Recent Posts

1651

General Software Discussion / Re: DVCS ?

« Last post by f0dder on March 02, 2011, 10:53 AM »

Committing changes is a voluntary action and, knowing myself, I'll obviously forget to commit important changes from time to time.  Or am I missing something ?

-Armando (March 02, 2011, 10:06 AM)

First, there's no way to really tell when a file modification is done and complete - the best heuristic you could go by is "file has been modified, and now hasn't been additionally modified for n seconds".

Second, you don't want commits based on random modifications - at least when programming, you'll often be doing a related set of changes across a few files, and then commit that. Think of it as not commiting files, but committing features

1652

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by f0dder on March 02, 2011, 06:22 AM »

Look who else is excited!

That video made me smile -- if only we could all be so unselfconscious

-mouser (March 02, 2011, 04:47 AM)

The world needs more ravers!

1653

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by f0dder on March 01, 2011, 05:53 PM »

* f0dder yelps for victory.

Bought a new GPU last month and had to do a fair amounts of bike repairs, so couldn't donate as much as I wanted to - but I hope it'll help keeping the wheels spinning

1654

General Software Discussion / Re: OS recommendations for Pent.III 128MB laptop

« Last post by f0dder on March 01, 2011, 05:52 PM »

I wouldn't like XP on 128 megs of ram - nLite would definitely be required, but even with that, given SP3's bloat? Ugh. If you could stuff in 256 it's doable, with 512 it'd be enjoyable.

But win2k? That's definitely doable on 128meg. I used to run it on a 700MHz Athlon with 160 megs of ram, and stuff like Visual Studio 6 ran just fine.

1655

General Software Discussion / Re: Opinions on System Utilties Suites

« Last post by f0dder on March 01, 2011, 05:44 PM »

It's not just that you don't need to pay for these utilities - it's that you don't need the utilities at all.

1656

General Software Discussion / Re: Opinions on System Utilties Suites

« Last post by f0dder on March 01, 2011, 09:07 AM »

Can't see a reason for any of them, to be honest - don't waste your money.

1657

Living Room / Re: Should I add ads to my website?

« Last post by f0dder on February 28, 2011, 06:05 PM »

Now that is a beautiful phrase. Right up there with "cellar door"  :Thmbsup

-timns (February 28, 2011, 04:59 PM)

Why are you wearing that funny ad suit?

1658

Living Room / Re: Help: Recommend flash drive(s) for small files

« Last post by f0dder on February 28, 2011, 06:03 PM »

You could set your filesystem cluster to the flash erase-block size - that should speed up things, but is also (possibly) going to waste a lot of space... and it might not be possible to find the erase-block size without trial and error.

1659

General Software Discussion / Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on February 28, 2011, 09:25 AM »

It's called "Instant Viewer" and the tiles are "Live" - I watched Outlook's startup dialogue scrolling from within it...

-Darwin (February 28, 2011, 09:13 AM)

How live, though? The test is playing back a video and determining whether the preview is 100% smooth, and without a noticeable increase in CPU usage.

1660

General Software Discussion / Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on February 28, 2011, 05:00 AM »

WinExposé is slow compared to switcher2, since it relies on constant polling of the application windows, whereas switcher2 depends on Vista+ Aero to be 100% smooth.

Iirc WinExposé is also relatively unstable, but it's been a while since I tested it (apart from running it just now, to verify it indeeds does the screengrabbing). Also, it seems unsupported by the author?, at least the official download link doesn't work and you have to resort to 3rd party download hosting sites.

1661

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Giveaway] PDF Decrypter Pro

« Last post by f0dder on February 27, 2011, 05:00 PM »

Interesting that people charge so much for that - I reckon it must be something like a 10-minute hackjob to the xpdf codebase?

1662

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is Software for Hardware Always Sucky?

« Last post by f0dder on February 27, 2011, 04:11 PM »

I'm not sure the 64bit aspect comes into it lanux, upgraded drivers have to be written for a switch from say Vista 32bit to Win 7 32bit too.

-Eóin (February 27, 2011, 04:08 PM)

Do they? I thought Vista and Win7 were pretty much interchangeable, except that Win7 likes WDDM1.1 video drivers

1663

General Software Discussion / Re: Most Pirated Software?

« Last post by f0dder on February 27, 2011, 10:53 AM »

- Its official...Alcohol + Forums = Bad Combination 

-Stephen66515 (February 27, 2011, 10:41 AM)

Been there, done that, bought the barf-bags.

I wonder if there's any USB devices similar to car alco-breath locks?

1664

General Software Discussion / Re: Serial Key Storage for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on February 25, 2011, 06:15 AM »

Aww, I didn't even have to do shameless self promotion

I personally use fSekrit (whoa, huh!) for stuff like serials and passwords for various sites, so I can attest it works pretty well for that purpose . It's all manual text, though, no fancy features for auto-filling serials or password forms or whatever.

1665

General Software Discussion / Re: A plea for help from a VS developer...

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 02:30 PM »

Jimdoria: you could've probably downloaded the express edition of Visual Studio and compiled with that - but definitely seems a waste of time and bandwidth if that's the only time you'd use it - not a bad idea asking here

1666

General Software Discussion / Re: Most Pirated Software?

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 10:04 AM »

40hz: I'm not saying all the 0day crackers are Robin Hood style saints, and I don't doubt the least that some of them are also doing nefarious deeds. All I'm saying is that if you get a 0day release from one of the reputable groups, and it hasn't been tampered with because you got it from a REALLY lousy place, it's almost guaranteed to be malware-free.

Why? Those people don't want to lose their prestige. And those that don't care that much about prestige don't want to lose access to their 0-second gigabit-pipe several-hundred-terabyte warez sites - simple as that

Also, I can guarantee that several of you people are using software or commodity hardware where people which now includes code by people who used to remove software protection in their youth - and that people who've had their asses saved from malware have some of those people to thank as well.

Paul Keith: I haven't had an interest in Photoshop for ages, since it's a piece of bloat, and my needs are fulfilled perfectly by Paint.NET... but www.nfoogle.com suggests that it shouldn't really be hard getting hold of a copy of the latest & greatest Photoshop.

I agree fully with Bamse that a lot of people pirate stuff just because they can - a lot will just leech&forget, and of those that use stuff like Photoshop, a lot would've been satisfied with Paint.NET, except they want PS because it's zomgleet.

1667

General Software Discussion / Re: Most Pirated Software?

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 08:17 AM »

reputable 0day groups,

-f0dder (February 24, 2011, 07:53 AM)

I'm gonna add that to my yogi-ism & oxymoron collection.

-40hz (February 24, 2011, 08:09 AM)

I was dead serious - I can't see the oxymoron there, honestly. There's some very talented people out there, and it's breeding ground for the next generation of serious security engineers

1668

General Software Discussion / Re: 20 New User Misconceptions about Linux

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 08:11 AM »

Decent article, but I've got a few comments

9) Linux supports less hardware than Windows.

A couple of minor beefs with this one. WiFi and GPU drivers can be troublesome, but let's skip that for now - that's a dead horse that's been beaten to pulp already. I've had trouble with linux even when drivers have been available - sometimes it's been relatively minor things like packets dropped every now and then for no apparent reason, other times it's been really weird stuff that seem to have been fundamental flaws in the PCI bus handling code. The occurences have been rare, but it hasn't been very faith-inspiring to see that class of errors on fairly standard hardware.

11) Linux has terrible printer/scanner support.

Obviously the driver/scanner manufacturers are the ones to blame, but it doesn't make the point less true. I'm sure we're much better off these days than the few years since I printed from linux last, but ugh - CUPS was no joy, and it only gave me the most basic of printing options. Caveat Emptor!

17) Linux represents a specific political viewpoint.

Mostly agree with this one, but you can't deny that there is quite a lot of attitude in a lot of linux users, and it can be a pretty hostile place if you don't subscribe to their ideas, just like the Mac camp. Yes, you can obviously run into dsckheads everywhere, it just tends to happen more often when dealing with "niches" (whatever that be software, religion, politics or whatever). Fortunately this situation will grow better as more normal/sane/rational/pragmatic people adopt linux

1669

General Software Discussion / Re: Most Pirated Software?

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 07:53 AM »

I cannot see why anyone would use pirated antivirus software.  If they can hack it to let people steal it, what else have they done to it? Just pay for what you own, sheesh.

-y0himba (February 24, 2011, 05:03 AM)

Nothing, usually - as long as it's sourced from one of the reputable 0day groups, and not some random p2p site. You'll have a hard time finding people with larger egos than the 0day crackers, and they wouldn't want their reputations tainted with something as trivial as malware ^__^

Yepper it's here in the US too. I've got a client that has had fits trying to keep their fully legal copy running because of the stupidly unstable Sentinal Hardware Key driver.

-Stoic Joker (February 24, 2011, 06:33 AM)

Classic tale of stupid copy protections mainly screwing the legitimate end-users over. Dongles can be pretty effective, but it also means you'll get the attention of the most skilled reversers. Cubase has really nasty copy protection ("Users began to complain about the program being unresponsive as after initiating these functions as they had to wait some time before the program was released back to them. This 'lockup' increased exponentially in proportion to the size and complexity of the project" - wikipedia)... but even that has eventually been defeated.

1670

General Software Discussion / Re: Instantly Increasing Password Strength

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 02:14 AM »

I protect my digital signature / online-banking stuff with longer passphrases than forum logins,....

-f0dder (February 23, 2011, 06:25 PM)

Cool!  Now I know I at least have a chance of logging into DoCo as you and donating all your donations to me....mwaahahaha 

-4wd (February 23, 2011, 08:54 PM)

Yeah, it should actually be trivial if you get your hands on the userdb, if it isn't salted

1671

Developer's Corner / Re: To persist with Windows 2000 support?

« Last post by f0dder on February 24, 2011, 02:11 AM »

(I don't think there's any way to get 2003toolkit from MS?)

-f0dder (February 23, 2011, 06:28 PM)

Oh hell yeah, the MSDN goes all the way back to Visual C++ v1.52. Granted you need a subscription (not cheap) but they are still available.

-Stoic Joker (February 23, 2011, 06:58 PM)

You can get VS2003 from there, but can you get the VCToolkitSetup.exe for the VC2003 Toolkit package? I definitely can't find it on school's MSDNAA (which doesn't cover as much as a full MSDN subscription, I know). And even if it's on full MSDN, it doesn't help much since that's not gratis

1672

Developer's Corner / Re: To persist with Windows 2000 support?

« Last post by f0dder on February 23, 2011, 06:28 PM »

mwb1100: yeah, 2005 was the last compiler with Win9x support, I had just forgotten that MS released an Express version of it - so it's the last gratis win9x compiler. And while it might be available via those links (I don't think there's any way to get 2003toolkit from MS?), it's probably going to expire within too long, just like the last .CHM PlatformSDK versions first disappeared through public pages, and then suddenly couldn't be reached by URL-guessing either. Shame.

did MS release any gratis compiler that supported 9x target before 2003 toolkit?

-mwb1100 (February 23, 2011, 05:54 PM)

I think they might have offered 'standard' compilers. The 2003 toolkit was the first time you could get an optimizing compiler for free I believe.

-Eóin (February 23, 2011, 06:14 PM)

Sounds right to me. Weren't the SDK-included compilers initially handicapped? Or was it just that only the x64 compilers were offered, initially?

1673

General Software Discussion / Re: Instantly Increasing Password Strength

« Last post by f0dder on February 23, 2011, 06:25 PM »

WeRntf,Y3t!

Easy to Remember (for me), and I'd wager quite difficult to guess, even for the table.

-Stoic Joker (February 23, 2011, 06:05 PM)

Good question - a quick google does suggest that the easy-to-find publicly available tables don't even reach 10 characters for the larger character sets, and those tables are already huge and take a while to generate. But do keep in mind that criminals have access to very large botnets, and people have started renting Amazon EC2 servers (including GPU acceleration) for nefarious deeds. I definitely wouldn't feel too safe with a passphrase lower than 10 characters with a large character set.

And it does seem it takes a while (for a single box) to process passphrases, even with rainbow tables - but anybody serious enough to have serious tables are going to have more than a single box available.

Besides even if you do manage to memorize a 8,000 character password ... If they really want you specifically, that badly ... Well, the term Rubber-Hose Cryptography comes to mind...

-Stoic Joker (February 23, 2011, 06:05 PM)

Indeed, and that's one of my favorite XKCDs. You have to balance your security based on who's likely to try to attack you. I protect my digital signature / online-banking stuff with longer passphrases than forum logins, simply because attackers would be more interested in spending energy on something they can have real financial gain from.

That said, access to a forum or account account can be valuable as well - interesting information can sometimes be gathered form such access, either directly or through social engineering. And if the user has used the same passphrase in multiple locations, well...

1674

Developer's Corner / Re: To persist with Windows 2000 support?

« Last post by f0dder on February 23, 2011, 05:22 PM »

Both the SDKs and the Express editions are nice things... and both are absolutely humongous compared to the 32meg VCToolkitSetup.exe. I'm sorta OK with MS not supporting toolkit versions of their recent compilers, even though I think it's a shame they don't.

But I'm still pissed off at them pulling the 2003 toolkit, since it's the last (gratis available - iirc there were no express versions before 2008?) compiler that supports building for 9x targets.

1675

Living Room / Re: Should I be concerned that my wife opened a Facebook account?

« Last post by f0dder on February 23, 2011, 05:18 PM »

So, if she locks down her privacy, doesn't friend people she doesn't really know (limit it to real friends and family), and doesn't use a scarlet A as her profile photo, it's not likely any stranger would know.

-app103 (February 23, 2011, 04:15 PM)

Limiting to real friends & family definitely reduces the risk of mischief... adding workmates can be a very bad idea. But in the end, if you have anything in the least compromising on facebook, all it takes is one disgruntled person on your friend list. And there's rumors of insurance companies etc having special deal with the facebook corp.