Recent Posts

5076

General Software Discussion / NOD32 Technical Support - Interesting response

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 05:08 AM »

Following my recent issues with Netgear SC101 drivers and NOD32 I got an interesting suggestion from NOD32 support - switch of the IMON module and see if that cures your problem. I tried it and no more problems but I was worried that by turning off IMON I was leaving a security hole in my AV solution ... here is their response to my concerns ...

The next version of NOD32 will be sans IMON. It's being totally eliminated from the program for this very reason.

In 1992, when NOD32 was introduced, very few programs operated at the winsock level. Today, in addition to Google and Microsoft, 100's of other developers are creating software in this manner. That would be fine, except for the fact that any app that operates here, needs the top spot in the stack, and only one program can have it.

As it is now, it can't be enabled at all, on a server.

IMON was just the first layer of defense, a supplement. The strengths of NOD32 are AMON, which scans every file that performs an action, as it performs that action, and the advanced heuristics which is stopping 90+ % of all new threats, before a definition is even written.

By quitting IMON now, you'll not only allow both programs to operate together, but you'll also lose no coverage.

Thank you,
Eset Tech Support

So there you have it - IMON does nothing useful so you may as well switch it off and forget it (and save a few CPU cycles presumably in the process) !!

5077

Living Room / Re: Agnitum Outpost 4 .... dumped

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2006, 04:44 AM »

What amazes me is after the list of criticism they give it second place!!! If 40% reduction is system performance (which IME seems reasonable), buggy and crash prone software that doesn't really do a good job gets second place God help us with the best of the rest!

When I recently got an email from Agnitum telling a new bug fix release was out I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and try again. Within half an hour I was getting random reboots again and having installed SpySweeper again Outpost complains that it doesn't like SpySweeper during installation (even when it isn't actually running) as 'you may experience system instability'. WTF !!! One of the most widely used and praised anti-spyware appications causes the instability - what a load of horse-sh1t. Having said that it does offer to exclude SpySweeper from its detection system (surely a security issue in itself as any software masquerading as SpySweeper could therefore bypass Outpost's security).

Anyway I am about to write to Agnitum and ask for a refund on my subscription renewal. I am not holding my breath that I will get it but it is worth a try.

Personally I am going to stick with Windows firewall with decent AV, AS and Anti-KeyLogger software running - at least I have a stable system that runs at a proper speed. Plus I am behind a Router Firewall so Windows Firewall should be decent enough for most things.

What we could really do with is a simple app that checks all outgoing data for personal information which warns you and lets you manually block such traffic. Anyone know anything like this - it would probably be about as effective as most anti-leak features anyway in practical terms.

5078

Living Room / Re: What's your "Autism Quotient"?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 30, 2006, 07:40 AM »

I would guess 'pretend games' would push you away from the autism scale because a characteristic of autism is the inability to see the world from another person's point of view - a pre-requisite for pretending.

5079

Living Room / Re: What's your "Autism Quotient"?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 30, 2006, 06:25 AM »

I am not saying anyone would consciously set out to deceive (as you say that would be pointless) but I found that reading the questions I became aware that I was considering what was my actual response and what I thought the 'right' answer was (whatever 'right' means in this case). It was at a purely subsconscious level but I became aware that I was 'playing a game' with myself after the first few questions and after that tried to answer the questions from the gut rather than thinking about the answers. This probably says a lot about the way my mind works in itself !!!

Te trouble is that all multiple choice questionnaires tend to have this effect on me and I wondered if other people had similar difficulties in answering them in a detached manner.

5080

Living Room / Re: What's your "Autism Quotient"?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 30, 2006, 05:22 AM »

Just out of curiosity how did people answer these questions ?

I found myself consciously trying to go for a quick gut reaction to the questions but it was hard to resist the 'what do they expect ...' or 'what do I think I should ...' temptations.

Do you think the scoring system takes into account human nature ?

5081

Living Room / Re: Building a Quiet PC

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 30, 2006, 05:12 AM »

My new 'Cool & Quiet' system sounds like an aircraft waiting to take off ....


Trouble is temperatures are high so I bought a new case for it with extra 'cooling features'. This has reduced the temperatures a bit but only by introfucing yet more fans ...

Now my case has:

1 x 25cm case fan (on the side)
1 x 12cm in the back
1 x 9cm in the back
1 x 9cm fian in the top
1 x 12cm intake fan in the front

not to mention PSU fan, CPU heatsink fan, 2 GPU fans and 3 hard discs whirring.

I get the feeling ear defenders or a loud sound system is going to be required.

Even with all this I have these temperatures:

CPU 44C
Motherboard/Chipset 48C
GPU 51C / 71C

The higher GPU is because I have a PCI card in the slot next to the PCIe slot so there isn't much clearance.

Anyone any suggestions (apart from putting the whole thing in the freezer!)

I have considered liquid cooling but that adds even more to the price ...

5082

General Software Discussion / Re: Wireless Networking Guide

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 29, 2006, 07:53 PM »

Look for the "RangeMax Next" range of 802.11n gear which runs at 270Mbps or 300Mbps depending on the router you have. The standard is still in draft form so you can't guarantee that future devices will be 100% compat with the Netgear interpretation.

I have a DG834N router which includes an ADSL 2 modem. Initial impressions are of a solid build and an almost instant startup and internet connection (unlike my old Linksys router which gave you time to make a cup of coffee before you could connect). This is the 270Mbps version - I got it because overclockers.co.uk were doing a special offer on bundles of the router and PCI card (cheaper than the cost of a single PCI card !!!) so I bought two and sold the second router.

The PCI card WN311B seems to work great in one of my systems, but the new system I built (based on an ASUS A8N32-SLI motherboard) seemed to have a compatability issue with it and my system randomly crashed (BSODs) with the card installed and a fresh install of Windows XP. Neither ASUS nor Netgear managed to track down the problem and so Netgear, after an email to their customer services, swapped it for me for a WN121T USB2 adapter which works great.

If I was starting again I would go for the USB adapter everytime.

I live in a stone built cottage with thick walls and under 802.11g I found I needed a repeater to get a decent signal - now I have no such need and access is at 270Mbps throughout the house.

The one annoying thing is that the device has to be out of your system when you install drivers (and that includes upgrading drivers requiring an uninstall of the current drivers and PCI card removal) so it is very irritating to upgrade drivers for the PCI card version - the USB version is obviously trivial. The only slightly annoying issue with the USB adapter is the cable is a fixed cable and is only about 2 feet long. I solved this by plugging it into my USB2 hub which I fixed to the wall with sticky pads and it now works fine and in a convenient place. You could equally well use a USB extension cable (there are loads of Belking cables which are very cheap and do the job just as well). I really can't understand why they didn't supply a couple of metres of cable !

The SC101 storage device works great (except for a problem with NOD32 AV which ESET are investigating - I have temporarily swapped to AVG and everything works fine). I have 2 x 120Gb WD Caviar drives installed in Mirror mode which provides a common network storage which is easily accessible from all computers and doesn't require loads of fiddling with Windows permissions. (Note drives can be partitioned into standard volumes and mirrored volumes and can be private or shared with or without password protection - when you switch on your computer the drives are mounted automatically as they were when you logged off).

If you want a printer server I would suggest using a wired connection to the router as I don't think there are any 802.11n devices ready yet.

The Rangemax Next stuff is backward compatible with 54g and 11b devices but obviously network speeds adopt the lowest speed. Having said that Netgear recon that 54g network devices gain a 50% perfomance boots with the Rangemax Next stuff though I can't see how this could work (I haven't tried it).

See http://www.netgear.c...tersandGateways.aspx for routers

5083

Living Room / Re: Demise of the trackball? What's the alternative?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 29, 2006, 06:57 PM »

Actually there are quite a few devices on Amazon - try searching for Trackman instead of trackball.

5084

Living Room / Re: What's your "Autism Quotient"?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 29, 2006, 06:51 PM »

8 !!!

Am I subhuman ? It doesn't say what 'low' means ???

5085

Living Room / Re: Demise of the trackball? What's the alternative?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 29, 2006, 07:31 AM »

Seem to be alive and well on the UK Logitech shop ...

http://www.logitech....id=2141,categoryid=6

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General Software Discussion / Re: know all about Windows

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 29, 2006, 07:28 AM »

It is worth noting that MS recommend the Windows 2003 resource pack for Windows XP.

5087

General Software Discussion / Re: Wireless Networking Guide

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 29, 2006, 02:36 AM »

I was going that way too but I must say I have been converted by NetGear's wireless 802.11n (draft) solution once I got  things sorted out. It is 3 times faster than cabled home networks and they have sorted out the problems of range too (no more expander box to get upstairs). The only disadvantage is that the complete product line isn't there yet (i.e. there are no printer servers for the new draft standard yet and other network addons) but you can expand the network by using a couple of mains electric network adapters without slowing down the wireless network - I am thinking of doing this to add a set top box to my lounge TV so that I can stream video and music to my TV and HiFi set up.

The fast wireless speeds, MIMO and enhanced bandwidth is great and makes a real difference when more than one person is trying to surf the net. Plus it makes network storage a real possibility - though the Netgear SC101 solution is wired from the router and so limited to 100Mbps - but at least it doesn't affect the wireless traffic - and even copying whole DVD size files on the network doesn't degrade internet access speed etc. which is great (there is still 170Mbps or bandwidth left to be used even when file transfers are happening at full pelt).

5088

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted Photo Slideshow on DVD (1000s of photos)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 28, 2006, 11:21 AM »

Sorry I can't find any reference when  I tried to check this so I think I may be a bit confused.

Are you producing DVD-Video 'slide' shows - ie. the output is a video track or chapter? I seem to recall that DVD-Video can only support 99 tracks each with 99 chapters - but that may be a restriction imposed by some DVD player manufacturers.

Whatever I can't see anything wrong with a track structure of years and a chapter structure of months.

Note there is an ISO restriction of maximum video file size of 2Gb (which is why DVDs have VOB files broken into chunks).

5089

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted Photo Slideshow on DVD (1000s of photos)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 28, 2006, 10:19 AM »

I think DVDs have a limit of 99 folders with 99 entries per folder

5090

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted Photo Slideshow on DVD (1000s of photos)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 28, 2006, 05:37 AM »

You can make them 'browsable' on most DVD players by simply adding folders of JPEG images to a blank CD or DVD. Most DVD players these days will let you look at DVDs full of folders of photos.

As above though I think there is a maximum of 99 folders and 99 pics per folder because of the way DVD players work.

If you want browsable collections which you can use via a web browser (and still be viewable on a DVD player as JPEG folders) then I use ArchiveCreator which is produced explicitly for archiving digital photographs. It stores your photos in folders with folders of thumbnails and a simple web interface. The best bit is that it will span multiple volumes but all the photos are accessible from any disc in the collection which makes finding photos really easy. See http://www.picturefl...e_creator/index.html for details.

PS: ArchiveCreator also supports Camera RAW formats as well as JPEG, TIFF etc. If you want to see full details (help files) including shots of how it works and the kind of output have a look at http://www.picturefl...HelpFiles/index.html

5091

Living Room / Re: ImageArmada: Create virtual 3D walkthroughs of your images

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 27, 2006, 05:01 PM »

Wow the example galleries on the website look fantastic ...

5092

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ashampoo Burning Studio 2007

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 27, 2006, 01:15 PM »

Seems to be a slightly older version than the current one and no updateable. Still a good deal - and the upgrade to the latest version is very cheap.

If you like Ashampoo stuff it is worth going to their offers page. Basically you can say how much you want to pay and they repluy by email to agree or not. I used this in the past and got some good deals ... I don't know if they take past purchase history into account when allowing big discounts.

5093

Living Room / Re: Couple of problems (screensaver and video during startup) - anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 27, 2006, 11:46 AM »

Solved the screen save problem - I have a Wacom Graphire 2 tablet and it looks like the config profile got corrupted. Resetting the profiles to default seems to have fixed it.

Now then ... any idea on the boot time task graphics problem?

5094

General Software Discussion / Re: Wireless Networking Guide

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 27, 2006, 05:45 AM »

Looks like good a useful basic info site - especially useful for WiFi first timers.

5095

Living Room / Re: Couple of problems (screensaver and video during startup) - anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 27, 2006, 03:36 AM »

I haven't modified the Boot file - it is as installed by default

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

I hadn't come across the final switch before but apparently it is to do with AMD Cool and Quiet technology (
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895980)

5096

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 - peculiar cookie problem??

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 27, 2006, 03:32 AM »

Strange - I don't have TabMixPlus installed and I don;'t appear to have had problems with the DC website - just my BT Yahoo login. Is anyone else using Yahoo mail experiencing similar probs - maybe it is a change in their website ???

5097

Living Room / Couple of problems (screensaver and video during startup) - anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 26, 2006, 06:42 PM »

Two odd problems on my system ...

1) My screensaver doesn't seem to kick in any more ? I have a screensaver set to trigger after 10 minutes. Preview works but the screensaver never seems to be activated even when I have been away from the computer for a while. Also I have powersettings set to switch off my monitor after 20 minutes and that doesn't work either? They did work but they seem to have stopped.

2) I tried to do a boot-time "chkdsk C: /F" and defrag of my system (using PerfectDisk). Both seem to work fine but whereas I used to get a blue screen during startup showing the progress of the operation my screen stays blank after the initial Windows screen. Eventually both processes finish and my system reboots into windows but it would be good to see what is going on in case there are errors or problems that need to be addressed. This is the first time I have tried to do this since my system rebuild so I am a little confused as to what is going on. I am using two GeForce 7300 cards in SLi mode, but I have tried disabling SLi and connecting my monitor first to one and then to the other graphics card with no effect ?

Anyone got any ideas what could be going on with these two issues?

Thanks.

5098

General Software Discussion / Re: Another alt.comp.freeware post on donationcoder.com, for your consideration

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 26, 2006, 06:33 PM »

Good luck then - but get some headache remedies ready for when you have had enough of banging your head against a brick wall

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General Software Discussion / Re: Another alt.comp.freeware post on donationcoder.com, for your consideration

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 26, 2006, 04:15 PM »

Personally I don't think there is much point getting into a discussion on that forum. I have been a lurker there (and occasional poster) for a few years and the main feeling of the group is the rabidly selfish definition of freeware which prevails. If you try and discuss any other form of distribution method you just end up with flame wars which serves no one.

Just my personal 2p worth.

5100

Living Room / Re: Mobo dying .... suggestions please on upgrading my system ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on November 26, 2006, 04:42 AM »

Thanks I have gone with free AVG as a temporary measure until I see if I can get ESET/Netgear to sort out the problem with NOD32.

No probs with AVG so far.