Recent Posts

1676

General Software Discussion / Re: Complaint: BitDefender Internet Security

« Last post by Innuendo on September 20, 2009, 09:31 AM »

Sorry you had such a bad time with BitDefender, but your story has a lot more high points than the typical tale of woe I hear from BitDefender users. The good news for you is that there are better companies out there & they are eager to take your money. You shouldn't have much trouble finding one to be a suitable replacement.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Complaint: Softwrap (nasty eula)

« Last post by Innuendo on September 20, 2009, 09:23 AM »

OMG...Softwrap? Really? Flashback to 2004....I didn't know any company used that archaic dinosaur anymore. It didn't take long for the hackers/crackers/pirates to bust that protection scheme open with keygens, either, so I don't see how anyone in this day and age would consider it to be a viable protection strategy for their assets.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DivX Pro 7 ( worth € 15,95 ) - 4 Free

« Last post by Innuendo on September 20, 2009, 09:10 AM »

I never received any serial number via email, but I didn't get the installer downloaded and installed till Friday afternoon. Might have to wait till people come into the office Monday. Of course, they may have just wanted email addresses to see who is downloading their stuff & to fluff up their email mailing list.

BCHOWDHURY, no, the DivX people have never treated free-getters as customers, but very few companies do that. All the more reason to grab while the grabbing is good. Although, DivX isn't as important as it was what with the new encoding algorithms like h264 gaining market-share.

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General Software Discussion / Re: dell laptop, vista won't activate

« Last post by Innuendo on September 19, 2009, 10:16 AM »

Vista retail and OEM discs are indeed near identical. The same holds true for Windows 7 as well. However, what we are discussing in this thread are what some call Royalty OEM discs. These are discs that are keyed to a certain brand computer.

These discs are characterized by never requiring an install key if installed on a PC it's been keyed to, showing as being activated even if a computer has never been connected to the internet & usually there are logos of the company (in this case Dell) emblazoned in the Computer's properties dialog and on the disc label. These discs have a few differences than retail and regular OEM discs that make the "never require an install key or require activation" magic happen.

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The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Warning: Time is the single biggest cause of stress in our western culture

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 04:36 PM »

You've clearly not had enough, then - it's with sugar as with caffeine, you haven't had enough until you go into a jittery frenzy (which tends to be followed by headache and/or nausea).

-f0dder (September 18, 2009, 09:50 AM)

Well, I did say never has having ONE given me a headache. Alas, who ever stops at having just one, though?

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General Software Discussion / Re: dell laptop, vista won't activate

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 04:34 PM »

Don't bother calling Microsoft. You're having troubles with a Dell OEM OS. They are just going to tell you to call Dell and resolve it with them.

And there's no easy way to get that recovery partition back. That's why when you first turn on your PC after unboxing it you get screamed at to back up your recovery partition to DVDs as it's darn near irreplaceable.

The recovery partition is useless, IMHO. It's just the image of your PC as it came from the factory with any shovelware/crapware/crippleware that came installed from the factory. The Dell OS Install Disc is what is useful as it will give you a clean OS install looking just like a retail disc install.

It does sound like your disc is bad. I'd call Dell ASAP and arrange to get a replacement. Will probably cost you $10-20.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DivX Pro 7 ( worth € 15,95 ) - 4 Free

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 10:30 AM »

It finally started downloading. Their download site is either getting slammed or they are running it on a Timex Sinclair WITHOUT the 16 KB RAM module.

I installed it & signed up for their newsletter, too, as to track if they get my info. Already got the confirmation email to add my email address to their list so I know they got my information.

If I don't get registration information I'll know something else might be afoot.

But hold on...checking the register dialog it says my DivX Pro and DivX Converter are already registered. Maybe there's nothing else to be done?

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DivX Pro 7 ( worth € 15,95 ) - 4 Free

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 09:53 AM »

You got farther than I did. I can't even the app to download. I'll keep trying...

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The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Warning: Time is the single biggest cause of stress in our western culture

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 09:44 AM »

The internet is global. Different cultures have different values in regards to what is offensive & sometimes even seem contradictory to outsiders. I wouldn't take anything personally. Some people just have different thoughts on the matter. If it were me I'd just edit out the offending remark in the interest of keeping DonationCoder filled with shiny, happy people and not give much more thought to it.

There's got to be something wrong with translation or the movie's script writer has never had a warm, glazed Krispy Kreme donut. Never once has one given me a headache. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: dell laptop, vista won't activate

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 09:37 AM »

I have yet to see a Dell machine without a recovery partition (even when they come with discs - which I suppose they would have to supply for 2 different operating systems).

-Carol Haynes (September 18, 2009, 03:30 AM)

I just gifted someone a new Dell laptop & set it up for them. It did come with a real install disc for the OS and a recovery partition complete with the app that yells, "HEY! STOP! You should really stop and take the time now to make backup DVDs of your recovery partition."

Another reason Microsoft invalidated all those product keys one sees on the sides/bottoms of computers is that people would walk through stores or stroll through work & use their cell phones to take pictures of all the codes for use at home later.

Nothing is perfect, though, and every once in a while I hear about someone trying one of those codes on their PCs and it works. I guess the blacklisting procedure isn't as thorough as MS world like. One has to wonder, though, if MS doesn't intend for those codes to work why bother putting the code on the sticker to begin with? Just leave the code off and problem solved.

Edit: Cleaning up messy quoting. Bah...

1686

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Remove duplicate files, folders and archives - DupeTrasher 2009

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 09:23 AM »

I thought the name of the program was DupeTrasher? What's all this DupeThrasher business? A Freudian wish to send your duplicate files to a more violent end?

1687

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WinX DVD Ripper Platium - free for the rest of Sept.

« Last post by Innuendo on September 18, 2009, 09:20 AM »

A lot of the copy-protection schemes deliberately deviate from the standards of how a DVD should be authored or written. There will be lots of hinkiness introduced into the file structure leading to all sorts of errors like file links that go nowhere, links to invalid files, etc. All the data checksum data is still there, but a lot of it is wrong because of the errors in the file structure introduced by the copy-protection.

DVD players hooked up to your televisions don't care about these inconsistencies as they are dumb devices that don't care where all the files are on a movie disc and blindly follow where the menu and cell navigation takes them. DVD drives in your PC don't care, either, till you start to do more than just play the movie. Then instead of your DVD software just blindly following the cell navigation instructions something (whether it be the OS or a file manager, or a video editing program, etc.) is trying to access, understand, and sometimes replicate the file structure of the disc. Since these copy-protection routines rely on injecting dummy files into the file structure with error-filled file links, bad data, and lots of other tricks like encryption, just using something like Nero isn't going to copy the disc.

Using a program that backs up a DVD disc that is copy-protected will usually yield you a disc that has no encryption, the file shenanigans removed, and the Region flags stripped from the disc. Since all the bad stuff has been removed the all the checksum data present is actually correct as there's a 100% valid file structure present.

I usually use Slysoft's AnyDVD as my program to remove all the nastiness from a disc. It's the only program I know that you can put a heavily protected movie in your DVD drive and then use the file manager of your choice (Explorer, Total Commander, DOpus, etc.) to just drag all the files on the disc to your hard drive & have a working copy of the movie.

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WinX DVD Ripper Platium - free for the rest of Sept.

« Last post by Innuendo on September 17, 2009, 11:49 AM »

I agree. I hadn't heard of this program before, but a quick search on Google seems to turn up favorable reviews. Not sure what I'd use it for, but I'll download it now....just in case.

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General Software Discussion / Re: mouse settings are gone after reboot (!)

« Last post by Innuendo on September 17, 2009, 11:36 AM »

By your own words you have an exotic (read: unusual) setup so the first thing I would do if I were you would be to try to eliminate the variables one by one.

Remove the drivers for the FPSGun. Reboot. Set your mouse settings up and reboot once more. Did you lose your settings?

Then remove the drivers for the Filco Neo. Reboot. Set your mouse settings up using the built-in Windows drivers and reboot once more. Did you lose your settings?

Another thought is to make sure you are using the latest drivers for both the Neo and the FPSGun.

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The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Warning: Time is the single biggest cause of stress in our western culture

« Last post by Innuendo on September 16, 2009, 11:36 AM »

...and here I thought this thread was about ex-wives. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Will Win7 last as long as XP?

« Last post by Innuendo on September 16, 2009, 11:34 AM »

Drivers have flowed quite easily for most of my hardware. The only company dragging their feet in my case is Creative, but that's nothing new. They must only hire programmers who have successfully finished reading Visual Basic for Dummies. Fortunately, someone's modded the Vista drivers to work perfectly with Win 7.

My ATI card is fine (even though I have an older card that has to use the legacy drivers. Bah!) and my Intel NIC is a dream. The Intel Win 7 drivers are giving me better performance than I got under Vista. Probably due to all that auto-adjusting networking stuff that never was quite right in Vista.

Windows 7 is coming and it's just a little over a month away. Companies really don't have any excuse not to either have their drivers released or near release. Windows 7's driver model is not that much different than Vista's so there's not the excuse available there was when people were transitioning from XP to Vista.

As little Kylie says in the new Windows 7 commercial: I'm a PC and more happy is coming.

Windows 7 is snappy and 'reponisive'.

1692

General Software Discussion / Re: Organize desktop icons and more...

« Last post by Innuendo on September 16, 2009, 11:22 AM »

The only thing about Stardock is that they are infamous for making software that is perpetually 'almost there.' Their programs work mostly all right, but are plagued by little annoying buglets that aren't large enough to be full-blown bugs, but are annoying nonetheless. What's worse is that these little annoyances almost never get fixed.

And woe to thee whose favorite Stardock program is NOT WindowBlinds. Stardock comes out with these neat programs promising all these wonderful features in the future, but other than a few maintenance releases after a program debuts most of their non-WindowBlinds programs are left to wither on the vine. The company has been promsing major upgrades in features for ObjectBar, DesktopX, and ObjectDock for literally years with no release of these programs in sight.

Add insult to injury now that bloatware Impulse has to be installed to get updates.

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General Software Discussion / Re: dell laptop, vista won't activate

« Last post by Innuendo on September 16, 2009, 11:08 AM »

The thing about Dells (and Compaqs, Sonys, HPs, etc.) is that if you use the disc that came with the PC there should be no activation at all. To simplify the explanation, there are three components your Dell needs to activate: a royalty OEM key which is embedded in the installer on your Dell-provided disc, a certificate file which is also on the disc, and a string of data that is in your laptop's BIOS.

If all three of these things are present when you install Vista or Win 7 your OS will be permanently activated when it boots up for the first time with no need to contact Microsoft. The key on the bottom of your laptop is a fallback in case the above doesn't work. Since it doesn't work, either, and coupled with the 'garbage' you are seeing it sounds like a bad disc.

Contact Dell and have them send you a replacement disc and all will be well. If that doesn't give you any satisfaction you can get a copy of any Dell OEM Vista disc from a friend or elsewhere and it'll work just as well.

Feel free to contact me by PM if you have questions about pursuing a solution that doesn't involve Dell taking pity upon you.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox --3.5-- Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Innuendo on September 14, 2009, 10:58 AM »

- what is "MAF"/"MAFF"??

-Curt (September 13, 2009, 04:48 PM)

Curt, sorry I didn't make it more plain, but I'm glad you found the information you were seeking.

1695

General Software Discussion / Re: Will Win7 last as long as XP?

« Last post by Innuendo on September 14, 2009, 10:55 AM »

I'm not a big fan of 3rd party software firewalls, since I find blocking outgoing connections pretty much useless...

-f0dder (September 13, 2009, 05:27 PM)

While blocking/monitoring outgoing connections is useless in regards to fighting malware I find it invaluable in discovering what non-malware programs are doing and what web sites they are trying to contact. My favorite example to cite regarding this point is that early versions of WinDVD, a popular DVD player, would contact the author's web site and communicate the movie titles of every single movie you watched using their software. I never would have known this without my software firewall. Heck, the current version of WinDVD may still do this. I haven't used it in years, though.

I have to agree with Carol's assertion for having a good AV program installed. Even the best, most cautious behavior surfing the internet isn't an impenetrable defense when people are discovering viruses and trojans on pressed discs bought from a brick and mortar store. I won't even get into the crap we're now having to deal with with poo imbedded in Flash ads, cross-site vulnerabilities, etc. The vectors of attacks are increasing and the days of just being careful what you click on and which sites you visit are coming to an end. The bad guys are getting very clever.

Makes me yearn for 1993....biggest problem we had on the internet was trying to figure out how to block banner ads and popups.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Do you touch-type or hunt-and-peck?

« Last post by Innuendo on September 14, 2009, 10:30 AM »

Computers are everywhere therefore keyboards are everywhere. That means there are very few aspects of professional and personal life where one doesn't have to type to one extent or another. Any skill (touch typing) that can make that more efficient while not being crucial does indeed make one's life easier.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox --3.5-- Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Innuendo on September 13, 2009, 01:50 PM »

It's cool, among other uses, for those situations when you get a receipt for an online purchase that doesn't "save page as" properly and you don't really want to print out hard copy.

-MilesAhead (September 12, 2009, 01:09 PM)

May I suggest for those pages that won't "save page as" properly to install the Mozilla Archive Format plugin:

https://addons.mozil...US/firefox/addon/212

Web pages save as one file & allows Firefox to work with IE's MHT files.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Will Win7 last as long as XP?

« Last post by Innuendo on September 13, 2009, 01:42 PM »

I'm running Windows 7 RTM now and I have been for quite some time. I see people in this thread saying that Win7 isn't worth upgrading to & I imagine their opinions are based on screenshots they have seen. This really is the best version of Windows yet & one needs to experience it in person to see how smooth MS has made things work together. Sitting down in front of a Vista PC is now awkward for me & sitting down in front of an XP PC is a painful experience.

As for whether or not Win7 will last as long as XP....XP wasn't supposed to last as long as XP did. A screwed up development cycle for Vista is what prolonged XP staying on store shelves for as long as it has. Microsoft has stated that from here on out there's going to be a new OS released every 2-3 years just like in the past. The Vista development cycle length was an anomaly.

Having said that, though, Microsoft and Apple are running out of evolutionary enhancements to make to their respective OSes, IMHO. Things are getting to the point where the OS you have is good enough & there's not enough that can be added to a new version of your OS of choice to warrant an upgrade cost. There may need to be a revolutionary change to the OS to get people to upgrade to Win8.

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Living Room / Re: Carrier Pigeon faster than commercial ISP

« Last post by Innuendo on September 12, 2009, 10:26 AM »

When people talk about internet speeds they invariably talk about Japan, select European countries, and other places that get to bask in the glory of 50+ mbps speeds. Places like Africa are nearly never mentioned & a lot of us neglect to 'remember' how much better we have it over others and that neglect extends a lot farther than just internet speeds as well.

In a digital world full of web pages heavy with crap like Flash, Java, and other crap & even a free AV program weighs in at 80+ MB the internet is developing into a world of haves and have-nots. It's not just about having internet access anymore. One needs to have fast internet access speeds in order to function well on today's information super-highway.

I had the opportunity the other day to watch someone trying to use eBay on a dial-up connection. It was mostly an exercise in frustration with mediocre results. What should be a web site with some images, some words, and a few text input fields was a bloated, sluggish experience on a dial-up modem.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox --3.5-- Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Innuendo on September 12, 2009, 10:15 AM »

Or another alternative is to just directly edit the extensions to provide support for Firefox v3.5x. However, there might be a very good reason why they don't work with v3.5x. You could end up with a real mess on your hands if you are not careful.

As I advised a few other people on this forum it might benefit you greatly to do a manual check for updates to your extensions to work with v3.5. When I upgraded from v3.0 I had lots of extensions that did not work, but when I checked the extensions' home pages and http://addons.mozilla.org manually I found updates to all of them to work with v3.5 that Firefox's auto-update were not picking up.

Failing that, give us a list of extensions that do not work for you & we may be able to suggest replacements that work just as well or better than the ones you are using.