HyperHacker

Space Oddesy was actually quite accurate, they just underestimated the time. The book describes a PDA and everything. It's crazy. As for the idea that there are a limited number of combinations of x, even if said number is unimaginably huge... this is true, but the time it would take to go through them all is ridiculous. Consider how long it would take to generate every possible 8x8 2-colour image... I worked this out a while ago: width = 8 height = 8 colours = 2 pixels = witdh * height = 8 * 8 = 64 combos = colours ^ Pixels = 2 ^ 64 = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 = 18 qunitillion, 446 quadrillion, 744 trillion, 73 billion, 709 million, 551 thousand, 616 possible images @ 10 images/sec: 1,844,674,407,370,955,162 sec min = sec / 60 = 1,844,674,407,370,955,162 / 60 = 30,744,573,456,182,586 hrs = min / 60 = 30,744,573,456,182,586 / 60 = 512,409,557,603,043 days = hrs / 24 = 512,409,557,603,043 / 24 = 21,350,398,233,460 years = days / 365 = 21,350,398,233,460 / 365 = 58,494,241,735 = 58 billion, 494 million, 241 thousand, 735 years to generate all possible images at 10 images/sec ------ @ 4,000,000,000 images/sec: 4,611,686,018 sec min = sec / 60 = 76,861,434 min hrs = min / 60 = 76,861,434 / 60 = 1,281,024 days = hrs / 24 = 1,281,024 / 24 = 53,376 years = days / 365 = 53,376 / 365 = 146 = 146 years to generate all possible images at 4 billion images/sec ------ sec = 60 # images/sec = 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 / 60 = 307,445,734,561,825,860 307 quadrillion, 445 trillion, 734 billion, 561 million, 825 thousand, 860 images/sec (307,445,735 ghz) to generate all possible images in 60 sec ------ # bytes/pixel = 1/8 # bytes/image = bytes/pixel * 64 = 1/8 * 64 = 8 total size = bytes/image * 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 = 8 * 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 = 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 bytes kb = 147,573,952,589,676,412,928 / 1024 = 144,115,188,075,855,872 mb = 144,115,188,075,855,872 / 1024 = 140,737,488,355,328 gb = 140,737,488,355,328 / 1024 = 137,438,953,472 tb = 137,438,953,472 / 1024 = 134,217,728 pb = 134,217,728 / 1024 = 131,072 eb = 131,072 / 1024 = 128 128 Ettabytes (147 qunitillion, 573 quadrillion, 952 trillion, 589 billion, 676 million, 412 thousand, 298 bytes) required to store all possible images' raw data (eg no header) So just to generate every possible 8x8x2 image would take 146 years at modern CPU speeds (4Ghz - actually, 4 billion images per second, not 4 billion instructions), and over 56 billion years at a slow enough speed for people to notice any interesting images being generated (~10 images/sec), and it would take 128 EB to store them all, not counting filesystem, headers, etc. Now that's just a simple 8x8 2-colour image... imagine how long it would take for more complex things.

3D coordinates. X is left and right, Y is up and down, and Z is forward and backward.

It's been done, but not well. Plus, AV people still categorize it as a virus itself. A good example was a 'virus' that came out some time after Blaster. It used the same exploit Blaster did, but all it was designed to do was get in, remove Blaster, patch the hole, and leave. Unfortunately, it had just as nasty side effects as the virus itself - it still made the computers reboot every few minutes, and the amount of traffic it generated clogged up a lot of networks and servers. Plus, people don't like programs coming in and changing their computers' settings, even if they're making good changes. As far as why viruses (virii?) are made, there are several reasons: -Bragging rights (hey d00d look what my virus did lol) -Money (some viruses hack your web browser to download ads where the author gets paid per view, steal your credit card/bank account info, etc) -Control (a lot of viruses offer the ability to control the system by remote) -Revenge (a virus may be set out to attack a specific system/network/etc; sometimes these get out of control and attack others, or sometimes it's just a matter of "I hate everyone so I'm going to make a virus to p*** people off") -Exploit testing (hey I wonder if I could make a virus out of this glitch I found...) -Shady business tactics (companies may make viruses to boost sales of their own antivirus products or to sabotage competitors' software) -To get a message out (never seen it done but there are probably viruses that spread propaganda and such) -Just to see if they can do it -Some people are just mean

The way I figure, the 'only using 10%' idea is often misinterpreted. It's not that 90% of our brain is unused grey matter that we could remove from our skulls with no damage whatsoever. More like we only use 10% of its capacity. Like having a computer and never exceeding 10% CPU usage. I've often thought about the idea that our minds can do a lot of amazing things we don't know about, though. Consider this: Everything in the universe always has a speed along the X (left and right), Y (up and down) and Z (forward and backward) axes. People learn to control their speeds along the X and Z axes at a young age, because without it, survival would be pretty difficult. But few know of any way to control their Y speed (and those who do are generally considered phonies, which they often if not always are). It's possible that we can control our Y speed just as we can X and Z, but because it's not required for survival, we never learn how unless we force ourselves to somehow (not to mention there's no force holding you back on the X and Z axes, so it's easier). This could even give some validity to meditiation; perhaps being so relaxed convinces your mind that you are in a completely safe environment and allows it to continue learning how to control your body in new ways you didn't know were possible. Food for thought.

I've finally managed to get my Win98 and WinXP computers networked and able to access eachother's shares. Not easy (you should have seen how I transferred the network card driver onto the Win98 system ) but it looks like it's working. The only thing that bugs me is that when Win98 starts up, it asks for a network password. Is it possible to remove the logon prompt and automatically supply a given name/pass? Since my brother is going to be using it, I want things to be as simple as possible, and having a password prompt (even though the username is already entered and the password is blank) is just one more unnecessary complication. Also, since both computers are connected to a router, which also has the cable modem connected, does this mean people on the Internet could access the shares as well? Because I certainly don't want them doing that. [edit] Ran into a small problem. I hace C:\ shared on Venus, which means that Mercury can access anything on the drive (with a password of course). However, despite share settings it refuses to let me access \Windows. It says the directory name is invalid. If I tell it specifically to share \Windows, the folder shows up in both \\Venus and \\Venus\C, but trying to access it via the root path gives another error saying the network location was not found. I'm assuming this is some sort of built-in protection (maybe related to the fact that in the password prompt, the username can't be changed from Guest); how can I disable it?

If you're getting a CRC error, your CD is probably messed. It could be a CPU/board defect. My old computer's CPU was defective (like physically damaged O_o) and it exhibited similar behaviour; program instructions would occasionally get corrupted, causing them to crash or do things wrong (one program would draw the graphics incorrectly; same output every single time, but it wasn't the right output). I'd test your HD, RAM and CD thouroughly before replacing those though. I think a weak power supply can cause those problems too, but 600W is hardly weak. Unless it's failing...

I think older versions of Windows would actually run the autorun programs on those at the logon screen (rofl), so you could put a program on it that automatically enters the password, and make the password some huge string of gibberish. Otherwise I think you'd need a custom bootloader or at least a program that 'locks' Windows until the key is inserted.

Using any sort of vacuum or blower, other than those designed for computers, is dangerous because they can build up a lot of static. Canned air will do fine, or you could run a nonconductive stick through it (be gentle, don't break anything). I like the foam idea, but you would need some air vents for the CPU, GPU and RAM, possibly other things. It wouldn't be very useful. (Unless the foam itself somehow absorbed heat...) That makes me wonder... is there some sort of liquid that doesn't corrode plastic or metal, doesn't conduct electricity, and has a relatively high (90°C or up) boiling point? You could fill a computer with that to have the ultimate liquid cooling. It'd look cool too. [edit] Some quick Goolging for 'non-conductive liquid' reveals this. Supposedly it's not conductive, corrosive or even toxic (you could drink it if you wanted), and boils at 99°C Can't say if it really works though. (Freezes at only 12°C. )

Is that possible? When I upgraded my motherboard and CPU, XP wouldn't boot anymore; I had to reinstall it.

Nice pointless post. Anyway, I uninstalled MediaPlayerConnectivity because it wasn't working right anyway, and it hasn't crashed since...

How many network connections are listed under Control Panel -> Network Connections? You may have added one that isn't being used, or it may be showing a second network card.

But you could use the At utility to run 'shutdown -l' at the desired time. Gotta be careful with this, though. I think the process can be cancelled; say if you opened a Notepad window, wrote something and didn't save it, if you click Cancel when it asks to save, it won't log you off. (This happens with shutdown, but I didn't try log off.) And of course if you force it, people could lose their work. Also you can specify a timeout and message, but this gives users the opportunity to abort it by running 'shutdown -a'.

Dunno if this would go here or in Programming, but it's kind of interesting, and may help some developers who have a similar problem. I've found that if you pass RegSetValueEx() 0 for the cbData parameter when writing a string (REG_SZ) value (I missed the part where it said it should include the size of a null character ), it fails. Now here's the interesting part... the function returns OK as if it wrote the string, and if you check the key in regedit, that value will indeed be an empty string. However, the next time you write a non-empty string in that key, the registry gets corrupted somehow. As a result, regedit still shows that the first value is empty and the second is whatever you set it to, as it should be... however, when RegEnumValue() is called, it will return the second value's contents for both the first and second value! I'm not sure exactly what causes this (it could be a bug in my code, but I tested it pretty thourougly, and editing the empty string in Regedit, even if you leave it empty, fixes the corruption) but it can be avoided simply by specifying a length of 1 instead of 0. For example, let's say Value A and Value B are both string values in Key X. If I write a zero-length string to Value A, specifying 0 for its length, and a nonzero-length string to Value B, Value A becomes corrupted. Regedit won't show anything odd, but if I run the program again, when it reads the values back by calling RegEnumValue() in a loop, it will be told that Value A and Value B both contain the same string. A contributing factor to this may be that I had Value B's length one byte too short as well, but this doesn't seem to be the case; none of the other strings or dwords got corrupted, and if I wrote a nonzero-length string to Value A or didn't write to it at all, everything seemed to work fine.

I've written a program which uses the SystemParametersInfo function to reserve some space at the top of the screen (maximized windows won't occupy the area, just as if the taskbar were placed there). However, Windows doesn't want to let me move any windows into this space. When moving a window, the mouse cursor won't even enter it. The only workaround I've found is to place the windows there before the space becomes reserved, but this is still a problem since any time the window moves (including those which update their position every now and then, like the Language Bar), it gets kicked out of the reserved area. Is there any sort of tweak or hack I can use to disable this, so that maximized windows won't fill the reserved areas but normal windows can still be placed in them?

There are non-spyware screen savers. Not many, but they exist.

I'd go with 400 at minumum. More power can't hurt. My old computer had 100 watts. Yeah, it wasn't very stable.

Ooh, so you can stop that from popping up when you hit F1? Which service is that?

Well I'm not using any themes and there doesn't seem to be any relation between the crashing and what, if anything, I do involving extensions. There must be like a filename or something in the crash log I could refer to.

If you just want to get a list of computer names, you could use this to copy it from the Network Neighbourhood file listing.

When I view secure pages, Firefox (V1.07) crashes randomly. I'm guessing this is the fault of one of the extensions. Is there an easier way to figure out which is causing it than by disabling them one by one? Here's a list of extensions I have installed: * DictionarySearch * ConQuery * Adblock (of course) * ForecastFox * User Agent Switcher * Context Highlight * GCache * IEView * Nuke Anything * Show Image * Translate * Linky * DragToTab * Plain Text Links * WayBack * StumbleUpon * ReloadEvery * DownTHEMall! * Tab Mix * Redirect Remover * Add'N'Edit Cookies

You could use F1 and override the default action (I did it once but forget how think I used a keyboard hook). That help file is useless anyway.

OK... sites that don't let you download without signing up already suck huge ones, but the signup form doesn't even work.

Yes, I just thought I'd throw mine in since it's similar. (And for the record, I tried 2D ones, same result.) BTW, try getting Motherboard Monitor 5 and putting the dashboard in Always On Top mode (right-click it so some buttons show at the side, click the number until it becomes a 2), and add a CPU Usage display. This should keep it on top even during screen savers (if not, my Advanced Windo Menu should do it; just enable Always On Top) so long as they don't change resolution. Then you can watch the display to see if your CPU usage jumps way up. Alternatively, consider adding sound effects for the Open Program and Close Program events in your sound options; this will tell you when a program starts or closes. This way you can see how long it takes for the screen saver process to actually quit.

VLC is the bomb.

I have a similar problem. Sometimes the screen saver just doesn't start. O_o I usually use 3D Pipes but the same has happened with others, even ones I made.