Recent Posts

8176

General Software Discussion / Re: Does it make sense to disable the windows swap file?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 08, 2008, 02:18 PM »

So I disabled my Pagefile a few days ago when I found this thread, but when I bring up the Task Manager and look at the Performance tab, it shows that my pagefile is at about 50% used (999MB).

Is this because I haven't manually deleted Pagefile.sys?

8177

General Software Discussion / Re: Edit Middle 2: Firefox Addon for the AwesomeBar

« Last post by Deozaan on July 07, 2008, 11:01 AM »

I just installed it. Looks very useful!

8178

DC Gamer Club / Re: Diablo 3 announced!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 07, 2008, 10:59 AM »

this is a crude hack, best played on SP as i don't think it is tolerated on MP servers. in fact, much hair was split over this hack when it first came into availability.

-lanux128 (July 07, 2008, 09:10 AM)

I never play on B.Net servers. Just LAN (via Hamachi if necessary). It would be interesting to try it out with everybody using the higher resolution.

You don't happen to know of a similar hack for Starcraft do you? I looked all over for one of those about a year ago and the only thing I found was a hack to get it to play in Windowed mode.

8179

Living Room / Re: Simply Google

« Last post by Deozaan on July 06, 2008, 11:45 PM »

A good example, from just two days ago:

My mother wanted to show me a video on YouTube but couldn't remember how to get back to it. I told her to type YouTube.com and she didn't know if she should do that in the address bar or in the Google Search bar (in Firefox). After I told her which area to type it into, she still didn't exactly know how to find the video. All she knew about it was that is featured a song called "The Man Song."

Naturally, a search for "The Man Song" brought up a multitude of various results, none were the one she was looking for. I asked her to tell me more about the video. Was it a music video? Was it a real song by a band? She said it had a puppet in it. I told her to add "puppet" to her search and she immediately found it by using a more specific search.

It's a pretty funny video: The Man Song.

But anyway, I agree wholeheartedly with Allen. I don't understand how people could use tools every day but never take the time to learn about them.

8180

DC Gamer Club / Re: Diablo 3 announced!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 06, 2008, 11:20 PM »

anwyay, there are patches that can provide resolution upto 1280x1024 (full screen).

-lanux128 (July 02, 2008, 08:59 PM)

Link please?

Might have to get some D3 DC 'meetings' setup so we can join forces.  Cooperative play is a big thing in D3, so they say.

-Veign (July 03, 2008, 09:23 AM)

Take a look in the DC Gamers section. We're always planning our DC "meetings" there. And every once in a while in IRC someone will say "SAUERBRATEN TIME!" and everyone will join for a quick match.

8181

Developer's Corner / Re: Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express

« Last post by Deozaan on July 06, 2008, 10:27 PM »

No. I think that was the last time I touched XNA, though I have downloaded the later versions, I don't think I've ever installed them and given them a try.

8182

General Software Discussion / Re: Stardock doesn't treat you like a criminal!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 04, 2008, 11:31 AM »

Good points, J-Mac.

As I said in the beginning of the post, I don't know much about Stardock as a company and only used one of their products once. Perhaps it was the whole fiasco you just described that led them to change their point of view on anti-piracy methods.

All I really know is that the article I linked to said what it said, and that seemed like a refreshing idea in a world full of companies who assume you're a pirate first, then grudgingly accept that maybe you're a legitimate user later.

8183

General Software Discussion / Re: Stardock doesn't treat you like a criminal!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 03, 2008, 11:17 AM »

I just emailed Stardock to inquire about a DC discount on their programs.  I'll let you all know when I hear back from them.

-cthorpe (July 01, 2008, 02:24 PM)

Cool! I hope if they give us a discount it will include their games.

8184

DC Gamer Club / Re: Diablo 3 announced!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 02, 2008, 08:36 PM »

I just took a look at some of the screen shots and I'm reminded a lot of Titan Quest

8185

DC Gamer Club / Re: Diablo 3 announced!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 02, 2008, 08:32 PM »

i agree - D1 was such a fun outing. also the graphics for D2 was a bit let-down as the max resolution was only 640*480 if i remember correctly.

-lanux128 (July 02, 2008, 06:29 AM)

Iirc it was 800x600 if you ran it in the 3D-accelerated version? Doesn't seem to be mentioned on wikipedia. Oh, and the Necromancer class was crippled, the skeletons just didn't scale up with level at all

-f0dder (July 02, 2008, 06:34 AM)

It was patched to handle 800x600 when the Expansion came out, I think.

I liked Diablo 2 a lot more than Diablo 1, but I agree that it was generally either way too easy or way too hard. I also agree that the Necromancer couldn't do anything at higher levels because his minions were way too weak. :-( He would have been my favorite class if not for that.

Thankfully the Druid came to take his place. Powerful familiars and powerful spells.

I can't wait for Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3! Hooray for Blizzard!

8186

General Software Discussion / System Restore Trojan?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 27, 2008, 06:33 PM »

How is this even possible? These are hidden, protected OS files/folders.



EDIT: Please note that D: is the new drive that has only had the contents of the old drive copied over to it. Though I suppose this quarantine was made before the old drive started failing, and it is just remembering the location the file used to be at.

8187

Living Room / Re: Accessing the contents of another computer's hard drive

« Last post by Deozaan on June 27, 2008, 05:23 PM »

So if both computers are on the same network in the same house, and the computer you want to access has windows xp on it,

why can't you just open my computer, right click on the c drive, click sharing and security, and then share it, and check the box beside "allow network users to change my files"

I may be missing something here, but that is what I would do.

-nite_monkey (June 26, 2008, 04:08 PM)

Because that doesn't always work. It should be that easy, but I always end up having to set up the hosts file, which means configuring my router for static IP addresses, and even then I'm still lucky if my computers can see each other and share files.

I've even tried connecting two machines together with a crossover ethernet cable and still have problems.

And trying to connect a Vista box to an XP box is even more complicated.

This is something that should "just work" but it doesn't always. 

8188

General Software Discussion / Re: NewEgg

« Last post by Deozaan on June 27, 2008, 05:10 PM »

That sounds pretty strange, Deozaan! Perhaps your filesystem became slightly corrupted? Your old disk is dying, right? Never seen something like that happen, though.

-f0dder (June 27, 2008, 08:42 AM)

Yeah, it's on it's last legs. Occasionally making clicking noises, etc.

Have you transferred your current harddrive from another windows install? Re-installing windows without exporting + importing the crypto keys will leave encrypted files inaccessible.

-f0dder (June 27, 2008, 08:42 AM)

I believe this disc was new or formatted for this particular Windows install. And I've never even had a password on my user account (I know, shame on me ) for any previous OS install. And besides all that, I've never used NTFS encryption before. I just barely learned of it from the DC forum very recently. I've never seen green text in Windows Explorer before.

Like I said, they're just some php scripts for a theme/skin, so they're not critical files I need to read or copy. I'm just trying to figure out how/why they got encrypted and how to remove the encryption. Windows doesn't seem to complain when I move them to the recycle bin, so if all else fails I can delete them and get them back from my web host or by downloading the latest Vanilla package.

8189

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Gizmo gives us Titan Backup for free

« Last post by Deozaan on June 27, 2008, 04:52 PM »

Cool. I just installed and activated it. This should be useful especially with a drive that could go at any time!

8190

General Software Discussion / Re: NewEgg

« Last post by Deozaan on June 27, 2008, 03:41 AM »

Well it arrived today (the 26th). After a few hours of messing with it I finally managed to get it to work. That in itself was such a hassle that I'm mostly just left bitter about the whole thing.

Currently copying data over. I hope my failing drive lasts long enough to make it.

Still, shipping on the 20th and arriving on the 26th is 7 days. Even if you subtract a day for Sunday and another day for the delivery day that's still nearly twice as long as 3-day shipping that was promised.

f0dder (or any others with the knowledge): While copying data over I found out that somehow some files got flagged as "Encrypt data to protect its contents" and I can't copy the files or open them or anything. They show up green in Windows Explorer. Any idea how to decrypt these files? I have no idea how they became encrypted and they're just the stupid default themes (php) for the Vanilla forum software.

I don't have any other user accounts on this system, and I have no idea how that checkbox got ticked for all the files in there...

8191

Living Room / Re: Bill Gates email rant

« Last post by Deozaan on June 27, 2008, 03:32 AM »

Interesting read.

I've done a few critiques like that on things for people I know. Most notable one I can remember is feedback on a few chapters of a book someone I know wrote.

8192

DC Gamer Club / Re: Sauerbraten Server Updates and DonationCoder map - Sauerbraten FPS fun

« Last post by Deozaan on June 26, 2008, 01:07 AM »

When the video mentioned audio problems I put on my headphones so I could hear. When the music first started up I was ready to take off the earphones because I don't particularly care for the hard rock music that comes with Sauerbraten. Then I realized it was Hell March from Red Alert and I enjoyed the audio thenceforth.

Looks good!

And yes I was there when somebody started working on the water tower, but I left before it was finalized. It turned out pretty neat.

8193

General Software Discussion / Re: NewEgg

« Last post by Deozaan on June 26, 2008, 12:57 AM »

Okay this experience is starting to head toward the negative again.

I ordered the hard drive on Jun 4th because my important Documents hard drive started making clicking sounds. This means I've basically been unable to work on anything for nearly a month now because a working hard drive still has not arrived!

I got an e-mail last Friday (20th) saying the new drive shipped, using 3-Day shipping. Tracking information says it should have arrived today (the 25th). Funny how when it gets close to midnight and still no package has arrived the Estimated Arrival date just sort of disappears from the Track Order page.



To make matters worse, I'm in the process of packing everything up so I can move about 150 miles this Saturday. While I will likely have it by Friday at the latest, it would have been nice to have all this taken care of last week or even today when the tracking information said it would be arriving.

I really should have gone with TigerDirect this time.

8194

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by Deozaan on June 25, 2008, 07:09 PM »

Codetrucker: There's something terribly broken with your Flight Simulator link.

8195

General Software Discussion / Stardock doesn't treat you like a criminal!

« Last post by Deozaan on June 25, 2008, 07:01 PM »

To be honest, the only thing I've used by Stardock is the Object Dock, but I just found out from reading this Joystiq article that Stardock doesn't use copy protection measures in any of its games.

In fact, reading that article goes to show you how awesome they are!

As Stardock CEO Brad Wardell explains it, piracy is an issue that "has to be kept in perspective," and in a recent Big Download interview he further played the common sense card, stating that "the people who actually buy games don't want to be inconvenienced or treated like a criminal." Wardell adds that while Sins "definitely" would have sold more had piracy not been an issue, "everyone who buys games knows they could easily have gone out and stolen it if they wanted to."

-http://www.joystiq.com/2008/06/24/sins-publisher-stardock-keeps-piracy-in-perspective/

Just reading that right there makes me want to support the company! And I've been hearing some mighty fine things about their game Sins of a Solar Empire. I may have to get it soon.

 

8196

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite gadgets and gizmos?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 25, 2008, 03:55 PM »

Oh, and my philips QG3080:
[ Invalid Attachment ]
This one has made my life way easier

-jgpaiva (June 25, 2008, 05:02 AM)

Those are some scary looking headphones! 

8197

Living Room / Re: How Interesting is Your IP Address?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 25, 2008, 03:32 PM »

My IP:
[ Invalid Attachment ]

-Gothi[c] (June 25, 2008, 10:07 AM)

This reminds me somewhat of those birds from Joust.

8198

General Software Discussion / Re: Poll: Did you install Windows or was it pre-installed?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 25, 2008, 03:27 PM »

Even if it came pre-installed I would have voted for "installed myself" if I had formatted and installed it.

After all, I think the intention of the question is: When you get a new computer do you use the "preinstalled" Windows or do you install it yourself (including formatting preinstalled Windows first)?

8199

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite gadgets and gizmos?

« Last post by Deozaan on June 24, 2008, 10:38 PM »

It's got to be the Bose noise-canceling headset

-zridling (June 24, 2008, 10:19 PM)

$300 for some earphones? Yeah, I guess you'd better love them for that price!

8200

General Software Discussion / Re: Proprietary media formats — time to get rid of them!

« Last post by Deozaan on June 24, 2008, 09:37 PM »

The problem with concerts is that unless you live near a major, major city, you'll never see a good one.

Not only that, but when I actually did go to a good one (Blue Man Group's How to Be a Megastar Tour 2.0), I was so far away I was just looking at the screens most of the time anyway so I could see what was going on. Then a year later it was on DirecTV and I enjoyed watching it at home much more than when I was there, except for a couple of things:

1. I couldn't feel the music in my chest. -- But with the right sound system this could be fixed.
2. The didn't play a song (Exhibit 13) in the video that they played in concert. This song was very emotionally powerful to me and its absence from the video was very saddening.