Poirates Ahoy!
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Friday, November 28, 2008
Learn about hacking, cracking, javascript, cryptology,PHP and password security at HackQuest
AV Performance put to the test
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Monday, November 24, 2008
AV-Comparatives.org have been busy testing the performance hit your system takes by running a resident AV.
Some people will use this report as an excuse not to run a real-time scanner, and just get by with one full scan a week, but these people are stupid. Stupid I tell you!
One interesting thing is Symantec's position in this test. If these results are to be believed, then not only is it catching almost all threats, but it is also extremely light on resources too, even on higher security settings.
Meanwhile, in other news, the number of empty brown envelopes found out the back of the AV-Comparatives office went up by 2342% last month.
Read the last few reports on av-comparatives.org
Read the full performance report
Some people will use this report as an excuse not to run a real-time scanner, and just get by with one full scan a week, but these people are stupid. Stupid I tell you!
One interesting thing is Symantec's position in this test. If these results are to be believed, then not only is it catching almost all threats, but it is also extremely light on resources too, even on higher security settings.
Meanwhile, in other news, the number of empty brown envelopes found out the back of the AV-Comparatives office went up by 2342% last month.
Read the last few reports on av-comparatives.org
Read the full performance report
A BSOD with a difference :)
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
If your PC dies with a BSOD specifying the error:
Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315223 and download Windows Memory Diagnostic tool from here:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
When I got this error the first time, I simply restarted the PC and it was fine for a week. This morning it came back with a vengeance - rebooting wasn't an option as I was getting a string of BIOS beeps (indicating a memory problem).
I had to reseat each and every memory module, one-by-one until the BIOS beeps stopped and the PC could be started. Next step will be to burn this memory diagnostic tool onto a disk and do a check. Another day's work :)
*** Hardware Malfunction
Call your hardware vendor for support
*** The system has halted ***
NMI: Channel Check / IOCHK
Visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315223 and download Windows Memory Diagnostic tool from here:
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp
When I got this error the first time, I simply restarted the PC and it was fine for a week. This morning it came back with a vengeance - rebooting wasn't an option as I was getting a string of BIOS beeps (indicating a memory problem).
I had to reseat each and every memory module, one-by-one until the BIOS beeps stopped and the PC could be started. Next step will be to burn this memory diagnostic tool onto a disk and do a check. Another day's work :)
Cringeley's "Triumph of the Nerds"
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12 years is a loooong time in the world of computing, but this is still one of the finest programmes on computing ever to grace the television screen:
Note: This is part 1 of 3
Note: This is part 1 of 3
Plastic Logic answer the call
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Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Finally, an A4-sized, flexible eReader that doesn't look like a big lump of nasty plastic, despite what the company who makes it calls itself.
Perhaps this could provide a convenient alternative to carrying around a load of paper. I'll only know when I get one in my own hands and try it out - but it looks promising.
Smart broadband... first day verdict
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
My brand new Thompson Speedtouch 585 v7 ADSL2+ Wireless router arrived yesterday - had it hooked up and set up on the UTV Clicksilver connection in about a minute... maybe two.
That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's actually pre-configured for Irish ADSL networks (preset to PPPoE, VPI.VCI 8.35), so it's really just a case of putting in your broadband account username and password and you're ready to go. The basic menus are there, but for advanced stuff you have to use the Command Line Interface, which is just Thompson's way of protecting overconfident fools from themselves (while annoying the rest of us ;-). There's very little missing, although I much prefer the comprehensive feature set and take-no-prisoners interface of my BT Voyager 2110 - if only I could get into the web interface after that bad flash...
That said, the Thompson is solid, very pretty to look at and pretty stable. I got faster speeds out of it on my UTV connection than I could from the BT (by 5-10%). I clocked a DL speed of 4521kbps yesterday (407kbps UL) on the local Westnet server.
When I got home this evening I realised (after a period of wondering what the feck was wrong with my connection) that I'd been "seamlessly" been switched over to Smart.
After entering my Smart username and password where the old UTV one had been in the router's Internet services menu I did a quick speed test (Westnet server):
DL: 5871kbps
UL:403kbps
A few more tests seem to clock me around the 6Mbps mark - which, based on the line attenuation is probably as good as I can expect, given how far I am from the exchange...
One of the things that has really improved is the ping - from ~150ms to ~100ms. I'll take that as a consolation, even though I seem to have lower upload speeds :(
Time will tell if this is as solid a service as UTV gave me over the last two and a half years (it was terrible for about a two week period over the last 6 months, before that it was perfect). I'll let you know if the speeds vary a lot.
In the meantime, have a look in the advanced menus of your router for the line attenuation (on download) and check it out using kitz's speed calc. This will give you an idea of what service you should go for - 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 or whatever. You'll get an estimate of how far you are from your local exchange, but remember that Smart's servers might well be elsewhere, so they might not prove to be a great option. Wiser people than me have tried the basic 4Mbps service first and then upgraded once they saw how they were going. If I'd done this I'd probably be choosing a 6Mbps connection now, saving myself €5 per month.
Ah well... sod it - I've got it now. I'm hoping I won't be regretting it.
That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's actually pre-configured for Irish ADSL networks (preset to PPPoE, VPI.VCI 8.35), so it's really just a case of putting in your broadband account username and password and you're ready to go. The basic menus are there, but for advanced stuff you have to use the Command Line Interface, which is just Thompson's way of protecting overconfident fools from themselves (while annoying the rest of us ;-). There's very little missing, although I much prefer the comprehensive feature set and take-no-prisoners interface of my BT Voyager 2110 - if only I could get into the web interface after that bad flash...
That said, the Thompson is solid, very pretty to look at and pretty stable. I got faster speeds out of it on my UTV connection than I could from the BT (by 5-10%). I clocked a DL speed of 4521kbps yesterday (407kbps UL) on the local Westnet server.
When I got home this evening I realised (after a period of wondering what the feck was wrong with my connection) that I'd been "seamlessly" been switched over to Smart.
After entering my Smart username and password where the old UTV one had been in the router's Internet services menu I did a quick speed test (Westnet server):
DL: 5871kbps
UL:403kbps
A few more tests seem to clock me around the 6Mbps mark - which, based on the line attenuation is probably as good as I can expect, given how far I am from the exchange...
One of the things that has really improved is the ping - from ~150ms to ~100ms. I'll take that as a consolation, even though I seem to have lower upload speeds :(
Time will tell if this is as solid a service as UTV gave me over the last two and a half years (it was terrible for about a two week period over the last 6 months, before that it was perfect). I'll let you know if the speeds vary a lot.
In the meantime, have a look in the advanced menus of your router for the line attenuation (on download) and check it out using kitz's speed calc. This will give you an idea of what service you should go for - 3, 4, 6, 8, 10 or whatever. You'll get an estimate of how far you are from your local exchange, but remember that Smart's servers might well be elsewhere, so they might not prove to be a great option. Wiser people than me have tried the basic 4Mbps service first and then upgraded once they saw how they were going. If I'd done this I'd probably be choosing a 6Mbps connection now, saving myself €5 per month.
Ah well... sod it - I've got it now. I'm hoping I won't be regretting it.
Microsoft Surface - has touchscreen technology finally grown wings?
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Sunday, October 05, 2008
Microsoft Surface Demo @ CES 2008
I'd love to know what the unit cost is of these things. Are they punitively expensive? Could MS turn a profit on them?
I'd love to know what the unit cost is of these things. Are they punitively expensive? Could MS turn a profit on them?
Tried Google Chrome yet?
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Friday, September 05, 2008
Google has revolutionized search, and made the email client seem rather unwieldy and unnecessary, but there they have been wide of the mark on a few things.
Google Desktop wasn't very good in the early days. It started out seeming a bit slow and a bit intrusive, both in terms of system resource usage and privacy.
However, I downloaded the latest enterprise version at my workplace, with a private encrypted index and support for Lotus Notes search and I was very impressed. Admittedly, the index got corrupted once and had to be rebuilt, but it has made things easy to find. This is very important when you have one hand on the phone and only one on the keyboard ;-)
So, I approached Google Chrome with some interest. I say some, because I'm not really in the market for a new browser. I love both Firefox and Opera and I can't see how much improvement can be made in this area. However, Google claimed that their browser would have a small memory footprint and wouldn't leak memory either. This sounded tempting because Firefox 3 has only improved on Firefox's tendency to hemorrhage tens of megabytes of lovely memory by a small amount. Opera leaks too, but less so. In addition to this, Google claimed that their new browser was going to be optimized for web applications, especially for gmail. This sounded good, so I decided to give it a whirl.
I was whelmed.
It's not all that special from what I've seen so far. It doesn't suck, but it doesn't blow me away, either. I've used gmail in it - it's OK I suppose, but it hardly seems all that "optimized". What's the difference between it's layout in web application mode than just hitting F11 in FF, Opera or IE? It loads quickly, sure, but then so does FF3 with no plugins. So does IE7 for that matter, but that's a steaming puddle of horse pish. The history search is nice, as you'd expect from Google, but searching your bookmarks and history in FF works well enough for me.
Remember Seamonkey? I still use it quite a bit, mainly because it reminds me of classic Mozilla - my second browser love, after Netscape. Flock has a Photobucket edition, but that's no big deal. Most people have never used Flock or Seamonkey, and never will. Chrome will have to really stand out to have any chance of making a dent in the established browser user base* - the trouble is, I'm still just not sure what makes Chrome so special.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
Read this superb review at InfoQ
* I saw a BBC News report this week that stated that IE still holds 80% of the browser market
Google Desktop wasn't very good in the early days. It started out seeming a bit slow and a bit intrusive, both in terms of system resource usage and privacy.
However, I downloaded the latest enterprise version at my workplace, with a private encrypted index and support for Lotus Notes search and I was very impressed. Admittedly, the index got corrupted once and had to be rebuilt, but it has made things easy to find. This is very important when you have one hand on the phone and only one on the keyboard ;-)
So, I approached Google Chrome with some interest. I say some, because I'm not really in the market for a new browser. I love both Firefox and Opera and I can't see how much improvement can be made in this area. However, Google claimed that their browser would have a small memory footprint and wouldn't leak memory either. This sounded tempting because Firefox 3 has only improved on Firefox's tendency to hemorrhage tens of megabytes of lovely memory by a small amount. Opera leaks too, but less so. In addition to this, Google claimed that their new browser was going to be optimized for web applications, especially for gmail. This sounded good, so I decided to give it a whirl.
I was whelmed.
It's not all that special from what I've seen so far. It doesn't suck, but it doesn't blow me away, either. I've used gmail in it - it's OK I suppose, but it hardly seems all that "optimized". What's the difference between it's layout in web application mode than just hitting F11 in FF, Opera or IE? It loads quickly, sure, but then so does FF3 with no plugins. So does IE7 for that matter, but that's a steaming puddle of horse pish. The history search is nice, as you'd expect from Google, but searching your bookmarks and history in FF works well enough for me.
Remember Seamonkey? I still use it quite a bit, mainly because it reminds me of classic Mozilla - my second browser love, after Netscape. Flock has a Photobucket edition, but that's no big deal. Most people have never used Flock or Seamonkey, and never will. Chrome will have to really stand out to have any chance of making a dent in the established browser user base* - the trouble is, I'm still just not sure what makes Chrome so special.
Does anyone else have any ideas?
Read this superb review at InfoQ
* I saw a BBC News report this week that stated that IE still holds 80% of the browser market
Looking for iTunes alternatives
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Monday, August 25, 2008
Found one alternative - aTunes - available for Linux and Windows, but would like to know about more:
http://www.linuxalt.com/linux-software/aTunes.html
The main requirement would be full podcast support, and should be opensource (free for corporate use, at least).
Why not use iTunes? Well, I just don't like it. There's Quicktime Alternative - that solves one problem.
As far as I could find tell, the podcast plugin for Winamp doesn't work.
If you know of any other alternatives, please comment.
http://www.linuxalt.com/linux-software/aTunes.html
The main requirement would be full podcast support, and should be opensource (free for corporate use, at least).
Why not use iTunes? Well, I just don't like it. There's Quicktime Alternative - that solves one problem.
As far as I could find tell, the podcast plugin for Winamp doesn't work.
If you know of any other alternatives, please comment.
Forgot what a valuable resource this site is
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Just had cause to visit:
http://dougknox.com/
For those who haven't been here yet, it's a collection of VB Script files that will perform tweaks for Windows systems. Just have a look through the left hand menu and try something out. Back up first, etc.
http://dougknox.com/
For those who haven't been here yet, it's a collection of VB Script files that will perform tweaks for Windows systems. Just have a look through the left hand menu and try something out. Back up first, etc.
Just goes to show how many problems boil down to the PSU
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php?t=180313
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php?t=180313
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Is Autocheck.exe playing up on your PC?
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Friday, July 25, 2008
Problem: Spybot-SD Resident scanner pop-up requires confirmation every time Windows starts. Clicking "Remember this decision" won't help...
The pop-up is to alert you that the Session manager registry key in the CurrentControlSet is being changed.
Cause: Autocheck.exe is corrupt.
Solution: Run checkdisk on the next boot by clicking Start > run and typing chkdsk /r. You'll see a message saying the volume is currently in use and would you like checkdisk to run on the next reboot - type Y. Reboot at your leisure and make yourself a cup of tea, because this is going to take a while.
It should fix the problem, however, so that's alright then.
pchelptech
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Could this spell the end of the sticky post?
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That is, if Knol - Google's latest offering to the world of web authoring - has anything to do with it.
Make long links short with shortlinks.js
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Monday, July 14, 2008
I got sick of looking at links I posted with long URLs that spilled off the page, making things look untidy.
After looking around for a way to neatly wrap links without breaking them, I found this.
Now I can post links as long as I like, and this little piece of JavaScript will truncate the link text and preserve the URL. All you need is a little script in the head of your page:
Onload, the script will execute and rewrite the link as specified in shortlink.js:
// the maximum length of the links<br /> var mustlength=30;
... rewriting the link using the following function:
var newt=t.substr(0,mustlength/2)
+connector+
t.substr(t.length-mustlength/2-connector.length,t.length);
There are a load of other useful tools on both onlinetools.org and the author's site.
After looking around for a way to neatly wrap links without breaking them, I found this.
Now I can post links as long as I like, and this little piece of JavaScript will truncate the link text and preserve the URL. All you need is a little script in the head of your page:
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="shortlinks.js"> </script>
</head>
Onload, the script will execute and rewrite the link as specified in shortlink.js:
// the maximum length of the links<br /> var mustlength=30;
... rewriting the link using the following function:
var newt=t.substr(0,mustlength/2)
+connector+
t.substr(t.length-mustlength/2-connector.length,t.length);
There are a load of other useful tools on both onlinetools.org and the author's site.
Do you hate the new Dilbert site too?
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There have been many solutions posed for this one.
One of the more elaborate ones involves downloading a greasemonkey script that strips away the horrible flash from around the daily strip you want to read.
This is a classic case of over-engineering that Dlbert himself would be proud of.
However, it's only unnecessary if you subscribe to daily feeds and are therefore stuck with the flash version.
All the time, http://dilbert.com/fast was sitting there, waiting for someone to find it.
One of the more elaborate ones involves downloading a greasemonkey script that strips away the horrible flash from around the daily strip you want to read.
This is a classic case of over-engineering that Dlbert himself would be proud of.
However, it's only unnecessary if you subscribe to daily feeds and are therefore stuck with the flash version.
All the time, http://dilbert.com/fast was sitting there, waiting for someone to find it.
Generic JVM Argument -Xnoclassgc must not be used with the IBM 1.4.2 SDK... EVER
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
...especially if any classes in your application use serialization or refection.
Does your Java application appear to suffer from memory leaking? If it does, check to see if you have the parameter -Xnoclassgc enabled.
In fact, you should check even if you haven't noticed any memory leaking, and disable it anyway :P
http://www.performancewiki.com/was-tuning.html
http://java.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/java-l/memory-leak-issue-1458060?cv=expanded#
http://www.flester.com/blog/2008/03/24/javas-xnoclassgc-considered-harmful
and finally, one from the horse's mouth:
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg1PK63384
It's hard to believe that people bother arguing over this one - it's been common knowledge for over 2 years now.
Does your Java application appear to suffer from memory leaking? If it does, check to see if you have the parameter -Xnoclassgc enabled.
In fact, you should check even if you haven't noticed any memory leaking, and disable it anyway :P
http://www.performancewiki.com/was-tuning.html
http://java.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/java-l/memory-leak-issue-1458060?cv=expanded#
http://www.flester.com/blog/2008/03/24/javas-xnoclassgc-considered-harmful
and finally, one from the horse's mouth:
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=180&uid=swg1PK63384
It's hard to believe that people bother arguing over this one - it's been common knowledge for over 2 years now.
Set up LAMP on the Hardy Heron
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Monday, July 07, 2008
No, it's not a clue from a cryptic crossword, but rather Linux, Apache, MySql and PHP - all ready to go as one of the install options on Ubuntu 8.04.
It's worth doing, because by doing it this way, you'll save time on setting them up separately and trying to get them to work together. Read more here.
It's worth doing, because by doing it this way, you'll save time on setting them up separately and trying to get them to work together. Read more here.
DVDVideoSoft News
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Friday, July 04, 2008
DVDVideoSoft News |
| Posted: 04 Jul 2008 10:06 AM CDT Dear All, I’d like to inform you that we are working hard at new programs and this month you should expect several new titles from DVDVideoSoft. These are: Also we will update our existing ones. For example Free Video to Flash Converter will offer new advanced player skins with more controls, like the BIG play button on the video, rewind and fast forward buttons, volume control, auto load enable/disable and full screen mode preview. Keep up watching our news! |
| Special thanks and some more interesting free software Posted: 04 Jul 2008 10:05 AM CDT Recently we had a problem with html coding on our forum. And John Conners the author of the John’s Adventures blog suggested us a smart solution. Visiting his blog I found that he is a professional developer and I was amazed to find several free programs he had written. I’d like to recommend you to try John's Background Switcher and John's Image Converter. The first program sits in your system tray and periodically changes the wallpaper on your computer. It can take photos from your computer or even from the WEB (Flickr, Picasa web albums, Facebook, Yahoo…). The second program is a small and easy-to-use image converter. It will help you to make your photos smaller before sending via email or putting them to the WEB. It will save your time! I hope you will like these programs too. |
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DO NOT download Tor Button
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Here's an amusing post on Privoxy and Tor
But seriously, I've just discovered that the tiny Tor Button add-on stops Google Talk Gadget from loading in the sidebar... Bizarro!
But seriously, I've just discovered that the tiny Tor Button add-on stops Google Talk Gadget from loading in the sidebar... Bizarro!
The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny (of power tools)
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Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Nod profusely as you read through Scott Hanselman's 2007 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows.
You'll see Notepad2, many offerings from SysInternals and the most powerful Firefox add-on ever, Firebug. If you've ever used them, even just a little, you'd have expected to see them in his list, but I was pleased to see a few things I've never tried, such as FolderShare, WinSnap and Ultramon.
Can't wait to get 'round to sampling them all.
Also, SysInternals have created a live share space for their utilities, so you don't have to have them downloaded in advance before you run them - handy if you're on the road, with a customer and you've forgotten your pen drive. From the readme.txt in the root directory:
You'll see Notepad2, many offerings from SysInternals and the most powerful Firefox add-on ever, Firebug. If you've ever used them, even just a little, you'd have expected to see them in his list, but I was pleased to see a few things I've never tried, such as FolderShare, WinSnap and Ultramon.
Can't wait to get 'round to sampling them all.
Also, SysInternals have created a live share space for their utilities, so you don't have to have them downloaded in advance before you run them - handy if you're on the road, with a customer and you've forgotten your pen drive. From the readme.txt in the root directory:
What is this?
This is a file share allowing access to all Sysinternals utilities. We have developed this to test an alternate distribution mechanism for our utilities. This will allow you to run these tools from any computer connected to the Internet without having to navigate to a webpage, download and extract the zip file.
Blogger trouble
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This is what I see when I try to access my last few posts via Firefox live bookmarks (or even pasting in the same url directly into the address bar).
Getting this kind of message, and the dreaded internal Blogger error "bX-vjhbsj", pictured below, is the very thing that has driven many bloggers into the attractive, user-friendly and stable bosom of Wordpress (and will continue to do so).
Sort it out Google... I mean Blogger, or Bloogle or whatever. Blogtards.
:-P
This has happened before, but usually stops after a few minutes - but this time I've been getting this message all afternoon.We're sorry...
... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application
Getting this kind of message, and the dreaded internal Blogger error "bX-vjhbsj", pictured below, is the very thing that has driven many bloggers into the attractive, user-friendly and stable bosom of Wordpress (and will continue to do so).
Sort it out Google... I mean Blogger, or Bloogle or whatever. Blogtards.
:-P
DVDVideoSoft News
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DVDVideoSoft News |
| DVDVideoSoft moved to new server and prepares new software Posted: 03 Jun 2008 04:52 PM CDT We would like to inform you that in May DVDVideoSoft moved to the new server! And in the view of the fact that we are preparing next new huge update of free software, this Gigabit connection is for the good of both us and you. Now our server network usage is only about 10%. Let's boost it up, when the new versions of our free tools are available. Keep watching our news! We also thank those users who have sent us their translations of our programs and their comments and corrections. We will try to include all of them in our new versions. If you want to be famous on our web site, you are welcome to inform us about it and send us you websites and blogs addresses. Get in touch with us at support@dvdvideosoft.com. We will write about you in our blog. P.S. Now you can leave comments on our blog immediately and without any registration. |
| Add free YouTube download service to your site or blog Posted: 03 Jun 2008 04:52 PM CDT We are glad to offer you our new service called free online YouTube video download script for your site or blog! From now on any owner of a website or a blog may add there a YouTube and Google videos downloading service. This service allows visitors of a site to download videos from YouTube and Google right away to their PC without any other site, software or service. The only thing you should do is just to copy a small script from our website to your web page. Here there is a detailed and comprehensive instruction of how to do it. |
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Still the best, at least for now
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Thursday, May 29, 2008
While Digsby remains tied to Windows and non-portable (at least, not truly portable and self contained).
I need portable. I need multi-platform. I need meanwhile (Sametime) support, in addition to jabber (google talk), icq, irc, yahoo and msn.
Pidgin is still the only IM that offers me all these things, with an attractive, easy to use interface, and all for free (unlike Trillian).
PidginPortable is presently at version 2.4. This may or may not be better than previous versions
- but assuming you have or will download that version and what to fix the one known bug that matters, or get it working with Sametime, then this is how you can do it.
Buddy List Search Bug:
This is bothersome. You have a huge list of buddies, spread across multiple groups and multiple IM protocols, and you can't be bothered scrolling through the list, expanding groups and visually searching for buddies until your eyes bleed.
Up until PidginPortable 2.4 (true for non-portable flavour too), you just started typing the first few letters of the contacts name and pidgin did the rest. However, since the inclusion of the latest GTK+ libraries, this doesn't work - and pidgin just stops the search after you type the first letter. Downer.
Solution:
Download GTK+ 2.12.6 and copy bin/libgdk-win32-2.0-0.dll into PidginPortabl/App/GTK/bin (replacing the one that's already there).
Restart PidginPortable and the problem will be solved.
Sametime support:
So you work for a large blue corporation or some company that buys their IM/collaboration solution from them.
Older versions of Pidgin (Gaim) didn't support Sametime out of the box - you had to install the meanwhile library first. Now, meanwhile is included, but Sametime 7.5 will check your client version and reject Pidgin because it looks like an old Sametime version (3.x).
Here's how to fool Sametime:
Look for accounts.xml (for PidginPortable it's in Data/settings/.purple)
Look the following settings:
<settings>
<setting name='client_major' type='int'>30</setting>
<setting name='server' type='string'>messaging.yourcompany.com</setting>
<setting name='fake_client_id' type='bool'>1</setting>
<setting name='port' type='int'>1533</setting>
<setting name='client_minor' type='int'>6511</setting>
<setting name='force_login' type='bool'>1</setting>
<setting name='client_id_val' type='int'>4098</setting>
</settings>
The 'server' and 'port' lines will be there already from when you added the account, but you'll have to add the 'client_major', 'client_minor' and 'client_id_val' lines.
These three lines will tell the Sametime server what it wants to hear when it queries the pidgin client.
Another problem solved.
Thanks to khaytsus for raising the ticket for the Buddy List Search GTK+ bug and thanks to datallah who took ownership and of course witmaster who posted the downgrade workaround solution.
Thanks to jno and siege for the Sametime workaround.
Kudos to all who work on Pidgin to make it better and keep it relevant, despite stiff competition from the likes of Miranda and Digsby.
Pidgin is still the only IM that offers me all these things, with an attractive, easy to use interface, and all for free (unlike Trillian).PidginPortable is presently at version 2.4. This may or may not be better than previous versions
- but assuming you have or will download that version and what to fix the one known bug that matters, or get it working with Sametime, then this is how you can do it.Buddy List Search Bug:
This is bothersome. You have a huge list of buddies, spread across multiple groups and multiple IM protocols, and you can't be bothered scrolling through the list, expanding groups and visually searching for buddies until your eyes bleed.
Up until PidginPortable 2.4 (true for non-portable flavour too), you just started typing the first few letters of the contacts name and pidgin did the rest. However, since the inclusion of the latest GTK+ libraries, this doesn't work - and pidgin just stops the search after you type the first letter. Downer.
Solution:
Download GTK+ 2.12.6 and copy bin/libgdk-win32-2.0-0.dll into PidginPortabl/App/GTK/bin (replacing the one that's already there).
Restart PidginPortable and the problem will be solved.
Sametime support:
So you work for a large blue corporation or some company that buys their IM/collaboration solution from them.
Older versions of Pidgin (Gaim) didn't support Sametime out of the box - you had to install the meanwhile library first. Now, meanwhile is included, but Sametime 7.5 will check your client version and reject Pidgin because it looks like an old Sametime version (3.x).
Here's how to fool Sametime:
Look for accounts.xml (for PidginPortable it's in Data/settings/.purple)
Look the following settings:
<settings>
<setting name='client_major' type='int'>30</setting>
<setting name='server' type='string'>messaging.yourcompany.com</setting>
<setting name='fake_client_id' type='bool'>1</setting>
<setting name='port' type='int'>1533</setting>
<setting name='client_minor' type='int'>6511</setting>
<setting name='force_login' type='bool'>1</setting>
<setting name='client_id_val' type='int'>4098</setting>
</settings>
The 'server' and 'port' lines will be there already from when you added the account, but you'll have to add the 'client_major', 'client_minor' and 'client_id_val' lines.
These three lines will tell the Sametime server what it wants to hear when it queries the pidgin client.
Another problem solved.
Thanks to khaytsus for raising the ticket for the Buddy List Search GTK+ bug and thanks to datallah who took ownership and of course witmaster who posted the downgrade workaround solution.
Thanks to jno and siege for the Sametime workaround.
Kudos to all who work on Pidgin to make it better and keep it relevant, despite stiff competition from the likes of Miranda and Digsby.
Who says ads have no artistic merit?
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Wednesday, May 28, 2008
If, like me, you hate those ads that take over your screen and add to page loading times, you've probably installed an ad blocker, or made some changes to your hosts file.
The Firefox add-on Adblock Plus is particularly good at filtering out content you don't want - it also allows you to enable and disable it for particular pages and it shows tabs on blockable elements of any web page, giving you full control over what ads/nags you want to see and what you don't.
But, it replaces the ads with blank space - which can lead to quite a bit of wasted space on a given web page.
Add-Art (another Firefox add-on) is designed to work with Adblock Plus to replace blocked content with artworks by modern artists. The results can be quite pleasing, and at the very least, that space doesn't go to waste.
Visit the Adblock Plus home page.
The Firefox add-on Adblock Plus is particularly good at filtering out content you don't want - it also allows you to enable and disable it for particular pages and it shows tabs on blockable elements of any web page, giving you full control over what ads/nags you want to see and what you don't.
But, it replaces the ads with blank space - which can lead to quite a bit of wasted space on a given web page.
Add-Art (another Firefox add-on) is designed to work with Adblock Plus to replace blocked content with artworks by modern artists. The results can be quite pleasing, and at the very least, that space doesn't go to waste.
Visit the Adblock Plus home page.
XP SP3 and AMD don't mix, apparently
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Monday, May 26, 2008
The Inquirer made this revelation earlier today. If, like me, you own a PC running on an AMD chipset - beware! And read the article before you download and install.
Yarr!
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Poirates rule, or so a new(ish) book, from author Matt Mason, would have us believe.
"The Pirate's Dilemma"* deals with the movement of anti-capitalist pirates, rebelling against the profit-driven, low value corporations who have made stealing an acceptable - if not honorable - pastime for the average Joe. And there was me thinking we were all just common thieves ;-P
Radiohead's two-fingered salute ( possibly one-fingered) to the music establishment last year, courtesy of their "pay whatever you think it's worth" online offering or their new, erm, offering... and Trent Reznor's most generous new album giveaway seem to me to be a response to the power and purpose of this movement. Surely, someday soon one of these big corporations will take the hint and start taking a slightly smaller margin to boost sales. They could sack a few layers of middle-men to compensate.
Read the blog of the book, if ye dare.
*Available now in paperback and hardback from stinking corporate swines Amazon. If anyone wants a free copy in PDF format, I'll PM you my Rapidshare link :-P LOL.
"The Pirate's Dilemma"* deals with the movement of anti-capitalist pirates, rebelling against the profit-driven, low value corporations who have made stealing an acceptable - if not honorable - pastime for the average Joe. And there was me thinking we were all just common thieves ;-P
Radiohead's two-fingered salute ( possibly one-fingered) to the music establishment last year, courtesy of their "pay whatever you think it's worth" online offering or their new, erm, offering... and Trent Reznor's most generous new album giveaway seem to me to be a response to the power and purpose of this movement. Surely, someday soon one of these big corporations will take the hint and start taking a slightly smaller margin to boost sales. They could sack a few layers of middle-men to compensate.
Read the blog of the book, if ye dare.
*Available now in paperback and hardback from stinking corporate swines Amazon. If anyone wants a free copy in PDF format, I'll PM you my Rapidshare link :-P LOL.
Microsoft promises to support the Open Document Format by next year
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
However, this has done little to impress interoperability watchdogs ECIS, who are still itching to file a plethora of anti-trust lawsuits against them.
Brave Google shops Indian slanderer to authorities while Internet Cafés install keyloggers
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Don't go thinking the Internet is a place you can say whatever you want about whoever you want to say it about - especially not if Google has anything to do with it.
Next time you're in a Mumbai Cyber Café you might want to check for keyloggers before you start typing.
How would you go about doing that? By looking under the keyboard, perhaps?
Next time you're in a Mumbai Cyber Café you might want to check for keyloggers before you start typing.
How would you go about doing that? By looking under the keyboard, perhaps?
Lotus Symphony - do I hear a bum note?
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Back when I tried OpenOffice 1.1 (my first encounter with it), I thought it was pretty decent. It was the one and only time I blue-screened a Win XP system, but I forgave it for being new(ish) and open source. Since OpenOffice got to 2.2 and later versions it has been rock solid and more useful than ever. With the exception of Excel, I don't think that Microsoft can justify the price of its Office suite anymore. So when IBM announced that they'd be creating their own open source office alternative to replace their aging (to put it mildly) Smartsuite package, I got interested.
Along came Symphony - which I started using towards the end of summer '07. I also stopped using it around that time too. Why? As a test run, I created a text document, and then tried to convert it to PDF. Symphony crashed... Hard. When I tried to restart it, it wouldn't. I realised that this was because the Eclipse javaw.exe process it was wrapped up in had hung on after the rest of Symphony had terminated, so I had to kill it. Then, lo and behold, I managed to get the application started again - and what did I find? A recovered unsaved document? No.
So, my first experience with Symphony was not entirely a success. You could even say it was a dismal failure, but that would be too lenient. The truth is that, although it didn't crash on me again since (mostly because I've barely used it), it doesn't offer a single advantage over OpenOffice 2.x. In fact, it seems to have less going for it in any respect that, in my opinion, counts. Firstly, Eclipse is a pig, so Symphony has a very large footprint - and this extra application tier just means that there's more that can go wrong. Secondly, Symphony is only based on the 1.1.x engine of OpenOffice - so it's not as stable and not as functional as OO 2.4.
All things considered, it's not so much a symphony as a dirge.
Read the linuxjournal article
and then here's a slightly less scathing review (thanks to muglatte)
Along came Symphony - which I started using towards the end of summer '07. I also stopped using it around that time too. Why? As a test run, I created a text document, and then tried to convert it to PDF. Symphony crashed... Hard. When I tried to restart it, it wouldn't. I realised that this was because the Eclipse javaw.exe process it was wrapped up in had hung on after the rest of Symphony had terminated, so I had to kill it. Then, lo and behold, I managed to get the application started again - and what did I find? A recovered unsaved document? No.
So, my first experience with Symphony was not entirely a success. You could even say it was a dismal failure, but that would be too lenient. The truth is that, although it didn't crash on me again since (mostly because I've barely used it), it doesn't offer a single advantage over OpenOffice 2.x. In fact, it seems to have less going for it in any respect that, in my opinion, counts. Firstly, Eclipse is a pig, so Symphony has a very large footprint - and this extra application tier just means that there's more that can go wrong. Secondly, Symphony is only based on the 1.1.x engine of OpenOffice - so it's not as stable and not as functional as OO 2.4.
All things considered, it's not so much a symphony as a dirge.
Read the linuxjournal article
and then here's a slightly less scathing review (thanks to muglatte)
Swedish file-sharer gets convicted
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
From Afterdawn...This morning, a 31 year old man from Sweden was found guilty in Sweden's largest ever P2P case but escaped any jail time for his actions.
The man was initially accused of uploading 23,000 music tracks to the popular filesharing application Direct Connect but Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Agency’s (APB) "use of questionable investigative techniques forced the prosecutor to withdraw some of the charges", down to about 4500 tracks. The man was also accused of uploading 30 movies.
Instead of jail time, the man received a suspended sentence and a "heavy fine." The prosecutors were asking for jail time for the man, but the judge had this to say, “this is a task for the government, that by legislative means or in other ways take the necessary actions” to come to a solution to the problem.
More interestingly, the court even implied that the music industry needs to take some responsibility for the current situation they are in, where piracy is rampant, and many have little respect for copyright laws.
The fine however, is decently large and comes out to about 54670 kronor ($10,000 USD) including court fees he must pay back.
Minister of Justice, Beatrice Ask, commented on the trial:
“A consequence of the court having increased the sanctions in this case is that it will be easier to make ISPs give out information on IP addresses [in the future]. This of course affects the possibilities to act against these kinds of crimes.”
Morgan Gerdin, the defense lawyer, still feels her client was innocent. “The District Court hasn’t observed the technical evidence. It is not possible from that evidence to conclude that my client has been filesharing. He should have been found not guilty.”
Magnus Eriksson, spokesperson for Piratbyrån, sees the verdict as insignificant however and tells filesharers to continue their hobby without risking prosecution. “The outcome of the verdict is based on the amount of files shared by this person. With more modern filesharing software [BitTorrent], it isn’t possible to see all the files that one person is sharing.”
Permalink to the original article.
The Rise and Fall and Rise of DRM
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Monday, May 12, 2008
Just when we thought DRM was dead, buried (and that the last of its muffled
screams had subsided), David Hughes, some RIAA technology unit bigwig tells us it isn't.
Why can't they all just FOAD (and take their poxy DRM with them)?
screams had subsided), David Hughes, some RIAA technology unit bigwig tells us it isn't.
Why can't they all just FOAD (and take their poxy DRM with them)?
The problem with USB pen drives
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Tuesday, April 29, 2008
USB pen drives are great - all that storage in your pocket and for a low cost too. I used to have a 128MB drive a couple of years back - I thought it was the dogs - I carried around a whole heap of stuff I never could dream of way back when all I had was floppy disks. Then I got a 256MB drive, then 1GB, then 2GB and recently I picked up an 8GB drive that is less than 5cm long (MyMemory.com) for peanuts. Cheap peanuts at that.
Back when I got the 1GB pen drive, I started running lots of Portable Apps on it: portable versions of Thunderbird; Firefox; Sunbird; Toucan; Abiword; Gaim (now Pidgin); Foxit and many more. Then I started to worry about what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands - all my email, my calendar, IM contacts and personal documents would be there for anyone to see. So I decided that I needed to encrypt as much of this personal / application data as possible
After a fairly thorough search, I found two freeware / open source applications that appeared to fit the bill (there were a load of slower, more cumbersome ones):
- Dekart Private Disk (only Lite is free)
- TrueCrypt
Both applications allow create a virtual drive of a predetermined size from a single file. To activate the private disk, you simply start the program, point it at the encrypted file and open it - the file appears as a virtual drive with a pre-assigned (fixed) drive letter, e.g. O:\.
You can then drag all the files and folders you want to encrypt into this drive and when you click on disconnect in the program the drive disappears and the file is encrypted. The encryption type is 256-bit AES - more than strong enough for most purposes - and the speed with which fairly large amounts of data are encrypted and decrypted is quite amazing. I tested with 512MB and 1GB of data. Once you create the initial file for encryption, you set the size - so this file takes up that space from the start, and you can never fill it up data totaling more than that value - so think very carefully about how much space you need before you start - it can take a while to initially create or finally delete one of these virtual drives.Back when I was testing this out originally (sometime back last August/September), I found Dekart to be better. It could be stored and run from the USB pen drive itself, and ran very smoothly. I found TrueCrypt performed not quite so well.
However, recently, I moved all my portable apps into the virtual drive and found performance to be terrible - Thunderbird was so slow opening up and working with email proved to be unbearable. With a new version of TrueCrypt now available, I find myself curious as to whether or not it has improved and perhaps overtaken Dekart Private Disk.
For now, my email and other data from portable apps remains unencrypted, and I have to remember to disconnect my pen drive every time I leave my desk :(
I hope that TrueCrypt, or a future offering from Dekart will change things.
A Modern Design Classic
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Friday, April 25, 2008
The Office of Government Commerce got more than they bargained for when they commissioned a new logo
Who said my MacBook was tacky?
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Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Gold-plated MacBook Air breaks Steve Jobs' heart
I don't know why anyone would think this was done in anything less than the best possible taste...
I don't know why anyone would think this was done in anything less than the best possible taste...
Record TV using NGrab, an idiot's guide (made by idiots, for idiots)
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Dreambox and Dreambox-like-device users will probably have tried NFS already, but NGrab offers a more robust stream capturing alternative.
I'm assuming for this part that you have added your Dreambox to your home network
Install NGrab on your PC, anywhere you like. You can download NGrab (for Windows) from here
You can run it as a normal program, or start it as a service (I can't be bothered running it as a service). To configure NGrab, start the program (or service), then right click its icon in your system tray
From there, go to:
There are many other options you can play about with, but this is the bare minimum you need to get your first TV stream down on disk.
Finally, browse your EPG on your Dreambox, choose a program you want to record, hit menu, Timer, and add a timed event. Set the event type to NGrab, hit OK and off you go.
Recordings will cost you about 1GB per 40 minutes of recording.
The default format is m2p, but you can change that. I record directly onto an 8GB flash drive, so I can take it with me.
I have yet to detect a single flaw in the recordings I've made, and I don't have the latest hardware by any means.
What you will need:
- A Dreambox (or a poor imitation)
- NGrab
- A PC to install it on
- Some disk space
I'm assuming for this part that you have added your Dreambox to your home network
Browse to the following location on your Dreambox menu:
Setup > Expert Setup > Ngrab Streaming Setup
Setup > Expert Setup > Ngrab Streaming Setup
- for "Srv IP address" enter the IP of the PC where you will be setting up NGrab
- then click on detect MAC address
Install NGrab on your PC, anywhere you like. You can download NGrab (for Windows) from here
You can run it as a normal program, or start it as a service (I can't be bothered running it as a service). To configure NGrab, start the program (or service), then right click its icon in your system tray
From there, go to:
- "Einstellungen", "dBox Einstellungen" and enter the IP address of your Dreambox
- make sure the port matches the port settings in Ngrab Streaming Setup on the Dreambox
- in "Dateisystem Einstellung", browse to the folder where you want to store your recordings
- Click OK when done
There are many other options you can play about with, but this is the bare minimum you need to get your first TV stream down on disk.
Finally, browse your EPG on your Dreambox, choose a program you want to record, hit menu, Timer, and add a timed event. Set the event type to NGrab, hit OK and off you go.
Recordings will cost you about 1GB per 40 minutes of recording.
The default format is m2p, but you can change that. I record directly onto an 8GB flash drive, so I can take it with me.
I have yet to detect a single flaw in the recordings I've made, and I don't have the latest hardware by any means.
Sony backtrack on DRM policy
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Finally, Sony admit that they may have gone too far with the whole DRM thing.
Blu-Ray is comprehensively beaten into second place by HD-DVD.
AV-comparatives blows the lid on the hidden spyware that ships with the PS3.
Sam Palmisano confuses Bill Gates with beef jerky and eats him.
Vista SP1 is actually quite good.
Blu-Ray is comprehensively beaten into second place by HD-DVD.
AV-comparatives blows the lid on the hidden spyware that ships with the PS3.
Sam Palmisano confuses Bill Gates with beef jerky and eats him.
Vista SP1 is actually quite good.
Beyond Civilisation
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Monday, March 31, 2008
It's getting harder and harder to find an online store that will ship to this outpost.
For reasons unknown (to me at least), I'm finding all too often these days that I visit, say, Amazon.co.uk, find something I like at a good price, get to the checkout and only then discover that they cannot ship to my destination (which, incidentally, is Ireland).
Why is this getting to be more of a problem?
Technology (of all types) is far cheaper from the UK, France, Germany and elsewhere in the EU. We might be a small market, but surely it's no skin off their noses to ship to anyone, anywhere - provided we'll pay the delivery charge?
Computer hardware, software, musical equipment, cameras - pretty much everything I make big savings on by shopping online - is getting harder to find and the Irish online sellers just don't provide the same value as their foreign counterparts.
I wonder are there any other such blackspots elsewhere in Western Europe?
For reasons unknown (to me at least), I'm finding all too often these days that I visit, say, Amazon.co.uk, find something I like at a good price, get to the checkout and only then discover that they cannot ship to my destination (which, incidentally, is Ireland).
Why is this getting to be more of a problem?
Technology (of all types) is far cheaper from the UK, France, Germany and elsewhere in the EU. We might be a small market, but surely it's no skin off their noses to ship to anyone, anywhere - provided we'll pay the delivery charge?
Computer hardware, software, musical equipment, cameras - pretty much everything I make big savings on by shopping online - is getting harder to find and the Irish online sellers just don't provide the same value as their foreign counterparts.
I wonder are there any other such blackspots elsewhere in Western Europe?
On the same theme:
Post any bargains you find for computer / electronic hardware, software and gadgets of all kinds - but please check if they can be shipped to Ireland first.
Post any bargains you find for computer / electronic hardware, software and gadgets of all kinds - but please check if they can be shipped to Ireland first.
DVDVideoSoft News
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Monday, March 17, 2008
DVDVideoSoft News |
| DVDVideoSoft released Free Video to Flash Converter v3.2 Posted: 16 Mar 2008 11:51 AM CDT
Now there are more than 40 player skins. We added two new basic skins and each of them have six different colors themes. Also we disclosed the player source codes. So if you are experienced in Macromedia Flash, you can download the sources (size: 1.7 Mb, requirements: Macromedia Flash 8), modify them and use by yourself or share it with others. If you want to, just contact us and we will publish your new skin on our site: support@dvdvideosoft.com. There is a new guide, if you host your site or blog on a Windows server, sometimes after embedding video into your webpage, uploading to a Microsoft Windows 2003 server and then viewing in a browser the player says that the "specified file is missing". Learn how to fix this problem. Keep up watching our site. Next version will include a preset editor, so you will have more control over the output video. You will be able to change such parameters as picture size, frame rate and bitrate. And thank you for the continuous support!!! |
Last week we released the new version. If you have not downloaded it yet, just do it know. Here is the direct link: | You are subscribed to email updates from DVDVideoSoft News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
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DVDVideoSoft News
|
Thursday, March 06, 2008
DVDVideoSoft News |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2008 03:14 PM CST Hi Everybody, we have updated all our products yesterday! |
| Batch mode in Free YouTube Download and Free YouTube Uploader Posted: 05 Mar 2008 03:13 PM CST Finally Free YouTube Download and Free YouTube Uploader have a batch mode. It means that you can save you time by downloading or uploading several video files during one session. |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2008 03:13 PM CST Now all our YouTube Download software, including Free Online Service, downloads video and extracts MP3s from Google Video too. Usually we give our products names which describe their functionality. But now in spite of the fact that our software downloads video and extracts audio from both YouTube and Google Video services, we decided not to rename our tools. So for example Free YouTube to MP3 Converter is still called Free YouTube to MP3 Converter. |
| Free Video Dub supports more files now Posted: 05 Mar 2008 03:13 PM CST Thanks to everyone who sent us “bugy files” Free Video Dub became more stable and supports more video files now. This is the critical update. We worked hard and fixed lots of bugs. We strongly recommend to download and use the latest version version. |
| Posted: 05 Mar 2008 03:12 PM CST Thanks to Wesley Fernando da Silva Sarmento, Mohammed Al-Foulad, Zityi (http://zityi33.fw.hu), HIXXBO, Zafiria Kostopoulou, Javier Alvarez Tello, Udo Staack, Thomas Hermann aka Tjhbk (Http://virtual-Liebe.de), Dr. Peter Posse (http://www.physoft.de), Gabriele Luizi from Brazil, Benny Beat (Catalan) and many other people our tools become better and better! New languages are !!! And almost all our programs are available in German now. It is rather amazing fact, but now we have more visitors from German than from USA. It seems that it is a good time to translate our entire site to German. If German is your native language, you are experienced PC user and interested in a freelance job, please write us to support@dvdvideosoft.com. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from DVDVideoSoft News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
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| If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: DVDVideoSoft News, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
DirectX 10 for XP?
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Monday, March 03, 2008
This is currently in the alpha stages, and will probably make your XP system unstable, but be my guest ;-)
If someone does make this port stable, then there will be no reason on earth left to upgrade to Vista.
If someone does make this port stable, then there will be no reason on earth left to upgrade to Vista.
Microsoft in court again
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Microsoft are in trouble for setting recommendations for minimum hardware requirements for Vista too low. This resulted in legal action and a demand for internal emails on the subject to be published, read them here.
z10 release date drawing closer
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
I.B.M. to Introduce a Notably Improved MainframeBy STEVE LOHR821 words 26 February 2008 The New York Times Late Edition - Final 2 English Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved. The mainframe, the aged yet surprisingly resilient survivor of computing, is getting a face-lift. A model called the I.B.M. z10, which is being introduced Tuesday, is far faster and has three times the data-juggling memory of its three-year-old predecessor, the z9. But the significance of the new machine, analysts say, is that it is a big step in a broad campaign by I.B.M. to make the mainframe computer a high-performance, energy-efficient engine for running all kinds of nonmainframe software. The goal, according to I.B.M. executives and analysts, is to recast the mainframe as a nimble supercomputer in corporate and government data centers, running Web-based programs, Linux, advanced data mining and business intelligence software. To do that, I.B.M. has refined its mainframe hardware and come up with new software tools, as part of a five-year, $1.5-billion overhaul. ''The mainframe's ability to survive is only as good as its ability to innovate and compete for these new computing workloads of the future,'' an analyst at Forrester Research, Brad Day, said. ''And I.B.M. is starting to succeed at that.'' The stakes are high. Though the sales of mainframes account for less than 4 percent of I.B.M.'s revenue, the sales of mainframe software, storage and services are a big, profitable business. The overall business dependent on mainframes represents about 25 percent of company revenue and nearly half of its profit, said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. At Hannaford Brothers in Scarborough, Me., a supermarket chain with stores in five states, the company has consolidated many programs onto its two mainframes. They include its consumer Web site, its Web portal for tracking shipments from suppliers and store and customer data that were once housed on computers in individual stores. ''The mainframe has become very flexible and very scalable for us,'' said Bill Homa, Hannaford's chief information officer. Robert Woeckener, a senior technology manager at Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, Ohio, said his company had consolidated more than 1,300 programs onto 480 virtual computers -- software that emulates a machine -- that run on two mainframes. Nationwide began the program more than two years ago, projecting savings in energy, administration and other costs at $15 million over three years. ''We're probably running ahead of that,'' Mr. Woeckener said. I.B.M. competitors say that some individual success stories among mainframe users do not change the reality that the mainframe is in retreat. In 2004, Microsoft founded the Mainframe Migration Alliance, a group of technology companies that helps corporations move software applications from mainframes to smaller computers powered by low-cost microprocessors and typically running Microsoft's Windows server operating system. Microsoft tracked 85 mainframe migration projects last year, and the company says 55 more are under way. I.B.M., to the contrary, says that the mainframe is in the midst of a revival. It is adding customers in developing nations, the company maintains, as banks, corporations and government agencies expand and need the kind of reliability and security that the mainframe delivers. I.B.M.'s mainframe revenue in India, China, Brazil and Russia grew 18 percent last year. Six hundred software applications, it says, were introduced on the mainframe last year. Rising energy costs and environmental concerns are putting pressure on growing computer data centers, with their voracious appetites for electricity. The z10, I.B.M. says, delivers the computing power of 1,500 industry-standard servers, running on personal computer microprocessors, while consuming 85 percent less energy and covering 85 percent less floor space. So the mainframe, it argues, has become the low-cost data center technology, although the machines cost $1 million and up. ''The market economics are moving in our direction, and we're seeing a return to the mainframe,'' said James Stallings, general manager of I.B.M.'s System Z division. Traditionally, mainframe computers run at utilization rates of 85 percent and more. PC-style servers, by contrast, have had utilization rates of 15 percent or so, because they have been less able to run many computing chores at once, as if mimicking the work of several machines -- a capacity the mainframe has had for decades. But this so-called virtualization technology is increasingly coming to industry-standard servers, led by the software company VMware. Several computer makers, including Dell and Hewlett-Packard, are announcing Tuesday that they will embed VMware's basic software into the hardware of the server computers, with shipments to begin within 60 days. ''We can get up to 80 and 85 percent capacity utilization now,'' Diane Greene, chief executive of VMware, said in an interview from a company gathering for partners, attended by 4,500 people in Cannes, France. Document NYTF000020080226e42q00054 |
Now, we'll see what it really turns out like.
Something free from Microsoft!?
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Friday, February 22, 2008
M$ development tools free to students, if you have a Microsoft Live account:
https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/
--
Jim
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure
https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com/
--
Jim
Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure
Outstanding tools for Mobile Phones (and other devices)
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
I'm particularly impressed with X-plore, a great little file manager for Symbian mobile phones, and Slick, a chat client you can use on the go. Haven't tried the music player or email client yet.
DVDVideoSoft News
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Sunday, February 10, 2008
DVDVideoSoft News |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2008 03:00 AM CST Now you can run several instances of our YouTube download programs and download several videos from YouTube at the same time. Also we started to work at the batch mode, soon you will be able to schedule your YouTube download tasks. Keep up watching our news! The new version of Free Video Dub is more stable now and works correctly with more video files. However there are still lots of things to do. So if you find any problems, please write to support@dvdvideosoft.com. Your help is greatly appreciated. We strongly recommend to download and reinstall Free Video Dub and YouTube download tools: Free YouTube to iPod Converter, Free YouTube to iPhone Converter, Free YouTube to MP3 Converter and Free YouTube Download. |
| Online YouTube download service is online! Posted: 10 Feb 2008 03:00 AM CST Now you can download YouTube videos right from our site: http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/online-YouTube-video-download.php. |
| Posted: 10 Feb 2008 02:59 AM CST Do you need a program to playback DVDs? |
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Flock goes from strength to strength
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Friday, February 08, 2008
Despite being another gecko based browser, there's something different about Flock. Features like mini toolbar, Media Streams, My World, Photo Uploader and Blog Post (which, as you probably guessed, I'm using to post this) feel more substantial than the average "add-on". The general browsing experience is good - as you'd expect from any Mozilla "flava", while the bugs are few and far between.
So it's great then. Wonderful. But is it as good as Firefox or Opera? Well, no. Firefox just rocks, thanks to being the biggest, meanest gecko on the block. If you want to be able to do something, chances are that there's a Firefox only add-on that will do it for you. You can harden Firefox up and tweak it just about as much as you could possibly need and there's the real sense of ownership you get when you take that basic Firefox shell and customize it to the hilt. On the other hand, Opera puts everything you could realistically need right at your fingertips without there being the slightest suggestion of clutter or claustrophobia (which is probably Flock's ultimate failing). Opera fills you with a warm glow and puts a serene smile on your face that makes passers-by think you've gone all weird and enlightened on them. So many Firefox add-ons are just trying to mimic something that The Big O does natively, while the IE7 extension suite IE7Pro tries desperately to turn IE into Opera - and pales in comparison (plus, they can't do anything about IE's continued instability and dismal CSS support).
It's an extremely pretty and useful browser: definitely better than Internet Explorer 7 (but let's face it, IE7 sucks something awful), possibly better than Seamonkey (but we like that one for it's plain, no-nonsense approach) but still not as good as Firefox or Opera. The great thing about browsers is that you can find a use for them all, and Flock has found it's niche in the area of photo account management and social browsing. I use it to keep tabs on my Photobucket and Flickr accounts and upload new photos there. Firefox is my general use browser and Opera is for mail and blogging (it has the best password wand in the business, so it's great for switching accounts).
Perhaps I should be comparing Flock to Maxthon... but I'll get to that browser in another post.
So it's great then. Wonderful. But is it as good as Firefox or Opera? Well, no. Firefox just rocks, thanks to being the biggest, meanest gecko on the block. If you want to be able to do something, chances are that there's a Firefox only add-on that will do it for you. You can harden Firefox up and tweak it just about as much as you could possibly need and there's the real sense of ownership you get when you take that basic Firefox shell and customize it to the hilt. On the other hand, Opera puts everything you could realistically need right at your fingertips without there being the slightest suggestion of clutter or claustrophobia (which is probably Flock's ultimate failing). Opera fills you with a warm glow and puts a serene smile on your face that makes passers-by think you've gone all weird and enlightened on them. So many Firefox add-ons are just trying to mimic something that The Big O does natively, while the IE7 extension suite IE7Pro tries desperately to turn IE into Opera - and pales in comparison (plus, they can't do anything about IE's continued instability and dismal CSS support).
It's an extremely pretty and useful browser: definitely better than Internet Explorer 7 (but let's face it, IE7 sucks something awful), possibly better than Seamonkey (but we like that one for it's plain, no-nonsense approach) but still not as good as Firefox or Opera. The great thing about browsers is that you can find a use for them all, and Flock has found it's niche in the area of photo account management and social browsing. I use it to keep tabs on my Photobucket and Flickr accounts and upload new photos there. Firefox is my general use browser and Opera is for mail and blogging (it has the best password wand in the business, so it's great for switching accounts).
Perhaps I should be comparing Flock to Maxthon... but I'll get to that browser in another post.
Blogged with Flock
Having Hell with your PC? Here's help
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Thursday, February 07, 2008
This is a good site to get help with PC problems
Free popup killer
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Someone asked me today if I knew any programs that did a good job of killing popups.
I made three recommendations:
Edit the hosts file
Win XP: Click Start, Run and type "notepad c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
Win 2k: Click Start, Run and type "notepad c:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
Now edit the file to map the domains of the nasty popups you want to block, like this:
Note the lines are composed of two columns. The left column is the IP address you want to map the hostname to, while the right column is where you enter the hostname/domain name.
The hosts file is basically a text file that maps hostnames to an IP address - it will be the first place your computer will look when a hostname needs to be resolved, so it overrides anything obtained from the DNS server.
So, when a popup from www.partypoker.com is triggered, it maps to 127.0.0.1, which is your computer's loopback or localhost address, but since the page does not in fact reside there, it cannot load, and you will at most see a page not found instead of a nasty, annoying and potentially malicious popup.
The downside with this approach is that it is manual, and you have to get the popup at least once to add it to the list of "blocked" domains. The upside, of course, is that it is free.
* if you insist on persevering with Internet Explorer, then get "IE-Spyad", a registry file that will add a massive blacklist to your restricted sites list in IE.
I made three recommendations:
- Switch to Firefox, or better still, Opera
- Make sure popup blocking is enabled at the browser level
- Install Ad Block Plus (a Firefox add-on)*
Edit the hosts file
Win XP: Click Start, Run and type "notepad c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
Win 2k: Click Start, Run and type "notepad c:\WINNT\system32\drivers\etc\hosts"
Now edit the file to map the domains of the nasty popups you want to block, like this:
Note the lines are composed of two columns. The left column is the IP address you want to map the hostname to, while the right column is where you enter the hostname/domain name.
The hosts file is basically a text file that maps hostnames to an IP address - it will be the first place your computer will look when a hostname needs to be resolved, so it overrides anything obtained from the DNS server.
So, when a popup from www.partypoker.com is triggered, it maps to 127.0.0.1, which is your computer's loopback or localhost address, but since the page does not in fact reside there, it cannot load, and you will at most see a page not found instead of a nasty, annoying and potentially malicious popup.
The downside with this approach is that it is manual, and you have to get the popup at least once to add it to the list of "blocked" domains. The upside, of course, is that it is free.
* if you insist on persevering with Internet Explorer, then get "IE-Spyad", a registry file that will add a massive blacklist to your restricted sites list in IE.
The future of webapps?
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Saturday, February 02, 2008
Mozilla Labs are busy doing something interesting with webapps at the moment:
Web applications can be run like standalone clients through Prism:
Web applications can be run like standalone clients through Prism:
10 principles of effective web design
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Friday, February 01, 2008
How do web users think? Or do they?
Lenovo's Q3 to soar, outperform in 2008
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Lenovo are predicting a big year ahead.
Funny, since the T60 has been the least reliable Thinkpad ever made, with returns for everything from the screen to the keyboard to the tracker to the wireless card (almost as flaky as the T40's) to the mainboard itself.
The T61 has fared better, although it looks cheaply constructed when placed beside an IBM Thinkpad.
Funny, since the T60 has been the least reliable Thinkpad ever made, with returns for everything from the screen to the keyboard to the tracker to the wireless card (almost as flaky as the T40's) to the mainboard itself.
The T61 has fared better, although it looks cheaply constructed when placed beside an IBM Thinkpad.
Major news for the filesharing community
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European Court Decides FileSharers Should Stay Anonymous
European file-sharers were given a huge legal boost today, as the European Court of Justice declared that EU law does not allow Internet Service Providers to be forced to reveal the personal details of people accused of file sharing.
Telefonica, Spain’s largest telecom operator successfully argued that the law only required it to reveal the identities of those accused of a criminal offense and that sharing of music was a civil issue.
The European Court of Justice agreed with Telefonica in its dispute with the Spanish music rights holders association Promusicae. In order to start civil proceedings, Promusicae had asked for the names of Telefonica subscribers, who allegedly infringed copyrighted material by using KaZaA.
The court said that: “Community law does not require the member states, in order to ensure the effective protection of copyright, to lay down an obligation to disclose personal data in the context of civil proceedings.”
This ruling is a huge victory for EU filesharers, whose privacy is now backed by a ruling from the European Court. For ISPs this should be a huge relief as well, and they can finally put their time and effort in working for their customers, instead of against them.
The tide is changing for European filesharers. Last week we reported that the data protection commissioner in Switzerland criticized the infamous anti-piracy tracking outfit Logistep for helping to breach the privacy of filesharers. A few days before that decision, Greens EFA, a coalition of two political parties that currently have 42 seats in the European parliament, launched a pro-filesharing campaign named “I Wouldn’t Steal”.
Reprinted with(out) the kind permission of torrentfreak.com ;-)
Posted by Jim, via email
Older Software Versions
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Sunday, January 27, 2008
Following on from the Older Freeware Versions post, here is another site for older versions of software - so old they call it "abandonware".
This is one of the sites you can go to when you want software like:
This is one of the sites you can go to when you want software like:
Turbo Vision
Norton Ghost
Lemmings
dBXL
The New Dreambox is on the way
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Coming in March 2008? Maybe not...
Here's the blurb:
The DM 8000 provides pure state of the art technology: two CI slots, two DVB-S2 tuners (MPEG-4) plus two additional slots for twin tuners, which are freely selectable via plug & play depending on the reception path preferred (satellite, cable, terrestrial). In addition, the box provides a reader for CF and SD cards.
The rear panel of the Linux box provides two Scart sockets, an S-Video output as well as an HDMI and a YUV connection (up to 1080i), complemented by two USB interfaces. An additional USB connection is provided on the front panel. Of course, the box also comes equipped with a 100 Mbit full duplex network connection.
Recording and archiving of HD material is no problem at all with the Dream DM 8000. It can be optionally retrofitted with a hard drive (SATA support) as well as with a DVD burner. A Mini PCI slot as well as the large OLED display round off the full range of features.
Now when it is coming? Unveiled in May 2006, Dream-Multimedia have been frustrated by licensing problems pushing the release date further and further out. The latest is that it will be on the market in June for about €800. Until then, you'll just have to pay for SkyHD :(
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