Recent Posts

2601

General Software Discussion / Re: Feb 9, 2010: Windows Patch Leaves Many XP Users With Blue Screens?

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 01:33 PM »

Wuz: it's already been mentioned that a lot of the people who get crashes after installing the patch have already been hit by the malware the patch tries to guard against; you can't really blame MS for this. There's apparently people who get the BSODs without having been hit by the malware, but the reports I've seen on this only checked one file... there's no telling whether they're infected through another file, or if they're running some antivirus software that makes nasty assumptions and break on kernel changes (there's been several examples of this).

I'm not saying that there might not be problems with this patch, but people are way too quick to jump onto the blame-Microsoft bandwagon before doing a proper analysis. In a lot of situations, it's third parties that's to blame (usually badly implemented hardware drivers or security software).

Funny that you feel Apple delivers a more secure and stable OS, considering the problems and vulnerabilities they've had... and that's with a closed ecosystem they're pretty much totally in control of

2602

General Software Discussion / Re: Trend Micro Security - oddly like malware...

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 11:30 AM »

I think you got Dell confused with HP. HP was the one that constantly does the chronically useless recovery partition nonsense, and has/had the multi-CD recovery sets that (without prompting) obliterated the user's data.

-Stoic Joker (February 14, 2010, 11:02 AM)

Granted, my memory is a bit fuzzy on this, the museum I used to admin had a pretty heterogeneous (too mild a word, really - sometimes I even feel chaotic is too mild) setup. A bunch of different Dell machines purchased at different times (workstations as well as laptops), acer laptops, self-assembled machines, etc. But I'm pretty sure I've had both recovery-partition and OEM-install-media with the Dell machines. One thing that's for sure, though, is that the install media wasn't clean Windows discs, and that the OEM keys didn't work with clean discs.

Apart from that, the level of crapware has varied a lot. The first Dell machines had none of it, the second batch we got some years later had tons of it. The acer laptops were the worst, plenty++ of crapware and no media, just the recovery partitions - which of course had the crapware.

2603

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 10:49 AM »

Obviously I don't expect *u*x to follow the same standards, problem is that *u*x doesn't have the same kind of standardization... but ah well, this is a different rant, for another thread.

-f0dder (February 14, 2010, 10:36 AM)

I agree, it would have been awesome if Vim and Emacs were using the same standard keysets

-kartal (February 14, 2010, 10:39 AM)

Think bigger, though: systemwide standards. I can user Ctrl+Arrowkeys to jump at word boundaries in most edit controls (whether single- or multiline), I can use shift+navigation to select, ctrl+backspace/del to delete to the respective word endings, there's home/end/pgup/pgdn, et cetera. ONE set of (reasonable) keybindings that are simple to remember and work across pretty much every application on the system.

2604

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 10:36 AM »

Anyways my point is not to critique your point, rather I just want to iterate that customization especially when it comes to window layouts and key bindings is very important. Some apps claim to offer customization but they offer very limited one. I think that Vim or Emacs excel at custom stuff because you can hack them like crazy.

-kartal (February 14, 2010, 10:24 AM)

I agree fully that the ability for customization (including, but not limited to, keybindings) is very important - yet I still think a set of system-wide defaults that work across all applications is really useful. This goes from standard edit control keybindings, stuff like Ctrl+S for save and Ctrl+O for open, Alt+letter for menu access, to things like standardized open/save dialogs, standardized multi-document paradigms (there's several to choose from, like MDI or tabbed, but those are mostly standardized), etc.

Obviously I don't expect *u*x to follow the same standards, problem is that *u*x doesn't have the same kind of standardization... but ah well, this is a different rant, for another thread.

2605

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 07:25 AM »

one very good thing that has resulted is a standardized user interface

-widgewunner (February 13, 2010, 08:54 PM)

Which they effectively broke up with now.

-Tuxman (February 13, 2010, 09:03 PM)

Huh?

Most Windows applications have pretty damn standardized interfaces and keybindings. There's a few deviations here and there - sometimes it's justifiable, other times it's moronic developers who decide they need to be different just to be different. Things are a lot more standardized than in *u*x land, though.

But I guess your remark was meant to target Microsoft and the differences Vista and Win7 brought? Which is pretty off-topic, since we're discussing Editors, and the post you (part-)quoted was about standardized keybindings.

2606

General Software Discussion / Re: Trend Micro Security - oddly like malware...

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 07:20 AM »

Actually that is a perfect example of crapware. The last three Dell machines I purchased were immediately wiped and the "bare" OS then reinstalled. Without TM and without Dell's "Support Center". Oh yeah, it also gets rid of Dell's lousy branded Google search pages.

-J-Mac (February 13, 2010, 10:34 PM)

Too bad you generally don't get a bare OS install disc with dell machines (heck, these days you often don't get a disc at all, just a recovery partition)... and the license keys are (obviously) OEM keys that can't be used with a retail OS disc. I hate this practice.

2607

General Software Discussion / Re: Mass checksum checker

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 07:15 AM »

widgewunner: git is powerful and interesting, but suggesting it as a way to get file hashes? That's kinda like using a frying pan to drive in nails (oh, and while the implementation model might be elegant, git as a whole definitely isn't - ugh!).

2608

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Faster boots combining hibernate and restart (Boot Snooze)

« Last post by f0dder on February 14, 2010, 07:10 AM »

Wow.  This app is really gaining some attention!
I was taken aback, though, by the comment "Whilst in Hibernation it barely draws".  'Barely draws' what?
Is he implying there is little power consumption during hibernation?
That is incorrect.  The machine is OFF!

-parkint (February 13, 2010, 09:28 PM)

~6W while turned off - see Tell me why I have to be a PowerSlave?

2609

General Software Discussion / Re: Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010

« Last post by f0dder on February 13, 2010, 05:32 PM »

I'm not sure if v2009 handles W7 but it can't hurt to try.

-4wd (February 13, 2010, 05:18 PM)

And just as important: does it handle v2p? I'd say there's a bigger chance of 2009 supporting (if not officially) Win7 but failing at v2p, since it's apparently a feature that's hard to do right...

2610

General Software Discussion / Re: Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010

« Last post by f0dder on February 13, 2010, 11:55 AM »

Just showed up in my email inbox: special offer for 30% off on this product. That brings it down to $19.99. I made the purchase. I will try to get my first impressions up ASAP.

-tinjaw (February 13, 2010, 10:49 AM)

Any chance of other people getting a discount like that? I've been wanting to get Win7 on my laptop the coming week, and I'd definitely like to do the initial setup in VM, it's so much more enjoyable not having to reboot all the time (especially since I want a vLited install... which is even more risky than it was with Vista :/ ).

2611

General Software Discussion / Re: Bartels Media paranoia

« Last post by f0dder on February 13, 2010, 03:44 AM »

Well, the BartelsMedia guy was eventually banned from DC, wasn't he? It really takes a lot before a non-spammer gets the boot, and I think that says something about whether you'd want to use their software or not...

-f0dder (February 13, 2010, 01:04 AM)

Really? I didn't know that. Good move if true.

-J-Mac (February 13, 2010, 03:37 AM)

I might be wrong, the BartelsMedia user profile doesn't mention anything about a ban. I might have misunderstood something one of the moderators said on irc... if so, I apologize

2612

General Software Discussion / Re: Trend Micro Security - oddly like malware...

« Last post by f0dder on February 13, 2010, 03:40 AM »

All depends on what is left behind.

-J-Mac (February 13, 2010, 03:38 AM)

Yes, of course - I did mention that in my post. But harmless residue bloat isn't to worry about, really.

2613

General Software Discussion / Re: Trend Micro Security - oddly like malware...

« Last post by f0dder on February 13, 2010, 01:28 AM »

J-Mac: if you manage to get the application uninstalled, and it doesn't leave "dangerous" junk behind like filetype associations, and (especially!) COM-related entries (which is a wide array of things, including but certainly not limited to explorer extensions, IE addons, ...) then there's not much reason to run a registry cleaner. Yes, "leaving stuff behind" does feel wrong, but in the grand scheme of things it's utterly unimportant - even leaving thousands of registry keys behind doesn't matter much because of the way the registry is constructed.

2614

General Software Discussion / Re: Bartels Media paranoia

« Last post by f0dder on February 13, 2010, 01:04 AM »

Well, the BartelsMedia guy was eventually banned from DC, wasn't he? It really takes a lot before a non-spammer gets the boot, and I think that says something about whether you'd want to use their software or not...

2615

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 10:51 PM »

jumping/selecting/deleting at word boundaries can be done by any normal Windows editor

-f0dder (February 12, 2010, 10:37 PM)

Yes, word by word. Not so fine.

-Tuxman (February 12, 2010, 10:46 PM)

[/quote]Which is all I need most of the time, really. Start-line/end-line/entire-line/word boundaries. If I need to jump/select/move more than that, it's not very often something that can be "better defined" (i.e., it'll be n lines rather than block/nesting level... and it would be slower counting lines and using vim "select n lines down" than actually selecting the lines windows-style ).

When I need "powerful navigation", VIM tends not to be good enough anyway - Visual Studio class browser and "find all references" (et cetera) is so much more productive.

-f0dder (February 12, 2010, 10:37 PM)

VS? And two lines later you state something about "superfast"?
I may have missed something.

-Tuxman (February 12, 2010, 10:46 PM)

You may have missed my distinction between "normal edits" and "complex source code editing with features VIM has no chance of doing".

2616

Developer's Corner / Re: C++ Help

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 10:47 PM »

nevermind... after doing some research I figured out that gameguard blocks the API calls and filters what is returned... this would make sense as to why its returning 0 for a color call...

-Codebyte (February 12, 2010, 08:53 PM)

I'd be a bit surprised if GetPixel worked, GameGuard/whatever or not, as soon as you're dealing with Direct3D (and possibly even DirectDraw) accelerated games.

2617

Living Room / Re: Antivirus companies support virus writers?

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 10:46 PM »

app: you do have a point about OSX, but I also think Bamse has a point that it'd be a bit more high-profile and thus carry a potential risk for getting caught - which there's almost zero risk of with Windows, considering the flood of malware that's already written for it. And while OSX certainly has enough security flaws for exploiting, the entry barrier is a bit higher... there's so much more existing crap to pick from on Windows, and a much larger potential user base.

2618

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple Machines Forum Organization in Chaos

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 10:40 PM »

Even in just moving the bare bones, I don't think it's nearly as trivial as you guys are suggesting for a large site like ours.. there are so many little things to get right, links between threads, the sheer # of subforums and different permissions, the different groups, etc.

-mouser (February 12, 2010, 06:46 PM)

Not trivial, perhaps, but all those are things that can be automated. Might require modifying the base conversion scripts, but can be automated nonetheless. It's all the rest that's hard

2619

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 10:37 PM »

community edition?

-Bamse (February 12, 2010, 05:51 PM)

A parallel branch run by some other people than the main Notepad++ developer, DonHo. The idea is to try and implement new features (that might be too "risky" or isn't DonHo's main focus) from the IdeaTorrent site, as well as cleaning up the codebase etc. I was a bit skeptical at first, but changes from NP++CR are merged back into the mainline, so it isn't one of those "wasted effort" branches.

After all, the choice of your preferred text editor depends on many more factors. Just comparing features is not so important, it's also about usability and efficiency. And, after it replaced N++ for me and I have spent some time with it, I think there is no text editor out there which could beat Vim/GVim there.

-Tuxman (February 12, 2010, 06:21 PM)

It's not like I mind vim, it's the editor I use on linux, but I really don't see what's so great about it compared to a decent Windows editor. Yes, you can do some pretty impressive ninja kung-fu keystrokes with it, but I find most of the time I don't need anything that fancy - jumping/selecting/deleting at word boundaries can be done by any normal Windows editor, and is the main feature for getting things done quickly. There's a few "jump around" and selection things from VIM I sometimes miss a bit in NP++, like jump/select inner/outer brace/nesting level, but it's not terribly important for me - and I plan to eventually support it via a plugin. I can "jump to matching brace" (not select, though!), which is good enough most of the time. When I need "powerful navigation", VIM tends not to be good enough anyway - Visual Studio class browser and "find all references" (et cetera) is so much more productive.

Oh, and VIM loads those fractions of second slower, which annoys me - my system default text editor needs to load superfast.

2620

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 04:47 PM »

Linux is not going anywhere and it will be very viable solution for "everyone" soon.

-kartal (February 12, 2010, 02:32 PM)

*yawn* - I've heard that the last 5+ years, and it's not that much closer to the goal, really

2621

General Software Discussion / Re: Feb 9, 2010: Windows Patch Leaves Many XP Users With Blue Screens?

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 08:19 AM »

It is GMER, one of the best rootkit scanners. Atapi.sys is modified, show no sign of being from MS etc. when looking at properties. Startpage in IE was changed as well btw. Porn...

-Bamse (February 12, 2010, 08:15 AM)

Ah, I thought you could reproduce BSODs without infected driver

2622

General Software Discussion / Re: Feb 9, 2010: Windows Patch Leaves Many XP Users With Blue Screens?

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 08:12 AM »

True but for what it is worth I can reproduce problem in a VM Evil loop of rebooting.

-Bamse (February 12, 2010, 08:11 AM)

Hm? What does that screenshot tell? What's the app, and does "suspicious modification" mean rootkit? etc.

2623

General Software Discussion / Re: Feb 9, 2010: Windows Patch Leaves Many XP Users With Blue Screens?

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 07:51 AM »

Many thanks, CleverCat, f0dder, and Bamse, for your helpful and reassuring replies.  The explanation about the patch causing havoc only on systems already infected makes some sense and would also explain why not everyone is affected.  I hope it turns out to be true.

-cyberdiva (February 12, 2010, 07:49 AM)

Do note that a poster on a blog from one of Bamses links says he got the BSOD even though atapi.sys wasn't infected... so there might be problems on clean systems as well. Or that poster could have some other driver infected, or have pesky antivirus

2624

General Software Discussion / Re: Feb 9, 2010: Windows Patch Leaves Many XP Users With Blue Screens?

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 01:42 AM »

Perhaps the people affected by the BSODs already have the malware the patch is trying to prevent, or some problematic antivirus package? Last time security firms went shouting about updates BSODing, it turned not to be MS's fault...

2625

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by f0dder on February 12, 2010, 12:22 AM »

Notepad++ - it's definitely not perfect, but it handles most of my needs well. The codebase is a complete and utter mess, though... but work is done on straightening it up with the NP++ Community Release. Syntax highlighting is essential to me, as I use it as a programmer's file editor - this also mean that NP++'s main defect, not handling large files very well, isn't an issue for me