Recent Posts

3826

Living Room / Re: Arrested and Convicted for Tweeting in the UK!!!

« Last post by 4wd on April 17, 2012, 07:26 PM »

Not taking sides here, (because, quite frankly, I don't give a s**t), but how is this different from:

While standing in a street you point to a house and ask the person next to you, "Which c*** lives in a house like this.  Write the answer on a piece of paper and put it in his letterbox.", oblivious to the fact that both the owner of the property and a policeman are within earshot.

By inference you have called the owner of the property a c*** which could be marginally considered as slander.

3827

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by 4wd on April 17, 2012, 05:17 AM »

4wd, I like the idea of the network media player, but I find myself with an embarrassment of riches at the moment, in that, I have spare computer gear I`d like to use if it would improve on the Xbox setup. In the meantime, thanks for the reference on container formats.  A lot to digest and I`m finding a lot of it inexplicably difficult to grok.

-Daleus (April 10, 2012, 07:25 PM)

Having just acquired a HP Microserver I decided to see what WHS 2011 could do in the way of DLNA serving - not much.  Seemed to only cater for a limited set of media, eg. MKVs weren't showing up on the WDTV Live.

However, I've installed SERViiO along with the SERViiO Add-in and the WDTV Live now sees everything, as well as a couple of Android phones being able to access it all.

Now to put the thread back on track: Any luck Carol?

3828

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... a flexible merge software.

« Last post by 4wd on April 17, 2012, 04:52 AM »

Perhaps if the software in question has a merge function, (or a boring old copy/paste), you could automate the process somewhat by using AutoHK/AutoIt to simulate keys/menus/etc.

Otherwise, choosing software that has a flat file database is your best option for what you want I would think.

3829

General Software Discussion / Re: RAMdisk on XP 32bit - brainstorming!

« Last post by 4wd on April 13, 2012, 07:41 PM »

I notice that the SoftPerfect RAM disk is coming up at BdJ tomorrow ($9)

-Dormouse (May 15, 2010, 09:22 AM)

This is up on Bits again today.  Any comparisions from our techies ?

-Steven Avery (April 13, 2012, 09:26 AM)

Just looking at the specs would seem to indicate it can't make use of the unused portion of 4GB RAM, (512-768MB), on x86 systems:

•    Any number of RAM disks. In practice, up to 26 disks due to the number of drive letters available.
•    Any RAM disk size on 64-bit systems. Up to approximately 3.5 GB on 32-bit systems.
•    Persistent RAM disks with an associated on-disk image.
•    Volatile RAM disks whose content disappears on shutdown.
•    Built-in disk image manipulation tools.

This alone would put it one below the likes of free alternatives imdisk and Gavotte IMO.
The Persistent RAM disks are easily achieved via Logon/Logoff scripts.
The Built-in disk image manipulation tool sounds nice but in reality you could just load the RAM disk with image and then save it out after changes.

3830

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« Last post by 4wd on April 12, 2012, 10:26 PM »

If you're interested, I bought from these guys: DessyTek for $242 to your door.

They have both non-bundle and a bundle version, (difference is they throw in the DVD-RW), for the same price but you need to wait 2 weeks for them to get more stock of the DVD-RW, whereas the non-bundle they can ship the next day.  Considering a DVD-RW can be had for $18, I'd rather the thing was shipped the next day

Non-bundle
Bundle

I've only dealt with them the once but it arrived 8 days ahead of what they stated on their website so I give them  

Addendum: Should mention - if you're expecting to use Wake-On-LAN under a Linux-based OS you may have to jump through some hoops to get it to work, (something to do with the S-state NIC goes into when the system goes to sleep, if I read it correctly), but if it's going to be on all the time then it doesn't matter.  Windows based OS has no such problem.

3831

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« Last post by 4wd on April 12, 2012, 05:38 PM »

Looks like it (the HP mini-server) comes with Windows on it...

-Renegade (April 12, 2012, 07:43 AM)

It comes sans OS unless you specifically bought it with one.

Can anyone recommend anything better? What would be a good OS to run if you only want to use the box as NAS?

Currently, I've installed WHS on mine - this was purely to see what it was like, how easy it was to install/use/maintain, etc.  Apart from one annoyance it seems to be reasonably good so I might end up sticking with it, (AU$50 is cheap enough).  Also loaded the modded BIOS to get full speed from the 5th SATA port, (that was easier than many motherboard BIOS flashes).

If you only want a basic NAS function, then FreeNAS, (based on BSD), is simple, easy and reliable.  I'm using v7 on my old 'NAS', v8 wouldn't work out of the box without recompiling but it's moved on a fair bit since then.

OpenMediaVault is a spinoff of FreeNAS but based on Debian if you prefer something Linux based.

Both can run from a USB flash drive, so you can plug that into the internal USB port on the Microserver which frees up the need to have a separate OS drive, (in FreeNAS' case anyway - beats me why they can't let you use the unused portion of the OS drive for storage without going through a load of rigamarole to do it).

For more info on this little box of goodness:
HP ProLiant MicroServer Owners Club!
HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L Owner's Thread
HP Proliant Microserver - Purchase, Upgrade & Setup Guide

Addendum: There's also NexentaStor Community Edition which runs on it.

3832

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by 4wd on April 12, 2012, 03:48 AM »

As long as the tube it came in was sealed, then there should be no problem.

I still use stuff that's years old without a problem.

3833

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by 4wd on April 11, 2012, 07:24 PM »

.... plan on making it last 8 years..

-TaoPhoenix (April 10, 2012, 07:25 PM)

I have a different philosophy these days regarding computers:

Buy one generation behind the current - it will do the job for years ahead, it will cost heaps less and you'll be able to upgrade more often.

The old components get recycled into another whole computer for someone else or used for upgrading relatives computers, (my mum's still using my old Athlon XP 2500 machine - she doesn't want it upgraded because it just works).

3834

Finished Programs / Re: Done: Just could not RESIST (A resistance calculator)

« Last post by 4wd on April 10, 2012, 10:24 PM »

What about five band resistors?  

You could add a bit for capacitors too.  Scratch that, looks like they don't use bands on caps much any more.

3835

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by 4wd on April 10, 2012, 07:58 AM »

Could try this one, seems relatively simple, (FLW): How to Stream Digital Media From Your Windows 7 PC

Personally, I just share the folder of videos on the computer and let the media player take care of everything - which XBMC should be happy with.

In my case, I use a WDTV Live Plus as a network media player.  I just navigate to the shared folder and select what I want to play.

No need to transcode, (which is what DLNA does), therefore no need for a over-powered computer just to distribute media.

This would be a different story if you wanted to stream media to different devices, (eg. smartphone, tablet, NMP, DLNA capable TV, etc) - in that case you would be better off with DLNA media streaming as it will transcode the media to something suitable for the device it's playing on.

In fact I post here, because I just lost the thread on this convo when 4wd hit containers.

-Daleus (April 10, 2012, 06:27 AM)

Digital container format^w  

3836

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by 4wd on April 10, 2012, 04:54 AM »

GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Intel Z68 Motherboard - ATX, Socket H2 (LGA 1155), Intel Z68 Chipset, 2133MHz DDR3, SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, 7.1-CH Audio, Gigabit LAN, SuperSpeed USB 3.0, CrossFireX/SLI Ready

Pretty much the same specs for $149.99, (less with rebate) - has onboard gfx which won't be used, only two USB3 ports, (but eight USB2 ports), no PCIe x4/x8 slots but unless you're going to plug in a RAID, USB3 or SATA6 card, (which can also fit in the extra PCIe x16 slot), it's unlikely you'll need them.

3837

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by 4wd on April 09, 2012, 07:01 PM »

My BD supports XviD and MKV formats (it doesn't specify what the MKV should contain - which is useful - not)

-Carol Haynes (April 09, 2012, 06:47 PM)

If it says MKV container then it will normally be any codec that the player hardware can normally handle.

For playing DVDs this means MPEG1/2 and for BR this is MPEG4 ASP and AVC.

MPEG4 Part 2 of the specification is ASP, (Advanced Simple Profile), which is the coding specification XviD uses.
MPEG4 Part 10 of the specification is AVC, (Advanced Video Coding), which is h.264, which is a codec normally used for Blu-Ray.

Therefore, if the player can handle Blu-Ray, then by inference it can handle h.264 and because it states it can handle the MKV container format, then by extended inference it can handle h.264 within that container.  It will also handle MPEG4-ASP, (XviD), format video within a MKV container, (as well as an AVI container which is what they're implying by simply stating "XviD").

An easy way to test is just do an encode of a small video using VidCoder and see if it plays.  If it's a really small video, don't blink or else you'll be wondering if it did it

3838

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« Last post by 4wd on April 09, 2012, 06:31 PM »

... only Xvid and MKV so I need to convert a lot of DivX (and other AVI) files to XviD (preferred) format.

-Carol Haynes (April 09, 2012, 06:14 AM)

When you say MKV, do you mean h.264 in an MKV container format?

Also, why do you prefer XviD over the assumed h.264?

Given the choice, I'd use h.264/MKV and convert them using VidCoder.
Choose the Normal Preset, change the container to MKV under Settings, choose an output folder, drop the files/folder to convert on the window, click Encode.

92 min DVD to h.264/MKV in less than 10 minutes, (98% across all cores - really affects Crysis 2 )

As for a media player, WD TV Live HD supports both BBC iPlayer/YouTube/etc and is normally reasonably cheap, (around AU$115), plus it plays a lot of container/codec formats.  The only thing people have found is that it has trouble with is MKV containers using compressed headers but it takes less than a minute to remux the file to use uncompressed headers.

3839

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... opinions on synchronization software

« Last post by 4wd on April 04, 2012, 05:51 PM »

Since you're talking about sneaker net you might need to run USBDLM, (free for private use), to make sure Windows assigns the same drive letter to the flash drive each time it's inserted.

I don't think Bvckup works on anything other than the drive letter, (or UNC), so if it changes the backup/sync won't happen.

SyncBack SE/Pro, (which I use but aren't free), will also trigger from the drive serial number which only changes when you format the device.

3840

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by 4wd on April 04, 2012, 05:39 AM »

Even though we have been talking about Intel chips in this thread I still prefer AMD in terms of bang for buck - they are just so my cheaper than Intel offerings - and I have found my Phenom II x6 very good - certainly spending two to three times the price on an i5 or i7 is hard to justify.

-Carol Haynes (April 04, 2012, 05:03 AM)

I always prefer AMD for the same reason but for others I'll recommend Intel because they always seem that little bit more stable and the less I get rung up about something, the better.

On a side note, I've just been given a Phenom II X6 1100T so  

3841

Living Room / Re: the home PC network enigma

« Last post by 4wd on April 04, 2012, 02:40 AM »

Yes, I think that's where I got the encryption thing from.

There's a few more things you could look at if you're experiencing slow response from the XP side, (don't know how relevant they still are):

Mapped drive - slow response at first
Slow network browsing in XP

3842

Living Room / Re: the home PC network enigma

« Last post by 4wd on April 03, 2012, 07:43 PM »

I have two Win7HP, an XP Pro computer, FreeNAS based computer and an XP Pro netbook all happily communicating with each other behind a router.  The XP Pro computer is accessed exclusively via the network, (RDP, FTP, etc), as it's headless.

The computers are all in WORKGROUP, (ie. standard for XP Pro and Win7), I don't use passwords on the accounts, (all single user machines), except for where it's required for Task Scheduling in which case those computers AutoLogon to the main user account at boot.

Static IPs, as wraith mentioned, but this is mainly so I can readily access them by typing in an IP without having the system try and lookup a name/IP relationship or having to edit host files on multiple machines.
The following settings applied to the Win7 machines:



The main one being the 40/56 bit encryption, I've found it makes the connection to XP computers more reliable, (but it does work with 128bit also - just seems hit and miss for some reason).  The rest is personal preference, (username/account, public folders, etc).

On the XP side I use a few registry tweaks to make connecting to the machines a little bit more reliable/faster.

I can reliably just share a folder on a machine and expect to access from another whether it's 7->XP or vice versa.

And to follow up on what skwire just mentioned, I don't use mapped drives, network neighbourhood - just FTP or SAMBA.

3843

Living Room / Re: Welcome to Big Brother UK

« Last post by 4wd on April 03, 2012, 06:49 PM »

But then again, I have a this bizarre belief in personal responsibility, which really isn't compatible with "sue everyone for everything", which seems to be the dominant logic today.

-Renegade (April 03, 2012, 10:15 AM)

I agree with you %100 on this, [insert deity] knows the planet would be better off with less lawyers and the need to constantly double and triple-think everything you do just in case you end up in court.

Personal responsibility has to come into play at some point.

Cancelled due to lack of interest and greed.

Can't we use common sense anymore?

If everyone had common sense then there'd be no need for governments....oops, think I just made a watchlist somewhere

3844

Living Room / Re: Welcome to Big Brother UK

« Last post by 4wd on April 03, 2012, 07:00 AM »

And #19 is just plain bullsh!t.  She is not working in her garden, she is working on a public village flowerbed.  As such she is bound by the same OHS directives that council workers/tradespeople/etc are.

-4wd (April 03, 2012, 12:49 AM)

Not so sure... The point I get there is that the council is full of control freaks.

Like seriously... You have a little old lady doing some free gardening for you... and you want to what?!?

The increase of rules and regulations is a sure sign of a police state.

-Renegade (April 03, 2012, 05:49 AM)

Not in this case, here it is a result of the penchant for everyone suing everyone else at the drop of a hat and the attendant insurance stipulations that arise from that.  She's working on Council property, she has to abide by their OHS rules.

If she was working in that flowerbed and a car flattened her, the council is responsible and it's their a..e they're covering.

It would have been different if she had just been sitting on a bench there but she was working - free or not, it doesn't matter.

The same applies here in Australia under OHS, that's why all the police, council workers and any public/private employees wear hi-vis gear when they're out working on public land/roads because if they're not and the WorkSafe people see them, they will be fined for unsafe work practices and their employer is likely to get a kick up the a..e also.

This case is all down to the CYA principle.

3845

Living Room / Re: Welcome to Big Brother UK

« Last post by 4wd on April 03, 2012, 12:49 AM »

21 Signs That The UK Is Being Transformed Into A Hellish Big Brother Surveillance Society

-Renegade (April 02, 2012, 08:19 PM)

Regarding #6, while it's undoubtedly true that the UK has more CCTV per capita than any other country, the statistics they use, (from a survey in ~2005), to arrive at the quoted figures are open to scrutiny.

Another view of those figures: FactCheck: how many CCTV cameras?

And #19 is just plain bullsh!t.  She is not working in her garden, she is working on a public village flowerbed.  As such she is bound by the same OHS directives that council workers/tradespeople/etc are.

3846

General Software Discussion / Re: restart router after few minutes of inactivity

« Last post by 4wd on April 02, 2012, 10:44 PM »

Task Schedule for Windows 7, (may have to tweak since I don't have a Pirelli), attached below.

You'll need wget.exe which is in the archive, I've put it in C:\ for this purpose but just move it wherever and change the Task accordingly.

1) Open the Task Scheduler and import the Reset Pirelli.xml file
2) Task is listed, double-click to edit



Change the parameters as you like.

A bit more info on what constitutes an Idle state wrt the Task Scheduler:

Idle Conditions
You can set a condition that tells the task to run only if the computer is in an idle state for a specific amount of time when a trigger is activated. When you set this condition, you also set the amount of time to wait (after the task is triggered) for the computer to enter an idle state.

The Task Scheduler service will check if the computer is in an idle state every 15 minutes. A computer is considered to be in an idle state when a screen saver is running. If a screen saver is not running, then the computer is considered to be in an idle state if there is 0% CPU usage and 0% disk input or output for 90% of the past fifteen minutes and if there is no keyboard or mouse input during this period of time. Once the Task Scheduler service detects that the computer is in an idle state, the service only waits for user input to mark the end of the idle state.

3847

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« Last post by 4wd on April 02, 2012, 07:41 PM »

I didn't get the original deal from this site, but it does explain what happened: HP N40L ProLiant MicroServer for $112

Sold out within 41 minutes!  They must have forgotten to update the site for a day or two.

The $270 must be the one from Newegg, (at least there's free shipping), which is not that far from what I paid all up, (AU$242=~US$254).  We've currently got a small flood of these in Australia at the moment, (all $219 +/- $2), apparently as part of a large HP order a distributor had to take 1000 units at reduced price, (or something like that), so a few places are selling them, (even throwing in the HP DVD-RW for free).

They're still running £100 cashback on these in the UK until April 30th, making them £99-140, (AU$150-210).

3848

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« Last post by 4wd on April 02, 2012, 07:01 AM »

For anyone in the USA, (as I wish I was for this), you can get the HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L for $111.99, (+ shipping probably), from Insight.



Now THAT is an absolute bargain, (unless shipping is a gold-plated ripoff).

3849

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« Last post by 4wd on April 02, 2012, 05:15 AM »

Yes, same case - Antec Three Hundred.

3850

General Software Discussion / Re: restart router after few minutes of inactivity

« Last post by 4wd on April 01, 2012, 08:27 PM »

Isn't this likely more the domain of a modem rather than router?

-rgdot (April 01, 2012, 07:42 PM)

Unfortunately, router is rather generically used for combined modem/router these days, as is modem when they mean the combined modem/router, (parents).