Messages

1

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: January 31, 2022, 02:37 PM »

I still use linux on my home server, VPS, and in VMs that I spin up for various reasons.  It's phenomenal for many workloads, but desktop is not one of them.

-cthorpe (October 07, 2021, 11:47 AM)

Oh it's not all that bad - I very, very seldom switch over to my windows partition, and that's pretty much just to play No Man's Sky nothing to do with desktop discomfort

-allen (January 30, 2022, 11:09 PM)

Same here. There is a hot summer going on here in Paraguay and both my desktops started to turn themselves off as protection against heat. So I was forced to use my laptop, which runs: Pop!_OS (v20.04 (LTS or nothing!))

-Shades (January 31, 2022, 11:45 AM)

Oh Pop!_OS is a fun one! I played around with it for quite a while on partition 3. . . for long term usage, I'm pretty happily locked in to Manjaro. I just love the "rolling release" model!

Dismissing the Linux desktop out of hand is already not the case anymore for at least the last 2 or 3 years.

-Shades (January 31, 2022, 11:45 AM)

I agree, I dabbled from the late '90's onwards and it has come a long, long, long ways in terms of setup, general usability, and aesthetics. In most cases with normal-ish hardware, setup is a breeze, things just work and there are so many GOOD desktop environments to choose from, you can really land on the right desktop for you. I like it a lot better than cookie cutter Windows/Mac. (Of course there are advantages to the cookie cutter approach if that's what you're into!)

2

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 11 Announced

« on: January 30, 2022, 11:09 PM »

I still use linux on my home server, VPS, and in VMs that I spin up for various reasons.  It's phenomenal for many workloads, but desktop is not one of them.

-cthorpe (October 07, 2021, 11:47 AM)

Oh it's not all that bad - I very, very seldom switch over to my windows partition, and that's pretty much just to play No Man's Sky nothing to do with desktop discomfort

3

N.A.N.Y. 2022 / Re: Now what's this?

« on: December 21, 2021, 02:50 PM »

I missed that dropdown... good to know, thanks!

4

N.A.N.Y. 2022 / Re: Pledge: Search Thing

« on: December 19, 2021, 09:17 AM »

Allen, great to see you!! 

-mouser (December 19, 2021, 12:50 AM)

👍♥️

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N.A.N.Y. 2022 / Re: Pledge: Search Thing

« on: December 19, 2021, 09:16 AM »

I like customizable short search syntaxes for browsers, the more the merrier. The description has some similarity with Yubnub https://yubnub.org/ , which I had almost forgotten exists.

-Nod5 (December 18, 2021, 01:08 PM)

Yes, similar idea indeex - but I didn't want to share the shortcut name space with the rest of the user base. And I wanted assurance of no tracking.

6

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« on: December 15, 2021, 12:30 PM »

It's been a while since the last message here, but Allen is the next winner in this category:

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-Ath (December 15, 2021, 12:32 AM)

Woohoo! 🏆 I'm working on un-lurking

7

N.A.N.Y. 2022 / Pledge: Search Thing

« on: December 14, 2021, 05:44 PM »

This is something I was going to hack together for myself, but figured why not throw on a frontend and share it with friends. It is currently untitled.

Platform: The web
Price: Free

What is it? Just a simple interface for defining search engines with shortcuts - similar to Duck Duck Go !BANGS or browser built in custom search.

Why? Duck Duck Go/Neeva/Etc. offer limited functionality in this regard, defining search engines for me but no way to add my own search tools. Browser custom search engines work great in a given browser, but they are not portable. Enter Search my Search: define my favorite search engines with shortcut (n) and query (https://neeva.com/search?q=%s) pairs, then set this as my default search engine which will always have all my favorite searches ready to go on any browser on any platform. Authentication will be purely email based, don't want to mess with UN/passwords.

8

PublicDomainVic / Re: The case for supporting Windows 7 in 2022

« on: December 08, 2021, 04:38 PM »

I was surprised to see that nearly 10% of Windows users on Steam are already running Windows 11. But that's mostly because I forgot Windows 11 was even a thing.

-Deozaan (December 06, 2021, 09:44 PM)

Same thing here. Not even really thinking about 11 yet.

-nickodemos (December 07, 2021, 12:00 AM)

Pretty sure I upgraded to Win 11 last time I was there, but it's so rare I boot that partition it's hard to say for sure. Win 7 was a long time ago! I just can't imagine being so rooted in a version of anything I refrain from upgrading that long. If I really wanted something that just-worked without reinventing itself every cycle, I'd use Linux. As far as support goes, though, yup... meet your users where they are unless outdated software/APIs are holding back development.

9

Living Room / Re: I bought an Oculus Quest and I'm blown away by the current state of VR

« on: August 03, 2021, 01:53 PM »

I received an Oculus Quest (1) for attending Facebook F8 a couple years ago - it was a huge leap from the previous Oculus "Go". I've mostly only used it a few times for Netflix, which was fun but man does my face sweat. My daughter lives in the thing though.

Mouser, will your game work on the Q1 or only the new one? I'm guessing they're similar just maybe improved resolution?

10

Living Room / Re: Do Not Buy a Smartwatch Right Now

« on: August 14, 2018, 11:38 AM »

Cool!

I'm still relying on my trusty Pebble. Nobody has come anywhere near making a better "smart" watch imo.

11

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: BazQux Reader - Mini-Review

« on: June 16, 2018, 04:47 PM »

BazQux can act as a feed-reader for YouTube channels

-IainB (June 16, 2018, 05:36 AM)

Oh this is cool! I use Newsblur and after you mentioned Bazqux doing this I checked and Newsblur has this functionality. With both Twitter and YouTube, I find the signal to noise ratio to be bad. I miss most of it, especially what I want to see. Following a handful of important ones in my feed reader fixes that. Both Newsblur and Bazqux solve for this.

It has been years since I last tried Bazqux, I'm checking it out again today. My initial impression is that it's definitely faster, and the filter options are really cool. It's a bit abrasive and I find the topography a lot less pleasant, especially for long-form reading. I'm considering subscribing. If I did, would it replace newsblur, or would I use both to consume different types of information? Time will tell!

You've been using it a while -- any pro tips? I'm still feeling my way around the different viewing options.

12

General Software Discussion / Re: making a single .jpg from a web-page that is over one screen long

« on: June 14, 2018, 10:07 AM »

JPG format really doesn't do websites/text well. If you want clarity, PNG is just going to work a lot better. Personally, I'd use the Awesome Screenshot extension for the capture and then run the image through https://tinypng.com/ to optimize file size.

13

General Software Discussion / Re: Brave: A new browser with built-in adblock and payment solutions

« on: June 13, 2018, 11:59 PM »

Brave has really come a long way since its early days, it's sufficient (if elegant and understated). Vivaldi is a better fit for me, but that's me.

I kind of roll my eyes at their creator payment system, I don't think it'll go anywhere but it's a nice idea.

As someone who works in digital marketing/advertising, I'm torn between the appeal of anonymity and just having everything out there so I can observe the marketing/remarking. One thing that's really interesting to me is that the comfort that comes from running a browser that claims first class tracker blocking really creates a false reassurance. The good it serves is shutting down some truly bad-agents -- but it hardly slows down the really big agents. First-party data is still being tracked, that data is still being shared with big data brokers, and then being-reshared with other really big agents.

You can still search for a place in Liberia on Google, land on Air BNB, be served ads for Liberia BNBs on Facebook and then served ads elsewhere for the same content... Truly hiding requires a ton of inconvenience - VPN, kill cookies... ya'll know the drill.

Anyway, I've been running a little experiment lately, running Chrome/Vivaldi/Brave in tandem and recording my web experience.

Sorry for rambling. All I really wanted to say was first time I tried Brave, it was terrible. It's pretty good, now. I'd take it over Safari, IE or Firefox and it has potential to compete with vivaldi for casual browsing. As a developer, Chrome/Vivaldi are necessary.

14

Living Room / Re: One of our favorite websites loves us back :) Ghacks

« on: June 16, 2017, 08:06 AM »

I was excited to see this story in my reader. Very nice, congrats! Nice to see the two sites bromance evolving

15

Living Room / Let me code that for you (Or, the time an old member had a new problem. HELP!)

« on: October 26, 2016, 09:33 PM »

Hey all! It has been a long time. I've been lurking, but not posting and I feel terrible for just jumping in because I need something... but I do, and here I am.

The short version is my awful ex wife deviously managed to get my wife fired from her job. (IRL. My life. The sitcom.) I'd love to share the whole messy story, but this is a publicly indexed forum, so I better not.

Anyway, my wife has a graduate degree in communications and a background in journalism. She is frantically writing freelance pieces to supplement our income until she can find stable employment, but writer's don't get paid a fraction what they ought to.

So here's my ask. I am looking for side web development projects to close some of that income gap. With nearly 20 years in web development, I know my stuff -- Mouser will vouch for me. I can't compete with offshore outsourcing rates, but my rates are 1/2 to 1/4 agency rates, with every bit the agency experience, and a much higher standard for myself than you'll get from a burned out code monkey.

php & JavaScript are my strongest, but I'm pretty flexible. I can prototype WordPress sites faster than you can describe the project in email (okay, maybe not quite, but I'm fast). So if you know anybody looking for help, please put put us in touch.

I appreciate anything you can throw my way.

16

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« on: May 29, 2015, 08:35 AM »

I remember when Chrome first came out, I wasn't very impressed by it. But after a while it showed significant improvement and I gradually made the shift from Firefox to Chrome as my primary browser.

Maybe Vivaldi will follow a similar pattern.

-Deozaan (May 28, 2015, 11:31 PM)

I had a pretty similar experience with Chrome. Vivaldi also has its roots in old Opera going for it.

17

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« on: May 28, 2015, 09:51 PM »

...Vivaldi is getting better. Still not my main browser, but it's fairly usable; perhaps even promising. Not entirely intuitive but it's possible to install Chrome extensions. That helps.

18

Living Room / Courier Prime

« on: March 17, 2015, 08:56 AM »

"It's Courier, just better."

These fonts are pretty nice. The sans-serif variants are probably the most attractive monospace sans-serif I've seen.

Courier Prime is a lovely font designed with screenwriters in mind (but suitable for all).
Now type designer Alan Dague-Greene and screenwriter/developer John August have released Courier Prime Sans - designed to be used as a generic text editing font - and Courier Prime Source, optimised for coders.

Courier Prime Source features larger line height, new asterisk, slashed zero and straight-legged italic “f.”

All released for free under the SIL Open Font License (OFL) license.

-Source

19

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« on: March 16, 2015, 11:19 AM »

I'm trying the x64 version in a W7 x64 VM.  So far it refuses to do the ordinary expected things.  Like increasing font size with Control NumPad Plus.  Also I can't move the window with the mouse.  Pretty weird.  It has this extended glass area where the caption would be and below it a gray caption bar with the usual min/max/close buttons.

It seems too freaky to try.  Being in a VM on a Laptop it's going to be unsmooth.  But it still feels weird even so.  

-MilesAhead (March 13, 2015, 01:51 PM)

Keep in mind also, the 64 bit version is listed as "experimental"... yeehaw!

20

Living Room / Re: 10th Anniversary - long time member check-in thread

« on: March 09, 2015, 04:57 PM »

I got my head back together mostly by reviving an interest in long-distance cycling. I worked up to doing a couple of 200+ mile rides last year, and have hosted a few passing international tourists.   I'm still looking for enough employment to stop the savings eroding.  

-JennyB (March 09, 2015, 05:19 AM)

Hey, come join us for RASDAK!

21

Living Room / Re: DuckDuckGo as viable Open Source builder

« on: March 09, 2015, 10:38 AM »

Love DDG... took a bit to get used to it, but once I switched, there was no looking back. It has been years now and I couldn't be happier with it. When its results won't suffice, and there are such occasions, they make it real easy to look elsewhere. !g to turn the search over to google, !images for images, etc. Seamless.

I still haven't gotten used to the goofy name.

But then, I never cared for "Google" or "Bing" either. I'm getting old, I just don't like search engine names anymore... Web Crawler and Lycos. Those were good names.

22

Living Room / Re: 10th Anniversary - long time member check-in thread

« on: March 09, 2015, 09:52 AM »

Whew... managed to make the minimum necessary contribution to stay off the Lost list.

(I some times feel bad I'm not around more than I am any more...)

23

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« on: March 09, 2015, 09:49 AM »

I've loved Opera since the 90's, and was quite saddened by its move to Chromium. As you can imagine, I am excited to follow the Vivaldi story but if I'm being completely honest, I'm quite skeptical it'll go anywhere. The first two releases were in close succession, but it's been quiet since...

Aren't the vast majority of power users hooked on add-ons? How will they switch to a new browser? I honestly can't, without at least 8 add-ons I consider must-have also making the jump.

-eleman (March 09, 2015, 08:41 AM)

I have a few I cannot live without as well... Vivaldi is by no means ready for prime time (It doesn't even support bookmarklets yet). But much is coming, if it's coming.

We want to build a powerful, feature packed browser to minimize your need for extentions. They can impact browser performance and increase security risks. Still, we understand you might want more, so extension support is coming. Stay tuned.

24

Living Room / Re: Your favorite podcasts?

« on: January 19, 2015, 11:22 AM »

I'm a regular listener of Group Therapy with Above & Beyond (previously Trance Around The World) - I try and download the split versions and keep the tracks I like. I don't have words to express the amazing, positive impact this show has to my life. Not even being dramatic. 

-nosh (September 07, 2014, 03:43 AM)

You absolutely must check out Ajuna Deep.

25

Living Room / Re: Want to be in my story? See inside.

« on: January 07, 2015, 08:43 PM »

well that offers some interesting options.  Perhaps you can be a female, but a descendant of Annie Jones.

-superboyac (January 06, 2015, 03:03 PM)

The man(?), the myth, the legend.

Stay tuned, kids.