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1226

General Software Discussion / Re: Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« Last post by barney on December 03, 2009, 10:30 PM »

'Preciate the return.

I'm kinda dim (read damned ignorant) when it comes to video hardware ... what happens when I put this splitter (?) on the two monitors (of three)?  How much control will I have on the two displays?  Or will that depend upon the OS?  Sorry to be so dumb, but as mentioned, graphics hardware is not my forte (knew I should have taken up gaming <sigh />).

1227

General Software Discussion / Re: Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« Last post by barney on December 03, 2009, 08:34 PM »

OK, I'm back, with a variation on the question.

Got the new monitor today, and thought I might be able to connect it to the graphics adapter on the motherboard.  Unfortunately, the system seems no longer to recognize that connection/adapter.  Did a quick search - I'll do more tomorrow - but didn't find anything viable.

The dual-head card I have is an nVidia 7300 GS, and the box is a Gateway GT5064 - don't know the motherboard, offhand.  I had to disable the onboard video when In installed the GeForce card, and I don't know how to re-enable it, or even if that is possible.

While I'd like to have an enhanced video card, I'd also like to be able, for the nonce, to use what's here.  So, the question is, "Is there a way to re-enable the motherboard video, to have it coexist with the nVidia card?"

1228

General Software Discussion / Re: The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification

« Last post by barney on December 03, 2009, 11:11 AM »

Actually, that one's pretty simple. 

Make certain no button has focus or can be triggered with a single key press, i.e., Quarantine would be Alt-Q, not just Q.  Alternatively, make the default button perform no action, let it be a dummy. 

The alternative is chancy, since the keyboard folk will wanna be able to tab to the button of their choice, so inadvertent action is still a possibility.

Don't think time delay would work unless there's some way to circumvent if the wrong action is taken.

There was something I used in Linux, don't remember what, that would pop up a window on top of all others, but did not steal focus from whatever was being done.  It got your attention when you looked at the screen, but let you keep doing what you had been doing ... kinda weird, looking at a top-level window, but still typing into the window below it.

Maybe that could be done ... not that I'd expect the AV folk to buy it, but, still ...

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General Software Discussion / Re: The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification

« Last post by barney on December 03, 2009, 10:31 AM »

Just ran across this thread.  Interesting concept.

'Fraid it would be useless to some of the folk I know, though, for purely physical reasons.  They are touch typists.

Problem I've had with every AV I've used is that a warning window with a default action pops up and steals focus when the AV thinks it's found something.  If I happen to be typing notes I've made into an editor, or perhaps copying a bit of PHP out of a book, I'm not looking at the screen.  Even with an audible alert, I'll probably hit a hotkey or enter before I can stop typing & check the monitor to see what just beeped.  Even if I am looking at the monitor, I may not be able to stop typing before I've dismissed the warning.

When that happens, I've just initiated whatever default action the AV uses upon I know not what file.  [Sidebar.  Have you ever quarantined/deleted a kernel file?  It's fun.]

So, as long as the AV steals focus, any information it provides is frequently going to be useless.  That said, the information would indeed be useful during, say, an intentional scan, or maybe during boot-up.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« Last post by barney on November 28, 2009, 09:40 PM »

I would love to have that capability, but slots are full, and there's nothing than can be discarded  .  Life would be beautiful if I had just one more slot  .

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General Software Discussion / Re: Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« Last post by barney on November 28, 2009, 07:04 PM »

Yeah,

What you say is good.  Unfortunately, that's not a viable option at this time.  When I get a new box, these are considerations that will be borne in mind.  However, at this time, while I can do the graphics card, I cannot afford the down time to install, test, configure a new motherboard/system.  I'll likely be hard put just to get the graphics/monitor setup configured in time to start fulfilling the requirement(s) that necessitate the card, as is.

The ATI card that Shades mentioned is a likely prospect, but if something goes wrong, I can always put the current nVidia back in - not quite so simple or easy if I go the motherboard route - and still manage, to a degree, to do what needs must be done.

'Twas my intent - still is, in fact - that my next desktop machine be home-built.  I really want to get a game-capable board, then do as much as I can to make it a monster, even though I'm not involved in the gaming arena, under the concept that if it'll handle games of today's flavour, cad & video will be fairly easy, and normal day-to-day tasks should be a snap.  'Course, may be wrong about that, too, but at least it'll be fun.

That said, my current need, while not immediately pressing, i.e., doesn't have to be ready tomorrow, denies the leisure of DIY solutions.  Maybe OK for a hard-core hardware guy, but I just don't yet have the requisite skill set to accomplish the goal in a timely manner  .

So, regardless the merit(s) of your suggestion, I must forgo it and opt for the somewhat galling quick fix  .

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General Software Discussion / Re: Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« Last post by barney on November 28, 2009, 05:51 PM »

Yep,

Yer both right ... however, being correct does not put appropriate slots on my motherboard .  And, indeed, I'd much prefer the dual card option for several reasons not related to price, but - alas - that is not to be.  Likewise, it'll be a while yet before I can get a 64-bit machine  .

So I'm pretty much stuck with a single card, and it'll have to fit the slot of the current one at that ... guess I should open the box to see what kind of slot it's using.

I'm budgeted for up to $1K, so the ATI you mentioned is definitely worth checking.  My problem so far has been getting user reviews, not the price.  Time was that I'd go for the high dollar unit on the assumption that it would be the best performer, but I've been disabused of that concept for decades ... seems life was so much simpler when I was so much younger  .

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General Software Discussion / Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« Last post by barney on November 28, 2009, 02:48 PM »

Not certain this is the right place, but don't see anything obvious for hardware issues.  If this needs to be moved - it prolly does - no problem.

I've found myself in a position such that I need a 3rd monitor.  (Don't ask, it's a long story  .)

Currently have an nVidia 7300 GS card, with two outputs, been working fine, even with the switch to Windows 7.

However, while searching for video cards with 4-8 outputs (3-4 would be ideal), I cannot seem to find any legitimate reviews, performance analyses, & the like.

So, anyone have experience, a preference, in regard to such cards?  The leader, at least in find frequency, seems to be Matrox, with ATI next, but w/o valid reviews, it's awkward to decide.

Not a game player, so don't need WoW capability or the like, but this may involve a lot of graphic/video work.  Running Win7, 32-bit, at least until I get a newer system.  2.8G Intel dual-core CPU, 3G RAM.  Suppose the card should have a pretty strong GPU, but that'll have to be balanced against price/performance, I'd think.  It'll need at least 1920x1200 resolution & 3 - heads? - outputs, and I'd really like to keep it as far under $1,000 as possible.

I don't mind spending the coin, but at the prices I've seen, don't think I can afford to experiment very much.

'Preciate any feedback.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Need audio driver(s) for SigmaTel in Windows 7 ...

« Last post by barney on November 28, 2009, 10:24 AM »

New update.

The previous fix worked until reboot.  Did not work a 2nd time  .

Ran across Device Doctor - including a portable version -DeviceDoctor Portable - Repair Tool of the Week (http://www.technibbl...ir-tool-of-the-week/) at Technibble, free, and supports Win7.

Tried that.  Program ran, then downloaded the driver(s) I needed - had a little trouble connecting to the Web, but otherwise ran fine.  It doesn't install things, just downloads them and lets you do the install, which I like.  The site maintains its own database and stores the drivers locally, rather than trotting off to a vendor site.

Survived one reboot & one hibernation ... maybe it's fixed this time.

Anyway, the Device Doctor app looks a promising addition to my troubleshooting USB stick.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Need audio driver(s) for SigmaTel in Windows 7 ...

« Last post by barney on November 26, 2009, 11:56 AM »

Update.

Finally got an older version of the driver installation software to run.  Installed v5.10.4487 of the SigmaTel drivers.  Still don't know why the drivers went away to start with, but audio is back.  Seems funny that the Vista-capable installer won't work, but an XP version will.

Anyway, the issue is resolved - for now <sigh />.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Need audio driver(s) for SigmaTel in Windows 7 ...

« Last post by barney on November 26, 2009, 01:34 AM »

Hi:

You most likely need this:
 (see attachment in previous post)
Download from this link:

http://support.gatew...Driver%206.10.5405.0

Luck!

-40hz (November 24, 2009, 10:08 PM)

Thx, 40Hz, but that's the one that gave me an error ... not the correct audio drive for this system <sigh />.

Tried several others, to no avail.  This is really pulling my cork <groan />.

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General Software Discussion / Need audio driver(s) for SigmaTel in Windows 7 ...

« Last post by barney on November 24, 2009, 09:00 PM »

OK,

Disaster just struck.  Restarted Win7, & the audio drivers won't load ... been working fine under Win7RC and even under Win7 for the last week or so.  However when I attempt to reload the drivers, Win7 says the installer won't work - even though it did before <sigh />.  Thought I needed to download new drivers, but having a damnable time finding the right download.  Win7 won't identify the sound card, just tells me it's high definition.  None of the hardware recognition & listing software I've used in the past tells me anything more.  Finally reinstalled Belarc Advisor, and it tells me the sound card is SigmaTel, Inc. - C-Major Audio Version 1.0.5405.0 nd574 .  Unfortunately, I can't use that to find the appropriate codecs on Gateway or SigmaTel site(s).

Box is a Gateway GT5064, 2.8 G cpu, 3 G ram, terabyte drives, sound card embedded on motherboard, if any of that is significant.

W/O sound, I lose a significant portion of usability, i.e., alerts, warnings, audio & video tutorials, voice chat, teleconferencing ... you get the picture.

Does anyone have any idea how to counteract this situation?

(Actually, I was pretty fond of Win7 up until now, in spite of a few unwarranted - to my mind - restrictions.)

Please help if you can ... I'm open to just about any suggestion (no, not Linux ... that's on another partition <chortle />.)

1238

General Software Discussion / Looking for tutorial material on CSS and on smarphone web design ...

« Last post by barney on November 24, 2009, 12:54 PM »

Folk,

I'm in need of two things.  The first one is a decent tutorial, preferably online or PDF, on CSS and browser(s) interaction.  Used to have one, but it got lost due to an EMF surge, and I don't recall the Web site where I obtained it.  Been searching last three or four days, but nothing I've found quite fits the bill.  This is for a tyro who is familiar with HTML, but new to CSS ... he's mostly cut-and-paste for JavaScript stuff, as well.  He's coming to me for help - that's OK - but it's all over the phone, and he's having a hard time understanding some of the concepts.

The second thing is material - online or book(s) - on how to build/adapt a Web page to reasonably display on a smartphone.  Should be generic, not phone specific.  I've recently been told by one of my clients that they need their stuff phone-capable.  Since my forte is database & back-end design, I need to get up to speed on smartphone Web development.  A Google search on smartphone web development provides some twenty-six million plus pages, but no real instruction so far - still looking - so I though I'd broach the matter here, since  I've seen more real help on DC than on any other forum, even ones dedicated to a particular topic.

Oh, did find one book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but it's pre-release, and didn't find anything on O'Reilly.

'Preciate any assistance.

1239

Developer's Corner / Re: Partition manager for Win7?

« Last post by barney on November 15, 2009, 08:15 PM »

Thx, nudone,

Somehow I over-looked the lifehacker bit - need to make them a permanent reference addition, I guess.
Sorry to be so long getting back, but it took most of a day - and a beer or three - to recover connectivity ... hell of a time for backup machine to die, but to paraphrase Murphy - or Occam's Razor? - when you need it most, it will work least.
Tha's pretty much why I wanted the partition manager, so I'd still have connectivity whilst modification of the new install was in play.

Oh, well ... just as an update, after upgrading, Easeus installed quite nicely.  However the upgrade pretty well made a hash of many of the config settings I'd imposed, and some of those settings seem to have moved <chortle />.  Thought wireless/internet was a goner, but got lucky, i.e., stumbled over the right config area while casting about desperately <chuckle />.

'Preciate the help and the reference/reminder.

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Developer's Corner / Partition manager for Win7?

« Last post by barney on November 12, 2009, 10:34 PM »

Folk,
I'm looking for a partition manager that will work with Windows 7.  Sorry if I'm in the wrong place, but not certain where to put this.
I've tried

• PC Wizard (free) - abominably slow, and does not show hard drive(s), only CD/DVD & thumb drives
• Easeus (free) - won't install, the ubiquiitous Error 5:  Access is denied
• Partition Magic - old, v8.0 - never gets out of autorun
• GParted - Live CD - never implements
• couple of other home-grown elements

I need to merge a couple of partitions on an HD in order to install Win7, then move appropriate files from the RC version to the paid version.
Or, if there is a way to simply upgrade the RC version w/o losing installed software and data, that would work, but haven't found that.
TIA, barn.

1241

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Memory usage pie-charter

« Last post by barney on October 27, 2009, 02:23 PM »

Me, too ... that's why I said marginally useful .  Might work on a gaming machine - might! - but the app would show using most of the resources, pretty well invalidating its purpose.

To my mind, most useful would be one minute, 5 minute, & 15 minute summaries ... one minute to show spikes, the others to show trends.  Hopefully, such an app would create one or more log files, then have a GUI to display the files as required.

Tried doing something like this with VB3/5 & the Win API many years back, but could never get it to work consistently, so couldn't trust the output.

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Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Memory usage pie-charter

« Last post by barney on October 27, 2009, 01:10 AM »

You're not the only one, but there doesn't seem to be any such beast currently in existence <sigh />.

Capability might include memory per process, bandwidth (where applicable) per process, disk activity (read/write) per process, network activity (not bandwidth) per process, and a few others - 2 or 3 - that I cannot recall at the moment.

Ideally, 'twould show real time (marginally useful) or increments such as 1-2-5-10-15-60 minutes.  'Twould also, ideally, be selectable for the highest 5 or 10 processes.

Such a tool would be invaluable in long-term analysis of persistent problems/bottlenecks.  I used something similar on a DEC VAX system years agone for network server & disk activity, but cannot find that one any more, much less a Windows-capable one.

Hey, ideally, it would be (shudder) Java-based, thus multi-platform, eh?  Oh, yeah, it would have to be sparse on system resources, or it would report itself as the top user in most categories <ouch! />, and might affect reporting on other processes.

Addendum:  one of the forgotten ones is some measure of GPU usage or graphics activity per process.

Been looking for this - these? - for a decade, now, but no luck yet, and not smart enough to create on my own <bigger sigh />.

One hint might be the NeXuS dock - hover the cursor over the CPU icon, and it will display a pop-up showing the highest-usage process at that time along with the percentage of usage - usually Firefox for me.

1243

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I download or record streaming audio

« Last post by barney on September 12, 2009, 06:11 PM »

Quick edit.

Fire.fm just lets me play music from last.fm from a Firefox toolbar ... DownloadHelper is the piece that actually does the download.

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General Software Discussion / Re: How can I download or record streaming audio

« Last post by barney on September 12, 2009, 06:08 PM »

patteo,

I've been having pretty good success with a Firefox add-on, DownloadHelper, for both music and video streams.  You can find it at https://addons.mozil...S/firefox/addon/3006.  It seems to be in active development, last update 2009-08-18, current version 4.6.2.

The extension is free, but there is a pay-for conversion mode to change format during the download ... have not tried that, as yet.  Been pulling down stuff from last.fm with another extension, Fire.fm, v1-2-5, from https://addons.mozil...S/firefox/addon/7684

Might be worth a try to see if it'll do what you wish.  Tried it because I was having the same problem, jerky sound during play.

1245

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a process monitor that may not exist ...

« Last post by barney on September 09, 2009, 03:21 PM »

Yeah, bgd77,

I'd forgotten about the Data Collector Sets ... got excited when first I ran across 'em.  However, apart from being somewhat less than intuitive to set up [design], there's still the overhead involved with running perfmon/resmon ... a pretty big resource hit, and one that can lock/crash the system if you're running close to the edge on resources when the scheduled task loads.  Guess that's why I pushed it out of my mind ... lost too much work from that kind of crash.

Granted, the reporting is comprehensive, but the overhead just isn't worth the return in most cases - and portability pretty well falls by the wayside.

1246

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a process monitor that may not exist ...

« Last post by barney on September 09, 2009, 09:43 AM »

Yep.  It works well, but still runs in real-time.  (Haven't tried running it from command line, though.) 

For disk I/O, it provides a lot of data, including right now reads/second & writes/second, as well as average reads/writes for last minute and disk response time, all by process.

For CPU, it provides current usage by process as well as average usage over the last 60 seconds, amongst other things.

It has similar reporting for traffic & memory.

However, barring possible command-line usage, it does not provide a log, and it does not provide aggregation, except for per/minute or last 60 seconds.  If I can redirect its output to a log, I suppose I could cobble something together to extract and aggregate data, but that doesn't make it very useful as a take-along trouble-shooting tool.

Oh, yeah ... perfmon & resmon are pretty high on the list of resource usage - averages ~20% CPU on my box, and has been know to go as high as 40%.  That's a bit larger Heisenberg bite than I'd like <chortle />.

I'll check, though, to see if command line usage might allow logging.

1247

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a process monitor that may not exist ...

« Last post by barney on September 08, 2009, 08:56 PM »

MilesAhead:  Yeah, SysInternals give me a lot of info ... it's just scattered out over multiple apps/utilities.

f0dder:  Maybe I made this sound more desperate as a situation than it is.  I do get BSODs, but that's from a known driver problem that has yet to be addressed by the vendor ... not a biggie.  The usual code is 0x00...0A, and I checked the dump(s) - that's how I isolated the driver issue - but just can't fix that until the vendor gets off their [collective] butt and addresses it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is more a pipe dream than a gotta fix it now.

I've been looking for such a thing, off and on, ever since I was exposed to the VAX/VMS logger.  There are utilities that do a lot of what I want, but they're all single-purpose, and damned few of 'em include logging over time.  Not looking for a magic bullet, but I would like to find something that would load the gun, so to speak.

What I'd like to find, if it exists, is a tool that will display/log conflicts averaged over a [specified] time span for most of the significant conflict areas.  Since I'm the go-to for a number of folk, I'd like something a bit more concrete than, "What did the message say?  I dunno, I just clicked the button to get it out of the way."  The event logs & system logs help, but a lot of preliminary stuff doesn't get logged, just the end result.  A system dump is all well and good, but it doesn't say whattranspired prior to the dump, just the machine state at the time of the dump.  I want tracks.

I've even considered using a key logger on a coupla folk, but that still wouldn't tell me what happened, and it's just a bit short of ethical <sigh />.

Just wishful thinkin' I guess.  (But as long as I'm wishin', be nice if this tool would run from a thumb drive, as well.)

1248

General Software Discussion / Looking for a process monitor that may not exist ...

« Last post by barney on September 08, 2009, 01:34 PM »

Folk,

Warning:  this may get a bit long.

I'm trying to find a process monitor that shows usages in near-real-time. 

It should show usage aggregates for 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes ...

Ideally 'twould show CPU activity, Disk I/O activity, RAM activity, GPU/graphics activity, traffic activity, maybe a few others, and log such as well as actively display.

Rationale.

Currently running Win7 RC (but have had similar problems with 2K/XP), and I'm running into periodic lockups.  Some are obviously CPU related, but others are not.  There tend to be three symptoms, although not always concurrent:  jerky, erratic cursor control; window/screen refresh issues;  hard disk i/o or network traffic issues.  I know - ? - that some of the lockups are GPU related, and suspect that some are read/write related.  (On the GPU side, I've enabled/disabled Aero, to no avail.)

There are a number of tools that will show real-time usage, but the changes tend to be too fast for these old eyes to record.  Back in the corporate world, a decade ago, there was a utility on a DEC LAN - VMS? - that would log activity history for CPU, disk i/o, & traffic.  I've yet to find any such tool for the current Windows world.  Thought I might find something cross-platform at FreshMeat, but, alas, that seems fated not to be.

So ... anyone have a reference to any such tool(s)?

1249

General Software Discussion / Re: How big is the HTML 'hidden' field?

« Last post by barney on August 11, 2009, 01:45 PM »

I'd love it if PHP5 were available, but I have to work within the limits of the client's hosting.  According to her, the host has no immediate plans to upgrade PHP.  Caution when upgrading is understandable, but this seems a bit extreme.  Oh, well ... who am I to say?

Anyway, thanks for the help.  Now I have belt and suspenders <chortle />.

1250

General Software Discussion / Re: How big is the HTML 'hidden' field?

« Last post by barney on August 11, 2009, 01:40 PM »

OK,

I have a workaround.  Add another textarea with DISPLAY:none.  Not wild about it, but should be functional.  Still like to know those upper limits, though <sigh />.