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Messages - rssapphire [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: [1] 2 3next
1
Living Room / Re: Faster Than Light Math
« on: October 19, 2012, 05:02 PM »
Question: is it possible to read described paper fully without creating strange accounts and/or paying?
-fenixproductions (October 19, 2012, 04:20 AM)

I just followed the link and read the full paper: "Einstein's special relativity beyond the speed of light". Proceedings of the Royal Society A has been open online for for some years. Older material is available as well, but only as PDFs.

2
General Software Discussion / Re: dual boot linux/win32 system
« on: August 09, 2012, 01:09 PM »
Why dualboot when you can run linux in a VM, though?

This is how I do it. I run Win7 x64 with Debian Linux running in VMWare Player. I have shared folders set up and most of my Debian home folder is symlinked to folders on my Windows drive. I use Unity so my Linux apps show up on my Windows desktop with my Win7 programs (Autohotkey hot strings work in my Linix programs this way). I drag Linux programs off the "Start Menu" VMWare Player provides in Unity mode to create shortcuts which I use in a True Launch Bar Linux menu and place in a directory that FARR searches so I can just type "konsole", "kate", "word", or whatever in FARR and start whatever software I wish whether it is Windows software or Linux software. It's very nice as for the most part Windows and Linux blend fairly seamlessly. I'd never go back to dual booting again (unless I was doing 3D graphics work on the Linux side).

My system isn't a monster. It an HP Pavilion p6720f I paid about $500 for in Spring 2011. RAM upgraded to 12GB from the standard 6GB, however.

3
Living Room / Re: DC Apps alternatives for LInux
« on: January 19, 2012, 09:01 PM »
  • AHK? (not ironahk)

I nice AHK-like program for Linux is Autokey. It uses Python as its scripting language but is otherwise similar in function to AHK: "AutoKey is a desktop automation utility for Linux and X11. It allows you to manage collection of scripts and phrases, and assign abbreviations and hotkeys to these. This allows you to execute a script or insert text on demand in whatever program you are using. AutoKey features a subset of the capabilities of the popular Windows-based AutoHotkey, but is not intended as a full replacement. For a Linux-based implementation of AutoHotkey, see IronAHK."

4
Developer's Corner / Re: Ribbon UI - is it really THAT good?
« on: December 25, 2011, 07:25 PM »
Which is fine. But what I (and my clients) don't appreciate is Microsoft's refusal to categorically state what the long term plans for the desktop are once Win8/Metro goes gold. (And by Metro i mean the whole walled garden environment every tech company seems hell bent on copying from Apple if they can possibly get away with it.) So if there's unwarranted confusion and concern, it's largely how Microsoft's been playing it so coy that's caused it.

I'm advising my business clients not to buy any app they will use in their business from an app store where the owner of the store can kill apps already purchased. No business in their right mind should want any applications -- especially applications that are or might become "business critical" -- that someone can kill switch at any time. That's like giving someone a kill switch for your business. I really don't think Microsoft has thought a lot of this stuff through given that a lot of their income comes from sales to businesses.

5
Now the older one without the unknown sponsor thingie (0.9.8 ) is featured as the version to download.

It's still 0.9.9 for me. However, I rolled it back to 0.9.8 manually. I looked at the javascript for the new 0.9.9. It does something with Youtube if the download comes from there although I did not waste time trying to figure out what as there was a lot of code. It definitely resets the enable sponsorship setting to true if it has been at least seven days since you disabled it. It looks like it does this silently as well. My opinion of the author of this addin is not printable.

6
Living Room / Re: Firefox fixes the version number problem
« on: August 16, 2011, 10:25 AM »
The last thing I want is updates that download and install whenever they want unless the publisher can guarantee (with his life and gene pool forfeit if he is incorrect) that the update will never interfere with any other software/hardware on my machine and will never download if I need the bandwidth for something else or if I am near my bandwidth limit if any.  As I doubt many developers will be able (let alone willing) to do this, auto-download/update should always default to off -- if the user wants it, the user can turn it on. Note that an (unchecked) option to turn it on during the install is fine.

7
Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?
« on: January 09, 2011, 10:34 AM »
We're not in free market, we pay for our stuff be it food, medicine and other stuff. Free market doesn't exist in world where we pay for things. Point is about people who dream about free market shouldn't take down paid products or chase them to release it for free.

A "free market" in economics has nothing to do with "all products being free."

8
Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?
« on: January 06, 2011, 08:08 AM »
Asking for free price to any product is no different than piracy. GNU/FSF model just forces paid developers to put their hard work for free and pirates steal it and release it for free. 'Stealing' is the only action that separates pirates and GNU/FSF people, at the end result is same, developers get slammed because of dropping their price of product to 0.

It's still the duty of consumers in a free market to push the prices as low as possible (which means as close to free as they can get them). That's not stealing, that's the way a free market is supposed to work.  If consumers aren't pressing for the lowest price they can get, the market is broken in favor of producers.

And free is a price. Producers are under no obligation to make a profit, they have just as much right to give their property away as they do to charge for it -- it is their property after all. That's the whole point of owning property -- to be able to do with it as you want not do with it what others want.

9
Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?
« on: January 04, 2011, 09:39 PM »
I'm in full agreement that it is, at the very least, rude to ask a commercial developer (small or large) to release their hard-fought work for free.

I disagree on general free market principles. In a working free market it is the job of producers to maximize their profits and it's the job of consumers to get the best product for their needs at the lowest possible price. Only when both producers and consumers do their respective jobs well does a free market economy truly work. And since the lowest possible price is free there's really nothing wrong with consumers asking for it -- as asking for free is often a good way to drive prices down. The goal of free can seldom be reached, of course, but consumers should be trying just as hard to push the price toward free as the producers are trying to maximize their profits. Therefore, I don't think it is any more rude for a consumer to ask for free than it is for a producer to raise prices.

10
Living Room / Re: How to understand all the Intel chip types?
« on: November 15, 2010, 01:04 PM »
But if you look at the WPI of most budget (or business) Win7 machines (frequently 3 or less) it's probably too hard to sell/explain why machine X doesn't really totally suck because the slow part (which sets the score...) isn't really relevant/detrimental to the required application/intended usage.

I very carefully selected a budget machine last January as I needed a lot of processing bang for the buck ($400 in this case). The WEI is only 3.2 because the lowest score (Gaming Graphics) is 3.2. I don't do games on this machine. I do work. Its full scores are: Processor: 6.3; Memory: 7.1, Graphics 3.5, Gaming Graphics: 3.2, Disk: 5.9. Average business graphics/poor gaming graphics, but LOTS of power for the buck in what matters to me. Drop out the graphics and the WEI is 5.9. As the biggest graphics stress on this machine on an average day is the aero-stuff on the desktop or occasional use of Photoshop to edit pictures, this is fine by me. However, officially the machine is a lowly 3.2 because it's not a system the average gamer would want.  As you point out, the WEI thing is helpful but only if you know what you want to use the box for and you understand you have to look at the subscores and ignore the single number. How many people in the general computer buying public are going to know to do that?

11
I just bought a copy about an hour ago. Even though I have DO, I couldn't resist XYplorer at this price -- especially with lifetime free upgrades and usable on all my PCs. It will be my main file manager on my laptop and on my USB stick for use on other computers. Who knows, it might someday replace DO on my main PC as well.

12
General Software Discussion / Re: True Launch Bar v5.0
« on: October 12, 2010, 11:43 AM »
Anyone running Win 7 with TrueLaunchBar for any reason other than a dislike of the smart taskbar?

I run Win 7 and still use True Launch Bar. I like the Win 7 taskbar, but still like to organize menus for my applications, documents, folders, etc. that work my way. There isn't enough room on the taskbar for all of this and I don't really like the "turn a pinned item into a menu" programs I've tried. TLB just does this so much better for me.

13
Circle Dock / Re: Change of Licensing from Version 2 (Cancelled)
« on: August 05, 2010, 12:55 PM »
Actaully the GPL model is so restrictive and, in many ways, unrealistic that unless you have a large programmer team and a larger support and testing team, that Using this license and intending to charge for services is pointless!

This is exactly why I use the GPL license. If I'm going to code something and give it away free than I want to prevent someonme else from taking my free code, extending it, and selling the end result (profiting from labor without paying me for it). The GPL prevents this -- which is exactly what I want. If someone wants to use my code as the basis for their closed source for-profit product, they'll have to come to me and work out a different license acceptable to both of us and pay me what I want for the right to use my code in their product under that license. Meanwhile, people who want to use the code in their own GPL product are free to do so without having to get permission from me.

In other words the GPL does exactly what I want it to do. It lets me release the code for my free product so that others can use it in their open source products while making it hard for someone else to use my code in their closed source commercial extension of my product without paying me whatever price I set for the use of my code in their extended version.

14
Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking
« on: March 23, 2010, 04:43 PM »
A good reason to block ads:

Malware delivered by Yahoo, Fox, Google ads

"It's not just the small players but the ad servers connected with Google and Yahoo have been infected and served up bad ads," said Lyle Frink, public relations manager for Avast.

The most compromised ad delivery platforms were Yield Manager and Fimserve, but a number of smaller ad systems, including Myspace, were also found to be delivering malware on a lesser scale, Avast Virus Labs said.

Found in ads delivered from those networks was JavaScript code that Avast dubbed "JS:Prontexi," which Avast researcher Jiri Sejtko said is a Trojan in script form that targets the Windows operating system. It looks for vulnerabilities in Adobe Reader and Acrobat, Java, QuickTime, and Flash and launches fake antivirus warnings, Sejtko said.

Users don't need to click on anything to get infected; a computer becomes infected after the ad is loaded by the browser, Avast said.

Since the malware started spreading in late December, Avast has registered more than 2.6 million instances of it on customer computers. Nearly 530,000 of those were from Yield Manager and more than 16,300 from DoubleClick, Sejtko said.

{Read entire article}

I have no sympathy for any site that complains because their viewers use ad blockers unless they can guarantee no ads they place or allow on their site will ever contain or deliver malware.

15
Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking
« on: March 11, 2010, 12:37 PM »
Do you selectively unblock sites that meet these requirements?  Or does *everyone* have to meet your requirements before you unblock anyone?

I will unblock the few web sites with ads that actually meet these requirements. However, while I did not mention it in my original post, I leave a few third party (mainly text ad only) ad servers unblocked even though they do not meet all the requirements. Google Adsense, for example. So if a site uses third party ad servers I'm willing to put up with, I see the ads. If they don't they have to convince me that they are not annoying and will not become annoying in the future before I will unblock.


16
Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking
« on: March 11, 2010, 07:33 AM »
I'll stop blocking ads when the following conditions are met:

1) NO FLASH. NO JAVA. NO .NET. NO ActiveX. And no, I'm not going to uninstall FLASH/JAVA as it is useful on some sites. If you can't detect that it is installed but being blocked on most sites, that's the ad company's software problem not a problem with what I'm doing.

2) No 3rd party tracking cookies associated with the ads or any other way of tracking me across multiple sites.

3) No movement. Static text or images only. (Exception: Video ads at the beginning or end of videos, provided the video is stopped and starts to play only if I start it.)

4) No Sound unless I knowing choose to start it.

5) Ads from third party sites must never slow or block the rest of the page loading -- even if the third party ad delivery site is very slow or down. I should never have to wait for an ad to load to see the whole page.

6) No ads that expand, move or do other things if I happen to move my mouse over them.

7) No popups of any kind. (Exception: A css popup that appears over the page as it loads is okay provided it has obvious "close" button immediately available and immediately goes away when said button is clicked.)

Interstitial Ads are fine if they meet the above conditions. 

17
General Software Discussion / Re: Virtual Desktops For Windows 7
« on: March 08, 2010, 09:55 PM »
If you don't need the eyecandy, Dexpot works well and supports Win7. It's free for personal use.

18
Circle Dock / Re: UAC Issues - Vista/Windows 7, 32 & 64-bit
« on: February 23, 2010, 09:22 PM »
We could simply tell users to modify Circle Dock's properties so that it is run as if the user is an administrator; however inexperienced PC users may not be too comfortable with having to do that.

I'm an experienced user and I would not to that with a program launcher as all the programs launched from it would also run with administrator rights. This is why I tried to use my old standby PowerPro with my new Win7 box and quickly decided not to. To get many PP features to work right, it had to be run as administrator -- but then all the programs it started were also running as admin. :(

19
General Software Discussion / Why upgrade to MS Office 2010?
« on: February 19, 2010, 11:20 AM »
Some background. I've used MS Office for years, starting with Word 2.0 for Windows in the early 1990s -- before that, I'd used DOS Wordperfect. Moving to the 32 bit world, I used Office 97 then Office 2000. I never saw much need to upgrade beyond that as Office 2000 seemed pretty feature-complete for my needs in the programs I use most (Word, Excel, and to a lesser extent, Access). However, in 2004 I had a chance to pick up the 3-license Home/Student edition for half price ($80 or so) and did. I've used Word 2003 and Excel 2003 since then -- although I can't see that they are much better than their 2000 editions. As I don't use Access much, I just use Access 2000 when I need it.

I decided that I really should think about upgrading as my current versions are 6 to 10 years old. I noticed that the Office 2010 beta version was available for free, so downloaded and installed the Professional edition beta early in the week. It looks nice, functions well, and the ribbon is okay -- I have other programs that use it and it doesn't bother me as it does some, but it doesn't strike me as a must have improvement either.  However, it doesn't seem to offer me much more than my 2003 edition functionality-wise.

Hence, this thread. I don't live in Office like some people do, so I'd like to hear from those who do what is new and truly useful in Office 2010. What should I look at over the next 6 or 7 months before I have to decide to spend money on Office 2010 or just stay with Office 2003? (I'm in a SOHO environment so corporate/enterprise improvements are not compelling reasons to fork over a few hundred dollars.)

20
General Software Discussion / Re: Need Advice on Forum Software
« on: December 18, 2009, 06:32 PM »
http://php.opensourcecms.com/ has a lot of open source forums, CMSes, wikis, etc. set up and running so people can see what they are like as both a user and an admin.

21
ProcessTamer / Re: prosess tamer and A Squared
« on: August 01, 2009, 09:15 AM »
Process Tamer lowers the application priority when it uses most of the CPU, allowing other apps a better chance at getting some CPU time. It does not attempt to lower memory usage (as that's not what it was designed for).

22
I tried andLinux (http://www.andlinux.org/) and I kinda like how easy it was to setup... I might write a full review if anyone's interested.

I've had to move back to XP as my primary OS for a few months and decided to give coLinux another try. I downloaded the beta2 version of AndLinux (based on Ubuntu 9.04, the KDE version) and found that they finally have whatever bug was sending my system into disk write never-never land fixed. AndLinux is working great here. Far better than my old XP running Ubuntu in a VMWare virtual machine (or Ubuntu running XP in Virtualbox) ever did.

23
Just a thought.. should we add child subforums for people to discuss such software?

When I switched to Linux last fall, I cut down my visits here quite a bit because there didn't seem to be much interest in Linux around these parts. I still use XP (running in VirtualBox) for a lot of programs, but most of the little utilities I use are now Linux, not Windows and I did not think there would be much interest here in those. (To be honest, the only Windows utilities I really miss are AutoHotKey and FARR.)

24
If you use a multi desktop manager can you put one OS on one desktop and the other on another (or alternative just a single mouse click to swap full screen OSes)?

I have never figured out a way to do this full screen as all the VMs I've tried take over all the key presses so one you switch to the VM screen, there is no easy way to switch to the other screens.

Also suppose you want to run more than one OS in seamless mode - what flexibility is there on where Taskbars go (it could get quite confusing!)?

Virtualbox in seamless will display the VM's taskbar whereever it is on the VM's screen.

Shame they can't integrate to share task bars ...

This is the first version of Virtualbox that will run Windows in seamless mode.  I can think of ways to improve the integration. I suspect some of these (and others I haven't thought of) will appear in future versions.

25
Is it possible to "link" XP to Vista in the same way?

It is possible (at least I think it is, I don't own Vista to test it on), although you will want to use VirtualBox to virtualize XP. The latest version of VirtualBox will allow Windows running in the virtual machine display its windows on the main desktop (seamless mode).  For example, that's how I'm now running XP and Ubuntu Gusty. Gusty is now the main OS (with its Gnome panels at the bottom). I run XP in a VirtualBox VM that displays the Windows task bar at the top of the screen.  This all works something like running Parallels with XP on a Mac -- only VirtualBox is free.

It's not perfect yet, but it is very usable.

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