Recent Posts

6526

Living Room / Re: Technology Myths

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 05:29 PM »

CWuestefeld: imho you need some database layer abstraction, at least you certainly don't want to sprinkle your code with SQL strings all over. And not for web scripting languages either - it's too ugly and fragile.

You might not want to switch DB provider once the system has launched, but during development it can be handy to be able to test different providers (and if you only need the SQL subset that sqlite supports, boy is it much easier using that than setting up a test db server ).

A proper abstraction also makes it easier to make use of something like memcached - try that on spaghetti code with SQL strings hanging all over

6527

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Tor - The Onion Router

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 05:18 PM »

So no real solution to be used without some cooperation from the other side of the transmission. I wonder how those BitTorrent clients using encryption do to connect with the clients that do not support it, like the same Opera . Maybe they ignore those other clients and thus they don't exchange data with them?

-Lashiec (November 06, 2007, 09:35 AM)

Depends on the client - you usally get some options, ranging from "Turn Off", "Accept Incoming", "Try Outgoing", "Force Outgoing"... Also, iirc the torrent id hash is used as part of the encryption key, so a man-in-middle that doesn't sniff tracker requests will probably have a hard(er) time intercepting traffic.

But it's still fully possible (although a bit tricker) for ISPs to detect even encrypted torrent traffic and throttle it.

6528

Official Announcements / Re: November Discounts and Giveaway

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 05:16 PM »

that i noticed is that if you use copernic desktop search set to index when idle, it doesnt when cpuidle is running, dont know how it checks for idleness but thats what what happened.

-Grorgy (November 06, 2007, 03:38 PM)

Iirc there's only one Idle Thread, cpuidle probably hogs that?

6529

Living Room / Re: To wide-screen or not to wide-screen

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 08:32 AM »

F0dder, I am curious about the comment you made where you felt the 4:3 display is better for coding.  I couldn't disagree more, and I am curious what your reasoning is.

-Tekzel (November 06, 2007, 08:27 AM)

I tend to maximize my apps, it's faster than manually resizing... a text editor (notepad++) becomes way too wide this way, and even visual studio with solution explorer, toolbox etc. open is quite wide enough. On a widescreen, there's simply too much wasted space if you maximize, in my opinion, and I'm afraid that might encourage having way too long source lines.

6530

Living Room / Re: PREY trailer - looks funky

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 08:23 AM »

Spoiler

There is also apenture science refrences in episode 2 so we may be lucky to see some portals in EP 3

-p3lb0x (November 06, 2007, 05:28 AM)

USE SPOILER TAGS, YOU LITTLE RASCAL! NOT ALL OF US HAS COMPLETED EP2 YET!

6531

Living Room / Re: these new cheap core 2 due laptops - any good?

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 08:19 AM »

I am running Vista Business on AMD64X2 4600 and one GS 7300 and 2GB memory - identical to fOdder's machine.  This machine has a 10,000 Raptor Hard Drive and is the SMOOTHEST, most comfortable OS I have ever used for browsing.  Everything serious gets done on my XP Pro.
As was mentioned earlier, the SPEED of Hard drives is something that never occurred to me. For a battery powered laptop it would seem extremely important as long as there were not significant power requirements.

-terribleterryc (November 05, 2007, 10:13 PM)

You have a slightly faster CPU, a somewhat slower graphics card, and the same harddrive... how can you say Vista is the smoothest and most comfortable OS? O_o

6532

Official Announcements / Re: November Discounts and Giveaway

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 08:17 AM »

Humm, CPUIdle used to make a difference in the win9x days, but I don't see a reason to run it on NT, which already does HLT in it's idle thread, as well as power management. (Ok, cpuidle can do tricks with certain chipsets, like turning off part of the chipset, but... ho humm).

6533

General Software Discussion / Re: Paint Shop Pro X2 - installation from hell ...

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 08:16 AM »

PSP8 is the last good version for me - iirc it's already with v9 that you have to reinstall after windows install, instead of just running the psp.exe and setting filetype associations. PSP X is wank.

6534

Living Room / Re: PLEASE STOP POSTING

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 08:11 AM »

I'm using just "since last visit", not all unread - counting on interesting threads having new posts since last visit

6535

Living Room / Re: PREY trailer - looks funky

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 04:56 AM »

sometime last year, i received my PCGamer with the CD contained a demo version of Prey but never got around to install it.. btw, Prey has had an interesting history as it was developed at the same time as Duke Nukem Forever.. of course, now the Duke has become the standard bearer of vapourware..

-lanux128 (November 05, 2007, 08:56 PM)

The guy that got the idea for prey died before they could finish it, so at least they had an excuse for late release... Duke Nukem Forever is just pathetic. I had looked forward to it, though

The history in prey is pretty so-so and the native american angle to it feels so cheesy and early-nineties >_<. But it was enjoyable to play nonetheless.

6536

Living Room / Re: To wide-screen or not to wide-screen

« Last post by f0dder on November 06, 2007, 04:53 AM »

Also keep in mind that a DVI output can be converted to VGA/D-SUB, but not the other way around (well, perhaps with some expensive peripheral, but...).

6537

Living Room / Re: To wide-screen or not to wide-screen

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 07:06 PM »

Doesn't matter too much if you can't get the exact same model (if you don't matter a heterogenous look on your desktop), you can even mix and match resolutions (although I wouldn't recommend it).

I personally run 2x17" TFTs at 1280x1024 each, once is an Acer AL1722 (the primary monitor) and the other is an AL1715 - works like a charm. I'd go for 19" if I had the money though, or 20" to get 1600x1200... but this setup is nice

I'm going to have to take the plunge and get a secondary monitor. This thread is an interesting read - most interesting to me is the discussion around USB ports and such - WTF? I'm slow at the best of times, but tonight I'm having real difficulty envisioning what good such a feature would be, except to increase the number of USB ports available on one's computer.

-Darwin (November 05, 2007, 07:06 PM)

Having an USB hub in your monitor could be decent, but it's nothing vital imho. One of my monitors has another kind of USB connector though, it basically lets me access the monitor on-screen menu via software instead of pushing the buttons. Somewhat useless to me, but it's a gimmick nonetheless.

6538

Living Room / Re: Windows Install Date Thingie: I made it!

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:28 PM »

Hm, it's a bit funny that it thinks my PC was on for the last nearly half year, as I've just powered it up tonight... (see attachment in previous post)

-Ath (November 05, 2007, 05:08 PM)

Do you use hibernation?

6539

Living Room / Re: To wide-screen or not to wide-screen

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:26 PM »

On the other hand, what João comments, having two files side by side, it's a big plus, and a true one, not mentioned too often.

-Lashiec (November 05, 2007, 02:40 PM)

I prefer dual monitor for this. I often have documentation in one monitor and coding in the other. Or I can leave IRC on in one monitor while I do stuff on the other. It's nice!

-Deozaan (November 05, 2007, 03:31 PM)

Same here - MSDN + cmd.exe on the right monitor, visual studio on the left. Oh, and mirc/miranda etc. underneath the MSDN window . Also works for games, game on the left monitor and IM stuff on the right. Wonderful.

I like the 4:3 format
but imagine with widescreen I'd be able to work nicely on my 4:3 (Olympus) photos
& have a nice bit of space at the end for the tools/panels

-tomos (November 05, 2007, 03:40 PM)

Get two monitors - run the main photoshop window on one of them, drag the tool panels onto the other. It's so much nicer being able to hit "maximize" and only maxing to one monitor, instead of having to manually dragresize windows (ok, or use gridmove ).

6540

General Software Discussion / Re: xplorer2 won the Epsilon award

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:22 PM »

Well deserved indeed - now he just needs to work on a 64bit version

6541

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Tor - The Onion Router

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:22 PM »

About the encryption thing, I was asking if it's possible to encrypt any kind of traffic you send to other computers, but of course, those other computers should be able to decrypt your traffic as well, I mean, negotiation of keys is needed. Am I correct?

-Lashiec (November 05, 2007, 02:00 PM)

First of all, the applications need to either be aware of the encryption (ie., it's done at the application protocol level), or you can tunnel/encapsulate the application traffic (ie., instead of connection to the other host, you connect to a port at localhost, which has an encrypted tunnel to the real host).

If you use an automatic (transparent) encryption (or rather, keyexchange) scheme, you're vulnerable to man-in-middle attacks. Under normal circumstances, when your data is only traveling through normal routers and not something like TOR, and you're not doing anything that attracts government attention , I wouldn't worry too much.

Alternatively, you could use known-passphrase encryption (same passphrase used at both ends), but that's a hell wrt. key exchange. Or you could use public-key encryption, which is somewhat better, but you still need either central key authorities or a web of trust...

6542

General Software Discussion / Re: Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:16 PM »

A free firewall - I am not up to date on these at all

-iphigenie (November 05, 2007, 11:44 AM)

The windows XP firewall will do just fine, if you get to the point where you need outgoing protection you're either (A) paranoid or (B) already screwed by malware.

I'd love to get into the habit of using sandboxing stuff; not as malware protection, but when testing out shareware apps and the like. This system is pretty junky by now

6543

Living Room / Re: PREY trailer - looks funky

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:13 PM »

I didn't realize that completing the main Portal game unlocked extra levels, until p3lb0x told me so

It's indeed a very nice little game, with some great humor. And the way the story progresses is nice as well...

Spoiler

I love it that you start in media res, in a clinical environment, without any clue what's going on... I really thought the game would end with the incinerator, but nooo - it's like it doesn't start until then. Lovely!

It's funny that portal technology (used as an engine technique) is pretty old, but it took until Prey and Portal to incorporate it as game elements (as far as I know, anyway). It's too bad Valve didn't go all the way with this, though - portals have to be fired at planar surfaces (ie, not on a hilltop or anything "funky"), regular HL2 AI doesn't take it into account, etc... I'd love to see this being used in more games, although I can imagine it's very hard to incorporate it in non-puzzle games, since it would make "cheating" so much easier.

6544

Living Room / Re: Technology Myths

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 05:07 PM »

If you open this thread in Ars Technica Open Forum's Battlefront, you'll get a HUGE flaming war.

-Lashiec (November 05, 2007, 02:34 PM)

Much less so here, because DonationCoder is a nice community

6545

General Software Discussion / Re: Free virtualization options

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 09:02 AM »

Hm, Parallels isn't MAC-only anymore? worth a try, then...

6546

General Software Discussion / Re: Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 08:51 AM »

If you use XP's firewall, have disabled autorun, and generally don't use IE... then how the hell did you get hit? You must've manually run something off his USB drive

When connected to the internet, using a router with NATing is imho a must. And if you do that, with no default "send all traffic to a DMZ host" but only manually specified port forwarding (and uPNP, it's not as bad as people say), you really shouldn't be hit.

6547

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Tor - The Onion Router

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 08:36 AM »

Yes, it's possible, but not very probable.

-Lashiec (November 04, 2007, 06:08 PM)

That's "just" the identify where the traffic is from attack, which is of course bad enough. I thought I heard it having been used in the wild, but can't find the reference... I was probably just thinking about the theoretical attack.

I would be very wary of using Tor if you are sending sensitive data, anyway, some exit nodes are operated by questionable organizations or countries... I suppose maybe you could encrypt your traffic before it's sent, but I don't know if such thing would be feasible.

-Lashiec (November 04, 2007, 06:08 PM)

TOR does it's own encryption, but obviously this can be decrypted, since the exit nodes need to send something the final destionation host (outside the TOR network) can understand. So if your data is traveling through a TOR node operated by somebody with malicious intents, won't they be able to see your data stream?

Of course you can use your own encryption before going through the TOR network, but anything that's attackable with a man-in-the-middle approach will be vulnerable, since the TOR network is effectively a whole lot of middle men.

I'm not sure how often TOR's routing changes, though... if it did often enough (ie, multiple times even for the same connection) it would be a lot harder to do attacks. But my guess is that once a stable/fast route is found, it'll prefer that route.

I suppose maybe you could encrypt your traffic before it's sent, but I don't know if such thing would be feasible.

-Lashiec

HTTPS (but...), PGP encrypted emails, password-protected RAR archives, etc...

6548

Living Room / Re: Password Cracking Made Easy Thanks to the GPU

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 08:25 AM »

f0dder though seems like you've had experience in this. How would you use a hash to bypass a password? That was implied in one of the earlier posts, that having the hash is as good as having the password.

-vixay (November 05, 2007, 04:42 AM)

It depends on how it's utilized. But consider a solution where you enter your passphrase, but instead of sending the passphrase to the server for validation, a hash of the passphrase is sent. This could be done "for security", to avoid having your passphrase being transmitted, and thus be snoopable. With that method, you can still snoop the hash though...

Another method is to send a hash of (session-unique-data + passphrase), which APOP/CRAM-MD5 does, that's pretty nice and means people will never see your passphrase, you cannot simply use the hash, etc... but it also means the passphrase has to be stored plain-text (or encrypted but with auto-decrypt which is essentially the same level of security as plaintext) serverside.

6549

Living Room / Re: Windows performance tips in one spot

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 08:22 AM »

It would be neat if you could post a page with a green, yellow or red light next to that list of items suggested for speed enhancements. Sounds like a drug deal here. 

-dantheman (November 05, 2007, 04:27 AM)

Sounds like too much work

In reference to one of my previous posts here (is XP SP2 necessary?) i've decided to simply avoid installing SP2 and disable System Restore. Talk about speed!   

-dantheman (November 05, 2007, 04:27 AM)

Humm, dunno if you feel a speed hit going from XP vanilla -> SP2 - perhaps startup time, but that doesn't worry me too much. I wouldn't run pre-SP2 though, the firewall is nice, and you'll want the security updates. If you're on really old hardware, you'll be better off with win2k anyway.

6550

General Software Discussion / Re: Does reliable PC security have to cost money?

« Last post by f0dder on November 05, 2007, 08:19 AM »

One good piece of advice: disable autorun. completely.

If you do that and are a bit careful (and, sorry but it's true, stop using IE or anything IE-based) you really shouldn't be infected. Oh yeah, if you're on a LAN you'll want a firewall, but XP's native firewall is good enough for that.