Recent Posts

1851

Living Room / Re: CD archive and copying

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:44 AM »

Interesting....learn something new every day. Thanks for pointing that out.

But how do you actually do it? I don't see any menu options to do it.

1852

Living Room / Re: Truely amazing piece of animation art

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:41 AM »

I used the DownThemAll extension in Firefox to grab it. But in Firefox, you can also go to the Tools menu, open up PageInfo; then look under the Media tab to find civilization_final.mov; and do a SaveAs from there.

-40hz

And the FlashGot extension allows you to grab it with the download manager of your choice.

1853

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:33 AM »

ThE WiZ,
I have always tried to like Avira. They seem to be a very professional company with very high detection rates of threats, but their downfall on my system is every time I scan my drives with their software I get hundreds (no exaggeration) of false positives. Until they can get that under control I don't think I can ever see myself using their products seriously.

Please do yourself (and your PC) a huge favor and stay away from Norton products. When the Bad Guys program their nasties the first security products they always target is Norton's. They target Norton's weaknesses to elude detection and often program in ways to turn off or sabotage any Norton products you have installed.

If that's not bad enough the uninstall routine for Norton's programs will leave hundreds upon hundreds of files and registry entries all across your system. It's so bad that Symantec released a special uninstall program to fight that problem, but even it leaves a ton of stuff behind.

Once you install a Norton product on your system even if you uninstall it later your PC will never be the same.

1854

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:26 AM »

Thanks for the info but I know I had some reasons (I don't recall them now) for staying with RARcolumns when RarInfo had appeared.

-fenixproductions

If you remember what the reason was let me know. I haven't used that plugin yet.

BTW You don't need to point plugins at me I have 1GB repository of such.

1 GB? When the average plugin size is about 300 KB, that's a ton of plugins. What's the reason for keeping your own personal repository of such a large amount? I'm curious.

1855

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:23 AM »

You never learn if you never take a risk.  Just back up what you can. It's your machine after all!!(just don't practice while accessing my online banking please)

-MilesAhead

I wholeheartedly agree! Most of what I know has been self-taught, but my words of warning were strictly for the newbies & inexperienced. If they screw up their registries it's highly doubtful they are going to have the skill to fix it. Which means annoying a friend to beg them to come over to fix it or it's a trip to the repair shop and a costly repair bill.

Advice to the inexperienced regarding the registry: Always research first what you are thinking about changing. Don't always assume the change you are about to make that seems logical always is.

1856

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 evaluation

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:20 AM »

johnk, moving to the classic theme negates a big speed advantage of Win7 if you have decent graphics cards in your PCs as the new Aero theme harnesses the unused power of your graphics cards to dramatically speed up the UI.

Yes, if you change Win7 to look and act just like Win95 then there's no incentive to upgrade. However, give the default setup a chance for a week. I think you'd find yourself at the end of that time being very reluctant to turn off the enhancements. Aero Peek, Aero Shake, Super Bar, etc. are very nice once you have gotten used to them.

Personal anecdote time...I had to work on a Windows XP PC a week or so ago and it was a frustrating experience as all the UI enhancements and speed weren't there. After working on that PC for an hour I knew there was no way I could go back to WinXP.

I have a friend who thinks a lot like you. Once I 'forced' him to 'endure' the full Windows 7 experience for a few days he's now happily grooving along enjoying Win7. Only thing he's mad about is I didn't 'force' him to do it sooner.

1857

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« Last post by Innuendo on July 02, 2009, 10:10 AM »

moranacus,
Sometimes those apps such as WOT get a little overzealous with their warnings & issue warnings based on moral reasons (Ooo...best keep the user away from anything that might be used illegally like anti-DRM software) rather than actual security reaosons (there being drive-by trojans on the site).

Due to the way TunBite works make sure you are running it on the PC where the videos work and not on the PC where the videos do not work.

And thank the MPAA for the lack of places where you can buy DRM-free videos.

1858

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 10:53 AM »

Just thought I'd revisit this topic since I only just recently got the time & motivation to start implementing the things I've learned in this thread. Huge thanks to tranglos and fenixproductions for their insights.

fenix, I'm still picking and choosing from your list of plugins, but I'm almost all the way through it. The only substitute I've made so far is I dropped RARColumns and replaced it with RARInfo which seems to offer more functionality. You may want to look into making that change yourself.

urlwolf, your talk of Linux reminds me of someone who posts over in the official Total Commander forums. His signature reads something akin to "the only reason I install Windows is so I can use Total Commander."

1859

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 10:17 AM »

I'm in the middle of a Dexter marathon right now. Haven't watched Dexter before but it is definitely watchable.

-Bonuskort

Dexter is fabulous & every time you think it's gotten just about as weird as it can & can't get any more complicated for Dexter....it does.

1860

Living Room / Re: Torrent Giant, The Pirate Bay sold, will go legal

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 10:09 AM »

My first thought is this is a total waste of money on the buyers' parts. This business venture is going to be just as successful as when Napster first went from a software piracy model to a pay-to-play model. 99% of the people that visited TPB have no interest in paying for that stuff & that's not going to change. Those people will just go away and find other ways to get what they want.

Torrents are tolerable when you are getting something for nothing. Whether that be something that has a price attached to it or something that is so large (like a 5 DVD Linux distro) that's impractical for most people to host on their own sites, but who is going to pay for the 'privilege' to use torrents when a very large portion of ISPs throttle torrent traffic. Who in the right mind is going to buy a DVD (that's 4-9 GB) or a Blu-Ray (Up to 25+ GB) and download it at 10-20 KB/sec speeds? I'll leave the math to you to figure out how many weeks you'll need to let your PC run 24/7 to get that Blu-Ray image of the new Transformers movie.

For those of you using torrents for less-than-respectable purposes torrents are awful for that. They are insecure and it's very easy for The Man to identify you & what you're doing. My advice is if you really want that content then find a way to get it that is far less likely to get you a cease & desist letter from your ISP.

1861

Living Room / Re: Truely amazing piece of animation art

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 09:53 AM »

That is such a relief. I'm glad to know that no matter where I end up, there will always be dancing women.  :

-tinjaw

Don't be so relieved, tinjaw. Obviously, you missed the fine print. In Heaven, the dancing women will all look like Scarlett Johansson. In That Other Place, they'll all look like Rosie O'Donnell.

So don't give up on your good behavior just yet.

1862

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

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 09:43 AM »

Hirudin already mentioned Findbar Basics which I recommended in the old thread.

I'll re-mention Lazarus, an extension that can save web form data in case something goes wrong in the submission of the data you're not stuck having to type all that crap in again.

http://lazarus.interclue.com/


Oh, and I've used Download Statusbar for years. It is SO much better than Firefox's built-in download list & has many different ways to customize it.

1863

Living Room / Re: CD archive and copying

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 09:39 AM »

... but for the pesky copy-protected-CDs's, who knows what you get :/

-f0dder

Three cheers for Slysoft's AnyDVD that can remove that DRM poo.

1864

Living Room / Re: CD archive and copying

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 09:37 AM »

Just a suggestion: DAEMON Tools Lite (Free for non-commercial use.)

It can image an audio disc and also mount it, as well as other formats.

-4wd

Daemon Tools Lite can mount images, but it can not create them.

1865

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 09:35 AM »

If it were me I'd search the internet for a program that strips DRM from videos and music & 'free' your files from Apple's tyranny. Then you'd be free to watch your purchased videos anywhere you wished...just don't go distributing them to all your friends, though.

1866

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by Innuendo on July 01, 2009, 09:33 AM »

Those users without extensive computer experience should not go fiddling around in the registry like it's some theme park of thrills.

-sajman99

Laughs...never heard it put quite that way, but it's 100% true. The Windows registry is the OS's central nervous system. One editing mistake in the wrong place will render your OS unbootable. Newbies should tread with care.

XP user here- perhaps not "modern", but stable and solid as a rock.

I don't think I ever spoke badly of how stable XP is. It's a fine OS and I even recommend some people use it instead of Vista. I was just trying to convey the point that an OS that's 8-9 years old isn't going to have all the capabilities that the latest and greatest has & that some of the things one needed to tweak on XP are no longer necessary.

1867

Living Room / Re: Truely amazing piece of animation art

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 03:33 PM »

Impressive, to be sure, but I wonder how long it will last before the MPAA shuts it down for copyright infringement.....or did they secure the rights to use every single one of those elements?

1868

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 03:29 PM »

Please tell me you're kidding! Currently, Windows XP is the dominant OS in the personal computer market. XP: 61.54%, Vista:  24.35%

-J-Mac

Percentage of people using a given OS does not dictate how modern it is, but rather its age.

So why - if you agree that XP does indeed require registry cleaning at times - does the age of the OS even come into play?

Because the age dictates what kind of optimizations have been put in place at release. It's common sense that Microsoft will learn tricks as time goes on and will make improvements to their code.

If the vast majority of users are still using XP then registry cleaners are certainly a needed commodity - still.

Now what are we talking about here? Registry cleaners or tweakers? There's a difference in functionality there. Tweakers make actual changes to existing values in the registry while cleaners remove the flotsam and jetsam no longer needed. Regardless, registry tweakers and cleaners are certainly needed for those who are still running Windows XP...but not those running more recent operating systems.

My entire viewpoint is based on not how many people are still using Windows XP, but its age. It's still a fine operating system, to be sure, but it does not have the optimizations and refinements of later, more recent OSes.

1869

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 03:19 PM »

I don't know why Itunes support said those videos should play. I mean, technically it's true they should...AFTER they have been authorized over the internet.

1870

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 11:25 AM »

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see what the allure is with editing the registry on modern Windows systems. Vista and Windows 7 have optimized defaults...

-Innuendo

I couldn't disagree more. There are plenty of tasks that XP simply does not perform as designed.

-J-Mac

Jim, I was talking about modern operating systems like Vista and Windows 7. With all due respect, Windows XP is 9 years old now and cannot be considered to be a modern operating system. Microsoft has learned a lot in 9 years in regards to the registry and system performance. Most of the tweaks you need to add to XP are in Vista and Win7 by default.

I'm running Win7 on the same PC on which I ran Win XP and Win7 is faster in every way than XP & I had tweaked the heck out of XP and Win7 is running 'stock'.

1871

General Software Discussion / Re: Is anyone currently using Panda Cloud Antivirus

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 11:15 AM »

I've always equated Panda's offerings with poo.

Panda always over-promises and under-delivers. Initial releases are plagued with bugs and installation errors like outlined above and even when they've fixed those problems you're still left with a product that has lousy detection rates with lots of false positives.

Party at Elmer's cloud! BYOB!

1872

Living Room / Re: Truely amazing piece of animation art

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 11:03 AM »

Weird...I saw the pic and at first it looked like a screen cap of Mordor from a Lord Of The Rings movie.

1873

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 11:01 AM »

You are finding out why it's bad for the consumer to buy digital content with DRM built in.

Sorry.

1874

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

« Last post by Innuendo on June 30, 2009, 11:00 AM »

Here's a little plugin that I don't think has been mentioned before but makes the Find function in Firefox nicer.

The Findbar Basics extension adds four basic features to Firefox's Find Toolbar:

    * a Statusbar button that toggles the Find Toolbar on and off.
    * a Clear button inside the Find Toolbar for clearing all text from the input box.
    * an optional toolbar button that toggles the Find Toolbar on and off. You can place this button anywhere you like by dragging it from the Customize Toolbar window.
    * Ctrl-F key command to toggle the Find Toolbar on and off.

That last bullet point makes the extension worth installing all by itself. Why the Mozilla team didn't make Ctrl-F a toggle is a mystery to me.

Get it here:

http://www.tom-cat.c...s-findbarbasics.html

1875

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« Last post by Innuendo on June 29, 2009, 09:27 PM »

You are running into the digital rights management again. The videos have to be authorized to play on the laptop which requires an internet connection.

You'd have to strip the DRM from the files.