Recent Posts

5076

Developer's Corner / Re: Programatically determining your IP Address...

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 05:59 PM »

What Eóin said - external IP address is a bit of a mess. You need to depend on an external resource, which may or may not be available... so be careful about depending on that functionality. Ie., if you need the external IP address for a server application or whatever, you should offer auto-detection as a feature, but still let the user specify it manually.

5077

General Software Discussion / Re: Poll: Did you install Windows or was it pre-installed?

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 05:50 PM »

40hz: *big grin*

Btw, I would say that "full format" would suffice instead of "zero-fill erase", but after doing a full format (which takes long enough that it should be zero-filling every darn sector!) and looking with a hex editor, it seems like there was still data on the drive - bigtime weirdness. And more data than just partition table, boot sector, and (mostly blank) NTFS metadata. I'll have to look a bit more into this.

5078

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 05:46 PM »

As mwb says, code cert != SSL cert. And self-signed certs aren't very good for SSL sessions, unless you have pretty specific purpose. It's a good thing that there aren't any free code signing certs, and that you can't self-sign... Yes it's a damn bother, and yes it should be a lot cheaper, but it helps in the fight against nasty malware.

5079

General Software Discussion / Re: ImgBurn v2.4.0.0 released 10th Feb - and it supports audio CDs

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 05:44 PM »

tomos: I personally lost interest in multi-session burning long time ago. It's unsuitable for smaller files because lead-in/out takes space, I always found it slowed down reading somewhat (and not working with all drives, but that was of course "back then"), and well... backups on optical media? Nah. Raid-mirror LAN file server, and if you need safekeeping on a different physical location, external USB/FireWire/eSata harddisk.

5080

General Software Discussion / Re: Poll: Did you install Windows or was it pre-installed?

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 10:11 AM »

But after that, I flatline (i.e. wipe + low level format & recertify) and do a squeaky clean install of XP or some flavor of Linux on every machine.

-40hz (June 27, 2008, 09:48 AM)

There's no such thing as low level format for consumer since MFM disks went out of production

5081

Find And Run Robot / Re: A tip about creating your own "C:\ProgramFiles" directory vs "C:\Program Files"

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 08:50 AM »

My unattended XP setups have been modified to change "Program Files" to "Programs", and "Documents and Settings" to "Settings" - and I keep all the non-installer stuff in "c:\usr\prg", and small commandline utilities in "c:\usr\bin". Works like a charm

5082

General Software Discussion / Re: NewEgg

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 08:49 AM »

is there a chance deo has some kind of virus or trojan? it's hard to imagine why files would get encrypted like that by accident..

-mouser (June 27, 2008, 08:45 AM)

I doubt such a thing would use NTFS encryption though - the known trojans that encrypt files certainly don't.

5083

General Software Discussion / Re: NewEgg

« Last post by f0dder on June 27, 2008, 08:42 AM »

That sounds pretty strange, Deozaan! Perhaps your filesystem became slightly corrupted? Your old disk is dying, right? Never seen something like that happen, though.

I don't know particularly much about how NTFS encryption works internally, but iirc it's 3DES, and the encryption keys are stored in the registry per-user, iirc also somehow protected by your account password. Which means that once you're logged in, everything should be automagic.

Have you transferred your current harddrive from another windows install? Re-installing windows without exporting + importing the crypto keys will leave encrypted files inaccessible.

5084

Find And Run Robot / Re: Searching network shares

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2008, 11:01 AM »

macs: I'm with you here - have the same needs. I only have two small (but fast!) drives in my workstation, and keep the motherlode on my fileserver.

5085

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2008, 10:58 AM »

or visiting reeeeally dubious sites,

You mean the internet has other uses? I don't think there is a 16+ male on the internet that doesn't need to delete their history once in a while.

-mediaguycouk (June 26, 2008, 10:00 AM)

So what i redtube and boysfood pop up in the address bar? - OK, might not be smart if it's at your workplace, but then you're likely to be monitored automatically, and not through the browser history

5086

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2008, 09:45 AM »

Hm, deleting the "address bar history" would partially ruin one of FF3's best features - the AwesomeBar. If you aren't surfing on public computers or visiting reeeeally dubious sites, why would you want to clear the autocompletion stuff?

5087

General Software Discussion / Re: NewEgg

« Last post by f0dder on June 26, 2008, 04:32 AM »

Sorry to hear that, Deozaan!

A service I'm really fond of that post.dk offers is "Track & Trace" which, as the name implies, lets you see where your package currently is, and "what's happening to it" (e.g., "received", "misrouted", "out for final delivery"). Obviously Denmark isn't super big, and it shouldn't ever take more than 2 days for something to ship, but sh*t does happen and it's nice knowing what happened

5088

General Software Discussion / Re: Poll: Did you install Windows or was it pre-installed?

« Last post by f0dder on June 25, 2008, 06:20 PM »

My first PC came with DOS6.22 and optional Win3.11 floppies, and my second PC came with Win95 (I think the vanilla version? I'm afraid I threw out the disc + license when I moved out on my own) preinstalled.

On every machine since that, I've installed Windows myself, and I've used nLite ever since I found it to enjoy the tweaks it can do (before that I did manual unattended setup, but nLites hotfix integration is just too nice not to use it).

I'm probably buying a laptop by September, which will no doubt come with windows preinstalled. Dunno if I'll keep it or install myself, depends on things like driver support etc.

5089

Find And Run Robot / Re: Searching network shares

« Last post by f0dder on June 25, 2008, 06:15 PM »

right now FARR specifically tries to avoid network shortcuts because it tends to result in slowing down search.  but i will try to re-enable it as an option soon.

-mouser (June 25, 2008, 04:46 PM)

Well, browsing SMB shares by typing in UNCs (ie, \\server\share\folder) and having the same kind of completion as if you typed in a local path would be nice. But it's probably a good idea to not follow UNC paths in shortcuts (like you currently are avoiding) exactly because of the slowdowns...

5090

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by f0dder on June 25, 2008, 06:13 PM »

For the music scene, alternatives to the greedy bastards record labels are slowly popping up, and time will tell how well they do. Might never go beyond small-scale indie stuff, but we'll see. Even without any form of DRM, I don't see the music artists dying off anytime soon, though.

Movies could be killed off due to widespread piracy, because they require big budgets. But well, perhaps that'd teach the over-inflated egos (and their over-inflated wages) in the movie industry a lesson? . And perhaps indie films that actually have coherent and interesting plots might get some more attention? Before blaming piracy, perhaps the movie industry should do a bit of self-reflection... I'm just not going to spend cash on yet another piss-poor jim carrey or adam sandler movie, sorry. I'd rather sit and watch paint dry than most of the stuff coming out of hollywood these days.

Software industry, ho humm. We'll obviously continue to see open source software, since that's generally driven by passion and not money. Games need big budgets though, and they're pirated a lot... I've more or less stopped buying games (except some small shareware/indie games) because of intrusive/buggy software protections, bugs in the games themselves, or simply because the games suck. I really want spore when it comes out, but the copy protection scheme is making me reconsider. One of the only schemes I feel pretty good about is Valve's STEAM, simply because it doesn't (afaik) use drivers, works on both 32- and 64-bit windows, and doesn't get in your way or blow up in your face.

5091

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by f0dder on June 25, 2008, 08:39 AM »

Metallica went overzealous instead of being smart about the whole deal. They've sucked since Jaymz went through rehab anyway, so whatever.

As for DRM being necessary, Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor probably has something else to say. While their new distribution model won't work for every band under the sun, it certainly does seem to work for NIN. And instead of hunting down unauthorized remixes, 24bit 96KHz multitrack files are available, iirc even under a creative commons license...

5092

Living Room / Re: Accessing the contents of another computer's hard drive

« Last post by f0dder on June 25, 2008, 08:31 AM »

Is that supposed to work with XP Home too?

-Armando (June 24, 2008, 11:37 PM)

Hm, bummer, I keep forgetting about XP home - does that only support simple file sharing? In that case, you're probably best off setting up some ftp server, really - gives better speed than SMB/CIFS anyway.

5093

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by f0dder on June 24, 2008, 06:30 PM »

Problem with DRM is that it does not stop the pirates (for long, anyway), but it has tons of implications for the legitimate users. And we are a lot of legitimate users that don't actually mind spending money on, for instance, music or software...

Analog tapes, cd burners etc. didn't kill the music industry. If anything kills it, it's their inability to embrace the digital world, and the constant river of manure they release, instead of supporting artists with talent

As for your Q, I will give this alternate A: we would go to more live concerts, and the artist would end up getting more money, instead of the greedy record labels.

5094

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by f0dder on June 24, 2008, 05:42 PM »

Small price to pay? Keep the R&D pumps churning?

I don't really agree. I'm doing my best to stay away from any media that involves DRM. If I end up not being able to purchase music any longer, I won't - and I won't feel bad about downloading pirated versions, either. If the companies want to hurt the consumers, we should hurt them back... and the only way to do that involves cash... or rather, the lack of it.

5095

Living Room / Re: Accessing the contents of another computer's hard drive

« Last post by f0dder on June 24, 2008, 05:39 PM »

MAC filtering isn't much of a hindrance - sniff traffic, clone MAC, *b00m* defeated.

5096

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by f0dder on June 24, 2008, 09:49 AM »

Otherwise, why not open source* it?

-zridling (June 24, 2008, 09:37 AM)

R&D costs of algorithms, perhaps? (But hey, most container formats are known, and a lot of the encoding algorithms as well).

5097

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite gadgets and gizmos?

« Last post by f0dder on June 24, 2008, 08:00 AM »

http://www.waterpik....al-water-jet/WP-360/

-SKesselman (June 24, 2008, 12:10 AM)

They wouldn't be able to market it under that name in Denmark

5098

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by f0dder on June 24, 2008, 07:59 AM »

I haven't been able to find a decent burner since my Plextor PX-716A crapped out. First I went with some Pioneer drive, which wasn't especially fantastic. Then I bought a Lite-On LH-20A1S, which is better. But I still can't reliably burn Verbatim 16x +R discs reliably at 16x, so I generally end up burning at 8x . At least my Plextor would automatically degrade write speed to 12x and burn perfect discs (don't think I ever hit 16x with it, not even near the outer edge).

Tayo-Yuden, ho humm. First problem is finding the discs, second problem is finding discs that aren't fake - apparently there's a big market for faking TY discs because of their popularity.

5099

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by f0dder on June 23, 2008, 07:59 PM »

Humm, ImgBurn works well with VIDEO_TS for me, at least movies burnt that way play on my standalone Philips player. I dropped using Nero when I realized that it consistently made bad burns. Not coasters, no, a lot more devious: it made burns that gave horrible read speeds, but other than  that worked just fine. No idea how they pulled off that trick.

5100

General Software Discussion / Re: Skip Detector

« Last post by f0dder on June 23, 2008, 08:36 AM »

EAC + AccurateRip = success (I believe the ripping engine in dBpoweramp is better, but it can't rip to single-wave + cuesheet, which EAC can).