Recent Posts

2526

Living Room / Re: Exchange E-Mail hosting recommendation needed

« Last post by Stoic Joker on December 04, 2012, 06:44 PM »

We've got 2 clients lined up to go the MS hosted Exchange route.

$4 per user per month for basic package (just exchange...but all of it), and the minimum order size (for that rate) is 1.

2527

Living Room / Re: Is the age of unlocked cell phones upon us? Pretty please??

« Last post by Stoic Joker on December 02, 2012, 09:07 AM »

It sounds like SOP for Apple to me...take any deficiency and spin-doctor it into a feature. History has shown that they can't secure the device well enough to keep a 9 year old from cracking it. So they might as well just kick the doors open for people and call it a customer friendly feature (marketing opportunity) that will reduce inventory/stocking complications.

2528

Living Room / Re: Folder properties

« Last post by Stoic Joker on December 01, 2012, 07:32 AM »

That's actually normal behavior for a folder object. I do not know the mechanics of why they do this...but it is normal.

2529

General Software Discussion / Re: Keyboard shortcut of the day

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 30, 2012, 10:09 PM »

Remap Ctrl+Y key to act like Ctrl+Z?

-Cloq (November 30, 2012, 08:30 PM)

Um... Bad idea. Ctrl+Y is the (default) re-do compliment to Ctrl+Z's un-do

2530

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 29, 2012, 07:07 AM »

It all makes sense now.

Gay marriage and marijuana being legalized on the same day.

Leviticus 20:13 - "If a man lays with another man he should be stoned."

We've just been interpreting it wrong all along.

-IainB (November 29, 2012, 06:40 AM)

  I do believe that is indeed the farthest I have ever seen anything twisted. 

2531

Living Room / Re: Samsung & Dell Printers backdoor

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 29, 2012, 06:50 AM »

Hmm. My printer is Samsung, but last I knew it wasn't live connected to the net. So how would an attacker get to the back door? Is it only some models?

-TaoPhoenix (November 28, 2012, 07:13 PM)

That chip in the ink cartridges that they tell you is to monitor levels actually monitors all connected computers, (including USB).

Then when you throw out or recycle the old cartridge, the government collects the information stored on that chip.

-4wd (November 28, 2012, 07:25 PM)

There goes my monopoly on crazy conspiracy theories news/fact/history. (But seriously - do you have any links for that? I somehow doubt that anyone would invest in enough memory to make it remotely useful like that. However, I've seen crazier stuff with lots of evidence to back it up. Stuff so crazy that no matter how much evidence there is, I'm still baffled at it.)

-Renegade (November 28, 2012, 07:38 PM)

It's a great story ... But I'd have to call that one highly unlikely, given that the chip is generally way to busy planning its own (date based expiration/service "life") obsolence to care what you're trying to push through it.

2532

Living Room / Re: Inadvertent Social Engineering - It's that easy?!?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 28, 2012, 03:50 PM »

People really do get relaxed about security when there hasn't been any major events. Like at the local courthouse you have to go through metal detectors and have your wallet/purse x-rayed to make sure you aren't bringing anything dangerous in.

-SeraphimLabs (November 28, 2012, 03:41 PM)

Few years back I was doing a service call at the local court house. I put my Leatherman (with a 3" blade) in the basket and went through the scanner. The deputy working security asked about the blade, and I told him it was a tool I used as part of my job. He said ok...but we'll have to put it in your "tool bag" (laptop case), and waved me through.

Oh yeah ... This was the third trip through the scanners ... Nobody had noticed the blade on the first two trips.

2533

Living Room / Re: Why did it never occur to me.. You can wash a keyboard in water.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 28, 2012, 01:49 PM »

Yes... But Sticky is a loosely related (in a third cousin sort of way) synonym of the antonym of clean.

2534

Living Room / Re: Inadvertent Social Engineering - It's that easy?!?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 28, 2012, 11:30 AM »

I once socially Engineered my way into a domain name registrar, a hosting company, and an ISP. All in the space of about an hour. Fortunately for the company being targeted...they had hired me to make said changes...or their web presence would have gone poof by morning.

It's just one of many hats one has to wear to be a Network/Systems Admin. People need things. These same needy people also never seem to document shit...and are always in a hurry. Which leaves you sitting on the phone with some typically disinterested support drone pretending to be any number of people in various moods. It really is mortifyingly easy.

The only company that I could not SE my way past was the folks at WatchGuard. These folks just don't screw around. It took an entire week to get that issue resolved ... But that's ok. At least I know they really are doing their job.

2535

Living Room / Re: General av and anti-malware discussion

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 28, 2012, 07:07 AM »

this is a very interesting article:

http://www.techsuppo...-world.htm?page=0,24

-flamerz (November 28, 2012, 05:26 AM)

(In case it gets missed) Here's a link posted in the comments for that article: Antivirus software so ineffective it's a waste of money, report suggests

2536

Living Room / Re: In search of ... opinions on RAID at home

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 27, 2012, 12:44 PM »

But frankly I just feel like it's a slippery slope to ever recommend RAID to any "home" user.

-JavaJones (November 27, 2012, 11:51 AM)

Oh indeed, it would be insane to expect the average home user to wade through things of that nature. Most of them don't even bother to repair the machine in the first place. And why should they? There is nothing of any real value on it, and it was a base model $300 - $600 machine to start with ... Which is probably 2-3 years old, and is requiring a $200+ repair. Just toss the thing like any other blender/toaster/can opener appliance and get another. This is a big part of why our company does next to nothing with residential clients. Let the Geek Squad have fun contending with that mess.

The people barney is talking about sound more like IT professionals and potentially have the knowledge to deal with anything that would go wrong, so it's a lot more reasonable for them to make the (informed) choice to use it at home.

-JavaJones (November 27, 2012, 11:51 AM)

Yes, this is the class of user to which I was referring. Folks that frequently come home with important projects, and real deadlines, that can't suffer the loss of x hours to get things back up and running.

If I get a call at 2am I have two choices. Access it remotely (which requires that my comp be at least limping along well enough to fire an RDP session), or... Get my ass in the truck and head over there (there being x number of not fun miles away). I really hate option 2.

2537

Living Room / Re: In search of ... opinions on RAID at home

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 26, 2012, 02:30 PM »

Rebuilding a RAID array does degrade performance to a mildly noticeable degree...but restoring from backup - especially an image backup - completely annihilates it. Progress and performance are both exactly zero as you sit about twiddling you thumbs waiting a few hours to get on with your life. And that's only after you get back from the hard drive store (with the replacement) which will hopefully still be open at whatever ungodly hour the thing decides to go poof at.

If you live in an area that has really bad power, then you should have a UPS anyway. If you work on large and/or important projects...and really hate suprises...then you should have a UPS anyway. It's not specifically a RAID cost.

Single disk systems, still have disk controllers, and those controllers are also just as easily subject to failure. So that's not really an exclusive to RAID issue either. So if either type of controller gets just flaky enough...data corruption can occur. But then again if a stick of RAM gets just flake enough...data corruption can occur. Yet strangely nobody ever warns against (hay more sticks is more points of failure) installing too much memory...

Now granted RAID5 is a bit much for the average home user (even if I do like running it), but RAID1 mirroring is a great way to be sure your system will be on-line when you need it.

I've seen backups fail, I've seen RAID arrays fail ...(IMO it's best to do both)... RAID failures had a lower anguish rate however.

2538

General Software Discussion / Re: Tips for Windows 8 (got any?)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 26, 2012, 01:41 PM »

this one took a bit more work for me because I have a pre-installed (OEM) Windows 8. The serial number is no longer accessible anywhere. (It's in the bios, but apparently even there it's hidden.)
I came across this little app (*not* a 'tiles' app - the word app is being stolen from us...)
Windows 8 WDP Product Key Viewer´
http://forums.mydigi...P-Product-Key-Viewer
(My Digital Life forums)

-tomos (November 26, 2012, 12:27 PM)

Cool little app man, thanks for sharing. But I gotta ask where you got the impression the product key was stored in the BIOS? I've never heard anything about that move, and there is nothing in the pkeyui.exe binaries import list that implies that it is accessing the BIOS to decode the key. I appears to be a straight registry query-->decode process.

2539

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 23, 2012, 09:15 AM »

I'll keep it to "First they came for the [...], and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a [...]. - and I'm sorry, but no, I don't think that's fatalist thinking. Looking at what Apple is doing and speculating(!) that Microsoft wants to do the same, I do think that's the way we're heading... unless enough people protest.

-f0dder (November 22, 2012, 07:00 PM)

And that's fine. But much like the end of the Myan calendar, we won't know what will actually happen until after it actually happens ... Regardless of how convincingly prophetic ones diatribes may be.

The thing that I'm feed up with, is the simple fact that it seems near impossible to have a discussion about the OS, as specifically and only an O. S. Without it almost instantly denigrating into a discussion about its role as a sociopolitical pawn in a bid for global domination.

There's a time and place for everything...Ya know.

2540

Living Room / Re: How to Beat Facial Recognition Software without Looking Like a Bank Robber

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 23, 2012, 08:48 AM »

There is no way to change the geometry of ones face with makeup (e.g. your eyes and mouth don't move).

However I would be inclined to believe the IR/LED option is possible. Actually it shouldn't be that hard to test with an eyeball cam and a TV remote (which work off IR).

2541

Living Room / Re: Why did it never occur to me.. You can wash a keyboard in water.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 23, 2012, 08:39 AM »

the idea of keeping the keyboard constantly covered sort of reminds me of keeping furniture in plastic. It's got it's advantages but I dont know could I live with it...

-tomos (November 23, 2012, 07:02 AM)

+1 That would bug the hell out of me as well.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few years back a clients server got hosed (literally) by the pest control guy. Seems he wasn't watching the nozzle direction and sprayed the box full of pesticide...which then corroded the motherboard badly enough to pop out some of the cards and render it dead.

I stripped it down completely (removing the batteries...), scrubbed it with a baking soda and water mix using a toothbrush, rinsed it off in a mop sink, and left it scattered across several car hoods in the parking lot to dry in the sun for a few hours.

After reassembly it ran perfectly for another 3 years.

2542

General Software Discussion / Re: I need some help configuring Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 22, 2012, 10:34 AM »

Why not fire up Performance Monitor so you can see (either logged or realtime) how much of what is being run out of when.

2543

Living Room / Re: Google Hack Gives Free Access to Premium Newspaper Articles

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 22, 2012, 09:37 AM »

Try it. This is the address of a WSJ article: [url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203937004578077183112409260.html#project%3DWATERS1119]Drillers Begin Recycling 'Frack Water' - WSJ.com

-Arizona Hot (November 21, 2012, 11:49 PM)

Worked for me using Google (twice), I also comfirmed that it did not work with Bing. Bing gave the same link result but did not successfully make it to the full article.

2544

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 22, 2012, 09:27 AM »

Where in Booyabible is this found?

-Arizona Hot (November 22, 2012, 08:38 AM)

Facebook I'd bet

-tomos (November 22, 2012, 09:11 AM)

2 points for Tomos! 

2545

Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 22, 2012, 08:51 AM »

In 2010, individuals from the now-defunct NinjaVideo site stored copyright-infringing videos on the servers of Megaupload. These subsequently came to the attention of the FBI who were conducting an investigation into NinjaVideo and its operators. As a result Megaupload was served with a criminal search warrant requiring it to hand over information to the authorities, but in a cruel twist Megaupload’s cooperation and a desire not to destroy evidence is now being used as evidence against it.

-IainB (November 22, 2012, 02:27 AM)

Leave no good deed unpunished - Where was that Don't Talk to the Police video again? I think we need a link to it here.

2546

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 22, 2012, 08:41 AM »

+1 MS has always gone out of it's way to allow backwards for legacy applications. Take DOS's legacy (CLI Only) interface, cmd.exe isn't exactly hard to find...and I seriously doubt it's going anywhere either.

-Stoic Joker (November 21, 2012, 08:31 PM)

Whilst Windows 7 and 8 include something that look and behaves like DOS it isn't really and I am not convinced you can really expect to effectively run DOS apps on newer machines. Backwards compatibility is being lost - trying running 16 bit windows apps.

-Carol Haynes (November 22, 2012, 03:43 AM)

still a very good record I'd say.

-tomos (November 22, 2012, 04:56 AM)

As would I. Sure one might have to resort to using XP Mode on 64-bit machines ... But the point is that the provision was made readily available to any that need it. Virtualization took the brunt out of the line in the sand that needed to be drawn. I've still got a virtualized DOS v6.22 machine that connects to my domain that has come in handy for testing things more that once.

2547

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 21, 2012, 08:31 PM »

It isn't me that described Windows 8 desktop as 'legacy' it was MS! The fact that there is only minimal development on the desktop from Windows 7 says a lot about their intentions for the trad desktop.

-Carol Haynes (November 21, 2012, 04:17 PM)

I know that some people are calling the classic desktop 'legacy' and I've seen it bandied about... but can you show me somewhere that MS has said it's legacy?  I think that non-Metro says a lot about their intentions towards tablets, but not necessarily towards desktops.  I think if they're guilty of anything, it's feeling things out and not setting their path out there because they don't know what it is.  And I think that's worst case.

-wraith808 (November 21, 2012, 04:37 PM)

+1 MS has always gone out of it's way to allow backwards for legacy applications. Take DOS's legacy (CLI Only) interface, cmd.exe isn't exactly hard to find...and I seriously doubt it's going anywhere either.

2548

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 21, 2012, 04:00 PM »

Granted I do tend to be blunt at times, but I'm not angry. I'm just tired of the preclusive assertion that the end is nye.

2549

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 21, 2012, 03:39 PM »

And regarding the Windows 8 is poised at the brink of enslaving us in a gilded cage which will turn us all into palpitating porridge based eye puppets crap ... Can we at least try to keep in mind that this is totally conjecture. Nothing is or has been proven or verified as fact. No internal secret memos have been exposed substantiating any of these claims ... It's total assumption pure and simple.

-Stoic Joker (November 21, 2012, 01:38 PM)

Stripped of the hyperbole on both sides, what it comes down to is pretty simple. And it doesn't take rocket science to analyze or see it.

-40hz (November 21, 2012, 02:41 PM)

Both sides? Seriously? There is hyperbole on both sides. You have one side spewing FUD (ala the Vista days), and the other side saying Jesus would you just friggin try the thing?

And no it isn't just that cut and dried obvious that this is the beginning of the end of anything. It's just an innovative step that everybody is strangely pissed off about. Yes they have an app store...they did before too. But now the app store has apps that can be used on desktops and tablets. Well gee-wizz what a weird assed thing to do for a company that is trying to create a unified user experience.

The only thing that's bloody obvious is that there was no way in hell that desktop applications were going to run properly, or be usable on a phone. But the phone apps were quite usable on a tablet...which also sucked at running desktop applications. Doesn't leave a lot of options now does it. Then there was the several years old and for the most part completely ignored Windows SideStep (name something to that effect) that was to allow the user to do basic stuff on the fly from a small screen in the lid of a closed laptop. But it totally sucked because the apps in question were not designed well for that small of a screen. Hm...

So what type of apps do we need??


But... But... But..! ...They're in an [Horrified Gasp!] App Store!?!! Yeah So. Where the hell else are they going to put them so that they're easy to get and install on a phone (or tablet for that matter) C-Nets website? Hell I can't even navigate that maze (without screaming) with a full desktop half the time.

But they restricted Side Loading - Yes much to the relief of mobile phone support companies everywhere. The point is - limited or not - they allowed it for enterprise and developers. It could just as easily be opened going forward if people keep the shitware down to a dull roar.


Think about all the years MS begged and pleaded upon def ears to stop using undocumented functions, sloppy coding practices, and etc. Did anybody listen?? No. 70% if the Windows API was deprecating during XP SP2. Now people had to listen...but only some did. Now they ratchet down another notch - because they basically have to - and I think (in part) the punishment is deserved.

2550

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 21, 2012, 01:38 PM »

From one of the articles from above:
"That lack of multiple window support forced Nielsen to dub it "one of the worst aspects of Windows 8 for power users."

Is that true even in desktop mode? Can someone clarify/confirm that That would be enough to keep me from using Win 8.

-TaoPhoenix (November 21, 2012, 11:53 AM)

The fact that this question even exist is a testament to the steaming pile of FUD that's flying around the internet.

Not only no, but hell no that isn't even vaguely true. The Windows 8 desktop is a desktop just like every other desktop all the way back to Win95.

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The start menu is "missing" in Windows 8 (Oh FFS) ... The Start Menu has been "Missing" since Win XP launched in 01. The Start Panel is what's actually "missing" in Windows 8. And I for one am actually tickled pink that the Start Menu has finally been taken out and shot in the head. Every time I get stuck in front of a machine that's been retro'd back to the start menu I feel like I've been instantly transported back to the 1870s, and am being forced to dig for potatoes with my teeth after my arms have been cut off!

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And regarding the Windows 8 is poised at the brink of enslaving us in a gilded cage which will turn us all into palpitating porridge based eye puppets crap ... Can we at least try to keep in mind that this is totally conjecture. Nothing is or has been proven or verified as fact. No internal secret memos have been exposed substantiating any of these claims ... It's total assumption pure and simple.

Because it just might actually be a really handy step forward in user interaction if people could refrain from fashionably shitting all over it long enough to learn how to use the god damn thing.