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1426

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Word under attack. Don't open RTF files!

« Last post by Shades on March 26, 2014, 01:58 PM »

Ooops. Then I am in trouble.

In my defense: I need to send and receive encrypted mail in 3rd party software for (very) specific B2B traffic. This is actually the law in the Netherlands (participants in this traffic have to comply, else they can expect heavy fines or even exclusion which means bankruptcy).

Unfortunately that requires extended MAPI(this is by Microsoft design) which is only supported in Outlook, which requires me to do a (partial) Office installation on a server.

But I do recognize the irony in this. To be able to communicate securely I need to install software known to be insecure and destabilizing a Windows installation.

1427

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 25, 2014, 11:01 PM »

She says only one thing: Joule be sorry for what you just said...

1428

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 25, 2014, 08:17 PM »

More efficient, yes. But I'm not that sure about the amount of power being consumed.

- RAM consumes a lot of power nowadays, because it needs to read and write very fast.
- A hard disk consumes a lot of power, because it reads and writes quite fast (at least as fast as the mechanics allow for).
- A pen drive consumes hardly any power, but forget fast reading and writing.

Guess where an SSD fits in this list. Now there are advantages with the SSD. Although it draws a lot of power, it doesn't do so the whole time. Not in a similar fashion as a mechanical drive has to, at least. So yes, more efficient it will be, but don't underestimate the power consumption when it's active.

And you are completely right about the quality of the PSU in a PC and the quality of the power that "feeds" the CPU. Proper grounding your grid works wonders, using small power groups also helps a lot. In the Netherlands an average house uses about 5 16 Ampere circuit breakers. Usually one for the (master) bath room, one for the kitchen, one for the living/hallway/toilet, one for the bedrooms/attic/toilet, one for the washing machine and one for a garden/shed.

All these small grids practically do not affect each other, whenever there is an appliance connected that is known to generate spikes in a grid ((older) fluorescent light elements, washing machine, dish washer, micro wave, power tools, blow dryers). Saves you already a lot of headache and the appliances that are more or less permanently attached to the 220 Volt grid really last longer. 

You really should take a look sometimes with a scope to your power grid when it is in normal use. You would be amazed how "dirty" the power in your house is.

1429

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 23, 2014, 04:27 PM »

As long as there is a copy from the image not residing on the PC, I don't see the big problem. Actually it would speed up the restoration a whole lot than doing the same job from CD/DVD. Besides it doesn't require supervision either.

1430

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 23, 2014, 10:58 AM »

For 6 months now my main system is set up as a dual-boot Win7 and Server 2012 PC on a i5 with 8GB and a 1TB SATA2 hard disk that is already 3 years old (connected to the 6GB/sec SATA port on my mobo).

Now I must say that the Server 2012 zips along noticeably faster than Windows 7. 80% of the software I use is portable and work as expected on both OS's. I would argue that both systems are the same with one exception, Server2012 runs an Oracle 12 database.

With the above I was expecting similar performance, but Server2012 is really faster, screens open immediately completely populated with varying content full screen. Applying an SSD would improve Windows 7 I have no doubt, but for my intends and purposes I cannot imagine an SSD being faster in Server2012.

Hence I am not planning to upgrade to SSD soon. More RAM and and an extra SATA3 HD would fit me fine and will likely be cheaper than getting an SSD anyway.

1431

Living Room / Re: A three drive system - the sweet spot

« Last post by Shades on March 22, 2014, 07:47 PM »

System and user specific temp folders can be configured in the advanced settings menu that is accessible through System properties.

1432

Screenshot Captor / Re: Flash video capture

« Last post by Shades on March 20, 2014, 08:03 PM »

Sail a different course with this.

Spoiler

Get a copy of Runtime's ShadowCopy.
Watch/load the flash you want to see. Very important, do not close the Flash player!
Find out where your browser stores temporary files. In there you find a folder 'acro_rd_dir'.
Although this folder will appear empty, it really isn't.
In some cases it says there are 0 Kbyte temporary files in it, which isn't true.

I made a single line batch script:
"D:\Program Files\Runtime Software\ShadowCopy\shadowcopy.exe" F:\Temp\acro_rd_dir\*.tmp I:\ /s /y
which copies all tmp files in folder I:\

Rename the <some weird code>.tmp files you'll find in I:\ to <meaningful name>.flv and watch your flash video's in VLC.

1433

General Software Discussion / Re: OneNote is now free

« Last post by Shades on March 20, 2014, 07:13 PM »

^ heh

3rd party plugins for Office are usually written for 32-bit Office versions and these are more than likely useless on a 64-bit Office version. Hence the advice that MS gave when I downloaded Office 2010 way back then.

1434

Living Room / Re: OneNote now on Mac as well, +FREE everywhere, + Cloud service powered.

« Last post by Shades on March 19, 2014, 08:36 AM »

It also looks like some (unnecessary in my pov) services are installed. I gave the download up after a Microsoft message mentioning I'm on a slow connection and redirected. But to my surprise the service 'OfficeClickToRun' was already installed and wouldn't let me terminate it, even after a reboot. It was a very active service as well according to Process Hacker (open source alternative to Process Explorer) this service was doing lots of I/O and I had to use SysInternals to make it not start at boot time. I used Process Hacker, because it contains extra ways terminating unwilling services and software.

I'm a bit obsessive in that way, besides anti-virus/malware programs I find that there is hardly any software worth starting at boot time. This keeps my boot times fast and grants me a bit of control about which tasks I plan to do. The constant drain on boot times doesn't weigh up against me starting an application when I want it to. And yes, I turn PC's off after shutting them down, when I don't need them (power switch on the power supply!).

1435

General Software Discussion / Re: couple of one-click requests

« Last post by Shades on March 19, 2014, 08:09 AM »

There is 'Host Editor'. That piece of software should do most, if not all you want regarding the host file.

1436

Coding Snacks / Re: Seeking autohotkey code to make input stop

« Last post by Shades on March 18, 2014, 03:27 PM »

The method from Tomos is the way to though. You can make new accounts for your friends and then specify per folder or even file which users can access it.

Right-click on a file or folder and select tab security in the window that appears on screen. The content shown in this tab should not require extra explanation. If it does, you are likely going to mess things up.

Still hell bent on using one (non-admin) account for everyone? Then deny access completely for this user. This is dangerous and should not be applied to the main administrator account! Although booting from CD/USB with an O.S. that allows you to read the file-system of your hard disk will fix that quickly, it is a hassle. It also means that you need to access these files with a different account. So, going over left or going over right...the use of multiple Windows accounts will be the way to go.

Expanding on the tricky, but effective method is to create a new Windows user group, called: Restrictive access
Create a new general account that everyone needs to use
Select the file(s), folder(s) or even partition(s) and adjust the settings from tab security to 'Deny Read' and 'Deny Read & execute' for the user group Restricted access.
Then add the general account to user group Restrictive access.

Accessing your file(s)/folder(s)/partition(s) will not be possible. You can be even more bold and use setting 'Deny Full control'. Make a mistake with this and you will be reinstalling Windows, but when you do this right, you will have blocked access in a very absolute manner.

Now I already put several warnings in this post. When applying this Windows does the same, so it cannot be stretched enough, be very sure of what you are doing when using 'Deny'. In a default Windows installation Windows acts (reasonably) friendly, but when applying 'Deny' it will become an enemy before you know it. Choose your fiends wisely, your enemies even more so!
  

1437

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Favorite GUI File Managers?

« Last post by Shades on March 18, 2014, 06:23 AM »

The first link contains the software I used to make VirtualBox portable. After that I never felt a need to look anywhere else to be honest.

However, a Google search revealed this link

1438

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Favorite GUI File Managers?

« Last post by Shades on March 17, 2014, 08:07 PM »

Well, I do like and use file managers. And for the same reasons I despise Windows explorer, others love it. Ah well, another thread, another discussion.

For some reason(s) Nemo wouldn't access files on my Windows shares through samba when installed in my VM (VirtualBox 4.3.8 made portable). Then I went to look for alternative file managers within Mint, found Krusader and five minutes later accessing my Windows shares through Samba was no problem anymore. Besides Krusader I didn't add anything else. Nemo remained stubborn, but then, who cares, Krusader did/does the job more than fine.

This strengthened my view regarding OS native file managers. Nice if they work for you, for me they absolutely don't. Now I'm not a Krusader fanboy, after seeing that name in the repositories I remembered that on a previous attempt with Linux I was looking for a Dopus clone (v4 or higher) and this name looked promising back then. Never got around to trying it out at that time.

Never bothered to look any further though...and that is often one of the fun things to do in Linux :-)

1439

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Favorite GUI File Managers?

« Last post by Shades on March 17, 2014, 06:53 AM »

Krusader.

After I installed that one in Mint 16 on a VM, I had no trouble accessing network drives, it is a dual pane file manager and native.

1440

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MS Office 2013 US$9.95 Corporate/Enterprise Home Use Program - Mini-Review

« Last post by Shades on March 16, 2014, 10:32 AM »

As Windows uses internet explorer functionality for rendering of text and graphics in any of their own applications, I assume this problem might be more related than it appears on first glance with another issue I more regularly encounter.

Whenever an image is surrounded by white lines it is shown blurry. If I view the image in IrfanView it looks fine, it shows up fine in the portable version of the Gimp on my computer as well.
This image is used in an web page, and it shows up fine in Firefox, Opera and Iron (chrome based) browsers. Just not in IE. It is all a blurry mess.

The only thing what helps in my case is adding a 1 pixel-wide border with a color that is close to, but not exactly white. After that, the image shows up as expected, even in IE. This already occurs in IE10 and up (to me).

You should take a good look if the blurry representation of fonts are also not "encased" in a border of white. With Windows 8 close relative, Windows Server 2012 I haven't seen blurry fonts yet
(NVidea's 210 series video card is used on that server and the default MS driver software on a monitor with 1920x1080 resolution). 

If possible, you could try a different colored theme for the application with the blurry fonts and see if the blurry problem disappears. Then a) you have a solution and b) you have also a direction in where to point the MS dev's to reproduce and/or fix this problem (rendering issues with IE).

1441

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by Shades on March 14, 2014, 07:45 PM »

Brilliant, Tomos 

1442

Post New Requests Here / Re: Adding link to webpage when using cut and paste into notepad from a website

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2014, 10:14 PM »

On my systems I use the FireFox browser plugin Zotero. Think it is also available as stand-alone software for Windows. I completely misuse it, but for my intends and purposes it works.

Each time an interesting web page appears in my browser I open the plugin, select the (sub)category list I created and select the save button. An exact replica of the current web page is then stored on my PC. Links to the original webpage are automatically included and I can add extra tags if I feel like it. All these Zotero pages are indexed and searchable within the Zotero plugin.

When I later open the page again I have the option to open the stored page or visit the original link.

1443

General Software Discussion / Re: Quick and Easy way to change all IP's for several Maped drives

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2014, 09:59 PM »

Creating your own network topology could help you. See this link.

1444

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2014, 07:30 PM »

Check this Stanford article (with link to the paper) on how to build a microscope (2000x) for a total of 50 cents (USD) in material costs. Youtube video.

1445

Living Room / Re: What's the name of your car?

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2014, 06:12 PM »

Depends on the amount of fuel in it and the distance to the next gas station...

1446

General Software Discussion / Re: Video Editors

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2014, 06:10 PM »

I wouldn't trust USB in any way or form for sustained transfers of video, to be honest. Sure the advertised speeds look good, but most coupled products cannot sustain these speeds. I would even go further by saying that not that many products even achieve the advertised speeds. A portable hard disk will drop less frames than a normal pen drive, though.

If you are really serious about video, then get a proper SCSI card and 15.000 rpm SCSI hard disks or even faster. Then you venture in the area of server grade hardware made specifically for you. Don't worry, for the same amount of money you could have bought a new mid-range car of a decent brand. However, dropped frame rates will be non-existent.

A decent internal SATA3 hard disk will do the job you'll ask from it just fine. Don't use USB for capturing video directly, because the quality of USB products varies too much. There are type of ports that were actually designed for these kind of jobs. Firewire in the "old" days, Thunderbolt is the latest I believe.

1447

General Software Discussion / Re: Office 365 and Outlook

« Last post by Shades on March 11, 2014, 05:46 PM »

I can tell you that even Office 2007 runs fine on Server 2012 (this setup was by request).

[rant]
Never a big fan from the Office software, and it's downhill from Office 2003 if you ask me. Having said so, Office 2010 is an improvement in many ways over 2007...except for Outlook. I need to send automatically generated messages encrypted. You need Outlook for this, as it is the "easiest" way to install extended MAPI which allows you to automatically encrypt (CAPI) and then to Exchange for the actual sending of these messages. Without extended MAPI, you can forget about the encryption part.

You have to give credit to Microsoft, they do go a long way in providing documentation for almost all of their products. Unfortunately Outlook with extended MAPI (Mail API) and CAPI isn't one of these products. It is so bad that it is smarter to visit the blog from the creator of OutlookSpy for answers.

Seriously, if you have problems with Outlook, use this for troubleshooting as it is worth its money. That guy is for all intents and purposes more knowledgeable/accessible than MS itself regarding programmatically processing email with MAPI/CAPI. I find this a sorry state of affairs to be honest (read: ff'ing retarded! Not intended as an insult to people with dis-abilities, these people deserve respect each day they try to be the best they can be).

Each update from each version of Office I fear, because of undocumented changes that can and do harm to the MAPI/CAPI layer. Each time I lose hours of the day just to find what the F(!) goes wrong and fixing things proves to be unnecessary convoluted in the best of cases.

Long story short(er):
If I would find one of the MS developers responsible for this mess on fire I would not even p#ss them out, I would bring out the biggest bag of marshmallows I could find and use a bellows to extend the life of the fire so I have time enough to eat all of them.

or

I would look for a person with a reproductive organ that would easily support a mahogany dining table for 6 people and tell tell this person to have his way with each and any of the responsible MS devs, preferably in Death valley where any form of lubrication evaporates within seconds...

Decisions, decisions, decisions...
[/rant]   

1448

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is my desktop email client breaking mail message headers?

« Last post by Shades on March 09, 2014, 09:48 PM »

If you updated your mail client around that date, I wouldn't rule out a configuration setting in your mail client being responsible for the munging.

Indeed, Wireshark is powerful software with a rather steep (but rewarding) learning curve.

You could use a portable version of the Thunderbird email client (I believe its default settings leave email on the mail server from your mail provider usually your ISP, so your mail is safe) and see if the mail header aren't munged. If that is the case, then your standard mail client is the problem. And if it isn't, then you know to look for a different location in the chain of software you use to receive your mail. Anti-virus and/or spam filter being used on your computer or at your mail provider.

1449

Living Room / Re: Micro-Fundraiser for the Official DonationCoder CodyMobile!

« Last post by Shades on March 05, 2014, 06:38 PM »

^Ask any woman how many men there are....   

1450

General Software Discussion / Re: Software longevity

« Last post by Shades on March 03, 2014, 05:35 AM »

First, I do acknowledge security risks are introduced with installing old(er) software. However, in the WinAmp v1.91 case, there aren't that many attack vectors as it hardly does anything else than playing MP3's. What is not there...cannot be attacked.