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Messages - IainB [ switch to compact view ]

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276
(Intentionally left blank.)

277
How many people looked at the rest of the pictures there?
Yes, that was a good accidentally brilliant picture.

278
@visualoutliner:
Are you the developer of CHS?
If so, how did you collect all those "user requirements?" I'm curious. Survey?
-visualoutliner (November 26, 2018, 05:44 PM)
  • (a) No, I am not the author/developer of CHS - @mouser is.
    I am however a keen fan and user of CHS and sometimes suggest changes/improvements for CHS. ...    :)

  • (b) As an interesting exercise, I built the draft of requirements from my analysis of a collection comprised of my own and others' stated user requirements and the interpolated/deduced/postulated requirements that will have been met by the existing AS-IS status of CHS, with the idea that the whole might be useful as a CHS user community tool to help define and distinguish the differences between "business/user requirements/needs" and "feature wants".
    Whilst it might not be entirely correct as it currently stands (e.g., may need updating), as far as I am aware it is the only attempted documented analysis and definition of requirements for CHS that exists publicly.
    It could seem a bit confusing though, as it also attempts to demonstrate the overlap between requirements in two domains - PIM users and CHS/Clipboard users, so there's quite a lot going on in that table - including, for example, "Priority".

The reason I pointed out the CHS requirements was to suggest that you could do a lot worse than document the VisualOutliner business/user requirements and priorities. From experience of small and large systems development as a programmer, systems analyst and as a project manager, application development success/failure is often dependent on the timely collection and ranking of business/user requirements and priorities.
Again, from experience, simply dumping an embryonic product development onto the table and saying "tell me what you think about it" (OWTTE) isn't necessarily going to be conducive to, or guarantee success. Ideally, I would suggest that you use formal ß-testers, at least.

279
Living Room / Re: silly humor - The Mole! (NASA Mars Insight Mission)
« on: November 26, 2018, 08:29 PM »
All about The Mole on the NASA Insight mission: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/insight

27_650x287_C13C59B1.png



280
This made me smile:
Docker makes me sad. 70s UNIX tools wrapped in a gigantic binary file with a comic-style logo added on top of it, and suddenly it is "the next big thing". Bah, kids today.

281
@Curt: Thanks, yes. I think I understand what you say there, but the control over the ongoing availability of the defined extensions is arguably the crux of the matter.
I mean, for example, what if the extension you want (as listed by Share Extension or Extension List Dumper) is no longer available in the store? - like BadAdJohnny, for example.
I would surmise in that case that BAJ was probably excommunicated ostensibly (at least) for its links with a VPN, but that doesn't alter the fact that it was/is a pretty devastatingly good adblocker, and it doesn't consume gigabytes of RAM either - so it's pretty efficient. Yet it is no longer available in the store, even though it works perfectly fine. However, only a minority who have the technical know-how to access and use a non-store copy of the BAJ installer are going to be able to take advantage of using it.
This would seem to be simply a form of effective censorship by a proprietary gate-keeper who disallows the continued availability of BAJ for the majority - via the "authorised" store - for unstated/specious reasons, and not because BAJ is "no good" either, but probably because it is apparently too good at what it does and could adversely affect incremental advertising revenues for the gatekeeper, or something.
Transparency so opaque you can't see a thing...

282
Living Room / Re: silly humor - Musk to Mars! edition.
« on: November 26, 2018, 07:50 AM »


Transcript:
    0:00 Mike Allen: "You're forty-seven. What is the likelihood that you
    0:02 personally will go to Mars?" Elon Musk: "70 percent."

Some people (not me, you understand) might say that, regardless of how he calculated the 70 percent,  Musk is already living on another planet anyway, and if he does move to Mars, then it can't be soon enough for the rest of us, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Mind you, if his predictions regarding the hardships of life on a Mars mission are anything to go by, it sounds like the potential to survive might be greater than, for example (say), getting bogged down in a subterranean water-filled cavern in northern Thailand...    :o

283
@visualoutliner: Nice features!    :Thmbsup:
I for one shall watch the development of Visual Outliner with interest.  Good luck!    :Thmbsup:

Meanwhile, just to give a quick nod to the importance of user requirements:
By the way, because PIM (Personal Information Management) is a very important matter for me in my personal and work life, I have defined and documented my requirements - e.g., in evaluating CHS (Clipboard Help and Spell) I applied the above method:
@mouser - by the way, there is still this: User Requirements for CHS

It could be used to save repetition by different/new CHS users. I put quite a bit of effort into that. Have not updated it in ages as no-one seemed interested. I think I left it as public and editable.
- which has apparently caused some readers to experience such traumatic mind-expansion and neural damage that it induces a temporary state of profound sleep from which the reader awakens with a complete loss of memory of ever having seen it in the first place. (This is the way Nature helps us to recover from traumatic experiences.)

Amnesia rules.



284
@dantheman:
"Share Extension" looks kinda handy, but apparently only useful IF the extension is available from the official Google Store or whatever. (is that correct?) Not sure I see the point in it.

285
@dantheman: I suspect that you might be asking the wrong question here.
For example:
  • I used to use FEBE (at the time when it was the only available extension backup tool, I think), but its development started to lag a little, and then Firefox brought in the Sync functionality, which made FEBE somewhat redundant. So I used Sync instead of FEBE, and - just in case - kept contingency copies of the installers of my fav extensions. So I was mostly covered, from a backup perspective.

  • When I eventually switched to Slimjet - after becoming sick and tired of Mozilla and their control-freak trips, wrecking all that was good about Firefox (for me) - I was happy using the Sync functionality that was built into Slimjet/Chrome. That was until recently, when Google appeared to be starting with the same control-freak tricks that Mozilla had been up to - in this case, silently switching off one of my fav extensions (so I had to keep switching it on again when I ran Slimjet) and then completely zapping it  - this was the excellent BadAdJohnny extension.

  • However, after the Firefox experience, I was prepared for this, and I am in the habit of saving backup copies of the installers of extension that look as though they might be at risk of unilateral prohibition/deletion by GodMode Google. Of course, that will only work if Google don't go down the same path as Mozilla and enforce obsolescence of all/any extensions that they don't approve of on an ongoing basis. I consider backup copies of the extension installers to be a "lowest common denominator" approach - i.e., rather than a backup tool like FEBE (and its restore component).

  • So, from a user perspective, I have taken a relatively independent path that is based on a complete lack of trust of the browser providers/supporters. This has generally worked well, though I thought I had been caught out when Mozilla made the Scrapbook extension obsolete, but I've overcome that hurdle with newer technology - i.e., saving webpages as .mhtml files), which are indexable/searchable via WDS (Windows Desktop Search) and GDS (Google Desktop Search), etc..

So, whether you are using Quantum, or something else, the question might better be: How can my processes be made more resilient and more certain of avoiding falling into the trap of relying on transient proprietary backup solutions from unreliable/fickle providers?
This is one of the concerns that I have regarding my tendency for increasing reliance on MS Office OneNote. I mean, if the supplier can kick off what looks to be a definite new line of integrated computing - such as Windows Phone (Windows 10) and complete with a new Sony-Ericsson smartphone designed for it - and then simply drop it all "just like that", where the heck does that leave the users who have been suckered into using it? If they'd said at the outset (like Google tend to do) that these are trials or Betas, then that could at least be a little more honest, but no, they didn't elect to do that and we have all read the message, loud and clear: "Screw the users/customers".

286
Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS
« on: November 20, 2018, 06:19 PM »
a running stitch is the most basic of all sewing stitches
I thought it was pain in the side one gets after sprinting  :o
-cranioscopical (November 20, 2018, 02:16 PM)
Well, that's appropriate as this discussion is becoming a bit of a pain and is a running thread.

287
@Shades:
Many thanks for being so helpful.  :Thmbsup:

@TPReal:
Where you say:
Edit on 2018-11-20
The old download link was broken, but I'm just attaching the exe and the source code. I'm not sure what version of AHK it was compiled on, but hopefully it can still compile!

The old exe still works on Windows 10. (Unfortunately I didn't find anything similar, or an easy way to create a similar program, for linux, and now I need to work mostly on linux.)
 CCCCtrlC.ahk (5 kB - downloaded 2 times.)
 CCCCtrlC.exe (205.63 kB - downloaded 2 times.)
_________________________________

Thanks!
I actually was more interested in the AHK code as not only did I want to trial CCCCtrlC, but also I wanted to take a look at it to see if I could learn something.   :-[

(By the way, did CCCCtrlC slow you down any, on your way to getting an MSc?)

288
Has this app been "lost"? Apparently, all the links to authoritative downloads are to DC Forum, but it seems to be not here (any more).
Does anyone know where it can be downloaded from? It doesn't see to be on Wayback (why is that?).

289
Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS
« on: November 18, 2018, 04:27 PM »
I don't think of elastic threads as very strong.
It is a bit of a stretch.
-cranioscopical (November 18, 2018, 07:28 AM)
Reminds me of the musician who was given a rubber trumpet. He joined an elastic band.

290
Well, I assiduously tried to register on that website and get the free download of that book, but I was defeated by the unbeatable combination of an execrable webpage design and a Google Captcha. The page consistently failed in both Slimjet and IE.
Waste of time.

291
@4wd: Thanks for that link.    :Thmbsup:
Interesting writeup on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Windows-PowerShell-Scripting-administrative/dp/1787126307
Looks like it could be a pretty useful and educational reference book.

292
@Arizona Hot:
...Would they still be Microsoft then?
Heh. Well, if you're suggesting that they'll not change, even in the longer term, then you could be right, I suppose. They did change more recently though - I mean, take the case of Windows 8. There was not an awful lot wrong with Windows 7, as far as I could see, so what the heck was Windows 8? A mistake, presumably. So, Windows 10 to the rescue. If they keep screwing the Win10 updates up though, they could well be risking losing their monopoly. Google chrome is eroding that market already. The MS corporate licensing must be a complete mess, and all this instability presents a potential business risk and isn't conducive to smooth workplace processes, most of which will tend to depend on IT nowadays, to a relatively large extent.

In How to upgrade to the version of Win10 Pro that YOU want, Woody discusses the issues here. Ends up saying that:
"Windows 8.1 remains the most stable version of Windows."
If that's actually the case (I wouldn't know), then MS would presumably have known it, so one has to wonder, why not leave well enough alone - why all this incessant unseemly haste to get users back onto the update treadmill with Beta-quality updates in Win10? I suppose it's probably all about money, but it's become a serious time bandit and an unproductive resource hog for an awful lot of the planet. From experience, the usual cause of big problems like this (poor quality) can often be traced back to simple mistake/incompetence and especially where the relevant software development processes and test staging processes are below CMM Level 3 (because such processes are poorly-defined and poorly-understood by the people who are obliged to participate in them). Ultimately, that's a management-created problem (Deming).

It certainly seems to be in an awfull mess, in any event. Woody makes a valid point in the post: Ever consider dropping back to the LTSB/LTSC version of Win10?, where he links to the Computerworld post: FAQ: Windows 10 LTSB explained.
if I was advising corporate IT, I'd recommend that serious consideration be given to Woody's suggestion. For corporates, it would ultimately be all about cost containment and risk mitigation in a situation where the risks are daily becoming more evident.
That's why I wrote:
"...I have taken full control over the update process and won't let it get beyond Version 1607 (OS Build 14393.2214) - or at least, not until the update path ahead is clear and becomes less risky."

293
General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced
« on: November 17, 2018, 07:07 AM »
@Arizona Hot:
Too late, you can't unsee it. Maybe next time...
No, that is probably/not necessarily true. Though MS seemed to make it difficult - if not well nigh impossible - for users to revert to the prior OS version, there's nothing stopping the user from installing Windows 7 (32 or 64-bit) - and thus expunging Win10. I contemplated doing that myself, but the trouble was that MS had cunningly bound up some new features in MS Office 2016 updates that apparently would only activate under Win10, and I wanted those features.   >:(
My "revenge" at the moment is that I have taken full control over the update process and won't let it get beyond Version 1607 (OS Build 14393.2214) - or at least, not until the update path ahead is clear and becomes less risky. I feel that I have better (more useful) things to do with my cognitive surplus than let it be consumed by fixing incessant MS Win10 updates that are nearly always broken in some regard. Once or twice is OK, sure, but it's now gone beyond the pale.

294
Living Room / Re: Has anybody stopped to think[...]
« on: November 17, 2018, 06:37 AM »
@KodeZwerg:
* You have joined
Topic: RIP KodeZwerg :(
Channel Topic set by: Deozaan!uio
Okay, i actually stopped.
I could be wrong, of course, but I suspect that indicating a virtual dead stop in a forum discussion thread doesn't, of itself, necessarily qualify as indicating that one has oneself actually stopped anything. However, if @KodeZwerg was a virtual person - e.g., an AI bot, as some forum "members" seem to be - then it could be considered as a stop of sorts, but not a dead stop, as virtual persons (e.g., AIs) can't be killed, by definition, since they are/were not actually alive in the first place.

295
Living Room / Re: Has anybody stopped to think[...]
« on: November 16, 2018, 02:35 PM »
In the army, stopping to think might not be recommended when one has to be on the move, though thinking when one has already stopped could be another matter, of course.
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that for many people, thinking in general is not regarded as being good/best practice, but I couldn't possibly comment.

296
Well, whilst this news might not be too surprising to some, to me it comes as a complete surprise:
Twitter, Facebook, and Google are Fighting Internet Privacy Laws
WRITTEN BY: JULIANNE SUBIA - NOVEMBER 14, 2018

Recently, the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents companies like Amazon, Visa, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Apple, released its “Framework to Advance Interoperable Rules (FAIR) on Privacy”. On the surface, it looks like tech companies are trying to protect user privacy. In reality, they want to make sure that they can continue to profit off of our data. Using simple privacy tools like DeleteMe and Blur will help you stay in control of your privacy.
(Read the rest at the link.)

Copied from: Twitter, Facebook, and Google are Fighting Internet Privacy Laws - <https://www.abine.com/blog/2018/twitter-facebook-google-fighting-privacy-laws/>

Oh noes! Looks like we're gonna have to pay money to third parties like abine.com to protect our personal privacy...Oh wait, how did that happen?
Who would'a thunk it, eh?    :tellme:

297
Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS
« on: November 15, 2018, 11:49 AM »
@ayryq:
Thanks. Good tip about the velour-covered replacement headphone cushions.   :Thmbsup:
Where you write:
I actually found some that were an upgrade for my headphones. I had a Sony MDR 7506 and the vinyl eventually flaked off the cushions. The replacement pads, with a velour covering, were not only better than the originals, but outlasted the headphones, and actually fit the replacement headphones I bought (ATH-M50x).

https://smile.amazon...-Black/dp/B0016MF7W2
Searching amazon for "/brand/ ear pads" turns up loads of options.
Yes, that - "...the vinyl eventually flaked off the cushions" - has happened to 2 or 3 headsets that I have, though it wasn't the case with the Nokia Monsters I discuss here.

IMHO "the vinyl eventually flaking off the cushions" is just so much more built-in obsolescence, helpfully speeded-up by the chemical action of urea and sebaceous oil secreted in human sweat. I don't for a moment suppose that the manufacturers are actually surprised by this breakdown and "don't know" how to make an appropriate vinyl or other covering that is impervious to such secretions and doesn't break down over time.

I was aware that one could buy replacement cushions for some models of headphone from Amazon and elsewhere, but they tend to be grossly overpriced for what they are (I have some idea of the manufacturing costs involved) and would in some cases have been almost as expensive as buying a new pair of headphones - i.e., a rip-off. Also, Amazon postage & shipping costs to me in NZ are usually really excessive (another rip-off) - adding a sizeable percentage cost, sometimes as much as or more than the cost of the product itself (depending on what you are buying), so Amazon is not usually comparatively cost-effective and is even less so now that Amazon is obliged to collect 15% GST (Goods & Services Tax) for the NZ Inland Revenue, on all purchases bought online from NZ. Sheesh.   :o

For me, I shall probably find that buying a cheapish pair of industrial safety earmuffs will be the least-cost option. I can just use the ear-cushions and maybe the sound-absorbent inside foam, and discard the hard parts of the earmuffs, or re-purpose them to hold transplanted headphone speakers from good but broken headphones. The cushions on these earmuffs are resistant to sweat etc. - because they are designed for a hard life and to be comfortably worn for long periods by sweaty-headed users on building sites and in factories, etc. The rest of their componentry is also pretty durable and suitable-for-purpose, meeting fairly stringent health and safety standards, though, from experience in industrial engineering, their built-in obsolescence would seem to be reserved for deliberately weak links - e.g., (say) the band on top of the head, which, on some models, only takes a few hundred bends outwards before failing, right in the middle of the band. Like no-one would expect that to happen. Oh what a surprise (NOT).    :o

298
Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS
« on: November 15, 2018, 02:28 AM »
cranioscopical:
In an emergency, apply strips of Dr. Scholl's moleskin using gel medium for the adhesive. Looks like hell but works a treat.
-cranioscopical (November 14, 2018, 01:34 PM)
Ahh, thanks. I had to search up on "Dr. Scholl's Moleskin" and "gel medium", as I'd neither seen nor heard of either of them before. Good idea for alternative use materials, and thankyou for the suggestion. I shall explore the potential use of both of them.
I guess the Moleskin would probably be a great fabric to go on the surface of the cushions, but that (softness of the fabric) isn't an issue in the case of the Nokia Monster headphones, where the problem is the rectangular foam cushion around the earpiece. That foam is manufactured with a soft outer plastic "leather look" skin wrapped tightly around it and that skin has a seam. It is that seam which appears to break down first, releasing the squashed-in foam contents inside and which latter is then free to expand and return to its normal cut shape. So it just sort of falls apart into two pieces - the outer plastic skin, and the (now expanded) foam cushion that had been compressed inside it. It's a mess and obstructs the sound waves emanating from the earphone speaker.

It was infeasible to attempt to restore the cushions to their original manufactured state. So, I removed the two pieces, cut down the now expanded foam to shape (so the speakers would not be obscured (and sound waves would be unobstructed) and trimmed and attached the now roughly flat skin on top with duct tape holding it to the hard plastic outer case of the earpiece. That held the foam in place and would have worked fine but for the tape adhesive breaking down into sticky goo, as described above. However, it was still an on-ear headphone, you see, which - for me - is ergonomically not ideal (QED).

I knew that I wanted to somehow convert them to over-the-ear headphones, and had been eyeing-up some industrial sound-muffling (safety) ear-muffs as potential candidates in which to transplant the ear-speakers from the Nokia headset, but this would have thrown away the main structural part of the headset, which would have been a waste, as it seemed to be very good at what it was designed to do. It was whilst I was looking at a selection of safety headsets that I saw the replacement Tactix cushions for sale. They looked like I might be able to to fit them to the Nokia Monster headset as a bit of a kludge, so I bought a pair to offer them up and see if they'd do, and to my pleasant surprise they were a dead simple and near-ideal solution - NFR (No Fixing Required) and thus not really a kludge.

You can see in the photo below that - on the LHS - one cushion has been fitted/mounted. I used blue-tack to hold that one cushion in place for the photo, but in practice there is nothing holding the cushions in place except for the horizontal spring-loaded tension from the headset and the close fit of the rectangular plastic loudspeaker housing into the moulding on the cushion's backplate and with the ears providing location. There's no weight bearing on the ears, because the neoprene cushioned band on top of the head is transferring the load to the top of the skull. It's "light as a feather", adjustable and very comfortable, with no uncomfortable pressure-points (unlike the original on-ear cushions).

In the photo, the other cushion is face down, exposing its rigid plastic backplate, which has a moulding that neatly accommodates the rectangular shape of the plastic loudspeaker housing - which latter you can see on the RHS (no cushion fitted).

15_1720x2142_B37E9B68.png

299
Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS
« on: November 14, 2018, 10:24 AM »
Nokia Purity HD Wired WH-930 by Monster On-Ear Headphones.
I found these (used/discarded) headphones last Sunday. They are rather good!
Usually, I donate found stuff to local charity op-shops, but I think I shall keep these, as I coincidentally needed another pair of headphones.
18_1500x959_E7BBD915.png

I mentioned that the foam ear-pads (cushions) on these headphones tend to deteriorate/disintegrate and that this looked to me like a deliberate design flaw (built-in product obsolescence) as the ear-pads seem to be non-replaceable (no replacement spares available, anyway). My Heath-Robinson fix to the headphones using duct tape to hold the ear-pad cover in place worked for a while, but long exposure of the tape to body heat and skin oils seemed to consistently cause the tape adhesive to alter and the fix to become a sticky mess, requiring white spirit to clean it up before re-affixing the ear-pads with fresh duct tape. This was repeatable, so the headphones fell into disuse. Ah well. But I didn't throw them away.

Fast forward to today... (text in spoiler below image)
14_40x50_6FD1C8B8.png

Spoiler
Tactix replacement over-the-ear headphone cushions for Nokia Purity HD Wired WH-930 by Monster On-Ear Headphones
I bought a set of 2 replacement ear muff cushion pads (cost NZ$5.98 - discounted from $17.95) for the Tactix Bluetooth safety wear headset (see image below). The cushions worked as a nifty fit to replace the badly deteriorated/disintegrated rectangular Nokia Monster headphone on-ear cushions, turning the headphone into an over-the-ear headphone at the same time!
This was a lucky find. Though these Nokia Monster headphones are very good, they are ergonomically not the best - wearing any on-ear headset cushions for long periods can tend to make one's ears (cartilage) hurt.
Replacement cushions are not available anyway, so I just had my rather Heath-Robinson fix-up cushions. This simple Tactix replacement over-the-ear conversion feels perfect for me.
No glue or fixing required. The replacement cushions have a rigid plastic backing plate. To use, just put the cushions in place with the backing plate towards the headset speakers. The plate has a ridged moulding that coincidentally holds the speakers in just the right position. Holding the assembly in place, simply put the assembly on one's head. There's nothing tricky about it. Once on the head, the new cushions are held in place by one's ears and the spring-loaded tension of the headset band. It thus becomes a very comfortable, over-the-ear headset. Removing the headset, the new cushions just fall away for neat stowage.
Yay! I've got my "favourite" headphones back - and they're even better (more comfortable) than before.


TACTIX®
2 PCE EAR MUFF CUSHIONS

TACTIX®
Replacement cushions for Fineline 5810828 & 5810685
Meridian International Co., Ltd
www.meridianintl.com
Made in China


300
N.A.N.Y. 2019 / Re: NANY 2019 Promo Video
« on: November 13, 2018, 09:15 AM »
@Stephen66515:
That short video is rather good!    :Thmbsup:
Your voice-over is great, by the way - very clear - but the voice volume seemed a tad too loud/crisp (I was wearing  headphones and had to reduce the volume when your voice kicked in). What is the accent? It sounded very familiar, but I couldn't place it - I thought it had Yorks/Lancs overtones, but was unsure whether it was Brum, or some other North/Midlands accent. It sounded a bit like a friend of mine who hailed from Manchester.

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