Recent Posts

3351

General Software Discussion / Re: Help/Advice with TrueCrypt (and free space wiping)?

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2009, 08:21 PM »

Deozaan: xkcd <3

If you have anything really important to hide, that's what's going to happen - and plausible deniability is NO help whatsoever, then. If you have something remotely important to hide, you'll be accused of contempt when saying "oh, but I gave you the passphrase" which reveals 10gig of softporn on a 250gig drive...

3352

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 limited time upgrade discount starting tomorrow (June 26th)

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2009, 02:20 PM »

OK it is a good idea to clean install but it is a big inconvenience for European Vista users that they can't use an upgrade even if they want to.

-Carol Haynes (June 27, 2009, 11:45 AM)

MS aren't offering the upgrade versions at all, but are offering promo prices on the retail version.

-Dormouse (June 27, 2009, 07:27 AM)

wonder will that mean there'll be no upgrade pricing available in Europe at all - even when it's released? (just because of the IE fiasco?)

-tomos (June 27, 2009, 02:15 PM)

As mentioned earlier, supposedly the countries that are part of the EU (which isn't the entire Europe) get the full version for upgrade price.

3353

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2009, 12:00 PM »

Ugh, using 's for plural... take them to town square and have them flogged!

It annoys me almost as much as Danish people who use 's for possession, since we don't use that in Danish (except for a few corner cases). I guess it will eventually be adopted and made official practice, though.

* f0dder sighs

3354

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 limited time upgrade discount starting tomorrow (June 26th)

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2009, 08:33 AM »

note for (parts of) Europe - (or all?)

The pre-order discount prices are valid from June 26 through July 11 in the U.S. and Canada, but end July 5 in Japan. Customers in the U.K., France and Germany will be offered similar pre-order discounts starting July 15, said LeBlanc.

or is it only the 'bigger' countries are getting this . .

-tomos (June 26, 2009, 08:18 AM)

The reasoning behind this is that for EU countries (which doesn't mean all of europe ), MS has been forced to cut IE from Windows. They haven't had enough time to test the implications of this for upgrade installs, and thus offer the full version for upgrade price.

Or at least that's the official story.

3355

General Software Discussion / Re: free scaled down word replacment

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2009, 08:31 AM »

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned OpenOffice? It's pretty fully-featured, but not as big and complex as the later MS Office versions (although it's just about as heavy startup-time wise). Has the advantage that it works reasonably well with MS .doc files (and .docx) as long as they don't use too fancy features.

My favorite is still Office2000 though - fully featured, lightweight and fast as hell.

3356

General Software Discussion / Re: Would you recommend friends to use XP or Vista?

« Last post by f0dder on June 23, 2009, 01:11 PM »

No thanks, I actually don't even need the feature.  I haven't even used an AV, Antispyware, or Firewall for... well, since the 90s.  I never, ever get infected.

-Tekzel (June 23, 2009, 10:23 AM)

Me neither, since the early 2000's. But it's only a matter of time before a banner server/whatever is compromised for a NoScript whitelisted site. I'd rather have UAC catch that than getting some nasty malware.

And I thought you should know that I refused to repeat after you, UAC is hugely annoying. 

-Tekzel (June 23, 2009, 10:23 AM)

Naaaah, it's not - it's much nicer to deal with than a non-admin account + RunAs, which is the only secure alternative.

3357

Developer's Corner / Re: Multithreading tutorials

« Last post by f0dder on June 23, 2009, 01:08 PM »

Not sharing data (at least not for write) is good advice, since the required synchronization can eat up most of the performance you gain from going multi-thread. Threading is hard... it can be difficult parallelizing your algorithms, it's easy to fall into race conditions or deadlocks, and debugging thread-related bugs can be nightmarish (be glad when you do find them on your development system, though, since it's no fun when code blows up after distribution). Oh, and if you get all those right, then there's the possible performance issues - enjoy

3358

General Software Discussion / Re: Would you recommend friends to use XP or Vista?

« Last post by f0dder on June 23, 2009, 07:57 AM »

Regarding not liking Explorer, I am not a huge fan either, so I use Q-Dir.  Which I love.  They even have a 64bit version.  Why does that matter?  Heck, it probably doesn't, but I like the idea of running 64 bit software. haha.

-Tekzel (June 22, 2009, 05:06 PM)

It really doesn't matter much for a file manager, except for running 64bit shell extensions... but you can usually install 32bit versions of those even on 64bit systems, and keep using a 32bit file manager.

Edit:[/b] Oh!  Forgot to mention UAC.  On Vista, it lasted about 10 minutes and then had to go.  Most annoying thing ever.  I haven't even touched it on Win7.  Works much better.  Oh yea, Libraries.  Love them.  Ok, thats enough out of me.

-Tekzel (June 22, 2009, 05:06 PM)

Remember to crank the UAC lever all the way to maximum on Win7, otherwise it's not safe at all. Then repeat after me: UAC has never been annoying, shoddily coded 3rd party software is annoying

3359

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« Last post by f0dder on June 22, 2009, 11:08 AM »

I don't know how the FlashPoint works, but it works really perfect. Kudos to the developers!

-yksyks (June 22, 2009, 08:33 AM)

My guess is that it uses a filter driver to catch writes going to the flash drive, and imposes a delay on the writes so it has a chance to merge several smaller writes into fewer large ones - since small random writes are what kills performance on most of the flash drives around today. If the developers are smart, they will have gathered data on the write and erase block sizes of the drive, and try to do erase-block size aligned (and sized) writes.

3360

Living Room / Re: What's your favorite drink?

« Last post by f0dder on June 21, 2009, 01:24 PM »

Polish Bisongrass vodka 

-katykaty (June 21, 2009, 01:02 PM)

One of the few Vodkas that actually taste decent, and can be drunk without mixing it

3361

General Software Discussion / Re: The Dude! - free network monitor

« Last post by f0dder on June 21, 2009, 10:13 AM »

Sorry ive changed my url :-)

-akp982 (June 20, 2009, 12:24 PM)

Does that mean you have no affiliation with them, or are you just trying to hide it now?

3362

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by f0dder on June 21, 2009, 10:12 AM »

Awww, couldn't you at least have kept the link to the snapping-turtle-duck-eating video? I found it pretty amazing - didn't know turtles could do this. In the "wow, wtf" not "LULZ!" way, though.

3363

Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?

« Last post by f0dder on June 20, 2009, 02:54 AM »

Is that HitlerCat to the right, 40hz? No wonder none of them are amused.

3364

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for application to determine what folders are using up the most space

« Last post by f0dder on June 18, 2009, 12:42 PM »

btw, sometimes I see Experts Exchange get ripped (e.g Web of Trust gives them a mediocre rating). Yet, I found that a lot of times they deal with techie issues quite well and that they can be a good resource properly used.  Somehow I tend to see the answers, even without bypasses, maybe it they have a mixed policy.

-Steven Avery (June 18, 2009, 12:22 PM)

You always get the full answer if you go there through a google search - not if you hit upon the answer elsewhere.

3365

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by f0dder on June 18, 2009, 12:06 PM »

People using SSL when browsing doco, giving https:// links in notify emails, giving the above

3366

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Browser - No, Not Chrome! (what's that?)

« Last post by f0dder on June 18, 2009, 03:46 AM »

AND IT'S ALL MICROSOFT'S FAULT FOR BEING A MONOPOLY!!11!1111! one one

3367

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for application to determine what folders are using up the most space

« Last post by f0dder on June 17, 2009, 09:23 AM »

Also it triggers false positive anti-virus stuff.

-Steven Avery (June 17, 2009, 09:21 AM)

How?

The only problem I've heard of has been when people have been infected, and infected files got stored in a system restore point.

3368

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for application to determine what folders are using up the most space

« Last post by f0dder on June 17, 2009, 09:11 AM »

I also always turn off system restore -- as far as im concerned turning it off has two benefits: one is i save space, the other is it keeps me from ever losing my mind and trying to do a restore using this method, which im convinced is nothing but trouble.

-mouser (June 17, 2009, 08:54 AM)

I turn it off on my own setups, but it's been a useful help on other people's computers a few times.

3369

Living Room / Re: Baby Cody Plushie is born

« Last post by f0dder on June 16, 2009, 05:56 PM »

A friend of mine recently sent a Vermont Teddy Bear and some hardcover books to his sister who is living in Spain. The books arrived with the covers torn off and the bear looking like it had been "inspected" by Dr. Hannibal Lechter.

-40hz (June 16, 2009, 03:02 PM)

Bastards! So it's not even safe to smuggle drugs in books anymore?

disclaimer: no, I never have and never will - but I do find it tragicomic that the books had been massacred, what would you hide there? O_o

3370

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for application to determine what folders are using up the most space

« Last post by f0dder on June 16, 2009, 10:51 AM »

chkdsk /f ?

3371

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for application to determine what folders are using up the most space

« Last post by f0dder on June 16, 2009, 09:36 AM »

Try SpaceSniffer?

Btw, it should be easy enough finding some temp files to delete before proceeding with an install - there's usually lots of junk in easy-to-find locations imho.

3372

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera Unite: a server within the browser. Opera innovating as it used to

« Last post by f0dder on June 16, 2009, 09:32 AM »

To be fair this is a first preview isn't it or alpha.

-justice (June 16, 2009, 09:21 AM)

Sure thing, but I'm commenting on the whole idea behind it, not the product implementation...

3373

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera Unite: a server within the browser. Opera innovating as it used to

« Last post by f0dder on June 16, 2009, 07:50 AM »

Lousy press release - too little information for the technically inclined, too geeky text for regular users.

Sounds like a pretty bad idea to me. Room for a lot of security holes, and unless content is decentralized (which imposes lots of problems!) you're going to have availability issues when users turn off their machines.

OSNews has a news article on this as well.

3374

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: Remove folder

« Last post by f0dder on June 16, 2009, 07:43 AM »

Why depend on an external tool instead of coding the removal routine in Python? And when using an external tool, why depend on gnu rm instead of Windows' built-in RMDIR /S ?

3375

Living Room / Re: IE to be removed from Windows 7 in EU

« Last post by f0dder on June 15, 2009, 11:31 PM »

[mouser]: How does one get on the internet to download an alternate browser if there is no browser installed with the OS?

Built-in FTP.

-zridling (June 15, 2009, 11:12 PM)

But zomg! It's monopolistic to include a ftp client with the OS! What about the market for simple commandline ftp clients?!+1+1+! one one one.