Recent Posts

4951

General Software Discussion / Re: Paragon Drive Backup+Recovery 10 Free - good full drive imaging tool

« Last post by 4wd on November 07, 2009, 05:06 PM »

As my lawyer advised me, I can't recall.

-MilesAhead (November 07, 2009, 12:12 PM)

Ahhh, the Political Defense

4952

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2009, 07:51 PM »

MS disables it in desktop editions because of any possible driver compatibility problems, (and you have to admit there are a lot of drivers that really shouldn't have seen the light of day).

Taken from Wikipedia^w and paraphrased on MSDN:

Very basically, each process is still limited to 4GB because of the 32bit addresses, but the OS can use a processor control register to map that 4GB space above the 4GB. So process "A" might have it's 4GB virtual address space start in physical ram at 8GB, process "B" at 12GB, etc.

That implies that software doesn't specifically have to be written to use memory above 4GB, just be coded to be PAE friendly, (eg. various ramdisk drivers - this is probably a bad example but I'm sure f0dder will tell me if it is ), because the CPU will take care of where that process will run.

The point was: A 32bit OS can address more than the physical limitation of 2^32 if the OS chooses to, (barring hardware limitations).  Thus it's an arbitrary limit imposed by the designer of the OS, eg. MS.

EDIT: Dang it! f0dder beat me again!

4953

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2009, 05:43 PM »

Arbitrary 3.xGB limit? It's a limit of 32 bit processors, not windows....

-Josh (November 06, 2009, 05:42 PM)

Is that why the 32bit versions of Win2003 and Win2008 server can use the full 4GB?

And since when has a Phenom II, Athlon 64, etc, etc been a 32bit processor.

Memory Limits for Windows releases:

Win 2003
Win 2008

4954

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2009, 05:38 PM »

I'll be sticking with XP because it just works for what I want to do.  Plus, I don't know if they've improved it yet but when I tried W7, trying to get it to accept that my XP machine was on the local network was an absolute PITA if it decided it wasn't a 'HomeGroup'.

Right now, about the only thing that would make me consider upgrading is an absolute ripper of a game that required DX10+ and I don't see that happening anytime in the next year or two.

And I'd really like to know that why, (with 4GB+ PCs becoming more prevalent), the dimwits at MS don't remove the arbitrary 3.xGB limit in the 32bit versions.

4955

General Software Discussion / Re: Paragon Drive Backup+Recovery 10 Free - good full drive imaging tool

« Last post by 4wd on November 06, 2009, 12:26 AM »

Just tried PBRFE10, (I have Hard Disk Manager Suite 2009):

Backup is a little slow, (Best Compression), I suspect this is because it's trying to compress already compressed files, (png, MPEG4, etc), on the partition I tried.
Verified by doing the same backup without compression - it did it in less than half the time.
Unfortunately there's nowhere where you can filter files to not compress.

Backup file mounted and unmounted without a problem but even if you can't, you can browse through the contents within PBRFE10 and export files to another drive.

Restore from within XP went without a hitch and was approx. 30%-40% faster than the, (Best Compression), backup operation.

So I created a Recovery Media on a spare Flash drive and booted from that and was pleasantly surprised when all my HDDs were listed, (AMD 780G with SATA in AHCI mode), something Acronis usually failed to do without having to find the latest filters.  A restore using the previously created uncompressed image took 1 minute longer than it did creating it under XP, (6.5 minutes).

Having an extension *.pfm is pretty much a non-event AFAIAC because that's what 'Open With' is for, (there are other extensions which clash, eg. *.nfo, you only have to go to The File Extension Source and pick a letter).
The extension PFM is also used by:
PFM     Printer Font Metrics (Adobe Systems Incorporated)
PFM    Portable Float Map Graphics Data

The docs say it mounts as FAT32 but for a 20 or 40 GB image I imagine that's no problem.

-MilesAhead (November 05, 2009, 05:38 PM)

The drive information on my mounted backup shows it as NTFS.  I don't see how or why they would bother with an on-the-fly NTFS->FAT32 conversion just for working with a mounted image.

4956

Living Room / Re: Do you need to know more about who is tracking and online privacy?

« Last post by 4wd on November 05, 2009, 12:03 AM »

You need to remove the last '-' from the link so it'll work.

4957

General Software Discussion / Re: Paragon Drive Backup+Recovery 10 Free - good full drive imaging tool

« Last post by 4wd on November 04, 2009, 09:50 PM »

For one thing the paid version gets you WinPE.

-MilesAhead (November 04, 2009, 07:14 PM)

Paragon also include WinPE media with some versions of their programs:

Drive Backup 9 Pro  (currently same price as Personal)
System Backup 2010
Hard Disk Manager Suite 2009

Possibly others, didn't check everything they sell.

4958

What's the Best? / Re: Video conversion: What's the best (freeware or shareware)?

« Last post by 4wd on November 02, 2009, 12:47 AM »

I'm pretty happy with my Philips dvp 5990.  For the price I can't complain.  The main things on my wishlist are:

-MilesAhead (October 27, 2009, 09:42 PM)

Have you checked for alternative firmwares at DivXpert Firmwares ?

4959

Living Room / Re: For the person who has everything - an € 800 Mouse

« Last post by 4wd on October 28, 2009, 08:57 PM »

Christ, it looks like a bottle opener, and is almost as ugly as B&O design... 

-f0dder (October 28, 2009, 02:52 AM)

Actually, I was thinking it could double as a paper clip.

4960

General Software Discussion / Re: Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work

« Last post by 4wd on October 27, 2009, 09:52 AM »

There probably is in "about:config" but I've had the Nightly Tester Tools installed for so long that I wouldn't know.

NTT adds a button to the Addon window that lets you override all compatibility checking for addons and themes.

4961

General Software Discussion / Re: Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work

« Last post by 4wd on October 26, 2009, 10:02 PM »

Just installed over my Portable version and all extensions work after version override.

LavaFox for the theme here.

4962

General Software Discussion / Re: wanted: simple, stable bittorrent client for windows

« Last post by 4wd on October 25, 2009, 08:26 PM »

I find that utorrent not only lacks some features I love, but it also has much less respect for the connection settings I set, in some conditions causing poor internet performance, and even crashing routers despite extremely limiting connection settings (100 connections global max).

-Kamel (October 25, 2009, 07:54 PM)

µTorrent also did that on my router but it's not just the number of connections that is the problem - it's also how fast they're made.

My router was resetting every few hours using µTorrent no matter what connection limit I used until I changed two Advanced values - since then, not one µTorrent related router reset.

bt.connect_speed = 8
net.max_halfopen = 4

All of which is mentioned in the TroubleShooting section here.

+1 for µTorrent.  It runs 24/7 here but TBH, it's speed isn't that important to me since my main source of material is newsgroups.

4963

General Software Discussion / Re: Putting All My (Legally Obtained) Music Online

« Last post by 4wd on October 24, 2009, 02:25 PM »

@josh
I'm looking into using Jinzora on one of my servers. The problem is that it becomes one more application that I have to administer. I'd rather use a web service and not have to deal with the sysadmin part.

-tinjaw (October 24, 2009, 09:58 AM)

Has been mentioned before in a thread here, HFS running on one of your servers - minimal resources and easily administered.

HFS running the Thunderchicken of Glory, it has integrated player app, (audio/video), so it'll work with any browser:

4964

Living Room / Re: You have a computer backup plan.. but does it work?

« Last post by 4wd on October 23, 2009, 09:59 PM »

I'm thinking the power down landing zone bit might not work as designed if the thing is running flat?

-MilesAhead (October 23, 2009, 01:05 PM)

The Quick Install Guide shows the drive being mounted horizontally.

If anything, mounting it vertically would be more likely to affect any power down landing as being mounted horizontally the actuator always requires the same effort to 'park'.  Whereas vertically, it either has to move up or down hill as it were, requiring more or less effort to move.

All in all, it really doesn't matter whether it's vertical or horizontal as, AFAIK, all current desktop/enterprise drives are designed with both types of mounting in mind.

Where it could possibly be an issue is where the drive is mounted at an oblique angle, in which case bearing load would probably come into play.

EDIT: Considering that probably 90% of desktops/towers use horizontal mounting, they'd probably be cutting their own throat, (income-wise), if they specified a vertical only mounting, (the Caviar Black is designed for Desktop not Enterprise environments).

4965

Living Room / Re: You have a computer backup plan.. but does it work?

« Last post by 4wd on October 22, 2009, 07:13 AM »

With the prevalence of motherboards these days that routinely have an eSATA port, I'd expand on the external USB HDD by saying an external USB HDD WITH an eSATA port.

The cases are cheap enough if you want to roll your own, eg. CoolerMaster Xcraft series I've found are very reliable and work with all motherboards I've tried whereas the Vantec Nexstar seems to be rather picky about what chipsets it will work with.

And the time saved in multi-GB transfers is significant.

4966

Living Room / Re: I am looking for the best DIY/Barebones Laptop......

« Last post by 4wd on October 21, 2009, 04:58 AM »

Try http://www.dabs.com/...d-pdas,laptops/11105 - you just click the bits you want to narrow down the selection.

-Carol Haynes (October 21, 2009, 03:45 AM)

Thanks Carol, misses out on some brands, (MSI, Benq, etc - for screen sizes I know they produce), but at least it's a start 

4967

General Software Discussion / Re: RAMdisk on XP 32bit - brainstorming!

« Last post by 4wd on October 21, 2009, 01:31 AM »

Just thought I'd add to this thread for those that were interested.

VSuite Ramdisk now supports Windows 2000 to Windows 7 in 32/64 bit flavours.

Supported OS

Windows 2000, Windows XP (32-/64-bit), Windows 2003 (32-bit/64-bit), Windows Vista (32-/64-bit), Windows 2008 (32-/64-bit), Windows 7 (32-/64-bit)

note: Free Edition only supports Windows 2000/XP(32-bit)/2003(32-bit)

Note though, that the 64bit versions cost a little more than the 32bit versions.

4968

Living Room / Re: RAM & Virtualisation

« Last post by 4wd on October 21, 2009, 01:15 AM »

See way back here when we had an enlightening discussion about the various RAM drive software available.

As for assigning it to a virtual OS, I think the only way is to create a RAM drive, copy the HDD image of the virtual OS to it and then run it but it will still steal whatever RAM it uses from XP, ie. anything less than the 3.5GB boundary.

4969

Living Room / Re: Reporting myself to a moderator

« Last post by 4wd on October 21, 2009, 01:08 AM »

Couldn't you just edit everything out of the message and replace it with:



or



Personally, I think this would be better as just deleting posts disrupts the flow of the thread, (considering how many here seem to have no life and can respond to a post quicker than you could reach for a delete button ).

4970

Living Room / Re: I am looking for the best DIY/Barebones Laptop......

« Last post by 4wd on October 20, 2009, 09:01 PM »

I second that notion.  I once considered building my own laptop and didn't find any aspect of it worth my time, money, or otherwise.  I would strongly recommend buying the best laptop for your needs that already exists.

-superboyac (October 20, 2009, 06:43 PM)

And in that vein I'd love to know of a site where you could enter in what features you'd like in a laptop and have it spit out a range of makes/models, not being restricted to whatever the site's trying to flog.

4971

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 42-09

« Last post by 4wd on October 19, 2009, 10:31 PM »

6. The more I watch these groups the more they resemble the copyright enforcers in K.W Jeter's Noir.

To make a long story short, eventually the penalty of copyright infringement is a fate worse than death. To have your consciousness inserted into an electronic device which would be turned over to the copyright holder as a gift. If you steal his intellectual property, he gets yours...your whole mind. You'll be trapped in a toaster forever & ever, fully aware, and this is done without a trial.

This fate is pretty scary and is quite effective at eliminating copyright infringement. But since it is now eliminated, there is no need for copyright enforcers any more. ...

-app103 (October 19, 2009, 10:43 AM)

Hang on, if there was no copyright cops what would stop the copyright holders from copying the copyright infringers?

If the copyright holder is now a copyright infringer and the original copyright infringer is now the copyright holder whose rights have been infringed:

If subsequently caught, would the original copyright holder's mind be then downloaded into the device that the original copyright infringer resides in?

Do you copy?

* Edited for clarity.

4972

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 42-09

« Last post by 4wd on October 18, 2009, 08:09 PM »

6. I sense conspiracy here, (like how the anti-virus software vendors are the creators of most virii), I now realise that the MPAA/RIAA are really the operators of most illegal P2P sites................thank god for SSL + newsgroups!

3. "...permit devices to community between one another..." - I know what you're trying to say but you're in serious violation of colloquial Australian English grammar¹.


1. Unless you're using some foreign form of techie micro-speak....in which case you may clobber me with a suitable smiley.

4973

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by 4wd on October 17, 2009, 04:01 AM »

Dean Koontz is an amazing writer - I've read his books (when I could hold them)...

He has a style second to none!

-CleverCat (October 17, 2009, 02:05 AM)

I have to agree, (naturally), his recent Frankenstein trilogy is more reminiscent of his earlier style, IMHO, which I preferred more than his later "romance adventures", eg. Dark Rivers of the Heart, Lightning, etc.  Although he does throw some really good ones in from time-to-time, eg. The Taking, Seize the Night, Fear Nothing.

Richard Laymon is good for "what if coincidence...." type of novels but for pure non-stop action from virtually page one, it's got to be Matthew Reilly  

Bond, (James Bond), is a nancy boy compared to Scarecrow, (Captain Shane Schofield), and Huntsman, (Jack West Jr)  

4974

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by 4wd on October 17, 2009, 01:40 AM »

In between atm, but just finished part 3 of Dean Koontz's take on Frankenstein:

Dead and Alive



And looking forward to the continuing saga of Jack West in 4 days:

4975

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9

« Last post by 4wd on October 13, 2009, 01:09 AM »

Dopus comes with "multi-level undo". I assume that refers to the size of the undo stack. Does anybody happen to know how many levels there are?

-DonL (October 12, 2009, 05:14 PM)

10 according to the Output Window and the DOpus.chm help file.

I can't see anything in the prefs to change the number of levels.

Considering the fluid nature of files and directories maybe it's not worth implementing more than that since you can undo a multiple file/dir action with a single undo.