Recent Posts

2601

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2009, 03:55 PM »

Although I agree with you (on the long term vision), technology will be able to help (on the shorter term vision)...especially when there would be a rule that says no piece of (electrical) equipment is allowed to use more than 25 Watts of energy at maximum performance. Also, depending on the size of a parcel a maximum amount of energy per time unit should be allowed.

This would drop the need for of electricity considerably. The grid is then also capable to handle electric vehicles without expanding the infrastructure too much. People would quickly be aware how much energy they use and prioritize accordingly.
Makes me wonder how much time would lie between the realization of your long term vision and my short term proposals

It sounds like I'm an activist but nothing could be farther from the truth. My PC's run always all the time (when there is power) and I drive a motorcycle.

2602

Living Room / Re: Is World of Warcraft the only depression-proof industry?

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2009, 03:22 PM »

People over here are playing 'Silkroad Online' a lot!

It is nice enough to look at (as it requires DX9.0c), and everything is there (quest, magic, money, shop (of your own) chat, etc.). And it is free.

Guess it goes without saying, but during the weekends it is kinda hard to get on any of 20 or so (free) servers.

2603

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2009, 01:01 PM »

Now, they get to turn their engines off and use electrical power.  Sounds good, right?  But where is the electrical power being generated?  Some plant off in nevada or something.  Now, instead of LA getting polluted, nevada is getting polluted.

-superboyac (February 14, 2009, 02:26 PM)

Yeah, I see what you mean. That's the problem with living in a closed system. There isn't really an 'anywhere' to send anything to since all there is - is 'here.'

-40hz (February 15, 2009, 11:24 AM)

You are both right, however it seems easier (and definitely cheaper) to me if the amount of polluting entries (into the eco-system) is reduced and focus the the efforts of the collective brain trust into "fixing (only) that kind of pollution".

Besides that it would seem profitable as energy companies would invest in a more efficient grid. 220 Volt for the consumer, 300 kiloVolt for (inter)national distribution, like in (western) Europe. That way not that much of renewable energy is wasted and less natural resources are needed for the current national/regional energy requirements. An added bonus is that the brain trust will have more time to create a efficient network for hydrogen distribution.

Recently I found out that there is a new material (graphene) that seems to be the ideal candidate for hydrogen tanks. Besides being a better conductor than silicium, it is also extremely strong (especially when it comes in contact with hydrogen). Articles 1, 2 and 3 are in Dutch, so have fun with the Google translator (if you are interested of course).

2604

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY Developer Interviews

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2009, 09:37 AM »

Those interviews were a very interesting read. It even pointed me to books (and concepts) I never heard of.

Good job! (from all parties involved)

2605

General Software Discussion / Re: "National" operating systems; what's up with that?

« Last post by Shades on February 15, 2009, 07:53 AM »

The 'bearuin' looks kinda suicidal to me. Ah well, that is not that far from the truth (regarding the state of their national coin). 

2606

General Software Discussion / Re: Organize your desktop icons with Stardock Fence

« Last post by Shades on February 14, 2009, 06:11 PM »

Thanks sri, for pointing to a (near) excellent piece of software!

However, on my installation explorer.exe crashes the moment I resize any of the on-screen fences. Also, changing the ordering of icons in a fence of two 'columns' wide with 5 'rows' goes...how shall I say it: unexpectedly?
Besides these points (for me) this is software that should have been part of the Windows system (years ago, actually...).

2607

Living Room / Re: single sata drive install xp first and then vista but have to change bios

« Last post by Shades on February 11, 2009, 10:51 PM »

This is the first time I hear that you had to make adjustments in the BIOS to install XP.

And it doesn't sound any good, I might add. One thing you should do is finding out exactly what kind of hardware is in your  PC/laptop? I mean model and type numbers by that. With a bit of googling you will quickly find out if there are any solutions available. Search on the vendor sites first and if that is not sufficient, then look on those "backwater forums" for possible hacks. 

From personal experience I do know is that it is practically impossible to install XP on a certain (recent) model of ACER laptops, which are solely intended for Vista. There is no support from ACER or from the individual hardware components itself for XP. Very likely this is also the case in your PC.

What I also know from my years as "that PC-guy" is that dual-booting two different Windows versions is a gimmick from which the novelty wears off (very) quickly. Let's just say that if this kind of setup last more than one month I am impressed. You would be amazed how fast one thinks that this old stuff (XP) takes a lot of space on the hard disk that could have been used for something more useful like games, music, pr0n and that it is all more fun in the new "toy" (Vista).

In short: don't bother, it is not worth the trouble. Dual-booting two completely different Operating Systems does make sense. Mixing two lines from the same family is never a good idea (which is also true in real life as well, I might add ).

2608

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Shades on February 08, 2009, 05:10 PM »

@ qforce:
Nice piece of software. Looks like it is based on the Eclipse IDE (which is something I appreciate).

Too bad about the need for indexing (a personal distaste), but that is something I can get over it since it can also search through *.doc files.

With Foxit Reader it is possible to search through multiple PDF files, so I used to convert any of my *.doc files to PDF format (with OpenOffice). Your software eliminates that need, at the cost of indexing. Well, I can get around my distaste.

Thanks again.  

About the user preferences:
Google search is dead simple, which is why it is so popular and used so much by everyone and their grandma. Savvy users know about its filters and are even more productive.

That kind of thinking should also apply to applications. Dead simple so it can be used by everyone, while in the right hands the same software becomes a productive power tool.

When you make such software, how long will it then take for the big software players to gobble up your talent? So let them buy you out after some, enjoy life from the interest those millions generate. By know you are in the ideal position to not care about who prefers whatever.

Your mind is too many steps ahead at this moment 

2609

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 06-09

« Last post by Shades on February 08, 2009, 01:09 AM »

I disagree, electricity is a lot cleaner. Before you start about the powerplant...I have rather one point of toxic going into the air...which is a whole lot cheaper/easier to filter/clean than all the fumes internal combustion engines put out everywhere they go. The price you (the consumer) pay for petroleum is not nearly enough for the real cost (the real cost includes the renewal of the material you use). The same can be said for wood, but that is a whole different topic. 

Actually, if there is no hydro power generation possible I would say to build more nuclear power plants, they are the most efficient ones (price/performance wise (and that includes the environmental risks)).

It looks like there is something good happening for the people in the hydrogen camp. Scientist have created/found a new material (graphene) which is unbelievable strong, even when it is only 1 molecule thick. Besides that, it is also an excellent (semi) conductor (graphane). Because of its strength it is ideally suited for hydrogen tanks. Actually the strength of the material comes from hydrogen. When this  material will become cheap enough to produce, expect a boom in hydrogen powered stuff...and even smaller CPU's. From the article I read (on a Dutch website) it looks like it is ideal to replace silicium.

2610

Living Room / Re: Greetings from the Atlantic!

« Last post by Shades on February 08, 2009, 12:28 AM »

If the weather in Chile is the same as here (Paraguay) than you are out of luck. It is not sunny, but humid. The rain season here has started. That means regular power failures (at the strangest times) because of the amount of water in the air.

At the back of the house where I live is a small canal/river/waterway where normally the water depth doesn't rise above 10 cm's. However, when it starts raining here the water level rises to 1,5 meters in only a few hours. I personally witnessed cars just floating by (and those were not the smallest either, for example: Toyota landcruiser).

2611

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 06-09

« Last post by Shades on February 08, 2009, 12:09 AM »

10: Awesome motor bike! ...in look and price

2612

General Software Discussion / Re: Help! My new computer is freezing!

« Last post by Shades on February 07, 2009, 05:11 PM »

You have problems with your games and it seems that portcls.sys is not completely innocent regarding your computing troubles.

When installing games it seems likely to me that the installation software checks which version of DirectX has been installed. Are you sure that the version of that software on your system is not corrupted in any way?

Because if that is the problem than I would not be surprised that you will not be able to install any game.

2613

General Software Discussion / Re: wanted: nice and small screensaver

« Last post by Shades on February 07, 2009, 07:47 AM »

Don't know about a multi-monitor setup (I am using Synergy (a software KVM without the V)), but I really love MotionPicture screensaver because it can zoom, pan, fade and play music for you.

2614

Post New Requests Here / Re: Software to pinpoint the cause of hard-drive activity

« Last post by Shades on February 07, 2009, 07:46 AM »

Actually, download the whole (free) Sysinternals Suite, it consists of a lot(!) more software gems like 'autoruns' and 'process explorer' to name just two that I use all the time.

2615

General Software Discussion / Re: Department of Defense launches open source site Forge.mil

« Last post by Shades on February 07, 2009, 07:28 AM »

Silly me, I associated "Apaches" in this context with the battle choppers.

Hey, at least their (heavily modded) cases have a big "fan" on top...
Besides that, they have some nice tricks up their sleeve when someone tries to "hack" the box through physical access...
Since these boxes "fly" by wire they are considered to be much safer than their wireless predecessors...

 

2616

Developer's Corner / Re: Web Page Layout Debate: Tables vs. CSS

« Last post by Shades on February 05, 2009, 07:26 PM »

That is the speed of with which your money will leave your pocket. Is it not for software to create the Flash (whatever), the designer (home made flash just doesn't look that good), vendor lock-in, the costs of the extra generated traffic.

I'm no fan of flash, especially not with my heavily taxed "information secondary road" (50 USD for 128Kbit/sec).   

2617

General Software Discussion / Re: MOGware's FileHamster (Complaint)

« Last post by Shades on February 03, 2009, 07:09 PM »

First of all, I'm definitely no expert but I was under the impression that anybody who makes a living of creating software had (at least) heard of these systems...especially CVS since it is really old (10+ years) and included in any of the big Linux distro's.

SVN:
http://www.tigris.org   -  it is a site like Sourceforge.
There you will find all the info you need about SVN, including links to the software. Here are the links for the ones who don't like to read (too much ).
Clients: TortoiseSVN (shell) and RapidSVN (application).
Server: VisualSVN

CVS:
As I said, Linux has it and Windows too. For Windows there are also several options.
Clients: WinCVS, CS-RCS
Server: CVSNT

Between the two, I would choose for SVN since it took me 30 minutes to install (if I count the 25 minutes of downloading the software).

There is one side-note, when given the choice always opt for file-based system. CVS is file-based, SVN offers you the choice of using a database-based (default) or file-based system. In the event something goes wrong (crashing hardware or something similar) it is easier to repair a file-based system than one based on a database.

2618

General Software Discussion / Re: MOGware's FileHamster (Complaint)

« Last post by Shades on February 02, 2009, 03:47 PM »

There are several open source version of file versioning systems around for years (CVS and SVN). Better yet, they have proven their worth already for years in the (heavy!) software development industry.

For Windows are also open source/freeware graphical clients and shell extensions available. And most (if not all) of the development tools can already talk directly to those systems as well.

The CVS system I use here spawns 12.000 files a minute from my server through a (100 Mbit/sec) network to my personal system. In my experiences with FileHamster it was never able to do this. So why even bother with a product like FileHamster?

2619

General Software Discussion / Re: Hard Disk Heat

« Last post by Shades on February 02, 2009, 03:01 PM »

A harddisk is quite accessible in a laptop, you could take it out and see if dust particles are near the harddisk compartment as well.

If you are confident (in your assembly abilities) enough then you could take out its keyboard as well. That made it a whole lot easier on my laptop to remove all the collected dust and put some graphite to the bearings of the internal cooler.

2620

Living Room / Re: xp reports that my floppy disc needs formatted error

« Last post by Shades on February 01, 2009, 11:04 PM »

Hmm, looks like I found a piece of software that should be able to read floppies that show the feared message. Even HP seems to host a low-level tool for floppies. Both are not free, but the software from the first link has a trial period of 30 days or 100 runs.

2621

Living Room / Re: Meme time! Five Things People Don't Know About Me

« Last post by Shades on February 01, 2009, 10:45 PM »

For a meme like this to be successful, it should contain some 'spicy material' I think, so here goes:

1. My only brother has recently chosen a "career" as professional criminal.
2. When I was (very) young, my curiosity killed a real cat   
3. At heart I am a dog person anyway.
4. I bought all my drivers licenses for this country (but earned them in originating country).
5. I am in love with a woman who is totally into God, while I am not.

2622

Living Room / Re: xp reports that my floppy disc needs formatted error

« Last post by Shades on February 01, 2009, 10:24 PM »

The problem with floppies (most of the time) is that they have to be used in floppy drives. So many issues arise with floppies because of head alignment differences between drives. Which is why so many people abandoned those floppies at the first chance they had (ZIP drives anyone?).

It is easier to go back to the machine with the data that was stored on the floppy and take/lend/give an USB memory stick or (USB) CD/DVD burner or USB harddisk to put the data on one of those mediums. My suggestion assumes that the data is on the original system and then copied to floppy.

If that is not the case...

Accessing the floppy on a different computer in your care is not possible? Or maybe go even lower by accessing the floppy directly without using Windows and its ways to access the floppy. Likely there is software there for this purpose. In the days when the Commodore 64 was king I had such a piece of software. When I was in that 'scene'  it was always a nice boost for your ego when you see a disk from a stranger...with your personal ascii art embedded into its file listing.

So, if the humble C64 was able to do that, than there has to be software for 'those damn IBM clones' as well 

2623

Living Room / Re: Bad smells ... UPS recommendations ?

« Last post by Shades on January 29, 2009, 10:14 PM »

I know that electrical installations that are "fed" by windmills require electronic stabilizers (I have to see the first gust of wind that blows a steady 220 volts to electrical appliances).

Condensators of (quite) substantial capacity are required, but they do kill those irregularities on your (electrical) sinus's. I believe I have somewhere the complete mechanical and electrical schematics for a D-I-Y windmill. When I find them I'll let you know.  

2624

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Home Server or stick with Windows Server 2003?

« Last post by Shades on January 28, 2009, 10:59 PM »

In my experience, CentOS shines when it is used as a development station. In other areas it is lacking. For servers I use OpenSuse (my distro of choice I have to add).

My (software) RAID PC was running on CentOS in the beginning...but after 6 moths I was fed up with the third rebuild (after a voltage dip that even eluded my UPS). When I moved to OpenSuse I had to do the same amount of rebuilds, but in a time-span of 3,5 years. And don't worry, me cursing at the (one and only) power company from this country didn't vary too much on a yearly basis. 

2625

General Software Discussion / Re: Raid 1 freeware anywhere?

« Last post by Shades on January 25, 2009, 09:45 AM »

Especially with software RAID solutions, you should not include the boot drive into the RAID. With every computer (hardware) glitch there is a possibility that something goes wrong with the RAID (believe that I'm speaking from experience here). In such cases the RAID can be instructed to repair itself, but expect (quite some) downtime that depends on the size of the RAID.

Now imagine that your boot drive is in the RAID. Happy booting from a live-CD like BartPE or WinPE to get it running again. After years of experience I totally agree with the conclusion of the Tom's Hardware article...a software RAID is better than no RAID at all, but go for hardware RAID when there is a possibility to do so.