Recent Posts

2851

Living Room / Re: Latest Bit of Insanity in the World of Patent Law

« Last post by Shades on July 19, 2008, 02:43 AM »

Of course I am talking to the wrong crowd here ( ), but the only time this behavior will stop is when greed, laziness and the 'me, myself and I" mentality leaves everyone's mind.

Actually, for this (global) state of mind the one's to blame are....the Dire Straits! (mainly because they even sang about: "Money for nothing and chicks for free"). Now who wouldn't want that?  

Unfortunately, but it is fair to assume that we all had to learn the hard (and maybe harsh) way about the value of money earned. I like to think those lessons made me a better person, but lately I don't see that (new) parents teach those lessons to their kids anymore...which results in the kind of society we are facing now. And (fill this space with the deity you prefer) knows what's in store for the future.

Ok,ok, I'll stop ranting now...after everybody gets off my lawn!!!
 

2852

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Announcing my new website (superboyac).

« Last post by Shades on July 18, 2008, 01:07 AM »

Maybe MiniCWB http://www.mini-open-cms.com would be a nice system for you to use. Nice, clean and simple.

2853

General Software Discussion / Re: I am looking for no install firewall.

« Last post by Shades on July 17, 2008, 05:17 PM »

I totally concur with f0dder (and Carol), which is the reason I mentioned the IP tables thing. With that you can (dynamically) filter out whatever kind of packets you like from the incoming and/or outgoing traffic.

Although you have to be careful when configuring, it will increase your safety if it is properly setup. The bonus is the traffic shaping, that also reduces the "noise/chatter" on your network.

Personally I have a hard time believing it, but when I copy stuff from my personal system to my linux (samba) backup server using Total copy (explorer extension) it reaches a speed of 12Mbyte/sec through my 100Mbit network. Vice versa it goes to 10.5Mbyte/sec.

2854

General Software Discussion / Re: I am looking for no install firewall.

« Last post by Shades on July 17, 2008, 12:55 AM »

Some interesting links to help you on your way:
http://wipfw.sourceforge.net/   (the software comes in 64-bit edition as well)
http://www.fwbuilder.org/ (aid for configuring wipfw)

As a bonus, wipfw also allows for traffic shaping.

Regarding bloatware: the archive containing wipfw is a fully blown and gigantic 65Kbyte 

2855

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by Shades on July 16, 2008, 08:30 PM »

Anyone who is that tidy must be on medication ...

-Carol Haynes (July 16, 2008, 05:28 PM)

I do keep taking the tablets... but Wacom makes me give 'em back  

-cranioscopical (July 16, 2008, 07:22 PM)

But you licked the batteries from all those pens first didn't you?   

2856

Living Room / Re: Computer mods: What odd things have you done?

« Last post by Shades on July 16, 2008, 07:48 PM »

My recently acquired computer case has been designed with 12cm fan in front, 24cm fan on the side and 12cm fan on the back....so I don't need to make any alterations to my case like the original poster from this thread suggested ;-)

The only difference with the picture and my case is that is completely black and spray painted like a car.

2857

General Software Discussion / Re: Reliable web page capture...

« Last post by Shades on July 16, 2008, 07:21 PM »

As far as I understood, the Zotero plugin stores anything it has downloaded for showing into the browser when a snapshot is made. When I looked for some specific page for a doctor here in Paraguay it didn't take too much time to collect all necessary files and put them on his laptop so his browser showed exactly the same data as mine.

No, Internet is definitely not everywhere available in this country...(lack of phone lines and cellular antennas) and that is mostly the terrain where this doctor has to use his specific skill (reconstructing bones so people are able to walk and/or use their hands again). This is an bad side effect that occurs when people that are too related have babies, but you have here small communities like that.

2858

Living Room / Re: Computer mods: What odd things have you done?

« Last post by Shades on July 13, 2008, 10:04 PM »

@ cranioscopical:

Hmmmm....when I saw the words Ram an sheep together, the animal association was made immediately     And no, my native tongue is not English (which is Dutch, if you wanted to know).

Yep it is true what they say, "Great minds think....dirty at the same time!"  

More on topic now:
Don't know if it counts and there are no pictures to back me up, but many many moons ago I built a Amiga 1200 into a big tower case. While one could say it is a mod...others would say blasphemy   

2859

General Software Discussion / Re: Reliable web page capture...

« Last post by Shades on July 11, 2008, 06:49 PM »

Zotero - my favorite page grabber (plugin) for firefox. Also free.

2860

General Software Discussion / Re: Extract files from a .pst file

« Last post by Shades on July 08, 2008, 03:24 PM »

Mailstore is the name of the software you need. The Home version is free to use.

http://www.deepinvent.com With this piece of software you can move/copy whatever from any mailformat to whatever format is required (.pst to .mbx in your case).

It is also ideal for backing up email as well.

2861

Living Room / Re: "Network cable unplugged" - except it isn't!

« Last post by Shades on July 03, 2008, 12:55 PM »

With all the power glitches/failures I have experienced here in Paraguay...an UPS continually proves to be a life savior. Coincidence or not, all PC's that are connected here to one did had a need to replace their network card, while all PC's without UPS have them replaced.

 

2862

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by Shades on June 27, 2008, 07:11 PM »

I totally agree with your reasoning f0dder. And indeed, my research served a specific purpose, it was for a piece of software that quite a lot of big companies pay annually for (a number with 4 to 5 zeroes behind it, depending on their size)...so there was already a level of trust and with self signed cert's also an increased level of safety.

2863

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

« Last post by Shades on June 27, 2008, 02:18 PM »

Gizmo Richards, from the website http://www.techsupportalert.com/ gives his readers the opportunity to download and register this piece of software for free (normal retail price is US $40) till the first of July.

Visit this link:
http://www.techsuppo...lert.com/neobyte.htm

2864

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by Shades on June 27, 2008, 12:41 PM »

Some links that might be interesting:

The Israeli company:
http://cert.startcom.org/

Overview root CA's (pie chart):
http://news.netcraft...rvey/CMatch/certs_il

Reasoning behind the use of root certificates:
http://www.math.ucla...uments/certauth.html

2865

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by Shades on June 27, 2008, 11:20 AM »

Some two years ago I did quite some research on the matter and I learned then that you have to pay a lot (annually) if you are a person who wants to certify...and a whole lot more if you are a business.  

By that time there was an Israeli company that didn't charge for this at all, but it was not accepted as a valid CA. However, that should be done by now. Unfortunately the name escaped from my mind  

2866

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by Shades on June 27, 2008, 10:59 AM »

Installing OpenVPN and OpenSSL gives you the option to create your own certificates, Certificate Authority etc, etc...for free! Besides that, you can select the strength of them as well (512/1024/2048bit keys).

It is easy to do. Instructions are included and if it still gives problems send me a message.

EDIT: Ooops, did not read right. For showing your name in a certificate you need to register yourself with the big names in the field (VeriSign and others like that)...

2867

General Software Discussion / Re: Office suite for my mom?

« Last post by Shades on June 25, 2008, 07:56 PM »

The new IBM Lotus Symphony is looking good...all options are there and it is also based on Eclipse (besides OpenOffice).

Since I think that 'less is more'...well, than this piece of software fits the bill (at least the writer application as that is what I have tested so far). Since I have it I didn't open my Open Office software anymore...just because of the interface that uses a principle that can be compared with that from the MS-Office 2007 ribbon.

It shows always some of the general options and then specific options for what you are doing in the screen.

2868

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite gadgets and gizmos?

« Last post by Shades on June 18, 2008, 11:36 PM »

Yeahhh!!!!!.....a furby!!!! Finally there is still one left for target practice!!!!!

Did I mention here that I have spent 38 months in the army? That's a lot of Furbies 

2869

General Software Discussion / Re: File Managers! Windows Explorer replacement! Come one, come all...

« Last post by Shades on June 17, 2008, 10:58 PM »

Yesterday I found out about (another) freeware explorer replacement:

DualXplorer http://www.softpedia...rs/DualXplorer.shtml

Seems it very interesting, besides the functionalities you would expect, there are also a lot of network specific tools included.

2870

Developer's Corner / Re: source control systems: what's the best?

« Last post by Shades on June 17, 2008, 10:09 PM »

My friend here likes and loves CVS, using WinCVS...but man, do I hate WinCVS!!!  And SVN is not allowed, because it is not file-based 

Not that it does such a bad job, but it is too hard to find out which Branches/tags are in use. Normally it is only possible to open Eclipse and use its CVS browser to find out what is where!!

@vixay:
In the story above I mention Eclipse. Eclipse has a beautiful plugin for the JIRA bugtracker system. JIRA is not free, but once you start with that one (especially in Eclipse) the reporting/tracking/maintenance of bugs will be a whole lot easier. From memory I know that PostGres, Oracle, MS-SQL and MySQL databases can be used. If you don't want or care to use the Eclipse setup, it's web interface is also very, very workable.

(and no, I'm just a happy user...not affiliated or related in any kind of way)

More info about JIRA: http://www.atlassian.com

2871

Living Room / Re: How can I get hard drive space... without deleting (my) stuff?

« Last post by Shades on June 16, 2008, 08:15 PM »

There is another option...Windows 2000 already had an option to use dynamic disks. This concept is quickly explained: Imagine a harddisk divide up into two partitions. When both partitions are dynamic and one of them hits the predefined limit, both partition sizes will be adjusted accordingly without you intervening.

So if you remove the D:\ partition and change the C:\ into a dynamic drive...it will expand until the physical limit from the harddisk is reached.

Be warned though, once a partition has been converted to a dynamic one, there is no going back!

Look here for more info on the subject: http://msdn.microsof...ibrary/aa363785.aspx

This mode was intended for use in enterprise environments, so you will need a pro version (2000/XP) or better. Since I don't even care what the differences between all the Vista's are...you will likely need an equivalent Vista.

Have fun!   

Edit: added url

2872

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite gadgets and gizmos?

« Last post by Shades on June 15, 2008, 12:12 AM »

Where would you be without this one?

http://www.bigfun.be...e/USB+Toothbrush.htm

Have to admit...I'm not only cleaning dust from my computer 

2873

UrlSnooper / Re: very puzzled by this

« Last post by Shades on June 15, 2008, 12:07 AM »

You did not set (by accident) a filter of some kind?

Sorry, I'm a WireShark user myself...and do not know too much about URLsnooper. But it is my experience that a filter can be turned on by default, without realizing that (immediatly).

2874

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for use with scanner?

« Last post by Shades on June 11, 2008, 12:25 AM »

EZTwain http://www.dosadi.com/eztwain1.htm, a basic (as in look) scanner software application that will work with all scanners that support TWAIN.

2875

General Software Discussion / Re: Whatever happened to... <INSERT DEADWARE HERE>

« Last post by Shades on June 11, 2008, 12:21 AM »

Zolt - it disabled writing to harddisk...for each and any user including the administrator. Only when Zolt was deactivated, writing was possible. The right to disable Zolt could be set on a per-user basis.

Maybe an simple idea behind it, but I never felt safer on the internet than with that piece of software.