Recent Posts

1726

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

« Last post by Shades on November 27, 2012, 04:40 PM »

Nope, Windows won't allow any process to consume more than 2 GByte. Believe me, I got a 64 GByte RAM computer that also has 64 processors to its knees, because of that.

Doesn't matter if the OS and/or the application is 32-bit or 64-bit. The Windows memory manager won't let you..unless you step in and take over from it. See KB article 833721 for startup parameter '/3GB'. Still, you are only allowed to consume to a maximum of 3 GByte RAM per process.

Only after enabling that startup parameter on a 64-bit OS and having a 64-bit compiled application you can go over the 3 GByte limit to go to a 4 GByte limit. Expect to run your system into the ground sooner than later though.

As far as I know both the 32-bit and 64-bit Windows memory manager sees that there is 4 GByte of RAM, even if your PC has less physical RAM. Whatever is not there, will be delegated to the hard disk (swap-file). 2GByte of this RAM is for non-Windows processes only, the other 2GByte is also open to Windows kernel processes.

With the /3G parameter you limit the Windows kernel to just 1 GByte and whatever non-Windows process is allowed to use 3 GByte. Nether you or the Windows memory manager is going to be pleased with this. So, if you have an application that consumes 2 GByte, that application is clearly doing something so wrong it doesn't deserve a place on your hard disk in the first place.

Yes Excel, I'm looking at you...

1727

Living Room / Re: In search of ... opinions on RAID at home

« Last post by Shades on November 27, 2012, 03:53 PM »

My 8 year old Asus MoBo died some two months ago. It was an AMD single core linux PC (Ubuntu 10 Server) hosting 6 drives (5 SATA/1 IDE) and a software based RAID controller (RAID 6) that came with the OS.

So I bought a new modern Asus MoBo with an AMD multi-core, dreading about how much time would be lost with reconfiguring/rebuilding. Well, whining about it doesn't help so I replaced it inside the case, connecting all the drives and turned the PC on to check for damages.

Guess what, it spun up as if nothing had happened to it. I'm with f0dder, if you have to have RAID, go for software based ones, preferably ones that come with the OS.

1728

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

« Last post by Shades on November 25, 2012, 10:32 AM »

As far as I know Windows doesn´t allocate more than 2GByte of RAM to any process. Unless you have specially build executables (Large Address Aware) and boot your Windows system with some extra parameters.

Been there, done that, don´t recommend these tricks to anyone, unless they absolutely need it. Your system will become noticably slower after a while and will keep detoriating until it becomes too slow. Ah well, serves you right for surpassing the Windows memory manager.

Tested this setup once with Excel (2003 till 2010) in a scripting environment and I was baffled how (any) Excel is able to suck all resources from a 8GByte i7 so quickly.

1729

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

« Last post by Shades on November 25, 2012, 09:52 AM »

For 8 years I have a very Basic Gateway multimedia keyboard, which I clean every 6 months. Taking it apart and clean the top half with lots of water and a toothbrush. Almost looks like a new one (some minor discolorozation from sunlight) after that. And better yet, it still types like a champ!

I would say my keyboard is almost as solid as those IBM keyboards. Techies know which type/model I mean

1730

General Software Discussion / Re: Two classes of membership here?

« Last post by Shades on November 15, 2012, 04:45 PM »

Nope, cranioscopical only shines when spitting...

1731

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... help with XAMPP [portable] installation.

« Last post by Shades on November 08, 2012, 02:05 PM »

Are you sure that the port you used in the configuration file is open? Could be that firewall/anti-virus software has that port blocked. Are you using a router in the office? Could be that you have to do some configuring there as well (opening and/or forwarding ports).

These are very general hints, but as I do not know 'the lay of the land' it is hard to say anything more useful.

1732

General Software Discussion / Re: organize data for research

« Last post by Shades on November 04, 2012, 10:53 AM »

No fan of MS Office here, but I do have to say their OneNote is a real gem.

1733

Living Room / Re: History of CP/M

« Last post by Shades on November 04, 2012, 10:50 AM »

You´re mean 40hz, now I want to play with one again. I owned one A1000, several A500´s, several A2000´s, one A600 and several A1200´s. Over time with expansion kits and processor upgrades for practically all of them.

Amazing machines, amazing OS and together with Directory opus 5 amazingly capable. 

1734

General Software Discussion / Re: DragonFly BSD now best platform for PostgreSQL and database hosting

« Last post by Shades on November 04, 2012, 10:41 AM »

In my experience, companies are not thrilled to leap from server OS to server OS for a few percent points of extra performance. And even if they want a new server there are such things as central management systems that may or may not have problems with this new version of DragonFly BSD.

Personally I do like PostgeSQL and whatever speed gains people can get out of it. In syntax very similar to Oracle, which is the beast I have most memorable (both good and bad) experience with. Just crossed the border of 0.5TByte databases with that one.

1735

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

« Last post by Shades on November 04, 2012, 10:20 AM »

Yeah, it sucks. Sucks, sucks, sucks. Add printer and scanner drivers to the bunch - they've always sucked, but it's gotten extremely bad in the latest years, where printer drivers have started advertising for printer cartridges.

Phone connectivity... several hundreds of megs installed, whether it's Nokia or Sony/Ericsson or whatever. I try to stick with S/E because I can then use the nice unbloated MyPhoneExplorer

-f0dder (February 22, 2011, 01:08 PM)

After a good deal of searching for software to regain the ability to manage my phone (Nokia 5530) after the latest update made it enter into an locked-in environment almost equal to the Apple crap (both on the phone and the Nokia Suite software), I was on the verge of buying a new Android phone.

However, I did find some old beta software from Nokia and that gives me the access I need. The installer says it only runs on Windows XP SP2, but Win7 still has that compability setting and it even works under Win 7 x64. I would say it is similar to the uncluttered interface you get from MyPhoneExplorer.

So, if you (still) have a Symbian S60 phone, search for the following: PCPhone_install_1.2.2078.exe (I couldn´t find it on the Nokia webpage anymore).

1736

General Software Discussion / Re: Synergy Virtual KVM

« Last post by Shades on November 03, 2012, 04:57 PM »

For years I had Synergy running between 3 windows boxes (a server, my personal system and my laptop)...without any issue. It was the 1.3.1 version and installation was easy, the configuration admittedly a little weird but that was it. Now my single multi-monitorred PC has more computational power (and more cores for that matter) so I'm not using it anymore.

I did try alternatives, but somehow always returned back to Synergy. Never tried to connect with my Synergy setup with a linux box though. Apple I don't do on principals alone. I can happily say that I have never touched any (model of) iPhone, iPod or iPad. I never even saw any model of iPad out of its carton box. And yes, I consider myself to be a better person, just because of that.

1737

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013 Pledge: Brolands, a mod for Cortex Command

« Last post by Shades on November 03, 2012, 03:12 PM »

You will like it, but some levels (that came with my copy) are f!cking hard. There is one with you defending a base while it is under attack...never been able to pass it and it sure wasn't for a lack of trying! 

1738

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Excel files don't open

« Last post by Shades on November 02, 2012, 06:34 AM »

Are you running Excel 2010?

Then it is likely that the security settings from Excel prevent you from opening these files.
By default, Excel 2010 only opens xls files that have formatted according to the Office 2003 document structure and to the Office 2010 document structure. It also depends if the files are stored in locations that Excel 2010 regards as unsafe (practically your complete system is deemed unsafe). Did these files come from LAN or the internet? Excel 2010 tagged them as such and will not open them either.

Excel 2010, you just have to love it. Anyway, Open Excel 2010 and select the ´File´ tab. In there is an option called ´Trust settings´. Over there you can relax the very strict security rules that are employed by Excel 2010.

If the need arises, I can put some PowerShell scripts up for download here that use Excel 2010 to convert Excel documents that use a structure not deemed safe anymore by Excel 2010 to an Excel document structure (or CSV) that Excel 2010 does not have a problem with. You should not have to go through the same misery as I did with a security consious Excel (or complete Office 2010 for that matter).

1739

Living Room / Re: Crossover Giveaway

« Last post by Shades on October 30, 2012, 07:35 AM »

Honestly, Directory Opus is keeping me to Windows. If that piece of software goes well in CrossOver, I just might jump. Mainly because I am not impressed with Windows 7 from the beginning and recently 2008 R2. The general sentiment generated by the new ¨contenders¨ doesn´t inspire confidence with me, to be honest.

Spoiler

[rant]
Come on, a single core AMD 2003 Oracle 10g server with SATA2 HD can handle a bigger load of DB connections (and small read/writes) per second than an i7 2008 R2 Oracle 10g server with SATA3 HD. For a SOAP test generating/storing 5000 small XML messages per sec (multi-threaded) the 2008 R2 file system gave up after 2 hours. Litteraly severing the link between filesystem and hard disk. The server was telling me that it lost the hard disk, destroying a 300GByte database because Oracle was not able to write to some files for internal upkeep. A simple reboot was needed to gain access to the HD again and that drive checked out fine, so it was really the OS/filesystem that couldn´t keep up. CPU load on the i7 never went over 8%, so kudos to Intel  AMD has nothing to b ashamed about either with a average load around 19%.

The 7 year old 2003 server fullfilled its role as backup as a true soldier and lasted the whole week needed for the test. Without a hitch. So I am inclined to agree with the statement from 40Hz about MS making decent servers.  But for me the ¨sweet spot¨ lies with their 2003 Server. 
[/rant]

1740

Living Room / Re: I want a Sony Xperia SX, but I think it's stupid to buy one.

« Last post by Shades on October 29, 2012, 11:22 AM »

Good news. Lots of different Xperia models are on offer in the Netherlands (webshops):
http://tweakers.net/...-xperia-s/overzicht/
http://tweakers.net/...ion-zwart/overzicht/

Site is in Dutch, but you can translate those easy. Besides, there are links to the webshops that carry these phones.

And who knows, if they are allowed to be sold in the Netherlands/Europe, then the US should be possible as well.

1741

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Powershell Plus Free

« Last post by Shades on October 25, 2012, 06:51 AM »

It is pretty powerfull. And you come to appreciate PowerShell a lot more with an IDE like the one from Idera. Most IDE´s nowadays have autocomplete for the script commands they support (including helpful description) and that makes it a lot easier to work and get used with these commands.

Version 1.1 is also available on WinXP since SP2 if memory serves me right. Windows 7 is likely to have version 2.0 from PowerShell. The IDE can work with both.

Thanks for the heads-up  

1742

General Software Discussion / Re: CentOS Administration Tool Recommendations?

« Last post by Shades on October 25, 2012, 06:41 AM »

´WebMin´ is the name of the software you´re looking for. Administer practically your whole serever with a web interface.

1743

General Software Discussion / Re: Why I switched from Thunderbird to The Bat!

« Last post by Shades on October 18, 2012, 03:09 PM »

If you want to play, try Foxmail. That one is free, comes in portable version and hooks up with Exchange if you want it to. Another goodie from China.
Softpedia has the english version available.

1744

Living Room / Re: Remember to make full drive image backups

« Last post by Shades on October 14, 2012, 03:50 PM »

Partitionguru by Eossos. Their freeware version (v4 I believe) I have been using lately to fix several Windows PC´s.

This is a piece of software that really belongs in any tech´s toolkit. It easily trumps Partition Magic (in their good days!) and has the abilities of Norton Ghost as well. And I liked the amount and lay-out of shortcut keys, I had no trouble doing all the fixing without a mouse.

The only disadvantage I could find is that the english is not always correct...well, not as I would have translated it. Its origins lie in the Orient (China). Please don´t let this stop you using this brilliant piece of software.

1745

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

« Last post by Shades on October 09, 2012, 06:45 PM »

Well, I think you have been smoking...which leads to the question, can I have some?   

1746

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by Shades on October 08, 2012, 05:20 PM »

But I could also be tempted to call it 'Papa'...   

1747

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by Shades on October 08, 2012, 05:17 PM »

Rai stones, any one?

-ewemoa (October 08, 2012, 02:36 AM)

"In one instance, a rai being transported by canoe was accidentally dropped and sank to the sea floor. Although it was never seen again, everyone agreed that the rai must still be there, so it continued to be transacted as genuine currency.[4] What is important is that ownership of the rai is clear to everyone, not that the rai is physically transferred or even physically accessible to either party in the transfer."

-TaoPhoenix (October 08, 2012, 11:08 AM)

So was that the first Rai of Hope?

-Stoic Joker (October 08, 2012, 11:26 AM)

I would sooner associate Johnny Cash with this.   

1748

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by Shades on October 08, 2012, 05:14 PM »

The previous link for Rai stones results in an error. This link will take you to the Wikipedia page

1749

Living Room / Re: Halloween would be less popular if...

« Last post by Shades on October 08, 2012, 05:00 PM »

You crack me up, as usual.

-MilesAhead (October 08, 2012, 09:49 AM)

I had to scramble for it.

-cranioscopical (October 08, 2012, 01:38 PM)

Hey! The yoke was already on me at Halloween!! I forgot to duck.

-MilesAhead (October 08, 2012, 02:29 PM)

But luckily you didn't break the basket   

1750

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: ASAP Utilities for Excel

« Last post by Shades on October 06, 2012, 03:21 PM »

The download page from Microsoft (for Office 2010) states all kinds of reasons to not use 64-bit Office, unless you absolutely have to. Actually, that page does not even mention there is a 64-bit version (or 32-bit for that matter). At least this was true when I last checked a month or two ago.