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1426

Living Room / Re: How do you rip your DVD collection? (I want to know)

« Last post by JavaJones on April 13, 2010, 12:02 PM »

MKV does allow for pretty much all the features of a DVD - chapters, subtitles, alternate audio tracks, etc.

- Oshyan

1427

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: crack tracker

« Last post by JavaJones on April 12, 2010, 03:09 PM »

Yes, I think there is a core of more dedicated/savvy users who have more advanced methods of obtaining pirated software. These you will never be able to stop. But keeping your app off a simple Google search, I think *that* is going to make an impact in piracy numbers. Searching for "Terragen 2", our flagship product, brings up warez results at the top of the 2nd page, and that's *without* putting in "crack" or "download" or anything else specific:
http://www.google.co...;fp=a2bb30ecf4f91972

- Oshyan

1428

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on April 12, 2010, 02:29 PM »

Agreed. We also have to take responsibility for the privacy we give up, whether knowingly or unknowingly, of our own free will. If you go on to Google and search for something and it tracks that search and gives you different results next time based on a previous search, it was your choice to use Google, your choice not to read the privacy and data use statements, and your choice not to opt out of said tracking, so even if you didn't know about it, it's still your exercise of free will that is depriving you of privacy. Contrast this with the idea of the government wire tapping your phone, it's a much different thing. There, privacy is being taken away from you, and you have no knowledge, nor possibility of knowledge, and little recourse. So again, we must take responsibility for our own privacy where we have the ability to do so.

The problem is many (most?) people choose to abdicate responsibility yet retain rights to anger over later violations. People who go onto Facebook and post their whole life and then are upset when someone uses that information against them. Sure, Facebook's policies and practices may not be great (I don't use FB much partly because of this), but it's an optional service, and one which you can use in very safe, privacy-ensuring ways. The problem most people are too willfully ignorant (note: not stupid!) to bother ensuring their privacy until it's too late.

- Oshyan

1429

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on April 12, 2010, 01:26 PM »

Franklin's quote is a great one, and often used. The question here is whether "liberty" and "safety" are even involved. If not, the relevance of the quote comes very much into question, and if you rephrase it "Those who would give up essential privacy to purchase a little temporary convenience, deserve neither privacy nor convenience", I'm not sure it rings true as much, nor is as compelling. And perhaps it's the entire issue of conflating privacy with liberty (not the same thing, though related) that is at the root of some of this disagreement.

- Oshyan

1430

Living Room / Re: How do you rip your DVD collection? (I want to know)

« Last post by JavaJones on April 12, 2010, 12:45 PM »

Keep in mind that most of the 700MB rips were done with the older MPEG4 codecs like Xvid, Divx, etc. h.264 is more efficient and can create higher quality at equivalent file size. Also keep in mind you're not limited to that size if you're just ripping for your own personal needs, so you can decide to go for e.g. 2GB instead, at which size you'll get quality that is virtually indistinguishable from the source DVD, and still save from 2.5 to 6GB (depending on whether it's a single or dual layer movie).

That is for DVD source material mind you; high definition source will require larger file size to maintain source quality, around 8GB seems to work fairly well at up to 1080p, depending on length. But ripping Blu-ray is harder and more error prone right now anyway. And you'd need a blu-ray drive in the computer anyway, which I'm not sure you have.

Anyway if it were me, and I had a big existing DVD collection to rip, I'd go for one of those tools that targets MKV, so you can easily maintain all additional materials, and then hopefully it has some customization in terms of video and audio codecs and bitrates, etc. Ideally it would just have a nice automated system where you can set a quality threshold or even file size (e.g. 2GB as above) and then just tell it to go, and all you have to do is swap out discs and press "Rip" each time. Unfortunately I don't know of specific tools that would be best for this, but I think something along those lines does exist, possibly one of the ones already mentioned...

- Oshyan

1431

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: crack tracker

« Last post by JavaJones on April 12, 2010, 12:38 PM »

Intriguing tool! I work for a company (Planetside Software) whose products (Terragen) are routinely posted to Rapidshare, etc. so this could be very useful.

I haven't tried it yet, but if it doesn't yet have a built-in DMCA complaint filing function, that would be a great feature. Perhaps a pluggable system that allows you to add new sites with their corresponding emails or complaint URLs (many require you to submit through an online form). Ideally it could create a form letter for each one that lists the infringing URL and all the usual info they ask for in DMCA requests (name, address, position in company, confirmation that you are authorized to act on behalf of the company, etc.). That would save tremendous amounts of time.

Quite honestly we don't file a lot of requests right now because of how time consuming it is. Searching for the infringing downloads is a great start, but automating the complaint process would be a much bigger help IMO.

his could be a great tool for small software devs. Thank you!

- Oshyan

1432

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on April 11, 2010, 08:33 PM »

Josh, I'm with you, not real worried about Google. They've been one of the most overall "ethical" corporations around, despite their growth, since their inception more than 10 years ago. Tell me about any other corporation anywhere near their size that has done something like pulling out of a huge target market (China) due (at least in part) to censorship. Sure, you could argue that they just used that as an excuse after they got hacked, and the hacking was the real reason, but that makes just as much sense as the hacking being used as an excuse *internally* (by e.g. Sergey who was always uncomfortable with censored results due to growing up in Russia). So who knows what's correct, but at least we know Google is trying to do a good thing (not censoring results).

I think the concept of a distributed search system is interesting and good, but practical? I think it would be easily and quickly abused and become dysfunctional. And in the end its results would probably be less accurate and useful than e.g. Google. I use Google because it provides good results. Do I know exactly how it works? No. Do I need to? No. It works, I can plainly see that. It finds me useful sites, relevant to my queries. I can try the same search in Bing, or Ask, or other search engines, and they work similarly or worse. Google's search pages are cleaner and easier to use for me so I use them.

In the end I think it really comes down to convenience vs. privacy. Everyone has the right to accept different levels of compromise on those two apparently opposing sides. On the one side you have companies like Google making your Internet life more convenient (not just searching of course), and supermarkets making your shopping more convenient (and collecting your shopping data), and tons of other companies collecting data on everything you do wherever you go. On the other side you have the option of not using the Internet at all, living in a shack in the middle of nowhere, growing your own food, etc. You can choose either extreme, or some middleground, and life your life how it is comfortable for you. For me, my theoretical privacy is not worth so much as to make reasonable convenience not worth the cost in privacy. I can understand how people doing more daring, unconvential, risky, or whatever things with their lives would want more privacy, and I'm glad those people are doing the things they're doing (for the most part), and don't blame them for wanting to protect their privacy more. But for me and I think for most average people, I don't see the point of scattershot, generalized, widespread, constant concern.

- Oshyan

1433

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 11, 2010, 08:11 PM »

Yeah, vtiger is definitely on my list. Thanks for the recommendation!

- Oshyan

1434

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple CRM and biz management tool for a small business?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 10, 2010, 09:47 PM »

Thanks for the suggestion wallee. That looks very promising indeed. I'll comment further when I've had a chance evaluate it.

- Oshyan

1435

Living Room / Re: Cafepress Alternatives - Find out the truth about 'CP's' biggest competitors.

« Last post by JavaJones on April 10, 2010, 12:33 PM »

Zazzle has actually been around for ages. I mentioned them in my reply above. Didn't know they were doing shoes and skateboards now though, hehe.

- Oshyan

1436

Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"

« Last post by JavaJones on April 10, 2010, 12:27 PM »

The thing about being online is generally speaking *someone* is going to know about you. If you use a different search engine to avoid Google tracking, then Bing/Yahoo or someone else will know about you instead. And quite frankly I'd rather Google have that info than Microsoft. They've proven over 10 years to be a lot more friendly to my personal philosophies than MS or many other big companies.

I think there are two legitimate concerns here. 1: consolidation of lots of informatio in one place. Yes, this is a *potential* problem - the question is how the information is used. Google seems to be one of the more reasonable in this regard, never spamming me, never (so far) selling my info to other companies in a way that identifies me, basically I'm never affected *negatively* by how Google uses my info. That leads to point 2, which is even though Google (IMHO) doesn't abuse its information now, there is always the possibility in the future that it will, or (perhaps more likely) that it will fall on hard times (maybe due to a coming advertising crash?) and then will sell more identifiable data to stay affloat. I don't consider this scenario to be extremely likely, but it is a legitimate concern.

The thing is, when *I* think about any of these possibilities, well it just doesn't concern me much. I guess maybe I don't have a lot to hide, but that's not reason enough alone not to be worried, of course. I just look at Google's business history, and at the general Internet environment, and I feel that *if* I choose to participate in the Internet at all, short of being a chronic "Anonymous Coward" (Slashdot ), I really have little choice but to let people know a bit about me, what I do, where I go. And you know what? I think it's a reasonable trade-off for what I get in return, especially when the company in question is - so far - pretty surprisingly "good".

- Oshyan

1437

Living Room / Re: Processors (CPU)?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 09, 2010, 04:11 PM »

The performance gain from higher model number CPUs in the same family is almos always "diminishing returns" the higher up you go. The 920 was and is definitely the "sweet spot". The 960 does not justify its price IMO, especially when you consider overclocking ability of the 920.

- Oshyan

1438

Living Room / Re: Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 09, 2010, 02:36 PM »

I believe it's an Edimax: http://www.newegg.co...Item=N82E16833315041 but it shows up as Ralink RT61 in Windows Device Manager.

- Oshyan

1439

Living Room / Re: Processors (CPU)?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 09, 2010, 01:42 PM »

i7 860 actually performs as well or better than the 920 in most cases. It's clocked slightly higher. But yes, the only thing that's going to compete with an i7 is another i7, and you have the progression correct.

i7s are quad core with multithreading. i5s are quad or dual core *without* multithreading, and in fact many of the i5 models seem to be basically i7s with disabled multithreading. http://en.wikipedia....g/wiki/Intel_Core_i5 The i3s are all dual core, and lack "turboboost" which is the Intel Core i7/i5 technology that allows increased clock rates when only a single core of a multi-core CPU is being used. The i3s also usually have graphics chipsets built-in as they're intended for the budget market where this can be a great cost-savings for an all-in-one solution.

- Oshyan

1440

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by JavaJones on April 09, 2010, 12:14 AM »

OK, so I get the split between those who care - whether in principle or otherwise - about "lock-in" and those who don't. Makes perfect senes, and I agree. This does not surprise or bother me at all; it makes perfect sense. And in fact it mirrors much of the way the rest of the world works, for example the difference between politically active people and those who just don't care about politics (even if they still vote).

What *does* surprise me is how Apple is screwing its target demographic of "those who don't care about lock-in" with all these bizarre limits, issues, etc. I guess it just surprises me that they get away with it.

- Oshyan

1441

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by JavaJones on April 08, 2010, 07:37 PM »

40hz, perhaps you're not really suggesting that there are "only" these 2 camps, but even suggesting they're the majority seems dubious to me. I think both the gadget/brand nuts and the tech nuts like us are in the minority. It's the reaction of the average people that everyone claims is Apple's market that I'm interested in.

So many arguments about the iPad have gone Person 1: "I hate it, it locks me in to proprietary Apple stuff and doesn't let me do what I want, therefore it will fail!" Person 2: "It's not even meant for you, it's super simple and easy to use, it's meant for average Joe who doesn't even want to think about how to use his computer.", and the latter *would* be a compelling argument if it weren't for some of the comments I'm hearing about "hard to hold and use for long periods of time", "awkward to watch movies on", "expensive for an e-reader", "no direct camera connections", "no USB, easy plug-and-play", "need to use cumbersome iTunes-based process to sync docs with wires, does not work wirelessly", "no flash", and on and on. Thse don't seem like a product that the mainstream, "average Joe" will love.

Not to mention the frustration that will come when a user removes an app from their iPad for whatever reason, only to lose all their documents associated with it. I mean seriously, is that the message Apple wants the average consumer to get?

The sad thing is I think it *will* appeal to average people on the face of it, and it'll only be after some use that they realize how awkward, annoying, etc. it is. I'm just baffled by how bad a first gen Apple product really can be, I guess. I mean they got so much right, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with the core concept - I'm not against a simple pad-like device, even if it runs iPhone OS and is limited in some ways - but it really seems like there are some all-too-glaring faults to me. *shrug*

- Oshyan

1442

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by JavaJones on April 08, 2010, 02:48 PM »

What's interesting to me - and this is probably just symptomatic of a 1st gen Apple product - is how, despite the polish and "sexiness" and "ease of use", some *very fundamental* and absolutely *non-geeky* things appear fundamentally broken on the iPad. Looking back at history, it may have appeared that way with the iPhone 1st gen too. Things that have already been mentioned in this thread like the atrocious handling if iWork documents sync, or the necessity of connecting to a primary computer system to even use the thing (forget about it being a great system for "grandma" or "average user" unless they already have a different PC, so let's drop that argument!). Not to mention the apparent issues with weight and ergonomics.

So here's my thought: The Apple Faithful and general tech enthusiasts buy enough of the 1st gen products and are willing enough to overlook the flaws and talk them up, and Apple is willing to stick around for the 2nd gen, that by the time 2nd gen does roll around, the general public wants one too, and by then some more of the kinks are worked out, and so it can be much more successful. This is true of many big companies and their products of course - the notorious Microsoft 1.0 avoidance advice comes to mind. But it's interesting if you think about it applied to Apple, that perhaps they are only as successful as they are because their first gen products *don't* immediately sell 10 million copies...

- Oshyan

1443

Living Room / Re: How do *you* tell when your OS is booted/ready?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 08, 2010, 02:33 PM »

Interesting stuff.

App, you're a power user, but most I know are fanatical about *not* having a zillion things loaded, much less 40 systray icons, at startup. Shocking, but I assume you need them all or you'd have ditched them. Then again having seen your crazy task bar arrangement and whatnot, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

As for the purpose of this thread, I wonder if there is a way to check a list of stuff that needs loading, then test against the actual system environment to see if it has loaded yet, and thus at least partially determine if the load process is done? If you could do that, you could probably write a small app to do this. Yet another nifty coding snack? So it would be something like application checks list of e.g. system services, sees the ones marked "autostart", and checks operating memory/process list/whatever for those services, if it sees one missing it displays it in a list with a red x or something, while displaying the loaded ones with a check mark. Could be an interesting little tool, and if it included timers from boot start that stopped as soon as the app loaded (i.e. a time indicator next to the app/service entry that showed how many minutes after initial boot it was actually loaded), that could really help pinpoint things that are slowing down the boot process. Granted such an app to track this would need to make sure it loaded first, which might be tricky...

- Oshyan

1444

Living Room / Re: Should I swtich from w7 32 bit to w7 64 bit?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 07, 2010, 08:42 PM »

Odd, I have a PCI wireless card working just fine in one of my Win7 x64 systems...

- Oshyan

1445

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by JavaJones on April 06, 2010, 03:35 PM »

And now a great answer to anyone who thought the inclusion of an iPad-optimized iWorks app meant they could actually do real work on it comfortably:
http://www.macobserv...tm_campaign=shorturl

Holy crap Apple, seriously? *That's* how your shiny new toy handles data sync? Wow. Just... wow.

- Oshyan

1446

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 06, 2010, 03:33 PM »

Oshyan, consider trying out Photo mechanic.  People who use it say that it's handling of RAW files is amazing.

-superboyac (April 06, 2010, 02:28 PM)

Yep, it's definitely on my list after recent mention of it. Haven't had a chance to try it yet though.

- Oshyan

1447

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« Last post by JavaJones on April 06, 2010, 12:39 PM »

Meanwhile competition is stiff:
http://www.engadget....ure-complete-tablet/
I wonder about weight with that one...

- Oshyan

1448

Living Room / Re: How do *you* tell when your OS is booted/ready?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 06, 2010, 12:23 PM »

I just start doing stuff. As soon as the windows and apps I opened actually open, then it's ready.

- Oshyan

1449

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 06, 2010, 12:14 PM »

No RAW support in Pictomio? http://forum.pictomi...spx?g=posts&t=50 In the bin it goes!

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (April 05, 2010, 11:26 PM)

So what do you use for raw format?

-cmpm (April 06, 2010, 04:37 AM)

Still deciding, hence my test of Pictomio. I currently use Picasa because it's super easy, low maintenance, and gets me up and running very quickly. I also really like the face recognition feature and find it more than a novelty (or at the very least a *great* novelty ). Most significantly however I don't like Picasa's limited editing functionality and non-tunable RAW conversion. Honestly I'm good with Picasa's organizational abilities as far as tagging (basic, but fine), and I like all the other stuff it can do, e.g. resize for email or web posting or make a slide show, etc. all very easily.

Anyway I've been trying Bibble 5, DxO Optics, Capture 1, Lightroom, and a few others off and on for a little while now. I really just haven't had the time to try them all in-depth. Hence not having made a decision. I'm perfectly happy paying $300 for one of these apps if it really fulfills all my requirements, and that's probably commensurate with the size of my photo collection, some 55,000 pics and over 330GB, as well as the fact that I use RAW almost exclusively now. I certainly understand not wanting to pay that much for a tool to do this though, if your needs are significant.

- Oshyan

1450

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 05, 2010, 11:26 PM »

No RAW support in Pictomio? http://forum.pictomi...spx?g=posts&t=50 In the bin it goes!

- Oshyan