Recent Posts

1076

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by nosh on February 11, 2008, 08:47 AM »

My name is Mike and I am a software addict.

-Darwin (February 11, 2008, 08:39 AM)

 

1077

C / C++ / Re: Exploring C++

« Last post by nosh on February 11, 2008, 07:36 AM »

Error C:\DC\ARUNPAWAR.CPP 001: Undefined symbol 'herbt scildt'

SCILDT SUX!!! C0M p1lers scuk ev3n M0re!
 

1078

General Software Discussion / Re: Send link and/or webpage?

« Last post by nosh on February 10, 2008, 10:50 PM »

Lanux,
Off the top of my head, how about an AHK hotkey that grabs the current URL and fires up the browser on the remote machine (using UNC), passing the URL as an argument? saves it to the remote PC, the remote PC can have another script that looks for this url file, fires up the URL when found & deletes the file.

Edit: It could just pass on the clipboard content, that way the link needn't actually be opened on the machine it's discovered on.

1079

General Software Discussion / Re: ScanFS: an alternative to locate? Free indexer, file previews and other niceties

« Last post by nosh on February 10, 2008, 07:18 AM »

It took over 20 seconds to show me a thumbnail preview of a single jpg, little under 5 MB in size. 
Perhaps it's more functional if you work with more text and less multimedia.

1080

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Avafind mini review

« Last post by nosh on February 09, 2008, 01:00 AM »

I'm glad I discovered this mini review via another thread - thanks, Babis!
Ava Find is indeed very helpful - similar (realtime file indexing) to FileTracer which also hasn't seen any development for a while.

A quick comparison between the two:

• Ava Find (AF) has live search - a big plus!
• AF has the scout box (new + changed files), FileTracer (FT) lets you view the changes in realtime in a separate window (think Filemon)
• AF has very customizable folder blocking (a different set of folders can be blocked for different panes) but it's a royal pain in the neck to set up, FT lets you block off certain folders for everything but setting this up is done in a much more straightforward way.
• AF's video, music, etc buttons don't act as filters for the current search but show a complete list of those file types, FT lets you do result filtering which is much more useful.
• AF's Mypicks and Scoutbox panes are nice but I wish there was an option to clear these boxes automatically.
• The file result layout in AF is superior (in details view).

Overall AF is superior in a few ways, just wish a couple of its obvious drawbacks weren't around.
 
Edit: Just tried Instant File Find, it's very similar to AF but without the scoutbox and recently run files list. The toolbar is customizable and attractive but the buttons do the same thing as AF's counterparts (ie: list all files in that category (music, video,...) rather than filter out those file types based on the search carried out. It must be mentioned that Instant File Find's indexing was the fastest of the lot. 

1081

General Software Discussion / Re: The definition of "bloat" - RE: Software

« Last post by nosh on February 08, 2008, 08:07 AM »

Nope - both Power2Go & CD Lock create standalone media - no need for decryption software at the user end, they popup a password prompt once you insert the media. I'm not sure about them being openly documented though, my guess is no. The advantage with CD lock is once you enter the password the media is mounted and can be accessed normally by all apps, Power2Go opens up its own window with a protected files list that you can copy or (I think) run from within the window.

1082

General Software Discussion / Re: The definition of "bloat" - RE: Software

« Last post by nosh on February 07, 2008, 11:21 PM »

Disenchanted Nero fans should look at (the unofficial) Nero Lite & Micro, weighing in at 35 & 13 MB respectively (these figures may be for slightly older versions.) I personally prefer a burner that lets me directly create standalone encrypted media - something like Power2Go, though the CD Lock end result is a lot more transparent/user-friendly.

Bloat, IMO, isn't necessarily defined by an application that starts doing something out of its essential realm, as long as it does all those things well - one man's bloat is after all another man's TC. It can simply be something that sticks to task and is overly self-indulgent.

~The House of Bloat~ (I cannot stress how NOT Safe For Work this is!)
http://tinyurl.com/2rjx2p

1083

General Software Discussion / Re: File Types Manager

« Last post by nosh on February 06, 2008, 06:19 AM »

Very cool!

It's also a rough indicator of how much software you've got installed. 1031 file types here.

1084

General Software Discussion / Divshare shuts out most of Asia

« Last post by nosh on February 05, 2008, 08:44 PM »

http://blog.divshare...r-our-asian-members/

Just a heads-up to anyone who blogs and hosts files with their free service.

When oh when is Gdrive showing up?

1085

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by nosh on February 05, 2008, 08:29 PM »

Maybe you have some conflicting antispyware or antivirus???

-Armando (February 05, 2008, 06:28 PM)

Possible (NOD32), but unlikely. More likely just quite a few things running and HIPS wanting to play mommy to all of them.

1086

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by nosh on February 05, 2008, 06:03 PM »

I tried OA, it kept popping up runtime errors. The other apps didn't freeze up like with Comodo but everything went into slow-motion, including my download speeds. I have to assume that something on my system doesn't like HIPS or more likely, the other way round. Judging by the hit a PC takes with HIPS installed, anyone installing it should give some serious thought to whether it is _really_ worth it. For me getting rid of HIPS wasn't even a security decision, more like whether I wanted to keep using my PC or not. Am back with Comodo (sans HIPS, of course) Maybe my experience was a lot worse than some of you considering my P4 3GHz Prescott is kinda dated... and yet, kinda state-of-the-art, compared to other frying pans!

1087

General Software Discussion / Re: Saleen Video Manager

« Last post by nosh on February 04, 2008, 09:44 AM »

Looks promising. I've tried a few of these before settling for ThumbsPlus, the biggest problem with almost all of them was the app crashing while generating thumbnails. Also, support for all major exensions is important. I'll definitely be giving SVM a shot.

1088

Living Room / Re: How do you repair screw holes in computer case after too much use?

« Last post by nosh on February 04, 2008, 07:04 AM »

 You wouldn't have any correct sized nuts lying around, would you?

1089

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« Last post by nosh on February 04, 2008, 03:52 AM »

is there a way to finger the badly behaved extensions? Other than disabling all of them and then enabling them one by one

-nosh

yes, use process explorer to see a list of DLLs in xplorer2, then make a note of the crash address and you've got your culprit!

-umeca74 (February 04, 2008, 02:39 AM)

Great!  Thanks.

1090

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by nosh on February 03, 2008, 05:56 PM »

Armando,
Thanks for the heads up! I reinstalled with Defense+ to see what kind of an impact it would have on my system and ... how shall I put this... everything went down the tubes! It didn't just slow down the PC, it brought almost everything to a complete halt for full five minutes.

In my defense...


Defense+ is an out and out anti-malware app and asks me crazy stuff like "Process Explorer is trying to create a file, would you like to allow this?"
Anyhoo - I will look into the HIPS issue in some more detail tomorrow, maybe the truth lies somewhere inbetween "isn't worth a s***" and "industrial strength"  - my needs for outbound protection are limited, I just want to stop regular apps (as opposed to malware intelligently finding its way around things) calling home without my permission. I think Comodo just might suffice.

1091

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by nosh on February 03, 2008, 12:08 PM »

Oh, I'm not using Defense+, chose not to install it. Forgot to mention. I've used anti-spyware apps in realtime mode to know exactly how much havoc they can wreak. 

1092

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by nosh on February 03, 2008, 11:53 AM »

Update:

Since I had some time on my hands today I caved in again and after reading user opinions online decided to give Comodo another shot, this time with a little more determination. 

I do miss Sygate's main window and all the info it provided. The most important factors for me are (rather obviously) connection speed and resource usage - it isn't degrading the connect speeds at all and uses around 5 MB more RAM than Sygate did. Process Explorer shows its CPU usage at 0% even with uTorrent running at full blast. Other than a few custom rules I'm using it on default mode so with a little bit of learning and tweaking it can only get better.

Two advantages over Sygate that I've noticed so far (other than being eyecandy):
It's more user-friendly when it comes to rule creation.
It has a thriving forum, reminiscent of DC. Reading their forums was what decided me in the end - with that kind of a user-base behind a product it's very unlikely it'll stray or be left to languish like my beloved SPF.

Also, it's free (or "free forever", as they put it) - with security apps being in the must-upgrade category this is obviously a huge plus. Unless it breaks something on my system, I think it's here to stay.

1093

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« Last post by nosh on February 03, 2008, 09:35 AM »

I see where you're going but I have a feeling there may be more than one culprit involved in this case... I was thinking on lines of identifying the delphi binaries.

The "real" answer to your question involves using a debugger and attaching to the process.

Tried attaching it to W32Dasm - they both crashed...

1094

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« Last post by nosh on February 03, 2008, 08:38 AM »

I wonder if anyone would write a program to convert all your work in X2 over to another file manager.  Maybe DC's "Request a program" might be a good solution.  Who knows, perhaps someone has already done it and figured no-one else would need/want it.

-harmonv (February 03, 2008, 07:39 AM)

That would be _quite_ a task since X2 has been in development for several years, previously under the name 2X Explorer.

Nikos, the crashes are usually on exit - it has crashed a couple of times during some heavy processing dealing with file comments (ADS) but this is not a common occurrence and I don't have any crash dumps or relevant data so there's no point discussing it.

Regarding the crashes on exit, is there a way to finger the badly behaved extensions? Other than disabling all of them and then enabling them one by one.

1095

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« Last post by nosh on February 03, 2008, 04:30 AM »

I used to think I was completely intolerant to bugs but then came along X2 which invariably crashes a few times a day (the author blames shell extensions and one assumes he knows what he's talking about) but the fact remains, if I stopped using it, the crashes would stop too. It has however ended up becoming a very essential part of my system and it'd take a lot for me to dump it. Mind you, this is a category where there are several good replacements... the pros can sometimes outweigh the cons.

1096

General Software Discussion / Re: Personal Movie Organizers - A quick rundown

« Last post by nosh on February 02, 2008, 05:27 PM »

I generally store smaller video clips on the hard disk & use Thumbsplus to keep track of them. It auto-generates thumbnails or lets you assign a specific frame as a thumbnail, not really suited for movies but ideal for other video files.

In what way does Movie Label 2008 fall short? I tried these quite some time back and don't remember the details.

1097

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by nosh on February 02, 2008, 12:14 AM »

I'm using a tiny freeware thingie called Syslock
The screenshot on their page doesn't seem accurate, all I see when it's locked is my wallpaper & a Windows login box.
It also comes in  handy whenever I need to clean the keyboard/mouse. 

1098

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by nosh on February 01, 2008, 03:21 PM »

People enabling login screens only for security purposes would do well to lock their PCs with a 3rd party utility sitting in startup. It'll let everything load & processing/downloads (if any) to commence without having to enter the password first.
I've remapped Win+L to such a utility.

1099

General Software Discussion / Re: How much email do you keep…and why?

« Last post by nosh on February 01, 2008, 02:31 PM »

I keep all boxes completely empty - might move a message or two to drafts once in a while so I can deal with them properly later but that's about it.

1100

Living Room / Re: OpenDNS - safer, faster and smarter DNS

« Last post by nosh on February 01, 2008, 02:17 PM »

and it's used for certain kinds of traffic for people who choose to use opendns.

Could you please elaborate on this or link to a source that does, David?

And since you're here, on a slightly different note - I believe you guys have options for people with accounts to block certain IPs marked unsafe. Is this blocking applied by default for people without accounts? Are certain IPs inaccessible while using OpenDNS that I may be able to access using my ISPs DNS? I'm asking this with regard to bittorrent activity and the effect OpenDNS may have on it. Thanks.