sloooowww computer.

[Ghost Lemur]

OK - I downloaded Ad aware and Spybot....Spybot found a bunch of stuff and things speeded up heaps,but Ad aware kept freezing,deleted and downloaded again and left on all night - this morning it said it had found over 65,650 thingies!!!!! it was hard to wake it up to deal with it,but finaly did what it was supposed to and whoooo hoooo,things are back to normal.66,000 whatzits on my computer - WTF??? I's gunna do this every week now eh?

Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows. Hense one of the many reasons why I don't use it.

[wkid_one]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Windows. Hense one of the many reasons why I don't use it.

Nothing wrong with it provided you take a few small provisions for its flaws. Can prevent 99% of them by not using Explorer

[Motu]

Yeah,I got a bit of a shock when I saw the number too! Ad aware kept freezing at about 112,but there was some way to go.I don't go to porn sites,unless it's a link from somewhere else,but when ever I check Spybot,even after 10mins it has a site with the word girls in it,even if I haven't even started a browser.Because it happened suddenly I think it may have been a one time hit,but then maybe it reached a threshold and fell over?

[riffer]

Hmmm. Interesting. A lot of windows programs used to have problems with numbers over about 65,500 due to 16-bit coding.

Not too many 16-bit apps around any more but there legacy remains.

I discovered one: jpeg has a maximum pixel size of 65,500 x 65,500 pixels. I needed to make a file twice that size (scanned image 30 metres x 60cm @ 300 ppi).

[jrandom]

Hmmm. Interesting. A lot of windows programs used to have problems with numbers over about 65,500 due to 16-bit coding.

65535.

Hexadecimal FFFF.

Octal 177777.

Binary 1111111111111111.

AKA two to the sixteenth.

[jrandom]

I discovered one: jpeg has a maximum pixel size of 65,500 x 65,500 pixels. I needed to make a file twice that size (scanned image 30 metres x 60cm @ 300 ppi).

I wouldn't have thought that lossy compression algorithms would be suitable for document archival in any case.

[Edit: explanation - the JPEG image format throws away visual information to minimise storage space, which is why it can achieve such impressive image compression ratios compared to raw bitmapped data. Other 'lossless' formats maintain the precise value of every pixel, even when compressed to smaller sizes.]

[wkid_one]

65535.

Hexadecimal FFFF.

Octal 177777.

Binary 1111111111111111.

AKA two to the sixteenth.

Fuck - don't you have too much time on your hands.

[jrandom]

Fuck - don't you have too much time on your hands.

Not really. This stuff tends to be on my mind as a matter of course.

[sAsLEX]

its his job to know pointless shit like that!

[What?]

Nothing wrong with it provided you take a few small provisions for its flaws. Can prevent 99% of them by not using Explorer

Yeah, but sadly some websites just don't work on anything else. Quite why they display OK on IE but not on Netscape or Mozilla is a mystery to me...

[James Deuce]

Yeah, but sadly some websites just don't work on anything else. Quite why they display OK on IE but not on Netscape or Mozilla is a mystery to me...

I've been using Mozilla Firefox for about 3 months now and it is fine with everything I visit.

[Badcat]

Yeah, but sadly some websites just don't work on anything else. Quite why they display OK on IE but not on Netscape or Mozilla is a mystery to me...

no mystery.
just dopey web developers that are too inexperienced, self important or deluded to test their work on browsers other than IE.
wankers.

[jrandom]

I've been using Mozilla Firefox for about 3 months now and it is fine with everything I visit.

I believe the Mozilla developers have been busting a gut over the last several months to get the Microsoft 'extensions' working that previously caused non-IE browsers to screw pages up (of course, it was the web designers' fault in the first place for using non-standard 'standards', but I digress).

There are still sites that are stupid enough to check your browser's version string and redirect to a "please use Internet Explorer" page, though. Not much one can do about that.

Given the importance of the web these days, there's not much point using IE any more, since Microsoft has officially ceased development. The free/open-source browsers are just going to get better and better; it's arguable that they are already better in every respect than the last IE version.

I use Mozilla 1.7.1 at work and home.

[Badcat]

I believe the Mozilla developers have been busting a gut over the last several months to get the Microsoft 'extensions' working that previously caused non-IE browsers to screw pages up (of course, it was the web designers' fault in the first place for using non-standard 'standards', but I digress).

There are still sites that are stupid enough to check your browser's version string and redirect to a "please use Internet Explorer" page, though. Not much one can do about that.

Given the importance of the web these days, there's not much point using IE any more, since Microsoft has officially ceased development. The free/open-source browsers are just going to get better and better; it's arguable that they are already better in every respect than the last IE version.

I use Mozilla 1.7.1 at work and home.

i use safari - as i use macs.
bugger all virus risk.
no real threat of adware/spyware.
mac OS X - a REAL alternative to windows.
ken