Recent Posts

9976

General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by 40hz on August 27, 2009, 02:30 PM »

Even the new Kindle DX (perhaps the most DRM-focussed brand of reader) allows you to upload and read standard PDFs.

-johnk (August 27, 2009, 02:05 PM)

Question: can you drag and drop them directly onto the Kindle DX like you can with some ebook readers, or do you still have to go through Amazon to actually put them on the device?

9977

General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by 40hz on August 27, 2009, 02:26 PM »

It's not just the DRM. It's the draconian terms of the license agreements that bother me. I have a real problem with paying good money to own a device that it turns out I don't really own or have control over. I have no objection to people wanting to have some distribution protection for works they've created. What offends me is the overall FU attitude that comes through loud and clear when you read those license agreements. Basically, they say "we can do anything we want, and also change the terms of this agreement anytime we want, and you have nothing to say about it."

Amazon, Sony, and all the rest of the players need to realize that, in the world of business, just because you own the bat and ball doesn't necessarily mean you also get to make up all the rules.

9978

General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by 40hz on August 27, 2009, 01:50 PM »

mouser: problem is the devices kinda tend to support only DRM'ed crap - which I guess is 40hz's point (and definitely mine).

-f0dder (August 27, 2009, 12:31 PM)

Thanks f0dder.

That's exactly my point.

By the way, old (and little-used) office printers seem to sell for a fraction of their original price on Ebay. They get dumped because of these wasteful rolling replacement contracts that some big companies use. I bought my HP Laserjet for £80 -- a tenth of its list price. It has a print engine capable of churning out 25,000 pages per month. It had printed just 10,000 pages in its previous life. And the print cost per page is a fraction of the printers aimed at home users.

-johnk (August 27, 2009, 01:07 PM)

Excellent point! Three years ago, I got 2 HP8500 color laserjets; 1 HP8100 B&W; 1 HP8150 B&W; and 4 members of the HP4000 laserjet family - all with JetDirect network interfaces - (along with a ton of other equipment) for under $3K. It belonged to a company that was moving to NYC. They bought all new equipment for their new offices and decided it was more economical to sell it off for residual book value than it was to ship it where they were going. They even threw in a dozen or so toner cartridges that went with the various printers.

It was a no-brainer deal for me. I called around, got a few other friends to go in on it, and everybody went home with a lot of very serviceable equipment at fire sale prices.

We lucked out and caught somebody that desperately needed to get a lot of equipment moved out of their old location before the lease ran out. But with the downturn in the economy, and businesses folding, you can find similar deals if you keep your eyes and ears open. Just last week I noticed a stack of what looked to be brand new Steelcase cubicle panels sitting in a parking lot outside an office building with a big sign that said: FREE - PLEASE TAKE.

So look around. You'll be saving money and helping the environment.

9979

General Software Discussion / Re: Add tabbed documents to MS Office

« Last post by 40hz on August 27, 2009, 10:07 AM »

@CWuestefeld: Yes, I had already found that it did not work in Word, and when I saw your post and the image, I went back and reinstalled OfficeTab - in case I had made some kind of mistake. Same result though.

It's very frustrating.

-IainB (August 27, 2009, 07:46 AM)

@IanB - Must be frustrating. I'm running it on Word 2K3 and 2K7, and it works just fine for me. Is it possible your AV or other security software (or something else you added to Word)  is stomping on the install?

9980

General Software Discussion / Re: Dying technologies: do you still use a printer much?

« Last post by 40hz on August 27, 2009, 10:02 AM »

I use my laser printers extensively. My HP 4050N runs about 10K pages per year since I got it. My HP8150 (bought used for pennies) easily sees three times as much. I dump hardcopy for every tech and product manual I use.

I'm also guilty of printing out a lot of film scripts (I'm a movie buff!) and the occasional Project Gutenberg title. At 120+ pages for the average film, and about 200 pages for the average book, it doesn't take too long to go through a ream of paper.

Like Mouser, I keep looking at all those e-book readers. But until they drop those asinine DRM schemes (or somebody figures out a way to jailbreak the Sony reader) I'm going to have to take a pass on them.



Can't speak for everyone, but for me at least, print is here for the foreseeable future.

9981

General Software Discussion / Re: Hannah Montana Linux -- about time!

« Last post by 40hz on August 26, 2009, 01:10 PM »

OMG. That song!

So much wickedness in the world...

9982

General Software Discussion / Re: Add tabbed documents to MS Office

« Last post by 40hz on August 26, 2009, 01:04 PM »

Seemed like a nice hack so I gave it a try. Works as advertised.

@CW... Thanks for the heads-up!

9983

Living Room / Re: top secret: tech support cheat sheet (xkcd)

« Last post by 40hz on August 26, 2009, 10:43 AM »

The flowchart is missing my big-gun, magic bullet:  restart the machine.

This fixes 90% of the problems I get asked about.

-mwb1100 (August 25, 2009, 11:14 PM)

  I hear you. About a third of the problems I get to deal with end up being JOOTTs.

JOOTT  - Just One Of Those Things

(pronounced: jute)

Any system problem that ultimately gets 'fixed' by simply rebooting the machine; or, reinstalling the software.

 

9984

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls, What you need to know...

« Last post by 40hz on August 25, 2009, 09:27 AM »

The most important thing is just to not run programs on your pc unless you really trust them.  One exception to this so far is the use of virtual machines, which is making it easier to safely run questionable stuff, since they offer much better sandboxing than other approaches.  In addition to VMWare, there are some free virtual machine tools which may work well enough for this purpose, and it's worth your while to get a virtual machine tool if you do a lot of software testing of questionable files.

-mouser (December 02, 2005, 04:32 AM)

Another possible approach is to use any of the live Linux distros when browsing in places where you have cause for concern.

9985

Living Room / Re: Looking for P2p file sharing for personal use

« Last post by 40hz on August 23, 2009, 08:31 PM »

Don't worry, your suggestion leads to a very interesting subject (to me at least). Thanks 

-Shades (August 23, 2009, 06:19 PM)

@jgpavia  I'm +1 with shades on that.

Thanks for bringing AFS to our attention. This is the first time I've heard about it. Much appreciated.

9986

Living Room / Re: ghacks examines tools to download Youtube videos

« Last post by 40hz on August 23, 2009, 07:21 AM »

40hz: just tried that on a youtube movie and apparently doesn't work either

-jgpaiva (August 22, 2009, 02:14 PM)

Sorry to hear that. But it was a pretty popular hack, so I guess it was only a matter of time before YT found out about it.

Guess I'll have to do something else next time I spot "one of those" German music videos that always seem to have country restrictions on them.

9987

Living Room / Re: What happens to your online life when you die?

« Last post by 40hz on August 22, 2009, 12:12 PM »

Maybe this will help    http://www.deathswitch.com/

Lew

-ljbirns (August 22, 2009, 11:56 AM)

Hope they're not serious about the "patent pending" they mention on their website. There's enough prior art (e.g. Dead Man's Switch, etc.) that only the most brain dead of patent examiners would be dumb enough to issue them one.

Hmmm...on second thought...

9988

Living Room / Re: ghacks examines tools to download Youtube videos

« Last post by 40hz on August 22, 2009, 11:18 AM »

*sigh

What I wouldn't do for a script that bypasses the "this video is not available in your country"

-Paul Keith (August 22, 2009, 09:17 AM)

I mentioned this in a different thread.  ( https://www.donation....msg169813#msg169813 )

Last time I checked, it still worked.


You should be able to get around the country restriction. All you need to do is look at the YouTube URL in the address bar and replace the string: /watch?v= with this one: /v/

Example:

Original link - www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHbSMZKvqUk&feature=featured


Hacked link - http://www.youtube.com/v/WHbSMZKvqUk&feature=featured

Once the video is running, you can grab it with your choice of utilities. I usually use Download Helper or the combo FlashGot + Free Download Manager for the more problematic ones.


<<EDIT: jgpavia has noted this hack doesn't work any more. See his post below>>

9989

Living Room / Re: Print and fold your own camera?

« Last post by 40hz on August 21, 2009, 07:16 AM »

Amazing what you can do with a pin-hole camera. Correctly used, the results can be stunning.

And their use wasn't restricted to DIYer's either. There was actually a company that was doing precision pin-holes for use with 35mm SLRs. They punched a hole through a piece of gold foil with a laser. They then installed it in a standard mount so it could be swapped just like any other lens on your camera. Because the pinhole was perfectly round and had no micro-jagged edges, it was capable of producing quality images like no other pinhole could.

I might have been tempted.  
But at something like $350, it didn't take me too long to decide I really didn't need it.

ADDNDUM:

I mentioned this to a buddy who does a lot of silver photography. He pointed me to this website. They make less elaborate (i.e. no fancy lensmount or gold foil) precision pinholes for 35mm cameras. And the cost is around $30.

http://www.lenoxlase...ole_Camera_Kits.html

9990

General Software Discussion / Recent Sightings: Process Tamer is on Ziff-Davis's Baseline website

« Last post by 40hz on August 21, 2009, 07:05 AM »

Link: http://www.baselinem...-Tools-for-Managers/

9991

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by 40hz on August 20, 2009, 05:51 PM »

Interesting idea. Although how i4i could have done that before Microsoft came up with MS-OOXML is anybody's guess. 

-40hz (August 20, 2009, 05:43 AM)

That's simple - i4i came up with the idea and sensibly patented it, MS used it and then claimed it was their idea and patented it and as usual claim that i4i had a time machine and only placed the patent after MS came up with the idea.

-Carol Haynes (August 20, 2009, 06:09 AM)

 

Ah, thank you Carol. I knew there would be a logical explanation for it.

9992

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by 40hz on August 20, 2009, 05:43 AM »

zridling: ... but how would going with ODF have saved MS? ODF also uses XML.

-f0dder (August 20, 2009, 05:08 AM)

I can't remember where I read it, but i4i has supposedly stated that ODF is not infringing on their patent. Which is interesting...

But perhaps the patent was made specifically to target the way MS uses XML in OOXML?

-f0dder (August 20, 2009, 05:08 AM)

Interesting idea. Although how i4i could have done that before Microsoft came up with MS-OOXML is anybody's guess. 

9993

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

« Last post by 40hz on August 19, 2009, 10:14 PM »

Operating Systems 

-Edvard (August 19, 2009, 05:33 PM)

+1 on that. Almost as annoying as applications.

9994

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by 40hz on August 19, 2009, 05:45 PM »

Well...Microsoft could always just buy i4i and render the whole thing moot.

I'm wondering if that's i4i's strategy behind filing suit in the first place...

Look how well it's worked for SCO. Their case is still dragging on despite the fact the courts have already ruled SCO doesn't hold any patents which SCO continues to claim are being infringed on.

Gotta love the American legal system.  

 

9995

General Software Discussion / Re: SuperCopier 2.2 Beta (NEW!)

« Last post by 40hz on August 19, 2009, 05:32 PM »

Downloaded and gave it a try today.

I used it to sling a group of files consisting of a dozen+ huge ISOs over to an archive drive. It performed very well. Didn't even hiccup on the two 4Gb monsters in the collection. For uses like this, having a built-in error log is worth its weight in gold. Sweet!

Not quite as fast as Unstoppable Copier, but it's a much more sophisticated app so that's to be expected.

Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

9996

Living Room / Re: Coding Horror Asks: Are You a Digital Sharecropper?

« Last post by 40hz on August 19, 2009, 05:21 PM »

All the more reason to actually read the Conditions and Terms of Use agreement before you sign up for anything.

In the USA, you automatically "own your own words" under law - UNLESS - you enter into an agreement to waive your rights.

Clicking that little check box that says "I have read and accept the terms and conditions..." is all it takes to irrevocably waive your ownership and control over anything you put up on a given website.

Despite the fact we're in a digital world, one bit of advice still holds: Know what you are getting into before you sign on the dotted line!

Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to know what you're agreeing to, since nearly every site has a "subject to change without notice" clause built in to their usage contract.

So I guess the answer ultimately depends on who you're dealing with. Just like everything else, come to think of it.

9997

General Software Discussion / Re: Need drivers for 56K internal modem (PCI)

« Last post by 40hz on August 18, 2009, 01:21 PM »

I sent you an e-mail with what I hope you're looking for.

Luck!

<Edit: Whoops! Looks like scancode beat me to it. >

9998

Found Deals and Discounts / FREE Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers from Microsoft

« Last post by 40hz on August 18, 2009, 11:38 AM »

Microsoft has released a training kit for Windows 7 developers. It's weighs in at 66.7Mb and it's free for the download.

Grab your copy here:

http://www.microsoft...7&displaylang=en

Overview

The Windows 7 Training Kit for Developers includes presentations, hands-on labs, and demos. This content is based on Windows 7 RTM and it is designed to help you learn how to build applications that are compatible with and shine on Windows 7 by utilizing key Windows 7 features such as:

    * Taskbar
    * Libraries
    * Multi Touch
    * Sensors and Location
    * Ribbon
    * Trigger Start Services
    * Instrumentation and ETW
    * Application Compatability

And Application Compatibility topics such as:

    * Version Checking
    * UAC Data Redirection
    * Session 0 Isolation
    * Installer Detection
    * User Interface Privilege Isolation
    * High DPI

 

9999

General Software Discussion / Re: Multi OS Boot Loading

« Last post by 40hz on August 17, 2009, 07:57 AM »

Out of curiosity can you use a standard PC monitor etc. with the Mac Mini (I presume that is the thing that looks like a white brick?).

-Carol Haynes (August 16, 2009, 09:20 PM)

@Carol

Yup. My GF called it a "salt lick."

The Mac Mini has a DVI mini monitor port on the back. Various adapters are available for about $15. I'm running it through my KVM using a DVIM to DB15F adapter with no problems. (knock wood!)

Minis ship with a VGA adapter. Since I got mine used, it didn't come with one. The people that sold it to me probably left it attached to the monitor cable.

10000

Living Room / Re: All Wordy and Junk: A brand new multi-author blog

« Last post by 40hz on August 17, 2009, 07:39 AM »

Seems like a pretty brilliant idea to me. Magazines have always had multiple writers and editors. And it worked for them.

Thanks for sharing!