What makes you happy ?

Remembered I'd got a bookmark to my under-loved wiki so tidied a few things up there and headed over to the main PmWiki site. I've been using a Basecamp thing as a Todo which has done a pretty good job of making me do things – PmWiki now has a Todo recipe. It's also got a Calender recipe. It's still a very very good wiki program too. And I've finally figured out how to not let anyone but me see what's in it. Neat

Killfiles. I use a fair number of mail filters like most people I guess but I kill no mail – stuff like SpamAssassin and other server stuff is something I've never looked at and probably won't as Thunderbird does a good enough job at picking the crap out (plus that server stuff looks complex). But Usenet …… there was a filter I used to use which would tell you the number of headers, download everything THEN run the filter. So if dickweed troll had posted 100 times you'd see that number appear, download then disappear. It became an annoyance because it was a constant reminder that you were killfiling. So the rules I used / linked to below are wonderful – killfiled without a trace. Sure I see responses sometimes but as those responses contain – for the most part – mockery of the OP I'm up for reading them.

I use the excellent YzDock as the launcher on my desktop. There is a shortcut to it in the startup folder. It is set to ‘Always on top’. It appears at boot, then I open Firefox/Thunderbird and it does not stay on top. If I minimise the two apps, then right-click the dock, uncheck the ‘Always on top’ option then recheck it, the dock will stay on top. Any ideas why it won’t stay there as it should?

You might like it, maybe you should even try it. I did and the Windows version is not good for me.

Thing I like:
- One click gives me access to 3 blogs

Things I do not
- it’s ugly
- I do not want to see a list and preview of older posts
- I do not want a new ecto window for a post
- I will decide where my images go, not WP, not ecto. Me.
- it’s cluttered and I am unable to make it like I would like.

So it’s gone. Uninstalled. It may only have been around &pound11 but for something that was irritating me that’s too much. IF I were on the move, IF I used multiple computers, IF I had a Mac and it looked better then maybe I would consider it. So right now I don’t have one that does what I would like which is an annoyance because I really would like one. Damn.

Shifting some music around the other day, a folder got corrupted. The music inside disappeared (one album of game music I can re-rip) and the folder name truncated ending in a . Trying to delete or rename the file got nowhere and I got a “cannot delete file: cannot read from file” system message. Overnight I ran a defrag as that has helped before – no joy. So I tried a number of solutions:

• Using the command prompt to delete the file. Did not work for me.
• As above but using the /x listing to see a different system filename. Did not work.
• Using Unlocker. I’ve had success in different circumstances before but this time, no.
• Next to was the turn of MoveOnBoot which you assign to do things to files before Windows gets fully going. Again I’ve have had success with stubborn files using this before but again this failed in this case.
• I’d about given up when a search turned up Deletefxpfiles. Job done! Highlight file, click delete. It was that easy :) (And it’s free for 5 deletions)

The deleted folder was 0 bytes so I hardly needed the space but it was just annoying. Especially because it wasn’t my fault. So, if you get the “cannot delete file: cannot read from file” with the red cross in a box, one of the above should hit the spot for you.

After a decently long beta period, FD just went 2.0. A completely clean install along with a few imported FD feeds shows 207 feeds and 4212 items unread. Pah… I’ll mark that lot read soon enough. It’s still the best $30 I’ve spent on software though (it comes now from the same stable as NetNewsWire which for the Mac is meant to be pretty damn good) so if you are on Windows and want feeds, get FD. This sounds like an advert … but hey, it’s great software and I spend far too much time on here having a pop at products so it’s nice to be able to wave the flag for one. $30 over a year is about 8c/day which is around 5p. Can’t get much better than that :)

Scuttle is now at 0.7.1 – a fact I discovered after adding a link to my own install and discovering some wonderful new links had been added by some spamming b*stards. Not the fault of Scuttle – far from it – I had foolishly left the register.php file in the directory. phpmyadmin showed I’d gained 4 friends keen to share their own web discoveries with me but alas their logins will no longer be working….. the config file hasn’t changed by more than one line so it’s an easy enough upgrade.

The answer to the above is ERUNT.
I decided to liberally delete registry keys that I – in my infinite wisdom – considered superfluous to the needs of my machine. Initially, I experienced a small performance boost but .. well …. it switched on this morning and then did nothing. Nothing at all. I mean it got to Windows but not a lot further. Which is where ERUNT comes in with it’s rescuer’s cape on. Damn fine utility. And it’s not just for people like me who poke around in places they should not. Use Windows ? Install ERUNT.

Say 5 years ago to get a serial for a program you just had to watch newsgroups like alt.cracks. All the majority of programs / games wanted was a serial / registration code. Easy – download trial, get code, full version now working.
Then – presumably because of piracy – it got trickier. Programs would phone home to sync the registration, you would get crippled programs that were not the full version and you needed to buy that full version. They were easily worked around though and key-gens and replacement exe’s became the order of the day (I researched it.. I read the right places…) but essentially it was a basic process (serials) that had become slightly more complex. I doubt very much it stopped piracy.
And then it became as it is today – combinations of crippleware, time limitation and not just phoning home but sending postcards too. And it’s all still very ‘get roundable’ – you either know someone who has the code or you know where to look. But the malware has crept into the market. A serial is one line – copy / paste. Easy for anyone to understand. Want another program ? If it’s torrent then chances are the file is much much larger than the real program. It’ll be packed with bonus malware that is so very easily run and when it does you just infected your machine with some of the nastiest code going – are viruses even written these days ? So arguably the malware producers are the driving force behind the cracking of products – the more recent the code they crack = more people use = better chance of zombifying more machines. Yes ? Which means that no matter what the program creators do, it will be worked around in some way. It’s an arms race – just like comment spam. And maybe like comment spam the malware coders have deeper pockets and / or a much wider audience so they will win. Because they WILL win. But then how do you combat that ?
This is where you get into an RIAA / BPI argument isn’t it ? Let’s say I have Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Fireworks on this machine and the authorities found out (note: I do not have any of them). They would say I have stolen $1000 from Macromedia (or whoever – Adobe ?) but like with people stealing music, I wouldn’t have because I’d never have bought the product anyway. Now that market is a different one but if you look at the market for $20 – $100 apps couldn’t they benefit from saving costs of protection coding time by using more basic methods (serials) AND reducing their prices ? It’s the “I wouldn’t have bought it unless I’d heard it’s argument about music and it’s one that does exist – so-called ‘music pirates’ buy more music (me buy a rap / hip-hop CD ? No way – but I’ve got one because I listened to it first). And the bonus of reducing their security is that the avenues for malware are reduced too. Which means that the arms race reduces simply because you aren’t giving the bad coders the lead to make the bullets to fire back with.
Which is all wonderful in the world of beautifulness and altruism.

And talking of methods to combat piracy … if you replace your motherboard Microsoft say you have a new computer – and you’ll need to buy another copy of Windows. (src: Newsvine)
Not a chance – prove it :)

Yesterday D finally got fed up with iTunes. So I looked around for an alternative that (1) worked (2) was reasonably priced and (3) didn’t eat RAM. I found XPlay and installing and testing it on this machine showed it was fairly okay. So she installed it on hers after downloading her own 15 day trial. Earlier we had to switch the power off for a few minutes and her machine shut down incorrectly – as they do. On rebooting, the clock has decided it was now 2036 so the 15 day trial was blown away. Removing the code was painful, the program had made at least 40 entries to the registry and somewhere – I have yet to find out just where – was buried the line of something that tells the next XPlay that one was here before. I perfectly understand why they are there but hunt the thing down I will do. Anyway, while scraping the code off D’s HD I noticed how many processes it was using and how much memory – not lots, but enough. So I used the Control panel Add/Remove on this machine to uninstall the program – it does not come with it’s own uninstaller it seems. And then as it’s doing this, it tells me to shut Thunderbird. What’s that all about ? Why is a third party commercial app sharing anything at all with an OSS email program ? One does music, the other does text. Very very odd. So I uninstall and reboot as I am told – and it still does not fully remove itself (why do commercial apps have this tendency to leave their parent folder in /Programs ? So we’ll look in there and fondly recall the frustration ? If we want it gone, we mean it.).
So … XPlay sticks itself in the startup menu (and doesn’t say so), has several processes going at all times (not good) and is poking around in places it shouldn’t. Tut tut tut. Bad code.
It’s at my “Sure I’ll buy it level” of $30. I mentioned previously that at $30 I’ll just pay – a no thought action. But now I’m not so sure. I want to buy well-behaved software. I want software that is open about what it does and how it does. XPlay has fallen into the “possibly bad-code-ware” category. Which means that $30 suddenly seems like I could be paying for hassle. If I want hassle I’ll not pay for it. Take that statement anyway you want it. As it is, I’ll find where the code is that XPlay checks for on my machine and then remove it from D’s. Oh… there’s a thought – she could have a free trial. Again . . . . . just to be sure of course.

This is genuinely hilarious.

A program called Darik’s Boot and Nuke has this 2 line description right at the top of the page:

Darik’s Boot and Nuke (“DBAN”) is a self-contained boot floppy that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.

Scarily, it then has this in it’s FREQUENTLY asked questions:
Q: Why does my computer start into a black screen after using DBAN?
A: You must reinstall an operating system because DBAN removes it.