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5851

Living Room / Re: 64 Bit CPU - Is it worth it?

« Last post by f0dder on January 20, 2008, 01:16 PM »

Ah, by the way, I recently did bump into some trouble: digital signature updates. In Denmark, the government gives you the option of getting a digital crypto signature to verify yourself against government self-service sites and the like, and it also lets third parties use this verification. Very useful stuff, since that's a lot less passwords and account names to memorize.

Digital certificates have expiration dates, so you need to renew every once in a while. Guess what? They don't really like firefox. "You have Sun Microsystems Inc. 1.6.0_03 but we require  Suns Java v. 1.4.1 or higher" - very useful error message. And for IE, the required Active-X component is 32-bit only.

Good thing that 64-bit XP has both 64- and 32-bit IE installed... launching 32-bit IE let me renew the signature, which I could then export to .pkcs12 format, and then import into firefox. But sheesh, some coders really deserve a good ol' spanking

5852

fSekrit / Re: LATEST VERSION: fSekrit 1.35 shrinkwrapped!

« Last post by f0dder on January 20, 2008, 01:01 PM »

Just choose something that's not in a dictionary, isn't too short, and preferably has a couple of numbers in it. The only way to break fSekrit containers would be bruteforcing them... I think there was a table posted here somewhere with some rough estimates of how long it would take to bruteforce varying keyspaces. Personally I go for ~10 chars or more, depending on how secure the stuff needs to be.

Btw, ever since v1.2, saving identical data with identical passphrase does not generate the same output files (randomized IVs).

5853

Living Room / Re: 64 Bit CPU - Is it worth it?

« Last post by f0dder on January 20, 2008, 11:01 AM »

Ah yes, context menu extensions...

Well, use a 32bit file manager instead of explorer, and then those shell extensions work again

5854

Living Room / Re: 64 Bit CPU - Is it worth it?

« Last post by f0dder on January 20, 2008, 10:51 AM »

Only real problem with running a 64bit windows is that you can no longer run 16bit apps (which includes a lot of installers, idiotic installer developers >_<), and that you can't use 32bit drivers (which isn't much of a problem anymore, except it means you need to get cracks for your legally purchased games, since some of those use (32bit) drivers for software protection).

Other than that, a few dirtily coded apps might break under a 64bit Windows, but most stuff runs fine. You won't notice much improvement in everyday use, but applications compiled for x64 which are compute-intensive can benefit a lot... this would include 3D rendering and whatnot. Oh, and the ability to stuff in a lot of RAM and use it, that requires 64bit.

I'm running XP64 myself, and haven't had any problems doing it this time around. First install several years ago didn't last long because drivers back then sucked

5855

Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 20, 2008, 03:21 AM »

Humm, holding back etc., intel have been on LGA775 socket for quite some time, while AMD have moved from 939 to AM2 to AM2+.

I think you'll see the LGA775 socket and core2 brand used for quite some time yet. Intel uses a tick/tock development cycle ("sorta new architecture" and "improve that architecture"), afaik the Penryn (65nm -> 45nm and SSE4) is a tock, and the next tick will integrate the memory controller on the cpu. That tick might move from LGA775 to something new, and will at least definitely require a new motherboard.

Moved down to two PCI slots? Depends which board your are buying. Most boards I see have 3+ PCI slots, a couple of pci-e slots at 1x or whatever, and one or two pci-e 16x for graphics cards. And how many regular PCI slots do you need, really, when there's 8 or 12 onboard USB slots, onboard gigabit network (or two of those), 8 onboard SATA connections, and onboard sound that's actually quite good?

Again, forget about macs. It's just x86 PC hardware now, dunno if it's even possible to buy new G5 machines anymore... the reason that it's so easy to use windows (with bootcamp) is because the macs are x86 now. What you pay for is standard x86 hardware, and then add 300% for the fancy computer case.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Are you testing XP SP3 RC ??

« Last post by f0dder on January 20, 2008, 03:11 AM »

Nasty

Personally I don't install service packs on a machine I use, instead I slipstream and reinstall windows. More reliable, and you get that minty-fresh "new windows install" feel. Sure, a bit of a bother to reinstall all apps and settings, but if you've done it enough times, it becomes routine.

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Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 19, 2008, 10:34 AM »

AMD (in recent times, there's been more!) had Slot-A, Socket-A, Socket-940, Socket-939, Socket-AM2, Socket-AM2+ (supposedly more or less compatible with AM2, buuuuut...). They've had names like Athlon, Thunderbird, Opteron, Athlon64, Phenom, (...). They've had various "performance numbers". I don't see how that is very much more clear than intel's naming strategy

I honestly don't see much advantage in having multiple sockets, unless it's because you need as many CPUs as possible into a system; using multi-core has the advantage that you don't need (slow!) bus locks when synchronizing memory access, you can have faster in-core sync mechanisms. Shared L2 cache is also very interesting, and if done right it can be much more efficient than per-core cache.

Traditionally the companies have leapfrogged, yes, and AMD had a very nice thing going with the AMD64, it smoked the Pentium4/PentiumD very well. Then intel introduced the core2 architecture, and AMD haven't been able to do anything since. Even their most recent (and post-core2!) Phenom architecture did nothing to save them. Probably spent too much money and research time buying up ATI, bad move unless they can get their act together.

These days, macs are actually just standard x86 hardware, with a fancier computer case and a heavier pricetag. With a few patches, you can run OS X on your stock x86, as long as you choose approximately the same hardware (graphics, net) as the macs have. So no, mac hardware isn't faster than PC hardware; it's been many years since macs ran on Gx CPUs and had SCSI harddrives

5858

Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 19, 2008, 04:59 AM »

Humm, my own radeon experiences were back in the 9600 days, and that is quite a while ago. But BSODs is one thing, data corruption bugs is something that stings hard and leaves a scar for a long time.

My brothers both have 1950Pro cards; one of them has an occasional BSOD (though that could be related to something else, even if the crash address is in ATI drivers), the other is a bit annoyed that blender can't render properly on his primary display (could be ATI's fault, could be blender's fault, but there's buggy code somewhere). One has a zalman cooled radeon which is "probably okay" (his casefans being so loud I definitely can't hear the cooler), the other has a reference fan. And christ it's noisy.

cmpm: 4400+ would be dualcore for AMD, not quadcore. But it doesn't really matter, AMD is still stuck wiht 65nm fab process while intel has moved to 45nm, the AMD chips (even the new Phenoms) are less efficient per MHz than intel's core2 chips, and to make matters even worse, AMD can't reach as high clock frequencies as intel. The fastest Phenom quad is slower than the slowest core2 quad...

AMD does have the advantage of somewhat lower pricetag, but do keep in mind that it does also mean lower performance. If you look at performance/price ratio, I daresay intel is still better.

Keep in mind that my current main workstation is an AMD64x2 4400+ which I quite like, but I'm trying to be pragmatic about these things, instead of resorting to fanboyism. As I see it, AMD is dead in the water, and I really hope they will shape up, since they're the only real competition intel has on the desktop market.

5859

Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 06:46 PM »

So something like this?
http://www.newegg.co...Item=N82E16819115017

-wreckedcarzz (January 18, 2008, 06:06 PM)

That CPU is very good bang for the buck, yes, and should be able to overclock stable to 3.0GHz with stock cooling.

Personally I'm waiting until Q9450 comes in stock, it's a bit more expensive, but uses 45nm process fabrication technique, which means more performance and less power drain. More cache too, and faster FSB.

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Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 06:01 PM »

Yeah, just GHz won't do it, you also have to take in amount how many cores you can utilize at a time. Most people won't be able to utilize quadcores... I'm going to get one asap, but I won't even be tapping into all cores at once. Most people would *at the moment* be better off with a dualcore with "omg moar gigahurtz!" than a per-core slower quadcore.

Also remember that even per-core GHz can't be used as a measure, since there's also the issue of how much work can be done per MHz. Currently, core2 leads over Pentium-D and whatever AMD has.

5861

Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 05:47 PM »

I think they went for "Pentium D" because it sounds cooler than Pentium 4? Dunno

Wrecked, game FPS is mostly tied to graphics card, and program launch speed to harddrive (and possibly running antivirus apps)... so it's not smart to judge CPU based on comparing your pc to your dads on those terms. Do yourself a favour and get a core2duo, even the low-end models are likely to beat the crap out of your celeron d

5862

Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 05:37 PM »

Hm, can't remember if the Celly-Ds are also dual core... wouldn't think so. They suck any way . (Btw, there's also core2 celerons, those are a lot nicer than p-d celerons, but still inferior to non-celerons).

5863

General Software Discussion / Re: VisualWget - Wget for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 05:35 PM »

Oh nice, last I looked it hadn't been updated for like half a year

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Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 04:52 PM »

Don't get extreme, it's too much cash compared to the little extra performance.

And wtf. are you talking about "frame rate hit"? O_o. Deliberately getting a single-core CPU is outright stupid, unless you're very very short on cash. And even if you don't run threaded software, well, dualcore makes your whole experience sooooo much smoother. Btw, QuadCores are quite affordable now, Q6600 very cheap (and overclockable), and the Q9450 being mad power right out of the box, but still reasonably priced.

Your motherboard is guaranteed to be LGA775, and if it was purchased relatively recently, it should work just fine with a core2 CPU.

Oh, and finally: Pentium-D consumes more power and is slower per megahertz than the core2 CPUs.

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General Software Discussion / Re: PEEK

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 04:14 PM »

Other solution would be using a 32bit file manager (like xplorer^2) on your 64bit OS

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Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 04:12 PM »

I'd get a Core 2 Duo (get rid of that Pentium D!), but not the E8200, not yet, it's not even available on Newegg, and AFAIK the Wolfdale family of new Core 2 are not even available (the Duo will be out first, the Quad is delayed),

-Lashiec (January 18, 2008, 12:45 PM)

Hm, they're available for purchase at the Danish shop I use, but they're not in stock yet... the dualcores are scheduled for end of January, quadcores beginning of February, and the extreems for end of February. But of course those dates can be postponed, we'll see

and if you can, a Radeon 3850, which has a good balance between power and cost (oh, man, you have a 2600 >_<). I don't have an idea of what to use for the front panels, but Zalman has good things in the controller area.

-Lashiec (January 18, 2008, 12:45 PM)

Personally I stay away from radeons, their fans are insanely noisy >_<, and I still shudder at the driver bugs.

5867

General Software Discussion / Re: VisualWget - Wget for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 04:10 PM »

unxutils seems dead (haven't checked in a while, though) - is gnuwin32 more frequently updated?

Can't remember if unxutils uses msvcrt.dll (bad since it's old) or the libraries that come with Visual C++ (good). Gnu's LIBC isn't that bad, as long as you don't go cygwin with the awful DLL

5868

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: DoubleKiller Pro - FAST and great to find duplicate files!

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 09:37 AM »

Try http://Duplicate Finder this also a very good tool to find and eliminate true duplicate files.

Duplicate Finder search duplicates using byte by byte or crc32 to give you most accurate and faster results.

Good interface with lots of features.

http://www.ashisoft.com

-ashiswa (January 18, 2008, 09:22 AM)

Remember to state 100% clearly when you're affiliated with some software you post about

5869

General Software Discussion / Re: extraDNS: does it work?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 06:01 AM »

Theorycraft: Apparently your OS does the same thing so the improved speed will be either in a faster implementation or a longer caching time of the responses. If it was free I'd give it a try but not worth paying money for I'd say.

-justice (January 18, 2008, 05:16 AM)

I second that. And if it caches responses longer than the OS, perhaps it caches them longer than the expiry time sent by the DNS server... that's a BAD idea.

If you don't think windows' DNS cache is good enough, google for treewalk DNS, that might float your boat. And it's free.

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

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 05:02 AM »

Well, outbound protection lets you know when something has gone wrong and can help minimize the damage.  I also like to make sure I know what the "benign" apps on my system are doing.

-Liquidmantis (January 17, 2008, 01:55 PM)

That is, theoretically, an argument in favor of outbound firewalling... problem is that anything worth protecting against will be using covert channels (ie, injecting code into internet explorer and communicating over port 80), so the net worth is... nothing.

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Living Room / Re: Making a dream PC for cheap (as possible) - help anyone?

« Last post by f0dder on January 18, 2008, 04:34 AM »

So... you went super cheap on the CPU, and spend tons of cash on peripherals? O_o

If your motherboard supports it, I would suggest spending ~$230 (and that's for Danish prices - it'll probably be $200 or less in .us) on a Core2Duo E8200 CPU. You won't regret that.

5872

Living Room / Re: Did dual-layer recordable dvd discs ever make it mainstream?

« Last post by f0dder on January 17, 2008, 10:17 AM »

The only thing I deem reliable for backups is (hard)disk based solutions - or the big enterprise tape solutions... I'm not going to keep anything important only on optical media, as those wear down with time...

5873

Living Room / Re: Did dual-layer recordable dvd discs ever make it mainstream?

« Last post by f0dder on January 17, 2008, 05:18 AM »

They're readily available, but prohibitively expensive...

And most pirated downloaded are in single-layer re-encoded format (with proper CCE compression, not dvd shrink) anyway, which is probably why consumers aren't buying DL discs and thus driving prices down.

5874

fSekrit / Re: LATEST VERSION: fSekrit 1.35 shrinkwrapped!

« Last post by f0dder on January 17, 2008, 05:13 AM »

Maybe I can suggest something like importing .exe files when appropriate passphrase is entered which may make life easier when updating files from earlier versions.

-cemole (January 17, 2008, 04:11 AM)

That's a thing I have on my todo-list, I'm still pondering how to do it in a "user friendliness efficient" way

5875

General Software Discussion / Re: Do DNS servers have any effect on bittorrent activity?

« Last post by f0dder on January 17, 2008, 02:46 AM »

1) not if it caches the IP of the tracker, and the tracker doesn't change IP.

2) it shouldn't. Iirc trackers just give a list of IPs, not hostnames... many clients do perform a reverse-DNS lookup of those IPs, so connect speed can be affected - download speed isn't, though.