Messages

151

General Software Discussion / Re: AVAST! 5 released

« on: January 21, 2010, 05:59 PM »

OK, found the first serious bug within the program. As I was sitting here, checking up the news, and enjoying some nice music, I noticed that from time to time, the music started to sound scratchy, which doesn't make any sense, as is played directly from the hard disk. As the dropouts took place when I loaded new pages, and the avast! icon was spinning while doing so, I concluded the antivirus was causing the dropouts, which is exactly what happens. Though avast! can do better, I wonder why the hell µTorrent is so damn incompatible with security software.

EDIT: Hell, µTorrent isn't causing this, it's avast! alone. Damn it...

152

General Software Discussion / Re: Strategies for using user-data folders in Windows 7?

« on: January 21, 2010, 09:39 AM »

In XP I remapped the entire "My Documents" to the secondary drive, and had no problems, all apps made correct use of all the predefined folders the OS provides, and those who don't, create folders in the root, as they should. Will do the same in Windows 7, if it lets me do so. Kinda like the OS provides such well-thought default folders (saves me some thinking :P), and the ability to move them as you like. Linux distros have been doing the same for a while, so I guess all of them can't be wrong.

The next step would be to let users remap "Documents and Settings" aka "Users" as they see fit as well. It would make backing up program settings sooo much easier. And in the process, they could punch in the head those apps which insist on not making use of "Application Data" and store the data in a folder created in the "<username>" root (VirtualBox, I'm looking at you).

OTOH, I have never remapped "My music" or "My videos", and prefer to store these types of files where Windows doesn't know. Reason: any media player these days will want to continually scan and index these locations, and I don't want to have three or four or five such indexes on my system. Also, I have seen a media player that, upon first run, not only indexed mp3s, but started pulling online data and **updating tags in my files** with it, all before I had a chance to say no. (I had to restore a lot of files from backup, thanks a lot.) So I keep my media where these applications won't find them until I manually point them to the folders.

-tranglos (January 19, 2010, 06:02 PM)

What kind of nasty media players are you using? :S

153

General Software Discussion / Re: AVAST! 5 released

« on: January 21, 2010, 09:13 AM »

Did a clean install today, just finished configuring it a few minutes ago. It's still too soon to tell if there's any drawback under the hood, but the first impressions of its behaviour are positive. Much better UI, with all tools centralized in a single location, instead of being separated like before, and drastically reduced memory usage. A couple of things seems to be missing in comparison with version 4.8, namely URL blocking (let's be fair, nobody used it), and indications on the system tray when the program is getting updates. IMO this is a big loss, because notification boxes are fairly invasive for such info.

BTW, for the fans of avast! voiceovers, those are still present, and thinking in the sanity of the rest of the world, Alwil has provided us with simple notifications sounds as well.

154

General Software Discussion / Re: Just discovered a HUGE annoyance in Windows 7

« on: January 18, 2010, 09:16 AM »

- so what may be the reason cmpm and tranglos are having a quite different experience?

-Curt (January 18, 2010, 09:00 AM)

The answer is simple: YMMV

155

Living Room / Re: Boxed PC games market 'gone by 2011'

« on: January 13, 2010, 04:56 PM »

Heh, the market gone by 2011... Stardock and Valve would like to have a word with this guy.

Blame console makers and big retail chains for not stocking PC games. While there's no actual proof, console makers sure bribe retail chains for preferential retail space, just like it has been done in supermarkets for years with conventional products. Plus, while there's a demand for PC games, it's certainly not as big, and certain big chains are pretty interested in the second hand market, which is far more profitable with console games than with PC games, which due to copy protection and/or Internet activation, are not easy to resale. Also, PC piracy.

That's not to say the digital market will take over physical sales next year. Both Stardock and Valve has stated in the past that, while digital sales are respectable, they are nowhere near the revenue they pull from physical sales in the USA. Not to mention that the PC market is not composed of USA and UK as short-sighted game journalists want to make people think. In Europe it has always been pretty strong, specially in Germany and the old Eastern Bloc, including Russia. Talking about Russia, I don't think it's in the best interest of 1C to see the physical market gone, considering the chain the company operates there ;)

So, well, I don't see the market gone by 2011, but if the guy is poking those big chains to funnel some efforts into promoting PC games, all the better. He could poke those guys at Microsoft as well, which are far more interested into the XBOX 360 these days.

156

General Software Discussion / Re: At last: MP3 Lossless!!!

« on: January 12, 2010, 04:57 PM »

Yes, yes, I had that crazy idea years ago, when I found I could save a few megabytes by ZIP compressing my MP3s, since both foobar2000 and XMPlay can play compressed files with ease. Then I realized I could not edit any MP3 directly from fb2k if I did that...

The WAV format doesn't have a metadata system, and a PMP doesn't handle 7ZIP or RAR compressed WAV files too well. Heck, my own computer takes several seconds just to process a single compressed audio file (a fairly big one, though). The fact that general compression algorithms are pretty efficient compared to FLAC doesn't make them a suitable option for audio compression.

157

Living Room / Re: To wide-screen or not to wide-screen

« on: January 11, 2010, 02:29 PM »

Damn widescreen domination! *shakes fist*

158

General Software Discussion / Re: ToolTipFixer 2.0 for Windows < Vista

« on: January 11, 2010, 01:52 PM »

Supposedly Microsoft acknowledged and fixed this problem in the latest Service Packs for the currently supported Window releases. A while ago we had another thread about this problem, with several solutions suggested, and while I used one of them for a time (an AHK script), after upgrading to SP3, I noticed the tooltip was always shown correctly. Sounds like the odds of this bug nagging your system is something left to randomness, then.

159

General Software Discussion / Re: Sandboxie goes 64 bit

« on: January 05, 2010, 01:01 PM »

Excellent news, no need to search for a 64-bit compatible alternative anymore. I always thought the reasons given for the lack of a 64-bit version were a bit bunk, specially because it breaks things for people like me, who use Sandboxie to isolate and test software, not to provide watertight protection against malware.

160

Developer's Corner / Re: “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« on: January 02, 2010, 07:42 AM »

I'd love to see the reason Paypal gave for seizing the money in the account of a freeware music player.

-Innuendo (January 01, 2010, 12:16 PM)

The explanation is provided in the forum.

161

DC Gamer Club / Re: bit-tech.net - Top 10 Games of The Year 2009

« on: December 26, 2009, 07:20 AM »

Ah, yes, the biggest middle finger to PC gaming in 2009 is also the best game. Not surprised.

I have not played any game on the list, although I have Mirror's Edge, and I'm not much interested in the rest, save for ARMA II and Machinarium, though I would have to play some of them to be really sure. I would definitely mention Trine as one of the best games released this year, even though I have only played the demo :D

I know of one game that's coming out on Dec 26th that is high on my radar of games to check out.

-Deozaan (December 25, 2009, 01:47 AM)

Which one?

162

Living Room / Re: donationcoder.com certifcate issues?

« on: December 22, 2009, 09:19 PM »

Don't worry, it's a normal error. DonationCoder uses a self-signed certificate for the site, and thus any browser will throw an error, since the certificate provider is not stored in the browser list of trusted providers. Just add an exception for it in Chrome and everything should be fine.

I think Gothi[c] (DC server admin) explained the site use of the certificate *somewhere* in the forum, but I can't find the post.

163

Living Room / Re: How Success Killed Duke Nukem - A heartbreaking story of developer failure

« on: December 22, 2009, 09:01 PM »

a good insight on the whole operations. blowing $20million on the project and still without an end, that is telling something. i wonder what happened to ken silverman who wrote the original Build engine?

-lanux128 (December 22, 2009, 08:38 PM)

He wrote PNGOUT, and still maintains it

164

Found Deals and Discounts / The Steam Holiday Sale

« on: December 22, 2009, 08:43 PM »

Just like last year, and not to let the rest of the competition reap all the benefits, Valve has started its massive Christmas sale. It can't be missed since the frontpage has been transformed into a massive ad, that is, there's no regular Steam page. In addition to savings up to 80% in most of the games in the store, each day until the 3rd of January, a set of daily deals will be published, with even greater savings over the Christmas discount.

Word of advice: Do not buy anything else except for the daily deals you might be interested in, since it may be possible that one day you find out Valve is offering such game for a lower price. Considering that some of the games offered during the past Thanksgiving Sale are available for much lower prices, I would not rule out such possibility. Heck, even I feel a little scammed after seeing some games I bought not that long ago now available for almost nothing.

Of course, once you know it's the last day of the sale, buy anything else you want without remorse!

165

General Software Discussion / Re: Google creates a URL shortener, but it's limited

« on: December 18, 2009, 09:39 AM »

The length of the text the receivers read will only end up being those ~160 characters, yes, but I thought the point of twitter was that the entire message should only be ~sms-length?

-f0dder (December 18, 2009, 09:26 AM)

Yes, but why shifting the burden of relating short URLs and actual URLs to third parties when you can do everything in-house, using standard schemes? Internally you may end up having 1400 characters in a message, but as long as the tweet is within those 140 characters (not 160 it seems), I don't see any problem. As I said, that's how things are done everywhere everyday.

Besides, users are being told not to click on a link someone sends them if it appears to be suspicious. And now we have these URL shorteners that totally obscure the target to the point that no one can say what lies behind (extensions aside)?

166

General Software Discussion / Re: Google creates a URL shortener, but it's limited

« on: December 18, 2009, 09:23 AM »

Because, in fairness, that makes the actual message longer than those ~160 characters. Dunno whether any device using Twitter is actually limited to a single SMS-length message, though

-f0dder (December 18, 2009, 07:44 AM)

No, that's what not I meant

I don't use Twitter, so maybe you can already do it, but AFAIK the only way to include links in your tweet is doing something like this:
 

• Check out Cody's brand new hat!!!: https://www.donationcoder.com/

But why didn't they do things like they're usually done in the rest of the Interwebs from the start?
 

• Check out Cody's brand new hat!!!

Yes, you may end up sending text longer than 160 characters, but the actual tweet is shorter.

167

General Software Discussion / Re: Google creates a URL shortener, but it's limited

« on: December 17, 2009, 07:03 PM »

Why can't Twitter and any other service using URL shorteners switch to something more sensible like, you know, those fancy brand new hyperlinks? Just saying

168

DC Gamer Club / Re: Microsoft is giving away Tinker for free

« on: December 17, 2009, 06:43 PM »

I just wish steam would have slightly better pricing, and that all the competitors would die off.

-f0dder (December 17, 2009, 06:07 PM)

Erm, what? o_O

169

Found Deals and Discounts / Amanita Design Christmas Pack (Samorost & Machinarium)

« on: December 17, 2009, 06:32 PM »

Amanita Design, the guys behind the recently released Machinarium, is offering a superb deal on its blog. Starting today and up to Christmas Day, you can get Machinarium, Samorost2 and the soundtracks for both games, all coupled with high-res game covers, for a mere 10 bucks. No DRM and multiplatform versions (thanks to the "magic" of Flash :P).

Just another proof that random surfing in forums unearths cool things :D
via Steam Forums

170

General Software Discussion / Re: syncing an ipod shuffle with wmp on vista

« on: December 17, 2009, 09:17 AM »

Hmmm... this reminds me - won't WinAmp do it as well?

-Darwin (December 17, 2009, 09:12 AM)

It should work out of the box, even

171

Living Room / Re: Yet another 0-day pdf exploit in the wild

« on: December 17, 2009, 09:09 AM »

I always wondered what's the point in having a browser plugin for Acrobat, since the standalone program launches as fast and has the same exact functionality

And if I were Adobe, I would ship next major version of Acrobat with JavaScript disabled. If a PDF really needs such function, the program usually warns you, so...

172

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Download SoftMaker Office 2008 for free, and SoftMaker donates money!

« on: December 14, 2009, 09:58 AM »

I'll help them helping myself then

173

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Space Rangers 2 for 1.99$ over at impulse just for today

« on: December 14, 2009, 09:25 AM »

do games purchased from Impulse require a client like Steam to launch and manage them?

-lanux128 (December 13, 2009, 08:36 PM)

Only to install and activate them AFAIK. After that, you can launch the game as any other application in Windows, you don't need to have Impulse running.

174

Living Room / Re: Nice New Blog by DC member on "Social Computation and Creativity"

« on: December 07, 2009, 10:04 AM »

Wow, unbelievable, a good post on TechCrunch!

Good read, shame on the comments below

175

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« on: December 07, 2009, 07:57 AM »

^Brilliant