'reset to center' and 'jump to top' to make it practical but the 'draggable' idea is the important part - as it would be something instantly accessible.

to avoid conflicting with graphic editing programs that also use draggable operation the new util would have to work with certain conditions, maybe only drag if the cursor is over an empty desktop area.

i suspect that this would not be such a simple util to create because of the need to control the graphics card output.

perhaps there is something already out there that does this - any thoughts?

105
General Software Discussion / going back to XP (InformIT article)
« on: January 07, 2008, 02:41 AM »
had enough of vista but were too scared to do anything about it?

this InformIT article will help out: http://www.informit....x?p=1160388&rl=1

Is your honeymoon with Windows Vista over? Long for the days of XP? Peter Ehm provides a few simple steps to bring back the glory of XP.
You’ve bought a new PC with Windows Vista installed. Or you’ve upgraded to a version of Vista from your pokey XP installation. After a few days of getting used to the new and improved operating system in all its glory, you decide you hate it. You long to return to the good, old and reliable Windows XP, be it nostalgia or simple nausea from Aero, Vista’s cutesy candy interface.

Here’s how to do it in a few simple steps

106
Living Room / excellent SketchUp vidoes on youtube
« on: November 20, 2007, 02:53 AM »
want to learn to draw more than a couple of blocks with SketchUp?

then have a look at Aidan Chopra's youtube area with lots and lots of tutorials. he's also got a Dummies book out on the same subject.

youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/aidanchopra

Aidan's personal site: http://www.aidanchopra.com

107
i'm going to do some tutorials on how i put the recent Cody wallpapers together as i believe they'll provide a good source for Adobe Illustrator users. the original idea was to do these tutorials as static web pages but i've now remembered just how long it will take to create a single page - what with all the screengrabs and writing it all out.

so, it seems pretty obvious to just do screencasts instead as they'll be loads quicker to make and will actually be easier to understand.

i'm thinking that i could do two versions for each tutorial:

one version would be for youtube for obvious reasons like availability and free access - but the image quality would be pretty poor (mainly because of the small movie size).

the other version would be at a much larger image size - large enough to make the video actually worth looking at. this could be downloaded rather than streamed. i'd be aiming to keep the file size below 10 or 20 meg. 20 is probably more realistic.

now, of course, bandwidth issues arise with this kind of video downloading so maybe it's a non starter. something else that might make screencasts less desireable is that i'll be wanting to submit these tutorials to the popular tutorial sites that cover Adobe Illustrator - and they don't deal with screencasts as far as i've seen.

so, i'm wondering what you think. i know i'd rather make a screencast. i know i'd rather learn from a screencast. but if i'm doing this to promote myself (which is really what it's all about) then i wonder if screencasts are not going to be as useful as using static web pages. i know, i know, it would be best to do both types of tutorials but i'm hoping to hear that the majority would really just like to see screencats.

thoughts please...

108
Living Room / NEW Cody wallpapers for Halloween
« on: October 31, 2007, 04:45 AM »
Today is a special day for Cody as he has two new wallpapers he'd like you to see.

There are two sets, each set has five wallpaper sizes - this is to cover all of the different screen aspect ratios.

If you don't see the correct pixel width and height dimensions for your monitor but you know its aspect ratio then just download the wallpaper with the same aspect ratio - it should then scale to fit properly.


wtfcody.com reboot
reboot_800x600-(4;3)-preview.jpg

dimensions: 1280 x 1024, ratio: 5:4
* reboot_1280-x-1024-(5;4).jpg (294.01 kB. 1280x1024 - viewed 539 times.)

dimensions: 1440 x 960, ratio: 3:2 or 15:10
* reboot_1440-x-960-(3;2-or-15;10).jpg (292.31 kB. 1440x960 - viewed 559 times.)

dimensions: 1600 x 1200, ratio 4:3
* reboot_1600-x-1200-(4;3).jpg (377.39 kB. 1600x1200 - viewed 580 times.)

dimensions: 1920 x 1080, ratio 16:9 HD TV
* reboot_1920-x-1080-(HD-16;9).jpg (422.45 kB. 1920x1080 - viewed 553 times.)

dimensions: 1920 x 1200, ratio 16:10
* reboot_1920-x-1200-(16;10).jpg (429.62 kB. 1920x1200 - viewed 563 times.)



crystal ball
crystalball_800x600-(4;3)-preview.jpg

dimensions: 1280 x 1024, ratio: 5:4
* crystalball_1280-x-1024-(5;4).jpg (226.13 kB. 1280x1024 - viewed 568 times.)

dimensions: 1440 x 960, ratio: 3:2 or 15:10
* crystalball_1440-x-960-(3;2-or-15;10).jpg (201.09 kB. 1440x960 - viewed 536 times.)

dimensions: 1600 x 1200, ratio 4:3
* crystalball_1600-x-1200-(4;3).jpg (264.66 kB. 1600x1200 - viewed 542 times.)

dimensions: 1920 x 1080, ratio 16:9 HD TV
* crystalball_1920-x-1080-(HD-16;9).jpg (275.61 kB. 1920x1080 - viewed 537 times.)

dimensions: 1920 x 1200, ratio 16:10
* crystalball_1920-x-1200-(16;10).jpg (295.06 kB. 1920x1200 - viewed 527 times.)


If you aren't sure about the aspect ratio of your screen then you will most likely be able to find it here http://en.wikipedia....f_common_resolutions

A full screen version of the scene inside the crystal ball will also be available either later on here or on wtfcody.com or just ask me if I forget.

109
Living Room / these new cheap core 2 due laptops - any good?
« on: October 20, 2007, 04:12 AM »
since vista has come along i've noticed there are plenty of laptops available below the £500 price mark (no idea what they are priced at in the US and everywhere else but i'll guess that they are less than $1000).

typically, these laptops will have vista home premium and 1 to 2 gig of ram and a hard drive over 100 gig. they'll have wifi but won't have a high end graphics cards. they'll have an intel core 2 duo chip.

i don't know anyone that owns one of these budget machines but i'm tempted to buy one. but before that i'd like to know if anyone has used any of these cheap laptops and whether they perform well for typical internet and office related tasks.

my interest is in whether they perform better than a laptop from a few years back. i have an old gericom pentium 4 laptop with 512 meg running xp home - it's crap and always has been, it's sluggish and prone to crashing (i've cleaned it and reinstalled a couple of times but it just isn't up to the job). at the time it cost me £1000 which seemed like a bargain but i wouldn't be at all surprised if these new cheapo intel core 2 duo laptops easily out perform it.

i could add more ram to the old gericom laptop but as the machine is such a noisy lump of plastic that cuts off the blood supply to my feet when i place it on my lap, i'd rather just sling it into a nearby lake - and then buy one of these new cheapo things.

anyone had a go on these new laptops and been able to compare them with older machines?

110
i'm sure somewhere on this forum there is a brief thread asking for a service that would do something like this http://www.deathswitch.com/

if you fail to log in after a period of time your stored information will automatically be released to people you have specified using the deathswitch service.

i can't remember if the previous thread mentioned any services like the above so i might be repeating what has already been stated.

I'd consider this service useful if it included more than a simple email forwarding service. there are people i'd want to pass on information to that do not use computers so a physical mail service (or even telephone service) would be required - does anyone know of such a company offering such things?

(if there isn't such a service then perhaps we should start one.)

edit:
forgot to mention that i found it amusing to see a 'human league' http://en.wikipedia....iki/The_Human_League photograph being used as a bit of stock photography on the deathswitch site.


edited to attach picture:
Screenshot - 10_20_2007 , 3_18_20 AM_thumb.png

111
i'm making 'wallpapers' and decided to check out the different LCD screen sizes.

i'm a bit confused about 1440 x 900 and 1440 x960 screen sizes. according to http://en.wikipedia....i/Monitor_resolution there isn't a 1440 x 900 and yet this size appears in various places around the web as a typical wallpaper screen size.

i'm assuming that there is no real physical LCD monitor that has the 1440 x 900 size and it's just one of those mistakes that no has bothered to correct - so much so, that the 900 has become accepted and correct when it should be 960.

if you do own a monitor that is 1440 x 900 pixels, would you please say so below. and, of course, if someone knows that there are no '900' sized monitors but knows where this 900 dimension came from, i'd also like to know that too.

thanks.

112
Cody fans pay attention! Now is  your chance to win some truly astounding prizes - and all of them involving Cody - yes, it is truly amazing!

All you need do is post a picture of Cody to this thread and in a few weeks time Cody will decide upon the winner and runners up. The picture must be an original piece of work, so either a quick sketch or painting will be fine. If you prefer to use a more technological advanced medium then that is also welcome but Cody will judging the images simply by how amusing they are and not on how well crafted - in other words, a quick mess about with Microsoft Paint will be more than enough.

The competition is open to all but it would be nice to see some children's pictures of Cody. Any DC parents wishing to exploit, er, I mean encourage their child's artistic temperament now have a good reason to do so - how else are you likely to win some fabulous Cody prizes?

What are these mind blowing prizes? Look below and gaze in awe...

1. A DonationCoder Cody Mug (unbelievable!)

2. A signed picture of Cody (beautiful!)

3. A deluxe member kit and certificate of Cody Club Special Member (brain meltingly generous!)

4. A special Cody badge in your forum profile to demonstrate you entered the competition (fair!)

and for the overall winner, a signed genuinely unique limited edition of one single print special poster (absolutely insane!! <- look, 2 exclamation marks)


The competition is now open so feel free to submit your picture. Mouser will perhaps mention when the contest will end.

Oh, and Cody says "good luck to all and he can't wait to put the winning entry up on his wall" - yes, he really did just say that, right next to me, just a moment ago.




113
Living Room / competition: win an unread copy of 3ds max 5 bible
« on: September 30, 2007, 04:08 AM »
yes, you could be the lucky winner of my completely unread copy of 3ds max 5 bible (with cd). yes, 3ds max is now at version 9 but why miss out on everything version 5 had to offer.

how to win - just post an amusing picture of Cody and whichever Cody picks out will get this amazing prize. i'll even get Cody to sign the book for you.

runners up can expect similarly fantastic out of date books from my bookshelf that i have yet to decide upon.

114
Living Room / how do you represent 'time' in your head?
« on: September 28, 2007, 01:00 PM »
i'm thinking of doing a diagram representing my 'life'. maybe like a tree with the 'key' events represented along the branches. it will probably look more like a series of arrows rather than a tree.

this reminded me of something i've sometimes pondered about but never really asked anyone - how do you represent time in your own head? so, that's your past, present and future?

do you see images of events, are they staggered across a timeline, is the timeline a single line. more, how do you think of the days of the week, months of the year, what about a big chunk of time like a year.

perhaps it's beyond explanation how you perceive it all. perhaps computers have provided a visual language to represent it so now we think in terms of software calendar layouts with moving images, etc.

116
i've been playing bioshock for a few days now (well, about an hour or two at night).

looks nice enough but, personally, it's a bit too cartoony for me to really love it. i like the ideas but i think i've yet to get far enough to see all the revolutionary things that are hinted at in the reviews. (maybe i'm just jaded and annoyed at waiting for crysis and the next episode of half-life 2.)

anyway, i had a look at one of the tweaking guides http://www.tweakguid....com/Bioshock_1.html which mentions a few of the differences you can expect to see with the game if you are running directx 10 hardware and vista - i'm running xp with directx 9 so i'm naturally curious about what i'm missing out on.

sounds all very underwhelming to me - the water looks a bit better, yeah, okay if you say so.

this tallies with other reviews i've read about directx 10 capable games. isn't this all a bit strange. i seem to remember reading about how dx10 was going to be a massive leap forward in graphics, how it would be cinematic quality (i'm sure that must have been said for every release of directx even from the very beginning).

i've seen the screenshots and movies of far cry and unreal 3, yes, they do look incredible. but, ya know what, i think they are going to look almost identical on a directx 9 machine.

so, i'm sure this has been said many times before but it's something that has just dawned on me (perhaps yet again), new pc technology isn't really that hot. it never lives up to the hype that journalists yapping on about how cool and essential all this new hard/software is going to be.

i subscribe to a uk pc mag - they have been going on about directx 10 cards for months - you'd think they were the elixir of life they way they promote them.

i thought i was reading articles that were well informed and telling me things in my best interest. i now think not, sir.

they are just part of the hype machine: company announces new product nearly ready, magazine survives by bleating about amazing new product and get readers all excited, magazine continues to bleat on about product when released. desire is generated in reader, magazine regurgitates how bleedin' good this new product is for several months, reader finally goes out and buys life changing directx 10 card. reader plays directx 10 game. reader thinks, duh, i've gone and done it again - why do i listen to those hype merchants.

i don't read the tech blogs and online tech sites but i bet they've been wetting themselves just as much over all the directx 10 stuff - and now look at it. it doesn't do anything. well it doesn't do anything remotely worth upgrading your graphics card and operating system for.

yeah, i know, potentially someone could make a game that will do dx 10 justice - but i still think it would look pretty similar on dx 9.

that's it. the hype train is now leaving reality station, i must get back to my seat. toot toot!

117
is anyone else having problems with the AOL active virus shield - the free thing they were generously giving away a while back.

mine hasn't updated correctly since last saturday (or friday). it's failing on more than one machine.

i know that AOL are no longer providing this anti-virus software but i didn't expect it to stop updating - i wonder if kaspersky are no longer supporting the virus definitions or something.

anyone else having trouble - anyone know of a way to get it to update correctly?

ta

118
The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Getting Organized in 2007
« on: September 01, 2007, 04:51 AM »
it's september again, so that must mean it's time for... yes, wait for it...

yes, it's time for the Great Donation Coder Getting Organized Experiment of 2007.

if you participated in last years push to get things done then you'll already know how well the group worked. if you didn't join in with the fun then how fortunate it is that we're running the experiment all over again.

the idea remains simple. declare to the group that you'll commit to finishing something that you've been putting off and then get on with it. it might be something trivial that you are procrastinating over - nevermind, if you are annoyed at  yourself for not doing it then i'm confident that you'll complete it within the next three months - if not a lot sooner.

to help you, there will be a variety of tips and techniques that will be discussed - many of which will have the luxury of hindsight from those of us having tried them for a year. perhaps there have been new GTD like ideas developed since last september - if you know of any then please post about them.

the group will succeed. i can say with certainty that i am not the procrastinator i was this time last year and that is almost entirely down to being part of the last experiment.

as before, your input is essential. experienced GTD'ers are very welcome, as are the greatest procrastinators on the planet. together, we'll work it all out as we go along.

so, if you are ready (take a while to procrastinate over it if you wish) will you, please, announce yourself below.

i'll start off:

although i learnt a lot during the last experiment and found that it changed the way i work, i have recently started to put things off for no good reason. it's time to get back on track with things...

119
Living Room / bioshock on a geforce 6 card - anyone tried?
« on: August 31, 2007, 02:43 AM »
i'm about to hit the buy now button for Bioshock but i'm wondering how well it will actually play - i know i'll buy it regardless.

anyway, i'll be playing it on a geforce 7800 gtx which i think should be okay but a friend nearby has a geforce 6600; they'd also like to buy it but i have my doubts it will be bearable on such a card.

anyone tried playing it on a lower end graphics card like the 6600?

120
madness perhaps but i wonder if there is a method of resetting xp back to its basic first time installation - without wiping the hard drive and reinstalling as you would normally do.

the reason is, i originally had quite a bit of trouble getting my raid floppy disk accepted by xp when doing the install about 18 months ago (i think it's the floppy drive - but i couldn't get the driver to work from a cd either). i can't remember how much of a nightmare it was but i'd hate to find myself trying to do it all over again and second time around not succeeding.

so, is it possible to clear all the crap out of my current xp installation so that it pretty much resembles a fresh install. that is, clean the registry and system folders, drivers, whatever, so that everything appears clean and fresh. then i'll start installing the stuff i want.

i normally have a backup image of my operating system just after i've installed it but, for some unknown reason, i appear to have deleted it.

anyway, is it possible or will attempting this cleaning process lead to more troubles later on?

121
i've got my taskbar at the top of the screen - always on show and set to prevent application windows appearing on top of it.

the problem is that i have a few programs that misbehave by opening up with their titlebar exactly under the taskbar - so i can't click on their titlebar because the taskbar is directly above it. resizing the window of one of the naughty apps will push its titlebar down a few pixels but it's way to fiddly to be fun.

i'd like a quick autohotkey script that would either automatically move these badly positioned titlebars away from the taskbar when the corresponding app first opens, or a shortcut key that i can hit that will then move the window down enough.

maybe an automatic method would cause more problems - i sometimes use programs in full screen - like web browsers and photoshop that i do actually want to cover the taskbar, so a hotkey combo would be more than enough for me.

credits waiting for the right coding candidate...

122
i'm using directory opus as my note management program - why? because i can use plain txt files (and plenty of other file types) that can be stored anywhere on my hard drive but directory opus allows me to collect them in one place using the 'file collection' virtual folders feature.

all very clever, but i'd like a super quick way to add one of my note files to the notes 'file collection' folder. at the moment i have to do a right click and send to kind of thing, navigating a couple of menus.

it would far better to have a shortcut on one of the DO toolbars that allows me to click it and it sends the file to the correct 'file collection' notes folder with the minimum of fuss (drag and drop would also be good).

the problem is that i don't know if it's possible to create such a shortcut. shortcuts are easy but what about one that goes to a specific 'file collection', i can't see any options that fit when editing DO - 'file collections' seem to be missing from the customise options.

failing that, other quick ways of doing the same thing would be helpful to know.

any suggestions?

123
Living Room / a wet tv remote control problem
« on: August 22, 2007, 05:15 AM »
my mother managed to spill soup over the tv remote control handset.

so i quickly splashed water over it - i didn't submerge it or anything daft - just a quick sprinkle of water over the outside to clean it off.

but now, of course, there is obviously moisture trapped inside the handset because it has a mind of it's own - if it actually works at all.

any reliable suggestions that will dry the handset out?

i think it safe to say that if try to open the screwless handset case i'll snap something - i'd rather keep everything in mint condition for when i have to return it to the shop - if the drying out method doesn't work.

any tips for drying it out?

124
Living Room / suffering online status anxiety
« on: August 15, 2007, 01:23 PM »
i'd like to propose a new classification for people that are anxious about not having a recognised online presence.

just as westerners are increasingly suffering from 'status anxiety' (or so we are told) i wonder if many 'netizens' are suffering from an online equivalent.

every man (and woman) and his dog appears to think they have good reason to create a blog and start filling the internet with their profound insights - so profound that several thousand other people have already blogged about it before them.

i know, i know, my complaints are just as hackneyed as what i'm describing. but i feel i'm suffering from this 'online status anxiety'. i read blog after blog after blog. i don't know who these people are - i may not even look at who the author is. one article melts into another article on another blog - the only author i recognise is the internet or, to be more precise, the computer i'm sat next to. my machine is the author; feeding me this endless stream of words.

amongst these merging faceless blogs i feel left out. i know deep down that someone created the blogs, they must be important - crucially, they must be more important than me. i need to write a blog just like them - it's unavoidable, i have broadband - i won't exist until my online inane ranting is recognised by at least 3 complete and utter strangers.

embrace my bloggy goodness and swoon at my spam free comments section.

anyone else suffering like i am? i don't believe i'm the only one.

[dislaimer: this is in no way related to wtfcody.com - that's a real website thing with a real purpose. honest.]

125
i've been really happy using the free AOL active virus shield but it appears that they've stopped providing it.

AOL are now providing this instead, the McAfee® Virus Scan Plus-Special edition http://www.activevir...us/freeav/index.adp?, which i understand is also free.

has anyone had any experience of using this free software?

i see that is has a firewall built in - so it's a security 'suite'. mcafee can't be bad - surely?

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