Recent Posts

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Requests

« Last post by Deozaan on April 02, 2010, 02:58 AM »

Windows 7 never forces me to reboot. Windows Updates that require a reboot will tell me I need to reboot, but just have a nag popup I can "dismiss" for up to 4 hours at a time.

My biggest complaint recently is the dismal file transfer speeds. It takes forever to copy/move files from one place to another! It shouldn't take 2 minutes to copy 50MB!

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General Software Discussion / Re: updating Firefox plugins sucks!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 30, 2010, 11:23 PM »

I believe that I have 4 Chrome extensions. I had a couple of others but they didn't do much so I removed them. I have no idea what the heck all the processes are doing or why they are there. I have seen others complaining about this or similar at other forums + Google Groups but no one has any definitive answers; just speculation. As usual Google isn't talking.

Jim

-J-Mac (March 29, 2010, 02:30 AM)

Well I just accidentally stumbled upon the answer. You can press Shift+Esc in Chrome (or right click the empty space at the top of the window and select Task Manager, which is how I found it) to see all of Chrome's processes and what they are for. The extra 4 I couldn't figure out for my PC?

1. The Browser itself
2. Shockwave Flash Plugin
3. Google Gears
4. Google Talk Plugin

So, looks like it works like this:

1 process for the browser.
1 process each per open tab.
1 process each per extension.
1 process each per plugin.

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General Software Discussion / Re: GoogleClean 2011

« Last post by Deozaan on March 30, 2010, 05:31 PM »

I probably would have checked out this topic earlier, but I didn't think I needed any software to clean my goggles.

But now that I know it's about Google, well, I have to say it's still not for me since I use lots of Google software/web apps and I think this would break a lot of them.

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Skwire Empire / Re: Compressing files into multiple .zip archives with each .zip being independent

« Last post by Deozaan on March 30, 2010, 03:06 PM »

I just skimmed through the entire 4 pages of this thread looking for an answer to the following question, but if it's there I must have missed it. Sorry.

Is there a particular reason why you switched from 7-zip to IZARC? The only reason I saw why you didn't use 7-zip was because one person said he had a client that wouldn't install 7-zip on their machine.

I have (for example) a 232 MB file and when I use SpinZip to compress it with maximum compression (9) it brings it down to 110MB (47% ratio), which is great, but with 7-zip (.7z) on Ultra compression it goes down to 89 MB (38% ratio). I know that 20MB isn't a lot, but if you're talking about 20MB * 100s of files, it can add up to be GBs in saved HDD space.

I would like to request at least an option to compress to the .7z format to take advantage of the better compression ration 7-zip offers.

EDIT: Naturally almost immediately after I posted I found the answer:

I was wondering if you could make a version and add .7z support? Like have an option between .zip and .7z.

-DrLucky (October 16, 2008, 09:14 PM)

I had originally tried using the 7z binary for the backend but there were some things that it couldn't do easily (exactly what escapes me at the moment...it's been a while so that's why I switched over to the IZarc binary.  Unfortunately, the IZarc command-line binary cannot make 7z files (though the main IZarc application can).

-skwire (October 17, 2008, 12:48 AM)

Still, some part of me hopes that perhaps the 7z binary has improved in the past 3 years to make my request more likely of happening.

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Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2010, 02:40 AM »

I have the solution! The ad-blockers should download the ads, pleasing the site, and not display them, pleasing the viewer!

-TomTrottier (March 28, 2010, 10:37 PM)

I believe that some ad-blockers work that way.

I'm using AdThwart for Chrome and sometimes it will display the ad for a split second and then it will disappear. Almost as if it has to load it first before it chooses to block it from showing up.

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Developer's Corner / Re: Free ClipArt and Photos you can use in commercial projects without attribution

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2010, 02:33 AM »

Thanks mouser, and App!

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General Software Discussion / Re: updating Firefox plugins sucks!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2010, 02:22 AM »

I recently had 9 tabs open in Chrome and the Windows Task Manager showed exactly 30 processes named "Chrome", each taking from 35 to 50 MB of RAM. Crazy!

-J-Mac (March 27, 2010, 10:59 PM)

I'm guessing you have lots of Chrome extensions? I think that each extension runs as its own "chrome.exe" process, just like each tab does. This way (at least in theory) if an extension or a tab crashes, it can be shut down without crashing the entire browser.

I currently have 3 tabs open and 7 extensions, and my PC shows that 14 Chrome processes are running. I'm not sure what the other 4 are for. But only half of those processes are using more than 10MB, none reaching 50MB, and most of the other half are well below 5MB, some even below 1MB of RAM.

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Living Room / Re: Flash Tower Defense Game of the Week: Garden TD

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2010, 02:09 AM »

After beating the first three levels with a single tower (cactus) I decided this game was severely flawed and that it wasn't worth playing anymore.

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DC Gamer Club / Re: Torchlight 50% off until Monday at Steam

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2010, 10:56 PM »

I just unpacked the archive and repacked it using Windows Compressed Archive as per the instructions but the zip file is the same size (that thread says it should be about half the size). I'm guessing the Steam version of the game already has this "patch" that thread was talking about. That thread says to expect loading times of 12 to 20 seconds and I'd guess that's about what it is for me. Though I haven't run Torchlight in a while so I'm not sure.

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General Software Discussion / Re: How long is 'temporary'?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2010, 02:56 PM »

Temporary means "potentially until the hard drive dies."

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DC Gamer Club / Re: Torchlight 75% off until Monday at Steam

« Last post by Deozaan on March 26, 2010, 12:35 PM »

For those interested, Steam is having a weekend deal on Torchlight. The game is $5 (75% off) for the weekend.

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C / C++ / Re: C++ Programming Resources

« Last post by Deozaan on March 25, 2010, 07:02 PM »

Maybe this isn't the right place to ask, but does anyone have a a more recent opinion on a good C++ IDE/Compiler?

Bloodshed's Dev-C++ hasn't been updated in over 5 years (Feb 2005) and that was just a beta release.
Code::Blocks was last updated in Feb 2008.

I suppose if they were good and stable when they were released, and if C++ hasn't changed at all in that time then they could still be good IDEs, but I think they may have troubles with some aspect of Windows 7 64bit. Especially Dev-C++ which was released before Vista!

Oh, and I guess Code::Blocks most recent update was the Feb 27 2010 Nightly Build.

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Living Room / Re: Transcendence: Free EV Nova like 2d space exploration / battle / adventure game

« Last post by Deozaan on March 25, 2010, 02:56 AM »

Sounds cool!

Interesting that this should release today. Just yesterday I pulled out my old Universe project (a 2D space game in the vein of EV Nova and Star Control 2) that I hadn't touched in about 1.5 years and started working on it again.

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Living Room / Re: 50 Places Linux is Running That You Might Not Expect

« Last post by Deozaan on March 25, 2010, 02:46 AM »

At first I was a little surprised by the company names, and then I realized that quite a lot of those are just server clusters, which you should just expect to be some form of Linux.

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Living Room / Re: Yahoo Primary Source of Malware and Doesn’t Care

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 07:38 AM »

I find this very interesting, especially considering that Ubuntu has chosen to make Yahoo! the default search engine/home page for Firefox in the upcoming 10.04 Lucid Lynx release next month.

Though I suppose Ubuntu doesn't have to worry about viruses that are targeting Windows systems.

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AutoHotkey / Re: help with icons

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 07:15 AM »

nice, Resource Hacker is a very good tool but is no longer being developed. in case you need a more recently developed tool, try Anolis Resourcer.

-lanux128 (March 24, 2010, 06:01 AM)

It is true that Resource Hacker is no longer being developed, but it was updated more recently than Anolis Resourcer. Anolis was updated last September. ResHack was updated last December.

One off update - 19 December 2009 (version 3.5.2 beta):

I needed to access resources in a 64bit Windows executable so I've just updated Resource HackerTM to open (ie decompile/recompile) these files too. This new version also displays PNG image resources. However, please understand that I have no intention of reviving this project so please DON'T ask for other features. Also, because this version has only had limited testing I'm releasing it as a beta version. You can download this beta version here - reshack_setup.exe

-http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/

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Screenshot Captor / Re: Capture rounded corners in Vista

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 06:36 AM »

More weird stuff:

When trying to capture an image of the SCC window, the image is just a white screen (but my mouse cursor is captured properly).

When making a full screen capture and then cropping the image and renaming it, the thumbnail image in the sidebar doesn't update. The name updates, but the actual thumbnail itself shows the full desktop capture. Even going into the menu File -> Save Changes Now sometimes doesn't get that thumbnail image to update.

I've uploaded a few of these to the forum in the past, thinking that the thumbnail hadn't refreshed but that the cropped image had indeed been saved, only to be surprised to see my entire desktop in the thread after uploading the image. I've had to hurry and take the image back down (for instance when an image of my online banking I had tried to crop out was in the background) fix the image for good, then reupload to my posts.

I'm sorry to say it mouser, but ScreenShot Captor is practically useless in Win7 with all these problems. It would be easier to press Print Screen and paste the image into Paint than to use SCC in its current state. Please fix it!

EDIT: I think I found out a case where it won't save/update the thumbnail: If there is a period in the filename. Like "ScreenShotCaptor 3.12.5.png" It gets hung up on "ScreenShotCaptor 3" and doesn't save.

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AutoHotkey / Re: help with icons

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 05:31 AM »

AHK thread @ http://www.autohotke...forum/topic1731.html
You can get the AHK Icon Changer script at the last page http://www.autohotke...um/topic1731-30.html or Here (direct download). The poster suggest an alternative - Compile_AHK II.

-PhilB66 (March 24, 2010, 04:08 AM)

I actually just wanted something that could change the icon for any exe, not just compiled AHK scripts. Resource Hacker from that thread worked great. Thanks!

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Screenshot Captor / Re: Capture rounded corners in Vista

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 04:52 AM »

I'm using Windows 7 64-bit and experiencing the same issue and more.

When I do a screen capture (Prnt Scrn) the SCC window will pop up with a rectangle selection that is smaller than the active window, which then disappears before I can do anything with it. But other than that, everything looks fine.



And when I do an active window capture (Alt-Prnt Scrn) it will properly grab just the active window, but the corners outside the active window are not made transparent like they are when doing the same thing in XP.

When capturing the active window of games I make in TGB, the contents are blank/black:



Don't forget to look at the non-transparent colors above.

And when capturing Google Chrome it does really weird stuff.



EDIT: Is it just me or are those screenshots not displaying?

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Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 04:26 AM »

hmm, it's been a couple of months since I last used it. The bigger problem for me is none of my circle actually use it since the initial buzz after the launch. Maybe they'll integrate all of this into Gmail?

-jomanlk (March 24, 2010, 04:20 AM)

I don't really think that's a problem at this time, since Wave is pre-beta (they call it Google Wave Preview). I wouldn't expect the everyday PC user to want to use Wave right now. Heck, I don't. It's just not fast enough yet, but the stability seems to have improved. Anyway, my point is that it's in the very early stages of development, so right now for the average person it's just something to take a look at for a bit, get an idea of the potential it may have, then check back in on the progress every so often.

I think once they allow you to integrate Waves into other websites (including Gmail) it will become a lot more ubiquitous.

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Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 03:38 AM »

Anyone try out Wave recently?

I just did and it has improved a lot. It still has some speed issues, but they implemented Ctrl-Z to undo, and you can make sure your replies appear the way you want them to from the drop down menu of a blip. Select "Continue Thread" to reply below, or select "Indented Reply" to indent.

You can also get notifications in your e-mail inbox about Wave updates. That is, when a Wave you are in updates, you can be notified. There's also a feedback survey I'd encourage everyone to fill out who would like to give some feedback. Oh, and the feedback survey definitely highlights the Firefly^w/Serenity^w influences.

If it's been a while since you last tried Wave, it might be about time to poke your head in there and see what's changed. It's still not anywhere near ready for primetime, but it's nice to see the progress it has made in the past couple of months.

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AutoHotkey / Re: help with icons

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 03:00 AM »

technically it should since it uses the reshacker tool to modify the exe, iirc.

as for the 2nd question, i might have them somewhere. i'll let you know if i can find it.

-lanux128 (March 24, 2010, 12:20 AM)

Cool. I'd Google around for it myself, but it's not clear to me from your post what the tool's name is. Is it called "Icon (and Information)-Changer"?

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Living Room / Re: Help needed from USA to buy a book.

« Last post by Deozaan on March 24, 2010, 02:58 AM »

If, for whatever reason, it doesn't work out with Zaine, I'd be glad to help as well.

If it's been taken care of, might I suggest changing the subject in the original post to reflect that or closing the topic so those of us who have not yet seen this thread will know that our help is no longer needed?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Waze - crowd sourced navigation

« Last post by Deozaan on March 23, 2010, 11:51 PM »

It sounds cool in theory, but it does seem pretty rough. I say that and I haven't even tried it yet. I just downloaded it to my Android phone and during the account creation process it didn't even use a password field for the form. In other words, my password was displayed in plain text on my phone.

Seriously? Password fields have only been around since the beginning of the internet (or before!), but they can't even get that right?

Also, it's showing things in the event list that are happening over 500 miles away. . .

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Living Room / Re: Any long-time DC members near a MicroCenter?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 23, 2010, 11:18 PM »

I'm not near one (never heard of it until now) but I'm curious as to what the sale is. Care to share more details?