Messages

376

Developer's Corner / Re: Nice Blog Essay and Site for Freelancers: 10 Absolute "Nos!" for Freelancers

« on: November 24, 2007, 09:01 PM »

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how even bigger companies have trouble saying "no" sometimes.  I once worked for a CEO who always negotiated deals to success.  He literally believed even a bad deal was better than no deal at all.

So we'd end up doing these insane projects for little income, the promise being this was a "strategic" project and would lead to bigger, more lucrative deals with the same customer.  It's a slippery slope, though... once the customer got a whiff of free stuff, it was difficult to throttle them back.

Then money we'd get from new projects would go to fund existing "strategic" projects and the hole dug itself ever deeper...

377

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« on: November 24, 2007, 08:54 PM »

The weird thing about this one, though, is that Mac isn't as widely used as PC, and it could therefore be argued that Mac isn't as popular.

-Deozaan (November 24, 2007, 08:46 PM)

That, my friend, is part of the allure.  Owning a Mac is automatic membership in an exclusive club of smarter, wittier, more artistic folks than the vast sweaty mob of PC users.

378

Developer's Corner / Visual Studio 2005 or 2008?

« on: November 24, 2007, 06:33 PM »

Microsoft has announced Visual Studio 2008 has gone RTM.  It should be available in lovely shrink-wrapped boxes in time for the Christmas rush.  I know what Aunt Mildred's getting in her stocking!

But is migration from VS2005 (or even 2003) warranted?  Is the juice worth the squeeze?  What exactly's in that smokin' new code, and how stable is it?

Here's one blogger's take on upgrade strategies, and a nice enumeration of the new stuff sprinkled liberally with helpful links.

http://weblogs.asp.n...hat-s-more-risk.aspx

The comments, as usual for these kinds of things, are as good as the article itself.  For instance, one VS 2008 beta user reports it to be the most stable version of the product he's tried yet.

379

Living Room / Re: 32bit vs 64bit Vista performance comparison?

« on: November 24, 2007, 06:11 PM »

Ah.  So you don't my 64-bit version of "Hello world" then?

380

General Software Discussion / Re: Need help recording rtsp/mms stream

« on: November 24, 2007, 06:08 PM »

Mmmmaybe try a different product to see if there's a messed up codec or something?

http://windows-media.hidownload.com/

Free trial, fully functional.  If it works, might mean the other transports you have are hosed.

381

General Software Discussion / Re: what does uninstall really mean?

« on: November 24, 2007, 06:03 PM »

It probably is.

You should be able to override that and install the one you want.  Can't you?

382

Living Room / Re: 32bit vs 64bit Vista performance comparison?

« on: November 24, 2007, 05:58 PM »

What f0dder said.  And I would also add that even if the "geekmark" is accurate, and you really do get a 10-11% improvement, does that justify the headache of rebuilding your system?

In automotive terms you need at least 10% more horsepower to even *notice* an improvement, much less gain any benefit.

On the other hand, 10% might offset the cost of running a background virus scanner.  So if you're planning to burn it down anyway, maybe it *is* worth it.  Unless as f0dder says, you've got a load of 64-bit apps laying around, flip a coin at this point.

383

General Software Discussion / Re: what does uninstall really mean?

« on: November 24, 2007, 05:30 PM »

XP?

1. Right-click My Computer / Properties
2. Hardware tab / Device Manager Button
3. Find your thingie
4. Right-click / Properties
5. Driver Tab / Update Driver
6. "Install from specific location"
7. "Search for the driver in these locations"
8. Turn OFF removable media
9. Turn ON "Include this location in the search".
10. Enter (or browse for) the path to where your edited drivers are located.
11. Click Next
12. ...
13. Profit!

384

Living Room / Re: Recycling: Old Typewriters = New Humans

« on: November 24, 2007, 05:02 PM »

I especially like the cat.

385

General Software Discussion / Re: what does uninstall really mean?

« on: November 24, 2007, 04:58 PM »

How did you 'edit' the drivers?

If the edited drivers' .inf file isn't updated with a newer version number, Windows will shrug and use the existing drivers since it thinks they are the same.  Conversely, if the edited drivers appear to be older than what Windows has, you will have a fight on your hands.

What happens if you go to device manager, select the USB device, then manually force a driver install, pointing explicitly to the desired files?

386

Living Room / Re: 32bit vs 64bit Vista performance comparison?

« on: November 24, 2007, 04:46 PM »

If you believe these guys, it's maybe 11% faster.

http://64-bit-comput...4-bit-benchmark.html

387

Developer's Corner / Re: Ideas vs. Inventions

« on: November 24, 2007, 12:46 PM »

Good post and food for thought.  I wonder: if you implement an idea badly is that enough for a patent?

Sure, my laser-powered mousetrap doesn't actually catch any mice, but as soon as I figure out how to power a terrawatt laser from a pair of AA batteries, we'll be in business.  Time to hire a patent attorney?

Also, a patent only protects a specific methodology or approach.  Thus if somebody observes me testing my laser mousetrap and invents one using their own design, a patent would not protect me.  Right?

Otherwise software companies wouldn't be able to get away with emulators, and Apple would charge me a fee for dropping files in the Windows recycle bin... right?

388

Living Room / Procrastination Flowchart

« on: November 24, 2007, 01:51 AM »

Courtesy of Buy My Drink comes this terrifyingly accurate (in my experience) flowchart.  I plan to start my day navigating its serpentine twistiness.  Soon.

389

Coding Snacks / Re: Volume control by time

« on: November 24, 2007, 12:51 AM »

Clarification, please: you mean mute according to time-of-day with a schedule?

390

General Software Discussion / Re: DefenseWall HIPS - My system crashed when downloading a trial copy

« on: November 23, 2007, 03:47 PM »

Holy smokes, that's not good.  Since the link worked and your download completed, it wasn't the download operation per se that hosed you.  Had to be what was downloaded and installed.

I can see two possibilities why this might've happened...

1. The downloaded file got corrupted, and installed a damaged .exe that failed to work upon boot.  This is unlikely, because installers perform integrity checking and should stop the process if the file isn't 100%, but I've seen some weird things before that simply shouldn't happen.  Worth a mention.

2. You may already be carrying some kind of malware infection, and it conflicted with the new protection you were installing.  Could be an event triggered by the infection (some malware is "product aware" and targets specific software) or just the new .exe files being infected while they were booting up for the first time.  System Restore would have replaced the damaged files with working, but possibly still infected versions.

Don't mean to alarm you, but it might be a good idea to do a deep scan of your system with the antiviral of your choice.  Even if I'm completely wrong it wouldn't hurt and would give peace of mind.  I just find it peculiar that an *anti-malware* package failed to install properly and in that fashion.  That's quite a coincidence.

391

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: About signing up to download freeware license keys - READ IN PLEASE

« on: November 23, 2007, 01:25 PM »

Greetings,

this free program process tamer I thought was good?? until I came here, just to jump threw hoops, is just waste of bloody time!

then they want a donation...you guy are nuts.

-idfour (April 26, 2007, 06:14 PM)

He's got a point.  I'm pretty irritated with FARR and how, if it can't find a program it doesn't go into the internets FIND it and RUN it for me.  I mean, what kind of crap is this?

For instance, I tried to run "Unreal Tournament 3" and FARR just *failed*.  C'mon!  Why didn't it go to the web site and download it for me??

And the technical support simply sucks.  I had to install FARR myself!!  Why can't you guys get your act together and come to my house and put the software on my machine and fix my webcam while you're at it?

And you expect DONATIONS?! 

392

Living Room / Re: Looking for Beta Testers for Satanic Music Detector :)

« on: November 23, 2007, 12:27 PM »

About 1:34 into the Perry Como reading of "The Night Before Christmas", he clearly asks: "Who will fear the chocolate?"

But before I could investigate further, it crashed with an "Unhandled exception error". :-(

Pretty cool idea & execution.  A coupla small buglets:

1. The blue open/play/pause buttons appear to take two clicks on my system to respond.  The 1st click seems to set focus; the 2nd triggers the event.

2. During extended use, the waveform graphy thing would sometimes turn into a big white box (placeholder?) with a red "x" in it.  Shutting down the app and restarting fixes it (for awhile).

Some suggestions:

1. Display the file name somewhere on-screen, since I frequently forget which file I'm testing.  If it's an mp3, maybe (some of) the tag information too.

2. Drag-n-drop files into the app.

3. Add a "Notes" box down below for quick annotation of findings while a file is scanned for Satantic influence.  It would be a bonus if, when clicking in the proposed Notes field it automatically inserted the time index (where the playback cursor is).  A REALLY nice-to-have once the Notes box is functional would be to allow the user to click a note and have the playback jump to that time index for further review.

Overall it's sinfully sexy to play with.  I feel almost dirty doing the Lord's work using tools like this!

393

Living Room / Re: NFW! Check Out THIS Music Distribution Policy!!!

« on: November 23, 2007, 11:26 AM »

In the same vein, a "scene release" website -- blog about fresh stuff ready to be pirated -- gets an email.

http://www.rlslog.ne...ad-and-they-know-it/

394

Living Room / Re: Is your credit card safe?

« on: November 23, 2007, 11:21 AM »

Eeek!  Those women have my credit cards!  Whom do I call???

395

Living Room / Re: The deluge...

« on: November 23, 2007, 11:19 AM »

Now that we've got that "flood" claptrap out of the way, how about explaining the prevalent Adam & Eve "two humans who started civilization" meme?

396

Living Room / Interesting Signs

« on: November 23, 2007, 11:18 AM »

An ongoing effort of Dark Roasted Blend, their "Outrageous Signs" series is up to part 8.



http://www.darkroast...us-signs-part-8.html

Surprisingly, only a few are photoshopped, and are clearly marked as such.  Most are simply the result of unfortunate culture collision.

397

Living Room / Re: Looking for Beta Testers for Satanic Music Detector :)

« on: November 23, 2007, 03:45 AM »

Absolutely brilliant.  I'm in.  Will report back any interesting findings.

398

Living Room / How often do you reboot your primary workstation?

« on: November 23, 2007, 12:48 AM »

By "reboot" I mean turning your machine on in the morning (if you do that) or any time you do a shutdown/restart, whether forced into it by circumstance or just because you're mad at your computer and want to show it who's boss.

This one's open to anybody, regardless of operating system.  Laptop users can vote, but unless it's your primary workstation that's kind of silly.

If you select "Only as needed" please provide clarification about your tolerance for pain: if you reboot because things seem "a little slow" or you typically wait until the mouse stops responding.

People whose machines reboot spontaneously without user intervention are NOT allowed to vote and are urged to seek technical assistance.  Go!  Go take care of it now.

399

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for RAM disk software for 64bit XP

« on: November 23, 2007, 12:09 AM »

Ah, this one's easy.  Solid, reliable, volume-filter based with both command-line and GUI control.  64-bit.  $49 to buy, free trial available.

http://www.superspee.../desktop/ramdisk.php

400

Living Room / Re: 'Smart Closet' Tells You What To Wear

« on: November 23, 2007, 12:05 AM »

Here ya go.

ACTIVATE WEBCAM