Recent Posts

1426

Living Room / Re: Jessica Williams track wanted ...

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 05:37 PM »

A frequently encountered refrain, which grows increasingly annoying. That's reason 1.
Reason 2 is that I USED to have an account with emusic, then cancelled when their policies changed. I was reluctant to rejoin - emusic has now taken the decision out of my hands anyway.

-tsaint (November 06, 2009, 04:21 PM)

Argh...sorry to hear that. No other online music store has it? iTunes, perhaps?

1427

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 05:34 PM »

Not me! Tried it for about two hours, the audio API was the dealbreaker for me...

-scancode (November 06, 2009, 03:33 PM)

What's wrong with the audio API?

1428

Official Announcements / Re: October 2009 Giveaway Winners and Discount Reminder

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 12:26 PM »

Chrisa52 summed it up. You guys are indeed great!

I'm rather stoked by winning this. This will really help me weed through all my hard drives which currently contain...

:: time passes ::

:: Jeopardy theme song plays at least twice ::

...733,143 files & 29,484 directories. Ah, the life of a packrat...

1429

Living Room / Re: Dr.Frog - Nice blog entry about DonationCoder.com and Coding Snacks

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 11:55 AM »

High praise for DC, indeed. I noticed he even heaped some praise on FARR as well.

1430

Living Room / Re: Jessica Williams track wanted ...

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 11:51 AM »

I should have probably asked this earlier as this would make it easier to find a solution...

If the track is available at emusic why is it not available to you exactly?

1431

Living Room / Re: Jessica Williams track wanted ...

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 10:14 AM »

(Though on second thoughts, I wonder what's the difference between buying it from X, as opposed to appointing X as my agent to purchase on my behalf)

-tsaint (November 05, 2009, 03:04 PM)

According to the record industry if the value of X equals an individual that's not legal, either. These dinosaurs are going to cling to their outdated business model till the very end.

1432

General Software Discussion / Re: Surprised by Win7

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 10:10 AM »

If I go that way I think I'll just spring for an OEM disk instead of messing around with registry hacks or double installs or whatnot.

-MilesAhead (November 05, 2009, 05:21 PM)

I think if I were doing it rather than buying again what you essentially have I would look into building an ISO image that at the end of the intall routine executed a .reg file that made the necessary registry entries automatically.

I miss the days of when installing upgrade media the installer would pause & allow you to insert your previous OS disc in the drive for validation rather than insisting that previous OS was currently installed.

1433

Living Room / Re: Comcast internet throttling is up and running

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 09:32 AM »

Don't know where you are, but where I am (SW CT) their DSL service is quite good. I've had no outages - or at least not any I was aware of for longer than I can remember.

-40hz (November 05, 2009, 06:33 PM)

I'm in SW IN. Looking at their coverage map for 3G it looks like AT&T is stuck in 1776. Great coverage in the original 13 colonies & crappy service everywhere else...except for CA when they sent some towers out with Lewis & Clark. 

Back to the original topic, at least we don't live in Canada. I think all the ISPs up there throttle.

1434

General Software Discussion / Re: If shareware prices double in 2010, can you still afford to upgrade?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 06, 2009, 09:26 AM »

Unless a program is 'knock-it-out-of-the-park' good I only buy if there's a lifetime license attached to the price. I'm sure sooner or later one of my lifetime licenses will be 'revoked' because the author just decided to rename his program to get out from under the license agreement, but it hasn't happened yet.
:: knock wood ::

1435

General Software Discussion / Re: Surprised by Win7

« Last post by Innuendo on November 05, 2009, 02:27 PM »

I've got a tentative vague appointment with a client in a couple days to work out their dialup issues. They want to try to figure it out themselves first as it's quite a drive for me, but I'll report back if I have to make the house call.

1436

Living Room / Re: Comcast internet throttling is up and running

« Last post by Innuendo on November 05, 2009, 02:25 PM »

AT&T is offering him a fixed-IP (/29 subnet) 768K DSL package for just $70/month - and that includes a 'business class' router (w/no installation charge) in exchange for a 1-year contract. And it comes with no bandwidth caps or restrictions on what it gets used for as long as it's legal.

-40hz (November 05, 2009, 02:02 PM)

I do truly hope AT&T DSL is better in your neck of the woods than it is around here. My brother has them & he's on the phone with them at least once a month because of service outages. Evidently the modems they send out are poo as well as he's gone through so many I can't count. I'd attribute to something about his location except everyone I talk to around here who has had AT&T DSL has similar stories.

(Now if AT&T could just get their bloody 3G-Net/iPhone issues straightened out, all would be well with the world. )

That would require them to open up their Scrooge McDuck-esque vault & actually build some cell towers on a large scale.

1437

Living Room / Re: Comcast internet throttling is up and running

« Last post by Innuendo on November 05, 2009, 10:40 AM »

As an Insight customer I was a little scared a few months ago when a Comcast/Insight deal unwound & a lot of Insight customers were informed that they were going to become Comcast customers.

Fortunately for me I live in an area that got to stay with Insight. The poor souls who got converted to Comcast have nothing good to say about the change.

1438

General Software Discussion / Re: Surprised by Win7

« Last post by Innuendo on November 05, 2009, 10:30 AM »

I never pin items to the start menu.  If I use it at all it's to uninstall something or to launch something I use so little that the only shortcut is there.

-MilesAhead (November 04, 2009, 01:18 PM)

Oh well...it was a shot in the dark. Sorry it wasn't more helpful.

1439

Living Room / Re: Jessica Williams track wanted ...

« Last post by Innuendo on November 05, 2009, 10:27 AM »

Unfortunately, reselling digital music is not legal in the music industry's eyes. Heck, they act like people are taking food out of their mouths when the subject of buying used CDs comes up.

If you cannot buy the track at an online music store then the only way to stay legal is to buy the CD or CD single & rip the track yourself.

1440

General Software Discussion / Re: Time to kill the OS upgrade disc?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 04, 2009, 11:09 AM »

Quite true, specifically on the Vostro's and the other SMB stuff. ...You order a new comp with Windows on it, and damned if it don't show up with nothing but windows on it. I was pleasently blown away first time I got one outa the box.

-Stoic Joker (November 03, 2009, 10:15 PM)

Can't speak for the way it is now, but when I bought my XPS system it came clean as well.

1441

General Software Discussion / Re: Time to kill the OS upgrade disc?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 08:31 PM »

$$$

-40hz (November 03, 2009, 01:03 PM)

Yep, these companies aren't doing this out of the goodness of their hearts trying to help you find software you might like. They get a cut of every sale made due to that crapware.

1442

General Software Discussion / Re: Surprised by Win7

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 08:29 PM »

Doing the same on Vista64 my start menu was hosed and it was generally unrewarding.

-MilesAhead (November 03, 2009, 02:29 PM)

A friend had start menu trouble & it came to pass that it had something to do with having pinned items on the start menu. Don't know if that's the cause of your trouble or not, though.

1443

What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 10:06 AM »

To me flashing firmware requires a major reason to take the risk.  I've experienced "instant paper weight" once. I don't want to go there again.

-MilesAhead (November 02, 2009, 01:23 AM)

And my experience has shown me that you don't want to flash a Philips DVD player no matter what. In my model's case, later firmware updates removed features that never returned & with Philips DVD players you can almost never downgrade the firmware as the original stock firmware is never uploaded to their site.

1444

General Software Discussion / Re: Time to kill the OS upgrade disc?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 10:03 AM »

I'm really getting tired of more and more crapware and annoyances coming on pre-installed machines.  It's a waste of 2 days just taking that crap off and getting the machine so you can use it normally.

-MilesAhead (November 02, 2009, 02:39 PM)

Can't speak for other OEMs, but some Dells allow you to opt out of the crapware when you ordered a machine. Or at least you used to be able to anyway. The OS recovery discs Dell includes with their machines are crapware free. If you get a Dell that has crapware installed it's a simple matter to do an OS re-install with the included media and get a crapware-free desktop.

1445

General Software Discussion / Re: true launch bar 4 is out today

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 09:52 AM »

version 4.42 Beta and Win 7:

Improved support for Windows 7 Aero interface. This beta version contain some new skins we've created specially for Windows 7:

-Curt (November 03, 2009, 03:47 AM)

Ooo...Win 7 support? I hope he pulls it off...

1446

Living Room / Re: Open source remake of the classic game Elite

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 09:51 AM »

Hey, Elite worked first on the ZX - Spectrum !  With a clever optical device to copy-protect the game...

-MerleOne (November 02, 2009, 01:59 PM)

The first version of Elite for the C-64 had that stupid optical device as well. Fortunately, later on the company re-released the game without that silly thing & relied on a different protection scheme.

1447

Living Room / Re: Open source remake of the classic game Elite

« Last post by Innuendo on November 03, 2009, 09:50 AM »

I ran a search for "Oolite" on the entire forum before I posted. Did you maybe call it something else or spell it differently?

-40hz (November 02, 2009, 09:46 PM)

Probably just the early onset of Alzheimer's on my part. No worries....

I always thought the C64 version was the best. The Elite opening theme song was particularly good on the Commodore.

Indeed it was and I was just weird enough to load up Elite even when I didn't want to play it just so I could hear the theme song.

1448

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 02, 2009, 01:57 PM »

Did pre-OSX even have preemptive multitasking? I seem to recall that a busy app could more or less lock up the entire system, but it's been quite some years...

-f0dder (November 01, 2009, 03:20 PM)

Nope...no pre-emptive multi-tasking until OS X. It's funny...before OS X Mac users insisted the Mac didn't need pre-emptive multi-tasking due to the way the MacOS worked. Of course, now that OS X has it Mac users say they're glad to finally have it.

1449

Living Room / Re: Open source remake of the classic game Elite

« Last post by Innuendo on November 02, 2009, 01:28 PM »

I thought I had posted on DC about Oolite before, but maybe I was mistaken...

I remember playing Elite on the C-64 (Every version for every platform was different with different features. I think the C-64 version was the version with the most features at the time). Took me months and months and months, but I finally made it to a ranking of Elite. All my friends thought I was insane to stick with that game for so long.

1450

What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by Innuendo on November 01, 2009, 11:11 AM »

This Converter allows you to manipulate really every codec-feature and supports even GPU-encoding with CUDA.

-Crush (November 01, 2009, 04:26 AM)

While that's wonderful for those who have Nvidia graphics cards, those of us who don't probably won't be buying one anytime soon due to the problems Nvidia has been having lately.