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Hmmm, seems Jibz had a lot of coffee lately. He is sooooo creative in finding good points and samples i never thought of. 

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Curt,

aha, and why, as the article states too, don't they scan normal http urls then too? They just scan https URLs. So Spammer, Scammers, Phishsers signed a codex to only use https connections? 

Greetings
JoTo

Hi there,

what we all suggested and accepted when we signed up for a Skype account is now proofed by the german team of "heise". It is not only a paragraph in the EULA of Skype, but Microsoft is actively scanning Skype traffic for https urls and visits the collected URLs automatically shortly after they have posted.

Neither MS nor Skype wanted to declare why this is done and what is done with the collected data furthermore. They both hide themselves behind ridiculous statements about "this is for security reasons to protect our users from SPAM". Ha, ha, ha! What do these companies think how dumb we are that we believe such a crap?

Anyone who uses Skype has consented to the company reading everything they write. The H's associates in Germany at heise Security have now discovered that the Microsoft subsidiary does in fact make use of this privilege in practice. Shortly after sending HTTPS URLs over the instant messaging service, those URLs receive an unannounced visit from Microsoft HQ in Redmond.

Read the full article here:
German page: http://www.heise.de/newst...ft-liest-mit-1857620.html
English page: http://www.h-online.com/s...ng-you-write-1862870.html

As they try to hide this and they conjure up excuses, proofs for me they have dishonest plans with the data. So give these criminals a big BOOOOOOOOHHHH or better some false https urls to keep their servers busy and leading them to virus pages that let their servers explode!

Greetings
JoTo

Hi mouser,

that is exactly the same behaviour and problem i talked about with you in the IRC channel. I am facing exactly this same problem on 2 Win7 machines with latest FARR. Also tried to clear history with no success, and i looked at my history and there were only lines starting with c:\blah blah, so no external drive, no network drive only system harddisk. But i cleaned the list, as the big FARR-Master told me. And i dont think i have a really big folder in my search path (but define BIG please ).

I'll try your second option to maybe see in which directory it starts to freeze. But, kfitting says, the problem is, it is not happening all the time. Kind of random freeze that is. I dont have recognized a rule to determine when it will freeze and when not.

That doesn't happen on my 2 XP machines, where i use the same FARR version though.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi brahman,

thank you will check that out too.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Gailfrank,

nice finding! Looks good too. I will check that out and ask the others if they are accepting ads. If not, it is cheaper to go with Skype ($4) as with AnyMeeting ($18). But if ads are ok for the others, it will $0 and that is cheaper than Skype then.

Thanks again for your effort and the notice.

Greetings
JoTo

The real question is,
How many syllables are in "cranioscopical"?
different for everyone i think...

Cra-ni-o-sco-pi-cal
Hmmm, i bet 6! Anyone more?

@Jibz: Thank you, now i need to spend another more time and use Google again to find out what WebRTC is. You won't get any more coffee from me next time you join the IRC channel. HAH! That is what you deserve!

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Curt,

there was joke list about topic "You know you are Internet addicted when..." and one item was: "If all your friends contain an @ sign in their names" ))

Well i think 90% of Skype users have no premium account. So my friends which i need to hold a conference with have none too, i am nearly sure. But that is not neccesary. They can go with their free (normal - no premium) account and still can join the conference. Just one person of the conference (the inviter or creator of the conference) need to be premium. So no costs for anyone except me.

And even if i state that i "live in the internet" i havent heard about Google Hangout. I get lost all the time when i login into my Google account with all that gazillion of services they offer. I dont know what the most of them are good for. I just use Calendar and Play store. I have a gmail account which i dont use either. And i use the search engine of course. Thats it for me with Google.

I think my DoCo Account is much more important for me than my Google account.

@Cranioscopical:
*LOL* yes that i wonder too. I always had the impression mouser did something wrong then. But its convinient when i go to bowling. I bring my own ball with me! *LOL*

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Curt,

Hahahahahahahaha! Well, i don't even know how i got it and why i deserve it. My forum activity can't be the reason when you look at my posting count of about 200 in 7,5 years of membership. I haven't paid anything extra for it and (citing Bill Clinton here) "I had NEVER any sexual relationship with mouser".

Also, i'm always more on the taking side than on the giving one. I pulled out so many useful informations and hints from what i call "my private think tank" (a.k.a. Doco) and gave so few back. So this is not the reason too for sure. *SHRUG*

So the only explanation is, our mouseman were drunk when he generously granted me this title. I just remember he ended with the words "Get up now, SIR JOTO!" when he lifted of the swords blade from my shoulder. *LOL*

So this unsolvable riddle why i own this title is in a row with the other famous riddles of our world like "are we alone in the universe" and "why is the word 'abbreviation' such a long word".

Back to the topic though:
Well, all my sputter about Skype over Google is based on the assumption, that technically all works fine with Skype as i understood and expect it. If not, i will be caught with my pants down and maybe have to return ruefully to Mr. Google (or any other recommendation that will come out in the future).

Humble Greetings
JoTo

Hi Deomaaan,

as i said in my posting, the advantage of Skype here is that 90% of the planned participants already HAVE a Skype account and already HAVE Skype installed and already ARE familiar with the Skype program.

That is not true for Google+. There i have to convince them to sign up and to be honest, even i find the google hell of services very confusing and complicated to use. Imagine how confusing this is for a pc dummie.

And, as this is highly likely to be a one-shot event (maybe twice if needed), i dont see the need of another account at Google for the others when they'll never use it again. The other way i decline strictly to open a Facebook account while most of the others have one. And i surely would decline to open one just for a single event too.

Therefore i think the already paved road is better way to go, even if costs a fee to drive on versus pick up your Machete and hit a new pathway through a jungle with a group of untrained newbies.

There is a monthly plan for Skype premium which costs about $4. If i calculate the value of the 10 hours of my precious time that i would need to get them all together on a new service, this is worth every penny of it. (Who would work for $ 0.40/h?) And, all the others can stay with their already existing free accounts. No need to upgrade to a premium account for them. Only ONE (the initiator of the conference) must have a premium account. The rest can work with free account. So no costs for them, as it would be the same with the free Google account, but much much less effort.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi all,

thank you for your suggestions.

Talkshoe is a bit confusing and needs Quicktime...well, at least possible to manage that. But the most other participants in this video conference will be pure pc zero knowledge people.

Same for Google+...that means everyone need a registration to Google and Google+. Even if this is free, i think that is not applicable here. Thank you anyway for the hint. Never heard of Hangouts...you always can learn something from Doco.

I think i can go Jibz recommended way. As most of these people already use Skype and have installed it already and are familiar with. I think i will "donate" a skype premium account to myself *grin* and then i can initiate the video conference from my account. And yes Jibz, the Skype page says "at least ONE must have a premium account". And that can be me. So the others just can use what they already have without fiddling around.

Again i learned something (as a not every day Skype user) that it is possible to have conferences with Skype (audio only even with free account, for video you must have a premium account though). Nice! Thank you!

Nice and easy way found. Will make a test first, before the real conference takes place of course to see if it works good enough. But i think, Skype is so wide spreaded, there should be a bit of rumour if it wont work at all, shouldn't it?

If someone still has a recommendation, slap me with it please But at least the way to go with Skype is a very convinient way for the participants of the planned conference.

Just if someone is interested in (and to brag a bit ))) ):
The conference is about planning our sailing trip in May that we will have on the 2-mast sailing ship "Greif".

Here is a picture of this ship:

[attach]

Greetings
JoTo

Greetings dear DoCo's,

i'm in need to find a video conferencing solution for a "meeting" of our countrywide maritime club. For this the following features should be included:

- Multi-participant in a shared conference room (so not a one on one solution, but like an IRC channel, but with audio and video).
- at least Windows platform should be supported (if crossplatform, why not? )
- Free for personal/noncommercial use

It doesnt really matter if i need to setup a server myself or if the recommendation goes to a service in the internet (even if self-served is preferred though).

I used the forum search and found SupberboyACs thread: http://www.donationcoder....m/index.php?topic=23543.0 , but this doesnt fit my needs. Superboy searched for a 1:1 video connection (which e.g. Skype can do), but i need a kind of a "conference room" (everyone sees everyone in the room and everyone can speak to everyone in the room).

If that is not possible, maybe a (not prefered) fallback would be a kind of a "teacher/pupil" system, where one broadcasts video and all others can see it. But audio must be bi-directional though for asking questions and whatnot. A full conference with all video and audio to all others is still my premier goal.

I know i can use google to find (i assume) a gazillion of programs, but i cannot test and compare them all. So maybe if you can help me narrowing the pool of findings a bit to concentrate of some of the hopefully best ones would be great.

Every hint is much, much appreciated. Thanks to my "private think tank" (a.k.s. DonationCoder) again in advance for all the good hints and helping hands.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi techidave,

i'm an affecte person myself. I dont have macula degeneration though but suffering from Rethinopathia pigmentosa, which results in nearly the same needs for computer work (black background with bright foreground, big fonts and such).

My experience with flatscreens are, that they are worse from me because new big flatscreens come with gazillion of pixels in resolution. Even if they are big in inches this high resolution degrades the visibility again by displaying even big fonts very tiny. Also, most LED flats have a native resolution (very big) and if you change it to a lower resolution you end up with a blurry display. So for me i stay with tube screens (17" at the moment). But they are difficult to purchase nowadays and they need a lot more of space on desk of course, but if you can grab one i'd recommend such one. They are up to 21" or so in the normal consumer market.

Bigger is not always the solution though. In my case, i need to go very close to the screen with my eyes to see good enough. And when the screen is too big, i cant see the edges of the screen without moving my head left and right (because of the seeing angle which is constrained for my eyes too). Keep that in mind when deciding for a monitor size.

For the cursor. I dont see the idea behind a BLACK cursor with BLACK background. That is strange. Well the same problem occurs when you have a program that uses bright background and have a white cursor. My solution here is, using a multicolor, color-cycling cursor. That one is big and i can spot it everywhere on the screen, nevertheless which background it is on, because the bright colors (Red, blue, yellow) are moving all the time. So i can find the cursor even if i'm not sure, where on the screen it is located at the moment. If your friend is interested, i'd gladly share my curor with him. Just ring my bell.

If you want to get more of my experiences with other utils for visually impaired or blind or exchange informations about programs that are usable (color customizable) and all the other stuff concerning low vision and computer, just contact me again. Or point your friend to me, he is very welcome.

Just 2ct. of a self affected...HTH
Greetings
JoTo

Unbelievable! I WON MenuX Pro!

As a person who normally is a looser all the time and when i buy a suit with 2 trousers i for sure then burn the only one jacket of it, you may imagine how surprised and happy i am now.

Wraith and the generous donaters of discounts and free licenses revived my believe in mankind. Hmmm, maybe TOO DRAMATIC! Ok, lets go back to a simple THANK YOU!

Greetings
JoTo

Hi wrath,

i was looking at TopStyle years ago. But it was not visual impaired friendly then and so i was sadly forced to uninstall and forget about it, even when i was so impressed about the helping hand TopStyle is offering.

Now, cause of the generous offering the developer grants to us i was willing to install it again for a second run. And what can i say? It's great now...99% of the GUI colors can be customized now and most parts are visible to me now. Woohooo! 

Now let me calculate a bit:
Usable for me + generous discount + eagerly want this great app = PURCHASE! )))

Thank you so much for your effort to get this discount, thank you to the developer company for the generousity and the customizabilty of TopStyle. So thats a win for all. I get a wonderful CSS Editor for a small price, DC get another great discount to offer and the company gets another purchased license, money (even if it's a bit less - but otherwise they would have got nothing i think ) and maybe some update fees in the future.

Now i have to run. But tomorrow i'll check out how to get TopStyle with DonationCoder-Discount. Can't wait to use it.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Ath,

thanks for proofing me NOT being too dumb. And thanks for your effort to test.

Greetings
JoTo

Crap! Why, if i want to modify my post, the subject is offered as a textbox, but cannot be changed/corrected? It's read only! I missed a "w" at "new" in my subject Sorry guys but you got the idea.

Hi DoCos,

in case you missed that:

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Libjpeg-9-improves-lossless-JPEG-compression-1783311.html

Libjpeg 9 improves lossless JPEG compression

The Independent JPEG Group (IJG) at the German Institute for Applied Informatics (InfAI) has released a new version of the libjpeg library. The developers say it can compress photos in JPEG format in a lossless way and, apparently, libjpeg 9 outputs lossless JPEG files that are smaller than the equivalent PNG file of the same image

Better than PNG AND lossless, nice! But what about alpha channel/transparency? Hmmmm...! 

Greetings
JoTo

Hi timns,

as always i <3 your games. Everyone with a whistle or bell. Never saw that gameplay before. GREAT WORK!

And best is, its visually impaired friendly. 100% accessible for me when it comes to seeing the tiles (very big what is good). Even with the white background it works for me.

I recommend to follow mousers recommendations. A "let the user do mistakes" would be great and will make the game more difficult (maybe let this be an option to satisfy novice and expert users). Some sound feedback would be nice too and will make the gameplay less "boring". Not much sound though to not disturb concentration, but a click sound for removing a tile and a kind of tadaa at completion would be really nice.

Thank you
JoTo

Hi Docoders,

Richard Stallman, one of the initiators of the GPL claims that the new Ubuntu 12.10 have to be considered as spyware for the integrated search feature that injects findings from amazon even in a local search.

From an article from him at FSF

One of the major advantages of free software is that the community protects users from malicious software. Now Ubuntu GNU/Linux has become a counterexample. What should we do?
...
Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code. When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. (Canonical is the company that develops Ubuntu.)
...
Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy various things from Amazon. Amazon commits many wrongs (see http://stallman.org/amazon.html); by promoting Amazon, Canonical contributes to them. However, the ads are not the core of the problem. The main issue is the spying. Canonical says it does not tell Amazon who searched for what. However, it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would have been for Amazon to collect it.
...
Ubuntu allows users to switch the surveillance off. Clearly Canonical thinks that many Ubuntu users will leave this setting in the default state (on). And many may do so, because it doesn't occur to them to try to do anything about it. Thus, the existence of that switch does not make the surveillance feature ok.
...
If you ever recommend or redistribute GNU/Linux, please remove Ubuntu from the distros you recommend or redistribute. If its practice of installing and recommending nonfree software didn't convince you to stop, let this convince you. In your install fests, in your Software Freedom Day events, in your FLISOL events, don't install or recommend Ubuntu. Instead, tell people that Ubuntu is shunned for spying.

Do we see well known Windows practices now slop over to Linux as well? Welcome to the wonderful modern times.

Greetings
JoTo

Errrrm....mouser our god? WTF?

I thought in all these 6,5 years i'm a member of DonationCoder that mouser is only our WORKHORSE and SERVANT!     

I say this and i'm sure my account will not be deleted or the post is censored. 

OOPS! Why has mouser now kick/banned me from the DonationCoder IRC-Channel. CRAP! 

Greetings
JoTo (a.k.a. the forum clown *LOL*)

Thanks Ath,

will check that too. Your hints (also in the channel - Eclipse-Colors you remember *wink* *wink*) were always high quality.

Bye
JoTo

Hi Renegade,

it IS definitely of any help.

I know that i have to decide myself which to choose. But it will narrow the search a bit or at least make me look at the recommended first. If i find one that seems the right one, i don't think i will check another 100 more then. Then i maybe miss the best, but at least i got a good one.

No, specific country is not applicable. If we would do this we have to support many, many different systems. Time is money and simplicity and maintainability is time saving and so money saving, which equalize the maybe a bit worse conditions with a non-local provider anyway.

Thanks again for your list...will check them now.

Greetings
JoTo

Dear Docoders, 

i have no experience in this area and i am facing a gazillion of options that i, for sure, can't check all myself in detail. So i need your help, or better recommendations, to narrow the search a bit.

THE PROBLEM:

We need to offer in our commercial x-ray app a new kind of a purchase plan. A "volume plan" for a specified amount of images exposured. That means the customer should can do an in-app purchase to purchase another 1000, 2000, ... images for which he has to pay x, y, or z $$$. Then he can exposure and process that amount of images and if the amount he paid for is running dry, he have to purchase another "amount package" and so on.

For this to accomplish, we need a kind of a payment service provider, that accepts all major credit card brands and also handles things that are important for business customers correctly (e.g. correct VAT following the customers country laws and a correct PDF invoice blah blah). That service should be at least available to customers in whole europe, even better if it is working worldwide (but not a prerequisite for the time i write this beg).

The purchase should be possible via an in-app purchase without needing the customer to open the browser and visit the service providers webpage (if this is possible - if not we have to accept of opening a browser, but the former is preferred). So a kind of web api for the service would be great. As we are developing the x-ray app in full ourselves, we can develop a module that can contact webpages, interpret the results sent by the services webserver and whatnot. The process just should be a stable and reliable for mostly unattended processing. If the purchase is complete and verified by the service provider, we need to get a notice from the provider in any way that we can process this in our house mostly automatically too (e.g. sending the customer a new license file, creating an invoice for the customer, blah blah).

Last thing to watch out for is of course the price (the fees) that the service provider will bill for his efforts. Okay, if he offers a better and seamless api/service then a higher fee is acceptable of course. But still, as lower as best.

So i kindly ask for recommendations what service providers i maybe shall check. Anyone here have experiences with billing providers on the web with his online-shop or whatnot and can share a recommendation or his experience? If i don't ask for too much, maybe one or two short lines which services, from my above mentioned points, i can expect from them, would be really a premium, superawesome, hypermega recommendation.

Out of the head comes to mind DigitalRiver and Paypal which i will first check now while i'm patiently waiting for the results of my most loved and useful think tank in the universe (the Doco forum ). But every other hint is also very much appreciated.

So let the recommendations coming!

Greetings, your grateful
JoTo

Thank you Ennovy for the notice. I'd have missed that for sure!

PowerPro, a mess to configure, but still the most useable multi purpose utility .

Greetings
JoTo