Recent Posts

9976

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Anyone familiar with RAID?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 22, 2008, 11:15 PM »

For the future, in case anyone else is dealing with this:
http://www.tomshardw...raid_scaling_charts/

That gives a *whole* lot of information about RAID performance gains.  Thanks for the information!  The part I was sort of skeptical about is the fact that RAID 0 is statistically a little more risky than having one drive.  Assuming that all of them have the same reliability, you have twice the chance of failure as if you use one drive.

But since I'm going to eventually upgrade to 2 7200RPM drives, I'll try RAID 0 for now- hopefully it will get me into the habit of backing up more often.

Thanks again- especially for the links!

9977

DC Website Help and Extras / Anyone familiar with RAID?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 22, 2008, 12:43 PM »

I just received a new laptop... but I also just found out something troubling.  The laptop has 2 200GB Drives, which I just assumed they'd send to me as 2 drives.  But it's RAIDed ... RAID 0.  I have *never* used RAID 0 before because of the chance of all of your data going poof... but I just wanted to ask if I'm being a bit too paranoid...

I was thinking of buying an external and just keeping backups updated, but I'm terrible at that.  Is it a large chance that I'll be screwed?  And if a drive does die, is that pretty much it for the data?  How about if the controller dies?  I know that in the case of RAID 1 if the controller dies, you can just replace it and have no problems, but I know painfully little about RAID 0.

Thoughts?

9978

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by wraith808 on February 21, 2008, 03:01 PM »

I was using prompt pal, and was very happy with it with a few exceptions (the fact that it opens a cmd window at time to execute the commands sucks).  I still use it quite a bit, but lately I've been using cygwin more and more... I just downloaded powershell and am going to take a look at it... from what a friend says, it might be better than both...

9979

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / VizTracker

« Last post by wraith808 on February 21, 2008, 11:24 AM »

Have you ever wanted a simple defect/issue tracker for a simple project- but didn't want to use excel or something like that?

This project started because of the fact that I needed a way to track issues, but didn't want anything heavy to do so, and didn't want to use excel.  It's pretty simple, and doesn't have anything to get in the way of its primary purpose- tracking defects.  I was originally designing it for NANY, but had some issues so couldn't finish on time.  I've expanded it since then, and haven't really decided whether to release it for gain or for free, but am reaching the point where I want others to take a look at it and tell me what they think.

If you have an interest in helping me finish the project, send me a PM and we can go from there.  Please only respond if you're interested in giving feedback.  If I do make it shareware, any testers will of course get a free copy.

Thanks!

9980

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 20, 2008, 02:11 PM »

Thats a lot like how I have my desktop setup, other than the fact that my C drive is a bit larger since I keep all of my permanent, non-portable apps on that drive also.  Since you have problems keeping the bits of the application intact, I figured it was better to keep them here.  My D drive has my documents and such, and E has portable software and games.  My downloads I keep on F, since I have to defrag a lot with bit torrent and such.

9981

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite eBay/auction helping software?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 20, 2008, 07:58 AM »

Another endorsement for Auction Sentry Deluxe here.  It's annoying to have to keep it running, but that's the nature of the beast, and I'm not going to use an online eBay sniper, as I don't want to give out my ID.

9982

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 20, 2008, 07:54 AM »

A lot of people are saying that this mentality is the reason that Microsoft didn't get more involved in the war... it didn't really care if HD DVD failed.  It was looking to HD streaming downloads, and the rumour is that they are going to announce a partnership with Netflix to do something like that in the next few days.  My take on the whole thing is if we're streaming it anyway, I'd rather just do something like on demand.  Pay an amount a month to have access to a whole catalog of movies over cable.  It seems that most of the time that the internet connection is down, the cable connection stays up, and the act of streaming is more seamless...

9983

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 06:26 PM »

Profile 1.0 and 1.1 will still be compatible with 2.0 discs, you just wont get the network content

-Josh (February 19, 2008, 05:49 PM)

Well, I hope so.. .from all I've seen, they still haven't said.  But I'm neither holding my breath nor jumping in... I'll wait until it's out then re-evaluate.

9984

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 05:30 PM »

We've seen it recently in the console wars.  We've seen it recently in the profile 1.0->1.1 update.  Who can attest to how they think?  Especially with such a small install base?  Most of the BR players out there are PS3s.  They can be updated.  If there are problems with the features in 1.1 players, it would make sense to drop it ... especially with no competition.

9985

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 05:22 PM »

I'm not talking about adoption:

The point I was making is that there is no alternative to BR, and no market penetration, so they have no incentive to make it backwards compatible if there are any problems with doing so.

Note the emphasis... that's what I was talking about market penetration in regards to.

And I don't think that dual-format players were the way to go (though that worked in regards to the +R/-R battles), but removing the exclusivity.  BRA paid $500 million for Warner to stick it to HD-DVD.  That's not a fight based on merits, but on restricting content.  Since it's an association people don't jump on the anti-competitive bandwagon as they do if a company does the same thing- but in the end, they used the same sort of practices that M$ is accused of to win.  That just sits badly with me.  Win on the merits of your solutions, not the depth of your pockets...

9986

General Software Discussion / Re: Best program to manage information collections?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 02:36 PM »

I'm using Ultra Recall, and I love it.  Not complicated at all from my usage, though it has more features than I'm using.  I'm also contemplating the purchase of Surfulator when it is on BDJ later this week.  One I can definitely recommend *against* is SnippetCenter.  The only thing it was useful for was making me stop impulse purchases on BDJ...

9987

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 02:34 PM »

Ummm... did you look at the article comparing the exact same movies on Blu-Ray and HD DVD?  HD DVD was doing that from the beginning... Look at the article; they compare HDDVD and BR versions of 300 and Harry Potter side by side.  Hard to argue with that...

And DVD had what exact same startup?  The point I was making is that there is no alternative to BR, and no market penetration, so they have no incentive to make it backwards compatible if there are any problems with doing so.

But this whole thing was a circus from beginning to end.  As you can see from that article, several releases were on both formats, and there was no reason to stop it and deny consumers choice.  You like BR, I like HDDVD... why not let us choose?  Exclusivity sucks... companies buying the win instead of catering to the consumers to win... don't like it on consoles, and I don't like it in media.

9988

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 01:17 PM »

More consumer friendly by way of features and updates also; I just plugged my player into my router and it updated all on its own.  And as far as interactivity, no... HD DVD as it stands has *much* more in the way of interactivity... that's never been disputed.  And shooting themselves in the foot?  Ummm... you do know there's no other alternative for HD media now, right?  And that HD has almost zero market penetration?  Even now, most people that I know that are looking into buying into Blu-ray are waiting for profile 2.0...

9989

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 01:14 PM »

Actually, I do notice a difference even if the swap file is on a different partition, rather than a different drive.  I think it has something to do with fragmentation, since the partitions fragment separately.

And as far as the other point, I mean install the OS and applications to one partition, and store the data on the other partition.  The only apps I store on my separate partition are ones that are portable...

9990

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 10:35 AM »

What *is* better about having two partitions from my experience:

1. You can have the windows swap drive on a different drive than windows.  This does increase performance.
2. If you use one drive for the OS and software, and one for data, it's easier to wipe and reimage the drive.
3. One drive for data and one drive for programs makes the program drive fragment less quickly.

9991

Living Room / Re: Ring the bells!!! The HD Format war is OVER!!! Toshiba forfeits

« Last post by wraith808 on February 19, 2008, 10:30 AM »

I'm not sure how less competition will make prices drop but we'll see how it goes.

-justice (February 19, 2008, 09:42 AM)

My thoughts exactly.  This whole format war was a media and blog circus... nothing more.  As far as the better format winning, that's a matter of discussion- larger capacity does not necessarily make a better format.  HD DVD was actually more consumer friendly.  The only reason there was any impetus for a single format was the exclusivity deals... I prefer no exclusivity- let each consumer decide as he will. 

And as far as having a useless player, in my case the only reason I bought was because it made good sense- I needed a DVD player, and getting a good upscaling player for $100 with 11 free hd dvds isn't exactly a loss.  Let's just hope with no reason to keep backwards compatibility, BR Profile 2.0 and on are backwards compatible, or many more people will be stuck with tech that they cant use.  And if you think that's not going to happen, look at Sony's track record...

http://gizmodo.com/3...format-that-loved-me

9992

Living Room / Re: The Best Games You've Never Played

« Last post by wraith808 on February 15, 2008, 01:35 AM »

Deus Ex 

There were some very good EA games on the C64/Dos/Apple ][ that I wish they would remake like Racing Destruction Set, Mail Order Monsters, Earth Orbit Stations, M.U.L.E., Elite, and Space Hulk

Then there are the franchises that were killed by evil EA: the Bullfrog Games (Dungeon Keeper, Syndicate, Populous, Power Monger)

Those were the days... *sigh*

9993

DC Gamer Club / Re: Lets get organized so we can get gaming!

« Last post by wraith808 on February 15, 2008, 01:11 AM »

I'm on xfire under a couple of names:

• wraith808
• hachibushu

I'm a member of three guilds on there...

• impetus
• riders on the storm
• 808Klan

I play a few games:

• world of warcraft - khadgar server
• everquest 2 - unrest and everfrost
• lord of the rings - elendril
• counterstrike: source
• team fortress 2
• call of duty 4
• sins of a solar empire
• enemy territory: quake wars
• battlefield 2

I'm also on xbox live- gamertag hachibushu



Games for that include:

• shadowrun
• gears of war
• carcassone
• catan
• speedball 2
• guitar hero 3
• virtua fighter 5
• rock band

I'm usually on one platform or the other at night from about 10P - 1A EST (sometimes earlier, sometimes later, sometimes not at all)

9994

Developer's Corner / Re: The DC Coders' Breakfast Club

« Last post by wraith808 on February 15, 2008, 01:01 AM »

It's a good idea... not one I'd do daily; I usually break up my tasks by week, and usually integrate my tasks with at least week long projects.  This week I'm toying around with native rendering for PDFs in Delphi without requiring Reader to be installed on the machine.

9995

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 13, 2008, 06:30 PM »

[Curt]: I have never heard of this before. Quite frankly: You are scaring me! Will you (any of "you") please tell what this is about?
________________________________________________
After five reinstalls, Vista kills itself and you have to purchase another license and activation key. Worse, if you flash your bios, change something like a videocard or processor, you either have to call Redmond and obtain another activation key, or, you have to buy another copy of Vista when you change too much on your system that Vista is licensed to — it's all in that crazy EULA that drove me to GNU/Linux last year. I torch my system at least once every few weeks, not to mention I build and upgrade my own computers. Vista really put a damper on the enthusiast market. At least they're getting rid of the remote kill switch in SP1!

-zridling (February 12, 2008, 08:30 PM)

Incorrect.  Actually, what it does is limit your ability to transfer the OS to another machine.  The OS can only be transferred once.   If you change things, then yes, since it seems to be another machine, you have to call for reactivation.  Annoying, but not so much so as 5 reinstalls would make it.

a. Software Other than Windows Anytime Upgrade. The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time. If you reassign the license, that other device becomes the "licensed device."

b. Windows Anytime Upgrade Software. The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time, but only if the license terms of the software you upgraded from allows reassignment.

Ref:
http://www.techweb.c...e/software/193300234
http://it.slashdot.o...2240214&from=rss

To read for yourself, go to: http://www.microsoft...seterms/default.aspx

See sections 15 and 16.

-----

And on this topic, I used to be bad about impulse purchases, but now I'm terrible!.  Bits Du Jour and Software Deal of the Day are mostly to blame, though DC shoulders some of the responsibility.

9996

General Software Discussion / Re: Quizo QTTabbar

« Last post by wraith808 on January 16, 2008, 03:15 PM »

This is the reason that I was cured of my thirst for file managers... if I can just use explorer, then why do I need another... now if someone would just come up with an explorer extension that let you have dual pane view...

9997

Living Room / Re: What kind of tagging system would be appropriate for DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 15, 2008, 07:26 AM »

The only problem with the firefox plugin is that it wouldn't stop the spiders that add DC to filter lists blindliy, nor would it stop so-called 'intelligent' filters, since the text gets through before the browser filters it, making it only useful if such things do offend, which isn't what I was suggesting at all.  But truthfully, whatever is decided is fine... I just read and participate when I can, and don't when I can't. /me shrugs

Others may feel differently, but it seems that noone else is speaking up, and I'm not prone to push my case over any others... just wanted you to be aware that there are other reasons to do so...

9998

Living Room / Re: What kind of tagging system would be appropriate for DC?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 14, 2008, 08:37 PM »

You notice that I put it in quotes... It filtered the forums here, but not at another forum that I visited that was worse... I think it might be because of the fact that the other forum had filters on people browsing anonymously.  Not sure...

9999

Living Room / Re: Laptop hard drive... 5400 or 7200 ?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 14, 2008, 06:17 PM »

I would also add that it depends on price... the jump between 5400 and 7200 can be daunting.  But if price is no issue, the 7200 will always be better.  I made the jump on mine because of gaming, and it made almost as much of a difference as my memory upgrade!

10000

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use a light or a dark background in your editor for programming?

« Last post by wraith808 on January 14, 2008, 06:09 PM »

Thanks!  I actually already had a link to that editor, but had never gotten around to it.  I guess now I will!  Though truthfully, I don't need more editors (or software!) to try... I might need to borrow your avatar! LOL!