jaclaz

It is extremely difficult to suggest a theme, as anyone will have his/her own preferences, and - generally speaking - themes are "excessive". Check if any among the themes here: http://customize.org/teschio/gallery?page=2 might do. The QNX/XP might be similar to what you asked for: http://customize.org/xpthemes/19645 though cannot say how much functional is it. jaclaz

Replies to what? These patches are known to work perfectly (or at least good enough) on some setups and to not work or work unreliably on some others. You posted that it doesn't work on your machine. There could be tens of reasons why the patches don't work, including among them an improper install/setup, some of these may be solvable, some may well not. Without any detail (EXACT hardware involved, EXACT patch/files used, DETAILED description of the way they were installed/setup, etc., etc.) apart: what did you expect? jaclaz

Maybe, or maybe he thought of a possibly common incident involving high-end Aston Martins : (though most probably somethign similar may happen to Bentley's as well) JFYI, we (dencorso and me) had recently a PM exchange on the opportunity to have a BfB (Bang for the Bucks) unit of measure when comparing performance of things that can be bought. Personally (being besides grumpy also cheap) I rate cars using the PEV (Panda Equivalent Value) which is an abstract and arbitrary unit of measure roughly valued at the moment Eur 13,000 (i.e. the average "list" price of a Panda) but expressed in thousands, 13k. Max Speed (comfortable/sustainable) of the Panda is assumed 130 km/h, so the S ratio is a nice, round 130/(13*1)=10 As an example a Renault Clio Turbodiesel has a PEV of 19k/13k=1.46 so S is 150/(13*1.46)=7.89 An Aston Martin Vanquish Coupè has a Pev of 273k/13k=21 so S is 220/(13*21)=0.81 The PEV is useful because you can say "wait a minute, I can buy more than twenty Pandas with that kind of money". @dencorso Naah, you are missing a point, if you have a Lagonda, you also have a chauffeur, and you can afford another one when his points are lost. jaclaz

Ok, XP sucks (when compared with Windows 2000). As a matter of fact Windows XP is Windows 2000 with a number of mostly unneeded bells and whistles bolted on it. Again the base issue is the "one OS to rule them all". Until XP we had Windows NT and 2000 for "professionals" and Windows 9x/Me for "home users". Both professionals and home users were pretty much happy about their respective OSes as each did what they expected. XP re-unified the two categories, adding multi-user logon (and permissions, and quotas) to the innocent home users, making the setup and mantainance of the system much more complex, while adding (largely unneeded) plug 'n play extensions, multimedia features etc, to the professionals. The peak of abomination in XP came with Service Pack 2. Since the OS was deployed (because of the "home users" target) on scarce quality hardware with unstable drivers that were conflicting with managing large amounts of memory the good MS guys decided to remove PAE support to more than 4 Gb RAM from XP, thus damaging the professionals that actually had more than 4 Gb. On the other hand (thanks to the sheer quantity of "home users") the professionals benefitted from a number of software tools and new hardware (good enough for professional use) that would probably had never been developed if the user base had the same numbers of Windows 2000. And with some care, and once removed the most intruding bells and whistles, XP is as good as Windows 2000, actually it is Windows 2000, only a tad bit more bloated than needed. jaclaz

Not only, When everyone agrees there are risks : http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500421h.html#c03 Now to get back on topic (of the need to disagree), we must agree to disagree. One thing is someone expressing his/her own disappointment (or disgust) at something (or on the contrary show one's enthusiasm or appreciation for something). Another thing is telling other people what they should do. So, I can say that the way Metro Apps work suck (and suck big) and you can say (hypothesis) that they are much better than traditional programs. Both these are opinions, and each of us will bring some arguments, examples, anecdotes, etc. in favour of his thesis, and possibly the discussion will also heat up a little bit, but all the time the reciprocal respect remains unchanged. The moment I start (still hypothesis) saying that people using Metro Apps should be fired, that professionals should not allow the use of Metro Apps, I am clearly stepping over a (maybe subtle and almost invisible, still right there) border line, starting to touch other people freedoms. reputation and what not. Much more if there is not a fully demonstrated, 100% proved, objective, undeniable reason behind such a thesis. Besides, comments like your original one (as dencorso stated off-topic here since the thread is - or was - intended only as a "documentary" of the remaining "public" use of XP) will inevitably provoke a rebuttal, and then a (senseless) war is likely to start, with reciprocal accuses of incompetence, fanboyism, condescence, etc. In other words, I believe that you can well start a new thread titled "Why Windows XP sucks" (or "is totally outdated" or "is insecure", etc.) and there we can well discuss (hopefully in a plain manner) the matter, but not here. As a matter of fact if we can (for once and exceptionally ) agree on something, if you are OK with it I would ask dencorso to move the off topic posts, starting from your original comment to a separate thread. jaclaz

Ok, so I bought one of those el-cheapo (and no-name) USB endoscopes/snake cameras. It comes with a (crappy enough) software for Android with no particularly useful functions. I quickly checked what was around for Windows (Windows XP) and found a number of equally crappy camera viewers and a few with some more functionalities. The thingy is a "normal" USB 2.0 camera, just like every other "webcam", with a limited resolution of 640*480 and 30 Fps, with a view angle of 67-70° and all in all is not as bad as I would have expected for around 10 €, and given its 7 mm diameter it is quite handy. It has already largely repaid itself by allowing me to recover some screws and nuts (don't ask) from inside a washer (meaning a washing machine) and to inspect a drain that I could not clean thoroughfully (also don't ask, but there was a cap from a shampoo that allowed the drain weasel to go through so it seemed clean while it stil prevented almost completely the water to flow away) Among the software I found mention of note is Securcam 2: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Video-Recording/SecureCam.shtml which has some features (#3 is fine, but the #1, #2 and #4 in a separate "settings" window not so much): 1) possibility to flip the image horizontally and vertically 2) possibility to rotate the image (by 90,180,270 degrees) 3) possibility to superimpose date/time 4) the possibility to automatically take snapshots (as .jpg) at a given interval (besides making videos) and a couple ones from here: http://www.oasisscientific.com/downloads.html oasis.exe that has: 5) a digital zoom of 25%, 50%, 75% 6) possibility of setting manually the exposition (that is set automatically by default) and that is the only regulation with this particular camera (here also the setting is on a separate dialog/popup window) smart_camera.exe that looks a tadbit nicer (but is a mass of bloat at 1.9 Mb when compared to the 640 Kb of SecureCam2 and 721 Kb of oasis.exe) has #4 and #6. Now the question is, what other little (possibly portable) program for using the camera exist with all the above features (possibly with a more ergonomic way to change settings while using the camera)? jaclaz

Are you implying that the Vanquish S is a little bit too youthful for me and that I shuld choose a more serious car? jaclaz

Yep , and that is a SINGLE "blank line", instead, only a different way to call the same thing. jaclaz

Making a new post to separate it from the CR+LF "blank line" issue. I can access on XP (SP2, yes I know about SP3): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight_version_history just fine with both Opera (12.17, and yes, I know about 12.18) and with QTweb, without getting the page that sdfox found. So, *whatever* it is, at first sight it seems only some (gratuitious) Firefox sponsoring aimed to IE users. . jaclaz

jaclaz in this particular case has very little to say, if not that "blank lines" do not exist , A single blank line has been "tradition", but two of them never were AFAICT. The good MS guys were not able to put their act together, see: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/310516/how-to-add--modify--or-delete-registry-subkeys-and-values-by-using-a and: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms954395.aspx (but that is probably related to "interstitial" blank lines) This info comes NOT from MS: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/WindowsTips/WindowsNT/RegistryTips/Registry/Understanding.REGfiles.html Which says everything and the contrary of it. Inserting a "blank line" and pressing enter actually means nothing, when you press Enter the last two characters in the file are CR+LF. In DOS/Windows that is ASCII 13 10 or 0xDA 0xD0 where the 13 is a Carriage Return and the 10 is a Line Feed, carrage control simply does not exist. And of course there is no such thing as a "blank line", the cursor in a text editor simply goes to a new line when you press Enter, you need to press Enter two times to get what appears as a blank line. A blank line is then a CR+LF pair, and the CR+LF pair is obtained in text processor by pressing Enter (twice). Maybe better said, a blank line is *nothing* inserted after a CR+LF and before another CR+LF. So the question is: 1) do the last 2 characters need to be CR+LF? OR 2) do the last 4 characters need to be CR+LF CR+LF? Maybe it is here that the issue begins, personally I would never (by habit) leave the cursor at the end of a line in (say) Notepad, I would always go to new line by pressing enter before saving. So I am in the habit of pressing Enter one more time (i.e. creating a single "pseudo-blank line") and save when it comes to .reg files. People in the habit of not issuing the "first" Enter keypress may call that "two blank lines" instead of "press Enter two times" or "make sure that there are two CR+LF pairs at the end of the file" or "make sure that in a hex heditor the last four characters are 0D0A0D0A" (if Unicode,0D000A000D000A00) , Only a speculation, but maybe (as often happens) the info that a "blank line" identifies the beginning of *whatever* is false, and it identifies instead the end of the *whatever*. And now, for no apparent reason: https://superuser.com/questions/931648/regedit-exe-import-fails-to-pick-up-text-field https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/regedit-import-issue-error-contains-carriage/6fda9d97-ae83-4d8f-b683-1f9aba9f5b2d http://reboot.pro/topic/18355-importing-a-string-type-reg-key-which-has-a-new-line/ jaclaz

And now, suddenly we have a name to put the blame on. Jeffrey Snover The guy actually does not repent at all and believes that he did (and is doing and will do) the "right thing", and additionally he is very proud of it. https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/to-be-continuous/ep-37-the-man-behind-windows-powershell/ mind you - as always happens - some of the things he did were good ones, but he claims to have done a cultural revolution with the continuous delivery model (which he probably did) as if a revolution is always a good thing (while sometimes it is, sometimes it is not). It is IMHO instead the typical case of Chesterton's Fence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton's_fence What did strike me of the interview is the language used, the guy should be a senior tehnical executive in his late fifties/early sixties, yet he uses a language that seems to me more suited to a twenty something, maybe he has been contaminated by the younger folks . Or maybe it is just - as often happens - just me being over-sensitive . Some recent anecdata: Yesterday I had to access a Windows 10 machine to check (quickly) a piece of info through an online service (that I won't name, though the stupid bastards should be shamed I have a contract with them and cannot afford to speak freely) that for some stupid (wrong, irrational, and perverse) "security" reasons I need to access from a single "authorized" machine (and only through Chrome or Opera, Firefox doesn't work on the specific service) and for *whatever reasons* the stupid machine running the stupid Windows 10 did not complete a (stupid) update, needed a forced reboot and hanged for 35 (that is thirtyfive minutes, or more than half an hour) to complete the update. With DOS and a 14,400 modem I would have retrieved that piece of info (that again I needed urgently) in at the very most 2 minutes, including the dialing and handshaking, This is progress. jaclaz

Sure, at only 49.99 for a license it is a steal. http://www.gurusquad.com/GSRichCopy360/GSRICHCOPY360 particularly since it was priced US$ 79.99. The company has a very experienced manager: http://www.gurusquad.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=8 https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahamin/ and that in itself is a guarantee of quality, in 2015 he got so outraged by the amount of people that lost data that he commissioned a whitepaper: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/06/prweb12757655.htm to a marketing firm . The White Paper is still available: http://www.gurusquad.com/blog/datalosswhitepaper/ http://www.tryamillion.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/DATA-LOSS-White-Paper-www.GuruSquad.com_.pdf and provides unusual insights in this $1.7 Trillion USD issue, a must read. But maybe if you had actually continued your search, you would have found better or cheaper software (or both) . I had a similar experience, last week I was shopping for a car, I have some troubles with my aging Fiat Panda, I had a look at the new Panda, at the Renault Clio, at the Volkswagen Polo, then I suddenly found an Aston Martin dealer and got really caught by the new Vanquish S ... jaclaz

Via Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20111231034838/http://www.nymtec.com/desktop-lite-thingy https://web.archive.org/web/20111121125157/http://www.nymtec.com/system/files/desktoplitethingy_v1.0.1.zip The same people also made Michelle (just for the record): https://web.archive.org/web/20120701000710/http://www.nymtec.com:80/michelle https://web.archive.org/web/20111121070304/http://www.nymtec.com/system/files/michelle1.1.0.zip jaclaz

Sure , I was just joking, hence the . jaclaz

This sounds a lot like a "let's find a way to shift the blame to *something or someone else* in case of anything going wrong" which is pretty much common in corporations, and particularly in the IT department. @bphlpt My dear colleague [1], thanks for the pre-emptive notice to Dybia on my behalf. We will see how it will be received by the young padawan . jaclaz [1] in The League of Old Men

Cannot say what exactly you are on, but it must be good stuff. jaclaz

Well, no. You don't normally want MagicISO, it is a Commercial tool, with a rather steep price BTW for what you need it for, MagicISO is an ISO editor, you don' t *need* it (and more generally noone should actually want to edit a .iso). Get IMGBURN instead: http://www.imgburn.com/ BUT get it from here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/CD-DVD-Tools/Windows-Portable-Applications-Portable-ImgBurn.shtml It is a "portable version" and it is surely "clean" (there have been reports of some version including some ads/adware). jaclaz

And now, on other news, Windows 10 v.1511 cannot even keep time properly in some cases! From the mouth of the wolf: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3160312/a-computer-that-is-running-windows-10-version-1511-reverts-to-a-previo jaclaz

NTSC? You mean NTFS, right? And of course we are already in the Petabyte range ... But seriously, I believe ReFS to be an excellent filesystem, but until it isn't better documented, suitable checking tools are provided, etc., etc. it is simply not ready for "common" use. jaclaz

And - allow me to add - that I believe that Roffen deserves anyway some "slack", I think that besides your claims to be "The Old Man" and my much smaller claims about being the resident old (and grumpy) bastard, he is the most senior member of the board. jaclaz

To be fair, not really "news", if you check OSR NTDEV's you will find several references, starting from 2008 or earlier: http://www.osronline.com/showthread.cfm?link=136557 And, according to here: https://threatpost.com/microsoft-programming-error-is-behind-dangerous-kernel-bug-researchers-claim/127858/ I think I will sleep fine tonight, notwithstanding this vulnerability. jaclaz

It is not fear that paralyzes, it is doubt/insecurity. Fear causes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight-or-flight_response Those you describe seem "known unknowns" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns which are usually better than "unknown unknowns", and than "unknown knowns". jaclaz

Not only, that is one thing: There is also (for an unpatched 98) a 2 Gb file size issue (JFYI): jaclaz

Well, our friend NoelC has it in production since quite a bit and he seemed like happy about it: But you are right, it is definitely not ready for prime time and the lack of suitable tools make it - to say the least - a risky option when compared to NTFS. jaclaz

Isn't this vaguely offensive to the Pastafarians? Is that Windows 2000, right? Does the feature works (with the GeForce 9800GT) on XP (if you have it in dual boot on that machine)? If you do have an XP, you can also try the Ultramon, just to check if the card works as it is supposed to: http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ Previous versions did work with 2000, I believe latest 2000 compatible is 3.1 : https://web.archive.org/web/20111101081901/http://www.realtimesoft.com:80/ultramon/download.asp There are no end (generally speaking) of issues with Nvidia drivers, and often one version works when the one before doesn't and the one later has not anymore a given feature or it has it moved/changed/renamed/whatever, example: https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/419319/8400-gs-windows-7-64-bit-no-dual-view-33-windows-7-drivers-do-not-allow-second-screen/ jaclaz