Recent Posts

1201

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by Innuendo on January 05, 2010, 10:48 AM »

Yes, without its ugly UI I had never dug for better file managers. 

-Tuxman (January 04, 2010, 04:22 PM)

Total Commander is only as ugly as the amount of effort you put into customizing it. It's quite ugly after being first installed, but if you spend a little time you'll have something that looks quite nice & can do things no other file manager can.

1202

General Software Discussion / Re: What's a good wardrobe management software?

« Last post by Innuendo on January 05, 2010, 10:45 AM »

I'm looking for a program to help me coordinate my clothes.  I can pick a suit, shirt, tie, shoes, socks, and it shows be a cartoon or some picture of how it will look.  Then, maybe I can have a schedule where I can plan out what I wear.  This is to save me some time thinking in the morning about what I should wear, what i wore before, etc.

-superboyac (January 04, 2010, 04:46 PM)

Sounds like you need to install Wife v1.0.

1203

General Software Discussion / Re: Stop Windows from calling home

« Last post by Innuendo on January 05, 2010, 10:42 AM »

1. It can not detect if "explorer.exe" is really "explorer.exe" when asking you if explorer.exe may access the internet.

-Tuxman (January 04, 2010, 04:57 PM)

By that logic the high-end firewalls by such companies as Cisco, Juniper, and SonicWall are not firewalls, either as they cannot determine the difference between explorer.exe and another program, either. A firewall's job is to restrict what kinds of traffic come across which ports. If you are going to want to control things at the application level then you are talking about something else. Yes, some advanced personal firewall software offers this additional functionality, but it's not core firewall programming.

2. It is not that hard to write a script which automatically clicks "Allow".

It is that hard to write one if you have your UAC set where it's supposed to be. Follow the advice to turn off UAC because some knob on the internet told you to then you get what you deserve.

3. It is behind your internet connection, so any packets passing it are already on your computer.

Sandboxes, virtual machines, etc. make this point moot.

4. ... if they pass it anyway (there is always a way to create your own, independent TCP connections).

And none of these ways can circumvent the low-level hooks for firewall functionality in Windows 7. The old days of the Windows XP RTM firewall are behind us.

5. A virus, worm or trojan runs with your own user privileges, so it can easily disable your PFW completely.

Not if you have UAC turned on.

If you actually use software from dubious sources and click unknown links (the only ways to get infected), you'll fail anyway. A "personal firewall" can not help you.

People don't have to use dubious software these days to be vulnerable. It's possible to get attacked just by visiting regular web sites. It's a dangerous world out there & the only sane defense is one of multiple layers that can catch almost all, if not all, attack vectors present on the internet.

1204

General Software Discussion / Re: SUPER © updated, download from Major Geeks

« Last post by Innuendo on January 04, 2010, 04:24 PM »

http://www.erightsof...e.php?SUPERsetup.exe (won't work from here but does work when on their web site)

-y0himba (January 02, 2010, 09:48 AM)

Works from here if you use Firefox with a plugin that feeds any links self-referring referrers.

1205

General Software Discussion / Re: (Semi-NSFW) How Fanboys View Operating Systems

« Last post by Innuendo on January 04, 2010, 04:22 PM »

This was truly funny. Sorry I didn't see it when you originally posted it, fenix, but I don't monitor that thread often.

1206

General Software Discussion / Re: Stop Windows from calling home

« Last post by Innuendo on January 04, 2010, 04:18 PM »

Not sure how anyone got off the topic of the OP, but I'll chime in here....looking at those screen shots show some crazy options!

Disable Automatic Windows Updates - Are you kidding me? Bug fixes, feature additions, and fixing vulnerabilities are unappealing to people?

Disable Time Synchronization - Adverse to your PC keeping precise time by the use of communicating with The Atomic Clock?

Disable Scheduled Task Service - Sometimes very important programs use this service to make sure tasks are carried out when needed.

Disable RPC Locator - If your PC is on a network and you do not know what you are doing turn this one on at your peril.

Disable Windows Defender - Oh, come on...may as well disable your AV, your anti-malware, and firewall while you're at it.

Disable Windows Firewall - And there it is!


I see programs like this and I am reminded of a job I had a few years ago & a co-worker decided to run one of these programs on his work PC. What the program did in 30 seconds took us over an hour to undo so his computer could see and connect to the computer network again.

Windows doesn't call home. It does, however, contact numerous web sites (some owned by Microsoft) to ensure that you have a safe, secure, and optimal computing experience.

1207

Living Room / Re: Sex Doesn't Sell

« Last post by Innuendo on January 04, 2010, 04:00 PM »

I just glanced through some of these responses so forgive me if this point has already been made.

I am an American so I will only comment on American culture. Once upon a time we lived in a gentler, more innocent environment when it came to the movies (I'll restrict my remarks to movies as that seems to be what most people in the thread are focusing on). There was sex & sex scenes, but there is today. Some guy at a movie studio got the bright idea that if he threw in something more explicit than what was norm for the time his movie would cause a splash & see increased ticket sales.

He was right...bam! Sex sells. Ticket sales shoot up and money is made by everybody involved with the movie. Of course, this doesn't go unnoticed by the other movie guys & they each take steps to go farther to out-do the last guy with the sexual aspect of their movies & bring in the money.

That worked great...until now. Even though current movie makers dance the line between what keeps a movie Rated R and what would make it Rated X we've reached a plateau as a culture. We've seen it all. There are no new tricks. There are no more plot twists to wow us with. It's all old hat & culturally we've become very jaded movie watchers.

One only needs to view the 1972 Marlon Brando/Maria Schneider movie 'Last Tango In Paris' to see my point painfully illustrated. Upon its release it was Rated X & caused quite a scandalous stir as to how outrageous it was. Viewing it today it's quite frankly ho-hum & could be classified as a 'mild' R-rated movie by today's standards.

Sex sold & it sold well, but it's become a commodity item and one cannot demand a premium price on something that is over-stocked in abundance everywhere.

1208

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by Innuendo on January 04, 2010, 03:31 PM »

I thought since the addition of Add/Remove Programs (now called Programs and Features) to Windows Microsoft has discouraged the placement of an uninstall link in the Start Menu stating that it would be better placed in Add/Remove Programs.

Regardless, I'd much rather deal with programs that added links to Add/Remove Programs and not to the Start Menu than the other way around. Daemon Tools is like this. It adds an uninstall link to the Start Menu, but nothing is to be found in Add/Remove Programs.

Sometimes I uninstall a bunch of programs en masse & having everything in one menu is handy rather than having to dig through the Start Menu for each program.

1209

Living Room / Re: Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

« Last post by Innuendo on January 01, 2010, 10:36 PM »

Perhaps we should add pronunciation errors, too. I'm ready for this century to be "20_._" as in "Twenty-ten," not Two-thousand ten. Yet the idiots on my TeeVee keep saying the latter. I don't remember them saying "Nineteen hundred seventy-five"!

-zridling (January 01, 2010, 06:39 PM)

But a few days ago were you saying "Twenty-nine"? Or "Twenty-Oh-Nine"?

1210

Developer's Corner / Re: “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« Last post by Innuendo on January 01, 2010, 10:31 PM »

Sure, it's easy to spoof Usenet posts, but with md5 signatures to verify the files & par2 files to keep the spoofers at bay most of the worry about Usenet becomes moot.

I cannot argue with yenc generates overhead & torrents give multi-sources, but when I can connect to my Usenet server and fill my connection speed, but connecting to a popular torrent swarm only gives me 20-30% of my full connection speed even those torrent benefits become irrelevant.

A further point that I don't have to worry about, but a lot of people do, is that a lot of ISPs throttle torrent speeds heavily. Not nearly as many ISPs throttle Usenet.

This is all off the topic, of course......we now return you to your regularly scheduled program of Paypal/eBay screwing over and stealing from freeware authors.

1211

Living Room / Re: Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling

« Last post by Innuendo on January 01, 2010, 12:41 PM »

You can rarely find people who can actually speak proper English anymore so what makes you think these people will actually take the time to spell correctly?

The opposite of find is lose.
The opposite of tight is loose.

Being an English-speaking person I often wonder if such blatant and horrid spelling & grammatical errors are being made in other languages in other countries.

1212

General Software Discussion / Re: Apple "blocking" VLC Media Player

« Last post by Innuendo on January 01, 2010, 12:33 PM »

I know, I should think about putting a backup elsewhere as well, but though I often have my head in the clouds, I'm not yet ready to put my backups there. 

-cyberdiva (January 01, 2010, 08:49 AM)

Forget the clouds, Diva. Drop all your important files onto a hard drive & store it at a friend's or relative's house. Or...rent a safety deposit box.

And a happy new year to you as well.

1213

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by Innuendo on January 01, 2010, 12:23 PM »

But Google is quickly getting worse and worse.

-superboyac (December 31, 2009, 04:18 PM)

Google is indeed getting worse. They are also becoming more persistent about trying to inject themselves into everything everyone does on the internet as well. This plays into my hands as I am trying to divorce myself from Google as much as possible.

They still have the best search engine, though, so a few Firefox extensions that block, obfuscate, and bamboozle Google's tracking methods are being employed aggressively over here.

I wonder what would make a search engine more effective?  How could a search engine ignore all the SEO crap?

It has everything to do with the search engine algorithms. People asked the same thing before Google. Search engines were crap and everyone was up in arms as to whether it was possible to fix. Google came in with an optimized search algorithm that tamed the offending parties.

There have been attempts to do this to Google before, but they were always quick to counter with a new search engine algorithm that would further filter out the poo. Now they are either having trouble countering this new wave of attacks or they don't care. It is just a matter of time before someone finds a way to beat this new breed of search engine spam. I don't know if it will be Google or someone new, but whoever pulls it off will be the search engine king for some time to come.

1214

Developer's Corner / Re: “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« Last post by Innuendo on January 01, 2010, 12:16 PM »

Isn't newzbin merely a warez aggregator?

-f0dder (December 31, 2009, 03:29 PM)

Newzbin catalogs binary content posted on Usenet. Some of the content could be considered illegal, but a lot is indeed legal. I'd rather download *anything* off Usenet when the only official way to get some programs is through torrents (some Linux distros and other stuff).

Not saying that it's OK for paypal to do what it's doing, just saying that some of the people having trouble are doing shady things.

Here's another, more recent, example of Paypal's tomfoolery affecting a 100% above-board endeavor...The foobar2000 homepage used to have a donation button on their homepage which allowed users to show their appreciation for the program by donating money through Paypal.

Now the foobar homepage no longer has this donation button along with the following posted:

2009-12-31
The donation button has been removed due to PayPal being thieves.
Thanks to everybody who donated so far, your funds mostly got through.

I'd love to see the reason Paypal gave for seizing the money in the account of a freeware music player.

Paypal (and their parent company eBay) are punks, thieves, and bullies.

1215

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by Innuendo on December 31, 2009, 04:24 PM »

A couple cheap things to try:

1. Run the diagnostic tool from your hard drive manufacturer's web site. Your hard drive could be defective out of the box.

2. You replaced an old hard drive. Did you replace the cable as well? Hard drive cables do get old & do need to be replaced eventually. A dodgy cable could lead to stuttering like you are experiencing.

1216

General Software Discussion / Re: Apple "blocking" VLC Media Player

« Last post by Innuendo on December 31, 2009, 04:17 PM »

Apple has always been like this. Always. The only difference is that in recent years they have actually been a large enough commercial presence to be an actual inconvenience/thorn to a measurable amount of the population.

They have always wanted to lock all their customers away inside a white lucite box & only allow their users to have the software & media that Apple has decided they can have & use. Anyone who is actually surprised by any of this behavior hasn't been attentive enough over the years.

1217

Living Room / Re: Has SEO ruined the web?

« Last post by Innuendo on December 31, 2009, 04:11 PM »

SEO hasn't ruined the web, but it's pretty much ruined using search engines. It's been painfully obvious the last few weeks. Search results just aren't what you want/need them to be anymore.

Once upon a time you could fire up your favorite search engine, enter a program name, and the program's web site would be in the first two or three results. Now you're lucky if it's listed in the first three pages of results.

This is the same situation that allowed Google to swoop in and take Yahoo!'s crown as king of the search engines. All we need is the right genius to come along with a way to cut through the SEO BS and we'll have a new go-to search engine.

1218

DC Gamer Club / Re: Torchlight 50% off until Monday at Steam

« Last post by Innuendo on December 31, 2009, 04:05 PM »

I just finished the main quest & have started working on the "infinite dungeon".

It's a fun game, but I'm one of those weird, anti-social gamers you hear about that only plays single-player games.

1219

General Software Discussion / Re: Good google toolbar (for Firefox) alternative?

« Last post by Innuendo on December 31, 2009, 03:38 PM »

But seriously, I'm not concerned about screen space at all.

-superboyac (December 23, 2009, 10:42 PM)

But are you concerned about your privacy? Google Toolbar reports back to The Man every web site you visit.

1220

Developer's Corner / Re: “Is PayPal good for your microISV business?” A short PayPal horror story

« Last post by Innuendo on December 31, 2009, 03:12 PM »

Last I heard, Paypal is not considered a "bank" and is not regulated like one. So yes, it's scary, they deal with huge amounts of money and have much less stringent requirements on them. That may not be true anymore though...

-JavaJones (December 23, 2009, 11:32 PM)

Was just jumping in here to post this very thing. PayPal is not a bank. They don't have to follow any rules or regulations except the ones they make themselves....changeable at will. I'd never trust my business to PayPal. Just ask the guys over at the Newzbin web site. They've had thousands upon thousands of dollars seized by PayPal due to erroneous judgment on PayPal's part & Newzbin has yet to see any of that money years later.

I think if I were a business wanting to look into a PayPal-like system for receiving payments I'd look into Google Checkout.

1221

Living Room / Re: I'm beginning my experiment with Linux and other OS's.

« Last post by Innuendo on December 21, 2009, 02:45 PM »

If you don't mind going back to DOpus' Amiga origins you could try Worker.l])[/i]

-4wd (December 20, 2009, 04:53 PM)

That screenshot brought back fond memories of my time on the Amiga...and fond memories of a time when Directory Opus was sanely priced.

1222

Living Room / Re: I'm beginning my experiment with Linux and other OS's.

« Last post by Innuendo on December 21, 2009, 02:44 PM »

cyberdiva, yes I love the programs I use on Windows also.  But there are a couple of things to consider there.  First, why have we adopted the software we use?  Well, because we're using Windows, we have to use Windows-compatible software, and we don't even look at the programs available to other OS's.  There must be awesome programs we've never even thought about because we wouldn't be able to use it on our Windows...<stuff snipped>...After all, it's only software, there's no need to be emotionally tied to it.

-superboyac (December 20, 2009, 05:11 PM)

My days of being emotionally attached to a OS & software ended the day I sold my Amiga. I have looked and found the best software available that fits my needs & as crazy as that may sound, that software is programmed to run on the Windows OS.

Total Commander, foobar2000, mp3tag, AnyDVD, and others are the best for my uses and they do things that are not capable in any other program on any other OS. I must not be alone in my thinking as the user support forums for all these programs get swarmed regularly by people begging for these programs to be ported to OS X or Linux.

The only program I really feel like I am missing out on due to my OS of choice is QuickSilver for OS X & I am not going to give up what I have just so I can run that.

1223

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Batch download lyrics for your mp3 songs in your library to the ID3 tag

« Last post by Innuendo on December 19, 2009, 08:10 PM »

Songbird is a nice player but it stores lyrics in a database instead of the MP3 files. I would like to have a solution that puts the lyrics found by Songbird also in the corresponding file. Currently there is no option to do so (at least I didn't find it yet).

-Shades (December 19, 2009, 06:12 PM)

The option is to start using foobar2000.     There's no batch method to do it, however.

1224

DC Gamer Club / Re: Torchlight 50% off until Monday at Steam

« Last post by Innuendo on December 19, 2009, 08:08 PM »

Agreeing with the others in the thread. This is a great game. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm almost at the end of the main quest.

Someone is reportedly working on a multi-player mod for it & the company is using this as the basis for an MMO to come out at a later date. For $10 this is a steal, but if you still aren't convinced you can download a demo at www.runicgames.com.

1225

Living Room / Re: The Great Aussie Firewall to Go Ahead

« Last post by Innuendo on December 18, 2009, 10:08 AM »

you haven't had a forced-seatbelt-use law until a couple of years ago? O_o

-f0dder (December 17, 2009, 11:09 AM)

Nope...one of the quirks of living in Midwest America.

Still, while I do find that seatbelt use should be mandatory, whether you're just doing a 1km trip to shop groceries (in which case you really shouldn't be taking the car anyway, but I digress), I'm not a big fan of the way politicians always sneak stuff in through the back door; it's despicable

Yes, I agree seatbelt use should be mandatory, but I really didn't care for the promises of how there'd be no pull-overs for only that violation and then they went back on their word.

Here either, unless Innudeo lives in Florida also (I do). We just got the pull-over-for-seatbelts thing here.

-Stoic Joker (December 17, 2009, 05:25 PM)

I'm "up" in Indiana. Glad to see my state isn't the only one being dragged kicking & screaming out of the stone ages when it comes to safety. Unfortunately, politicians are still the same wherever one goes.

Of course it matters what it includes. Until they get around to including SPI in the firewall laws (a lot more work/cost for ISPs, and much more invasive for consumers - very doubtful it would get passed) I can DHT as much as I like.

You're not getting the point I'm making. Their only real hurdle is getting the law passed to bring the firewall into being in the first place. After that, any modifications & restrictions they want to make will just be slipped into other bills & laws as 'pork'. It's how politics work. Pass a version of the law that has the most you can get away with without public mutiny. Later, adjust & modify to what you wanted in the first place by piggy-backing on other legislation.

BitTorrent (I assume that is why you mention DHT) is a rather unsafe way to traffick in data, especially if it is anything less than 100% legal. It's something akin to pulling your car up in front of a busy shopping mall & then proceeding to load stolen goods into your trunk. There are better, more subtle ways, to do what BitTorrent does, but would keep you under the radar & probably would never trigger The Man's Firewall Of Death.