Recent Posts

301

DC Gamer Club / Re: GOG.com: Pick 5 of 20 Games, save 80%

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 12, 2013, 12:29 PM »

Ha - beat me to it. Some good titles too!

302

Living Room / Re: Google Glasses BANNED!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 11, 2013, 08:38 PM »

What happens when Google glasses become indistinguishable from normal glasses?

303

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free Software from Microsoft.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 11, 2013, 08:33 PM »

Well that didn't last long - just got the following email from Microsoft:

Thank you for participating in the WebsiteSpark program!  Based on the changing needs of web developers, Microsoft has created new offers at no cost to help Web Pros like you continue to create rich interactive web applications.  These resources are designed to help you design, develop, publish, and deploy world class websites.
 
Since Microsoft is making these powerful new resources available to you without cost, the WebsiteSpark program will no longer be accepting new membership applications. Web Pros enrolled in the WebsiteSpark program as of March 11, 2013 may continue to use their WebsiteSpark benefits under the Microsoft WebsiteSpark Software License Terms and the terms identified by Microsoft as surviving terms in the Microsoft WebsiteSpark Web Pro Agreement, for twelve (12) months, until March 31, 2014.
 
For your convenience, we’ve provided links to some great resources below, available to you anytime at no cost.
 
Design, Develop, Publish & Deploy
http://www.microsoft.com/web/ is your main landing page to get access to the free tools.

·         Visual Studio Express 2012

·         Visual Studio Team Foundation Server Express 2012

·         SQL Server Express

·         WebMatrix 2

 
Learn and Explore
·         Web Developer and Windows Azure Developer Camps are free, fun, no-fluff events for developers, by developers. You learn from experts in a low-key, interactive way and then get hands-on time to apply what you’ve learned. http://www.devcamps.ms

·         Windows Azure Web Sites http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/windowsazure/Learn-2012TechEd-EU/WebSites

·         ASP.net for web developers http://www.asp.net/

 
Windows Azure
·         Host 10 ASP.NET web sites for free with Windows Azure http://www.windowsaz.../?WT.mc_id=A5A71FF5F

·         WSS member Windows Azure Offer http://www.windowsaz...bsitespark-benefits/

·         WebMatrix 2 and Windows Azure http://www.windowsaz.../webmatrix-overview/

Doesn't really make much difference to me as I had already decided to withdraw from the scheme - but there doesn't seem much incentive for anyone to stay when the software and benefits are effectively a 12 month trial with onerous demands to fulfil.

304

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 11, 2013, 04:23 AM »

Yahoo! webmail! hijacks! are! back!...

Yahoo! has blamed cross-site scripting security bugs, which it claims to have squashed, for a recent upsurge in webmail account takeovers.

via Daily Network Security Podcast

-erikts (March 11, 2013, 12:51 AM)

Pretty typical reaction of Yahoo - if they didn't write such god awful buggy webscripts themselves it might make it harder for hackers, and the problem might not go on for months!

305

Living Room / Re: "Half of our users block ads. Now what?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 11, 2013, 04:22 AM »

It's actually not different on the internet.  TV is having a hard time with DVRs and such that effectively are Ad-Blockers.  Adapt or die.

-wraith808 (March 11, 2013, 12:35 AM)

Or do the shameless product placements and dialog plugs that you see on NCIS, CSI, etc. etc. etc.

-Renegade (March 11, 2013, 01:57 AM)

Quite if you believe Hollywood everything from medical research to national defence is run on iMacs!

306

Living Room / Re: "Half of our users block ads. Now what?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2013, 02:41 PM »

Strikes me that the biggest problem is that legitimate sites advertising don't really have control over what is advertised or the advertisments.

I would be a lot less annoyed (and paranoid) about website advertising if site admins posted plain graphics with simple links which they inspect and monitor. They should also take full responsibility for any malware pushed through their ads - which would force them to only deal with reputable sellers and businesses.

Again it seems to me that a good site using advertising would negotiate commission on sales and make the sales their own on products they actually recommend. Instead of that you get endless links to registry cleaners and 'speed up your computer' ads which cause no end of trouble - and that's before you even get started on all the viruses and malware that get shoved in drive by attacks!

307

Living Room / Re: "Half of our users block ads. Now what?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2013, 10:25 AM »

No I have no sympathy either - if you want revenue from a website sell something people want - don't bombard me with crap from other sources.

If a website really needs to make money advertising something from another website then look for things you really like and can stand behind and become a reseller/partner.

Sorry I use an adblocker because it seems like 90% of the internet consists of flashing adverts for crap!

308

Living Room / Re: Google Glasses BANNED!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2013, 06:35 AM »

There are now some concert halls/theatres that block mobile phone signals. I wish they all did!

309

Living Room / Re: Emperor's New Clothes Kickstarter

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2013, 08:04 PM »

Looks like a joke to me but so far a lucrative one at $16.5k pledged!

Maybe I am too cynical ...

310

Living Room / Re: Amazon creepy ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2013, 12:49 PM »

My guess is that you have some sort of plugin that searches a bunch of search engines. I have Invisible Hand installed and so when I view an item on one site, it will search for the best price on NewEgg, Amazon, Best Buy, etc., which will make it appear in my view history (or whatever) for all those sites, including Amazon, since I tend to leave myself logged in.

-Deozaan (March 09, 2013, 12:18 PM)

No I don't have anything like that installed.

There are many ways this can be done, but most likely you just have 3rd party cookies enabled. You need cookies enabled for most web sites to function, but in almost all cases, 3rd party cookies serve no useful purpose other than targeted selling.  You can disable 3rd party cookies without disabling all cookies in most browsers. Or install Ghostery, which can tell you who is using them and disable them selectively.

-xtabber (March 09, 2013, 12:03 PM)

I will check Ghostery out and the article you linked. Thanks.

311

Living Room / Re: Amazon creepy ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2013, 06:38 AM »

It wasn't an ad - it was Amazon promoting a product (which they don't even sell) based on something they knew I was looking for. The scary thing is Amazon knew about this immediately after I did a google search.

312

Living Room / Amazon creepy ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2013, 06:10 AM »

OK I have a customer that needs Office 2003 SBE reinstalling but the disk has gone missing (I extracted the license key from the system that died).

Searched to see if I can find a legitimate ISO to download in Google.

Went Amazon to check on an order - first item on the home page Office 2003 SBE

How did they do that? And how do I stop it.

I know it is something to do with cookies but I didn't think all websites could access all your cookies or Google Search - but does Amazon actually have instant access to my Google seeach history!

313

Living Room / Re: Judge skeptical of "torrent chaser" law firm's antics. Jail time threatened.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2013, 06:04 AM »

Just get one of the people they are trying to extort to open an office in a neighbouring state - hey its federal racketeering!!

314

Living Room / Re: Here is an odd windows service problem

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 08, 2013, 08:09 PM »

Yeah - that's probably it. I have returned the annoyance to its owner today so I can't play with it any more.

Maybe I am being stupid but I thought if you wanted to run something as a service it had to be registered as a service??

315

Living Room / Re: SimCity - EA shows us all how to ruin a landmark game with DRM.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 08, 2013, 08:07 PM »

Only bad thing for me is their servers are over in Germany and takes forever to download

-Tinman57 (March 08, 2013, 07:48 PM)

Not been my experience at all - and I have downloaded some hefty sized games. OK I am in the UK so I am probably a bit closer but you shouldn't be getting very slow speeds and dropped connections!

316

Living Room / Re: Here is an odd windows service problem

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 08, 2013, 03:39 AM »

Yes that is precisely what I have done - I am just curious as to why you can't simply remove this service, and how it is being initiated anyway?

317

General Software Discussion / Re: Outlook synching

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 07:53 PM »

Sorry I may be being dense but why not just download from your POP accounts on both computers and on both computers set up POP to leave the email on the server (just set it to delete if you delete from an email from the computer).

You can set up rules in Outlook to filter mail into folders and in recent incarnations of Outlook you can export and import those rules form one computer to another.

The only issue I can see is syncing sent mail - why don't you just occasionally export sent mail on both computers to a PST file and then import just sent mail on the other ignoring duplicates?

Alternatively BCC yourself a copy of every email you send by rule in Outlook and then filter those into the sent items folder.


Having said all that given the current hacking problems (going on for months) at Yahoo do you really want to use Yahoo servers as a private store for your emails?



Another approach would be to periodically archive your email from Yahoo into something like MailStore (www.mailstore.com).

There is a free version for home use.

MailStore could be synced across both computers using a simple file sync tool.

Mailstore allows archiving direct from POP or IMAP accounts and also archive Outlook quite happily. It also optionally deletes mail from the source by rule so it is a great way to reduce the size of your PST files and still have fast access, and easy searching to your entire email archive.

Mailstore will also allow you to send emails back to Outlook if you need to or even extract emails as plain text or .eml files

Worth checking out.

I am using MailStore Server these days and it is great because it plugs directly into Outlook (in the toolbars/ribbon) and can be automated.

318

Living Room / Re: Judge skeptical of "torrent chaser" law firm's antics. Jail time threatened.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 07:40 PM »

LOL - brilliant. And fun too!

319

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 07:36 PM »

How do you talk to Yahoo? Do they even have a contact number for end users ... sorry, marketing targets ?

320

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 07:34 PM »

Office 2013 is Metro Office if you run it at full screen - it is styled exactly for Metro and is all the more ugly for it. Trouble is MS couldn't quite figure out how to get it to run in Metro!

321

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 07:32 PM »

Hm, out of the chipset market?

-f0dder (March 07, 2013, 12:24 PM)

It's hard to see how they can produce chipsets for motherboards if they don't actually make any motherboards. I read somewhere that they weren't even going to produce reference motherboards any more for other mobo makers - can't remember where I read it though. If that is the case why would any manufacturer use an Intel chipset for their products - would be a bit of a stab in the dark!

322

Living Room / Re: Here is an odd windows service problem

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 07:27 PM »

Is there something in the system startup that's loading it? And is it in fact loaded as an actual service? Sounds more like it's an autostart program.

-40hz (March 07, 2013, 12:24 PM)

No - absolutely nothing in Startup folder or registry Run, RunOnce etc. keys related to this item.

Can you give us a hint on what the service or driver was?  Or what hardware?  One person's "ancient Dell" might be another's "newest stuff we got"...

One of our clients still has a stash of Gx1s, although I think they finally got rid of their 6300s.  In fact we just junked a 2400, most of their plants are running with 2500s now (with a smattering of newer boxes).  Cost avoidance is really big with some sectors of US manufacturing...

-x16wda (March 07, 2013, 06:47 PM)

It is a Dell 1525 Inspiron latop running Vista SP2 Basic, 32-bit.

The service concerned is BCM42RLY - which is apparently related to an old Broadcom wifi driver which is no longer needed or relevant since Vista SP1. A new Broadcom driver has been installed and doesn't actually contain and BCM42xxx files.

I have found lots of references to the problem through Google - and a lot of frustrated users! I have not found a solution other than to change the registry Start key from 3 to 4 to prevent windows trying to load the service.

Sounds like a job for Process Explorer followed by Autoruns.

-4wd (March 07, 2013, 06:19 PM)

Process Monitor might help, too, especially with finding out what exactly keeps adding it back into the Registry. Might be able to watch it in real-time. 

-app103 (March 07, 2013, 07:15 PM)

There doesn't seem to be any processes that I can see that are related.

SC DELETE BCM42RLY

confirms deletion, and looking in the registray a Delete Pending key is generate - but after restart the only thing removed is the delete pending flag!!

The service is not protected by odd permissions  - I can backup and delete the Service entries in the registry and they are gone - and don't return after reboot.

Nevertheless - even though BCM42RLY is no long present any where in the registry as a string it still automatically attempts to start during start up.

Something distinctly odd is going on.


Having restored the registry entries and set Start to 4 the issue no longer appears (the setting is retained) but this is just a workaround which helps to stop pauses at boot time. I am intrigued as to what could be doing this?

323

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 12:17 PM »

I've had really nasty BSODs that resulted in pretty nasty data corruption

-f0dder (March 07, 2013, 12:07 PM)

Ditto for nVidia in the past - why I tend to go for all AMD systems - plus whilst I know core i5/7 gives best performance I still think AMD gives best bang for the money! Ihave been stung in the past mixing AMD and nVidia chipsets. Not sure about Intel and AMD/nVidia compatibility but since Intel seem to be getting out of the chipset game it is probably not worth wondering about any more!

324

Living Room / Here is an odd windows service problem

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 12:13 PM »

How do you remove a service that isn't listed in the registry?

I have been trying to get rid of a bunch of logged errors for a service that won't start because a SYS file is missing.

I thought OK : SC DELETE xxxxx

No go  - it reappears on every boot.

Looked int he registry and deleted xxxxx under Services for all users and Legacy stuff with the same name. Scan the registry now for xxxxx and it is not listed anywhere.

Restart the computer - and service is still trying to load!!! It isn't listed in the registry anywhere and it isn't listed under devices or the services applet???

Seems to be a common problem on this particular ancient Dell - it was installed by Dell but not removed when a device driver was updated. It is now redundant.

Anyone any idea how a service not listed anywhere in the registry, devices or services can still be trying to start and logging errors (and slowing down boot in the process)?

The only work around I have found it to put the registry stuff back and mark the service as Start=4 for each user. That stops the problem but I am mystified why I can't just delete the beggar?

325

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2013, 12:04 PM »

Dunno about GPU - haven't researched the market for a while, but I've been burned enough by bad AMD/ATi drivers (and noisy fans) that it'd take some convincing. And they still don't support PhysX, do they?

-f0dder (March 07, 2013, 11:46 AM)

Not had many problems with ATI/AMD drivers (far fewer than I had with nVidia on my last system). There were a few dodgy Catalyst releases early in version 12 but verion 13 seems rock steady to me.

Not really surprising that they don't support PhysX since it belongs to nVidia. Can't say I have found a game that seems to suffer from not having it and strangely I have it installed (seems to be a requirement for some games weven though they don't use it!!!).