Igor's IT views, useful tips, software, and some nice photos.
Richard Lander, a product manager on .NET Team has recently posted a blog article titled Improving C# Memory Safety. The blog post goes to great lengths to try to explain (read: rationalize) planned "improvements" to memory safety model and the unsafe keyword that are coming in C# 16. Here is the summary of changes condensed from that 75 KB wall of text into 5 easy to understand points: Mandatory…
If you are one of those install manager peddlers who came here to see what this article is about or if you are a developer considering including an install manager with your application let me tell you upfront — fuck you and your install manager. With that out of the way, let me tell you why you too should refuse installing any application that comes with its own install manager and why you should…
As you are probably aware, NVIDIA recently announced DLSS5, calling it a breaktrough in visual fidelity. Thanks to my deep industry connections I managed to obtain an early preview version of DLSS5 engine. After pillaging a 3rd world country for enough oil to power a twin RTX 5090 setup, I can now present the results below. Keep in mind that the technology is still in its early stages — the…
The so called 70-20-10 model (70% workplace or experiental learning, 20% social or informal learning, and 10% structured or formal learning) with which employees worldwide are being brainwashed by their corporate HR comes from a 1986 "research" conducted by Morgan McCall, Michael M. Lombardo, and Ann Morrison at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). The findings were published in the book The…
Dear Mr. Jensen Huang, Sally forth and receive carnal knowledge unto thyself. Respectfully, Your Lost Customer With that out of the way let me tell you that this GeForce 5090 RTX is the last NVIDIA product I bought. Maybe you don't care, but in the very unlikely case that you do, here's why: Brute force hardware design 600W constant power draw to drive 1440p monitor at barely 60 FPS in path traced…
Recently I wrote about the exact same subject, so you must be wondering why I am writing about that again so soon. I really wanted my relationship with Linux to work given how abusive Microsoft has become, so I went and installed Kubuntu after deciding Debian can't get their shit together. I had the install running in an external NVME M.2 enclosure on a spare 1TB Samsung 970 Pro I had laying…
Every day you read about vulnerabilities, deal with endless (and often broken) software updates, the apps you use are more and more bloated. Instead of doing that one task you originally needed them for and doing that well they've become jack of all trades, master of none. So how did we, the software engineers, get there? Top-down managementHigh-level abstractionLack of debuggingExceptionalism and…
Supermicro is well known as a price-competitive Rack-Scale Total IT Solutions provider that designs and builds an environmentally-friendly and energy-saving portfolio of servers, storage systems, switches, and software, while also providing global support services. However, in 2025, one major reason not to buy Supermicro products is their poor handling of BIOS updates, which are critical for…
As if you needed more reasons not to trust CrowdStrike after that Falcon fiasco which crashed 8.5 millions of Windoows PCs worldwide due to shoddy QA processes and having a poorly written script interpreter in a Windows kernel-mode driver, right? Yesterday I wrote about "Security" vendors to avoid in 2025 after my tool ME3Buyer got flagged as malicious by several less than reputable "security"…
At the time of this writing there are 73 security vendors which are well enough known to be included in VirusTotal automated scanning. Sadly, it seems that some of those vendors do not deserve to be featured there. Surely you are wondering why am I writing about this? It's simple — I had enough of their "security". I write simple tools for Windows platform and if you are reading this it is likely…
Dear Mr. Tim Cook, Sally forth and receive carnal knowledge unto thyself. Respectfully, Your Lost Customer With that out of the way let me tell you that iPhone 16 Pro Max is the last Apple product I bought. Maybe you don't care, but in the very unlikely case that you do, here's why: Enshitification of user experience When you buy a new phone, you are exposed to Incessant bombardment with "free"…
Starting with Windows 8 Microsoft has, in their infinite wisdom, decided to remove preinstalled (inbox) games such as FreeCell and Minesweeper various versions of which were included in Windows since 1995 and 1992 respectively. Games were made available in Microsoft Store and even included as pre-provisioned in Windows 10 and 11, but wouldn't you rather play the old version say from Windows 7…
Over the years I have been using Linux distros (Slackware, RedHat, LFS, Gentoo, CentOS, Debian, Arch). Most of my use was for servers, some of it were my attempts to use it for day to day desktop use. Every time I used them for servers it was set it and (mostly) forget it since nowadays even Linux has automatic updates. Every time I tried them for desktop use the experience was outright broken…
If you are using Daz Studio chances are that you have noticed that the latest couple of public beta versions have a modified New Scene dialog which now integrates notifications (read: promotions and ads), and 3D asset store directly into your new scene creation process. So, what was so far a painless experience (press Ctrl+N or click File->New to get a blank new scene or your predefined new scene…
Daz Studio 4.21.1.26 Public Beta has been released recently and it incorporates the Iray 2022.1.0 final version which adds official support for ghostlights. For those not aware, ghostlight is a term used to refer to fully invisible light source in ray tracing -- one that is not visible to the camera and whose reflections are not visible on glossy surfaces of the objects in its vicinity. They are…
The Betteridge's law of headlines teaches us that the answer to any article title ending with a question mark is most likely "no". In this particular case the answer is not so black-and-white. Apple most certainly does curate their App Store to some extent, but the extent of this curation is governed by money, not by some higher moral prinicples as they like to claim in their ads. An example of…
Today I was setting up an FTP server on a Windows Server using IIS, and I ran into a problem with establishing the TLS connection. When trying to connect using FTP client I was getting the following error: 431 Failed to setup secure session. After checking the IIS FTP logs I noticed a Win32 error code 2148074253 (0x8009030d) which translates into SEC_E_UNKNOWN_CREDENTIALS. Given that I haven't…
This article assumes that you are already familiar with configuring DHCP, DNS, and static DNS entries on your MikroTik router. If you have not yet familiarized yourself with that subject, please read the fine manual, then come back here for the nitty-gritty. DISCLAIMER: Running Active Directory DNS on a router (or pretty much anywhere else except on a Windows DNS server) is not advised -- if you…
I am writing this article with a heavy heart after exhausting all legitimate channels for complaints. Let's start with the forum. Approximately every two days or less it logs me out. Other users have complained as well so I am not the only one with this issue. I submitted a ticket and after going through a lengthy troubleshooting back and forth involving testing with several different browsers,…
Starting with DAZ Studio Public Beta version 4.12.1.16, it is no longer possible to start multiple instances of the application. The official justification for this change is as follows: Only a single instance of the application, per release channel, is now allowed to run at a time; attempts to load registered file types via double-click or "open with" commands will now forward to a running…
After being forced to start using Windows 10 at work (the company I work for is licensing everything from Microsoft and paying big money for software assurance), I had plenty of time to look for proper justifications for my previously seemingly irrational hate for this "new" OS. People who are criticizing Windows 10 like I do are usually labeled as "afraid of change", but let me assure you — I am…
Did you know that Viber Receive Service Messages option is enabled by default, thus enabling businesses to send you unsolicited messages? Did you know it will by default collect analytics data? If you are not privacy conscious you might not care about this, but how about not respecting user settings? Here is a notification which I just received: I kept getting that notification almost daily since…
If your computer sits on a network behind NAT it is difficult to discover your public IP address programatically without querying some web service. The problem with web services is that they are slow and unreliable, they may go through proxy and thus be unable to provide the right information, or the access to them may be blocked by firewall. The approach which works most of the time is to use DNS…
Adobe Flash Player ActiveX in Windows 8.1 is being updated through Windows Update. Unfortunately, that means you may be forced to run the unsecure version for up to two weeks until Microsoft gets off its lazy ass and publishes the update they receive from Adobe. If you are a security-conscious user and you don't want to be at the mercy of Microsoft, there is a way to manually update Adobe Flash…
UPDATE (2017/01/07): Unwanted telemetry added into all executables built using Visual Studio 2015 prior to Update 3 (which I was the first to notice and write about below) has been picked up by other developers four months later on Reddit, and MSVC Dev Manager Steve Carroll has issued an official statement which you are advised to read. If I wanted to be snarky about it (and I always do when…
UPDATE (2015/07/28): What I have been saying all along is now official information in the Windows 10 FAQ — Windows 10 free upgrade will make your existing retail license non-transferable. ORIGINAL ARTICLE Microsoft has announced that people with valid licenses (be it OEM or Retail) for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 free of charge. Since then, there has been a lot…
Because there are no other two applications in existence which have more disrespect for your personal preferences. I wrote earlier why Firefox developers and designers are clueless when it comes to UI and UX, and despite all security risks I was holding off from upgrading my Firefox 24.8.1 ESR until today when I finally realized I will have to "go with the flow" if I want to have functional web.…
Not a single day goes by that I don't cringe when I see how some people write logic expressions in the code. Consider the following typical code snippet which can probably be found in almost any project from small utility to linux kernel driver: int func1(int param) { switch (param) { case 0: set(DEVICE, 0); break; case 1: set(DEVICE, 1); break; case 2: set(DEVICE, 2); break; case 3: set(DEVICE,…
If you don't live under a rock you have probably seen the outrage of PC players who have been banned for using any kind of mods, even innocent cosmetic mods such as those which change field of view. However, here are more elaborate reasons why you should not buy this game: Installation and online play requires log-in to Rockstar Games Social Club (13+) network Another pointless account…
Why would you need to use RDRAND CPU instruction to generate random numbers in PHP when you can just call rand() function and be done with it? Well, take a look at this picture: It has been generated by the following PHP code snippet which I borrowed from here (kudos to the original author): More...
This article does not condone piracy — the instructions provided are meant solely for making your legally purchased audio CDs available in your iTunes music collection. If you have some audio CDs which you would like to make available in your iTunes music collection so you can listen to them on your iPhone or iPad, then this article is for you. iTunes music is nothing but AAC encoded audio in an…
I cringe every time I visit my LinkedIn profile and see the following messages: Asking people for their email password is a very bad security practice. Wording on the LinkedIn website has been changed in the meantime not to include the "Your contacts are safe with us!" and "We'll only hang on to your password for a moment to authenticate your account, and we'll never email anyone without your…
Well, it was about time to make it look and feel more modern, right? :) I have also moved the website to a new server, goodbye Loopia AB. You served me well, but unfortunately you could not solve the email problems I had (read: spam). So far there is no new content (just the migration of the existing content took enough time as it is), but be on the lookout for new stuff. You never know, maybe I…
Today I wanted to reinstall iTunes for Windows and after downloading the iTunes64Setup.exe from Apple website I was horrified to see that the setup wizard started up in Croatian language. No, I am not one of those pesky nationalists who would like to have setup wizard start in Serbian Cyrillic or Serbian Latin (Croatian language is similar enough to Serbian Latin that I can understand it), and I…
Since the release of Firefox 26.0 the about:config options useToolkitUI and useJSTransfer no longer work because old download manager UI has been removed from the code. If you just want it back, then skip to the bottom of the page. If you also want to hear a good explanation why new download UI is crap, then just keep reading :) In my opinion, new download UI is simply horrible. What your browsing…
Ah those security questions... Or should I rather say "security questions"? Or insecurity questions? That really depends on whose security we are talking about. Usually it is not yours. How many times you had to fill in those so called "security questions" on various websites at registration time including your e-banking? They are usually used in case you forget your password and you need it reset…
If you wrote an MFC dialog-based application using CMFCEditBrowseCtrl which worked properly until you updated to Visual Studio 2012 and now one of the controls is missing its browse button here is a workaround. Just add the line shown in bold to your code: BOOL CYourAwesomeDlg::OnInitDialog() { CDialogEx::OnInitDialog(); ...…
So, you have a NAS, be it Synology, QNAP, NetGear, or some other device running Linux? Your device got broken and you lost access to your RAID0, RAID1 or RAID5 volume? Or you removed drives and updated firmware only to realize that it no longer recognizes the array when you tried putting drives back like I did recently? Well, you are in a right place, keep reading and I will show you how to…
Sony has recently announced their plans for their next-generation PlayStation 4 game console. Rough hardware specification has been published, and if you weren't sleeping through the last few days you have most likely already heard that "next-generation" console will essentially be a PC. What does that mean to you, the potential buyer of such system? Will you be able to play existing PC games on…
After purchasing QuickOffice Pro HD for iPad I feel like I have just thrown away 20 USD. In case you didn't know, QuickOffice Pro HD is being advertised as the best Office software for Android and IOS. It has sparkling reviews by major online review sites. The question is, why and how those positive reviews have been earned? In my opinion QuickOffice Pro HD does not deserve them in the slightest.…
Just like the Flash itself, I can't wait for it to end up on a broken technology graveyard, especially because Adobe has made it to be so annoying. Every time there is a new update for Adobe Flash Player I cringe and start gritting my teeth wishing to smash the computer into bits because I have to tell their retarded installer repeatedly that I want it to notify me to install the updates. It seems…
Update: It seems that I have given way too much credit to Adobe by assuming that they are competent enough to keep CURRENT version of their offline Flash installer in a folder named current on their download server. This seems not to be the case as the links I posted in the original article are still pointing to version 11.2 while the current version is 11.4. Latest offline Adobe Flash Player…
It has become increasingly hard to disable certain compiler options in recent versions of Visual Studio such as 2010. In case you haven't noticed in project properties under C/C++ General section option Debug Information Format you can only select between C7 Compatible (/Z7), Program Database (/Zi) and Program Database for Edit and Continue (/ZI) — there is no Disabled option in the drop list.…
Few days ago I was installing Motorola Milestone 2 mobile phone drivers and there was an MTP USB Device that kept refusing to install properly. After a quick Google search I found a "solution" — select MTP USB device in Device Manager, select Update driver, then manually select USB Mass Storage. Without those steps PC refused to mount the phone storage even though it was in USB Storage Mode.…
It is time they get called out on this. I tried contacting GameSpy and Ars Technica regarding the subject but they haven't even bothered to reply my email, much less write something about it. I live in Serbia, and some time ago I wanted to pre-order Mass Effect 3 Digital Deluxe Edition like I did with Mass Effect 2 as soon as it became available on Steam. I even purchased digital edition of Mass…
I have noticed that some SSD benchmark and review sites such as thessdreview.com insist on benchmarking SSD performance using compressible data, because that is how their manufacturers are benchmarking them, and that is how they can claim such high performance numbers in some cases. My advice to everyone looking to buy an SSD is to completely ignore such reviews. Why? Because most of the data on…
If you are a lucky (rich?) owner of one of the sound cards that are capable of ASIO output, or if you are using ASIO4All driver on top of some cheap onboard soundcard, and if you are playing music using WinAMP, then this output plugin is what you have been looking for. ASIO output plugin for WinAMP 5
Do you hate that annoying "Make Facebook Your Homepage" pop-up? Do you feel insulted that Mark Zuckerberg believes you couldn't have done it on your own if you really wanted to? Do you feel enraged because the message keeps showing every time you visit Facebook, and there is no opt-out? Do you use Firefox? If you answered "yes" to those questions, you are on a right page! Just follow those simple…
Someone "smart" at Mozilla Corporation decided that instead of rolling up the sleeves and fixing that 10 year old bug with application shortcut keys not working when there is a plugin on a web page they should fiddle with reversing the order of "Open Link in New Window" and "Open Link in New Tab" context menu entries. Obviously, they never heard one of the most basic UI design rules — do not move…
Recently I have installed the 2.4.24 update which is presumably the last available update to be released for Motorola Milestone 2. Since I root my phone to be able to patch things that annoy me I have checked the stuff inside the filesystem to see what's new under the hood. That is when I noticed a new folder — /data/system/usagestats with files usage-yyyymmdd starting on a date when I installed…