Recent Posts

1851

General Software Discussion / Re: xlsx corrupt file, password protected, can't open...need help

« Last post by Shades on March 24, 2012, 07:10 AM »

The recent versions of LibreOffice do read the .xlsx format. Just verified that with my portable LibreOffice 3.3. As far as I know the latest portable build available is version 3.5. Granted, it doesn't go fast, but that doesn't rule it out as a salvage option now, is it?

1852

General Software Discussion / Re: xlsx corrupt file, password protected, can't open...need help

« Last post by Shades on March 24, 2012, 05:40 AM »

Try reading the file with a different Office suite, for example LibreOffice. From personal experience, and YMMV, I can tell you that I have received on several occasions MSoffice document(s) that were unreadable by MSOffice, but LibreOffice could open them just fine. Save the document again and it would open up in MSOffice as well. For these events (and PDF creation) I have a portable version of LibreOffice on my system. Always.

1853

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA to automate few tasks for new installed windows xp sp3

« Last post by Shades on March 20, 2012, 05:54 AM »

Go to the site that hosts a piece of software called: nLite

Its free, powerful and can do everything you want and so much more. It will create a new installation disc that is all setup as you want, which will eliminate (a lot of) the hassle of afterwards configuring Windows behavior.

Made quite a few of these discs already, which install XP SPIII 'fresh' in about 20 to 25 minutes, without any interaction on my part.

Slightly off-topic:
Because of the above I am actually thinking that it would be more practical (and maybe faster) to be able to reconstruct your Windows installation instead of backing it up...

1854

Living Room / Re: Which decade was the most fun for you personally?

« Last post by Shades on March 19, 2012, 11:45 AM »

The 90's for me.

Nice jobs, excellent coworkers, good money, PSX gaming with friends while having "added some extra dimensions" that were way better than the 3D from the theaters/TV's now, still having family.

1855

General Software Discussion / Re: multiple replaces

« Last post by Shades on March 18, 2012, 08:53 AM »

See if this piece of freeware (inforapid.com) fulfills your need. As far as I know it works on Windows 7 despite its age. 

1856

Older DC Contests and Challenges / Re: "Unconventional Encryption Challenge"

« Last post by Shades on March 18, 2012, 08:39 AM »

Come to think of it, is it not so that the software that implements the scheme as proposed by TaoPhoenix has to know which kind of scheme is has to work with code-wise?

Thus clearing up the whole obfuscation part for one who knows where to look/reverse-engineer? It sounds silly to me to have the software 'bruteforce' its way through the possible encryption techniques, as it would make using this software unbearable slow and very CPU/GPU resource hungry.   

1857

General Software Discussion / Re: how to build a website in my pc and then upload it to a hosting?

« Last post by Shades on March 18, 2012, 08:18 AM »

To my knowledge there are no desktop versions of CMS packages. Not really need to either.

Assuming you run Windows, goto www.apachefriends.de and download their XAMPP tool. Unpack it anywhere on your system, run the setup.bat and you have a working PHP, MySQL, Apache combo (if you already have one or more of these tools installed on your system, you should consider de-installing them if that is possible as these can occupy ports).

Download the latest (stable) version of your preferred CMS and extract it in the 'htdocs' folder inside XAMPP. Open your browser and use the URL: http://localhost/<name of your favorite CMS> and follow the instructions on the screen to install the CMS.

When that is done, you have a web development environment that will run one or more CMS'es without any problem. You can copy/move all adjustments you made to a host without too much trouble. Your host will require some changes though, as you will have to comply with their security rules. If you already know these rules beforehand you can adjust the XAMPP tool to include these. That way the copying of the website you created on your local PC to the host will be a lot less work.

The above is not complicated but I would advise to get into the habit of using a version control system like Git, Mercurial, SVN etc. for your website(s) as well. At first that is more work, but it will save your behind on more than one occasion. Besides that, it will make you look a lot more professional, so any fee you may collect will increase as well.

Do get familiar the online control panel, it sometimes can help you getting a task done quickly (depending on the type and version of the control panel).  

1858

Living Room / Re: Censoring Internet Porn?

« Last post by Shades on March 17, 2012, 07:30 AM »

The Dutch solution is better...Prostitution is regarded as a profession, so the tax man can have his thing too 

Don't let the smiley fool you, the profession part is really true. Ah well, the Dutch stance on pot is already known around the world.

1859

Living Room / Re: Britannica - would you buy it on (say) Kindle or Nook?

« Last post by Shades on March 17, 2012, 07:13 AM »

Hmm... I can see it now...Encyclopedia Britannica - available in Standard Western, Mideastern, Muslim, Socialist, Christian Conservative, and North Korean editions - with more to follow...

-40hz (March 15, 2012, 12:10 PM)

All versions come on DVD, except the Christian conservative and the North Korean ones.
The Christian conservative one can fit on a CD, only 6000 years have to be covered...
The North Korean one could fit on a floppy, as their previous leader invented and created everything (according to their state press and TV). 

1860

Older DC Contests and Challenges / Re: "Unconventional Encryption Challenge"

« Last post by Shades on March 17, 2012, 06:51 AM »

On a personal level you have picked my interest (in wanting to know how your scheme works, not breaking it).

On a professional level it is likely not that interesting as any method other than the default ones are very hard to sell to (mediocre) management that just want to buy some extra protection for their site/LAN/whatever.

1861

Living Room / Re: Auslogics promoting false speed tester?

« Last post by Shades on March 17, 2012, 06:41 AM »

Increasing TCP packet size will make things download/upload faster. Microsoft is (very) conservative with setting the packet size so the lowest common denominator could still have a stable and reliable connection. If you have professional grade LAN hardware and good cabling, packet size can make quite a difference.

However, with internet connections there are a lot more "points of failure" possible and you will have to find out with trial and (a lot of) error to find the ideal packet size. Generally speaking, more speed means you have to sacrifice stability. For most (including me) this is way more headache than it is worth and personally I place this kind of software in the same corner as registry cleaners. Useless for anyone except your PC repair shop.

Sorry to be so blunt but if one wants more speed, pony up the cash to buy a better connection from your (current) ISP. After that buy hardware that supports jumbo packets (for a better LAN experience).

1862

General Software Discussion / Re: How to become Admin' for real?

« Last post by Shades on March 16, 2012, 05:09 PM »

@4wd:
Crap, my comment was made without that the system specs (from where did you those?)

1863

General Software Discussion / Re: How to become Admin' for real?

« Last post by Shades on March 15, 2012, 04:00 PM »

"No room for more" means either that there are no more (SATA) connectors on your mainboard, your PC case has no room to fit another disk or your power supply cannot handle the load of an extra hard disk anymore.

My money would be on the first option.

However, it is possible to buy a drive with the biggest capacity your budget allows. Download freeware (Paragorn, HDClone etc.) to transfer the complete content of one of your current drives to the new one. Disconnect the drive that you don't want to copy and connect the new drive in its place. Boot from the media created by the freeware and verify you copy correctly(!!!) and then initiate the copy.

After that is finished, which can take quite some time (depending on a lot of speed factors (SATA controller, amount of content etc.)), disconnect the original drive and reconnect the previously disconnected drive. You should notice a small speed increase as the new hard disk will be (slightly) faster than the drive it replaced. When you open the drive management software from Windows you will notice that there is a lot of room left to make (a) new partition(s) or expand the one(s) you already have.

"Rinse-and-repeat" for the other 500GB drive and your PC should be able to store 6 TB of data if your budget allows you to buy 2 3TB drives, of course.

The above procedure is quite simple but do it with a clear mind, because you can seriously mess up if you do one step wrong. Relatively easy procedures makes a mind wander/complacent and that is the moment Murphy is waiting on to strike your data dead cold.   

1864

General Software Discussion / Re: build website

« Last post by Shades on March 15, 2012, 06:54 AM »

Hey...at least such a setup is easy to backup. 

 

1865

General Software Discussion / Re: How to become Admin' for real?

« Last post by Shades on March 12, 2012, 06:09 PM »

By enabling the Administrator account in Windows 7?

Easy enough to do, but that still does not comply with what you want to become.

Home-Groups are enabled by default and you will find that leaving it will work in your benefit. See what Fred Langa writes about that on the 'Windows Secrets' website (pressed for time, so no link).

Symbolic links are your other problem. These can make your life a lot easier and harder at the same time. Easier when you know why and when you should be using those, and harder when you don't.

1866

Living Room / Re: Notable Spam...

« Last post by Shades on March 10, 2012, 11:03 AM »

@cranioscopical:
You can't faIl us now...

1867

Living Room / Basejumping+

« Last post by Shades on March 08, 2012, 06:03 AM »

Wow, amazing jump and amazing camerawork. Some bodyparts of steel are definitely required for this one:

1868

DC Gamer Club / Re: Microsoft Flight Simulator - Free!

« Last post by Shades on March 08, 2012, 05:29 AM »

Well, there is a rather nice (and free) one for space vessels called: 'Battleships Forever'. 

1869

Living Room / Re: Big corps and how difficult they make it to help their customers

« Last post by Shades on March 07, 2012, 05:15 AM »

Bean-counters rule the world nowadays. And those people think that (on-line) customer support is an expenditure without (directly) identifying returns and the more support you give the more it costs.

1870

General Software Discussion / Re: Linus Torvalds on OpenSUSE

« Last post by Shades on March 06, 2012, 01:58 PM »

PMS would be better...?

After reading that I could not help but imagine how Linus would react when he would be a woman, the same age but with PMS...how verbally violent would the rants become? 

All this because of a lingering joke in my mind:
What is the difference between and attack dog and a woman with PMS?
Lipstick...

Sorry, my mind jumps strangely sometimes.
[/offtopic]

Wifi should be accessible, I agree. Timezones or time itself, that's an whole other beast. especially if the laptop can access (more or less) critical systems at home base. Everybody really underestimates the consequences of the ability to change time/timezones. Thinking about timezones outside the US for a moment...DST is already nasty, add to that the fact that the US uses the solstices (astronomical calendar) for that, while the rest of the world uses the meteorological calendar. 

I can tell you that here in Paraguay no Windows PC can reliably update their clock, because Windows practically always selects the wrong time. Nasty for backup procedures and essential systems (like traffic computers, banks, etc.) who actually have to legal obligation to correctly account for time. I believe the US is very generous by allowing a 200 milliseconds gap. Europe allows only for 10 milliseconds.

Time is not time as you think it is. And as operating systems have to adhere to the strictest denominator, I can actually applaud the decision to put time settings outside the (normal) users control.

Actually, come to think of it...Wifi (or any kind of network access) is also leaning a lot on time, is it not?

1871

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... several diagnostic tools

« Last post by Shades on February 28, 2012, 05:23 PM »

Tell me about it!

But the beast that is Oracle requires some strange manipulations to run right...sometimes. Over time I have created quite some Oracle databases (9i, 10g and 11g) using the Oracle tools intended to create databases. But in Windows 2008 R2 these sometimes do not deliver the intended result. Oracle uses a listener that handles the access to their database. but sometimes the listener is not able to make contact with the database, giving you all kinds of error messages that imply you need to pay (top dollar) for Oracle technicians to fix.

Or you can use the method suggested by my previous post. That solved my problems on three occasions already. Oracle with older Windows operating systems never gave me these kind of errors.

1872

Developer's Corner / Re: Dealing with UAC in portable tools

« Last post by Shades on February 27, 2012, 12:57 PM »

UAC = Universal Acclaimed Cruelty?

1873

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... several diagnostic tools

« Last post by Shades on February 19, 2012, 12:45 PM »

Actually, the use of a WAMP package solution (Windows, Apache,MySQL, PHP) would be preferable. Previous experiences with XAMPP package make me recommend it heartily.

Free, portable and doesn't even require installation if the archive is extracted in the root folder of a partition. Ideal for a transfer between different systems.

1874

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... several diagnostic tools

« Last post by Shades on February 19, 2012, 12:38 PM »

Till now I encountered a lot of issues with Windows 7 and 2008 R2 when using a web interface to connect to services running on those machines. Lately I found out that it really makes a lot of difference if you start extra services like MySQL, Apache etc. with a user-name that is associated with the service.

When installing MySQL, Apache etc. you notice that extra Windows user groups are created (at least that is the case with Oracle software (which MySQL is now a part of)). Associate your user-name with that group and grant your user-name the 'Log on as service' right.

Initiate/restart the MySQL and/or Apache services with your user-name and suddenly your networking issues disappear.

Really, for anyone who is dabbling with Oracle software (on windows 2008 or higher), use the above method...it will save a lot of time, hair and other kinds of frustration.

1875

General Software Discussion / Re: Zentimo/USB Safely Remove - Are they needed anymore?

« Last post by Shades on February 12, 2012, 07:27 AM »

I'm with Carol on this one. Hardly useful on Windows 7, but on Windows XP it does help. At least it does on my XP PC which entered its 7th year of practically continuous usage (which is quite a feat as it uses nVidea chipset).

A lot of times Windows won't allow me to shutdown/eject the device for whatever (unclear) reason, but after installing the latest Zentimo Give-away-of-the-day version, I do not have that problem anymore at all. In addition, ejecting appears to be a tad faster.