Messages

226

Living Room / Re: Avaiability/outages of the DCF website.

« on: December 22, 2018, 04:51 PM »

Well, I wasn't as concerned with having an analysis of that specific incident and its causes/responsibilities per se as much as I was with simply identifying the correct reporting path  - e.g., does DCF maintain an Incident Log (per ITIL good/best practice)? - but I have no real idea what the process for reporting such incidents for DCF might be in any case.

Is there a log of service level incidents/outages of the website?

-IainB (December 22, 2018, 11:24 AM)

Anyway, I've reported it now.   

227

Living Room / Re: How's everyone doing this year?

« on: December 22, 2018, 02:25 PM »

...hope your new life is happy and fun

Hope everybody is feeling ok 

-rgdot (December 22, 2018, 01:19 PM)

Life. Don't talk to me about life.

228

Living Room / Avaiability/outages of the DCF website.

« on: December 22, 2018, 11:24 AM »

Is there a log of service level incidents/outages of the website?
I got an Error 522 today, reported by Cloudflare  - copied per the attached file which is just text in an .mhtml file, in a .zip file.
I wondered whether it was a known outage/incident or an unknown intermittent error of some kind.
Thought I should report it.
 There was a diagram that showed the connections between:
  Browser (me) <---> Cloudflare (Tokyo) <---> Host (donationcoder.com)

 - with the Browser and Cloudflare shown as "working" and their link OK, but the link between Cloudflare to Host was X'd out (not working).

I did a Ctrl-R (refresh) and after a rather longish wait, the DCF site came up OK.

229

Living Room / Intel drivers and support - The Intel Driver and Support Assistant (IDSA)

« on: December 22, 2018, 08:05 AM »

I have discovered that the best or most suitable Intel drivers for my Intel i7 chip-based Win10-64 Pro laptop might not necessarily be the ones that have been installed via the sometimes unreliable/unwanted Windows Update process.

For what it's worth, here are some notes on The Intel Driver and Support Assistant - this app could be useful to you.

The Intel Driver and Support Assistant.
These are my notes, made as a record and published here as I consider this app is useful and could probably be well worth having for many other PC users, as it helped to bring my laptop up-to-date with the latest Intel hardware driver versions applicable to that laptop - when it had not so been brought up-to-date by the WinUpdate process.

File:           Intel Driver and Support Assistant Installer.exe
dl from:      <https://downloadmirror.intel.com/24345/a08/Intel%20Driver%20and%20Support%20Assistant%20Installer.exe>
Web page: <https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/detect.html?iid=dc_IDSA>
_______________________________

I came across this app by chance last month (Nov. 2018), after doing a duckduckgo search for: Intel 1815.12.0.2021
 - which was the Intel driver that WinUpdate was trying to dl + install. I wanted to know what it was for.
I was hoping that the Intel Driver and Support Assistant would be able to tell me whether I needed to install anything - and, hopefully, WHY I needed to install it. I wish to avoid inadvertently installing Meltdown/SPECTRE fixes as they are reputedly likely to degrade CPU performance.
___________________________
The installation includes "an invitation" to join the  Intel® Computing Improvement Program: the Terms of which are in the spoiler below: (I DECLINED.)

Spoiler

Terms - The  Intel® Computing Improvement Program.
The information collected includes the web browsing histogram telling how long and how often specific categories of sites have been visited on this device.
All sites visits are classified into one of up to 30 categories. We will not send URLs, web pages titles or any user specific content without an additional explicit permission from you.

Collected information contains your device manufacturer, CPU model, memory and display configuration, OS version, software version, region and language settings, regional location and time zone, other devices in your computing environment, software usage (e.g. number of times used, duration of use, etc.), and feature usage. Collected data is associated with a randomly generated unique identifier (GUID) that is stored on your device. Other devices in your computing environment includes universal plug and play devices (e.g. Smart TV model and vendor information, Video Streaming devices) or other devices that broadcast information that is available to your computer on a local area network.  This information is used to help Intel understand how well our products perform over time, to determine how useful they are, to detect issues and to identify future product improvements. The information collected does not include any actual content you create or view and will not be used to identify you without an additional explicit permission from you.

A frequently asked questions providing additional details is available here: https://policy.syste...eport.intel.com/faq/ .

The Intel® Computing Improvement Program utilizes reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect the information collected against unauthorized or unlawful access, alteration, disclosure or destruction. You can access more information about Intel's privacy practices online at http://intel.com/privacy
_____________________________________________________

When first run, the IDSA (Intel Driver and Support Assistant) works with a web-hosted application to analyze and report on the status of drivers for all the Intel hardware on your particular PC (i.e., the on-board Intel hardware). The report is interesting and very informative - fairly detailed - and is displayed in a browser page. It indicates the software (driver) update packages that are required to be installed on your particular PC to bring it up-to-date.
This it did for me, identifying the device and the driver update required, and asked me to select the download if I wanted to proceed - which I did.

Once installed, the IDSA reloads at system Start-up, and seems to just monitor and check whether the latest drivers applicable to your particular PC's on-board Intel hardware (e.g., including Intel CPU, GPU, bluetooth and wifi processors) are installed. If not, then I think it will automatically download and install it (hasn't needed to do that for me yet), which then would maintain your Intel system(s) up-to-date with the current driver versions - which is what you would expect it to do, at any rate.

Given the - what seems to me to be - excessively inquisitive terms and nature of "The Intel® Computing Improvement Program" (which I declined to join), I do not trust the IDSA to be entirely innocent and so I delete the process after Start-up, though it does not seem to present a burden on the CPU or other resources. Once the process is deleted, it does not seem to automatically persist/reinstate itself - e.g., unlike the annoyingly persistent Google Update processes that are sometimes bundled with Chrome and other Google products.

At the very least, the IDSA provides a useful and independent (of Microsoft) confidence check on the validity/currency of the Intel hardware drivers required to be installed on any given PC.
Probably worth having, therefore.

230

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 - Collection of Hacks, Tweaks, Improvements

« on: December 22, 2018, 06:11 AM »

@mahesh2k:

Is there any app or small tool something like PowerToy (which Microsoft used to release in past) for Windows 10?

-mahesh2k (December 22, 2018, 02:50 AM)

Interesting question, but it is probably irrelevant to ask nowadays, or only of academic interest anyway.

There were several MS PowerToy apps., each doing a specific thing. They were rather useful and were issued post-launch for Windows XP and eventually became obsolete, or ceased to be relevant any more, or ceased to work under subsequent upgrades to the Windows OS.
Newer/more recent Windows OS versions generally seemed to get their own peculiar (discriminatory) additional features bundled with different system versions and their updates. For example, Win10-64 Pro might have some features that were deliberately disabled or not made available in Win10-64 Home, or whatever (which always seemed to me to be a moronic and insulting form of marketing and tantamount to telling the user "By the way, we have deliberately crippled the OS you have just bought. Too bad you're inferior, sucker. Have a nice day.").   

For information, I have copied to the spoiler below the text from the Tweak UI for XP.txt readme file, which I think I had updated with the relevant filenames/links (I have all the files in my archives anyway):

Spoiler

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after the product has been released to manufacturing, but before the next project has begun. These toys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience!

We've taken great care to ensure that PowerToys operate as they should. These programs run on Windows XP client only. They provide additional value to some of the great features in XP. However, the PowerToys were not subjected to the same rigorous testing we provide for the operating system and are therefore not supported. Microsoft Technical Support is unable to answer questions about PowerToys.

The PowerToys are installed into the directory you specify during setup. Typically this is the system32 directory (%windir%\system32).

Some of the PowerToys reside in the taskbar. Before resizing these PowerToys you will first need to check and make sure that the taskbar isn't locked. Right click the taskbar and ensure there is no check mark by 'Lock the Taskbar' menu item.

To uninstall the PowerToys, open Control Panel and then launch Add/Remove Programs. Find the entry for the PowerToy that you wish to remove and choose Change/Remove. You can remove one or more of the Powertoys in this way.

Toys released for Windows XP Client:

1. Open Command Window Here: (File: http://download.micr...erePowertoySetup.exe).
This PowerToy adds an "Open Command Window Here" context menu option on file system folders. This gives users a quick way to open a command window (cmd.exe) pointing at the selected folder. After installation, right click on the folder you would like to have a quick launch command window for and select "Open Command Window Here."

2. Tweak UI: (File: http://download.micr...kUiPowertoySetup.exe).
Provides access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface. There are many settings and options that you can only set from Tweak UI. You can setup your mouse to your liking by setting click speed, hover sensitivity, etc. You can also customize many Explorer settings, taskbar settings, My Computer settings, and a wide variety of other settings.

3. Power Calculator: (File: http://download.micr...alcPowertoySetup.exe).
This calculator has the support to graph and evaluate functions as well as performing many different types of conversions.

4. Task Switcher: (File: http://download.micr...tchPowertoySetup.exe).
This PowerToy enhances the existing Alt + Tab application switching mechanism of Windows XP. It provides a thumbnail preview of windows in the task list and is compliant with the new Windows XP visual style. You use this just as you do the existing Alt + Tab mechanism. Press and hold the Alt key and then press the Tab key to cycle through the running applications. When the desired application is highlighted release the Alt key. You can move backwards through the task list by pressing and holding the Shift and Alt key and then pressing the Tab key.

5. Image Resizer: (File: http://download.micr...zerPowertoySetup.exe).
This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files. When resizing you can choose from one of four standard sizes or choose a size that you specify. You can also choose to resize the original image or create a new one. Right click any image(s) and select 'Resize Pictures' in the context menu.

6. CD Slide Show Generator: (File: http://download.micr...howPowertoySetup.exe).
Enables you to view images burned to a cd as a slide show. Add only images to a CD-RW drive using Windows XP Explorer and then write these files to a CD-R or CD-RW disc. A new task is presented in the wizard for generating the autorun for the slideshow. Now when you take this disc to another computer that isn't running Windows XP you can still view your images as a slide show.

7. Virtual Desktop Manager: (File: http://download.micr...manPowertoySetup.exe).
Manage up to 4 desktops from the Windows taskbar. You can choose a different background for each desktop and run different applications on different desktops. Right click on the taskbar, click toolbars, and then click "Desktop Manager."

8. Taskbar Magnifier: (File: http://download.micr...ierPowertoySetup.exe).
Allows you to magnify part of the screen from the taskbar. This is very similar to Magnifier that can be found under the Accessories menu on the Start Menu except that this PowerToy remains in the taskbar and has a smaller viewing area. Right click on the taskbar, click toolbars, and then click "Taskbar Magnifier."

9. HTML Slide Show Wizard: (File: http://download.micr...genPowertoySetup.exe).
This wizard helps you create a slide show of your digital pictures. When you're done, you can put your slide show on the Web so that your family and friends can view it. Follow the steps of the wizard to select and arrange your pictures, choose from a few simple options, and then save a Web-ready HTML slide show to a folder.

10. Webcam Timershot: (File: http://download.micr...hotPowertoySetup.exe.)
This PowerToy allows you to take pictures from one of the webcams connected to your computer at specified time intervals. When a picture is taken it is saved to a location and with a name that you specify. A simple save option allows you to save all the pictures or only the last picture taken. You can save the pictures to a network share, an ftp share, or an http webdav share.
_____________________________

231

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 - Collection of Hacks, Tweaks, Improvements

« on: December 21, 2018, 01:18 AM »

Cross-posted:

@Curt:

Win 10 can easily be made look like an improved Win 7: ...

-Curt (December 19, 2018, 04:43 PM)

Thanks!   
I have just now updated the Windows 10 - Collection of Hacks, Tweaks, Improvements with a "How to make Win10 look like...[another Win OS version]" link for these points you listed, under the GUI and Controls heading.

-IainB (December 21, 2018, 01:17 AM)

232

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: December 21, 2018, 01:17 AM »

@Curt:

Win 10 can easily be made look like an improved Win 7: ...

-Curt (December 19, 2018, 04:43 PM)

Thanks!   
I have just now updated the Windows 10 - Collection of Hacks, Tweaks, Improvements with a "How to make Win10 look like...[another Win OS version]" link for these points you listed, under the GUI and Controls heading.

233

Living Room / Re: Privacy (collected references)

« on: December 20, 2018, 11:06 AM »

@4wd: Yes. Some people (not me, you understand) might say that we should have expected to see this sort of messing-about with the privacy rights/rules from the Aussies and that they can't even win a game of cricket without bowling under-arm, or something - but I couldn't possibly comment.   

234

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! - Fallout 4 Broadsider.

« on: December 20, 2018, 10:24 AM »

I was playing Fallout 4 the other night for a bit of R&R (no, really, I find it very relaxing), and spotted this bit of sardonic Bethesda humour that came up whilst a fresh level of the game was loading (the image was draggable and rotatable):



Caption:

VDSG Catalogue No.9708 The Broadsider is the answer to that age-old question  "Would it be fun to walk around and shoot people with a portable naval cannon?" Yes. Yes it would.

So I looked it up, and found this (more humour):

From: http://fallout.wikia...roadsider_(Fallout_4)

• The term "broadsiding," or "firing broadside," is a naval term, referring to firing all the cannons (in jargon referred to as 'guns') that can be pointed to one side of a ship, all at the same time.
  
  
• The marking on this cannon is the Royal Cypher of King George III, who was born in 1738 and reigned from 1760 to 1820. There appears to be a date on the first reinforcing ring above the cypher which shows the year 1820. King George III died in January 1820, meaning that this cannon was cast in the foundry during that month. The second reinforcing ring above the cypher is illegible but the info on that ring might state the weight and inspector's mark. There is no historical reason for a British cannon from 1820 to be aboard the U.S.S. Constitution, so it is safe to assume that it came with the robots.

235

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! - Wear sunscreen?

« on: December 20, 2018, 10:00 AM »

There is a super movie I watched the other day: About Time (2013) (SF drama re love and time travel.1080p.BRx264) 5 Stars - that's my rating.
There's quite a lot of humour in the movie.
In it, there is reference to a "song: by Baz Luhrmann - "Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen".

This song is referred to in the movie "About Time" thus:

Narrator: "There's a song by Baz Luhrmann called Sunscreen. He says that worrying about the future is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum."

________________________________
The song is a series of spoken jokes, and the last line of the song - "But trust me on the sunscreen." - led me to suspect that the author's "advice" to wear sunscreen may have been tongue-in-cheek as just so much more "bad advice", sunlight in fact being not a toxin but a natural "food" for our skin as it causes the skin to produce vitamin D3 - which is used in calcium metabolisation to build/strengthen bones and is also thought to help prevent cancer (just avoid getting sunburn).
In the UK, rickets in children was common in the gloomy/cloudy North of England until the doctors discovered that it was an epidemiological factor - the children simply weren't being exposed to enough sun - so they were given vitamin D3 supplements and the problem went away.

However, wearing sunscreen IS recognised as being good:

• (a) for "Cancer charities", who receive funding from sunscreen producers whose products they endorse/promote.   
• (b) for the sunscreen manufacturers, as it is a profitable product which they don't have to prove actually prevents sunburn, and consumer association tests apparently indicate that many brands do just that (nothing), and that the chemicals in sunscreen may be harmful/detrimental to human health, commonly causing allergy/irritation and some are even thought to be carcinogenic risk factors.   

The "song" is just the narration of a slightly updated ("Class of 99") recitation of the following rather amusing essay, put to music:
Essay title: Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young.
Date: June 1st 1997 ( 1997-06-01)
Author: Mary Schmich, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune
Source: https://www.chicagot...n-column-column.html
It's an amusing essay and worth a read.
(essay in the spoiler below)

Spoiler

Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.

I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.
______________________________

236

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« on: December 20, 2018, 09:22 AM »

@Maestr0: Re the Sarah Connor AI, above. What a super joke!   

237

Living Room / Re: Google being jerks in order to dominate the internet

« on: December 18, 2018, 11:36 AM »

@mouser: Interesting article. Thanks for posting.   
Actually no surprises there though, as Google is an excellent near-perfect corporate psychopath, just like it should be.   

238

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Comparative Review of Writers' Tools (INITIAL DRAFT)

« on: December 17, 2018, 05:11 PM »

@Dormouse:

...The trigger for me in starting this review was the irritation from years of reading reviews evaluating software, usually only a few at a time, by comparing feature lists &etc, but never finding these reviews helpful for my own use. ...

-Dormouse (December 17, 2018, 10:53 AM)

Yes, that seems to mirror my experience also.
Which is kinda why I wrote:

Experience indicates that failure to do this [URA] effectively will likely result in a now all-too-typical nebulous review of the sort that gets discussed at great length on sites such as OutLinerSoftware.com, for example (and DCF), ultimately apparently leading nowhere in particular.

-IainB (December 16, 2018, 07:36 AM)

However, I feel that I have already had at least some value from this discussion thread as it has prompted me to trial doogiePIM (out of curiosity), which I don't recall ever having come across before - or maybe I had done and had forgotten about it, though its name is not very forgettable.

239

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Comparative Review of Writers' Tools (INITIAL DRAFT)

« on: December 17, 2018, 10:09 AM »

(a) On Collect/define User Requirements:

• It's not that they're not a concern, but simply that I believe that there is so much variability in need, and so many scenarios, that it's an impossible task.

(b) On Assess the likely effect of using the software in the key workflow processes:

• I also agree the importance of this, but again writer workflows are just so variable - although no work flowing is quite common.

-Dormouse (December 16, 2018, 06:21 PM)

(a) Yes, that was kinda the realisation that I was pushing you towards, without wishing to put it to you in a negative way.
Your project scope would seem to be infeasible for that reason.
I would also suggest that there's no "believe" about it. From experience, a brief analysis of the candidate groups and likely business processes would indicate whether the combined task of analysing respective group workflows (processes) and making a URA to an adequate level of granularity for each group was feasible. You have an elephant there, and the optimal approach to analysis and study of it would have been to break it down group by group - which you are apparently not intending doing.
 
(b) Ditto - that was kinda the realisation that I was pushing you towards, without wishing to put it to you in a negative way, though "workflow" probably needs definition - e.g., (say) "a process that does XYZ and is at CMM Level 3 or higher would be feasible for URA."
Again, your project scope would seem to be infeasible for that reason.
Again, you have an elephant there, and the optimal approach to analysis and study of it would have been to break it down group by group - which you are apparently not intending doing.

On ergonomics (human visual perception), you write:

• An example of the variability is that my visual requirements have become an absolute requirement, but it's not the sort of thing that's likely to have been put on a list of needs for any generic group.

I suspect that you couldn't be further from the truth. The study of the ergonomic needs of users of video screen output and who have vision/perception difficulties (visually impaired or of different visual ability) - and even for different psychological disorders -  has identified/built a wealth of knowledge and understanding and user requirements standards relevant to the ergonomic needs of some generic groups. This knowledge is sometimes of crucial importance to the proper design efficiency and effectiveness of mission-critical systems in the fields of computer operations rooms, graphics design workstations, on-board military and aviation systems, military war-rooms and aviation control applications, for example, but since (I think) the days of CDC's Plato software it has also been applied with very good results to programmed learning systems, particularly children's (e.g., such as the one's my now 8 y/o son uses online through his primary school).

The trouble is that system developers who have not been involved in developing such systems have rarely received any training in the use of applied ergonomics in systems design, so most commercial software developers are relatively ignorant (don't have the foggiest idea) and thus oblivious to the wide potential need for such knowledge and feasibility of application of same.

Your response: "An example of the variability is that my visual requirements have become an absolute requirement, but it's not the sort of thing that's likely to have been put on a list of needs for any generic group."
 - is thus a pretty typical mis-perception of this nature, probably largely due to the availability heuristic.

My ergonomic needs are usually uppermost (and that could probably be true for most users, were they but aware of it) and before I use/trial a new app. I invariably head for the options panel for application settings  - for view/fonts/background colours, etc.
For example:

• -IainB (2011-10-08, 23:05:53)
  
  

• Refer also: Re: Improving the ergonomic readability on laptop screen displays - Tips and Tricks.
  - uses workaround for CHS as an example.
  

  -IainB (August 22, 2016, 06:10 AM)

240

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Comparative Review of Writers' Tools - by the numbers.

« on: December 16, 2018, 04:09 PM »

@Dormouse:
Ahahaha, sorry to have wasted your time then. I shall go back to sleep now.
I guess what people might actually need to do and what sort of data types they would need to capture etc., aren't necessarily a concern from your perspective as they would be from mine. It's just the way I have been trained.
I am accustomed to "doing it by the numbers" and looking at a client organisation's fundamental business and user requirements and defining them before going into an RFT (Request for Tender) process to identify what vendors out there might have software that can meet those requirements.

Actually, I don't think I've ever done an "angels on a pin" count before, though, from experience, that could be a good analogy for the Information Engineering approach!   
I suppose I might have to do it if I did a project for a religious organisation (excepting the Scientologists, who I gather count "Thetans", or something).
No, the only things that count in my dull universe are (off of the top of me 'ead):

Business requirements (Business Case). Budget. Collect/define User Requirements. Tender process:       * Issue RFT.       * Receive Tenders. Study each tender to establish degree of fit between requirements and provider functionality that meets those requirements. Assess the likely effect of using the software in the key workflow processes (including any necessary re-engineering) and on resource requirements and process timings, throughputs and efficiency. Assess the extent to which quoted initial and operational costs of the new system are within budget allocation.

I never 'ad to bother me 'ead about such as them things wen I were a programmer an' the only things as I ad' ter count then were register values in binary an' octal ... no, life were a lot simpler then...   

241

LaunchBar Commander / Re: An oddity

« on: December 16, 2018, 08:48 AM »

@mouser:

...Normally you can set a custom hotkey to show or hide a dock..  The Ctrl+Shift+Alt+L is a global hotkey for LBC to bring up its options -- sometimes useful if LBC is somehow off screen due to a monitor change.

-mouser (December 16, 2018, 06:40 AM)

Thanks. I think I had probably previously removed Ctrl+Shift+Alt+L as the hotkey for Global Tree Configuration (optional) - leaving that blank - so I put it back in there and it seems to work, but the Options panel doesn't seem to come to front at all, most of the time - you have to go look for it. It often sometimes appears in the Start menu list of windows open, but it is invisible or diminished (can't tell which) - even when it is invoked after Windows+D (diminish all open windows) has been pressed, and you seem to have to click on the LBC in the start menu to show/open the LBC Options window.

I changed the hotkey for dropping down the LBC menu (docked invisibly to top RHS pf screen) to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Down-arrow and that sometimes works, but most times not. Odd behaviour.

242

LaunchBar Commander / Re: An oddity

« on: December 16, 2018, 08:13 AM »

Hmm, please do remind me what LBC issues there are..

-mouser (December 16, 2018, 06:40 AM)

I just did!       -IainB (2018-12-01, 03:07:13)

243

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Comparative Review of Writers' Tools - User Requirements Analysis

« on: December 16, 2018, 07:36 AM »

@Dormouse: Where you write:

...For maximum use a review also needs to address the needs of all types of writers ...

-Dormouse (May 14, 2018, 10:57 AM)

I couldn't agree more.   

As a longtime and keen writing tools user and PIM user, I have had my eye on this discussion thread since it started, and whilst I thought the list of the supposed candidate types of users was worth developing, I couldn't find where a URA (User Requirements Analysis) had been tentatively drawn up for that hypothetical population of users - though I suppose I could have simply missed it, of course.

A URA would usually be the project artefact where the explicit needs and priorities of that hypothesised population of potential user candidates was catalogued/defined in a pukka User Requirements document.
Essentially, a review of applications software for Writers Tools (or PIMs) would need to identify the criteria used to establish which specific user requirements were able to be met, and to what extent, by which applications software in the scope of the review. It would not be correct to call this the same thing as a comparison of features.
Experience indicates that failure to do this effectively will likely result in a now all-too-typical nebulous review of the sort that gets discussed at great length on sites such as OutLinerSoftware.com, for example (and DCF), ultimately apparently leading nowhere in particular.

Unless you are happy to tread down the same old path (which I wouldn't recommend), I would suggest some work be put in now to a collaborative effort (you mentioned collaboration earlier) to draft up a URA. There's an existing and relevant template here (overlapping CHS and PIM user requirements) that could be used, with some of the blanks already filled in, so please feel free to copy it and its method and invite us (i.e., any interested DCF denizens who may feel so inclined) to address specific parts in a collaborative manner.

Hope this helps or is of use.

244

LaunchBar Commander / Re: An oddity

« on: December 16, 2018, 06:32 AM »

@towlerg: The oddity that you describe may have something to do with other existing/reserved hotkey or Windows hotkey combinations.
For example, I have an AHK (Auotohotkey) subroutine (script) that triggers a "peek under" functionality. The hotkey combination for this is an ON/OFF toggle - CTRL+LEFTSHIFT+Alt+U -  which is quite complicated, so it's unlikely to be accidentally pressed to invoke that subroutine. Each time the toggle is used, it triggers or untriggers the peek under function, which the function announces each time as a state change, with the message "Peek under has just been enabled" or "Peek under has just been disabled".

So I was somewhat confused when peek under started being invoked without my say-so. I eventually figured out that it was the Win+Left-Click combo that was doing it (this is consistently repeatable). So AHK was/is treating CTRL+LEFTSHIFT+Alt+U as being equal to Win+Left-Click. I feel sure there'll be an explanation somewhere for this equivalence, but I don't know what it is.

How does this relate to LBC? Well, another interesting thing is that, at the same time as peek under is being toggled, the LBC drop-down menu will sometimes also be toggled ON/OFF.
I normally toggle LBC with the hotkey combo CTRL+LEFTSHIFT+Alt+L - which is just one key different to the peek under hotkey. My experience is that LBC has always been a pain as it inconsistently responds to the hotkeys set to invoke it, but I suspect it could be some kind of a priority interrupt or key buffer collision that is going on here, as there are some other odd things that I have separately raised regarding LBC (which I don't think @mouser has had time to get around to sorting out yet):

Couple of queries and an odd thing - using LBC v1.154.2.0 (2018-11-21)
 ...

-IainB (December 01, 2018, 03:07 AM)

245

General Software Discussion / Re: Consumer Photo/Pic Editing Software - try Inkscape.

« on: December 14, 2018, 11:26 PM »

Back in 2014, @Edvard of this parish very kindly fixed up the amusing smiley logo for AVON (the Allied Violent Offence Network) and advanced my education by introducing me to Inkscape - which was the image editing tool he used to fix up the AVON bullet-in-the-head-smiley.
He also pointed me to some useful documentation/tutorials at flossmanuals.net, which can now be found at Wayback.

246

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: December 14, 2018, 11:21 AM »

Maybe we should create a statue of the W10 Logo and slaughter a calf?   

-MilesAhead (December 14, 2018, 08:04 AM)

Hmm. Not such a bad idea, but, bearing in mind that we are talking about MS Win10 here, it should arguably be a comparably representative pig with lipstick on that is being slaughtered, rather than a calf.

247

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: December 13, 2018, 06:45 PM »

@rgdot:

1809 done today on one laptop, so far no issues, fingers crossed

-rgdot (December 13, 2018, 05:55 PM)

Hahaha.     Made me LOL.
In my years of implementing conventional 3-tier client-server networks and thin client (Citrix) server farms (all Windows-based), it would have been verboten to suggest "fingers crossed" as being a passable/acceptable implementation risk management strategy!
Yet the reality would seem to be that that is exactly what Microsoft are implicitly/tacitly expecting users to do.   

248

Screenshot Captor / Re: DC Archive - a better suggestion.

« on: December 13, 2018, 03:46 PM »

@AndreaTX:

Thanks everybody. I turned the auto-archiving off.
Wished I had asked a long time ago....

-AndreaTX (December 13, 2018, 09:05 AM)

Ahh, my apologies, I think I misunderstood what you were wanting to do. Where you wrote:

Not sure if I'm in the correct forum, but it's my best guess:
Is there a way to change the archive settings for the Donation Coder Screenshot program so it doesn't put every single image into its own folder? That makes it absolutely impossible to find something ever again -- unless one would want to open a gazillion folders....

-AndreaTX (December 12, 2018, 04:06 PM)

If you implement the method I suggested in the long post above, then you can "fit and forget" it, and the folder-naming and image management will be able to take care of itself, via CHS (+SC), from here onwards, with minimal housekeeping.
However, if you already have that awful, huge slow-as-molasses Archive file, or the opposite, with files saved in hundreds of Archive Year-Month folders, or something, then don't despair - it would be relatively easy to fix to better suit your needs.

For example, consider using xplorer² and/or Picasa3:
1. xplorer²: (an obvious approach, but not necessarily the best, by any means)

• If you used xplorer² from zabkat.com you could view the files in that Archive file as a flat file in the left pane, and as a normal folder in the right pane, and start inserting empty folders based on (say) Year-Month (e.g., "2018-12) of Creation Date into the right pane view.
• Then sort the left pane into (say) Creation Date order and filter that view for the specific date range you want to put into the first folder on the right. Drag the filtered files from the left pane into the relevant Year-Month folders on the right. This won't alter the flat file view on the left.
• Repeat for all the other empty Creation Date folders you have created.
• This will thus retrospectively reconstruct the typical Archive folder structure you would have had, had you used the feature in the first place.
• The main limitation with this is that, in and of themselves, Creation Date Year-Month folders still won't give you any clear idea of what photo subjects are in which Creation Date Year-Month folders. For that you will need an image management database.
• However, if you already have a huge Archive file containing images in no folders, or one containing images in hundreds of Creation Date Year-Month folders, then in either case, this is where Picasa3 can come in extremely handy and save you all the hassle of trying to organise your images into folders for categorisation. (I have used it for years for simplified image database management and have so far found nothing to surpass it.)

2. Picasa3: (a not-so-obvious approach, and an ideal solution to most image management needs)

• NB: Intelligent use of Picasa3 can obviate the need to apply the tedious work method regarding xplorer² as outlined above.
• Google's Picasa3 is arguably able to provide the best answers for all typical image management needs, but it's not necessarily all that obvious a solution at first sight. You can read all about it and download, install and use it for $FREE from here.
• Using Picasa3's powerful database features, you can rapidly sort, view, categorise/tag, make notes on and organise your images (of any type) individually and in bulk, as you require.
• One of the most powerful features of Picasa3 is probably virtual folders, where any image Category/Tag can be treated as a virtual folder, giving you a virtual single-folder view of just any single category as though it was a single self-contained folder, though the images in it may be scattered across the disk storage in hundreds of variously-named folders.
  Separate Categories/Tags of images can be grouped under a new, single Category/Tag (without needing to remove them from any existing Categories/Tags. There is thus no need to use xplorer², or other file manager, to tediously logically (physically) move files around to make collections/albums.

249

Living Room / Re: Mechanical Keyboards

« on: December 13, 2018, 02:14 PM »

Hahaha. Remapkey.exe, old-style.   

250

Screenshot Captor / Re: DC Archive - Using CHS (with SC) as an image clip management tool.

« on: December 13, 2018, 07:48 AM »

@AndreaTX: You asked almost exactly the question that I had some time back. The solution was not immediately apparent at the time, but when the penny dropped I discovered what (for me) was an ideal solution and way of working:

EDIT: Post updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use.
Usually, when I spend some effort in editing images, it is because I need to keep them for subsequent re-use - e.g. (say), as image attachments when making a post in the DC Forum. So I like to keep searchable meta-data with them, for easy search/find at a later time.
The usual constraint there is that you can only add metadata directly to JPG files. For me, that would sometimes necessitate considerable mucking about and thus, editing images always seemed to become an arduous task and was accompanied by the creation of separate metadata notes and the proliferation/duplication of image types for the same image. Then I realised that CHS might be able to help me, and I adopted what - for me - has been (from experience) a really simple and time-saving approach:

STEP 1: Install CHS (Clipboard Help & Spell).
In CHS Options | Image Capture

• set the preferred application you want as the External Image Viewer - I use irfanview - which is also a good image file/folder manager and editor in its own right.
• set the preferred application you want as the External image Editor - I use SC (Screenshot Captor) - which is considered by many to be one of the best image clippers/editors out there.

STEP 2: Determine what image clipping/snipping tools you are likely to want to use, and have hotkeys set up to invoke each of them separately, as required, at the press of 2 or 3 keys.
I use:
EDIT: Updated 2018-12-14 to reflect current use

• frequently OneNote Clipper - e.g., using Shift+Win+S, which captures into both OneNote and the CHS database..
• frequently SC (Screenshot Captor) - e.g., I use Alt+PrtScr to capture specific Windows into the CHS database.

Method
When you clip an image using OneNote Clipper, the image is copied not only into the default set (a OneNote notebook page), but also always into the CHS database. Having the image in the CHS database, the user can:

• switch straightaway to the full CHS view (Ctrl+Alt+A),
• locate and select the relevant image clip in that view (shows in the Clip Image tab),
• click on the editing tool icon for that image (the tool is set as SC),
• edit the image in SC and when done save it to the original file (which is still in the CHS database), thus overwriting the original image file with the edited image (which is usually what one wants) - thus updating the image in the CHS database and without changing the the file name. So CHS still points at the same (but now updated) image file.
• you can then select in CHS the Clip Text tab for that now edited image and copy the file path from there (path for that image), to use to send it, as below,
• whilst you are in the CHS Clip Text tab, you can add in some metadata about the image, for subsequent search/find and for reference (IMHO you can never have too much metadata, so don't be afraid of littering) - this all goes into the CHS database.

Then switch to where you want to send/copy the edited image - e.g., (say) the DC User Forum post you are working on - and paste into the attachment field the path to that image that you already have from above.

One needs to try this out a few times to appreciate:

• (a) how much time/trouble it can save one,
• (b) how useful it can be for consolidating the image with its metadata in the CHS database - it literally becomes a consolidated part of one's set of knowledge/data that one could probably not previously achieve so readily/easily and have readily accessible/searchable.

So, thanks to CHS (and SC), and credit to @mouser for some excellent tools that work well together.
The really useful thing about SC for clipping images is that the user can set SC to automatically save image clips to the Clipboard, which puts them into the CHS database for subsequent editing by SC. Incredibly useful/efficient!        

What about collecting images by Year/Month?
IMHO, this is a useful thing if it can be automated, as it avoids accumulating images into one humungus bucket folder, which would then be slow-as-molasses and take forever to search in a file Explorer, but could still be viewed as a flat file - e.g., (say) in xplorer².
Because I always initiate SC to manipulate images saved in the CHS image files (database) folder, and because CHS is set to update image folders by Year/Month, SC is (usually) already always pointing at the last current CHS Year/Month folder where it was last invoked for operation.
What this means is that the user can forget about Year/Month as it is managed/controlled automatically by CHS, and SC gets the correct folder to use by always invoking SC from within CHS.

For housekeeping:

• Any separate spurious/unwanted duplicates that the user may cause SC to make in its own set/default location can be periodically quickly searched for and deleted using (say) Everything, based on the SC default filename - e.g., which will be something like: Screenshot - 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png
  In my case these are in the default SC save folder, currently defaulting to the CHS folder:C:\UTIL\Windows utilities\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\Clipboard Help+Spell\Database\Files\2018\12\
  
  
• Thus, spurious/unwanted duplicate files of the form 2018-12-12 , 23_31_40 -.png can be readily identified and expunged.

-IainB (May 08, 2016, 03:58 AM)

Hope this makes sense and is of some use.