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1676

Living Room / Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router.

« Last post by Shades on February 27, 2013, 07:17 AM »

Paying your fair share of taxes is not the problem here. The people that man the offices which allowed this travesty to happen are.

Sure, in the Netherlands we have our "fair" share of government misspending taxes, but for the most part your taxes do go where it is intended for. Because of that Dutch people do not have that much problems paying taxes. If I would tell people living in the US how much taxes you have to pay living in Holland, I would be liable for manslaughter, so I won't.

It is always a people problem.

1677

ProcessTamer / Re: Installing an executable with limited execution priority

« Last post by Shades on February 23, 2013, 09:33 AM »

A quick search through the "tubes" made me find:
- open the command prompt
- type (for example): start /low notepad.exe

Put the above in a batch file, associate the desired icon with it and done.
There is one problem with this way of starting an application. The use of quotes is not allowed...So if the executable is stored in a folder with spaces in its name, you will have a problem. Solvable by putting the folder into the PATH variable, I would think.

Or did I understand the request incorrectly?

1678

Living Room / Re: Show us a picture of your.. CAR!!!

« Last post by Shades on February 21, 2013, 08:27 PM »

When you can be without owning a car, keep it that way. Unless it is your hobby and you like to do maintenance yourself. Only a wife can spend/waste money faster than a car. But only just. Of course thats in the case you don´t get stopped by police or being caught by a camera...and find 3 weeks later a check in the mail for 50 euros, written out to the municipal, because you were speeding 3 kilometers an hour. Or 5 km/h, but then the ticket is already 75 euro. 

Freedom, right. To independedly go from one gas station to the next, while bringing the rest of your money to your local government. In the Netherlands a car like eleman´s would easily cost you 120 euro a month or more, depending on the size of the engine, the type of fuel it uses and general weight. The car has not moved one inch. If you want to do that, you pay close to 2 euros per liter of fuel, depending on type and location of the gas station.

Also, when your car is 3 years or older, you have to do an annual checkup at a station that is allowed to do so. Whatever they say is broken/worn/out of regulation you have to fix. Prices for this test vary, I always had to pay around 65 euros. Cost of the repairs would vary. And if the repairs take too long, you would have to pay again for the test.

Insurance for a car like eleman´s, would also be around 120 euros monthly for not much more than basic coverage. Fines for any of the above are high.

No, When I came to Paraguay, I didn´t need a car anymore and that felt liberating...much more liberating than being the owner of a car ever gave me.

Of course, your mileage may vary, but I am glad to be rid of that moneypit.

1679

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by Shades on February 20, 2013, 11:12 AM »

[Fanboy alert]
Since my Amiga days DOpus has been part of my computing routines. Working on a computer without DOpus I honestly feel like having to tie shoelaces with one hand tied on my back.

You can even make your own routines (for example: renaming of files into a format you like) and associate that routine with a button or menu item in the DOpus screen. I have a few of these routines made and a lot of work is now done by clicking on one button.

That is the feature I appreciate the most in DOpus.
[/fanboy alert]

1680

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by Shades on February 14, 2013, 05:50 AM »

Stardust:
Adventure, fantasy, (riskier) jokes, nice effects, decent storyline and last but not least a strong cast. I mean, who can say no to Michelle Pfeiffer with Claire Daines as backup?

1681

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by Shades on February 09, 2013, 04:58 AM »

I also should say that Dopus 5 on Amiga used a similar concept as 'the Gimp', a small window containing the buttons for the (programmable) file actions and small explorer-like windows.


As I see the amount of "hate" that type of interface creates among users, I can imagine that GPSoftware is not likely to implement it soon. Personally, I wouldn't mind having to work with this type of interface at all. But I think the sales of this DOpus version would never cover for the amount of work GPSoftware would have to do.

1682

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by Shades on February 09, 2013, 04:42 AM »

Although the NTFS file-system is fast, reliable, journalled, etc., it is also limited with the one source - one destination scenario. The Amiga home computer did this better. Likely there were more yesteryear operating systems capable of this, but I only have first hand experience with the Amiga, so I'll keep referencing to that.

Whenever you give windows the command to copy/move files by keyboard or mouse, Windows passes the job to the filesystem to do the actual work. No amount of code is going to fix that. Or GPSoftware should write their own file-system. And that is not likely going to happen or even be allowed by Microsoft. Although there might be options with multi-threading nowadays, that still means a huge revision of the existing codebase.

All I want to say is that it is most definitely not a simple case of 80 lines of code to conquer this limitation. I think that GPSoftware is doing a great job with the imposed limits that exist in the Windows operating system. Then again, you could consider me a DOpus fanboy.

Each and any Operating System has limits designed into it, there will always be someone smart to find some tricks to be as efficiently as possible with the given limits, but in the end of the day, the limits are what they are and the only solution left to the user is to work around them.

1683

Living Room / Re: Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

« Last post by Shades on February 09, 2013, 04:14 AM »

@Renegade:
That story is even mentioned in the Bible. But that is a bit of reverse psychology, if you ask me. After all, there is a magnitude of difference in the amount of people with low income and the rich. Still, getting a little from lots and lots of people is still a lot of money.

Plus the guilt trip that is the catholic church, made sure anyone would keep paying for their subscription to heaven.

[/off-topic]

It is an impressive sum Billy G. gave away. But I always get the feeling it is that (at least) 75% of the reasoning behind it is tax deductions and PR. Cannot blame him for that, though. And compared with Steve "Ebenezer" Jobs, Billy G.'s stairway will eventually reach the sewege lines under heaven.

There is a saying in Holland...Preacher says to banker/major/CEO of biggest company in town: You keep 'em poor, I'll keep 'em stupid. All based on the golden (Roman) rule "give the people bread and games".

1684

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by Shades on February 08, 2013, 01:45 PM »

For most intents and purposes more than 2 panes are not interesting. PC/Windows supports only one source and one destination.

Directory Opus originated on the Amiga home computer and version 5.x was the last one before they moved to PC. The Amiga did support "multiple sources-one destination" and "one source-multiple destinations" scenarios. Dopus 5 supported that without any problem. Open up as many windows as you liked/memory permitted, tag each one as as SOURCE or DESTINATION and initiate the copy functionality. Worked like a charm.

With the limits that Windows has regarding file-management I understand completely why GP Software made the choice to limit the amount of panes to 2.

Never really used the image viewer in DOpus though (Irfanview, all the way!!), so I can't help with that one.

1685

Living Room / Re: Scientists test functional 'tractor beams'

« Last post by Shades on January 30, 2013, 03:34 PM »

Come on Guys....how much difference is there in a tractor beam and a tractor pull?

1686

General Software Discussion / Re: Who is still runnig XP?

« Last post by Shades on January 25, 2013, 05:47 PM »

On most of my PC's there's XP. After 5 years of service my drive was dying and it was replaced with a new 1TByte one. When doing the cloning of partitions (to prevent re-installation) I also did partition alignment. Granted, the new drive will be the main part of the speed increase, but tasks that took a long time before are now almost instantly there.

So right now I don't see or feel the need to replace XP (or workhorse Windows 2003 for that matter) soon.

1687

Living Room / Re: PowerPwn: Power strip by day, Hacking device by night!

« Last post by Shades on January 20, 2013, 01:10 PM »

Adding more security to a LAN will result in a lot more calls to the IT department with people complaining that they cannot work (efficiently) anymore.

Last week I had to use a properly locked down LAN, but required access to a database on another separated subnet from that LAN. Because of time pressure Not only me but a senior programmer, a senior DBA and me had to work almost a full work day just to recreate an environment where we could investigate.

In an open LAN this job would have taken me alone at most 2 hours.

Security and an efficient workflow do not match. Besides, trust needs to start somewhere and that implicates there is immediately an opportunity to misuse it.

1688

General Software Discussion / Re: WinPatrol Plus or AnVir Task Manager?

« Last post by Shades on January 20, 2013, 06:16 AM »

ProcessExplorer (part of the Sysinternals Suite that was mentioned by Tuxman) can be configured to show a notificiation the moment services and processes are started and/or stopped. If memory serves me right, it also allows you to do quick and easy web-research for any of the entries in its extensive overview.

The whole Sysinternals Suite) is about 12Mbyte to download, actively maintained (by one of the main Windows architects at Microsoft, offered freely and its portable.

There are even instructional videos around (made by the author) that help you eleiminate all kinds of nasties that could find a way on your PC with these tools, if the vast range of available functionalities inside this suite overwhelm you.

1689

Living Room / Re: Windows Secrets course on facebook safety

« Last post by Shades on January 18, 2013, 05:38 AM »

And with FaceBook´s new thing called ´graph´ the cat is finally out of the bag. It already is too late, but dump it anyway!

1690

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by Shades on January 15, 2013, 01:53 PM »

The last digit on a digital measurement device is always wrong. Wrong as in not accurately showing the true value, only the approximate one.

Although analog meters do not have this problem, they have their issues as well. Normally these cannot be trusted on both the (extreme) low and (extreme) high values. Most analog meters are created to show measurement values accurately on a selected part of their full scale.

Analog car speedometers, fuel and heat gauges are famous examples of this principle. It is actually very costly to make an analog meter that works well all over its scale.

1691

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by Shades on January 12, 2013, 03:37 PM »

Fluke does indeed charge through the nose for their products. But I am still of the opinion that you do get what you pay for. These things can take a serious beating before they give up and last forever when used normally.

Their multi-meters (Fluke 75) I used in school were touched by at least 1000 electronics students over a 4-year period and they were just as good as they were new. To me that was a proper investment my technical school did. Not having to think about maintenance even when more than 1000 (angry/bored/agitated/otherwise afflicted) students touch these things, says to me that you have a quality product in your hands.

Cherish these, you hardly come by these type of products these days. Such a meter would last me my whole life-time if I would be the sole user.

Then again, I am a cheapskate in the view of most people. Keeping up with their maintenance I can say that my army boots still server me well even though these are already 18 years old. And yes, I still maintain them with their original maintenance set. As I only have need of these boots about 2 months a year here in Paraguay, I expect these to last my whole lifetime as well.

1692

Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable

« Last post by Shades on January 11, 2013, 02:00 PM »

Yep, according to my old electrical engineering teacher, the Nazi´s were responsible for these electrical insights by their experiments (read: torture). If I remeber correctly, there is also documentation about the exposure times to these various amounts of milli-amps and when these become fatal.

1693

General Software Discussion / Re: "We changed your language to German"

« Last post by Shades on January 09, 2013, 06:08 AM »

No, the language packs are freely available...last time I checked (which was about a month ago). As far as I understood Vistalizator enables the changing of languages capability in all versions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

The possibility of changing the OS language doesn´t seem that illegal to me in the first place. Most modern OS come with this ability. With Linux this can be done easily for years already. Cannot say anything about Apple, my exposure to that OS has been extremely limited, fortunately.

1694

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Excel files don't open

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 08:46 AM »

Currently I don´t have access to these files (vacation!), but my scripts are based on this example. I´ll get back to you when I have access again, which should be in a week. Remind me if necessary.

1695

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a decent youtube downloader?

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 08:34 AM »

There are quite a lot of ools that help analyze where the space on your storage device goes. However, the one I like best is called Spacesniffer, which is both free and portable.

The reason why is simle, it is mainly because of the concept behind its interface (blocks associated with files and folders that are sized differently to represent the size of storage space they consume).

1696

Living Room / Re: To All My DC Friends!

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 08:00 AM »

Thanks Stephen....now my scroll-wheel needs a new tire 

1697

General Software Discussion / Re: "We changed your language to German"

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 07:57 AM »

There is a tool called Vistalizator, which enables you to change the OS language from Vista and Win7 even if the version is below Enterprise or Ultimate. It still requires you to download the official language packs from Microsoft though.

1698

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 07:29 AM »

The guy definitely does not ´compute her´. 

1699

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to restrict wireless internet connection to other devices at X hours?

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 06:51 AM »

In my case I used an 8 year old PC, fitted it with two network cards and a (free) copy of Untangle to handle my networking needs.

One of the network cards is connected to the ISP router, the other card is connected to a router/switch to which all computers in my LAN are connected.

A standard router/switch cost even in these parts of the world next to nothing aymore. And Untangle is very easy to work with, has a rather extensive administration possibilities, which can be accessed by a web browser (after filling in the correct password/username combination of course).

The 8-year old PC only needs a keyboard and monitor when setting it up (very straightforward), after that it can be run without monitor. This solution set me back around 50 USD, most of that was ´eaten´ by my choice in router/switch. 6 Years ago I could buy a Cisco 100MBit/sec router/switch with 24 ports and two years of use at an auction from the US embassy here in Paraguay.

1700

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a decent youtube downloader?

« Last post by Shades on January 08, 2013, 06:24 AM »

A downloadable archived copy of Firefox (from the www.portableapps.com website) is normally below 20MByte. This is the plain version, without any plugin/add-on.

I have been using this for almost 2 years now, and only because of the zotero plug-in (and actively using that for doing web-research) my Firefox setup claims 900MByte of room on my hard disk. Around 800MByte is zotero, the rest is Firefox and some other plugins/add-ons. Nowhere near as extreme as in your case.

If storage space is a concern to your setup , you might want to use cleanup tools. Assuming you don´t already do this, I´ll mention that on the same portableapps website there is also a recent version of crapcleaner, which could help a lot in cleaning out the folders mentioned by 4wd.

This system works well in my Windows setup, where I replaced installed software for their portable version as much as possible.