Recent Posts

5501

General Software Discussion / Re: Steam set to become app store

« Last post by 40hz on August 12, 2012, 02:16 PM »

I'm liking that there are more "app stores" opening. I like the idea of having more competition out there. It reinforces a degree of openness, and erodes the "walled garden".

I still think that the word App is being overused - what I usually think of when I think of Apps is a The Single Responsibility Principle^w, i.e. something that does one thing well.  Those are the types of Apps I look for also.

-wraith808 (August 08, 2012, 05:02 PM)

I wrote a treatise on this issue a few years ago for Samsung Multimedia Solutions Center arguing against the incessant use of "app" and instead using "software" or "program" (etc.) as appropriate. (This was all for developer materials, and not end user stuff.) Alas, lost that one.
 

-Renegade (August 12, 2012, 11:11 AM)

Don't feel too bad. IBM spent millions trying to get everybody to adopt the term "solution" (e.g. Accounting Solution or Payroll Solution) - which is actually rather evocative since it puts emphasis on the result rather than the mechanisms and/or methods employed. Made sense to IBM since they were offering a nice medley of hardware, software, services, and support for most of their stuff. Almost like saying IBM sells "results" rather than products and services. Very clever. And not at all inaccurate at that time.

The public was having none of it.

5502

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on August 12, 2012, 09:03 AM »

Everybody see this announcement?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1731

And  this one?

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/1734

I like how Liz says "whet your appetite." How do you "whet" an appetite when 90% of the Pi community is already salivating in buckets?

(Note: I'm stilllll waaaaitingggg...  )

5503

Living Room / Re: Mass of volcanic rocks found floating off New Zealand

« Last post by 40hz on August 11, 2012, 12:31 PM »

But it's interesting that they'd find a mass of it floating free. It's usually only found in areas with current or past geologic activity. And those lumps have rounded edges, they may have been in the water a long time.

Ph'ngluii mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

R'yleh is rising! The stars again are right! The Old Ones have returned! Hail Cthulhu!

5504

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for help finding an old DC forum post

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 10:34 PM »

FWIW, a lot of "speed up" tweak utilities reduce that 12 seconds on the WaitToKillServiceTimeout setting. I've seen that cause problems even though reducing it does speed up shutdowns and reboots.
 

5505

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for help finding an old DC forum post

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 10:14 PM »

Don't know about the post, but the reg_keys you might be most interested in are:

Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
Entry: WaitToKillServiceTimeout
Type: REG_SZ
Default Value: 12000

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Entry: WaitToKillAppTimeout
Type: REG_SZ
Default Value: start with 3000

Note: this entry is not always there so it may need to be created

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
Entry: AutoEndTasks
Type: REG_SZ
Default Value: 1

Note: this entry is not always there so it may need to be created.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Luck!

5506

General Software Discussion / Re: "Do copy acceleration utilities actually lower file transfer speeds?"

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 05:15 PM »

My original question remains: is a *real* copy acceleration utility for Windows theoretically possible? How come none of the available utilities seem to achieve the acceleration it promises?

-paulobrabo (August 10, 2012, 12:59 PM)

I think within a given PC, file copying speeds would be more dependent on hardware (and possibly drivers) than anything else. Windows is a mature operating system. So I'd suspect Microsoft has by now identified and taken care of most of the safely fixable boottlenecks. Which would account for why copy accelerators had a more pronounced effect under XP - and may well be getting in the way with newer versions of Windows.

Just guessing though.

Network file copying is a different matter however, and there are definitely areas for improvement there. And also lots of ways to optimize and tweak network performance. However, hardware can once again play a major role since a faster network infrastructure yields faster transfers even if all other factors remain the same. So sometimes it's just more practical to put in faster NICs and data switches to get 'wire' transfer speed increases rather than bother with too much protocol or OS tinkering.

5507

Living Room / Re: Should we pre-emptively retire old hard drives?

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 08:41 AM »

^ Agree with Mouser. That's 140 degrees F in my country. Way too hot for long term reliability. Get better fans or take something out of the case.

Regarding your Current Pending Sector Count alert - yeah, that's not good:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Event Codes: SMART+197
Attribute ID: 197 (0xC5)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hard drives, supporting this attribute

Samsung, Seagate, IBM (Hitachi), Fujitsu, Maxtor, Western Digital

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Description

Current Pending Sector Count S.M.A.R.T. parameter is a critical parameter and indicates the current count of unstable sectors (waiting for remapping). The raw value of this attribute indicates the total number of sectors waiting for remapping. Later, when some of these sectors are read successfully, the value is decreased. If errors still occur when reading some sector, the hard drive will try to restore the data, transfer it to the reserved disk area (spare area) and mark this sector as remapped.

Please also consult your machines's or hard disks documentation.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recommendations

This is a critical parameter. Degradation of this parameter may indicate imminent drive failure. Urgent data backup and hardware replacement is recommended.

Think it's time to retire that drive and also seriously look into doing something about case heat if the new drive also ends up seeing temperatures in that range.

Luck!

5508

Developer's Corner / Re: newsletters - how to do them properly

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 07:52 AM »

MailChimp is very capable. Some really good management and analysis tools are provided if you need them. They also have several really good guidebooks available for download that go into some depth about things email and what you need to know about it. Worth a  look even if you don't open a MailChimp account.

I have a few clients that swear by MailChimp for their newsletters and marketing campaigns. MailChimp also  provides a very capable free service if your needs are relatively modest (maximum of 2000 subscribers-all lists/12,000 email items per month). You can try it out - or use their free account indefinitely if that's all you need. They don't even require a credit card to set up a free account. That's really nice!

Addendum: one additional thing. Doing a good newsletter, by which I mean one that's actually worth reading, isn't easy once you've written up your five or six favorite topics. If you want some inspiration, one example of a newsletter that really was worth reading can be found here. It was Iain Richard's old (and much missed) Gizmo's Support Alert Newsletter. It ran from 1998 to 2008. To me and many others, Gizmo's was always the model of how a tech newsletter should be done.

You can read all of the back issues online here. Or download the entire searchable archive here if you want to see more.

Note: I used to do a newsletter back in the late 90s which ran for 36 uninterrupted monthly issues. It became more and more of a chore starting around issue number eight. So if you do decide to do a newsletter, do what a magazine editor of my acquiantance told me to do when I started mine  - have at least five issues worth of material before you publish your first. Because you will get writer's slump sooner or later. And having half a year's worth of buffer between you and an uncooperative blank page goes a long way towards keeping you sane.

5509

General Software Discussion / Re: "Do copy acceleration utilities actually lower file transfer speeds?"

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 07:39 AM »

^IIRC TeraCopy also touts network file transfer speed-ups as a feature, which is probably why I started using it in the first place.

5510

General Software Discussion / Re: "Do copy acceleration utilities actually lower file transfer speeds?"

« Last post by 40hz on August 10, 2012, 06:42 AM »

+1 with Mouser and some of the comments on the original article. I was only in the habit of using TeraCopy for it's error reporting and the ability to continue after it encountered a bad file. However, TeraCopy did seem to speed up massive transfers to and from networked drives. But I never did any serious testing on that so it may have only seemed faster to me.

5511

Developer's Corner / Re: Opinions sought: should I open source Auspex?

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 06:23 PM »

^Thx Wraith! Learn something new every day.

5512

Living Room / Re: Robert Downey Jr credits BK saving his life...

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 01:34 PM »

^^ thanks I'll check that out, I love screenwriting books.  Strangely enough, they help me with my music more so than most music books.

-superboyac (August 09, 2012, 11:37 AM)

Funny. Improving my music is what got me interested in film and film making to begin with. The processes of music composition and motion picture story development are remarkably similar. To me at least. Maybe it has something to to with how music and movies are art forms that are completely dependent on the element of time to work their magic. Because if you remove sequential realtime from the mix, there can be no music or movie. It's the sequencing and the pacing that's key to it all.

Hmm...there's gotta be some very long and "heavy" philosophical discussion lurking in there somewhere.

5513

General Software Discussion / Re: dual boot linux/win32 system

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 01:20 PM »

Why dualboot when you can run linux in a VM, though?

-f0dder (August 09, 2012, 12:17 PM)

Not the same experience IMO. And, if you're a beginner, VMs add an additional layer of complexity and abstraction that can sometimes cause its own hassles and weirdness. FWIW, I've seldom seen somebody who ended up liking Linux much if their only experience with it was through a VM.

Just my tuppence.

5514

Developer's Corner / Re: Opinions sought: should I open source Auspex?

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 01:14 PM »

Seriously, why exactly would you want to open source Auspex? If it's for any reason other than to turn it over gratis "to all mankind" then don't do it.

I'm big on open source and the concepts and philosophy behind it. But I'm also a card carrying child of the 70s so my political and moral values reflect that - and, quite frankly, may not be as relevant to today's realities as they once were. Especially when it comes to computing and software.

One problem may also be it's written in Delphi. I don't know what sort of license goes with Delphi, but there may (or probably are) terms in Delphi's license that precludes you making it "open." As the FSF often reminds people, there's nothing in the GPL that overrides any other license terms you may be under as a developer. Which is why they try to keep the "tool chain" squarely within the realm of the GPL as much as possible - to avoid any issues down the road.

Best suggestion I could offer would be to find somebody who may be willing to take your project over,  work out your own deal or license with them, and forget about open sourcing it.

And if you ultimately do decide to "go open" with it (and Delphi's license allows you to), make it a point to assign ownership of your code to the Free Software Foundation. At least if you want to have any hopes an open license will be enforceable on it. As f0dder pointed out, a software license is only as good as your ability to enforce it is. Without a champion in your corner you, as an individual, have little hope of doing that.
 

5515

Living Room / Re: Staple of people from State and Europe !

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 08:26 AM »

@Ren - it's a vicious circle here in the US. In order to make money running a small restaurant you need to price almost any entree at about $10 per. For dinner that's not a problem. But in order to justify the price for a lunch or breakfast they need to deliver huge servings to make it seem worthwhile to the average customer Small wonder obesity (especially in kids) is a major health issue here...
 

5516

Living Room / Re: Raspberry Pi's $35 Linux PC

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 08:18 AM »

Still not here. Already got a copy of OpenELEC downloaded and waiting for it.

So...

Wait!!
Oh yes, wait a minute Mr. postman
Wait!!
waaaiiit Mr. postman...

Please Mister Postman, look and see...
(Oh, yeah)
If there's a letter in your bag for me!
Please, please Mr. Postman!
You know it's been a long time
(Oh, yeah)
Since I've heard about my Raspberry Pi....

---------------

(With apologies to the Marvelettes   )

5517

General Software Discussion / Re: my pc anywhere

« Last post by 40hz on August 09, 2012, 07:54 AM »

Window 8 promises to provide that capability. Microsoft calls it Windows To Go.

And here's something very interesting. Apparently Windows To Go even works with an Apple MacBook Pro:

I don't get impressed too easily when it comes to PC related technology. And hardly ever by anything Microsoft does. But portably running Win8 on Mac hardware is definitely cool IMHO.



Of course, for roughly the last 10 years, you could also take your PC anywhere using a "live' Linux distro. Penguins Rule!

5518

Living Room / Re: Olympic coverage this year SUCKS!

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 11:43 PM »

What works in war also works in sports. A group of self-serving and monied older people get together with intent to exploit by appealing to the idealism and hopes of the innocent and dedicated young. It's just another variant of the old "dulce et decorum est..." scam.


At the end of the day, those running things are wealthier and more firmly entrenched than ever, while the young come home, draped with medals (or tucked in body bags) to be fêted and displayed as "shining examples of commitment and self-sacrifice" for the next generation which is scheduled to replace them.


"So it goes."

5519

Living Room / Re: Robert Downey Jr credits BK saving his life...

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 11:19 PM »

^Read the marvelous book Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need by the late Blake Snyder. It will explain everything you need to know about how things work in Tinsel Town. Blake offers some terrific insights into why certain films get made and others don't. (It's not for what most people think are the 'obvious' reasons either.) A must read if you're a screenwriter, a wannabe screenwriter, or a real film buff.





 

5520

Living Room / Re: Robert Downey Jr credits BK saving his life...

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 10:00 PM »

re: $200m MOVIE - Well so far it's just Jeff Bridges saying it...and Jeff is Jeff so...I think I'm gonna reserve judgment on that story for now.

To quote Meredith Woerner in her article: I can't believe they let Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Favreau just run with this stuff.

Makes two of us. Because MMP Hollywood does not work that way. Favreau doesn't pack enough clout as a director to get away with something like that either. Especially considering he only had one film he directed (Elf) make any real money prior to Iron Man. And that was a Christmas themed family film, so it really doesn't count quite as much since the public loves those things and is always hoping for the release of a "new classic" each Christmas. (New classic? Talk about an oxymoron!) This is the type of film the movie industry refers to as a "pre-sold franchise" where the audience is already there.

Besides, AFAIK the 'money people' and completion bonding company won't greenlight a production without a shooting script/schedule approved and on file. Maybe the original script wasn't finalized or followed too closely. That's not unusual when doing an action movie. But there was definitely a script somewhere that Favreau was (at the very least) referring to.

Maybe Favreau just forgot to show it to Jeff?

Either way, it was a pleasant little action flick. And Downey absolutely nailed the Tony Stark character.

5521

Living Room / Re: It's Official: Many DC'ers Are Psychopaths~! :P

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 03:20 PM »

And the 1 man corporation pays less taxes for more benefits, and enjoys more protections.

-wraith808 (August 08, 2012, 12:48 PM)

Been there - and the truth is: not really. Or at least not always. Depends on how you set it up - and more importantly - how you operate it. Having your own corporation can easily cost you more in the long run unless you dot every "i" and cross every "t."

Also don't know how it works elsewhere, but where I am, the courts tend to be somewhat skeptical of 1-person corporations if it seems like they were set up mainly for the purposes of limiting personal liability or dodging taxes. Attorneys have also told me it's relatively easy to "pierce the corporate veil" when it comes to a 1-person (or small and closely held) corporation.

Same goes for benefits, which I mostly see as medical coverage these days. I don't know how easy it is for other small corporations to get medical insurance, but where I am they're asking for 5 or more employees to get a group plan. Otherwise you get to buy an individual non-group policy (i.e. $$$$) just the same as if you were buying it for yourself with no corporation behind you.

And in the high-tech (or just plain tech) industries you also have to worry about being deemed a "personal holding company." That can cream you on taxes if you're not aware of what a PHC is and how easy it is to unknowingly become one. Good article on that here. Happened to an acquaintance of mine. Ouch!

Small corporations. You still need them. But they're nowhere near the panacea and fortress they used to be.

YMMV.

5522

Living Room / Re: The pleasure and possibilities of living a time-shifted life?

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 02:54 PM »

Well, as long as what you have works for you.  I haven't found anything yet that I can't pay in advance... it's just that their systems don't sometimes keep up with it as a forward payment.   This includes a PO Box... I'm not sure why your post office doesn't let you re-up in advance... mine doesn't care.

-wraith808 (August 08, 2012, 01:49 PM)

Several times, the person was nice, they seemed helpless; "We can't renew a box earlier than 30 days before it's due."

Dunno how to answer that. Maybe some Postal reps in other states hacked/patched the system.

-TaoPhoenix (August 08, 2012, 01:52 PM)

It was explained to me that it was an attempt to ensure the box renter was mostly "local." Prior to that you'd have businesses rent a box for years at a clip, disappear, and then have the box tied up needlessly while the waiting list grew and grew. They also did it to discourage people from setting up "box drops" all over the country in advance for scamming and other questionable purposes. Which kinda makes sense since back in the old anti-war/counterculture underground era, a lot of that went on and made for easy moving of cash with no risk of traceback to people who needed to 'stay disappeared.' They used to call that the "Underground Western Union" or "Mexican Laundry."

 Simpler times.

5523

Living Room / Re: It's Official: Many DC'ers Are Psychopaths~! :P

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 11:02 AM »

You say psychopath like it's a bad thing.....

-Josh (August 08, 2012, 10:30 AM)

Yeah! And if they do it again...well...let them just wait and see what happens!

5524

Living Room / Re: It's Official: Many DC'ers Are Psychopaths~! :P

« Last post by 40hz on August 08, 2012, 10:22 AM »

human resources departments across the country are becoming more wary of young job candidates who don't use the site.

Of course they are. Now that they can't snoop on "publicly accessible" information that they are specifically forbidden (under US labor law) from asking a job applicant to provide.

Now does the refusal of the federal government to pass meaningful privacy regulations begin to make more sense?

"Badges? We don't have to show you no 'steekin' badges."

Nope. Just a FB account.

5525

Living Room / Re: Apple's Marketing Mindset

« Last post by 40hz on August 07, 2012, 03:44 PM »

^@C : LOL- Whatever you may or may not be, you will never be mistaken for a Yank. Trust me on that score.