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5576

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Portable vs Regular Firefox

« Last post by 4wd on March 24, 2008, 12:23 AM »

I only use Portable Firefox, it's the only browser on my system (IE has been removed via nlite).

It's located on my data partition, so I don't have to reinstall it after a Windows reinstall.

I can just copy the whole directory to a flash/external and then use/copy it on/to another computer.

The only things that work different are:

1) any programs that expect to find a browser to set bookmarks will probably fail, (if it's the only browser - a good thing AFAIAC).
2) anything that hooks into Firefox normally, (eg. download managers ala Orbit), won't - you'll need to monitor the Clipboard or copy the relevant dll to the proper directory.
3) that's about it I think.

Personally, I try to use programs that keep all their settings in their local directory, (hangover from the old Amiga days).

Currently I'm using v3 beta 3.

5577

General Software Discussion / Re: Searching encrypted archives

« Last post by 4wd on February 28, 2008, 04:22 AM »

And then I realized that many indexer don't even index the file names in encryted archives, even if the file name itself is not encrypted. ie : Archivarius wouldn't index the unencrypted filenames of encrypted archives. I didn't examine too many options before finally trying winRAR's "find" feature. Beautiful. Worked like charm and found my file in a sept. 2006 archive. Took maybe 15s.

Which other solution do/would you use/recommend for such a task?

-Armando (February 27, 2008, 09:30 PM)

DiscLib can list filenames inside encrypted archives, (at least it seems to for ZIP and RAR), best of all - it's free.

I use it for cataloging backup CD/DVDs, have a look at it here: http://www.lyrasoftw...m//content/view/3/8/

5578

General Software Discussion / Re: Are Windows Dynamic Disks Reliable?

« Last post by 4wd on February 27, 2008, 12:14 AM »

Anyway, the RAID MIRROR is crucial for my fileserver, since that's where I store the backups (yeah, I do have manual backups of a lot of stuff, I still need an automated scheme though ).

-f0dder (February 26, 2008, 05:28 AM)

How about SyncBackSE, (since DC have a discount in place at the moment) persuaded me to upgrade from the free version 

5579

General Software Discussion / Re: Are Windows Dynamic Disks Reliable?

« Last post by 4wd on February 25, 2008, 09:05 PM »

Humm, wouldn't say RAID STRIPE (I prefer the names to the numbers, to avoid confusion)

-f0dder (February 25, 2008, 07:19 PM)

I prefer the numbers for exactly the same reason  

But for video editing before the encoding process, sure thing.

From my experience using it with video capture from a digital video camera, it isn't.  Capturing to a single drive is no problem because the bandwidth required for capture is well below typical drive throughput, (hence where I said a 4200RPM drive is fast enough - if you have problems capturing, the fault generally lies elsewhere, eg. PIO, background processes).  Editing from one source drive to a separate destination drive will beat a RAID 0 array every time simply because there is no drive thrashing.  The only way it would be better is to go from one RAID 0 to another RAID 0 and/or using better drives - desktop drives are no match for enterprise drives that are manufactured for the increased requests.

But I dunno how useful it is for stuff other than that, really. "But, game load speeds should drop!" - yeah well, I put the entire of "Thief 3: Deadly Shadows" on a RAM disk, which is plenty faster than the fastest RAID stripe you can muster, and that didn't do anything for game load speed.

I don't think it would change 'game load speed' but what about loading of data during game play?  I'm talking about those games that pause every so often to load in the next >200MB resource file.

I don't agree that RAID MIRROR is too much hassle for home setups, and you shouldn't be comparing it to backups - those are two entirely different things. A mirror won't help you against stupid accidents or malware, a good backup solution can do that (if you disconnect the backup location once done). At the other hand, if you only backup once per day, you risk losing a whole day's work if you don't have a mirror.

When I refer to 'home environment' I don't include a business, (which is what your "whole day's work" implies to me), that runs from home - that's no different from a business in a store or a corporation, (except in size), AFAIC - and as such your backup strategy should be more robust.

When I refer to home environment it is reference to the generic home PC that's used for games, internet, the odd word processing, picture collections, etc.  For that, I really don't see any need for RAID.  Not even for video editing which I do at home on my general purpose PC.

RAID MIRROR and a proper backup strategy goes hand in hand, really.

Yep, no problem with this for business applications, (and those that are just plain paranoid  ).  But for generic home applications a decent backup setup is more than adequate and a lot less hassle when it comes to restoration in the case of a fault.

5580

General Software Discussion / Re: Are Windows Dynamic Disks Reliable?

« Last post by 4wd on February 25, 2008, 07:17 PM »

I tried RAID 0 when I initially had a motherboard that supported it, (EPoX 9NDA3+), and I found that there is absolutely no speed advantage at all.  As soon as more than one process wanted data off of the same array as another process, it was exactly the same as using a single drive.

IMHO, RAID 0 is pretty much useless for the home environment unless you are using it for a media server but even then it's no better than a single drive and you've doubled your chances of losing your data - OR - you're one of those strange people to whom benchmarks are the be-all and end-all of everything.

RAID 1 is useful IF you want to waste a drive, (home environment again), and power - an extra drive just sitting there so it can just be a backup to another drive.  Unless you're running mission-critical software at home, (you're crazy if you are), then it's pointless.

JBOD is another way to ensure you will lose ALL your data if one drive dies.

As Carol said, get an external drive to do your backups on - I'll expand on this and say use a NAS of some kind.

FWIW, I do a lot of digital video capture/editing from my DVC, and a 4200RPM drive is fast enough to handle the video capture via firewire and if you want to ensure access speed for fast re(en)coding, do it from one drive to another on a different controller preferably.

Just thought of one area where RAID 0 might be useful at home - games.  With their multi-MB resource files, RAID 0 would allow them to load a fair bit faster and since game processes usually take >90% of the CPU time, other processes are less likely to cause much drive thrashing.

5581

General Software Discussion / Re: InstantStorm: Freeware to make Flash based screensavers

« Last post by 4wd on February 19, 2008, 05:57 PM »

I managed to get 66m playing the screensaver version.

-4wd (February 16, 2008, 07:24 PM)

66m



any tricks? I mean: I was almost proud when I finally passed through the window!

-Curt (February 17, 2008, 04:00 AM)

Bump up your mouse dpi as far as it will go, max out the acceleration (so a twitch sends it across the screen - Logitech mice=good), then just keep at it until you hit the right point 

5582

General Software Discussion / Re: InstantStorm: Freeware to make Flash based screensavers

« Last post by 4wd on February 16, 2008, 07:24 PM »

Hmm... it is really not all the same *fun* to play this version, because I cannot cheat and have the mouse enter from the other side of the screen - the mouse will not let go of the plane. But thanks, anyway, 4wd!

-Curt (February 16, 2008, 05:49 AM)

Into everything a little cr@p must flow 

I managed to get 66m playing the screensaver version.

5583

General Software Discussion / Re: InstantStorm: Freeware to make Flash based screensavers

« Last post by 4wd on February 15, 2008, 03:37 AM »

When you do that, 4wd, please post it on DC!

-jgpaiva (February 15, 2008, 03:24 AM)

I've done it, easier than I thought.

Sorry, can't post a link......I'm waiting for the screensaver to appear.............

Damn YOU mouser 

EDIT: Oh OK....I shouldn't be the only one not getting anything done     (You need to hit a key to exit.)

5584

General Software Discussion / Re: InstantStorm: Freeware to make Flash based screensavers

« Last post by 4wd on February 15, 2008, 03:03 AM »

OH GOD!  Does that mean I can convert that damn 'How far can you throw a paper plane?', (https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=11601.0), thing to a screensaver ?

Nothing's ever going to get done around here now..................... 

5585

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple download manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 14, 2008, 09:07 PM »

Another to try 

WinBITS http://sourceforge.net/projects/winbits/ - It uses the XP/2000 Background Intelligent Transfer Service.  I played with it a couple of years ago - it only uses free bandwidth so it shouldn't slow down other programs accessing the net.

And, in theory, because it uses a default windows service it should pick up whatever proxy settings are required to access the net.

Also, it's portable (extract and run) and doesn't seem to create any registry entries (apart from the usual MRUs).

However, be warned - it IS simple 

Of course, it doesn't run on Win98 due to the service not being available.

EDIT: On another note, I've managed to create a portable version of FDM, that leaves no trace, using JauntePE.  I'm not quite sure whether Admin rights are needed to run the JauntePE dlls though.  Calls to registry and filesystem are caught and redirected to local file storage, so even if it crashes there no registry entries or %appdata% files sticking around.

5586

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple download manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 14, 2008, 03:18 AM »

What I meant was that 4wd's link was a direct download.  I was expecting the file to be embedded in its

-rjbull (February 13, 2008, 09:25 AM)

Yeah, sorry - that's the direct link for updates, (of which it should be noted that's an old one).

I got it from http://www.portablefreeware.com/, they list a few other dl managers but almost all either write settings to registry or can't get the proxy automatically.

What happens if you explicitly tell wget to not use a proxy ?

eg. wget --no-proxy URL

Otherwise, the only way I think you're going to get out is by using some form of tunneling to bypass the firewall/proxy.

I just had a thought, (yeah, shocked me too) the absolute easiest way to do what you want is to use a Linux LiveCD distro.

The LiveCD runs in it's own environment and doesn't leave any tracks on the host PC.  All you need is either a CD or USB Flash/HDD to run it off.

Have a look at DSL, (Damn Small Linux 50MB http://damnsmalllinux.org/), which can be fired up within the host environment, (run it from within Windows), all you need then is any Linux download manager that can be installed in DSL, (using MyDSL will get access to hundreds of other apps), and the DSL environment should pick up the proxy settings via standard protocol.

There may be other distros that will allow booting within a host environment but DSL was the only one I could think of.

5587

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by 4wd on February 14, 2008, 12:53 AM »

Well, I have to say that I'm completely stuck on DOpus, having been a beta-tester from way back during the heady days of Amiga DOpus v5+, (though I owned it since v3.xx).

Other filemanagers just seem anemic by comparison.  Sure it doesn't do everything everybody wants but it does what I want.....and I want a filemanager.  I don't use it for archives, picture viewing, video viewing, etc for the simple reason that there are far better programs for doing those things, (eg. IZArc/WinRAR, XNView, MPC for example).

The only other filemanager I use with any regularity is A43 http://www.primitus.us/a43/, perfect for my USB flash drive.

5588

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple download manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 12, 2008, 09:04 PM »

Here's another downloader you might like to try, it seems to be geared towards fileshare sites like RapidShare, etc, but will probably handle normal file downloads.

http://usd.altupdate...USD/clear.php?file=0 USDownloader

Doesn't seem to write anything to the registry, you can input a proxy but it also has a button to get it from IE - so it might work.

5589

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple download manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 08, 2008, 07:15 PM »

I struggle with GNU-speak manuals    and may still have the same problem with permissions.

-rjbull (February 08, 2008, 08:42 AM)

Doesn't everyone?

AFAICT, if you can run a program, access the net and write files then you shouldn't have a problem with using wget, permission wise.

A bonus is it will read from a file of URLs.

wget --input-file=<file>

Only thing is I believe you'll need to input the proxy manually - could be a problem if you don't know the authentication.

5590

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 08, 2008, 06:36 PM »

4wd: What if you dont use firefox or thunderbird?

-Josh (February 08, 2008, 06:56 AM)

Ahh well, you're already behind the eight-ball then 

What if you have other passwords you want to remember? What if you have network passwords for your job, what about combos to a safe? I can do all of this in roboform.

What if there's no computer next to the safe, your laptop's battery is flat and there's no power point near?

Didn't think of the network password bit, although when I did work, (retired), we were required to use a username/password to use the corp's network which required a change of password every month, (which contrary to everyone else I think is a stupid requirement).

Trouble with the corp network was everyone hated it, so everyone's password was 'yearmonth', eg. 1998janu

Old blog but true: http://blogs.technet...04/07/28/199610.aspx

Then again maybe all our passwording will become redundant: http://technology.ne...rticle.ns?id=dn12825 

BTW, Equilibrium is a really excellent movie. 

5591

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 08, 2008, 05:56 PM »

IIRC, the password manager in both of these are akin to unix account password management, the setting of the master password basically means you've lost your stored passwords if you forget it - it's also extremely secure.

-4wd (February 08, 2008, 03:34 AM)

How is that akin to unix account password management? Those don't work with a "master password", each user password is stored separately, usually as the md5sum of {salt,password} where salt is a 12-bit (iirc) random number.

-f0dder (February 08, 2008, 06:09 AM)

I did say "akin", ie. similar in that they are very secure due to the encrypted way in which password info is stored, very hard to bruteforce.  Not because it requires a master password.

5592

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 08, 2008, 03:34 AM »

I use Firefox v3/Thunderbird v2, (both portable editions), I use their inbuilt password manager with a master password.

I just copy the Firefox/Thunderbird directories to a Flash drive and use on another computer - no other software required.

IIRC, the password manager in both of these are akin to unix account password management, the setting of the master password basically means you've lost your stored passwords if you forget it - it's also extremely secure.

So why would anyone want/need yet another program they have to remember a password for, (ie. the password manager) ?

5593

General Software Discussion / Re: PDF to DOC converter?

« Last post by 4wd on February 08, 2008, 03:33 AM »

Why bother looking for and installing any software for document conversion?

Go to ZamZar, http://www.zamzar.com, upload your PDF, choose 'doc' as the output, enter your email address, wait for an email.

There's also Media Convert, http://media-convert.com/, but they don't do PDF->DOC, (PDF->RTF and others though).

How successful the conversion will be will probably depend on the originals complexity but it probably won't be any worse than a dedicated program on your machine.

5594

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple download manager?

« Last post by 4wd on February 07, 2008, 11:10 PM »

Use wget and the Task Scheduler.

It'll do HTTP, HTTPS and FTP, download to wherever you like, it's a CLI command so doesn't leave traces all over the computer, runs on all versions of Windows, and has more options than you can shake a stick at.

Simple example: wget.exe "http://somewhere.net/somefile.zip"

wget is at http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/, a search of Google will turn up precompiled binaries.

If you go to sourceforge.net and search for wget you can also get quite a few GUIs for Windows if you need one, eg. http://sourceforge.net/projects/wwget/ is a Windows GUI that allows scheduling.

Oh yeah, it's also GPL so no problem with commercial environment.

5595

General Software Discussion / Re: Emulate mouse clicks with keyboard

« Last post by 4wd on February 07, 2008, 10:29 PM »

You could use MouseKeys in conjunction with remapping the keys it uses for left/right click to other keys, eg. Cntrl-A, ~, etc.

Try SharpKeys, (http://www.randyrant...7/sharpkeys_211.html), or KeyTweak, (http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/).

Of course, this will completely screw up the default numpad mappings.

5596

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« Last post by 4wd on February 07, 2008, 02:15 AM »

Personally I think bugs are intolerable, inexcusable, and grounds for uninstalling a program.

Except when they are in programs i write, then they are just minor inconveniences barely worth mentioning.

-mouser (February 03, 2008, 01:31 PM)

Actually, in your case Mouser, they are evidence of its hand-crafted nature 

5597

General Software Discussion / Re: How many of you use encryption?

« Last post by 4wd on February 07, 2008, 12:47 AM »

Is there a truly portable encryption system that allows someone to access an encrypted file on any system via a usb drive?

-Josh (January 20, 2008, 04:32 PM)

Yes, any portable archiver that supports encryption.  I use WinRAR to encrypt all my software keys but I can unencrypt using IZArc2Go, PeaZip or any other that supports encrypted RAR archives, (encrypted RARs are far more secure than encrypted ZIPs - it's been mentioned time and again that if you lose the password for an encrypted RAR in would be faster to create the original file than bruteforce the password).

5598

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by 4wd on February 05, 2008, 06:48 PM »

FWIW I gave PC Tools a whirl and have to say I was mightily disappointed. 

first problem (for me) - it blocked the internal network for some reason (and I'm not even on a network!!!), wouldn't let me play CounterStrike (single player).  Tried tweaking the rules to no avail (probably my lack of expertise didn't help here...)

-Target (February 03, 2008, 06:07 PM)

Interesting, I can't recall having that problem but it's easily fixed.  If you go to the History screen you'll see a list of whatever was blocked, (Source, Dest, Port, Protocol, etc - doubleclicking will give detailed info), right-click on it and select 'Add Rule: .....' and it will create a rule in the appropriate zone, (Internet/Trusted).
You can then edit it, (it always appears at the top before other rules), to fine tune, etc.

second problem - inability to connect to the net.  It may be a good firewall, but I never found out 'cos it either blocked my connection, or dropped it after a very short time.  I spent well over an hour trying to establish a reliable connection, and in the end simply disabled the firewall (problem solved!!).  Maybe I'm a slow learner, but I can't for the life of understand why an app that is apparently as well considered as this one appears to be shouldn't work straight out of the box...

Strange, what can I say except it didn't happen here and it sounds more like a software conflict.

On top of that it was so intrusive (I'm still installing stuff after a rebuild) - every install required a response (some several).

Generally because the installer wants to connect to the net, accept connections, etc, (Microsoft Installer will).  But at least you don't end up with 50+ uninstall/install/setup items in the Apps list like ZA, (mine has none).  All the firewalls I've tried do this, (except purely rule-based), and personally I'd consider it a failing if they didn't, (open a requester when net access is happening during program install/uninstall).

This is one reason why the majority of programs I use are portable.

Now I know this is a 'good thing', but it's irritating in the extreme.  Clicking on the 'remember this' option shortcuts some of this, but creates a useless rule.  Uninstalling was an equally frustrating exercise (why would I want to create a rule to uninstall something???).

Because, again, the uninstaller is trying to connect to the net, accept connections, memory injection, etc.

And at least it shows you in the Apps list if a application is no longer available - about the only firewall I've seen that does.

5599

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by 4wd on February 05, 2008, 05:50 PM »

Darwin,
I was tempted to try it myself but I read somewhere it doesn't have checks for dll injection. You may want to look this up (I'm not sure if it's been rectified in the newer versions) before you make it a permanent fixture.

-nosh (January 27, 2008, 01:34 PM)

The free version of PCTools Firewall V3 allows you to set the following permissions for applications:

Memory Injection
Access through Child process
OLE object activation

All can be set for Allow, Block or Prompt.

I say free version because it allows you to enter a registration code but I don't know whether you need to buy it or just register online - I haven't bothered and it still works.

I will mention that under Settings->Filtering you can turn on 'Protection against Code Injection' - I don't know if this is what you mean.
The only time I turned it on I stupidly answered Block to a requester, (when I should have Allow'ed), and that was the last time I saw the Desktop for a couple of hours while I recovered the system 

Oh, as a bonus it is about the only free firewall I've found, (besides purely rule-based, ala Ghostwall), that installs and runs on Windows Server 2003.  Most of the others won't install either because they don't support it, (eg. Comodo), or because it's automatically assumed you're a corporation, (ergo, you need to buy the Enterprise Edition or some such).

5600

General Software Discussion / Re: Mini-HowTo: Handling Cookie Privacy the Right Way

« Last post by 4wd on February 05, 2008, 05:06 PM »

Unfortunately the CCleaner method of cleaning cookies only works IF you have an installed browser.

I don't.

My XP-SP2 has been nlite'ned to remove IE and a lot more, (the core still remains for those retarded programs that still need it), and I use Portable Firefox - in fact, wherever possibly I only use portable applications and my machine has never run more stable.

For cookies, I just set Firefox to accept all and clear on exit - this just tells Firefox to set all cookies to session only.

I also use the CustomizeGoogle plugin which stuffs up their tracking