topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Monday November 10, 2025, 5:16 pm
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Recent Posts

Pages: prev • 1 ... 12 13 14 15 16 [17] 18 19 20 • next
401
Screenshot Captor / Re: What are these dll files used for?
« Last post by db90h on August 05, 2011, 08:47 PM »
I've never noticed this anomaly with heavy use in Windows 7, though never specifically tested for it either. I do *routinely* capture windows of elevated processes with SST non-elevated on my system. Not using the portable mode.

Make sure the screenshot save folder is one that non-elevated users have write access to. If there is any case where an injected DLL of SSC must run in an unelevated process space, then it would fail to be able to write to that folder otherwise. This is likely the default, and perhaps you changed it to another folder?  Ah.. this is WILD speculation on my part, lol.

ScreenshotCaptor is GREAT, btw.. I still use it, have for YEARS. Nothing beats it.
402
DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for July 18th, 2011 - "DonationCoder Plus"
« Last post by db90h on August 03, 2011, 07:38 PM »
BTW, edited my tag so I wasn't spamvertising ... I have a feeling Google probably takes points off when it finds links in sigs anyway, or at least I hope it does with all these darn 'SEO' (spam as I call it) cowboys roaming forums everywhere.
403
General Software Discussion / Re: How necessary is the UAC in Windows 7?
« Last post by db90h on August 03, 2011, 07:29 PM »
I have not read this whole thread, so forgive me if I am repeating things others have said, or am just simply talking more than I listen.

Security software eating system resources is a pet peeve of mine. The bitter irony is that most of the time it does NO GOOD anyway, else all these people wouldn't be getting infested with malware. Think about it -- has the malware problem been 'abated' in any way by all these security solutions? Nope.

The #1 mistake novices make is installing more than one security suite. That is a huge no-no. It does NOT make you doubly protected. It makes you doubly slow, and doubly prone to potential strange problems.

My recommendation to all users, novices and advanced, is to adopt Microsoft Security Essentials. Since I am the author of an EXE compressor that is sadly abused by malware authors at times (despite my best efforts), I keep in touch with the security companies to help them combat this problem by 'scanning inside' compressed EXEs. I have really liked what I've heard from the PM for Security Essentials at Microsoft. They are doing it right -- trying to avoid the *very problematic* issue of false positives, while keeping people protected and using *minimal* system resources. And you know if anyone can make sure things are done as efficiently as possible on Windows, it will be Microsoft.

Security Essentials is 100% free and has just a few options. The options it has are the *critical ones* though. You can disable real-time scanning (the biggest impact on system performance), or tune it down to a number of different levels. You can exclude specified paths or file types. Perfect. They know this is needed to keep systems running optimally. You need to tell it to scan the risky stuff (such as incoming downloads and attachments, or removable media) .. and leave the rest of the system alone. After all, while it is theoretically more secure to keep rescanning every darn file that is opened, it is a bit absurd. Tune it down to only scan the incoming files, and be careful -- and you're gonna be ok in most cases.

I do not want to 'pick favorites' since I also deal with other companies, so I must also mention that if you want more ADVANCED controls and need even more enhanced security, the other companies -- you know the names (list removed as I feared I'd leave somebody out) --are getting better and constantly improving their software. They are also aware that they need to 'speed things up' and have offered similar options to help users do that through more selective real-time scanning.

So, that's my recommendation on the security products part of this discussion... which seems wholly OT, but ....
404
DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for July 18th, 2011 - "DonationCoder Plus"
« Last post by db90h on August 03, 2011, 07:21 PM »
Nice to be back ;). I've been distracted trying to survive in this harsh world. Can't say I've made any progress, though I think everyone in the world probably feels the same .. except that elite 1% who rise to the top by being ruthless and exploitative. Then society pats them on the back and says, "good job".

I will visit from time to time, got your feeds in Google Reader to keep up with things ;). I am mostly glad to see how well DonationCoder has done. Things are looking great here. You've built a wonderful community a quarter million members strong! That is an excellent accomplishment. You should be very proud!

405
DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for July 18th, 2011 - "DonationCoder Plus"
« Last post by db90h on August 03, 2011, 06:46 PM »
Staying away from social networks is something I wished I was smart enough to have done. With Google Plus, during a week of use, I'm sure I've done more damage to my reputation than I normally do in a good 6 months ;p. Also, Google Plus has this annoying tendency to spam the heck out of your contacts unless you are careful -- and sometimes even if you are careful it spams them anyway. It is designed to grow by spamming people into submission, lol.

Keeping staying away - maintain your reputation and dignity. Don't make my mistake. Also, they are a HUGE time waster -- here's looking at you FarmVillians! ;p
406
General Software Discussion / Re: It's official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers
« Last post by db90h on August 03, 2011, 06:40 PM »
While amusing, it is a bit insulting .. also, IE has come a long way lately. Dunno if you've given a chance in recent versions, but they finally got the brilliant idea of disabling all those tollbars by default and letting users be more aware of the add-ons. It isn't as bad as it used to be. I'm with Chrome myself ATM, though am getting a bit tired of it, and considering going back to Firefox. For mobile platforms, nothing seems to beat Opera ;)
407
General Software Discussion / Re: How necessary is the UAC in Windows 7?
« Last post by db90h on August 03, 2011, 06:23 PM »
Not *useless* at lower level (non-secure session / black screen), but it is certainly also not secure. It is very helpful though to prevent accidental damage from user and application mishaps, which are nearly as dangerous as malware at times ;p. Also, you certainly can't assume malware has all been adapted to auto-respond to the dialog for you. So... a lot less secure.. not useless.

Of course, if you simply run in a Limited User account all the time anyway, then you're best off. That is really what people should be doing, from a security perspective. Windows 7 does pretty well at asking for an administrator to login (via password prompt and then using a 'runas') when required for installs or other operations that require such elevated rights.

I keep my wife running as a Limited user on her systems, she never has a problem. If something needs installed, it prompts for an administrator to login and run-as -- as I said. Works great. Most all Windows applications are designed to run in limited user contexts these days. Of course, 90% of people don't stray far from their simple web browser anyway, making this recommendation doubly warranted.
408
Living Room / Re: Crazy modem/router on the rebound
« Last post by db90h on June 01, 2007, 09:53 AM »
Nice investigation and resolution ;). If you haven't had any major troubles with the D-Link firmware by now, you probably won't. As you said, the difference in RAM size is the thing most likely to cause troubles, if there are any. It would manifest on high load and/or a large number of services running on the router.

Probably both firmwares aren't very different 'under the hood'. Typically, these vendors take a reference firmware from the manufacturer, Texas Instruments in this case, and modify it to suit their needs.
409
Delphi and C++ Builder / Re: Something you should know about C++ Builder
« Last post by db90h on May 29, 2007, 10:36 AM »
According to Mark Twain: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”  ;)
-justice (May 29, 2007, 07:30 AM)

Excellent quote, btw.. reading it just set the tone of my day ;).
410
Delphi and C++ Builder / Re: Something you should know about C++ Builder
« Last post by db90h on May 29, 2007, 10:34 AM »
Can you not include a snippet of code in your program to check for these dlls and download /register them for the user. That way when not needed the exe can stay small and can still be shared? (i don't know anything about c++)
-justice (May 29, 2007, 07:09 AM)

This is actually a feature I had in the product PEBundle, which I need to get off my ass and resurrect (version 4 has been vaporware ;o). I quit selling the older version because I wasn't maintaining it and had a rewrite planned. Maybe someday soon I will finish it ;p.

Anyway, it would be easily implementable without need of an executable compressor/packer/bundler through use of a stub executable which has only system DLL dependencies. The stub executable could check for the presence of dependencies of the main executable, download and register if necessary, then pass control to the main executable.
411
General Software Discussion / Re: Intel Core 2 Duo + WinXP SP2 problem - only single core detected and used
« Last post by db90h on May 07, 2007, 06:08 PM »
Hi there,

I'd say that for some reason or another the slipstreamed XP SP2 cd you have is failing to detect your Core 2 Duo properly, but that much is obvious. Since we know XP should detect it correctly (afaik), there are two choices here:

1. If an OEM/Retail virgin copy of XP also doesn't detect your processor correctly (I suppose you can use the HAL selection to easily see if it did during initial install), then the slipstream you did is indeed missing something, like the multi-processor HAL maybe.
2. If the virgin XP install doesn't detect it either, update your BIOS if you haven't already.

Oh, and as far as you missing your original XP CD, I think you are best off to download it. Then use it with no key in trial mode, if you even need to get that far to verify if it detects your processor.

Maybe that helps.. maybe not ;p.
412
General Software Discussion / Re: Ubuntu Linux vs. Windows Vista
« Last post by db90h on April 27, 2007, 05:12 PM »
Not really relevant to a semi-objective comparison between OSes, but...

In the future, there will be OS religions. Their mandates will include evangelism in order to save the souls of the non-believers. This evangelism will yield a world war. After all, God forbid we have true freedom to make our own personal choices. For as you know, choosing something is a threat to all those who didn't make the same choice.

After the war, the ruling OS religion will divide into rigid factions who battle amongst themselves until yet another world war finally kills everyone.
413
Developer's Corner / Re: Some questions abt coders
« Last post by db90h on April 19, 2007, 09:38 PM »
1. Developing native code in C/C++ usually results in size optimal executables. In contrast, using Visual Basic or some other high level IDE results in less efficient executables. The trade off is ease of programming (or learning to program) versus size and speed optimality.
2. Most small executables are compressed with an executable packer like PECompact or UPX. This reduces the physical size by usually 60-80%.
414
General Software Discussion / Re: How to schedule hibernation On/Off so can run overnite once a week
« Last post by db90h on April 19, 2007, 08:10 PM »
I'm not sure but I don't think hibernation is a sleep state in that sense as you can remove power once it hibernated. Effectively the scheduler would need to be able to run when the system is powered down.
-Carol Haynes (April 19, 2007, 04:23 AM)

Yea, I think you are right about not being able to wake up from hibernate, it does seem unlikely.

By 'sleep state' I was referring to sleep states S0-S5, of which hibernate is S4. So, its semantics there. Maybe the OP here doesn't really need to go to full hibernate -- especially if its a PC plugged into the wall. The power consumption is negligible with a lesser sleep state. Otherwise, I guess wake on lan is the best option, as a previous poster mentioned.
415
General Software Discussion / Re: How to schedule hibernation On/Off so can run overnite once a week
« Last post by db90h on April 18, 2007, 06:21 PM »
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Windows XP Scheduler has a checkbox for scheduled items that allows you to indicate you want the computer woken up. From what sleep levels it will resume, I dunno.
416
General Software Discussion / Re: opera 9.2 is out
« Last post by db90h on April 18, 2007, 06:02 PM »
I've been 'hooked' on Opera for some time now, despite the incompatibilities that exist with it and some web sites. Opera is fast, intuitive, has great page zoom/resizing, etc.. etc..

However, I think I've finally reached my breaking point thanks to continued terrible support of Opera by virtually all of Google's 'web 2.0' services. With Opera 9.0 gmail at least works most of the time, but there is an annoying quirk on occasion that causes the editor to be mis-sized, resulting in line breaks inappropriately placed. That continued quirk, along with all the other Google service incompatibilities is enough to make me go Firefox. I'm just tired of dealing with it... and don't care who is really to blame (I'm sure Google could do much better to support Opera if they wanted).

So.. cya Opera, as much as I love thee.
417
Living Room / Re: The Paradigm Shift on AOL's massive search keyword dump - great reading
« Last post by db90h on August 07, 2006, 12:01 PM »
I found this recent story I hadn't heard of.. you gotta watch this clip from MSNBC of a guy trying to cancel his AOL account:

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY

I'm sure the whole tape is MUCH more interesting, as they imply in the short segment. It's out there somewhere if someone wants to find it.
418
Living Room / Re: The Paradigm Shift on AOL's massive search keyword dump - great reading
« Last post by db90h on August 07, 2006, 11:23 AM »
Why? Why oh why? Why? Why would they do this? Why?
419
General Software Discussion / Re: Software to send email when a folder content changes
« Last post by db90h on August 04, 2006, 06:08 PM »
Yea, I was just joking ;p. Don't change your nick on my account, I have no problem with it.

And what does gruff mean? i gotta look that up...
420
General Software Discussion / Re: Software to send email when a folder content changes
« Last post by db90h on August 04, 2006, 05:46 PM »
My personality forks, not splits ;p
421
General Software Discussion / Re: Software to send email when a folder content changes
« Last post by db90h on August 04, 2006, 05:29 PM »
db(tm) and (c)1999-2006 db90h. Please refrain from further posting under this nick. Thank you.  :'(
422
General Software Discussion / Re: WINRAR free this sunday 30th July 2006
« Last post by db90h on July 30, 2006, 04:01 PM »
I have to agree with db90h on the state of the LZMA source - it's frigging ugly, some of the worst I've seen in a long time. I took a five-minute look at it and decided that I had better things to do than utilizing LZMA compression. The GPL license sucks, and so does the majority of code released under it.
-f0dder (July 30, 2006, 03:12 PM)

And if you think the LZMA code is messy, take a look at 7-zip ;p. And, yep, he uses COM style interfaces (pure virtual base classes), but not the COM standard itself. It would be trivial to expose it as a proper COM object, why he doesn't who knows.
423
General Software Discussion / Re: WINRAR free this sunday 30th July 2006
« Last post by db90h on July 30, 2006, 03:54 PM »
How can I add support for 7z archives to my application?

One way is to use the 7za.dll (available from sf.net for download). The 7za.dll works via COM interfaces. It, however, doesn't use standard COM interfaces for creating objects. You can find a small example in the source code. A full example is 7-Zip itself, since 7-Zip works via this dll also. There are other applications that use 7za.dll such as WinRAR, PowerArchiver and others.

The other way is to call the command line version: 7za.exe.
-7zip.org

Also, according to this page you can use 7zip without royalty, however, if you modify the 7zip dll source, you have to make the source available to the public. Many applications are using 7za.dll (provided freely by 7zip) and arent paying a royalty. Winrar can add 7zip creation if they wanted without royalty.
-Josh (July 30, 2006, 11:36 AM)

Yea, I think I was wrong about that. I'll have to take a look more closely at his licensing though. It's licensed under the LGPL, which is more permissive than the GNU. For some reason I was thinking 7-zip was GNU.
424
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: db90h's best kept secret #1: Command Prompt Explorer Bar (Free OSS)
« Last post by db90h on July 30, 2006, 03:29 PM »
Yes, I'd like to see someone take over development or release a similar tool. There are people out there trying to sell software that is simply 'console as a Windows app' without the shell integration. This is a great utility.

I started to update its API hooking code to work with explorer x64, but never finished it.
425
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: db90h's best kept secret #1: Command Prompt Explorer Bar (Free OSS)
« Last post by db90h on July 30, 2006, 11:53 AM »
No, it's not under development. It needs a new maintainer bad.
Pages: prev • 1 ... 12 13 14 15 16 [17] 18 19 20 • next