Recent Posts

5876

Living Room / Re: is someone stealing my bandwidth?

« Last post by f0dder on January 17, 2008, 02:43 AM »

Security and performance go hand in hand... in a tuggle-war. If you add encryption to anything it gets bigger, the "Pipe" however is a fixed size. So the more encryption you add the less actual (payload) data you get. On a 100Mb network the maximum packet size is 1500 bytes, encrypted packets don't get to be bigger, so the payload (of your actual data) inside the packet must be made smaller. This repackaging of the traffic is why high-end commercial routers (are so pricey) require tons of processing power to keep up with the load. Even with out any encryption, you're still dealing with the transmission overhead of TCP/IP which is approx 33% e.g. while the wire may be "seeing" 100Mb if "traffic" only 66% of that is the data that you were stuffing up the wire. There's a "cost" to everything.

-Stoic Joker (January 16, 2008, 08:21 PM)

I wonder what frame size the wireless.fast (whatever it's called, the 300mbit stuff) uses?

Even with standard ethernet framesize and a 100mbit connection (LAN), I can usually reach 9-10mbyte/s, suggesting that the TCP overhead is more like 20%. With jumbo frames on a gigabit LAN it seems to be even a bit lower, but then you're limited by the protocols (ie, SMB/CIFS) that run ontop of TCP.

Now personally I enjoy molesting "Sacred Cows", but children are best kept safe and Innocent for as long as possible. I have Zero sense of humor about that sort of thing.

-Stoic Joker (January 16, 2008, 08:21 PM)

Agree 100%. There's a difference between having pictures of somebody else's naked children (whether those pictures are "innocent" or not) and having pictures of your own kids skinny dipping... I would probably call the cops too if I found several images of random naked kids on somebody's PC, but a few pictures of somebody's own children nekkid in the sopping pool in the backyard?

5877

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 07:13 PM »

RE: fileservers vs NAS, power consumption might be something to keep in mind... although some of the NAS'es I've been looking at seem to have more or less standard PC components inside.

For me, choosing a fileserver over NAS was an easy choice, since it enables me to run a subversion repository and a decent torrent client among other things.

5878

Living Room / Re: Help! Any NetGear experts out there?

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 07:10 PM »

Hm, all your connections are reset? And this is a wired, not wireless, router? Sounds pretty weird :-s

I've had weirdness with "efficient networks" (hah, efficient?!) wired speedstream routers, buggy pieces of crap some of them, but I wouldn't expect such behavior from netgear equipment.

5879

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

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 06:52 PM »

btw, i'm behind a secure router, so much so that i've ditched 3rd-party firewalls for the Windows firewall, even though i came to know that it does only offers inbound protection.

-lanux128 (January 16, 2008, 06:42 PM)

Who cares about outbound "protection" anyway? When you get to the point where it kicks in, your PC has already been compromised... I see it as fixing the symptoms instead of curing the problem.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Automatic port forwarding for servers, BitTorrent, etc

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 06:33 PM »

Too bad that not all routers support uPNP , also many applications already come with built in uPNP support, and in that case you wouldn't need this tool.

But could come in handy for other situations

5881

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Frigate3 file manager on Giveaway of the Day (March 30, 2007)

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 06:32 PM »

Let's cross-reference to the other thread just for the fun of it

5882

fSekrit / Re: LATEST VERSION: fSekrit 1.35 shrinkwrapped!

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 06:29 PM »

I'm using version 1.35, however, I believe the problem might be because of files created with an earlier version. I get .exe appended to these files if I try to export them. On the other hand, files export as stated if they are also created with version 1.35.
Thank you.

-cemole (January 16, 2008, 11:09 AM)

Yes, for previous versions, you get .exe appended if you do export, that's a known bug. But the only information stored when you export (or copy to clipboard) is your actual note data, so if you import (or paste) to v1.35, I can't see how that would affect 1.35 export...

Can you post a .exe here that exhibits this bug? (pick something insensitive with a silly password, of course, and please .zip the file before attaching).

5883

General Software Discussion / Re: VisualWget - Wget for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 06:26 PM »

Native ports?

-wilfrednilsen (January 16, 2008, 10:51 AM)

Yes, a native port instead of relying on a POSIX translation wrapper.

Cygwin is compiled for Windows, but the tools require the cygwin DLL. I see no problem with that.

The cygwin DLL is needed since Microsoft does not know how to make operating systems.

-wilfrednilsen (January 16, 2008, 10:51 AM)

Sorry, but that's a bit of an ignorant statement

First of all, you can get a native POSIX subsystem for Windows, if you so desire - last time I checked, it was even free. Whether it's better or worse than cygwin I haven't tested, as I use neither (I prefer win32 tools offering the same functionality).

Second, NT is a very fine piece of operating system, and if you have any knowledge of it's internals, you would agree.

Third, the cygwin.dll has been pretty buggy in the versions I tried, and it's unnecessary extra baggage when you can do native builds instead.

5884

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

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 06:23 PM »

You need a firewall if you are using a laptop on insecure networks, but…

You do not need a firewall on a stationary PC if you are using a router since the router is already working as a firewall. By default, all services are blocked by your router. It is for this reason unnecessary having a firewall installed on a stationary PC protected by a router. Using a firewall on a PC behind a router is a waste of money, CPU, and memory.

-wilfrednilsen (January 16, 2008, 11:40 AM)

XP SP2 comes with a firewall for free, which uses very little CPU and memory... it's a smart idea to leave it enabled, unless you never have friends visiting with a laptop. Also, not all routers protect you,  only if both of the following conditions are met:
1) the router does NAT'ing
2) your main PC isn't set up as a DMZ host / default traffic target.

A lot of broadband routers default to DMZ'ing your main pc, and some broadband routers are configured in bridging mode, where your PC gets the WAN IP...

5885

General Software Discussion / Re: VisualWget - Wget for Windows

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 10:41 AM »

Ugh, cygwin? No thanks, native ports please

Iirc the wget version I use is from unxutils.

5886

Skrommel's Software / Re: More false virus warnings in compiled ahk utilities #*(%&*(#*(&#(%

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 05:25 AM »

I'm surprised I haven't gotten any false virus warnings about fSekrit - after all, it is compressed (using PECompact), it appends data to the end of the .exe files, and copies/deletes exes... but it does sound like AV programs are getting very bad at false positives lately

5887

Living Room / Re: The Series of Tubes is getting creaky, or

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 05:23 AM »

It's all because Fox Mulder started that new californication series, where he's drinking and sexing and not keeping an eye on the aliens anymore.

5888

Post New Requests Here / Re: USB explorer (to avoid viruses and optimised performance)

« Last post by f0dder on January 16, 2008, 05:20 AM »

I can simply use this program(attached) to avoid it & preventing the spread of viruses..

-psionics (January 16, 2008, 03:24 AM)

How will it help? If the USB drive is "infected", it will have an overwritten autorun.inf, and that takes precedence over the "there's different types of files on the drive, what do you want to do?" dialog.

5889

Developer's Corner / Re: Bow to the browser

« Last post by f0dder on January 15, 2008, 06:40 AM »

And what makes you think Apple would not like to know its customer's usage patterns as well?

Hey apple never released any software that tracks data from users computer to their server not even licesne or system information etc.On the otherhand windows does this to check the licesne,winbdows versionetc.

-arunpawar (January 15, 2008, 05:53 AM)

Okay, I'm just curious then, how does Apple OS update itself over the internet?

-icekin (January 15, 2008, 06:37 AM)

Does it do that at all? I thought you had to shell out $100 for every point release :]

5890

Living Room / Re: What kind of tagging system would be appropriate for DC?

« Last post by f0dder on January 15, 2008, 06:03 AM »

Carol and mouser,

I think both of you missed my point; I wouldn't want to force a swear-filter over anyone's head, and it should definitely be an opt-in for registered members. But for unregistered lurkers, I think it would be a good idea to enable the swear filter by default, to avoid displeasing webspiders trawling through the internet to find evil morally deficit sites to block/filter.

A firefox extension obviously wouldn't be very useful for that , and for the poor people working at restrictive places where cursing could be a problem, computers might be so locked down that you can't even install a firefox extension (and you'd probably be lucky to have firefox at all).

5891

Developer's Corner / Re: Bow to the browser

« Last post by f0dder on January 15, 2008, 06:00 AM »

For saving websites, I really love the scrapbook firefox extension. And best of all: it doesn't rely on proprietary file formats.

5892

General Software Discussion / Re: Deleting Files From the ..\Local Settings\Temp\ Folder

« Last post by f0dder on January 15, 2008, 03:14 AM »

Btw, check your environment variables - there can be per-system %temp% as well as per-user %temp%.

5893

fSekrit / Re: LATEST VERSION: fSekrit 1.35 shrinkwrapped!

« Last post by f0dder on January 15, 2008, 03:07 AM »

I tried to export to a .txt file but the exported file still had .exe appended to it. I was able to change the extension to .txt and open the file without any problems, so I believe the problem might be how the program writes the filename when its trying to save to the specified location.

-cemole (January 15, 2008, 02:50 AM)

Which fSekrit version? With 1.35, the default extension for export should be .txt, I just verified with the version from https://www.donation...tware/Other/fSekrit/ ...

5894

Living Room / Re: Experiences buying software on eBay?

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 09:04 PM »

I certainly don't want to end up with a bad copy. I'm only considering this because the idiots at CodeGear won't sell it to me 

-tranglos (January 14, 2008, 08:57 PM)

Tell me about it - the hoops I had to jump through to purchase DataRescue IDA... involved a fax machine, passport + visa card, and quite an amount of cash. But I digress.

I'll step into the corner and watch what other people (with experience ) has to say, and stop offtopicing your thread

5895

Developer's Corner / Re: PHP5 driving me insane! removeChild() bug?

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 08:50 PM »

Hm, perhaps something along the lines of iterator invalidation - I don't know what PHP does, but at least in C++ when you're iterating over container elements, for most container types it's unsafe to remove items from the container. Probably not the problem here, but if it is the problem, you'll probably end up having to restructure the code; instead of removing items from the actual list, change it so you build a copy (excluding the items you don't want), and then "activate" that copy...

5896

Living Room / Re: Experiences buying software on eBay?

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 08:45 PM »

Hm, I shop online relatively often and I'm certainly not scared of it in general - but for software shopping, I'm very skeptic, especially if it comes to "secondhand" or non-official resellers. One thing is whether borland/inprise/codegear/fancynameofthemonth and their license feels OK about reselling, another is whether those copies are genuine in the first place. Why would anybody an individual person end up with a large amount of legit, shrinkwrapped copies of development software?

Not saying it's necessarily shady, and I certainly have no experience with that kind of purchase, but it just smells wrong to me.

5897

Living Room / Re: What kind of tagging system would be appropriate for DC?

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 08:39 PM »

You notice that I put it in quotes... It filtered the forums here, but not at another forum that I visited that was worse... I think it might be because of the fact that the other forum had filters on people browsing anonymously.  Not sure...

-wraith808 (January 14, 2008, 08:37 PM)

Yeah, I did notice your quotes

We ended up with a global enforced-on bad words filter for asmcommunity.net because of such filters, apparently it's utilized a lot for schools and libraries in the .us?

5898

Developer's Corner / Re: Comments That Make You Smile :)

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 07:58 PM »

A couple of snippets from my own fSekrit that tend to make me smile when I re-discover them:

Code: C++ [Select]

1. // used when saving... I really need a cleaner interface for this, but I also
2. // really need to ship version 1.0 before deadline. Sigh :P
3. extern unsigned g_ugly_w, g_ugly_h, g_ugly_x, g_ugly_y;
4. extern bool g_ugly_maximized;  // [1.2] - something needs a cleanup...

and the related (line 8):

Code: C++ [Select]

1. struct FileHeaderV1
2. {
3.         char signature[8];              // header_v1_signature
4.         char hash[sha256::hashbits/8];  // plaintext hash
5.         unsigned size;                  // size of data, padded to crypt blocksize
6.         unsigned realsize;              // "real" size of data, unpadded
7.         unsigned flags;                 // bitmask of FL_* constants
8.         unsigned w, h;                  // saved width and height... mouser wants this
9. };

5899

Living Room / Re: What kind of tagging system would be appropriate for DC?

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 07:52 PM »

Hm, wraith808's comment about "intelligent" filtering has made me think a bit... it's probably a good idea to implement a bad-word filter after all, and have it in effect for anonymous browsing of the forum - that way, web spiders won't index swear-words. For registered users, whether to enable the swear filter or not should be their own decision. I think I'll try to think a bit about the expletives I use because of this...  I just wonder how sensitive those intelligent filters are (and I think people installing them are outright stupid).

5900

Living Room / Re: What kind of tagging system would be appropriate for DC?

« Last post by f0dder on January 14, 2008, 07:11 AM »

Revision-control of all forum posts?

yes it would be nice. we do have backups but i'm not sure it's worth the effort to restore these posts.

-mouser (January 14, 2008, 07:05 AM)

Yeah, probably way too much bother to do backup restoration. Version-control system for forums would be very interesting though, but I dunno how much implementation effort it would take (ugh!), and if it would bloat the databases too much...