Recent Posts

3651

Living Room / Re: New Body Spray For Men

« Last post by app103 on December 20, 2008, 01:38 AM »

I get most of my stuff from this section of Yves Rocher.

I also like some of the stuff from Bath & Bodyworks.

3652

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it finally time to abandon IE?

« Last post by app103 on December 20, 2008, 01:23 AM »

Yup - it's the best of the bunch, and the one that I use myself. Maxthon's are configured differently and seem to work more naturally to me, in that they don't get in the way of any other mouse activity, that I can see...

-Darwin (December 19, 2008, 11:33 PM)

I have been trying out Sleipnir, which can switch between both IE's Trident engine and Gecko with a single click of an icon on the statusbar.

There are some nice plugins available for it, too. (but not as many as Firefox) And any plugins that work with IE will work with it while in Trident mode through the context menu, so things like ieSpell and Surfulator will work with it. (sorry, no IE toolbar support) And it comes with a freeware version of Roboform.

There is also skins available. I really like the Kantele & Liuto ones, even though neither of them match my desktop theme.

And the mouse gestures are completely configurable...and I mean completely!



There is a lot of things that can be configured in this browser. If you like customizing stuff, they give you plenty to play with.

Then there is also K-Meleon, which is gecko based and has mouse gestures, out of the box. Just have to turn them on in the options and configure them how you like. I used K-Meleon for the better part of this year and it's the default browser on my old PC.

There is a bunch of Firefox extensions that have been modified to work with it, but even without them, the browser is pretty feature packed and it's amazing how light it still is with all they included in it. It runs well on my old 233mhz machine with 64mb ram, which I really can't say for either IE 6 or Firefox 2.

And it's the only browser I know of that will allow you to have 3 links toolbars at the same time, supporting your existing IE favorites, Opera style Hotlist, as well as K-Meleon/gecko bookmarks. (that is a killer feature that is hard to live without once you get used to it.)

You might want to download a copy of JavaRa. It checks for JRE updates and removes old versions from your system.

If you need to use Java, you'll want to install JavaRa.

And it's free!

-40hz (December 19, 2008, 05:30 PM)

I know about JavaRa, but I also know how to go look in Add/Remove programs and do it myself too.

There is a problem with JavaRa, though. It doesn't detect all outdated versions of JRE. There are older ones it will miss, and they are the some of the worst ones to leave on your system.

When I tested JavaRa on my other pc, it didn't detect most versions of JRE installed because they were too old, and it even had me download an upgrade that was incompatible with my OS.

JavaRa is fine for use on newer machines/OS's but I wouldn't suggest it for anything old or 9x.

But still, whether you use JavaRa or Add/Remove programs, you have to admit that the average PC user wouldn't know that they have to go do this themselves and that they will most likely have multiple exploitable versions on their pc if they don't.

I didn't know this, myself, till a few years ago. I didn't know it was safe to uninstall the older entries in Add/Remove programs without breaking the current version. I assumed that they were patches and I needed them all or it wouldn't work. And if I thought this, what does the average mom, pop, and teen on myspace think?

Ummm, I know that development environments like eclipse allow you to target previous JRE versions in order to do compatibility testing, but doesn't the browser pick & use the latest JRE? Or can java applets specify a specific JRE version to use?

-f0dder (December 19, 2008, 06:14 PM)

Obviously they must be able to target older versions that are still installed if they are exploiting them.

3653

Living Room / Re: New Body Spray For Men

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 09:53 PM »

Ever since then, I've wondered what other ingredients would be as effective a fragrance? A refreshing breeze of peppermint? Or perhaps the subtle aroma of banana and cream?
Or am I getting creepy?

-Edvard (December 19, 2008, 06:46 PM)

Not at all, Edvard!

I don't wear flower scents, primarily because of allergies.

But I also know that when they say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, it's 100% true..and you can get there through his nose too (not just by cooking him some food)

So all of my perfumes are food related scents that don't make people want to sneeze.

My collection contains chocolate, butter cookie, green tea & cucumber, green tomato (smells like the leaves of the plant), licorice, orange mango (smells like an orange creamcicle), caramel, pear, alpine mint (smells like the plant), white tea & ginger, gingerbread, pumpkin, orange (exactly the same scent you get while peeling an orange), grapefruit, coconut, cannoli, and a bunch more.

Almost all of them are naturally scented, so they don't smell cheap & phony.

So when I said that Dunkin Donuts should bottle that scent, I was being serious. I'd buy it.

3654

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 09:28 PM »

Here's Jethro Tull, a perennial favorite of mine. One of the few groups from their era that can still play and surprise us. One of the few groups I make it a point to see when they're touring.

FWIW: They're a hundred times better live - a much harder rock vibe then they get on their albums.

Rocks on the Road (1991)
http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=Z-mf5HRL9Qc

She Said She was a Dancer (1987)
http://www.youtube.c...&feature=related

-40hz (December 19, 2008, 06:07 PM)

I am a HUGE Jethro Tull fan, especially of their live performances. I prefer the live stuff over the studio recordings, but both are great.

I have been a fan since probably around the age of 6. When I was 10, I tried to learn to play the flute, with ambitions to play like Ian Anderson. All I managed to accomplish was a greater appreciation of his incredible talent.

Here is a playlist I made of Jethro Tull live concert videos that takes you from the early days to more recently:

http://www.youtube.c...t?p=0151CA5D5F56ACE5 *

There is well over 100 videos in the list.

Enjoy!



^{Sorry, list got deleted by mistake when I was doing some "housework".}

3655

Living Room / Re: New Body Spray For Men

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 06:00 PM »

Dunkin Donuts should bottle their scent of coffee & donuts, for women.

It would be a hot seller...a sexy fragrance that appeals to a man's inner Homer.

3656

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it finally time to abandon IE?

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 05:17 PM »

Wow, couldn't have said it better. The browser has become the focal point of any computer; you can't live without one very long. If only one could go back in the time machine at that coding moment and say to Microsoft: "You may not want to grant ActiveX controls that much control over Windows. Why not stick with Java applets instead." I'm damn impressed with the speed of the patch.

-zridling (December 18, 2008, 05:34 AM)

Java applets aren't any safer. As a matter of fact, most covert drive-by installs of malware on machines where the user is using Firefox exclusively (and keeps it up to date), has taken advantage of exploitable vulnerabilities in things like Java and Flash.

The biggest issue with Java is how it's updated.

You hear about an exploitable vulnerability in Java and when a fix is issued you upgrade right away and think "OK, now I am safe."

But you are not! Sun leaves the older version on your machine, to be exploited by anyone that wishes to do so. The end result is a backdoor for malware that is as wide open as ActiveX on IE 5.5 & older.  Most people don't know they have to go and uninstall the old version after updating.

3657

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: JustCloseSomeTasks

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 06:14 AM »

Did a quick WHOIS search and AFAICT they are not related. Looks like these two sites are ripping content off of gHacks.

-PhilB66 (December 19, 2008, 05:32 AM)

And they are all claiming copyright   

-Perry Mowbray (December 19, 2008, 05:36 AM)

These are what is known as splogs. They rip off content of other blogs in order to make money off of ad revenue without having to do any work themselves. Most have it automated by using the RSS feeds of the multiple sites they steal content from.

Their posts will sometimes show tell-tale signs of RSS snatching, such as footers that are added that link back to original site, related links that link back to original site, and various social media links that show the feedburner urls from the original site.

This is why if you have a blog, you need to add a footer to your feeds, containing a copyright notice and a link back to your blog, to alert people where the content really came from.

Now if you do things right, the sploggers that steal your content will be linking to you, driving your site higher in the search engines, and anyone that lands on the splogger page will know they are sploggers because of your footer, and you will have a line of text to do a Google search with, to easily find all the sploggers stealing your content.

Then if you choose to, you can spend all day sending out DMCA notices and have very little time left to do much else in your life, and that includes blogging. Most large popular blogs give up and just accept it as a futile battle and tell themselves that all the inbound links the sploggers are giving them just makes their blog more successful, in the long run, because in reality, it does.

But watch out... If you have a badge on your blog that states a Creative Commons license of any sort, you become fair game for sploggers and don't have a legal leg to stand on as long as the reposting of your content contains the elements required to comply with your chosen CC license. (Although if you choose noncommercial, you will have something to get them on, if the splog is plastered with ads/for-profit)

3658

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA W/ SOURCE CODE: Auto-Dim LCD Notebook screen to save electric

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 01:37 AM »

I haven't taken a look at what you linked to (primarily because I am not a .NET developer), but I found this information while doing some research on another similar coding snack request.

The method for turning the backlight off and just dimming it are the same. The problem is it can only be done if your hardware supports it.

The exact model of your laptop and the details of the display are not needed. It either supports it or it doesn't. And if it doesn't, there is no way to make it support it.

This application would be best done by someone experienced in writing Windows hardware drivers.

If you read through the thread I linked to, you might get some idea why nobody filled that request.

If you don't know what you are doing, it will be quite easy to ruin your own display while creating the application.

Imagine turning the display off and having no way to turn it back on...or the application/Windows crashing while it is turned off. Both leave you with the possibility of having a display that will not work.

I don't think anyone inexperienced with this type of stuff wants to take that risk with their own equipment, and I am not sure if they did, that I'd feel confident in using it on my own equipment without asking a lot of questions about how it was done and what safeguards were included to ensure it wouldn't permanently kill my display.

3659

General Software Discussion / Re: Never again will I purchase that shampoo! (or will I?)

« Last post by app103 on December 19, 2008, 12:47 AM »

The closest thing that afflicts me that even compares to this is my obsession with freebies.

I have a gazillion free subscriptions to magazines I will never read, and every time they offer me another 2 years worth for free, I jump on it. 

I keep telling myself that they will be good fodder for my daughter's "big art project" made from words & phrases chopped from magazines.

The only problem with that, is she is getting way behind on the chopping and has a stack over 6' tall (if combined) of freebie magazines to go through. And she won't let me toss them to make room for the new ones that are arriving almost daily. (there might be some really good phrases in the ones I toss out and she would miss out on them)

It is only within the past 6 months that I have been making an active effort to resist renewing them, only to find out that my daughter has discovered where to subscribe to free useless magazines, herself. (oh noes!)

3660

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it finally time to abandon IE?

« Last post by app103 on December 17, 2008, 07:55 AM »

Being a Windows user and giving up IE 100% is not as easy as you might think. It's not as simple as installing and using something else as your default browser.

There are a great number of applications that use IE's rendering engine in many ways. Many of them even depend on it for their primary functionality.

One example would be a desktop RSS reader that when you click a link in a feed, opens the page in a tab of the reader. Most of them that do this are using IE and very few give you an option to use an alternative rendering engine. And many do not give you the option to open links in your external default browser.

I also know of at least one application that has an alert bar that uses IE to display messages related to the availability of application updates/upgrades and status of the network it connects to.

And then there is applications like Weather Watcher, that use IE to display weather data from a server.

If you use any applications like these, you are still using IE, even if you are using an alternative like Firefox or Opera for your default browser.

Now, how do you get Windows developers to stop using IE in their applications, when it is so much easier to use it than using something else? (for some languages it's just a matter of double clicking)

And if they use it, and there is a security issue belonging to IE, it's not their responsibility to fix it...it's a big corporation that has plenty of developers and can afford to put a bunch on it that has to fix the issue...namely, Microsoft.

Do you think small developers are going to want to write and maintain their own browser engine? Do you think if they did that it would be safer to use their software? Do you think they are going to want to increase the size of a simple application to include a copy of a different engine in case the user doesn't have Firefox installed?

And what about when there is a security issue with Firefox? (yes, it does happen) Then they are right back at the same spot they were in when they were depending on IE.

So what would be the point in increasing the amount of work it takes to produce what should be a simple application if the end result is worse or no different than keeping it simple and using IE?

3661

General Software Discussion / Re: wanted: way to batch/script manipulate image (ICO) files

« Last post by app103 on December 17, 2008, 06:17 AM »

If you want a command-line tool for the re-packing, Matthias Brenkmann's png2ico doesn't do 32-bit icons, so go to http://mattahan.devi.../art/GANT-3-15364715 and download the icon package. Inside is a nifty utility named png2ico written by Andreas Verhoeven (of AveDesk fame...) that does 32-bit icons. It takes a trip through the help to get the hang of it, but basically it takes all the pngs in a folder and transforms them into bundled ico's at different sizes. The only drawback is it starts with a png and resizes, so start with the biggest one you can extract.
Here's the batch file I use. Just drop a file of 128 px pngs on the .bat :

[Select]

png2ico.exe -s 128 32bpp -s 64 32.bpp -s 48 32bpp -s 32 32bpp -s 24 32bpp -s 32 16bpp -s24 16bpp -s16 16bpp -i %1 -o %1\icons\

-Edvard (December 05, 2008, 02:23 PM)

Wow! Thanks! This is going to come in real handy for me. I can finally stop creating my icons from 99x99 256 color .bmp's and manually erasing the backgrounds. (that erasing can take a long time if the edges are not clean or it contains a drop shadow)

3662

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Teaser: Permanent Toothbrush, i.e. Iphi's Memorable Passwords

« Last post by app103 on December 17, 2008, 05:42 AM »

As far as copyright issues are concerned, you wouldn't be distributing the lyrics with your application, nor would you be hosting the lyrics yourself on your own server (unless you want to go double purpose on this project and start your own lyrics site, too).

You would tap into already existing lyrics databases, just like media player plugins do. (I would also include multiple sites to search, just in case one of them dies or becomes unavailable for some reason.)

The bonus in this is that foreign words, as well as English, would be covered in many existing databases outside of the US, due to foreign song lyrics being listed (music is universal).

What a great idea: and you're right, I use RoboForm but the main entry point would be easy to break.

I need a little clarification though: after selecting the Title/Lyric/etc is there only one possible password returnable? That is, do you set up a generation rule, like:

• Pattern: aANSNNAA
• Min Characters: 6
• Max Characters: 8
• Repeat: True

and your selected phrase, etc is passed through that rule to create a password??

-Perry Mowbray (December 16, 2008, 04:55 AM)

Here is a visual that might help illustrate what I meant:


_{(colors do not represent real password strength quality, except in the cases of obvious bad passwords in red)}

You just give the user a list and let them choose which they would like. Storage of the choice selected wouldn't even have to be included if you don't want to do that.

This could be a very simple application that just parses the results from a lyric site's database and inserts the additional characters at the end of each line. If the user decides they want to store it somewhere, that could be left up to them and what application they use would be their own choice. Then they could store the phrase and not the actual password in it, in the notes section of it, like this:



The user could even fill in the password box in the application with bogus info, as long as they are not using the application to automatically fill in passwords on sites (shouldn't be doing this any way, for security reasons).

3663

Living Room / Re: Childhood Memory

« Last post by app103 on December 17, 2008, 04:16 AM »

I don't memorize numbers very easily, never did.

In kindergarten I had to stand in the corner a lot because I couldn't remember my phone number or house number. (this was also a big issue in early days of school with basic math memorization)

My ability to remember phone numbers is dependent on the length of time in which I was exposed to them and how often I had to use them in some way.

It took me almost 10 years to memorize my father's home phone number (as an adult!), and I never did memorize my husband's last cell phone number, and still having trouble remembering his work number.

Sometimes I still have trouble remembering my current home phone number, and I have had it for almost 15 years.

The only reason why I can remember the first 3 phone numbers I had when I was a kid, is because I had them for awhile and had to call them or write them down often enough to burn it into my brain. But even with that, it still took a long time for me to memorize them.

My daughter can remember the phone number at the last place we lived, but I can't. Of course she can only remember it if she sings it, as that was how she learned it.

3664

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft updates - annoying folder proliferation

« Last post by app103 on December 17, 2008, 03:46 AM »

Ahhh..that might be why I have one now. I recently updated/upgraded .NET manually, since they didn't offer me 3.5 through Windows Update.

3665

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« Last post by app103 on December 16, 2008, 06:22 PM »

some meta advice:

don't buy a single piece of hardware without looking on newegg for its rating by other reviewers and reading some of their comments.
in particular, look for comments about noise.

-mouser (December 16, 2008, 06:15 PM)

I agree with mouser 100%. Even if you are not going to purchase it from Newegg, the site should be one of your first/last stops during the research phase.

3666

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft updates - annoying folder proliferation

« Last post by app103 on December 16, 2008, 02:49 AM »

I have seen this before on 3 different XP machines, and something similar on a WinME machine.

I have one sitting in the root of my C drive right this minute.

In the case of all with XP, the folders all look like what you described and they show up after an OS update from Microsoft, smack in the root of any random drive they feel like appearing in, with names just as random.

The WinME machine was a bit better, because those folders were named in a way that you'd know it was from Windows Update..WUtemp. (they were hidden folders, though)

If you would like to know what to do with them, here's an article explaining where they come from and if they are safe to delete: http://ask-leo.com/c...y_named_folders.html

3667

Living Room / Re: Funny, Strange, and Confusing Error Messages

« Last post by app103 on December 16, 2008, 02:05 AM »

Here are my 3 favorites that all occurred on my old pc:

AOL 5.0 would give you an error message if you tried to join an empty chatroom:



This is why I hate DRM. A music CD refused to allow me to play it in the media player of my choice, and insisted I use the player contained on the CD, instead. But there is only a few applications capable of playing CD's on that computer, and it sure wasn't on that CD.



Moving data from one drive to another can be a royal pain in the butt on that PC, sometimes:

3668

Living Room / Re: Crash course in MUSIC: mp3/meta_Data/compilations/download_sites

« Last post by app103 on December 16, 2008, 01:48 AM »

Well, here is a great way to easily fill up your hard drive full of music, discover tons of great stuff you would probably never know about any other way, and do it all legally...for free:

• Download and install Juice (or a really good podcast downloading client of your choice)
• Do a tag search on last.fm for the type of music you are interested in. (I provided you with one seasonally appropriate)
• Select a tag from the list and click to go to that tag's page.
• On the right side, there will be a list of free downloads (if you don't see this, pick another tag)
• Beneath the list is a podcast RSS icon.
• Right click the icon and copy the target URL.
• Subscribe to that RSS url in your podcast client.
• Enjoy tons of new music.

3669

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for good sources of astronomy photographs, please?

« Last post by app103 on December 16, 2008, 01:20 AM »

If you want to use them as desktop wallpapers, I think this should do the trick:

http://www.spacewallpapers.net

3670

Site/Forum Features / Re: Forum feature suggestion: Necromancer alert (very old threads resurrected)

« Last post by app103 on December 16, 2008, 12:56 AM »

How about if you drag up an old thread, your post will be preceded by a post containing this image? 

I am sure that will be quite noticeable.

If that is too large, it could always be a "user" with a similar avatar "posting" a necromancy spell, followed by the newer posts.

3671

General Software Discussion / Re: making a recovery partition

« Last post by app103 on December 15, 2008, 09:50 PM »

Acronis True Image will allow you to make a "restore partition" just like the OEM's do, with F11 access at boot time, to restore the image of the OS from a hidden "secure zone" partition, containing the image of the OS, applications, settings, and everything else.

Acronis actually makes the software that some OEM's use to create restore partitions on the PC's they sell.

3672

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Teaser: Permanent Toothbrush, i.e. Iphi's Memorable Passwords

« Last post by app103 on December 15, 2008, 05:17 PM »

Rather than a quote or poem, I like using lines of lyrics from obscure songs.

And there are plenty of lyrics databases on the web that you could draw from, with many of them accepting user submissions and expanding in size, daily. You will never run out of song lyrics to base them on. A lot of them are even used in various media player plugins to display lyrics of currently playing song.

You could start with a base word(s) supplied by the user, and find songs containing that word in the title. Allow the user to select a song from a list and load the lyrics, and at the end of every line, present a password made from that line of lyrics, color coded from red to green, representing the strength of that password.

This will give the user a lot of choices from a single song and show them how good one phrase is over another.

And here is another name idea, based on the song lyrics concept:



^{edit: attached image + name idea}

3673

Coding Snacks / Re: IDEA: Flatten Folder

« Last post by app103 on December 15, 2008, 08:35 AM »

Windows does do this if you hit the search button while in the folder and search for *.*

You will get a listing of all subfolders AND all files.

Actually, you don't even have to do that. Leave the box empty and just hit the search button and it will do it.

3674

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Peggle Extreme now free on Steam

« Last post by app103 on December 14, 2008, 10:46 PM »

I can't think of any puzzle games that don't fall into the classification of "casual games".

That being said, not all of them are easy and I can think of a few that can be quite brain boggling.

If you like Mahjongg type games and want a real challenge, try Rahjongg. (there are also 2 additional add-on mission packs available, in case you beat the game and need 100 more levels to solve)

3675

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Teaser: CrazyLittleFingers

« Last post by app103 on December 14, 2008, 10:32 PM »

Thanks App, I was thinking of having some kind of ScreenSaver option as a feature, but I think I might incorporate IdleStart as a configurable option within CrazyLittleFingers!

-kwacky1 (December 14, 2008, 10:17 PM)

Just make sure you add something to your application to ensure that only 1 instance can run, otherwise there is a risk that more than one will run if the previous instance isn't closed before the pc goes idle again.

This was an issue I had with using IdleStart to launch other people's applications. When my cat moved my mouse, I'd end up with more than 1 instance of Stellarium running, and that wasn't too good.

I am not sure what language you are doing this in, so I can't recommend any sample code/components to show how it's done, but in some languages it's pretty easy to do without having to do any actual coding yourself (with Delphi, you just drop a component on your main form and you are done).