Recent Posts

2026

Living Room / Re: Microsoft Publishes Detailed Vista SP1 Changelog

« Last post by zridling on December 08, 2007, 09:12 PM »

No IE8 update?! Microsoft needs to ditch these huge service packs and go to a more incremental 6-month update approach. This is the Vista they should have released to RTM back in late '06.

2027

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 1 Terrabyte Western Digital Drive for $264 USD

« Last post by zridling on December 08, 2007, 09:06 PM »

Good point, vegas. Unlike the Germans, the Chinese — where all computer parts are made these days — have not proven to be quality craftsmen. Best to wait until the best 1T drives shake out.

2028

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 1 Terrabyte Western Digital Drive for $264 USD

« Last post by zridling on December 08, 2007, 09:03 PM »

To hell with dual-booting, you could octa-boot on this sucka! (Now if only I had $263 more dollars....)

2029

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9.1 released

« Last post by zridling on December 08, 2007, 09:02 PM »

Fantastic! Always glad to see an app move to 64-bit, as long as it doesn't increase in size sevenfold.

2030

Living Room / Re: What makes DonationCoder so special?

« Last post by zridling on December 06, 2007, 09:57 PM »

Wow, fantastic post, App. That exemplifies all I love about DC, too. IT'S THE PEOPLE. And those people are always looking for a better way to build the mousetrap.

2031

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by zridling on December 06, 2007, 09:54 PM »

Thanks for the link and video, app, and how'd you get that error message copied, cranio?! Got to love the sense of humor.

2032

General Software Discussion / Re: Found: The Perhect word processor.

« Last post by zridling on December 05, 2007, 10:50 AM »

How could you not love the UI? Reminds me a little of the original MacWrite.

2033

Living Room / Re: Strange maps... of Europe

« Last post by zridling on December 05, 2007, 10:47 AM »

Hmm, it's labeled "Frequency of fair hair in Europe" on the site at http://www.eupedia.c...t/blond_hair_map.jpg. The joke at the bottom reads:

Q. How do you get a blonde out of a tree?

A. Wave.

2034

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by zridling on December 05, 2007, 10:44 AM »

It's XYplorer for me, too. Small, tightly-coded, portable, affordable (Lifetime license!), fully customizable, customizable keyboard shortcuts throughout, including of folders, files, and places like the recycle bin or other system components.

You get the drift.

2035

Living Room / Strange maps... of Europe

« Last post by zridling on December 05, 2007, 12:52 AM »

One of the more different blogs out there is strange maps, which recently cited these unique maps of Europe from the Eupedia site.

2036

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by zridling on December 04, 2007, 02:37 PM »

Holy crap, cranioscopical, I had a Northgate Omnikey keyboard and nothing's come close since. Damn thing weighed about 20 lbs. I think, made of steel. Even Superman would rip a hernia trying to bend that sucker!

If you had a Northgate on your Amiga, dude, you were living the life.

2037

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

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 09:56 AM »

This sounds wacky, but imagine if the porn industry had taken the same tack as the music companies toward online file sharing, bittorrent, usenet, etc. The music industry's only idea is to sue, which doesn't stop copying, and costs you and your artists a fortune. (Ask Apple how much money there is to be made with cheap music — billions!) Instead, the porn industry has always been on the cutting edge of web tech, adopting and assimilating everything.

2038

General Software Discussion / Brief overview of eight popular Linux distributions

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 09:49 AM »

DistroWatch has an overview of popular desktop distributions for GNU/Linux, complete with ratings. It's a brief, easy read. Author Baris Paraskeva seems partial to KDE over Gnome, and that's fine.

      
      
   

2039

Living Room / Everything you always wanted to know about your IP address (via yoho's blog)

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 08:00 AM »

[via yoho's blog]:

Want to know if you’re blacklisted somewhere? Want to know what could people find out, just by knowing your IP address? Just curious?

Check out robtex.com! (and for a good laugh, read the disclaimer)

2040

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 07:56 AM »

Definitely! I don't remember — were they expensive, cheap, or about the same as other computers, such as Apple and PCs?

2041

Living Room / Re: Laptop or Desktop — which are you?

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 07:19 AM »

Wow, you have good tastes, DJMusic! I envy laptop #2.

2042

Living Room / Re: Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 07:17 AM »

Amiga is another instance of better tech losing out to monied marketing. By making it expandable in a variety of ways (external drives/ports, memory), the machine actually lasted far longer than the traditional 3-year upgrade cycle and saved you money.

Go figure.

2043

General Software Discussion / No, Bulk Rename Utility is!

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 07:12 AM »

Man, I've tried all these renamers many times over, and I still like Bulk Rename Utility best. The UI lays out everything in front of you, with tons of keyboard shortcuts, and in 32 & 64-bit versions.

2044

General Software Discussion / Re: Shut Up About Vista, Already

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 07:05 AM »

Curt, thank you for the article link! That constant grinding and indexing of my HDs — even though I have all indexing turned off and all index associations unchecked — is maddening! All I needed instead was to uncheck the 'Users' folder. Hell, I thought my HD was going to burn up from that crap.

2045

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

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 06:55 AM »

Also, remember, those were the days before the internet, and one person could share a song with millions of people, not just a few friends with a cassette mix tape. I still use cassettes in my truck, and most of the music on them is from the 60s and 70s (Jimmy Page has white hair now, damn I feel old). So it's not so much the copying as the distribution of it that drives the execs — and many artists — nuts.

If you're a one-hit wonder, you want to be able to live off the fat of that one song for life. The Grateful Dead, on the other hand, had the opposite approach, with the more (listeners) the merrier.

Still, technology like DRM presumes you're a criminal, always were, and always will be. Just say hell no.

2046

Living Room / Re: Top 10 Reasons Ralf is Still Awake after 31 Hours

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 06:37 AM »

I like Ralf. Reminds me that my life of two 3-hour naps a day in lieu of real sleep isn't so weird after all.

2047

Living Room / Any old Amiga users among us?

« Last post by zridling on December 03, 2007, 06:30 AM »

Back in the 1980s, Amiga users were among the best programmers and tech people I knew. They always would shake their heads and softly laugh when repairing PCs. There's a History of the Amiga film on usenet under alt.binaries.documentaries that tells the story.


The Amiga 500

2048

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by zridling on November 30, 2007, 05:41 AM »

What Carol said is so true. Vista system backup has worked flawlessly for me twice now, while everyone is carping about Time Machine's glitches.

2049

Living Room / Re: Seriously, wtf is going on with Apple's Mac vs. Pc ads?

« Last post by zridling on November 30, 2007, 05:40 AM »

[Lashiec]:
Why everyone wanted to run Windows in a Mac, and no one was interested in running Mac OS X in a PC?
________________________________________________
Same goes for the Linux crowd; probably half or more of them run a virtual copy or dual boot one version of Windows for the obvious reason: applications, applications, applications. If you've invested thousands of dollars in high-end Windows software, you're likely to need it for your work or personal business. Most everyone finds virtualization the best solution to spending a fortune on new licenses or trying to get a complex Windows app to work under Boot Camp or WINE.

2050

General Software Discussion / Re: Shut Up About Vista, Already

« Last post by zridling on November 30, 2007, 05:28 AM »

[Ralf]: Look... I know Vista's not one of the signs of the Apocalypse.  Microsoft will get its act together and fix things and by this time next year workstations will be faster so we won't notice what a bloated sweaty pig Vista is, and eventually all the teeth gnashing will die down.... Just as it did with XP.... But dammit, *I* will be the one to decide when I am satisfied, and I reserve the right to cast disdain on products that do not meet my expectations.  Ignoring the problem, drinking the Kool Aid, and giggling over how pretty Vista is will not make things better.
________________________________________________
What Ralf said.

The linked author is Ed Bott, who emailed me about my comments regarding his post, Five secrets to faster Vista starts. Essentially, you're asked to disable significant parts of your machine or OS in order to make Vista run faster. That's not an acceptable solution. I've installed Vista on a variety of machines and the fastest boot time I've achieved is 1m 11s, after a fresh install and no AV software.

Like Ralf, if I want to bitch about something I will until my gills bleed. But I think we're going to have to wait until Windows 7 to get over Vista. Look how slowly Microsoft has worked on SP3 for XP... why? Simply put, after five years in development and raised expectations, the one word that defines Vista for me is disappointing.