Events 1

This page and its sub-pages are some kind of a blog, or in other words, it is an ever-growing personal computing-related set of pages with important current news and events, at least important in my opinion. But there are just too many interesting things to post them all here (things such as online features, interesting sites in general, various other stuff) that I passionately discover on day-to-day basis and write about them on forums on the Internet, therefore, rather take a look at forums-posts-3.html, forums-posts-2.html, and forums-posts-1.html (formerly forums-posts-3.html, forum-posts-2.html, and forums-posts-1.html; these links don't work anymore!), which are the files with collection of links to these threads/blogs that I devotedly save each time I post; although I am not bookmarking every "blog-entry" that I've commented on, at least not anymore. Anyway, these pages contain current (at that time and so now past) important events, personal computing related "stories", like for example completely new things that I have discovered from the last website update, information about my current system state, un-installations, re-installations of my operating systems, any errors I am coping with, software updates and configuration instructions and similar. It was started on [ 19.2.2005 ] with the file-caching problem - that lead me to a complete un-install my Windows XP/Pro SP1 - and its basic description and solution. The solution was re-installing Windows, particularly downgrading to the non-SP version (but of course, before that I've tried almost all the possible solutions/work-arounds). And luckily back then the installation with "Unattended" parameters worked; if you're really interested then rather read the first opening entry for details below at the bottom of that page.

Well yet another "must have" programs for those of you that are concerned about online security. It is called DNSKong and it's a so-called personal caching/filtering "psuedo-DNS server". Here is a link to the main author's website: http://www.pyrenean.com, the DNSKong's dedicated page here: http://www.pyrenean.com/?page_value=-1 and "third-party" support website here: http://accs-net.com/hosts/DNSKong.html. Then there are also two other related sites worth mentioning, see these: http://www.accs-net.com/hosts two: http://www.pyrenean.com/inetprivacy.php sites.

Then to see how to configure your system to use 127.0.0.1 as the "First Domain Server" after installing the DNSKong program, see this page here: http://www.pacificnet.net/~bbruce/dnsw2k.htm (while here is also a link to the related article/review that I wrote for Wikipedia regarding DNSKong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNSKong), and I also recommend you to check also somehow related post of mine on "Ars OpenForum" forum entitled Controlling DNS Lookup Sequence confusion (first Domain Server etc.):  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/754001262731 and here's the link to the usual The "neat application I stumbled across on the web" thread:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/1400961263/r/708003752731#708003752731; the link is pointing to my post on the page 43.

When you will browse pages on the DNSKong's website, optionally look for another Pyrenean's programs called eDexter (it offers an "Auto Pac" feature); which is programs written by the same author used to replace those empty boxes that occur when you use the Hosts file to block ads, check this: http://www.pyrenean.com/?page_value=-2 and this: > http://accs-net.com/hosts/eDexter.html link. They are both programs that run as a local-only HTTP servers, and they are both available also in the "no-setup" form.

29.03.2005

Today I added the Fred Langa's Newsletter banner to the pages under main pages section (which are designed in the same manner), i.e. I added it to those pages with the "table" element with "NAVIGATION" and "NOTABLE" bars; see few related links, as first a link to the main page of the Langa Newsletter site: http://www.langa.com/newsletter.htm, and then two banner-related pages: http://langa.com/code.htm and this: http://langa.com/link.txt. So in general Langa Newsletter is a FREE and SPAM-PROOF award-winning e-newsletter, and its main "mission" is offering users to "get LOTS more from their hardware, software, and time online". Honstly, one of the reasons that I put this banner on my website is a wish that also my website will get more traffic. So that's about it; subscribe to the e-newsletter and see for yourself.

25.03.2005

How handy that right after the sad news that Mozilla Foundation has discontinued .zip files as a major releases, I totally by chance found the Off By One web browser when I was reading particularly the Firefox review on CastleCops website - the software-reviews page:  http://castlecops.com/reviews.html. Please just don't hesitate and go to the Off By One program's main site: http://OffByOne.com. Also see the Off By One Web Browser thread, I've opened on "Ars Technica" forums:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/872004842731. Now I see that I will certainly use it as a "supplemental" browser in the future because obviously it is meant for as private surfing as possible by default because of all the missing features (Javascript/ActiveX support) compare to other browsers but especially because of the way of caching, i.e. memory-resident caching, see below. Ehm, beside that it is pretty fast and well that it's a "non-setup" application; yeah, lately I am sort of obsessed with finding "non-setup" equivalents to otherwise "setup-required" variants of various programs that I use.

Taken from the program's website: How are pages, images and cookies cached?

The page cache and image cache are memory-resident and utilize no disk storage, so they disappear without a trace at the end of a browsing session. Persistent HTTP cookies are stored across sessions in the file HPSW.CKI, which may be safely deleted between sessions for maximum privacy.

Surely I can also set Firefox or Internet Explorer to cache the history of visited pages for 0 days and set the max. size for temporary files to 0 kB, but for the usual day-to-day surfing (sites that I know well and visit frequently, or those that I do not yet know, but I assume they are trust-worthy), this would be totally non-practical. Oh yes, I can create a special Firefox's profile configured like this, but I already have one default profile (that I use most of the time), then one profile set only to use it with Proxomitron, and in the end one set as a "backup" profile (containing my old huge bookmarks), so I certainly do not want to create another profile just for that, but also I prefer that OffByOne browser operates like this by default.

23.03.2005

A really sad day for us, who are obsessed with "non-setup" type of applications. Yesterday, when I browsed the Mozilla Foundation FTP-server (after noticing that Thunderbird was updated to version 1.0.2), I searched for the zipped package without luck. Then I thought it is just because the newest release is fresh, and that zip variant will be added later, but I was wrong. And the saddest thing is that not only Thunderbird, but Firefox also. See the reason why Mozilla Foundation devs have decided that they will discontinue issuing zipped packages for major releases on Chase's blog - Wondering why there are no .zip files for the Fx and Tb 1.0.2 releases?: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/chase/archives/2005/03/wondering_why_t.html, I can say that it is without any doubt a rather banal reason. Also see the Will be Thunderbird 1.0.2 available in .zip package ?? thread: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=239047, I opened on MozillaZine forums (you can see that many users are disappointed and complaining), and the From the 1.0.2 release on, Thunderbird will NOT be available in zip package anymore topic:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/742005342731, I've opened on "Ars Technica" forums on the very same day.

22.03.2005

I am very proud and happy to announce, that my website is now an "official" supporter of The Missions Network project. I was contacted by e-mail from one of the The Missions Network website's organisers, because I have a banner on my main pages (the ones with NAVIGATION bar structured with the "table" element), linking to thier website for quite some time. Well, or because I've sent a request to join the Network, I am really not sure. See the main page of The Missions Network's website here: http://network.readyresponse.org, or the same index-page: http://network.readyresponse.org/index.php, but also see the page with all the affiliates listed (my website is listed as "Tadej's Homepage"): http://network.readyresponse.org/index.php?item=affiliates. So yeah, now my website will "officially" help to spread the information about the existance of the mentioned project/site and current site's missions/proposals, which you can by the way see in the "cell" on the right side of so-called preface SECTION (ehm, only on those sites that have ehm, NAVIGATION bar structured with the "table" element). Optionally you can also check their main "sister-site" Readyresponse (https link): https://www.readyresponse.org, same as above the index-page (http link): http://www.readyresponse.org/index.php, with forums and hosting lots of other projects' stuff, including DC projects teams and similar.

19.03.2005

An awesome Winroll program: http://www.palma.com.au/winroll, which simply rolls any window to its header (and supports transparency). I first haven't used it myself because I use Blackbox for Windows as my OS-shell, which offers so-called "workspaces", i.e. virtual desktops (and therefore there was no need to), but thanks to abc123 user on "Ars Technica" forums (he started using it because I've recommended it), see the The "neat application I stumbled across on the web" thread, page 43:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/1400961263/p/43, I re-discovered this little gem few days back. It's a compact "non-setup" only 15 kB in-lenght application and you can't beat the price, i.e. it's FREEWARE and additionally OPEN SOURCE, coded in assembly.

14.03.2005

I've found yet another useful programs called Ntregopt, which is somehow similar "non-setup" programs to Pagedfrg programs from Sysinternals, see: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/Utilities/PageDefrag.mspx, though it optimizes only the registry hives, and doesn't touch pagefile and services' logfiles at all (file with .evt extension), and also you need to run it just before booting so it doesn't run after boot like pagedfrg. See the links to its homepage here: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de and here: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/index.htm, and optionally also see my post in the usual Ars Technica The "neat application I stumbled across on the web" thread on page 43:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/1400961263/r/499003422731#499003422731.

Description from program's homepage:

The programs works by recreating each registry hive "from scratch", thus removing any slack space that may be left from previously modified or deleted keys. Note that the programs does NOT change the contents of the registry in any way, nor does it physically defrag the registry files on the drive (as the PageDefrag programs from SysInternals does). The optimization done by NTREGOPT is simply compacting the registry hives to the minimum size possible.

Then there is also an Erunt programs on the same site. It is used to backup the registry, while I especially like its sub-program Autoback (a commandline program), contained in the same .zip archive as Erunt. It's very handy to set it to backup registry on/after boots, i.e. I've put it to All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ directory, so that it backups registry nomather with which account I logon.

07.03.2005

I've just discovered a new programming language and environment for personal computers. It's called simply ABC, it has a collection of only 5 data types and it was originally intended as a replacement for BASIC. It was designed by first doing a task analysis of the programming task. See the topic I opened on Ars Technica titled ABC programming language in this thread:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/6330927813/m/444008902731/r/101000412731, but also check the ABC's homepages with clicking on this link here: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc, then here: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~steven/abc/implementations.html, here: http://www.answers.com/topic/abc-programming-language, and finally here: http://www.cwi.nl/archive/projects/abc.html.

Some features of the language (from the program's homepage):

a powerful collection of only 5 data types that can easily be combined strong typing, yet without declarations no limitations (such as max int), apart from sheer exhaustion of memory refinements to support top-down programming nesting by indentation programs typically one fourth or one fifth the size of the equivalent Pascal or C.

Some features of the environment (from the programs homepage):

no need for files: procedures and functions and global variables remain after logging out one consistent face is shown to the user at all times, whether executing commands, editing, or entering input to a programs generalized undo mechanism.

I have become quite familiar with it in the last month. The whole .zip package is only 605 kB in lenght, and oh yeah - this one also comes without an installer (compare to Python or Ruby), so you only need to do two very simple things. First you need to edit a few lines in the "abc.bat" file (it's used to launch the ABC's "workspace", i.e. interpreter), and second you need to edit the ABCxp.lnk shortcut's properties to corespond to your particular situation. Hehe yes, that's why I also call my Linux Slackware (Zipslack) distribution a "non-setup" operating system, i.e. because you only need to edit one line in the linux.bat file (the "root=/dev/XXXX" one in particular), to boot to the correct partition where Linux is located.

26.02.2005

I recently discovered this awsome feature from this particular site: http://tinyurl.com called TinyURL. With it, you can shorten any long URL for more than 80% in some cases. I will add an this feature box to all my pages soon. So I am very grateful to Arsian (a member of Ars Technica forums), and his home page with a bunch of programs, related to Distributed Computing projects: http://www.bluetentacle.co.uk, to discover this TinyURL thingy at all.

24.02.2005

Mozilla Foundation today released the Firefox version 1.0.1. In one sentence: A minor update, this version fixes a few security holes and some other bugs. If you're using Firefox 1.0, you want this release., as stated on MozillaZine Talkback's site:http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=6129, but also you can check the "official" topic on Ars Technica Firefox 1.0.1 out, squashes most security bugs:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/174096756/m/664003420731, and my topic Mozilla Firefox 1.0.1 was released:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/99609816/m/806006220731, which I opened earlier when sorting Firefox's "LiveMarks", I checked that link, which I usually don't do.

19.02.2005

First, please check out the System file cache is almost empty all the time: http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=99609816&m=413004259631&r=413004259631 thread on Ars Technica; so as you see, the problem was that my System file cache is almost empty all the time. I've noticed this with Cacheset application from Sysinternals (and confirmed with Iarsn's Abpmon). The file cache's current size was between 400 and 1500 kB most of the time (or 0% and only some times temporarly 1% in Abpmon). After some programs was launched etc. it jumped to near 1500 kB (rarely above), but then I suppose something "flushed" the cached data back to files/disk instantly. And later on, I discovered that sometimes it appeared as it was the opposite/reversed, it was growing till I executed some new programs (or performed some action in already running ones), and then something "emptied" it. Before that, it would grow endlessly, i.e. till the RAM would be full, and therefor it was just too annoying, because it surely causes a general delay in various aspects of overall system performance. For example browsing through directories was much slower/delayed, playing a game was almoust impossible, opening/closing programs and performing any task with them was much slower etc.

As mentioned, this problem was the reason, that I have finally done it yesterday, i.e. I un-installed my Windows XP/Pro SP1 and installed the good old non-SP Windows XP/Pro, and everything is fine now. The delays caused by screwed caching were just too annoying, for example browsing through directories was slower, playing a game was almoust impossible, opening/closing programs and performing any task with them was much slower etc. Of course, before that (re-installing), I checked the file-caching on my Windows 98/SE setup on the same computer, to be sure it is not RAM related. And it was caching just normally. But the most important thing is that I actually installed it with the Unattended parameters, i.e. I changed the default locaton of user-profile, so now it is not Documents and Settings anymore, but only Settings. For the detailed information, see the related topics on Ars Technica Why the hell Unattended parameter wasn't applied on installation ??:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=99609816&m=485007538631&r=485007538631, Changing "Documents and Settings" folder location thread:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=99609816&m=805001836631&r=805001836631, Changing the location of Documents and Settings when installing XP:  http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=12009443&m=897005456631&r=543008456631 and here on Winforums Moving Documents and Settings Folder:  http://www.winforums.com/showthread.php?p=36049. Well, the thing is that the last time I've tried (on previous attempt to install Windows with the Unattended parameters), there were missing lines (particularly the [Data] section), so because of the wrong syntax of Winnt.sif file that I used, it just didn't work. Also as usual, I changed the Program Files variable with TweakUI program, to point to another partition (where non-setups already are), and to Programs directory instead, I even changed the Common Files variable to point to directory now named Common (note the 8 chars long file-names in all cases, i.e. the the so-called 8.3 "file-naming convention"), so I have all my programs on one and strictly Windows files on another partition nicely separated for the first time ever. I would even use another disk for pagefile, but I am a bit afraid, because it is the one that was badly corrupted.