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Messages - MrCrispy [ switch to compact view ]

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51
General Software Discussion / Re: The best Media manager?
« on: February 22, 2010, 07:46 PM »
Have you tried Songbird or Amorak?

52
I would be interested in other peoples opinion on Linux's speed and footprint. We hear a lot about what a fast and light OS it is, but whenever I've tried it (and I mean a distro like Ubuntu, Mint, Mandrake etc which has a full KDE/Gnome gui) it just does not seem any faster than say Windows 7 or even Vista. Even on a netbook Win7 seems to win over Linux distros such as Jolicloud (recent Lifehacker comparison), so I'm not sure what it brings to the table for a Windows user.

53
General Software Discussion / Re: Why the aversion to .NET Frameworks?
« on: February 22, 2010, 07:38 PM »
I think it was confirmed there will be a Windows Phone Classic edition for all the old apps and carriers who do not want to conform to the new hardware standards. What is not confirmed, but is likely, is if the new OS actually has a new kernel and has removed support for all legacy API's. Even if they are still present, the phone will not install an old app without a 'jailbreak'. We shall find out soon enough at MIX10.

54
General Software Discussion / Re: Why the aversion to .NET Frameworks?
« on: February 22, 2010, 02:43 PM »
I was surprised they did it for Windows Mobile 7 (oh wait its Windows Phone 7 series, what a stupid name), so there's hope yet. There's no reason why all of Win32 can't run virtualized for legacy apps, just like they did for the 16-bit subsystem, XP compat etc.

This would be more of a political rather than technical decision by the time Windows 8/9 comes out anyway.

55
General Software Discussion / Re: Why the aversion to .NET Frameworks?
« on: February 22, 2010, 02:14 PM »
.NET and C# are wonderful technologies and a joy to develop for. Then you add things like the inclusion of functional programming, LINQ, Task Parallel Library and other advances and I fail to see how anyone could compare it to C++ let alone C.

As for the original question, its Microsoft's own fault. All they had to do was include the framework in one of the service packs for XP. Those things were huge and another 20MB wouldn't make a difference. Everyone installed them. Having a .NET CLR available on client pc's would make a lot more developers use it in their apps. Instead, it was not a system component until Vista and by then it was too late.

This has affected not just 3rd party devs but Microsoft itself. Office, Windows and other flagship desktop products do not use .NET. The reason for this is mostly that the different groups do not want to take a dependency on each other due to different release schedules, so we end up with a brand new OS with a completely rewritten graphics stack that doesn't use it. Microsoft uses .NET heavily in server products such as SQL Server, ASP.NET etc where it truly shines. Its a pity the client is still stuck with Win32 which needs to die a horrible death very soon.

I have high hopes that the next new OS from Microsoft (Midori - http://arstechnica.c...ust-experimental.ars), based on Singularity (http://channel9.msdn...ngularity-Revisited/) sees light of day soon and is not abandoned. It will finally ditch Win32 and the unmanaged baggage which exists solely for backwards compat.

56
General Software Discussion / Re: Battle of the Free Online Storages
« on: February 15, 2010, 04:30 PM »
The thing I'm not sure about is how long will these new providers be around? I use Live Mesh, Skydrive and Dropbox and I know that they are big enough names that my data will be around.

57
Most users don't know what a 'partition' is, and don't care. They do care that they can get to 'Documents', 'Pictures' etc from the start menu, and that all programs by default save things to well known locations such as these. The alternative - that upon installation every user would have to create their own data directory and remember to use them, is terrible. And programs still wouldn't know that documents go into a shell folder for documents.

Remapping these custom folders is easy. Only advanced users care about keeping 2 partitions for OS and data, and a normal user shouldn't be expected to have to reinstall the OS and keep the original data. If you want to do that, Windows provides plenty of ways - Easy Transfer Wizard, System Backup etc. I don't really see what the problem is with special folders.


58
General Software Discussion / Re: Search with Bing
« on: December 14, 2009, 05:07 PM »
Reasons to use bing -

1. the homepage pic. Its usually awesome and a nice touch. I even installed the 'best of bing wallpers' windows theme pack.

2. http://www.bing.com/travel/ - the best travel fare search I've seen

3. the search results aren't too bad.

4. the bing ads are funny :)

I changed my homepage from google to bing for the picture alone.

59
General Software Discussion / Re: LogMeIn
« on: December 10, 2009, 08:22 PM »
Can TeamViewer establish a remote session without requiring interaction from the remote pc, in the freeware version? And does it let you discover the remote pc's through a website? Basically I'm asking if it duplicates LogMeIn free functionality as it does seem to have more features.

60
General Software Discussion / Re: Scripting vs. Programming
« on: December 09, 2009, 02:32 AM »
To me the key concept is problem solving, creativity and using/inventing standard data structures and algorithms. If you do that you're programming, the language/environment doesn't matter.

Scripting is much narrower in scope

e.g.
A function in c# to read a file using std library calls its akin to a script.
A jscript function that then finds unique patterns in that file is a program.

61
I don't really have a player to suggest, but the speed of the player will depend on 2 things - its internal code, and the codec/filter graph used. Most players are either DirectShow based, or use bundled codecs, so you might want to try out different combinations. Kmplayer has a super speed option (which disables a bunch of advanced options), might want to try that.

62
That app gives a bad name to open source - as if most OSS needs to run as full admin with unsigned drivers!

63
Streaming playback is possible because content is linear - i.e. when you're playing back an mp3 or video all you need to do is get the next few chunks of data (like frames of video) and decode it. With software, you can't do that, as programs have branch instructions that require different parts of the code. Without getting too technical, software is random access, and streaming is not. I suppose it could be done with a really fast connection and a good protocol but its not really worth it.

64
I'd suggest that if you don't want to use Vista/Win7 indexing, at the very least keep it enabled for your Start Menu folder.

65
General Software Discussion / Re: LogMeIn
« on: November 24, 2009, 04:28 AM »
Have been using LogMeIn free for years. Its installed on my pc, a few friends and my parents. I've tried all the alternatives such as TeamViewer, Ultra/TightVnc, Hamachi etc and prefer LogMeIn. It has always worked and the performance is just fine. There are no nags and I can launch a remote session from any browser. There is a slight security concern as all traffic is tunneled through their servers instead of being true p2p, but not something that bothers me.

66
How the hell does Opera still make money? (I'm genuinely curious since they are giving away their browser and don't have the bazillion dollars the Mozilla foundation gets from using google as the default search).

For me, its only Firefox. The slight speed hit compared to Chrome is nothing compared to the extra features and time saved from all the extensions. Its not just a browser anymore, it needs to be productive.

67
Its a pretty sad state of affairs. Copernic hasn't been updated in ages, v3 was a downgrade. X1 is no longer free, and thus Yahoo is also gone. Google never was a player, they were the first but don't seem to care about desktop search that much, it was just a way to integrate google web search. WDS seems to be adding new features like federation and since its part of Windows, it probably has more users. Then we have Locate, Everything etc which are more suited to file based searches than full text indexing. Archivarius isn't free.

It seems no one is trying anymore, and users have gotten used to existing options. Perhaps there is no demand and no market for better search :(


68
Thanks for the review, I mean warning. Sad to see a well regarded program like this go this route, but I suppose it was inevitable given the constant pressure to add new snazzy features and UI.

69
Office 2010 public beta is supposed to be out soon. I've been using Outlook 2010 and it is a vast (like 2x) improvement over 2007. Haven't really played with OneNote too much so far, but from what I've read it sounds like a useful upgrade too.

70
Doesn't Minefield have taskbar previews for each tab on Windows 7 (like IE)? I tried it out some time ago and now I can't remember if it was builtin or not. I'm running 3.6 beta right now and am happy with it, I didin't see any speed improvements in Minefield and it was unstable on my pc.

71
General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Security Essentials
« on: October 16, 2009, 03:29 AM »
http://blogs.technet...ntials-week-one.aspx

MSE has a huge potential advantage , as we can already see millions of people will use it and that will improve the signatures. I wish MS would make it a critical update in Windows Update, it would fix 90% of all pc's worldwide.

72
General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Security Essentials
« on: October 16, 2009, 03:20 AM »
I've switched to MSE on all my pc's, from Avira/AVG etc. It is light, fast, the detection is at least as good if not better than any other free product (and many paid ones) and it includes rootkits, heuristics, dynamic updates and has o bloat or fluff. I run Vista/Win7 and have had no issues at all. I don't have any problems trusting Microsoft which seems to be a big issue for people.

And I'm willing to bet that if you combine a NAT router ($20), UAC on and running as normal user, IE protected mode, Win7/Vista firewall and MSE, you are not going to get infected unless you ignore any warning and run local files.

73
General Software Discussion / Re: how to open large html files
« on: October 10, 2009, 02:51 AM »
At work we have some log files produced by various tests that are quite large. IE and Firefox have all sorts of problems, esp when searching for text. Chrome works reliably. That being said, it depends a lot on the complexity of the html/javascript/css in the file.

74
I would like to dispel 2 common myths about Mac vs Windows. I'm not saying you believe in these, but they are very common in almost every discussion like this -

1. Mac's have superior hardware - they have the exact same components as a pc, ever since Apple switched to Intel. If anything, Apple lags behind pc makers. Unless you buy a Mac right after a refresh, for the next year or so you'll be forced to buy outdated graphics cards, hard disk etc, and don't have the option to upgrade. The difference is in the laptops, which have better design (such as the unibody) and better appearance, but this does not mean they are built better.

2. Mac's are safer - OSX is technically inferior to Windows in nearly every aspect of security. Its safer in the exact same way there's less chance of a robbery in a cottage with no doors in the middle of a desert compared to a house in a big city.

Here's an experiment - buy a pc, clean install Windows (this I totally agree with, pc makers bundle a ton of crapware, but things are improving). Only every install selected hardware from a special list which has been tested and whose drivers are included. Don't install just any random software. And leave well enough alone, don't go around tweaking things (very easy in Windows). In other words, treat the pc as if it were the Mac ecosystem, with very limited choice and premium products. Then see how it behaves.

You should take a look at Apple forums and how threads about problems get deleted. Apple has excellent PR and marketing, even the fact that Apple is by far the worst when it comes to locking down users is spun as a positive.

I've never owned a Mac (can't afford one and honestly don't care to) but have tried to use them at the Apple store. Maybe I'm too trained in Windows and don't 'think different' but I just find it frustrating after the initial wow factor.

75
General Software Discussion / Re: I'm tired of being told.
« on: September 30, 2009, 05:09 AM »
There is NO easy solution to security. Its not even a technical problem, its social engineering, and there is a lot more money to be made exploiting it than fixing, so guess who'll always win. Platforms like the Mac give the illusion of being safer while being technically inferior. The moment OSX/Linux reach anything close to Windows' marketshare, they'll face the exact same (and worse) malware issues.

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