Recent Posts

201

JGPaiva's GridMove and Ahk Tools / Interesting Feature on Volumouse - Quick Window Resize

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 10:44 PM »

Volumouse has a plugin that allows the user to scroll on top of the title bar of an active window and hence resize it. While not the same as gridmove, which is meant to move windows to specific grids, it offers a common end benefit - being able to resize windows quickly. Unlike gridmove, which uses pre-defined window sizes, this can resize to any dimension in realtime with a simple mouse scroll. Of course, one can always click on a window corner and drag, but from usage, I think that this is the quickest resize I've seen so far. The step size can be varied to make the resize operation faster or slower.

Link to Volumouse (FREE) : http://www.nirsoft.n...utils/volumouse.html
Link to ResizePlugin (FREE) : http://www.nirsoft.n...ins/move_resize.html

202

Living Room / Re: Is the new Zune upgrade really an upgrade?

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 10:30 PM »

Still can't play flac and ape. Looks like the best option for those folks is still to get iPod or Gigabeat and install Rockbox (http://www.rockbox.org/).

203

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: EverNote - Free today at GAOTD

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 10:18 PM »

I tried this yesterday and even then the deal had expired. Too bad for me.

204

General Software Discussion / Re: Blog steals Zaine's Great Software List

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 10:17 PM »

Oh look, its got 46 diggs too. I'm willing to bet even if you went and posted a digg comment that this was stolen, most diggers will continue to digg away. I'm not too impressed with the intelligence of an average digger. As for Zaine, he can contact the author, who probably won't care. If he dared to copy in the first place, he won't be afraid of the consequences. At least your work is good enough to be copied; you can take pride in that.

205

What's the Best? / Package Management for Windows

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 06:07 PM »

Linux had had great package management for quite some time with apt-get, emerge and the like. But, I think the fact that most of the software is Open Source makes it easy to hold a central repository that integrates well with the OS. I've recently been interesting in using this feature on Windows. I never realized that there may be tools out there to do this until I came across FileHippo Update Checker.

Through Wikipedia alone, I've found the following :

1) AppUpdater (http://www.nabber.org/projects/appupdater/)

2) Windows-Get (http://windows-get.sourceforge.net/)

3) Get-It (http://puchisoft.com/GetIt/)

4) AppSnap (http://appsnap.genotrance.com/) - This one works with FARR as a plugin, it seems.

5) VersionTracker (http://www.versiontracker.com/windows/)

6) AppGet (http://www.app-get.com/)

7) FileHippo Update Checker (http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/) - Not strictly a package manager, but fetches information about new programs.

8) WinPackman (http://www.winpackman.org/)

---
IDEA:

Ideally, I would like to see a package manager integrated with a uninstall utility like Revo Uninstaller (http://www.revouninstaller.com/). Maybe this could be done through FARR, so that you can for example, type 'uninstall software-A and update package information'.

Revo would then run, uninstall software-A, clean up leftover registry entries. One of the above package managers would then run, update the list of Add/Remove programs and then fetch information about new programs, organized into categories. Users can then pick a new one and hit install.
---

So, which ones do the DC users prefer and why? Maybe we can do a mini or full length review on this one.

206

General Software Discussion / Re: How to open a 700MB picture?

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 05:39 PM »

Check out the resolution: 22620x15200, and created on Photoshop CS2 with a Macintosh. I suppose it's one of those high end workstations Apple was selling, with 8 cores and 8 GB of RAM.

-Lashiec (November 15, 2007, 03:06 PM)

Neat, so XnView wins so far. And it even tells you what kind of machine they used to make the image? Interesting. Maybe I should give that program another look. I still use Windows Picture and Fax viewer and have IrfanView as a backup.

207

General Software Discussion / Re: How to open a 700MB picture?

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 08:09 AM »

Heh, good thing I didn't try to open that file on my machine. At 512 MB RAM, Irfanview or Picasa would not be able to do much. And my other computer has 256MB RAM with a 500 Mhz processor and Debian, don't think it can handle it either.

208

General Software Discussion / How to open a 700MB picture?

« Last post by icekin on November 15, 2007, 02:36 AM »

This was an image taken by the Hubble telescope.

Link to Actual Image (WARNING Large Download ~ 706MB) - http://www.spacetele...iginal/heic0710a.tif

Link to Reduced Image (~ 6MB) - http://www.spacetele...ionjpg/heic0710a.jpg

I am curious to know if Windows Picture and Fax viewer can actually open this. How long would it take? Which program opens large image files quickly?

209

General Software Discussion / Re: Maybe Vista doesn't suck?

« Last post by icekin on November 12, 2007, 03:21 AM »

I already have all those 5 features and more with a decent explorer replacement like xplorer 2 or total commander. With Dopus, I'd have ten times as many features. And they would be full featured and extensible with plugins, along with being insanely customizable.

Listing the renaming improvement as a 'feature' is ridiculous.

210

General Software Discussion / Re: Google OS already here, with hardware?! Well, sort of.

« Last post by icekin on November 11, 2007, 02:17 AM »

Whenever I came across a new Web 2.0 service or better yet, the site of a web design company, the first thing I used to do was run the validator. Its amazing how many companies claim to be able to design and develop quality websites and yet their own site fails validation.

211

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Windows XP too good for Microsoft’s own good?

« Last post by icekin on November 10, 2007, 05:34 AM »

After using Vista and Mac OS X, I got the feeling that Apple's increasing popularity, especially among the Web 2.0 crowd, was seen by Microsoft as a threat.

My view of the Background:

The web 2.0 startups and bloggers are increasingly starting to get the attention of casual browsers and even the media. I know people who actually rely on the PC tips in these blog posts as if it were advice from a seasoned PC magazine. These blogs start posting articles about tips for the Mac and how you can be so productive on it. Young bloggers in their teens see the Mac and are fascinated by its polished looking hardware and features.

Soon, the regular crowd of average users sees Mac and thinks maybe they should try it too. They guys at any Apple store are amazing salesmen. My friend (who later bought a Macbook) and I went to a few and they made him think that the Macbook was more reliable than a medical device compared to a poor, buggy Windows. There's the coolness factor too. Average users are easily swayed by the sales pitches.

Microsoft's Problem is they don't like losing market share. They think that eye candy is the way of the new OS and they whip up an OS with plenty of it. Average users like pretty things, so let's give them a pretty OS. Never mind the minority of seasoned computer literature users who like simple and functional approaches to getting things done.

Don't get me wrong, Vista would have been a good idea if :

- Emphasis was on productivity and not eye candy

- Applications were improved. MS Paint (see Paint.NET for what it should be) and Notepad for starters. Also Firewall, Clipboard viewer and some others.

- Microsoft had not tried to push its own file formats on people. XPS printer should be an add-on option, not there by default.

- Conventions were maintained. Correct or not, People understand the Windows 98, 2000 and XP terminology for changing desktop properties and control panel settings. Don't change it.

- And many others as previous posts have mentioned.

The increasing numbers of users downgrading to XP is because the incredibly jerky transition from XP->Vista compared to the earlier Win 95->98->2k->XP transition, where users felt like they were in familiar territory within a day of using the computer. I consider myself a fairly experienced windows user and even I had difficulty tweaking several settings in Vista.

212

Post New Requests Here / Re: Change Desktop Folder

« Last post by icekin on November 10, 2007, 05:04 AM »

I tried changing the folder using TweakUI. What ever files I saved to desktop got sent to that folder. Moreover, the did not show on the actual desktop anymore. It seems like C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Desktop is the only folder whose contents are displayed as icons on the actual desktop. Anyone else had this problem?

213

Mouser's Zone / Re: Mouser - a plea from your users!

« Last post by icekin on November 10, 2007, 05:00 AM »

I agree as long as its not another web 2.0 styled title pulled from some exotic language that no way describes the product or service.

Egs. joomla, jaxtr, jajah, yedda, renkoo, ubuntu and so on. See longer list here : http://www.techcrunch.com/company-index/

Some of those companies have done well, but I think its harder for users to naturally associate the weird product name with what it actually does. Unless a lot of marketing to drives it across.

214

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA : go to parent folder with double-click

« Last post by icekin on November 09, 2007, 06:30 PM »

Is there any way to get this function in Total commander? I would be really handy.

215

General Software Discussion / Re: Free util to sound alarm when your laptop is grabbed by thief

« Last post by icekin on November 09, 2007, 06:19 PM »

I foresee a form of urban camoflage for laptops, where the brand new PC you order from the factory comes looking like an old 386 nobody would steal.

Or all corroded and discolored, like it'd been used in medical experiments and never cleaned.

Or melted, burned, and riddled with bullet-holes, with a giant "Forensic Evidence" baggie to carry it around in.

-Ralf Maximus (November 09, 2007, 10:26 AM)

I'm ahead of the game then, mine has more visible scratches and discolorations than I can count. It helps that Acer laptops have cheap coatings on the surface, at least mine does. And I also have another laptop made in 1999 that looks too old school to make it work stealing, except as an antique.

216

General Software Discussion / Quicksilver Goes Open Source

« Last post by icekin on November 09, 2007, 07:08 AM »

It seems that this application launcher for the mac is now open source. Maybe someone will modify it for Windows? I am currently using Launchy and compared to that this will be a resource hog I'm sure, but given all the fuss about this program I am keen to try it out again.

I had it for a week while I used my friend's Mac. Too complicated in my opinion, but FARR users might like it.

Original Story: http://www.tuaw.com/...er-goes-open-source/

Source Page : http://code.google.c...chemy/downloads/list

217

General Software Discussion / Re: Free util to sound alarm when your laptop is grabbed by thief

« Last post by icekin on November 09, 2007, 04:08 AM »

Out of curiosity, I visited the website again and now they have added a feature of letting you know by SMS when someone picks up your computer. You have buy credit for the SMS though. A neat business idea?

But as mentioned earlier, a good thief will simply find a way to disable power altogether, turning off the protection. Out of curiosity, I wonder if it would be possible to power an alarm using the 3V Coin Cell Battery on the mainboard. Will probably drain the battery and might not be loud enough.

218

General Software Discussion / Re: Google OS already here, with hardware?! Well, sort of.

« Last post by icekin on November 07, 2007, 07:44 AM »

Does anyone else actually like the fact that linux has so many distros? To me, its one of the things that made me initially attracted towards linux - choice. Tweakability at its extreme, there is bound to be a distro to run on any hardware from a calculator to a mainframe. There are versions to suit the old school coders, ones to please the Apple fanboys and even ones for artists and multimedia production.

If the entire Linux community focused on improving a few major Linux distros, it would attract Joe User, but make the power users unhappy. Besides, Redhat, Ubuntu and OpenSuse are already doing this anyway with their mainstream focused approach.

If Google made an OS, it would be something aimed towards Joe User, not power users. For a preview, try one of their desktop apps like Google Desktop. Its extendable with widgets, but hogs resources and probably allows Google to collect user habit data. And there's no source code, so its improvements and changes have to only come from Google.

My ideal OS would be secure, stable and fast. It doesn't have to pack many features, there software for that.

219

General Software Discussion / Re: Perfect Software?

« Last post by icekin on November 07, 2007, 07:21 AM »

I can think of CATIA, a 3D CAD tool that has not been updated much since 2001 when it hit v.5. Since then, it has had several revisions, currently on R17, but no major rewrite or feature changes have occurred. The advantage is that even the newer revisions run on the same hardware that the older ones did.

In a shop, the average consumer is simply going to buy the biggest box with the most features written on the cover. Few would stop think about how the extra bloat would slow their machine or whether they even need all those features in the first place. Companies end up bloating a software trying to capture this market. In some rarer cases, the developers start bloating the software because they start to believe that those added features will greatly help users.

I would personally love a world where companies focused on improving stability and portability of their programs rather than features. I especially dislike companies that release the same program with the higher version number and claim that new stuff has been added (e.g. AIM, Nero). Its best to have a modular structure and allow independent coders to write their own plugins. Firefox has this system and it has worked out quite well.

220

Living Room / Re: Technology Myths

« Last post by icekin on November 06, 2007, 10:24 PM »

Technology myths I've heard of :

1) "Overclocking gives improved performance for free.

I once knew a guy in my college dorm who used to build PCs for people at a price, based on custom parts from Pricewatch. He offered overclocking as if it was a legitimate 'free' upgrade option. Some of the PCs he built had up to 10% - 15% overclocked Front Side Bus.

I am not saying overclocking is bad, but to not inform his customers of the consequences (overheating, fried processors etc.) was incorrect. Its never free, the cost to be paid is higher risk and possibly reduced stability and lifespan of components.

2) AMD is better for overclocking and games than Intel

While Thunderbird XP and Duron were far better than their Intel counterparts (Pentium III and the old Celeron) in terms of value, the new core 2 HT processors as just as capable of playing the best games. I have also tried overclocking both my  Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz with HT as well as the Thunderbird XP machine. Both are quite capable of being clocked up with the right mainboard.

3) "Clearing the pre-fetch cache improves performance. In fact, disable it altogether!"

I don't know why so many tweaking programs offer this option. There may be reasons to clear the cache once in a while, but to disable it makes little sense. I thought the the purpose of pre-fetch was to improve software startup time and thus raise performance. Maybe someone can shed light on this.

There are plenty more in the hardware world.

221

General Software Discussion / Re: Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« Last post by icekin on November 06, 2007, 07:11 AM »

Well, after iphigenie's tips on layered security, I downloaded and tried almost all those programs (and some others). I've gone with a solution of AVG Anti-Virus + AVG Anti-Spyware + AVG Anti-Rootkit Scanner. I also have Spybot S&D for a weekly scan with IESpyAds to block bad sites.

I tried SpywareGuard, SpywareBlaster and Winpatrol, but didn't feel they added anything extra to the AVG suite + Spybot S&D. I am also hoping that using all products from one company (Grisoft) will eliminate any conflicts between the programs. What I could have really used would have been a second Anti-Virus solution, but that causes conflicts except with ClamAV (without the Winpooch). So, now I've got ClamAV Portable installed and set to do weekly scans, but I think this will be mostly useless since ClamAV is always behind (even Avast is faster) when it comes to updating definitions. Its really only good as an anti-virus for a UNIX machine where viruses aren't really a concern.

222

General Software Discussion / Re: Starting a website; need suggestions.

« Last post by icekin on November 06, 2007, 07:01 AM »

I'd strongly recommend Drupal as a CMS for the website. Having used it to build over a dozen sites, I am probably a bit partial, but prior to Drupal I tried everything PHP based ranging from Joomla (called Mambo back then), PHP-Nuke (security disaster), Post Nuke (impossible to follow code), Wordpress (good for blogs and that's about it) and several others (geeklog, mediawiki, plone, xoops, e107 etc.)

Drupal is by far the best in terms of speed, performance and support. User and Developer Documentation is extensive and functionality can be extended using modules. That being said, I have frequently had problems with specific modules (e.g. e-commerce and CCK). I have noticed that the drupal CMS is developed at a much faster rate than the add-on modules, which are mostly developed by different developers. As a result, you tend to have Drupal v.6 being tested in beta at the moment and ready to roll out soon, but several modules not even having reached stable status for Drupal v.5

Thus, if choosing drupal, its best to stick with an older version of drupal that has been around, tested for a while rather than jumping into the new version even though the new one has been declared stable.

As for a host, I use Dreamhost as well and I have 5 sites hosted with them on a single account for $10 a month. Never had problems yet. Their backup feature is also handy when you screw up (like I often do as I tweak too much) . It restores all database tables and web server files to the state they were anytime in the last 5 days. Longer backups can be scheduled as well.

223

General Software Discussion / Re: Idea request: "Site discovery tool"

« Last post by icekin on November 05, 2007, 09:20 AM »

Sometime back, I saw this site on Searchbots (http://www.searchbots.net/) The idea is that you list some topics and build a searchbot which goes off and searches around for content. Over time, it gathers more content and then aggregates them. Every day, it returns fresh content.

Pubsub (http://www.pubsub.com) was another search engine that could return results based on current recently indexed news content. For finding those high quality, yet hard to locate sites, I suggest directories over search engines. Complete Planet (http://www.completeplanet.com) has a listing of several specialist directories on the internet.

I wrote an article about searching the internet about 2 years ago, but I failed to maintain my site and it was taken down. You can find its last version on the WaybackMachine : http://web.archive.o...rg/look_at_searching

Some of the stuff is a bit outdated, but much of it can still be used.

224

General Software Discussion / Re: Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« Last post by icekin on November 05, 2007, 08:42 AM »

One good piece of advice: disable autorun. completely.

If you do that and are a bit careful (and, sorry but it's true, stop using IE or anything IE-based) you really shouldn't be infected. Oh yeah, if you're on a LAN you'll want a firewall, but XP's native firewall is good enough for that.

-f0dder (November 05, 2007, 08:19 AM)

Autorun is one of the first things I switch off after a default XP install, using TweakUIXP. K-Meleon and Firefox are the main browsers on my computer, IE is only used when some amateur site does not display or work properly.

I use XP's firewall and in fact, I have disabled file sharing over LAN completely, which means I can access other's files, but they can't access mine. I used to have Tiny and later Kerio Firewall. Both were great programs, but an annoyance since I had to create a rule for every program that wanted to connect to the internet. I haven't used a dedicated firewall program since 2003, but my D-Link router is supposed to come with an inbuilt firewall as well. However, I think all it really does is block unused ports. A trojan can always still communicate over the open ports though.

Right now, I am thinking of going back to installing a dedicated firewall for better security, but I know its no protection against viruses entering through physical media such as thumb drives. In fact, I would guess that's where all my viruses have ever come from.

225

General Software Discussion / Re: Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« Last post by icekin on November 05, 2007, 08:32 AM »

Actually, Avast was always set to high security level on my PC. This meant some false positives, but I was always okay with that.

This is the first time in the last 6.5 years that I have been hit by a virus so bad that I had to spend an entire day trying to get rid of it. I've always been careful with plugging in drives, but even when some were plugged in with a virus, Avast would clean it up. About 3 years ago, I was still on AVG, but I switched to Avast then for the same reason - AVG failed to detect some small worms and I started losing confidence.

I agree that all anti-virus makers undergo a period of missing definitions, but that's where the in-built heuristic detection comes in. The best programs can even detect virii that are not in their definitions purely based on the file's behavior. Kaspersky and NOD32 are two programs well advertised for their high detection rates.

On the freeware scene, my only remaining options are AntiVir (which I have now installed), Winpooch (clam-av based) and bitdefender free. Maybe I am asking too much out of a freeware program. What methods of multiple layering is recommended? I've tried installing two anti-virus programs at once, but they don't work with each other.

My ideal solution would be to have some program that prevented files on USB drives from being automatically copied over without explicit permission from the user. This would automatically stop all the trojans that spread automatically.