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| 11/26 |
| 2013/3/25-5/18 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:54639 Activity:nil |
3/25 It's strange that only every other Windows version is a hit.
NT 4.0: hit
2000: flop
XP: hit
Vista: flop
7: hit
8: flop
\_ It's strange that only every other Star Trek movie is a hit
ST I - TMP: flop
ST II - TWOK: hit
ST III - TSFS: flop
ST IV - TVH: hit
ST V - TFF: flop
ST VI - TUC: hit
ST VII - G: flop
ST VIII - FC: hit
...
\_ Yeah but the pattern broke after that. IX and X were flops and
XI was a huge hit.
\_ M$ still has a chance to match Star Trek by making sure that
Win 9 and 10 are flops. Also, Win 3.1, Win 95, and Win 98
were hits, so the pattern doesn't really hold for Windows
either. |
| 2012/3/15-6/1 [Computer/SW/Languages, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:54340 Activity:nil |
3/15 Why does MS put double-quotes around the '8' in Windows Server 8, like
the following?
- Windows 8
- Windows Server "8"
\_ Because when they didn't do it, code didn't see the '\0'
and went over? Looks better than '8','\0' *shrug* |
| 2012/2/23-3/26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:54312 Activity:nil |
2/23 fixboot wrote FAT boot sector to my WinXP hard drive. How can I convert
the drive back to NTFS?
\_ Does C:\WINDOWS\system32\convert.exe work? |
| 2011/11/8-30 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:54218 Activity:nil |
11/8 ObM$Sucks
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/security/bulletin/ms11-083
\_ How is this different from the hundreds of other M$ security
vulnerabilities that people have been finding?
\_ "The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an
attacker sends a continuous flow of specially crafted UDP
packets to a closed port on a target system."
This means any machine on the network can be rooted, even if
the target machine is running firewall and anti-virus software.
No doubt there are 10s of millions of compromisable machines.
\_ Always followed the rule: Never hook up a Windows
machine directly to the internet. No wonder. |
| 2011/5/9-7/30 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS] UID:54105 Activity:nil |
5/4 chrome sandbox broken? http://www.bit.ly/ktdH0R \_ Google claims the veector is through a 3rd party plugin so it "doesn't count" |
| 2011/4/9-20 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:54080 Activity:nil |
4/9 The Commodore 64 is out:
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112510/new-commodore-64-nyt
It can play 8-bit games. It even has a clicking keyboard. |
| 2010/8/23-9/7 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53932 Activity:low |
9/21 are you guys really all using win7 in some way now?
\_ Yes. In my company, we have upgraded all our machines for
development, QA and other office use (HR, Finance, Receptions, etc.)
from WinXP to Win7 a few months ago. Our products now primarily
support Win7/Win2008 and secondarily support WinXP/Win2003.
\_ Any weird gotchas support-wise?
\_ Yeah, the admin priviledge thing is strange. Even when the
user logs on as local Administrator, his processes don't
always have admin priviledge. We didn't see these problems
on XP. -- PP
\_ You need to right-click theh app and run as administrator.
to e.g. use notepad to edit HOSTS file
\_ Ack. this... is... not...sudo...
\_ correct. this is not sudo. if you're using sudo with N\
OPASSWD:ALL=(ALL) ALL you're already kinda losing
\_ Do cracked versions work or it's super hard to get one nowadays?
\_ Using it at home. Plug'n'play works like a charm. So much better
than the beta version (aka Vista).
\_ I have it installed on my VMWare Fusion instance on my Mac.
\_ Came with my laptop (x100e) so yes. |
| 2010/7/9-23 [Computer/SW/Virus, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53879 Activity:nil |
7/9 I'm adding a larger and faster HD to my XP machine, and I want
to move my installation to the new drive, can anyone recommend
a tool that can do this? I'd perfer somethng inexpensive as
it's a one time thing.
\_ There's a lot of software that does this, but Norton/Symantec Ghost
seems to be the standard and I have used it successfully many
times. |
| 2010/5/6-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53818 Activity:low |
5/5 Does anyone know how to do custom install of Ubuntu 10.04? I can't
even boot it up to give me the menu to custom install and it
keeps installing a bunch of crap I don't need. It's getting
just as slow and bloated as Winblows install. Dear lord,
I miss the old Ubuntu.
5/5=1.0 Numerology FTW. 5+5=10
Happy Cinco De Mayo
\_ leanest install of Ubuntu is with 'ubuntu server' ( go find an iso).
you can install graphical stuff later if you want. in larger
deployments, use 'preseed' or 'fai'. dunno what the hell the hippies below
this post are talking about.
\_ If you're looking for an easy and minimal-friendly Linux, might I
suggest Arch? It's easy to configure, and easy to either install
binaries or custom-build packages. I highly recommend it.
\_ What is up with the netbook remix? Anyone using it for lt.wt.
purposes?
\_ I don't think Ubuntu does custom installs. You could try
the "Alternate Installer" though. It's text based. They
used to have an alternate install for slower machines that
would install XFCE instead of Gnome called Xubuntu.
\_ this is probably what you want:
<DEAD>help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD<DEAD>
also:
http://www.crealabs.it/ubuntu-mini-remix
5/5=1.0 Numerology FTW. 5+5=10
Happy Cinco De Mayo
\_ 5 (base 10) = 10 (base 5)
5 ^ 1.0 = 5
log (base 5) 5 = 1.0 |
| 2010/4/28-5/10 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53807 Activity:nil |
4/28 Win 3.1 was more widely adopted than Win 3.0. Win XP (5.1) was more
widely adopted than Win 2k (5.0). Now it looks like Win 7 (6.1) is
going to be more widely adopted than Vista (6.0). Is this a trend on
Microsoft x.0 versions being bad?
\_ duh.
\_ "more widely adopted" ... well... what are you basing these numbers
on? win3.0 was adopted, win3.1 was adopted, so was wfw3.11. But
wfw3.11 had few features that were used outside of the corporate
networks, so win3.1 was the "last version" of win3. Where's
win95/98/me and winnt 3.51/4 in this list?
\_ He's talking out of his ass. It's a troll. He totally failed
to take into account things like WinXP came out and was designed
specifically for the gamer market. Remember having to play
starcraft as Admin on win2k? You didn't need to do that in Xp.
It's also why gamers refused vista, not only did the RO reg
mess games up, but the filesystem layout also messed up things.
You can't analyze these "consumer trends" without thinking about
*the consumers*. |
| 2010/3/12-30 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53754 Activity:nil |
3/12 When writing functions and structs in Windows user-mode and kernel-mode
code, when do you use IN/OUT, when do you use __in/__out, and when do
you not use either? I'm confused. Thanks in advance. |
| 2009/10/24-11/3 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53465 Activity:nil |
10/24 Should Windows 7 be really called 6.1 instead, given that there are no
big new features over Vista?
\_ If you have to measure iPod by feature, then it really blows
compared to what M$ has to offer. Only stupid PMs value
a product by the number of features out there.
\_ Even the "ver" and "winver" commands in Windows 7 say the
version number is 6.1.
\_ So what? The Mac OS has 0 new feature, so why are they
selling it? |
| 11/26 |
| 2009/8/30-9/9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53310 Activity:nil |
8/30 Anyone watched Shark Tank? Is it a fair negociation process, and any
similarity between this show and how [small] VCs work?
\_ http://abc.go.com/watch/shark-tank/225872 |
| 2009/8/27-9/9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53306 Activity:nil |
8/27 '"Fatal flaw" in Windows 7 raising eyebrows'
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/146995
\_ stupid journalism. --mac user |
| 2009/8/4-13 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:53239 Activity:kinda low |
8/3 VMWare + Windows XP + Validation question. I need to test stuff with
Service Pack 3 installed. I have a valid key that I own (yeah yeah I
actually *bought* a copy, please don't flame me for supporting evil
M$). Is it possible to register the key once, and then duplicate it
for testing purposes? Will Windows or Microsoft detect copies and
disable the rest the copies?
\_ don't put them online on the same LAN at the same time and you'll
be fine.
\_ Is there any way to get around this?
\_ Use the "host-only" option in the Ethernet setting for your
VMs. -- !PP
\_ Actually when I did the physical-to-virtual disk
transition, it asked me to validate the OS again. F***!
Forget it, I guess I need to buy multiple copies of WinXP
\_ use the cracked copy on torrent
\_ well the problem is I need service pack 2 and
all the ones out there are SP1 and when I need
to get SP2 it needs validation. By the way I only
need it for QA purpose, I don't plan to use it
for reals hence the VM. On the other hand, M$
wants you to pay regardless...
\_ you can *download* sp2 the installer exe by
validating *a* copy of windows, rather than
getting it through windows update |
| 2009/5/30-6/5 [Computer/Companies/Google, Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW] UID:53058 Activity:nil |
5/29 Is there any good software to generate timeline / milestone similar
to the Google timeline?
\_ MS Project? Fastrack? |
| 2009/4/24-29 [Reference/Tax, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:52907 Activity:low |
4/23 Let's say I design a web site for my mom's friend who paid me $100
for the job. I'm fine with paying tax on my extra $100 income as
my side job. Can I deduct tax for buying a $2000 computer + monitor?
Do I have to do the LLC thing, and is there anything else I have to
do to deduct for buying equipments?
\_ You can't deduct more than you made. But if you make $2K on the side,
you can deduct $2K.
\_ I don't think it's quite so simple. I think you can only
deduct the fraction of $2k that you've devoted solely to
your side business. I.e., you can't deduct your 95% gaming
machine as a 100% business expense, but you could deduct
5% of it. In practice, I don't know how they could possibly
enforce this, and I could be completely wrong about this:
what I advise is that you look into this carefully and
perhaps consult an actual professional.
\_ They enforce it by auditing you.
\_ And how does that work? "Of course I used this
computer 50% for work!" "Did not!" "Did too!"
\_ 50% maybe. But if you deduct a 2k expense on
a 100 dollar job and you get audited they will
tell you you are full of it and make you pay.
It's blantent dude.
\_ No, you can lose money "consulting" for at least
three years before the IRS starts to get riled up.
They understand that new businesses often don't make
any money for a while.
\_ My accountant wrote this to me: Expenses related to job are summed
up, and if the total exceeds 2% of income, the "excess" amount is
included in "itemized deductions". Also, you can only report the
"business portion" (generally 60%) for tax purpose. And in the case
of a computer, it has to be depreciated over 5 years. So, it may
not be as useful as you've heard." So I have no idea what the
last portion of 5 years means...
\_ it means you can only deduct 20% of the business percentage
of the computer's cost each year. So a $2000 computer used
50% for business, you can only deduct $200. -tom |
| 2009/2/20-25 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:52610 Activity:nil |
2/20 I'm using Cygwin/X on XP. All the X indows (xterm, emacs)
seem to have a keyboard repeat rate and a repeat delay that's different
than the one XP uses for other Windows apps. When I do "mode con
rate=xx delay=yy", it only changes Windows apps but not the X apps.
How do I change the keyboard repeat rate and delay for X? Thanks.
\_ man xset |
| 2009/1/18-23 [Science/GlobalWarming, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:52410 Activity:nil |
1/17 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/16/9m_downadup_infections Did this actually do anything or is this Morris Warhol Worm? |
| 2008/12/18-2009/1/2 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:52273 Activity:nil |
12/18 Are any of you using any kind of scheme involving, e.g., running
multiple copies of web browsers in virtual machines so that the
copy you use for random web browsing is isolated from the copy you
use for financial transactions? What other sorts of schemes like
this are people using that aren't a total PITA? P.S. I am talking
mainly about Windows; on Unixes you could always run stuff under
a different user account, which might be doable on windows too,
but I'm not clear on all the details.
\_ most obvious solutino: USE LINUX!
\_ most obvious solution: USE LINUX!
\_ I'm not going to make my mother use Linux.
\_ How about MacOS then?
\_ Then you may be missing out. Ubuntu 8.10 has enough
features for most of the surfing your mom is likely to
do.
\_ parallels/vmware/virtualbox. hit revert after every frivolous
web search that is non business, non academic. make sure to turn
off clipboard, filesharing, all host<->guest access.
\_ You don't need to go to all that trouble. Just run something
like sandboxie. |
| 2008/11/15-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:51993 Activity:nil |
11/14 I have a bunch of pictures and I find that thumbs.db on
Windows XP to be very useful, especially when you're on NAS
and the network is slow. Having that said, my Win XP has
stopped generating thumbs.db even though I've set it to generate
thumbs.db (Properties->View->Uncheck "Do not cache thumbnails.").
How do I force Windows to generate Thumbs.db? Googling seems
to pop up the opposite for a bunch of people who do want to
delete Thumbs.db
Part of the problem is defining what a "day trader" is.
There are many strategies that involve buying and selling
on the same day and many studies are not careful about
differentiating. Someone making money on spreads and
trading 400 times per day is doing something very different
from a person range trading, for instance. Leverage plays
a big part in it, too, because you can be wiped out very
quickly if you buy $100K of stock with just $25K in your
account if it goes against you. That's why I don't use
leverage, although I do use margin for legal reasons. |
| 2008/11/11-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:51913 Activity:nil |
11/11 lolz, in Winblows, when I move a huge directory to another directory,
it would usually go half way before asking "This is a read only
file, you sure you want to move it?" and 2 hours later I come back
and have to click "Yes." Is there a better way to move Winblows
files (without having that stupid prompt)?
\_ Use cygwin or some other CLI interface like PowerShell.
\_ TeraCopy
\_ xcopy /y
\_ you blow. lulz. |
| 2008/11/3-4 [Computer/SW/Database, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:51800 Activity:nil 75%like:51816 |
11/3 Woah, did software patents just go away?
http://www.itexaminer.com/us-court-throws-out-most-software-patents.aspx
\_ In light of FN 23 in IN RE BILSKI, reports that software patents are
are dead are greatly exaggerated:
"[W]e decline to adopt a broad exclusion over software or
any other such subject matter beyond the exclusion of
claims drawn to funda mental principals set forth by the
Supreme Court. ... We note that the process claim at issue
in this appeal is not, in any event, a software claim.
Thus, the facts here would be largely unhelpful in
illuminating the distinctions between those software claims
that are patent-eligible and those that are not."
For those who are interested, the opinion (132 pages) is available
at: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/07-1130.pdf |
| 2008/10/12 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:51487 Activity:nil |
10/12 When XP boots up on my PC, the screen reads "Microsoft (R) Windows (R)
5.01. 2600 Service Pack 3 Multiprocessor Free." What does "Free" mean?
Thx. |
| 2008/10/10-15 [Politics/Domestic/Election, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:51470 Activity:nil |
10/10 http://www.google.com/search?q=you+look+like+me WTF? |
| 2008/9/25-29 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/Linux] UID:51289 Activity:nil |
9/25 Man, finally got Linux bck on my desktop. Windows seriously sucks.
When even my computer illiterate wife prefers Linux to Vista, MS
has a problem. |
| 2008/9/24-29 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/Solaris] UID:51283 Activity:nil |
9/24 Why is nscd going crazy? DoS?
\- back in the solaris say 2.5-2.6 era, it had both some bugs
(some malformed nis maps made it go crazy) and architectural
flaws in the IPC/door+threading mechanism. if you are running
OS-recent, dunno, but you can trace it.
\_ Yeah, I think it's just buggy. I've restarted it, and it seems
to be working again for now. --mconst |
| 2008/7/1 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/Companies/Google] UID:50431 Activity:high 68%like:50435 |
6/30 Blog: Why I left Google. Politics, underperformance, infefficiencies,
ineffectiveness, and things that are plain stupid.
http://1-800-magic.blogspot.com/2008/06/back-to-microsoft.html
http://dannythorpe.com/about2
This is the auther of Delphi, Google Gears API, etc etc etc.
\_ he wrote the google gears API and delphi? really? i don't see
that in there.
\_ I think you've seriously misread this blog post. This guy has no
really valid criticisms of Google, other than things that affect
every workplace (which he admits, after listing a bunch of Google's
virtues). The main thing this douche seems to hate is open source
software.
\_ I wish him well having a great time managing inflicting the next
version of Windows Home Media Time Suck Fest Screw You Consumer
2010. Seriously, he should just shoot himself. |
| 2008/6/27-7/14 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:50396 Activity:nil |
6/27 "No extension: Windows XP D-Day arrives Monday, June 30"
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/96295
Among all Windows versions, is XP one of the most sucessful ones? The
other one I can think of might be 3.1.
\_ 2000 was pretty damn good too.
\_ Win95? It ran the most games. XP seems better than Win2k to me, but
only b/c Win2k had trouble with some games.
\_ Win2k had no trouble with non dos games, which by then were
getting pretty rare. (and it worked pretty well with older
games.) What 2k did give was a decent, fairly stable, os that
had real processes and memory protection. 95 was still a
really fancy dos shell. |
| 2008/6/26-30 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:50388 Activity:nil |
6/26 Classic Clips: Bill Gates Chews Out Microsoft Over XP:
http://csua.org/u/lsx (gizmodo, text) |
| 2008/6/11-13 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/VM] UID:50230 Activity:nil |
6/11 To the person who asked about VirtualBox...
I just tried it out with XP and Vista as the guest OS and it seems as
feature-complete and responsive as VMware. USB devices mount nicely
and can be filtered well. I haven't tried a network share between the
host and guest though.
\_ Does USB 2.0 devices work? Thx. (not the original person who
asked about VirtualBox) |
| 2008/6/8-12 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/VM] UID:50186 Activity:kinda low |
6/8 hey nerds, Virtualbox is totally awesome. My host OS is
current ubuntu, I'm running Windows as my guestos, I can transfer
files, copy/paste, all of that crap
\_ Cool, I was thinking of looking into this soon. How well does
it work? Can I run most windows programs pretty well? ActiveX?
Games?
\_ You might be confusing running a vm with 'wine' . -op
\_ It runs all your windows programs... if your guest OS is windows.
\_ Sure, but there could theoretically be issues with drivers.
Say the video drivers don't interface properly so you can't
play 3D games. Or performance is too poor.
\_ Running your 3D games in a VM will never work very well.
\_ How does it compare to vmware workstation?
\_ http://www.virtualbox.de/wiki/VBox_vs_Others
\_ There we go: 3D acceleration: no
\_ The big VM players are working hard at getting 3D acc
support. It's gonna happen sooner or later. 5 years ago
VM for anything real was a bit of a crapshoot.
\_ I was really asking from a more qualitative perspective.
How's the speed, usability, reliability, etc. compared to
vmware workstation? Okay, so some of those can be quantified,
but you know what I mean. |
| 2008/6/6-10 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:50172 Activity:nil |
6/6 Am I in alone is really hating tabbed web browsing? I cannot stand
it! If I go to a new site I like to have a new window because I
might want to see both sites at once or I might want to kill the
window entirely if it gets hung up. From my POV tabbed browsing is
not a plus.
\_ I multitask between 2-3 different things, meaning I need to
go back and forth on documentation, manpage, various test URLs,
etc. But then again I'm a very atypical developer since I can
do many things at the same time. My take is if you're a better
single tasker, multi-tabs may be too difficult to grasp.
\_ How can you multitask when you can only see one site at a time?
Tabs are sort of the antithesis of multitasking.
\_ You are dense. I'm sure that's not the first time
you've heard this. You think everyone should think like
you and if not, they're idiots. Dumb fuck. I'm done
with you.
\_ I'm reading a piece of code, then I need to branch off
to understand a function, then I need another function,
then I need to come back, then RFTM, then email, then
calendar, then check news. I don't want to keep opening
new windows, so tab seems the best next thing.
\_ This sounds like serial tasking to me.
\_ Very true, but the cost of context-switch is
1/5-1/10 of the original cost of serially changing
URLs. Did you even take CS162?
\_ Which part of CONTEXT-SWITCH don't you
understand? Motherfucker!
\_ PP does SMP
\_ prev post is a rip-off from a movie
\_ Which is what people do. I don't think you read two
pages at the exact same time. Do you read books by
starting each page at the top all at once?
\_ And lucky for you you can turn it off.
\_ Of course. I just don't see why this is some 'feature' that
people seem to get excited about. It would be nice if it
went away.
\_ YOU don't see it, but many people do. Majority rules.
Yeah yeah, you're smarter and better than everyone else
so YOU don't see WHY people want it in the first place,
and YOU wish it would go away. What a fucking tard.
\_ Yes, the majority usually is right about deciding
what's best - from McDonald's to VHS.
\_ it's not going away. just don't use it.
\_ Well, I like it a lot, I hardly ever want to see 2 sites
at once. I do open up a lot of tabs though.
\_ Safari now makes it easy to take a tab and make it a new
window. The few times I want two windows at a time it is
a nice feature to have.
\_ Now *this* is a nice feature.
\_ And opera's had this feature for about 5 years.
\_ Great. |
| 2008/5/5-9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:49885 Activity:moderate |
5/5 Any recommendations for data recovery software for NTFS partitions?
I have an NTFS partition that produces this error in linux:
"ntfs_read_inode_mount(): Couldn't find first extent of $DATA attribute
in attribute list. $MFT is corrupt. Run chkdsk"
\_ Eh... I'd try it with a real windows box before assuming the
partition is bad. NTFS itself is pretty solid. How old is the
drive?
\_ Thanks. I don't know how old it is. The SMART data great condition with no
realocated, uncorredcable, or pending sectors. I'm imaging the disk right now
\_ Thanks. I don't know how old it is. The SMART data great
condition with no reallocated, uncorrectable, or pending
sectors. I'm imaging the disk right now
and I'll hook it up to a windows box tomrrow..
\_ Could be that the partition is corrupt if your SMART data is
clean in which case I'd be thinking it was a bug in your
linux ntfs drivers or the filesystem suffered damaged due to
a power outage or something. Please post what happens when
a windows box gets a chance to check the volume.
\_ The error message is "E:\ is not accessible
The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."
CHKDSK confirms "Corrupt Master FIle Table"
It think the MFT (Master File Table) is corrupt.
so I think I need some software that can recover it?
Does Windows XP try to read the second and third backup
MFT? Does this mean they are corrupt as well?
Time to send the drive to Lazarus?
Can software recover this?
\_ Ew. Time for third party recovery tools. You're
working on a dd'd copy on the windows box, yes? I'm
thinking maybe a third party low level fixit tool could
repair/move/replace the bad sectors (assuming this is
the problem) on the original drive. At this point it is
still difficult to say if the damage is because of a fs
bug or you had a fixable crash. In any event, if the
data has value, see if a recovery tool can scrape your
data off the dd'd copy, wipe the original and move on.
\_ I'm using scalpel for linux on the dd image. Sofar
it's working great recovering data. BTW, there are no
bad sectors on the drive, it got corrupted by a botched
repair that I wasn't involved in..
\_ Ooooooh.... Ok, definitely time for recovery
tools to scrape your data off. 99% likely the
prior attempt mangled something worse than it
already was. If they had let a windows box do
the original repair it very likely would have
recovered but too late now.
\_ http://spinrite.info |
| 2008/4/3-9 [Computer/HW/Memory, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:49655 Activity:nil |
4/2 Anyone try vmware player and notice that network performance
becomes terrible? I mean things like webpages timing out, etc.
This is in NAT mode on a windows XP host running a windows 2K guest.
\_ I use VM Server on XP Pro running XP Pro guests in NAT mode. No
such problem.
\_ I use VM Server on XP Pro running two XP Pro guests in NAT mode. No
such problem. However, if I run three or more guests, everything
becomes slow (not just network), and Task Manager on the host shows
that the CPU rarely goes to idle even though I'm not doing anything
It's not a problem with RAM since Task Manager shows that Commit
Charge Total is still less than the physical RAM.
on the host or the guests. It's not a problem with RAM since Task
Manager on the host shows that Commit Charge Total is still less
than the physical RAM.
\_ It's a little bit worse, but not much worse. Do you have enough
RAM? Everything is slow without it - and it should be allocated.
\_ I actually meant the network performance inside the guest.
It seems fine on the host. The host has 2 GB, and the guest
is allocated 512 MB, so I don't think that should be a problem.
I'm not doing anything particularly resource-intensive.
\_ 512 MB might not be enough. Increase that. In my
experience (Win XP guest on MacOS host) I started with
512 MB allocated and was unhappy until I doubled that.
\_ Hmm, Win2K should require substantially less memory than
XP, but it's worth a try I guess. My suspicion is
actually that a large number of TCP connections is
handled badly somewhere (maybe in vmware's nat service),
since webpages nowadays tend to retrieve random images
from a whole bunch of different places, etc.
\_ Maybe, except that my network performance (also
using NAT) is not anywhere near as bad as yours. |
| 2008/3/18-21 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:49492 Activity:nil |
3/18 Windows reads/writes NTFS. Modern linux reads/writes NTFS.
I think Macs read it. Dunno if they write it. Is there any reason
for me not to make my portable usb drives NTSF now?
\_ have you tried to move a NTFS from one windows PC to another?
Try that first and then decide on which FS to use...
\_ Macs can write to NTFS if you install NTFS-3g. |
| 2008/2/25-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/SpamAssassin, Computer/SW/Security] UID:49243 Activity:nil 80%like:49239 |
2/24 Facebook comscore numbers slipping
http://preview.tinyurl.com/24p9n8 (techcrunch.com)
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2hug7v (hollywoodreporter.com)
Over to you, dans
\_ dans doesn't work at facebook
\_ Slide feeds at the pig trough which is facebook apps:
http://adonomics.com/company/Slide |
| 2008/2/8-11 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:49102 Activity:low |
2/8 Old, but funny - Man shoots computer after installing Vista:
http://www.csua.org/u/kq3
\_ Not funny. Funny would be, "Man shoots self after installing Vista".
\_ Redundant: "Man shoots self in foot, installs Vista." |
| 2008/2/1-7 [Computer/Companies/Google, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:49047 Activity:kinda low |
2/1 MS tries to buy Yahoo
\_ GOOG 514.60 -49.70
:-)
I'm not the "short GOOG" guy, just someone who envies Google
employees.
\_ Official buyout letter from MSFT http://tinyurl.com/3ysrzu
\_ Another reason to hate The Borg.
\_ If the Borg can put GOOG in its place, more power to it.
\_ Put it this way: I increased my M$FT holdings after this move,
and don't hold any GOOG, but I am still rooting for Google.
What do you have against them?
\_ Why would you 'root for' one gigantic corporation over
another gigantic corporation. You're just eyeballs and
dollars for both. Neither 'roots for' you or people like
you.
\_ M$ software has been a disaster for the Internet and
with a few exceptions, is practically unusable. GOOG
is exactly the opposite. Why would I care that the
software I use be bug free and not cause major
world-wide security problems? Is that a serious
question? I guess you could say M$ has help keep
me in a job, cleaning up their messes...
\_ The smugness of GOOG gets me. I mean, what is so great
about GOOG? Everyone does search. I find Yahoo's search
generally better than google. Lots of people do webmail.
About the only positive things I've seen from google is
gmail imap and patent search, and both are really pretty
mediocre. And I totally hate the stupid text ads. One
reason I don't use google for search anymore is b/c
adblock plus doesn't block google's stupid text ads.
Yahoo and most other sites are smart enough to use ads
that adblock blocks.
\_ MSFT buying YHOO is a major boon for GOOG. MSFT has no
track record of being able to assimilate other companies
effectively, and all the talent will bolt from YHOO if it
happens (and guess where they'll go?) MSFT will be saddled
with multiple redundant services and internal conflicts over
how to resolve the redundancies. It'll damage two of GOOG's
competitors in one shot. -tom
\_ Are you kidding? Most of MS's good tech comes from
buyouts. With few exceptions MS has done extremely
well with their purchases. Are you trying to troll the
entire motd with statements like that?
\_ I don't think that is true: M$ has piles of cash and now
they have something to spend it on. -ausman
\_ Non sequiteur. Microsoft already has products in
every area Yahoo does; they're trying to buy eyeballs,
but when Yahoo Mail gets subsumed into Hotmail and
Flickr becomes Windows Live Photos, they'll lose the
eyeballs anyway, after taking numerous write-downs
on discontinued lines of business. MS is still
dominated by the OS and Office apps; MS's dilemma is
that they won't make any decisions which will hurt the
OS or Office, which seriously cripples their ability
to execute in the web app space, where the OS and Office
are irrelevant.
The odds of MS being able to successfully execute a
takeover of Yahoo and a shift to an ad-based web
services revenue model are miniscule; I'd guess less
than 10%. -tom
\_ I agree with most of what you said, but there is
no need for M$ to shift to an ad-based web services
revenue model across the company.
\_ The history of companies who have two competing
lines of business is not good. -tom
\_ In what why do they compete? I see apps
and web portal as complementary.
\_ The web service is better for users the more
platform-neutral it is; MS has a long
history of trying to tie everything into
their own OS and applications. What do
you think will happen when someone from the
IE team says "hey, we have this new
standards-violating feature in IE, we
need to use it in the next version of the
portal/Flickr/Mail application", and someone
from the Yahoo side says "we can't do that,
it won't work for a whole bunch of our
customers"? Right. -tom
\_ This is an interesting perception,
but you are straying from the topic of
MS moving to an ad-based web services
revenue model. Please explain why
MS would want/need to do so.
\_ Because web services are eroding
the relevance of the OS and desktop
apps. -tom
\_ Let's say this is true. Won't
M$ have to go in that direction
whether or not they acquire
Yahoo!? What's changed? Also,
one can go to web-based apps
without an ad-based model. In
fact, business customers (much of
M$'s customer base) are
probably willing to pay more
to avoid ads or external
connectivity at all.
\_ I do think MS has to go in
that direction--I just think
they're unlikely to be able
to execute. They're in a
very similar situation to
IBM in the early 80s. Would
IBM buying the #2 clone maker
(Osborne or whoever) have
saved IBM's dominance? -tom
\_ So what does the
purchase of Yahoo! have
to do with a shift to an
ad-based revenue model
if you feel M$ is going
to shift anyway? If you
feel that such a shift
is inevitable then it
makes the purchase even
more attractive, no? I
disagree that M$ will shift
to any ad-based model for
their apps, but who knows.
BTW, IBM is not exactly dead
at this time. I wish I owned
a company that needing
saving like IBM.
\_ IBM stock lost 75% of
its value starting in
1984. It took 13 years
and a complete
transformation of the
business to recover to
1984 levels. The company
is now successful but
completely different and
not particularly relevant
to the industry; certainly
not dominant the way it
was. MSFT purchasing
YHOO combines *two* of
Google's competitors into
one less efficient
entity with even less
ability to execute. -tom
\_ This is another tangent.
\_ You mean like GE?
\_ MS makes money by the bank-full. They don't need to
switch from their current model to anything. This
is a direct attack on GOOG's online ad model which
is 99% of GOOG's income. *IF* MS completely and
utterly fails, it is still going to scare the crap
out of GOOG execs, and rightly so because if it
is even partially successful GOOG is going to get
hurt badly potentially crippling the company. Just
the distraction of the possibility of losing ad-share
to MS might be enough to cause GOOG to stumble. Bad
bad bad news for GOOG and the markets reflect that. |
| 2007/12/15-19 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:48810 Activity:moderate |
12/15 Ran through AdAware and SpyBot but computer still slow and still
getting weird pop-ups from http://casalemedia.com. Best solution? Block
all of these IPs in less than a minute!
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
Click on the "To view the HOSTS file in plain text form"
and then put it in your /etc/hosts file. If using Winblows:
Windows Vista = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows XP = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Windows 2K = C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC
Win 98/ME = C:\WINDOWS
\_ THANKS! Doing this also got rid of all the annoying iframe
advertisements, click tracking load, etc. GREAT idea.
\_ Great, so you don't get popups but because you're too lazy to take
care of your machine you're still a spam sending zombie. The rest
of the intertubes think you should clean your machine or reinstall
if you are $windows_clue--. That is the best solution in your case.
\_ That's stupid. Fix the source, not the symptom.
\_ Like I said I ran through all the anti-spyware programs
out there and couldn't find anything and I don't want to
reinstall the OS all over again so this is the next best thing
\_ THANKS! Doing this also got rid of all the annoying iframe
advertisements, click tracking load, etc. GREAT idea. |
| 2007/10/25-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:48443 Activity:high |
10/25 how does Microsoft and Facebook sit around and magically decide
that Microsoft now owns 1.5 percent of Facebook? And that 1.5
percent is worth X. and now Facebook is worth 15 billion? The more
I think about it, the more I think the entire global economy is
a consensual hallucination.
\_ Valuation is hard. Let's go shopping!
\_ facebook decides they have 'X' shares. Microsoft offers to pay
Y dollars for .015 of them. Therefore facebook is valued at
Y * 100 / .015.
Y dollars for 1.5% of them. Therefore facebook is valued at
Y / .015.
\_ it still seems like someone is making shit up and asking
the rest of the world to believe them.
\_ Fixed the math error, can't believe nobody caught it.
\_ How does anything in the world have a value/price? Take an
economics/finance class. It's not a secret.
\_ I know this, but do you really think a website of intangible
shit is really worth 15 billion?
\_ I don't, but Microsoft, who seems to know how to make money, does
\_ The whole web is intangible. Is it worthless? Is Google worth
$0? No. Sites like FB have tremendous numbers of people
logging in everyday. Reaching that many people, and often
having self-provided info on them has tremendous advertising
value. Do you still think FB is intangible shit? What about
Google?
\_ Do a little search on DCF (Discount Cash Flow). If you pay
1 billion for a company, you need to calculate how much time it
would take for it to return your 1 billion dollars. That way you
can calculate what your rate of return is. Look at Ebay's
recent write down of skype. That's a textbook example of CEO
stupidity. Ballmer is probably not thinking straight. His desire
to beat google and apple is clouding his thinking. If you want
to invest in companies that understand DCF and are not swayed by
the latest "fad", look at oil companies like XOM and VLO. XOM
management will crunch numbers to death before making an investment.
If the numbers doesn't make sense they will not invest in it. That
is why they're the company with the largest market cap in the world.
That's why they will be the first $1 trillion dollar company.
In 5 years, we'll see if Google overpaid for youtube or MSFT
overpaid for Facebook or you overpaid for VMware. -the oil man
\_ You aren't paying enough attention to the details of the deal.
M$ bought the only part of the company that is worth anything
(the ad revenue) for $250M while preserving the fiction that
FaceBook is worth $15B, assuaging Zuckerber's ego. Why anyone
still does business with M$ is beyond me. Have any of their
business partners not been screwed by them? |
| 2007/9/12-14 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:48034 Activity:low |
9/12 I need to receive a fax. I don't have a fax machine. What are
some decent PC fax software for Windows? It's been too long since I
used one. Thanks.
\_ Doesn't efax still have a free service?
\_ Apparently:
http://home.efax.com/s/r/efax-cj2?VID=36258&TYPE=300087
\_ Doesn't windows (xp) come with one?
\_ kinko's for a single fax. It probably isn't worth the effort to
mess around with pc-faxing for your offer letter.
\_ If you still have a modem, most later modems are actually fax
modems.
\_ "Just the Fax" seems to be the right ticket. I am going to
try it tonight. Thanks everyone. -op
\_ just curious, was this a job offer? |
| 2007/8/28 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:47776 Activity:moderate |
8/27 google QA automation stuff, can someone view these videos
and tell me if they're worth watching? thanks.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7D3E685B59779C16 |
| 2007/8/15-20 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/OsX] UID:47612 Activity:nil |
8/13 I have a 50 MB .FLV file that I wish to break into smaller
chunks (let's say 10 MB chunks) and have each chunk be
separately playable. Is there a tool for Mac or UNIX/Linux
that can do this? I found a few Windows-based tools, but I don't
have a Windows box.
\_ On a related note, how do I play .FLV files on Windows in general?
Thanks.
\_ Riva player? it's not open-source, but it's free
\_ ffmpeg
\_ can someone help me capture this flash animation file?
http://langephoto.com/video/video_flipbook_12_26_06.html |
| 2007/7/13-16 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers] UID:47277 Activity:nil |
7/13 Microsoft Internet Explorer FirefoxURL Protocol Handler Command
Injection Vulnerability
http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/24837 |
| 2007/6/27-29 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:47079 Activity:nil |
6/27 HANS
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-07/ff_hansreiser
\_ Kinda of a useless article. Trying to make up for lack of info
with a creepy writing style. |
| 2007/6/11-13 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:46914 Activity:moderate |
6/11 Leopard shipping in October.
Basic version, $129.
Premium version, $129.
Business version, $129,
Enterprise version $129.
Ultimate version, $129.
LOSE A TURN, $0
\_ Doesn't make vista look too bad, $129 for a once a year upgrade..
\_ FYI, 10.4 was released in 2005, and 10.3 was released in
2003.
\_ Why so many versions when they are all priced the same?
\_ What is in it that is worth buying a whole new OS instead of
them releasing it as a free patch?
\_ In 10.5, the entire OS will be 64 bit and will support
ZFS. It also has a new finder, the automatic backup
system, multiple desktops, an updated bootcamp (alt.
OS booting), better support for core duo procs, &c.
All of this is a bit much to make available as a free
update.
\_ really? ZFS? 64 bit? really? i personally don't
think anyone really needs 64 bit unless you're
\- your brain has personally
been classified as 2 bit.
modelling the big bang, but macs are all 64 bit now?
really?
\_ ZFS will be available, though it won't be the
default (if reports are to be believed). All G5s
and Intel Core 2 Duo based Macs are 64bit afaik.
I think that most people who edit large video
files will welcome the 64bit support.
\_ No idea, I run Linux. I was just saying that a $130 upgrade
every [2] years costs more than XP->Vista over 6 years. Of
course, I was trying to say this in a somewhat amusing fashion\
\_ Why so many versions when they are all priced the same?
course, I was trying to say this in a somewhat amusing fashion
\_ How often do you keep the same computer for 6 years?
Remember these are macs, so the upgradability suffers.
I tend to buy a new computer every 3 years or so (and
gift/sell the old computer to someone who is less of
a geek than me) and hey look, new os!
\_ Every 6 to 8 years. Unless you're playing FPS at
high-res or flight sims or something you don't need
more. It takes about 6+ years for enough parts to
break or simply rust out enough to be worth replacing
the whole thing.
\_ Try thinking back to 2001. It's unlikely you
are still using a 2001 computer.
\_ Nonsense. I bought a new computer 14 months ago.
My previous computer was from around 1998.
\_ Really? What's the spec of your 1998 computer?
\_ MS wants to upgrade their OS on a 3-year cycle; they just
were way behind schedule with Vista.
\_ Why so many versions when they are all priced the same?
\_ It's a joke, son. Laugh.
\_ I make funny.
\_ Wow, Steve has a soda account? |
| 2007/6/3-6 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/Languages/Misc] UID:46844 Activity:moderate |
6/3 I find myself having to reinstall WinXP sp2 every 1 to 1.5 year
due to sluggishness and problems (yes I've tried every single
trick that you can Google for). I'm at a point where I think I
should just install a fresh image and save the image so that I
can just restore it. What's a good FREE *Windows* based software
that can save and restore an entire disk image? Thanks.
\_ Fry's periodically sells Norton Ghost in a bundle with Partition
Magic and some internet security thing for $70 with a $70 rebate.
Not exactly free, but it might be close enough.
\_ I recommend Ghost as well. I've been told there isn't anything
free for Windows that works well w/ XP.
\_ Use VMWare and save the image after installing.
\_ I'm actually planning this exact setup, but in addition to
saving the image, I can also use the snapshot feature and
revert back. - !op
\_ Trick? These things aren't magic. There are no tricks. Defrag,
de-virus, uninstall all the stupid web toys. The only time I've
ever reinstalled my home machine was when I was upgrading to all
new hardware and tossing the old one out.
\_ DriveImage XML. http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
\_ Nice program. How reliable is it? No corruption? Is Disk
to Disk copy still buggy?
\_ XML? XML!?! Oh dear god, WHY....
\_ Exactly what I thought before I tried it. The raw
data is in a bin file, the xml file describtes the
content of the bin file in detail, such as disk info,
boot sector, file list, etc. This makes it possible
to recover the data without having access to the
source program. A nice use of XML.
\_ Nobody mentioned Acronis TrueImage? It's pretty good and not
expensive. I just pirate these things of course. Their Disk
Director is also a good alternative to Partition Magic.
\_ If you have at least one detectable Seagate or Maxtor regardless
if you actually copying to-from it, then Acronis' tools are free
to download (DiscWizard includes TrueImage I think):
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard/discwizard-eula |
| 2007/5/27-31 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:46769 Activity:kinda low |
5/27 Is there a program in windows xp that does what unix "touch" does,
that is, simply to create a small file?
\_ I use "copy nul file". --mconst
\_ nul or nul: ?
\_ Either way's fine. I don't think the colon's been necessary
\_ Either way's fine. I think the colon's been optional
since DOS 3.1. --mconst
\_ And here I was still using it 3 versions later. So old
school. :-)
\_ iirc, there's both a nul: device, AND a nul entry in each
directory
\_ well, there's a Cygwin touch.exe ...
\_ Or MKS touch.exe |
| 2007/5/13-14 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:46613 Activity:nil |
5/13 Someone please give us a 411 on Windows Vista? Is activation
tougher than WinXP sp2? Is it impossible to get around now forcing
you to pay for upgrades? Let me just say that I don't like Windows
OS. I don't mind using Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint,
and they actually make decent games. However, for over a decade
I've been sucked into using Windows3.0/95/98/2K/XP because
I can't get by without using an amazing number of really
great Windows sharewares and warez like Yahoo Messenger (with
unique Win features), MS Office, etc. As much as I hate to
say this I'm sure that it's just a matter of time before everyone
switches to Windows Vista due to incompatible Word, Excel, and
Powerpoint files that I will need to share with, which will
be created by new versions of MS Office, which will only run on
Windows Vista. It has happened with MS Office 2000, Office XP,
and it will happen with Vista. Sad.
\_ I think vista verifies your legitimate purchase every few minutes. |
| 2007/5/11-14 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:46589 Activity:nil |
5/11 Hackers use Windows Update to reliably download their malicious code:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2dorvr (computerworld.com) |
| 2007/5/10-14 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Uncategorized/Profanity] UID:46580 Activity:nil |
5/9 Networking Vista computers together is a steaming pile of shit.
What the fuck was MS thinking? Fuck! fuck. (fuck). blah.
\_ So is networking vista to XP and to Samba.
\_ Heck, networking XP to XP was awful, I had kinda assumed
they would fix it in Vista.
\_ They need to keep it awful to ensure backward compatibility. |
| 2007/5/7-9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/Theory, Computer/HW/IO] UID:46535 Activity:nil |
5/6 Police Lineups go Virtual:
http://www.primidi.com/2007/05/06.html#a1828 |
| 2007/4/10 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:46250 Activity:nil |
4/10 So, microsoft rbocopy can't backup locked files. WTF?
Any other suggestions that don't involve installing cygwin? |
| 2007/4/7-9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:46228 Activity:high |
4/7 xcopy sucks. It crashes when encountering a file with a
path longer than 255 characters. Thanks Microsoft.
\_ What do you expect it to do? Windows doesn't support paths longer
than 255 characters (unless you're using \\?\-style Unicode paths).
\_ I'd expect it to SKIP the file, not crash with an error
message that says "insufficient memory". So if Windows doesn't
suppory paths longer than 255 characters, then how on earth
did I get a file with a path that long? Sure you don't mean FAT
doesn't support more than 255.. maybe NTFS does?
\_ Welcome to the world of Microsoft products.
\_ NTFS does, but as I said, only for \\?\-style Unicode paths.
Otherwise, expect everything to have a limit of around 255
characters. IIRC, you can get longer paths by tricking
Windows (e.g. by renaming some parent directory to be longer
than it was when you created the leaves), but without using
\\?\ paths, those files will be inaccessible. I agree that
crashing is bad, though.
\_ Is this the first time you use an Microsoft product?
\_ What are you using xcopy for anyway? Whatever it is there is
very likely another tool that does what you want and does it
more efficiently.
\_ For backing up data to an external hard drive. I'm going
to try robocopy.. It looks to be a better tool.
\_ Hint: install cygwin
\_ Cygwin is evil.
\_ Insightful, yet... not. |
| 2007/2/21-23 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:45788 Activity:kinda low |
2/21 IE 7.0.5370.11 vs. Fx 2.0.0.1 on XP Home SP2: (VM Size shown by Task
Manager)
IE Fx
Start browser with empty cache: 14088K 11884K
Visit http://www.yahoo.com 31196K 21448K
\_ No, you fool, you are supposed to be bashing Google, not Yahoo.
\_ Oh yeah. Google is evil, buy Microsoft!
\_ PP wasn't bashing yahoo. PP was bashing IE. |
| 2006/12/17-19 [Computer/SW/Apps/Media, Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:45458 Activity:nil |
12/17 Yay I'm the person of the year! ME!!! I'm so special, just
like everyone else!
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/16/time.you.tm/index.html |
| 2006/11/17-28 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:45346 Activity:nil |
WindowsXP soda sp2-2800.4.0 #1 SMP Wed Nov 17 11:23:46 PDT 2006 i686 Cygwin Welcome to Macintosh^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HSoda XP SP2, a dual Xeon 2.8GHz with many hozers. The uncensored messages below this line may not reflect opinions of the CSUA. |
| 2006/10/31-11/2 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:45057 Activity:moderate |
10/31 A friend of mine said he's loving Microsoft again because Bill G
is starting to donate all of his money to charity. He's boycotting
Google, Yahoo, and other mega companies because they're too big and
too power and thinks they're all becoming the old Microsoft, whereas
Microsoft has recently done a lot of good things like investing in
education and charity. He just paid for a copy of Microsoft Windows
and he's pretty darn smug about it. How about you guys? Have you
paid for your copy of Microsoft product recently and feel good about
it because of their new image?
\_ Your friend sounds like an insufferable bore. I hope you have
other, more interesting friends. Seriously, who cares
about the legal status of your copy of Windows? And tells
other people about it? Argh.
paid for your copy of Microsoft product recently and feel good about
it because of their new image?
\_ Google makes products I use. Microsoft doesn't. Not sure what's
so great about this "new Microsoft" because they still make
crappy products and their "donations" are in the form of MS
products which are kind of crappy anyway. Bill Gate's own
personal charity, on the other hand, is a different story.
\_ wtf?
\_ the new image won't be complete till they start giving out the
Gates Peace Prize
\_ the new microsoft is just like the old microsoft, only wealthier.
\- GATES != MSFT. i think gates as been very smart about how he
donates. i dont mean "smart" cynically. i have a lot of respect
for how he has thought this through. msft is still a sleazy
company buy i generally refer to specific sleazy practices ...
like claiming credit for stuff they didnt really invent or
\_ usually we call what they've done "theft".
\- copyright/trademark etc is different from
physical expropriation. this is more of a
cause of pushing the U in FUD rather than
actually stealing a patented idea etc.
for example the "Digital Nervous System".
gee, was it coincidence that they were
affiliating them selves with the letters DNS?
and of course claiming lost of "innovations"
when it comes to file systems by giving
some long existing feature a new name etc.
\_ When I said theft. I meant theft. They are
thieves. Cutesy shit like calling something
DNS is childish but mostly harmless and among
the least of their crimes.
\_ what is an example of something that
can be considered "property" that thay
stole and why weren't they sued?
\_ They have been. It has cost them
billions of dollars over the years
but that's still chicken feed compared
to their monthly take. And btw, in this
country, copyright/etc *is* property
even if you disagree with the law in
that area.
\- yes i am aware that in cases of IP
theft that is property and they can
and have been held liable. however
this kind of thing is quite common
for businesses and msft isnt
especially unique here [intel].
what i personally find more offensive
is the sleazy stuff they do for
which it is difficult to hold them
liable [like having the published
specs != implementation, which makes
it hard for other to be msft compat
since now you may have to be "bug
for bug" compatible. second thing i
find obnoxious is their terrible
protocols ... like the insane way
they used to do discovery of various
services or "op locks" [jesus!].
and of course there is coercive
contracts ... like forcing people
who bought intel hardware which never
used windows to pay msft. these were
the things more difficult to hold
them accoutnable for ... not the
run of the mill IP encroachments ...
do you consider every company that
loses or settles an IP or copyright
case to be a theif? how about the
woman who ran a restaurant called
"sony"? BTW, i think a lot of MSFT's
conduct makes formerlly evil IBM
look much better. what is offensive
is not always illegal. what is
offensive doesnt always have the
biggest business impact [i realize
the DNS example is minor, but i
thought it was illustrative. there
is also an interesting "inside"
story about MSFT, Paul vixie and
DNS/bind ... i think it is in the
wall archive if you are interested].
\_ Other companies steal also. The
difference is the degree. Without
theft MS would likely not exist
today. On IBM: they have an
equally ugly and evil history
but the bulk of it is in the
pre-90s mainframe world and the
pre-computer typewriter world.
After the Feds tried to break them
up, they turned chicken and
ceased doing anything interesting
either legally or technically.
look much better.
\- 1. IBM has not generally been
a prick about using their
patents ... although it's
\_ This is such a
mind-numbingly stupid
statement that it
invalidates everything
else in your post(s).
a great defensive arsenal
because everybody is
violating ibm patents
(or if not, they dont
want to face ibm in
litiagation ... one
reason why it was great IBM
too the lean in the SCO
case)
\_ Neither is Microsoft.
2. based on your chicken
comment you clearly dont
know anything about IBM.
\_ except for years of
inside information.
which 'chicken comment'
are you refering to?
[see patent applications,
see list of top 500
unclassified computers,
see ibm's work in storage
and material science (they
got out of the storage
business more recently due
to margins, not inability
to compete).
to compete) have you heard
of the CELL processor?
http://home.lbl.gov:8080/~psb/Articles/Computer/IBM_Patent_Stats.2004
http://top500.org/stats/27/vendors
\_ Yes, IBM has done some
good work in non-CS
fields. And can hook
up a room full of
x86 boxes together really
well. And?
3. can you sign your future
posts with some kind of uniq
hash so tyou can not be
hash so you can not be
taken seriously?
\_ Rudeness and personal
attack is neither clever
nor makes a point. It
says a lot about you and
nothing about me.
4. YBHBCA:S
\_ See above about personal
attack. In the future
I'll sign as "years of
high up inside IBM info"
and you can sign as "IBM
is good because they're
just like Microsoft and
don't abuse their
patents". Whatever.
Your logic is somewhat
twisted and lacking in
substance. By your
logic, Microsoft is a
Good company because they
don't sue people over
patent violations. It
was nice chatting with
you. Maybe next time
you'll have a point and
back it with evidence
reason and logic instead
of personal insult. Or
not.
deliberately sowing confusion [like when they came uo with
something called DNS.]. on the other hand a lot of other
companies would no doubt do eqqually fiucked up things if they
were in the position to do so ... like apple banning all books
by john wiley&sons ... on the other hand, i think apple has
done more legitimate innovation than msft.
\_ why do you hate teh INVISIBLE HAND?
ould no doubt do eqqually fiucked up things if they
were in the position to do so ... like apple banning all books
by john wiley&sons ... on the other hand, i think apple has
done more legitimate innovation than msft.
\_ why do you hate teh INVISIBLE HAND? |
| 2006/10/31-11/1 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:45049 Activity:nil 57%like:45048 6504%like:45066 |
10/31 FightAIDS@Home in BOINC now works on Windows, besides Linux. I can
finally run two instances of it on my XP machine. |
| 2006/10/30-11/1 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/OsX, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:45042 Activity:low |
10/30 Anyone have recommendations for a reasonably stable filesystem that
I can use on large (~150GB) external USB drives, that's read/
writeable by XP, MacOS and possibly FreeBSD/Linux? -John
\_ If you want write access from all three, I think you're stuck with
fat32.
\_ Which BTW limits you to files of 4GB or less, so don't think you
can make DVD images.
\_ And I think 130GB partitions, that's my problem. -John
\_ That limit is supposedly only for creating/checking from
a Windows system. Unix tools will let you format larger
partitions, after which newer Windows can mount rw.
\_ That's what I thought, but I just tested it on a W2K
box and no dice. For some reason it pukes on large
file copies, and when the data mount exceeds ~half the
drive size. Funny enough MacOS also crapped out on
a FAT32 drive formatted...on my Mac. -John
\_ Just curious, why isn't 130GB large enough and why
does it have to be r/w across multiple unrelated OS?
\_ 130 would be plenty except I haven't gotten it
to work. It's the drive I ended up putting all
my backup game ISOs, ripped music and DVD rips
on while in S. America (they're on a raid5
array on a FreeBSD box serving samba at home) and
I'd like to be able to read/write from both my
Mac and my PC while abroad. -John
\_ vxfs
\_ vxfs does not support windows xp, mac osx, or freebsd
\_ interesting. there is a veritas foundation for windows
product but it only supports the windows file systems but
otherwise looks very much like their vxfs based unix product.
\_ The project to port VxFS to Windows got canned because
Microsoft opposed it, so Storage Foundation on Windows
is just Volume Manager. |
| 2006/10/24-25 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS] UID:44938 Activity:nil |
10/25 any good open-source RTS or turn-based game? I play FreeCiv. I really
enjoy master of orient, comand and conquer, and starcraft. anything
good around that calibre? I am looking for single-player game.
\_ Not really. OS isn't very good at turning out great games. There
are very few OS games worth playing. Most of OS gaming effort is
spent on knock off clones or on the opened quake source.
\_ Even though it's sort of redundant, saying "OSS" helps
disambiguate quite a bit. "I tried that OS OS, but couldn't
install it, so I just put that OS Software on my Windows OS"
install it, so I just put that OS software on my Windows OS"
\_ Yeah I thought of doing that but since we're talking games,
not operation systems I thought it was clear.
\_ Give "Battle for Wesnoth" a whirl. It's sort of a cross between
Civ and Heroes of Might and Magic. Plenty of user created
campaigns you can download from within the game as a "plug-in."
http://www.wesnoth.org
\_ The floating eye hits you.
You are paralyzed.
The fox bites you!
The fox bites you!
The fox bites you!
The fox bites you!
You die...
\_ floating eyes do not attack. Their gaze is reflexive.
Shoot me now.
\_ there's something oddly disturbing about that.
\_ whatever happened to xconq, that was an awesome game (for its time) |
| 2006/10/22-23 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:44910 Activity:nil |
10/22 Using Windows XP Pro. I got an Iomega external hard drive to use
to backup my internal hard drive over a year ago. I then installed
the software. Since then, whenever I start up my computer, the
software would start up and then go to the background. No problem.
Today, for some reason, it starts up and then freezes up and doesn't
respond. I can manually end the process, but I can't actually get
into the program, because it just freezes up when I start it up. So,
I'll have to manually end the process every time I turn on the
computer and I can't actually use the program. How can I stop it
from starting up automatically (it doesn't seem to be there in the
Startup folder)? And how can I somehow get it to not freeze up so
I can use it again some day to backup my computer?
\_ http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html
\_ No idea about your freezing but it sounds like either something else
you installed is incompatible with your iomega ware or maybe there's
a hardware/cable problem which is causing the ware to wig out. Try
uninstalling and reinstalling the ware and see what happens. |
| 2006/10/21-23 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Printer] UID:44898 Activity:nil |
10/21 M$ to make its own chips:
http://tinyurl.com/yy6veb (electronista.com)
\_ Gates is tired of being micro and soft? Being micro but hard is
surely one step forward. |
| 2006/10/21 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Printer] UID:44897 Activity:nil |
10/21 M$ to make its own chips:
http://www.electronista.com/articles/06/10/20/microsoft.produces.chips |
| 2006/10/12-13 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:44804 Activity:low |
10/12 Sometimes in XP, it won't let me change the name of a directory
because it says it's being used by another program, despite the
fact that it's not. Aside from waiting and trying again or
rebooting, is there a way to reset things so that XP will let me
change the name of the directory.
\_ Use something like WhoLockMe or Unlocker to determine what
has it open.
\_ There are a ton of tools including the above, both GUI and CLI, that
will tell you what program has a lock on a file/directory. You'd
be surprised how grabby some stuff is in windows.
\_ Oftentimes an iisreset (type iisreset at run) will work. -scottyg
\_ WinXP is right in that *some* program has an open file handle, you
just don't know which one. I reccomend Unlocker: it can show you
the offending program and file, and stomp the file handle. I avoid
some of it's more annoying install options however. |
| 2006/10/11-13 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:44779 Activity:nil |
10/11 Are Windows CE, Windows Embedded, and Windows Mobile the same thing?
They all sound like the Windows version for small devices. Is it just
a marketing thing to rename different versions of the same product?
Thanks.
\_ Windows CE is the generic term for Windows Mobile, which includes
"Pocket PC" Edition, and the castrated "Smartphone" edition.
Embedded is a completely different beast. It is a modulized
kernel structure, when it's deployed in full, looks more like a
regular XP than WinCE.includes
"Pocket PC" Edition, and the castrated "Smartphone" edition.
Embedded is a completely different beast. It is a modulized
kernel structure, when it's deployed in full, looks more like a
regular XP than WinCE.
\_ "wince" Is the most truthful bit of marketing Microsoft has
produced for on of their products since choosing "Start Me Up"
as the Windows 95 theme song ("You make a grown man cry"). |
| 2006/10/2-3 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:44621 Activity:nil |
10/2 Anybody run dual boot AND parallels virtualization on a macbook pro?
I'm trying to figure out if it's possible for the dual boot and
parallels to share one copy of windows XP. Or do I need to keep
two separate copies of windows XP of disk for this to work. Thanks.
\_ My understanding is that this is currently not possible:
http://tinyurl.com/etyy2 (forum.parallels.com)
It is supposed to be available in the next version of Parallels.
\_ You must use a separate partition for dual boot and for Parallels |
| 2006/9/18-20 [Computer/SW/Apps, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:44430 Activity:nil |
9/18 Are there any free/shareware tools to edit a pdf file? Any OS is ok.
Thanks.
\_ I'm not sure what you mean by edit (ie do you mean move/delete
pages or do you mean edit text), but the following might be
helpful: http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk
\_ I mean I have a pdf someone else at work generated but it has
some colored lines and some text I want to remove. I loaded it
in photoshop but I'm not photoshop pro and it displayed/loaded
only part of the file. I've got no idea what's going on there.
I'll check out the link, thanks. I'd also be ok with something
that can convert a pdf to a gif, jpeg, etc which I know I can
photoshop.
\_ Okay, now I understand. What you are looking for might be
a bit beyond what the free tools (or even basic Acrobat)
can do.
Re Photoshop - I think that PS can reliably only open the
first pg of a pdf doc.
The following may be of use to you (Universal Document
Converter Demo for Windows):
http://www.print-driver.com/download
It should let you print the PDF to a bunch of TIFFs that
you can edit.
I think that Ghostscript on Linux can do the same, but
it has been years since I've played w/ GS.
According to Google 'convert' (part of ImageMagick) also
works, albeit very slowly. |
| 2006/9/12 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:44358 Activity:nil |
9/12 I haven't used MS windows since the win95 days. Can someone please
explain to me what in the world a "domain" is? I'm familiar with
IP addresses like 128.32.112.233 or domains like http://csua.berkeley.edu
but what are things like "\\My Workgroup" or "\\MYCOMPANY"?
Is Microsoft inventing new linguo? |
| 2006/8/24-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:44136 Activity:nil |
8/24 No HD playback in 32bit Vista:
http://tinyurl.com/ejyb6 (apcstart.com)
\_ This is hilarious. I'd already decided Vista wouldn't be touching
my desktop because of DRM. And now they're just making it easier to
make the decision.
\_ There might be HD playback in 32bit Vista IF 3d parties provide it:
http://tinyurl.com/qga2l (news.com.com)
\_ As above said, you use a third party app just like you currently
do in XP to play a DVD. HD playback just isn't native. Almost every
PC or DVD drive sold comes with one of these apps free anyway. |
| 2006/8/22-24 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/Companies/Apple] UID:44092 Activity:nil |
8/21 Found an app called 'witch', nice MacOS cmd-tab "supplement." Lets
you also choose between minimized windows of an app. -John
\_ Try looking at mdfind (spotlight search). There are also
plenty of nifty built-in command-line utils at
http://www.matisse.net/OSX/darwin_commands.html |
| 2006/8/7-11 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:43939 Activity:nil |
8/7 Where on the web can I find Windows Service Pack 2 for XP Pro. I
went to the microsoft update site or whatever, but didn't find it.
\_ Your fu is weak. Searching Google for "Windows XP SP2
download" yields: http://www.csua.org/u/gn1 (microsoft.com)
Or go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx
and click on "Download and deploy SP2 to multiple computers".
\_ I found the one for multiple computers, but was looking for
just one computer. Thanks though.
\_ then you should have gone to windowsupdates
\_ Uh, whether for one computer or multiple computers,
it's the same service pack. It's just a
redistributable version. Or just run Windows Update
and if you need it, it'll tell you.
\_ are you saying you have a pirated version of Windows and
looking for an update without WGA?
\_ There's nothing more pro-American than pirated
versions of WIndows!! -proud American |
| 2006/7/25-26 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/Linux] UID:43790 Activity:nil |
7/25 Running Linux: any technical reasons to reboot on a regular basis?
\_ No. -tom
\_ Like with any other OS, it can help if your apps have memory leaks.
If every program running on the machine is written perfectly
and never fails in any strange or unexpected manner then you're
fine without rebooting. I've had machines up for almost 1000
days straight, but things are always better with a therapeutic
reboot now and then.
\_ The memory leak probably should only apply to constantly
running apps right? Unlike Win95, Linux frees all
resources on application termination, correct?
\_ Yes.
\_ After kernel updates. So depending on how often the kernel
changes and how closely you want to track the latest bits, yes,
you could find yourself rebooting quite often. Otherwise, no. |
| 2006/5/25-28 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW] UID:43190 Activity:nil |
5/25 http://www.google.com/search?q=davinci+code Click on the sponsored DaVince and Jesus link to the right. Approximately how much money is the church paying Google to display the advertisement there? \_ "the church"? That's Campus Crusade for Christ. \_ http://csua.org/u/fzh (Google FAQ on Adwords.) |
| 2006/5/25-28 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Recreation/Media] UID:43187 Activity:nil |
5/25 The Davinci Code review:
-waaaay too long
-ending is lame, should have ended it 15 min earlier
-bashing on Opus Dei is not cool
\_ Erm, how much do you know about Opus Dei? They're a pretty
bashable bunch. -John
\_ Bear in mind that OD in the movie was presented in two lights:
overzealous bishop and henchman, and sympathetic cop. This was
actually the way most of the movie was: for every bad example of
a group there was an equal good example. The movie was remarkably
value neutral on OD, conspiracy nuts, historical evidence of the
Grail conspiracy, etc. Hell, even the albino was creepy for very
personal reasons.
-tried to put in too much stuff from the book into 2 hours
like 95% of the audiences don't even know what the Fibonnaci
function is.
+girl was cute. very very cute. they should have slept together
\- see ALANE review in NYker
\_ For those too lazy to use google (or not tall enough
to understand psb-speak), that's http://csua.org/u/fzz
\_ http://csua.org/u/fzz for those too lazy to use google
(or too short to understand psb-speak).
(or not tall enough to understand psb-speak). |
| 2006/5/25 [Recreation/Dating, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:43184 Activity:nil |
5/25 The Davinci Code review:
-waaaay too long
-ending is lame, should have ended it 15 min earlier
-bashing on Opus Dei is not cool
-tried to put in too much stuff from the book into 2 hours
like 95% of the audiences don't even know what the Fibonnaci
function is.
+girl was cute. very very cute. they should have slept together
\- see ALANE review in NYker |
| 2006/4/3-4 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:42633 Activity:nil |
4/3 This has to be an April Fools:
http://ajaxwrite.com
\_ That's a lot of work for April Fools. Not to meantion, it came out
a while before April 1st.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2006Mar/gee20060327035493.htm
\_ not to mention that if you try the application it Fucking Works
\_ Not in my browser.
\_ Really? It even works in my anchient firefox at work, and
it never seems to run anything correctly.
\_ FF only
\_ Writely >> AjaxWrite for several reasons including a) cross browser
support that actually works and b) not yet another company in the
string of companies that make the http://mp3.com/lindows/etc asshole more
money but seem to fail miserably in the marketplace. -dans |
| 2006/3/30-31 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Transportation/PublicTransit] UID:42543 Activity:low |
3/30 Does anyone have technical details of why BART's computer system is
fucked up? They installed a 'software upgrade' what software?
They 'switched to a backup system' but that failed. Who is their
primary IT consultant?
\_ I bet BART is running a crazy ass minicomputer or mainframe
from the early 80s.
\_ Over the weekend, I saw a BART ticket machine reboot into Win2k.
It was running on a Celeron 300A, I think 256MB RAM.
\_ I doubt BART runs their system from the ticket machines.
\_ I doubt the navy runs nuclear subs on windows. oh wait...
\_ Faith-based IT (subs)! No, I didn't mean to imply
that BART uses anything sane to run their back-end,
just that whatever the ticketing machines are
running is unlikely to reflect what they are running
elsewhere.
\_ General Railway Signal
http://www.pst.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/dagstuhl
http://groups.google.com/group/ba.transportation/browse_frm/thread/a70e26cedf2b8c17/a244742ac0b80044%23a244742ac0b80044
http://tinyurl.com/prsem (groups.google.com)
\_ Thanks, that's pretty interesting. |
| 2006/3/27-29 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:42483 Activity:nil |
3/27 http://research.microsoft.com/towards2020science/downloads/T2020S_Report.pdf Microsoft looking at year 2020 and how it relates to computer science |
| 2006/3/15-17 [Science/Electric, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:42261 Activity:nil |
3/15 To the induction heating guy-- I also have a slow electric stove
and it also bothers me a lot, but I took a very different route to
remedy the problem. I went to Ranch 99 to buy a portable butane
stove, you know, those you use on hot pots. I did a benchmark
and it boils water ~60% faster than my electric stove.
Total cost to my butane stove: $12.99 plus $1 each butane canister.
Total cost to your hi-tech induction heating stove: $200-$2000.
Hi-tech induction heating is for yuppies who have too much time
and too much money. Lo-tech rules.
\_ Be careful with Carbon Monoxide.
\_ I think you have a lousy electric stove. My electric stove boils
water faster than the portable butane stove I bought from Ranch.
Plus, how many pots of water can you boil with one butane canister?
\_ It also depends on the cookware you use. Aluminum (and
hard-anodized non-stick) heats up relatively fast, but
stainless steel (even multi-layered) heats up slower. If
your stove is slow, you may look at different type of
cookware. I personally like Cast Iron. Heats up very fast
and retains heat really well. |
| 2006/3/15-17 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:42249 Activity:nil |
3/15 Hey motd -- I'm pretty clueless about audio stuff: I have a handful
of CD's that I'd like to rip into decent quality MP3's. Can anybody
recommend a reasonable freeware software package for win2k to help
me with this? Any help would be much appreciated. TIA! -mice
\_ http://csua.org/u/f98 --versiontracker search. unfortunately
it looks like most of them are unrated... I use iTunes on my Mac.
The windows version might be a bit too bloated for your tastes,
since I'm guessing you wouldn't use most of the features. -sax
\_ huh, okay -- I'll check it out when I get home. Thanks
eric! -mice
\_ OS?
\_ Ah, right...the OS. heh. Win2k. -mice
\_ One option is the built in windows media player.
Produces WMA format. I think newer updates produce
MP3s but I haven't tried it. Make sure you turn
off copy protection.
\_ I use CDex in combination with LAME using the encoder setting
--alt-preset-standard which gives very nice MP3s with ID3 tags
at an average of about 192kbit. Many other settings are available.
\_ I would recommend EAC for extracting the audio tracks, and
then lame to encode it in mp3 format. I personally archive
my CD tracks in a lossless format (wavpack, but flac is
equally good), and you can easily experiment between
different encoding bit-rates in lame without re-ripping the
CD. For music player, I use foobar2000. EAC and lame
requires some slight configuration. Here are some links:
requires some configuration. Here are some links:
http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_Drive_Configuration
http://users.pandora.be/satcp/eac02p.htm
\_ I've used 'FreeRip' to rip and encode Cd's into collections MP3's.
It could be prettier, but it does the job with a minimum of effort. |
| 2006/3/6-8 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:42115 Activity:nil |
3/6 Is there a free Linux equivalent to the MS-DOS pkzipfix.exe?
I have a 800+ MB .zip file that I wasn't able to completely d/l and
I don't want to move move to the Windows box.
\_ man zip: zip -F or zip -FF
\_ oops, thanks. |
| 2006/2/24-27 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41991 Activity:nil |
2/24 Screenshots of Windows Vista Feb build
http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3672_7-6443714-1.html?tag=nl.e501 |
| 2006/2/23-27 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/OS/FreeBSD] UID:41975 Activity:low |
2/23 Why the kernel change on soda?
\_ to monitor domestic /etc/motd.public editting. This is done
preemptively and justifiably to prevent motd terrorism.
\_ more importantly who did it and is there going to be an
announcement?
\_ What change? Clue me on the change. uname -a says:
FreeBSD http://soda.csua.berkeley.edu 5.3-RELEASE
FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE #0: Fri Dec 17 17:40:05
UTC 2004
root@soda.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU:/usr/src/sys/i386/compile/SODA-MINIMAL
i386
\_ It wasn't on this "SODA-MINIMAL" kernel before it was down earlier
today. It came back up with the current kernel. It was on some
other kernel earlier. Can't recall which but maybe someone has
the full motd including motd.official archived which shows the
other kernel name.
soda 2: uptime
6:05PM up 8:01, 97 users, load averages: 0.39, 0.49, 0.41
\_ I am pretty sure soda is running SODA-MINIMAL. Unless
the admins are crazy privacy freaks, the kernel config
files are hiding in /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
\_ Shrug, it wasn't before the reboot according to the
motd.official entry. Maybe that was wrong and just got
updated while it was down but *something* changed.
\_ If you really think root is monitoring the motd again
with the kernel, you should take a look at the output
of kldstat:
Id Refs Address Size Name
1 9 0xc0400000 35ce50 kernel
2 14 0xc075d000 537f0 acpi.ko
3 1 0xc3a22000 2000 blank_saver.ko
4 1 0xc3a56000 17000 linux.ko
If were rad I would unload blank_saver.ko and load my
own kernel module that logs motd edits and name it
the same thing.
\_ I never said any such thing. I noticed a change in
motd.official after the reboot and asked what that
was about. Nothing more. All I said was, "Why the
kernel change on soda?"
\_ Maybe SODA is setup to boot with a certain kernel that sucks,
and after the power failure someone noticed oh no we booted
on the old sucky kernel that is .00000000000000023432043200001
less efficient than KERNEL-MINIMAL, so they rebooted
after some slave could be at the prompt to press the
'boot with KERNEL-MINIMAL' button. Also, I am reading
your mailspool.
\_ Oh thank God! I'm glad *someone* is reading my mail spool.
Please let me know if anything interesting comes in and kill
all the spam and viruses. Thanks! |
| 2006/2/17-20 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows, Computer/SW/Unix] UID:41912 Activity:moderate |
2/17 What does you use for bug tracking? Does it suck? We use Bugzilla now,
but we'd like something that's more customizable and that provides
better reports, of a sort we can send to customers. -gm
\_ Siebel 2000
\_ I use Siebel too, it sucks
\_ We use bugzilla. Being open source, it is very customizable. We
pull data out of it to generate some pretty good statistics
and reports. --dim
\_ The problem with Bugzilla is that you can either customize it
or be able to upgrade easily; you can't have both, as far as
I can tell. As to reports, in my experience you have to write a
bunch of code to get customizable reports out of it. That's not
something we can point our sales people at to get what they
need. -gm
\_ Bug tracking? We don't make bugs.
\_ We just switched from Bugzilla to Jira. It is nice. -ausman
\_ We use Devtrack. It's pretty good at reports and summaries, so I
see why our PM loves it. But speaking as a developer, it sucks.
It is based on the idea of the admin setting up a very strict
work flow and you must fill out all the required form fields and
forward it to the next owner before they can then fill out their
fields and yadda yadda. I can see that for a PM with undisciplined
developers and QA staff, this rigidity is quite nice. But if you
just want to enter a quick issue like "Was not checking for a null
pointer in FooClass.barFunc(). Fixed." Devtrack makes it a major
pain in the ass. |
| 2006/2/8-10 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41771 Activity:nil |
2/8 In windows XP, programs sometimes crash; it's a fact of life. Is there
any way I can disable the oh-so-helpful "report this crash to MS"
dialog box?
\_ If you want the original [error occurred at address x, click OK
to terminate, Cancel to debug] go to System Properties -> Advanced
-> Error Reporting. |
| 2006/1/31-2/2 [Computer/SW/WWW/Browsers, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41626 Activity:nil |
1/31 IE7 Beta 2 is now available:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx
\_ w00t w00t - jvarga
\_ they stole that tabbed browsing stuff from AOL's web browser |
| 2006/1/31-2/2 [Computer/SW/OS/Linux, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41614 Activity:nil |
1/31 Goobuntu, teh G00gle OS:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/31/google_goes_desktop_linux |
| 2006/1/27-29 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41572 Activity:low |
1/27 Anlin windows vs. Milgard windows. An installation company recommended
Anlin to me. They showed me a demo window. The features are good and
it seems well-constructed. But then Milgard seems more popular. Any
recommendations? Thanks.
\_ The previous owner of my house installed Milgard windows. I
am in the process of tearing out the vinyl crap in favor of
wooden windows.
\_ I can see how that would increase privacy but wouldn't your
wooden windows make it equally difficult to see out? :-)
\_ Have you tried Microsoft?
\_ I've thought about it, but I'm not sure the color of my shoes
will match current interest rates. |
| 2006/1/7-9 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41283 Activity:low |
1/7 I was looking at Mine Safety and Health Administration statisics,
and it seems reality is exactly the opposite of media portrayal from
the last week.
http://www.msha.gov/MSHAINFO/FactSheets/MSHAFCT10.HTM table titled
"Coal Mine Safety and Health". The fatal injury rate for miners has
dropped from 2000 to 2004, from 0.0393 to 0.0273. All injury rate
has dropped also, from 6.64 in 2000 to 5.00 in 2004. It is true that
the percentage of citations and orders has dropped from 42% to 41%
(from 2000 to 2004, and dipping to 38% in 2002). However, the number
of coal mines has dropped from 2000 to 2004, from 2124 mines to 2008.
While the number of mines has decreased, the number of miners has
slightly increased from 108.1K to 108.5K. This is explained by the
number of smaller mines that have closed (the number of small mines
dropped from 571 in 2000 to 560 in 2004). On-site inspection hours
per mine has increased from 215.7 in 2000 to 219.2 in 2004.
The lower citation rate may well be because larger mines are
somewhat better run and therefore slightly less prone to citations.
\_ I was the only one who reported that some Clinton-era official
said that mine citations were "way down", and cited the LA Times.
My bad -- I can't seem to find anything at all like this now on
that site or others. I will be more careful next time.
Anyway, apart from my mistake, the media is reporting that
citation penalty amounts are down along with criminal convictions.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3379597?source=rss
-jctwu
\_ According the the MSHA, penalty assessed (in $million) was
18.4 in 1995, 12.0 in 2000, and 17.0 in 2004. Bear in mind
though that there were 2946 coal mines in 1995 and only 2008
in 2004. The amount penalty per mine actually went from
$6.2K in 1995 to $8.5K in 2004. The number of citations
per mine also went from 27.9 in 1995 to 32.2 in 2004. (I know
citations != convictions, but unfortunately the MSHA site
does not list convictions.) It's deceptive to look at raw
numbers, which did decrease from 1995 to 2004, because the
number of mines dropped from 2946 to 2008 in the same period.
The claims in the article you quoted are also deceptive in the
same way, since the number of mines also decreased from 2001
to 2004 (and the decrease in number of major fines is roughly
similar to the decrease in the number of mines). The other
charges are somewhat difficult to answer since the article
does not provide enough information (re penalty payment
rate, for example, the article does not say what the non-Bush
payment rate is). As usual, I find the reporting to be sadly
lacking and outright deceptive in this case.
\_ http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/002620.html
\_ Accusations are cheap; show me some numbes. From the MSHA, it
looks like injury rate is down, fines are up, citations are up,
and on-site inspection hours are up. No one is arguing
Sago is a well-run mine. It is disheartening how low their fines
have been. But is that a recent thing, or have fines always been
low? According to the MSHA, the $ fine per mine has gone up
since 1995 (from $6.2K to $8.5K in 2004). What metric are you
using to show that the industry is deteriorating or the regulatory
body is doing a worse job? I've listed mine and its source.
Now please show us yours. And hard numbers please; we're
engineers here.
\_ Nah, I don't have time to do the kind of research it would
require to prove this one way or another. One thing though,
did you pull out strip mines from your numbers? Strip
mines are much safer than shaft mines and most of the
newer mines are all strip mines. |
| 2006/1/6-9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41264 Activity:nil |
1/6 My sister's Windows XP is hanging on startup. Apparently it shows
the Windows XP logo, chugs for a bit, then hangs. The only thing
that's changed is that she moved to Santa Cruz. Linux still
boots fine for her. Any ideas? Is there any way to see what
windows is doing during boot?
\_ ob SCO joke
\_ F8 for Safe Mode with logging, text file will be created in C:\
For a quick test lots of times the NIC hangs things, so unplug
the network cable
\_ Thanks. She said removing the network cable didn't help, and
safe mode hung too. What's the name of the log file?
\_ Whoops, it's C:\WINDOWS\Ntbtlog.txt
\_ Huh, that one doesn't seem to exist.
\_ If safe mode hangs too, maybe it's reinstall/recovery-disk
time.
\_ Yeah, she's about to do so now.
\_ I was reading on the net and people were suggesting
modifying C:\BOOT.INI, adding /noguiboot /sos /bootlog after
/fastdetect. This will show on screen as device drivers are
loaded.
\_ Your sister has hit the Millennium-Plus-Six Bug in the XP bootstrap
\_ Your sister has hit the Millennium-Plus-Six bug in the XP bootstrap
code! |
| 2006/1/5-9 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41250 Activity:nil |
1/5 Heh. Combining the power of Windows CE, Me and NT we have...
Windows CEMeNT!
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5036/1165/1600/cement.0.jpg
\_ That joke's--what--4? 5 years old?
\_ thanks for posting; missed that 4 or 5 years ago. |
| 2006/1/5-7 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41241 Activity:nil |
1/5 Microsoft to release WMF patch today at 2pm Pacific Time
http://myitforum.com/blog/rtrent/archive/2006/01/05/18131.aspx
fyi, Ilfak recently said you can uninstall his patch before or
after you install the MS patch.
\_ Looks like it's out now.
\_ http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/default.aspx
"Windows Media Format is the highest quality, most secure and ..."
Ha ha.
\_ Uhm, the WMF exploit involves WMF files (Windows Metafile),
Microsoft's version of Encapsulated PostScript. It doesn't have
anything to do with Windows Media.
\_ Don't forget to re-register the DLL in case you un-registered it.
Otherwise the default image viewer in XP doesn't work. |
| 2006/1/3-5 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41214 Activity:nil |
1/3 Regarding the WMF vulnerability, is it true that if you're using
Firefox 1.5, you'll always be prompted when there's a WMF image on a
web page? I know those using IE are SOL unless they install the 0-day
patch from Ilfak Guilfanov mentioned here:
http://www.grc.com/sn/notes-020.htm
This part is funny:
"Anti-Virus vendors quickly updated and began pushing out their A-V
signature files. These have been effective, but a new very flexible
exploit generation tool has appeared that's able to create so many
different variations of the exploit that A-V signatures are having
trouble keeping up."
More info on how bad an infection can be here:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=143&tag=nl.e589
(Note that author does not address Ilfak's fix.)
And just found out you can be infected by a (WMF-encoded) file with a
.jpg extension:
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/archive-012006.html#00000759
(you can also be infected if Google Desktop indexes the image)
Other image extensions can also infect you:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=992
(Is this for real? "McAfee announced on the radio yesterday they saw
6% of their customer having been infected with the previous generation
of the WMF exploits. 6% of their customer base is a huge number.")
Pre-patch, try executing an innocuous hacked WMF file:
http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=1006
http://sipr.net/test.wmf
\_ Just use the regsvr32 /u fix.
\_ http://isc.sans.org/diary.php?storyid=994
says do both. Doing the /u alone may not work because there may
be "other avenues of attack against the Escape() function in
gdi32.dll", and "we have some very stong indications that simply
unregistering the shimgvw.dll isn't always successful"
\_ For starters I've turned off image viewing in my browser. The
net is a lot faster now and I don't think I'm missing anything.
I long for the days of gopher!
\_ /usr/local/bin/lynx.
\_ better: /usr/local/bin/links |
| 2006/1/3-5 [Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:41213 Activity:nil |
1/3 M$ helps the Creative Commons meet their fund raising goal:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003274.shtml |
| 11/26 |