Recent Posts

5801

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 29, 2009, 10:28 PM »

I actually do the exact opposit; I maintain a secure network (domain), no one touches my primary machine, and anything questionable I need to do is done on a throw-away VM that I always keep running (usually minimized).

While I liked to have many machines to tinker with (at one point), the light bill was getting insane ... So now I'm a huge VPC fan. I've still got one more server (that I'm kinda attached to...) to virtualize then I'll have all 4 in one physical machine.

5802

Living Room / Re: Here come the airport rectal exams! (NSFW)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 29, 2009, 06:22 PM »

This might be a blessing in disguise if we think outside the box.

Consider how going to the airport could save men over 50 the cost of an annual physical provided we could get the TSA to toss in an eye test and some blood work to go along with that rectal exam...

In an era of rapidly rising health costs it's always prudent to seek out synergies and encourage government agencies to provide more for less!

 

-40hz (September 29, 2009, 02:48 PM)

Hm... Compare (4 hour) Dr. office lobby wait with (2 hour) trip through airport security...

 - Plane Ticket is about the same price... -

My god man, you've done it! - Alert the President that we've found the answer.

5803

Living Room / Re: Here come the airport rectal exams! (NSFW)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 29, 2009, 12:50 PM »

Lewis Page, an "improvised-device disposal operator tasked in support of the UK mainland police from 2001-2004," pointed out that this isn't much of a threat for three reasons: 1) you can't stuff a lot of explosives into a body cavity, 2) detonation is, um, problematic, and 3) the human body can stifle an explosion pretty effectively (think of someone throwing himself on a grenade to save his friends).

ROFL


but seriously, when you're dealing with someone that has no specific target & no use for an exit stratigy, I don't think there really is a right way to defend against that kind of attack. Frankly I wonder why the high population choke point that is Airport Security isn't a more likely target.

5804

General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 29, 2009, 06:09 AM »

Modern HP printers are pieces of crap that break easily

-Innuendo (September 28, 2009, 08:28 PM)

I don't find that to be so. I have a few 'modern' HP Laser printers and, while they certainly don't have the heft of the old II's and III's, they perform very well and I've yet to break one.

-cranioscopical (September 28, 2009, 08:55 PM)

Actually you're both right, Since HP has decided to adopt the lose-leader business model for some of their laser printers there are several models (low end color machines come to mind) that exhibit all the fit & finish quality of a Pez dispenser.

While true the "Heft" isn't there anymore, I've seen several of the mid to high end business models take an incredible beating (Steady print volumes of twice their rating, etc.) and just keep going.

5805

Living Room / Re: Real code vs. Code in the movies

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 28, 2009, 06:10 AM »

rarely cursing out the computer in fits of pure rage.

-mouser (December 07, 2006, 05:23 PM)

Amen to that one (...having just finished a fit earlier )

5806

General Software Discussion / Re: Complaint: BitDefender Internet Security

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 22, 2009, 06:11 AM »

I've been playing with MSE for a month or so & am quite happy with it ... Which considering my blanket hatred for most things AV (Magic Bullet Baby-sitters) says quite a bit.

It's light on resources to the point of being unnoticable with the exception of the startup scan in the last build. But the lagg was over before it had time to really annoy me (statistically these days thats under 4 seconds - I'm trying to quit smoking).

Definitions come via Windows update which is nice (kinda), but adds a step to my morning routine as I don't run WU on automatic.

It does have a habit of FP'ing on keygenerators, but regulating morality seems to be an Industry Standard (for AV) these days so I won't (can't) hold that against it. 

How well it works - It works as well as anything else, everybody has slow/off days and misses something from time to time & AV software is no different. The main question (for me) is how (insanely) huge is the resource footprint. I did do some bad browsing habits testing & it caught everything that I normally would never have clicked on. So if nothing else it's at least as good as I am...

5807

Living Room / Re: How to use a parallel port printer on a PC without a parallel port?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 18, 2009, 02:46 PM »

I have used one if these Rosewill Single Parallel  (SPP/PS2/EPP/ECP) Universal Low-Profile PCI card Model RC-302 for a client who needed to run a 15 year old unreplaceable (vertical market propriatery) DOS program on a Dell Vostro running Vista Business Edition.

It was one of those really old describe the printer/hardcodded resources type DOS programs.

It's been running flawlessly for about a year sofar.

Note: card configuration utility must be run from a Win98 boot floppy & the documentation royally sucks. but other then that it's a great card.

5808

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 16, 2009, 08:53 AM »

...gold doesn't oxidise in air.  If the gold contacts on your RAM sticks are oxidising you have other environmental problems.

Sure reseating the memory a-few-times will scratch/gouge a conductive path in the oxidation usually ... But it's not guaranteed especially if you have a less than perfect (slightly loose, etc.) memory slot.

Then you have a problem with your memory slots which should be fixed since any cleaning of the RAM contacts will be a temporary fix.

-4wd (September 15, 2009, 03:49 PM)

Pure gold doesn't oxidize/tarnish but the stuff coating the contacts isn't pure as it would be far to soft to withstand the insertion force.

Memory slots aren't repairable - There are no serviceable parts in them. Even with the high level of skill required to replace one (which I have) without damaging the board there is still a great deal of risk (**it happens).

It really is strange that you have such a adverse reaction to a common industry standard practice which is even recommended on some memory manufacturers support forums (one would thing they'd know better).

Hint: Corsair, search for pencil, RAM GUY has been there for a really long time.

Frankly at my age I'm not the slightest bit interested in the snarky sniping pedantic nonsense and am seriously starting to lose interest in this forum.

5809

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 15, 2009, 07:20 AM »

Might not hurt to clean said components (just their contacts) with a pencil eraser when reseating them.

-Stoic Joker (September 14, 2009, 05:57 PM)

Never heard of that, but will add to my: ToDos

-jammo (September 14, 2009, 07:27 PM)

I wouldn't do that, some pencil erasers leave a residue which can then cause problems.

-4wd (September 14, 2009, 08:26 PM)

What kind of pencils have you been using? Alcohol isn't going to do anything to the oxidation layer that coats the contacts after time. Sure reseating the memory a-few-times will scratch/gouge a conductive path in the oxidation usually ... But it's not guaranteed especially if you have a less than perfect (slightly loose, etc.) memory slot.

HP has a never use erasesr cleaning policy (I work for an HP ASP) for their diagnostics - But they get $200 for a 128MB stick of RAM too. I've had a dozen or so incidents in the past year where the Tech (following instructions) "cleaned" (e.g. washed) the memory only to have the problem continue. at least 9 of those were resolved by a little TLC and a pencil eraser. The rest actually did have bad memory.

5810

Living Room / Re: How should I diagnose this hardware issue?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2009, 05:57 PM »

Might not hurt to clean said components (just their contacts) with a pencil eraser when reseating them.

5811

General Software Discussion / Re: How To Type Symbols and more

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2009, 05:54 PM »

I did a cheat sheet sort of page on my site awhile back, it's here if anyone can find it useful.

5812

Living Room / Re: The unspoken truth about managing geeks

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 14, 2009, 06:10 AM »

LOL, this thread is getting difficult to follow, what with having only half a brain and all...

Very interesting to read your replies guys, thanks. Stoic Joker, you weed out ex McDonald's employees? Why is that? Here in .au it's considered to be a positive thing.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (September 13, 2009, 03:12 PM)

*Shrug* Actually I was just trying to throw in a little stereo-type "salt" to liven it up a bit...and since the DMV always takes such a beating I thought it best to pick on someone else.

5813

Living Room / Re: The unspoken truth about managing geeks

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 13, 2009, 08:12 AM »

Crap... Sorry Perry wrong button ... I meant to quote Eythar's post above yours. This one:

Oh, I got the impress that they meant have IT present for hiring of all roles (hence my wanton dismissal), but now I can't find the part so I suppose the point is moot. Still, what company would not have IT present for the hiring of a colleague?

Ehtyar.

-Perry Mowbray (September 13, 2009, 01:02 AM)

Unfortunately quite a few where I come from. Granted that could be a side effect of the hick-town nature of where I live but... *Shrug*

I watched too many interviews go down the drain because some HR drone had no idea what I or my resume was talking about. So they ignored me, skimmed my resume for "Key Words" they thought they needed but were clue-less of what equivalent experience was.

One of the worst examples I can think of was a company that was looking for an MCSE, but required no field experience...on a 200 machine network. At the time I was MCSA & had 5 years of field experience yet they wouldn't even consider an interview. Let alone put me in touch with someone there that might actually know what all those letters meant.

The company I'm with now runs everything IT through IT. The HR folk get to weed out the drunks, junkies, & ex McDonald's employees ... and then pass the (much smaller) stack to IT to decided if the skill sets match closely enough. I've sat in on several interviews & played 20 questions with candidates to gauge how much (if any) of there history has been (Um...) "embelished"... The end result is that we have very little (almost no) turn over staff wise.

5814

General Software Discussion / Re: Will Win7 last as long as XP?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2009, 10:20 PM »

Well... Both of the machines I primarily use (here/home = x64 & work = x86) were upgraded from Vista to 7 about a month ago. While both are running noticeably crisper in the UI response department, I can't really say it's an earth shattering improvement. However the 32bit work machine having only 2GB of RAM does seem to show the most dramatic improvement as it's much less prone to lagging when I start a 2nd VM.

5815

Living Room / Re: The unspoken truth about managing geeks

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2009, 07:54 PM »

What kind of feedback can you provide in an interview scenario Perry? I thought the suggestion was a bit much because I couldn't think of any helpful advice IT could offer HR (other than "This person has no idea about IT, don't hire them!!" of course ). I'd be interested to know what IT can offer in that context.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (September 12, 2009, 04:02 PM)

As apposed to letting the typical HR drone with their personality chart & plasticine smile try discussing the technical merits of a damn thing?!? Good god man ... no secondary reason is required.

5816

General Software Discussion / Re: Will Win7 last as long as XP?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 12, 2009, 07:33 PM »

a) I already upgraded a month ago (MSDN Subscription)
b) I think that will depend on how well it captivates (and holds) the markets attention.
c) See a.

The new interface enhancements make it incredibly easy to re-find your place when you get side-tracked while multi-tasking. Like when you're in the middle of 12 different things and get called away from your desk by a user that needs to be rescued from some personal computing tragedy (which generally means arriving in person and pointing at the button you'd told them about on the phone). /BOFH Mode

5817

Living Room / Re: Question for Mac lovers ...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 11, 2009, 03:49 PM »

Unfortunately no second Mac

-Carol Haynes (September 11, 2009, 01:27 PM)

I'm looking at that as a positive think; if one had two Macs, that would tend to obligate them to buy the T-shirt, start commenting on paintings & waring sandals, and to like the idea of paying $9 a cup for coffee ... It all spirals down hill from there really.

One Mac is best, it allows one to engage in an experiment that can then be safely grown out of.

I have one that someone gave me, it's a PowerCenter 150 running OS9. I'll admit it was fun trying to figure out how to hack together a copy of OS9 to run on a box that old...it took most of a day. But now it sits in the corner collecting dust...which it started doing a week after a friend & I got it running...it doesn't bother me any at all.

5818

Living Room / Re: Question for Mac lovers ...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 11, 2009, 06:00 AM »

Okay just for the record (given the thread title - so no one gets the wrong idea) I detest anything Apple.

But... I have had occasion to stand next to next from time to tome and I am observant.

1. Yes, any drive will do.
2. I'm 85% sure that's possible as I seem to recall hearing about folks doing that on several of the beta OS forums I frequent.
3. You mean visually? I doubt it ... but it's all backwards compatable so it shouldn't matter.

That's the best I can do hope it helps.

5819

Living Room / Re: top secret: tech support cheat sheet (xkcd)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 04, 2009, 11:43 AM »

But I have a 3 day weekend, a case of beer, and nothing planned... <-Just add FreeBSD y/n) 

5820

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: EASEUS Partition Master for Free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on September 01, 2009, 04:00 PM »

Never heard of it - But I have a weakness for Partitioning Tools

Thanks!

5821

Developer's Corner / Re: Coding Practices Question: Curly brackets on a new line for else statement?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 28, 2009, 05:43 AM »

Ironically I like the first example/style for the same reason app103 gave. However I (created a habit for myself) tend to indent the else line by one space like so:

Code: ActionScript [Select]

1. function myFunction() {
2.   // multiple lines of code here
3.  }else{
4.   // multiple lines of code here
5. }

While I chalk it up to bad habits caused by self teaching ... and (defensively) agree (to cover my sins) that it's a personal preference thing. I think Deozaan was asking in the context of which style is more universally accepted as proper & good. e.g. Which style would best serve one if they were including code samples with their resume. ...Which given the direction the economy has been going I'd like to know too.

5822

Living Room / Re: Battery Backup - Get One

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 27, 2009, 10:40 PM »

So, having it on the highest of authorities that only a pristine ground is needed to heal all woes. I refrained from replacing the derisively referred to as a "Plug-in Protection" device with its evil hollow claims to defend my server from anything ... Even tho I am well aware that the hicks around here just love to flick the power on & off now and then; not to mention letting the line voltage crawl around like a moth on crack. Just to see what would actually happen (as if I didn't already know...).

Completely ignoring the fact that my previously flawless (5 year running) 99.995% uptime record immediately plunged to 70 something. I waited until I had a better more conclusive looking number, which I've attached below:


Hint: The Zero Byte .vhd file used to be an 8GB Windows 2003 Mail Server. Now a through diagnostic of all hardware clearly shows that there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of the hardware. It is all in perfect (physical) working condition. Unfortunately the excessive number of soft errors caused by (randomly) power cycling the box while under load had a rather adverse effect on the file system.

Hence I will at this point happily concede that with "proper grounding" no physical harm can or will befall ones computer. Which IMO would be an absolutely flawless conclusion, except for one minor detail ... The damn thing ain't decorative. Having a large chunk of ones data completely trashed is (sadly...) just not an acceptable outcome.

So thus ends my do servers really need clean power experiment...

5823

General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 27, 2009, 08:14 AM »

While I don't print much (under 50 pages a year), the company I work for depends on printing/printers & etc. We're a reman cartridge, printer sales, and service company. While business has dropped off it is due to the economy which has pretty much everybody in the toilet .

While electronic storage of data has replaced a lot of paper, the dissemination of said data is still paper based. People are creatures of habit, and they like to walk away from a transaction with a Hard-Copy record of it, and that requires paper, with print on it. I really don't see that changing any time soon.

5824

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls, What you need to know...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 25, 2009, 01:48 PM »

A firewall can be a really useful first line of defense in alerting you when something unusual is going on and when a program is trying to connect out to the internet unexpectedly.

I can't count the number of times that my firewall has alerted me about some newly installed program or driver making a web connection that I would have otherwise had no idea about -- and which prompted me to investigate further what was going on.  In some cases it has been extremely useful in diagnosing slow startups, program hangs, etc.

In addition, I just like to know what's going on on my pc and I like the fact that a software firewall tells me when programs are trying to connect to the web. And I like having a second layer of defense in my remote control tools, etc.

-mouser (August 25, 2009, 11:07 AM)

I usually use netstat /n for that - But field work tends to require you to use (work with only) what's there.

Having said all that -- firewalls can also introduce all kinds of tricky-to-diagnose gremlins that occur when they get it into their heads to block stuff silently and cause programs to stop working with no sign of why.

Now this I see constantly in the field.

5825

Living Room / Re: Help? Learning how to drive...

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 25, 2009, 01:29 PM »

So you're looking for a safe, simple, cheap way of learning to steer around obsticals, maintain your lane, backup & etc.

(Don't Laugh)

Scare up a riding lawnmower & go do some lawns. You get all of the above plus non-lethal penalties for taking too sharp a turn.
Mower = tore up patch of grass
Car = Expensive parts & death.

The biggest danger to most drivers is inattention; they're busy doing X and then... ...it happens. On the mower going 5mph you're attention will wander quickly...which (in a typical small yard) will put you into alot of "oh shits" (safely) in a short period of time.

and you might make a few bucks in the process.