Recent Posts

501

General Software Discussion / Re: managing file permissions under windows (madness?)

« Last post by urlwolf on April 25, 2009, 01:59 PM »

fenix: thanks, that helps
Shades: I'll try this when I get home, laptop has no CD burner. THanks!

502

General Software Discussion / Re: managing file permissions under windows (madness?)

« Last post by urlwolf on April 25, 2009, 10:59 AM »

I see only very minimal info in TC (like -a--).
What does it mean?

Also, I changed the admin password, only to realize that now it doesn't let me use it.
Maybe typo? Maybe the new one it's too short?
I'm disgusted at having to reinstall the entire thing, or have to use a pwd recov. tool on this computer.
It may take ages.

I have no idea how it happened. How could I mistype the pwd twice?
I'm dissapointed enough to try Ubuntu 9.04

503

General Software Discussion / managing file permissions under windows (madness?)

« Last post by urlwolf on April 25, 2009, 06:34 AM »

I have to admit I ran XP with admin privs all the time. So I never had to worry about permissions.
However, I want to now separate admin and non-admin user.

It's proven to be a real pain, moreso compared to how unix-like OSs do it.
Pain points:

• Explorer (or TC) do not list file permissions. (!), at least that I could find. What's wrong with listing say -rwx------ like in unix? I really need a fast and visual way of looking at permissions. Quesion: do you know any software that displays permissions graphically?
• Changing permissions recursively sucks. You have to use cacls.exe, which is very limited. THere's setACL.exe, but it is also really ugly compared to chmod and chown. Question: how do you do this? Any tools? Having to right-click > properties > security is very long, and it's not recursive (!)
• Changing permissions is extremely slow. In unix, it rarely takes seconds, even for a huge tree. In windows, it's been minutes already for a not-so-big tree! Any reason for this madness?
• You are allowed to do crazy things like erradicate the administrators group. You read that right: you can make it so some user has full permissions on a file, but the admins don't. I have no idea how I managed to do this feat... and I fixed it now. But I'm really curious about what purpose this may fulfill

Not to mention that every action that requires admin privs will prompt for a passwd. So, in a normal day, you can easily type the admin passwd about seven billion orders of magnitude more than on unix.

All in alll... (quoting the penguins in "Madagascar" after arriving to antartica with a stolen transatlantic ship).
"Well... this sucks".

It makes me think I'm missing the proper tools.

It also makes me thing that when mom and pop have to deal with this, they will go crazy.
Is this the end of civilization as we know it?

504

Living Room / ZDNET: Have we arrived in the post-Windows era?

« Last post by urlwolf on April 20, 2009, 03:28 PM »

As some commentators have suggested, there may be a bunch of IT departments that adopt Windows 7, but if they do it will be out of annoyance and necessity (if Microsoft finally phases out Windows XP) and not out of the desire to benefit from any new advances in Windows 7. There are none.

It didn’t used to be this way. Installing a new operating system used to be like getting a whole new computer. Installing Windows 95 over Windows 3.1? That was a huge improvement. Installing Windows 2000 on top of Windows 95? That was a big leap forward. There were reasons to upgrade back then, for example:

    * Windows 95 - Greatly simplified interface; much more friendly to the average user
    * Windows 98 - Improved multimedia capabilities and built-in Internet functionality
    * Windows 2000 - Industrial-strength Windows NT code base, but in a much more polished package
    * Windows XP - Unified the Win9x and WinNT/2K code bases; allowed businesses to standardize on one OS
    * Windows Vista - ?
    * Windows 7 - ?

Part of what’s going here is that the computer operating system has achieved a level of maturity and efficiency. You could even say that work on the OS has reached a point of diminishing returns. How much more efficiency can we wring out of it? What other major innovations are waiting out there?

ZDnet on why windows 7 may not matter anymore.

505

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows editors - do they have to be so bad?

« Last post by urlwolf on April 20, 2009, 02:56 AM »

just tried TED, and it seems it doesn't work on windows server 2008 64. The search function fails; I copy a word from the text, search for it, and it says 'word not found'

506

General Software Discussion / Re: Xenon Portable File Manager - Portable Associations!

« Last post by urlwolf on April 19, 2009, 03:20 PM »

I'm surprised nobody mentioned here that total commader 7.5 (beta) comes with portable associations, is portable itself, and way more advanced that Xenon.

507

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Total Commander 7.50 public beta 1 - mini-review

« Last post by urlwolf on April 18, 2009, 06:27 AM »

ok, more info.
It happens after ANY popup window occurs (move, delete, etc). Instead of returning focus to TC, it goes to some other window, my guess is the last with focus before TC, often FF. It's really annoying. This is windows server 2008, so it might be that.

Step by step: press any shorcut that produces a pop up (e.g., F6), finish the operation, see how TC loses focus.

Should I post it to the main TC forum?

508

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: BBCeditor 1.0.11

« Last post by urlwolf on April 18, 2009, 06:22 AM »

sounds like a very useful tool! downloading now...

509

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Total Commander 7.50 public beta 1 - mini-review

« Last post by urlwolf on April 17, 2009, 09:42 AM »

When I delete a file/folder, TC loses focus and goes back to the last window I was using.
Is that a new feature? If not, I may have activated it by accident. I'd like my old behavior better . I prefer to stay in TC...

510

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Total Commander 7.50 public beta 1 - mini-review

« Last post by urlwolf on April 16, 2009, 04:02 PM »

Thanks fenixproductions. MNU corrected. Associations set.

511

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Total Commander 7.50 public beta 1 - mini-review

« Last post by urlwolf on April 16, 2009, 03:19 PM »

TC is the best filemanager, period. And the license is great.

Now, for the new features...
I cannot get the filter to work. ctrl + s does nothing. Is there any setting we need to get right?
And how do you take advantage of the file associations?
The only mod I have is the "English with extended menu (wcmd_ext1_eng.mnu)" just in case it matters...

512

General Software Discussion / Re: advice needed.....FirstDefense-ISR, ShadowProtect, ShadowUser, Rollback Rx???

« Last post by urlwolf on April 12, 2009, 03:13 PM »

I guess I'd be better off getting a book on server 2008 and reading it
There might be functionality in it to replicate some parts of these solutions.

Is there anyone using a free alternative?

513

General Software Discussion / Re: alternatives to firstDefense ISR

« Last post by urlwolf on April 12, 2009, 03:08 PM »

Todd answered fast. He's good.
Unfortunately, no upgrade path, so I'd have to buy a license for server.
I'm looking into free alternatives, as this type of software doesn't come cheap.
Do you know any?

514

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« Last post by urlwolf on April 12, 2009, 04:17 AM »

If that's true, signs of brain damage are even more obvious.
Even though I tried, my system has IE so locked down that I could not even visit their page. Bah.

515

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« Last post by urlwolf on April 11, 2009, 09:35 PM »

of course, adobe couldn't help but screw this one too.
There's no way to do full screen. Of course, a reader, for people reading pdfs, should not care about maximizing reading space.

And the copy-paste brain damage is pure evil.
Here's when one misses having the sources for every app (OSS world).

I'd suggest a feature, but their forums is not functional on my browser (maybe admuncher acting up)?

The rendering quality is top-notch, though, making all other free viewers look bad.

516

General Software Discussion / Re: alternatives to firstDefense ISR

« Last post by urlwolf on April 11, 2009, 11:46 AM »

Thanks cranioscopical, mailed Todd.
If I get nothing back from them, time to start a boycott.
This is not cheap software...

517

General Software Discussion / Re: advice needed.....FirstDefense-ISR, ShadowProtect, ShadowUser, Rollback Rx???

« Last post by urlwolf on April 11, 2009, 11:43 AM »

I just found out that windows server 2008 has some built-in backup.
http://technet.micro...ibrary/cc770266.aspx

I wonder how good that is. For incremental data backups, I was using SFFS. For system backup, I was using FD. Now that FD left me hanging (no update path, no answer to emails!), I wonder whether I can do system backups with the built-in tool.

Anyone knows how good this built-in tool is?

518

General Software Discussion / Re: alternatives to firstDefense ISR

« Last post by urlwolf on April 10, 2009, 03:44 PM »

damn it!

519

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« Last post by urlwolf on April 10, 2009, 03:19 PM »

guys, check adobe digital editions, it's finished now, and quite good.
The rendering is as good as only adobe can do; it's free, and it lets you mark pdfs.
it opens very fast, and uses little memory. However, copy/paste eats up all spaces? It's such a glaring omission, it can only be by design? Kills use for academic work, definitely, and prevents notetaking outside the reader.

520

General Software Discussion / alternatives to firstDefense ISR

« Last post by urlwolf on April 10, 2009, 02:37 AM »

I own two licenses for firstDefense ISR.
Since I have moved to windows server 2008, they are not valid anymore; they ask for >$300 for a license.
I emailed support to see if I can upgrade. They didn't even bother answering.

Is there anything out there that does the same job, and doesn't cost a fortune for windows server?
Any alternative to take snapshots of your working install?

Thanks

521

General Software Discussion / Re: How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« Last post by urlwolf on April 06, 2009, 09:00 AM »

Just as an update for completeness, I went with server 2008. Feels solid. However, it feels like linux has an edge for development (more 64-bits dev tools, easier to find packages). If you plan to do say python on 64-bits, almost no 3rd party libs are to be found, it seems. Same for R (there's a company, Revolution R, selling a 64-bit of R!).

I wonder if really win 64 is a wise decision.

I just cannot find informed post comparing different 64-bit OSs for dev. purposes...

522

Living Room / hoovering mouse over FF is not as smooth as on other apps. A win-64 thing?

« Last post by urlwolf on April 05, 2009, 09:03 AM »

I have just installed windows server 2008 64-bit, and I quite like it.
However, hoovering mouse over FF is not as smooth as on other apps. A win-64 thing?
This is a portable FF that I got from my X 32-bit days.

Can anybody replicate this? To start looking, I wonder if that happens on server 2008 only, or in other 64-bit windows.

Thanks!

523

General Software Discussion / logitech mouse drivers are pure evil

« Last post by urlwolf on April 04, 2009, 10:02 AM »

I cannot run my IBM ultranav keyboard together with my MX revolution mouse because of drivers conflict.
I posted in logitech forums to no avail.

I didn't know who to blame. This however, makes me think logitech is the culprit:
http://www.adobe.com...d=2&postId=12826

How can your drivers affect an IDE?

524

Post New Requests Here / Re: Word 2007 AutoComplete add-in

« Last post by urlwolf on March 22, 2009, 08:19 PM »

Thanks kip. However, I don't see the functionality described very useful. Autocomplete (with tab, like in text editors) would be.

525

General Software Discussion / Re: On developer's block, and calling it quits. Being a programmer is hard

« Last post by urlwolf on March 20, 2009, 08:00 PM »

I wonder how much of most jobs is actually enjoyable. Although research is supposed to be fun, there are healthy amounts of bullshit involved (paperwork, repetitive menial tasks, meetings, dealing with rejections etc). Resistance to boredom is actually useful for research (realizing this was _very_ counterintuitive). Some productive researchers do take their job as something boring the have to do. And they get it done, whereas if you are idealistic and try to work only on the fun stuff, your boring but needed parts will drag you down forever.