Messages

1476

General Software Discussion / Re: old software + dual core = ???

« on: July 13, 2007, 02:01 PM »

I wouldn't worry about it.

I think those kinds of problems are very, very rare. You'd probably have a higher likelihood of problems if you had something that used an ancient device driver.

If you do encounter problems, there are several fixes/workarounds, including being able to disable the 2nd core in BIOS settings.

A less drastic approach can be found fromthe July 2006 issue of CPU magazine:

Kill The Core

If you have a dual-core system, you already know you can press CTRL-ALT-DELETE to open the Task Manager and keep tabs on both cores via the Performance tab. Task Manager has a few other tricks that will let you use both cores as efficiently as possible.

By default, Windows assigns process threads to each core so that the two balance the load as evenly as possible. This is great because spikes in processor usage don’t bring all running apps to a halt as they would in a single-CPU environment. Some apps refuse to run in this configuration, but it is possible to force particular processes to use a particular core. Select the Processes tab, right-click a process’ entry, and click Set Affinity. Uncheck the CPU box that you don’t want the process to use, and the app will only run on the core that remains checked.

Unfortunately, Set Affinity is a single-use fix. Shut the app down, fire it up again, and it will try to access both cores again. To permanently force a program to use one core, download RunFirst (free; www.activeplus.com/us/freeware/runfirst), which can permanently make any program use the first core. ImageCFG (free; www.robpol86.com/Pages/imagecfg.php) lets you force any program to use either core.

1477

General Software Discussion / Re: deleting files from DVD/CD?

« on: July 06, 2007, 03:21 PM »

To recover the disc would require polishing out all the pits but that would be very difficult without specialist equipment and would probably make the protective plastic layer so thin that the recording surface would be damaged in the process.

-Carol Haynes (July 06, 2007, 05:40 AM)

The pits should be made on the label side of the disc - the recording layer rides between the plastic (polycarboate) and whatever's on the top of the label side of the disk.  This is why if you use stick-on CD labels, they'll often destroy the recording if/when they peel off (and one reason why many people consider stick-on labels a bad idea).  If the pits are made on the label side, they actually remove bits of the recording layer - no amount of polishing will bring that back.  I would expect that the 'CD shredder' would pit both sides to ensure the recording layer got destroyed.

Also, many paper shredders claim to be able to handle CDs.

I just cut then in half with a pair of scissors, but I never have to do more than a few at any particular time.

1478

General Software Discussion / Re: Multisession burning

« on: July 06, 2007, 03:08 PM »

Well, after a updating multisession DVD, the most recent additions didnt show in the Plextor drive but did show in my other DVD drive

-tomos (July 06, 2007, 12:48 PM)

I'd check Plextor for a firmware update on the drive.

1479

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Serial Dealers - a new discount software site

« on: July 05, 2007, 12:12 PM »

So you are not buying the software, you are buying a license to use it for one year. After that year is over, you can no longer use the software unless you purchase another license.

-tinjaw (July 05, 2007, 07:44 AM)

That's how I read the "1 year license" limitations initially.  However, after asking for clarification, the licenses allow perpetual use of the software, but they limit the upgrade window to 1 year (which is pretty common for the full-price software anyway).  I think that the 1 year limitation may also apply to minor updates that might normally be free (not sure about this - I think this depends on how the vendor distributes minor updates).  They have updated the descriptions for most items to make this more clear.  There is also some discussion about this on the forums.

It's not clear to me what exactly is meant by minimal support.  Some of this software has no on-line support presence (like a forum) - for example, UpdatePatrol does not have a support forum.  I usually like to see an active forum for software that I buy, since even if you don't have any problems you can often just get good ideas from reading how others are using the software.  However, there's no forum for UpdatePatrol whether you pay full price or not.

In this case since I could try before buy and the cost is $3, I figured the risk was pretty minimal.

That said, I remain a bit skeptical for some reason (if it seems too good...), but the entry cost was low enough (€5/$7) that I figured I'd take a bit of a gamble.  My guess is that the vendors are using this as a loss-leader of sorts and are banking on getting some real revenue from major upgrades after the 1 year.

1480

Found Deals and Discounts / Serial Dealers - a new discount software site

« on: July 04, 2007, 07:51 PM »

I'm a bit hesitant to post this, as the site seems to be one of those 'too good to be true' situations.  But I've purchased a copy of Update Patrol (formerly DeltaSpy - http://www.updatepatrol.com/) for €2 (i guess that's about $3), and all seems well.

As I understand it, the licenses offered by Serial Dealers may have some limitations compared to normal, full licenses - not in functionality, but in support, transferability, no refunds, and limited upgrade lifetimes.

One of the products they have on the site is Direct Access (http://www.nagarsoft.com), which has received good press on DC.

http://www.serialdealers.com

1481

General Software Discussion / Re: free, small, fast uninstaller replacement

« on: July 03, 2007, 09:40 PM »

But it seems that Safarp does the same, judging by Nighted's screenshot. Does it use a different method?

-Lashiec (July 03, 2007, 06:54 PM)

I think it does half of what ARP does.

I found the "Old New Thing" article f0dder mentioned: http://blogs.msdn.co...04/07/09/178342.aspx

So, I'm guessing that the info that safarp displays is simply read from the registry, and apps that don't have that info in the registry don't get that info displayed at all (which is how the ARP applet should act, IMO).

It's quite amazing the lengths that ARP goes through to get information that is more or less completely unreliable.

1482

General Software Discussion / Re: free, small, fast uninstaller replacement

« on: July 03, 2007, 02:09 PM »

Does Safarp remove all relative things of uninstalled software ?

-Nxqd3051990 (July 03, 2007, 12:14 PM)

Safarp simply invokes the uninstall routine registered in Windows, just like the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs (ARP) applet.

It's really just a lightweight version of ARP that doesn't take sooo...   long....  to....  load....   (what-the-#$% is ARP doing when it loads anyway?).

1483

Developer's Corner / Re: 18 Monospace fonts comparison screenshot

« on: June 21, 2007, 11:37 AM »

I liked the "Lava mono" best, where do I get it? I need it in Greek..

-kalos (June 11, 2007, 05:17 PM)

I don't think you'll get what you need - apparently the Lava Mono font was created by Nathan Sweet (http://www.n4te.com) by tweaking Vera Mono (see the last message on http://typographi.com/000744.php).

You can get what he's done at http://www.n4te.com/tools/LavaMono9.fon, but it's a 9-point bitmap font (so it doesn't scale well).  I have no idea if it has Greek characters.

1484

Living Room / Re: Mac Mini & Boot Camp alternatives?

« on: June 13, 2007, 01:29 PM »

I just read on Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.co...-your-mac-267905.php) that Parallels can virtualize a Bootcamp partition.

So, you can set up Windows as a dual-boot system on an Intel Mac and run your resource intensive Windows stuff (read: games) natively  and when you're running from the OS X install you can still access & run your Windows stuff seamlessly.

Nice!

1485

General Software Discussion / Re: The great defrag shootout

« on: June 13, 2007, 01:19 PM »

It's confusing cause the version is 3.8 but the more recent version from the homepage is 3.14
Guess the older one should be called 3.08

-tomos (June 12, 2007, 10:13 AM)

As an aside - in the GNU (or maybe Unix) world, versioning is usually done as a series of whole numbers separated by periods - the numbers are not read as decimal fractions as is often done in the Windows universe.

In other words, 3.1 is not the same as 3.10

So, the version number sequence would look like:  3.8 -> 3.9 -> 3.10 -> 3.11  etc.  This system more naturally lends itself to version numbers with more than 2 components.  For example, it would be (in my opinion) more confusing to say that version 3.1.126.5600 is equivalent to version 3.100.126.56.

Microsoft and other Windows software vendors usually (but not always) follows the scheme where the version number is read like a decimal (ie., 3.1 == 3.10).

1486

Living Room / Re: Mac Mini & Boot Camp alternatives?

« on: May 31, 2007, 03:50 PM »

I have also thought about getting a Mac when I move to new hardware, but instead of using Boot Camp to run my Win32 stuff I was thinking of running Parallels Workstation or the VMware Mac offering (which is still in Beta).  I'm figuring that would give the best of both worlds concurrently (I hate rebooting). I don't know if a Mac Mini supports enough memory to effectively run a WinXP VM.  1GB would be a bare minimum, I'd feel more comfortable with 2GB.

I've run Parallels on Windows (Parallels Desktop), but not nearly as extensively as VMware.  That said, it ran my Win2K installation just fine - I was impressed;  I've heard good things about their Mac offering (though I have not tried it).

1487

Living Room / Re: What do you do with your old PCs?

« on: May 31, 2007, 12:41 PM »

my deranged uncle

-zridling (May 30, 2007, 02:31 PM)

"Sexy monkey" Zaine has a deranged Uncle?  I can't figure out if I should be scared or in awe!?!?

1488

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Windows CDBurning

« on: May 26, 2007, 01:43 AM »

In case you decide to keep looking into the problem, here's an explanation of the UpperFilters and LowerFilters device driver registry settings, which are often the cause of CD related problems (especially with Roxio for some reason):

http://www.cdr-zone....forum/about4719.html

Caution: we're talking some serious low-level, kernel configuration stuff here.  Mucking around with that area of the registry can cause severe problems if something goes wrong - tread carefully.

1489

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Windows CDBurning

« on: May 25, 2007, 06:01 PM »

First: make sure the disk you're writing to is not a DVD disc - I don't think the built in Windows XP burning supports DVD media - I think they added DVD support for Vista.

If that's not the case, try this:

1) open the properties for the CD Drive (right click on the drive letter in Windows Explorer and select Properties).
2) on the 'Recording' tab uncheck "Enable CD Recording on this drive"
3) Hit the Apply button
4) Check the "Enable CD Recording on this drive" box
5) hit OK

If that doesn't help, try enabling the IMAPI CD burning service (the following instructions are for Win Server 2003, but the same applies for WinXP):

http://www.petri.co...._in_windows_2003.htm

Finally, maybe fixing problems with ASPI drivers (some burning utilities use them) might help.  The Windows built-in CD burning facility does not use ASPI, but maybe if something else installed ASPI drivers and they got messed up somehow...

Adaptec ASPI drivers.  It also includes an 'ASPI Checker' program:

http://www.adaptec.c...pi/aspi_v471_exe.htm


Some people believe that Nero's ASPI driver is better than Adaptec's:

http://www.nero.com/...enu/ASPI_Driver.html

1490

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9

« on: May 25, 2007, 02:34 PM »

I'm one of those who would probably have given Dopus a miss if not for the donationcoder forum

-patteo (May 25, 2007, 10:03 AM)

I've already purchased the upgrade, so a new discount would not apply to me, but I'm also someone who would not be a DOpus customer if it weren't for DC.  Hopefully, GPSoft will recognize the value of DC.

1491

Living Room / Re: "Microsoft: No plans to sue over Linux patents" but why?

« on: May 24, 2007, 12:24 PM »

I believe that Microsoft's intent is to sow seeds of FUD among the potential users (particularly enterprise users) of Open Source software.  Just something to keep buyers uneasy about deciding to 'bet the farm' on Open Source technology.  They want decision makers to have something like this in the back (or front) of their minds:  "Hmm.. if we use Linux will we get pulled into some sort of Intellectual Property dispute somewhere down the road?"

They can do this with zero cost and no real downsides by making threats.  But if they actually sue, then there are several problems:

1) lawsuits are costly (not that MS has much to worry about here)
2) bad public relations: MS looks like a bully (I'm not sure if they really care about this), and who knows - it may reactivate some sort of additional anti-trust scrutiny
3) lawsuits have a significant uncertainty in the outcome.  If the lawsuit were decided against Microsoft... well, they don't want that to even possibly occur.

1492

Developer's Corner / Re: Why Ruby is so great and why I'll pass and wait for the next big thing..

« on: May 24, 2007, 12:07 PM »

This snippet

Code: Ruby [Select]

1. def shutter_clicked
2.   capture_image if @camera.on? && @camera.memory_available?
3. end

reminds me of the "COME FROM" construct that was proposed to replace the 'evil' GOTO statement many years ago (from http://www.fortran.com/come_from.html):

Example:

[Select]

        10 J=1
        11 COME FROM 20
        12 WRITE (6,40) J STOP
        13 COME FROM 10         
        20 J=J+2
        40 FORMAT (14)

Explanation:

In this example, J is set to 1 by statement 10. Statement 13 then causes control to be passed to statement 20, which sets J to 3. Statement 11 then causes control to be passed to statement 12, which writes the current value of J. The STOP statement then terminates the program.

The problem with using

Code: Ruby [Select]

1. 20.minutes.ago

is that even though it's obvious what the intent is, it's not obvious at all exactly what's going on so that I can be sure the contructs are being used correctly.

I would argue that the equivalent in .NET:
   

Code: C [Select]

1. DateTime.Now.AddMinutes( -20);

I nearly as readable as far as determining intent, but it has the huge advantage that in the same instant that you determine the intent of the statement you also know exactly what's going on so you also understand the operations producing the intended result.

1493

Living Room / Re: CPU/mobo (and maybe more upgrade)...anyone know a lot about hardware?

« on: May 22, 2007, 12:08 PM »

Here's another take on Pentium 4's vs. newer dual core CPUs:  http://www.codinghor...archives/000867.html

As dk70 indicates you probably have a socket 478 CPU (Willamettes came initially on socket 423, but yours is probably socket 478).  To get a short-run upgrade cheaply, you might want to look at an inexpensive socket 478 CPU upgrade (http://www.geeks.com...ducts_sc.asp?cat=271) - though I'm not sure that dropping in any socket 478 CPU will necessarily work - you may need to do some research.

In the longer run, Mouser's advice of saving for a new system makes sense.  If you do decide to go for a bigger upgrade now, DDR2 RAM prices seem to be dropping nicely right now - there are a lot of opportunities to pick up 2 1GB modules for less than $80.

Also, as others mentioned - you might get more bang for the dollar upgrading video.

1494

Post New Requests Here / Re: Global Text Replacement

« on: May 19, 2007, 05:11 PM »

Just for completeness, I thnk sed should be mentioned (Win32 version is available in the UnxUtils package: http://sourceforge.n...es.php?group_id=9328).

It's a scriptable text editor from the Unix world.  It's not simple - quite the contrary - it can be a real bugger to figure out how to use.  But, it's free and there's a lot of resources in Google-space on how to use it.  However, I'd only suggest it if you want to set something up that needs to run repeatedly so a scripted solution would be necessary.

1495

Living Room / Re: CPU/mobo (and maybe more upgrade)...anyone know a lot about hardware?

« on: May 18, 2007, 01:39 AM »

I took a look on NewEgg for the Intel Core Duo (E6320) you said to get, and its only 1.86Ghz

-wreckedcarzz (May 17, 2007, 09:22 PM)

Be careful comparing raw clock rates.  The Core 2 Duos are faster than Pentium 4's at any given clock rate.  If you look at Tom's Hardware CPU Comparison (Call of Duty 2 benchmark here: http://www23.tomshar...l2=433&chart=165), the slowest Core 2 Duo they benchmark is the E6400 at 2.13 GHz.  It's faster than the fastest P4 they benchmark, the P4 EE at 3.73 GHz.

You can really only compare clock speeds within a chip family.

1496

General Software Discussion / Re: Web Mail Recommendation?

« on: May 17, 2007, 04:58 PM »

Mind you, none of these services are flawless, some Gmail(!) users lost their saved mails lately.

-nosh (May 17, 2007, 02:59 PM)

That's why it's nice that GMail lets you access your inbox with POP3 - you can archive your email locally very easily.  I'm not sure how many other webmail services do this.  A few years back (before GMail) I know Hotmail had a proprietary method that works only with Outlook and/or Outlook Express, and there are proxies that will let you get POP3 access to other webmail services, but my understanding is that they tend to be fragile.  It may be that in order to keep up with GMail other services have had to open up POP access, but I don't know.

See http://mail.google.c...34030&topic=1556 for details on "How do I back up all my mail using POP access?"

1497

General Software Discussion / Re: sigh! ..and now the Outlooks won't Send

« on: May 17, 2007, 09:35 AM »

Your email client is sending (via SMTP) to localhost port 7362.  Normally it would send to your ISP's SMTP server (such as mail.comcast.net for me) on port 25.

It's likely that some software (as justice said - antivirus or msgtag or something) has set up the client so that the mail gets sent to it first, then it would pass the email on to the real SMTP server.   Apparently that 'filtering' software is not running.

You can go into Outlook's (or Outlook Express') email account configuration and change the SMTP server settings to use your ISP's SMTP server on port 25, or make sure whatever software is supposed to be filtering your sent email is running.

1498

General Software Discussion / Re: IE7Pro : An ultimate Add-On for IE7

« on: May 11, 2007, 06:28 PM »

What is this P3 ??   

-Curt (May 11, 2007, 02:17 PM)

Pentium III?

1499

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: New Raxco Product : Defragmenter - Optimizer ; $9.99 until 2007-05-13

« on: May 11, 2007, 12:17 PM »

I'd like to ask about defragging in general - is it really important enough to warrant spending money on a tool to perform that specific task?

I use a free command line tool by Dave Whitney (http://www.flexomize...9d-b32145cc1957.aspx) that seems to have about the same performance as the one provided by Windows (ie., nothing special).  Not surprising, since it just uses the standard OS APIs for defragmenting - no low-level tricks.

But, I can run it from the commandline and have it perform boot-time defragmentation. 

My #1 issue with defragmentation is that I fear corruption.  Whitney's tool seems to be safe (I've had no corruption problems, and the author claims that the OS handles the defrag APIs using 100% safe techniques).  Even so, I tremble when I press the key that's going to start a defrag operation.

So, I guess my questions are - do the non-free defrag tools provide enough of a performance improvement to justify paying for them, and are they 110% safe?  If the power goes out in the middle of a defrag, will my data still be there? (one of these days I'm going to have to test Whitney's tool on this).

1500

General Software Discussion / Re: Intel Core 2 Duo + WinXP SP2 problem - only single core detected and used

« on: May 07, 2007, 06:41 PM »

This is a tricky area where mistakes can make a system completely unusable (without a clean reinstall), so be very careful.

Someone out in the 'net had success with a similar problem using the method described here:

http://forums.2cpu.c...?p=288810#post288810

I would at least take a look and see if the CD you're installing from has the files mentioned  (they might be packaged up in a .cab file on the install CD - most likely drivers.cab).