HyperHacker

Toggling the page file on and off shouldn't harm anything, but it's best to leave it on. Once you start to run low on memory, XP gets very buggy. I managed to use up all of both my RAM and page file today (found an allocation bug in a program I use), and everything just started acting up. Programs wouldn't open or wouldn't do certain things. Eventually the program which was using up all this memory crashed because it couldn't open a file (because it tried to read the file into memory), Windows un-allocated all the memory it had been using which freed up about 400MB of page file, and everything worked fine again.

Floppies are also great to boot from. Practically every computer ever made can boot from a floppy. But yeah, there's your answer. A: is always floppy drive 1 and B: is always floppy drive 2. I think Windows can remap them though.

Nobody ever tried this? Jeez.

It sounds to me like you're doing something wrong. If you really have restored a complete hard drive image from a copy of Windows that was already activated, it should be restored to the exact state it was in when the image was made, and thus already activated. Are you sure the system you made the image from was activated?

I've just started looking at MySQL, it seems easy enough. I hope to make a simple forum-like system with it. I've laid out the basic plans but there's one part I'm not sure about. Rather than member groups or power levels, each user's info has an INT field whose bits determine what the user can do (post, edit profile, access admin stuff, etc). This works fine as it is but it means I can't rely on the member group/power level to determine who can do what in what forum. The solution I've come up with is to have a blob containing one byte per forum (indexed by forum ID) that tells what the user can do in each forum (view, post, start threads, etc), stored as a blob. This still presents a problem, though - if I add or remove a forum I have to change the length of this blob. This shouldn't be difficult to do, but the only method I can think of (drop and re-create the field with the new size) will result in its content being lost. Is it possible to do this without losing the contents, or is there a better way? [edit] I thought of a better way - I'll just make a table with one column for the user ID and one per forum for the flags. However, I'd still like to know if there's an easy way to resize a blob and not lose its contents.

You might be able to get away with having the page just ask for their name, perhaps with a password like most do. If not, I'd write a small program which opens the page. GetUserName() will tell you the name, and I think you can use ShellExecute() to open the URL. (I did it once, but I don't recall how and don't feel like checking right now. Pretty sure that was it though. It opens in the user's default browser too.) If you need to keep track of the name on multiple pages, store it in a cookie or database with an expiration date and have a 'log out' link to clear it. If no name is logged, tell the user to run the program again, and offer a link to it. There might also be some ActiveX solution, but now you're getting into nasty IE-only stuff.

Because an IE toolbar is one of the easiest ways to get spyware into your system.

Wow. In other news, LGPL violation is confirmed. There are reports that people have managed to download and run code via the installer, but I haven't seen any demonstrations. Apparently even the government is getting hit. To quote a blog entry: As a result, Sony is recalling the copy-protected CDs. Finally. Also, it's reported that naming CD ripping tools $sys$whatever.exe doesn't actually hide them from the DRM.

Both. ActiveX has always been a source of security holes due to unchecked buffers, domain spoofing, things websites are able to do that they shouldn't, etc, but this control is even worse in that it allows websites to call any of these methods. Hence why this could be just a mistake (the programmers forgot or didn't realize that the methods were set to be useable by any site) or poor coding (specifically, no security considerations), but it could also be a deliberate hole (why does a control which simply reports your system and CD info need an ExecuteCode() method, whatever it does?).

Ohhh, BUSTED! Analysis of various parts of Sony's crudware have shown 2 very interesting things that could be pretty bad news for Sony. 1) The ActiveX control you need to 'uninstall' their rootkit is a HUGE security hole. It can't really be determined whether this is bad programming or intentional (I think we can guess which Sony would say ), but the control allows any random website to reboot your computer, and by the looks of it, execute code. Yes, you read that right. The control appears to allow any random web site to execute arbitrary code on your computer. (This isn't verified yet; the control has an ExecuteCode() function which can crash the browser - most likely trying to execute code with the wrong parameters - and an InstallUpdate() function which appears to download and install a DLL. It is verified that a website may reboot your system; a demo is posted on the site.) 2) The software (specifically go.exe) appears to contain chunks of LAME, which, if true, is in direct violation of the LGPL. Comparisons have shown that there are tables but apparently no matching code. This could mean just about anything - unintentional inclusion, compressed or encrypted code, or inclusion of the tables but not the code itself for the purpose of detecting LAME and/or programs using it. If I only had a computer to test it on, I'd install that ActiveX control and see if it can indeed run arbitrary code. If this is the case, or if Sony is indeed found in violation of LGPL... things will get a lot more interesting. This is one reason I avoid WMP. However, I have yet to hear tell of WMP's DRM systems spying on users or screwing up Windows.

First off DO NOT use the provided installation program. I fear for you if you have. I don't know what exactly is in there, but I know that 50MB is quite excessive for camera drivers. If you've already installed it, try to find some uninstall method, then do some spyware scans and poke around a bit to make sure it's all gone. Then if you're using XP you can just plug the camera in without all that fancy crap and it'll work fine. If not, I dunno exactly what you would do, but you might want to try extracting the drivers from the installation software.

Yeah, Starforce has actually been around for a while now and it does indeed blow. Also, I hear a lot of stories of copy protection on game demos and movie trailers. I dunno what genius decided it's necessary to prevent something from being copied when they give it away for free. I suspect it's just to get the DRMware onto your system. Truly this is (and has for a while now) going way too far, when copy protection lingers after uninstallation and screws up your system. I've said it before and I'll say it again - each new copy protection system accomplishes only 3 things: 1) Angers end-users by screwing up their systems or just making things that much more difficult. You buy a DVD player and find you can't hook it up through your VCR like you do everything else. You buy a CD and can't copy it to your MP3 player or hard disk or play it with your favourite media player (no playing it during games that use the CD-ROM or while away from the computer) or even half your CD players. And now they're installing viruses. Where's it going to stop? Is the next system going to use our webcams to look for blank CDs and blow up our hard drives when it finds them? It sounds crazy, but so do a lot of things that are being done to protect "fair" use. 2) Kills compatibility that much more. Some copy-protected CDs and DVDs won't play on older equipment. I've heard of DVD protection systems which will require you to buy a new TV to use the disc! 3) Makes piracy that much nicer. As much respect as any given person has for the law, there is a line, and when that line is crossed they begin to prefer the risk of being caught pirating over buying the product legally. Pirates are still free to do whatever they **** well want with their music/movies/etc and don't have to have their computers messed with to do so (unless they're using IE to download cracks ). There are different kinds of pirates, and these systems do little to affect the worst kinds. They stop Average Joe there from burning a copy of a CD for a friend using Windows Media - that prevents one single lost sale if his friend was planning to buy the CD in the first place. They stop the shady guy on the street who knows little more about computers than how to burn CDs - saving maybe a few dozen sales. They temporarily stop the nerds who rip, download and distribute copies over the Internet, but eventually they find a workaround. They do little if anything to the major pirates in countries with loose copyright laws who make their living from piracy. So what good does this do? They've stopped maybe a few thousand illegal copies, while not having any significant effect on the remaining several hundred thousand, and in the process ticked off a lot of potential customers.

This has been my opinion since I heard of it. Now you know why!

Try a bootable Linux CD of some sort. There should be a tool to make a CDFS file system on whatever disk. Though why would you want to? I doubt Windows can handle it anyway.

Go to Sounds and Audio Devices in Control Panel and make sure everything there looks good. You can check the volume and installed sound drivers. Just note that if you hit Cancel, it restores the volume to whatever it was before.

Popups like ads? Sounds like spyware. I don't see any directory starting with 'schlc' in \System32.

Blue filenames indicate compressed files btw. There's also green (encrypted) but you shouldn't encounter this in system files.

Jeez, what kinda crappy dealership voids your warranty if you open the case? Is Linux giving you any problems at all? If not, it's likely your XP install files are corrupt, which is probably due to a scratched/misburned CD (there are legal reasons to burn an XP CD ), or if it's one of those crappy OEM restore discs, they probably screwed with something. Also, if it is an OEM disc, try uninstalling any software that came with it. Start with antivirus as these dig deep into Windows' core which is often the cause of problems like this. (Stay offline while your AV is inactive, of course. If it is the problem, try AVG - it's free.) Also, do you have multiple hard drives or partitions? It could be trying to access them and failing for some reason. (I find XP sometimes accesses the floppy drive at random when listing large directories.) Come to think of it, this has happened to me too, but not very often and it usually only takes a few seconds to start up again. Not sure what causes it. (System specs would help. ) Worst case scenario, if Linux works, just stick with it.

Just curious if anyone knew how Assembly (ASM) got its name? It's certainly an unusual name. I can't seem to find much on Google, only stuff about label names or other things also called ASM/assembly.

Have you written to the CD since then? If not, try making an image of it. Like with all filesystems, when you tell a computer to delete a file, all it really does is mark the file's header to say 'this file is deleted, ignore it and write over it if you need the space'. This means the file's contents may still be there. I'm not too sure how CDFS works (especially since CDs were never intended to be rewriteable), but it's worth a shot.

That doesn't do much good when posting new threads, though. Besides, this is a PHP-based forum. PHP code is interpreted. So essentially, you have the highest possible level of control.

Yes, I noticed today that someone had removed my signature. Apparently it didn't comply with some size rule that must have been added very recently since it's been that length for quite some time now. What I found particularly annoying was that no attempt was made to contact me regarding this problem. As I recall my signature was maybe 5 or 6 lines of small-font plain text, and useful at that (describing my computer so that I need not repeat its specifications every time someone asks). The last edit to the rules thread was on September 18th, and the last post in that forum was on October 2nd. Assuming the rule was added on the 18th (which it must have been because I certainly don't recall seeing it when I joined), that means the only way someone could have known about this addition is either by actively checking for updates (does anyone do this?) or by just happening to see it as they scroll through the forum listing during that 14-day window. In short, when a rule regarding signature lengths is added (or at least very poorly documented) and given almost no announcement, and signatures which are barely over the limit and contain useful information are removed without warning... that's very annoying. (Fun fact: 90% of forums are very loose on signature size rules to begin with.) [edit] Come to think of it... Either your PM system is broken, or someone's going against their own rules. And as long as these rules are going to be enforced to the letter, wouldn't it make sense to have them listed in the signature editor?

When I press Win+E, it brings up an Explorer window, but it has that 'folders' tree view at the left side. Is there a way to disable that so it just looks like I opened a folder (with the Common Tasks and whatnot)?

So I've noticed that there's a flood control system in place that prevents people from posting more than once every 30 seconds... this is good, but there's a rather significant flaw. You can't even begin typing your post until the time expires! It's not uncommon that I read a thread, reply to it, then go to reply to another thread in another tab or start a thread. Why shouldn't I be able to type the post before the time has expired? In the rare case that I do finish typing in less than 30 seconds, then it makes sense to not let me actually submit the post yet, but to not let me write it at all is rather annoying.

http://news.com.com/Convertibles+The+new+l...tml?tag=nl.caro - why has nobody thought of this before? It's a laptop, but you can rotate the screen 180 degrees and use it as a tablet. This not only gives you the bonus of having both in one, but also, it means your laptop would have a touch screen - no more nipples or pads to move the mouse! (Come to think of it, why don't all laptops have touch screens for mouse movement? )