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10476

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft providing .NET Framework source code!

« Last post by Renegade on October 15, 2007, 09:29 AM »

Not disagreeing, but I think you'll see MS slowly thawing in this area. (Or at least I'm hopeful...)

MS is in a hard place right now. Their stock has been flat for years. Google is encroaching and their stock is soaring ever higher. MS needs to do something drastic. Well, they could just be surrendering to Google too - that is an option...

Not sure what's going to happen, but as long as Mono gets going, I'm all for it.

You already know C/C++, so C# isn't much of a jump. The learning curve is called "intellisense"! (I love that stuff! It's the best teacher in the world.)

10477

Living Room / Re: (Webfind) Oddity of the day: Prime number shitting bear

« Last post by Renegade on October 14, 2007, 11:00 PM »

And who said math ain't fun? Math is the shit!

10478

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft providing .NET Framework source code!

« Last post by Renegade on October 14, 2007, 04:54 PM »

From the source himself regarding that negative article about MS & Mono:

No, it is not a death trap for Mono.

http://tirania.org/b...e/2007/Oct-05-2.html

10479

General Software Discussion / Re: Should a software app be allowed to change the user's settings?

« Last post by Renegade on October 13, 2007, 08:50 AM »

I had a false positive on an important piece of software. I was planning to contact the anti-virus vendor about it, but didn't get around to it in time.

The software was marked for deletion by the anti-virus software, but required a reboot to do it. I didn't get to the vendor in time and the reboot screwed the software. Not sure how I'm going to repair it for the moment.

I'm intentionally leaving out the software and anti-virus vendor names above.

And actually, I think I may be mistaken  - I might have that server set for automatic reboots... My bad there... I can't remember exactly - I have so many computers set differently that I tend to confuse them when I'm not working on them.

10480

General Software Discussion / Re: What are Your Top Tech/Software Podcasts?

« Last post by Renegade on October 12, 2007, 11:51 PM »

Renegade, I think you've got the field covered. Maybe throw in some Howard Stern, Riley Martin, or something?

-zridling (October 12, 2007, 11:16 PM)

NOOOOOooooo!!!

I need MORE! More tech! More software! More...

Oh good Lord! Listen to me!!!

In addition to A.A., I'll need to go to T.A. (Techaddicts Anonymous)!

But seriously - If anyone knows of any more good ones - please post!

I also have This Week In Law (TWiL) on my list... And FLOSS Weekly (which is anything but weekly)... The rest of the TWiT network doesn't really appeal much, except maybe for the Biotech one...

Sigh... I can't be maxed out already!

10481

General Software Discussion / Re: Have any web-based applications replaced desktop apps for you?

« Last post by Renegade on October 12, 2007, 11:05 PM »

You're not alone in not wanting to jump into the 'cloud' of Web 2.0, online application, social media, insert buzz word here...

I refuse to use free web mail still for anything important. Having local copies of everything is a requirement for me. Having complete control is a requirement for me. Surrender things to a TOS or EULA that allows itself to be changed at a moment's notice? I think not. My data is valuable to me, and I simply can't afford to be cut off from it.

I got burned in the last dot com crash and lost a lot of data that I couldn't replace. Not a mistake that I plan to make again.

Granted, I have to pay for my own server - but the peace of mind in running things myself is worth it. I have zero problems, and can fix them if they occur.

The Windows Live Writer is the right direction. MS 'gets it'. Web applications will always be inferior to the power of the desktop. (OK - that's an exaggeration, but for the foreseeable future anyways...) Giving me the power and control of the desktop, and then giving me access to the web is the right way to go. I can't stand waiting for web applications to post to the server... return a response... Mother of mercy! I'm not immortal! I've got limited time on this planet and I need it done yesterday! Yep. I'm a bit impatient.

For me, power - flexibility - control. Those are all important. Web apps don't deliver like desktop apps do.

However... I think I can see Silverlight/Moonlight changing my attitudes there. They will bring real power to the web in ways that other platforms simply can't. Flash is still slow. Javascript is a joke for performance. Silverlight/Moonlight can bring desktop power to the web. That will make a big difference for me. (Provided I get to keep my local copies and retain control...)

Ok - Ryan's rant is over.

10482

General Software Discussion / Re: What are Your Top Tech/Software Podcasts?

« Last post by Renegade on October 12, 2007, 10:50 PM »

http://itc.conversat...twork.org/index.html

IT Conversations is basically a mix of tech talk audio,worth a listen.

-tinyvillager (October 12, 2007, 10:44 PM)

Excellent! Lots of stuff in there! Should seriously keep my commutes full.

Thank-you for that!

10483

General Software Discussion / Re: What are your top 10 Tech/Software Blogs?

« Last post by Renegade on October 12, 2007, 10:44 PM »

I don't read blogs that much unless there is something specific. I'm just short on time for it, and prefer to waste what I have in forums.

I might check out some of them though. I'll need to find a good aggregator though to save time reading them. Newsgator perhaps? Not sure... Haven't really played with any yet.

My poison is podcasts. Can't get enough to fill my commute time at the moment. If anyone does, please post good tech or software podcasts here.

10484

General Software Discussion / What are Your Top Tech/Software Podcasts?

« Last post by Renegade on October 12, 2007, 10:34 PM »

Taking from mouser's recent post...

What tech/software podcasts do you listen to?

I'm running out of podcasts for my commute and need more. In no particular order... Right now I listen to:

.NET Rocks!
 - Great podcast! This is one of the best out there. Sometimes the quality of audio for the guest can be low, which sucks, but this is one show I keep listening to because it delivers.

Software Engineering Radio
 - Again, a great podcast. They go on about enterprise systems mostly, and do get into some great technical stuff.

TWiT
 - Less intense... A fun listen. Lots of good news in it.

Security Now
 - It's ok. A lot of it is nothing more than an ad for SpinRite, which is annoying. A lot of things are pretty Mickey Mouse simple, but sometimes there is some really good stuff. (Admittedly, I have a bad attitude towards computer 'security' because so much of it just seems trivial and I hate being treated like a moron.)

The MicroISV Show
 - Infrequent, but always very good.

Venture Voice
 - Extremely infrequent (every few months), but perhaps one of the best podcasts on the Internet. Amazing guests with a lot of great stuff to say.

Polymorphic Podcast
 - Again, sporadic, but a good listen. Very techy.

The Project Studio Network
 - Audio show. Fantastic! This show has THE best production quality of any podcast I've ever heard. It beats everything else out there. The show is for recording and music production. Not really tech, but they do a lot of software reviews for audio software.

Windows Weekly
 - A decent show. A bit too much talk about games, but whatever. It's worth listening to.

Diggnation
 - I just added this out of desperation for more podcasts. It's a fun listen, but for real information, it's a bit lacking. TWiT is better. They swear a lot and joke a lot. Not the first podcast I turn to, but when I'm out of other things, at least it's tech, kind of...

Extreme Tech
 - Mostly hardware talk, but interesting. High quality too - not a bunch of nitwits with their opinions. These guys have a lot of experience in their field.

Hanselminutes
 - Good show. Sometimes there's a bit too much about the XBox and games for me, but there are a LOT of really good shows too with real meaty information.

The Dot Net Preacher Show
 - This one I only listen to when I'm out of other podcasts, and only because I like the sound of my own voice. Just kidding. I just listen to it to see if there's something I could do better in it. (It's my own podcast.)

There are some others as well that I'm subscribed to, but they are either few and infrequent, or I'm sick of them due to poor quality content without enough substance. (I think I'm getting sick of Diggnation already - we'll see though.)

So... If you know more good software and tech podcast, PLEASE SHARE THEM!  

I'm DESPERATE for more podcasts to listen to as I'm up to about 3 hours of driving time per day. Per week I'm up to about 17~20 hours or so. That's a lot of time to fill and I need more.

I just hate driving or commute time without some kind of mental stimulation. The silence is deafening! 

I'll listen to just about anything tech or software related. My only real requirement (for long term listening) is that the show have quality content, and not some 'fluff'. Too many shows pad their time with fluff.

I'll even listen to a gaming podcast if it's technically oriented - but not something that's consumer oriented.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!


EDIT: Reformatted for readability.

10485

General Software Discussion / Re: Should a software app be allowed to change the user's settings?

« Last post by Renegade on October 12, 2007, 09:58 PM »

The update there has caused me some significant pain... Not happy about it...

This is the second such instance where MS has forced something... They aren't behaving very well at the moment. I expect this sort of thing should stop fairly soon as it's bound to cause an outcry in the professional sector. You can't just reboot a machine. You need to plan for that.

10486

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Renegade on October 10, 2007, 11:01 PM »

To all you Mac users that are calm, rational, objective, and fair: god bless you. Now, could you please give the Cult members a hard kick in the ass? They're making you look bad.

AMEN AGAIN!

Anytime I'm talking to someone and hear that they use a Mac I just cringe and hope that I'm not talking to yet another Apple fundamentalist Jihad psycho.

Of course the same thing can be said about Linux... <ducks quickly />

10487

Living Room / Re: The worst thing about Macs

« Last post by Renegade on October 10, 2007, 10:56 PM »

But honestly, the thing I hate most about using a Mac are the Apple fans.

AMEN!

(Still reading...)

10488

General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe Acrobat Reader Security Vulnerability

« Last post by Renegade on October 10, 2007, 12:16 AM »

I don't believe that there is anything in the PDF spec. that warrants a concern, but I could be wrong. It would be unusual for there to be a problem there.

Another example of a security "hole" is the ZIP 2.0 encryption standard. It's considered "weak" because if you have one of the files from a ZIP archive in unencrypted form, you can decrypt the entire archive. Well... It is a problem, but it's not really all that serious if you're just using it for casual security. If you know that you have the only copy of all of the files, then the entire archive is secure. So while there is a kind of exploit for it, it really isn't a huge worry as the exploit is very very specific. It's not like a buffer overflow that can be exploited at will. 

As for watching your solar flashlight recharge at night... Please don't. (I got a kick out of that one! Thanks for the laugh.) But if you did find a real PDF exploit... Those things are worth money! Well... to the bad guys anyways...

10489

Living Room / Re: Which one do you prefer ?

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 08:39 PM »

what about "real beauty is beyond photoshop"?

-Armando (October 09, 2007, 07:13 PM)

Good - But I'd go for "True beauty is beyond Photoshop."

"True" abstracts "beauty" above this "mere physical plane of existence" into something a bit more "eternal".

Or perhaps, "True beauty surpasses Photoshop?"

"Surpasses" doesn't seem quite right though... What's the right word there?

10490

General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe Acrobat Reader Security Vulnerability

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 07:09 PM »

Is this a flaw in the Adobe rendering engine or the PDF file format itself?

If I use (say) FoxIt to view PDFs am I vulnerable?

-Ralf Maximus (October 09, 2007, 11:34 AM)

It's kind of not possible for a file format to have a vulnerability. If you're working from a spec., then whatever language you implement it in will have different ways to handle things.

If you're using an unmanaged language like C and implementing something like a "title" field in a file header that in the spec. may only be up to 255 characters (or whatever), then it's up to you to make sure that you check the size, etc., and ensure that you don't allow a buffer overflow, etc. Perhaps you need to null terminate it. Perhaps there's another mechanism for that like delimiters. Those considerations mostly apply to reading as if you're writing a file nothing really matters, and if you're a virus writer, it's the reader application that you want to exploit by injecting code (or whatever).

So if you are reading a file and encounter a title field in a file header that is 4,582 bytes long before you encounter a null termination, then you've got to discard everything after the 255th byte, or you need to do some kind of error checking. etc. etc. etc.

It is possible for there to be a flaw in the spec., but that's a different question entirely. Most exploits are for implementations.

The obvious example of a 'flawed spec.' is Windows 9x. It was designed as a stand-alone personal computer, and not a network computer. Once it became connected to untrusted networks, the problems became painfully apparent. That of course is all debatable, but should kind of point out the difference somewhat.

10491

Developer's Corner / Re: Writing a simple driving game (help!!)

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 04:52 PM »

And yes, my motto really is "fix it even if it's not broken".  :-)

-Ralf Maximus (October 09, 2007, 11:40 AM)

Oh don't say that!

At least call it refactoring!

10492

General Software Discussion / Re: Question: Quickest way to receive spam?

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 04:46 PM »

Create some software then submit your PAD file... The email addresses inside the PAD file will get harvested.

10493

Living Room / Re: Which one do you prefer ?

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 09:09 AM »

Just thought of a good insult for the next time anyone might need one...

Yo momma so ugly... Photoshop couldn't fix her!

10494

Living Room / Re: Which one do you prefer ?

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 08:55 AM »

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=chd6FC6AAD8

10495

Living Room / Re: Which one do you prefer ?

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 08:49 AM »

How's this: http://www.youtube.c...x-T8Y0AIj9k&NR=1

I love these Photoshop things. It's just nuts what can be done in it. Wish I could...

10496

Living Room / Re: Which one do you prefer ?

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 08:37 AM »

Found the second one here with more stuff: http://www.campaignagainstreallife.com/

I like both - hard to say which I like more. Hadn't seen either of them before.

But I kind of have to agree with #2 - after all - Nobody wants to look at ugly people. (It's true.)

10497

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft providing .NET Framework source code!

« Last post by Renegade on October 09, 2007, 08:28 AM »

@Renegade:See i toldu it is total waste of time using MS technology.Only thing left now is to create more and more software and documentation for linux.Get yourself interested in linux apple or unix.

MS is actually in need of developers badly they are the one who stole from others ideas and then claim for the copyright violation etc.They are getting hands in every technology they copied Flash to create silverlight.now in future they'll claim as adobe violated some rules.In such case adobe will leave the platform obviusly.

I think we should get involved into linux developement,just have to lower the barrier of linux developement.We need tools to make linux developement easier.

-mahesh2k (October 09, 2007, 07:08 AM)

Actually, I bought a new box and put Suse on it.

I figure that Novell is putting its wieght behind Mono, so the $50 for Suse is a good buy to support a company like that.

As for Flash vs. Silverlight... Can't agree with you there. Flash is maturing, but it's going to be left in the dust by Silverlight. Adobe doesn't have a tenth of the experience in developing languages like MS does, and MS will crush them. .NET and Mono are the future for development productivity. C, assembler, Fortran, and some others will always have a place in one form or another, but when it comes to productivity... The CLS rocks. Flash is extremely heavy and no real "work" can be done in it. On the other hand, Silverlight and Moonlight have the almost the full power of a real programming language and complete framework behind them. Flash is very different from Silverlight/Moonlight, and the only thing that will keep it going is it's ubiquitousness unless Adobe gives it the real power that you'll see in the near future from truly rich Internet applications done in Silverlight/Moonlight.

As for the barrier to entry for Linux - 110% agreed! Windows and Linux are the Prince and the Pauper. Linux doesn't have the truly rich development tools that are available on Windows.

The thing is that software is becoming commoditized... I won't get into that because it really goes off on a tangent. But it should be fairly obvious that in this environment, productivity means everything. (Well, almost.)

10498

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft providing .NET Framework source code!

« Last post by Renegade on October 08, 2007, 05:06 PM »

I'm with Lashiec on this one. I don't see this as even remotely related to 'taking Mono down'. The article is just more MS hate. At best it is merely link-bait.

10499

General Software Discussion / Re: Isn't it ironic?

« Last post by Renegade on October 08, 2007, 04:50 PM »

Anyways... It would be interesting to actually know what exactly happened there.

-Renegade (October 07, 2007, 08:05 PM)

He was attacked by script kiddies again!

-Lashiec (October 08, 2007, 02:08 PM)

Script kiddies that fix security holes!

10500

General Software Discussion / Re: Isn't it ironic?

« Last post by Renegade on October 07, 2007, 08:05 PM »

Nope... There's definitely something funny going on there at GRC.

I used to be able to view the site at "http://grc.com" but it now redirects to "http://www.grc.com".

Note that in the screen shot I had it was the former there, and in yours, the latter (well, https but with WWW I mean). Now when I go to the page it properly redirects from HTTP and no subdomain to HTTPS and WWW.

I'm betting that it's been fixed. If you've ever followed anything from Steve, he seems to really dig down into his web logs. He may have noticed links from here and fixed it. Dunno. It's just too odd of a coincidence. I have another screen shot of it from Sept. 19th on a different machine (same behaviour on 3 different machines with Opera), so really can't see any other option than that it's been fixed.

Anyways... It would be interesting to actually know what exactly happened there.