Recent Posts

626

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 -- ribbons for everyone!

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 24, 2008, 09:15 AM »

Mouser will like this, I guess:

E-mail, photo programs stripped from Windows 7

Microsoft has decided that Windows 7 won't include built-in programs for e-mail, photo editing, and movie making, as was done with Windows Vista, CNET News.com has learned.

The software maker included Windows Photo Gallery, Windows Mail, and Windows Movie Maker as part of Vista, but later chose to offer separate downloadable Windows Live programs that essentially replaced those components with versions that could connect to online services from Microsoft and others.

Microsoft told CNET News late Monday that it has decided to remove those features entirely from Windows 7 and instead offer only the service-connected Windows Live versions as optional free downloads.

627

Word Processor Roundup / Re: SoftMaker Office 2008 for Linux now in public beta

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 19, 2008, 12:44 PM »

+1 for enthusiastic expectations for DataMaker.

What SoftMaker has done with the rest of the suite has been remarkable: stable, easy-to-use, solid competitor to MS Office, yet not a copy. I wonder how similar DataMaker will be to Access. I feel like Access is weighed down by a ton of backwards compatibility issues, and that if DataMaker doesn't try to emulate Access but starts from a clean slate, they could wind up with a really compelling product.

628

Living Room / Re: The NSA Teams Up with the Chinese Government to Limit Internet Anonymity

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 18, 2008, 09:22 AM »

So I guess this is made to defeat the usefulness of things like Tor and JAP, isn't it?

-Lashiec (September 18, 2008, 09:14 AM)

Actually, I don't think so, and I think that's part of the point of the last paragraph of the quote. Whatever system this is might be able to track back to the machine that sent the request itself. But the fact that the request was triggered by something that was received at that address via a TOR "tunnel" is still unknown (short of guessing with the help of traffic analysis).

So it's not defeating the real bad guys at all. It's just snaring us poor, law-abiding sheep citizens.

629

Living Room / The NSA Teams Up with the Chinese Government to Limit Internet Anonymity

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 18, 2008, 08:55 AM »

(Remember, we're interested in the technical aspects of this and not politics)
From Schneier on Security
The NSA Teams Up with the Chinese Government to Limit Internet Anonymity

Definitely strange bedfellows:

    A United Nations agency is quietly drafting technical standards, proposed by the Chinese government, to define methods of tracing the original source of Internet communications and potentially curbing the ability of users to remain anonymous.

    The U.S. National Security Agency is also participating in the "IP Traceback" drafting group, named Q6/17, which is meeting next week in Geneva to work on the traceback proposal. Members of Q6/17 have declined to release key documents, and meetings are closed to the public.

    [...]

    A second, apparently leaked ITU document offers surveillance and monitoring justifications that seem well-suited to repressive regimes:

        A political opponent to a government publishes articles putting the government in an unfavorable light. The government, having a law against any opposition, tries to identify the source of the negative articles but the articles having been published via a proxy server, is unable to do so protecting the anonymity of the author.

This is being sold as a way to go after the bad guys, but it won't help. Here's Steve Bellovin on that issue:

    First, very few attacks these days use spoofed source addresses; the real IP address already tells you where the attack is coming from. Second, in case of a DDoS attack, there are too many sources; you can't do anything with the information. Third, the machine attacking you is almost certainly someone else's hacked machine and tracking them down (and getting them to clean it up) is itself time-consuming.

...

630

Developer's Corner / Re: stackoverflow.com - programmers Q&A site by jeff atwood + joel spolsky is public

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 15, 2008, 02:32 PM »

Hmm, interesting. I'm a regular reader of CodingHorror, and enjoy Jeff Atwood.

I'd assumed that StackOverflow would be just another blog, and since I rather dislike reading Spolsky (I think he spends too much time enjoying his own cleverness), I had decided to avoid it. But if the site isn't spotlighting his writing, then maybe it's worth a look.

631

General Software Discussion / New version: Copernic Desktop Search 3

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 12, 2008, 10:42 AM »

Just noticed this, and I haven't seen it mentioned here.

http://www.copernic.com/en/products/desktop-search/home/whats-new.html

What's New
Changes & improvements
    * Tweaked deskbar design for better usability
    * Reorganized options window:
          o Merged "Display" and "General" tabs
          o Contacts are now configured in the "Email & Organizer" tab
          o Simplified browser integration settings
    * Added video duration filters
    * Improved "Indexing Status" window (new "Pause/Resume" button, etc.)
    * New "Index this Folder" command displayed when searching within a non-indexed folder

Fixes
    * Default folders now properly configured for Windows Mail
    * Outlook Express/Windows Mail contacts now searchable by name
    * Email options could crash when closed too quickly
    * Index now updated properly when a new file type is added as “file name only”
    * Resolved deskbar-related shutdown issues

New system/software requirements
    * Windows XP/Vista or later
    * IE6 SP2 or later
    * Firefox 2.0 or later
    * Outlook 2000 or later

Features now exclusive to Professional and Corporate versions:
    * Search Outlook appointments, tasks and notes
    * Display search results as you type
    * Index network drives
    * Save searches ("My Searches")

It looks to me like they've removed the ability to index network drives (amongst other things). That's a big minus in my book.

632

Living Room / Micro-review: New TV Series "Fringe"

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 12, 2008, 08:44 AM »

Not software related, but I think there are plenty of sci-fi fans around these parts.

I watched the first episode of the new series Fringe last night. This has been mega-hyped, being the latest product from J.J. Abrams, co-creator of Lost (his company is the "Bad Robot" at the end of each episode). I'm a big fan of Lost. Much of it has become implausible, but I'm the characters are compelling, the writing is smart, and I'm willing to suspend disbelief over whatever "the island" is, as long as they get basic ideas right.

So with Fringe, I really wanted to like it. But in the end, having lost count of the number of times I had to exclaim out loud "that's just not how that works", I've got to give it a thumbs down. 

I’m not talking about computer stuff, which Hollywood gets wrong universally -- there wasn't actually any of that. Nor am I talking about their premise of "fringe science". A quick list of butchered topics that anyone with a casual acquaintance with would recognize:

• Chemistry
• Biology, especially pathology, psychology and neuroscience
• Criminal justice, especially anything to do with the 4th amendment (and I don't mean torture, they got that part right)
• A few instances of basic common sense

It's not that I claim to be expert in those areas. My point is that any well-educated lay person ought to recognize these things as wholly implausible.

Nor did I find the characters compelling, and this was the big sell of the series. Yet there was no depth at all. It was claimed that JJ Abrams would do the same thing with Fringe in this respect as he did with Lost. But no one in the new show even hints at having the depth of Sawyer or even Hugo.

• Main character is a woman who hasn't been successful in her love life, fighting to save the (presumably) true love she's just found. Cliche?
• Her sidekick assistant, whose name I didn't even catch
• A brilliant scientist framed for the gov't research he was doing, checked out of a mental institution. Initially twitching and babbling about the bad pudding on Tuesdays, but very quickly becomes the guy who knows absolutely everything
• Mad scientist's son, a cliche of brilliant 190 IQ but lack of positive motivators lets him get into trouble

The one thing I found compelling was the ambiguity of the bad guy. At the end, we don’t know if the evil people are big corporations, a rogue government agency, or some more complex conspiracy.

633

General Software Discussion / Re: Corel PaintShop Pro Photo X2 Ultimate

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 10, 2008, 03:48 PM »

When you think Corel Draw and WordPrefect used to be near (or even at) the top of the heap - now they have drifted so far off traget I cannot imagine why anyone would steal some of their products - let alone buy them.

-Carol Haynes (September 10, 2008, 12:43 PM)

I agree with your thesis. But in the case of WordPerfect, it was already a dying product before Corel grabbed it. I remember in 1993 using it (v5 something, I think) when it was my employer's standard word processor (MS Office wasn't so entrenched then). The thing was virtually unusable -- rampant leaks forced reboots several times a day, and formatting problems trashed layouts continually. I'm convinced that WP's quality problems killed them, and this made the previous industry leader easy to buy for Corel afterwards.

I'm a longtime PSP user myself. I skipped X, XI was a pig, and the biggest improvement in X2 was the improved startup time -- otherwise, it was more sizzle than steak. Their customer service folks really annoyed me when I tried to report a bug in their .DNG handling, and they wouldn't accept it, telling me that my license didn't entitle me to support -- but I wasn't asking for help, I was trying to help them make the product better.

634

Python / Re: An exhaustive amount of python resources.

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 09, 2008, 12:49 PM »

Here's something I was just looking for that isn't on the list 

I was just putting together a pen drive with various tools, and I wanted to put a Python development environment (meaning not just the interpreter itself with a text editor like SciTE, but an actual IDE with debugging, etc.)

I've found PortablePython, but this doesn't have an IDE per se.

There's also Movable Python, which does have an IDE, but costs (minimal) money. Anybody have experience with this?

635

Living Room / Re: Mythbusters Silenced by Credit Card Companies

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 07, 2008, 02:22 PM »

I just got my passport and it also has RFID in it.

-Deozaan (September 07, 2008, 12:51 AM)

I had read that the gov't was going to issue these with insulating sleeves to prevent bad guys from reading it (kind of like the way EasyPass toll devices are shipped). But my wife's new RFID passport did not have this.

They really don't take security seriously at all.

636

Developer's Corner / Re: How to choose programming language?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 07, 2008, 02:20 PM »

I read through this thread once last night, and bit my tongue, saying I'll look at it fresh in the morning. I'm back, and I'm sorry to say that I'm still infuriated.

Why in the world would someone other than the developer want to choose the language that an application is developed in? You admit yourself that you're not the expert. But even I, an expert proficient in more languages (and language families, for that matter) than I can even count anymore, wouldn't make this decision at the beginning of the project.

Do you buy software based on the language that it was coded in? I know that there are some open-source zealots who do this, but they're insane. The fact is, an application does its job or it doesn't. That's what you make the buying decision based on.

Let the developers do the analysis and high-level design first, and then let them make the decision. I'm certain that on any modern hardware, any reasonable choice of programming language will provide a responsive user interface -- assuming that the developers are competent on the platform; understand well both the language chosen and the problem they're trying to help the user solve; and sufficient resources (time, tools) to complete the project.

I understand that you're looking to sponsor a project, and want to ensure that it's successful, but this is not the way to do it. You may actually be undermining its success.

It's true that some languages are better at some things than others, but there are many more factors than that oversimplification -- and they're generally more important.

It's an oversimplification because modern compilers and JITters (e.g., the .Net CLI and Java) are very smart. It's common now for high-level languages to demonstrate higher performance than hand-coded assembler or C.

But also, allowing developers to use higher-level abstractions frees them to address the overall architecture more fully. Even if you could code something in C++ that would be 5x faster, if there were an alternative approach that only needs to execute 10% as often, that alternative would be better. This isn't so hypothetical. Every time you find yourself frustrated with an application, it's because the developers failed in building an application that anticipated your needs. If you force developers into the wrong tool, you're diverting resources away from preventing these problems, and into the minutiae of coding.

And you've got to consider the skills of the individual developers. The failure of the Chandler project has been discussed here recently. Many observers believe that part of its problems were that an executive decision had been made to use the Python language. But most of the developers didn't have the experience to "think" in Python, and instead wrote Java code in Python (if you can see what I mean). This means that the project got the worst of both worlds: they weren't able to leverage Python's strengths, but they retained all of the limitations of the Java platform.

637

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Kaspersky Internet Security 7

« Last post by CWuestefeld on September 07, 2008, 02:01 PM »

Just got back from vacation, getting ready (I hope) to do a more thorough treatment. But here's my first impression.

In this version KIS has crossed a line in usability 

In the past there were a couple of places where I didn't quite understand what it was doing. Now this applies to much of the application. In particular, they've added categories of applications: "High Trusted", "Low Trusted", etc. When the system pops up a warning that an app is doing something that might be naughty, you're (generally) given several choices. One of these is Allow (with sub-choices of Allow once only and Allow always. A separate choice is Make Trusted. What the heck is the difference between saying to "allow always" versus "make trusted"? I just don't get it. I'm as expert a computer user as you're likely to find. If I don't get what's going on, it's a good bet that your average user will be completely floundering.

If you make security too complicated, people will ignore it. Faced with these perplexing choices, users are going to guess, and that's no way to be secure. So they may have made the tool more powerful -- on paper. But in real life, it will do a worse job.

Another thing bothering me is the way it scans applications proactively (I think as part of their heuristic filtering, where they try to identify problems before they occur). A program that's never been run before is scanned, and this takes 15-20 seconds. Sometimes when one process is spawning another, the parent proc things that the child has failed because it's taking so long. The result of this is that I can't use the SUPER video converter while KIS is running (it seems to create child programs dynamically). So their tighter security is forcing me to turn off the security altogether -- another case of theoretical improvements forcing me to use the system in an unsafe manner.

Disclosure: I'm evaluating a free NFR copy given to me by a Kaspersky sales rep. No strings were attached.

638

What's the Best? / Re: Anti-Virus Package

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 23, 2008, 09:58 AM »

Just upgraded to Kaspersky 2009, planning to update last year's mini review once I've got some experience with it.

639

Living Room / Re: Cracking Down on Abuse of DMCA Takedown Notices

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 21, 2008, 04:25 PM »

The idea of the decision is good.

But this is just a ruling on a motion, not an actual decision. And even at that, this is only a single district court making that statement -- it's not precedential anywhere but within that district's jurisdiction.

Still, maybe it marks a new trend. And now, at least, someone's done the work of documenting the case, and others can emulate it.

640

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: spring cleaning

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 20, 2008, 04:22 PM »

I have all 10 volumes of the critically acclaimed graphic novel  "Y: The Last Man".
 (see attachment in previous post)
I will send to a dc supporting/honorary member in the USA (sorry shipping costs make it too much to send overseas).

Personally i didn't like it but it seems to be fairly well regarded.  At least it's big enough to keep one occupied for a while.

-mouser (August 20, 2008, 03:55 PM)

Oooh, I love apocalyptic stuff. Sign me up, and I'll cover (at least) your shipping cost.

Anybody remember "Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth"?

641

Living Room / Re: The Root of Game Piracy

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 15, 2008, 09:47 PM »

Piracy is just stealing. Putting a fancy name on it is like trying to pick up a turd by the clean end.

-tymrwt33 (August 15, 2008, 09:11 PM)

I think that's the point of calling it "piracy." Seafaring pirates were not the romantic, fun loving, good hearted adventurers we see in the media today. Pirates were thieves who looted, murdered, and plundered. That's not really a fancy name or a pleasant title.

-Deozaan (August 15, 2008, 09:25 PM)

False.

The courts do not deal with IP piracy as theft it's in its own class, infringement:

The RIAA, MPAA and copyright holders describe P2P users as "pirates" - invoking images of swashbuckling pre-teens hauling up the Jolly Roger and stealing intellectual property in the dead of night. New ads announced by MPAA President Jack Valente impress the idea that "copying is stealing" and that someone who burns MP3s is no different from those who slip a CD under their shirt at the local Tower Records.

But technically, file sharing is not theft.

A number of years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt with a man named Dowling, who sold "pirated" Elvis Presley recordings, and was prosecuted for the Interstate Transportation of Stolen Property. The Supremes did not condone his actions, but did make it clear that it was not "theft" -- but technically "infringement" of the copyright of the Presley estate, and therefore copyright law, and not anti-theft statutes, had to be invoked.
http://www.securityf...s.com/columnists/175

Obviously this doesn't make IP infringement right. But because the infringement does not deprive the legitimate owner of the continued use of his property, the crime is clearly distinct from "theft".

From Justice Blackmun's majority opinion:

The phonorecords in question were not "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" for purposes of [section] 2314. The section's language clearly contemplates a physical identity between the items unlawfully obtained and those eventually transported, and hence some prior physical taking of the subject goods. Since the statutorily defined property rights of a copyright holder have a character distinct from the possessory interest of the owner of simple "goods, wares, [or] merchandise," interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use. Infringement implicates a more complex set of property interests than does run-of-the-mill theft, conversion, or fraud.

Addendum on real piracy:
They may have been bloodthirsty and all the rest, but the story is far richer than that. I betcha didn't know that pirate ships were generally run democratically:

Presidential candidates, take note: Long before they made their way into the workings of modern government, the democratic tenets we hold so dear were used to great effect on pirate ships. Checks and balances. Social insurance. Freedom of expression. So Leeson, an economics professor at George Mason University, will argue in his upcoming book, "The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates."

Yes, those stereotypically lawless rum-chuggers turned out to be ardent democrats. ...

The pirates who roamed the seas in the late 17th and early 18th centuries developed a floating civilization that, in terms of political philosophy, was well ahead of its time. The notion of checks and balances, in which each branch of government limits the other's power, emerged in England in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. But by the 1670s, and likely before, pirates were developing democratic charters, establishing balance of power on their ships, and developing a nascent form of worker's compensation

http://www.boston.co..._in_favor_say_yargh/

642

General Software Discussion / Re: Is there a desire to open a Pocket PC/Windows Mobile forum here on DC?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 15, 2008, 02:54 PM »

I'm a longtime handheld user, starting with Palm and now on my second PocketPC (an Axim x51v). I'd be interested in discussing PocketPC issues here -- but not as they relate to cell phones (which I hate).

One good PocketPC community is http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/

643

Living Room / Re: Skimp or splurge?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 15, 2008, 01:31 PM »

Splurge on Good Tools - Crimpers, Multi-Tools, Screwdrivers, Knives, Pliers, Wire-Cutters, etc - eBay may have cheap ones, but it shows!

-sean421 (August 15, 2008, 01:16 PM)

There's an eddy in the time-space continuum where my screwdrivers all migrate. (I believe it's located next to the place where socks go)

So screwdrivers are definitely not a splurge item for me.

644

Living Room / Re: Skimp or splurge?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 15, 2008, 10:57 AM »

check out Gorilla Glue as well.

-invenit (August 15, 2008, 10:48 AM)

This is the only thing I've found that provides a strong reliable bond with plastics. But I dislike its habit of foaming out from the seams.

645

General Software Discussion / Re: New Linux Distro specifically designed for programmers

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 15, 2008, 10:45 AM »

How many Linux distros are there?

-TucknDar (August 13, 2008, 01:58 PM)

Too many

-f0dder (August 14, 2008, 02:51 PM)

Interestingly enough, that seems to be the general consensus of most of the Linux community.

-40hz (August 15, 2008, 10:20 AM)

Ironically enough, the huge number of distros leads people to create a new one that will satisfy the needs of many of the others -- thus adding another one to the list.

646

General Software Discussion / Re: Music files 101

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 14, 2008, 09:56 AM »

Bearing in mind that IANAL:

Making a copy of the music for your own use is fine, although the RIAA will tell you otherwise. The DMCA doesn't apply because you're not defeating any copy protection in ripping a standard CD.

But, as Darwin noted, sharing the results with others is (depending on where you are) almost certainly illegal, regardless of whether you use web sites, FTP, or what-have-you. In practice, if you put the music onto a server that no one knows about, with no public links to it, and they're stored in password-protected archives so that no one outside your family can actually see the content, then you'd probably get away with it. But I'm not recommending that. 

I also agree on the metadata. AFAIK, all the various tools (WMP, iTunes, or my favorite ripper, Exact Audio Copy) rely on the same CDDB service. If WMP's query to CDDB doesn't yield results, then the same query made by EAC won't fare any better.

For commercially-produced CDs of contemporary genres this almost never happens. But it's different for classical music. For one, classical music has a smaller audience than NSync (sad as that might be). So there are fewer people entering the data.

But also, classical CDs are frequently "shovelware". Companies can produce these for next to nothing (no copyright royalties, just pay an orchestra for its time and you're done), and thus reap huge profit margins. I'd guess that there are hundreds of versions of, say, any of Beethoven's major symphonies available for purchase. The identifying characteristics of one bargain-bin copy of Beethoven's 9th are completely unrelated to a different recording of it.

The result is that any given classical CD has a much lower chance of having a music lover enter the data into CDDB.

647

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 13, 2008, 03:52 PM »

I don't think cycling counts, because this is (at least in significant part) attributable to the technology of the bicycles.

-CWuestefeld (August 13, 2008, 02:39 PM)

Maybe I spoke to soon. It seems that some are attributing improvements in swimming to swimsuit technology: http://www.latimes.c...ug13,0,6279070.story

648

Living Room / Re: Chandler V1 is officially out.

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 13, 2008, 02:42 PM »

What a disappointment. All that effort, and the result appears to be a pretty good PIM/GTD application. That's a nice result, of course, but lightyears from what was promised, and a waste of a lot of development effort (it took a really long time to get there, and did we need another PIM/GTD app?).

Years ago I was hoping for an Outlook killer. I'd still love to find such a beast. Any sign of one on the horizon?

649

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 13, 2008, 02:39 PM »

The thing about the swimming that amazes is the world records. Here's a sport that's been essentially unchanged in modern times, but every olympics the athletes are resetting the records.

How is it that athletes are getting so much better? A gold medalist swimmer from, say, 20 years ago couldn't get into the finals today. But it's not that the rules have changed (like basketball and other sports), it's that they're executing the same task better.

What other sports are objectively improving in the same ways? I don't think cycling counts, because this is (at least in significant part) attributable to the technology of the bicycles.

650

Official Announcements / Re: August 2008 Discounts

« Last post by CWuestefeld on August 06, 2008, 07:59 AM »

I'm considering BC as well.

As a public service, since their web site doesn't show prices until the product is in the cart, here are the prices I see (as of the morning of 8/6/2008) for the Windows version:

• Pro
  
  • Regular price - $50
  • Discounted - $30
• Standard
  
  • Regular price - $30
  • Discounted - $18