Messages

151

Living Room / Re: Google Working with the CIA?!?

« on: March 21, 2012, 05:47 AM »

The CIA is all over the world .. has its hands in almost everything. I thought this was common knowledge? Like those 'hikers' picked up in Iran and accused of spying. You tell me: Who goes hiking along the Iraq/Iran border? ;p.

History records their attempted assassination of the leaders of other countries. They have their hands in inducing revolts throughout the world, where regime change is in their (our?) interest.

Heck, it's even public knowledge they have secret prisons throughout the world.

So ... nothing new here ;o. I can't think of anything that *would* surprise me about them.

152

Living Room / Re: NYC Subpoenas Twitter for Arrested Demonstrator's Tweets

« on: March 21, 2012, 04:07 AM »

But this is not important to the corporate powers that be! Please resume talking about Mitt Romney or "Dance Moms." You have rights, but not if you exercise them (online or in public). I hate this country; l honestly do.

-zridling (March 21, 2012, 01:12 AM)

Do you want to know the real sad thing? WE are the powers that be. It isn't that they force us to watch Dance Moms, WE (as a majority, not me or you ;p) prefer to watch Dance Moms, or hear the latest word from talking heads. We don't want to hear the truth. We don't want the chaos of being without leadership.

So, as with any change, it starts within. Change yourself, and spread those changes as far and wide as you can. When the members of society themselves have changed, then, and only then, will the capitalist beast produced by society at large be tamed.

153

Living Room / Re: NYC Subpoenas Twitter for Arrested Demonstrator's Tweets

« on: March 20, 2012, 06:51 AM »

That subpoena is obviously over-broad and if a judge does grant it, if it holds up in court (it probably will ;o), then it is a disgrace. It Twitter does not at least challenge it, then shame on them.

However, they might have legal justification if this individual was believed to have been a leader, or if they are looking for the leader of the protest for further prosecution. Those prior 15 days would be the planning period, under that logic.

154

Living Room / Re: Auslogics promoting false speed tester?

« on: March 20, 2012, 06:14 AM »

lol im on a 100mbps line, and thats telling me im 7.12 down speed 1.54 up speed with a ping of 270ms
Speedtest.net = 96.8mbps down, 12.4up 7ms ping

-Stephen66515 (March 19, 2012, 09:49 PM)

We must have the same ISP. They are who I use to have 100Mbit downstream, 5Mbit upstream. Latency of course depends on how far your packet is to travel, and the remote server, but latency out of their network and their peering arrangements seem EXCELLENT. I've noticed they use many of several service providers themselves, so they make sure your stuff gets there as fast as it can. They've really built a good network, I must say. It is sad the company has always been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. What's great is we are talking rural TN. So, the USA Internet is getting better, fast.

155

Developer's Corner / Re: Invoicing & inventory problem for my business.

« on: March 20, 2012, 06:04 AM »

And do understand that the programmer may give you a higher quote than he's willing to do it for. If you assure him or her that your requirements are simple and no sudden 'monkey wrenches' will get thrown into the plan, then you can probably talk them down.

However, I told you what you need to learn to do it yourself, and it is EASY. Your ability to write a paragraph tells me you are intelligent enough, IF you want to take the time to learn. If not, then hire somebody. You may get a superior solution from them for another reason: They may have pre-built code they can 'just use', which has been field tested, known to be secure, etc...

156

Developer's Corner / Re: Invoicing & inventory problem for my business.

« on: March 20, 2012, 05:40 AM »

And $1500 is standard charge for a software engineer. If I wasn't so busy, I might do it for $1000. Many don't realize the value of experience and knowledge. It's like a doctor or lawyer, requires extensive experience to have worked in the field, really understand it, and integrate multiple aspects of the field together -- instead knowing everything about one little piece. You can have it done a little cheaper I'm sure, but make sure their code is secure if you outsource to somewhere.

However, it's really easy stuff, programmatically, and will give you experience. Problem is, you really better understand security, and take it seriously. Like I said, SQL injection attacks is the first thing to learn to code against, and  will help you learn SQL.

I often joke it is a job of its own to manage my online systems. Of course, I do everything at my little company, about 10 peoples jobs, at least ;p. Web server setup and admin, order and license fulfillment, product programming and development, product documentation, support, marketing, sales, etc ... ;p. That is why I get so stressed out. I can't work much harder. Gotta be smarter.

157

Developer's Corner / Re: Invoicing & inventory problem for my business.

« on: March 20, 2012, 05:34 AM »

You need to learn the ins and outs of SQL database management. Store your licenses in a database. Check them off as they are handed out to users. If more needed added, there's an auto-increment integer type variable that can be used as an index, so you just add more.

When payment notification hits server, script processes license (doing whatever you need to do -- create a user account in my case, stored in the database, allocate activation code, log order, etc..). Then, script sends an email to the customer fulfilling the order.

Invoice or other systems are easy, breezy too. Lookup the order, if not readily available, and simply read a template file's contents into memory. Inside that template include things like __USERNAME__. Use a simple RegEx statement in whatever scripting language to replace appropriate variables with their true values. You just created something.

You'll likely run into caveats on the way, to which any experienced programmer can help. I recommend StackOverflow for programming questions. They will help you far better than I, or anyone here. There's a whole community falling over themselves to do your homework for you, or prove how smart they are ;p.

You could also use more complex setups, if needed.

Just make sure you fully understand what an SQL injection attack is before you even start to code for databases.

Update, Summary:

• Lean about SQL databases
• Learn about SQL injection attacks and other security issues
• Learn scripting. I still love PHP (this forum is written in PHP). It's a simple to use language that is very forgiving of syntax errors (almost too forgiving ;p). It lets you do things multiple different ways, so kind of conforms to whatever you already knew from some other language. Others may like .NET.
• Put it all together and learn ancillary skills like RegEx, or maybe XML for the Invoicing template .. and a bit of web administration, just so you know what's going on and can write secure code.

158

Living Room / Re: Encrypted DNS queries via OpenDNS dnscrypt for Windows / linux / BSD / iOS / OSX

« on: March 19, 2012, 08:09 PM »

LOL ... the even better news is that soon we'll have this integrated into third-party router firmwares, and maybe even come stock with some router firmwares. That will allow seamless, and painless, integration with your whole network. Myself, I'm in the process of using an older router set up as an experimental encrypted DNS server. I'll send the patch to OpenWrt when I'm done, then we can go from there.

I've been using it for DNS queries on my development PC for a while now, works GREAT.

Whether OpenDNS is declared a terrorist organization, who knows ;p. They have been strangely quiet about all this.

159

Living Room / Encrypted DNS queries via OpenDNS dnscrypt for Windows / linux / BSD / iOS / OSX

« on: March 19, 2012, 07:59 PM »

OpenDNS has been working on a new encrypted DNS service for the past 6 months or so. They've kept fairly quiet about it, though it has been mentioned on Slashdot and elsewhere. At first there were only OS X, BSD, and Linux clients available. However, a Windows client is now available for download at their GitHub repository. I am not sure if it is considered 'final' or not. I just noticed it was there, tried it out - and it works .

Why encrypt my DNS queries?

Even if you use HTTPS on every site you visit, your DNS queries are painfully obvious to anyone. Whether it is your ISP, or a local sniffer, if you want privacy, your DNS queries are a glaring hole in it. In some cases, encrypted DNS queries may get you around site blockers/firewalls too (though not all cases).

More at http://thepileof.blo...ith-windows-via.html  ...

160

Living Room / Re: Is Google Now Evil? Ask the Engineer!

« on: March 18, 2012, 09:01 PM »

Besides, if they share my information *within* Google, that - to me - is a lot different than the gazillion corporations that share information with *each other*. If ever Google breaches THAT boundary, then I'll rethink things. As for REAL privacy on the internet, you can pretty much count it as a myth these days ;p. Sure, if you took extreme measures, I guess you could have more privacy over who you visit and what you do, etc.. but you really have to go 'all out' for it to work, else there's always a point of failure (e.g. DNS queries). I don't meant to say just anybody has access to this private information, but I'm pretty sure the government does ... when and as they need it, with or without ever informing the judiciary.

161

Living Room / Re: Is Google Now Evil? Ask the Engineer!

« on: March 18, 2012, 08:58 PM »

No one is forcing you to keep your privacy.

-Tuxman (March 18, 2012, 08:49 PM)

Are you talking to me? Yea, I agree. Nobody is. If I feel Google abuses my trust, then I, along with millions of others, will surely leave its services behind. That is the one reason I feel they'll do whatever they can to ensure they make people happy with regards to their Privacy Policy.

162

Living Room / Re: Is Google Now Evil? Ask the Engineer!

« on: March 18, 2012, 08:47 PM »

Microsoft is probably less evil than Google today.

-Tuxman (March 18, 2012, 08:31 PM)

God only knows. Besides, even defining 'Evil' is a hard thing to do. Thus it is all a matter of opinion. The one thing I am sure on is that I have seen nothing from Google thus far that would compel me to quit using its services.

163

Living Room / Re: When are modern Terms of Service going to change?

« on: March 18, 2012, 08:23 PM »

Yea, but it has to be made into law, else the simplification of the TOS could lead to litigation (because it isn't 'complete' in every clause). If mandated by law, then the lawsuit happy person has no basis for their claim, or it would be rejected in court. Darn litigious and greedy people - often they want something for nothing, and if they think you have something, they'll try to take your something ;p. To them, all is fair so long as it nets them a personal gain. Greed, Greed is bad (no matter what you may have been taught ;p).

164

Living Room / Re: Is Google Now Evil? Ask the Engineer!

« on: March 18, 2012, 06:57 PM »

And, remember, this is coming from an ex-employee. You have to take such statements in context. While he may have valid points, this does not mean Google *is* now evil in some way. That said, I have about as much faith in it 'doing no evil' as I do in any other publicly traded corporation 'doing no evil'.

165

Living Room / Re: When are modern Terms of Service going to change?

« on: March 18, 2012, 06:54 PM »

In my mind, you can blame all the lawsuit happy aholes in the world for this 'problem'. If it were not for them, the Terms of Service could be simpler. However, due to the possibility of absurd lawsuits, lawyers must try to cover every conceivable base.

166

General Software Discussion / Re: virtualization, lite (Gizmo)

« on: March 18, 2012, 05:22 PM »

This appears to be the same thing as 'thin' virtualization or 'application' virtualization or 'sandboxed' applications. VMWare ThinApp comes to mind, as well as numerous similar tools. It is simply virtualization at a different level, one higher up in the OS rather than underneath the OS. Nothing new really, except their name for it maybe ;p.

167

Living Room / Re: Auslogics promoting false speed tester?

« on: March 17, 2012, 09:31 PM »

Like other things, it depends on a number of factors. Microsoft is conservative with default settings in all areas not because they want to slow you down, but because those settings are best for everyone, in general. Therefore, in *some minority* of cases, it is theoretically possible to *marginally* improve your network performance. Notice the key words, *minority*  and *marginally*. Worse is that if you do not fit into that minority, then you may well do more harm than good. To actually know would require more extensive testing than simple SpeedTest.net results. First, you'd want many of those, as they can vary each run. Second, you'd need to test real-world conditions on a number of other servers, as the server settings may affect your results.

The best case is to leave the defaults as-is. If you do experiment with software, *make sure* you create a Restore Point you can go back to first, as once you lose your defaults, they are not presently easy to get back. One of the goals of my little RegMerge was to eventually allow people to see what settings may have changed and return to defaults.

168

Living Room / Re: A change I've seen in the forum

« on: March 15, 2012, 03:30 PM »

Welcome to the Internet. Nothing stays on topic. Intelligent people get 'flamed' by anonymous cowards. The attention seekers and spammers publish links to 'one-up' whatever... Sometimes people do this intentionally to promote a brand or service, other times it's just random stuff -- and normal human nature. One 'trick' is to set up comedy clubs to draw 'followers'. Thus, on any topic, these people post a funny link, ha ha ha.

In physical conversations, I often find the conversation gets completely derailed too.

169

General Software Discussion / Re: build website

« on: March 15, 2012, 04:36 AM »

To run a CMS on a database backed by a flat file format (what you are talking about) does incur performance penalties and is restrictive, less robust, and less secure.

170

General Software Discussion / Re: FastExplorer: Create your own Context Menu Items (Freeware)

« on: March 14, 2012, 09:09 PM »

Be VERY CAREFUL with some of these older tools in Vista and above. I don't feel like elaborating more, but it's true. Check the last update time of any software you try. ESPECIALLY shell extensions that might get mapped into every process on your system. Can cause crashes in random processes. The link in the original post of this thread is broken, maybe due to its age.

I also agree with the last poster.. you speak of not reinventing the wheel, but for abandoned applications, it's all wide open.

Note 2 posts up is 3.5 years old.

171

General Software Discussion / Re: build website

« on: March 14, 2012, 09:08 PM »

Are you absolutely sure your host does not offer a shared database for its shared hosts? I have never heard of a host not offering one.

172

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer Update Coming -- Express your feature requests here!

« on: March 14, 2012, 12:30 PM »

Thanks again. Good luck on Process Tamer, I'm sure you can get it up to speed.

173

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer Update Coming -- Express your feature requests here!

« on: March 14, 2012, 12:10 PM »

Thanks Mouser, and thanks for the link. Process Lasso is pseudo-FREEWARE, to be precise. ALL the major features are free, it NEVER expires, etc.. I call it shareware because it isn't 100% freeware, and the freeware purists prefer it that way (labelled shareware instead of freeware). http://bitsum.com/howfree.php describes how free it is and is not. So, label is Shareware perhaps, as I do, but not commercial.

UPDATE: As a token of good will, I'm giving away a few licenses of Process Lasso Pro. This key: [EXHAUSTED] will get you going. If it doesn't, then sad to say it's been used up. I set the limit high enough to where many of you should be able to take advantage of it.

174

General Software Discussion / Re: Lite version of C++

« on: March 10, 2012, 02:48 PM »

Eclipse is arguably the best freeware alternative to Visual Studio, if the issue is price. If you're looking for something to fit on a floppy disk, well good luck on that one ;p.

175

Living Room / Re: Why I Pirate - An Open Letter to Content Creators

« on: March 09, 2012, 11:37 PM »

I'm not trying to stop piracy, you misunderstand. I could care less if people pirate stuff, though I would prefer they didn't. I am just stating the real risks involved. Like others, I don't even go to great lengths to protect my own software, because I know it would be defeated no matter how much effort I put into it, and I don't want to inconvenience paying users. What I do care about is not having botnets of thousands of zombie PCs controlled by an anonymous person, thus giving him or her the power to DDoS whoever he decides he or she doesn't like that day. Of course, malware may not be used for DDoS, it could be used to steal their bank info or credit card data (something that is also very common). Lately, malware even does Bitcoin mining in the background, lol. It has gotten absurd.

Also, often times when I track down bug reports, the cause ends up being malware. These are annoying wastes of my time.

I'm no anti-piracy zealot. If people want to pirate, I simply suggest they take extreme precaution and be extremely careful with who they get the stuff from.

And you aren't really suggesting that malware is OK so long as it doesn't cause any harmful side effects, are you? Nah, surely not - seeing your last reply. No FUD here, just trying to tell people to be careful.