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NirSoft Freeware (2008)

nirsoft.net

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Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#161

Post by gowld »

nradov wrote: post #74
JetSpiegel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better (and more efficient) to have a developer write (or waste, if you consider doing their job "wasting time") two interfaces than to waste the computer resources of a million people. Electron is just outsourcing cross platform development to the Chromium project.

Unfortunately waste of users' computer resources is an externality and developers are more expensive than ever. Revealed preferences show that customers would rather buy more hardware resources than pay higher prices for efficient software (within reasonable limits).

Generally I agree with you but for Electron we're talking about own-goals the developers inflict on themselves. No one outside of the HNosphere uses Electron apps.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#162

Post by gowld »

carapace wrote: post #155
reificator wrote: post #2

I've seen and used nirsoft products for years, never realized his name was Nir Sofer. What a great name for a software developer.

I think it was Ted Nelson who pointed out that Mark Miller's name is his vocation. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_S._Miller )

What's a miller do?

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#163

Post by carapace »

gowld wrote: post #162
carapace wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was Ted Nelson who pointed out that Mark Miller's name is his vocation. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_S._Miller )

What's a miller do?

A miller operates a mill. The joke hinges on the idea of a computer as a "mill" for information, a symbol grinder.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#164

Post by metaphor »

codezero wrote: post #107
kevindong wrote: post #8

> While many software companies create a bloated installation package with size of 1 - 3 MB, the size of single utility in NirSoft is usually less than 100KB. The early 2000s were a different time. While as modern day electron apps are regularly 100+ MB.

Around 2000, I had a laptop with 5g of harddisk and 64mb of ram, now I'm at ~1tb and 16gb ram. Roughly a 200x increase in raw numbers, though lots of other things since then make the actual increase larger, so it sounds like we're using net-smaller apps :)

> ...so it sounds like we're using net-smaller apps :)

I also remember circa 2000 when the CS meta was, "who cares about optimization when you're riding the perpetual tailcoat of Moore's law"...then homogeneous parallel architectures became a thing overnight and much of the software development community was caught with their pants down.

Flash forward over a decade later with low-power embedded being the dominant end user platform and heterogenous compute already at the competitive forefront. Perhaps it's personal bias, but when I read net-smaller apps, my hardware design instincts immediately kick and scream net-complacency.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#165

Post by ComodoHacker »

skellera wrote: post #142
voltagex_ wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I noticed a real performance increase was going from HDD to SSD. I mean, I do also ask a lot more of my machine than 10 or 15 years ago so it probably balances out.

What is the biggest current bottleneck? Going from HDD to SSD makes even a 5 year old laptop feel close to current. Is there something that would do the same now?

With Spectre & Meltdown patches, looks like we took a step back.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#166

Post by acqq »

zoom6628 wrote: post #116

Have been using these tools for years. As essential as sysinternals. Would love to see some of his source code from which to learn. Everytime Im in a bind will turn to tools from this site, such as when forgot PST passwords on a 10 year old mail file. The networking and port tools have always been hugely useful. For context I work in a large global ISV, use Windows laptop, and travel often. Having Nir's utilities ava…

You can donate here:

https://www.nirsoft.net/donate.html

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#167

Post by mrweasel »

marssaxman wrote: post #156
satysin wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this basically what PWAs will hopefully solve? Rather than Spotify, Slack, Discord, ... all coming with their own Electron bundle they can be packaged up as a PWA and use the browser as the runtime environment along with all the nice offline stuff, safe OS integration for notifications, sandboxed file system access, ability to still do some work in S0i3 (aka Modern Standy on Windows), etc. Or am I totally wrong…

What is "PWA"?

Progressive Web Apps, but I honestly can't explain exactly what they are.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#168

Post by [deleted] »

marssaxman wrote: post #156
satysin wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this basically what PWAs will hopefully solve? Rather than Spotify, Slack, Discord, ... all coming with their own Electron bundle they can be packaged up as a PWA and use the browser as the runtime environment along with all the nice offline stuff, safe OS integration for notifications, sandboxed file system access, ability to still do some work in S0i3 (aka Modern Standy on Windows), etc. Or am I totally wrong…

What is "PWA"?

[deleted]

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#169

Post by 013 »

gowld wrote: post #161
nradov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately waste of users' computer resources is an externality and developers are more expensive than ever. Revealed preferences show that customers would rather buy more hardware resources than pay higher prices for efficient software (within reasonable limits).

Generally I agree with you but for Electron we're talking about own-goals the developers inflict on themselves. No one outside of the HNosphere uses Electron apps.

Plenty of people outside of HN use Slack, Discord, Atom, VS Code, Skype and Twitch.

Re: NirSoft Freeware (2008)

#170

Post by suprfnk »

Endy wrote: post #151
da_chicken wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how is Notepad not a good editor? 1. Only understands Windows line endings. 2. Always saves UTF-8 with a BOM. Only the first one is really a significant issue, but the second one can be a pain in the ass sometimes. Granted, yes, it's a pain in the ass primarily because *nix applications often treat a BOM as data, but it's still a pain in the ass. > Heck, if I need a DOS batch file, I turn to either Notepad or Edit.…

>Edit? You've been gone awhile. Edit has never been released on any x64 platform of Windows, AFAIK. Why? Because it's a 16-bit application! NTVDM, the 16/32-bit DOS and 16 bit Windows emulator only runs on 32-bit Windows. WoW64, the 32-bit Windows emulator for x64 Windows, does not run 16 bit applications. I only use a 32-bit OS and a 32-bit processor for Win7. If it doesn't work in x64, you've just given me a reason…

Interesting, can I ask what kind of work you do? I'm assuming programming, what kind of programming do you primarily do?
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