Recent Posts

426

General Software Discussion / Re: JkDefrag further developed as MyDefrag

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 30, 2009, 03:45 PM »

No defragger can actually specify physical placement of the files on the platter. ...

-bugis (April 07, 2009, 10:40 AM)

from
Paragon Total Defrag 2009 For Free - Powerful but controversial

dont know who to believe myself ...

-tomos (April 30, 2009, 03:04 AM)

I didn't read the referenced article, but the statement is certainly true for any post-DOS computer. Since the advent of IDE drives (remember that stands for "In-Drive Electronics"), not even the OS has control of the actual physical placement. The OS communicates with the hard drive in terms of logical sectors, and the HD maps those logical sectors into physical ones.

This scheme makes it so the OS doesn't need to worry about heads and platters, as we used to have to do with MFM and RLL drives.

It also allows each harddrive to maintain its own list of known bad sectors, which it maps to alternate sectors at the end of the drive.  Thus, even a drive that appears perfectly de-fragmented at the logical level may have, unknown to you, physical fragmentation because of mapped-out bad sectors.

427

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 16, 2009, 02:17 PM »

People did not pay for lifetime UPGRADES, they paid for UPDATES

-Josh (April 16, 2009, 01:56 PM)

upGRADES is certainly the perception. If Slysoft wants to avoid bad will, they should have made this crystal clear. (And so that we're not just arguing about suppositions, does anyone have the actual text of their lifetime agreement?)

Why should a user of AnyHD have to suffer for the sake of mindset?  Suffer how you ask?  To have to open separate applications just so people's 'mindset' would be in a certain way.

-wraith808 (April 16, 2009, 02:10 PM)

Because Slysoft screwed up, that's why.

Obviously Slysoft doesn't have to do this -- in fact, they did not. But the alternative is the amount of bad will they have created amongst their older customers.

Not every situation has a solution that's positive all around. Slysoft made the lousy situation, and only they can make the decision about whether the old customer bad will, or future user inconvenience, or some third option, best achieves their goals.

428

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 16, 2009, 01:24 PM »

AnyDVD and AnyDVD HD are for two different product lines.

-Josh (April 16, 2009, 12:45 PM)

That's obviously not true based on the capabilities of the two. HD is a superset of AnyDVD, they are not disjoint sets at all.

Slysoft should have created a new product AnyHD that cannot do DVD at all, and then package with every license of AnyHD a free license to AnyDVD so that its users can do DVDs as well.

This would have created a whole separate mindset, as each product would operate on wholly different sets of media. If you've go an X, you must use AnyX. But as it is, AnyDVD HD can do whatever AnyDVD (regular) does, plus some extra, so it certainly looks as if the HD version is an upgrade to the functionality of the previous version.

Of course HD (and BRD) is not the same as DVD. If it were the same, then no upgrade would be necessary. But Slysoft added new functionality to allow it to handle the high def formats. The fact that they added new functionality is what makes it an upgrade. (Upgrade: v., to improve what was old or outdated). People paid for lifetime upgrades.

429

Developer's Corner / Re: Python newbie question

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 14, 2009, 12:13 PM »

I think you'll find that once you move to the GUI, this simply ceases to be an issue. For most GUI work you're not "printing" onto the screen; you're setting a property of a control (e.g. a text label), specifying the text that you want it to display. That control is in charge of (and the framework should contain all the implementation necessary for) rendering that value onto the screen.

430

Living Room / Re: The entitled generation....Are they right?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 13, 2009, 12:45 PM »

A few thoughts:

I believe that anyone has the right to attempt to sell the legitimate fruit of their labors for whatever people are willing to pay for it. If people want to buy the music or movies, then who are we to say they can't? And on the other hand, who has the right to declare the fruit of another person's labor to be free for the taking?

That said, the entertainment industry is trying to have its cake and eat it too. It's trying to tell us that we can't have a license to the music without buying the media. But the converse must be considered as well: once I've bought the media/license, they've got no right to demand full price to upgrade the media. I've bought some records three, four, even five times (e.g., Boston, Fleetwood Mac Rumors, Master of Puppets) as media has worn out or I need to upgrade format. Once I've paid for the right to hold a copy of Boston, how can they charge me again for the same right I already own, when I want to upgrade from cassette to CD? And it seems like a large part of their business model is based on selling media upgrades (or, slightly less sleazy, upgrades to the "director's cut", etc., of a movie). When I upgrade from cassette to CD, or DVD to Blu-Ray, I should be able to do so for the cost of the media plus a nominal handling charge since I've already purchased a license to the content.

It seems like it's the entertainment industry that is demonstrating more of an attitude of entitlement. The way they run their business -- not just DRM, but more fundamentally their means of building up a relatively small number of global stars -- is what leads to the problems they're experiencing.

I believe that if the industry was more fractured, with a zillion performers, then (a) any one performer/producer/etc. would be able to better satisfy a smaller segment of market -- a genre. The effects of piracy would necessarily be more localized so any "leak" would cause less damage, and I believe that because there would be a shorter distance, and closer link, between the fan and the performer, there would be less temptation to steal (I think that as relationships become more personal, people behave better). The only downside that I can see to this is that Hollywood would no longer be able to underwrite special effects thrillers with 9-digit budgets, but I don't think this is a big loss. Certainly the studio have no "entitlement" to produce such movies. And I don't see how the music industry would be harmed at all by such a shift.

431

Living Room / Re: which is better for hard drive transfers: ide or usb cable

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 08, 2009, 01:45 PM »

If you're working with an IDE hard drive, then there's nothing that will transfer the data faster than a direct IDE connection. If you use USB or Firewire to connect to an external drive enclosure, that container still must use IDE internally to talk to the drive itself. You don't need to know the actual numbers; in both cases there is an IDE interface involved, so regardless of how fast others might be, it can go no faster than IDE.

If you've resigned yourself to an external enclosure, then the optimal interface depends on the usage. Obviously firewire-800 is fastest (and isn't there a super-high-speed USB coming out?).

But Hi-speed USB2 and Firewire are similar, each edging the other in particular cases. A friend who was doing professional video editing found that for sustained transfers (i.e., huge files like video), Firewire was a better performer. For shorter bursts, USB2 was able to do a bit better than firewire.

432

Living Room / Re: Online Dictionary that visually shows relationships among words.

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 08, 2009, 08:18 AM »

This is pretty cool, so I made a FARR alias for it:

1000>>>Visuwords lookup>->Visuwords lookup $$1 | http://www.visuwords.com/?word=$$1>+>^vw (.*)


(if it's not obvious, the alias is triggered by "vw", e.g., "vw mouser" to look up mouser)

433

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite Firefox Theme(s)

« Last post by CWuestefeld on April 07, 2009, 12:05 PM »

Call me the curmudgeon. I hate themes. I want my workspace to fit together, not have different cues in all my various apps.

I wish developers would stop wasting time building support for themes, and instead concentrate on stability or productive features.

434

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 24, 2009, 05:01 PM »

It also looks like a neat sidestep around the promise of life time licenses for people who purchased during that period (even thoygh he promised life time licenses would be honoured).

-Carol Haynes (March 24, 2009, 01:45 PM)

I'd say it's unethical because even today, when they've admitted that they plan to charge for the service, they are requiring people to PAY for software with an (implicit) promise of a free service for their one-time expenditure.

It's one thing to change their business model. I have a lifetime license, so I wouldn't like it. But I think they're free to launch a NEW product that is subscription-based.

But now it looks like they're trying to suck as many people in as possible in a way that makes them dependent on the service, and then switch models in midstream, getting the poor consumers coming and going. And this is why Alwin thinks that he'll be prospering: he's got a tidy little plan for shaking down his customers when they can't do anything about it.

I've got a lifetime subscription to Movies and Books from them. But they'll be going into the trash.

435

General Software Discussion / Re: Your most used SPECIAL programs

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 23, 2009, 02:25 PM »

OK, I'm being pedantic.

Enlarge Images Without Quality Loss doesnt exist as I'm sure you're fully aware

-tomos (March 23, 2009, 09:49 AM)

Actually, enlargement is perfect 100% fidelity. No information is lost when enlarging, at least for a naive algorithm. If you do straight scaling, you will be able to increase the resolution and then decrease it to the exact original size, and the output will be identical to the input. (some interpolation algorithms may, however, introduce changes)

I suppose that what you meant is that the quality can't exceed 100% in that it can't add detail that wasn't in the original (smaller) image. Various algorithms can interpolate to make the image appear to be more detailed, but this is just a trick of perception.

On the other side of the coin, it's shrinking image resolution that is necessarily lossy.

And btw, I'm a fan of Qimage, I use it all the time for printing. Keep in mind that it's useful not only for boosting (perceived) resolution, but also for applying color and broghtness corrections, for example.

436

General Software Discussion / Top OneNote tips

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 20, 2009, 01:31 PM »

There's a nice list of OneNote tips & tricks from Chris Pratley's Office Labs and OneNote Blog, and I know there are plenty of folks around these parts loving organizer tools including OneNote.

Here are a couple of cool ones I hadn't known before:

13. Type a word, right click on it, click "Create Linked page", then click the link and presto you're on a new page with that title that is linked to from the first page. Great for things like "here is the recipe for Grandma's cookies". highlight "Grandma's cookies", right click, create linked page. [CWuestefeld: this sounds like a Wiki?]

8. Right-click on image (e.g. screen clipping), copy text from picture (also works great when searching for a screen clipping - Find (Ctrl-F) will find text inside your images!)

http://blogs.msdn.co...i-heart-onenote.aspx

Anybody want to contribute other tips?

437

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the Best Movie Collection Organizer Program

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 18, 2009, 08:39 AM »

I suppose it's a good time to revive the question, as Collectorz does its best to kill Movie Collector.

What are your requirements for a good program? I need:

• find movies from authoritative sites like IMDB, Amazon, etc.
• find foreign movies (esp. Chinese), which probably implies a decent breadth to the sites it can scrape.
• Store all the stuff that might affect my choice to watch a movie:
  
  • Actors
  • Director
  • Producer
  • Length
  • Year
  • Genre
  • MPAA rating
  • "star" rating, like from IMDB
  • etc.
• Print out catalogs of my collection.
  
  • Multiple movies per page, each entry including cover thumbnail, category, actors, short description, year.
  • Complete collection, or just those I haven't yet watched.
  • Sort by various criteria, e.g., Year, Genre
• Print "keep case" cover inserts for a movie

438

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a good freeware spam filter for Outlook 2007?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 17, 2009, 11:24 AM »

I went with SpamBayes for the time being because it was simpler.  Also, on the website, its says that popfile doesn't work with Exchange.

-superboyac (March 17, 2009, 09:56 AM)

That is true. POPFile is a POP3 proxy (and, I think more recently, an IMAP and NNTP proxy). Exchange stuff doesn't come through those interfaces, so POPFile doesn't even know those messages exist. The 3rd party plugin, Outclass, used to hack around this by grabbing incoming messages and forcing POPFile to rank the stored message. But as was noted, it hasn't been developed in ages, and I wasn't able to make it work in Outlook 2007.

439

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a good freeware spam filter for Outlook 2007?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 17, 2009, 07:58 AM »

+1 for SpamBayes; it's what I use on my work PC (where I don't have KIS installed).

On one hand, POPFile is more accurate, but on the other, it's difficult to train. Because SpamBayes integrates into Outlook, you can train it with a simple toolbar click for each message. POPFile requires you to go into a separate web page to locate the message that needs training.

440

Living Room / Proposed IP Treaty declared a 'National Security' Secret

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 13, 2009, 09:45 AM »

(this borders on the political, but its implications in software and the Internet make it topical, I think)

If ratified, leaked documents posted on WikiLeaks and other comments suggest the proposed trade accord would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches and allow internet service providers to monitor their customers' communications.
...
But now, like Bush before him, Obama is playing the national security card to hide details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated across the globe.
...
The national security claim is stunning, given that the treaty negotiations have included the 27 member states of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand, all of whom presumably have access to the "classified" information.

See full article on Wired

441

General Software Discussion / Re: To cut or not to cut - The lousy MS Office ribbon

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 10, 2009, 10:06 AM »

For you Ribbon haters, I just stumbled on a free solution. I'm linking through FreewareGenius, since the program's page is in German:

UbitMenu is a free add-on for MS Office 2007 that provides the option to use an MS Office 2003-style interface alongside Office 2007’s "Ribbons" style interface. It is installed as an additional menu in Office 2007 applications (Excel, Word, and PowerPoint), allowing for switching back and forth at will between the older and newer style interfaces.

Direct link to download page: http://www.ubit.ch/s...menu-languages/#c205

Note: I haven't even tried this, as I like the ribbon. I just offer it as a possible solution for those who disagree with me.

442

Living Room / Re: The Greatest Graphic Novel of All Time: Watchmen

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 04, 2009, 07:49 PM »

Any fans of Heavy Metal magazine?

443

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Any "easy" way to create ActiveX objects (for use with JScript)?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 03, 2009, 04:31 PM »

By far the easiest way to code up ActiveX objects is using Visual Basic v6.

It's also possible to create them using VB.Net (or any .Net language) with Interop, and this could be done with the free Express editions I believe, but if you're going to do that, you may as well just use the .Net library.

444

Living Room / Re: They drew first blood, sir!

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 02, 2009, 12:16 PM »

The sort of behind-the-back card tricks and shenanigans that Microsoft does so well are exactly what the GPL is trying to stop.
"Ah, but", you may say, "the GPL limits your freedom."
Freedom to what? Freedom to accept a knife in your back?

-Edvard (March 02, 2009, 11:25 AM)

That's an absurd characterization.

Microsoft says: "You can do anything you please with our technology, but you must pay us for the right. If you don't want to pay, go invent your own way to do it."
GPL says: "You can only do the things we say you can do, but we'll never charge you for the right. If you need to use it differently, go invent your own way to do it."

I believe that's a pretty accurate simplification. And from this, it's very hard to say that one side is angelic while the other is evil.

Now, if you add onto my GPL (over)simplification: "Oh, and if you decide to pay Microsoft at all then you can't use our stuff, even if you're following all of our other rules", I just can't see how the GPL folks can come looking like white knights.

445

General Software Discussion / Re: Need to convert VOB files to compatible, compact format

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 01, 2009, 08:25 PM »

Done with the proper values, a video in the mp4 formats (e.g. DivX) ought to be quite a bit smaller than .mpg. There are a number of programs that will give you reasonable parameters for various purposes. For this particular problem I'd recommend that you look at HandBrake.

(For more general usage I recommend SUPER(c), despite its oddball user interface and annoying download process)

446

Living Room / Re: They drew first blood, sir!

« Last post by CWuestefeld on March 01, 2009, 10:28 AM »

This is a sort of war between Microsoft and the OSS folks. I can understand your annoyance with Microsoft, but why isn't this accompanied by an exact mirror back to the GPL zealots? If the GPL forbids any sort of compromise, don't they deserve every bit as much blame as Microsoft?

I imagine that MS never expected to prevail in a real lawsuit. Legally they must continue to protect their intellectual property, else they lose it. It needs to be preserved for this ongoing battle.

I you dislike the battle, you certainly can't blame Microsoft without blaming the Gnu folks as well. But since there clearly is a competition between these two parties, it also seems odd to blame them for using the tools that we, as a society, have given them. The real solution to this is to get your darned legislators to change the regime of intellectual property. (and really, the legislators are just such a bunch of a$$holes, especially lately, is there any reason not to just get rid of the lot of them?)

447

Living Room / Re: Welcome to a Preview of Your Google Future.. Ads on EVERYTHING

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 27, 2009, 05:42 AM »

Baint and switch is an aaaage old tactic, and why on earth wouldn't you use such a tactic?

-f0dder (February 26, 2009, 12:01 PM)

This isn't bait-and-switch. As the link that mouser provided defined,

a bait and switch is a form of fraud in which the party putting forth the fraud lures in customers by advertising a product or service at an unprofitably low price, then reveals to potential customers that the advertised good is not available but that a substitute is.

Google isn't promising that you can have ad-free services but not delivering on the promise. All they're doing is introducing services at a low (or free) price so that people get used to them, and then increasing the price (in the form of advertising). How many times have you seen a "special introductory offer"? I bet you've even used them a few times. That's all that you can accuse Google of.

But really, what can you possibly expect? How in the world can anyone give you services without paying for it some way? Someone has to do the programming, the servers, hard drives, bandwidth, power all have to be paid for somehow. Surely you didn't believe that there are people financing this who are just looking for a way to pump their money into providing free services for you.

448

General Software Discussion / Re: Thinking about buying Visual Studio 2008

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 25, 2009, 12:44 PM »

Count me as a hater of support for installation even in the platinum (or whatever they call it) edition of VS.Net. One possibility is Advanced Installer, which has a free edition. It was recommended to me here, but I never actually tried it myself.

Advanced Installer

449

General Software Discussion / Re: Another Google WTF moment (or is it just me?)

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 25, 2009, 08:11 AM »

It's your search history maybe.

-housetier (February 25, 2009, 06:53 AM)

+1 .. I don't understand the whole thing, but Google remembers what you've searched for and what you've liked on the list, and will manipulate *your* search results based on that history.

450

Developer's Corner / Re: What is the .NET 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 market share?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on February 24, 2009, 10:57 AM »

Not exactly what you want, but here's the only authoritative, purely objective information I can find:

• More than 120M copies of the .NET Framework have been downloaded and installed using either Microsoft downloads or Windows Update
• More than 85% of new consumer PCs sold in 2004 had the .NET Framework installed
• More than 58% of business PCs have the .NET Framework preinstalled or preloaded
• Every new HP consumer imaging device (printer/scanner/camera) will install the .NET Framework if it’s not already there – that’s 3M units per year
• Every new Microsoft IntelliPoint mouse software CD ships with the .NET Framework

http://blogs.msdn.com/scottwil/archive/2005/03/09/391199.aspx