Month: March 2010

Posted on

Revisiting “Life Extender”

In WTV Files: A Better Way?, I mentioned trying out LifeExtender to remove commercials from WTV files converted from WTV format to DVR-MS format. I noted at the time that it seemed to work pretty much all right.

Well, yes and no. It reminds me of the “little girl with a curl, right in the middle of her forehead… ”

There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

When LifeExtender works, it works well. But at other times, it simply… stops working. Or, it doesn’t “find” DVR-MS files to decommercialize… when there definitely are some in the folder to find. At other times–and this is the most irritating issue–it just hogs CPU cycles to the point that using my computer for anything else is an exercise in futility.

I do have a solution (a kludge) for that last issue, though. I start taskmgr.exe using admin privileges and lower LifeExtender’s priority to “Below Normal”. (I have to run taskmgr with admin privileges, because LifeExtender MUST run with admin privileges, and so it refuses to have its priority modified unless I run taskmgr with the same privilege level.) Strangely, it seems to actually work better that way.

BTW, I’ve been able to reduce the size of recorded TV files by almost 1/3 by decommercializing them. Somethiung between 25% and 33% reduction in file size, edging toward the upper number. Not bad.

Posted on

Your “Feddle Gummint” at Work: IRS Raids Car Wash for 4¢

There ya go. Yet another reason for The FairTax from the IRS.

The kicker? Interest and penalties on the 4¢ amounted to $202.31.

BTW, if you’ve gotten all your information on the FairTax–what little there is available in mass media–from the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind, politicians *spit* and Academia Nut Fruitcakes, you owe it to yourself, your children, your grandchildren and our society as a whole to follow the link to FairTax.org and there to practice some genuine autodidacticism (no, despite what the NEA may say, autodidacts are NOT perverts) on the subject.

Posted on

Opposition to Obumascare Still Growing

WaPo reports that “more than three dozen states” have some sort of measures either passed or in the works in opposition to the “feddle gummint” takeover of health care:

States opposing health-care legislation

As President Obama prepares to sign the health-care bill into law, Republican legislators in more than three dozen states are seeking to challenge U.S. government authority. They contend that the bill will infringe on state sovereignty and individual freedoms. Many constitutional scholars are skeptical of the challenges: They say federal law and precedents are clear.

Idaho has said not only “No” but (in effect) “H3ll no!” (I think I’ll let that typo stand :-)) In other cases, states’ attorneys general are mounting legal challenges based on 10th Amendment and Commerce Clause issues.

Let’s see… the House “passed” the bill with about a 50.6% majority. What’s 36 out of 50 (or even 60, if one were to use The Ø!’s campaign math)? Hmmm, that’s 72%–why! that’s almost enough right there to ratify an Amendment to the Constitution! (Using The Ø!’s math, 36/60 it’d still be 60%–considerably more than the House’s lame 50.6%.)

It’s about time for the Third American Revolution to reclaim some of the rights and liberties of the First American Revolution that were lost in the Second American Revolution (also known as The Great Unitarian-Baptist Shootout, Mr. Lincoln’s War, The War of Northern Aggression, and to those who have little interest in historical accuracy or honesty, the American Civil War).

Posted on

About That “Democracy” Thing

50.6% gave House leaders a “mandate” to pull the trigger on the gun held to the head of the Republic. It remains to be seen if the Republic can dodge the bullet fired at so close a range…

As an article at American Thinker reminds us,

“Democracies, says Aristotle, tend to be pulled in one direction: toward a vilification of everything involving merit, hierarchy, inequality, proportion, and worth.”

Aristotle was, of course, simply echoing (hey! if Loony Left Moonbats, Mass MEdia Podpeople, Academia Nut Fruitcakes and at least 50.6% of the House can defy logic, who am I to avoid that train?) my observation that,

“In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history are in the majority and dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance.”-third world county’s corollary to Santayana’s Axiom

But do go and read Aristotle’s Warning.

Found via a comment at Chaos Manor

Posted on

Quick Win7 Tip

For most Windows users, the “Homegroup” networking-on-training-wheels approach works well on home networks. But what to do with Windows XP users on the same network when you want to share resources on Win7 computers?

This lil tutorial covers that base, and touches on Vista users as well. Bob’s your uncle. It does require doing a few simple, ordinary Windows networking and user management things that any normal user ought to be able to do, but if you refer someone you know to the site and they have difficulty, you may either have to walk them through in “babier” steps or tell them to have their 10-year-old do it for ’em. *heh*

Posted on

Facebook Users Beware

Although certainly no regular reader of this site would self-infect as a result of this piece of “social engineering” y’all may want to pass this on to others.

Facebook password reset themed malware campaign in the wild

Now, regular readers here aren’t among the set of folks who click on attachments in emails that

  • a. they were not already expecting AND
  • b. hadn’t been AT LEAST manually scanned by a freshly-updated, strong anti-malware software… or two. AND
  • c. actually checked the sender’s address out using “view full headers” (or whatever your email client offers) and found it to be from a legitimate, known and trusted sender–for real.

If an attachment satisfies all those requirements, it may be safe to open. May. Frankly, more and more, I “send” files by giving folks an ftp address for download or posting them with Skydrive or some other such site or just posting them here for download. That way, at least folks have a pretty good idea who the file is actually coming from and can base further action on what level of trust they may place in me. Email? With forged headers and other social engineering/obfuscation techniques, naive users often have no idea where a given email came from, and so they often infect themselves.

I don’t excuse them because of their naivete. Naive users have a responsibility to learn safe computing practices. If they infect themselves and go on to spread the infection, well, any stupidity that is advanced enough is virtually indistinguishable from malice.

BTW, I’ve received two emails such as those referred to in the article. The delete key works a charm with them, if my filters haven’t already caught and scrubbed them.

Posted on

Minor Compy Fun: Fun with Peripherals

So, got the computer I screwed up all back to “useful” then installed Acronis TrueImage (the free–and “slightly less good”–version from Western Digital, since the drive’s a WD drive) and made an image of the drive. Now, if I screw it up again, I can just reinstall the image and Bob’s youruncle.

Anyway, I was in the process of picking up some more DVDRs and CDRs at our local “fell-off-the-truck-pricing” store and saw a neat lil Microsoft Wireless mouse for $20. No packaging, just the mouse, USB connection and battery. Bought it. Brought it home and tried it out on Hawg (this computer). No joy. The lil USB adapter got so hot I had to use a chip puller to remove it. Took it back and traded for a Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3000 keyboard/mouse combo. Slick stuff. Works fine. 5 button Bluetrack mouse and multi-media keyboard. (Of course the first thing I did, before installing the combo, was to stick some high density foam rubber under the capslock key to prevent accidental triggering. Much more useful, IMO, than any of the software solutions I’ve seen or tried.)

Oh, how much did I pay, total (after returning the mouse) for the kbd/mouse combo?

$30.

Same thing is available at Wally World for $60. At Amazon, $50 (and free shipping, no tax). I can live with $30.

First impressions? Nice “click-y” sound and feel from the soft touch keyboard. Really nice. The mouse? I’ve yet to use the “flip” side buttons, but it fills the hand nicely, tracks like a dream and the scrollwheel is smooth. So smooth, in fact, that it’s going to take some getting used to. All-in-all, though, compared to some Memorex, Logitech and “Gateway-branded” sets I’ve used over the past 10 years or so, I like–a lot.

Pics? You want pics? Here’s one:

Another Update:

and

UPDATE: BTW, the 4th and 5th buttons? right now, I just have them assigned to go back (left) and forward (right) in my browser. It’s not such a much, though, because it’s such a minor enhancement as against the mouse gestures I normally use to do those things. Still, until I’m more comfortable with the rest of it, that’s as far as I wanted to take it. I didn’t like the default “flip” function on clicking the mouse wheel (instead of scrolling), so I reset that to act like the default function other mice with clickable scroll wheels have had, just a standard middle click. The scroll wheel is so very smooth and responsive in its default configuration that I am having a bit of difficulty using that function precisely.

Posted on

Partitioning Software

I’ve partitioned hard disks since the Good Old Days of DOS, largely from the command line. “sfdisk” in Linux is similar to fdisk in DOS and works quite well. PartEd is a Gnu app most commonly, nowadays, seen as GPartED that does partitioning pretty much like Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director and other apps used in both Windows and as CD boot disks for installing new hard drives. Indeed, the Acronis product is used by several hard drive manufacturers in a brabded version keyed to their company’s hard drives as the recommended method for installing hard drives.

Of late, although I have a licensed copy of Acronis Disk Director on hand, and an older version of Partition magic, in addition to familiarity with command line partitioning, I’ve sort of standardized on a live CD of GPartEd as my preferred method of managing partitions.

Well, I stupidly decided to test out a different product, Partition Wizard (yeh, kinda cheesy riffing off the Partition Magic name; I should have taken the warning that sent up seriously) on the computer I’m customizing to give to someone who might read this post, so I’ll not name that person, yet. 🙂 Anyway, really stupid. Hosed the Windows XP Pro partition. Unbootable.*

GPartEd to the rescue. Not the easy route though. Since a repair install of WinXP had no effect, I simply repartitioned and formatted the drive all over again with GPartEd and reinstalled a fresh install of WinXP Pro, then reinstalled the limited set of software I’m customizing the install with. Bob’s your uncle.

A couple of hours’ work, all-in-all, but now everything’s as it ought to be. Windows now sees and can use the space once taken by a hidden partition (a “restore” partition that was almost entirely useless, given the fact that all the computer had originally was WinXP Pro installed–no other software), and things are working well. I’m toying with adding an external drive to the gift that’s the same size as the on board drive, simply for imaging the thing to once it’s complete (I still have to do a “Windows Easy Transfer” of files and settings from the old computer to this one). I’ve not decided yet whether I’ll add that to the mix, though.

At any rate, avoid Partition Wizard. It doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time. The (also) free GPartEd is much better, and costs no more. In fact, it “costs” less, because it has yet to hose a drive in my use of it. 🙂

*see after the jump

Continue reading “Partitioning Software”