Recent Posts

1901

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: xplorer², a powerful windows file manager and explorer replacement / alternative

« Last post by Lashiec on August 29, 2007, 08:36 AM »

The great power of Total Commander lies in its customizability and extensibility. The amount of addons available is staggering, and most are free, a huge plus for it. Basically, you could live inside TC without using other software or the SO (at least its functions, not the API). The good news are that most other file managers can take advantage of some of them, as long as you could define external viewers. Take a look here, to use them you need either Universal Viewer or the same Lister, TC built-in viewer.

1902

Living Room / Re: PC Upgrade - still possible to reuse old components?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 29, 2007, 07:17 AM »

Have in mind that both mainboards would not hold too well future upgrades, as they only have 2 SATA ports. Other thing that worries me is those ATX connectors, you'll have to do some cable management to avoid PSU cables getting in the way with the CPU heatsink. Hmmm, tricky. The ASRock is worse in that regard, but feature-wise seems better. VIA chipsets used to be OK back in the Pentium III times, now the poor guys got a little behind, but so did SiS, also a decent manufacturer. RAM, even if you put 4 GB, you won't use it (unless you plan to run Photoshop & Crysis side by side )

EDIT: Of course I saw something wrong with the ECS, it uses the MicroATX form factor, that explains the two RAM sockets, although, funny enough, it says that supports 16 GB. Hmmm, finding two 8 GB DIMMs will be difficult and EXPENSIVE . Besides, the ECS uses AC'97 for sound, while the ASRock uses HDA and the top-of-the-line Realtek chip as well.

1903

Official Announcements / Re: DC-IRL DD #5 - BELLEVILLE, NJ

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 09:06 PM »

Oh, this is going to be a massive reunion it seems

1904

Living Room / Re: How do you organise your 'My Documents' folder

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 09:02 PM »

Thanks, Darwin. The only app in that list that I'll use in the future is Azureus, and it's not exactly clear if that will be my BitTorrent client of choice. Maybe Shareaza as it accepts DC, ed2k and Gnutella protocols as well *ahem*

</offtopic>

1905

Living Room / Re: How AMD plans to take over the market by adding DRM directly to CPU

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 02:57 PM »

Well, it seems that Intel beat AMD in this regard. Read the news, especially the second page, which explains everything in detail. So, ready to wear the tinfoil hat?

EDIT: The second page also mentions the good part about Intel technology, a security sandbox, quite interesting. Of course, the balance between your security and the security of earning dollars on part of content providers is hard to achieve. As always, everything useful created by humankind has this double-edged character.

1906

Living Room / Re: Deja Vu: More Sony Rootkits (They just don't learn)

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 02:17 PM »

Bah, the Sony CD case was much worse, for a lot of reasons. This one is a bit like the rootkit that Norton Recycle Bin uses, and it's actually done to protect you (playing devil's advocate...). The BioShock case is nothing more than the usual software protection used by hundreds of games and quite some shareware software.

The problem in these cases is what would happen if the rootkit is used for less 'healthy' reasons.

1907

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 01:55 PM »

Opera users can use the Control + Shift + Enter combo to achieve the same results.

1908

Living Room / Re: How do you organise your 'My Documents' folder

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 01:47 PM »

Just out of curiosity, what are those apps which creates dirs under "My Documents"? The only one I can think about it's a-squared, which insists in storing scanning logs there (not that I'm troubled by that) and Max Payne, for its savegames (a workaround for the Win9x-Win2K situation back then)

1909

General Software Discussion / Re: New interesting features for Firefox 3

« Last post by Lashiec on August 28, 2007, 01:36 PM »

What's the use of the garbage collector they implemented some alpha versions ago then? To ensure it didn't go much worse? I said it some other time and I repeat it again, I suspect the use of XUL is being a hindrance to Firefox development. The funny thing is Ben Goodger wanted to create a lean browser without all the fluff the original Mozilla Suite had, and judging for their posts in his blog, everyone at Mozilla didn't like the monster that Netscape 6 was, but even then, they insist in the usage of an old and ineffective toolkit, instead of opting for something well developed, like GTK (*ahem*) or Qt.

I also think one of the main problems lie within the 'back' cache (ya know, the feature that stores information about visited pages for each tab). I saw Opera climbing up memory usage after browsing through heavy graphics-based sites (and when I say heavy, I say HEAVY, talking about 250 images with a mean of 150 KB per picture), but it never passed back 300 MB. I close the tab, and everything goes back to normal. Firefox has fewer features than Opera, what could happen if you install a extension like the mentioned here, which seems a bit intensive when it comes to graphics? >_< . I won't talk about memory-leaking extensions as well...

With all the Web 2.0 sites around, that demand memory as any desktop app, the guys at Mozilla have to fix that first, before developing innovative, but memory-hungry features. If they really think as themselves as the Web 2.0 browser, some things have to be fixed before prime time.

(Last paragraph added just to place emphasis in the idea that this is not a Firefox-bashing and Opera-adoring post )

EDIT: Typos and some rephrasing

1910

General Software Discussion / Re: Learnin Javascript

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 05:45 PM »

Just for some (future) reference, an article on Ars Technica's #open.ended blog

1911

Living Room / Re: Does my future pc suck ?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 01:41 PM »

Well, SLI is a lost case if you ask me, but it's your opinion, I won't mess with it

I was asking for Vista because you know 4 GB support is a bit tricky under XP. I think you could handle Photoshop with just 2 GB, well, you SHOULD handle Photoshop, or more precisely, the software should accommodate to that, it's not Crysis we're talking about, damn Adobe...

And that case has back and front fans? As long as it has one of those, no problem. That PSU should be more than enough, mine is a 430W model, and my rig is a bit beefier, except for the CPU, as yours take a bit more juice than mine. Of course, if it's a cheap one... well... mouser experiences could tell you the possible outcome

1912

Living Room / Re: Does my future pc suck ?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 11:54 AM »

Well, I'm disappointed that you went for the nVidia card (and a 7600 as well ), but I presume you did it so save some bucks. I suppose you're running Vista, aren't you? . More bashing for you , what case and supply are you using? Sorry to be so insistent, but I'm like that with computer hardware.

Otherwise, very good components there. The mainboard (personal experience) and the CPU are excellent, so is the cooler (one of the best choices in the market).

The screen... well, I suppose it's a good option. IIyama was always considered as a quality hardware company, and if the reviews say it's a good option, you can't go wrong. I suppose nudone would know better than me, as I'm happy with your average 250€ TFT panel.

EDIT: Typos and better expression

1913

Living Room / Re: A joyful addition..

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 11:07 AM »

Hmmm, three kids at home... while they're babies, it's quite easy to handle them, but once they hit the four years mark... well, wait and see . Maybe you should ask Cody if he could act as a babysitter once in a while, I'm sure he will entertain the kids

Congrats again!

1914

Living Room / Re: PC Upgrade - still possible to reuse old components?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 10:54 AM »

Well, I think you'll have to reuse some diapers for your baby daughter as that mainboard looks expensive

One thing that worries me is that PCI-Express port, which is VERY near to one of the heatsinks, something that could be troublesome. You have the other one of course, which thankfully runs at x16 as well, but forget about doing SLI (a waste of money anyway).

1915

General Software Discussion / New interesting features for Firefox 3

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 10:39 AM »

As you may know, Firefox 3 is currently undergoing some heavy development towards the possible release of the first beta in the release cycle. Right now, things are looking really great, and it seems the Mozilla team is really up to something with the major version, which will give some work to IE and Opera developers to best it. The most interesting ones, in my opinion, are not being included in the main code tree, but may see a separate release in the form of a extension, or may be included in a future Firefox 4. Alex Faaborg, interface designer at Mozilla, talks in this blog entry about them, and I sure most people around here will agree with me (being everyone a keyboard maniac) that those particular features could be great in a browser, even if they use no one's favourite Enso

via PC Mechanic

1916

Living Room / A new technology for optical discs

« Last post by Lashiec on August 27, 2007, 10:25 AM »

Despite the struggles between HD DVD and BluRay discs for the HD discs niche market, some companies are looking forward to the future developing new discs capable of holding all kind of information, whatever its size may be. This article talks about a particular one that looks beyond today's needs, and developed a new format capable of storing 1TB of data in one disc, and with further optimization could reach 5TB. All of this hosted in your usual-looking optical discs, no bigger and no thicker that any DVD or CD.

The article is fairly long, as it makes a timeline of optical discs technology, explaining how the technology works, and later gives some details about TeraDiscs, as the technique used to record these new type of disk is significantly different from the old combination of pits and valleys. It also includes a interview to a higher-up of Mempile, the company developing the new format.
via The Tech Report

1917

General Software Discussion / Re: WinSplit Revolution

« Last post by Lashiec on August 22, 2007, 07:40 PM »

Oh, so that's your secret pastime, eh Darwin? . I see you'd like Wii Fit.

OK, enough threadjacking. Let's give the app a look, and see how it compares with Joao's masterpiece

1918

Living Room / Re: How do you organise your 'My Documents' folder

« Last post by Lashiec on August 22, 2007, 07:25 PM »

I don't understand your question. May you rephrase?

1919

Living Room / Re: Outpost - why do I bother ... or am I just paranoid!

« Last post by Lashiec on August 22, 2007, 07:08 PM »

Haha, Carol, you and Outpost are not really the best friends. May I suggest you to install Outpost 5 Beta or even better, Outpost Suite!

Frankly, Outpost should be ruled out of any security lineup consideration. The guys developing it totally lost it time ago, and it's not worth this cost for a premium security (if there's any). Makes you wonder if they use the software in their computers at home... Time to search for a good alternative. Ken found one but I can recall which one...

1920

Living Room / Re: download all updates for XP in one go?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 22, 2007, 06:47 PM »

This option has one caveat, though. Does Autopatcher installs what you really need? That is, does it check the system to avoid installing unneeded (or even harmful) patches like the recent one for the Core 2 Duo and similar architecture processors? Actually, Windows Update downloads everything in one go, and pretty fast as well. It's true you get WGA as well, but you're going to need it to download something from Microsoft site (mwahaha, the plan is going as expected!)

1921

Living Room / Re: Life without XP SP2 - is it possible?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 22, 2007, 06:42 PM »

I think it's impossible to keep SP2 at bay unless you reject the updates from Windows Update, which it's a terrible idea, as a SP1 would be getting attacks by every hole, unless you properly cover them (not recommended). I think something may be wrong somewhere between Windows and your D-Link. And actually SP2 "carries" SP1 as well.

Another option to avoid SP2 would be installing Vista or (a more realistic option) Windows 2003 Server. But that's like killing flies using dynamite

1922

General Software Discussion / Re: What do you think of PCTools' Spyware Doctor?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 22, 2007, 06:08 PM »

Let me add an update myself then. The guys at Safer Networking are quite clever, as they implemented what I suggested for SpyBot 1.5. Not only that, but they're expanding IE protection to Firefox and Opera as well. And what's best, they're redesigning the GUI! Now that's a really expected update from them.

1923

General Software Discussion / Re: Avoid: Jriver Media Center, if you believe in your right of free speech

« Last post by Lashiec on August 21, 2007, 02:38 PM »

Wether Jriver had the rights to censor things or not (empty discussion I think), what they do is not only inexcusable, but also pretty foolish. In a age when even big companies try to appeal the customer by hearing their requests (read, I said "hearing" not "applying them right away"), doing this is not only bad for its software (we'll implement what we wish) but also for their public image. Who is going to buy something for them with that kind of attitude? Sheesh, it's only a feature request, spar my life, ruthless master! It's not like a front attack to their product. If they really can't stand simple requests and customer criticism, maybe they have a problem within their support department or with human relationships as well

1924

Living Room / Re: Does my future pc suck ?

« Last post by Lashiec on August 21, 2007, 12:07 PM »

Actually, I would stay with the first one. SLI is only a extra feature that pretty much every motherboard these days bring along, and it also adds some extra features in the mix that you could actually find useful (passive chipset cooling, e-SATA ports...). With that processor it's better to use something at a good level, than that other option. It's only a few bucks more.

1925

General Software Discussion / Re: Skype trouble

« Last post by Lashiec on August 21, 2007, 11:55 AM »

Yeah, I read that yesterday in Ars Technica, but it seems like a pretty stupid explanation to me, because the same time I saw that line I asked myself: "How about the other Patch Tuesdays?". They didn't give an explanation to that.

EDIT: Ok, the Skype guys revealed more things regarding the incident. It still makes less sense than before, oh well...