Recent Posts

9976

General Software Discussion / Re: Maxthon or Avant?

« Last post by Renegade on May 12, 2008, 10:26 PM »

don't have native Mouse Gestures

I never understood mouse gestures - first thing i disable in any software.

I tend to move my mouse when i think or do things -i guess its like doodling- and that triggers stuff at random. 

-iphigenie (May 12, 2008, 05:25 AM)

Mouse Gestures are an absolute MUST for me!

Opera is good. The FF ones are ok. There's a plugin for IE that sucks. But what I've found the best are the ALToolbar Mouse Gestures. They rock! They are so good that I switched back to IE for them. (Well, that and a couple other things in it, especially the search features -- they're much faster.)

9977

Living Room / Re: Sourceforge grief

« Last post by Renegade on May 12, 2008, 10:20 PM »

It costs money to host all that stuff. I can see why SF would want to make a few bucks with ads...

9978

Living Room / Re: Thief caught on Webcam

« Last post by Renegade on May 12, 2008, 11:51 AM »

Idiots! They deserve to get caught!

9979

Living Room / Re: Elite Forces Defense, another hero TD

« Last post by Renegade on May 10, 2008, 10:59 PM »

You need to click & drag to place the towers. I got hammered the first time on it too.

9980

Living Room / Re: Suck An Egg RIAA

« Last post by Renegade on May 06, 2008, 12:35 AM »

OMNIN!

These are the FASTEST torrent downloads I've ever seen! INSANE!

NIN does it again! The REMIX site had almost 11,000 people online RIGHT THEN! And it's 2:30PM here! That's the middle of the night in North America! (Or are NIN fans just night hawks?)

9981

Living Room / Re: Programmer's keyboard (funny)

« Last post by Renegade on May 04, 2008, 11:45 PM »

That was hilarious!

9982

Living Room / Re: Knock, Knock, It's the FBI

« Last post by Renegade on May 04, 2008, 11:44 PM »

The issue to me is "reasonable restrictions on freedom."

It's reasonable to stop people from stealing from others, assaulting others, etc.

It's not reasonable to jail someone without evidence. That's what the original post was about. The IP and click thing just doesn't provide enough evidence to jail someone. It's easily summed up in 1 word: Spoofing.

As for attacking those that are supposed to protect us, I paraphrase, "Who watches the watchers?"

9983

General Software Discussion / Re: Verifying if an email has been spoofed

« Last post by Renegade on May 03, 2008, 09:02 PM »

I abandoned Thunderbird because of email corruption. I'm inclined to believe the devs that you spoke with. TB really isn't "prime time" yet as the issues it has are critical still. Email corruption happens quite easily in TB. One of the bugs is with malformed headers that causes this kind of thing.

9984

Living Room / Re: Shutdown Day!

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 11:36 PM »

http://www.shutdownday.org/

Can you survive 1 day?

It's tomorrow!

-Renegade (May 01, 2008, 12:50 PM)

Oh dear!  I missed  it.

-cranioscopical (May 01, 2008, 04:30 PM)

Huh?

Have you been time travelling again?

9985

Living Room / Shutdown Day!

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 12:50 PM »

http://www.shutdownday.org/

Can you survive 1 day?

It's tomorrow!

9986

Developer's Corner / Re: Software protection and registration.

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 12:27 PM »

This is my standard license grant:

-Renegade (April 14, 2008, 09:02 AM)

It is all very well having a license agreement - realistically how do you enforce it?

-Carol Haynes (April 29, 2008, 03:12 AM)

Just keep the honest people honest. As for the rest, so what?

You *CAN* do authentication, but that's painful for users and presents its own problems. As I mentioned above, I would do that for Asia and other places with high piracy rates. That just makes sense.

9987

Developer's Corner / Re: What XML editor do you use?

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 12:23 PM »

I just edit in Editplus. I don't usually do much heavy XML stuff unless I'm doing it directly in code. And since I'm doing it in code, I know it very well and Editplus does the trick.

I suppose any decent text editor would work.

However, I don't ever deal with XML with serialized data inside... That would be a different story.

9988

General Software Discussion / Re: Excel as a database

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 12:15 PM »

I shudder at the unnatural abuse Excel is subjected to... I'm positive there are dark and evil forces behind this conspiracy.

At the moment I'm leaning towards Sun being behind it all. Y'know... Sun... Sun God... Virgin sacrifices... Y'never know!?!

9989

General Software Discussion / Re: Reference Material

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 12:09 PM »

All of the materials are stolen from other web sites.

It's an excellent example of blatant piracy and theft.

(BTW - A lot of the stolen resources are very good.)

9990

Living Room / Re: Streaming audio across a network to multiple PCs?

« Last post by Renegade on May 01, 2008, 12:02 PM »

Install and run a SHOUTcast server. Simple. Easy. Then just connect to it and whatever you have broadcasting over it.

There are many different programs to let you connect to it and control it. ALSong can do it. There are others as well.

9991

Living Room / Re: ASP Members/Posters, Come Out of the Woodwork!

« Last post by Renegade on April 30, 2008, 08:05 PM »

There are quite a few people that only do marketing or sales in the ASP, and some of them know zero about programming.

If you want real gear heads and geeks, check the .technical newsgroup in there.

I actually just renewed my membership this morning as a supporting member.

9992

Living Room / Re: SkyScraperPage.com: For those that appreciate art & architecture

« Last post by Renegade on April 30, 2008, 12:43 PM »

That is a very cool site!

However, I really hate the horizontal scrolling... Very annoying.

Again however, the guys that did that site really did a nice job of offering different options to view things. Very good work. Hats off to them. If more sites would do that, the web wouldn't be the *($#*%&$#@* that it is now.

9993

Living Room / Re: A data set for data mining?

« Last post by Renegade on April 30, 2008, 12:15 PM »

Here are the terms:

Terms and Conditions in a Nutshell

Contest begins October 2, 2006 and continues through at least October 2, 2011.

Contest is open to anyone, anywhere (except certain countries listed below).

You have to register to enter.
Once you register and agree to these Rules, you’ll have access to the Contest training data and qualifying test sets.

To qualify for the $1,000,000 Grand Prize, the accuracy of your submitted predictions on the qualifying set must be at least 10% better than the accuracy Cinematch can achieve on the same training data set at the start of the Contest.

To qualify for a year’s $50,000 Progress Prize the accuracy of any of your submitted predictions that year must be less than or equal to the accuracy value established by the judges the preceding year.

To win and take home either prize, your qualifying submissions must have the largest accuracy improvement verified by the Contest judges, you must share your method with (and non-exclusively license it to) Netflix, and you must describe to the world how you did it and why it works.

9994

Living Room / Re: A data set for data mining?

« Last post by Renegade on April 30, 2008, 12:13 PM »

Data set? You wanna data set?

Go check out that data set for Netflix.

There's a $1,000,000 reward for any algorithm that betters what they have by 10%.

But if you want a data set... They've got one for you!

Now the chances that you'll win are small, but it's one heck of a data set that they're making freely available!

AND!!! You'll be able to measure your progress too! (Well, if you're good enough to submit anything that is.)

9995

Living Room / Re: Phone Interview with Microsoft!

« Last post by Renegade on April 30, 2008, 12:09 PM »

Good luck with that interview! All the best to you! 

9996

Living Room / Re: Knock, Knock, It's the FBI

« Last post by Renegade on April 29, 2008, 08:59 AM »

and you pursuing it yourself like you did would get you into serious trouble nowadays!

-iphigenie (April 28, 2008, 02:50 PM)

I know! At the time I figured that if I could get it to the police, they could do something. Now I'd be arrested for it!

Legislation like that is very dangerous.

Does anyone recall that thread here a few months ago (September 2007) on encryption in the UK? Very, very scary!

9997

Living Room / Re: Knock, Knock, It's the FBI

« Last post by Renegade on April 28, 2008, 01:50 PM »

Renegade makes a good point.

-zridling (April 28, 2008, 01:36 PM)

Thank-you Zaine!

I don't want to sound like a paranoid nutbar, but these things have proven themselves through history. It's very scary.

I have nothing to hide, but if I per chance happened to be infected by some virus??? WTF? I don't view kiddie porn!

Actually, about 10 years ago I pursued some kiddie porn that I discovered by accident and emailed it to my dad. (He was a cop at the time -- retired now.)

I thought that perhaps the bastards could get caught. Fat chance!

My dad sent the stuff to the guys handling kiddie porn in the police department.

They almost laughed. They had so much on their plates already that there was nothing that they could do.

Kiddie porn is a seriously sick issue, and the cops are over-burdened. It's a sad state of affairs. I can understand where the legislation comes from, but it's still misguided.

It's a very sad issue.

9998

Living Room / Re: Xeno Tactic: Flash Game of the Week (Tower Defense Style)

« Last post by Renegade on April 28, 2008, 11:58 AM »

It's okay, but a little too similar to desktop defense to be all that different.

-p3lb0x (April 28, 2008, 11:27 AM)

True, but do you like chocolate or strawberry? They're different flavors of the same thing in the end.

Though I do think I like Desktop Defence better!

9999

Living Room / Re: Knock, Knock, It's the FBI

« Last post by Renegade on April 28, 2008, 11:51 AM »

Mouser, I hope you'll forgive me here. I'm only meaning to speak in abstract terms as technology relates to politics and hence, us in our real lives. Nothing about specific candidates...

I believe that technology can't be isolated from politics and that at times we need to address it if we're going to be responsible (in the capacity that we seem to be endeavoring here).

We are definitely on a downward spiral, but I am hoping that will change with the next election.
...
The folks responsible for the vile "patriot act", an un-American piece trash if ever there was one, need to be punished.
...

-Tekzel (April 28, 2008, 09:43 AM)

"Downward spiral" is being kind. Forget the militaristic and aggressive past/present/future of the USA, laws like those app103 brought up are very, very far beyond what the USA is supposed to represent. They are barbaric and border on tyranical.

They open up a can of worms... No. They don't open up a can of worms... Let me take that back. They open up Pandora's box. They lead to a very, very, seriously sinister place that we should never go.

The "Patriot Act" is similarly barbaric. It's far too open to "interpretation" and is dangerous in the hands of a government.

This kind of legislation in the hands of a bad government can only lead to bloodshed in the end. Whether that bloodshed is a twisted government shedding the blood of its citizenry, or a twisted government's citizenry shedding the blood of the government and the establishment, either way it's a bad thing.

There is nothing wrong with killing tyrants or with violent opposition to evil (coming back to Godwin's law, "Would you kill Hitler?") The laws proposed go down a path that is far too open for evil to creep in.

Perhaps some may call me an alarmist, but a study of history should show that I have good reason for it.

Those that are skeptics should first do their readings. "The Prince" is a good primer for this topic.

Tekzel, I cannot agree more when you condemn those laws that are fundamentally "un-American". While I'm not a US citizen, I certainly have a lot of respect for that country. And certainly more respect for its people than its government, for obvious reasons.

I hope that I haven't crossed any unforgiveable boundry there mouser. If I'm right, I think you'll agree that 'in the abstract', we here as people in the technology sector need to be aware of these kinds of issues and need to make our voices heard when possible.

I'll shut up now.

10000

Living Room / Re: Knock, Knock, It's the FBI

« Last post by Renegade on April 28, 2008, 04:00 AM »

I think the worst FBI scam I've seen in the US is where the FBI or SEC deposits a large sum into your bank account — say, more than $20,000 — and then if you don't report the discrepancy within 10 days, you're charged with grand theft larceny among other crimes. Even if you didn't spend a dime of it, you're charged with intent or attempted or whatever. Insanity.

-zridling (April 28, 2008, 01:34 AM)

I would be totally hosed. I don't check my bank account that often. Pathetic. No! Not me being pathetic. I mean the FBI/SEC of course!

TOR is 1 method to anonymize yourself on the Internet. Basically, it runs you through proxies in different political jurisdictions so actually pursuing records would be almost impossible. Well, theoretically possible, but 20 countries and 40 servers? I don't think so...