Recent Posts

2651

Post New Requests Here / Re: USB Info

« Last post by Shades on December 27, 2008, 09:03 PM »

Thanks Phil! 

After the departure from Aida32, I found a good alternative in Gabriel Topala's SIW, which is at least as good as...and it's portable (and no, everest was nowhere near as nice as Aida was!).

However, SIV is really down to earth and although the overlap in supplied information from both applications is there, it is an excellent extension to SIW.

2652

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

« Last post by Shades on December 27, 2008, 01:14 PM »

Here in Paraguay there is an US embassy. Annually they sell all kind of things as their old(er) computer gear, home stuff from personnel that moved to another country etc. etc.

At one of those sales I saw a box with old diverse computer gear, books etc. Made an offer and became the owner. To my surprise there were four APC UPS's below the gear and books, so that was 50 US dollars well spent!  

But then reality sets in, because the US embassy uses 110 volt gear while everything here is 220 volt. So now I have nice US APC UPS's that I cannot use at all. It is kinda silly to first use a transformer (220 to 110) to connect the UPS to the grid and use a transformer (110 to 220) for each output to hook up my gear

There is also a RadioShack here that only sells gear running on 110 volt. Not only is it an expensive place by default, you also need to buy a transformer as well.

Why oh why do they (still !!!) use 110 volt?

2653

Coding Snacks / Re: Idea for a useful tool for windows

« Last post by Shades on December 26, 2008, 05:33 PM »

I am with Darwin on this one. It's the (IMHO) the best one of the (not so big) bunch.

2654

Living Room / Re: Question about my video card temperature

« Last post by Shades on December 25, 2008, 08:22 PM »

I know there are tools that can actually write their settings into the video card BIOS. Thought that Ntune or indeed RivaTuner could do such a thing.

Sorry, my bad.

Personally speaking, my head is totally not into overclocking. If I require the speed for anything in my PC I will get the components that can deliver by default. In general I carry the opinion that when you start overclocking, you deserve every trouble you get.

2655

Living Room / Re: Question about my video card temperature

« Last post by Shades on December 25, 2008, 04:57 PM »

Doesn't the driver software for nVidia cards contain a software-based overclocker? (belong to the ATI cult myself)

This Google search will reveal more 

2656

General Software Discussion / Re: The OS that won't die!

« Last post by Shades on December 25, 2008, 12:33 PM »

You should create a 'BartPE' CD/DVD, this is a bootable CD/DVD that starts a minimalistic Windows environment from CD. In a way, similar to live-CD from a Linux distribution.

The advantage from a 'BartPE' CD/DVD over a Linux live-CD is the support for the NTFS filesystem. Sure, Linux knows about this filesystem and can read from it, but warns against writing to such filesystems (there are several NTFS filesystems, one for Win2000, one for XP and one for Vista).

Check the link for a how-to. Years ago I took the effort in building one with most of my favorite tools and I'm still reaping the rewards from it 

2657

General Software Discussion / Re: The OS that won't die!

« Last post by Shades on December 23, 2008, 05:47 PM »

what does "slipstream" mean?

-superboyac (December 22, 2008, 06:46 PM)

It means produce a new installation CD from and existing CD and a service pack.

Either that or it's what cyclists do in a velodrome

-Carol Haynes (December 22, 2008, 07:10 PM)

Or what migrating birds do (during flight) 

2658

General Software Discussion / Re: Cannot open Paint on Vista

« Last post by Shades on December 22, 2008, 12:13 AM »

And Monday has only just begun...


Always glad to help.

2659

General Software Discussion / Re: Electronic Arts (Complaint)

« Last post by Shades on December 22, 2008, 12:08 AM »

As you may or may not have noticed, the salutations in the last message were changed from: 'xxxx EARep, Player Relations' to 'Karl, EA Tech, EA Online Support'.

When I worked for a helpdesk (years ago) messages were humanly sorted for the level of support required and the system would spread those messages to the employees assigned to different levels of support.

It is unfortunate but it happened quite a lot that messages from the same customer were handled by different employees and because the system did not work with tickets those employees were not aware of previously made suggestions.

Definitely not nice for the customer and also not nice for the employee. In my case there were a lot of women working there and many of them started crying after reading/answering some "requests" for help (if there is something that drives me crazy, it would be crying women). 

My experience is that it always helps to be firm but still courteous when you are mailing with a helpdesk as you get a more quicker response. Also, when you don't get a ticket number assigned to your help request, assume there is no communication between employees about previously made requests.

When this is the case, the best thing to do is to copy paste each previous communication (your response, their response, employee name and/or department) below the new request for help. Refer in the new request to those previous communications. Make it easier on them is in the end making it easier for yourself.

2660

Living Room / Re: HELP! Failed System Restore

« Last post by Shades on December 21, 2008, 11:30 PM »

A while ago I tried the OnlineArmor firewall out. Nice product and all. However after a few days I experience network flukes that disconnected me from the netand the first thought that sprang into mind: "lets turn the firewall off".

That did not help, so deactivating was tried. Still no solution to my problem. Then I checked with a separate port scanner and Then I saw that ports were still closed despite the disabled firewall.

At least for me it was a lesson learned. Always check if ports are open even if the firewall says it is turned off.

2661

General Software Discussion / Re: Cannot open Paint on Vista

« Last post by Shades on December 21, 2008, 11:08 PM »

Irfanview (version 4 and up) has a very basic paint feature, just like paint. Open Irfanview, open an image or create a new image with it and use the F12 key to get a floating menu with all kind of options to draw.

As a viewer it was already way more superior than Paint (because of all the plug-ins), but now you also have drawing features and it is free (for non-commercial use).  

2662

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Shades on December 21, 2008, 01:21 AM »

Don't worry, I will open/close the "faucet" to the electricity production plant. so you will see the whole country blinking that way (beats a torch) 

Where is your plane landing, if I may boldly ask?
If it is Sao Paulo International airport, then I wholeheartedly suggest that you book a room in a decent hotel and have one of their cabs pick you up. At night that place is dangerous (because the poorest of the poor live right next to the airport). When I came through that airport a cab drove me to the international bus station. That trip took me right next the "village" (a house there is just a pallet on its side with a piece of plastic)...and I understood why other people warned me to not be in the airport at night.

Hmmm, I could tell you a story about what happened the one time I flew back to Holland, using Sao Paulo I.A. ...but that is too off-topic. But if you (or the BLAZEMONGER Inc "Customer Service" Department) keep bothering me I will tell.

2663

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Shades on December 20, 2008, 11:14 AM »

@ allen:
Well, I think there is still an old student chemical box in the attic somewhere...so you won't mind me setting up a new corporation called: Parasol over here?  

Hmm, maybe the name needs some revising  

@ Carol Haynes:
Mostly I agree with you, but after my continent switch I have to admit to some of the points Deozaan makes as well.
Brazil, it is a beautiful country with ingenuous people. They adapted a car engine to run on petrol, diesel and alcohol.

On the border between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay lies a place called Iguazu. The link leads to the Wikipedia page dedicated to this place but forgets to mention the fact that there is also a huge installation there to generate electricity that powers Paraguay and big parts of Brazil and Argentina.

Because of all this these countries are already a lot less dependent on oil than most. Actually, the quote from Saudi oil minister Yamani “the stone age did not end because of a lack of stones” says it all.


Ah, perhaps the best solution to please Carol and allen is: cannibals.
For Carol the dwindling numbers of human kind should sound excellent while allen gets his fantasy fulfilled (pun intended)   

2664

General Software Discussion / Re: How can I dual boot between Vista and XP?

« Last post by Shades on December 18, 2008, 11:03 PM »

A thing I would check first:
- BIOS is using the right drive to boot from?
  (My Asus motherboards (with VIA chipset) respond better to swapping SATA cable positions then adjusted setting in BIOS.)

The IDE drive has at least one (primary) partition that is "active". This means that the Windows bootloader will turn to that partition to boot from. However, it gets really confused when you have two drives that have both an "active" partition. Don't know if XP allows you to deactivate it's boot partition, else you could do that, trun XP off, move the drive to the Vista machine and see if the Vista boot loader will use the correct drive to start from. A good partition manager would be able to deactivate the partition as well as restoring the activation if this doesn't work.

By putting the IDE drive into çable select' mode (normally there are instructions on the drive on how to do this, but it is more than likely that removing the jumper next to IDE cable will do the trick) the BIOS will figure out where the drive should be. It's an option to try.

What you should have done is the following:
- Build the two harddisks into the Vista machine.
- Make sure both drives are visible in the BIOS
- Install XP on the old drive
- Install Vista on the new drive

In my experience (with Win98-Win2000 dual boot systems) it is the oldest Windows edition that has to be installed first and let the bootloader from the newer Windows edition sort it out.

Having said all this I must mention that I don't like the concept of dual-booting Windows at all. The novelty wears off quickly and I assure you that your friend will be working in the latest and "greatest" product from the Redmond stables sooner than you and he/she thinks.

2665

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Gizmo gives us Titan Backup for free

« Last post by Shades on December 18, 2008, 07:12 PM »

In that case everybody is happy!  Well done Curt 

2666

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Gizmo gives us Titan Backup for free

« Last post by Shades on December 18, 2008, 07:03 PM »

AH well, at least you get money to buy new friends   

2667

Living Room / Re: Can you throw a shoe at Bush?

« Last post by Shades on December 17, 2008, 11:26 PM »

If you would put my sock in it, it would be a weapon of mass destruction...and Bush would actually be happy with that, because then he had the proof that the whole war was legit and that he is a "liberator". 

Well, he will go into history as a "liberator" anyway...how many US citizens did he "liberate" from (most of) their money anyway? 

Read a quite interesting piece from Dana Blankenhorn on how the "Broken window theory" from an mayor of New York (Rudy Giuliani) can be used for the Wallstreet Stock Exchange.

2668

Living Room / Re: Childhood Memory

« Last post by Shades on December 17, 2008, 10:16 PM »

You would be amazed how much of those "turntables" are still in active use. The mechanics behind it is a sure masterpiece, because I know for a fact that my father still uses the same phone he bought over 30 years ago and it still works without any glitch.

Furthermore, I worked on military bases and also there you can still find a lot of those phones.  

Writing this text made me realize there is another very good reason why the switch was made: International calls.
Don't know what it is in Denmark but you have to dial 00(country access code)-(netarea without the preceding 0)-(phone number)-(extension) in Holland.

It is too easy to call internationally unintentionally. Furthermore, it takes too long for an international rescue team to save your behind from whatever peril it is facing (generally speaking of course).

Personally, it is easier for me to remember a multi-digit number that has broken sequences (555555 or 55655), also when verbally communicating a number the latter number from my example is easier. The speaking is not so much the problem, the other person that has to 'hear' the numbers (especially in a hurry/panicked/whatever) and dialing the number correctly in the first try is.

2669

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it finally time to abandon IE?

« Last post by Shades on December 17, 2008, 09:34 PM »

My nLite'd XP installation (meaning: IE and OE were removed, next to some services I deemed unnecessary) has a lot of problems with the scanning software from HP. I get continuously errors ( at a rate of 3 per second) because this software requires IE to build its interface. 

Luckily I was "born again" when I laid my hands for the first time on a piece of software called Phoenix 0.5. That was the name of Firefox before Mozilla was forced to change names (for the uninitiated). After that encounter I was already more than happy to drop IE completely.

Ah, those were happy times on the net with Win2000Pro (SP2), security through obscurity and a piece of software called: zolt (a service that removed the writing ability of the File System, not even the administrator was able to write a single bit!) without being hindered by NAT, firewall or anti-virus on a 5mbit always-on connection

Too bad the interface from zolt is not nice to work with. Because of the increase of (legitimate) disc activity with XP, the flaws in the interface of zolt became too annoying (even for me), else I still would be using it today.

Ah well, it's all a distant memory now...just where IE belongs as well.

2670

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Shades on December 16, 2008, 07:32 PM »

@40Hz:
That number from Soundgarden is the worst of the bunch on that particular album. The other songs are (imho) way better. Actually that is my perfect example of an "all killer, no filler" album 

2671

Living Room / Re: Childhood Memory

« Last post by Shades on December 16, 2008, 07:26 PM »

The change to 112?

Less pulses (for those really old "turntable" phones), it is easier to remember....and government officials need to do something to justify their salaries  

It is the same in Holland, there all phone-numbers have 10 digits since a couple of years now and they move with you (if you remain in the same netarea).

My parent phone number is easy, it's the year I was born

2672

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

« Last post by Shades on December 16, 2008, 07:02 PM »

@ f0dder:
Every drive here is placed just after one 120mm or two 80 mm intake fans and have their own harddisk cooler screwed onto the bottom.

A silent PC is not workable here. It is either turned off or literally burned up.

2673

DC Gamer Club / Re: The Best Gaming Moments of 2008

« Last post by Shades on December 16, 2008, 06:49 PM »

Trackmania wins over here, but that is because I really like racing games. Sins of a Solar Empire is the other game I play.

2674

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

« Last post by Shades on December 15, 2008, 09:07 PM »

Whatever you do, do not buy Samsung SATA harddisks. Maybe they send better drives to the northern hemisphere, but here in South America they are worthless and very unreliable. The old IDE versions are ok. The only thing is that they are cheap while packing a lot of storage capacity.

Over here you can only buy four brands, Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Maxxtor (IIRC Maxxtor bought Seagate some time ago, so there are actually only three brands for sale). With the ambient temperature here, it is Maxxtor who is king performance-wise while being very reliable.

Mainboards made by Intel are the best you can buy here. Personal preference lies with ASUS/AMD though, never had any issue with them. The only time I encountered a failing ASUS board, it was one with Intel CPU (and nVidia chipset).

Whatever you want to go for, at least don't be cheap on getting a decent power supply for your desktop.

2675

General Software Discussion / Re: VLC making improvements

« Last post by Shades on December 15, 2008, 08:36 PM »

I'm inclined to agree with MrCrispy, especially with the 0.9x branches of VLC as of late (Windows). The UI is the strong point of VLC when compared to KMPlayer.

Granted, when both pieces of software are showing their initial screen, it is KMPlayer who will win the UI look prize. But after that it is very quickly becoming a mess. VLC is a lot less confusing. KMPlayer has context meny that goes till 4 layers deep. UI-wise that is a major no-no!

That is also the reason why so many people are (still) using VLC. KMPlayer is definitely awesome, but you really have to get accustomed to the interface. Because of that it is my "fall back" or "backup" player.