Posts by Jack Alvarez

And what about the legendary Alcohol 120%!!

Sophia Anderson35 said:Does anyone have a solid recommendation for a reliable, free program to burn AVI files onto a DVD without having to convert them into some other format first? I’m looking to burn them as data discs, since my DVD player can already handle the ones I previously burned using DIVX.

It feels like DivX is just completely broken lately—there’s some weird bug floating around that makes burning DVDs impossible, even if you’re using one of those paid versions. I also tried using Microsoft, but my trial period expired, and honestly, it was pretty useless anyway since it wouldn't touch my AVI files; it would only burn original DVDs. I've been scouring the internet for answers, but there is just so much noise out there and so little actual information regarding whether these programs can actually handle AVI files or not. At this point, I’m not looking for another trial version that’s going to cut me off halfway through; I really just want something that's either pure freeware or open-source that does one thing and does it well: burns AVIs. Obviously, Nero isn't a free option, so I'm looking for a better way to get this done.

So, if I'm following your train of thought correctly, you're looking to burn a handful of those .avi movies onto a single DVD so you can pop them into a home DVD player that happens to support DivX or something along those lines, right?

If you head over to Start > All Programs, check to see if there's an HP folder tucked away in there... I used to have an HP machine myself, and I remember there was this specific HP utility designed to create a Recovery DVD. The catch was that you could usually only burn it once, so if it's sitting there on your system, you should definitely grab the chance to make a Recovery DVD while you still can!!

You might not have come with a Windows DVD specifically, but there’s a good chance you were given a Recovery DVD instead, or perhaps your machine just has a dedicated recovery partition built right in. Either way, you should still be able to whip up a Recovery DVD if you need to. Just so I can give you better advice, what kind of setup are we looking at here—is it an HP, a Dell, or something else entirely?

You might want to give Mp3tag a shot; it could be just the thing to smooth out all those little headaches you're running into!!

As for websites or forums in American, I honestly can't say... personally, I find myself browsing much more in German than in American!!

I could definitely make it work in Photoshop without breaking a sweat, though honestly, I think I could pull it off using GIMP too if I had to!

restlessmaker10 said:So, how exactly do they "link" the hardware components to a Windows license so that it won't work on a different machine?

Since I actually use an OEM version myself (Windows 7 OEM Professional), I run into this funny little situation quite often... I ordered a custom PC build in parts—you know, the whole works: motherboard, hard drive, processor, graphics card, power supply, RAM, case, cooler, and all that good stuff—and put it together myself. I bought and installed my Win 7 Pro OEM and activated it using the code found right on the DVD box, and everything worked perfectly. But after a while, I decided to toss in an extra graphics card and another hard drive. Then, down the road, I did a clean format of my C: drive and tried typing in that exact same code from the DVD box again, but it wouldn't take it! It just gave me an error saying the key wasn't valid and offered me options to
*use automated phone activation
*buy a new key online
*enter a different key

In my case, I use the automated phone activation method where I type in the installation ID

and it works every time. Even after a fresh format of the C: drive, I can usually activate normally using the number from the DVD box, but as soon as I pull out "just" that extra graphics card, I'm back to needing the phone activation again... So, regarding how they "link" the hardware to the Windows license... it's actually pretty straightforward. I was reading recently about what kind of data we send over to Microsoft, whether we explicitly consent to it or not, so for them, "linking" hardware to a specific license is really the easiest thing in the world!!

I personally stick with using Microsoft Proofing Tools for Office

So, I was just sitting here thinking about all the different ways we could set things up... what kind of tasks would you actually want your checkers to be handling?

It’s looking like this one is probably a fake, or at least the file itself has gotten corrupted along the way!!

Honestly, you might want to just grab Adobe Reader or maybe even try downloading some other PDF viewer first, because it looks like your version of Adobe Acrobat isn't actually activated yet!

If you’re using AviADDXSubs to burn in your subtitles and then popping in a DVD player to watch them, you actually have the option to pick out a specific color or even add a black outline with whatever thickness you prefer. On the other hand, if you’re just sitting at your desk using a media player on your PC, you’ll most likely find those exact same customization settings tucked away right in the software's own options menu!!

Hold on a second there, buddy. You’re asking me to just whip up a registry file and run it so I can disable Malwarebytes... but what I’m really wondering is how that registry file would even look if you have no clue what kind of security software the victim is actually running when you try to send them that file hidden inside an image. I mean, if someone just double-clicks the picture and that registry file integrates itself into the system without any extra prompts or warnings, you'd basically be trying to write code that—at the very latest by the next PC restart—disables whatever antivirus they happen to have installed, only to follow it up by installing some malware. It's a bit of a leap! Honestly, I think creating a registry file specifically designed to "wipe" a certain piece of software from the startup list isn't exactly rocket science, but there are a lot of variables involved here.

Rest in peace, RipTiger!!

briskfalcon10 said:If you’re really too thick to wrap your head around this... look, I don't spend my time trying to teach people who just can't grasp basic concepts... there are five different ways to do this that I'm not even going to bother explaining, because you'll never be able to follow along anyway.
Now we've got option four: a virus disguised as an image file that forces the computer to reboot just five minutes after you open it.

Man, you are truly exhausting... honestly, I’m not looking to get into a shouting match here, but since you seem to think I just can't understand certain things—which is exactly what I'm curious about—I'd love some clarity. (And hey, I already know that fourth little trick using %WINDIR%\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t [time]... "hiding" a file inside an image is old news to me.) But this whole thing about freezing antivirus software? That part just doesn't compute for me. I mean, if anyone can pull that off, then why should I even bother with Norton anymore? It's clearly useless. Just show us! Since you act like coding this is child's play for you, why don't you just drop a link to the virus so us skeptics can see it for ourselves? Can you actually build something like that, or is the real question whether you're actually willing to do it?

@ briskfalcon10

Look, I think you’re struggling to even get Photoshop running because you aren't quite sure how to launch it, rather than there being some issue on my end... I honestly feel—and I'm not the only one thinking this—that you don't really have a handle on what you're talking about here. But hey, if you truly believe you've got it figured out, please, by all means, walk us through your logic so the rest of us can finally wrap our heads around it.
PS.
I'm still sitting here waiting for you to produce that virus you mentioned🙂🙂. And listen, I'm not saying it's impossible for someone to pull this off, I'm just saying that YOU specifically haven't been able to, especially since you admitted you only managed to snag that email password because you froze the entire Node system.!!!!

Aaron Johnson55 said:English—referring to both the OS and the applications.

But wouldn't you consider both the OS and the software😁
to be part of that?

quiethound10 said:I guess you'd want everything to be in German then.

I personally feel 😁
In my opinion, it really just comes down to what you're used to... it's true that once you get accustomed to an OS being in English, seeing it in American might actually sound kind of silly to you. But then again, if someone grows up using American English for everything, they’d probably find any other language equally strange or even funny!!

briskfalcon10 said:Don't you know how these things work? An antivirus isn't going to spot a threat hidden inside an image file. What actually happens is that once you open that image, it triggers a registry file that essentially freezes the antivirus right there in the system registry, clearing a path for the virus to run.
From what I understand, most antivirus software doesn't even react to registry files like that.

Seriously, I am BEGGING you—please, just send me that "virus" of yours, packed into an image that executes a reg key to freeze my Norton and let the malware install itself on my PC... go ahead, send it over!🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂