Recent Posts

1651

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

« Last post by Lashiec on November 02, 2007, 08:38 PM »

I see a trend . xplorer² will follow it as well

1652

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

« Last post by Lashiec on November 01, 2007, 07:27 PM »

Well, none of those is a attribute changing program exclusively

1653

Developer's Corner / Free Code Refactoring

« Last post by Lashiec on November 01, 2007, 07:20 PM »

I saw this yesterday, but forgot to post about it , and well, considering that the author hangs around here, and I know DCers read his blog... Anyway, Ryan at Cybernetnews posted about this site, where you can submit code to be peer reviewed and rewritten if it's needed. A good use hinted by Ryan is for security-related code, which, as everyone knows, can't never be safe enough.

1654

Living Room / Rid of your old computer responsibly

« Last post by Lashiec on November 01, 2007, 04:29 PM »

So, you have this old workhorse which barely can load Notepad and you want to buy this new octocore, Quad Crossfire rig that will put your neighbours' computers to shame (as long as they don't find the cost of such machine, and the energy bills ). Well, you have several uses for the old computer, which are neatly summarised in this blog article. There's a problem in that most links to companies and sites are U.S. only, but the ideas are applicable in the rest of the world.

The blog seems to be centered a bit too much in Top 10 lists of everything, but it's worth a look. The parent site, in the other hand, it's not that interesting

1655

General Software Discussion / Re: What are your Top Tech/Software Newsletters?

« Last post by Lashiec on November 01, 2007, 12:43 PM »

Yes, they did it when they redesigned the site and the newsletter as well, that was one or two years ago. I can't remember if it was before or after Fred Langa jumped aboard though. I suppose they did it because the paid part is supposedly geared to 'professionals', system administrators and such, but that's being short sighted IMHO as most content featured there is also of interest to home users.

1656

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« Last post by Lashiec on November 01, 2007, 12:20 PM »

Hmmm, they don't contain a single error up here (God, I finally found a message to use the eusa_dance smiley ).

That seems like something wrong with your connection settings, Curt.

1657

General Software Discussion / Re: A closer look at ODF and MS-OOXML, one of the biggest issues of our time

« Last post by Lashiec on November 01, 2007, 11:53 AM »

The plot thickens, and a challenger appears. On a first look, it may not be that bad, as being designed by the W3C would mean that every browser in the future would support it (as portrayed in the article, Opera developers are already tinkering with the idea), saving one of the major hurdles IMO that ODF (and OOXML, but this one has enough problems of its own) has in the nonexistence of lightweight freeware readers. No, OpenOffice browser plugin doesn't count as a viewer, it's too heavy for a browser.

1658

General Software Discussion / Re: Question: Quickest way to receive spam?

« Last post by Lashiec on October 31, 2007, 09:33 PM »

It seems the quickest way is taking a different political stance than Ron Paul

1659

Living Room / How Estonia was taken down

« Last post by Lashiec on October 31, 2007, 12:30 PM »

Wandering through Wired, I came across this thrilling article relating the computer attack that Estonia suffered this past Spring. As you may remember, there were a lot of politics involved in the situation, and a lot of blame was put onto Putin's shoulders (I won't discuss the true nature of the attack, though), giving his dubious movements towards an (officially) undetermined goal. Anyway, politics aside, the article goes over the damage done by the attack, how the authorities and private business tried to minimize its impact, and how it was defeated after some days thanks to some unexpected guests (that part resembles an spy novel ) and the post-attack investigation in Russia on part of Wired's reporter. Worth a read, just to remind us how the technology may change the way wars are fought in the future, and how a single group of... well, choose your favourite name for them , can bring the whole civilization down. Taking a paranoid stance with the article creates an image of a really bleak future...

1660

Living Room / Re: NEW Cody wallpapers for Halloween

« Last post by Lashiec on October 31, 2007, 12:08 PM »

So what's this 'Halloween' thing you're talking about?

I LOVE them! , especially the 'reboot' one. Best Cody wallpaper ever! . So let's get the HD versions, Wallpaper Master will take care of them

1661

Living Room / Re: Fantastic Job Opportunity

« Last post by Lashiec on October 31, 2007, 11:53 AM »

OMG, the spam I received the other day was yours!

1662

General Software Discussion / Re: Evidence Eliminator - What has your experience been?

« Last post by Lashiec on October 29, 2007, 05:55 PM »

* Lashiec wants the Advanced Bullshit Wizard

Ha! I didn't know the forum software accepted IRC commands

1663

Living Room / Re: Coders' Watches

« Last post by Lashiec on October 29, 2007, 05:42 PM »

So it was actually true that the number decreases. Hmmm, one more reason to not get married

1664

Official Announcements / Re: Draw Cody competition - win incredible prizes!

« Last post by Lashiec on October 29, 2007, 04:37 PM »

I love both. When I was little kid, those two were among my first readings. Well, those and some other european comics.

1665

General Software Discussion / Re: Freedom from Microsoft Day!

« Last post by Lashiec on October 29, 2007, 04:30 PM »

The reports about Vista are greatly exaggerated. Either is the best Microsoft OS ever devised (all people I know who runs it say this to me), or it's the worst piece of shit ever to come out from Redmond (99% of the people on the interwebs say this). This is weird... we have two explanations: the first group is smoking something, or the second group is overreacting to minor problems.

I suppose it's all about personal experience, luck and expertise.

1666

Living Room / Re: Postcards from DC members

« Last post by Lashiec on October 28, 2007, 06:44 PM »

A different take on your idea. How about photos showing us how is the city where DCers live? I mean, like some of the photos that some members posted in the introduction thread. I'm throwing up this idea, because postcards always miss the most beautiful parts in every area, as they opt for the usual 'famous' place (this is something I notice while I walk around my town). I suppose someone can set up a Flickr account with public photos. Or a DC group in Flickr.

The ideal would be a mix of the two

1667

General Software Discussion / Re: Do I need another anti-virus/malware program or am I paranoid?

« Last post by Lashiec on October 28, 2007, 04:53 PM »

I'd throw AVG Anti-Spyware in the mix for defense against spyware and trojans. Its realtime scanner is lightweight and non intrusive, and it has a free version, which only does on-demand scanning, but it's quite enough if you don't want to shell out some money.

You might want to try ESET Smart Security once it's out. So far, it looks great, and at least in the antivirus section, you'll have outstanding protection. Its firewall also seems to be quite lightweight, both in resources and in popups flashing. For the rest, what f0dder said.

You can't be paranoid enough, though. I'm still researching why my computer tried to send a email to a Polish ISP (caught by avast) while I don't have any email account set up. Scanners are saying everything is clean, but who knows

EDIT: Rewrote the first paragraph

1668

Living Room / Re: Whats on your desktop?

« Last post by Lashiec on October 28, 2007, 04:38 PM »

Well, the number of clicks were worthful. That wallpaper is very funny

Hmmm, interesting site the one of yours, Dirhael. Particularly the NSFW section... (love your avatar there hehe)

1669

Living Room / Re: Coders' Watches

« Last post by Lashiec on October 28, 2007, 04:34 PM »

Man, a programmable watch. Geeky!

The one below is my Casio watch, bought in a budget to replace another Casio, which didn't live to its water resistance claims . It has the usual functions, but it works pretty good and looks more elegant than my old digital watches.

1670

Official Announcements / Re: Draw Cody competition - win incredible prizes!

« Last post by Lashiec on October 27, 2007, 08:04 PM »

Hmmm, there are only two options: Obelix (after the doctor ordered a strict diet without roasted boars) and Tintin. Guess he's the latter one

1671

Living Room / Re: Password Cracking Made Easy Thanks to the GPU

« Last post by Lashiec on October 27, 2007, 06:38 PM »

Yes, I know that, but "one way cryptographic algorithm" has more oomph

1672

Living Room / Re: dotNET compiler for LOLCODE

« Last post by Lashiec on October 27, 2007, 10:16 AM »

I don't know if laugh or cry at this one...

Personally, I prefer cats helping me with code, not compiling it. Proof:

1673

Living Room / Re: Password Cracking Made Easy Thanks to the GPU

« Last post by Lashiec on October 27, 2007, 09:34 AM »

Yeah, and hardware makers had been providing solutions for some time now. ATI and nVidia flavors.

Going back to the forum thing, my example was extensible to all services requiring a password, I was only using the forum as an example. Most probably those people are using weak passwords to access their email, bank accounts, etc. Some of them even said that they were using the same password for everything on the Internet so... Besides, stealing your forum password can be more troublesome than you think. One of the reasons this enforcement was made it's that some accounts were stolen in recent times, and one of them belonged to a guy who just won a valuable item. It's just like the different contests DC made in the past. Imagine what could happen if someone stole the accounts of C++ Builder contest winners.

AFAIK, forums use several different methods for storing users' passwords. Most use hashes, or as they sometimes put it "one way cryptographic algorithms" (to give a false sense of security?)

1674

Living Room / Re: Leech Attacks

« Last post by Lashiec on October 27, 2007, 09:15 AM »

app, POST the logs after the bloodfest

1675

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by Lashiec on October 25, 2007, 07:32 PM »

Almost one month later...



Missed 666th, damn!