2 questions and 2 gifts

In message , Tim Slattery
writes:
thanatoid wrote:

"Zaphod Beeblebrox"
wrote in :

snip

Slartibartfast

Where do you get your names? This one is worth of being in the
Peake trilogy.

Slartibartfast and Zaphod Beeblebrox are characters in the
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series.

According to one print source I have, Slarti's name started out as
something like Phartifukborlz, and was watered down until DA got to
something he thought was broadcastable.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

What would be unusual would be if there weren't any coincidences at all for
several days in a row. Andy Roberts (UMRAt), 23rd. October 1998.

| Good question: does anyone know of an NTFS to FAT converter?

There was a discussion about that recently. After some
research I downloaded this:

http://www.aomeitech.com/n2f/download.html

I've been meaning to try it out on a test PC, but
haven't got around to it yet.

| news, mostly. I *like* static webpages, without cartoons
| jumping around while I'm trying to read. I don't use webmail
|
| YANA, of course!
|

YANA? I have no idea what that means.

| I currently run Pale Moon and Firefox. I use Pale Moon for
|
| (Not heard of that one.)
|

It's basically Firefox with a few things removed.
So I really have two different Firefox's. I used K-Meleon
for a long time, but it's not getting maintained and it
lacks some important (for me) things, like a decent
source code view and a View - No Style option.

I'm hoping that some kind of idealistic project gets
started to develop another browser. Firefox is becoming
a bloated, commercialized mess. I've given up on updating
at all (currently at something like v. 3.6) with their
increasingly bizarre update schedule. I'm not going to work
fulltime as a Firefox beta tester. It seems that Mozilla has
become the worst of both worlds: The open source values
have been tainted by Google funding, so they can't be
trusted. Yet they've retained the worst of open source
culture -- a tendency to get hooked on tinkering to the
point that the original purpose is forgotten, like a teenage
greasemonkey who never actually drives his car because
it's always up on jacks in the driveway, getting "improved".

| and Flashblock.

That one seems to be very popular, along with NoScript.

| I use disk image backup. My image fits on a
| CD. I use a C drive of about 2.5 GB, generally
| only putting software on C. I then maintain
| images of a new system, fully configured.
|
| How on earth do you manage that? I, too, keep my C partition - about 30G
| (I set it up that way) - for OS and software only, with all my data on D
| (about 113G); after a few years, C is about half full. (D about 70G
| full.)

It *can* grow fairly easily. Actually I should clarify:
I currently have 2.5 GB used, with 3.6 GB total space.
I don't normally disk image a current disk unless it's
just a precaution for something I'm doing. In other
words, my disk images are of new, lean configurations.
They fit on CDs. If I were doing something risky I might
copy C drive to another partition as temporary backup,
but I don't make periodic images of my system. That would
defeat the purpose of disk imaging. With my backup CDs
I can be up and running in about an hour if I lose C drive.

XP takes up about 1 GB or less, so it's not hard to fit an
entire setup on about 1.4 GB or less. Disk imaging compresses
that, so that it fits onto a CD.

I avoid big software. I'm amazed at how bloated things
have become. The firewalls we were talking about are
a good example. Not long ago a typical firewall was about
2 MB. Now it's 40...50...100?
If one installs Java and .Net that's probably more than
700 MB right there. Both are security risks and neither is
necessary for most people. But it's very easy to end up
with that stuff getting installed if one isn't watchful.

In general I figure that if something is really big then it's
also more likely to be poorly written, by someone who
doesn't really know what they're doing...or who's lazy.

An example of the latter is the winsxs folder. Microsoft
"solved" the problems of different, incompatible versions
of libraries in Vista/7 by creating winsxs and then dumping
virtually every known version of every system file into it.
Windows went from 1 GB in XP to 7-9 GB in Vista. Winsxs
starts out at 4 GB and grows to 20GB, 30GB or more.
People are happy that Vista/7 plug'n'play and software
support works well. They don't realize that the solution
was simply to dump an entire DVD's worth of support files
onto C drive, and set it up so that the whole system
collapses if that folder is removed.

Java and .Net are good examples of purely superfluous bloat.
Both are basically wrapper software, designed for quick,
easy production of sandboxed applets to run on corporate
intranets. Neither has any business being on a PC.

The one big exception I make for bloatware is Open
Office. It's grossly oversized, but somtimes I need what
it can do. (I haven't checked it lately. And I haven't looked
at Libre Office yet. I'm using v. 3.2 - the Java-free installer.)

I have a lot of software installed, but most of the software
I use is somewhere in the 2-10MB range. And a lot of it is
fairly old. (I use Paint Shop Pro 5, which is only about 27 MB
for a full graphic editor. I once bought v. 7, but it was
overproduced and harder to use, so I went back to v. 5.)
I think most software has suffered from market trends.
A lot of what people do hasn't really changed since 1995.
Windows hasn't really changed since 1995. But the software
market has become dependent upon repeat sales. So
companies just keep dumping new pizzazz into their products,
or try to convert their customers to SaaS. Yet the older
versions are often fully adequate, or even better. (I don't
mean to be a curmudgeon. I just don't see new products
that offer something new that I need.)

I should also mention that I like to clean up the system
before making a disk image. I never retain any backups
on C drive. I save unpacked service pack 3, for system
file backup, on another partition. I delete or move the
driver cache files, service pack reversal files, etc. Those
things can run several hundred MB.

| It'd be interesting to hear from others about their experiences
| with firewalls. (Other than the Windows firewall, that is.)
|
| However, I suspect you won't get _very_ useful results, at least not in
| a newsgroup - because most people know the one they're using much better
| than any of the others. (This includes me.)

Maybe, but if a lot of people tell what they know
that provides a lot of info. My own experience is
limted to pages like this...

http://www.firewallguide.com/software.htm

.... and my own somewhat limited testing of different
products. I rule out extreme bloat and software that
calls home.

| I am slightly
| concerned, of course, that it is missing exploits written since then,

It's hard to think of something it might miss. There
could have been improvements due to earlier oversights,
but network protocols, ports, etc. haven't changed.
It's not like AV where updated definitions are needed.

Mayayana wrote:
I use disk image backup. My image fits on a
CD. I use a C drive of about 2.5 GB, generally
only putting software on C. I then maintain
images of a new system, fully configured.

How on earth do you manage that? I, too, keep my C partition - about 30G
(I set it up that way) - for OS and software only, with all my data on D
(about 113G); after a few years, C is about half full. (D about 70G
full.)

It *can* grow fairly easily. Actually I should clarify:
I currently have 2.5 GB used, with 3.6 GB total space.
I don't normally disk image a current disk unless it's
just a precaution for something I'm doing. In other
words, my disk images are of new, lean configurations.
They fit on CDs. If I were doing something risky I might
copy C drive to another partition as temporary backup,
but I don't make periodic images of my system. That would
defeat the purpose of disk imaging. With my backup CDs
I can be up and running in about an hour if I lose C drive.

I don't get your point about disk imaging. For me, the whole point IS to
have a perfect copy of all of your main partition/drive contents (which in
my case is around 20 GB), should anything go astray. So, for example,
with my current C: partition, which contains the system and all of my
programs and most of my user data (except for large video and audio files),
and is about 20 GB, I can readily restore a perfect backup (and have done so
frequently, after trying out various software packages or doing other
various experiments). It's analogous to making a clone of your main drive
(the other good backup alternative), and I sure can't imagine doing without
it.

XP takes up about 1 GB or less, so it's not hard to fit an
entire setup on about 1.4 GB or less. Disk imaging compresses
that, so that it fits onto a CD.

I've found that disk imaging compresses things too, but nowhere near that
much! Like to perhaps 80% of the uncompressed value. That's still waaaay
too limiting (at least in my backup case) to fit on any CD or DVD, which is
why I use a secondary hard drive for that purpose (plus the added
convenience and speed of using another HD to do this, without even worrying
about disk space, either)

snip

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
If you want to run restricted in order to reduce the
actions that malware can take then I think you'd want
to convert to NTFS. (But you may not be able to
change back.)

Good question: does anyone know of an NTFS to FAT converter?

But why bother doing this? You'd lose all the potential advantages of
NTFS. You can still access NTFS stuff in Win98 or DOS with some special
utilities, although it's obviously more of a hassle.

| I don't get your point about disk imaging. For me, the whole point IS to
| have a perfect copy of all of your main partition/drive contents (which in
| my case is around 20 GB), should anything go astray.

I think we're saying the same thing. I just keep
data on non-C partitions. I back up all work to
a partition on another physical disk. Then I back
that up occasionally to CDs. I put disk images on
CDs. I wouldn't depend on an extra hard disk for
that.

Mayayana wrote:
I don't get your point about disk imaging. For me, the whole point IS
to
have a perfect copy of all of your main partition/drive contents (which
in
my case is around 20 GB), should anything go astray.

I think we're saying the same thing. I just keep
data on non-C partitions. I back up all work to
a partition on another physical disk. Then I back
that up occasionally to CDs. I put disk images on
CDs. I wouldn't depend on an extra hard disk for
that.

Although you can't always rely on CD or DVD media, either (plus the headache
of needing several CDs to store things). I had a few DVDs go bad over the
years (going back to 2004 in this case), presumably due to some dye layer
degradation or whatever. User writable CDs and DVDs use light sensitive
dyes, whereas manufacturered ones use metal layers, as I recall (and which
are much more reliable in the long term). So, even CDs and DVDs have
limited lifetimes, it seems. I've since switched to using Verbatim DVDs, as
they seem to have better lifetimes, according to all I've read.

Patok wrote in
:

thanatoid wrote:
"Zaphod Beeblebrox"

snip

Slartibartfast

Where do you get your names? This one is worth of being in
the Peake trilogy.

Are you, like, serious? Not trying to be funny? Never
heard of Zaphod
or Slarty? Of 42?

Of course not - is it some idiotic 21st Century pop culture
****?

And WTF is a Peak trilogy? The opposite of a Valley
monologue?

PEAK*E*, Mervyn, you ignoramus. Look it up.



--
What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your
loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must
be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and
every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to
you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will
again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!'
Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse
that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything
more divine'?
Friedrich Nietzsche

Tim Slattery wrote in
:

thanatoid wrote:

"Zaphod Beeblebrox"
wrote in :

snip

Slartibartfast

Where do you get your names? This one is worth of being in
the Peake trilogy.

Slartibartfast and Zaphod Beeblebrox are characters in the
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series.

Figures. I watched about 3 minutes ages ago and it was the
most boring thing, targeted - most successfully I might add -
at people to whom it has never occurred to look outside the
boxes their many years of smoking pot with their buds [sic]
while watching Idiot Box #1 (I trust I do NOT have to tell you
what Idiot Box #2 is) created in their brains.

If you want some intelligent ideas about that general area,
read "Futurological Congress" by Stanislaw Lem, one of the
true geniuses of the last century. (www.lem.pl)

You may have seen his name when you went to see Clooney's butt
in the remake of 'Solaris' which was originally a novel by Lem
and then a masterpiece of real cinema by Tarkovsky (look him
up while you're at it, as well).

Of course, if HGTTG and X-Files are your cup of tea, it will
be a complete waste of your time.

I apologize for my attitude, but I am SO sick of idiots
celebrating naive and shallow pop****.



--
What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your
loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must
be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and
every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to
you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will
again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!'
Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse
that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything
more divine'?
Friedrich Nietzsche

"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote in
:

snip

According to one print source I have, Slarti's name started
out as something like Phartifukborlz, and was watered down
until DA got to something he thought was broadcastable.

Yes, fubar forbid someone would refuse to put it on the teevee
because of two syllables too many for the average viewer.

--
What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your
loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must
be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and
every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to
you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will
again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!'
Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse
that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything
more divine'?
Friedrich Nietzsche

"Bill in Co" wrote in
m:

thanatoid wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote in
:

snip

Plus I need NTFS

snip

are close to 20 GB in size. And with NTFS, that's a
non-issue.

This is the only valid argument for NTFS, infinite
(right?) file sizes.

No, that's not the ONLY argument.

I didn't say the /only/ argument, I said the only *V-A-L-I-D*
argument.

I have never had a file larger than 800MB or so, so...

You're lucky. :-) And you're not doing much, if any,
work with video files.

I've been planning to put some of my old work on discs for
years, but I doubt I'll ever muster up the intestinal
fortitude required.

And you're evidently not making any
image backups of your system drive, I gather. Maybe you
have clone backups? I find storing generational images
more practical for a system backup scheme (backing up
everything on the main HD).

Since I do not work and use computers /there/ (in which case
it would be the "computer guy's" job anyway to make sure it's
all backed up), and I consider practically everything done
while I am in this chair a stupid time-killer, I never
bothered setting up a decent backup schedule. I have my bank
**** on a stick, and on some CD somewhere.

If the Acronis image gets too big for an 800 MB disc, I split
it until it fits 2 or 3 or whatever (I do not own a DVD
drive). Acronis will "do it for you" but I prefer to split
things myself, and I prefer to burn CD's with real software
and not a built-in utility.

It was only too big ONCE until I went to XP, and I have not
yet tweaked XP to sufficient usability level to warrant an
image. I do have 3 or 4 as-the-slimy-nightmare-crawls-along
images, and they are about 1.2-1.5 GB.

snip

OB1

IIRC, I found it useless - too many sites won't work
right with it. If you disable javascript it seems you're
stuck in the Stone Ages, at least at most sites.

All you lose is what passes as "graphic design" on the
web, css, etc. And to ME, that is a GOOD thing. I don't
care about that stuff. All I need is the content, not
bloatware page design. If I /need/ javascript, I use
Opera.

I have to admit I can accept a *limited* amount of graphic
design. :-) Unfortunately, some (many?) have overdone it,
but I think there is a general trend now to cut back on at
least some of it. But then again, I may be just dreaming.

I can't be bothered to follow follow-ups, so I have no idea
who said what, but if you agree on what **** web design is,
why do you insist on seeing ANY of it and call OB1 Stone-Age-
ware?

snip

Got that. But I meant that I wouldn't consider it divine
or wonderful to have eternal life on this planet. Perish
the thought!

You got *that* right. Once is MORE than enough.

"When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes
into you", also comes to my mind. :-)

Lots of things come to mind, like a nice noose. Won't be long
now.

snip

****, no offense, but you could at least SNIP the ****ing
SIGNATURE! It's at the tail of all my posts! And if people are
too dense to get it from ONE reading, having it twice in one
post, with additional 's to boot, won't help them.


--
What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your
loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must
be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and
every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to
you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will
again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!'
Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse
that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything
more divine'?
Friedrich Nietzsche

"Bill in Co" wrote in
:

huggersnip

But why bother doing this? You'd lose all the potential
advantages of NTFS. You can still access NTFS stuff in
Win98 or DOS with some special utilities, although it's
obviously more of a hassle.

Hee hee. "Potential advantages". Close, but shouldn't that be
"fictitious"?

If you need more than 2GBs for your video stuff, you should be
working on a pro workstation, whatever the industry uses these
days.
Is Silicon Graphics still around, even? I have no idea what
people edit Holly**** on these days, the last H**** movie
someone forcefully dragged me to see was Batman Returns. I
reluctantly gave in since I liked the Batgirl costume (NOT the
actress). Still, what a piece of crap.




--
What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your
loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be
lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every
pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in
the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be
turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw
yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or
would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?
Friedrich Nietzsche

On 18 Nov 2011, thanatoid wrote in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

Slartibartfast

Where do you get your names? This one is worth of being in the
Peake trilogy.

Look it up, you ignoramus.

thanatoid wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote in
:

huggersnip

But why bother doing this? You'd lose all the potential
advantages of NTFS. You can still access NTFS stuff in
Win98 or DOS with some special utilities, although it's
obviously more of a hassle.

Hee hee. "Potential advantages". Close, but shouldn't that be
"fictitious"?

I wouldn't say fictitious.

If you need more than 2GBs for your video stuff, you should be
working on a pro workstation, whatever the industry uses these
days.

Nah. That's overkill for me. But admitedly the file sizes are large.

Is Silicon Graphics still around, even?

I don't know.
I don't generally keep up with all the latest stuff or movies, for that
matter (the black and white movies from the 1940's are fine, by me).

I have no idea what
people edit Holly**** on these days, the last H**** movie
someone forcefully dragged me to see was Batman Returns. I
reluctantly gave in since I liked the Batgirl costume (NOT the
actress). Still, what a piece of crap.

I think the last good movie I saw was "Jane Eyre" (with Orson Welles and
Joan Fontaine as I recall). Or maybe "Citizen Kane", and "The Third Man".
:-)