Messages

76

General Software Discussion / Re: What Android Apps Do You Use?

« on: July 29, 2021, 09:21 AM »

That'll teach me to update apps at 00:20, didn't notice that K-9 Mail was in the list and now I've got it's new crappy interface.

-4wd (July 28, 2021, 01:53 AM)

Android play store update's scheme is not my favorite.  I use the last 2.x version of the Miami Metro Transit app.  Simple to use.  But if I do not want to spend my time hacking the version number then I have to let the 4.x update sit in the list forever.  I am sick of looking at it.  The focus of the app is all about paying for fares and passes rather than when the train is going to arrive.  I keep a copy of the 2.x apk in my download folder just in case I inadvertently update.   

77

Living Room / Re: Article about men's reactions to being called "boss"

« on: July 23, 2021, 02:52 PM »

As with many comments it can be genuine or sarcastic depending on the circumstances.  I was a full time worker in a gas station.  It was one of the classic ones with two hydraulic lifts and no convenience store.  There were two part time guys who served in the same army unit together.  They called most people "ace."  Like how is it going ace?  But I noticed they never called each other ace.  Neither did they call the gas station's boss ace.  It was obvious they used it as a term of derision.  I guess it was sort of an "our unit against the world" type of deal.  If you did not like it then do something about it was the attitude.

Anyway once the boss got wind of it he told them to knock it off if they wanted to keep working at his gas station.  They both quit as soon as they lined up other jobs.  It made coworkers unhappy to no purpose other than to make the part timers feel dominant.

That particular boss was a stickler for detail.  But I did learn some valuable lessons in auto mechanics during my time there.

78

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: July 17, 2021, 09:58 AM »

Shades, wasn't Clippy the cause of the demise of Windows Phones?  I never owned one myself, but I heard Clippy had a habit of sticking his arm in the pinhole to pop out the sim tray just as users were about to make a call.   

79

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: July 17, 2021, 09:45 AM »

[ Invalid Attachment ]

Microsoft unveils Windows 365, a Windows 10 PC in the cloud

-Arizona Hot (July 14, 2021, 07:09 PM)

Yeah, about that...

-app103 (July 17, 2021, 02:20 AM)

I guess if you use the term Revenue Enhancement it is not a tax increase. Likewise if you have a Personal Computer that can only function when connected to The Cloud(tm) it is not a dumb terminal.  Forget having a President of the USA.  Instead let us just elect a SysOp and make that person(or AI entity) omnipotent.  Hey!  As long as we vote the SysOp into poweer it is still Democracy(tm) right?

But just let me have my UHD TV and GB/s network, steel-belted performance radials on cool looking rims and 4 wheel disk breaks and I won't say a thing. (To update the movie Network.)   

80

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: July 08, 2021, 02:42 PM »

At the same time, Linux has become notably shittier when the majority of distributions introduced systemd, a svchost.exe clone with a bizarre understanding of how Linux was supposed to work.

They even killed text log files.

-Tuxman (July 07, 2021, 09:56 AM)

The control freaks never tire.  The extension signing in browsers.  Android apps can no longer be .apk files on Play Store etc..  The pressure to get everyone into lockstep is disconcerting.   

81

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: July 07, 2021, 09:51 AM »

I'm so happy that I've migrated to Fedora back in 2017. Haven't looked back.

-Attronarch (July 03, 2021, 12:07 PM)

I messed around with Redhat 6.0 back in the day.  At least back then it seemed like not everyone who created an rpm package used the same assumptions or something.  I moved to Mandrake 9.1 that was similar but used the Debian Advanced Package Tool.  Nearly all the installs seemed to work out of the box.  They changed the name to Mandriva and there may still be single CD setups available for download.  But I don't think the support offerings are still there.  So many distros now and so little time.   

As much as anything I believe Linux got simpler to install successfully on the first attempt simply because PCI won the bus wars..   

82

PublicDomainVic / Re: AppFolderIcon - Sets icon from .exe files on their containing folder (v0.2.0)

« on: July 03, 2021, 09:29 AM »

Very nice -- "Vic" then.  Though "HarmoniousVic" has a nice ring to it! 

-kunkel321 (July 02, 2021, 11:17 AM)

It does sound kind of "chordial" now that you mention it.   

83

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: July 03, 2021, 09:26 AM »

Why Windows 11 won't run on your new $5,000 Surface PC, but a Mac from 2013 can run the next-gen macOS from zdnet

-wraith808 (July 03, 2021, 05:44 AM)

What that article says (or insinuates) is that Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would be the last version of Windows when they thought there would be higher adoption of UWP and the Microsoft Store, so they could rake in ~30% of all sales taking place on their store and not have to concern themselves with earning money from selling new versions of Windows. Now that they've seen relatively little adoption of their storefront, they've decided to re-theme Windows 10 and force people to pay them for it by requiring them to buy a new computer (and therefore require a new Windows license for the new hardware since Windows 10 licenses are tied to the hardware) to run it.

-Deozaan (July 03, 2021, 08:53 AM)

It is kind of weird that Bill Gates was ousted supposedly to shift the focus from desktop hobbyists and office software to a device centric market.  Then they abandon Windows phones altogether.  I remember when I got the Gateway machine it was billed as a server and came with network switches and ethernet card.  It claimed to be capable of running W2K server.  It did, until I tried to create a domain.  I took the domain stuff off but it still crashed on boot every two weeks with the boot error "Illegal opcode in the kernel."  I never saw that error before or since.  It did run NT Server 4.0 fine though.  But if I bought a bunch of them thinking to set my business up on W2K server I'd be pissed. 

84

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: June 29, 2021, 01:35 PM »

These Walmart laptops only have 2 cores. That is a very weak offering nowadays

-Shades (June 29, 2021, 12:23 PM)

Thanks for the heads up.  I guess I have to read up a lot more on Ryzen stuff before I buy anything

Gateway used to be an excellent brand. I still have 15+ year old keyboards from them in active use today. Rock-solid, even though they are not mechanical.

The only Gateway I owned was a Pentium III based desktop I got in 2002.  It came with a VX900 19" CRT.  When I was evicted on Feb. 8 2013 that monitor was still connected to two HP towers via KVMA switch.  It weighed a ton but it would probably still be usable now if it wasn't sent to a land fill.  There was a slight distortion at the perimeter of the screen.  But I had a program to position windows n pixels inside the edge so that the window frames did not appear sliced off at the edge.  A minor quibble.

Besides, that CRT was so heavy I did not want to lift it off the desk once I got it up there.   A very dependable monitor.   

85

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: June 29, 2021, 09:34 AM »

That's ok though, because I now think Windows in general has come to its end of life, for me, even if it could be installed on this laptop. My next laptop will come with some sort of Linux pre-installed, not Windows. (How's ReactOS coming along, btw?)

-app103 (June 28, 2021, 02:08 AM)

I have been looking through the midrange Laptops for a while now.  It seems now I have to wait until I can get one with W11 pre-installed.  The two Laptops I have purchased so far have had non-functional(we are not allowed to use the word "broken" now apparently) Windows Update mechanisms.  The "free update" to the next Windows version never happens.  So I just assume it will be three in a row if I go with Windows.

The chromebook side of things seems not much better.  There seems to be no logic to the variety of features in a price range.  The exception being that touchscreen is a given.

Walmart just made available a bunch of Gateway Windows Laptops.  The customer reviews seem to indicate kick ass performance in a flimsy housing for cheap.  For example a Ryzen 5 machine with 16GB ram and 256GB SSD for $499. Again though, the W10 with free version update song and dance.  I think I liked things better when they released service packs!   

86

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Windows 10 Updates should be avoided?

« on: June 15, 2021, 08:51 AM »

I'm not sure what the deal is but Softpedia seems to think there will be a W11 aanouncement on June 24:
https://news.softped...-launch-533198.shtml

87

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Windows 10 Updates should be avoided?

« on: June 14, 2021, 09:31 AM »

This would also jive to the fact that Microsoft has said before that Windows 10 is the last version of Windows - they're instead moving to a naming of milestones similar to MacOS.

-wraith808 (June 12, 2021, 02:19 PM)

That was my understanding.  I posted "Windows 11" as a joke.  When I saw the article claiming they were actually releasing a Windows 11 I took it as MS vacillation.  I also noticed that during The Pandemic(tm) Bill Gates had something to say on the news feed almost every day.  When he ran out of stuff they switched to scandal mode.  BG is back to being Beelzebub.  It must be similar to being bipolar or something.   

My main gripe with Windows is their insistence on going all in with the update mechanism.  If Windows Update does not work on your system you are pretty much hosed.  Plus the fact that they seem to change direction for the sake of wrong-footing their customers rather than any innovation.  I just could not imagine Ken Olson giving the OK to allowing spaces in filenames as one example.   

88

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Windows 10 Updates should be avoided?

« on: June 11, 2021, 12:09 PM »

So, this thread is about which Windows Updates a person should not install.

-BGM (June 09, 2021, 09:20 AM)

Windows 11.   

-MilesAhead (June 10, 2021, 02:06 PM)

Well, you're in luck. There will be no Windows 11

-wraith808 (June 10, 2021, 06:33 PM)

So is stuff like this
 just a hoax?

89

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Windows 10 Updates should be avoided?

« on: June 10, 2021, 02:06 PM »

So, this thread is about which Windows Updates a person should not install.

-BGM (June 09, 2021, 09:20 AM)

Windows 11.   

90

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone using Macrium Reflect Free 8 yet? Impressions?

« on: June 01, 2021, 03:52 PM »

Ok.  It seems the work-around is install Reflect 8 Home 30 day trial.  If you do not buy it them the program reverts to Reflect 8 Free Edition features.  I just tried it.  It ran comperably to 7 free speed and file size wise.  Also has a dark mode.  One of the new features in v. 8 Free is the ability to load image files into Virtual Box.

91

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone using Macrium Reflect Free 8 yet? Impressions?

« on: June 01, 2021, 02:53 PM »

Hmmm when downloading Reflect 8 Free you actually get v7 free.  Pretty weird.   

92

General Software Discussion / Anyone using Macrium Reflect Free 8 yet? Impressions?

« on: May 29, 2021, 11:42 AM »

Anyone using Macrium Reflect Free 8 yet?  Impressions?

I have been using Reflect Free v.7 to back up my laptop thing.  It only has 32GB of storage so just saving the whole thing is no big deal.  But I am curious if the v.8 of Free has any new bells and whistles.  Also I wonder if it is stable already.   

93

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: May 14, 2021, 01:43 PM »

I just enjoyed The Serene Invasion  by Eric Brown.  Not your usual "countries unite to fend off the external enemy" type of story.  A bit different.  Good food for thought.

94

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 24, 2021, 08:54 AM »

She sees them as a precursor to writing.

-tomos (April 23, 2021, 01:26 PM)

It goes to show you that long before there was such a thing as text, there was pretext.  Sorry, I could not resist.   

95

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 23, 2021, 10:19 AM »

chain saw on the corps

-MilesAhead (April 21, 2021, 03:12 PM)

"corpse" actually.

-Arizona Hot (April 21, 2021, 03:34 PM)

I have to stop using that Opera extension that automatically dis-corrects my spelling. 

-MilesAhead (April 22, 2021, 09:21 AM)

Yeah, I figured you just left off the -e.

-wraith808 (April 22, 2021, 08:17 PM)

 Concision does have its merits.   

96

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 22, 2021, 09:21 AM »

chain saw on the corps

-MilesAhead (April 21, 2021, 03:12 PM)

"corpse" actually.

-Arizona Hot (April 21, 2021, 03:34 PM)

I have to stop using that Opera extension that automatically dis-corrects my spelling. 

97

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 21, 2021, 03:12 PM »

Having a single syllable for both first and last name must generate anger management issues.

-MilesAhead (April 20, 2021, 11:41 AM)

I guess I should be a lot angrier than I am then. Maybe I should try to be an assassin!

-wraith808 (April 20, 2021, 02:00 PM)

Speaking of assassins and books read, I read Sammy "The Bull" Gravano's Underboss  a few years ago.  Hollywood makes Button Men seem cool but Sammy describes in detail how killing the target is just the start.  The real work is using a chain saw on the corps to make the pieces easier to dispose.  A good read.  I got a few laughs especially Sammy's early encounters with the Justice System.   

98

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 20, 2021, 11:41 AM »

Having exhausted the available Jack Reacher novels I have been going through the Mitch Rapp series.

Seems like a weird name for a hero.  Perhaps it has to do with character ownership rights.  I do not imagine very many character name collisions with that moniker. 

-MilesAhead (April 20, 2021, 09:07 AM)

I like those and have read all of them. Never thought it was a weird name, though. Rapp is a relatively known if not overly so last name.

-wraith808 (April 20, 2021, 10:52 AM)

I am enjoying them also.  On the name thing it would have helped if first and last names were not a single syllable.  Maybe I am sensitive to this because my real name has two syllables for first and last name.  Not only that but the end of the first name has the same two consonant sounds as the start of the second.  When people ask my name the end of the first kind of runs into the start of the second and they always ask what it is again.  Kind of annoying.  No wonder the hero is an assassin!  Having a single syllable for both first and last name must generate anger management issues. 

99

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 20, 2021, 09:07 AM »

Having exhausted the available Jack Reacher novels I have been going through the Mitch Rapp series.

Seems like a weird name for a hero.  Perhaps it has to do with character ownership rights.  I do not imagine very many character name collisions with that moniker. 

100

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: April 20, 2021, 09:01 AM »

how the nose works

-mouser (April 17, 2021, 01:23 AM)

Don't forget Turin's archenemy, Nobody Nose.

-cranioscopical (April 17, 2021, 06:08 AM)

I hear he was a prowd individual.