Recent Posts

2251

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 27, 2015, 02:53 PM »

I finally downloaded the ISO.  Maybe I'll VM it tomorrow.

2252

General Software Discussion / Re: TopmostToggle 2.0.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 27, 2015, 10:04 AM »

TopmostToggle 2.0.0.0  Since there seems to be a demand for quick and dirty window kill, I added the function to TopmostToggle 2.  Control Shift Right Click on Active Window kills it with no confirmation dialog.  Only the Desktop, Tray, and Start Menu windows are excluded.

Also since the Check For Updates function was hard coded to FavesSoft it has been removed. Just browse to the home page using Visit Hotkey Page command and look at the version number.  I'll be updating the number rather than posting the file size for updated zip files.

Link in first post updated.

Note: I haven't had a hung window to try the kill on yet.  If it does nothing to a non responsive window please let me know.

2253

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to override usual window close button with superfast TerminateProcess?

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 27, 2015, 07:30 AM »

You can try SuperF4 (free), http://superf4.googlecode.com/.

It is must have app for me. Since I develop programs, many a times they go into infinite loop. Pressing Ctrl+Alt+F4 instantly closes them, even faster that opening task manager and searching and killing it.

-anandcoral (March 27, 2015, 06:09 AM)

Now that does look handy! Another (unrelated) item I noticed on the authors website is Elevated Startup. I seem to recall there being several threads discussing a need for what it does...or at least appears to do.

-Stoic Joker (March 27, 2015, 07:02 AM)

I've downloaded and will try it in a bit.  It will be great if it works.  For example if you run WizMouse and set both Run As Administrator and Start with Windows, WizMouse creates a scheduled task to start itself on logon.  It works fine.  But I could sure use an easy hack for launching my stuff on W8.  Later on I'll have to look into how to handle auto start of programs on W8 and later as they seem to require RunAs.

Edit:  Your mileage may vary.  I have the slider on UAC all the way down to "do not notify me" of anything.  The first time I logged on using Elevated Startup I got the UAC.  I unchecked the "always notify" box.  The next boot it came up and started my run as programs.  Cool.  Now I can stop using the mouse double click macro thingy!

Edit2: Anyone else get a weird crash after running Elevated Startup?  I just unzipped a new copy of CCleaner Portable into the CCleaner folder and immediately got a "problem .. we're collecting data" crash.  Never got that before.  Strange.  I disabled it for now.

Edit3:  Before downloading Elevated Startup out of curiosity(since some of my programs would gain from auto start As Admin on W8 and likely W10) I took a look at the source.  It works by launching another instance of itself which then launches the other programs.  Somewhere in there it requests Debug privilege.  I'm thinking that is why I got the request to send info during the crash.  I don't like to run programs with Debug privilege as it just allows too much leeway to do stuff.  Not anything malicious in this utility.  But if you get an error it can be a lot bigger in Debug mode.  I have lots of mouse click stuff I wrote in the tray along with WizMouse so I'm not all that surprised I got a weird drag/drop operation.

I think I will check into how WizMouse does it, if possible. I hate to use scheduled tasks though. 

2254

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to override usual window close button with superfast TerminateProcess?

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 27, 2015, 05:34 AM »

Thanks, looks pretty good - I might start using that. I'd like to get rid of the *other* confirmation box when it detects a program has crashed though.

But even better than this would be to allow a hotkey to force close the active/crashed window.

You can't set the detection level less than 15 seconds either which seems a bit arbitrary.

-Twinbee (March 26, 2015, 05:19 PM)

There are bound to be hundreds(or at least a bunch anyway) of kill utilities on the freewae sites.  What struck me about this one was the mouse drag angle.  I could write a hotkey to kill the process that has the active window in a few lines.  But it wouldn't have much in the way of features.

I would give a try to sending the author an email or try contacting through the home page if there is a mechanism.  Many authors like to see that someone is actually using their utilities and may add a tweak.

2255

Living Room / Re: Don Cheadle making Miles Ahead film

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 27, 2015, 05:27 AM »

I'm a huge Don Cheadle fan. I would almost pay to watch him sit and read the phone book. I can't think of anyone else I would rather see playing Miles.

-Vurbal (March 26, 2015, 05:59 PM)

I loved the film The Guard.  He and Brendan Gleeson  were great together.

2256

Living Room / Don Cheadle making Miles Ahead film

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 26, 2015, 04:45 PM »

I wasn't aware of this flick.  I just stumbled upon it now.  It looks like it's Don Cheadle's baby.  He is playing Miles Davis as well as writing and directing Miles Ahead 

Cool.   

2257

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft is retiring Internet Explorer

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 26, 2015, 04:34 PM »

^ Chrome also does funky things. If a close a tab, then later switch a tab or open a new one, I'll often see the closed tab content flash for a moment.

-Renegade (March 23, 2015, 09:41 PM)

I think it might have smoothed it out.  I kept Super Start as Home Page.  I disabled it in new tabs.  Then I set about:config browser.newtab.url to about:blank instead of about:newtab.  The config should prevent the built in FF SpeedDial from trying to load in the new tab before the link I clicked has a chance to fill it in.  At least I hope that does it. 

2258

Living Room / Re: The Dreams thread...

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 26, 2015, 03:22 PM »

I know I had some weird dreams when I read The Silmarillion for the third time.  Luckily I don't remember them. 

2259

General Software Discussion / Re: Program to override usual window close button with superfast TerminateProcess?

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 26, 2015, 02:16 PM »

I'm finding ProcessCloser very useful.  It sits in Tray.  Left click the Tray Icon to pop up a window.  Drag from that window to the window of the program you want to close.  You can set it to Close or Kill.  Also I find it good to disable the confirmation dialog since it can pop up behind the dead window.

It is smart enough not to try to close the Desktop.  

It has optional "program not responding" detection too.  A nice bit of freeware.

For programs with a top level visible window it is very quick.  No need to type in the process name or scroll through a list of running processes.

2260

General Software Discussion / Re: Delayed Cuts 1.3.2.1

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 26, 2015, 11:21 AM »

Delayed Cuts 1.3.2.1 Updated Donate to new homepage.  Updated DelayedLoad to enable
skipping load of an application by clicking the close 'x' in the corner.

Updated link in first post.

2261

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 26, 2015, 05:39 AM »

Thanks. That disc image is half a GB smaller than the 9926 one I downloaded two months ago!

-Deozaan (March 25, 2015, 10:30 PM)

I may just wait until the next one.  Watching stuff happen in a Laptop VM is worse than paint dampness monitor duty. 

2262

Living Room / Re: The Dreams thread...

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 12:54 PM »

Except mouser (who has been known to code with pen & paper, just for fun

-app103 (March 25, 2015, 12:47 PM)

Yeah, my first PC, the trusty Leading Edge Model D 8088 I used to write routines on scraps of paper while at the diner or wherever, away from the machine.  That was in the old days when you used a dot matrix printer to look over your source code at your leisure.  Of course every edit without a good compile you ended up printing out more hard copy.  Waste of trees. 

2263

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 12:50 PM »

Here's the link to the 10041 build ISO downloads:
http://windows.micro...view-iso-update-1503

2264

Coding Snacks / Re: Is there any way of 'saving' file associations?

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 12:22 PM »

I see one potential problem so far. If the app itself associates itself with the registry the DISM app doesn't add the location of the application to the "ProgID".  When I export and import again on a fresh install one would reasonably assume it would know to open INI with Notepad++ but wouldn't know where N++ is.

-stisev (March 25, 2015, 09:37 AM)

You could try ERUNT

But I would make a registry save of your new install before copying a saved ERUNT reg save over it.
It comes with a readme with lots of info.  There may be a way to limit the save to HKCR or a way to save HKCR by itself.  I haven't read up on file associations in a long time.  Back when I wrote an Explorer Shell Extension they didn't have both global and user association sets.  They changed it since in the old days often uninstalling a program left a "hole" in the file type associations.


Edit: also see this:
http://www.sevenforu...le-associations.html

Edit2: I see what you mean about the  value just being the exe filename with no path.

2265

Find And Run Robot / Re: pretty-software.com does the same as Find and Run Robot and it is really free ;D

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 07:45 AM »

This thread got me to try it out of curiosity.  Turns out it was one of a bunch a launchers I tried a few months ago and removed.  I have a ton of tiny exes under a single folder.  Adding the folder with "search subfolders" enabled did not bring them up in spiffy fashion, which would be the only reason for me to use the utility.

Been there done that. 

2266

Living Room / Re: 128GB USB 3.0 Flash price/performance/durability recommendations?

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 06:05 AM »

I got my Adata s102 128GB stick.  After formatting it to NTFS I did a single sequential read/write test using Crystal Diskmark.  This is freshly formatted no files on the stick.  I got 111 MBs read and 65 MBs write.  Not too bad.  I did a Macrium backup to the stick.  A 33 GB image file.  I copied that to another partition on the HD from the stick.  Transfer was 50 MBs according to the info shown by TeraCopy during the transfer.  So for the Laptop I have to figure if the stick proves as durable as the other s102s I purchased, that I got a pretty good balance for my circumstances.  At roughly $60 it is just over $.51 per gig.  After formatting the stick had 114 GB capacity.

A possible explanation for the slow transfer is that I sliced off about 130 GB at the end of the drive to park stuff like ISO downloads and a backup image.  Sata II that's probably not the fastest part of the platter(s). 

2267

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Macrium Reflect 6 News

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 05:54 AM »

I just tried Macrium Standard Server Edition with the latest updates, using the maximum compression setting instead of the usual recommended Medium setting.  From this experience unless you absolutely have to squeeze every byte, I;d go with the recommended setting.  My 65 GB or so used on C: compresses to about 33 GB as an image file, in around 26 minutes.  Just to compare results I did another image using full compression.  The processing time rose to 38 minutes while only shaving a GB off the image file.

As it is I got a new 128GB USB3 stick.  With medium compression I should be able to fit 3 backup images(I haven't explored incremental methods etc. yet) and have room left over for regular file storage.

2268

Living Room / Re: The Dreams thread...

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 25, 2015, 05:30 AM »

I had a dream the other night, that I and the regular #donationcoder IRC denizens were trying to survive in a time that was right on the edge of falling into a 'Post-Apocalyptic' scenario ('Mid-Apocalyptic?').  All we had was a raft of canned goods and some rag-tag assemblies of various floating devices (pool toys, rubber rafts, a half-sunk plastic kayak, etc.) in which we tried to escape the chaos by floating down a river with our stuff.  I remember us yelling at each other a lot, usually to call attention to some floating thing that had a leak.   

-Edvard (March 24, 2015, 07:24 PM)

I can see it now.. the people on the raft.. we have water, but it's only tap water.. ok, we can get by.. we have food but it's only dog biscuits.. ok, we can get by.  Now the bad news.. No WiFi!!  Everyone jumps overboard. 

2269

General Software Discussion / Re: MoveIt 1.3.3.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 24, 2015, 01:21 PM »

Edit:  I read the review.  One minor typo in the version number you have 1.2.3.0 instead of 1.3.2.0.

I think you covered the utility's functionality nicely.  I am very glad you enjoy using it

-MilesAhead (March 22, 2015, 02:15 PM)

Thanks! Review updated for 1.3.3.0 and reworked a bit to be more comprehensive -
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=31763.0

-tomos (March 24, 2015, 09:45 AM)

   I really appreciate the succinct presentation.  Reading it myself I found out some of the hotkey functions I forgot. 

Thank you. 

2270

Living Room / Re: Army camouflage training

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 24, 2015, 01:03 PM »

Army camouflage training:
 (see attachment in previous post)

-IainB (March 23, 2015, 05:57 AM)

Heh.  That reminds me of the old "Wanna' see a fast draw?  Wanna' see it again?" 

2271

General Software Discussion / Re: MoveIt 1.3.3.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 24, 2015, 08:31 AM »

MoveIt 1.3.3.0  Added Stagger pattern for 6 Explorer Windows.  Two rows of three. 

2272

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 24, 2015, 05:43 AM »

In my first post of the thread I've added links to 3 books that i would recommend to anyone interested in doing their own car maintenance.
I would *HIGHLY* recommend those as gifts if you have a friend or relative who might be curious about their car.

-mouser (March 23, 2015, 01:23 PM)

You really should get proper axle stands—propping up your car on books makes the covers dirty!
 

-cranioscopical (March 24, 2015, 01:53 AM)

Not to mention, you could find yourself in a real bind.

2273

Living Room / Re: The Dreams thread...

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 24, 2015, 05:40 AM »

All of my flying dreams were nightmares of being chased and then escaping by unintentionally flying away, out of control, followed by falling, with me waking up at the moment of impact. This often alternated with the driving dreams that were quite similar, with an out of control car traveling at high speed and no brakes, that was difficult to steer and ended up going off the side of a bridge into water, with me trapped inside and unable to get out.

-app103 (March 23, 2015, 08:42 PM)

I was going to say when I read as far as the word "impact" I often had dreams driving out of control on a narrow winding road with no guard rail.  But I would wake up before careening over the edge.  That bit about trapped in the car underwater I think I only got one time.  Very scary.  Those trapped underwater ones are when I "learn to breathe water" real fast. 

2274

Living Room / Re: The Dreams thread...

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 23, 2015, 02:57 PM »

Randall Munroe nails it. (Like always.)
 (see attachment in previous post)

-40hz (June 08, 2014, 08:24 AM)

I used to have the flying dream often when I was a kid in the old neighborhood.  Mostly when I was around 10 I think.  Not exactly flying so much as "swimming in air."  I would perform this swimming motion like when you swim underwater.  I would slowly get a little higher as I moved along.  Seems like always though I would slow down and come back down to earth.
Later I would have similar dreams about trying to stuff a basketball.  No matter how hard I reached up or how long I hung in the air, I would slowly go lower and lower until my feet touched back down.

 I guess it indicates I felt something was always holding me down.

2275

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft is retiring Internet Explorer

« Last post by MilesAhead on March 23, 2015, 02:28 PM »

MS should buy out Mozilla 

-rgdot (March 23, 2015, 11:43 AM)

I notice as FF incorporates more HTML5 stuff I see weird flaky things.  Stuff like sections of pages show black for a second before filling it.  It only started happening with 36.x that I noticed.