Messages

76

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Privacy Concerns

« on: September 06, 2015, 01:59 PM »

Ah, do you happen to have a handy reference for the specifics (i.e. which versions of which operating systems)?  I hadn't realized some degree of sanity had prevailed.

-ewemoa (September 05, 2015, 07:04 PM)

Sadly, the only reference I have handy at the moment is a rather dryly written college text book sitting on my bookshelf. I can tell you that all versions of Windows have "let's naively use the MAC address to create our IPv6 address!!" disabled by default and I believe the setting is buried far enough in either the registry or the group policy editor that someone would have to set out with the purpose of enabling it. It's definitely not where the casual user will inadvertently activate it.

77

General Software Discussion / Re: Mind mapping software

« on: September 06, 2015, 01:54 PM »

I'll be interested in hearing your answer as well, Vurbal, although I imagine it'll be of very limited use to me...which I'll probably elaborate on once I've learned your process.

78

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: AppSumo presents SitePoint Premium deal of a lifetime

« on: September 05, 2015, 10:05 AM »

Looks like a dang good deal, but digging around on the SitePoint site it appears that most of their stuff is heavily centered around web design. That's not really my wheelhouse.

79

Living Room / Re: In a world free from ads, one font reigns supreme. COMIC SANS!

« on: September 05, 2015, 09:54 AM »

I, fortunately, do not live in a country that has to deal with this, but a lot of people in the world have to ration their data with metered connections. Ad traffic can make quite a dent in someone's data bucket for the month what with all the banner ads rotating and the bloated Flash ads clogging up one's screen.

Oh, since I feel a rant coming on....if you as a company run a site, don't get on your site's forums pleading for money for memberships to help defray server and bandwidth costs (and whine about people who block ads) when you as a company spent $25 million buying that site in the first place. I'm looking directly at you Conde Nast and Ars Technica.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Privacy Concerns

« on: September 05, 2015, 09:51 AM »

ewemoa, when the IPv6 specification was originally drawn up, the bright idea was to incorporate a device's MAC address into the creation of the allocated IPv6 address. This was back before we knew what we know today so along the lines someone got smart & designed a smarter, better way to create those addresses and this is the preferred method used today.

Modern OSes all use this newer method, but that older method is still in the code, but disabled, for compatibility and fail-safe purposes if it's ever needed...or someone's nutty enough to want to use it.

As for NAT, a lot of us old-timers have always seen it as as security feature, but honestly, the days of it helping secure one's network or machine has past. NAT on its own is just a convenience feature these days that allows one to use multiple devices through one IP address. NAT, on its own, is easily circumvented by script monkeys as its design focus was never security.

With IPv6 there's no need to share IP addresses among devices so that's why it's going away. NAT is no substitute for a firewall and even when used in conjunction with a firewall should only be seen as a feature of convenience rather than an additional layer of security. A good hardware firewall at the entrance to your network and a good software firewall on each machine is what will be needed with IPv6 just as it's needed with IPv4. The only difference is NAT won't be needed (or desired) anymore.

81

General Software Discussion / Re: Readon HD 7310 Blurred text with overall faded look

« on: September 05, 2015, 09:34 AM »

That blurry text almost looks like a resolution issue. What screen resolution are you running over there, Miles?

I've had Radeon cards for years & my old HD 5850 just keeps trucking along. The only trouble I've had is a bug in their most recent drivers with Diablo 3, but a work-around has been found for that so it hasn't impacted me significantly.

82

General Software Discussion / Re: use your own definition of malware w Outpost 9.1!

« on: September 05, 2015, 09:30 AM »

Been running this for awhile with good results. The first beta they released at the end of July (I'm one of their beta testers) did *not* play well with my machine at all.

This release is a little sluggish in spots, but I'm sure they'll iron those out before release.

Easily one of the best, smartest purchases I've ever made.

83

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« on: September 04, 2015, 07:31 AM »

PowerDesk was a wonderful file manager back in the day. I think I used every version up to version 6 or so. Sadly, these days the only usefulness PowerDesk serves is being a cheap, cost-effective way to get the Stellent/Outside-In/QuickView Plus functionality installed on a PC.

84

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Privacy Concerns

« on: August 30, 2015, 06:26 PM »

I didn't mean to offend. My apologies to both you and Innuendo if I did.

-Deozaan (August 30, 2015, 01:10 PM)

I'm impossible to offend so no apology to me is necessary. You & I have been co-existing on this board for nearly a decade so I think we've known each other enough that any minor misunderstandings aren't worth giving much thought to given the communication medium & the inherent flaws it possesses.

DC has always been a place to exchange ideas & say what's on our minds. There's bound to be a crossed wire or mixed signal from time to time.

85

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Privacy Concerns

« on: August 30, 2015, 11:02 AM »

Yes, except for the last 3 posts before his.

-Deozaan (August 29, 2015, 07:11 PM)

And that's what I get for skimming. Apologies and back to my corner I go. 

86

General Software Discussion / Re: Raymond.cc roundup of ad blocking extensions

« on: August 29, 2015, 06:27 PM »

It's also funny that they tested Ghostery, but not Disconnect.  I saw their reasoning, and found it... lacking.  I'm using Disconnect and uBlock and those two together seem to be covering it.  Disconnect blocks most of them first, and uBlock gets whatever slips through.

-wraith808 (August 29, 2015, 12:06 PM)

Usually I like Raymond.cc, but this article looks like they started with a conclusion they wanted to promote & built the article and testing methodology around it.

87

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Privacy Concerns

« on: August 29, 2015, 06:25 PM »

If that was a reply to me, I was talking about Windows 7 & 8 when I said simply choose not to install the telemetry updates.

-Deozaan (August 29, 2015, 03:32 PM)

You'll have to forgive his confusion because it looks like this thread is about Windows 10 and everyone is talking about that OS except you.

88

General Software Discussion / Re: The clever software (Two disks in one and not die trying)

« on: August 29, 2015, 10:15 AM »

When you set up your NAS, the setup wizard should offer to let you choose how you wish to access the data: as separate hard drives or as one big hard drive.

89

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with WinPatrol?

« on: August 29, 2015, 10:13 AM »

This thread made me actually install WinPrivacy and WinPatrol. I bought them during the 'last great hurrah because lifetime licenses are going away" and thought maybe I should check to see if the license information they sent me actually works. 

Two things -

First: Holy crap! I can't believe what they are charging for these two programs now! I paid less than half of an annual license fee for one product & got two lifetime licenses.

Second: Holy crap again! These two programs look like their UIs escaped from the early 90s.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Raymond.cc roundup of ad blocking extensions

« on: August 29, 2015, 10:10 AM »

I guess I'm just glad that Adguard seemed to perform respectably, even if it wasn't a top performer. I've been happy with it.

-mwb1100 (August 28, 2015, 05:46 PM)

Adguard wasn't always first place, but it was always at least second. This was a test of the browser extension, though, and I've never used that. I've always used the paid stand-alone application.

The testing was...interesting. I feel they should have added https sites to their test as well as tested for if the ad blocker broke any web pages. This test seemed to be all about volume of ads blocked & memory consumption. That's part of the equation, sure, but other things should have been considered in the product ranking.

91

General Software Discussion / Re: Friendly Face of Death (Windows 10)!

« on: August 29, 2015, 09:42 AM »

In response to Mr. Spector's article and his screenshot above, a quick Google search shows that error is most likely due to faulty hardware or a misbehaving device driver.

If Mr. Spector's computing skills match his investigative writing skills then I'm sure he just ran blindly full speed into the Windows 10 upgrade without doing any research on how compatible his hardware might be.

92

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: August 29, 2015, 09:36 AM »

In theory, you should be able to do a system restore if an update breaks your system. But that assumes you can get booted back into your system long enough to perform the restore.

-Deozaan (August 24, 2015, 11:47 PM)

Well, yes...what you say is true, but your nightmare will start all over again when the mandatory Windows Update kicks in again and re-installs the update that broke the system in the first place & breaks your system again.

I think that's the greater point he was trying to make.

93

General Software Discussion / Re: The stupid windows 10

« on: August 23, 2015, 06:03 PM »

My question with windows 11 is this :

Can Microsoft sells that version is windows 10 have no cost ?
 

-Contro (August 23, 2015, 01:28 PM)

Easy answer to that question. There will be no Windows 11. This will affect be the last version of Windows. It will evolve going forward and people can buy a license for Windows, but Windows is no longer a product. Going forward it is a service.

Oh, but how will Microsoft make money? By advertising and upselling other products as well as taking their cut from everything sold in the Windows Store. The money they made off of the OS mostly came from enterprises and the sale of new Windows devices anyway. Those revenue streams will remain unchanged.

94

General Software Discussion / Re: Mozilla to replace add-ons with Chrome compatible extensions

« on: August 23, 2015, 12:54 PM »

I don't know if I detect a hint of Firefox wanting to be bought out by Google, but I do detect one of them becoming what the original developers of Firefox were fighting against.

I'm currently using Pale Moon. It's not perfect, but it has x86 & x64 versions available for Windows & it looks like they have a version for Linux as well. It's a Firefox fork that has ripped out all the silliness that Mozilla has implemented lately (user-tracking telemetry, Australis, social media features, etc.) all the while being able to use most Firefox extensions (and not requiring they be signed).

Pale Moon is currently trying to distance themselves even farther from Firefox by coming up with their own web engine to replace Gecko. It's still early days on that so it remains to be seen how fruitful that endeavor will be.

If you like what Firefox used to stand for without the detour into Crazy Town that the Mozilla devs have been on lately, you may want to give PM a go.

95

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: August 23, 2015, 09:25 AM »

Really strange language there. What is meant by "the Services"? What is meant by "unauthorized hardware peripheral devices"? These phrases make it sound more like it's talking about Xbox Live and the Xbox console(s) than Windows 10 devices (desktops, laptops, tablets). But Microsoft is going for the whole unified thing, and I can see how in cases such as the Windows Store they might check for and disable pirated copies of apps/games, as I suspect at least Apple if not also Google do on iOS and Android respectively.

-Deozaan (August 23, 2015, 12:49 AM)

Looking past the fancy footwork of their marketing & legal teams, I'm picturing Microsoft wants Windows 10 running on your tablet, your phone, and PC if possible with all those inter-connected with your Xbox and each other. I also picture all those devices doing reconnaissance to every other device they are connected to or interact with....ready to 'squeal' to The Man if anything untoward or suspicious is found regarding Microsoft licensed software (and MS's software partners) and then the appropriately sized hammer will drop accordingly.

Now, all the squealing, The Man, and the hammers are figments of my imagination...so far. We will have to wait to see how it all plays out. I do expect a spike in the sales of third-party Windows firewall solutions.

96

General Software Discussion / Re: The stupid windows 10

« on: August 23, 2015, 09:17 AM »

...the free upgrade to Win10 is available up-until July 2016

-Ath (August 23, 2015, 03:53 AM)

Since Contro has already claimed his free upgrade, it's his to keep forever with no deadline on needing to reinstall it before a certain date.

As for Goldmine CRM, I found on this Goldmine blog the following post dated July 24, 2015:

GoldMine and Windows 10 - latest news from the authors

GoldMine's test for compatibility will start as soon as Windows 10 will be officially released. Compatibility testing will be done usually only on major releases, so for example GMPE 2015.2 or then in GMPE 2016.1 etc. They do not test compatibility on any hot fix releases. At this point they are very optimistic that it will be included on the compatibility matrix for GMPE 2015.2 (the fall release for GMPE) although this is no final confirmation.

Until then if you experience any issues (maybe in a test environment) of GMPE 2015.1 please go ahead and log an incident with us. Although we may say that it is currently not yet tested we will definitely try to replicate and if applicable log with our Development.

Wizard Systems are currently running the latest GoldMine on Windows 10 with a couple of Users so far without any issues.

Stay tuned for further news.

Looks like you may have to wait till the Fall patch, Contro.

97

General Software Discussion / Re: So, what pdf reader app is your fav?

« on: August 22, 2015, 02:28 PM »

For the PDF being so open and standardized, the programs that are used to view and edit them are anything but. Nearly all of them have weird little quirks and idiosyncrasies that keep them from being the perfect solution. What makes the situation even more laughable is that the gold standard in the field, Adobe, are the most non-standard and frustrating products of them all.

I think I've worked my way through every free solution & found something irksome about nearly every one. Now I'm starting to trial paid solutions and so far it seems like opening your wallet doesn't yield less of a mess, but a bigger mess spread amongst more features.

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with WinPatrol?

« on: August 22, 2015, 02:14 PM »

However before you can download, you will need to disable the over zealous security in Chrome and regrettably now in Firefox as well (starting with V40) first.

One more reason to not use those browsers.

99

Living Room / Re: New Computer

« on: August 20, 2015, 10:33 PM »

I'm an odd one....I build PCs not to save any money or for any performance benefit. I build them because it relaxes me. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with WinPatrol?

« on: August 20, 2015, 10:30 PM »

Didn't have any trouble accessing anything on the site while using Pale Moon equipped with AdGuard 5.10 (which will block sites it deems to be malicious).