Messages

226

General Software Discussion / Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« on: November 04, 2007, 11:12 PM »

A friend of mine brought over his virii (yup, there were plenty on board) infected external USB drive and plugged it into my laptop. Avast Home edition (free) was running, up to date with the latest definitions (updated daily). Before I knew it, I couldn't open msconfig or regedit from Win + R or any other way. A bunch of files called hfhludy.exe and meex.exe copied themselves to every freaking drive on my computer and the network. Needless to say, those on my network were not pleased.

I find this virus interesting because its also like a Trojan. If I went to Google and searched for how to remove it, it would close my browser (Firefox and Opera). If I tried to go to TrendMicro's Online Scanner, it would close the browser window again. It added two processes to the startup. Since regedit didn't work, I used Spybot S&D to disable them, but they appeared again on startup. Deleting or replacing the autorun.inf file in each drive did nothing either.

The bottom line is : Avast Failed against the TR/downld.B Virus. But, both AVG and Antivir were able to detect it when I plugged in the Hard drive into another computer through an external case. This isn't the first time. I've had the flashplay.dll worms on my computer from USB thumb drives and Avast kept scanning them, but said they were okay. It was only a week later that the worm was added to the virus definitions.

An anti-virus is only as good as it frequently updated by its manufacturer. I liked Avast and recommended it to all my friends whose machines I've fixed, but I will be emailing them with an advice to switch to AntiVir or AVG at the soonest.

Perhaps, it is indeed fallacy to think that free anti-virus solutions will stand up to their commercial counterparts. Multiple layers of defense by installing several anti-virus programs would be nice, but I've encountered conflicts while attempting that in the past. Not to mention the added resource overhead, which an old machine like mine does not need.

Does reliable computer security (on Windows) have to cost money?

227

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to Change File Attributes on Windows

« on: November 02, 2007, 08:53 PM »

I see a trend . xplorer² will follow it as well
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Lashiec (November 02, 2007, 08:38 PM)

Lashiec, how did you get to that window on xplorer2? I have it, but can't figure it out. Then again, I'm too lazy to RTFM.

228

Living Room / Re: anyone tried the google web accelerator?

« on: November 02, 2007, 07:01 PM »

I found these alternatives, don't know how effective they are:

($) Tweakmaster - http://www.tweakmaster.com/

(FREE) Fastcache - http://www.analogx.c...nload/network/fc.htm

Fastcache only caches DNS requests, I think. No way to compress pages that have not yet been loaded.

(FREE) Treewalk DNS - http://ntcanuck.com/

Free for personal use, but again, only caches DNS I think.

I also use OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com), which is quite fast and does not require you to install anything, but its not as fast as Treewalk, Fastcache or Google Web Accelerator because th DNS requests still have to be fetched and are not locally cached. But, don't web browsers normally cache DNS requests anyway?

229

General Software Discussion / Program to Change File Attributes on Windows

« on: October 31, 2007, 04:14 PM »

I am looking for a program that can quickly change file attributes of several files on Windows. SO far, I've found

Attribute Changer (FREE) - http://webplaza.pt.l...windows/windows.html
Attribute Magic Pro ($) - http://www.attribute...ributemagic-pro.html
Febooti File Tweak ($) - http://www.febooti.c.../products/filetweak/

Any other suggestions?

230

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Seeking Website Feedback for kid's product

« on: October 28, 2007, 04:31 PM »

Thanks to everyone who has given the feedback so far. A major problem has been that I am a coder, not a designer. Art was a subject I struggled to pass at school. And I always prefer function over form, if something looks neat and works, I normally see no reason to fix it unless I can make it faster somehow.

Heck, even my computer is highly minimalistic. Plain desktop, no pretty effects. I definitely do realize that kids needs a more visually appealing website. But my company doesn't quite have the budget for a designer either.

cranioscopical, do you have any suggestions on where I might be able to get free pictures of energetic kids? I find plenty of Creative Commons and Open Source images, but I would technically prefer something public domain so that I can modify without having to attribute the author below every image.

I am planning to make the changes in December, probably after my exams, but it would help to collect ideas and materials in advance!

231

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« on: October 28, 2007, 04:21 PM »

What did the cat die of? Curiosity!
I was number 21 to try to check out the >>size: 0 KB<< picture file...   

- or was icekin really that smart: "plain and simple" = blank  ??   

-Curt (October 08, 2007, 09:46 AM)

I should really read replies to my posts more often  But you wouldn't be too far from the truth. I always used to have a plain black desktop. Its only very recently that I have started using wallpapers, and even then I typically go for minimalistic ones that avoid excessive colors and gradients.

232

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Seeking Website Feedback for kid's product

« on: October 28, 2007, 03:52 AM »

I started working with a company that created a experiment kit for kids a while back. I made the website and helped design part of the product. Please give your feedback on the site and product. Positive comments and criticism is both welcome.

Main Site - http://www.yaxpert.com
Product Page - http://www.yaxpert.com/enviromanya

233

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« on: October 28, 2007, 01:35 AM »

Dirhael, can I know where you get your wallpapers? If you make then yourself, are they available for download?

234

Living Room / Re: release important information after your death with this service

« on: October 20, 2007, 10:49 PM »

One way to keep source code going is to plan for it to be released as open source after a person's death. I think death switch can be implemented for free through a few modules and a CMS. I don't know how the subscription idea can be patented then. Lastly, I find it amusing that the deathswitch labels itself hacker-proof. Nothing is hacker-proof, maybe 'hacker-resistant' is more likely.

235

Living Room / Re: Do you archive/store your downloads (mainly install files)?

« on: October 19, 2007, 10:15 PM »

I keep a copy of the installation program files on my external drive, but replace it with a newer version when it comes out. That way, I always have the latest collection of install files for the programs on my PC.

However, if the new version consumes more system resources, I keep the old version around until I decide whether the new version's features are worth the extra resource overhead.

Unfortunately, due to a limited hard drive space in the past, I deleted several paid programs (mainly CAD related) that I got for free as part of an academic license. Now, I am stuck with an old computer that can't run the latest CAD programs due to system requirements being exceeded.

236

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« on: October 19, 2007, 02:41 AM »

I guess when people go "we're great" with the intended implication that "you arent"
one does tend to react to that... 

I've gone back & looked at that link given by icekin -
the one I got a bit offended by his abusive streak - especially against people who use their hands when talking
(especially that because that=me)
But it's still very funny, in spots at least

-tomos (October 18, 2007, 06:08 PM)

I use my hands too, so I don't entirely agree with everything that was said on that page. I just found some of it to be funny.

As for Apple, I wouldn't mind them so much if they were cheaper and offered more + better features. I realized that some people (e.g. academics) get good pricing on Apple products, but for everyone else it seems a rip off. Their keyboard has no separate del, home, insert pg up and pg down keys. The touchpad has only one button. The speakers are very below par. Most notebooks in that price range come with altec lansing speakers on board (e.g. Toshibas).

Lastly, its a 'one size fits all' solution, at least the mac desktops are. Can't customize without blowing a hole in the wallet.

237

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« on: October 11, 2007, 07:26 AM »

Pretty interesting page : http://www.thebestpa...et/c.cgi?u=macs_cant

I especially like 1.

238

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« on: October 07, 2007, 04:10 PM »

Here's mine. Plain and simple.

239

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« on: October 06, 2007, 05:27 AM »

Guess this thread completely missed me. I am 24, a biomedical engineer currently in Australia. I've lived in about 5 countries till now and traveled to a whole lot more. Software minimalism is an addiction and I tweak the hell out of my PC for speed. In general,

average age of the Software on my computer > average age of Hardware on my computer

I also hate throwing away any computer or electronic circuitry. No matter the condition, I try to fix it up or use the parts, even the screws, wires and ICs. I enjoy building electronic circuits and used to take part in micromouse competitions in the past.

I freelance as a web designer/developer besides my main job. I joined Donationcoder only long after I started reading the site and the posts. I greatly enjoy the function-over-form approach to software here and look forward to finding other communities like this on the web.

240

General Software Discussion / Re: Diagnostic for portable harddisk

« on: October 05, 2007, 01:33 AM »

Is it a real hard disk that is enclosed in a external case? If so, get an enclosure that supports eSATA and you can monitor it like an internal drive. I don't have an eSATA enclosure and use HDTune as well.

241

General Software Discussion / Re: Need Help Identifying a Program

« on: October 04, 2007, 01:49 AM »

Many thanks Dirhael, that was the one! I just upgraded to Intellipoint 6.2 yesterday and this stared. I managed to disable it from the mouse settings in the control panel.

242

General Software Discussion / Need Help Identifying a Program

« on: October 03, 2007, 05:08 PM »

I am not able to uninstall a program because I can't identify it. It shows up when I middle click the title bar of any application and produces an 'mac expose' like effect showing me a screen with all open windows. Also shows up when I middle click the task bar.



I have used Autoruns to identify starting processes, but can't seem to find the program doing this. Currently, I use Pitaschio, Strokeit and taskbarshuffle, but its not any of them because I have tried disabling them from startup, yet this effect persists.

I would appreciate any clues from fellow users as to which programs do this.

243

General Software Discussion / Re: really good spell check tool wanted

« on: September 21, 2007, 09:39 PM »

I have tried Quickspell and find it to be best of the lot.

244

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« on: September 19, 2007, 03:32 AM »

I use

Launchy

Stroke it

Panekiller (CTRL + right click anywhere to get start menu)

245

General Software Discussion / Re: Quizo QTTabbar

« on: September 18, 2007, 11:28 PM »

I noticed that

1) QtTabBar slows down the time taken to open Windows Explorer a bit. Usually, when I press Windows Key + E, Explorer jumps out instantly, nearly as fast as notepad.

2) QTTabBar does not work if you open 'My Computer' and then open the tree view on the left pane to enter Windows Explorer mode. You have to open Windows Explorer directly to enable QTTabBar.

Besides that, its quite a good program. I enjoyed many of its features, but then went back to using xplorer2.

246

Living Room / Re: How much RAM do you have on your PC?

« on: September 16, 2007, 03:57 AM »

I have 512 MB on my main Windows XP machine and my other one has only 256 MB and runs Debian. But I guess it depends on your needs and what type of user you are. I run very low resource programs (e.g. K-Meleon, uTorrent, xplorer2 etc.) But if I used Firefox, Azureus and Directory Opus to do the same things, I would definitely need 1 GB to work comfortably.

If you use CAD or multimedia programs like those by Adobe, 2 GB is nice to have especially if you run many applications at once. I would advise running SystrayMeter (http://88.191.26.34/...ex.php/systraymeter/) for a few days and observing your RAM usage. If you find the RAM meter in the red too often, consider upgrading. Otherwise, don't bother.

247

General Software Discussion / Re: Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in (nice blog post)

« on: September 03, 2007, 07:57 PM »

Its not a bad program, but Firefox is a memory Hog. I personally found AdMuncher (http://www.admuncher.com/) to be far better, even though it does cost some money. It filters from everything that connects to the internet.

Customize Google (http://www.customizegoogle.com/) is another extension that can remove the Google Text ads on Firefox.

248

Living Room / Re: download all updates for XP in one go?

« on: August 30, 2007, 02:42 AM »

Yet another good product killed by M$
Why couldn't they have just bought Autopatcher over?

249

Living Room / Re: Anywhere.FM: Upload your entire music collection - play it anywhere

« on: August 23, 2007, 09:48 PM »

Only allows mp3s It would take too long to convert my flac collection to all mp3s.

250

General Software Discussion / Re: Recomend an RSS Service that can add tons of feeds, filter out most items?

« on: August 20, 2007, 07:02 PM »

Put the hundreds of RSS feed that you want to import into a OPML/XML File. Most readers can import these. In addition, the following feed readers can track specific keywords :

- Greatnews (http://www.curiostudio.com) (keyword feature is called 'newswatch') - Free, uses IE engine, can use Mozilla engine too. Has a time lag after adding a feed. Screen freezes for a few seconds while the added feed loads, but then its okay.

- Blogbridge (http://www.blogbridge.com/) - Open Source, Great on features, offers synchronization with an online account and expert guides, but uses 30 MB of RAM

Another option is to use any ordinary RSS reader (standalone or online), but use an intermediate service like Feedshake(http://feedshake.com), Feedrinse(http://www.feedrinse.com), AideRSS (http://www.aiderss.com) or BlastFeed (http://www.blastfeed.com) to filter the news feed before it is even sent to your reader. These services can also combine many feeds into one if you wish.

Oh, and I think Website Watcher can also be set up to watch specific words, but it costs money.