Recent Posts

4751

General Software Discussion / Re: Best app ore method to restore a Win7 system? (not a disk image)

« Last post by 4wd on August 07, 2010, 11:54 PM »

Another thread hijack:

I thought I'd try Shark007's codec pack since it seemed people were saying good things about it........stupid me, (will I never learn?) 

A file that before installation I had no trouble playing in MPC-HC, no longer would play the video even though MPC-HC is set to use it's internal filters.

The config interface for Shark007's codec pack is confusing compared to ffdshow, IMO, or maybe I'm just used to ffdshow.

So, after all of 20 minutes Shark007 got removed and I went back to XviD 1.22 (x86) and ffdshow x64 - and everything works again.

Codec packs - BAH!

4752

General Software Discussion / Re: Media players

« Last post by 4wd on August 05, 2010, 09:50 AM »

-thanks, 4wd 

-Curt (August 05, 2010, 02:25 AM)

No problem - I just found where I picked up a later build.

Nightly builds are available from XhmikosR >here< - use the msvc2008 builds.

4753

General Software Discussion / Re: Media players

« Last post by 4wd on August 04, 2010, 07:26 PM »

Yet, it hasn't been updated since 28-Aug/2009.

-Curt (July 27, 2010, 03:37 PM)

You can find later SVN builds of MPC-HC here, (Russian) - the latest is 1.3.2099.0 on 03 Jul 2010.

Take note that you need the latest DirectX 9 build for it to work properly.

4754

Living Room / Re: Router Q: Bandwidth thottling

« Last post by 4wd on August 02, 2010, 09:55 PM »

Quite a lot of the Zyxel modem and router range support Media Bandwidth Management - they can throttle the bandwidth used depending on the traffic/IP/port/etc applicable to WAN/LAN/WLAN independently on a Priority or Fairness based model.

I use it to give priority to WLAN traffic and also throttle my downloader pc when there's HTML/email/etc traffic happening.

Otherwise, there is also cFosSpeed which I've used for years.  You can install it on all PCs and it will co-operatively prioritise the bandwidth among them giving P2P and other bulk protocols a lower priority.  It can also do online budgets based on time or volume, traffic analysis, usage graph and prioritise to favour ping time or bandwidth.

Personally, I think it's a great program and it certainly works for my network setup but you can try it for free for 30 days to see if it's suitable for your circumstances.

NOTE: I'm only a happy user of cFosSpeed, not in any way associated with the company.  I got my license for free, (by providing traffic data for my hardware/ISP), but I also bought another license.

4755

Living Room / Re: Learning from Cats -- My New Strategy for Dealing with Things I Don't Understand

« Last post by 4wd on August 02, 2010, 09:17 PM »

Honestly, that's S.O.P. #1 in anything technical that's not acting like it should.

ie. HIT IT!  Preferably with the biggest hammer you can find - if the fault was intermittent before, it's now permanent.....which makes it a LOT easier to diagnose

4756

Living Room / Re: Build a $200 Linux PC -- How-to by ExtremeTech

« Last post by 4wd on July 28, 2010, 02:54 AM »

I checked, and didn't see anything like that. It looks like it's still free.

-Renegade (July 27, 2010, 09:39 PM)

Free download - from what I can see in the License Agreement, it's as Zaine said, you have to buy a Service Contract after 90 days.

Solaris 10 Download Customers
Obtaining an Entitlement Document is simple. On the Solaris 10 Get It page, select the platform and format you desire from the drop-down menus, and then click the Download Solaris 10 button. When you arrive at the Sun Download Center, either sign in or register, ensuring that a valid e-mail address is part of your Sun Download Center account to receive the Entitlement Document. Fill out the Solaris download survey, specifying the number of systems on which you are installing the software. Once you have completed the survey, you will be redirected to the Solaris 10 download page for downloading, and your Entitlement Document will be sent to your registered e-mail address. Please remember, your right to use Solaris acquired as a download is limited to a trial of 90 days, unless you acquire a service contract for the downloaded Software.

However, OpenSolaris seems to be free to download and use - perhaps that is the version you alluded too?

4757

General Software Discussion / Re: Problem: The connection to the server was reset ...

« Last post by 4wd on July 28, 2010, 02:43 AM »

Perhaps WireShark ?

I used it find out where my connection was going awry with respect to gaming servers on my previous ISP, (turned out they ran all the HTTP traffic through their proxy and you had to specifically request a destination IP bypass otherwise the packets just never got through).

Have it monitor the connection and log everything, (keep the logs smallish ~2MB and only the last few), pause it's logging when it happens and see what it says - IIRC, the log was pretty easy to understand.

4758

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by 4wd on July 19, 2010, 03:26 AM »

Otherwise, freecommander will let you Rename/Add/Delete/Quickview files within ZIP archives.

-4wd (July 19, 2010, 02:35 AM)

And extract as well, I suppose?

-DonL (July 19, 2010, 03:00 AM)

eerrrr, yes....knew I forgot something  

4759

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by 4wd on July 19, 2010, 02:35 AM »

Hmm, this ZIP demand seems to get stronger recently. Can you point me to a free file manager that supports it? I have a couple of questions concerning the functionality and seeing the feature at work would easily answer all of them.

-DonL (July 19, 2010, 01:22 AM)

While not free, you can use DOpus for 60 days, fully functional, on a trial license  

Otherwise, freecommander will let you Rename/Add/Delete/Quickview files within ZIP archives.

4760

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 4.0 Beta 1

« Last post by 4wd on July 18, 2010, 07:55 AM »

Greasemonkey doesn't seem to work with beta 1.

-daddydave (July 13, 2010, 12:44 PM)

Check out this GreaseMonkey modification - it works OK here, (reported that some scripts don't work though I haven't had a problem yet).

Aardvark 3.0, BugMeNot 2.2, OptimizeGoogle 0.78.1 also work after <em:maxVersion> modification.

4761

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 4.0 Beta 1

« Last post by 4wd on July 08, 2010, 11:44 PM »

Also as someone noted on Lifehacker, they got "tabs on top" wrong and it doesn't give as much web page real estate as Chrome gives you.

-daddydave (July 08, 2010, 09:25 AM)

I thought I give Portable Firefox 4.0b1 a go and I really like it so far.  Seems to be faster than the previous version I've used for the last 6-8 months, (3.7pre5), using 116MB with 6 tabs open, (as I also have 8GB it's not a problem AFAIAC), but the one thing I hate is this move to Tabs on Top!

Why do it?  At least they kindly provided the option to move them back to their traditional place.

As for more screen real estate with Chrome, while I don't have/use Chrome I do use IronPortable, (which is the same interface AFAIK).

IronPortable on the Left, Firefox 4.0b1 on the right.

Tabs on Top:


Tabs on Bottom:


Firefox 4.0b1 wins by ~2 pixels.

From what I can see, Iron (Chrome) only gains space because it has no StatusBar at the bottom - which you can turn off in Firefox.

Conclusion: Firefox 4 has more screen real estate than Iron (Chrome) when the Tabs are where they are supposed to be - below the Address Bar

Now the only annoying thing is trying to get some must have addons to work.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the above is on Win7 - YMMV on another OS.

4762

Living Room / Re: TV Controls (rant)

« Last post by 4wd on July 07, 2010, 04:57 AM »

Just one more thing to be grateful for IMHO. I'd like it even more if they could whittle it down to 10 minutes per episode.

-40hz (July 06, 2010, 09:37 PM)

that shouldn't present any difficulties

now if they could just work some content in there somewhere...

-Target (July 07, 2010, 12:31 AM)

Actually, if they just told you the programme was 10 minutes of ads then there wouldn't be a problem - it's the sitting through ~20 minutes of crap to watch the ads that is so annoying.

I remember having to wait a few minutes for the TV to warm up when you turned it on. 

-app103 (July 06, 2010, 11:41 PM)

Nothing quite like the glow of some vacuum tubes to brighten your day

4763

Living Room / Re: TV Controls (rant)

« Last post by 4wd on July 06, 2010, 08:54 PM »

This is why modern AC units no longer automatically restart after a power failure: it's potentially bad for the compressor and the local electric utility.

-40hz (July 06, 2010, 07:28 AM)

Interesting. My AC unit must be really old then. It was actually powered off one time, and then somehow it powered itself on when the electricity was restored after an outage.

-Deozaan (July 06, 2010, 06:07 PM)

It also depends how good the filtering is on the units' mains input.  When the mains comes back on there are usually small fluctuations, (or the mains flicks on/off a couple of times), before reaching it's normal "steady state" - the resultant transients are sometimes enough to trigger the unit on.

(EDIT: Ooops! sorry 4wd. I just noticed you already commented on that!  )

-40hz (July 06, 2010, 07:28 AM)

The more the merrier

This is why modern AC units no longer automatically restart after a power failure: it's potentially bad for the compressor and the local electric utility.

And I wish fridge/freezer manufacturers incorporated a time delay in their units to allow the compressor to 'decompress' since where I live gets brownouts and power flicks reasonably regularly and I always have to turn the fridge off for 15 minutes before the compressor will work again.
Otherwise the thermal cutout keeps switching in, a never ending cycle of compressor on/off which will eventually burn it out - bring back the good old units where the compressor motors had enough grunt to overcome this problem.

4764

General Software Discussion / Re: Lifehacker's Guide to Ripping and Converting Flash Videos

« Last post by 4wd on July 06, 2010, 01:46 AM »

I am trying to find some sites that do Mp4 conversion from Youtube. Any advice?

-Mikethomas (July 06, 2010, 12:39 AM)

KeepVid

4765

Living Room / Re: TV Controls (rant)

« Last post by 4wd on July 06, 2010, 12:24 AM »

Next, the onscreen TV guide is sluggish beyond comprehension. DVD players are similarly sluggish too though. I suppose a 2+ second wait is reasonable for most people? It certainly isn't for me.

Then, when it turns midnight, it takes a half hour to update the time in the onscreen TV guide...

I remember YEARS ago when I was a kid and changing the channel was INSTANTANEOUS! Turning now is like waiting for the next ice age.

-Renegade (July 05, 2010, 02:27 PM)

Welcome to the digital age!  The TV now has to sync itself with the digital packets that are sent, decide which is a better signal if it's received via multipath, etc, etc.  Instead of the good old analogue days where the signal was 'just there' and the poor old TV had nothing much to do except turn it into a moving picture, (along with any ghosts).

Now days there's error correction, "don't let anyone record this" broadcast flags, 7+ day EPG and probably a whole lot more the TV has to decipher.  The EPG is updated as the data is sent, (unless you happen to have a TV that can store it all in memory for all channels as it's received).  I'd liken it to Teletext in the analogue era - to see it updated you'd have to wait until that particular page was sent again in the cycle.  And even then it depends on how diligent the TV programmers are - in Australia they are atrocious.

I can't say I've ever noticed the clock being 30 minutes late at midnight though, then again I've never been staring at the guide at midnight, (or watching the TV for that matter).

Finally, the best thing on the tube is Jerry Springer with "You slept with my baby's daddy".

You're wrong - the best thing on a TV is the Off button.  I watch only two things on the TV 'live' - SBS World News, (the bit before all the sports crap), and Dr Who, (and only because it's on the ABC, ie. no ads); the only other thing I watch recorded is the WRC.

Most set-top boxes, for example, have a switching power outlet in the back so that when you turn on the box the TV comes on as well automatically.

-Innuendo (July 05, 2010, 07:43 PM)

Most STBs here are too small to incorporate a switched mains output - I've yet to see one.  Plus almost all TVs I've seen go to standby when power is applied, (as I would have thought be required under 'Green' design/laws/legislation/etc).

4766

Living Room / Re: 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt

« Last post by 4wd on June 30, 2010, 08:34 PM »

I just hope it turns out better than the plot summary.

-4wd (June 30, 2010, 06:41 PM)

That shouldn't be too hard.

-Deozaan (June 30, 2010, 06:55 PM)

I'd almost believe you if it wasn't for the fact I've seen plot summaries that read better than the movie

4767

Living Room / Re: 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt

« Last post by 4wd on June 30, 2010, 06:41 PM »

Let's also not forget Howard Hawks original screen adaptation of by John W. Campbell, Jr.'s 1938 sci-fi novella Who Goes There.

...

It's a good enough story that his film was remade two additional times. Carpenter's 1981 version (relocated from the North Pole to Antarctica) kept the original vibe and resulted in that rarest of all Hollywood creatures: a remake that compared favorably with an original. The 1998 edition was long on special effects and name actors, but somehow didn't quite capture the eerie feelings of isolation and weirdness that the previous two versions produced. Maybe this is just one of those pictures that benefits from slightly stilted dialog, lesser acting talent, and B&W photography.

-40hz (June 15, 2010, 02:04 PM)

Going back to one of the earlier posts, Carpenter's 'The Thing' is one of my all time favourite films, (right up there with Alien), but I hadn't heard of a remake in 1998.

Can you give me link in IMDB to it please?

Also, get ready for The Thing (2011) - I just hope it turns out better than the plot summary.

4768

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend disk imaging software?

« Last post by 4wd on June 29, 2010, 04:54 AM »

Quote from 4wd

I prefer doing offline disc/partition imaging.

What does that mean 'offline'?

-CleverCat (June 29, 2010, 01:44 AM)

The image software either sets itself to do the backup when the primary OS isn't running, (after the next restart), or you physically boot into another OS to do it yourself.
A boot CD/Flash drive, (eg. Paragon's Restoration CD - which will also do backups and a few other things), a separate OS on another drive/partition, etc from where you can run your backup software.

Anything that minimises the chance of the primary OS SNAFU'ing the backup, (maybe because of any programs doing other things at the time).

Why do I prefer it?  While it's my primary machine, it's no real hardship for me if the OS bites the dust - I don't use it for anything work related, (because I don't work), it's just a perpetual hobby albeit a pricey one sometimes.  A backup image makes it quick/easy but not having one will only slow me down about 3-4 hours - just gives me something to do during the day

4769

Living Room / Re: 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt

« Last post by 4wd on June 28, 2010, 07:36 PM »

@Innuendo:
Which 'Wicker man' do you mean?
The most recent one with Nicolas Cage is hardly worth the trouble. Then again, I am not impressed by the latest works of N.C. in the first place. The first release was way more disturbing to me.

-Shades (June 28, 2010, 07:04 PM)

It would have to be the first, as you have said, the remake was crap.

Then again, 40Hz can always use the 'out' that The Wicker Man (1973) was not a production of Hollywood and therefore not bound by their ridiculous taboos 

4770

Living Room / Re: 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt

« Last post by 4wd on June 28, 2010, 06:42 PM »

The Wicker Man

The Skeleton Key

-Innuendo (June 28, 2010, 09:01 AM)

Exactly two that I was going to mention, I was also going to mention Burnt Offerings because I seem to remember an ending similar to Skeleton Key but I wanted to review it first, (then again maybe it's ending is 'too' supernatural to be classed as human.)

I wouldn't necessarily have classed the ending in No Country For Old Men as evil/bad guy winning because it's left too open, it's not final.  Hollywood could go on to make 13+ sequels as usual.

4771

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend disk imaging software?

« Last post by 4wd on June 28, 2010, 07:02 AM »

That looks good 4wd - better than built in System Restore on XP I presume?

-CleverCat (June 28, 2010, 02:45 AM)

Well, considering XP's System Restore never worked reliably any time I used it, (so much so that I removed it from all subsequent XP nlite installs), then I'd have to say yes.

I only tried CTM once months ago when it was still v1, (not long after it was unveiled), it worked the one time then I uninstalled it because it wasn't really suited to my methods - I prefer doing offline disc/partition imaging.

Which reminds me I should do a backup

4772

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend disk imaging software?

« Last post by 4wd on June 28, 2010, 01:38 AM »

If you're thinking of using ShadowProtect then maybe it's time to take a look at Comodo Time Machine, which is in a similar vein, and see if it's progressed to the point where it's a contender.

Bear in mind that while it's at v2.6 it is still undergoing a fair amount of development but at least the price is right

4773

Living Room / Re: 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt

« Last post by 4wd on June 27, 2010, 07:29 AM »

Children are not to be subjected to cruelty or physical harm. You may threaten harm. But have a scene in a script where a child actually gets hurt and your script will be tossed in the trash.

-40hz (June 26, 2010, 10:36 PM)

How does that gel with the ending of The Mist ?

While you don't actually get to see the deed done, the killing of the boy is very graphically implied.  (Apologies to people who may not have seen the film but what I've typed in no way gives away the whole plot.)

But then, the SciFi/Horror genre is allowed a bit more flexibility with regard to how a story ends.

That's one of the reasons why all those unstoppable-psycho-serial-killer franchises (Freddie Kreuger, Jason, et al) have so many sequels. Hollywood will not allow these stories to end with evil triumphant.

-40hz (June 24, 2010, 10:52 PM)

I would have put it down as trying to milk more money out of the movie watchers.  If they just didn't want to end with evil being triumphant then they could have stopped at Friday the 13th or A nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, (to use your two psycho examples), but they didn't.  From that point on it was just greed, IMO.  (If you follow the premise of New Nightmare you could actually say that Evil has won - who else would be causing all these crappy sequels to be inflicted upon us?)

Anyone who enjoys the SciFi/Horror genre will go along and see the sequel no matter how bad it is, they'll watch the following sequels in the hope they will be better than the previous, etc, etc, etc.

I know, I am stupid enough to sit through every sequel of most SciFi/Horror films. 

4774

Living Room / Re: Format Converter

« Last post by 4wd on June 25, 2010, 11:31 PM »

I only read text-only email, anything else gets deleted - not my problem if I never received it.

-4wd (June 25, 2010, 07:20 PM)

You wouldn't be a Pegasus Client, client by any chance? I used that email client for many years.

-MilesAhead (June 25, 2010, 10:03 PM)

No, before I had a computer, (pre 1984), I used pine on a Linux/BSD server I had access to; followed by Thor on the Amiga; then straight to Thunderbird on the PC.

I just hate HTML email, there is no logical reason for it to exist.

4775

Living Room / Re: Format Converter

« Last post by 4wd on June 25, 2010, 07:20 PM »

convert attachments in e-mail or change formats in video clips and movies

-telephonics (June 25, 2010, 07:33 AM)

Attachments can be converted online if you don't want to go looking for specific converters: Media-Convert

It'll also do video/audio conversion but it's probably faster to download a program and do it locally.

For a long time I used text-only email(no html) until I had to give in because everyone else was sending non-compliant crap so I had to be able to read it.

-MilesAhead (June 25, 2010, 05:40 PM)

I only read text-only email, anything else gets deleted - not my problem if I never received it.