Messages

276

Living Room / Re: If Wikipedia existed back in the DOS era

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:39 PM »

  Was the blurriness supposed to be part of it?

-Tinman57 (June 05, 2013, 07:25 PM)

I think so. You're looking at EGA resolution if I'm not mistaken. 16 colors @ 640x350 with a .28 dot pitch. So don't try to play it full screen using today's resolutions.

Forgot how bad it used to be huh?

-40hz (June 05, 2013, 09:10 PM)

  Nah, didn't forget it, way back then when people were looking at a green screen with white letters I was looking at 640 X 480 resolution and 16 colors.  Then when Hurcules started with the 16 color graphics cards for PC, I was using 800 X 600 resolution with 4096 colors.  Yes, I was one of "those" Commodore users....   

277

Living Room / Re: DOS Attacks

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:32 PM »

Looked at the subject and thought, "Does anyone still use DOS for virii?", or that one of my batch files had gone berserk  

-4wd (June 06, 2013, 02:25 AM)

  LOL.  I get to typing so fast that sometimes a letter won't catch.  I'm still breaking in this new ergo-keyboard of mine.  I'll see if it will let me add a D.....  

EDIT:  Yay, it worked!   

278

Living Room / Re: Looking for a launcher

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:29 PM »

@Tinman - regarding SlickRun -  it does look like it lives up to the name. But is it still being actively developed? It's 32-bit AFAICT and the last update was released on June 28, 2009.

UPDATE: Oh wait...this guy has it running under Windows 8 so maybe it doesn’t matter....

-40hz (June 05, 2013, 09:39 PM)

  It's still actively supported.  The beta version (4.1.4.0 BETA) was released 18 Apr 2011, but I'm using version 4.1.3.0 and don't have any problems with it.  Even the version prior I didn't have any problems with, just some updates they did to the newer version.

279

Living Room / Re: digitising slides

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:21 PM »

My flatbed, (Canon D660U), is capable of slides/negatives, it has a CCFL built into the lid that you uncover when you put it into slide mode and it works reasonably well.

However, 2 points:
1) it's abominably slow, (about 2min per slide at a minimum of 600DPI), and
2) because the slide/neg sits in a holder this results in the actual surface of the slide/neg sitting above the glass bed by about 3mm.  The scanner is naturally focused at things lying flat on the glass, ie. the focus is a bit off.
The results were always a bit "softer" than those taken with the flash scanner, they use a CMOS imaging device that is focused at the surface of the slide/negative.

-4wd (June 05, 2013, 10:22 PM)

  Which makes me wonder how one of those little desktop scanners would work for this.  You know, the type that the doctors offices use to scan your drivers license and insurance cards.  You would think it would be perfect for negatives, but I've never used one, soooooo.....

280

Living Room / Re: digitising slides

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:16 PM »

  There are some photo/picture programs that have an option to copy a color picture from an ordinary scanner and reverses it to a negative, and visa-versa.  Can't remember what this option is called, it was in UI PhotoImpact 8.  Unfortunately, PhotoImpact 8 don't work under XP anymore ever since one of MS's famous update patches, but I think it's also included in PhotoShop among others.  In the free Photo.net, you can select Adjustments > Reverse Colors and get the same effect.....

-Tinman57 (June 05, 2013, 08:06 PM)

yep, but unfortunately the results from our flatbed scanners are abysmal. 

Flatbeds aren't generally built to do this kind of work - you need plenty of light on the back of the film/slide and they just don't work that way

-Target (June 05, 2013, 08:35 PM)

  Perhaps your scanner isn't up to the task, or perhaps your scanner software.  I have a flatbed scanner that came with plastic holders just for holding negatives for camera's and slides, and it works just fine.  It also takes a longer "exposure" than a regular scan, which is software based.

281

Living Room / Re: More legislation regarding privacy.

« on: June 06, 2013, 07:02 PM »

It's an outrage: The Guardian has obtained long sought-after evidence of the extent of ongoing spying on Americans under the PATRIOT Act -- and it's as bad as we'd worried.

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

Demand that the Congress investigate -- and put an end to -- this spying right away!

The government is continuing -- and expanding -- egregious spying and other infringement on our civil liberties that began under the Bush administration.  And enough is enough!

Please sign on to our petition to the House Oversight Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee to demand an immediate investigation of this spying.

Tell Congress to investigate -- and end -- the spying right now!

http://act.demandpro...patriot_verizon_copy


NSA 'top secret' spying order affects millions of Americans: FAQ

The U.S. government is vacuuming up millions of Verizon customer records on a daily basis, according to a leaked "top secret" court order. Here's everything you need to know.

http://www.zdnet.com...icans-faq-7000016489

282

General Software Discussion / Re: notepad++

« on: June 05, 2013, 08:30 PM »

GVim.

-Tuxman (June 05, 2013, 05:12 AM)

I don't see multitab
I have found this one : PSPad

-Contro (June 05, 2013, 02:01 PM)

  PSPad is what I've used for years, loaded with options.....

283

Living Room / Re: Microsoft keyboard sticking keys

« on: June 05, 2013, 08:19 PM »

BTW, how did the silicone spray work for your keyboard?

-Tinman57 (June 03, 2013, 02:49 PM)

Yes, cats -and dogs- can be amazing. The spray worked excellent. But the particular product evidently the propellent had a tendency to dissolve plastic, because at first some keys became much more grabby. Especially the Return key got stuck down, so I stuck a small flat tip screw driver tip under each side and levered it up. It was one of those memorable moments one never forgets, "Have I just ruined my $35 keyboard?" With nothing left to lose, I sprayed even more on that and the other keys, and began tapping them repeatedly. Next thing I know they all freed up and have been working great ever since. But for a moment there, things got kind of hairy.

-bit (June 04, 2013, 08:07 PM)

  Probably all the gunk getting dissolved in the silicone.  lol  With some plastics you can't heavily spray silicone or it will melt it just enough to get sticky, but normally dries up completely and gets un-sticky in a few seconds.  For those plastics that are totally unagreeable with silicone you have to use electronic cleaner WITH lubricant.  But it's not as good as silicone.

284

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« on: June 05, 2013, 08:11 PM »

demandprogress.org have sent out an email from Aaron Swartz's father to their subscribers, asking for supporters to email a letter of thanks to senators Patrick Leahy, John Cornyn, and Al Franken, who apparently all pushed for answers when the US Justice Department appeared before the Judiciary Committee to discuss Aaron's case.
Supporters can send an email using a template at the demandprogress.org website.

-IainB (June 05, 2013, 06:14 PM)

  I just finished forwarding that email from DemandProgress to some people.  A very worthy cause, perhaps we can get to the middle of this and get the people responsible.....

285

Living Room / Re: digitising slides

« on: June 05, 2013, 08:06 PM »

  There are some photo/picture programs that have an option to copy a color picture from an ordinary scanner and reverses it to a negative, and visa-versa.  Can't remember what this option is called, it was in UI PhotoImpact 8.  Unfortunately, PhotoImpact 8 don't work under XP anymore ever since one of MS's famous update patches, but I think it's also included in PhotoShop among others.  In the free Photo.net, you can select Adjustments > Reverse Colors and get the same effect.....

286

Living Room / Re: Looking for a launcher

« on: June 05, 2013, 07:43 PM »

  You really should try Bayden Software's free SlickRun.  I experimented with a ton of hotkey type apps until I came across this, and haven't looked back since.

SlickRun is a free floating command line utility for Windows. SlickRun gives you almost instant access to any program or website. SlickRun allows you to create command aliases (known as MagicWords), so C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe becomes MAIL.
Enter a web URL into SlickRun and it will launch your browser and navigate to the specified address. Run multiple programs in a few keystrokes, jot a note, look up a definition... SlickRun is the most natural way to interact with your computer. 

http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/

287

Living Room / Re: Protests in Istanbul

« on: June 05, 2013, 07:31 PM »

  I just wonder what the U.S. military bases in Turkey are doing while all this is happening.  You can just about bet that they're all on base restrictions right now.

288

Living Room / Re: If Wikipedia existed back in the DOS era

« on: June 05, 2013, 07:25 PM »

  Was the blurriness supposed to be part of it?

289

Living Room / Re: Magnetic North Pole migration seems to be accelerating.

« on: June 05, 2013, 07:16 PM »

  There's "True North" and "Magnetic North".  If the poles reversed, compasses would still work, just in reverse, North would be South.  Magnetic North, depending on where you live in the world, is off by so many degrees.  If memory serves since I was in flight school, anywhere from 2 to 7 degrees.  Here where I live it's off positive 4 degrees.  If polarity reverses, True North and Magnetic North would be opposite, which would take quite a bit more calculations along with the confusion.....

290

Living Room / DDOS Attacks

« on: June 05, 2013, 06:38 PM »

  The last couple of days one of the forums that I frequent and a few other sites I use have been offline because of this... and it's still ongoing.....  

Possibly related DDoS attacks cause DNS hosting outages

06.04.2013 1:05 PM

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that could be related have, in
the past few days, slammed the DNS servers of at least three providers of
domain name management and DNS hosting services.

http://www.pcworld.c...hosting-outages.html

291

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Updates

« on: June 04, 2013, 06:31 PM »

On the second item (the "sneaky spyware installer")  - where did you get your download from?  I just downloaded the 0.9.5 installer from Sourceforge (again) and installed on my 6 month old Win 8 box.  The Sourceforge download does not contain anything other than Bleachbit - you pick a language and the next box is the Gnu General Public License.  You didn't pull it down from CNet did you?  Sounds like someone repackaged it with OpenCandy in front.

(FWIW, it cleaned out 2.47gb of cruft on my box, and I did not select all of the options...)

On the first item, superceded updates may be sitting there in your SoftwareDistribution folder (have not checked) but they wouldn't be downloaded in the first place, would they?  Unless you tell your PC to download but not install updates, then you don't install updates...  If they're superceded then they won't get installed so there is no uninstall folder to clean out.  But one of the things Bleachbit does it empty out SoftwareDistribution which will get re-filled as needed next time you check for updates.

-x16wda (June 03, 2013, 08:45 PM)

 I used a link that was supposed to download the lite version that wasn't supposed to have the spyware included.  Yeah, they told a fib on that one.....

  The updates are downloaded to your hard drive.  The superseded ones never get removed from your Windows folder.  But I think I found a simple solution, I zipped the all up and copied it to my external USB drive if I should ever need to uninstall one....

292

Living Room / Re: Patent wars - again

« on: June 04, 2013, 06:17 PM »

Sears tried that many times in the past and always got their buttes in a sling over it.

-Tinman57 (June 04, 2013, 04:43 PM)

Like the inventor with the one size fits all speed wrench they screwed just in time for last Christmas?

-Stoic Joker (June 04, 2013, 05:35 PM)

  Yep, that one would be one of them.  Before that it was automatic adjusting pliars, and before that it was some kind of new fangled socket.  There's been so many of them that I can't remember them all.  I've slept since then.   

293

Living Room / Re: Magnetic North Pole migration seems to be accelerating.

« on: June 04, 2013, 06:14 PM »

  If the earth flipped polarity, wouldn't that make electrical motors run backwards?   

294

Living Room / Re: Patent wars - again

« on: June 04, 2013, 04:43 PM »

  Careful what you wish for, knowing the government they could turn it around and make it so the average Joe can have his patent ripped off legally by the big corporations.  Sears tried that many times in the past and always got their buttes in a sling over it.  If the government can stay on the right track and just do away with the Trolls we will all be better off for it.

295

Living Room / Re: Prenda Law - Judge, Jury, Executioner - and also Perpetrator?

« on: June 04, 2013, 04:34 PM »

  Seeing how they got this far into this legal fiasco, you can tell just how corrupt our legal system is.  Kind of like the scam about 20 years ago in the 80's where lawyers found some kind of crazy loophole and was ejecting people out of their own homes and claiming it as part of their estates.  And lawyers get upset that people distrust them so much....

296

Living Room / Browser Wars, Again

« on: June 03, 2013, 06:29 PM »

  I'ts like "He said, she said" and will change again in a month or so...

In fog of browser wars, the victor varies with the metrics

06.02.2013 12:40 PM

NetMarketShare says Microsoft's IE is top dog, while StatCounter crowns Chrome the king in the competitive browser market.

http://www.pcworld.c...ith-the-metrics.html

297

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera 15 Preview

« on: June 03, 2013, 03:30 PM »

  I know with XP, Internet Explorer can be removed completely.  By way of a court order, MS has posted the IE remover program on their website for those who absolutely want it off their system.  I chose to keep it since I use it with another front-end browser.

298

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Updates

« on: June 03, 2013, 03:23 PM »

In XP all the update files are in hidden folders in the Windows directory. The only one that should never be deleted is the update history folder named $hfg_ something (I forget the exact name but it always at or near the top of the list). The updates will all be named $KBxxxxxx so they stay grouped together. In going with Ath's don't delete the updates from the last month or so recommendation I'd say to just use the standard behavior of Windows and delete the blue ones...as by default files that haven't been accessed in (IIRC) 90 days are compressed by NTFS and will have their file names listed in blue.

In a pinch if something went wrong later system restore can still be used to roll back to a pre-update state as in does not rely on these files...they are only used for manual uninstall of specific patches.

-Stoic Joker (June 03, 2013, 06:59 AM)

  Unless you have them un-hidden like I do.  But as far as showing up in blue, I've never seen this in XP using Windows Explorer, all the icons are yellow by default.

299

Living Room / Re: Possibly the ultimate $21,000 computer desk/chair combo?

« on: June 03, 2013, 03:12 PM »

  Basically it's for people with more money than sense.  I could afford one, but I choose to spend my money on more conservative things.....  If I was forced to spend that much money in a day, I'd rather walk through the mall and give out $100 bills to people that need it than to spend it on something like that....

300

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

« on: June 03, 2013, 02:59 PM »

My Windows update today with 17 items on my XP machine went okay until after it rebooted. The cursor moved(but didn't curse) and clicking on anything did nothing. I tried control-alt-delete and clicking on the taskbar to get the task manager and clicking on the start menu icon to reboot. Nothing worked. I had to use the power button to reboot twice with no better results. I booted to Safe Mode to run System Restore to get it working again. Any other XP users here?

-Arizona Hot (June 02, 2013, 10:14 PM)

  Just about every time windows releases updates, the update takes but it breaks something else in my system and I have to find a workaround.  This is why my tag-line reads as such.....