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10351

Living Room / Re: Another cody spotting? CAPTION THIS PICTURE CONTEST

« Last post by Renegade on December 01, 2007, 07:51 PM »

10352

Living Room / Re: Gamespot Editor Fired for Writing an Honest Review

« Last post by Renegade on December 01, 2007, 07:20 PM »

@CWuestefeld

I'm not so sure that really works all that well. I should be able to have a certain degree of good faith that a publisher and its editors are being honest and genuine.

The problem that I see is that given limited resources, it's not really possible to "seek out" reviewers that you agree with. People should be able to take a reviewer's word pro hominen because it is just too time consuming otherwise.

In short, I see it as an issue of *trust*. I should be able to trust that a publication and its editors are trustworthy.

10353

Living Room / Re: Gamespot Editor Fired for Writing an Honest Review

« Last post by Renegade on December 01, 2007, 08:02 AM »

Very poor taste. There are better ways to handle the situation. Getting a reviewer fired is, well... It speaks for itself.

And no... It's not Soviet Russia... It's Soviet Gamewhore Industry.

10354

Living Room / Re: Downloadable Game: Secret Maryo Chronicles

« Last post by Renegade on November 29, 2007, 09:55 PM »

Very nifty! I suck at games and don't have a joystick, but it was fun for all the time my ADHD would allow...

10355

Living Room / Re: Feedback on New Fun Software Please

« Last post by Renegade on November 29, 2007, 09:21 PM »

Jesus Bilal Islam Allah Muhammed? That must be a joke. "Bilal"? Sounds like a bad spelling for "Belial". How about throwing in "Lucifer" and "Mammon" just for good measure?

Anyone that would name their kid that is seriously screwed up.

10356

Living Room / Re: Looking for email SERVER

« Last post by Renegade on November 29, 2007, 07:47 PM »

Ooops - not sure about WAP for those servers above - you may need something else. Argosoft and SmarterMail both have webmail interfaces. Postfix probably needs something else - not sure, but it's one mean mother beast for heavy heavy duty use. For Mercury, you'd need to check on web interface and WAP.

10357

Living Room / Re: Looking for email SERVER

« Last post by Renegade on November 29, 2007, 07:46 PM »

Mercury Email Server - Free, but not an NT service. Quite good.
Argosoft Email Server - Very inexpensive and very good. I use this. Not good for massive volumes. (There's a new .NET version that increases performance)
SmarterMail Email Server - Good server. Free for 1 domain. Can handle high volumes better than Argosoft. Uses a web interface for configs (yuck).
Postfix - Free. Can handle massive volumes. Difficult to setup compared to others. Runs on *nix.

All of those will more than satisfy your requirements.

10358

Living Room / Re: Excellent Editorial on IT Security Philosophy

« Last post by Renegade on November 28, 2007, 04:17 PM »

I think he's right with #4. I'll certainly agree that "red teaming" is a good idea, but the thing with hacking being cool is that it just begs for abuse. That's the problem there. There's no good reason to try and break someone else's system unless you're supposed to do it and try and expose problems.

PLEEZ WIL U TEECH ME 2 B A 31337 H@X0R SO I CAN HAX IN2 HOTMAIL N STUF?

Lame... It's all in the attitude & purpose. The actions aren't important in 'hacking'. The motivations are everything. Like he says:

...hacking is a social problem. It's not a technology problem, at all.

10359

Living Room / Re: TOP 10 Indicators the War in Europe Isn't Going So Well

« Last post by Renegade on November 28, 2007, 03:38 PM »

Very cute!

I loved studying WWII in school. Took a second year class in university on it where we got to watch "The World at War" on Tuesdays - Everyone called the class "Tuesday Night at the Movies".

10360

Living Room / Re: What's Your Favorite Productivity or Programming Supplement?

« Last post by Renegade on November 28, 2007, 03:12 PM »

What? Everything All The Time is gone? Poll is missing beer & whiskey...

10361

Living Room / Re: What's Your Favorite Programming Tool?

« Last post by Renegade on November 28, 2007, 07:28 AM »

Everything, All The Time!

It used to be coffee & cigarettes in the morning on up till beer & cigarettes in the evening. But I quit drinking. Sobriety sucks. These have been the longest 31 days of my life! I haven't been sober since high school!

If you're of the "my body is a temple" persuasion, go away. 

-Ralf Maximus (November 28, 2007, 06:30 AM)

Hahaha~!

My secret mix seems to be Coffee, Diet Cherry Cola, and Techno music.

-tinjaw (November 28, 2007, 06:57 AM)

+1 for techno! Or Slayer... Or techno covers of Slayer... If I had any of those... I'd love to get a rave version of "Hell Awaits" or "Angel of Death". But Slayer still has some pretty funky tunes that are almost danceable... "South of Heaven" has a lot like that. I do have an Orbital cover of "Fade to Black", but that's Metallica and I'm scared they'll sue me for listening to it, so I just won't tell you that I listen to it so that nobody knows that I like metal techno covers. Or is that techno metal covers?

Oh - Did I mention the 8 hour Zarbizarre mix? (seems to be an error there at the moment - should be good later though) Now THAT'S a code-a-thon!

10362

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by Renegade on November 28, 2007, 06:56 AM »

Another plug for roboform. Best application ever!

-Josh (November 28, 2007, 06:45 AM)

You sure this collection of Firefox extensions isn't the best ever?

10363

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by Renegade on November 28, 2007, 06:53 AM »

Oh it so pains me to hear all the praise for Roboform...  (Yeah... I know it's a good product, but it's still the competition - well... kind of... it's not free...)

However, I will have an announcement in a few weeks for something that does have a very high cool factor, and for password managment, will certainly be of interest for some people here.

Anyways...

10364

General Software Discussion / Re: How to: Pimp your Ubuntu!

« Last post by Renegade on November 27, 2007, 03:45 PM »

I rather liked this one.

10365

Living Room / Re: Top 10 Signs You May Have Overclocked Your PC Too Much

« Last post by Renegade on November 27, 2007, 03:34 PM »

These lists are funny Ralf. You should put them all together on a web page somewhere so more people can enjoy them.

-tinjaw (November 26, 2007, 10:11 AM)

Sorry if this is insulting in anyway, as I don't mean to accuse you of plagiarizing, but are you coming up with these Ralf? I figured you found them on a site somewhere or in forwarded e-mail jokes or something. But now that I think about it, you don't list any source.

-Deozaan (November 27, 2007, 03:26 PM)

My favorite one from Ralf is here: https://www.donation...18.msg85696#msg85696

I nearly pee'd myself laughing!

But I am curious as to where you get them, Ralf. Some are really good!

10366

Living Room / Re: Breaking News: Multiple Universes Exist!

« Last post by Renegade on November 27, 2007, 02:59 PM »

Details! Schmeetails!

The IMPORTANT thing is that in some parallel universe I really am absolute Lord and Suzerain Dictator Supreme of Life, the Universe and Everything!

Muahahahaha~!

Isn't math just grand?

Oh yeah... And in MY universe there's no killing of any grandpas allowed Ralf! 50 lashes with a wet noodle for you!

But cereally... It is very interesting whether or not it has any practical application. Eóin brings up a good point about science though - Karl Popper basically finished all of science in that it's a method - whether or not the multiple universes things fits into that method or not is an interesting question as well. It seems to fit into mathematics... So it's good on at least one level.

10367

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

« Last post by Renegade on November 26, 2007, 09:46 PM »

Assuming one does install a beta SP on their primary workstation (IMHO, about as safe as coating your penis with honey and sticking it in a beehive) does the beta expire?  And then can you install the legitimate SP over it later?

-Ralf Maximus (November 26, 2007, 08:43 PM)

HAHAHAHAHA~!

I suppose the answer is kind of like coating your penis in honey and installing it in a beehive - You can uninstall it later... But it's still gonna hurt!

Ralf - you kill me!

10368

Living Room / Re: Top 10 Ways to Destroy the Earth

« Last post by Renegade on November 26, 2007, 04:20 PM »

They all seem a bit hard to do...

Wouldn't it just be easier to find a worm hole to a place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away then hijack the Death Star?

10369

Living Room / Re: How good are you at spotting spyware, spam & phishing traps?

« Last post by Renegade on November 25, 2007, 02:27 PM »

Yes - a form of insurance. True.

I have anti-virus software running on this machine. Paid for too. Not a free version. That's because I sell software and I figure that it's the responsible thing to do. I can't risk anyone else's well being due to my own negligence.

Incidentally, every single virus alert I've had has been a false positive.

10370

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

« Last post by Renegade on November 25, 2007, 08:32 AM »

There is another ad in their "Give Up on Vista" campaign...

First take a look at the ad that is appearing on web pages all over the place...

...

-app103 (November 24, 2007, 11:29 PM)

More alienation...

...

Who the target consumer is, makes a big difference sometimes.

-app103 (November 24, 2007, 11:29 PM)

As both a user and a developer... Apple is doing a very good job of alienating me completely. Every ad I see like that makes me hate them more and more.

At this point I'd almost feel dirty if I started developing on my mac.

10371

General Software Discussion / Re: What are the MAJOR linux players?

« Last post by Renegade on November 24, 2007, 11:03 PM »

*nix is kind of funny in that there are a lot of distros that are better suited for different things. So it's kind of a matter of "what do I want to do?"

If you want to run a dataserver with 100% uptime - Solaris. (That stuff is CRAZY! You can swap hardware like a motherboard without shutting down!)

If you want to run a DNS server with a high load - BSD. (TCP stack is just uber-tight.)

If you want to... etc. etc. etc.

Ubuntu seems like the major up & comer for desktops.

Suse seems like the major player for interoperation with Microsoft (.NET that is).

OSX is BSD under the hood (well, a long time ago).

Red Hat, CentOS and a few others are big in the server space.

I'd say figure out what you want it for, then ask around to see what people doing the same thing are using. Most likely you'll end up with "Vista" as the answer, but if you specifically want a *nix box, then...

10372

General Software Discussion / Re: Going back to XP

« Last post by Renegade on November 24, 2007, 09:13 PM »

+1 for check the hardware & drivers.

Windows is very stable, and almost every single problem like that (BSOD) can be directly traced back to buggy drivers.

10373

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

« Last post by Renegade on November 24, 2007, 09:10 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.

-Ralf Maximus (November 24, 2007, 08:54 PM)

I have a mac. Do I get to be in the club? I never use it... But I have one...

10374

Living Room / Re: How good are you at spotting spyware, spam & phishing traps?

« Last post by Renegade on November 24, 2007, 08:44 PM »

Honestly, I think these kinds of things are purely scams.

"Hey! Take this test to find out that you suck and that you need to buy our products!"

It's pure scareware.

These things need context, which was missing from the screenshots. No - you need to hover to see the links to know if it's a legitimate link. No - you need to read the EULA for software. It's a craps shoot. Sure, we can detect a lot of scams at a glance but we're certain to fail at some point if the scammers are doing their jobs well, which they should be doing!

The tests are just rigged.

It's this kind of thing that undermines my faith in security software and the security industry in general. They prey on fear rather than reality.

I for one would like some honesty for a change. Am I asking too much?

10375

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

« Last post by Renegade on November 24, 2007, 08:33 PM »

Well, I like Vista. It just works well once UAC is turned off. I don't have any problems with it. It's beautiful to look at. Sure a few things are different and that requires an adjustment, but it's not that bad.

As for the Apple ads - I don't like them. Sure they're a bit clever sometimes and in some ways humorous, but they really are insulting as well. The first ad like it that I saw a while back basically said that if you develop for Windows, then you write crappy software. Huh? WTF? F^(k you! It was baseless garbage that insulted hundreds of thousands of developers in a very tasteless way. It would be like me saying, "If you use Apple computers, you're a pig-headed jackass." Huh? How does being a jackass come out of using a computer? Just silly. (Though if you're a member of the Cult of Apple, then it's likely true. )

If they're trying to polarize people against them, they've got me. I'm firmly in the "Apple is run by @$$holes" camp. I have nothing against their products (except for when they don't work properly, e.g. iTunes on a PC), but they really are a bunch of jerk-offs.

Vista has a lot going for it, and the new feature list for Vista certainly beats the new feature list for the new OSX where most are tweaks to things like iWhatever.

However, I think the purpose of the ad is to throw doubt on Microsoft and undermine their image. It's not about OSX - it's clearly about saying that MS spent 5 years writing a POS. It's trying to get people to "jump ship" in favor of Apple. Can you trust MS? Will they deliver? Are their products improving? It's FUD at it's best. Or, maybe not best, but certainly FUD.

That kind of marketing is, well, it is what it is. I find it entirely slimy though.





For a company that prides itself so much on "style", they certainly have no "class".