Recent Posts

1301

General Software Discussion / Re: The Windows Apps You Never Need To Install

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 25, 2008, 04:14 PM »

As far as codec packs go, I'm not sure about whether or not they're really 'sketchy' or useless (though I haven't installed one because of rumors or indications that some might be malware infected, so I guess I consider them sketchy), but Microsoft really dropped the ball on this.  I'm not sure how dealing with various audio/video formats should work, but I'll tell you what - it seems like more than half the time I get a non-YouTube video link or file from from someone and try to play it, I'll get:

• some message about not having the right codec, but no decent indication of what I need or where to get it
• sound but no image
• image but no sound

YouTube's use of the Flash video format has largely fixed this problem (I guess by making that format a defacto standard), but codec problems are a big thumbs down for me, and I fix the blame squarely on Microsoft for pushing that complexity on to *me* - someone who knows squat about the technology and whose interest in the technology extends exactly zero beyond being able to push a play button and have the stuff actually play.

1302

General Software Discussion / Re: HowTo EASILY create image backup?

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 17, 2008, 10:11 AM »

And you can get a free OEM version of True Image 10 that works only if your machine has a Seagate or Maxtor drive:

https://www.donation...39.msg62502#msg62502

1303

General Software Discussion / Re: Backup4All FTP Problems

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 17, 2008, 10:05 AM »

Are you using Passive mode FTP (http://www.backup4al...m/passive-mode.php)?  Passive mode works much better when going through a NAT router.   
 

1304

Living Room / Re: British money is about to get really cool

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 16, 2008, 12:29 AM »

Silly Brits! Measuring things in a way that makes sense! 

-Deozaan (April 15, 2008, 10:10 PM)

The metric system is the tool of the devil!  My car gets forty rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.  (Abe Simpson)

1305

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 13, 2008, 10:02 PM »

Check out Tomato, Sveasoft Talisman or DD-WRT for alternative firmware possibilities.

For what it's worth, I've been running DD-WRT v23 SP1 Final  and it's been rock solid.  I used to have to occasionally reboot my WRT54G, but not with DD-WRT.

And my 'server' is just a retired desktop machine.

1306

General Software Discussion / Re: FTP Client - freeware with scheduler

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 10, 2008, 11:59 PM »

I'm not familiar with Fresh FTP, so can't comment.  I'm not aware of any free software that's mainly an FTP client that has a built-in scheduler; it's just a happy coincidence that the SyncBack backup program lets you backup/sync to an FTP destination.

As far as FTP goes, I like FileZilla because it's free, it supports secure transfers, and it supports proxies (which I need at work) - as long as you stick with the 2.x versions.  The 3.x version is apparently a complete rewrite; as far as I can tell does not support proxies, and it seems that the main developer is really not interested in supporting them.  So I'm sticking with version 2.x, which gets the job done.

FWIW (I know you didn't mention secure transfers, but...) the only other free FTP client that I'm aware of that supports secure transfers is CoreFTP (http://www.coreftp.com).

1307

General Software Discussion / Re: FTP Client - freeware with scheduler

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 10, 2008, 11:41 AM »

I'm not 100% certain, but I think that the freeware version of SyncBack (http://www.2brightsp...re/freeware-hub.html) supports both FTP and scheduling.

1308

Found Deals and Discounts / Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 released for free

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 08, 2008, 01:20 PM »

Ashampoo have released the full version of their Burning studio 6 (version 6.61) for free:

http://www.download....2646_4-10776287.html

or

http://www.ashampoo....gstudio6_free_sm.exe

Apparently version 6 lacks the ability to burn DVD Video, bootable CDs, and multi-session CDs  which is in Version 7.  Strange thing is, they are still selling version 6 for $20; maybe they haven't gotten the website fully updated.

1309

General Software Discussion / Re: GAOTD & Virus

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 07, 2008, 07:25 PM »

The rewards of downloading software from GAOTD are not great enough for me to plunge into accepting products when I have no idea what's in the box. I have downloaded a few and usually usually dumped them within hours of installing.

-Cuffy (April 07, 2008, 06:38 PM)

So, your experiences with GAOTD involve software that wasn't worthwhile.  This is quite different from GAOTD being a source for malware-infested offerings.

1310

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Find and remove duplicate files

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 07, 2008, 02:18 PM »

Quite important as the base price of Double Killer Pro is half that of Clone Tools and it has also recently been available here with a 30% discount.

-Dormouse (April 07, 2008, 10:17 AM)

Something to point out that is important for me (and I'm sure others on this forum):  Double Killer Pro is licensed per-computer.  Clone Tools is licensed per-user, so I can legally use it to clean up all my machines with a single license.

The Double Killer Pro per-machine license restriction was a deal killer for me.  Also, Double Killer Pro is same price as Clone Tools if you use it for non-personal (ie., business or gov't) use.

Still, I hope PilotMan takes the hint about a DC discount...

1311

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 06, 2008, 01:37 AM »

I believe that the descript.ion comment area is present in files on any NTFS drive.

-J-Mac (April 06, 2008, 12:36 AM)

descript.ion files are not standard Windows things - they were invented (I think) by JPSoft for their 4DOS product and have become a sort of third-party file manager standard of sorts:

http://www.jpsoft.com/ascii/descfile.txt

1312

General Software Discussion / Re: Power Desk 7

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 03, 2008, 02:05 PM »

They don't seem to provide a trial, do they?  My suggestion would be to not worry about the upgrade unless you're looking for one of the items they list as new for v7:

• Vista compatibility
• Hex editing
• File notes remain attached to files when the file is moved
• improved image toolbar

You can find a 50% discount ($40 discounted to $20) using this link:

http://www.shop.avan...Q_US_EM_PD7_SUP_0408

I was hoping that the AFFPD7 or NEWVC35 promo codes would give an additional discount, but they don't seem to work for me when I use the above link.

Edit:  if the above link stops working, the discount code UPGPD7 seems to give a $20 discount, too.

1313

Developer's Corner / Re: Javascript regular expression to grab filename from URI

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 02, 2008, 07:21 PM »

The %20 should be replaced with spaces (not entirely sure why they are %20s in the first place, but they are!)

-Ampa (April 02, 2008, 12:43 PM)

Strictly speaking, a URL that's passed to a web server should not have spaces in it (but most browsers and web servers deal with them fine anyway).  You can use javascript's decodeURI() function to convert the %20's (or other encoded characters that might be in the string) to their unencoded form.

1314

Living Room / Re: 25 interesting things that you learn about computers only in the movies

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 02, 2008, 04:30 PM »

Maybe Microsoft transmitted a Windows iso along with those SETI signals?

-Edvard (April 02, 2008, 03:42 PM)

Serves those aliens right if they were using a pirated copy of Windows!  I guess that by preventing them from being properly patched, "Windows Genuine Advantage" actually did some good for once.

1315

Living Room / Re: How to install a driver in XP Setup without a floppy drive ???

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 02, 2008, 03:23 PM »

Oh, and I should mention that some computer OEMs will send you an XP 'downgrade' CD if you request it.  Not all will, and those that will may not do it for all models, but it's probably worth an inquiry.

1316

Living Room / Re: How to install a driver in XP Setup without a floppy drive ???

« Last post by mwb1100 on April 02, 2008, 03:20 PM »

I ran into a similar problem helping my father-in-law to 'downgrade' to XP from Vista.  It turned out that having the driver installed on the XP CD-ROM was not the solution to his problem - I had to go into the BIOS setup and change some setting on the SATA drive controller.  This was an HP Desktop computer, but maybe something similar will apply to your setup.

I don't recall the exact terminology for the setting, but it had something to do with turning on SATA IDE emulation or turning off SATA native mode or something (gee, I'm not sure how helpful I'm being here...).

This CNET thread gives the general idea:  http://forums.cnet.c...mp;messageID=2665617

If you do really need a driver for the XP install, the 'F6' portion of XP setup can only deal with floppies that can be accessed via the BIOS routines, so you'll need to either get a USB Floppy that can be accessed by the installer (not all BIOSes support this) or you need to build an XP Setup CD-ROM that has the driver integrated into it so the setup will find the driver without having to go through the 'F6' bit.  You can use using something like nLite to do this: 

http://www.raymond.c...-into-windows-xp-cd/


Note that I went the nLite-integrated driver route initially on my in-law's machine, but that didn't help.  The XP driver needed the SATA interface to be set up by the BIOS correctly, after that the standard XP drivers worked just fine (I didn't need the nLite customized version).

1317

General Software Discussion / Re: DLLRegisterServer missing too often. What to do?

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 28, 2008, 01:42 PM »

Which DLLs do you find this problem?  Note that not all DLLs will have the DLLRegisterServer entry point - only DLLs that implement services used via COM will have it. Non-COM-based DLLs get found by a convoluted search of directories that includes certain well-known directories, the path and the location of the process loading the DLL (and the algorithm for this directory search may well be slightly different between different versions of Windows).

You might just have a problem with your path.

1318

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

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 26, 2008, 10:49 AM »

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.

-Rover (March 26, 2008, 10:03 AM)

I think that this is one of the keys - SpinRite was originally developed back when drives did not have controllers embedded on them - they were more or less dumb heads and platters.  Back then, SpinRite could know exactly what MFM or RLL magnetic flux patterns were being written and where.  There were certain bit patterns that were more magnetically 'difficult' than others, and it was this information that SpinRite would use to determine which sectors were going bad. (Gibson calls this 'Defect Detection Magnetodynamics').

Gibson certainly has a flair for describing that type of technology in mumbo-jumbo, but it wasn't snake oil.  However, since drive technology has changed immensely since the early nineties, SpinRite's techniques are no longer as powerful as they used to be.  While I personally think that SpinRite is no longer a worthwhile purchase, I also don't consider it to be 'snake-oil'.  If nothing else, using it may cause the drive to move a marginal sector to a spare sector sooner than it otherwise would.  Then again, as mentioned, it could cause a failing drive to actually get worse, but I think this true of most any low-level drive utility.  And speaking from experience - it's much nicer (although never really nice) to have a drive fail on your schedule (you've usually taken some preparation for it) than just out of the blue.

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

1319

Living Room / Re: Restating Godwin's Law

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 24, 2008, 06:25 PM »

Unfortunately, I'm having trouble figuring out how SQLNotes can be used to solve this problem...

Maybe someone can chime in with some ideas?

 

1320

Living Room / Re: the award for most clueless pc user ever - my candidate.

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 24, 2008, 09:57 AM »

Having said that I can still open the driver's door on my car with a key but I am instantly deafened by the alarm going off - which can only be turned off with the transmitter - so if the battery is dead ....

-Carol Haynes (March 24, 2008, 05:59 AM)

maybe the designers should get awards for "most clueless...."

-tomos (March 24, 2008, 06:03 AM)

So, does anyone have an idea why car manufacturers include this 'feature' of triggering the alarm when you unlock a car the old-fashioned way?  I can't imagine a reason for this.

1321

Living Room / Re: the award for most clueless pc user ever - my candidate.

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 23, 2008, 08:38 PM »

"Yes Maam, just like in the days before transmitters, just put the key in the lock and turn it."

-oldfart (March 23, 2008, 03:44 PM)

One car in my family's set of cars triggers the alarm when you unlock it the old-fashioned way, which is needlessly annoying. I sometimes do that out of habit because my daily commuter POS is so old it doesn't have a wireless keyfob thingy - I even have to manually crank the windows up and down.

1322

General Software Discussion / Re: Is KGB Archiver a scam?

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 23, 2008, 08:31 PM »

I haven't tried KGB (or even downloaded it), but it seems harsh to even remotely call it a 'scam'.

It's an open-source project that makes some impressive claims about it's compression ratios.  While it might not work as well in your tests as the claims suggest - indeed it may not even be suitable for use (16 hours is a long time to spend compressing) - I think that applying the term 'scam' to software should be reserved for things involving malware or fraud. It should not be used in a situation where a compression utility doesn't perform quite as well as another.

1323

Developer's Corner / Re: c# assignment: Problem with random

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 20, 2008, 12:09 PM »

The trouble is that 90% of the time the two numbers are the same. Occasionally (about 10% of the time) the numbers are different but it is rare. So what am I doing wrong?

-mediaguycouk (March 19, 2008, 05:21 PM)

What's happening is that each time you call "new Random()" you are getting a new sequence of random numbers that are seeded by whatever the .NET framework uses by default (probably a timer).  Since you're getting the new random sequences one after the other very quickly, you're getting multiple random number sequences that have the same seed, and therefore have the same sequence of numbers (and you're only getting the first number from that sequence each time).

If you use just a single instance of the Random class, it will be seeded a single time (by default using the timer or whatever) and each time the Random.Next() method is called on that instance you'll get the next random number in the sequence.

I think that using the default seed is appropriate in this case, so you don't need to mess with seeding the generator (you're already doing that whether you know it or not) - you just need to seed the generator once (which happens in the "new Random()" call) and use that generator instead of creating a new generator each time.

1324

Developer's Corner / Re: c# assignment: Problem with random

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 20, 2008, 09:32 AM »

You're creating a new Random number generator each time you call RandomNumber() - you want to use the same generator for the whole random sequence.  I can't test this out right now because I'm traveling, but if you change the RandomNumber() method to something like:

Code: C# [Select]

1. private int RandomNumber(int min, int max)
2. {
3.     static Random random = new Random();
4.     return random.Next(min, max);
5. }

You'll get a single instance of the Random generator that gets used for the entire random number sequence.

1325

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Generic.dx Trojan detected

« Last post by mwb1100 on March 11, 2008, 09:07 PM »

I'm reluctant to bring this up because I'd hate to add to Mouser's bad day...  but apparently this false positive also affects Clipboard Help & Spell.