Recent Posts

1526

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox: Why is svchost.exe and sqlite at war?

« Last post by f0dder on April 12, 2011, 12:43 PM »

sajman99: I doubt that would access the firefox SQLite database files

1527

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox: Why is svchost.exe and sqlite at war?

« Last post by f0dder on April 12, 2011, 11:40 AM »

But I now see hat Mozilla is one of the companies behind sqlite

-Curt (April 12, 2011, 11:27 AM)

It is? I thought it was run pretty much by a single guy

so they have been aware of this situation all of the way, and didn't care to change it

-Curt (April 12, 2011, 11:27 AM)

If it isn't a problem in their software, what are they supposed to do about it?

To me it sounds like output might be doing something it shouldn't be doing - but at the same time, I'd try and figure out which service from svchost.exe is trying to access the password database. If it's something backup related, fine, otherwise you might want to do a thorough check for malware.

1528

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox: Why is svchost.exe and sqlite at war?

« Last post by f0dder on April 12, 2011, 09:41 AM »

That's almost a non-reply, Curt.

SVCHOST.EXE is the process (or rather, a whole bunch of processes) hosting Windows services. Each process can run any number of services... like, a background backup task. Having your background backup task blocked from trying to backup your firefox profile sounds like a pretty bad thing to me.

Granted, you probably don't want malware getting access to your saved passwords - but (assuming Mozilla are doing things properly and you're protecting with a reasonably strong master key), access to the sqlite database won't give malware access to the passwords.

1529

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by f0dder on April 11, 2011, 11:05 PM »

As much as I don't believe what OC are doing right now is particularly bad, I'm afraid the ever-perceptive app103 hit the nail on my gut feeling about them. That, and their name makes me think of child molesters >_<

1530

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox: Why is svchost.exe and sqlite at war?

« Last post by f0dder on April 11, 2011, 02:24 PM »

So, Outpost has buggy software, but MS+Mozilla are to blame?

1531

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: TELL me how many objects I am deleting!

« Last post by f0dder on April 10, 2011, 10:53 PM »

Grab Recuva, it can save your hide the next time you accidentally delete something. But you have to use it right after you delete the stuff, you should restore to a different partition (last I checked it couldn't do in-place restore, or perhaps I'm remembering wrongly), and you'll need to triple-check the recovered file content to see it isn't partial garbage.

In spite of all those warnings, it's a pretty nifty tool, and it's saved my ass a couple of times when fumble-fingered a shift-delete . For "serious" recovery, you'll need something like Runtime Systems GetDataBack, though.

1532

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2011, 10:39 AM »

J-Mac: he's definitely their propagandist, but at least he's not trying to hide it - and that's something to give credit for.

Oddly I have never found this to be the case with normal apps that aren't doing anything that people deem suspicious; only with suspect apps.

(Plus that creepy smile on his avatar bugs me!!    )

-J-Mac (April 09, 2011, 10:29 AM)

You and me both, man.

1533

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2011, 08:29 AM »

Holy Murphy! From 21media:

What do you pay for?

We pay for a unique installation of our EXE-file on a user's computer. By registering in our affiliate program, you receive an EXE-file associated with your ID in our system. We can track the unique installations of this EXE-file on user's computers. The payment for each installation is made according to the rates of the chosen program. The installed EXE-file is safe for users, its activity does not harm users and their computers and it does not violate any law of any country.

How do I start working with your affiliate program?

You need to register and then you'll get a unique EXE-file that you can install by any means except SPAM.

That's the kind of program that's perfect for bundling with warez and cracks.

-Renegade (April 09, 2011, 04:15 AM)

I doubt you'd ever see that kind of thing included with warez, though. "Hi feds, here's a money trail to follow back to us" - sounds smart to you?

Here's some good information from DrApps:

*SNIP*

*SNIP* However, OpenCandy does *NOT* scan your computer and catalog all the programs you have installed (a very common misconception for some reason). *SNIP* The OpenCandy plug-in (running locally) checks the "validation code" to see if Outlook is installed and if so, the OpenCandy plug-in sends our server a binary "yes" in order for the graphics and messaging for the recommendation screen to be sent to the user's computer to be displayed during the publisher's installation process.

-Renegade (April 09, 2011, 05:44 AM)

Snipped the quote down a bit, and added italic emphasis. So, while OC doesn't a full list of software installed on your computer (good - let's hope that lasts), they do in effect get to know whether any of the software in their programme is installed. Better, but still not perfect.

1534

Living Room / Re: Who else is sick of difficult word verifications on the web?

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2011, 08:18 AM »

Cute one, Curt

1535

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by f0dder on April 08, 2011, 06:06 PM »

that I lived on the moon video has been posted before in this thread, but it's worth another post -- very very moving.

-mouser (April 08, 2011, 05:50 PM)

Moving, beautifully done, great visual style. Definitely worth watching again!

1536

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderOak - very nice people =)

« Last post by f0dder on April 07, 2011, 06:52 PM »

SpiderOak seems like a nice company, and I somehow find their stance on "unlimited storage" reassuring - they don't offer it. And they don't just "encrypt everything", they use zero-knowledge encryption, and even avoid cross-customer block de-duplication (which could save them significant storage costs) simply because it would be a potential security problem.

I've got their blog added in Website Watcher, there's occasionally some really interesting stuff there.

Unfortunately the client software isn't perfect - it's a bit on the slow side, even if it's been improved a fair amount. I know the guys want to keep their code as portable as possible, but it'd be really really nice if they added NTFS USN Journal support (can speed up scanning for changes after system boot by craploads) and would split into a service+GUI so the backup can run without being logged on...

Oh, and offer smaller plans. The free offering is a bit little for me, but OTOH I really don't need 100GB of storage. I can understand why they don't want to go into, say, per-gigabyte prices... But perhaps 10 or 25GB increments?

1537

Living Room / Re: Real coders do it in MS Paint

« Last post by f0dder on April 07, 2011, 06:25 PM »

Even less efficient than programming on a cellphone with T9!

It's cute enough, but nothing magic - for a 24bpp bitmap, each pixel corresponds to three bytes. What would've been slightly impressive is to code a tool that automates this, and demos typing in it's own sourcecode - but that'd probably be a slightly larger bitmap

1538

General Software Discussion / Re: DLS: Mozilla publishes name and shame list of slow Firefox add-ons

« Last post by f0dder on April 05, 2011, 07:06 PM »

Might be worth noting that they only benchmarked ff startup/shutdown time, not the actual impact on page rendering!

-Gothi[c] (April 05, 2011, 07:03 PM)

Most plugins really shouldn't affect page rendering, and start/shutdown speed is what firefox is notoriously slow at? Makes perfect sense to me

1539

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by f0dder on April 05, 2011, 03:08 PM »

Umm, how does OpenCandy work, again?

Do they provide their own entire installation framework, or is it "merely" a plugin DLL available for use with 3rd party installers like NSIS, InnoSetup, InstallShield et cetera?

If it's a plugin, then Wraith isn't entirely correct - the DLL won't be part of the installer.exe import table, and it will be loaded dynamically. Now, it's several years since I've played with installers, so it could very well be that the major installers load all contained 3rd party DLLs as soon as possible... but that sounds a bit stupid.

1540

Living Room / Re: [Humor]: An update is available for your computer!

« Last post by f0dder on April 05, 2011, 10:07 AM »

Haha Edvard, spot on the sugar.

1541

General Software Discussion / Re: Why I was wrong about Microsoft (by Glyn Moody)

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 02:38 PM »

I really look forward to the day Microsoft ends up in court trying to enforce such patents. Because that is the day they'll see those blatantly BS patents ruled invalid.

-40hz (April 04, 2011, 08:54 AM)

...but if they're so BS why do they even get given a patent in the first place

-tomos (April 04, 2011, 02:35 PM)

Because the patent system is utterly broken. FUBAR, mate.

1542

General Software Discussion / Re: Why I was wrong about Microsoft (by Glyn Moody)

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 08:28 AM »

Haven't read the article, but the items zridling lists in his post... is stuff like that patentable? That's batshit insane.

1543

General Software Discussion / Re: DLS: Mozilla publishes name and shame list of slow Firefox add-ons

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 08:20 AM »

Might seem a bit harsh to provide such a list, but I think it's a really good idea - helps showing that, while FireFox isn't superduper nimble, it's extensions that are responsible for the worst performance degradations. And might even work as an incentive for those extension writers to fix up their code

1544

Official Announcements / Re: 2011 Fundraiser Giveaway Extravaganza - WINNERS POSTED

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 08:09 AM »

Darn! I've just realised that my prize may not work for me
Will there be Win7 give-away soon? 

-fenixproductions (April 04, 2011, 04:56 AM)

Beyond Compare 3 works okay on Win 7 
http://www.scooterso...re.com/ChangeLog.txt

-Curt (April 04, 2011, 07:59 AM)

Including the x64 version of Win7, no sweat

1545

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 03:05 AM »

Awesome, app - both the audio and the comparison with The Beatles

1546

Living Room / Re: Please kill me now - just bought an iPad off of eBay

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 03:02 AM »

In the meantime I'll just put the iPad in a brown paper bag when I'm using it so that no one sees me. If anyone asks what I'm doing I'll just say I'm stroking a deceased rat or something.

-nudone (April 04, 2011, 02:22 AM)

* f0dder pats nudone on the back.

As long as you don't drink latté while using the iPad, I don't think people will mistake you for an apple devotee - so don't worry too much about it

1547

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 01:44 AM »

Ahem... Look at the installer screenshot that you uploaded. You cannot just click next. You MUST explicitly accept or decline the offer. Again, a baseless accusation with clear evidence to the contrary.

-Renegade (April 03, 2011, 10:23 PM)

This is a nice thing about OpenCandy, and I do hope they won't change away from that practice. But before you get to that screen, OpenCandy has run - and it's contacted the mothership, right? So you're not getting a chance to avoid that, except for... clicking through... the EULA

1548

Living Room / Re: Please kill me now - just bought an iPad off of eBay

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2011, 01:00 AM »

Don't fight it buddy!  It's a beautiful device.  We don't have to be so black and white with this stuff.

-superboyac (April 03, 2011, 09:13 PM)

With Apple, isn't it Whites Only?

In seriousness, the iPad is a pretty nice device to use - it feels very well, even if it's slightly on the heavy side for use as, say, an eBook reader. If it wasn't for the ridiculous pricetag and the apple lock-in (oh, and for the 3G version which I'd definitely like, cell provider lock-in as well), I would probably have gotten one.

I've got a fair amount of eBooks, and a fair amount of situations where I don't need a fully-fledged laptop but could do with a tablet. I've considered an eBook reader, especially since eInk is nicer on the eyes... but they're so limited in what they can do, and eInk updating is slow, which would be a limitation if you need to flip back&forth or do a lot of searching.

But the pricetag... and it's not like the competition is much better. I can get a freaking full laptop for what an Ipad costs in .dk!

1549

Official Announcements / Re: 2011 Fundraiser Giveaway Extravaganza - WINNERS POSTED

« Last post by f0dder on April 03, 2011, 03:14 PM »

Ooooh, preeeesents!

1550

General Software Discussion / Re: Lizamoon Attack Targets SQL Injection Vulnerability

« Last post by f0dder on April 03, 2011, 03:13 PM »

If you use bound arguments, btw, scrubbing for the various SQL keywords shouldn't be necessary - and it might not be a good idea to scrub for it where you're doing, Wraith - stuff like "update" or "delete" could very well be valid in a lot of situations... but even with bound arguments, some data validation/scrubbing is a good idea, you might be interfacing with a system where the rest of the components are retarded. And depending on what you do, there might even be more cases of scrubbing you need to do (dealing with HTML tags being one very common and important subject).

Btw, it's almost always a bad idea to use regular expressions for this - for single-word deletes/replacements you can go faster without, and for more complex scenarios you'll need a proper parsing engine to not fight a hopeless battle.