Recent Posts

11326

Living Room / Re: What Sports Do You Participate In?

« Last post by 40hz on September 22, 2008, 08:08 PM »

Wiffle-Ball 

http://www.wiffle.com/welcome.htm

I don't have a choice. I grew up in the town where it was invented.

Like Badminton, or Bocce, Wiffle is a subtle game that can be played on many levels.

Where else can you get that for less than four dollars?

11327

General Software Discussion / Re: New Windows boot manager available

« Last post by 40hz on September 22, 2008, 07:47 PM »

I've just finished testing it and (knock wood) it works exactly as advertised. Diskette and permanent installations have not caused any problems on my test machine so far.

I'll still need to see if various defrag and other disk tune-up utilities I have will break it. 
 

-40hz (September 20, 2008, 05:22 PM)

(Boy does it feel weird quoting myself! )

Update:

Looks like a winner. I have experienced NO problems running a WinXP/Linux setup with Boot-us.

As expected, all the Windows utilities I've tried ignore the non-NTFS partitions, so there is no risk of inadvertently hosing your NIX installation.

BTW: Boot-us may cause your antivirus utility to warn you about changes being made to your boot sector or MBR. This is normal and can be ignored.

Boot-us can also be easily removed with Windows' own fixmbr command if you experience problems or decide you don't like it.

Overall, I'm happy with it. It works, and for Windows users, it's appearance presents a lot less "culture shock" compared to grub.

IMHO - It's a keeper.

11328

Living Room / Re: How to avoid going broke on Red Bull or Jolt Cola

« Last post by 40hz on September 22, 2008, 07:21 PM »

I got a very interesting combination of black tea made with sage leaves as well

-tomos (September 22, 2008, 05:29 PM)

Now that I'm going to have to try!

11329

Living Room / Re: How to avoid going broke on Red Bull or Jolt Cola

« Last post by 40hz on September 22, 2008, 03:12 PM »

very informative!

at time's I wondered though ...

Adding milk to the tea is actually an English custom. Nevertheless, it's fine as long as you don't mind sweating like a pony

- as a tea with milk drinker I dont find it any sweatier than without followed by

Smokers tend to like it for its detoxicating effect; tea with milk cancels the weariness caused by tobacco.

Things I've discovered relatively recently about tea:
if you brew it for less than 4 minutes - it has a very strong pickup effect
if you brew it for more than 4 minutes - if it's very srtong it'll get your heart going all right but it definitely doesnt have the same get up and go effect

Loved the Troubleshooting Section

-tomos (September 22, 2008, 09:08 AM)

Re: Pickup Effect

My understanding is that the maximum amount of caffeine is extracted from tea  between the 3.25 and 3.75 minute mark of the brewing cycle. You get a smaller amount of caffeine brewing it longer than that, but its effectiveness in the bloodstream is offset by the increased amount of tannin and other plant esters that are also being extracted. Tannin, by itself, will affect the heart. It causes a jittery sensation at higher (i.e. mildly toxic) concentrations, but it does not provide anything in the way of an energy boost.

Re: Milk and sweating

I'm with you tomos.

I never heard about that one before either - and I had genuine "off the boat," samovar-toting, "drink your tea from a glass", Russian grandparents.

I like my tea both ways (depending on the time of day and season of the year) and I haven't noticed a difference in ANY bodily function because of it.

BTW: Assuming it IS true - how much does a pony sweat anyway?

11330

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a good freeware program to backup/restore installed drivers (Win XP)

« Last post by 40hz on September 21, 2008, 09:02 PM »

I use BooZet's Double Driver.

http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm

Works as advertised. One of the first things I load after a new install.

11331

Living Room / How to avoid going broke on Red Bull or Jolt Cola

« Last post by 40hz on September 21, 2008, 01:00 PM »

Tired of your usual poison at break time? Sick of reading yet another technical how-to article that rambles on and on about something you're never going to install on your system? Or maybe just looking for some obscure lifestyle-type thing to trot out at your next dinner party to shut up That Guy who went to That Fancy College?

Well be happy - because help is at hand with a how-to that addresses all of the above.

Instead of 'designer' coffee blends, or ubergeek carbo drinks, why not try some Russian Tea?

Read on as Mssr. Dániel Nagy reveals all:

Russian Tea HOWTO

Dániel Nagy <[email protected]>

August 24, 2002 Caffeine is essential for keeping the brain active during nightly hacking sessions. There are, however, many ways to satisfy a hacker's need for caffeine. Drinking Canned Capitalism (Coke) contradicts the very principles of the open source movement, for it is a closed source product, manufactured by a huge, evil corporation. This sweet brown fizzy water is unhealthy and does not leave any space for creativity; you just get what you pay for. It is like M$ Windoze. Coffee is somewhat better (much better, in fact), though it can cause irreversible neural damage especially in young hackers still in larval stage (e.g. K-8), if consumed in large quantities. Moreover, it is strongly addictive and does not taste very good for those not yet addicted. A good tea, however, induces catharctic sensations even in those, who drink it for the very first time, warming one's mind, body, and soul. Many cultures have developed excellent ways of producing delicious tea. The English, the Chinese, the Japanese and many more have mastered the art of this divine beverage. In this HOWTO, however, I would like to focus on my native, Russian way of preparing, serving and consuming tea. The issues of scalability (preparing tea for yourself versus the LUG gathering), portability (preparing tea using different utensils), and quality control are also addressed in this HOWTO. Cultural references are given for the curious. Enjoy!

http://home.fazekas....an-tea-HOWTO-v3.html

11332

General Software Discussion / Re: New Windows boot manager available

« Last post by 40hz on September 21, 2008, 12:40 PM »

alternatively, have you guys tried grubdos? It basically leverages your existing boot manager in 2k/XP or Vista to allow you to boot other non-windows OSes.  It's still grub, but you don't have to replace the MBR or partition boot record if you don't want to.

-kreatorr (September 20, 2008, 11:48 PM)

Great find kreatorr!

***

If you do use grub, you'll also want to be aware of the Super Grub Disk Project. This is an excellent tool for fixing grub problem as well as learning about how bootloaders operate.

Mainsite: http://www.supergrubdisk.org

Also check out AutoSuperGrubDisk. Fix grub from within Windows with the minimum amount of fuss.

Link to website here: http://www.supergrub...ki/AutoSuperGrubDisk

There is a nice introductory article (with screenshots) on Super Grub over at the BeginLinux.com website. Full article link:

http://www.beginlinu...opics/1069-supergrub

11333

General Software Discussion / Re: POP Mail checker

« Last post by 40hz on September 21, 2008, 11:57 AM »

IMHO Poppy for Windows is the best one out there"

Download at: http://www.jsonline....ontent/Home/Home.htm

Also take a look at the Poppy Screensaver Companion at the same site. Sets up a screensaver to work with the mail notifier application.

Best wishes and a safe return if it's you that's being deployed. Otherwise please extend out thanks and appreciation to whoever it is that's heading out.

11334

General Software Discussion / New Windows boot manager available

« Last post by 40hz on September 20, 2008, 05:22 PM »

This in via gHacks.net - link to article http://www.ghacks.ne...indows-boot-manager/

Windows Boot Manager
Posted by Martin in Windows, software  Tags: boot manager, boot-loader, bootdisk, bootmanager, master boot record, windows boot manager

20 Sep


Many users shy away from installing multiple operating systems on their computer because of problems that can arise in the boot sector. Some operating systems like to replace the existing boot information with their own which would mean that the user would have to find a way to replace or add those boot information again so that all operating systems would show up when booting the computer.

Windows boot manager Boot-US is a universal boot manager that can boot many operating systems properly including all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 to Windows Server 2008, MS-Dos, Linux, Free BSD, VMWare and several exotic operating systems like Oberon, Novel-DOS or QNX Realtime Plattform.

The boot manager itself can be installed in the MBR (Master Boot Record), the primary partition or on disk. The latter being an excellent way of testing the boot manager before installing it on the hard drive.

This is a native Windows installable utility that looks very promising for those times when you'd rather not install grub to your MBR. Especially interesting is the option to install the boot manager to a diskette for testing purposes prior to permanent installation on your hard drive.

That's something no other boot manager (TBMK anyway ) does.

Comes with decent doumentation. I've just finished testing it and (knock wood) it works exactly as advertised. Diskette and permanent installations have not caused any problems on my test machine so far.

I'll still need to see if various defrag and other disk tune-up utilities I have will break it. 



The Boot-US website can be found here: http://www.boot-us.com/index.htm

11335

General Software Discussion / Re: SelfImage: The open-source hard disk imaging utility

« Last post by 40hz on September 20, 2008, 11:01 AM »

Words of wisdom: Never 'beta' when it comes to backup and security software.


Two tools that you can depend on to create reliable disk images are Conezilla and Acronis TrueImage.


Clonezilla is much more powerful, sports an uglier interface, uses a lot of non-Windows terminology, and must be run from the live CD if you're a Windows user. It is free under GPL. It gets the job done - and the some.  http://www.clonezilla.org

TrueImage is also quite powerful, has a very pretty graphic interface, uses terminology most users are familiar with, and can be run either from within Windows, or from the live CD. It also gets the job done.

For most people, TrueImage is probably the better choice. The only real knock I have with TrueImage is that there seems to be more and more "feature bloat" (and price hikes) with each new release.

I vastly prefer the simplicity of Version 8 or 9 to the current Version 11. I still use version 8 even though I have the newest versions.  Opinions aside, TrueImage is still an excellent program, although the average $39 US street price makes it somewhat expensive for such a specialized app.

Especially when you hope you're never going to actually need to use it.

11336

Living Room / Re: News Article: Microsoft & Cray Release $25,000 Supercomputer

« Last post by 40hz on September 19, 2008, 02:56 PM »

Ooh, what if Cray made a video card...

-Edvard (September 19, 2008, 12:02 PM)

It would be more like a graphics tower box requiring an insane cooling system than a graphics card, methinks

-f0dder (September 19, 2008, 12:08 PM)

It would be too late. The University of Antwerp has already used the GPUs in four MSI N9800GX2-M2D1G GeForce 9800 GX2 cards to create a supercomputer.

Your next Cray could cost 4000 euros, and look something like this: http://fastra.ua.ac.be/en/index.html

Belgian researchers develop desktop supercomputer.



How much computing power can you cram into a single desktop PC?

In our research on image reconstruction we often have to perform large-scale scientific computations, which can easily take weeks on a normal PC. To tackle this problem, we have developed a special PC that is capable of performing our computations just as fast as a cluster consisting of hundreds of PCs. Using this superPC, which consists mainly of gaming hardware and costs less than 4000 euro, we can now perform our three-dimensional reconstructions within a few hours: over 100 times as fast.

The research group ASTRA, part of the Vision Lab of the University of Antwerp, focuses on the development of new computational methods for tomography. Tomography is a technique used in medical scanners to create three-dimensional images of the internal organs of patients, based on a large number of X-ray photos that are acquired over a range of angles. ASTRA develops new reconstruction techniques that lead to better reconstruction quality than classical methods.

Although our reconstruction techniques are very powerful, they have an important drawback: they are quite slow. As the 3D images that we normally deal with can be rather large (typically 1024x1024x1024 volume elements, or more), advanced reconstruction methods can sometimes take weeks of computation time on a normal PC.

Here's a look inside the case:

11337

Living Room / Re: Samarost Developers Working on a Full-sized Adventure Game: Machinarium

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 11:10 PM »

That game got me to buy their music album back in 2005.

-Deozaan (September 18, 2008, 05:56 PM)

Yeah, I must admit I liked Polyphonic Spree too. There's a certain innocent quality to their work that seems to have disappeared in contemporary pop music. Makes me think of the the early Beatles combined with some early progressive rock groups (Jade Warrior, Camel? Dennis Greenslade?) with just a pinch of The Kinks thrown in for good measure.

Not cool. Not sophisticated. Maybe not even especially original.



But still an enjoyable group to listen to. There's even a hint of eye-candy up on stage. How can you go wrong?

11338

Living Room / Re: News Article: Microsoft & Cray Release $25,000 Supercomputer

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 10:54 PM »

Rumor has it that it was designed as a "proof of concept" machine.

One that could run Vista with ALL the bells and whistles enabled.

11339

Living Room / Re: The NSA Teams Up with the Chinese Government to Limit Internet Anonymity

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 09:01 AM »

Definitely strange bedfellows...

Not at all.

Police work is police work no matter what.

Only the governing law changes. That, and what's considered acceptable in the way The Law is to be enforced.

A police force is a mirror for the society that created it.

"Angels to some; demons to others." as the saying goes.

11340

Developer's Corner / Re: Programmer wanted for commercial product.

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 08:50 AM »

Sorry I can't be more clear!

-friedsonjm (September 08, 2008, 04:52 PM)

You might get a better response to your post if you could be.

Just a thought.
-----

In the programming world, things aren't as hush-hush as investors would like them to be. From the limited description of your project I would suspect the following:

1. You are developing a server based product

2. You want to leverage the cost advantages of FOSS so you'll primarily be developing on a NIX platform that allows you to have a restrictive license on your own code while still providing you with license-free use of the underlying platform. I'd be surprised if you didn't decide to go with BSD for exactly that reason. (Using FOSS as a base would also lower your distribution costs, thereby allowing you more flexibility in pricing. In this scenario, your only sunk costs would be for development and marketing.)

3. You're probably planning on doing the bulk of the coding in C++,

4. From #3 above,  I'm also guessing your application will make extensive use of NIX system calls, so you'll be using Cygwin to provide Windows compatibility rather than recoding your client module to run natively.

5. From 2,3,and 4 I suspect this project got its start in the academic world; is based on somebody's dissertation or thesis; and most likely began as a project in a graduate program.

6. Your application will make heavy use of calculations, hence the interest in 64-bit Windows.

7. Because you want a non-disclosure up front, your market is probably either in the financial or medical sector. I'm guessing it's a financial forecasting program of some sort since medical apps don't usually require 64-bit firepower.

8. Because you want a non-disclosure up front, you feel your product is intuitively obvious for the need it is addressing, and your investors are afraid that even describing it would be enough for somebody to take your ball and run with it. From this, I would suspect that this product is neither intrinsically patentable nor protectable as a trade secret. Therefor, the business plan is to market very aggressively on product launch  in order to secure market 'buzz' and presence before the industry heavyweights and knock-off shops close in.


How'd I do?

11341

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you keep two computers synchronized? i.e. work + home. If so, how?

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 07:46 AM »

I have heard good things about time machine...

-urlwolf (September 18, 2008, 06:43 AM)

Time Machine is very impressive.

I also suspect it's just Subversion VCS tricked out with one of those stunningly beautiful front-ends Mr. Jobs & Co. do so well. Apple actually made version control look pretty. That's gotta be some sort of breakthrough right there.

Who says you can't put lipstick on a pig?

11342

General Software Discussion / Re: List of newbie questions regarding software

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 06:24 AM »

I'm not enlightened enough to be making koans. The occasional zinger is as close as I ever get. 

Don't worry, I'm not enlightened enough to know the difference. 

-Paul Keith (September 18, 2008, 06:20 AM)

Makes two of us then

Oh well, duty calls... One more client's Windows 2000 Server (that should have been upgraded to Windows 2003 two years ago ) is refusing to reboot.

Off to Stamford for another fun-filled day!

11343

General Software Discussion / Re: List of newbie questions regarding software

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 06:05 AM »

I agree with both of you though I'm not sure if what 40hz posted was a koan or a real life recent incident. 

-Paul Keith (September 17, 2008, 08:25 PM)

Koan? Koan? We don't need no steenking koans!

"Lets see," he said, puffing as he hauled out the box that contained his collection of old college papers and daybooks...

Wednesday, 10/17: Chestnut Hill MA. Professor Blakely/Introduction to Metaphysics Outing Invite. (He's buying!!!) Blakely, Doc, Gina, Mary-Phil, Tom, me, and all 3 Steves. We started at Durgin Park for seafood, and wound up over in Cambridge at a place near 33 Dunster Street ...

<<*** Cue Soundtrack: Time Passages by Al Stewart**>

I'm not enlightened enough to be making koans. The occasional zinger is as close as I ever get. 

11344

Living Room / Re: News Article: Microsoft & Cray Release $25,000 Supercomputer

« Last post by 40hz on September 18, 2008, 05:45 AM »

"We wants it Deagol my love. Gives it to usss...It's my Preciousss..."

-40hz (September 17, 2008, 06:29 PM)

Shouldn't that be Smeagol?

-f0dder (September 18, 2008, 05:20 AM)

I don't think so. If memory serves Smeagol (who later came to be called Gollum) murdered Deagol to get The Ring. His argument with Deagol, where he demanded he be given the ring as his "birthday present," was the first time we hear it referred to as "Precious."

and the thought of having a 64kg heavy elite-looking supercomputer to heat up my flat during winter? Priceless.

-f0dder (September 18, 2008, 05:20 AM)

Absolutely! (Nice idea! Sorta semi-green too! )

Also great for keeping that pizza warm during late night coding sessions! Put the beer on top of that homebrew liquid nitrogen cooling tower that's attached to our prototype superconducter chip and we're set to go.

Can the dream of World Domination be far off?   

11345

General Software Discussion / Re: I am looking for system wide proxy changer-configurator

« Last post by 40hz on September 17, 2008, 06:54 PM »

Hope I'm understanding what you're asking. 

You could set up two profiles for your NIC. One uses a proxy, the other doesn't.

Then just set all you applications to use your default (i.e. active in NetSetMan) connection and possibly set proxy to "autodiscover" in the individual application if it so requires. That way, your apps should use the proxy if it's active, and ignore (i.e. not find) it if it's not.

Hope this answers your question.

11346

Living Room / Re: News Article: Microsoft & Cray Release $25,000 Supercomputer

« Last post by 40hz on September 17, 2008, 06:29 PM »

Yeah...

Sometimes I look through the Best Buy ads or whatnot and see hardrives bigger than I can imagine and think "What the hell would I store on that thing that would justify a hard drive that large?"
Answer (sadly): Whatever the hell you want...

-Edvard (September 17, 2008, 06:17 PM)

Yeah. I remember getting a Comodore-64 to replace my Vic-20 and wondering what I was gonna do with all that RAM. Same thing when I got my first HD. It had a whopping 20 megabytes of storage.

Why would the "mainstream" even want a $25k supercomputer at home?

-Deozaan (September 17, 2008, 04:28 PM)

Just because. Don't ask me what I need it for. 



"We wants it Deagol my love. Gives it to usss...It's my Preciousss..."

But seriously, I could think of a few independent animators I know that might consider pooling resources for something like this next time they were rendering high quality final output. It would also be a great tool for criminals who need to crack commercial encryption schemes more cheaply and efficiently...

(Of course, a Beowulf cluster would be faster and cheaper still, but what the hey... )

Posted by: Edvard

Ballmer & friends just couldn't leave well enough alone, could they?
Admit it, you knew it was going to happen...

Nope they couldn't.

And yes, we did.

11347

General Software Discussion / Re: List of newbie questions regarding software

« Last post by 40hz on September 17, 2008, 05:55 PM »

I was taking a philosophy course as part of my University Core requirement when the whole topic of knowledge, learning, and gnosis came up. It made for an interesting week's worth of finely honed discussion.

But what was even more valuable came at the end of the week when some of the class took Prof. Blakely up on his offer to "continue this discussion over over some stuffed quahogs and a pint (more like eight actually)  of Guinness Stout."

In the course of a long and very pleasant evening, the Good Professor gently engaged us in a dialog about what we aspired to in the course of our lives. I had a bit more of a problem clarifying what I was trying to accomplish than most of the others.

The closest I could get was saying I wanted to "grasp the larger pattern" of things.

"Ahhh," Professor Blakely said, and laughed. "So you aspire to omniscience, do you?"

***

Yeah. That sounds about right. I do.


FWIW: There was a great essay about databases in the (long defunct) Whole Earth Software Catalog that made an interesting observation: Databases will save you or they'll bury you. I don't think truer words were ever spoken. Because deep down inside, many of us know that all these tools (databases, outliners, thinker-toys, etc.) are some of the most addictive drugs ever created.

And much like chemical drugs, they can keep creative people from doing anything other than enjoying the 'fix' they provide. They make you think you're being creative, when many times all you're doing is making superfluous preparations to start creating. Or learning...

I love all these neat tools. I just have to be careful to keep them in perspective.

11348

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you keep two computers synchronized? i.e. work + home. If so, how?

« Last post by 40hz on September 17, 2008, 05:21 PM »

The solution I use now is to open the pst from one computer in the other installation of Outlook and simply "copy to folder" the sent items that I want synced. It's not that cumbersome and doesn't even take that long, but it's the principle of the thing that bothers me 

-Darwin (September 17, 2008, 01:56 PM)

But your solution is so simple and workable! That's it's own principle right there.

In the immortal words of The Clash: "Sod Art! Let's dance."

11349

Mobysaurus / Re: Congratulations?

« Last post by 40hz on September 17, 2008, 01:53 PM »

I can appreciate the observation about the suburbs since I live in Fairfield County, CT - arguably the brurbiest of all the burbs on the east coast. It's beautiful, affluent - and boring.

I got kicked out of a Chamber of Commerce meeting once for proposing the following motto for our region:

Fairfield County: It's a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit there.

11350

Living Room / Re: MakeUseOf.com: 15+ Podcasts Every Geek Should Listen To

« Last post by 40hz on September 17, 2008, 01:33 PM »

Ever since yuppies with money to play with electronics took over the word 'geeky' the threshold for what is considered 'geeky' has become lower and lower.

-Gothi[c] (September 17, 2008, 12:54 PM)

Sad but true - and very well said.



I'm holding out for the adoption of cph (pronounced "siff") as in Certified Propeller-Head for the real deal techno-ninjas out there!

Beware of any advice coming from a website that has a link labeled "cool tools." 733t Rulz!