Recent Posts

1701

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.

1702

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.

1703

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

« Last post by Shades on January 05, 2013, 02:45 PM »

What is wrong with 'YouTube HD downloader"? It's free and portable. Fill in the YouTube URL and it will look up the highest quality version associated with that URL for downloading, if you want.

To my knowledge, it comes without any of the usual "nasties" as described in the OP.

1704

Living Room / Re: Probably the single best idea I've seen in a *very* long time.

« Last post by Shades on January 05, 2013, 02:33 PM »

Marvelous idea!  

Are all the phones in buzz-mode only? If that is not the case, it should be. Because you can use different ring tones (per contact) so it is quite easy to recognize which phone goes off and who is calling.

When all the phones are in buzz/vibration-only mode, you can introduce a gambling element into this plan...opens up a lot more possibilities and/or punishments  

1705

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

« Last post by Shades on January 05, 2013, 02:26 PM »

Most sites do use Geo-location nowadays. No matter what your settings for your browser, region or indeed the language of the OS itself (in my case: Dutch OS, preferred language is set to English and I still get served in Spanish when visiting international pages, such as the one from HP and Oracle).

So I know of your problem, but cannot supply another answer than: put up with it.
Some of these international sites allow you to register yourself with them and most of these offer language settings. So when you log in at that site your language will be set to your wishes, but not before.

[off-topic]
Once upon a time, many many moons ago, I was tasked with the job of digitizing porn videos to be used on some Dutch porn sites, specifically tailored for different types of "connoisseurs"...one of those was German porn from the 80's. If it would be possible to erase those images by sandpapering my eyeballs, I would consider it. Seriously. Still feel entitled to hazard pay on that "deal".
[/off-topic]

1706

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013 Release - Skyrim Character Manager

« Last post by Shades on January 02, 2013, 05:20 AM »

@Deozaan:
You definitely should get it. Although it is not heavy on the (PC) requirements, that game is responsible for me overheating (and breaking of) my motherboard, because I couldn´t stop playing even through the heatwave we had here (you know, when it cools of to 35 degrees Celsius at night). I should mention that AC´s give me a headache, so I don´t have one at home.

1707

Living Room / Re: Companies Keep Us Buying New Stuff

« Last post by Shades on December 29, 2012, 12:19 PM »

Problem is also that most of the younger generations don't know any better anymore. They are actually used to
PO.

Over here in Paraguay it is really bad. Common household appliances are discarded even when the internal fuse has blown. Rich, middle-class and poor people do this. There are still quite some electronic repair shops in the suburbs of Asuncion.

I tried to explain the idiocy of this way of thinking to several people here over time and each time I am greeted with the same apathetic stare. Most of the people here actually just want to buy new stuff. Even if they to go in debt for it.

Luckily, me getting a kick out of repairing something still outdoes the sadness that creeps up on me when I think of where the younger generations are heading.

1708

Living Room / Re: New Windows install - How should I organize SSD, HDD, user folders?

« Last post by Shades on December 28, 2012, 05:08 PM »

With a SSD drive I would make sure that the Windows and/or application temp folders are not on it. Althoough this might mean that you lose a little bit of performance, it should add to the longevity of the drive.

This kind of setup makes the most sense (to me at least), given the current price level of these drives. Besides, I don't think the performance-drop of your system will be that much. Depends a bit on what you want to use your system for, I'll guess.

1709

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs' Yacht Impounded?

« Last post by Shades on December 25, 2012, 10:02 AM »

I understood from a Dutch news article that the row is about 3 million USD. For boats like this that's a pittance. It would not even make a dent in the fortunes from Apple. They could get it so they have one more symbol from their beloved leader Mao...Jobs 

1710

Living Room / Re: DRAFT: Dear British Government, The BBC & TV Licensing.

« Last post by Shades on December 24, 2012, 08:35 PM »

In The Netherlands one has to pay as well for the ability to receive radio and TV. Here in Paraguay there are only commercial broadcasters and each show is riddled with commercials, sponsored by several different companies etc. they only cater for the lowest denominator...which means here beer and very scantily clad women in talent shows which are interrupted by commercials and news.

Do not get me wrong, I appreciate scantily clad women as much as the guy next to me...but it does get a bit boring after a while. Seeing a show from the BBC would actually a relief for me. And yes, Top Gear is a great show.

Tomos is totally right with his assesment, I gladly paid the dues I owed in the Netherlands. Your mind rots away from that content but not nearly as fast as with the content shown by the commercials.

Having said this, I stopped watching TV altogether. Besides internet, it is only DVDs, HBO, Starz and Discovery for me.

1711

Living Room / Re: Best router and configuration for VPN?

« Last post by Shades on December 24, 2012, 08:06 PM »

OpenVPN user here [at home]. I am with 4wd on this one. Normally OpenVPN makes hardly a dent in the available bandwidth you buy from your ISP. Congestion on either your end or on the site you create the connection to, is the likely culprit.

Although I think it is highly unlikely, there is the possibility of traffic shaping by your ISP.

You could also try a different VPN client. The Cisco VPN client software is not free for users without Cisco hardware, but it is not hard to find a downloadable copy with your favorite search engine. In my experience this client is even more resilient than OpenVPN.

1712

Living Room / Re: 21st December 2012...Why it won't happen...(Nibiru/Planet X)

« Last post by Shades on December 20, 2012, 07:29 AM »

For confirmation I need to hear similar news from Canberra, Auckland, Melbourne, Anadyr, Kiritimati and Suva... 

1713

Living Room / Re: 21st December 2012...Why it won't happen...(Nibiru/Planet X)

« Last post by Shades on December 20, 2012, 07:23 AM »

It is already 21-12-2012 in Sydney, Australia...btw 

1714

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

« Last post by Shades on December 18, 2012, 01:46 PM »

Still missing a record player though...

1715

Living Room / Re: Apple Maps Flaws 'Life-Threatening,' Australian Police Warn

« Last post by Shades on December 12, 2012, 06:15 AM »

brain cell

-4wd (December 11, 2012, 07:34 PM)

Methinks, sir, thou hast the right of it.  It's most usually brain cells, but some of these folk seem somewhat under-equipped  .

-barney (December 11, 2012, 09:21 PM)

You could entertain the possibility that most people have the amount of braincells that they need...but that these braincells only work in shifts   

1716

Living Room / Re: Can DDR2-PC6400 RAM replace DDR2-PC5300 RAM?

« Last post by Shades on December 12, 2012, 05:35 AM »

Replacement shouldn't be a problem. In theory anyway.

In my experience it never hurts to check first what your motherboard actually supports. Memory timing can be bitchy sometimes. Mix-and-match different pairs of memory modules can make your computing experience (very) unpleasant.

Even memory modules of the same brand but (slightly) different model can make your system do bad things.

After a quick peek at the provided link I didn't see a link to the installation manual. That document normally has dedicated one or more pages to which (pairs of) memory modules from which brand are supported.

1717

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Excel files don't open

« Last post by Shades on December 12, 2012, 05:13 AM »

I had a similar problem, as described in my earlier post. You could check which excel format is used by the file you want to open. There are quite a lot of different formats that Excel has been using over the years and Excel 2010 is very picky about which formats it will read.

You can find the formats also in the trust settings from Excel 2010. 

1718

Living Room / Re: The Most Bizarre Link...

« Last post by Shades on December 12, 2012, 05:05 AM »

@f0dder:
That could be possible....using all characters in an Italian accent: "ani muliti" (any mullet)   

1719

Living Room / Re: Why did it never occur to me.. You can wash a keyboard in water.

« Last post by Shades on December 12, 2012, 05:00 AM »

A former boss of mine cleaned his PC's at least once a year with an air pump intended for balloons. That thing was not too big (so you could put it in whatever angle necessary) and more than enough force to blow away any dust.

1720

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: SoftMaker FreeOffice available - each download donates to charity.

« Last post by Shades on December 12, 2012, 04:52 AM »

By selling the tear drops from the kids in their sweat-shop(s)?

1721

Living Room / Re: Text Messages on Your Contact Lenses?

« Last post by Shades on December 08, 2012, 01:17 PM »

I think they got their inspiration from this 'Black Mirror'-episode. The first season has only three episodes, and according to IMDB there are three more planned for season two.

These episodes show an interesting and also very depressing look into what the future could have in store for us. All episodes from season one are definitely worth watching. 

1722

Living Room / Re: UiO linguist makes sensational claim - English is a Scandinavian language

« Last post by Shades on December 02, 2012, 05:05 AM »

Was it not the trading between North European countries that ultimately led to a language form and structure understood by all? When I (native Dutch) keep listening/reading to the nordic languages, I do get what has been said without translation.

People always told me that this became possible, because of the active trading between North-Europeans.

1723

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

« Last post by Shades on November 30, 2012, 07:43 AM »

You could start with mentioning your name is Solomon....¨customer is king¨ after all.

1724

General Software Discussion / Re: Seeking experiences from people backing up relatively large personal data sets

« Last post by Shades on November 29, 2012, 03:21 PM »

Most days I actually like the Oracle products (so, you see I am delusional). But there are also days that I can curse them into hell, because of a stupidity that . You are definitely right about the business practices of Oracle, I think they actually believe that when you install their software you are "pimping" your PC.

At the time (about 10 years ago) there was a test done with this software and several databases (MSSQL 2000, Oracle 9, Firebird ?, PostgreSQL) and Oracle 9 came out as the best overall option. Never looked back since, to be honest, just kept upgrading Oracle.

1725

General Software Discussion / Re: Seeking experiences from people backing up relatively large personal data sets

« Last post by Shades on November 28, 2012, 06:16 PM »

I don't run 64-bit, because a) compiler doesn't support it and b) i was asked to by the maintainers of the 64 processor system I mentioned earlier. They run a optimized Windows 2008 server 64-bit version with my 32-bit application.

So if I am wrong there, so be it, my bad. from the links that 4wd informed me of, it states that 64-bit applications are compiled with the /LargeAddressAware setting by default enabled.

I would not be contesting your opinions as I do, if I hadn't seen it fail with my own eyes. Let me explain a bit.

The software I work on needs to calculate a lot and has to it really fast, serious money is involved (buying, selling auctioning, predicting and billing of energy usage on time) and is vital for the continuity of the Dutch, German, Belgium and (small part of) Great Britain energy grid.

It runs as expected/desired in 32-bit environments using plain/basic Microsoft and Oracle API's. With this software it is possible to create services that each can contain several scripted processes (yes, this software has its own scripting language) for automatic generation and processing of EDINE, EDIGAS, EDIEL type of messages through Exchange, POP3 or SOAP (XML), generating and processing of reports created in HTML, Excel, CSV, TXT, XML etc.

Because of the huge datasets that this 64 processor system has to pull/store into database schemas this limit of 2GByte per process is very, very real. And with my own eyes I saw that system f.ck up majorly because of that limit. And with Large AddressAware setting it still f.cked up, but now at 3GByte. Hence my assumption that the same misery of 32-bit limitations also was implemented in 64-bit. I didn't bother to do the research, sue me.

However, according to the online documentation you and 4wd pointed me to, I was wrong, so thanks for filling in that gap.   

However, since most of the companies that make use of this software are (forced to) upgrading to newer server OS's and more misery is my part. there was even an error message from the 2008 R2 OS that it lost connection to the hard disk (assuming it developed an error) because of me accessing a database on that hard disk in after 2 hours in on an onslaught of SOAP calls.

Needless to say, that 500GByte database was lost, Oracle was not able to repair itself anymore and one weekend more was spent reuploading that sucker. Anyway, I needed to continue my test, so I pulled my old W2003 Oracle server that contained an older version of that database and guess what, it handled the onslaught with ease for 5 days straight.

To me, 64-bit OS's may be nice in theory, in practice it is job security for IT and not so much for serious work. Believe whatever kool-aid you like/read, I will do the same and we will be happier for it.