Recent Posts

1026

General Software Discussion / Re: Regular Expression Designer: Free Program to Help you Build Regular Expressions

« Last post by mwb1100 on February 17, 2010, 12:27 AM »

I was going to download and try it until I saw this...

.NET Framework 1.1/2.0 Required

I've managed to keep my box free of .NET up until now...

-widgewunner (February 16, 2010, 09:24 PM)

To each his own, but I don't understand this aversion to .NET - it's been around for about 8 years now and as far as I know it hasn't been the cause of any security holes or other major problems.

It is a fair sized download, but that only happens once (or once every major upgrade) and it's smaller than service pack. I can also understand the irritation of having to wait for a .NET application to start up; but if the application does what I want, it might be worth the wait. On the other hand if the application isn't good enough to justify the startup delay then I don't use it.

However, to be 'against' the .NET framework itself doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's just a tool.  I know there are people who have a similar attitude toward Java programs, but if the program looks and acts like a native program (and there are Java programs that do), performs well and does what I want, why would I refuse it simply because it's Java?

1027

General Software Discussion / Re: Bartels Media paranoia

« Last post by mwb1100 on February 11, 2010, 03:35 PM »

erm, is that ironic?

-rjbull (February 11, 2010, 02:33 PM)

Just a little joke - Bartels seems to have a habit of jumping into any thread here that's discussing PhraseExress and competing software and making pointed accusations of improper theft of ideas and/or marketing materials by the competition.

1028

General Software Discussion / Re: Bartels Media paranoia

« Last post by mwb1100 on February 11, 2010, 12:18 PM »

I suppose I'll have to use AutoHotkey, just like everybody else.

-rjbull (February 11, 2010, 08:52 AM)

You realize that AutoHotkey stole all their ideas from PhraseExpress, don't you?

1029

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O'Reilly Ebook Deal of the Day

« Last post by mwb1100 on February 09, 2010, 10:00 PM »

Note that even though it's a 'daily deal' page, the discounts seem to be valid for longer than a day. So if you see something you're interested has a deal from some number of days ago, give the coupon code a try anyway.

1030

General Software Discussion / Re: Software support - am I losing my mind?

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 30, 2010, 11:33 AM »

That's where the problem actually arose so why blame RoboForm.

-Carol Haynes (January 30, 2010, 10:08 AM)

You bring up good points. However, Darwin never blamed RoboForm for the problem that was occurring on the computer - just for their support not actually reading his problem report(s).

1031

General Software Discussion / Re: Software support - am I losing my mind?

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 28, 2010, 07:02 PM »

the responses are way to "mechanical" to be an actual person

-Stoic Joker (January 28, 2010, 04:59 PM)

I'm sure that the reality is that they have a canned set of answers (probably in something like Direct Access or PhraseExpress - let's see if those keywords cause a minor flamewar sidebar here...), which combined with zero desire to actually understand what's going on results in one of several canned responses.  Then again, that's pretty much what the ELIZA program does.  So we've come full circle on AI - humans acting like computer programs. I think I have a PhD thesis somewhere in there.

This is probably not helped much by the fact (and I'm completely making up the assertion that this is a fact) that 93% of their support requests are due to the user having CAPS LOCK on.

1032

General Software Discussion / Re: Software support - am I losing my mind?

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 28, 2010, 03:37 PM »

I think their tech support department is staffed by Eliza.

I think that the next response you'll get from them is:

Can you elaborate on that?

1033

Living Room / Re: Book: Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 26, 2010, 04:01 PM »

Ok... I guess I was a little obsessed with fire when I was younger...

-wraith808 (January 26, 2010, 03:14 PM)

From my recollection of what my friends and I (and even other kids in the neighborhood that I barely knew) did I can say that you're certainly not alone in that.  I think most every kid has a little pyromania at some point (fire's pretty fascinating - many dangerous things are).  Knowing what I know now, I'm actually a little surprised how few serious accidents occurred.  

Better that this stuff happen under some sort of supervision (which is what I imagine the book is really all about).  Time to get some matches and let the kid have at them... sort of.

1034

Living Room / Re: Book: Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 26, 2010, 02:59 PM »

What do you remember doing as a child that you would add to the list?

-JennyB (January 26, 2010, 03:34 AM)

Fireworks!

(the book might cover this in the "Play with fire" item)

1035

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WinPatrol Plus @ $0.99 on January 29th

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 25, 2010, 11:46 PM »

Don't know if spouse counts or not...

-MilesAhead (January 25, 2010, 09:56 PM)

The 'normal' license is single user (for multiple computers) - there's a family license for a bit more money if you want to put it on computers used by the spouse, kids, etc. 

but like you said - at 99 cents, just load up.

1036

Living Room / Re: Book: Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do)

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 25, 2010, 11:42 PM »

If it was written by W. C. Fields #1 would be Play In Traffic.

-MilesAhead (January 25, 2010, 02:53 PM)

Master Shake: Okay, now this time we're going to cross the street the hard way.
Meatwad: The hard way?
Master Shake: Long ways!

-Aqua Teen Hunger Force (back when it was funny)

1037

General Software Discussion / Re: Win 7 XP Mode is Hardware-Dependent

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 17, 2010, 12:23 AM »

The cpuz utility will tell you if your processor has AMD-V or Intel VT-x hardware virtualization support.

  - http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

1038

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Verbatim DVD+R 16x blanks @$.024 a pop free shipping

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 11, 2010, 09:47 PM »

Oh... 24 cents each.  At two and a half cents each I was about to buy a lifetime supply!

1039

General Software Discussion / Re: Very scary! I just completely lost a bunch of files [FALSE ALARM!]

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 08, 2010, 02:44 AM »

[I think this works fine for NTFS partitions only ?]

-MerleOne (January 07, 2010, 10:02 AM)

Yep, it works by directly reading the MFT, which is why it is so fast - and requires admin privs. The app should really be rewritten to admin-priv service and LUA-priv GUI...

-f0dder (January 07, 2010, 10:07 AM)

Yes! - I'm aware of 3 search programs of this sort: the voidtools one, FindOnClick by 2BrightSparks, and Search-GT.  None of them use a service to avoid the problems of running as non-admin.  They could also take advantage of accessing the service on remote machines to get a big boost for searching networked machines too.

The only drawback I know of is that a service can't be run portably (in the sense that it must be installed).  But it's certainly possible to write an executable that can run as a service or not.  There's some complexity here, but I think it's a feature that many, many users would appreciate.

1040

Living Room / Re: Google's Eric Schmidt has a stupid moment on privacy

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 23, 2009, 12:48 PM »

[deleted - my whole post was basically in the original message that started the thread...]
 

1041

Developer's Corner / Re: Free, non-sucky UML software?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 12, 2009, 09:52 PM »

FWIW I've had trouble getting into the right mindset for any UML tool that I've tried - free or not. They each seem to have their own idea of how things should work, and pretty much none of them are intuitive (to me anyway).  To be fair, I have the same problem with any drawing program, so it's probably something wired up wrong in my head (I actually find using MS Word's drawing capabilities to be about the easiest for me to use for simple diagrams - for anything complex I try to get someone else to do it).

Whether by hand or using software, I'm in awe of anyone who can produce nice drawings - I have trouble with stick figures (I had to steal my avatar from some website).

The UML tool I've found least objectionable is Enterprise Architect (http://www.sparxsystems.com.au) - not free, but far less money than most other non-free options, though it seems to cost more now than when I bought it several years ago.  I haven't tried Visual Paradigm in a while, but back when I gave it a spin it didn't convince me to switch. That might not have been because of any problems but rather because it wasn't enough of a step up from EA to warrant paying for something else - I honestly can't recall.

I don't know what EA's native data format is, but it claims to support XMI which is a standard for describing UML diagrams in XML.  But I wouldn't be surprised if getting the XMI into (or from) some other program in a reasonable fashion requires a lot of teeth pulling and cursing (just speculation - I've never tried).

1042

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Office 2007 Home & Student Edition (Dec 2009 deal)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 09, 2009, 03:25 AM »

I still feel there is no reason to buy Office Student edition as anyone allowed to buy it can purchase http://www.microsoft...teal-us/default.aspx

-mediaguycouk (December 09, 2009, 03:07 AM)

Not exactly - Office Home and Student can be purchased by anyone, but is only licensed for non-commercial use.

The "Ultimate Steal" offer is only available to university students.  However, since you get a license for Office Ultimate, I assume that the use of the software isn't restricted to non-commercial use (not to mention that you get several more Office apps than in the Home & Student Edition).

There's no doubt that the "Ultimate Steal" is a far better offer, but strictly speaking it's not available to everyone.

1043

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Office 2007 Home & Student Edition (Dec 2009 deal)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 08, 2009, 01:59 PM »

I don't know how this might compare with other retailers.

-mwb1100 (December 08, 2009, 12:49 PM)

Newegg has it right now for $84.95

-mrainey (December 08, 2009, 01:22 PM)

Well, that answers that... 

1044

Found Deals and Discounts / Office 2007 Home & Student Edition (Dec 2009 deal)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 08, 2009, 12:49 PM »

Microsoft is offering Office Home & Student 2007 for $100 until 26 Dec 2009.  Home & Student include 3 PC licenses.  This is $50 off Microsoft's regular price - I don't know how this might compare with other retailers.

The link I have is for USA - I'm not sure if other locales have similar deals or how closely MS enforces the locale when you try to purchase:

  - http://buy.trymicros...t.aspx?culture=en-US

1045

General Software Discussion / Re: The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 03, 2009, 12:17 PM »

The focus-stealing problem can be solved by having the notification take the form of 'toast' popups (I'm not sure what the official name of this UI element is).  The notification is visible, and I can interact with  it if I like, but it doesn't steal focus from what I'm currently working on.

Outpost Firewall notifications do this for me today.

1046

Living Room / Re: 74% of the world, Google's Chrome OS is not for you

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 01, 2009, 07:34 PM »

While I agree with much of the sentiment against cloud computing (in that I want my data and software to be mine), there is a very attractive aspect in being able to get to my stuff wherever I might be.

It's just that I'd like to be in complete control of what and when that is.  However, I do note that most of my non-techie friends and family couldn't give a rat's ass about that - they like being able to get to all their stuff wherever and whenever, and they're perfectly happy to have no idea what's stored locally and what's stored in the cloud (though I imagine that some T-Mobile Sidekick users might be taking a little more care with their data - http://www.pcworld.c...nding_nightmare.html).

1047

Living Room / Re: 74% of the world, Google's Chrome OS is not for you

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 01, 2009, 02:54 PM »

I wonder how many of the 5 billion without Internet access have no access to a computer, in which case an OS - free or not and  needing connectivity or not - is of little interest?

-mwb1100 (December 01, 2009, 02:03 PM)

Just because one doesn't have something doesn't mean they are not interested in having it. There are plenty of hungry people in this world that don't have food (or jobs) that would be sure interested in having some.

And a computer might just help them have the means of supporting themselves.

So let's put some computers in their hands, first...then get them connected.

Sounds better than a cheap computer they could really use but is useless because Chrome OS is on it and they have no internet.

-app103 (December 01, 2009, 02:30 PM)

By the same token there's nothing wrong with releasing something that requires connectivity.  Just because it's not universally useful doesn't mean it's a problem.

I didn't really mean for my comment to be taken as a social commentary.  Just that statistics can be sliced and diced in many ways, and that a product (or whatever) doesn't need to be useful or necessary to everyone to have value.

I don't even know anything about Chrome OS, but saying it's a problem because not everyone will find it useful (or usable) might be overstating things.

1048

Living Room / Re: 74% of the world, Google's Chrome OS is not for you

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 01, 2009, 02:03 PM »

I wonder how many of the 5 billion without Internet access have no access to a computer, in which case an OS - free or not and  needing connectivity or not - is of little interest?

1049

General Software Discussion / Re: The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 01, 2009, 01:48 PM »

Let me start out with my first draft of requirements for what i'll call the DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification:

-mouser (December 01, 2009, 10:55 AM)

That's a great list!  I hope this initiative gains some traction.

Off the top of my head, what I'd like to add (I hope this isn't taking the discussion off-topic) is that firewalls should use a similar set of guidelines for when they detect something fishy.  Often I get an IP address and port number and little else. I need the following information to have a hope of understanding whether I should be concerned or not.  I understand that not all of this information might not be easily (or even possibly) determined, but to the extent possible, I'd like to see:

• the process that's involved (including the full path of the .exe)
• the DLL(s) involved (again, including path)
• whether (and by whom) the binaries involved are signed
• a reverse DNS on the IP address - if there is no reverse DNS name available, some "whois" information on the subnet block the IP is in might be nice
• information on the port if it's a well-known (or commonly used for a particular purpose) port number
• links to web information and/or a user forum that discusses the program and the communication (if appropriate)
• a link to virustotal (or similar) for the binaries involved would also be nice

   
Of course, not all of this data needs to be in the initial notification, but it should be made available at the click of a 'more information...' button.

1050

Living Room / Re: looking for an old science-fiction movie

« Last post by mwb1100 on November 28, 2009, 10:19 PM »

You can see a lot more of Mathilda in the flick Becoming Colette or sometimes titled just Colette.

-MilesAhead (November 28, 2009, 07:15 PM)

How could there possibly be a way to see more of Mathilda May than in Lifeforce?