Recent Posts

126

General Software Discussion / Re: Cause of Vista crashes

« Last post by Rover on March 28, 2008, 02:50 PM »

Gee, weren't they blaming Intel last month?

Microsoft execs saw problems with early Vista

Microsoft and PC makers used "Windows Vista Capable" stickers in an attempt to maintain sales of Windows XP machines during the 2006 holiday shopping season, after Windows Vista's retail release was delayed to early 2007. The internal e-mails reveal an extensive debate inside Microsoft over the hardware specifications needed to qualify.

One message points to chip maker Intel Corp., a key Microsoft partner, to explain the decision to lower the requirements a piece of hardware needed to qualify for the "Windows Vista Capable" designation.

Maybe they should follow Apple's lead and use their own hardware. 

127

General Software Discussion / Re: Monster Cables- The World should know!

« Last post by Rover on March 27, 2008, 12:51 PM »

But boy, there sure is something in the way that Gibson writes about his stuff that really sets some people off.

Yes, the way he writes... the way he sometimes claim to have invented new stuff... his self-importance... and the way the whole choir of believers just swallow the whole load without questioning.

-f0dder (March 26, 2008, 11:16 AM)

I suppose so.  I think some of that is how you read it.  It is advertising ya know. 

I just went and looked at the SpinRite 6 FAQ's.  They seem to be fairly up front.  Works with SMART, won't low-level format.  30-Day NQA $ back.  *shurg*

128

General Software Discussion / Re: Monster Cables- The World should know!

« Last post by Rover on March 26, 2008, 10:03 AM »

Hirudin: please don't bring spinrite into this, it's snake-oil , and mr. Gibson only has buzzwords and "it's super secret advanced tech!" to say, nothing quantitative.

-f0dder (March 22, 2008, 01:27 PM)

Slightly off Topic.  Just wanted to call BS on your snake-oil comment.  Spinerite actually does work in some cases.  I have used it to recover 1 or 2 drives.  See the article here:PC World Mag

Fortunately, SpinRite 6 is less ambiguous when it encounters a distressed drive. I put the app to work on four magnetically damaged floppy disks, and it lit up the screen with flashing graphics as it worked to recover my data. It saved three of the four.

SpinRite 6 is no substitute for regular backups. Still, having the software around for maintenance--and knowing it's there in an emergency--makes it worth the price.

-Rover (March 25, 2008, 02:52 PM)

heh.. no I didn't write the article.  Look, I never claimed Spinrite is the world's greatest software.   I am familiar with SMART and I know that new drives should be able to deal with things much better than my old ESDI & MFM drives did.  And I never suggested Spinrite in lieu of backups; that'd be freakin' nuts.

I'm just saying that it has saved a few "near death" drives that I know of and I seriously doubt it's total BS.  You may think $89 is too much for what it does (or doens't) do, but that's a different issue.

In a perfect world, we'd all near instant backups of all our data and a dead drive would be a trivial issue;  Replace drive, restore data, resume work.

129

Living Room / Re: So how long IS too long for a thread.

« Last post by Rover on March 25, 2008, 03:02 PM »

1) How long is considered to be too long for a thread?

when it's one post longer than your own personal interest in it. 

-mouser (March 25, 2008, 02:42 PM)

Funny, but true.  Depending on the goal of the forum*, as long as more than two people are participating and enjoying the thread, carry on.  Two people can do the same thing in email without taking up our internet space, if only 1 person is talking it's called a blog.   

*If the goal is to build a knowledge base, anything over 5 pages is too long.  Very few people will venture into something over 100 posts, so the information will be unusable.

130

General Software Discussion / Re: Monster Cables- The World should know!

« Last post by Rover on March 25, 2008, 02:52 PM »

Hirudin: please don't bring spinrite into this, it's snake-oil , and mr. Gibson only has buzzwords and "it's super secret advanced tech!" to say, nothing quantitative.

-f0dder (March 22, 2008, 01:27 PM)

Slightly off Topic.  Just wanted to call BS on your snake-oil comment.  Spinerite actually does work in some cases.  I have used it to recover 1 or 2 drives.  See the article here:PC World Mag

Fortunately, SpinRite 6 is less ambiguous when it encounters a distressed drive. I put the app to work on four magnetically damaged floppy disks, and it lit up the screen with flashing graphics as it worked to recover my data. It saved three of the four.

SpinRite 6 is no substitute for regular backups. Still, having the software around for maintenance--and knowing it's there in an emergency--makes it worth the price.

131

Living Room / Re: Comic Strip Generator (and March Caption Contest Announcement!)

« Last post by Rover on March 25, 2008, 02:26 PM »

Cody: ... and then I was talking Alan and he said. ... blah blah blah..
Mouser: One of these days bird... POW! right in the kisser.

132

Official Announcements / Re: March 2008 Discounts and Shareware Giveaway

« Last post by Rover on March 25, 2008, 02:21 PM »

mouser at 'em.

133

Living Room / Re: So how long IS too long for a thread.

« Last post by Rover on March 25, 2008, 02:20 PM »

Don't let 'em get to you suberboyac.       

134

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Office 2007 users, your opinions are wanted

« Last post by Rover on March 14, 2008, 10:44 AM »

I have Outlook 2007 at work.  I'm not sure what it does any different than Outlook 2000.  It looks different, but that's about it.  Oh, I can create business card looking signatures.  Woo hoo.

As far as Word goes, I haven't actually used the 2007 version, but I haven't seen anything in the last 3 or 4 versions that were compelling reasons to change.  If anything, they decrease productivity while you re-learn how MS wants you to do things. 

Overall, I'd still rather use WordPerfect 5.1      It was fast and efficient; it let you type for content w/o worrying about formatting up front (The correct process IMHO) and then allowed for easy formatting of your text.  I suppose easy is a relative term and depends on the person.  Plus it had "User Friendly" stamped right on the box, does Office 2007 have that?!!

135

Living Room / Re: My daughter needs to interview a computer programmer for a school report...

« Last post by Rover on March 13, 2008, 04:10 PM »

Hey Gally,

Does this need to be an in-person interview or will over the 'Net work?

I'm not currently working as a programmer, but there are many fine folks here that make a living (or at least beer money) programming. 

You've probably come to the right place. 

136

General Software Discussion / Re: What’s this "Linux" thing and why should i try it?

« Last post by Rover on March 13, 2008, 11:52 AM »

(OS/2 and XP are cousins you know... maybe brothers even)

I'd say a bit more distant than cousins - it's true that Microsoft worked along on OS/2, ditched it, and then went off to do NT, pulling in Dave Cutler of VMS fame... but it wasn't like MS just grabbed the OS/2 code and ran, and based NT on that

-f0dder (March 13, 2008, 11:37 AM)

Actually, it's more like that than you think.  I used to run OS/2 v 2.1 apps under NT 4.0.  NT uses OS/2 variable in the environment settings.  The XP Kernel is just a tweaked version of NT, right?  (I could be wrong)

Currently, my biggest problem with XP is that freaking registry.  What a f*ed concept that is....  Bloatware is #2 on the "windows things that suck" list.

The registry is a good idea (as opposed to a zillion different config file formats placed a zillion different locations), it's just heavily mis-used.

-f0dder (March 13, 2008, 11:37 AM)

As opposed to a zillion config files all over the place, yes.  As opposed to a sane process of keeping your app and config files to your own directory structure, no, it is not. 

There are about 236 other ways of handling config files, 96% of which are better than the registry as implemented by M$.
(These are precise numbers BTW  )

137

General Software Discussion / Re: Has the browser become more important than the OS?

« Last post by Rover on March 13, 2008, 11:46 AM »

History repeats itself again and again.  I have a computer magazine from 1970; it has an ad for a new mini computer that has integrated email, word processing and spreadsheet capabilities. Databases were things for the IT dept. then.  Apple introduced the "first" integrated office suite in the 1980's.  MS did it again a few years later.  What's new since 1970? Not much.

The PC sparked a "revolution" because "users" could write their own programs.  This was important since IT took so long to write anything and make it productive. Of course once we started depending on these "user" (distributed) applications, we had centralize them and make them work for the whole company, not just one dept.  If you've been around IT long, you've seen the constant expansion and contraction of IT resources; distribute, centralize, repeat.

The web is another example of this same process... with more pictures.

As far as MS (or anyone else) developing a Web OS (where the local OS is just a conduit to the Internet) I don't think it will work until you eliminate hackers and viruses.  What reasonable person would trust their personal and/or financial information to the a server living on the 'Net full time?  Not on today's Internet.

138

General Software Discussion / Re: What’s this "Linux" thing and why should i try it?

« Last post by Rover on March 13, 2008, 11:31 AM »

I've been "playing" with Linux since 1995 or so and have yet to move to it full time.  I moved from DOS + Win 3.11 (for workgroups) to OS/2 3.0 in about 1 day.  Tweaked it over the next month and used the heck out of it for a long time.  I moved from there to XP. (OS/2 and XP are cousins you know... maybe brothers even)

Using lots of little tweaks, I have XP running about like I want, with a cmd line available as needed (seldom). 

Currently, my biggest problem with XP is that freaking registry.  What a f*ed concept that is....  Bloatware is #2 on the "windows things that suck" list.

I'd love to move to Linux and continue to look for the distro. that will let me.  I will not spend two months tweaking sound, video, codec installation, etc.  I'm even willing to consider OSX given it's BSD base and Intel architecture these days.  I know that my same email and browser apps seem to run better on Linux (Thunderbird, Firefox) and I'm willing to bet my overall system performance will be better.    I just really don't want to spend the rest of my computer life compiling drivers, a new kernel, etc.

Linux Mint and Mandrake 2008 Spring (currently in beta) look to be good candidates.  Time will tell.

139

Official Announcements / Re: Thread about the DonationCoder.com server Shutdown on March 2nd, 2008

« Last post by Rover on March 07, 2008, 09:50 AM »

I felt like I had let down the visitors to this site.  If i don't seem contrite enough at the moment, it's only because in the last 4 days since the server was down i have gradually calmed down from a state of hyperventilation.

-Mouser

Mouser, while I appreciate your humility, I do not hold you or anyone on the DC team responsible for this attack.  To me, that'd be like blaming a rape victim* for their attack.  It's not your fault, we're happy DC is back. 

THANKS FOR ALL YOU DO   

*I am not attempting to equate the two, relax.

140

Official Announcements / Re: The site is now back online (March 6th, 2008)

« Last post by Rover on March 07, 2008, 06:40 AM »

 



Nice work team.  Restoring a site like this from scratch is a major pain, especially after a hack attack.

Great work.   

141

Living Room / Re: The Best Games You've Never Played

« Last post by Rover on February 10, 2008, 11:46 AM »

What?  No mention of Jane of the Jungle?   

-Rover (February 09, 2008, 09:39 PM)

Wasn't it Jill? At least that's what I played

-f0dder (February 10, 2008, 06:48 AM)

  Yes it was Jill.  I had Jill in my head when I typed it... my fingers didn't listen. 

142

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft's "Rich Signature"

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2008, 09:54 PM »

This goes back to 2003/2004. Unfortunately "lingo" edited out the post where he described the whole thing >_<, and I don't know if anybody has that old backups of the forum. A shame, really.

http://www.asmcommun...ex.php?topic=11182.0
http://www.asmcommun...ex.php?topic=14699.0

-f0dder (January 24, 2008, 05:19 AM)

Did you try the Internet Archive?  If it was indexed, there should be a copy there...

143

Developer's Corner / Re: Comments That Make You Smile :)

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2008, 09:49 PM »

This code is released under the IDGARA License, so feel free to use, abuse, destroy or
   ignore as you see fit.  I will not be held responsible for any use you may attempt
   with this software; in fact, assume that it's broken, doesn't work and I am a putz.

   IDGARA roughly translates to: I Don't Give A Rat's Hind End, but I used a short word
   for Hind End.
 

144

Living Room / Re: The Best Games You've Never Played

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2008, 09:39 PM »

What?  No mention of Jane of the Jungle?   

145

Official Announcements / Re: February 2008 Discounts and Shareware Giveaway

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2008, 09:36 PM »

Lucky DC Members!  My system is running well and there is no software on the list that I don't already have directly or similar function.  One less person in the mix, better odds for you. 

Good luck.

146

Living Room / Re: myIPneighbors - site shows you how many other accounts on your shared hostin

« Last post by Rover on February 03, 2008, 01:41 PM »

Excellent find mouser... THANKS!   

147

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Let's Bundle Our Orders For Software995 Toolset

« Last post by Rover on February 01, 2008, 09:08 AM »

Once upon a time I would've joined ye. 

I am already a current owner of the pdf995 suite of products....

148

General Software Discussion / Re: Attention Mod

« Last post by Rover on January 31, 2008, 02:32 PM »

Alt solution:  Add a button to call for help, that when activated changes the Topic Icon to something attention getting.
Pro: Easy to see.  No direct Pressure to participate.  Open to anyone who thinks they are an expert on the topic subject.
Con:  Adds yet another button to the thread.  More passive than originally suggested.

149

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use a light or a dark background in your editor for programming?

« Last post by Rover on January 31, 2008, 01:46 PM »

Using the most awesome Boxer Text Editor with colors as orginally* intended.





* See Turbo Pascal 3.0 

150

General Software Discussion / Re: content management systems (CMS): are they still so bad?

« Last post by Rover on January 31, 2008, 01:40 PM »

CMS's were a lot crappy 1.5 -2 years ago.  Most have gotten much better recently.

I have used Joomla to build a few sites and it is excellent.  It has so many possibilities, the only real down side is the learning curve.  There are 100's of plug-ins available to do  just about anything you want.  It even integrates with Mantis.

It's not perfect, but it is easily extend-able and well supported.