Recent Posts

851

Living Room / Re: Searchme - another visual search attempt

« Last post by Lashiec on April 23, 2008, 07:03 PM »

Oh, it's finally open to the public. I wanted to try it as soon as I saw the review on Ars Technica, very slick, not as fast as searching with Google by a long shot, but it has its advantages.

BTW, should I be worried?

Translation: Security warning: You are just going to go to an address that contains an username. (Address details). Are you sure you want to go to this address? I clicked no, of course, the "crossdomain.xml" didn't sound too good, but perhaps I was a bit too skeptical

If I remember correctly, Google has been testing new ways of show searches using Flash and visual previews. Ah, here it is, remove the "flash" part in the URL if you want to use the non-Flash version. Note that the Flash version does not work with Opera

852

General Software Discussion / Re: PC Tools AV - an opinion please!

« Last post by Lashiec on April 23, 2008, 06:41 PM »

I'm willing to recommend it as an alternative, but it should be noted that AVG Free will be upgraded to version 8 in the future, so it may end up as another hog, a leaner one, but a hog. Also, recent versions of AVG had been using the same method as AntiVir to promote the paid versions, with a popup that appears after updates (this one tries to mimic Vista looks), so take that into consideration.

I'm curious, why the Network Edition?

853

Living Room / Re: Windows XP SP3 due for release .... (don't hold your breath)

« Last post by Lashiec on April 23, 2008, 06:29 PM »

Hopefully they have sorted out the SP2 TCPIP.SYS stupid security fix (ie. limit outgoing TCPIP connections to 10). If not does anyone know if the widely available patch/hack works with SP3 too as without that it makes using Torrents pretty well  impossible?

-Carol Haynes (April 23, 2008, 06:10 AM)

Impossible? I did not apply the patch, and everything runs fine and dandy here. Of course, if you have tons of torrents at the same time, that may be an issue. Security-wise, it's a bit of a hack, if malware wants to spread fast, it will spread fast.

854

Screenshot Captor / Re: Is McAfee Antivirus still false alarming on DC software?

« Last post by Lashiec on April 23, 2008, 06:16 PM »

I'm planning to contact McAfee once mouser releases a new version of Screenshot Captor to delete it as soon as someone clicks the download URL

855

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Xnview vs. IrfanView - integrity issue examined

« Last post by Lashiec on April 23, 2008, 06:10 PM »

This could have some base a couple of years ago, but today XnView has evolved far away from what IrfanView can offer. Though it's true that when I compared the two apps years ago, they felt remarkably similar in usage, and even Gizmo expresses these feelings in his list of best freeware, to make the claim that XnView has been reverse engineering IrfanView or copying it pixel by pixel is a very strong accusation, and ignores the reality of software development. Not to mention there's only so much you can innovate regarding picture viewers.

Personally, I think IrfanView always focused itself in being the best image viewer available, while XnView went further, competing (or trying to) with ACDSee in its own field. Also, XnView has the broadest format support of the two and supports even the most exotic platforms (with various degrees of success), and that's another point that defines the program. Besides, Pierre has been working in XnView and its predecessor for years, I never saw a freebie being developed since so long ago, so clearly it wasn't copying IrfanView at the time ;D

856

General Software Discussion / Re: Maxthon or Avant?

« Last post by Lashiec on April 22, 2008, 07:24 PM »

AVANT is probably a bit faster than Maxthon2 but the later probably has the fastest integrated downloader on the market. Like, i downloaded OpenOffice in less than 12 minutes once. Something that would normally take about 40 min. with other browsers.

-dantheman (April 21, 2008, 07:55 PM)

Ah, I see Maxthon's download manager has support for multipart downloads, that explains those speeds. Instead of stablishing a sole connection to the download server, the program shares equal chunks of the file between various connections, so the speed is combined.

857

General Software Discussion / Re: You know you're addicted to DC software when...

« Last post by Lashiec on April 22, 2008, 07:06 PM »

...you make a comedy based youtube video about FARR

-nite_monkey (April 21, 2008, 08:27 PM)

LMAO!

858

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« Last post by Lashiec on April 22, 2008, 06:57 PM »

With e17 they wanted to redesign the concept of a 'window manager', and they developed a system to draw widgets/windows in a manner similar to Macromedia(or i should now say Adobe) Flash.

-Gothi[c] (April 22, 2008, 06:59 AM)

Is that something similar to Plasmoids in KDE 4?

If you're thinking of trying out dr17, you'll probably be disappointed because since they haven't even reached beta yet, it's full of bugs, random crashes, and missing functionality. It has been in development since 2000.

8 years, and the page still describes it as pre-alpha... too many development time for being in that early stage, I wonder what happened in the interim (apart from Real Life, of course).

8 years and counting, I wonder if they can beat duke nukem forever...

Always bet on Duke Enlightenment ;)

859

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« Last post by Lashiec on April 21, 2008, 05:45 PM »

I disagree with Enlightenment being attractive, certain parts are, others suck hard, but it's true that it's quite light, it reminds me of LiteStep, not only for its low footprint, but also the general look.

Note that I'm not saying that XP is attractive, although some visual styles... I guess that despite the Fisher-Price or Teletubbie-esque look, it's well designed, does not get old, and it's easy on the eyes.

860

Living Room / Re: How to make a wawed-off USB Key

« Last post by Lashiec on April 21, 2008, 05:36 PM »

COOL!

Pretty cute... but... what's the point?

-Darwin (April 21, 2008, 10:42 AM)

It's fun, and surely you'll have one unique pendrive

861

General Software Discussion / Re: You know you're addicted to DC software when...

« Last post by Lashiec on April 21, 2008, 05:34 PM »

... I go for the 'Break' key to launch any app only to realize the computer in question does not have FARR installed. Thank God for the Win + R key combo. And this happens everyday when I sit in front of a computer.

Then again, I also try to use mouse gestures everywhere, guess great ideas stick in people's mind.

862

Living Room / Re: How Do You Use Your USB Flash Drive(s)?

« Last post by Lashiec on April 21, 2008, 05:26 PM »

I only have one pendrive, a Kingston DataTraveler II, 1 GB of space, not much, but enough considering the amount of things I carry. I use it for dumping work from college, and from carrying things to my friends' computers, besides having Firefox in there, and probably I'll also add KeePass, to regain forum access from college (certain classes can get very boring).

863

General Software Discussion / Re: BeyondCompare 3 Beta released

« Last post by Lashiec on April 21, 2008, 05:21 PM »

Three years ago, mouser said:

And with the announcement that version 3 is coming soon and will include in-place editing, the decision to choose Beyond Compare for this award was an easy one

-mouser

Strange conception of "soon" they have at Scooter Software . I wonder how it'll compare against the competition, especially WinMerge, which made great progress during the past months.

864

Developer's Corner / Re: Jeff Atwood from Coding Horror Starts a New Website for Coders

« Last post by Lashiec on April 17, 2008, 08:32 AM »

Oh, so this was the startup Jeff talked about so enthusiastically these past days, I was hoping for something bigger, something more innovative. I mean, the guy left his job, taking great risks in the process, and unless the description does not make justice to the venture, it does not seem like a great deal. Besides, he talked about building stuff and setting up an ISV, so far I don't see traces of anything built, or some product or service being offered. Well, it's early in the game, it could get better with time.

And "stackoverflow.com"? Cool domain name, but it should've been used for something primarily focusing on security, really.

-f0dder (April 17, 2008, 03:10 AM)

Hey, if they want to improve coding quality the name fits the task perfectly. After all, who didn't hit a stack overflow when programming recursive functions? . Besides, there was a poll a few days ago on the blog, so I guess it was "democratic".

Having listened to the first podcast.. I don't know guys.. I see a trainwreck coming..

-mouser (April 17, 2008, 07:20 AM)

Can you elaborate?

865

Living Room / TrackMania Nations Forever! w00t!

« Last post by Lashiec on April 16, 2008, 09:37 AM »

Pardon my excitement, but this is a great game. So, the good guys at Nadeo did it again, releasing an update to the acclaimed TrackMania Nations that was also given away two years ago. Not only that, but those who purchased TrackMania United can download a BIG patch to update the game to the new installment.

What's so great about this game? Apart from being something impressive to be offered for free, the game is total mayhem and joy all the way. It's the simplest racing game you could ever think about, but that doesn't mean it's challenging. It's exactly the same as I used to do when I was a kid, playing with toy cars over the strangest tracks conceived with whatever I had at hand, but this time is for grown-ups, so you don't have to feel bad about it ;)

Get it here



Alternative download

Their servers are getting hammered, so you'll probably have better luck downloading it from external servers, either the one I link above, or from your favourite gaming site.
via ShackNews

866

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR v2.00.145??

« Last post by Lashiec on April 15, 2008, 07:13 PM »

I think mouser didn't update the webpage, but since I downloaded my copy from there, and I have .145, I guess they're the same. So, .145 is the latest version, unless mouser released another .14x version in the interim.

Since the FARR setup package is nothing more than a self-extracting ZIP file, you can download it, open it with your file archiver of choice, extract the FARR executable and check the hash or the modified date of the file to see if it matches your copy. Just if you want to be sure by yourself

867

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Lashiec on April 15, 2008, 07:06 PM »

Oh yeah, as a run-of-the-mill player is pretty good, but it bugs me that by default adds the media directories to the library, without asking first (even photos, why?), and that you can't remove "My Music" from the list of directories. I rarely use it, except for viewing DVDs with ffdshow as the decoder, but I prefer it to not index anything unless I tell it to do so.

At least, it does not rename music files like iTunes using strange schemes and with no good reason...

868

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Lashiec on April 15, 2008, 06:51 PM »

I don't really know, since I didn't have a real desire to remove it from Windows 98, but the utility uses INF files to specify what it's removing, so it can be checked.

You can also try it live... on a VM of course

869

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« Last post by Lashiec on April 15, 2008, 06:46 PM »

Mmm, most distros carry Compiz, either in their repositories or installed by default. Check up its documentation, but IIRC, you should not have problems with it (you have a Radeon 2600 Pro, don't you?), well, apart from possible driver problems. I wonder how good is the new RadeonHD driver...

870

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Lashiec on April 15, 2008, 06:41 PM »

People say the same thing every time there is a new version of a tool like this "oh no bloat!" "oh no, design over substance".

-iphigenie (April 15, 2008, 01:50 AM)

With the new "native" themes, design has not won this time, brrr!

It helped early on to be tiny and lean and leave it all to the add on writers. That serves a geeky crowd well. Once you go for more market share (they didnt dream of that back then) this approach starts to backfire. Normal people installing FF just wonder what the fuss is all about, it is a "bah" product out of the box with no plugins.

Really, the majority of people don't know what an extension is, which is pretty normal, after all not everyone needs so many extra functionality, and they're perfectly fine with the stock Firefox.

MS basically ruined that advantage with IE7 though, which starts about as slowly as a FF2 with plugins, and is very slow at opening new tabs.

-f0dder (April 15, 2008, 06:17 AM)

Greatly fixed in IE8, according to the reports. Fortunately

I was also under the impression that this is why MS said it was impossible to remove Internet Explorer from Windows (not least in the anti trust cases in court) and why using the remove option in the default apps options (such as replacing IE with MSN Explorer or Firefox) doesn't actually remove anything at all but just hides IE from the user's view.

-Carol Haynes (April 15, 2008, 07:14 AM)

Oh, you can, you can, is possible to remove IE6 from Windows, albeit not officially, and preserve the underlying components for other apps using the engine to work. Still, I think IE7 is far more decoupled from Windows than IE6. I hope they did the same with WMP, which is becoming less and less configurable with each version.

871

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« Last post by Lashiec on April 15, 2008, 06:17 PM »

I've seen compiz runnnig fine on a laptop Aero refuses to run on. And compiz looks prettier to boot!

-nontroppo (April 15, 2008, 09:06 AM)

I suspect the fact that Aero needs a DirectX-9 capable card (or integrated graphics processor) it's the answer to that. Of course, that does not mean Microsoft could have programmed it for older hardware, but considering Vista was a break in many aspects of the video system compared with older Windows versions, I think it can't be helped. Besides, considering the "Vista capable" debacle, perhaps it's all for the best that things are the way they are.

As Compiz uses OpenGL, it does not have those limitations. Ah, well, the wonders of a open API.

872

Living Room / Re: Offline Computing :The End

« Last post by Lashiec on April 14, 2008, 06:47 PM »

Now I don't imagine for a second that I have covered every virus checker out there and if someone knows of one that allows manual updating via "download and sneaker-net", I'd sure appreciate the pointer.

-Daleus (April 14, 2008, 09:52 AM)

IIRC all the three freeware antivirus (avast!, AVG and AntiVir) offer offline updates. And yeah, it's a pain, I know that for personal experience.

873

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Lashiec on April 14, 2008, 06:31 PM »

My biggest gripe with FF right now other than the "speed" issues is the crap extensions leave behind after they're uninstalled. Can't they have a robust install/uninstall engine that forces a clean uninstall?

-nosh (April 14, 2008, 04:46 PM)

Manual deinstallation is more enjoyable ;). Besides, apart from loose files, and extension settings in the files, not much crap is left around. Remember that you can always test extensions in a separate profile.

874

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« Last post by Lashiec on April 14, 2008, 06:17 PM »

Uh, I thought this thread was about Aero vs. Compiz...

Going back to the original topic of the thread, both fail because they're in opposite corners. Aero is a wonderful technology, but Microsoft couldn't make anything remotely useful with it, Flip3D looks cool at first, but it does not enhance the computing experience in any way, and gets old after a while. Thank God for 3rd party developers (Microsoft, copy Expose, god dammit!).

Compiz is also really cool, but it's cloying IMO. They pack too many animations that does absolutely nothing, apart from getting in the way. One of my friends has this cool looking effect for minimizing windows in her laptop, which simulates a paper plane, but oh my, it's makes computing so slow. Thankfully, most things can be configured, though there are too many. I guess Mac OS X got it right from the start *hides*

BTW, I find funny the guy shows the superior 'hip' effect of Beryl, yet at the same time the guy seems to be working on something for "Rincón Macorisano"

Intel has already released very comprehensive full 2D/3D documentation for their embedded graphics

-f0dder (April 14, 2008, 01:00 PM)

Intel + 3D graphics + embedded chips = Not computable . And they had sound cards as well?

For the record, I'd say that so far I had excellent luck with hardware support under Linux, all of my peripherals and components were supported out of the box, including the printers. Good karma, I guess

875

General Software Discussion / Re: musicIP (as a player): wow

« Last post by Lashiec on April 14, 2008, 05:49 PM »

Here you are, it was hidden in a sidebar

Doesn't look that dead to me, I mean they redesigned the website and all.