Recent Posts

6501

General Software Discussion / Re: Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 01:46 PM »

With mine, the extensions that have a button in the status bar, the button won't be there.  When I open the AddOns window, almost all have the '!' and the options are grayed out.  Strange.  I tried using FEBE to reload individual and groups of AddOns and it makes no difference.

Bizarre I must say.

6502

General Software Discussion / Re: Has anyone discovered any cool Windows 7 third-party utilities?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 01:41 PM »

libeco if you are like me and have no use for the Taskbar preview bit if you google there's a registry hack to increase the mouse hover time to a degree that the preview should never show.  You'll still get the text popup when you hover a running app button.  Just not the big graphic window.

6503

Living Room / Re: How would you improve a standard PC keyboard?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 01:39 PM »

Or you could do voice activated.  I'm just afraid what would happen if I sneeze.

6504

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 01:34 PM »

Could be a duff driver or a driver conflict with another device. If you are still using the beta version why not do an image backup and install the RTM version to see if the problem was cured in the final release.

-Carol Haynes (December 10, 2009, 12:56 PM)

It's not that big a deal.  I'm going to use the beta until the time runs out.  When I buy W7 it will have at least SP1 integrated.  I already know it's OS dependent.  Why do all that reinstall?  When the time runs out then I'll have to.  I can wait until then.

6505

Post New Requests Here / Re: "CloseInactiveWin"

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 01:31 PM »

btw I've confirmed the NirCmd method does work.

Open notepad and enter these 2 lines:

@echo off
nircmd win close stitle "%1"



save it to a folder in your path as "nclose.cmd" (if you don't know what folders are in your path open a command prompt and type Path and hit enter.  It will show you all the folders in the path.)

Download NirCmd and put NirCmd.exe in the same folder in the path.

As a test, open notepad and cover it with a few windows. Open a command prompt and enter "nclose Untitled".  If notepad was open with no file it should close.  You can change the "stitle" in the batch cmd file for different types of window matching.  See NirCmd.chm help file for details.

6506

General Software Discussion / Re: Any XP users switching to Windows 7 yet?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 12:36 PM »

As soon as I enable the CDROM in device manager, the 1 second ticking starts right up again.

-MilesAhead (December 01, 2009, 03:20 PM)

Have you tried swapping out the CD-ROM drive? Maybe it is border-line defective? Also, something less drastic to try is to make sure it's running the latest firmware.

-Innuendo (December 10, 2009, 10:02 AM)

I don't get the problem on XP SP2. On google I see people with the same thing.  One OS and SP level will do it, another won't. To me that doesn't indicate defective hardware.  I'll likely be putting on a newer W7 once the time runs out on this one.  I'll see if that fixes it. The burner is working well. Not the time to update firmware.

6507

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 12:33 PM »

Hmmmmmm, speaking of "one trick pony" shows... after the success of All In The Family and other spin-offs, Norman Lear tried gender reversal in All That Glitters.  In this show the women are the bosses and men are secretaries who are admired for their "pecs" and get their asses pinched by the arrogant women bosses.  It took me 1/2 hour to find it on google.  I couldn't remember the name.  The show was one joke. It was funny for the first episode.

6508

Living Room / Re: How would you improve a standard PC keyboard?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 10, 2009, 12:05 PM »

Hmmmmmmm, for super touch-type know-all-the-shortcut-keys people probably the best thing would be a very light-weight headset with laser tracking.  On rare occasions when you want to use the mouse, the tracking would move the mouse pointer to the point you are looking at.  You could wiggle your ears or blnk hard to double-click.

With the electronics so cheap nowadays there may even be something out there.  I know combat pilots have had this laser eye-sight tracking stuff for quite awhile.

6509

Post New Requests Here / Re: "CloseInactiveWin"

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 09, 2009, 07:01 PM »

I don't use many of the window minimizer,closer,enhancer type utilities so I'm not sure what's already out there.

Avoiding making the window active pretty much limits you to using either the window title or window class(for example an explorer window will have either CabinetWClass or ExploreWClass as a class name.)

You can try searching the big freeware sites like: softpedia, snap-files, download.com, etc..

6510

General Software Discussion / Re: Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 09, 2009, 06:43 PM »

Weird.  Minefield 3.6Pre most of my add ons worked through nearly all the builds.  Now it's the opposite.  Only one build out of dozens will work and I have to stick with that one.  Even a beta release gives no clue.  It's strictly trial and error.

afa the taskbar preview feature on 7, I increased the mouse hover time so that it won't pop up.  To me it's just something that gets in the way.  I don't leave programs running minimized anyway unless they are minimized to tray to work in the background.

6511

General Software Discussion / Re: Minefield(Firefox) 3.7Pre seems to work

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 08, 2009, 06:41 PM »

What have you noticed since beta 2?  I'm just curious.  Any 3.6 beta after 2 kills off about half my AddOns.  Looks like I'll stick with beta 2 until 3.6 final comes out, unless 3.7 comes out with something great.  So far 3.7Pre does the same thing.  I don't notice any difference other than that it won't take my themes and half my AddOns, be it 3.7 or 3.6 newer than 3.6 beta 2.

6512

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 07, 2009, 11:48 AM »

If u want a real challenge, watch Taggart (UK series based in Glasgow Scotland) - now there's an accent!

On some of the BBCA shows here they have English subs for the characters with heavy dialects.

6513

Post New Requests Here / Re: "CloseInactiveWin"

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 06, 2009, 02:35 PM »

The easiest way would be using the command line with NirCmd

A .cmd file with this command in a directory in your Path should do it:

nircmd.exe win close stitle %1

(of course NirCmd.exe should also be in the path to keep it simple)

Say you named it cl.cmd and the inactive window had a title EditPadLite
then typing  cl EditP  <Enter>

or as much of the title as needed to identify it by the starting characters, and NirCmd should close it.  Otherwise you'd have to collect all the windows on the system and sift through them to avoid making the window the active window to get the info.  There are lots of hidden windows that you really don't need to deal with.  Just unnecessarily complex.  If you absolutely hate using a command prompt you could make an alias for FARR using the $$1 placeholder for the command line param with the partial window title, and use the alias instead of the .cmd file.

6514

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 05, 2009, 11:37 PM »

We also have too many of the reality show variety.  I can only tolerate the ones with hot chicks in bikinis.  Since there's no plot at least there's something to look at.  There were a couple of Hollywood writers strikes a few years back.  I think part of the impetus for the reality craze is that lack of "script" means no unionized script writers.  Guess they plow all the money into locales, skimpy bathing suits, and halter tops.



At least with the skimpy bathing suit shows I usually don't have to listen to people trying to sing.  Everybody who can belt out a ballad in the shower seems to think that's really vocalizing.  It's so sickening to listen to that drivel on "talent" shows. The "singer" chicks that make music videos here should just quit the lip syncing and just do a strip show!!  Cleavage shake seems to be the main prerequisite for being "on key" in those things.



Lately I've caught a couple of episodes of Free Radio on Comedy Central.  The basic plot is a Howard Stern type radio personality bails to go on Satellite Radio(tm) leaving the radio station in the lurch.  Out of desperation they put his quasi-retarded intern on the air to do the show as a stop gap.  The ratings go way up and yadda yadda.  So far it's still bizarre enough to be amusing.

6515

General Software Discussion / Re: EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher settings Vista/W7 ??

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 05, 2009, 06:07 PM »

Thanks for that info.  Good to know. 

6516

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 05, 2009, 04:35 PM »

That's because 90% of people outside the UK don't have a sense of humour

-Carol Haynes (December 05, 2009, 09:00 AM)

The 10% who do watch PBS.  That's where they recycle all the BritComs in the U.S. I was hoping to get more interesting programming when we got BBC America in the line-up.  There was an interval when the new Dr. Who came out when they presented a whole line-up of Sci Fi programs.  Now that seems to be chucked for "reality" stuff about why women get big boob jobs, talk shows, news and other stuff that doesn't generate a laugh.  Saturday night features back to back episodes of Robin Hood.  No wonder nobody is laughing.

6517

General Software Discussion / EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher settings Vista/W7 ??

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 05, 2009, 04:21 PM »

Has anyone a definitive source on the meanings for EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher values in the Prefetch Parameters?


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]

I see all kinds of conflicting statements on web sites.  Most say that EnablePrefetcher value means: 0 no caching, 1 cache applications, 2 cache boot files, 3 cache both

and those sites usually say nothing about the EnableSuperfetch value.

Some sites have it the opposite where the values 0 to 3 are for EnableSuperfetch.

I've even seen some that suggest you set EnablePrefetcher to 5.  The only thing that looked like it mentioned both keys on Microsoft site was in a foreign language(couldn't figure out which language it was to paste it into a translator.)

Anyone have the definitive source on these settings?

6518

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 03, 2009, 09:23 PM »

It's out of production but I enjoyed Arli$$ while it ran.  The self-proclaimed avarice of the lead character combined with the athlete cameos gave it verisimilitude.

6519

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 03, 2009, 01:18 PM »

Ah, hashing the command and using that as part of the encryption key at least makes the very-trivial attack impossible - at least that's something.

-f0dder (December 03, 2009, 01:16 PM)

Like I said, it's a convenience for taking out the trash.  Not something to connect to your bank account.

6520

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 03, 2009, 01:09 PM »

MilesAhead: you might not be able to directly read the password in plaintext, but since it's an automated method, what stops you from simply copying the encrypted password and using the sudo tool to launch other stuff?

-f0dder (December 03, 2009, 04:11 AM)

What stops you is the algorithm isn't that simple.  Your password as well as the program/batch commands executed are calculated into a string that's unique for each shortcut created(unless perhaps you created identical shortcuts.)  The server decrypts the password and the info about the command and matches them up.  If you made a batch file with "del c:\windows\temp\*.tmp"  and then used the password string generated with a shortcut that used the command "del c:\windows\system32\*.dll" it would not work.

The author said it's not bullet-proof but it's something.  If we really want to get into it, typing in the password by hand you could have a key logger or even a listener for electronic noise that would know which keys are pressed.  Depends how paranoid you are.  Don't use the automated method for anything really critical. It's just a convenience.  Back then there weren't a lot of utilities such as CCleaner as I recall.  You pretty much did it manually.  There's exponentially more freeware available these days.


Anyway, I'm just going from memory back in the 1990s. I think the programmer gave up on it around 2005 or so. On most machines the gaping whole in security is the computer case.  Rip it open.  Take HD.  Info gone.

6521

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 03, 2009, 01:25 AM »

Yup. I think the only advantage would be the encrypted password in the shortcut.  I 'spose you could always use a macro to get around typing in a pw but it would kind of defeat the securty.

-MilesAhead (December 01, 2009, 11:31 PM)

Encryption doesn't help a lot when it's automated...

-f0dder (December 02, 2009, 01:55 AM)

I think I made that point already.  With the su port you put your password through an encryption tool so that the clear text password isn't in the shortcut. Once you have the shortcut set up it saves you from typing it in every time your run a common house-keeping chore. Just double-click.

6522

Site/Forum Features / Re: Feature Req: quote only selected text?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 02, 2009, 11:17 PM »

Thanks for the replies and info.

6523

Site/Forum Features / Feature Req: quote only selected text?

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 01, 2009, 11:49 PM »

On a lot of boards if you select a portion of the text in a post you are replying to, only the selected text is included when you hit the Quote button to reply.  Would be a nice convenience if it's doable.

6524

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 01, 2009, 11:31 PM »

You can do that in Windows too - just right click on the shortcut and click on the Advanced button and you can choose to run it with a different user credentials - so you could run with an Admin account if you want.

-Carol Haynes (December 01, 2009, 07:03 PM)

Yup. I think the only advantage would be the encrypted password in the shortcut.  I 'spose you could always use a macro to get around typing in a pw but it would kind of defeat the securty.

That and the fact that it likely works on about 1/2 flavors of windows.

6525

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by MilesAhead on December 01, 2009, 06:50 PM »

The su port will work from a non-administrative user group.  As I say, you can set up shortcuts with an included encrypted password to use it from accounts with lower privileges.