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4201

Living Room / Re: Want to see impressive numbers?

« Last post by 4wd on July 19, 2011, 04:16 AM »

Those numbers aren't that scary really, the US National debt is currently balanced by the GDP - as reflected on the World Debt page with a pretty much no net gain/loss ratio of ~100%.

However, if you look at the EU countries........

-4wd (July 18, 2011, 02:13 PM)

I think you are reading that wrong...

-steeladept (July 18, 2011, 07:40 PM)

You're probably right, I wish they'd give an example when they throw around statistics like that.

Am I interpreting these numbers correctly?

US Families: 82 million
Food stamp recipients: 45 million

Over 1/2 of the families in the USA are on Food Stamps?

-Deozaan (July 18, 2011, 10:47 PM)

I don't think the number of recipients directly equates to families on a one-to-one basis.

Do they consider a single person with no dependants a family (eg. homeless persons) ?

Do they count a family of four as four individual recipients or just the parents if the children are under age ?

4202

Living Room / Re: Want to see impressive numbers?

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2011, 02:13 PM »

Those numbers aren't that scary really, the US National debt is currently balanced by the GDP - as reflected on the World Debt page with a pretty much no net gain/loss ratio of ~100%.

However, if you look at the EU countries........

4203

Living Room / Re: Win XP reboots sometimes *after* startup [Any Ideas?]

« Last post by 4wd on July 13, 2011, 04:11 AM »

Years ago I worked soldering/stuffing board for a local manufacturer. It amazed me to no end that the completed boards were run through what amounted to a small car-wash. The liquid (mostly water) didn't hurt the board in the slightest. It's only an issue if the board is wet and energized at the same time (It's a potential problem...).

Years later I had to completely disassemble a server, and scrub it down with baking soda, water, and a tooth brush. to get the surprisingly corrosive insecticide out of it after the bug guy sprayed it to death.

Sun dried and reassembled it booted and ran just fine for another 3 years.

-Stoic Joker (July 12, 2011, 05:40 PM)

I've also put small circuit boards through a cycle in the dishwasher with no ill effects, I don't recommend doing this for all boards - some board components aren't sealed against liquid - but it worked OK after being dried off.

WRT, the compressed air, (not trying to pick a fight SJ, just a different perspective ), I still use a vacuum cleaner mainly because I prefer to pull dust away from pins rather than push dust toward them.  Side benefit: it's cheaper  

But I suspect it's more a case of six of one, half-dozen of the other.

With the fan argument, I consider it's more the point of turning the fan into a wind generator than causing it damage - putting a fingertip just inside the fan frame will stop them turning without having to exert pressure on the hub/blades themselves.  If you don't want to do that, unplug the fan from the motherboard before blasting it with an airflow, (either compressed or vacuum).

EDIT: And now what I really meant to say

My netbook has just started doing the same thing, ie. reboot after hibernate or at machine start.

However, it's only when the 3G dongle is plugged in - so it seems to be a driver/software conflict in my case.

4204

Living Room / Re: Win XP reboots sometimes *after* startup [Any Ideas?]

« Last post by 4wd on July 12, 2011, 05:28 AM »

Do you know if you have sata set to ahci mode?

-Cloq (July 11, 2011, 07:47 PM)

I have no idea (!) any tips how I might check?

-tomos (July 12, 2011, 03:28 AM)

According to the specs on MSIs site, (MSI P35 Neo*), it doesn't have AHCI, (it's only the ICH9 chipset not the ICH9R which includes RAID/AHCI).

Otherwise, if you go into the BIOS and look under Integrated Peripherals->SATA Mode, (IIRC), it will give you the option of IDE, RAID, AHCI - if any of or all those modes are available.

* I know it doesn't say specifically P35 Neo-F but from what I've read on the forums, they are one and the same.  Compare this to the P35 Neo2-FR which does list AHCI function.

4205

Living Room / Re: Win XP reboots sometimes *after* startup [Any Ideas?]

« Last post by 4wd on July 11, 2011, 04:06 PM »

Buried in there was one thing in it I didn't know. This note:

...

-40hz (July 11, 2011, 03:56 PM)

The top bit is interesting too:

STOP 0x0000008E errors are usually caused by memory hardware failures and more rarely by device driver issues, viruses, or hardware failures other than your RAM.

You could try reseating the RAM or running memtest from a bootable flash drive.

4206

Living Room / Re: Win XP reboots sometimes *after* startup [Any Ideas?]

« Last post by 4wd on July 11, 2011, 03:54 PM »

If it helps, I have all the above installed except for the following on my XP Pro netbook and the Hibernate works fine:

pdfforge Toolbar v4.4
Adobe Reader 8.3.0

The XP Pro system on the netbook has been nlited a bit to remove things I don't use/need.

4207

General Software Discussion / Re: USB Drive shows Write Delay error

« Last post by 4wd on July 11, 2011, 03:25 PM »

What's the OS?

Does it also happen with his internal HDDs?

Delayed Write Fails are also caused by hardware faults, ie. cabling and connectors.

With USB ports, it can be:
a) For motherboard mounted rear ports, generally the contacts in the ports have lost sufficient contact tension.
b) For front mounted ports on the case, it can be the contacts in the port itself, the cable to the motherboard, or the contacts in the motherboard connector.

Have you tried another port?

The USB driver can also be playing up or conflict between USB devices, (I have the same problem between a 3G dongle and any USB storage device).

Does it happen with any of his USB storage devices, (assuming he has any)?

And 40hz beat me to mentioning GhostBuster.

@40hz: not too sure about the malware side, I'd expect the internal HDD to get hit quite often if that was the case.

4208

General Software Discussion / Re: Monitor folder, print and then archive document?

« Last post by 4wd on July 11, 2011, 06:26 AM »

Because I'm currently existing outside of my normal environ, (12000km outside), I can't check into it all but you should be able to knock something out using the same basic ideas I used here using FileNotify or FileNotify2.

4209

General Software Discussion / Re: smartphones and (lack of) security

« Last post by 4wd on June 04, 2011, 11:21 AM »

Yep. Using ALYac on my Android.

http://global.alyac.com/

-Renegade (June 03, 2011, 08:19 PM)

Bah!  WVGA+ only

4210

Living Room / Re: favourite hardware hacking resources

« Last post by 4wd on May 21, 2011, 07:55 AM »

Coat Hanger Uses I've Seen:

-Stoic Joker (May 20, 2011, 11:51 AM)

Replace Coat Hanger with fencing wire and it's welcome to Australia

A lot tougher than coat hangers and ubiquitous anywhere not in a suburb.

4211

Living Room / Re: Droid Texting - Fail!

« Last post by 4wd on May 11, 2011, 02:10 PM »

Same here, SMS on the Huawei IDEOS 8150, (Android 2.2.1), works fine.

However, I enter all my contact numbers as full international numbers, eg: +441234123456

4212

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by 4wd on May 06, 2011, 12:17 PM »

Ah hm, thanks.

And can I disable that "styled" context menu? I always have to scroll.

-Tuxman (May 04, 2011, 03:38 PM)

Nudel might have to answer that since I'm only running on my XP netbook for the next 3.5 months.

The install just picked up my existing v9 settings and I didn't really do anything other than select the toolbars I wanted and deselect the default ones.

4213

Post New Requests Here / Re: Windows Shortcut transformation

« Last post by 4wd on May 06, 2011, 11:51 AM »

A feature request for you:  Would it be possible to have it convert shortcuts to symlinks?

-kamahl (May 05, 2011, 10:38 PM)

Should be easy enough, (FLW), as I said above, I'm currently in the UK but I have the source on the netbook so I should be able to mod it.

Just don't expect it to happen in the next few days - I'm technically kind of on holiday

Just to clarify, do you want symlinks, hardlinks or both (hardlinks are the easiest to do) ?

Symlinks are restricted to NT6+, (Vista and above).

4214

Post New Requests Here / Re: Windows Shortcut transformation

« Last post by 4wd on May 04, 2011, 04:01 PM »

I'm currently hiding from the tax people in the UK at the moment, (not too far from a certain DC member in Yorkshire ), but to answer some of the above:

• It only works on shortcuts.  I could add in copying of actual files/folders but it would be slow compared to some programs out there.  If you want to copy all files/folders excluding shortcuts, try:
  xcopy source destination /E /EXCLUDE:.lnk
  This will duplicate the folder structure, (including empty folders), and copy all files/folders except shortcuts.
• It doesn't run in the background, the progressbar is updated as each shortcut is processed and the results are displayed when all processing is finished.
• You can refresh the Short2Real directory display by pressing F5.
• You'll need to refresh explorers' file view by pressing F5.

4215

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by 4wd on May 04, 2011, 03:30 PM »

Right-click on a blank spot of the toolbars and go to the Toolbars item or Settings->Customise->Toolbars.

4216

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by 4wd on May 04, 2011, 03:20 PM »

Is there any way to make its look&feel more DOpus-9-like? Less giant bars, less context menu bloat design, less everything?

-Tuxman (May 04, 2011, 10:49 AM)

Load whatever toolbars you had set up from v9 and close the default ones - that's what I've done and it looks pretty much the same as v9 did.

4217

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 10

« Last post by 4wd on May 01, 2011, 04:30 PM »

This is just about the dumbest procedure I have even seen.  

-Curt (May 01, 2011, 04:04 PM)

Actually, the dumbest is having to email an author/company with your license details in order to prove you're eligible for an upgrade and then twiddle your thumbs waiting for a reply.

GPSoft tells you immediately - easy and quick.

and what is this with placing C:\Program Files\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopusrt.exe to always start with Windows? I can't even delay it! I am already beginning to hate this program!

-Curt (May 01, 2011, 04:16 PM)

It's so when you double-click on the Desktop a lister will open and it's also used for running commands.

Nudel can probably answer better but I think you can stop it from running at startup and use the right-click on the Desktop to open a lister.

And it's been like that since v9 came out, IIRC, so for 4 years.

And just for interests sake: AU$78.10 for 2 licensed copies + USB + SFTP (that's including 10% GST).

4218

Living Room / Re: Easiest laptop (brand) to take apart ?

« Last post by 4wd on April 26, 2011, 05:55 AM »

I own two Acers: a laptop, Travelmate 2210, and a netbook, Aspire One ZG5.

The laptop is easier to disassemble and access all components, pretty much the same as the picture in a previous post.

The AAO is bordering on a nightmare to disassemble and access components but can be done with care, (I've done it 3 times for modding).

Even though the laptop suffered a malfunction just after I bought it, it was repaired and hasn't had a problem since - I've changed the CPU in it, (shows you how old it is - 2005), and upgraded the HDD.

I'd still buy an Acer today because the reasons I bought it are still valid today: price and more importantly, (for me), a real International Warranty.

4219

Coding Snack Guidelines / Re: IDEA: Remind User a Flash Drive is Plugged In During Shutdown

« Last post by 4wd on April 17, 2011, 04:55 AM »

It can be done in AutoIt by catching the WM_EndSession message, for example.

I'd have a crack at it but I'm currently mobile in the UK - maybe in a week or so when we're settled in our Yorkshire abode and I'm bored silly.

 

4220

General Software Discussion / Re: "Search Everything" with saved searches would be cool.

« Last post by 4wd on April 05, 2011, 09:20 PM »

Like this one: Search results

4221

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by 4wd on April 03, 2011, 01:04 AM »

by the way, I just have to say, my favorite part of this whole thread is being able to follow your thoughts as you describe the process.  I love it.  I can see how you are coming up with your ideas, and how you work through them.  Thanks.

-superboyac (April 03, 2011, 12:27 AM)

Does that mean I could have just told you what might be happening without actually doing or writing anything ?

I'll have to remember that for next time......

4222

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Migrate from USB Safely Remove to Zentimo for $8.90

« Last post by 4wd on April 03, 2011, 12:56 AM »

Maybe choose to pay in Russian Rubles, (149.00 RUB), which works out to almost half the cost of other currencies.

eg. RUB149.00 ~= US$5.27

Most likely exchange transaction fees are being added for other currencies, eg. AU$ is currently higher than US$, (AU$1 ~= US$1.03), but it would cost me more to buy in AU$.

The exchange rates and fees your bank charges for international transactions may be less than they get charged, (that they pass on to you).

4223

General Software Discussion / Re: What Android Apps Do You Use?

« Last post by 4wd on April 01, 2011, 08:49 PM »

...finding it convenient when switching among recently used apps...

-ewemoa (April 01, 2011, 08:45 PM)

I think I'm going to have to read the manual, I just found if I hold my finger on the Home button I get a list of recently used apps.

4224

Living Room / SAY NO TO NUCLEAR POWER [NSFW]

« Last post by 4wd on April 01, 2011, 07:42 PM »

Given recent events I'm sure some of you have probably seen this before but wth.

Definitely NSFW - I'm not going to put the picture here but here's the link:

NSFW

SAY NO TO NUCLEAR POWER STATIONS NEAR THE COAST

Legal disclaimer in proper legal disclaimer-type font size follows:

Don't bother looking if you're easily offended.

4225

General Software Discussion / Re: What Android Apps Do You Use?

« Last post by 4wd on April 01, 2011, 05:57 AM »

Just found this one:

Overlook Fing - Really good network scanner.