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9501

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 Upgrade advice

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2010, 01:42 PM »

...

probably not what you want to hear

-mouser (March 04, 2010, 01:27 PM)

No...but it's pretty much what I expected to hear. 

Agree on all your points. (Said as much to her myself come to think of it. )

Unfortunately, new machines aren't gonna happen: $$$ combined with the fact they're all less than a year old.

And going over to Win7 is something she does need to do for a bunch of reasons that have nothing to do with technology - and everything to do with a key client's requirement. (Don't ask. I personally think the client's reasons for wanting her on 7 are totally bogus, but there ya have it.)

Obviously not an ideal situation hence my looking into the kludge approach.

9502

General Software Discussion / Windows XP to Vista to Windows 7 Upgrade advice

« Last post by 40hz on March 04, 2010, 01:22 PM »

Ahhh... siblings! They love us, they admire us, they twist our arms!



OK. I shouldn't need to ask this, but since I've never personally done an upgrade this way, I figured I'd ask you folks if you have any advice, tips, or traps to be aware of when doing an 'in place' XP to Vista to Win7 upgrade?

Background:

My sister is a happy WinXP user. She briefly tried Vista and absolutely hated it. So much so that she bought all her later machines with the XP 'downgrade' option - and used it.

Now, she has reluctantly acknowledged she's going to have to change her OS in the near future and decided (after trying it) that she could live with Windows 7.

She would like to do an "in place" upgrade to Windows 7 since she has a few important custom-written pieces of business software that she does not have any media for. (Needless to say, the programmer who developed and installed them for her is long gone and not to be found.) She would very much like to continue using these programs if at all possible, assuming they'll work under Win7. Since they were developed using .NET I'm fairly confident they will.

I explained that she can't do an "in place" from XP to 7, and that the Microsoft migration tool will only handle data and settings and can't move installed programs.

After her predictable 'expression of delight" at hearing this, she then asked the obvious question:

Why not upgrade XP to Vista first (since she already had licenses and OEM media for Vista) - and then go from Vista to 7 after she bought copies of the Win7 upgrade?

Since I haven't seen her OEM (Dell) media yet, I'm guessing it's most likely an OS 'recovery' type disk, which would preclude using it to upgrade to XP. I explained that problem and how it may be possible to use her activation key in conjunction with a retail Vista upgrade disk, but that I couldn't guarantee it would work since I've been both successful and unsuccessful in doing that. It seems to depend on which brand of PC, and how willing Microsoft is to cut the owner some slack if you have to call them to get activation resolved when you do it this way. (I've had about a 70% success rate with that BTW.) If I can get her to Vista we're home free.

So...any upgrade advice or suggestions for a guy like me whose insistence on "nothing but clean OS installs" borders on mania?

Thanks!

9503

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: "www.genuinekey.com" - Is it legit?

« Last post by 40hz on March 03, 2010, 03:17 PM »

Hmmmm...

Domain Whois record

Queried whois.cnnic.net.cn with "unionstars.com.cn"...

Domain Name: unionstars.com.cn
ROID: 20040406s10011s00493997-cn
Domain Status: ok
Registrant Organization: 上海星联信息技术有限公司
Registrant Name: 朱源民
Administrative Email: [email protected]
Sponsoring Registrar: 北京新网互联科技有限公司
Name Server:dc-us01.unionstars.com.cn
Registration Date: 2004-04-06 13:05
Expiration Date: 2012-04-06 13:05

Not to be too judgmental, but: "Think China - Think 'Red' Flag" when it comes to this sort of thing.

9504

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: "www.genuinekey.com" - Is it legit?

« Last post by 40hz on March 03, 2010, 12:53 PM »

Dunno.

I'm a Microsoft Partner. One of the things that Microsoft duns into the partner channel is how their licensing works and what licensing options are available for its customers. I'm not aware of any MS licensing arrangement that even vaguely resembles what these guys are implying they're allowed to do.

Then there are a few other things about the website:

• No contact info, phone, or or mailing address...
• All domain registration info hidden behind ProtectedDomainServices.com (an organization that doesn't have the most stellar record...)
• And PayPal only? (Actually that makes sense. You can't get a credit card merchant account without a published and verified street address.)

Soooo...I'm suspicious. Way too invisible a company - and way too cheap a price tag for what they're selling.

I also find it interesting that at no time do they say these licenses are legal. (Saying something is "legitimate" is not the same thing as saying it is "legal" BTW.) And just because a key will clear WGA doesn't necessarily mean it's a genuine copy either.

Caveat emptor!

Just my two cents.

9505

General Software Discussion / Re: Mint.com vs Wesabe.com vs buxfer.com

« Last post by 40hz on March 03, 2010, 12:17 PM »

Great topic Josh!

I'd also be very interested in hearing any insights or comments from people who are doing their personal finances with an online application.

I'm one of those people that has a real problem trusting any online service to handle that sort of information for me. I'm not even particularly comfortable accessing my own bank via their online service, although I do because it's just too bloody convenient.

Can't wait to hear what others have experienced.

9506

General Software Discussion / Re: NoSQL database(s) - anyone familiar?

« Last post by 40hz on March 03, 2010, 03:18 AM »

You might find this paper helpful. It was one of the first things I read when I heard about NoSQL. It's a very readable introduction along with several excellent examples of how NoSQL can be implemented.

Abstract
 
No Relation: The Mixed Blessings of Non-Relational Databases
 
Ian Thomas Varley, M.S.E. The University of Texas at Austin, 2009  Co-Supervisors:  Adnan Aziz and Daniel Miranker  

This paper investigates a new class of database systems loosely referred to as "non-relational databases," which offer a subset of traditional relational database functionality, in exchange for improved scalability, performance, and / or simplicity. We explore the differences in conceptual modeling techniques, and examine both the advantages and limitations of several classes of currently available systems, using running examples of real-world problems as implemented in both a traditional relational database model, as well as several non-relational models.

Download link: http://www.scribd.co...Relational-Databases

9507

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by 40hz on March 03, 2010, 02:51 AM »

iPhones! 

-40hz (March 02, 2010, 10:58 PM)

Especially now that I own one!

-40hz (March 02, 2010, 10:58 PM)

...

-f0dder (March 03, 2010, 01:40 AM)

I couldn't agree more.

9508

Living Room / Re: Strange question about salsa

« Last post by 40hz on March 03, 2010, 02:42 AM »

What are pips?

-Deozaan (March 03, 2010, 01:03 AM)

Pips (UK) = Seeds (US)  

40hz...why do you know everything?!  I mean, seriously...

-superboyac (March 03, 2010, 12:01 AM)

Seriously?

I don't!  

I just read a lot - and I'm not shy when it comes to asking questions.

*Note: Most people who really 'know their stuff' are quite generous about sharing their expertise if approached with a modicum of respect. At least that's been my experience. So when in doubt, identify an expert, and give them a call.

9509

Living Room / Re: Strange question about salsa

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 11:09 PM »

Actually, I think Carol might have nailed it. And succinctly too!

"pips"

Brill! 

9510

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 10:58 PM »

iPhones! 


Especially now that I own one!

9511

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 07:26 PM »

I just discovered that youtube has a bunch of very good quality live performance videos from the 60s and 70s of one of my favorite groups, The Pentangle (i actually had a chance to see them live when i lived in england briefly).  They played a combination of old medieval folk songs and jazz/rock stuff.  Really amazing stuff.

-mouser (March 02, 2010, 07:12 PM)

Wow! Haven't thought about Pentangle   in a long time even though I'm a big fan from way back. Alan Thompson and Nigel Portman-Smith were a major source of inspiration for a lot of what I've done musically over the years.

Thanks for the links!

9512

Living Room / Re: Strange question about salsa

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 07:12 PM »

If you wish to avoid problems with salsa in the microwave, respect the 'No Dancing' warning on the inside of the door.

-cranioscopical (March 02, 2010, 05:01 PM)

So that's why I couldn't get that lemon merengue pie recipe to work in the microwave!
 

9513

Living Room / Re: Strange question about salsa

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 07:04 PM »

I've seen that happen too. Funny how salsa will do that - but the metal staple in a teabag won't. Weird huh?

Here's an article by Adrian Popa (Staff Optical/Microwave Physics, Hughes Research Laboratories) on it happening with grapes:

http://www.madsci.or.../882909591.Ph.r.html

... There are two general classes of antennas, metallic conducting antennas and dielectric antennas that concentrate electromagnetic fields. The common antennas most people are familiar with are antennas made from conducting wires and rods such as the rabbit ears on indoor TV antennas or the multirod TV antennas on millions of roof tops. Dielectric antennas include various geometric solids including cylinders, spheres and plastic focusing lenses.

Non conducting dielectric materials are used for microwave cooking ware because they are relatively transparent to microwave energy. Also dielectric heating of food, particularly the water molecules in food, is the key principle used in microwave cooking.

Dielectric spheres one or more wavelengths in diameter form a special class of microwave antenna structure. When a dielectric sphere is immersed in a microwave field the spheres concentrate the electric field lines along an axis as shown in Figure A. If the sphere is slightly elongated, the field will usually align with the longest axis. This is exactly what water filled grapes (which are one or two wavelengths in diameter) will do in a microwave oven. The concentrated microwave field inside the grapes quickly heats the grapes to a high temperature after only 10 seconds of heating. ...

I put two grapes with their stem holes tightly together and the pair of grapes form a larger more efficient dipole like antenna as the microwave energy field flows between the two coupled grapes. I believe this is why the coupled grapes are much hotter after 10 seconds of heating than single grapes are.

Finally, I slightly separated the stem holes of the grape pairs by about one millimeter. As the grapes are heated each grape emits a jet of steam toward the other grape and the concentrated microwave fields from the spheres reach more than 3000 volts exciting the steam into a plasma state as shown in Figure B. The plasma forms a short circuited conductor between the dipoles and we get the arching in the region of steam between the arrows shown in Figure B. When the grapes have expelled their steam pressure I found that the plasma extinguishes and the arc goes out.

This explanation is based on spheres filled with pure water and we know that the grape juice is acidic not just pure water. A more complex reaction is occurring within the grapes. However, the external resultant arcing would probably be about the same for both cases.

I said in the beginning that this is a complicated experiment with a complicated answer. It would take some expensive microwave equipment and time to study the arcing grapes in more detail in the laboratory. I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Must have been a slow day over at Hughes Research.

9514

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Software freebees

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 06:44 PM »

Make sure you switch on the spam filter. It's free at a cost.

-PhilB66 (March 02, 2010, 06:29 PM)

That's why it's always good to go over to GMail, GMX, or Hotmail every so often and create a 'registrations' mailbox.

Use that for all those sites that insist on an e-mail address before they give you a download link or registration code.

That way if (or when) the spammers eventually find your mailbox, you can just abandon it and get a new one. It's neater and more honest than using a so-called 'disposable' address - and nowadays, most sites that ask are onto the disposable addresses trick anyway.

Spam???  

Bring it on! We are not afraid.  


 

9515

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Software freebees

« Last post by 40hz on March 02, 2010, 06:10 PM »

I've used O&O Defrag in the past and was generally happy with it. It worked. Not much else to say about it other than that.

I've since gone over to MyDefrag ( www.mydefrag.com ) so I'm not too up on what O&O's been doing lately.

FWIW, the free defraggers that usually get the best reviews are :

Auslogics Disk Defrag
O&O Defrag
MyDefrag

They're all free, so why not try one and just switch to another if it doesn't work for you?

There's a nice discussion about defraggers (and a bunch of other stuff) over at the Gizmo's Freeware website.

Link: http://www.techsuppo...sk-de-fragmenter.htm

9516

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 3

« Last post by 40hz on March 01, 2010, 06:54 PM »

Glad you liked it. It's all yours now - and thank you for sitting in for "Dr. E"!!!

This is a fixed up version. Still not completely correct. I'll do a better 'final' as soon as I get twenty minutes free to have at it on a vector drawing app. (Can't do kerning in a paint program.)

Until then, go with this version:

9517

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 3

« Last post by 40hz on March 01, 2010, 12:53 PM »

***Warning - the following is OT ***

You put that together on a smartphone?!?  All the more impressive!

-wraith808 (March 01, 2010, 11:30 AM)

Thanks, but not really. It's still just some free clip art and two blocks of text.

And doing it on the phone was mostly happenstance. I had the opportunity to try out a prototype smartphone that was running the newest mobile Flash beta package from Adobe. This was one of those "proof of concept" bits of fooling around that a developer friend of mine dragged me into.

So the phone and Flash combo just got me out onto the web. The actual drawing app I used is an amazing online art package called Aviary. You can find it at   http://aviary.com

Sign up for a free account and check it out if you get a chance. Well worth the time.

9518

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 3

« Last post by 40hz on March 01, 2010, 10:35 AM »

   
Nice, 40hz!!

-SKesselman (March 01, 2010, 04:17 AM)

thanks Sarah!

(If he likes it enough to use it I'm gonna have to fix the kerning on the text however. Especially that gap between the E and the C in TECH. It's big enough to drive a truck through! But that's what happens when you put one of these together on a smartphone late at night. )  

9519

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 3

« Last post by 40hz on February 28, 2010, 11:30 PM »

Every newsletter deserves its own masthead

9520

Living Room / Re: You are what you charge

« Last post by 40hz on February 27, 2010, 08:14 PM »

Something I (and many others) have learned the hard way:

Regardless of what you charge - never allow any single client or customer to account for more than 25% of your total sales volume.

If you do, you'll be so dependent upon them for revenue that you'll make foolish business decisions for fear of losing them. And in almost every case, they'll lean on you very heavily for discounts or other price concessions if they find out they're that big a customer of yours.

 

9521

Developer's Corner / Re: The programmer as (starving) artist

« Last post by 40hz on February 26, 2010, 11:51 AM »

Going back for a moment to my earlier dismal observation about coders abusing coders, here's a recent TechCruch guest article by Redfin CEO Glen Kelman that addresses a closely related issue:

When we split the atom, Einstein remarked that everything changed but our way of thinking. You could make the same argument about acquisitions and option pools.

As Mark Suster recently noted, employees will never see a big payday at most startups unless the company shoots for the moon. This is probably why investors’ case for a company to sell early focuses exclusively on the founder: in most early-stage acquisitions, the liquidation preferences and deal-sweeteners only work for investors and founders.

Back when some companies sold at $50 million and others went public at $250 million, we could all agree that this was just how the cookie crumbled. But now that we live in a world where early-stage acquisitions are the only outcome to which most startups aspire, we have to re-allocate this smaller cookie.

The elephant in the room is that that founders and CEOs take almost all of it for themselves. I’ve looked at three or four deals recently as an adviser; in every case, the founder or CEO was taking more than half the company for himself, and leaving 10% for everyone else. Why aren’t we surprised when three months later that company can’t hire enough engineers?

http://techcrunch.co...such-cheap-bastards/


Note: I might disagree slightly with the last sentence in the quote above. I don't know what the technical pool is like where Glenn works; but around where I live, the job market is tight enough that I now know several talented individuals who have accepted fairly 'raw' employment deals just to keep a paycheck coming in.  And it doesn't look like this situation will be changing any time soon.

 

9522

Developer's Corner / Re: What do YOU do to keep your head cold when coding?

« Last post by 40hz on February 26, 2010, 11:41 AM »

Depends on how "quick & brainless" I want the break to be.

if Quick and brainless  then a few rounds of Snood //*similar to Frozen-Bubble*//
 else  [chat with GF | play with dog];

9523

Developer's Corner / Re: Factor - anyone?

« Last post by 40hz on February 24, 2010, 06:25 PM »

Wow! What an interesting find.

I'm definitely going to have to give this try since I too am a former 'Fig-leaf wearer.'

Maddening to download however. I get the impression Factor is a labor of love at this point since I'm getting sub-1K download speeds from their link page.

At approx 28Mb for the package, it will take a while...

Thanks again for sharing this!

9524

Living Room / Re: Confessions of an Internet “Shock Jock”

« Last post by 40hz on February 24, 2010, 02:13 PM »

"Time wounds all heels."

9525

Developer's Corner / Re: The programmer as (starving) artist

« Last post by 40hz on February 24, 2010, 02:08 PM »

What I always worry about in such cases is the scenario where you have the public willing to pay $X for something (whether it be music, art, software), and have a line of middlemen working furiously to make sure the bulk of that money goes to them instead of the creator.

-mouser (February 24, 2010, 07:24 AM)

I think that's more the normal state of affairs in commerce. And that's been the case with almost everything (music, art, technology) since ancient times when the first tribe of farmers woke up one morning and found themselves surrounded by their more warlike, non-farming neighbors.

I'm not sure if there's any way around this dilemma other than for the "creatives" to get actively involved in running businesses and/or partnering with people they can trust.

Unfortunately, it's hard to know whom to trust. The record seems to show that many programmers (who became businessmen) were just as adept at exploiting their fellow programmers as anybody else.

Rather sad when you think about it.