Recent Posts

2501

DC Gamer Club / Re: 30 PC Games to Play Before You Die

« Last post by Shades on May 08, 2009, 10:26 PM »

Dungeon Siege a good game?!??!

6 Months after release Games drop in price tremendously in Holland...which is why I bought my copy of Dungeon Siege 1 and 2 (one box, 2 versions of the game) for the nice sum of 5 euro's from the bargain buckets in branches of toy store chains. After playing the complete first part (which was ridiculously easy) I couldn't be bothered to play part two any further than the beginning stage.

The game is way too forgiving towards the player and hands out treasure by the bucket. Too easy to get rich and be able to buy each time the best available armor and whatnot...if you didn't get it for free during the gathering of treasure. It's unfortunate, but this game was truly a waste of time and money.

Never Winter Nights 1 with all expansion sets (which I could buy for the nice sum of 20 euro's from a music store shelf) runs circles around Dungeon Siege. Better story, nicer graphics and puzzles that require the brain to actually work. Dungeon Siege did not do it for me at all, while I love Diablo 1 and 2. And I have an action figure of Diablo 2 to prove that 

2502

General Software Discussion / Re: Dell site won't help me: Please direct me to source of 64-bit drivers for XP?

« Last post by Shades on May 07, 2009, 10:14 PM »

A last resort method is to know exactly which hardware is in your laptop, go to the website of the manufacturer of the hardware to see if there are drivers available.

To find out which hardware is in your computer, try this freeware tool: SIW

After that...you are on your own.

2503

Living Room / Re: SuperboyAC's DC blog #5 (The State of MiniDisc and Sony)

« Last post by Shades on May 06, 2009, 11:01 PM »

One more for the army of the MD. When I bought my Sony 5.1 surround system 15 years ago, exchanging the speakers that went with it to Wharfedale one's there was still money left in the budget (well paying job in the army, what can I say). Tucked away in a corner of the mega store one of the MD recorders managed to catch my eye. Intrigued by the possibilities (especially for the era) I was deeply interested and bought it as well. One of my most expensive afternoons  

One could say that I was a Sony fanboy because the 5.1 system was from Sony, the 5CD (carousel) player....Sony and of course the MD recorder. Unfortunately I had to leave all that behind when going to South America. The audio system was still working perfectly and I miss it (although not as much as those Wharfedale speakers).

2504

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 04, 2009, 07:10 PM »

My hunch was correct then. You should disable the network card in the device manager (rightclick on the 'My computer' icon and choose the 'Manage' option in the appearing menu). Your way makes sure that no connection is made, but Windows still sees two network cards. Disabling in the device manager should prevent this.

Then again, if there are no objections in using the "no Samsung"-config, I would use that one and be done with it.

2505

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: X-Setup Pro at Bits Du Jour today Monday - 5/4/09

« Last post by Shades on May 04, 2009, 05:59 PM »

You should really try the last freeware version from this software...and be amazed about the sheer power of that one.

And I have to assume that this power has increased over the years.

2506

General Software Discussion / Re: How to setup wireless streaming movies through house?

« Last post by Shades on May 03, 2009, 07:19 PM »

The (wireless) bandwidth capacity from both your routers should be sufficient for streaming.

Having said this, high(er) quality streams require also (a lot) more bandwidth. My own experience with wireless networking is that the speed varies a lot. Having a Linksys wifi router and ditto card in my PC, I was expecting a better troughput than I have. 54Mbit/sec is the max. bandwidth, but there is a lot interference that I gladly went back to connecting a cable!

Video streaming in a LAN is possible with the VLC media player software. One system will act as server and on this machine it is not possible to see the video. Any other PC in the LAN network can use VLC to access the stream. As far as I know, there is a wizard helping you through the necessary steps in version 0.9.5 and higher.

Turn off as much bandwidth gobbeling applications (messengers, browsers, skype etc.) as possible when using this option.

Found the following link on a webmaster forum for an open source full fledged media (flash) server solution: http://osflash.org/red5, maybe that would be something to try.
In any case, I would first make a solution like this work on a network that uses cable to connect computers and only after it is working there to start fiddling with wireless network PC's.

2507

Living Room / Re: The Hunt For Gollum - 40 Min. Fan-Made Movie

« Last post by Shades on May 03, 2009, 06:48 PM »

Yes, is the meh for the links or for the movie effort?

2508

General Software Discussion / Re: installers that assume admin privs: what to do with them?

« Last post by Shades on May 03, 2009, 06:15 PM »

SysInternal's Process Explorer gives you an opportunity to run a piece of software using a more privileged user (if you know the correct user name and password). But accessing that functionality uses an ugly work flow.

http://www.ilyns.com/advanced-run.asp   is where you can get a piece of software that does the same but a lot easier and more pleasing to the eye (software is not working with 64-bit!)

2509

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 03, 2009, 06:01 PM »

Somewhat good news then 

UPnP can be disabled in the service management screen from Windows. Don't worry about disabling this service, it is not really required.

Sorry, I had to use Google to find out about the FD-ISR software. Myself I use regedit to export my complete registry as txt file before I install any piece of software. After installing I create a new backup and use a Difff program like WinMerge (open source) or Beyond Compare 3 (worth every penny you have to pay for it) to check for differences.

Works relatively fast and does not have to cost you any money.

How did you disable the network card, if I may so boldly ask? With more than one network card you have a multi-homed PC and it is possible that your PC requests for an updated list through the normal network card (depending on the way the card is disabled of course).

2510

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 03, 2009, 01:52 PM »

By the way, does your new PC have one or two network adapters (for example: wifi and cable)?

2511

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 03, 2009, 01:50 PM »

Maybe it would be smart if you designate a PC in your network to become the Master browser (the current Master browser for example) by altering settings in the registry:
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Browser\Parameters\IsDomainMaster (should be:TRUE)
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList (should be:AUTO)

Alter the same registry settings on on each of your other LAN PC's:
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Browser\Parameters\IsDomainMaster (should be:FALSE)
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Browser\Parameters\MaintainServerList (should be:AUTO)

By doing this you have clearly specified which PC is the MB (Master browser) in your LAN. In my point of view the MB should be a PC that is either always on or started before any other PC in your LAN. Granted, all this is way too much trouble to go through for getting a list of network nodes communicated correctly (on a WorkGroup based LAN, anyway).

Also, Microsoft's documentation tells me that it can take 12 to 36 minutes for changes in the network to be communicated to all LAN PC's.   

2512

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 02, 2009, 03:48 PM »

According to the chicagotech link it is possible to have too many Master browser systems. Only one PC should be setup as master browser and all other PC's should retrieve the list of available network computers from the Master browser PC.

Besides that, you should make sure if the following network protocol is installed/activated on the network card that you use to connect to your network: Sharing of files and printers on a Microsoft network (roughly translated from Dutch).

2513

DC Gamer Club / Re: 30 PC Games to Play Before You Die

« Last post by Shades on May 02, 2009, 03:37 PM »

From all the games in this list I played only 'Planescape: Torment'.

And I totally, utterly and completely agree with the text in the article. What a breath of fresh air in the genre. Amazing twist and turns in the storyline, graphics stand the test of time and of course Morte. Who wouldn't like a floating skull (with eyes!) as a degenerate, witty, offensive, 'politically incorrect' and scheming sidekick. Life will never be boring and since you cannot die...

That character made the game for me. Played it last year and although it is a really old game, you can play it straight on a P4 with WinXP SP2 without DosBox or tools to slow down your PC. Excellent stuff from BioWare!

2514

Living Room / Re: Revolutionary Keyboard

« Last post by Shades on May 01, 2009, 07:35 PM »

They can be bought here for a long time already....although the concept sounds excellent, I absolutely hate the way it "feels" when you're typing on them.

For me that is the primary reason for liking a keyboard or not.

2515

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 01, 2009, 06:57 PM »

You have by any chance a Linux PC that is setup as a Samba server?

To be more clear, I used Webmin to control all services on my Linux PC including Samba, which gives you an option to enable WINS. Having said this, I just learned that there are subtle differences between the WINS from Samba and the WINS  functionality from a Windows server.

With server I mean a server edition of the Windows Operating Systems (Windows 2000 and up). More specific info about how to enable WINS on a Windows server can be found by following this link (MS TechNet). After having done this, you still have to configure WINS on the PC that will act as a client. This you can do in the advanced network configuration settings.

2516

General Software Discussion / Re: Time Clock Software

« Last post by Shades on May 01, 2009, 01:40 PM »

Don't know if it handles punch cards, but ActiTime looks like a very nice time tracker. The link points to the features of the free version, there is also a pay version.

2517

General Software Discussion / Re: Help for solving a XP home lan mystery

« Last post by Shades on May 01, 2009, 01:22 PM »

So the basics work, but Windows itself is the problem. By using WINS in my mixed (Windows/Linux) network the updating of available PC's (and their name) in the network goes a lot more smoothly...but still not perfect.

Now I know that the 'Computer Browser' service is responsible for getting and updating this list. Here is a link that provides a lot more info about this service and how to troubleshoot it. Likely you will have to download a Resource kit from Microsoft, but those are free as far as I know.

2518

Living Room / Re: wanted: google-like but google-free calendar software

« Last post by Shades on May 01, 2009, 12:40 PM »

Have to agree on that one, I couldn't find it myself either...sorry.

2519

Living Room / Re: wanted: google-like but google-free calendar software

« Last post by Shades on April 30, 2009, 10:53 PM »

Have you tried the website from this thread (suggested by mouser)?

2520

General Software Discussion / Re: Is AnyDVD actually necessary for copying DVD's?

« Last post by Shades on April 30, 2009, 10:14 PM »

Carol is right about the shrinking process that DVDshrink uses.

There is a serious difference between encoding (the DVDshrink method) and transcoding video. A 'beefy' PC is required to get the job done in reasonable time. On my single core but hyper threading P4 3GHz 1GByte PC it takes about 15 minutes to 'shrink' a DVD9 to DVD5 while transcoding takes 2 hours easily. And don't expect to be able to do anything with it during the process!

However, degradation of the picture quality of the video is either not there or hardly noticeable, while the encoding process can show you some (not so) nice artifacts.  For more info about this and tools to work with look some time at the Afterdawn website and its forums (or is it fora...I always forget  ).

2521

Living Room / Re: Flash Game of the Week: DeepLeap

« Last post by Shades on April 28, 2009, 09:00 PM »

My experience with the game was not so pleasant...after playing some 20 games, the 21st game ended rather abruptly because when I was more or less half way through my tiles the speed of the game increased...well, 30 tiles in 5 seconds is a bit too fast for me.

2522

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by Shades on April 27, 2009, 09:32 PM »

Some days ago I was made aware of the existence  of an older XML editor, called XML Marker. Unfortunately, but it seems there is no active development going on, but after trying it I was pleasantly surprised about the size of the installation software (1 Mbyte),  the four views it gave me from the test XML file that was fed to it and the fact that it was Java-less freeware.

What I gathered from the overview was that the author was not happy with the XML editor because it was Java based and happy because of the views. XML Marker is able to whip up the same views plus one extra...from what I saw during my 5 minutes of "testing the application". Maybe a contender for the throne currently held by Oxygene XML editor? 

2523

General Software Discussion / Re: What are the options for restricting access to applications?

« Last post by Shades on April 26, 2009, 11:54 PM »

PhilB66 to the rescue!!   


@App103:
What you say makes sense, but as 'secpol.msc' appears to be the small little brother of 'gpedit.msc' I was thinking (or maybe hoping) that the small edition was included in XP Home Premium.

The oooops is completely on my side of the court

2524

General Software Discussion / Re: What are the options for restricting access to applications?

« Last post by Shades on April 26, 2009, 06:44 PM »

Booting into safe mode with the Administrator in XP Home and typing: 'secpol.msc' (or 'gpedit.msc') in the run dialog from the start menu doesn't work?

One reason more to be happy with XP Pro 

2525

General Software Discussion / Re: managing file permissions under windows (madness?)

« Last post by Shades on April 26, 2009, 02:25 PM »

Ah, I did not understand your problem correctly.

A boot cd should not care about the partitions on a hard drive. Make sure that your BIOS is set to use a CD/DVD player as the primary boot device. Some bootCD's wait for a while for user interaction to start and without this interaction let the system boot normally from hard drive after this grace period. That could be an explanation for your problem with the Hirens BootCD.

The content of the Hirens BootCD is unknown to me, but I'll guess it contains a lot of software to repair broken systems as well. Going from that assumption, it is very likely that there is a software package on the CD that can show and/or edit partitions on any hard drive recognized by the BIOS.

Start that piece of software and check which partition is set to 'Active', as far as I know only primary partitions can be set to 'Active'. It is also not possible to set more than one 'Active' partition per hard drive and (by default) you cannot put more than four primary partitions on a hard drive. The 'Active' partition is used by he BIOS to start the Operating system. However, the Operating system will not be able to start the if the 'Active' partition does not contain any of the following files:

• ntldr
• ntdetect.com
• boot.ini

From these files only the 'boot.ini' file is easily fixed.
For example, this is the content of my boot.ini file (XP)

[Select]

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS means: use this entry as the default Operating system
multi(0) means: single hard drive
rdisk(0) means: first available drive
partition(1) means: first available partition
\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" means: default WINDOWS folder and name
/fastdetect means: important setting for NTDETECT.COM.

For example, this is how the content of your dual boot system would look like

[Select]

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 2008 Server edition" /fastdetect

Above boot.ini file makes sure that Win2008 is started by default. More info (Microsoft) about the boot.ini file