Recent Posts

5826

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.

5827

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.

5828

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.

5829

Living Room / Re: Coding Horror Asks: Are You a Digital Sharecropper?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 19, 2009, 06:46 AM »

I vastly prefer a freewheeling web to what Facebook is trying to do, which is return to the days of AOL and Compuserve and serve as online gated communities.

-zridling (August 18, 2009, 08:01 PM)

I think that depends on how one perceives the "gate" ... Does it keep the riff-raff out, or the lunatics in?

Granted I have Zero use for any of the "Social Networking" sites as they seem to be filled with the same constant mindless prattle that made me tired of going to bars. The web was much more fun back when you actually had to know something to get on it.

5830

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 19, 2009, 06:38 AM »

Every time I hear about this it just seems like a bad dream. Was the judge bribed? or is he just an idiot?

It seems like the only ways left to achieve the "American Dream" these days are to:
"Win" a game show.
Marketing Campaign (Spam Flood) some Scam-Ware anti-evil "utility".
Invent some frivolous lawsuit & leverage the courts to extort a fortune out of someone for you.

Earn it? Hard work? Those are such outdated concepts now-a-days...

5831

Living Room / Re: Free Mousepads?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 15, 2009, 04:26 PM »

You're still using a ball mouse?!?

5832

Living Room / Re: PLEASE, Host Your Own DNS Server

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 11, 2009, 10:20 PM »

Um... My home network = domain->MS DNS->Web root servers.

Fer plain folk I'm with f0dder on OpenDNS or EarthLinks servers work just dandy pretty much anywhere in the US.

As far as tracking goes, what difference does it really make if your logged for a DNS lookup or a web server visit. Everything gets logged, tracked, parsed, sorted, cataloged and sold to the highest bidder anyhow...long as it doesn't hamper my travels, I couldn't care less.

5833

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free WinUtilities 6.2!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 11, 2009, 05:51 PM »

  Am I missing something, or did the spambot just dis itself?

5834

Living Room / Re: PLEASE, Host Your Own DNS Server

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 11, 2009, 05:40 PM »

*Shrug* We're a Windows shop so both DNS servers are MS DNS servers. One is a caching server that forward to OpenDNS (to keep the crew honest). The other one (is for IT...) forward to the (windows default) internet root servers. So 90% of the lookups are (local) instantaneous, the other few (first timers) might actually take a whole second ... but so what.

Given that most ISP DNS's suck (for one reason or the other) I generally always either go with the MS DNS default web root servers, or for small workgroups I tend to use (depending on mood & customer request) either OpenDNS or EarthLinks two main DNS servers as they've always been rather reliable.

5835

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a Desktop Search through the network

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 31, 2009, 06:21 AM »

Ironically I almost never use it, but the office staff does and they haven't had any complaints (which is odd for an office staff...). But for a test I queried a list of all of last years service tickets for client X, and it took about 2.5 seconds to pull the 20 test client tickets from the 7,000 other tickets.

Unfortunately I don't have time to strip the company identifing stuff out of the code. But I originally started it with a C# code sample/demo I found at www.CodeProject.com - Currently logged in user creds are used, & you can connect to and query either a local or remote catalog db.

5836

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a Desktop Search through the network

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 30, 2009, 07:13 PM »

20 machines running (constantly reindexing) a "desktop" search across the wire?!? Zoikes!

When letting the Xerox rep talk us into using their ScanFlowStore software for our paperless service ticket system I was actually stuck with the exact same question. It seems Xerox (the SFS people actually) had spent their time creating a truly flexible metadata based document indexing system ... and just not gotten around to doing a search app just yet. The rep suggested we use Google Desktop, which I politely told him was a totally retarded idea.

What I did do was leverage the completely included with Windows (and fairly customizable) indexing service to create a single index catalog on the file server which can be searched in either a plain text or SQL-esq fashion using the Query the Catalog part of the Indexing Service MMC snap-in. I did end up having to write a small search GUI for the office staff to connect to the remote catalog but the system has been working perfectly for about 3 years now.

5837

Living Room / Re: DRM hits a new low as Amazon hits the delete key

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 18, 2009, 11:08 PM »

Now the thing I find intriguing is that everybody seems to think this kind of behavior on the part of the draconian media copyright types, is new. It isn’t. There was a time back when (before the internet) that anyone with a dual cassette deck rig (like me) could knock off tapes by the dozen, for all their friends. These folks were too difficult to prosecute … however others were not so lucky.

During these arcane (pre-interweb) times I owned a small (dive) biker bar. In said bar, we occasionally had “bands”, which is a term I’m using loosely considering it was typically just some (half-lit) hick with a guitar. The bar legally seated approx 50 people. E.g. we’re not talking about a huge operation here.

Enter BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.). On one fine spring afternoon (hehe) a pair of large dark sedans flew into the parking lot, the doors flew open and the occupants then stormed the building. Two stood watch by the outer doors; one yanked the door open and held it for their “leader” and remained there for the duration of the “visit” while the rest came goose stepping in. They then formed semi-circle around the “leader” which was I’m guessing to be an impressive (and intimidating) “display” of themselves.

They then proceeded to explain that I was to be fined at a rate of $25,000 per person, per song (sound familiar?), if I continued to have live entertainment without an entertainment license. Okay… The license was however $20,000 per year.

So… crucifying little guys that are easy to find is perfectly normal behavior for these “people”. I can testify to that from experience.

Incidentally there was another group of assholes that made the exact same entrance. Pickup trucks flew into the parking lot and a bunch of folks in paramilitary gear jumped out and stormed the building. Two stood watch by the outer doors; one yanked the door open and held it for their “leader” and remained there for the duration of the “visit” while the rest came goose stepping in. They scattered propaganda leaflets everywhere and then joined their “leader” which was I’m guessing to be an impressive (and intimidating) “display” of themselves. Who were these jagoffs? Well we are in the south here, and it was indeed the Klu Klux Klan.

Neither group got what they wanted, but both did leave me glad that I carry a gun.

5838

General Software Discussion / Re: Command line e-mail checker

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 17, 2009, 04:29 PM »

I'm assuming you've tried this already

http://bobpeers.com/...ical/telnet_imap.php

, yes?

5839

Living Room / Re: Send Yourself To Mars!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 17, 2009, 01:22 PM »

Certificate #: N2M400329213

5840

General Review Discussion / Re: Opinions on remote PC control software

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 16, 2009, 07:18 AM »

The thing that seems to give the best speed is Microsoft's own Remote Desktop. Even UltraVNC with the GDI mirror driver isn't as fast, lags a bit even on a LAN. Most VNCs have been pretty slow for me - bearable on a LAN, but not elsewhere. The official RealVNC client is somewhat better than most of the others, but pretty duh; it's commercial software.

It's been a while since I tried any of the dedicated "remote control" applications, but back then most suffered the same problem as the VNC clients: they poll and grab screenshots.

By the way, Remote Desktop and VNC should *always* be used through VPN or a SSH tunnel. *always*.

The problem with Remote Desktop is that, unless you're on a terminal server, it will log off the active user (well, switch-user on XP).

-f0dder (May 23, 2006, 05:47 AM)

True but, Logoff user only applies if using a client OS (XP/Vista/7) the servers allow (technically) 3 sessions in TS "administrative mode" one for the console & 2 Remote sessions.

Why the VPN requirement for RDP? Granted while not the default, RDP natively supports FIPS (which is AES based). Depending on the nature of the deployment (e.g. how prone to be targeted it is) I see no problem with using RDP with the FIPS required setting on a bastard port.

5841

Living Room / Re: From the BBC science desk: Cats 'exploit' humans by purring

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 16, 2009, 06:20 AM »

Once again proving that we are not the smartest animals on this planet.

5842

General Software Discussion / Re: IDEA - User timer and lock out

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 03, 2009, 08:20 AM »

Most of what you are looking for is built into Windows. If you do a Google search on Windows Parental Controls there are a ton of tutorials available on setting time and content limits for the kids accounts.

Sorry I can't be more specific but I'm shot on time & don't have kids at home anymore.

5843

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 02, 2009, 01:00 PM »

Worst virus I ever saw only screwed up the machine half as bad as a typically failed Norton uninstall.

5844

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP Pro x64 (64-bit) Edition - Favorite Software Compatibility Thread

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 01, 2009, 07:42 AM »

welcome to the site -- 1st clock is quality software 

-mouser (June 30, 2009, 05:22 PM)

Granted I'll continue to use mine out of principal ... but damn that thing is nice! I love the popup time zone & docking features.

5845

General Software Discussion / Re: Search with Bing

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 01, 2009, 07:32 AM »

I tend to search for part numbers and other obscure bits of information frequently. So I've been pitting Google & Bing against each other for a week or so to see who gets the most relevant hits. Bing has been ahead about 40% of the time. showing less total results but having more truly relevant hits bubbling to the top of the first page list.

Last weekend I use it to find some break parts (complete with printable OEM manuels & pricing) for my Harley (middle of page 2), which Google had burried on page 7 using the same query string.

5846

Living Room / Re: Giampy... how does it sound?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 29, 2009, 08:49 AM »

It would help to know your location so folks can decide if they're foreign or not...but if you like the name then it's all good.

5847

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 29, 2009, 07:12 AM »

Interesting thing to note from the article is that they eliminated all of the FP's from all of the test group if they involved a key-gen/crack/etc. ... So if the AV company was trying to regulate morality, they don't get penalized for it (I still haven't really decided how I feel about that behavior).

Any how (that being said...) I used a production machine that GFi LANGuard said had some suspicious looking ports open on it.

A quick scan turned up nothing in about 10min.

(Assuming nothing had been found I did not rerun LANGuard at this point)

A full scan turned up about 30 items, but took 11hrs. ...Mind you it had 250Gig of files to scan, 35 of which were .iso's which it did scan inside of ... but Damn! 11 Hours!?! *Sigh*

Being that I let it scan everything, it managed to find all of my hacking tools (Duh!)...and it managed to (IMO) FP on Angryziber.com Angry IP Scanner ...But, everybody seems to do that which annoys me to no end.

The interesting part was that it did not react to any of the other network scanning utilities some commercial & some of my own that were on the drive. It also did not react to a line stressing ping utility I wrote that includes (for diagnostic purposes only...) a Smurf attack option. Which in earlier versions (which are archived on the drive in question) used the original Smurf attack source code. Now you'd think that kinda thing (Smurf.exe) would be easy to spot.

(Back to the results) So GFi Languard said there were 5 suspicious ports open. MSE's scan results found 30 items to question 25 were actually bad files collected from various places & 5 were FP's. None were active running evil files on the machine. However a rescan of said machine with GFi LANGuard...gave the machine a clean bill of health. So what it pulled from where without saying anything about it, is quite odd.

It is delightfully idiot simple to use, and there is no perceivable difference in machine performance. Hay if I gota bust out a stopwatch & a slide-rule to find a difference ... Then there ain't no difference. Even during the full scan (where most AV apps bring a machine to it's knees) I had no problems using the machine via RDP.

The machine in question is a Dell Dimension E521 with SATA HDDs, an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0Ghz) CPU, & 2GB of RAM running 32bit Vista Business Eddition.

End result being I'm impressed with it's tiny foot print, curious but optimistic about it performance, and completely baffeled with its results ... as it appears to have worked, but I'm not sure how (and appearently neither is it).

5848

General Software Discussion / Re: Let's really fix Outlook

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 28, 2009, 08:57 AM »

I lost interest the moment my eyes came across "email marketers".

Wonderful....let's 'fix' all the email programs so it's easier to send out spam that's even more annoying than one used to be able to do.

-Innuendo (June 27, 2009, 10:01 AM)

Amen!

5849

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 28, 2009, 08:53 AM »

However in the same report MS had the best score for the least FP's out of any of the tested products. Which begs the question; are the others really better (more accurate) or are they just jumping blindly at anything?

Trust must factor into the assessment, and if the scanner is just flagging anything that confuses it then it's really more chicken little then trusted companion. Especially when it's hogging massive amounts of system resources like Symantec or McAfee which scored high on said accuracy test.

5850

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 27, 2009, 08:59 AM »

I jumped onto the beta DL (which now appears to be closed) and grabbed all 3 (32, 64, & XP) and will be playing with this later this weekend. From the video it appears to have been brilliantly done (simple, quick, & straight forward).