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2326

General Software Discussion / common router firewall outbound settings?

« Last post by nudone on January 21, 2007, 06:34 PM »

(this is more of a hardware question, but as i'm trying to avoid 'software' firewalls i've posted it in this section.)

i've spent today removing and installing several firewalls. they are the free versions recommended everywhere. none work perfectly on my system it seems. so, i wish to abandon them completely and stop wasting time hoping they'll work correctly.

right. i have an adsl router. it has a firewall built in. brilliant. well, it would be if i had the slightest idea of what to put into the outbound rules - at the moment it's set to let everything out. kind of pointless isn't it. i've seen plenty of complaints about the windows inbuilt firewall letting everything out, but i get the impression that's exactly what all the adsl router firewalls are doing around the world too.

so, is there a list of common settings to allow through such a router firewall - settings that will cover the usual programs that are run on an xp machine?

it looks like i'm going to have to specify exact ports or port ranges (and tcp and udp). how on earth am i supposed to know that - just what is the point of having a firewall built into a router when there's no way of knowing what to put into it.

okay, i'm sure there will be information for certain apps i can find, but what about all those mysterious 'svchost' things and all that rubbish. suddenly i've just realised how absolutely pathetic internet security is.

anyway, if there is a list of common settings to use then i'll be very grateful if you let me know. thanks.

2327

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: move small dialog windows to cursor position

« Last post by nudone on January 21, 2007, 05:12 PM »

fantastic. christmas has come very early for me this year. very, very early it seems.

i'll have to try this tomorrow but i'm overjoyed that you've done this update.

2328

SMF Forum Mods / Re: Is there a better way to handle Gri's posts?

« Last post by nudone on January 21, 2007, 04:54 PM »

i think what Gri is doing is art because it's not immediately comprehendable and is probably intentionally ambiguous. it looks to me like it is left to the person 'experiencing' Gri's 'creations' to interpret them as they wish.

there is perhaps no definitive meaning to them maybe they are there to draw attention to Gri. we are part of Gri's artistic experiment - the whole internet is possibly the audience and artform combined. we are participating in Gri's creation, helping to shape it and experiencing it on our own levels. the artist merely creates and it up to us as critics to say what we 'feel' about it.

so far, Gri has successfully managed to stir up an interest and a bit of controversy about his/her/its art work - this is what artists do nowadays.

i just need to know how to purchase Gri's artwork now before it becomes widely sort after. this is the only flaw in Gri's digital creation - it can be replicated precisely without paying a single penny.

edit:
perhaps, it is better to describe Gri as a poet. what i've read so far by Gri resembles some kind of warped techno code poetry - something that i believe not to have been done before(?). like all good things it can take time to appreciate the subtle nuances of the craftmanship and beauty involved.

2329

General Software Discussion / Re: Dexpot: Probably the best virtual desktop manager around

« Last post by nudone on January 21, 2007, 04:08 PM »

i think the only way to use a virtual screen is to treat it as something completely different to a secondary hardware screen.

as i way of laying out out a specific arrangement of several windows that you want to use and keep referring back to, then they are useful. as a way of pretending that they are a real secondary (or more) monitor then they are pretty pointless.

if you don't need to have several program windows running alongside each other on the screen then there's little point to a virtual screen - using the alt-tab key is better. but if you want something like all your code editing programs open next to each other whilst you work with them AND all your internet programs open in a nice side by side arrangement kind of thing - then using a virtual screen would be just right. you'd be able to quickly swap between the two layouts.

if you find concentrating on a single program window at a time is more than enough then there's no use in using virtual screens.

i often find myself trying virtual screen/desktop managers as they seem like a useful idea and then within a couple of days i'm back to using just my normal single screen. so, although i can contrive the benefit of why they are good - i don't find them good enough to use.

perhaps, it just requires education. there is a benefit to them - but you have to make them work for you. i'm probably more inclined to treat them as a gimmick device (though i really wish to be able to find my work so incredible complex that i need virtual screens to help me).

i will try dexpot again soon - maybe.

2330

SMF Forum Mods / Re: Is there a better way to handle Gri's posts?

« Last post by nudone on January 21, 2007, 03:25 PM »

i also have absolutely no idea what gri is going on about. so, should i make the effort to try and understand or just ignore him/her/it?

i get the impression that the machine like gri won't mind either way. i think i'll just ignore it then.

(usually, for a brief period, we pander to the self indulgent desires of someone as we give them the benefit of the doubt. we then learn that we are doing the wrong thing and decide to ignore this self obsessed individual. the individual then usually learns that they need to adapt a more civil approach to there colleagues otherwise their audience is lost forever.)

edit:
having said that. i do like new forms of art and it looks like that is what gri is doing. so, i've changed my mind. i've decided i like the 'artist' that is gri and the new internet artform that it is practising.

2331

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer - LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.08.01 - Oct 08, 2006

« Last post by nudone on January 20, 2007, 04:10 PM »

would it be possible, on the next update of process tamer, to have the tray icon more visible?

it just needs something to make it less dark as it's almost invisible against a black background tray (this will be more of a problem with vista on the way).

2332

General Software Discussion / Re: Dexpot: Probably the best virtual desktop manager around

« Last post by nudone on January 20, 2007, 03:54 PM »

i see. i don't think 3 seconds is too bad a delay but i suppose it depends on how you use the computer.

it would be handy to have working with virtual desktops regardless of the delay.

2333

General Software Discussion / Re: Dexpot: Probably the best virtual desktop manager around

« Last post by nudone on January 20, 2007, 11:23 AM »

does that mean you can have different grids for different virtual screens?

2334

General Software Discussion / Re: Dexpot: Probably the best virtual desktop manager around

« Last post by nudone on January 20, 2007, 09:20 AM »

i'd also agree that it's the 'best' after trying a few of the others. but does it work with gridmove, jgpvaiva? i never tried it with that.

2335

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Cody Mug for NANY Participants

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 05:40 PM »

sounds like you are all just jealous of my handsome visage.

2336

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Cody Mug for NANY Participants

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 05:10 PM »

hehe, thanks, i must say i do know how to look after myself - need any beauty tips, just ask me.

2337

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Cody Mug for NANY Participants

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 03:34 PM »

you'll have to forgive me, i didn't have time to powder my nose.

2338

Living Room / Re: moving operating system from one partition to another?

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 09:42 AM »

yes, yes, good. thanks, you've both convinced me this is a terrible idea. i guess i just thought it possible because of the migration tools that are available but i also don't think i'd trust them.

i think i was getting carried away.

i'll shall reinstall everything.

2339

Living Room / Re: moving operating system from one partition to another?

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 08:49 AM »

i've just realised - if i do the above, aren't the paths going to cause problems? at the moment the everything has been installed using E: as the root. so if i move restore the backup onto another partition that's assigned C then isn't everything going to stop working.

or does xp know how to correct itself in this kind of situation - or maybe even acronis trueimage?

2340

Living Room / moving operating system from one partition to another?

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 05:45 AM »

in the past i would have just jumped straight in and done what i'm hoping to do - rather than wait until after this question is answered.

i want to move my operating system from drive E (yes, drive E) to drive C. the 'drives' are just partitions on the same hard drive - which is actually two physical drives in raid 0.

i'm sure i've swapped things around in the past - on older machines, i'm just a bit hesitant to do it this time because of the raid 0 setup - i assume this makes no difference (hopefully).

i'm going to use acronis trueimage to make a backup of drive E (yes, drive E) and then 'restore' this back to drive C. now, drive E and drive E are of different sizes - i assume that acronis trueimage will be able to cope with this and leave the partitions at the sizes they are. does it matter one jot whether the paritions are logical or primary (and what about 'active' - does that meant anything these days)?

right. as i said, i'd have just done this without giving it a second thought but i see that trueimage has options for whether the drives are partitions, i.e. whether they are logical or primary. so the question is, as the operating system is currently installed on a logical partition, is this going to easily transfer onto the primary larger partition C when i do the restoring?

i don't trust this machine so i need guidance before taking action...

2341

Living Room / Re: can a file or folder structure make a pc crash at random?

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 04:30 AM »

i'd thought about the controller idea - i don't have a none crucial sata drive i can test it with. at the moment all the important stuff that was on the faulty drive has been moved to the other (identical model) 250 gig drive. i'm going to have to start backing everything up to dvd - hate to think how long that's going to take, but it's got to be done. damn.

2342

Living Room / Re: can a file or folder structure make a pc crash at random?

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 04:13 AM »

it's a samsung, just over 12 months old. i had to replace an exact same model drive a few months ago, that drive was only 6 months old (it's discussed somewhere on the forum).

the drive that i've already replaced did show overheating using SMART so there wasn't any problem getting it replaced (it only took 48 to send and get a new drive sent out to me which i thought impressive).

this current faulty drive doesn't show any SMART faults and without getting the manufacturers drive util to test it further i'm not going to have much chance getting it replaced (i shall try again later to get the drive util thing to work on the drive).

could the problem i've been having with this drive be related to other parts of the machine? the problem definitely only occurs when accessing this drive (i've 4 drives in the machine 2 of which are in raid 0), could the problem be due to RAM or simply because of the data on the drive.

i've defragged the drive - no problem, done a virus scan - no problem, copied data to and from the drive - sometimes a problem sometimes not. formatted it twice, oh dear, there's just no point going on with this thing.

if the drive is at fault then i'm definitely not buying samsung again - and i wouldn't want it replaced with yet another samsung.

the computer 'appears' to work perfectly well - excep for things related to this drive.

to be honest, i'm not too concerned about the drive being faulty - i'm more worried that the symptom indicates there is something else wrong with the machine. i don't want to have to start swapping out ram or the motherboard - things i've nothing to compare with anyway.

f0dder, thanks for still showing an interest.

2343

Living Room / Re: can a file or folder structure make a pc crash at random?

« Last post by nudone on January 19, 2007, 02:27 AM »

seems the problem hasn't gone away. the machine still reboots itself when this bad drive is accessed - still no pattern to the behaviour.

going to take the drive out and hit it with a big hammer later. if that doesn't cure the problem i'll take the big hammer to the rest of the machine.

2344

Living Room / Re: Roxik Pictaps - Let your Drawings Dance - Brilliant!

« Last post by nudone on January 18, 2007, 08:04 AM »

cody dancing  http://roxik.com/pictaps/?pid=a170913

2345

Find And Run Robot / Re: New FARR v2 Icon Design Needed

« Last post by nudone on January 18, 2007, 01:44 AM »

instead of having the letter 'F', why not have something like ? or ! or = or perhaps the most original idea would be the carriage return symbol (i know '?' is used with outpost firewall).

2346

Developer's Corner / Re: Zinc 2.5 Review

« Last post by nudone on January 16, 2007, 04:25 AM »

thanks, found that very useful and interesting.

2347

Living Room / Re: can a file or folder structure make a pc crash at random?

« Last post by nudone on January 15, 2007, 08:18 AM »

just to keep the sorry saga going...

i did a full format on the drive using the format command in windows - didn't use the command prompt as i thought it would be just the same as using the properties panel, etc. you can get to with windows explorer.

anyway, after this full format i thought everything was okay as the scan i did afterwards completed without a problem.

copying the data back onto the drive from a backup dvd caused the machine to reboot. oh dear.

so, i formatted the drive again using partition magic - from the diagram that partition magic displays it's clear that it formats the drive in a different way to what the operating system does. i've now copied back the data from the backup dvd and restored several other folders/files that were originally on the bad drive. it appears to be working fine now.

the different formatting procedure looks like it did the trick (for the moment, at least).

i haven't been able to test the drive with the manufactures drive util as it doesn't recognise the drive when i use it. this is kind of weird because i used the very same util a few months ago when i had an identical model hard drive start to die - the util worked as expected.

2348

Living Room / Re: new system install - avoiding the BLOOOOAAAAAT

« Last post by nudone on January 15, 2007, 06:01 AM »

i see that we are quickly getting into the 'art' of codec management.

k-lite gave me trouble somewhere along the way that's why i switched to cccp - their blurb convinced me they had tested everything thoroughly and ensured they'd created a pack tested far more than any other. it wasn't the magic bullet so i'm not recommending it over any other pack.

vlc is something i've also moved away from. i've found kmplayer to suite my purposes better but the truth is that they are probably evenly matched in what they can do - i know there are plenty of keyboard shortcuts for kmplayer but i've no idea if this is more or less than vlc or zoom.

f0dder, i'll try your recommendation for mp3 settings - just to make sure.

dk70, i'll consider your suggestions but i'll probably leave it until i encounter a problem with encoding.

2349

Living Room / Re: new system install - avoiding the BLOOOOAAAAAT

« Last post by nudone on January 15, 2007, 04:32 AM »

i used to go the manual way of installing but that still never seemed to cover everything that i tried to play so i resorted to packs.

if you've managed to get away with just those few things then i'll try the manual way again. truth is pretty much everything i've tried will play on that kmplayer (as i remember) so i probably only need xvid installed for when i'm encoding my own things.

i have a few old mov's that have always seemed really picky - only working with apple's player so i could test quicktime alternative with those.

f0dder, what to do you use to encode the audio in your videos, i've always gone for mp3 but sometimes when i pass these videos onto other people they complain that they can't hear the audio stream. i thought mp3 would be universal - and i assumed that ac3 would be even more problematic - have i got it the wrong way around? as for matroska, i've still not come across any file using that container, or am i just not aware of it - do they just have an .avi extension anyway?

2350

Living Room / Re: DC Community Software Resource

« Last post by nudone on January 15, 2007, 04:00 AM »

farmy, you haven't made a post containing your original list over at the other thread???????????