Recent Posts

3376

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on January 01, 2013, 06:21 PM »

Each participant send me a PM with the words 'split' or 'giveaway'.  If everyone says split, I'll randomly split the prizes among you (each getting at least one).  If any person says giveaway, then I'll draw for one of you three to take it all.

-wraith808 (January 01, 2013, 09:48 AM)

Oh you sneaky #&#%#*~~!!!

That's just a ploy to find out whether we are the kind, generous, giving people that we purport to be on the forum....or in reality are self-centered, back-stabbing SOBs.

Nice  


PS. You're a psychiatrist aren't you?

3377

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by 4wd on January 01, 2013, 03:59 AM »

Kangaroo burgers for New Year's Eve dinner, and Aussie organic beef sausages for New Year's Day lunch/dinner. Nom nom nom nom~! Aussie beef and kangaroo ROCK~!

-Renegade (January 01, 2013, 12:35 AM)

Any chance you could leave some of our kangaroos alive now so that we poor people of Oz can shoot and eat them later?

Kangaroo steak, cooked rare smothered with peppercorn sauce and juniper berries.......drats, I'm drooling......

BTW, emu sausages - much better than beef

3378

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by 4wd on December 31, 2012, 08:53 PM »

4X4 on icy roads has saved my butt on many occasions,

-Tinman57 (December 31, 2012, 05:59 PM)

Poor 4wd, always getting the blame.

-Stephen66515 (December 31, 2012, 08:24 PM)

Wait....are you suggesting I'm somehow responsible for Tinman being here today?

3379

Living Room / Re: 6 Places You'll Recognize from the Background of Every Movie

« Last post by 4wd on December 31, 2012, 07:53 PM »

  Kind of like a movie that I saw where they passed the same rock like 6 times while adventuring through the jungle.  lol

-Tinman57 (December 31, 2012, 07:22 PM)

Speaking of which, the one sound you hear a lot in jungle movies: 402kB MP3

From this character^w.

3380

Living Room / Re: New Windows install - How should I organize SSD, HDD, user folders?

« Last post by 4wd on December 31, 2012, 07:28 PM »

Have you ever run into any problems with installers or windows update like the ones mentioned here and here?

-Jibz (December 31, 2012, 09:56 AM)

Interesting, I can't say I've ever hit either of those problems and unlike f0dder, I use a non-persistent RAMdisk - System/User Temp and IE cache directories are located on it and at reboot/shutdown everything just vanishes.

Pale Moon, (Firefox), is set to not use disk based cache at all, (browser.cache.disk.enable = False), and profile remains in the User folder on SSD.

Program installs I've done that required a reboot are few, (Agnitum OSS is the only one I can think of off-hand), but they worked.

3381

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on December 31, 2012, 07:09 PM »

You're confused?

I thought we were into a last round of "pass the parcel" where we get to nick someones gift in return for one of our own....or have I missed something, (hey! I'm new at this).

I was just expressing my desire to misappropriate Mr. G's Bioshock whilst leaving behind Nation Red under his Christmas tree then, after eating the cookies and drinking the eggnog, scurrying back to my place of hibernation.

Or to put it more succinctly:
Swap Bioshock for Nation Red please.

 

3382

General Software Discussion / Re: Ram Disks with Dynamic Memory Management?

« Last post by 4wd on December 31, 2012, 06:57 PM »

This post has a list of most, (if not all), of the RAMdisks available for Windows - over 2 years old but from a quick search there appears to be no new ones.  So you could look through and see if any of the free ones like Gavotte or Imdisk have a beta with that feature.


An interesting, (or not), snippet:

HP was granted a patent for it: Dynamically allocable RAM disk

...only 16 years after the Amiga was already doing it 

3383

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on December 31, 2012, 05:45 PM »

Cripes!  Kill hordes of mindless zombies or kill hordes of something else........tough choice......

Spoiler

I'm going to nick Bioshock instead of Nation Red!


Sorry Mr. G!

On 2nd thoughts

No I'm not  

Just to clarify

Sorry, that is 

3384

Living Room / Re: New Windows install - How should I organize SSD, HDD, user folders?

« Last post by 4wd on December 29, 2012, 06:56 PM »

The free version of the software doesn't come with the ability to use command lines when the UPS is triggered - otherwise I could simply do a force shutdown.

-Carol Haynes (December 29, 2012, 01:41 PM)

Use different software, Apcupsd ?

Doesn't Windows detect when an UPS is connected, (via USB) ?

And if so, might there not be an setting you can change under Advanced Power Options to determine what action to take rather than utilise APCs limited software.

Haven't done intensive research, but look here - basically, Raymond Chen says it can't be done, and...

Again, it's another chicken-and-egg problem: to load the hibernation file, you need the file system driver, but the file system driver is in the hibernation file. If you keep the hibernation file in the root directory of the boot drive, the miniature file system driver can be used instead.

-f0dder (December 29, 2012, 06:42 PM)

Beat me to it, was going to point to that

But perhaps you can do some really black magic with bcdedit?

Wouldn't make any difference if you did fiddle around with BCD, it only contains the info concerning reading the hiberfil.sys file, (and apparently editing it won't make it work neither will creating links - it's been tried).

Writing of the hiberfil.sys file is performed by some other function, (ie. hard-coded), so it will always go to the same place.

3385

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on December 29, 2012, 06:27 PM »

Decisions, decisions, decisions............let's see what's behind the Orange door!

3386

Living Room / Re: New Windows install - How should I organize SSD, HDD, user folders?

« Last post by 4wd on December 28, 2012, 07:52 PM »

4wd: thanks for the link, lots of data there .

-f0dder (December 28, 2012, 06:52 PM)

I changed it to add post numbers since the links didn't work properly.

Buy Samsung 

I wonder if there's a lot of stress on electronics during a power cycle, and whether that's a more likely death cause than wearing out the NAND cells, at least for non-heavy use?

Most of my electronic stuff has died at power on over the years - there may have been a slight deterioration of performance, (maybe a bit of snow in the TV picture, PSU gone out of spec, etc), but it always seems to be at power on when something has permanently failed.  Being powered on for hours at a time causes component wear, (electrolytics may "dry" out, resistors increase resistance, etc), and repeated power on/off, (with attendant heat/cool cycle), pushes them along to being marginal, so voltages may start creeping up, etc - then at the next power on you have inrush current which is over what the device normally uses and...bang!

Turn it on, leave it on - probably the best way to achieve longevity.

3387

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on December 28, 2012, 06:32 PM »

No, I was giving mouser a bit to reply.  But I guess he really does want out...

-wraith808 (December 28, 2012, 10:18 AM)

You got mousered ?

No...really?

 

3388

Living Room / Re: New Windows install - How should I organize SSD, HDD, user folders?

« Last post by 4wd on December 28, 2012, 06:22 PM »

FWIW, over at Xtreme Systems they're doing accelerated endurance, (ie. continuous write/read), testing of a few SSDs.

SSD Write Endurance 25nm Vs 34nm

They got over 6PiB of writes from a 256GB Samsung 830, (post #5393), before it died - I'm guessing that under normal circumstances it will last quite a few years.

It was on continuously for 3775 hours and died after a power cycle, (post #5400), 70% of its spare blocks were still free.

ADDENDUM: For some reason the links to the specific posts just took you to the last page so I've removed them and added the thread post numbers.

3389

Living Room / Re: Be Careful What You Download - Or Go To Jail...

« Last post by 4wd on December 27, 2012, 05:24 PM »

lol...also check the population of those states. 'nuff said.

-robinsiebler (December 27, 2012, 01:37 PM)

Yes, it would be more relevant if they gave a ratio of incidences per population.

3390

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA : program which waits will specified programs complete

« Last post by 4wd on December 27, 2012, 06:47 AM »

Try this:

WTPF.exe [prog1.exe] [prog2.exe] ........

If there's multiple processes with the same name, you only need to specify it once.

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. #Region ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
2. #AutoIt3Wrapper_UseUpx=n
3. #AutoIt3Wrapper_Change2CUI=y
4. #EndRegion ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
5. ;WaitTillProcessFinish (WTPF)
6.  
7. $process = False
8. If $CmdLine[0] = 0 Then Exit
9.  
10. Do
11.         For $i = 1 To $CmdLine[0]
12.                 $list = ProcessList($CmdLine[$i])
13.                 If $list[0][0] > 0 Then
14.                         $process = True
15.                         ExitLoop
16.                 Else
17.                         $process = False
18.                 EndIf
19.         Next
20.         Send("^")
21.         Sleep(5000)
22. Until $process = False

3391

Living Room / Re: Be Careful What You Download - Or Go To Jail...

« Last post by 4wd on December 27, 2012, 12:33 AM »

Actually everything I see says firearms are the number one murder weapon. Where did you get the baseball bat stat from, Ren?

-J-Mac (December 13, 2012, 09:58 PM)

I don't remember. I was just doing random reading, and came across it. It was just some article about the most common murder weapons. Not even sure how I ended up there.

-Renegade (December 13, 2012, 10:46 PM)

Baseball bats kill people

3392

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on December 25, 2012, 06:41 PM »

i don't need a gift, i just wanted to donate one.

-mouser (December 25, 2012, 05:50 PM)

Oh, go ahead an play  There's only a few of us to play so more makes it better

-wraith808 (December 25, 2012, 06:12 PM)

Hell, I only joined in so I could nick someones gift  

3393

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... charting, course plotting software

« Last post by 4wd on December 25, 2012, 01:03 AM »

Here's the Google Play store Marine Navigation search.

From a quick look over some of the apps it looks like they are all raster based.

[addendum]
Looked at OpenCPN.  Looks good for Win, but no Android as yet <sigh />.
[/addendum]

-barney (December 24, 2012, 08:21 PM)

Wait, you would have looked at it when I mentioned it back here.....right ?  

Apparently there is an Android app in development.

3394

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... charting, course plotting software

« Last post by 4wd on December 24, 2012, 06:37 PM »

MX Mariner ?

Based on OpenCPN

3395

Community Giveaways / Re: DonationCoder Digital White Elephant Thread

« Last post by 4wd on December 24, 2012, 05:55 PM »

Purple please - the colour of royalty naturally  

Oh, and Merry Xmas - the turkey's in the Weber  

You might as well as add yourself to the mix wraith, add a gift and put yourself on the end of the queue so you'll randomly end up with what's left.

Go ahead - we trust you 

3396

Living Room / Re: DRR ?? - Like DVR only for FM broadcast radio?

« Last post by 4wd on December 23, 2012, 07:47 PM »

Something you probably never considered but seems to be able to do what you want:

LG A258 Phone

FM Radio and Buffer Recording

Built in FM radio allows you to enjoy your favorite FM channels at anytime. Radio recording with buffer recording function, allow you to take 3, 10 or 30 seconds before the content, to help you relive exciting content.

There was also a short discussion on the Arduino forum here, (from Aug. 2010) - maybe you can contact the OP and see if he made any headway, (this looks like it could be him).

3397

Living Room / Re: Video games Under Scrutiny AGAIN

« Last post by 4wd on December 23, 2012, 07:29 PM »

That's an exercise in futility.

-Renegade (December 23, 2012, 05:11 PM)

Quite right, they'll always create a better idiot.

3398

Living Room / Re: DRR ?? - Like DVR only for FM broadcast radio?

« Last post by 4wd on December 23, 2012, 12:28 AM »

Roberts Record R DAB/FM RDS/SD Digital Portable Radio Recorder

Technical Details

•    Digital/FM Radio
•    Pause Plus' - Allows you to rewind 'live' radio
•    Record to SD card from DAB and FM (SD not included)
•    MP3/WMA/AAC playback from SD card
•    Record Timers

Mixed reviews, a quick search on Amazon.com couldn't find it - possibly not available in the USA, (I wonder why).

Doesn't do exactly what you wanted but at least it does record from FM.

3399

Living Room / Re: New Desktop parts list (RFC)

« Last post by 4wd on December 22, 2012, 10:39 PM »

Is memory really that damn cheap?  If so I'd recommend spending more on memory.  I'm sure there is a way to spend more -- either go up to 16gb or get "faster" ram.

-mouser (December 22, 2012, 10:12 PM)

I'd recommend more RAM over faster RAM - you're not likely to notice a slightly lower latency unless all you do is run benchmarks.

eg. G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-1600C9D-16GXM

3400

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox CPU usage

« Last post by 4wd on December 22, 2012, 07:01 PM »

If you type about:about in Firefox you'll get a list of About, (DUH!), pages you can look at for possible diagnostic info.

eg.
about:cache   (current cache in use)
about:memory (memory being used by FF processes and each page open)
about:support (diagnostic info, what's enabled, etc)

Dunno how exactly ABP works with firefox, but in theory it only has to look at HTML content - AdMuncher has to intercept all HTTP traffic and parse it - and I'd expect it to work with regexes as well. So if you fed it the same the exact same blocklists as ABP, it ought to be slightly slower.

-f0dder (December 22, 2012, 06:42 PM)

Wouldn't there be more of hit with ABP since it has to use FF/PM/etc to get the pages, then parse them and is written in Java, (I think - probably wrong), whereas AdMuncher could be written in a more efficient language and applies the RegEx as it streams data through its proxy?

(I don't know, just wondering.)