Software: Requests and Suggestions

[Renegade334]

Thanks for your time. Yeah, there was a time where I liked making long posts but they easily tire me out nowadays. Moreover, grammar and syntax seem to suffer from quality decline as the word count increases, so I tried being more concise. But that's not really important as long as I can convey my message in the most appropriate way possible - and I never stop learning in that matter.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Viruses are very complex these days and typically dig deep into your system so that they can replace deleted parts. It doesn't help that they usually mess with the virus scanner itself. I use virus scanners to scan downloaded files, to block occasional intrusions, and as a last resort canary-in-the-mine - if it's acting weird, the system is probably infected.

Yeah, I heard that, too. However, I haven't had to suffer from an infection for a loooong while already so, right now, I'm as peachy as I can be. But I'm still looking for some protection, as one never knows where a threat can come from. I do the same thing with AVs - generally to scan files I've downloaded, especially from my Azureus platform, as some warez or other files I try once in a while come with a certain...plus, the likes of which should be deleted or sterilized ASAP. Of course the problem is that certain AVs are notorious for providing a LOT of false positives, especially now that we've entered the era of heuristics-based detections. And I've heard that certain files written or compiled in a certain mode can be mistaken as viruses, which can make more than a few eyebrows reach escape velocity.

A virus scanner may save you in moments where common sense leaves you and you open something you shouldn't have, but what about threats that you have no control over? There are plenty of viruses out there that can infect you without your knowledge even if you don't open anything. There are two protections against that: keep your system up-to-date and use a firewall. The uses of a firewall extend beyond that, however. I always use my firewalls in their "advanced" modes - they let me know if a program is connecting on weird ports, or if an unknown program is communicating. While annoying at first, this can help you to determine when you've been infected. More importantly, you can prevent a virus from communicating with the internet, stopping the spread of infection and potentially keeping whatever data it stole from you safe.

Amen to that - I caught on it quite fast as I love tweaking program settings, if not to keep the number of automated tasks, use of resources and pop-up messages down to a safe minimum. My AV and firewall are on highest settings right now, especially the firewall - actually it's one of my early warning sensors, as any unsanctioned outgoing traffic is a possible sign of unwanted activity in the PC. Had that once ago but never ever since. I heard ZoneAlarm is annoying at first with the messages, but I slowly grew fond of BitDefender's own set of user-defined firewall rules, so I won't most likely harp on about it. Rather, I'm more likely to take it all in stride.

However, I can't say the same about my parents. My father can understand that walking in the wrong places is very risky even if you have nec plus ultra protection but my mother's another matter altogether. Your words sink in...but they ooze out just as fast. She just doesn't even know what seems safe and what's not...as a matter of fact, I don't think she really cares about how a software works and what are its limitations. And I don't think I can count the number of forums and news sites she consults on a daily basis with two sets of hands only. Oh, well.

That said, recommended virus scanners tend to be NOD32, AVG, Kapersky, Norton (corporate edition only - not home edition), and Clamwin (free, open-source, but lacks an "auto protect" feature in Linux and Mac OSX versions - not sure about the Windows one).

Linux is not really my staple; I'm trying both Mandriva 2008 and Ubuntu 7.10 on a different computer but so far I'm still sticking to XP. Call it force of habit or conditioning, I don't care. I'd use Linux for its stability but my heart lies with Windows, as I know it better than the other. Maybe it'll change in a few years if the market stops favoring Windows-based products but for now all of my things have Windows as their home.

You want something that will do the job but won't eat up too many system resources. Norton Antivirus home edition and McAfee have a reputation for eating up a lot of resources without being too useful.

Norton and McAfee are out of question; I haven't heard anything good in a while and I'm still itching from the drop of performances Norton Internet Security 2000 (or so) inflicted on my PC. When I switched to another package, my PC sped up quite dramatically and I love its current performances, thank you.

In addition to virus scanners you'll want to have spyware scanners. I'd recommend the free Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. Spyware isn't made with malicious intent, but it can mess up your system just as easily.

As I stated below in my previous post, I already have them. Respectively the 1.5.1.19 (which is actually the 1.5.2 RC1 and slightly faster than the final 1.5.2.20) and the 7.0.2.6 versions, all up to date.

I'd never heard of ZoneAlarm being used for antivirus, only as a firewall. It seems to be one of the more popular firewall. Whenever I hear of a conflict between a program and a firewall, ZoneAlarm seems to be the culprit or require special instructions. For that reason I was always under the impression that it was a bit bloated and intrusive.

The ZA package my buddy had was the Security Suite, which included both an antispyware and an antivirus (apparently a copy and paste from Kaspersky's own engine). He said both add-ons weren't exactly useful but he fell in love with the firewall and since he's a part-time gamer, it won him over quite easily with the in-built 'gamer mode' support. On the sidelines, as I already insisted on above, I believe that warding off threats can be just as preventive and effective as efficiently removing something that actually managed to get on your hard drive, be there actual damage or not. At least you're not feeling sorry for having been fooled by the little pest.

As for being bloated? I heard that for a lot of security software nowadays, ZoneAlarm included. Kaspersky was the other one I can still recall but I think most of the complaints had more to do with resource consumptions than anything else.

I tried Comodo a year ago and I liked it. I stuck with Kerio because Comodo wouldn't allow me to create custom firewall rules with the same flexibility that Kerio would. Perhaps the newer versions have improved upon that. Either way, for the average user I would recommend this.

Okay, I'll give it a try when my BD license runs out. I still a year of free updates to enjoy and my current firewall is still gaining much approval from me, so I'll wait a bit before making the final step.

Media players are a personal choice and you should go with whatever works best for you. I use BSPlayer with FFDShow on Windows. BSPlayer is frequently cited as being one of the worst players on these forums. It works just fine for me, so I continue to use it. If you like CCCP/MPC and you're not running into issues, keep using it.

I stuck with CCCP because I didn't like the VLC interface and I finally got CCCP to work correctly after some experimenting (although I still can't remember how I did to get the audio stream switcher to automatically select the English streams rather than the Japanese; I managed once but seem to have forgotten what to insert in the Haali filter settings window). I've been told that Kantaris has a better one, but I never got to install it recently. Too busy and the like.

I use Opera, but again this is a person choice - use what you like the best. I would recommend against Internet Explorer simply because it carries an increased security risk over the other browsers. No browser is 100% secure, but IE is certainly less secure than the others. If you decide to use IE, take extra precautions (disable ActiveX and so on).

Already done. Security settings are set on 'high' on my PC both for the Internet Security suite and the browser settings themselves for obvious reasons. But then again, I imagine that wandering off in the wrong places is also the premier reason why one gets infected, so as long as I mind my step, I guess one additional safety measure can make up for a letdown or flaw in another place. Well, I think.

Oh, and, newsflash for those who didn't receive it yet - Microsoft just made the Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta 1 available for public download (in other words, it's not the final product). Experienced users and developers, try it. Noobs and average joes like me, beware. Keep away and await the final release.

[Tiberium Wolf]

Just to add. I have Zone alarm security suite and I only have 2 complains. It doesn't quite like IRC and the by default(when installed) the IRC is blocked. It takes like 20s just to start mIRC. I mean I double click and need to wait 20s or more just for the mIRC window to show up. The other issue is the time that system gets freezed when you start the internet connection after a reboot. The system is freezed for more than 30s. Dunno what vsmon(ZA process) is doing.

BTW, ZA conflict with another program and it seems to be with avast. I once managed to install ZA and avast and it had no problems. All other tries later the system would freeze before even loading everything.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Renegade334

Linux is not really my staple; I'm trying both Mandriva 2008 and Ubuntu 7.10 on a different computer but so far I'm still sticking to XP. Call it force of habit or conditioning, I don't care. I'd use Linux for its stability but my heart lies with Windows, as I know it better than the other. Maybe it'll change in a few years if the market stops favoring Windows-based products but for now all of my things have Windows as their home.

With regard to ClamAV, I've only used it on Mac OS X and Linux (hence my mention of the two - sorry if it sounded like a suggestion to change operating systems). Since you brought up operating systems, have you ever tried virtualizing? When I received a Macbook Pro as part of a company deal I'd originally planned to wipe it and just put Windows on it. I'd previously just used OS X at work, and figured I'd give it a chance. The system came with Parallels (virtualization software for the Mac) as part of the deal, so I put Windows on there and ran Windows XP from there. I was using Windows on top of Mac OS X for a solid two or so weeks before I found replacement software, equivalents, or new/better software on the Mac side. I rarely venture into my virtual Windows XP anymore, only for Windows-specific software or to get the latest updates.

I like the virtual machine method because it lets you use your computer while getting adjusted to the new operating system. A computer is a tool - if you can't get your needs done with it, it's wasted and improperly utilized. You'll still take a hit to your productivity, but you won't be down and out. I have two Linux distributions in virtual machines for learning purposes, but I think that the only way I'll be able to really learn it will be to have Linux be the primary OS and have Windows in a virtual machine as a safety net (unfortunately I can't virtualize Mac OS X due to licensing). VM software is free - there's VirtualBox and VMWare Server (requires one contact info for as many serial numbers as you want, but it's totally free and they're a trustworthy company). The only setback is that you'll need a fairly modern system to virtualize nicely. A dual-core system with at least 1 GB of RAM (if virtualizing Linux or Windows XP and not doing anything terribly intensive in either) is probably a good minimum requirement to have a smooth experience. 2+ GB of RAM and you'll be set to do even media tasks in the virtual machine.

Just something to consider. VMs are also nice for security - I was being reckless with my Windows virtual machine and got it infected with a virus or two (or three ). Norton cleaned them, but I'm paranoid about security - how do I know it's all gone? So I just reverted to a "snapshot" - restores the entire OS and virtual drive to the point that the snapshot was taken. It's not a freedom you have on a non-virtualized operating system, that's for sure.

Oh, and, newsflash for those who didn't receive it yet - Microsoft just made the Internet Explorer 8.0 Beta 1 available for public download (in other words, it's not the final product). Experienced users and developers, try it. Noobs and average joes like me, beware. Keep away and await the final release.

I'd still keep away from Internet Explorer. This isn't about hating on Microsoft - they've integrated Internet Explorer into the operating system since version 5. That act alone made IE a greater security threat than it would have been otherwise, because something that exploits IE can have a greater impact on the system than would exploiting software that just runs on top. It doesn't help that Windows and IE are arguably the #1 targets for the malware world. Windows Vista has made some advancements towards making IE more secure, but I still prefer alternatives. If you continue to choose to use IE, be alert and take every precaution you can. For the sake of my email inbox, your own financial data, and the rest of the internet.

[hobbes_fan]

Some artsy fartsy stuff for you guys

D color xp
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Desktop...Color-XP.shtml

What this program does is change the text color of the icons - This software is primarily for XP but I am using it for Vista Home Premium 32bit so it should work on all versions of 32 bit XP and Vista versions. I am unfortunately unable to get it going on 64bit. I don't normally add links but this app is a bit hard to find. I've run this through AVAST and AVG with definitions up to date as of 07/03/2008 and it came up clean so it should be ok

For example - see icon text in thumbnail
http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost...postcount=6113

I am unaware of any other method to change the colour of the icon text without adding skins etc etc or paying for it. (By default it is white so its tough to read on light coloured backgrounds)

I've never been able to figure why M$ never makes it an option to change the text colour. If there is a way it's pretty hard to find.

[grey_moon]

@Renegade334 & Ledgem - Wow great posts, you both cover a lot of my feelings with your opinions of the security software listed.

Big thumbs up on the virtual suggestion Ledgem. I personally been pushing out more and more virtualising solutions to the average Joe user I help now. For the two reasons you mentioned (reverting damage and migration).

One thing that has been niggling me has been the way a lot of the good applications have been trending towards a suite model. I know people like to be able to solve all their security problems with one magic bullet, but so far I've found them clunky and I still go for best of breeds. <- Nod32, outpost 2008 firewall, avg as and system safety monitor (SSM).

I actually feel safer with SSM then with the other 3, (of course I believe in using multiple layers of programs).

SSM basically keeps track of what programs are allowed to run. If something tries to run and isn't in its allow list it asks you. It tracks file sigs so trojans get nerfed in most cases (unless they are deeper then SSM). A good compliment to security for Windows.

[sa547]

A very terrible error happens whenever I tried to use Limewire 4.16.6 with the most recent version of JRE (1.6.0) installed, so I tried downgrading both items. No good. Then I hunted down for some answers at Limewire support and it turned out that there was a nasty memory allocation conflict between that JRE and Alcohol 120 (version 1.4.7.1005 -- yeah, a really old version).

So my solution was to uninstall Alcohol and downloaded the latest version of Daemon Tools Lite and Imgburn as substitutes until there's enough money to upgrade to Alcohol's latest version (which I hope should work well with JRE).

[SeijiSensei]

I don't often contribute suggestions here since I'm a Linux-only guy, but I thought I'd mention one that's cross-platform, the ImageMagick suite of command-line image editing programs.

I'd used "convert" a few times in the past, but I really discovered how powerful these little tools can be while working with a client on its web site. They had taken portrait photos of their staff which we were going to display on the personnel page. Unfortunately these were really poorly done; the camera was too far away from the subjects so the pictures had lots of body and not enough face. I wrote a quick little script in the bash shell to iterate over the directory of pictures, crop the facial area of each picture, then rescale them to the desired size. It would have taken forever to open fifty pictures in a GUI editor and perform these tasks.

It also helped when I converted all my signature images from png's to jpeg's at the suggestion of relentlessflame to reduce the size of the signature. Quick one-line command and, boom, a dozen new jpegs.

[hobbes_fan]

Oh I learnt something recently. Ordinary Defrag does diddly squat for your boot times. You need to defrag your registry as well. Standard defrag does not touch the registry or doesn't do a thorough job.

To do a thorough job and significantly boost times you need to take a two step process and two programs.

First clean your registry using a program called ccleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/download READ THE INSRUCTIONS. Once you get rid of the junk

You need to run another program Auslogics Registry defrag - http://www.auslogics.com/registry-defrag - READ THE INSTRUCTIONS
It will then reboot and you should shave some time off your boot times.

basic theory why you clean the registry

the quick ewfbewbfeiewfbfewubiefwbufe brown ferbiegraaegrgaegarb fox efwjefbiergerg jumped over wqonfewnofenofewfew the befbiefwefub lazy bhefwefbebfwifbew dog

vs

the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog

Which takes longer to read?

Windows is a dumb program in the sense that once you delete the junk in between the words instead of pushing all the data together it leaves gaps which is still inefficient.


Works for all current XP, Vista. Obviously don;t expect miracles but there is a tangible difference. I regularly did step one but never step 2 until about a month ago. I've dropped about 6 secs from my total boot, but for a system which hasn;t had either done in combination with reducing the number of autostart programs you should see more significant gains.

[Jinto]

Originally Posted by hobbes_fan

...
Windows is a dumb program in the sense that once you delete the junk in between the words instead of pushing all the data together it leaves gaps which is still inefficient.
...

What you call dumb is actually a meassure to avoid total failures on instable systems. When the PC crashes while rewriting the registry the system is usually screwed. Not rewriting parts of the data means that they do not move, and that means that there cannot be write erros, which would screw the registry too.
But of'course a manual cleaning and defragging of the registry sometimes should not be an issue and actually improve system speed without adding too much danger.

[finalfantasyfanatic]

Hi, I was just wondering what most people would recommend for editing their music's tags and organising them. My collection despreately needs it but so far the best program I can find is FixTunes/.

The program itself does an alright job but I want to see if there's any thing better (and no I won't use Itunes). I want something that will do most of the work itself like gathering album names and art and other info with little to no user intervention. I also tried MusicBrainz Picard but the result was less then satisfactory as I had to enter the info myself which is not ideal for a large collection.

So what do you use to tag and organise your music or what can you recommend?

[KholdStare]

Sorry but I don't use anything that automatically does it for me. I am an avid organizer, and my advice to you now is to do it manually, even though it will take a long time. You will achieve what you want if you do it yourself, so to speak. I use wikipedia and allmusic to find out the right information of my songs. The thing I hate about automatic music tagging is that they can be wrong (yes, it's true) and they don't really leave you with less work since you will try to see if the program is good and going through each song anyways.

[Furuno]

Here's a request.

Creating flowchart is a very painful and hard job for me. Is that any good software that can help me for this job. I've tried MS Word 2007, OpenOffice.org Draw 2.3, MS Visio 2003, Adobe Photoshop (ugh) and even Autodesk 3DSMax (flowchart with bump & raytracing? arrggghhhh). From all those, i like the MS Word 2007 graphic feature but it's still time consuming. So, any recommendations? Oh yeah, it'll be great if it's open source/freeware.

Thanks before!

[Epyon9283]

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/ but I'm guessing you're not on OS X.

[Furuno]

Originally Posted by Epyon9283

http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/ but I'm guessing you're not on OS X.

Yeah... I'm on Windows XP and Ubuntu 7.10. But that looks great... too bad...

Anything else?

[Tiberium Wolf]

Does anyone know any program to randomly go switching the wallpaper? I got one called wallpaper changer for winxp... dunno where I got it. There is one thing I dont like about it is that: when I go play a game with a different resolution of the desktop and then I quit. The wallpaper I see there is quite pixelized. It's kinda you used a cheap program to resize the wallpaper. Of course after it changes to another wallpaper it becomes ok. Still this bugs me.

[NoSanninWa]

I use wallpaper cycler and really like it a lot. It does absolutely everything I could want and is really easy to use.

[Tiberium Wolf]

Thx NoSanninWa. Working as I wanted. Although it has lots of options (in which I spent some time checking) that I won't ever use anyway. As long it changes the wallpaper in X mins cycle I am happy.

[Furuno]

Umm... is there any free "fancy" window manager for windows? Something like Beryl for Linux...

Thanks before...

[King Lycan]

I remember reading about a window manager for XP when i was trying to learn how to work AIGLX, XGL...but you had to pay for it google it

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by furuno

Umm... is there any free "fancy" window manager for windows? Something like Beryl for Linux...

Thanks before...

I don't think you can achieve the level of eye candy that Compiz Fusion has to offer in Windows, but you can spice it up a bit. When I switched to Linux and Mac OS X the #1 useful feature (plus eye candy, sort of) was the "exposé" feature - it shrinks all open windows down and tiles them on your screen. If you're a massive multitasker you'll come to use this feature heavily and miss it when it's gone.

The program that I used to achieve this could also emulate the Windows Vista version of this (I forgot the official term but it's something like stacks or slideshow), but I found it to be pretty useless. I didn't use it for long though - my system (a Sempron 3100+ with a GeForce 4 ti4600) wasn't fast enough to pull off the exposé effect nicely and it'd ultimately lag my system. Pretty sure it was free, though. If you google for "expose Windows" you'll find dozens of programs that attempt to provide the feature.