Channel 9 - Discussions by OnlyJack

Coffeehouse - please fix the c9 editor

OnlyJack — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 06:41:07 GMT

TommyCarlier said:

I like it the way it is. We're not using typewriters anymore, are we?

Enter ≠ Line break. Enter = start new paragraph. How would you start a new paragraph if not via the Enter-key? Starting a new paragraph is not the same as 2 line breaks. Are you one of those guys that don't trust the automatic word wrap, and like to break their lines manually?

PS: Why isn't this in the feedback forum? (+1 blowdart)

Enter ≠ Line break. Enter = start new paragraph. How would you start a new paragraph if not via the Enter-key?

Win Key+Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Tab+Enter while triple-clicking on the end of the paragraph. That's how real writers do it.

Coffeehouse - MSAccess Denied

OnlyJack — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:25:55 GMT

joechung said:

Perhaps the datasheet view was in readonly mode?

It wasn't read-only because I could edit all records, delete was working fine when selecting the record and using the DEL key and also when you open a database in read-only mode you usually get a warning. After a quick chat with office support they confirmed it was a bug (with no patches in sight) and that the easiest workaround was disabling layout view. It's really strange that they still didn't notice and fix this bug earlier, considering that most access demo projects make heavy use of those datasheet views. What a disappointment!

Coffeehouse - MSAccess Denied

OnlyJack — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 01:25:46 GMT

Hi guys! Today while I was tinkering with msaccess 2007 I discovered a very strange behavior: when show a form in datasheet mode and I right-click the record selector (the little gray square to the left of each record) the button to delete the record is disabled however if I select the record and press DEL button I'm able to correctly delete the record. What's going on?

Coffeehouse - Sidewinder X6, is flawed.

OnlyJack — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:12:26 GMT

I bought two laser desktop 6000 sets and you have NO idea, NO IDEA, how flawed the keyboards and mouses were. The keyboard's spacebar was made of such low quality plastic that during use the tiny hooks that kept in place the metal bar that allows pressing the spacebar from the sides (and not just the center where the keyboard contact really is) kept consuming until they couldn't hold the bar anymore. I tried adding meters of tape everywhere, on the bar to make it thicker so that the hooks could still keep it in place and in the keyboard button to keep the bar in the right position but it didn't help for long: in a couple months both keyboards became useless without ever pressing the bar on the sides.

The mouses instead had such a tiny sensor opening (I don't even think it's sealed) that dirt kept getting in, even the smallest dust grains from the mouse pad could wreak havoc making the mouse unresponsive until it was cleaned with blows and pincers, in the end I had to stop using the mousepad and one of my tables was left with a big stain of it because of the mouse's attrition: the tiny pads under the mouse didn't help at all, they were way too thin and couldn't prevent the entire mouse area from rubbing the table. And that's not all, the wireless receivers kept reporting low signal even when I placed the ugly receiver less than a few centimeters away from the keyboard/mouse.

Many people left bad reviews of that desktop set for the same reasons but sadly, when I bought the sets, I looked the wrong reviews because didn't notice there was a newer revision (2.0) with a completely new and different keyboard that didn't have any of those issues. Also in these days I was moving to another house and had no idea of where the receipts ended so I had to keep those two 79$ dollars paperweights.

Logitech keyboards are made of cheap, maybe cheaper plastic but I never saw one breaking up like this, heck, I still have far cheaper keyboards from the early 90s that I used far more than those and they all still work perfectly.

If I have some spare time I'd make some photos, maybe the other desperate guys looking on the internet for a way to fix that keyboard that end up here will get some hints of how to get it working for a few more weeks, just the time needed to find another set and organize a proper funeral. Yep, seeing expensive high-end hardware failing like this is really that sad.

Coffeehouse - The X-Fi-Files

OnlyJack — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:01:51 GMT

This is one of the things that make me so unhappy about still buying expensive dedicated sound hardware. This, and Vista f-ing up with EAX and other sorts of audio acceleration still used by many games

Coffeehouse - Webcams that use windows default drivers

OnlyJack — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:49:32 GMT

Yggdrasil said:
I have a Logitech webcam that works on XP and Vista, and I'm damn sure it'll work on W7 as well. Not because it uses built-in drivers but because Logitech is a serious company that will likely continue supporting its products going forward. I'm not even sure Vista drivers won't work out-of-the-box in W7.

The last webcam I bought is a QuickCam Messenger (3 years ago) and is barely usable on Vista with hacked drivers where none of the webcam settings can be changed because the software doesn't recognize it. The official software has always sucked and installed an unbelievable amount of background crap (updaters, notifiers, buttons support) causing huge boot slowdowns and wasting more than 50mb of ram even when not using the webcam.

Coffeehouse - Webcams that use windows default drivers

OnlyJack — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:10:08 GMT

Are there webcams with 1.3 megapixels or higher resolution with built-in microphone that can work with the windows default drivers? I want to stop having to buy a new webcam whenever a new windows version is released.

Coffeehouse - W7 to play MOV files, all we need now is a PDF reader

OnlyJack — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:53:07 GMT

It's about damn time. Sadly we will still need the stooopid quicktime plugin to view a great part of movie trailers that are hosted on Apple website.

All we need now is a PDF reader to get rid of the still-not-patched-yet bug-ridden Adobe reader.

Coffeehouse - The perfect browser: FF3 with IE7 UI plus other cool features

OnlyJack — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:48:00 GMT

1 Install Firefox
2 Install Adobe Flash Plugin from here
3 Install the Vista-aero theme
4 Install these extensions: Google Toolbar for firefox 5 (here), Glasser, Hide Menubar, Adblock Plus
5 Open Firefox settings, click Tabs and then enable "Always show the tab bar"
6 Open Google Toolbar settings, disable all buttons and tools but Translation and Bookmarks, go to Layout Settings and chose to replace the search bar and hide the toolbar
7 Set this URL as the home page: chrome://google-toolbar/content/new-tab.html
8 Enjoy and post a screenshot here because I don't have time to

Coffeehouse - Gazelle

OnlyJack — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:45:33 GMT

Any browser that unlike IE7 doesn't make flash call its stupid external utility dozens of times when running in a limited user account making the cursor blink like it's having an epileptic seizure and increasing the page load time exponentially would be really appreciated.

Coffeehouse - ubuntu: shot over the bow..

OnlyJack — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:38:17 GMT

(*can it run corel and photoshop and frontpage?)

I would consider NOT running frontpage a feature: 1998 just called and said it wants its ugly frontpage-themed websites with all those giant useless image buttons that change look when you hover them back. Same for the oh-paint-shop-pro-is-too-pretty-so-we-have-to-buy-and-destroy-it Corel products.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 13:21:02 GMT

Bas said:

blowdart said:

*snip*

I've got a sneaking suspicion that this is how the OP got his thumbs.db files too...

I didn't copy any file from XP machines, I was using vista before and there were no thumbs.db files there or I would have noticed. Those files appear on new folders and have recent creation and last access times so they are created on the win7 PC. None of my folders are shared and I never accessed this machine from an XP computer. And all the software I'm using is the same software I was using on Vista and I've never seen creating those files there so I really think it's Win7 creating them.

That's only true if the remote file system is NTFS. For all you know it could be FAT, HFS+, Ext3, ReiserFS, XFS......

Windows can know the filesystem of the samba share, if it's not NTFS it could save the stream data inside one of those pretty hidden files explorer loves so much.

A solution that only works sometimes isn't much of a solution.

Then why is the explorer team using them for the zone identifier? Knowing that explorer is already using them (zone identifier was added on XP SP2) makes this -omg streams shouldn't be used- argument pointless. You don't have support for compression or encryption either on non-NTFS network drives yet that didn't make Microsoft stop using encrypted and compressed files.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:32:58 GMT

magicalclick said:

OnlyJack said:

*snip*

lol nvm, anyway, I can't find anything with Thumb.db in my drive(s).
Oh technically I got five 6 months old Thumb.db files, which is mainly copied from my bros XP computer. I don't have anything created after I upgrade from Vista to Win7 for sure.

Are you using build 7000? Did you change explorer settings to allow viewing hidden and also system files?

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 09:25:21 GMT

PaoloM said:

OnlyJack said:

*snip*

No, only NTFS knows how to deal with ADS.

Then how do you explain this:

with Z: obviously being a mapped network drive.

Yes, ADS are supported by windows' samba and are retained when you copy files over the network: I verified that by copying those network files on a local drive and checking if the streams were still there. Download the LADS tool, or sysinternals STREAMS tool and check it out yourself.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:26:41 GMT

blowdart said:

OnlyJack said:

*snip*

Ah but datastreams don't transport out of NTFS. I'm not sure they even survive over SMB transfer. Datastreams are not suitable for files you want to move between machines

Ah but datastreams don't transport out of NTFS. I'm not sure they even survive over SMB transfer. Datastreams are not suitable for files you want to move between machines

I think they survive SMB transfers, I remember getting the internet file warnings on files I copied over the lan, however if the filesystem where you are copying the files doesn't support additional data streams those streams could be saved in an hidden file just like it's done right now.

I do not want my pictures to be altered just to add a thumbnail.
What would be the fastest in a folder with 200 pictures: reading 1 central thumbnail file or reading 200 files?

Win7 explorer doesn't load all the thumbnails at once, it only loads thumbnails for the files that are fitting in the view. Reading a central thumbnails database that can become hundred megabytes big and that also gets internally fragmented (and not just internally) isn't going to be much faster either. The additional streams don't alter the file data that remains intact and with SSDs being just a couple years away killing seek times there's no reason to not find better uses for additional data streams.

lol.. soo having 1 location storing all thumbnail data is better or secure? (the awesome XnView stores thumbs in 1 location.. but at least with that I have the control over which drive/location that is, the point is Windows defaults to crap settings, and doesn't allow much change)

It's more secure because people would need to have access your user profile to get the thumbs file, and if people can access your profile there are far more important data to care about, like passwords. Anyway, if the thumbnails could be stored inside streams of the files then there wouldn't be need of that slow huge database and nobody could access thumbnails without having the original images.

And I would rather have the convience of copying/moving/erasing folders with the associated thumbs.db file along with anything in the folder over the INCONVENIENCE of having all that thumb data stored in my userprofile along with any other folder that has had thumbnail data generated.

Any thumbs.db file you move has inside all the thumbnails of the pictures that have been in that folder even those been deleted so it's better to have the thumbnails stored in only one place so you have to care only about that place rather than having to delete every thumbs.db file when you publish your files or give them to your friends.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:27:34 GMT

Koogle said:

"Unless you skipped Vista entirely you should already have found this out " .... WOW another retard Explorer change from Vista I didn't know about.. (and another reason not bother upgrading to a crap experience)

Need I not bother explaining why having the thumbs.db cached within the same folder its actually storing the generated thumbs from is also a plus. For a few reasons (like just copying the that folder(s) data along with its already generated thumb data especially good for external media, minimizes the time on regenerating thumbs on the same data!... and is much better than having one FIXED path within your winshit user profile. Unlike noobs, I don't like all my data stored within windows shity User profile directory defaulty nonsense for a number of reasons... it just stupid! More so because of the lack of choice on how/where I want certain application cached files stored pisses me off.

"How about bloody stupid "sqm" files in the drive's root folder?" I guess with all the FAIL design going on at MS and Live and other products it doesn't surprise me they'd freely dump shity customer experience databits on your root directory. Just statistical purposes I guess.. perhaps if they just got a freaking clue instead of feeling the need to gathering stats with which they still won't develop any decent from.... afteral Messenger is still pretty much same crap it was years ago only with different lame UI changes.

Unlike noobs, I don't like all my data stored within windows shity User profile directory defaulty nonsense for a number of reasons... it just stupid!

Yes, having your folders filled with hidden files is exactly a pros thing. Having thumbs files that keep old pictures data stored inside (so anybody can see all the pictures you put in that folder) and remain even after all the pictures have been deleted is really, really pro.

Seriously, have you considered trying to delete them and see if they show up again? Maybe you dual boot Win7 and XP? Maybe it's a stupid application that creates them? Maybe it's a bug in Win7 BETA? Any of these would have been far less usefull than a rant.

Yes, they keep showing up and I don't have any XP machine accessing my Windows 7 folder.

Those data streams are not visibile to many if not most existing file utilities and if you ever need/want to delete them you'll have a problem. A central cache is far better because you can keep its size in check (you really don't want to cache stuff without putting a cap on the cache size) and it can be cleaned up easily.

Data streams can be useful if you move your files often because they would retain the thumbnails (thumbnail generation can be really slow with some RAW formats) and mantain folder settings between computers or when you zip/unzip stuff (winzip could save data streams, if only folder properties would be stored there rather than in the registry). A central cache instead would be less performant (the bigger the thumbnail database becomes (old data is never cleaned by windows until you use the cleanup utility) the slower it gets) but would protect your privacy when you give your files to other people because all the thumbnails would be stored only in your user account.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:14:19 GMT

ZippyV said:

OnlyJack said:

*snip*

NTFS alternate data streams are for compatibility with Mac files. Why would you want to use it for thumbnails?

Because Microsoft is already using them? When you download a file from teh internets and when you open it in explorer you get a warning dialog: how do you think explorer knows that file has been downloaded? Because all the files downloaded from IE have an hidden stream called ZoneIdentifier used to tell explorer where the file come from. You can also save "Custom" properties on some type of files, even on those useless thumbs.db files!

Oh, the irony!!

Coffeehouse - I am rich! I can show you on my iPhone

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:55:24 GMT

How long until a cheaper "I am poor!" application is released? I can't wait to show it to everybody.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:52:23 GMT

Yggdrasil said:
Nightmare? Evil?
It's just a hidden system file!

Jeez, you'd think thumbs.db came and killed your dog or something.

It's 2009, NTFS has been supporting additional data streams for a dozen years yet we still have those useless DESKTOP.INI, THUMBS.DB and EHTUMBS.DB (if you use Media Center) files everywhere. You know where the information about folders (view, columns) are saved? IN THE REGISTRY! It's f-ing unbelievable.

Things improved slightly on Vista where all the thumbnails were stored in just one central place so that you didn't have to see all those useless files around but since it was working so well they probably decided to scrap it to follow their "IT MUST BE UNNECESSARILY COMPLICATED" explorer policy.

Can somebody mail the lazy explorer team and let them know the wonders ntfs data streams can do and ask them to actually start improving explorer rather than just moving buttons around it in each new windows version? Geez... explorer looks like a Norton product, same crap just a different UI in each version. I bet the next version will come with a giant blinking yellow taskbar toolbar that warns you about folder view changes. I know there isn't much to expect from a team that took 3 years and 2 service packs to make the status bar setting stick on XP and that can't still get Vista explorer to save its view settings 2 years after its release (SP2 RC still doesn't make view setting stick) but please, even Konqueror of the still messy KDE4 does a better job.

What don't you just turn it off then?

Because every time I would open a folder with pictures, especially RAW pictures, it would take minutes to load the previews. You don't want that to happen, do you?

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 11:46:44 GMT

Bas said:
I guess those files never really bothered me. I also wonder what the point of that picture was.

I also wonder what the point of that picture was.

It adds the right amount of drama.

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:39:21 GMT

blowdart said:
What do you mean back? They never went away.

Unless you skipped Vista entirely you should already have found this out

Coffeehouse - The nightmare is back: Win7 revives the evil Thumbs.db files

OnlyJack — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:27:04 GMT

- Oh god...... they're everywhere!!!!!!! -
That's what you're going to scream as soon as you enable "show hidden files" on Windows 7. The stoopid Thumbs.db are back and are going to infest all your hard drives, thumbs drives and network drives until you convert all your pictures to the .IFF amiga bitmap image files hoping Explorer wouldn't be able to read them. Is it a conspiracy to stop the spreading of those nasty Steve B photos showing him in compromising positions? Only God knows.

Coffeehouse - Fail at logic

OnlyJack — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:39:40 GMT

SlackmasterK said:
Hmm... I E-mailed Larry on this on the day of the posting and he responded; I assumed he would have corrected that...

How ironic, the same dialog he put in his article actually doesn't work properly. If you chose to enable autocomplete go check in the internet explorer advanced settings, the "Enable Autocomplete" checkbox will still be unchecked. It's more ironic than 100 iron chefs ironing iron maiden t-shirts made of iron.

Coffeehouse - Fail at logic

OnlyJack — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:07:15 GMT

Yggdrasil said:
No fail at logic, just fail at syntax. Happens. Meaning is still quite clear.

It would have been a fail at syntax if little change had to occur for that phrase to make sense, instead it's entirely wrong since he also used the "can" verb that allows both conditions to be either true or false. It's a clear fail at logic, an epic fail considering he came out with that simple phrase just to sound smart, that he asked that same "smart" question to other people and that he's a professional programmer. His question still sounds like a good logic bomb to use against evil robots, though.

Coffeehouse - Anyone working on a C9 themepack for Windows 7?

OnlyJack — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:10:29 GMT

jamie said:

intelman said:

*snip*

not so fast - maybe all those New Users are working on some new themes as we speak.

i heard one of them might be brown! cool!

A C9 theme? You mean a theme that randomly asks you for passwords, that throws out ASP errors, that keeps your cookies filled with your history until they become too long and the server starts throwing errors, a theme that makes the buttons stop working until you logout, clear your cookies and log back in, a theme that works poorly with any browser other than IE? Can't wait to put my hands on it, so I can bury it somewhere where nobody else would be harmed!