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6751
Living Room / Re: no power on Dell desktop
« Last post by 40hz on October 22, 2011, 05:12 AM »
If it is the power supply, replacing it is an apprentice-level task. Anybody but the most technically challenged should be able to do it with a screwdriver and a little common sense. Official Dell instructions can be found here.

My database is showing the Dell Precision 380 workstation shipped with a 375 watt power supply. A quality replacement shouldn't set you back more than $50. And it will probably be  less than that.

Your best bet is to either buy your replacement from Dell - or get a better (and possibly less expensive one) from one of the reputable makers like Antec or PC Power & Cooling. I'd advise contacting their tech support lines, give them your specific model information, and let them tell you what you should get. Especially if you're not comfortable researching it yourself.

Be sure to shop around once you know what to get too! Prices vary widely for the same power supply.

Luck!  :) :Thmbsup:
6752
Living Room / Re: Tests Related to Recent Increase in Bandwidth Loss Through Router
« Last post by 40hz on October 22, 2011, 12:01 AM »
OK. You've piqued my curiosity... ;D

1) What are you using for a router?

2) What are the port speeds on each device? Is the router only 100Mbs (on either its WAN or LAN side) whereas the cable modem has 1Gb speed on its RJ45 jack?

What's puzzling is that you said you were seeing very high throughput previously with the router in circuit. So the problem is obviously related to the router being in the loop. Sounds like some bandwidth throttling or QoS feature has been woken up on the router. Have you recently upgraded the firmware in the router? If so, there's a chance the update has  switched something ON which used to be OFF by default.

Possibly a misconfigured MTU or other setting on the router...hmm...

Question: does  the cable modem have it's own switch built in or does it just provide a single IP address on the LAN side? If it provides DHCP services, you'd be better off just plugging a switch into it and forgoing  the router altogether.

When plugged straight into the cable modem could you run an IPCONFIG /ALL command and see if your NIC has a non-routable IP address? Also if the subnet is anything other than a /24 (i.e. 255.255.255.0)?

Long shot: some device plugged into your network (or one of the ports on the router itself) has gone south and is introducing 'chatter' or other noise which is forcing enough retransmits that it's dragging the entire network down. Since the performance drop is there whenever the router (and nothing else) is plugged in, it's a very real possibility.
 :)

-----------------

@daddydave - OK...it's 1:00AM and the server I was working on is back online (RAID rebuild!) so I'll be packing up and heading home. Let's regroup on this later this weekend. ;D :Thmbsup:

6753
Hmm...

Just read their Online Publication Agreement and sections 4, 7, 8, 9, 15, and 16 are each raising one or more caution flags for me. Especially the final line at the end of the agreement:

By making a Submission, Author agrees to the terms of this Agreement as set forth herein.

This is pretty unusual for a publishing agreement. If you send them something it appears they consider you under contract with them? Really? Most publishing agreements I'm familiar with arrive in a Fedex pouch with one copy for you, and another to sign and return. There's nothing automatic anywhere. Signatures and hardcopy contracts are the rule - even for an e-book.

I'd be careful and get some professional legal advice before submitting.

But you should always do that no matter what contract you're getting into. That's just basic prudence and business sense.

There's a bit more I could probably say, but lets just leave it at that. 8)


6754
Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal
« Last post by 40hz on October 21, 2011, 05:45 PM »
^Doesn't address the esthetics of the reading experience. Which is all I really care about.  8)
6755
General Software Discussion / Re: Suggestions for maximum-lockdown XP system
« Last post by 40hz on October 21, 2011, 03:47 PM »
All I would add is to set him up for automatic Windows update using the download and install option, and set it to run sometime during the day when he's likely to have his machine switched on.

+1 w/ Cyberdiva regarding MSE. I'm running it on all my home machines, and Windows business machines. That in conjunction with the built-in firewall and regular Windows updates and I have had zero issues to date. (knock wood)

Malwarebytes is an excellent supplement to the above. Good choice that.

I'm not too crazy about putting Comodo's firewall on a non-power user machine.

While it may offer a higher level of protection (debatable) than Windows built-in firewall, it usually winds up being less effective since most non-tech users simply click ALLOW whenever they get a pop-up alert they don't understand. So this has to potential to make a more powerful firewall less secure than a set & forget one like Microsoft's. Your call on that. My personal experience is that the Windows firewall is more than adequate for normal computer use. Especially when combined with a restricted user account, MSE, and regular updates. That combo is damn near bulletproof AFAICT.

40hz's NSFW take on this stuff
photo.JPG


Luck with all this.

P.S. If you really really really need something that's been "harshed and sat-on major" as my niece would say, just buy him an iPad. It doesn't get more locked-down than that little $800 Etch-a-Sketch!

6756
Living Room / Re: Newb - Question about monitoring activity on a network
« Last post by 40hz on October 21, 2011, 09:28 AM »
Do you want to do this in order to monitor for performance and usage reasons (if you don't have an unlimited internet plan); or are you more looking for keeping and eye on who's doing and saying what and where?
6757
am looking for license key for ErrorWiz 1.4

ErrorWiz is a commercial program. You can't get a key for that here. And you won't want ErrorWiz on your PC anyway. (see below). If you do have it, you'll want to remove it.

What is ErrorWiz?

The Malwarebytes research team has determined that ErrorWiz is a fake anti-malware application. These so-called "rogues" use intentional false positives to convince users that their systems have been compromised. Then they try to sell you their software, claiming it will remove these threats. In extreme cases the false threats are actually the very trojans that advertise or even directly install the rogue.

Link to removal instructions and additional info here.
6758
I wouldn't go too overboard with partitioning. Segregating the drive into one partition for the operating system and programs; and a second partition for user data should be sufficient for general use. Basically this divides the drive between what needs to be reloaded from CD and everything else that will get lost if it isn't backed up.

Beyond that I'd just organize into general folders (music, my documents, etc.) and optionally take advantage of the Libraries feature if I needed to take it beyond that.

FWIW I normally create 3 logical drives in a single disk system. Drive C is for the OS and Programs. Drive D is user data. And Drive E is for special backups (hardware drivers, e-mail, browser stuff, etc.) and for storing the current system recovery image(s).

There's been previous discussions at DoCo that got into this in much more detail. The main goal was to have the hard disk set up in such a way that it was easy to backup user data to an external drive; and to allow for easy recovery of your complete system via disk images (with all your current programs and settings intact) in the event the system drive got screwed up royally. This is what's often referred to as a "recoverable without reinstalling" strategy.

And like most things, it's easy to do.

micky.jpg

But the devil is in the details. And it's best thought about in advance when you're setting up a 'clean' system.

Does this answer your question or do you need more specifics? :)
6759
Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post
« Last post by 40hz on October 19, 2011, 05:39 PM »
@tomos & Ath - thanks guys!

I'm gonna have to start slowing down a bit on this. Figure if each post averages about 60 words, then 5000 posts = approximately 300,000 words! Bugger! That's about the same number of words you'd find in Lord of the Rings - or four standard novels.

Hmm...maybe I'd finish a lot more of the writing I should be doing if I did a little more of that and a little less of this next time I get a spare ten or so minutes.
 ;D

6760
Living Room / Re: Smart Response Technology and partitioning
« Last post by 40hz on October 19, 2011, 05:25 PM »
Crap, 40 got ahead of me ... But I'll go ahead and post my nonsense anyway.

@SJ - Feel free to slip in ahead of me whenever you like.

Anything that gets me out of typing up something is fine by me. ;)

 ;D


6761
Every one of those efforts gave me the same response, albeit couched differently depending upon the CD format I was using.

So I just decided to bite that particular bullet and, eventually, replace the drive.


disksplat.jpg

I've had that happen to me. Your drive may not be shot. Most times it's just the partition table and/or MBR that are FUBARed. It's very likely there's just some digital garbage lurking in a critical area that is preventing a reformat.

Before you trash it, download a copy of Darik's Boot & Nuke. It's a tiny download. Fits on a floppy.

Boot using that, and select the quick option - or just hit enter. (If you just hit enter it will take longer.)

Let it run until it hits at least the 15% complete mark. You don't need to let it run to completion. You just want to be sure the partition table and lowest tracks are completely wiped.

Now load up a copy of gparted from any of those live Linux CDs you've got and create a new partition table. After that you can partition/format the drive however you want using NTFS. If you can do this you're half way home. Think of this as the test phase. I like gparted because it can do this part quicker and more reliably than Windows usually can.

Now when you go to reinstall windows, first do a fix master boot record on it (FIXMBR) and then do a quick format on each partition when you reinstall Windows. This may not be absolutely necessary since it's redoing what we just did with gparted. But we're using Microsoft's utilities this time around just to be 100% sure there's nothing going on Windows doesn't understand. When running Windows you want to stick with their setup tools as much as possible.

In 9 cases out of 10, this fixes the problem.

Luck! :Thmbsup:

6762
Living Room / Re: Smart Response Technology and partitioning
« Last post by 40hz on October 19, 2011, 06:53 AM »
First up - welcome to the forum! A charter member since 2006 and this is only your first post? That has got to be some sort of record! :)

----------------

OK. On to business...

There's a couple of test articles I think you'll want to read.

First is from the folks at PC Perspective, who wax enthusiastic about it. Enough so that they made it an Editor's Choice. (Link here.)

Final Thoughts

Ryan awarded the Z68 solution his Editor's Choice. I'm going to match his with one from the Storage Editor. I'm not only awarding for the Z68 - I'm awarding for the potential of the dynamic duo of storage goodness that it enables. The Z68 / SSD 311 combination is what hybrid hard disk drives should have been from the start, with the added bonus of being able to mate it with whichever spinning disk the user wants.

AnandTech, following another of their characteristically in-depth tests, was also generally impressed. (Full article here.) They voiced a few reservations about the across the board performance gains for all applications, noting that the most consistent gains were in the "light use" testing scenario. (See below - emphasis added.)

Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT) is an interesting addition to the mix. For starters, it's not going to make your high end SSD obsolete. You'll still get better overall performance by grabbing a large (80-160GB+) SSD, putting your OS + applications on it, and manually moving all of your large media files to a separate hard drive. What SRT does offer however is a stepping stone to a full blown SSD + HDD setup and a solution that doesn't require end user management. You don't get the same performance as a large dedicated SSD, but you can turn any hard drive into a much higher performing storage device. Paired with a 20GB SLC SSD cache, I could turn a 4-year-old 1TB hard drive into something that was 41% faster than a VelociRaptor.

If you're building a system for someone who isn't going to want to manage multiple drive letters, SRT may be a good alternative. Similarly, if you're building a budget box that won't allow for a large expensive SSD, the $110 adder for an Intel SSD 311 can easily double the performance of even the fastest hard drive you could put in there. The most obvious win here is the lighter user that only runs a handful of applications on a regular basis. As our tests have shown, for light workloads you can easily get the performance of an X25-M G2 out of a fast hard drive + an SSD cache.

This is understandable in that Intel has limited the absolute cache size. So with certain applications, or usage patterns, there's a good likelihood that not everything you'd want to remain cached will do so:

The Downside: Consistency

Initially it's very easy to get excited about Intel's SRT. If you only run a handful of applications, you'll likely get performance similar to that of a standalone SSD without all of the cost and size limitations. Unfortunately, at least when paired with Intel's SSD 311, it doesn't take much to kick some of that data out of the cach
..
..
..
A pure SSD setup is going to give you predictable performance across the board regardless of what you do, whereas Intel's SRT is more useful in improving performance in more limited, repetitive usage models. Admittedly most users probably fall into the latter category.

Once again it's a case of "Your mileage may vary." Like so many other things in life. ;D

AnandTech also experienced some reliability problems while testing. Although the author of the article pointed out they were non-replicable errors and hesitated to blame SRT for them, it's enough to urge extra caution. Especially since Intel has a history of rare but serious problems emerging several months after a new technology gets introduced into their product line.

In my use I've only noticed two reliability issues with Intel's SRT. The first issue was with an early BIOS/driver combination where I rebooted my system (SSD cache was set to maximized) and my bootloader had disappeared. The other issue was a corrupt portion of my Portal 2 install, which only appeared after I disabled by SSD cache. I haven't been able to replicate either issue and I can't say for sure that they are even caused by SRT, but I felt compelled to report them nevertheless. As with any new technology, I'd approach SRT with caution—and lots of backups.

BOOYAH.png

Dunno...

I'm at the point where I'm going to need to do some serious building soon. But, while I like what I see with SRT, it's a little too new (and offers not quite enough) that I'm not going to jump on it right now. At the very least I'd like to let it get out in the field long enough for some real-word performance and reliability data to start coming back. Most likely I'll just wait another six months or so for Ivy Bridge since an adequate but completely integrated GPU and native USB 3.0 support is more important to me than faster boot times and drive caching.

Yup...think I'm gonna wait and see since I don't need to do anything right this very minute.

@nosie - If you do build this beastie you're planning, please keep us informed about how you made out?

Luck! :Thmbsup:

6763
Living Room / Re: Beyond Gamification. Designing up Maslow’s Pyramid.
« Last post by 40hz on October 18, 2011, 08:07 AM »
It's my understanding that motivational models may have relevance when it comes to encouraging category purchasing behaviors. Such as deciding whether to redecorate a home or go on an extended vacation. But they have not been all that effective in predicting or motivating a specific behavior within a category.

Basically that's saying you can lead a thirsty horse to the water - but you can't make him order a Dr. Pepper. :)

A lot of papers came out in the late 70s that got into that since it was a time when much of Mallow's work was being openly questioned. One representative example can be found here. The study that started the ball rolling was some research done by Mahmoud Ahmed Wahba and Lawrence Gail Bridwelland who authored a paper entitled Maslow reconsidered: a review of research on the need hierarchy theory. That's the one I read for my behavioral psych course. (I did a search, hoping to find a copy up on the web. Unfortunately, it will cost you about $42 to get a PDF since the paper's text is not available online.)

One more thing: Am I crazy for thinking about this in product design?

Maybe Nikki Chau could better answer her own question if she did a tiny bit of scholarly research and perhaps a little bit less meditating on the subject?

Because right now it seems that question is equivalent to asking if it's crazy trying to use a paint brush to drive a screw.

------

+1 w/IainB on "gamification." Ugly construct that word is. Especially when, in the context it's being used in, you could just as easily have said 'manipulation.'
 8)
6764
Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal
« Last post by 40hz on October 17, 2011, 10:48 PM »
The other thing that gets lost is the whole tactile dimension of a fine book.

The experience of reading a book is a very different thing than what you get from just reading.

There's the heft, the finish, the binding, the quality and texture of the paper, the typography, the overall 'feel' of the thing. That's something you don't get from a tablet reader.

So for someone to say that an e-book is no different than an ordinary "dead tree" :-\ book - or that the experience of reading either is exactly the same - makes me want to smile sadly and pat the poor unfortunate on the head. Because these people, much like Wilde's miser, know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

You can serve a fine wine in a Styrofoam cup or a crystal wineglass. In both cases the content is the same. But I defy anybody to tell me the drinker's experience or enjoyment will be the same no matter which serving container gets used.

I think much the same can be said about the different experience you get reading books as opposed to e-books.

------

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it. Those who do not do it, think of it as a cousin of stamp collecting, a sister of the trophy cabinet, bastard of a sound bank account and a weak mind.”  ― Jeanette Winterson

*

“Many people, myself among them, feel better at the mere sight of a book.”
― Jane Smiley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel


 8)
6765
Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal
« Last post by 40hz on October 17, 2011, 09:33 PM »
the outdated and unnecessary dead tree publishers will die over the next 15 years, and we'll be left with a leaner, meaner system that's just as good at creating quality work but is also higher bandwidth. Mass voting and review output from readers will decide what succeeds.

Leaner and meaner for sure. No argument there.

This is a desirable outcome?

Lemming.png



6766
Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal
« Last post by 40hz on October 17, 2011, 07:13 AM »
The downside is that despite all the drawbacks publishers brought to the table, they also provided two very valuable services: editorial review and publicity.

Publicity isn't that big a deal any more now that mechanisms and techniques for generating 'buzz' on the web are well established and understood.

But editorial review - having a knowledgeable and literate person sit down and work with an author to make their book the best it can be - that's something that is going to go away. Which brings writing back to what it traditionally used to be: an endeavor for amateurs.

And when it comes to writing, there's a very real chance that the amateurs will drive out the professional writers. Because once "good enough" becomes the norm in books, who needs somebody who's really good? And more to the point:" who's gonna be willing to pay them for it?

Right now, Amazon is playing a very dangerous game. In that they are now setting themselves up as business rivals to existing publishers, Amazon could soon find itself out of the book market if all the big players decided to pull and go exclusively with Nook or Apple.

Which would be a sad state of affairs since that would balkanize the e-book industry, and could well force readers onto a specific device if they want to read something. Imagine a world where you need three different devices in order to read every book you want to read! (Someday soon: "Your daughter wants to read Harry Potter? Sorry, it's only available on Nook. Do you need to buy one? We have them on sale today...")...and here we thought it was bad when VHS and Betamax were competing for movie rights.

Lately, with the release of anything "new & improved," something old & bad often comes along for the ride.
With Amazon's latest move, it looks like incompatible formats and arbitrary restrictions on distribution (in the name of digital rights management) is a very real possibility. That, and the end of professional publishing.

Welcome back amateurs! Come one -come all...

Yoiks! I'm think gonna keep the cork in the champagne bottle for the time being. :o
 ;D

----------
Addendum: Renegade said exactly what I'm saying, but much more elegantly, in the post above this one. :Thmbsup:
6767
I'm very confused by the direction this thread has taken. What does bundling unwanted software - I assume you're talking about toolbars or spyware and such - have to do with "Fairware" (or DC for that matter)?

Thank you for asking that. I was beginning to wonder myself.  :)

6768
Living Room / Re: Wow: Google insider explains why Big G may lose the Internet wars
« Last post by 40hz on October 16, 2011, 01:01 PM »
War chest > secretly setup operational infrastructure in cheaper place > transfer operations > inform staff in expensive place that they no longer have jobs > laugh all the way to bank.

I believe we've see that one before once or twice. Where is America's textile industry?

Yeah, we have seen and continue to see that done.

But Amazon needs to physically move product. Relocating overseas would move those big hulking warehouses out of a relatively secure and law-abiding country and away from all those nice highways airports their delivery partners use. Then there's having to deal with customs and entry inspections... That can get pesky. Especially if the governmeny of the country you're shipping to is seriously pissed at you for something like...dunno...moving away and taking jobs and money with you?

So relocating isn't really a viable option. Especially since it also moves them away from their customers.

I think you'd be more likely to see Amazon open a facility in Antarctica before you'd see them physically exit the USA.

Of course, if China were to really take off, that's not to say they couldn't abandon the US market after everybody got laid off because there was no work (and therefor had no money to spend)  and relocate to Asia.

 8)
6769
Living Room / Re: Another Nail in the Coffin for Free Speech
« Last post by 40hz on October 16, 2011, 11:54 AM »
Why is anyone surprised!

Lady GaGa is in it purely for the money.

Once you understand that, everything else she and her handlers do follows naturally from it.
 :-\
6770
Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR not a commonly downloaded program?
« Last post by 40hz on October 16, 2011, 01:01 AM »
Great, use it.. though not sure if they are a trusted CA when it comes to code signing under Windows or not, you will have to check.

FYI:
Start Commercial (StartCom) Ltd
. is listed as a CA on Microsoft's Root Certificate member page:

http://social.techne...s/articles/2592.aspx

So they're a trusted CA.

But you may need to do additional steps or sign a supplemental agreement of some sort before a code signing EKU gets applied to your root certificate. I'm not too up on the mechanics of obtaining certificates, but I recall a client of mine ran into something similar with Microsoft once and had to do something extra before the "code signing" part got ok'd. And IIRC, it cost considerably more than a standard SSL/TLS/MIME certificate. Something like $400-500 annually?

6771
Living Room / Re: LiteOn DVD writers?
« Last post by 40hz on October 16, 2011, 12:24 AM »
Like Mouser, I've never had an unusual amount of bad luck with LiteOn drives although IMO the overall build quality has declined somewhat over the last two years for most optical drives. They all seem flimsier and more delicate than they used to feel. I'm sure many manufacturers cut costs by using cheaper mechanical components.

The two best drives I ever owned were dual-layer units manufactured by TDK and Memorex. Both are about 5 years old and still going strong.

FWIW, I never update the firmware on this category of product. Haven't done so ever since I made the mistake of doing it (at the recommendation of Sony) on a couple of drives which were already working fine. Both got extremely flaky after being flashed. I'm sure the update didn't do anything other than add some DRM nonsense because about half the commercial movie DVDs I own, (and which all used to play very nicely on either drive) refused to even load after the update.

And needless to say, you couldn't revert to the previous firmware once you updated it.

Never again. :mad:
6772
General Software Discussion / Re: SOLVED - Help! Firefox 7.01 Weirdness
« Last post by 40hz on October 15, 2011, 05:37 PM »
Usually clearing the cache fixed it - I never knew if the problem was with FF or dc...

I had this issue on upgrade before version 6. I cleared the cookies, cache, removed add-ons and restarted. Worked for me.

Hey! It wasn't the cache or the cookies. (I had already cleared those.) But you reminded me that in addition to cache and cookies, FF also keeps track of site preferences. When I deleted info one type at a time, the problem went away after site preferences got purged.

Interesting in that I always accept any site's default and never specify my own preferences. And I know I never did anything like that for either of the two sites affected.  Guess something got in there somehow. Why it only pooched DoCo's SMF pages and A List Apart's website is anybody's guess. But it's fixed now so I'm not going to spend a lot of time worrying about it unless it happens again.

Thanks for your help! Appreciated. :)

P.S.
@tomos - your English is just fine. You use it better than many native speakers I deal with. :) :Thmbsup:
6773
Atari Collection 50% off

We're fighting the depressing weather that announces the inevitable approach of autumn with an awesome weekend promo!

Not so long ago we had the Atari-Hasbro games on promo, and this weekend we're putting the 20(!) remaining titles from Atari on offer! So how about getting some of the greatest classics from the Atari catalogue with a flat 50% discount? Get a half-off on The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (only $4.99), Roller Coaster Tycoon series, Outcast ($2.99), Master of Orion series, Alone in the Dark games ($2.99 each) and more! No matter how many games you buy, you get the 50% discount. Check the promo page to see the whole offer and don't wait as the promo ends on Monday, October 17 at 11:59 a.m. EDT.

http://www.gog.com/e...ri_collection_50_off

Promo page here.

They've got B-17 Flying Fortress: the Mighty 8th  :-*  for $2.99!

I'm there!

---

P.S. US gamers: please take a moment to look at y0himba's thread on Project Gratitude if you find yourself with some extra cash this weekend. Link here. Get some more games and do some good at the same time!  :up:

6774
Living Room / Re: Privacy alert: Verizon is now monitoring your mobile Web habits
« Last post by 40hz on October 15, 2011, 02:06 PM »
Certainly provides a disincentive for Verizon customers to indulge in pillow talk via text or e-mail. :tellme:
6775
Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR not a commonly downloaded program?
« Last post by 40hz on October 15, 2011, 02:01 PM »
Once again Microsoft seems absolutely hell bent on destroying their reputation and running their company into the dirt.

Isn't it more like they're hell bent on destroying your reputation and running your 'company' into the dirt?


Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Google, Canonical, Novell, Symantec, McAfee...I think I'm beginning to seriously hate any company that employs more than 50 people these days. >:(
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