Recent Posts

1326

Living Room / Re: anyone tried the google web accelerator?

« Last post by justice on November 02, 2007, 06:39 AM »

Seeing as the program has been updated a few times I decided to give it another try and first impressions are very good. Prefetched pages load instantly and there's a very noticable difference between prefetched pages and regular ones.

I'm using it on Firefox btw, and so far I'd say it's a keeper. Note that i'm also using FasterFox with "optimized" settings, which might influence the speed comparisons. Anyone else tried this lately?

1327

General Software Discussion / Re: online tutorials - screencasts rule over static pages?

« Last post by justice on November 01, 2007, 05:52 PM »

This will be handy for you:
how to optimize video for youtube

Also you might want to consider Veoh, it is similar to youtube but the video size / quality is a lot better for example if you're naughty you can find the usual 1cd cinema movies on there, but the format and player would be good for screencasts.

Also I am sure there must be dedicated video sharing sites for screencasts, some of these might take your quality issues into account.

Also, if you use camtasia studio you can write captions straight into the program along with your video which you can then export to html, this will save you time and will help index your pages by search engines + improves accessibility.

1328

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to Change File Attributes on Windows

« Last post by justice on November 01, 2007, 04:12 AM »

I crashed a harddrive once by trying to remove the archive attribut from the whole system drive  It never booted up afterwards so I think it was gone anyware. Now I just leave these things alone though lol.

1329

Living Room / Re: dotNET compiler for LOLCODE

« Last post by justice on October 31, 2007, 05:56 AM »

haha from that page:

IM IN YR HUNTIN
   GIMMEH ANIMAL
        ANIMAL, WTF?
    OMG "Hedgehog"
      VISIBLE "Prickly!!", GTFO
    OMG "Dog"
      VISIBLE "Halp!!!", GTFO HUNTIN
    OMG "Maus"
      VISIBLE "NOM NOM NOM", GTFO
      OMGWTF
      VISIBLE "Wat iz Dat?"
      OIC
      VISIBLE "Still Huntin!!"
IM OUTA YR HUNTIN

1330

General Software Discussion / Re: NetDefender - new open source windows firewall

« Last post by justice on October 31, 2007, 02:44 AM »

Looks like it doesn't do application based blocking / rules. That's a shame and I hope they put that in.

1331

Living Room / Re: How to get data from dead flash drive?

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 12:14 PM »

I hope you've not chkdsk /f yet because you should use unstoppable copier first. It can copy damaged files, all files, or only nondamaged files, and it doesn't give you silly copying prompts.
But if you have done chkdsk you might have made files unrecoverable.
But run it aynway.

Howver if the hardware is broke we just usually throw it in the bin.

1332

Finished Programs / Re: ALT-TAB edge of the screen (new)

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 11:38 AM »

You can try my AltTab Fingertips It uses an assignable hotkey to show you the windows to switch right at your mousepointer. That saves mousemovement.

1333

Finished Programs / Re: AltTab Fingertips

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 11:22 AM »

Try the new version, I'll change the opening post to amend the download.

1334

Finished Programs / Re: AltTab Fingertips

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 11:12 AM »

Ah that shouldn't have been in, but it is now with v1.1.

1335

Finished Programs / DONE: AltTab Fingertips v1.3 - 14 Jan 08

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 10:40 AM »

I made a small AHK script I thought you might want to use: AltTab Fingertips. Many thanks to ak_ for creating "menu at cursor" idea with FileDraft, which inspired this. It's like alt-tab but quicker. A lot of code comes from my PutAside script.

Press a configurable hotkey (F10 by default), and get a menu at the mouse with all the current windows on it. You can exclude processes using the tray menu.

Small screencast:


Changelog:
v1.3 - Recompile, shiny new icon, INI in the same folder as the script for portability, fixed mail address, online link to latest version.
v1.2 - startup message is now only shown once. Added "show desktop|restore programs" option to menu, (windows-d)
v1.1 - allows to exclude processes via system tray menu.

Download Page

1336

General Software Discussion / Re: Run apps as non-admin with SetSafer to avoid spyware.

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 09:06 AM »

There's a few reasons I chose SetSafer. It's easy to add / disable the functionality for a particular program as you can enable / disable a checkbox when yuo run the program. It's also easy to add another program to it, plain xml -- this was important because I want to safely run most of my internet related programs - not just IE. But the main reason for choosing SetSAFER was because the user can just keep running the same shortcuts / programs. Especially handy for family members, this means 'a program that launches IE' can't circumvent the security measure, and it still works with protocol associations etc. This wasn't the case with DropMyRights, which I used before and found cumbersome as it wants you to create new shortcuts.

You can approach it from the other way round using Sudo win -- run everything with lower privileges except for installations (similar to Run As...) etc, which might be safer but more intrusive and technical. Hope that explains things a bit.

1337

General Software Discussion / Re: Run apps as non-admin with SetSafer to avoid spyware.

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 07:48 AM »

I've only tested it on Windows XP, but as it uses policy settings I'm sure it should work on Vista as well. If anyone who knows can let me know then I can add that to the article.

1338

General Software Discussion / Run apps as non-admin with SetSafer to avoid spyware.

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 07:11 AM »

I thought my blog post on the subject might be useful to everyone at donationcoder.

Everybody who’s ever tried it knows the problem. Life as a regular user on Windows is a pain: who wants to switch users just to install software, sometimes even to run it? However running software as a non-admin increases security. It’s impossible for spyware to install itself into the system when it is not allowed to. Using SetSAFER, a program created by Microsoft employee Michael Howard we can run just any applications as a regular or limited user, while still using an administrator account. After testing for side effects, which I explain below, I recommend you give this a try. I no longer have to run a realtime spyware scanner, and now just schedule routine scans.

-http://blog.amasan.co.uk/

Downloads and Resources

• Download SetSAFER with my configuration. (it requires the .NET Framework 2.0)
  
• If you prefer you can download SetSAFER directly on the author’s website.

1339

General Software Discussion / Re: opera 9.5 beta out

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2007, 06:11 AM »

Wow that looks like a great tool. Does anyone else get crashes from Quicktime? Video's that crash look garbled (in purple) just before opera crashes due to quicktime. I've seen it happen on another machine with Internet explorer so it's not Opera but it's relaly annoying.

1340

General Software Discussion / Re: Opening apps in a multi-monitor setup

« Last post by justice on October 29, 2007, 10:50 AM »

Let me answer that in reverse order:
3. I used to use ultramon but now I don't use any app. I didn't want to pay for it so I discontinued use, so now I just have a doubleheight taskbar to make the space.
2. I think point one is a result of point two, why do you disable the second monitor? I can play games fine on the dual monitor setup here, the game uses the primary monitor and I can check IMs on monitor two. If you no longer disable the monitor, then all programs generally will open where you want it.
1. see above.

1341

General Software Discussion / Re: opera 9.5 beta out

« Last post by justice on October 29, 2007, 10:14 AM »

I've never had it crashed once yet and using gmail with IMAP and the searching of 3 years worth of e-mail is instant. I really like it. Everytime firefox catches up with Opera they manage to bring out a new version with significant improvements.

1342

General Software Discussion / Re: You MUST See the Price for this Software

« Last post by justice on October 29, 2007, 08:30 AM »

Brave thing to do though as a developer I have to say.

1343

General Software Discussion / Re: You MUST See the Price for this Software

« Last post by justice on October 29, 2007, 08:05 AM »

Just repackaged donationware then for the cynical minded?

Actually it's similar to the radiohead album pricing. I guess the main problem with these things is, I've got no idea how much it is worth. If something is priced $20 dollars and I think it's worth its money than I'm a happy customer. If it's priced $120 for the same thing I'm unhappy. But if it's not priced then the price i pay is actually determined by the other factors in my life, how do you prioritize this purchase if you can't determine how valuable it is? I mean i'd want to give the developer a fair price for his goods but because there's always other factors and he would be happy with any amount? Becauese he mentions 'some people would pay $200-300' it's a bit of a guide price so I appreciate that as an indication of the quality of the product.

No person pays 'whatever they'd think it's worth' for software products because their value becomes apparent over time, after unlocking, using, refining and working with the software for a length of time. It's like shareware without trial. It confuses me, even though the reasons for being confused maybe are hypocritical.

1344

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by justice on October 29, 2007, 04:54 AM »

I'm using copernic at the moment and I really enjoy their interface. It also is the second desktop search not to impact pc performance for me (archivarius is the other one). I was really wanting ti use Google Desktop but it freezes my browser: GDS monitors or takes copies of all websites visited for local searching, however when on an admin account the browser is run as normal user (or limited user) then the browser freezes. The same thing happens with Google Toolbar which means I cannot use it as running the browser (+ email + messenger) as non-admin is an important security precaution which stops me getting any spyware. Windows Desktop search I like because of the integration and support for filetypes but also impacts performance for me. I tried X1 in the past but the interface is too complex for my liking.

1345

General Software Discussion / Re: opera 9.5 beta out

« Last post by justice on October 28, 2007, 11:36 AM »

Ah its great!
Now you can search for multiple words in any website you've visited straight from the addressbar.

In the alphas when you searched for "word word" it would come up empty after the space, now it works like it should.

1346

General Software Discussion / Re: opera 9.5 beta out

« Last post by justice on October 27, 2007, 05:41 PM »

Oh got to check then thanks for that

1347

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by justice on October 27, 2007, 03:47 PM »

I've emailed the author in the past if i could have a trial that indexes more (in my case 20.000) documents and they send me a small file that allowed me to test with all my documents.

1348

Living Room / Re: How do you tag (or even organize) your files?

« Last post by justice on October 25, 2007, 05:33 PM »

do you have a link for x2 can't find it with google.

1349

Official Announcements / Re: Firefox Extension Contest (deadline december 2007) - DC CODING CONTEST TOO

« Last post by justice on October 23, 2007, 12:35 PM »

It's quite interesting because I could come up with good ideas but won't be able to code them. If that's appreciated however I can try and come up with a few gems

Also could you recommend some sort of "getting started guide to developing firefox extensions" and which languages are used? I'll keep following this with a close eye I found some here but obviously quality and differ. Looks like its pretty approachable language wise too.

1350

General Software Discussion / Re: Can Open Source apps compete with commercial ones?

« Last post by justice on October 23, 2007, 06:14 AM »

In my opinion

http://FileZilla is my choice of ftp client
http://AutoHotkey is my choice of macro language
http://VLC is my choice of video player (but not perfect)
http://Locate32 is my choice of file-search
http://KeePass is my choice of password manager (but not perfect)
http://JkDefrag ismy choice of defragmentation tool
http://Notepad++ is my choice of text-editor

I think I'll keep it to that just now. Definately all are competitive even if its not your favorite. Obviously what is better depends on your needs but they're my best programs in their category.