Recent Posts

2826

Living Room / Re: Something on computer is fubar

« Last post by f0dder on December 31, 2009, 06:10 AM »

I am pretty sure I can rule out the hard drive, because I just replaced it about a week before Christmas. So if anyone could help me out here, that would be awesome.
If you need anymore information, just let me know, and I will see what I can do.

edit:after further inspection, I ran across the resource monitor tool, and found out "System Interrupts" is what is taking up around 30% of the cpu

-nite_monkey (December 31, 2009, 04:12 AM)

Ruling out the harddrive is exactly what I wouldn't do - your symptoms sounds pretty much like a damaged drive (or cable) resulting in access mode dropping from DMA to PIO... trying to read/rewrite bad sectors would explain the freezes, and running in PIO would explain high System Interrupts CPU consumption.

It's not the only possible solution, but a likely one. Go to device manager, check properties for your IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, and see if any of them have dropped to PIO mode. Google dma+revert+pio for more information.

2827

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Firefox startup faster.

« Last post by f0dder on December 31, 2009, 06:03 AM »

It's one thing if you won't publish the source code to the OS. It's another if you don't even document the function calls!! Sheesh!!!

-MilesAhead (December 30, 2009, 09:16 PM)

While I agree that some of the undocumented function calls should have been formalized & documented, I don't necessarily agree that everything should be documented & exposed to the world. Encapsulation and abstraction...

2828

Living Room / Re: What's the best registry cleaner? Ask Leo says: none

« Last post by f0dder on December 31, 2009, 05:59 AM »

Now let me say that I don't believe that Windows needs to have the registry cleaned up on a regular basis, or even just because you think it might need one for the heck of it.

-J-Mac (December 30, 2009, 10:44 PM)

2829

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit won't open after OS reinstall

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 05:57 PM »

Oops, forgot to mention usage: run from a commandline with .exe name as first argument and passphrase as second. NO error checking, very raw output. If spaces in passphrase, "enclosing it like this" should work. If non-ASCII chars in passphrase, dunno what the result is

2830

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit won't open after OS reinstall

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 05:50 PM »

Ok, I've slapped something very temporary together. Took a bit longer than expected, but rather than just hacking this together, I spent a little time updating some internals so they allow (much) better for handling several fSekrit file format versions; this will be nice if I get around to writing an updater, and cleanups were needed before I extend the format... but I digress.

The test tool currently only supports v2 of the container format, introduced with fSekrit 1.2; v1 support will be added later, I wanted to get a test tool to you as quick as possible. The tool should have supported 1.2 -> 1.40, but in v1.35 I apparently started including the trailing NUL character of the passphrase - oops! Since the format string wasn't updated I don't have an easy way of differentiating these versions, but I'll come up with a solution eventually (will either check hash of fSekrit exe or let user specify which way to try). Lesson learned: write test suites, you silly fool.

I'm attaching two files: SekritReader_test01.zip is for 1.1-1.2, SekritReader_test02.zip is for 1.3-1.40

2831

General Software Discussion / Re: Lunascape - Web Browser with all major rendering engines

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 03:55 PM »

I personally prefer "the real deal" rather than any multi-engine browser... one reason is a security standpoint - you (potentially) get all security vulnerabilites in one shiny package, and if session state is shared between engines this could be pretty bad. If session state isn't shared, the only thing that multi-engine browser has going for it ("switch rendering with a single click") falls flat to the ground.

The other reason is that you don't get exactly the same user experience as if you load up the dedicated browser - and if you're doing web design, you'll want that.

2832

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Firefox startup faster.

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 03:50 PM »

IOW, if I write an editor and handle file types such as .txt .doc .srt whatever, instead of just putting "%1" as param, if I put a bogus pararm that is different for each file type, chances are I could end up with multiple entries in the prefetch.  People would marvel how fast my editor loads compared to SuperEditWhatever brand.  One more way to give the home team an edge.

-MilesAhead (December 30, 2009, 12:41 PM)

You risk pushing other people out of the limited amount of prefix cache entries, yes (unless multiple /prefetch:n shortcuts for one app are counted as single entries, I don't know) - but I really do think this was implemented because it was believed to be a genuinely good idea, not for nefarious purposes.

That was XP, anyway Vista/Win7 SuperFetch has had a lot of changes (and works much better), so I dunno how relevant it is today

PS: reason I asked if SpeedyFox (and friends, for that matter) do anything but sqlite VACUUM was that it could make sense to defrag the files as well - after VACUUM handling crud and internal fragmentation, the sqlite databases can have a fair amount of filesystem fragmentation as well.

2833

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Firefox startup faster.

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 09:55 AM »

Does SpeedyFox do anything that sqlite's "VACUUM" statement doesn't?

2834

Developer's Corner / Re: Anti Coding Standards (Keep Line Lengths Under 80 characters)

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 07:16 AM »

Yeah, 80 is a bit on the short side, but too long is bad as well - (my) reading speed decreases dramatically for über-long lines, and especially if those are mixed with short lines, which tends to be the case while coding. It also depends on what kind of code it is... often it makes sense to split long expressions into sub-expressions, and camelCasedMethodNamesCanSometimesBeWayTooLongEspeciallyIfOneMethodHasTooManyResponsibilites() - refactor!

2835

DcUpdater / Re: Dcuppdater.exe crashes multiple times daily in W7...

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 07:12 AM »

Ah visual studio 2005 supports win98, that's good to know, then maybe i will upgrade to that on my vmware that i use for such things.

I did notice this interesting project which seems to claim it can make visual studio 2008 apps build for win98:

http://www.legacyextender.com/

-mouser (December 30, 2009, 06:15 AM)

There's also some freeware version I stumbled upon, but it didn't work for me... and at any rate, you could always track down what the changes are and recompile the CRT yourself... would of course requite a little work, but it wouldn't cost you a dime.

2836

DcUpdater / Re: Dcuppdater.exe crashes multiple times daily in W7...

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 06:10 AM »

Sounds like the component are making unsafe assumptions - handling messages wrongly, or doing stuff in it's destructor that it shouldn't. If WIN32-API window teardown happens as a result of destroying a C++ object, this situation could very well happen.

The new version also includes a rebuild of the libcurl library, which i built using visual studio 2003, since it seems to be the last visual studio that will build static dll that doesnt require the ms runtimes that are missing in older windows versions (do i have that right?)

-mouser (December 29, 2009, 06:53 PM)

Visual Studio 2005 is the last version that produces binaries compatible with NT4 and Win9x. The 2008-and-later C/C++ runtimes (even if statically linked) refers to some stuff that isn't present on those early systems... I wonder if this is something MS deliberately did to help kill off those systems, or if there's a valid reason why something as basic as the C/C++ runtimes should suddenly use fancy-pants API calls.

2837

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 05:50 AM »

Curt: no, it's not a contradiction... the proper way is to always use safe remove, whether you have the device set for speed or quick removal. Once you get into the habit of doing things the proper way, then it's safe to optimize for performance. But even with optimize for quick removal, you risk data corruption if you just yank out the device. Doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

2838

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Firefox startup faster.

« Last post by f0dder on December 30, 2009, 05:48 AM »

btw- Fodder just posted a link to the same article I already posted.

-MilesAhead (December 29, 2009, 08:39 PM)

Yeah, I wrote my post before seeing new replys to the thread.

Btw, I'm one of those running my firefox profile from a ramdisk - extensions as well as internet cache etc. It does help a fair amount wrt. speed

2839

DcUpdater / Re: Dcuppdater.exe crashes multiple times daily in W7...

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2009, 06:23 PM »

Let us know what the problem was once you nail it down

2840

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2009, 06:07 PM »

Curt: just use windows' built-in "safely remove" feature, no need for an extra app for that. But it is dangerous to just yank out your stick... I wouldn't even consider doing that anymore. Also, as an advantage to always doing things the proper way , you can set the properties of the USB disk to "optimize for performance" which can mean tremendous speed boost for file operations on those devices.

2841

General Software Discussion / Re: ShadowProtect Desktop or Macrium Reflect?

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2009, 06:03 PM »

tranglos: keep in mind that TheBat uses a single "message base" file for each of your mailboxes - if the incremental backup is done at file rather than block level, a single new email means the entire mailbox being backed up. Same goes for your registry hive files, which tend to be rather large.

MerleOne: ShadowProtect license is per machine, sadly... so the kind of re/de-activation you want would be license-breaking.

The demo version of ShadowProtect doesn't come with the Recovery IOS image, which is kinda understandable since it's a bit hard to impose registration limits on a thing like that; but it also mean I have no way to evaluate whether the product is useful for me, without either going through the hassle of purchase + refund, or piracy. sigh.

2842

General Software Discussion / Re: Make Firefox startup faster.

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2009, 05:53 PM »

Adding "/prefetch:x" doesn't generally make things faster - and it doesn't en/disable the Windows Prefetcher, as the urban legends have it.

It was included for big multi-purpose applications, where operating in different "modes" cause different codepaths to be taken and thus needs data from different sections in the executable. It's explained here, and the specific example given is media player... playing a CD is different from playing a DVD is different from playing an MP3 is different from playing an AVI file, et cetera.

I dunno if it's used at all for Vista and Win7, where the XP prefetcher was replaced in favor of the more aggressive SuperFetch.

Be very very wary when reading those various performance tweak sites - most of it is based on misinformation and urband legends, and usually the authors are either passing on bad information verbatim, or are making misguided guessed based on something they saw in the registry and don't understand.

2843

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit won't open after OS reinstall

« Last post by f0dder on December 29, 2009, 11:21 AM »

Sorry if this reply is a bit rushed, but I'm running pretty late for work - felt that it was important to address the issue, though, at least by acknowledging I've seen the post.

SID etc should play no role, as long as you can access the file, and considering you're getting the "invalid passphrase" instead of fSekrit opening with an empty window, at least the data is there and is recognized. But it might have been corrupted somehow during your backup or restore?

fSekrit stores a hash of the non-encrypted text and uses that for verification upon decryption. I hope to have some spare time tomorrow to throw a little program together that reads a fSekrit document and outputs the results of decryption whether the hash matches or not...

2844

Living Room / Re: Open Source Proves Elusive as a Business Model

« Last post by f0dder on December 27, 2009, 04:13 PM »

Good reading! :Thmbsup

-40hz (December 27, 2009, 02:09 PM)

Some of us would call it perverse.

I'm not against software being open, but I loathe the GPL license and how the FSF crowd have taken the word "free" hostage. GPL isn't about freedom, it's about not liking the current regime and wanting a new world order... about letting redistributors profit from your work, and degenerating programmers into support monkeys if they want to make a living (oh, there's exceptions, but they are that - exceptions). GPL is viral and pretty hostile towards other licenses.

2845

DC Gamer Club / Re: Microsoft is giving away Tinker for free

« Last post by f0dder on December 27, 2009, 09:28 AM »

A regulated market is far superior to a truly free market anyway, too bad a lot of the current regulation across the globe is more in the interest of the Evil Korporations than us lowly endusers.

2846

DC Gamer Club / Re: Microsoft is giving away Tinker for free

« Last post by f0dder on December 27, 2009, 06:24 AM »

The idea of the free market doesn't work, and what we have isn't free market anyway.

2847

General Software Discussion / Re: Stop Windows from calling home

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2009, 03:12 PM »

Furthermore ,Windows messenger should be shot down on sight if you ask me, third party software is better,safer and has more features. Hence it is useless.

-Shades (December 26, 2009, 01:48 PM)

Safer? care to elaborate? And can you point out a MSN replacement that supports webcams?

-f0dder (December 26, 2009, 02:36 PM)

I'm curious on that one myself, but I've found Skype to be acceptable for video calls. *Shrug* ...Just a thought.

-Stoic Joker (December 26, 2009, 02:45 PM)

Skype is probably fine, but that (obviously ) doesn't use the MSN protocol, and thus doesn't really apply here. I'm sure there's plenty of apps that do video/voice chats better than MSN, but not everybody are willing to install yet another app... besides, my point was that Shades claim there's plenty of replacements that are better/have more features, yet I haven't found one that has webcam support

2848

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for list of read-only editors

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2009, 02:47 PM »

I was speaking model as in MVC - guess I should just have used the word "data" instead . Something that changes your data would be an editor; something that doesn't, isn't.

2849

General Software Discussion / Re: Stop Windows from calling home

« Last post by f0dder on December 26, 2009, 02:36 PM »

Furthermore ,Windows messenger should be shot down on sight if you ask me, third party software is better,safer and has more features. Hence it is useless.

-Shades (December 26, 2009, 01:48 PM)

Safer? care to elaborate? And can you point out a MSN replacement that supports webcams?

I'm on pidgin myself, because MS shut down support for older MSN versions, and I can't stand the most recent version... but I wouldn't call pidgin or miranda better or safer, really.

2850

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Teaser: Crush MCP (Master Control Program)

« Last post by f0dder on December 25, 2009, 10:05 AM »

It is also arrogant to expect everyone to speak English. In Europe you'll reach a wider audience with German. 

-Tuxman (December 25, 2009, 09:56 AM)

Will you, now? You'll definitely have more people having German as their native tongue, but I expect the amount of people who understand English to be higher. Here in Denmark, German is (unfortunately) still an obligatory course in primary school, but ask most people who have been out of school for some years how fluent they are with German vs. how fluent they are with English... viva the internet