Recent Posts

251

General Software Discussion / Re: Interesting: Tag2Find, Tagging for All Filetypes for Windows

« Last post by MrCrispy on October 11, 2007, 02:02 AM »

Ahh, if only WinFS had not been scrapped...... we would have had so much more.

252

General Software Discussion / Re: Have any web-based applications replaced desktop apps for you?

« Last post by MrCrispy on October 11, 2007, 01:59 AM »

Gmail
del.icio.us integrated with Firefox instead of local bookmarks
misc web based calendaring/todolist apps
bloglines/google reader for rss

Offline gmail is coming!

253

General Software Discussion / Re: Good Digital Vid Organizer?

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 24, 2007, 02:54 PM »

There is no standard way to tag videos. In audio, where pretty much everyone has standardized on ID3 tags and other formats like ogg, there are utilities to convert tag information. In the video world, there are too many container formats (mkv, amov, ogm, mp4, mpg, wmv/asf) which all have a different (or none) tag scheme. There are hardly any tools to manage these tags, let alone convert between them. Most video players don't even know how to parse the tags or display them to the user.

That said, many photo/music organziers such as J.River Media Center, Picajet, AcdSee etc include various levels of support for tagging videos. Almost all of them can import video collections and extract thumbnails to display them in the library.

254

General Software Discussion / Re: Acronis True Image OR maybe not ???

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 24, 2007, 02:45 PM »

Another program to consider is Paragon Drive Backup. Its more power user oriented than Acronis but as a result has more options and configurability. I have not had any issues with using it and feel safer.

255

General Software Discussion / Re: What linux needs?

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 20, 2007, 11:20 PM »

Here's the thing - when you go up against the dominant market force, its not enough to be as good or even slightly better. You have to be much better. This is the same problem facing competitors of the iPod.

What's Linux's value proposition? I don't care 2 hoots about it being free or OSS - every single pc I buy will come with a valid Windows. Windows has as much freeware as Linux for nearly everything. The big apps cost money but people who base their OS on their apps usually need them - like graphic pros, developers etc. Enhanced security and stability is one argument I'll buy.


But I want to repeat something that has a lot of truth -
"Linux is only free if your time has no value" - Jamie Zawinski, author of Netscape.

256

General Software Discussion / Re: What linux needs?

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 19, 2007, 11:41 PM »

I don't have time to respond in detail, but if there is one thing the Linux folk should agree on, its binary interfaces. Or even just the concept of an interface. I have no problems with the 10 million windowing systems and text editors and config files. These are the reason OSS software is so diverse and asking them to standardize on a single windowing system is ridiculous and unreasonable.

What I do want to happen is for someone like Linus to come forward and define a standard API for applications, OS and user actions. And for every distro to program to and adhere to it. Strictly. IMO thats the really hard part. Its just too easy for anyone to write an app that reads a bunch of entries from a random txt file in usr/etc/config/blahblah, makes a few calls to the window manager, and becomes a Linux app.

A good example is package management - nowdays almost every decent distro has some form of apt-get. Yet the repositories are not compatible and neither are the managers. It would be trivial for all of them to use the same format to exchange package info, but they don't. Why does Linux still suffer from dll-hell of the worst kind. Why is recompiling the kernel considered acceptable? Why, after 5 decades, can Linux/Unix still not have binary compatibility between apps.

Decide on a unified interface for your control centers and let each distro put their own fancy UI on top. Have systemwide sound, printing, clipboard etc. I don't care if its gnome/kde/qt/elf who's at fault.

Ditch the source. Every linux hacker should be made to work for a month on a system where he has no access to source code, text editors, cmd lines or compilers. As a result she'd be forced to write tools for users, not programmers.

Look at OSX. Its a shining example of how you take a powerful kernel and build apps on top of it that isolate the user from complexity without sacrificing power.

Look at Firefox. Its incredibly succesful because no one who uses it has to look at code. Extensions are 1 click. It looks good. Why can't your kernel and apps follow the same model.

Unfortunately I think the Linux community is too much in love with its own product. Ultimately, the users of Linux are mostly those who wrote it - the ultra knowledgable geeks. They will not feel the pain. They cannot, no matter how hard they try to look at from another point of view. And unless they do, it will remain what it is today.

257

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 18, 2007, 10:57 PM »

I can tell you right now that Vista SP1 is going to underwhelm a lot of people  Most of the major updates it contains have already been released as part of the 2 packs recently, and it has no new features that'll fix the common Vista complaints. Waiting till 2008 for that is going to be a disappointment!

258

General Software Discussion / Re: Real Player 11 is actually quite good!

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 17, 2007, 04:39 PM »

I also had no problems with the video download feature in IE/Firefox. I really like how it picks the right name and saves both the file and the url info.

I'm now looking for a way to export and import my video library into another computer while preserving all the metadata.

259

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

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 17, 2007, 04:24 PM »

Vista Explorer has some features that no one else has, such as  -

- instant search
- stack and group by views
- automatic scrolling in tree views
- search folders and support for the new search protocol handler

..etc. I am waiting for these changes to show up in a file manager and until that point none of them can claim to be completely Vista compatible since these are OS level changes. I admit I have not used the expert options in DOpus so I am not too familiar with it since I use xplorer2.

260

General Software Discussion / Re: "Disk activity" tamer...

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 17, 2007, 04:04 PM »

I am not aware of any mechanism to throttle disk IO in the Windows API. The most you can do is control IO using DPC's but once an IO request has been dispatched, it will run to completion unless its preempted by a higher priority request such as that coming from an ISR, which are not controllable from user mode.

Its impossible to timeslice away from an existing disk operation in the same way that can be done for threads on a cpu, the reason being that file IO has no notion of state which can be saved (like cpu registers).

261

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

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 13, 2007, 04:49 PM »

My problem with Firefox is with the core engine, which is a horribly convoluted mess of js and xul, and makes fixing the base very hard if not impossible because the beast is now so huge its a hydra and cannot be tamed  The devs know this, which is why its a lot easier to add new features than fix the core flaws. e.g. is it ever going to get a real multithreaded page rendering?
 

262

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

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 13, 2007, 04:44 PM »

FileManagers are a hard habit to break - once you get used to the quirks and features in whatever you use, its hard to switch. I tried to like DOpus since it obviously has great features, but its sufficiently different from xplorer2 that I always end up going back.

263

General Software Discussion / Real Player 11 is actually quite good!

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 13, 2007, 04:42 PM »

I can't believe I'm saying this, I feel as if the space time fabric is gong to collapse on itself as the unspeakable seems to have happened!

Try out the RP 11 beta. I heard about it here - http://cybernetnews....and-read-our-review/. Its no longer the beast it once was, behaves nicely with existing file handlers, and has a killer web video download feature. I no longer need to try the latest firefox extensions to get youtube videos, its now literally a one-click affair.

264

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 13, 2007, 04:37 PM »

You can't reformat a car.

(I like that. I think I'm going to use that as a standard reply when a car analogy is bought up!)

Although I think we have now progressed to cat analogies

265

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 09, 2007, 04:07 PM »

Imagine a legacy notetaking program.
It starts out when installed with a data file called Notes.data in its program directory.
As user adds notes, they get added to this Notes.data file.

Good example. I don't know what the best way to deal with this would be, but one idea is that the program should have a way of exporting its data and thus the user can save it somewhere else? In this case, the program will trigger UAC since its writing to a system directory and thus the user will know that something is going on.

Here is a good description - http://blogs.msdn.co...cy-applications.aspx

266

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 09, 2007, 04:01 PM »

Another perspective - applications are written to use an interface. The implementation of that interface is upto the OS and can change at any time. The only contract the OS has is to provide an old interface to existing apps so as not to break them, but it doesn't (and shouldn't) have to offer the same implementation. If an app depends on that, it is wrong.

Let me use an analogy - say you are an analyst and call a company to talk to their CFO. You always say to the receptionist - 'can I talk to the CFO' and she transfers you to Steve. Well after a few calls, you just get Steve's personal number (instead of his extension) and call him directly. A few years later, Steve is fired (all those millions he embezzled!). So now you can't reach him because you are not going thru the proper API (interface). However, for those people who call his extension, the company puts in place a redirect in the PABX system, so that anyone who calls Steve is actually transferred to Lisa. The same applies to his email. Steve is now virtualized.

The reason this works is that people don't want to talkt o Steve, but the CFO. And apps should also not write to hardwired locations.

267

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 09, 2007, 03:48 PM »

I disagree.  There are lots of cases when VISTA+UAC allow programs to write to the "real" registry and the "real" directories like \Program Files.  In these cases, the UAC pops up and requires user to enter an admin-level password.  There is absolutely no reason that Vista couldn't prompt users if a program tries to access these directories.

UAC is for security - it has nothing do with compatibility. You could disable UAC and never see the prompts. Virtualizing is a way to ensure old apps work. Its like emulation and CANNOT be replaced. e.g. Windows can (and has in the past) change the location of imp registry keys and yet still let old apps that need them work. This is impossible to do without virtualizing, because the old app doesn't even know about the 'real' stuff. I cannot stress this enough.

The files are hidden from the user, where they will never be backed up or accessed.  Instead the program thinks its modifying files in one directory and so does the user.  When they user goes to look

That is the entire point - the user should not have to go look manually at these locations. Please give an example of the problems you point out.

If you believe that it is BAD for programs to write to the registry or their directories in Program Files (which everyone who approves of virtualization seems to agree upon here), then you should be APPALLED by the MS solution which is completely SILENT when a program does this.  No warning is displayed, no notice to the user saying "this program is doing something bad".  To me this is the grossest, clearest flaw in the approach, and i find it inexcusable and harmful, with no redeeming aspects.

1. It lets the program run. This is the most imp thing.
2. The app is not writing to program files or the registry, it thinks it is. A user should have NO reason to look at those directories or registry keys because all user data should be stored in the user data folders, for which a standard API has existed since W95.

Please tell me why you consider it a flaw and harmful other than the fact that you don't agree with it.


Let me give another example. I don't know if you've used VSS (volume shadow copy) which is a Windows service that virtualizes the entire file system to allow programs such as backup, system restore, previous versions in Vista etc to take snapshots of a live filesystem. It is completely transparent, high performance and absolutely indispensable.

I would also like to point out that virtualization (man it seems like I'm saying that every 3rd word ) is technology that is being used in nearly every consumer and server level OS  and hardware. It is here to stay.

268

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 09, 2007, 03:09 PM »

Mouser, the problem with your rule is that it breaks applications. To the user, if they run something and are prompted with dialogs they cannot understand, it is broken.

The deeper issue is even if they are prompted, the only way to let the app run is to virtualize. The compatibility mode you speak of cannot allow the old app unlimited access to the real parts of the system and hence must virtualize them. From the POV of an old app, there is no problem and no error, and it must remain that way - thats the definition of backward compatibility.

So as I see it, your issue is with the 'silent operation' and not the actual technology. Is that right? If so I don't understand why it is so - an OS does so much 'behind the scenes' thats its silly to expect users to be involved in these decisions. You might as well complain that the OS should notify the user whenever the page file is used because an app is using too much memory, because the page file is slower.

The way it is done, both old and new apps continue to run. I suppose the key is how you define 'problem ' - is it something that affects the user experience or is it something technical that programming can take care of.

269

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 06, 2007, 12:51 AM »

There is nothing to prevent them from doing so, but in .NET you're not supposed to use the registry for app settings - there is a whole different system for that.

Perfectly illustrates my point about bad programmer habits

270

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by MrCrispy on September 05, 2007, 11:46 PM »

Wow, I missed this very interesting thread. My perspective may be biased since I'm a Windows software developer and thus my livelihood depends on the success of Microsoft's OS's, so lets get that out of the way.

The biggest strength and weakness of Windows is its fantastic compatibility. Show me another OS which goes to such lengths to makes sure that users can run old apps. There are 2 reasons for this -

1. Windows 3.1 was a huge, huge success. It spawned so many applications which had to be supported for the lifetime of Windows due to quirks in the way they were programmed. The biggest problem was when the windows kernel moved to a new architecture, with NT and then with XP and 2003. You will be amazed at the horror stories of what Windows has to go thru to make sure old apps don't break, because when they do, Microsoft gets blamed and worse, conspiracy theories are proposed.

2.Business customers - these are a primary market, and these guys don't want new features. They want support for their legacy apps (see #1) and they want reliability, which means you can't keep experimenting with fancy UI's and new features because they get rejected.

Believe me, if you read their blogs and talk to Windows architects, they would like nothing better than to throw away all backward compatibility and start from scratch. There are a few research OS's being developed by Microsoft Research (search for Singularity) with this aim, but thats a 10 year vision given the realities of the Windows userbase.

When Vista started, they had very ambitious goals. The entire user mode parts of the OS (basically 80%) would be written from scratch in .NET with a new API and new design. Compatibility was to be maintained through virtualizing legacy parts like the registry (about which mouser has complained). Due to overambitious goals, some poor management, a focus on security above all else and and possibly some hard business decisions, they decided to scrap it all, base it on the 2003 kernel, and drop a lot of the planned features. The only thing which seems to have made it through is Avalon (the Vista graphics engine).

The goal of the Windows team is still to have a virtualized, completely isolated model of execution which is the best for application security. Windows developers have a hard life - there are so many bad habits that are impossible to break and are deeply entrenched, and the OS must work around them. Look at .NET apps - they don't use the registry, all files have to be local, and they have xcopy deployment.

Now we come to Vista's user experience. Every single developer and power user I know turns UAC off. But UAC is not meant for us - its meant to protect the average user. I have it turned on on all my friends and family's computers. Once you use it for the first week and go thru all the installs (which is when its the most irritating) its not that intrusive. If it comes up, there usually is a good reason- e.gtrying to manually rename a file in a system directory.

I don't mean to come off as a Vista apologist and I have cursed it often enough, but I will not go back to XP.

271

General Software Discussion / Re: Inventory software to keep track of my stuff?

« Last post by MrCrispy on August 12, 2007, 10:07 PM »

Tidiness leads to ruin, if you have a database you will need to make sure its up to date, then make sure things always go back where the database says they are, or update the database

That does seem likely

272

General Software Discussion / Re: Inventory software to keep track of my stuff?

« Last post by MrCrispy on August 12, 2007, 10:03 PM »

Found this great site - http://www.lifeorganizers.com/

Lots of useful tips on organizing your life. The problem I think I'll have is like the guy who goes out to buy 'How to improve your Memory', comes home and puts it on the bookshelf right next to a copy he owns. You gotta stop looking for 'better' ways and tools and just do it!

273

General Software Discussion / Re: Custom Folder v1.2

« Last post by MrCrispy on August 12, 2007, 09:49 PM »

In Vista's Save dialog boxes,  creating a new folder automatically goes to it

274

General Software Discussion / Inventory software to keep track of my stuff?

« Last post by MrCrispy on August 12, 2007, 09:46 PM »

My apt is beginning to look like my file system - disorganized, full of hard to find things, and not easy to navigate. I want to organize it all so everything is where its supposed to be and I can find what I need. I looked at a few programs I found by searching on 'home inventory' but most of these are designed to track the value of stuff for home insurane purposes I guess.

What I want could probably be done by a simple database. I think the program I'm looking for would let me -

- create multiple storage locations - e.g. one for each room/drawer
- create multiple categories/tags
- assign stuff freely between the 2 of them
- easily find duplicates/stuff I already own
- (optional) add pictures

Is there anything like this?

275

General Software Discussion / Experiences with TrueCrypt and disk encryption in general?

« Last post by MrCrispy on August 07, 2007, 05:19 PM »

I've played with TrueCrypt but have never entrusted massive amounts of data to it. On my new pc I'm installing Vista but will not be using BitLocker since its overkill and has its own security issues, however I do want most of my data to remain safe. I'm thinking of making a huge 400GB TrueCrypt partition and just put everything in there, but I'm concerned with reliability and what happens if I lose the whole container due to a file error. Performance is not an issue from what I've seen. Whats the largest encrypted container you have used?