Recent Posts

126

General Software Discussion / Re: Now YOU Can Be the Spyware! =D

« Last post by vlastimil on March 04, 2012, 03:11 AM »

I predict this will not be a successful app. Why? Because there aren't any social features built-in. Every app should have some, it should be connected to Facebook or G+ and let you share your achievements with your friends. Now look, they don't even have a hi-score table. That's outrageous. What sane person would want to play this, invest this great amount of time and remain anonymous? Well, maybe Anonymous... it would be so easy to spam for lulz.

Anyway, this app also surely helped the economy to recover faster and created many jobs. Software developers did their part and now there is a need for lots of trained people to look at junk photos and decide whether to do something or not...

127

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

« Last post by vlastimil on March 03, 2012, 01:47 PM »

Years ago there was such incident with an old IE... There always is a chance of something like this happening again, but not a big one - keeping your software updated and using a non-mainstream browser should lower the chance of infection to a level I have no problem with.

128

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

« Last post by vlastimil on March 02, 2012, 11:07 AM »

Well, I do not use any anti-virus software on a permanent basis and the last problem I had with a virus was many years ago. It is a desktop computer, there is a firewall in the modem and I am the only user. If I had a notebook with wifi and were traveling with it, I would consider using one.

Keeping software updated, not connecting to devices of untrustworthy origin, not opening suspicious email attachments or installing suspicious software, not visiting extremely dangerous web sites (or if then with Opera, because who would bother writing a virus for Opera?) works just fine - no antivirus needed.

129

Living Room / Re: Paypal: Censors in the name of Profit

« Last post by vlastimil on March 01, 2012, 12:04 PM »

Are you sure about this? I don't get charges for sending money but I get 0.99$+3.5% per transaction as receivers fee from paypal.

-mahesh2k (March 01, 2012, 11:43 AM)

I believe it is true, but you must have the Personal account and there are limitations - the sender may only use their PayPal balance, not a credit card. When you have Premier account or "better" there always is the fee. Supposedly you can have both, but I have never tried it and explaining to donors that "if you have some money on PayPal, use this button, if not use that one" would not be feasible.

130

Living Room / Re: Paypal: Censors in the name of Profit

« Last post by vlastimil on February 29, 2012, 03:45 AM »

A comment about the "higher chargebacks" issue -- I really don't know that I believe that -- it sounds like an excuse on paypal's part to me and bullshit.  However, if it is true, the point they seemed to be making is that *THEY* eat costs from such chargebacks because mastercard/visa charge them when that happens.  If this *is* really the case, I think the solution would be to pass on those charges to seller rather than ban the content.

-mouser (February 28, 2012, 08:40 PM)

As far as I know, they are already doing this. When you are selling e-content like e-books or software, you are not eligible for seller protection and chargebacks are paid by you (the seller). It has happened to me. Someone bought a license with (presumably a stolen credit card number, because they were saying that they did not buy) and not only that someone kept a software license, but I was charged an additional 10 USD by PayPal...

131

Living Room / Re: Paypal: Censors in the name of Profit

« Last post by vlastimil on February 28, 2012, 03:37 PM »

Outrageous. I wish someone would fork Bitcoin and fix its problems. We need it SO BADLY.

132

Developer's Corner / Re: Dealing with UAC in portable tools

« Last post by vlastimil on February 27, 2012, 02:45 PM »

That makes sense for everyone, who cares about security. The other sensible setting suitable for more adventurous people is enabling silent elevation for every process - just as secure as the default setting and no prompts.

133

Developer's Corner / Re: Dealing with UAC in portable tools

« Last post by vlastimil on February 27, 2012, 02:29 PM »

UAC in Vista was annoying, but at least it offered some additional protection. I agree that just pressing "OK" button is better than typing a password in Linux.
UAC in Win7 is a joke. In the default mode, Microsoft's application are white-listed and do not show prompts. But it is trivial to manipulate Microsoft's executables into running any code. Hence: Win7 UAC in default mode offers virtually no protection from malware and non-Microsoft tools must show annoying prompts or fail (or exploit the security holes)... You get the worst of both worlds.

134

Developer's Corner / Dealing with UAC in portable tools

« Last post by vlastimil on February 27, 2012, 06:54 AM »

Hi all,

I am not sure if addressing UAC issues in Vista and Win7 interests many of you, but I have finally bitten the bullet and implemented saving to UAC-protected folders in my tools. In the end it was not so hard, but it was not trivial either and it is easy to get stray away while looking for the easiest solution. If you decide you want your software to save to UAC-protected locations (after the user confirms that dreaded dialog box) instead of displaying an error message, you may find my latest blog entry with code snippets useful: http://www.rw-designer.com/entry/531

V.

135

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« Last post by vlastimil on February 23, 2012, 04:48 PM »

I believe the best you can do when you receive similar emails is to hit the Report spam button if your email service has one. Being angry about it is a waste of energy. If you reply to the email, you'll spend much more time than the spammer did filling your email address and domain name into an email template.

Once I did reply to an email, where a person was asking if they may add my web to their directory of web services. Of course it was an attempt to get a link from me. I was in a playful mood and replied and had an amusing conversation (I like playing dumb) but in the end it was just a waste of energy.

Yes, the internet of full of low quality content, be it sponsored blog posts, fake product reviews or link farms disguised as resource directories. They fill a niche in the internet ecosystem. Something has to fill it.

136

Developer's Corner / Re: A myth called the Indian programmer

« Last post by vlastimil on February 15, 2012, 02:06 AM »

They admired my simple apps as if I were some sort of programming goddess.

-app103 (February 14, 2012, 06:05 PM)

I have built both simple (done in less 1 week) and complex (years of work) applications and the simple ones are the winners. More popular, more loved, more often recommended... I am talking about absolute numbers here, if I were to factor in the time needed to build the application, the simple ones would be so far ahead... Picking the right problem to solve with an application and solving it with a simple tool is not as easy as it looks. They were most likely right to seek your advice.

137

Living Room / Re: Could someone convert a .png into an .ico for me?

« Last post by vlastimil on February 11, 2012, 05:32 PM »

Well, I did not say XP and older Windows did not support icons larger than 48x48, I just said that was the typical maximum size. The largest images in built-in Microsoft icons and in 99% of all applications available in that time were 48x48 pixels. The only chance to see a larger image was in Explorer set to Thumbnails view mode as your cute ape icon demonstrates.

138

Living Room / Re: Could someone convert a .png into an .ico for me?

« Last post by vlastimil on February 11, 2012, 12:15 PM »

I see. I would not use such a non-standard .ico file as the main icon of the application.

In the about dialog, it may be OK (on Vista and Win 7) - I would still try to use a .png file for this instead. Not sure how hard it would be with your implementation of the about box.

(Vista actually introduced the 256x256 icons. On XP, the typical max. size was 48x48.)

139

Living Room / Re: Could someone convert a .png into an .ico for me?

« Last post by vlastimil on February 11, 2012, 01:55 AM »

... I wonder what the header does:

[Select]

00 00 01 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 20 00 52 36
06 00 16 00 00 00 [png file starts here]

-Krishean (February 10, 2012, 06:04 PM)

It is the icon header consisting of:
00 00 - marker part 1
01 00 - marker part 2
01 00 - number of images in the .ico file

following the entries for each image in the .ico file (1 in this case):

00 - width (0=256)
00 - height (0=256)
00 - color count (only applies to images with palette)
00 - reserved
01 00 - planes (always 1)
20 00 - color depth in bits (32 in this case)
52 36 06 00 - length of the image data
16 00 00 00 - offset of the image data in the file

As I said before, max. allowed size is 256x256 pixels. This is an invalid .ico file, because the size specified in the header differs from the actual size. Icons usually contain multiple images (that's the point of .ico files) and Windows chooses the best image by looking at the header. Invalid header -> Windows is confused. If you had both 256x256 and 512x512 images in the .ico file, Windows would see them as indistinguishable.

Also, what's the point of having an .ico with 512x512 image instead of plain .png image? I do not think Windows can effectively use it, the icon sizes Explorer and other windows components display are limited to 256x256 pixels anyway.

140

Living Room / Re: Could someone convert a .png into an .ico for me?

« Last post by vlastimil on February 10, 2012, 01:09 PM »

There are no .ico files with 512x512 pixels image size, the .ico file format does not allow this (size is specified by a signle BYTE). Mac .icns icons can have 512x512 images, but they are Mac only of course.

Here is my online converter ( http://www.rw-designer.com/image-to-icon ) - it allows you to specify all the sizes you want (1-256) when you select the "Custom sizes" option.

141

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RealWorld Icon Editor is on BDJ today, 1-29-12

« Last post by vlastimil on January 31, 2012, 04:26 AM »

Thanks. Its over now, but I can be easily persuaded to give away free licenses to active donationcoder members... 

142

Living Room / Re: SOPA: Alt view - You need to be Shakespeare or Picasso to Avoid Content Scraping

« Last post by vlastimil on January 27, 2012, 11:33 AM »

Having content scrapped can make one angry, but SOPA would not help in this case. Your friend would need to get a court order and then the machinery would start moving. US search engines would have to block the domain from their search results, US ad networks would have to stop dealing with the domain, US ISPs would have to block access to that domain. And the scrapper would not really care much. Spammers know their domains will get caught sooner or later and are prepared for that. They have dozens of web sites and when some get banned, they just move on. In short, with SOPA, a lot of effort would be wasted and nothing would be accomplished.

BTW you can send DMCA to Google ( http://www.labnol.or...t/google-dmca/19256/ ) to have the offending URLs removed from search results. Content is scrapped mainly to feed the Google-bot and denying the scrapper their price is the best way to get what you want. This would probably accomplish the most, but I am still not sure it is really worth the effort.

143

Living Room / Re: All-In-One Multi-Touch Computers - Thoughts?

« Last post by vlastimil on January 25, 2012, 05:01 PM »

I recently bought a display with multitouch screen for my grandma and it works reasonably well for her. She usually only does email, voice chat, internet browsing and photo management in Picasa. The touch screen on a PC simplifies some things, but having a real keyboard and mouse attached is a must. Using real keyboard is faster than the on-screen keyboard and a real mouse is more accurate than the touch screen. A good number of PC applications do not work well with touchscreen - the controls are sometimes too tiny, especially when the applications ignore the DPI setting of Windows. Maybe in a few years, the situation will change.

144

General Software Discussion / Re: Buying cheap Vmware from this site, what do you think?

« Last post by vlastimil on January 21, 2012, 04:23 AM »

I would not buy from them. The text on that page is copied from vmware site, according to alexa, they have negligible traffic and the domain is registered on Bahamas.

Anyway, as I software author, I will not allow my software to be sold at permanent discount by a unknown web site and I doubt vmware will, but you can always email them.

145

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Pledge & Release: Image Grid

« Last post by vlastimil on January 16, 2012, 04:31 PM »

I am glad so many of you find it useful. Thanks for the feedback!

146

Living Room / Re: Do things feel different today than in other decades?

« Last post by vlastimil on January 12, 2012, 05:10 AM »

It seems to me like every 20-25 years, the world changes in an unexpected way. Or at least, there is a serious movement that tries to push a change and possibly fails if the powers that be are still too strong. It may be because a new generation matures or maybe because the previous generation (~people who have the power) loses all credibility and becomes disconnected from the reality and focuses on marginal things.

In the nineties, the world has changed significantly. That's over 20 years now. Maybe we will be lucky and something great happens in the very near future. We just need to recognize it and support it, especially if it feels to good to be true.

147

Developer's Corner / Re: Lost My Faith - Need New Religion - Need LAMP Help...

« Last post by vlastimil on January 09, 2012, 06:15 PM »

I have been using VPS with CentOS and LAMP for the last year and had no problems with that setup. Some configuration was needed in the beginning to get the latest PHP and some additional packages, but I managed to do that and I am not a Linux guy, so it is that difficult.

I am also using google to handle email for the domain. All I needed were a few mailboxes that just archive and forward emails. For this task, google mail works OK.

Regarding the open source CMSs, I am not a big fan of those. I played with wordpress and drupal, but they did not fulfill my expectations. My wordpress blog got hacked after not updating it for a while (who wants to update things all the time?). My wordpress blog and my drupal site are almost invisible and they still get tons of automated spam. Also, because of the complexity of wordpress and drupal, I do not have the feeling I am in control. The systems are too complex and too much time is needed to learn to customize them and to eventually do some plug-ins. Still, if you do not want to make a custom CMS, wordpress is probably the way to go, but be prepared for the spam.

148

Screenshot Captor / Re: Request: "File -> Open" command for editor

« Last post by vlastimil on January 06, 2012, 12:03 PM »

A shameless plug, I cannot resist, sorry  . I believe my freeware image editor (RealWorld Paint) can offer the crop functionality you are looking for thanks to its command line interface:
1. open an image
2. type or paste the prepared command line to the area near the bottom of the window, for example: DrawTool.CROP(Document, 0, 0, 655, 342);
3. move it around with mouse
4. apply the command (with a down right mouse gesture or by right clicking and selecting Apply from a context menu or by pressing Enter while the canvas has input focus)

149

Developer's Corner / Re: Why would brand new software NOT work with Unicode? / Challenges

« Last post by vlastimil on January 05, 2012, 09:24 AM »

Just few random thoughts:
* Is unicode supported by default in the used development tool? If not, and someone may not bother with the switch.
* From what I have heard, Windows 98 is still relatively widespread in some countries and unicode support on W9x is problematic.
* There is UCS16, UTF8 and other flavors. Dealing with all of them may be fiddly.

150

Living Room / Re: Google Breaking its Rules?

« Last post by vlastimil on January 04, 2012, 11:47 AM »

Here is a response: https://plus.google....02/posts/NAWunDzJSHC