Recent Posts

4426

Living Room / Re: Article: Please don't steal this Web content

« Last post by app103 on August 04, 2007, 03:40 AM »

What is worse is when these sites have a higher search engine ranking than the sites they steal content from.

It's even worse when your site's entire content ends up as a single blog post and that ends up on the front page of digg, with absolutely no credit given to your site. (I have had this happen to me)

It can be a pretty discouraging situation to be in when someone steals your content like this. It really doesn't do much for encouraging the victim to keep working hard and producing new content.

And I have some mixed feelings about software download sites that do this. On the one hand, they are promoting my software.

On the other, they are copying partial content from my web pages, leaving out important information or presenting it in a way that makes no sense. This is unfair and can make me and my applications look bad.

Most of the time it is for applications I don't have PAD files for. If I had wanted these applications to be included on software sites, I would have created PAD files for them and submitted it, myself.

The biggest problem with software sites doing things this way, without asking, is they never update the pages with correct or current info when you ask them to, and even if you have PAD files for your applications, changing the info in the PAD doesn't result in these sites getting updated. And they don't care if the info they give is inaccurate or outdated.

And it's not just the smaller, unknown sites that do this. Softpedia, a major site, seems to do this quite often.

I don't know if I should look at it as content and bandwidth theft or not. (many are hotlinking my screenshots and offering direct download links)

4427

General Software Discussion / Re: Mapping websites

« Last post by app103 on August 03, 2007, 11:40 AM »

Is this stuff really free? I wanted to download the program but saw a note about an expiry date. Is it a trial version?

-PhilB66 (August 03, 2007, 11:36 AM)

You have to download, install, and activate before the expiry time or you don't get it for free.

You can not install or reinstall after that time. And the expiry time you see on that page isn't the real expiry time...that is just the download expiry on that file's hosting. The real expiry time is on the program page on GiveAwayOfTheDay, which is only 1 day.

If for any reason you mess up your OS and have to format and start from scratch, you will not be able to reinstall it.

So, this is an extended trial that lasts till you mess up your OS, which for some people that make regular backup images of their OS partition, could be forever.

4428

Developer's Corner / Re: Calling all people with writing skills: I am in need of help (A lot of help)

« Last post by app103 on August 03, 2007, 08:29 AM »

I registered, but haven't got an e-mail.  It's only been about 20 minutes though, so...

I'd like JavaScript and PHP to start.  That's only 10, so it'll be done quickly.

Then I wouldn't mind doing Perl or Python, and then the other.

-fowmow (August 03, 2007, 06:57 AM)

Thank you very much.

I sent you a private message.

4429

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Show number of characters as I type in email

« Last post by app103 on August 02, 2007, 12:24 AM »

you need to create a profile & log in...and by that I mean set up an account, and create an alias on the site for each pc you will be running it on.

4430

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Show number of characters as I type in email

« Last post by app103 on August 01, 2007, 11:49 PM »

In my signature is a blue banner for the Donation Coder Whatpulse team. They have a key counter application (not a key logger!) that you can send a pulse to clear it before you begin your email, keep the 'geek dialog' window open, and observe the key count it displays.

It will not count characters you paste, and it will count backspaces as key strokes. Not a perfect solution, but it is an option.

Plus you'd be contributing to the team's scores. 

screenshot explained

kc = key count
mc = mouse clicks
tkc = total key count
tmc = total mouse clicks
rank = my position rank on the whatpulse site
klp = keys last pulse (when i cleared it by sending my totals in to the site)
miles moved = miles I have moved my mouse

4431

Developer's Corner / Re: Dev-C++ Questions ?

« Last post by app103 on August 01, 2007, 12:41 PM »

I have only used the compiler in Dev-C++ from command line.

This is the command you are looking for:

[Select]

strip <filename>

Don't ask me how to do it in the IDE, I have never actually used the IDE. 

It would be good to take a close look at the documentation for MinGW, as that is the compiler Dev-C++ uses.

4432

Coding Snacks / Re: easy to locate current working folder(s)... and file(s) i suppose

« Last post by app103 on August 01, 2007, 08:53 AM »

That's great news!

I was under the impression that they couldn't get it to work with Vista, and as a result they abandoned the project and turned it into freeware.

4433

Coding Snacks / Re: easy to locate current working folder(s)... and file(s) i suppose

« Last post by app103 on August 01, 2007, 07:09 AM »

Unless you are running Vista, FileBox Extender is pretty simple to use and will accomplish what you want to do.

It adds a little heart to the titlebar of the dialog, that when you click it, you get a menu.

All you have to is navigate to the folder once...then activate the menu and click the option at the bottom of the menu to add that folder, then select your file you wanted to open.

Next time you want to navigate to that folder, even in Explorer, you just click the heart and it will be in the list.



This is one application I don't think I could live without, just because of this feature, alone. But it has some other useful ones too.

4434

Living Room / Black Hat security presenter turned away at US border

« Last post by app103 on July 30, 2007, 08:01 PM »

German security expert denied entry to the US for carrying training materials on analyzing software for security vulnerabilities

Thomas Dullien, who's also known by the nickname Halvar Flake, was denied entry into the U.S. because he was contracted to speak at Black Hat as a private individual and not as a representative of his company, according to a post on his blog. He was refused entry after customs officials found training materials he had packed in his luggage, it said.

Dullien, the CEO and head of research at Sabre Labs, was scheduled to conduct a two-day training course at Black Hat on analyzing software for security vulnerabilities. The session, set to start on Monday and limited to 18 attendees, was sold out.

http://www.infoworld...r-turned-away_1.html

4435

Living Room / How not to do business on the internet

« Last post by app103 on July 30, 2007, 07:42 PM »

The irony in this story is so thick I may need a spatula to complete it.

Here's a lesson in how not to do business on the Internet:

a) Start a company that guarantees your customers never have to worry about having their identity stolen;

b) Publish your own Social Security Number on your company's Web site, to show just how foolproof your service is;

c) Allow a mentally retarded person to steal your identity, using the SSN you've just broadcast to the world;

d) Send thugs to his home to wring a confession from him, making the crime impossible to prosecute.

http://weblog.infowo...dumb_dumber_and.html

4436

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Free computer help online (tune-ups, customization, etc)

« Last post by app103 on July 30, 2007, 11:56 AM »

And except for defragging the OS drive, I maintain my XP machine the same way, as far as cleaning crap goes.

-app103 (July 30, 2007, 11:39 AM)

App, just to clarify
- you are saying that defragging XP-drive/partition is helpful ?

-tomos (July 30, 2007, 11:52 AM)

Honestly, I don't know. I have only done it once in the 1.5 yrs I have owned this pc, and it didn't have any kind of slowness problem to begin with when I did it. And I didn't see any difference when it was done.

I did hold my breath the whole time, though, hoping it wouldn't kill XP like it did to ME.

It didn't.

So in conclusion, it didn't hurt. Can't say it helped either, though.

4437

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Free computer help online (tune-ups, customization, etc)

« Last post by app103 on July 30, 2007, 11:39 AM »

I found a link to an article, in my collection of bookmarks, that may be of interest, concerning registry cleaners and how some performed, and why some of them may not be very good.

And the results of a test performed with 10 different cleaning tools.

Yes, this article is a bit older, but if you pay careful attention to the first page and what he had to say about some cleaners inflating the number of errors they found on repeated runs, it will give you something to think about in terms of what makes a good cleaner.

Seriously, if a cleaner is good, it should find all errors on the first run, right? And if you reboot and run it again, it shouldn't a bunch more. If it does, it is either bad at finding real errors, bad at fixing them, deliberately creating errors for it to find next time (something unethical), reporting errors that don't exist just to make it seem like it is doing something (also unethical).

http://www.informati...?articleID=171203805


Now...a bit from personal experience and 'crap cleaning' on pc's...

I have a 9x machine (WinME) that I installed Windows on over 5 years ago. It has not been formatted in that time. I have had to do one 'repair install' which involved reinstalling Windows over the existing copy without formatting first, which basically just refreshes & replaces system files. This was to fix a problem caused by a bad Windows update for IE 6 and the only way to fix it was to reinstall Windows to get back 5.5 and upgrade to 6 again.

I have never defragged the C drive. I have had some bad experiences in the past with WinME and defragging the OS drive and I'd rather not go through it again. (it was the cause of a few format/reinstall incidents on another WinME machine, where the OS wouldn't boot again after the defragging)

I have installed a lot of software, uninstalled plenty too.

The only cleaning that has been done on that system is the cleaning of the Windows temp folder, the automatic clearing of the IE cache when the browser is closed, the clearing of the AOL .art db when IE refuses to allow me to save images as anything other than .bmp, and clearing out System Restore (if you don't do it about once a year, it can take up about 2 gigs, which is half of the C drive on that pc), and manually deleting some stuff laying around that I know I didn't need.

And I only did this when I remembered to do it, which wasn't very often.

Despite the very conservative cleaning, and supposed 'neglect' of normal maintenance, it is a quite stable machine that rarely ever gives me any troubles. And it is no slower today than it was 5 years ago when I first installed Windows (as a matter of fact, I believe it is faster now.)

Now you would think that there would be tons of crap in the registry that needed cleaning after all that time of running (and it was a heavily used pc)

So I ran what was the best, safest free registry cleaner at the time...EasyCleaner (after making a full backup, just in case). It found 174 errors on the first run...nothing on a second run.

I thought this was pretty good considering how long I 'neglected' it. I let it fix all the errors it considered 'safe' to fix.

Big mistake.

I ended up with a slower machine that took longer to boot up and was quite unstable, and some serious probs with a number of applications.

So I restored the registry from the backup I had made before cleaning and the machine was stable once again. (not trusting the backup made by the application that caused the damage)

I will never clean the 'crap' out of a machine again, other than what I had been doing in the first place.

On another note: that machine once ran Win98, set up by my dad, with MS RegClean running as an automated scheduled task about once a week. I truly believe it was a contributing factor to how unstable it used to be, before I wiped it and started fresh with WinME.

The only crap cleaning I do is not for increasing speed or stability of Windows. I do it to free up wasted hard drive space.

And except for defragging the OS drive, I maintain my XP machine the same way, as far as cleaning crap goes.

I was told if you dont do any cleaning (of houses) for 5 yrs things get no worse, a worthwhile research project i think, wonder if this holds for computers? 

-Grorgy (July 27, 2007, 12:42 PM)

Do the dishes, wipe the tables & counters, keep the fridge clean, keep the bathroom sparkling, mop the floors, vacuum the rugs, do the laundry, dust every once in awhile, take out the trash, and put things away where they belong...that is all that is really needed.

It doesn't matter if you don't move the furniture and clean the dust bunnies from behind the couch or under the bed. They won't attack you or your house guests if you leave them alone. But if you bother them, you could tear holes in your carpet and vinyl flooring when moving things, or you and your guests could end up with a bad rash, coughing, sneezing, and wheezing if you are allergic and stir them up into the air you breathe.

4438

General Software Discussion / Re: Is this the holy grail to solving windows-out-of-resources bugs?

« Last post by app103 on July 29, 2007, 10:40 PM »

I have a total of eight years of intensive work with NT4 and XP, and I've never seen the problem.   Like others have said, it was easy to cause on 98.

Who can figure computers?

-mrainey (July 29, 2007, 07:33 PM)

Maybe only people that always have 90+ processes running and multiple browser windows with lots of tabs open in each, have this problem. (that would be me)

Or maybe only people with NEC (Negative Electrostatic Charisma). 

4439

Site/Forum Features / Re: compose hotkeys

« Last post by app103 on July 29, 2007, 06:45 PM »

I see what you are saying, but wouldn't the application hotkeys over-ride that and open that window any way?

4440

Site/Forum Features / Re: compose hotkeys

« Last post by app103 on July 29, 2007, 05:45 PM »

Ctrl+B would conflict with my browser's hotkeys...that would open the window to manage my bookmarks.

None of the others conflict with mine, but they could conflict on some other browser.

4441

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone actually use windows system restore if so,does it work.

« Last post by app103 on July 29, 2007, 04:08 AM »

I haven't used it in XP yet, but it has saved my butt quite a few times in WinME.

If you have the restore points to work with, it can work well...but if you don't, you are out of luck.

It won't leave your machine sluggish when it's done...at least not any more than it was when the restore point was made.

But any software you installed after the restore point was made, you may have to reinstall. And any settings changes you have made in some programs may be lost, if they were done after the restore point.

What this does is replace the registry and system files with a copy of what was made as a backup when the restore point was made.

It can take quite a while to do, sometimes. So be prepared to have to wait.

4442

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: My Windows Cursors

« Last post by app103 on July 28, 2007, 09:59 PM »

I wonder why would anyone want an icon of an empty/full toilet. Recycle bin?

-jgpaiva (July 28, 2007, 06:45 AM)

my defaults:


and you hear a flushing sound when you empty it. 

4443

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite ZIP/RAR application?

« Last post by app103 on July 28, 2007, 10:23 AM »

Speaking of zip applications, you might want to take a look at this post: SourceForge unveils winners of 'open-source Oscars'.

7-Zip won top award for overall best project and picked up the award for best technical design, too.

4444

General Software Discussion / Re: Is this the holy grail to solving windows-out-of-resources bugs?

« Last post by app103 on July 28, 2007, 10:10 AM »

Regarding Win 9x: I sometimes still use Win 98 SE on an old machine and while it's generally okay, I keep running into the "low resources" problem (running out of user/GDI resources because the resource heaps were too limited by design). I've seen enough descriptions of this problem, but nobody seems to ever have patched it. A similar simple fix for 9x would have been great.

-alxwz (July 27, 2007, 05:33 PM)

Even though you can't really fix the problem on 9x, you at least get a nice resource meter with the operating system, that you can keep in your tray to let you know how things stand. (green is good)

Unlike XP, which you have no idea how close to the limit you are and when things will start screwing up on you. (you only get a CPU meter to keep in your tray, if you minimize the task manager) The only warning I have in XP, is when context menus start missing entries. Then I know bigger trouble is on its way.

Funny, I've never bumped into this problem with win2k or XP... And I've run lots of apps, very resource-hungry apps, and have had uptimes of 14+ days.

-f0dder (July 28, 2007, 06:45 AM)

I always bump into this problem about every 5-7 days. Yeah, sure, if you close some things and wait, it does get better, but you hit that limit faster and faster till you reboot. It's the reason my uptime isn't what it should be with XP. I have better uptime with my 9x machine. And the problem became worse when I upgraded to IE 7, for some reason. (and I don't use IE 7, directly)

The problem doesn't happen with a few resource intensive apps running...more like when I have a lot of things running (regardless of how resource intensive they are), or many browser windows open, with each having a lot of tabs.

My daughter ran into this problem all the time on her ex-boyfriend's pc while doing photo-work in Paintshop Pro, and didn't really know what it was at the time. It seemed to limit the amount of images she could open at one time, to about 20. After that, new images would refuse to open and the application would start acting weird with the menus.

This is not a setting in the program, as far as I know. It has no limits you can set for the number of images you can have open, and I don't have any limits on this machine with the same version of Paintshop Pro. I can open 100+ at one time (not that I normally would).

alxwz: I'm not sure there's a simple fix for win9x, parts of the operating system still runs 16bit code from the win3.x days... there's some hard limits there. Basically, don't try to run 3d studio max or other GDI-intensive stuff on win9x.

-f0dder (July 28, 2007, 06:45 AM)

Hardware limitations prevent me from running things like that on my 9x machine, but you can still run some rather GDI-intensive things...just make sure that is all you are running (close anything you really don't need), make sure you have freshly rebooted the machine first, and be prepared to reboot again when you are done.

It's how I run things like Delphi 6 and Dreamweaver 4 on a machine that doesn't meet the min specs for running those applications. I still have problems with TightVNC when there is an active connection, though, no matter what I do.

mouser, when you finish tell us how the thing went

-Lashiec (July 27, 2007, 09:39 AM)

I have tried this fix on my XP machine and I will let everyone know how it worked out for me (in about a week or so).

4445

Living Room / P2P users expose US government secrets

« Last post by app103 on July 28, 2007, 07:34 AM »

Contractors and U.S. government employees are sharing hundreds of secret documents on peer-to-peer networks, in many cases overriding the default security settings on their P-to-P software to do so, according to a company that monitors the networks.

Among the files shared: Physical threat assessments for multiple cities, including Philadelphia and Miami; a physical security attack assessment for a U.S. Air Force base; a detailed report from a government contractor on how to connect two secure Department of Defense (DOD) networks; a document titled, "NSA (National Security Agency) Security Handbook."

http://www.infoworld...nment-secrets_1.html

4446

General Software Discussion / SourceForge unveils winners of 'open-source Oscars'

« Last post by app103 on July 28, 2007, 07:27 AM »

Popular open-source software development site SourceForge.net hosted the equivalent of the open-source Oscars on Thursday evening, billing the event as a big party, not a painfully long and formal awards ceremony.

http://www.infoworld...ource-winners_1.html

4447

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: My Windows Cursors

« Last post by app103 on July 27, 2007, 06:08 PM »

I have been using this one for the last 8 years:


(magic wand)

I use it on both of my PC's. (there is no shadow on XP, even if you have that setting enabled)

Shows up well on both light & dark backgrounds and the animated blinking tip (looks like little yellow sparks) lets me know if my old 9x PC is frozen or just being extremely slow.

I have tried some others, but I keep coming back to this one.

but I see that switching to a left facing cursor, might throw you for a loop.  Did I get you dizzy?

-thefritz_j (July 27, 2007, 03:40 PM)

Those are actually perfect for left handed people. They make more sense when you are using your mouse on the left side of your keyboard, with your left hand.

4448

Living Room / Re: reCaptcha: Stopping spam while digitizing books

« Last post by app103 on July 27, 2007, 05:12 PM »

Here's an idea: instead of giving out two captcha string challenges with indeterminate open sesames, it displays the first string with definite answer, followed by the second one with some uncertainty at the verification end -- whose purpose is to help to digitize books.

-Wordzilla (July 27, 2007, 01:58 PM)

That is exactly what it is supposed to be doing.

In one case (among others) i was given the image that should read: relations ascrib, and when I intentionally entered: relati0n5 a5crib (by substituting o, s with 0, 5), it still passed.

-Wordzilla (July 27, 2007, 01:58 PM)

Could be that it thought that was a very 'human' error and let you slide. It could be a really '1337' captcha. 

What would happen if you typed something totally messed up instead? Would it still pass?

Try it using some non-obvious substitutions, like instead of 0 for o and 5 for s, try 3 for o and 7 for s.

4449

Living Room / Re: What do you think of this?

« Last post by app103 on July 27, 2007, 01:09 PM »

You have a great collection of flash games there, but you also have a lot of broken thumbnail images.

4450

Living Room / Top Ten Sci-Fi Sites

« Last post by app103 on July 27, 2007, 08:58 AM »

Some of the sites on his list are more science than fiction.

It’s sometimes difficult these days to differentiate between science fiction and fact, because the two worlds often borrow ideas from each other. If you've ever read Alfred Bester's classic 1956 sci-fi thriller "The Stars My Destination", or Ray Bradbury's space novels from the same era, you can't help but think that scientists in years to come were influenced when designing real-life computers and space vehicles. Check out my Top Ten Sci-Fi Sites list, and don’t be surprised if many of them contain concepts that exist in our age of quickly advancing technology...

http://askbobrankin....e_fiction_sites.html

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