Messages

451

General Software Discussion / Re: Zentimo/USB Safely Remove - Are they needed anymore?

« on: February 12, 2012, 10:05 AM »

I find personally find Zentimo very useful. but less for safe removal than for managing multiple removable devices. 

I typically have several external drives connected to my desktop systems, which can vary depending on what I am working on.  Hovering the mouse pointer over the Zentimo tray icon gives me an instant overview of what is attached,  what drive letters are assigned, and a quick button to open each in Windows Explorer (or another file browser).  Zentimo also allows you to store settings for removable drives on the device itself, so that the device will appear the same on any system running Zentimo.

Just connecting my Android phone in USB drive mode grabs 3 drive letters, Sansa music players with micro-SD storage take 2, and I have plenty of external hard disks for offline storage and/or backups that get moved around between systems.

452

General Software Discussion / Re: Is WinZip still worth updating?

« on: February 09, 2012, 09:11 PM »

One very good reason for dropping WinZip is that it is now owned by Corel.

Nico Mac originally wrote WinZip while he was working on the Windows version of Kedit  for Mansfield Software.  I was a beta tester and he sent me a licensed copy when it went live. I liked the program so much I told him I wanted to pay for it and sent him a check, which he returned.  My only complaint about WinZip, which was never addressed over the many years I used it, was that it did not provide an option to set the time stamp of an archive to that of the latest file contained in it, which I consider to be critical for managing archived data.

Although I still always compress to Zip files, the only universal standard for archives, I mostly use WinRAR now to do so, because I like the way it works. But WinRAR will not allow you to create a Zip archive with more than 4GB of content, so I also use 7zip when I need that capability. 7zip is good, but the interface is mediocre and the 64-bit version does not show up in the context menu of XYplorer on Windows 7 64-bit systems.

453

Living Room / Re: Apple & Textbooks

« on: January 23, 2012, 08:56 AM »

The real problem with this is that textbooks published through this system can only be sold through Apple's retail distribution system  - iTunes or whatever parallel system they set up for the educational market.  See here for a discussion of the iBooks EULA.

Big publishers who can afford multiple product lines may like this because it eliminates used textbook reselling and it's efficient for them to pay Apple 30% to handle everything, but it has the potential to really screw small publishers and authors by locking them into Apple and out of the rest of the educational market.

454

Living Room / Woz likes Android

« on: January 23, 2012, 08:45 AM »

Even Woz now thinks that Android devices are in many ways better than the iPhone/iPad.

455

Living Room / Re: Anyone got an iPad and like it?

« on: December 10, 2011, 09:40 AM »

Here's another take on this topic.

456

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy Remote access to another PC?

« on: December 09, 2011, 06:36 PM »

TeamViewer provides an option to connect directly to computers on a LAN by specifying the IP address or computer name, bypassing the TeamViewer servers.  I do not know if it is possible to use that beyond a LAN.

One advantage of using their servers is that the free account manager they provide everyone (including free users) makes it much easier to handle all your defined connections by logging into one location.

457

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy Remote access to another PC?

« on: December 05, 2011, 05:01 PM »

I use Teamviewer to bail out several elderly relatives whenever they get their PCs bollixed up, as well as to access my personal system or my home PC network remotely. 

In addition to the full versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux and client apps for iOS and Android, Teamviewer has a portable version that can run from a USB stick, or on a PC where you do not want to install the software.

I have successfully used the Teamviewer Android app to run programs on a remote PC from both a tablet and a smartphone.   It's a bit of a challenge to do things remotely on a full HD screen from a smartphone, but it can be a lifesaver in an emergency.  A tablet is easier, even more so if it has pen input like the Lenovo ThinkPad tablet.

458

Living Room / Re: Hard drive shortage

« on: November 17, 2011, 06:28 PM »

Woody Leonhard, who lives in Thailand, has a piece on the Windows Secrets site about the flooding and the effects on the hard disk industry.

He claims that the manufacturers, or at least their share-holders, are actually quite happy with the situation because it has temporarily changed th HD market from cut-throat commodity pricing to high profit margins.

459

Living Room / Re: Is Kindle Fire set to be the Apple/MS slayer tablet?

« on: November 15, 2011, 11:15 PM »

Amazon seems to have done a very good PR job on the Kindle Fire, as a result of which, they have a substantial number of pre-orders for it.  I suspect they will sell quite a few to people who don't know any better, but it is certainly not going to push any other Android tablets out of the market.

460

Living Room / Re: Hoping for a Patent Bloodbath XD

« on: November 06, 2011, 09:18 PM »

This should liven things up considerably.

461

Living Room / Hard drive shortage

« on: October 27, 2011, 05:28 PM »

Last month, Newegg was selling a Western Digital Black 2TB drive for $129.99 with free shipping.  Today, that same drive is selling for $229.99 plus $7.28 shipping!

Most of WD's factories have been shut down by flooding in Thailand, and since many of the components used by other manufacturers come from the same industrial parks in the Bangkok area, the cost of all hard disks is expected to soar for the foreseeable future.

462

Living Room / Re: Albany City & NY State Police refuse orders to arrest peaceful protestors

« on: October 27, 2011, 04:57 PM »

OMG! Two separate police agencies remembered they're living in the United States of America and refused to be used as political goon squads.

Can  this be the first indication that sanity is finally starting to return to America after an 11-year hiatus? 

-40hz (October 25, 2011, 05:28 PM)

This sounds so uplifting that I hate to be the cynic who punctures the balloon, but this has more to do with the Capital District and NY State police unions letting NY governor Cuomo know that if he thinks he can force more cutbacks on them by threatening furloughs, they can push back too.

I live in Massachusetts, but in the Albany,NY media market, so I am exposed daily to the toxic sludge emanating from the NY State government, and it is impossible to be too cynical about them.

463

Living Room / Re: Sansa Clip Zip: Wow!

« on: October 25, 2011, 06:44 AM »

Newegg.com's Shell Shocker Deall From 10AM to 12:59PM Pacific Time (3 hours) today (October 25, 2011),  is a "recertified" 4Gb Sansa Clip+ for $22.99.

I have a couple of Clips, a Clip+ and a Zune, all purchased at various times over the past 2 years recertified from Newegg, for less than $30 each.  All have always worked flawlessly, although one arrived DOA (wouldn't hold a charge) and was immediately replaced by Newegg.

YMMV, but at these prices, I consider them nearly disposable and keep several around for different uses.

I should also note that I like the Sansa players better than any others I have used over the years. I particularly like the Clip and Clip+ because they are tiny, have great FM radio receivers, and most important, have a physical volume rocker on the side so I can reach into my pocket and adjust the volume without having to look.  They have excellent sound with good phones and are much easier to manage contents on than devices that rely on music management software.

I have never tried RockBox, but I might just buy another Clip+ to experiment with, based on the glowing notices here.

464

Living Room / Re: Wow: Google insider explains why Big G may lose the Internet wars

« on: October 13, 2011, 01:28 PM »

The problem is not really lack of platform, it's that Google cares all about its employees and nothing about its customers.

The nature of business is that you sell something to your customers. If you don't listen to what they want, you will eventually be replaced by someone else who does.

Google has been phenomenally successful because it built a better search engine and has kept improving it.  That is the ONLY thing at which it has been successful AS A BUSINESS. It has been reasonably successful in some other endeavors, such as Android, but it has yet to make any significant revenue at that, and may never do so.

But Google shows no interest in even trying to find out what its customers want. The lack of adjustable font sizes in Chrome that Yegge mentions is typical of that.  A more critical example is Google's refusal to accept that, for many people, an app that is not available offline is not functional, because only in Silicon Valley is the Internet truly 24/7/365, and because if your data only exists on Google's servers, you have no real control over it.  See this article by James Falllows for an example of what that means.

Jeff Bezos may be as awful a boss as Yegge says (although one should take an ex-employee's gripes with a grain of salt), but he is all about satisfying the customer, not his staff, and that is why Amazon may be around long after Google, unless someone at Google eventually gets it.

465

Developer's Corner / Dennis Ritchie - 1941-2011

« on: October 13, 2011, 09:02 AM »

Dennis Ritchie, who gave the world the C programming language and was one of the main developers of the UNIX operating system, has passed away.

I had been programming in FORTRAN and various flavors of assembly language for a decade before C burst on the scene in the late 1970's, and it was a revolution. For the first time, here was a programming language that combined the benefits of high level languages (rapid development, portability, etc.) with the granular control of assembly language.

According to industry surveys, C is currently the second most widely used programming language in the world and may, once again, take the number one spot as Java use declines. C is unquestionably the most important computer language ever developed -- nearly every language since then is based on, or incorporates elements of C.

The success of C can be attributed to Ritchie's elegant design, as further refined in collaboration with Brian Kernighan. Their 1978 book "The C Programming Language,"  as revised a decade later to incorporate the ANSI standardization, remains today one of the best introductions to programming ever written.

466

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« on: October 06, 2011, 10:32 AM »

I am not an admirer of Jobs, but his 2005 commencement address at Stanford is well worth watching, if you want an insight into the personality behind what has been called the "Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field."  It's certainly the closest I have seen of him actually acting like a human being, rather than an ego-driven captain of industry.

467

Living Room / Re: The All New Kindle - ripoff!

« on: October 06, 2011, 10:12 AM »

It seems that with the new Kindle, you can buy the cheaper "Special Offers" version for $79 and then, at a later date, pay the additional $30 cost to remove the special offer advertising. That brings the cost up to $109, which is exactly the same as buying the reader without advertising. Don't know if this will also be the case for the Kindle Touch and Fire when they come out.

That's certainly a smart way to get people to try the Kindle for cheap, then pony up for the full price once they are hooked.  But it also suggests that there is more to the Kindle/Silk symbiosis than first meets the eye.

468

Living Room / Re: The All New Kindle - ripoff!

« on: October 03, 2011, 01:55 PM »

Amazon is being less than up-front about the new Kindles.  For example, the Kindle Touch has been widely touted as undercutting the Nook Touch at $99 vs. $139, but the $99 price is only for an ad-supported version, which you will only find out by actually going to the product page. The regular Kindle Touch is the same price as the Nook Touch at $139.

Contrary to what is widely reported in the tech press, none of the new products, including the Fire, are being sold at a loss with the aim of making it up in sales through Amazon's Kindle store.  The pricing is not even terribly aggressive, given what is available to knowledgeable tablet/e-reader shoppers. Of course, the tech press is not exactly knowledgeable when it comes to this kind of thing.

The biggest problem that I see with all of the new Kindles is that they are locked in to the Silk browser, which means that Amazon will be scanning ALL of a user's web browsing, not just purchases at Amazon,  for data mining purposes.

One reason I use several different browsers is to keep one free of all cookies, so that when I go to a site like Amazon and search for something , I don't get steered to what the vendor thinks it can sell me. Amazon and most other big online vendors always do this, although, in Amazon's defense, I will say that they at least don't switch prices You'd be surprised how many sites display different prices on the same item when they know who you are vs. when they don't.

469

Living Room / Re: Android tablets to rival iPad

« on: September 28, 2011, 01:50 PM »

The main advantage of the Samsung is the thin and light form factor, and in that regard, the 8.9 sounds like a better choice when it becomes available, with the same or better capabilities and screen resolution in a slightly smaller package, weighing less than 1 lb.

For my part, I decided to order a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet (32GB).  It is certainly bigger and heavier than the Samsung 10.1, but it includes a full sized USB 2.0 port that supports input devices, flash drives and external hard disks,  a full sized SD card slot for memory expansion, and a digitizer pen that works across applications, in addition to HDMI and the usual micro USB.  A  folio case with a full ThinkPad keyboard is available for $100, although I did not order that at this time.

Lenovo has also substantially added to the stock Android interface, with a customizable fast app launcher, file manager (for attached storage, including through the USB port) and expanded settings. They also include some additional software like a full version of Documents to Go.

One thing that gives me comfort is that, like all other Think brand hardware, a full hardware maintenance manual can be downloaded from the Lenovo support site.  I'm one of those people who likes to know I can take something apart and put it back together, even if I may never actually need to do so.

I expect it to arrive next week and will give my impressions after I get to play with it for a while.

470

Living Room / Re: Is Kindle Fire set to be the Apple/MS slayer tablet?

« on: September 28, 2011, 01:16 PM »

I think the big winner here will be the major Android tablet makers.

HP is out of the tablet market and RIM is on the way out -- the Fire is manufactured by Quanta, who built the PlayBook for RIM, and has much the same form factor. Obviously, this is a good way for them to unload their stock of components and avoid a big loss.

Amazon forked the Android 2 source and the Fire is a customized Android device with much of the functionality (camera, Bluetooth, etc.) left out.  The Fire is designed to work only as a device to consume Amazon's media services - books, music and video.  That will certainly satisfy the needs of many entry level customers, but anyone who wants more will want a full Android tablet, particularly if these become available at competitive prices.

Several months ago, Lenovo announced that it would be shipping a full-featured 7 " Android tablet by year end, the A1, also priced at $199, and with the same screen resolution as the Fire.  If Lenovo can do it, so can Samsung, Toshiba, Motorola and others.  

471

Living Room / Re: Good quality thesaurus program that integrates with Word 2007?

« on: September 25, 2011, 07:03 PM »

I have tried Word Web. For me, the thesaurus isn't rich enough, and it doesn't integrate well with Word.

I so very much wish I could find that in software. When I'm writing or editing within Word I don't always want to turn to my hardcover thesaurus--it feels so much easier to turn to software on my laptop/desktop. But...to not have good choices doesn't help me.

-raindew01 (September 25, 2011, 07:10 AM)

I use WordWeb Pro (paid version) and find that it works well with Word 2003. I find it actually provides better functionality than Word's built in thesaurus. 

WordWeb also sells several commercial dictionaries as add-ins to WW Pro, including the Oxford North American Dictionary and The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, which I use.  The only thesaurus add-in I saw on their site is Chambers ($19, or $39 combined with the Chambers dictionary).

472

General Software Discussion / Re: Couldn't be more disappointed in Windows 8 :(

« on: September 22, 2011, 10:12 PM »

Things will change when STT (speech recognition) becomes viable/real.

-Renegade (September 22, 2011, 05:56 AM)

Not likely. The problem with speech recognition is not that it doesn't work well enough, but that it is not appropriate as an input method in the vast majority of situations where a user needs to interact with a computer.

Think about a room full of people talking on their cell phones and then think about a room full of people talking to their computers.

473

Living Room / Apple and users' privacy

« on: September 07, 2011, 05:15 PM »

I gave up on Macs and OS X back around Panther, so I have no way to verify this, but if true, it is one of the most amazing deliberate privacy/security breaches I've ever seen.  What could they be thinking!

474

Living Room / Re: Goodnight Irene

« on: September 04, 2011, 06:28 PM »

Our utility services 22,194 customers in my town.

There are currently still 1134 customers without power in my town as of 5:55pm September 3rd.

-40hz (September 03, 2011, 05:15 PM)

That's only 5% still without power.

I talked to a friend in South Central CT yesterday who also still did not have power. She is served by CL&P, not UI, and according to the CL&P outage map,  more than 30% of households in her town still do not have power as of today (Sept. 4).

As my friend pointed out, Connecticut is the wealthiest state in the country and also has the highest utility rates.  Money might buy you love, but it seems it can't buy you decent electric service.

475

Living Room / Re: Goodnight Irene

« on: August 30, 2011, 12:48 PM »

Here's some videos from yesterday showing what has been happening in Vermont: