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Topics - Shades [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: [1]
1
Living Room / Saying goodbye to the old year with a cheer!
« on: December 30, 2020, 03:52 PM »
And 2020 most certainly deserves this video:

https://www.youtube..../watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw

 :Thmbsup:

2
General Software Discussion / Looking for AsciiDoc editor
« on: June 08, 2019, 12:31 PM »
For documentation purposes, I have suddenly a need for an AsciiDoc editor. AsciiDoc is a text based format and in essence even the the standard notepad in Windows is able to create AsciiDoc documents. In many ways it is similar to Markdown, yet it also isn't. The receiver of this documentation is dead set on AsciiDoc and will not hear of anything else.

For Markdown there are quite a few editors that make the creation of Markdown documents a lot easier. For AsciiDoc, not so much.

Google hasn't helped me much when looking for AsciiDoc editors. All my searches revealed two editors:  AsciiDoctor   and   AsciiDocFX   
AsciiDocFX looks reasonable and has some features that are good, but there are also many quirks. Furthermore, it is also Java based (which is not a favorite of mine) and has leaks RAM if you leave the application open too long. You could compare it to editing documents "under water" in Word Perfect, except with a vertical split, instead of a horizontal one. So it is workable for someone who is acquainted with that style of working. Or someone like me who is (too?) familiar with wiki markup and editing.

There is also Visual Studio Code that has an AsciiDoc extension, but it isn't nice to use, because the preview and the text are not "linked". As in: click on the preview and the edit section doesn't "follow" to the location where you clicked in the preview and vice versa. Yet it is nicer to use than chopping up the Eclipse IDE (Java again) to turn it into an AsciiDoc editor.

However, for those generations that grew up with Office and Word, any of the above options that will be a hard "sell". In essence, I am looking for an editor that looks like Word or Wordpad, with similar  features as AsciiDocFX.

GitHub shows a lot of converters and plugins related to AsciiDoc, but not editors (at least not in the first 10 pages of their website's search results). SourceForge, Codeplex, PasteBin and others from this repository list are also a bust.

Does anyone here have any more ideas where I could find such software?

3
General Software Discussion / UTP cable pin-outs confusion
« on: March 03, 2019, 11:03 AM »
Let me begin with two statements:
1 - There is no general hardware section in the DC forum, so I chose the next best general section.
2 - I make my own UTP cables, for almost 15 years already.

Google wasn't that helpful regarding my question. Most of the (CAT5e) cables I prepared in the beginning are still in use today. I know about TIA568A and B cable pin-out standards. My preference is B.

However, lately I see cables on different locations appear that use a different pin-out. All the pairs are next to each other, instead of switching cables from different pairs as the 568 standards suggest. These are definitely not cross-cables or straight cables either. I know about the differences between the CAT5e/CAT6/CAT7 cable categories, but I am not aware that this had implications on the cable pin-out.

Other forums tell me that this isn't the case, sites like this one tell me that this isn't the case, so now I am getting confused. There is not much necessary to accomplish that, I know. But still, can anyone here enlighten me about the subject or point me to documentation?


4
Living Room / New game console to play actual board games with.
« on: January 07, 2019, 08:18 PM »
Board games going digital, but in a new and pretty interesting way, using a dedicated gaming console device. As Mouser is interested in board games, I assume this French upstart will tickle his curiosity:

https://www.wizama.com

5
Living Room / Metal to metal, big boys style!
« on: October 18, 2017, 07:51 PM »


First ever fight between mega robots...

6
Living Room / For those with a CrashPlan...
« on: August 22, 2017, 11:25 PM »
Apparently you do not have such a plan after all.

The company behind the CrashPlan cloud service, just announced that they stop with their services for consumers and only focus on companies. That is until 23 of October 2018, after which the whole service wont be available anymore (for consumers).

Perhaps solutions like Borg backup prove to be the best action plan for online backups. Well, you can host all of your backup needs yourself, but it also allows for (partial) hosting at family, friends or others.

On a personal note: because of this sudden turn in business plans I don't have much faith in cloud based backups, especially for the consumer market.

*edit*
Looks like arqbackup is a decent enough alternative for those that do not wish to host any form of cloud themselves.

7
Living Room / Windows Phone Narrator should be punished!
« on: February 06, 2016, 12:11 AM »
Let me begin by saying I have a simple Lumia 520 smart phone (WP 8.1 Cyan). Till 2 hours ago I was very happy with the device. It does what it needs to do and does that well. Until 2 hours ago, that is.

After finally giving in on updating some apps and system software I noticed an an option called: Narrator.
Curiosity got hold of me and I activated it. Then I forgot about it and the phone went into energy saving mode.

Now I must add that some of the hardware buttons on the phone hardly work. Not a big deal, as their functionality is covered by on-screen buttons. To get my phone out of sleeping mode I just need to double-tap the screen on my phone and it activates, then I need to scroll up to access the functionality of the phone...a measure to prevent 'butt-dialing' and similar tricks smart phones put you through.

However, with Narrator activated, scrolling is disabled. Frustration levels start to rise very quickly. Actually I don't know of any other device that can instill so much rage in anyone in such a short amount of time.

After 45 minutes of trying to get this functionality go away by trying to be fast enough, using many(!) very(!!!) explicit terms I finally arrived at this tip: use the 'Start' button and volume up button to deactivate Narrator.

Great!...that is one of the broken buttons on my phone!

Then the tip: use Cortana to gain access to the Narrator settings and turn it off.

Even better!!...My hatred for Cortana has just been surpassed by my hatred for this phone at this point in time. So that functionality was disabled from the get-go!

So here I am, looking for a way to find the creator of Narrator and shove my phone through his/her throat with all the force I can muster. To make it more of a sport, I would shove it sideways!

Cooler heads prevail, so venting pressure resulted in quite some physical distance between my phone and me. Now I start looking for a solution to fix the buttons on my phone.

Guess what, I was not the only one with broken buttons and this Narrator problem. Fixing the buttons was actually very easy and cheap.
Although the 520 isn't the only phone with this problem, it appears to be the model that is affected most by a design flaw with the hardware buttons, which can cause micro-fractures that break the contact between the hardware board and the button(s).

You can fix this by removing all the covers from your Lumia phone. Cut a piece of plastic from any kind of thin package material (slightly curved) about 5 millimeters wide and 25 millimeters long. Cut as many as you need and slide one piece of plastic over the broken button. Do this firmly, but gently. Once you are in 5 millimeter to a centimeter in, the plastic hardly goes any further.

Start pressing the previously broken button and you'll notice it works again. The piece of plastic should push the button back down on the phone's main board, recreating the connection and its function.
Cut whatever piece of plastic still sticks out (without moving it, of course)and put back your cover(s). That's it.

I didn't believe it would work myself, but this Narrator mishap made me desperate for any solution. After fixing my buttons this way, the problem was solved quickly and painlessly.

Sure hope this will help anyone else faced with the vile piece of crap that is Narrator.

8
There are only several hours left (10 or so), but GOG offers Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics for free.

Even better, when you register today with them you get 12 more (good old) games, also free!

Better act fast. Oh yeah, no affiliation on my part, just a happy customer there.

9
DC Gamer Club / Path of Exile
« on: December 08, 2013, 09:09 AM »
Since Diablo 1 came out, this game genre has me captured as a fan. Hours and hours I have "wasted" playing both Diablo and Diablo II. Didn't play any of Diablo III though, as the always open internet connection "feature" didn't appeal to me at all...which was also problematic in the beginning. Besides not having internet at home, the reviews from people who could play were mostly 'Meh' so I didn't feel bad about skipping that part of the franchise.

However, I recently discovered a new game in this genre, called: Path to Exile.

It's Free-To-Play (over 4.5 GByte download) and captures the spirit and fun of the first Diablo games very, very well. As I do have internet where I live now, I thought to try it out. Let's just say that many hours were "wasted" again, since I started playing.

The always connected feature in Free-To-Play games is understandable, the existence of micro-transactions too. And in this game these only buy gimmicks that only alter the look and animations of the character(s) you are playing. There is also a chat system where players can exchange loot amongst themselves, no money involved.

Although it is a Free-To-Play game with a lot of features to play with and against others, there is nothing stopping you from playing the game as a solo-player as there is a story-line and lot's of side-quests.

Great game for any price.

10
Living Room / Basejumping+
« on: March 08, 2012, 06:03 AM »
Wow, amazing jump and amazing camerawork. Some bodyparts of steel are definitely required for this one:

11
Living Room / 50 Typografical pieces of art
« on: August 21, 2011, 03:22 PM »
When I was catching up with the news (through a Dutch newspaper) a link was presented to 50 truly masterful pieces of typographical art.

After taking a quick look I can say that it is too good not to share!


12
Just being informed about the existence of a free, portable and full-screen calculator (redchillicrab.com).

After seeing the screenshots and browsing through its quite extensive manual (direct link), it looks more than interesting enough to share it with the DC crowd.

13
Living Room / Want to see impressive numbers?
« on: July 18, 2011, 09:39 AM »
See here an impressive set of numbers...in more ways than one:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html


Amazing in good and bad ways!

14
General Software Discussion / Dropbox....without dropbox?
« on: June 05, 2011, 11:57 PM »
Saw something that could tickle the interest from several DC members regarding the creation of their own cloud backup solution.

The software is called FTPbox, is open source and in beta state. As such some features and options (from Dropbox) are likely not there (yet).


Regards.

15
More for the mechanically inclined:

A link to a bicycle that is 'grown' instead of constructed. :huh:

16
Living Room / Batteries charged?...Away we go!!!
« on: May 14, 2011, 07:03 PM »
This post is for the mechanically inclined:

Here is a link to a battery charged vehicle.
And these particular batteries you can buy already in the (better) hardware store, which do not require much in recharging time and and are switched within seconds!  :Thmbsup:


17
DC Gamer Club / Pixelprospector blog is awesome!
« on: September 18, 2010, 09:58 PM »
Hi all,

On my semi-regular 'hunts' for nice games for kids (age 3 to 9) to play, I encountered this site/blog (pixelprospector).

The URL above links to a post with a link to a youtube video of ten minutes that shows you 190(!) recent freeware indie games and their download links.

From some of these games the quality is simply amazing and worthy to be mentioned here in the DC forum.

Screenshot - 9_18_2010 , 10_03_19 PM_thumb.png

18
Living Room / For those about to Wave...
« on: October 25, 2009, 12:27 AM »
Just now I received my invitation to Google Wave. To my surprise I saw that I could invite others as well.

And guess what, there is still  0  invitation left.

So if you want one, please PM me (with an email address) so it will make it easier to invite you.


That is it, I'm out of invitations.

19
See this blog [www.raymond.cc] for a free subscription (one year) of protection against malware with IObit Security 360 Pro.

They (IObit) also have a free version, but getting the pro version for no money sounds better. The only requirement is your email address, which is kinda standard these days.

And no, I'm not affiliated with the blog or IObit.

20
DC Gamer Club / How the classics were made...or not!
« on: August 21, 2009, 10:35 PM »
Here is a link to a gallery which shows how the truly classic games were made...or were supposed to be made.  :P

http://amusement.fr/...allery/made-of-myth/

This part of the site is English and french available.



21
Living Room / 'PortableUbuntu for Windows' question
« on: May 10, 2009, 02:26 PM »
Hello all,


After seeing this PortableUbuntu software on LifeHacker I downloaded it and am a happy user since.

However, I am moving to a new hard drive which has 12 times the capacity of my old one...and I decided to partition the new drive into 5 pieces. Partition C is dedicated to contain 'Windows' and 'swapfile', partition D is for all 'Program Files', partition E is for data like 'Documents and Settings' etc.

PortableUbuntu sees only the first partition (C:\) and the Ubuntu forums tell me that I have to edit the 'portable_ubuntu.conf' file first and 'fstab' file second. Editing the conf file was not a problem, the fstab file is. Since this file is stored in an image file, PortableUbuntu has to run and locks it. Now I thought to use 'su' and 'sudo' to upscale my rights to root level to see if I had any possibility to override/disable/sneak past the lock.

There seems to be no root level or I am already on it. PortableUbuntu has only one user defined (pubuntu) and it is not possible to add one (using the GUI at least). When I open a console the text before the cursor shows which user is logged on and that is (by default) pubuntu. The forums tell me that this pubuntu is a user with root privileges.

My question is, how do I change the fstab file?

22
Found Deals and Discounts / Gizmo gives us Titan Backup for free
« on: June 27, 2008, 02:18 PM »
Gizmo Richards, from the website http://www.techsupportalert.com/ gives his readers the opportunity to download and register this piece of software for free (normal retail price is US $40) till the first of July.

Visit this link:
http://www.techsuppo...lert.com/neobyte.htm


23
Developer's Corner / Please, do me a disservice...
« on: May 24, 2008, 01:59 PM »
In Windows it is possible to install/register your own service that in turn are added to the (already extensive) list of Windows services
(something like: blahblahserver /install,  NET START blahblahserver).

Reversing these steps also lets you unregister/uninstall services (something like: NET STOP blahblahserver, blahblahserver /uninstall)

Normally I use batch script for both steps.

Over time the batch scripts do their work without reporting an error. Taking a look with Sysinternal's Process Explorer also shows that the services are available when they need to be an not. But when I take a look at the Windows service list, the service(s) are still there. 

My question is this: does anybody here know some software to remove those 'orphan' services from the Windows service list?

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