Messages

201

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Reverse Dictionary / Thesaurus (for Android devices)

« on: December 22, 2011, 10:27 AM »

That looks interesting, I've queued it for download to my Droid.

202

Living Room / Re: NBA vetoes a trade: exposes the protection in place for large corporations

« on: December 13, 2011, 12:40 PM »

But you don't know, I don't know.

-superboyac (December 13, 2011, 12:12 PM)

Frankly, it's none of your business. The NBA can run its organization the way they want (short of fraud, and violating other laws). The fact that they have veto power over franchisees' actions is none of your concern. If you don't like the sport that results, don't watch basketball games anymore. You have no inherent right to a professional basketball league that's run according to your desires.

203

Living Room / Re: NBA vetoes a trade: exposes the protection in place for large corporations

« on: December 13, 2011, 11:41 AM »

I really can't fathom what the complaint is here.

First, this has nothing to do with rich folks screwing the little guys. It's a completely private transaction. There aren't lobbyists here jockeying for favors to be enacted, creating regulations that each of us will be bound by. These are a group of entities that entered into a contractual agreement with a franchising body. In order to participate as a franchise, one must agree to work by the rules. That's all there is to it.

There is no element of force here, nobody is colluding or conspiring to the detriment of the man in the street -- indeed, that hypothetical man is completely unaffected by what has happened. The fact that you don't like how it affects the product -- the games of basketball championship -- is for them to decide. You might as well complain that McDonald's doesn't let its franchisees wear pink uniforms.

Are you looking for someone to be vetting all private contracts, and rejecting any that might encroach on the sporting entertainment enjoyment of the public?

The analogy with IBM and Oracle doesn't hold water. It's perfectly normal for someone becoming an employee of company X to sign a non-compete agreement as part of the terms of being hired. This prevents that person from going to work for Y or Z if they should leave X. None of us *want* to sign such an agreement, but it ought to be perfectly understandable why X would want you to do so. And you're free to find a job elsewhere if X's terms of employment don't sit well with you.

204

General Software Discussion / Re: AdBlock Plus To Not Block All Ads

« on: December 13, 2011, 11:31 AM »

I don't see what the hubbub is about.

First, there's no point in blocking the update, because you can still opt out of the change.

Second, I think their goal really does make sense: encourage less annoying advertising by continuing to block anything that goes over the line.

The fact is that many, many sites *need* that ad revenue to stay alive, and I really want to have all that stuff still on the Internet. If we're still in the driver's seat, with software that blocks the stuff that crosses the line, I think everyone wins.

EDIT: fix spelling error.

205

Found Deals and Discounts / Google market promo: $0.10 apps

« on: December 06, 2011, 03:09 PM »

Celebrating 10Billion downloads, the Google Android market is offering 10 days of 10 downloads priced at $0.10 each. And these are quality apps.

Starting today [December 6] for the next 10 days, we’ll have a new set of awesome apps available each day for only 10 cents each. Today, we are starting with

• Asphalt 6 HD
• Color & Draw for Kids
• Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro
• Fieldrunners HD
• Great Little War Game
• Minecraft
• Paper Camera
• Sketchbook Mobile
• Soundhound Infinity
• SwiftKey X

Announcement

Direct link

206

Living Room / Re: Rootkits on mobile devices ...

« on: December 03, 2011, 02:51 PM »

Apparently this whole thing has been a witch hunt. It doesn't report any keylogger data back to the carriers. See http://news.cnet.com...chers/?tag=cnetRiver

207

Found Deals and Discounts / New Humble Bundle: Introversion

« on: November 22, 2011, 01:34 PM »

There's a new Humble Bundle out, featuring the work of Introversion. Games include

• Darwinia
• Multiwinia
• DEFCON
• Uplink
• Aquaria*
• Crayon Physics Deluxe*

* Must pay more than the average to get these two.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

208

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Editor - $39.95 Lifetime Promotion Ending July 1st

« on: November 21, 2011, 12:54 PM »

Rob, if I'm at all typical of your customers, then the choice for Sagelight was made over upgrading Corel PaintShop Pro, which I can purchase for ~$90. Since I decided that your app is superior, at least for editing of photos, I think it would be possible to go with a number in that neighborhood. (FWIW, PSP is probably better for some kinds of tasks, but when it comes to optimizing a photograph, you're the hands-down winner)

You didn't actually ask, but I'll weigh in on future functionality -- because that's the kind of guy I am 

When I'm using Sagelight, I still rely on two plugins: Alien Skin Image Doctor and Topaz DeNoise. So from my perspective, the quickest way to become my full-feature editor is to provide those function -- easy-to-use noise and more effective noise filtering, and object removal. I'd also love to see some kind of object detection coupled with the masking feature.

Something else you just said struck a chord with me: "extended layers/stacks". You're currently referring to this as "layers", but that's confusing because it really has nothing to do with the layering feature found in PSP or Photoshop. Changing terminology to "stacks" might prevent such confusion.

209

Living Room / Re: Need Advice on a TV...

« on: November 21, 2011, 12:39 PM »

I'm voting with Oshyan (despite our recent disagreements in other areas  ).

As Mr. Joker himself noted at the top of the thread, a TV is a longer-term purchase. I can't imagine the platforms and protocols used by "smart" TVs remaining stable for the time period I'd like to keep the TV for, and if I'm right, that means that simple software obsolescence would drive me to throw away a TV that's otherwise perfectly good.

So I say, get a stupid monitor, and then get a box (Roku, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.) that does the smart stuff, so you can cheaply throw that out when it's outlived its usefulness.

Note that I say "monitor". As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to pay for even a tuner or speakers. The HDMI video signal is produced by the smart box, or a DVR, etc. And sound is handled entirely by the stereo.

210

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Pledge & Early Beta: Ethervane Echo

« on: November 17, 2011, 02:16 PM »

I just tried this, and I think you've done a great job. But, because I can never keep my mouth shut, I'd like to offer a couple of comments.

First, the default filter for the URLs view really ought to have a second pattern added so that it also matches on secure sites. So there should be two filters: "http://" and "https://".

Second, I wish there was an option for a single keystroke to paste as text. I see that I can bring up the window, and then Shift-Enter to paste text only. But it would save me a fraction of a second if I had a direct hotkey for "paste as text" so I don't need to open the window first.

211

DC Gamer Club / Re: Indie Royale - the Difficult 2ncd Bundle

« on: November 11, 2011, 12:42 PM »

Anybody have a link to the bundle itself?

212

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« on: November 01, 2011, 08:35 AM »

I'm waiting for the price increases on drives due to the flooding in Thailand to blow over.

-Renegade (November 01, 2011, 08:29 AM)

It's worse than just price increases. Our suppliers [1] are actually removing products from our catalog datafeeds. The situation is so bad that they aren't just marking them as backordered, they're saying that these products no longer exist!

[1] I work for a major large account reseller of computer equipment.

213

General Software Discussion / Re: Suggestions for maximum-lockdown XP system

« on: October 21, 2011, 09:30 AM »

I'm still deciding whether I want to do the SteadyState thing. Here's where I'm at right now:

• Microsoft Defender for AV. I was on the fence between this and Kaspersky. Decided on this due to (a) simplicity and (b) freeware.
• Comodo Firewall. Free and highly recommended.
• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. I wanted a supplement to the AV focusing on spyware.
• User lockdown. Gramps will only have access to a regular-user account. No admin privileges.
• Remote administration. I set up LogMeIn.com, so I can remotely take care of any problems he runs into.
• still to do Make sure I have an up-to-date rescue disc for this system.

214

Living Room / Re: Another Nail in the Coffin for Free Speech

« on: October 17, 2011, 11:12 AM »

Bear in my that this is Great Britain. I don't know how their law works, but it's a no-brainer that this wouldn't work in the USA.

First it's not IP law. The name "Lady Gaga" can't be copyrighted; indeed, it's encouraged for others to use it, as in, "I'd like to buy that Lady Gaga record". And obviously it's not a patent.

It can't be some kindle of libel law, because it doesn't even claim to be referring to her.

That pretty much leaves trademark law. But trademark law isn't there to protect the maker, it's there to protect the consumer from being misled/confused into buying a product other than the one that they think they're buying. But in this case, there's no confusion because (a) Lady Gaga isn't an animated monster; (b) the Googoo people aren't actually selling anything (at least not in this context).

215

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« on: October 13, 2011, 12:51 PM »

But, hey, BasicMaker will be finally be available! 
That has really taken some years!!

-Curt (October 13, 2011, 12:48 PM)

I think BasicMaker has always been around (if you buy it from Softmaker rather than the Ashampoo package). You're probably thinking of the database product that's been in development for so long.

216

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« on: October 13, 2011, 12:03 PM »

I saw that email client mentioned, but I haven't been able to dig up any details. Have you spotted anything?

217

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Softmaker Office 2010 discount

« on: October 13, 2011, 12:00 PM »

LibreOffice 3.4 - free.  Why pay?

-Midnight Rambler (October 13, 2011, 10:57 AM)

That seems a strange question. You seem to be assuming that the two applications are equivalent, or maybe that there should only be one alternative to Microsoft Office.

I can tell you that OpenOffice (and thus I assume Libre Office) is very different from Softmaker Office. OOo is a very heavy-weight program, and sometimes suffers from performance problems. It frequently does a truly awful job of importing Microsoft files (does it even support the .docx and .xlsx formats?). And it has its own UI philosophy, which some folks may like but others not.

In contrast, Softmaker's product is very lightweight, running well on my crappy ancient notebook. One of its chief goals is handling Microsoft files with fidelity, and I think it achieves this better than any other application (save Microsoft, obviously). And its user interface is quite conventional, which some people may not like, but I find makes it easier, particularly when it's only used occasionally.

And for $5, if one has even the slightest preference, what the heck?

218

General Software Discussion / Suggestions for maximum-lockdown XP system

« on: October 12, 2011, 11:41 AM »

I'm looking for suggestions of how to best lock down a Windows XP system to avoid malware infestations for a non-savvy user.

My grandfather has been the victim of identity theft at least twice over the past year. Without making this too long, there is some reason to think that the leak of his personal info was through his PC. In addition, there's some circumstantial evidence that his habits aren't as sanitary as one might hope: he's had to have someone remove viruses twice, and his IE toolbars take up half the display space. Since the viral infection doesn't seem to be removed successfully, I'm going to cut the losses and just build a new machine.

So, I'm looking for your suggestions for the best way to set it up to protect him from getting into trouble in the future. One limitation is that I've only got spare licenses for Windows XP. I know that Win 7 would improve his security, but it would require me pumping in some extra cash (not to mention being a training issue), so I'd like to avoid that if I can.

• I think the first step is to keep the admin account secret, and only let him use a login that has minimal privileges.
• Install good quality Internet Security package, or separate antivirus and firewall, and ensure that he keeps it up-to-date. I've got some spare licenses around, or there's good freeware available.
• Don't let him use Internet Explorer, instead use Chrome. This isn't because recent IE versions are bad, but because of the way Chrome keeps itself up-to-date.

Can anyone offer additional suggestions, or comment on what I've already listed?

219

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« on: October 08, 2011, 11:55 AM »

Personally, I don't get the one or two drive NAS units.  What's the point?  I have a $20 enclosure with a single drive in it (I used one of my old drives) that works fine for basic storage. 

-steeladept (October 08, 2011, 10:07 AM)

NAS = "Network Attached Storage". The key there is the "Network". Having a USB-connected drive enclosure doesn't give access to all systems in the house.

220

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« on: October 07, 2011, 02:18 PM »

DLNA is only compatible with wmv/avi...

-wraith808 (October 07, 2011, 02:11 PM)

I saw that comment as well, and it confuses me. I don't understand why the server should care what the format is. It seems to me that the media is just a blob that gets streamed, and its actual content is irrelevant. Is it a question of *scanning* the media, so the server can build a catalog of what's on the box?

221

Living Room / Re: NAS Recommendations?

« on: October 07, 2011, 10:14 AM »

(un-hijacking the conversation)

Coincidentally, I was just looking for NASes myself, and just purchased one. My requirements are different from yours, so you probably won't follow my strategy, but maybe somebody else is interested.

I currently have a D-Link DNS-321 with two 1TB drives arranged in a RAID 1 array, but I've recently outgrown this. Photos really pile up quickly, using up what space I had remaining from media storage.

In the interest of not going broke, I don't want to spend money on RAID-capable hardware and extra drives. Nor do I want to spend money on all the capacity that I think I *might* eventually need, when the price of computer hardware is continually dropping.

So my strategy is to buy another NAS device, this one budget-priced, onto which I can move the real space hogs, the video files (I've got the originals on DVD for the most part, so RAID safety isn't an issue). I'll keep the photos, which are irreplaceable, on the original D-Link NAS with RAID.

I just purchased a Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110, with 3TB of capacity, plus the eventual ability to add more via USB (although that would be slower). Total price from Amazon, $200.

(Disclaimer: The link above is to my employer's web site. I don't expect you to go buy it from there, but this gives a bit of Google Juice.)

222

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... a way (Excel macro?) to convert Lat-Long co-ordinates

« on: September 19, 2011, 12:47 PM »

The formula for this is pretty simple. If you have separate values for Deg, Min, and Sec, then the decimalized equivalent is

Code: Text [Select]

1. Deg+(Min+Sec/60)/60

I've attached an example using Excel formulas.

If you've got to parse out the three values from a single string, that's where all the work is -- but I can't tell you exactly how to do that without seeing the input strings.

223

Living Room / Re: XBOX 360 with Kinect or Wii?

« on: September 12, 2011, 12:08 PM »

I can't offer an actual comparison, because my experience with Wii is very limited. But I can tell you that my 360 with Kinect leaves me sweating, so it would seem that I'm getting some aerobic exercise.

Before getting a Kinect, ensure that you've got sufficient space to use it. They want you to be (iirc) 6-10 feet back from the sensor, and have about the same amount of width to work in. My family room itself is OK for this, but the geography of furniture, and where I need to put the furniture due to doors, windows, and fireplace, really compromises the available Kinect space.

224

General Software Discussion / Re: evernote can actually work offline. Time to reconsider it, as it's damn powerful

« on: August 29, 2011, 11:47 AM »

I think you read too much into EN's "OCR" feature. It is not OCR in the traditional sense, although what it does is probably even better for its intended purpose.

EN uses OCR only for searching, as opposed to turning an image into a canonical textual representation. It appears that this means that it can be far more liberal with its interpretation of the image, allowing for search hits on all likely solutions.

Imagine that based on the image, the OCR software can't decide whether the text is "them" or "thern". With EN, it'll match both (or such is my understanding), ensuring that a search will almost never miss its target -- although it may come up with false positives.

But the cost of this is that there may, internally, be multiple textual representations, so it's not possible to take the next step and extract the actual text.

225

Living Room / Re: U.S. East coast quake - Everybody OK?

« on: August 24, 2011, 12:27 PM »

China rattling?

-Edvard (August 24, 2011, 11:19 AM)

Spoke to father-in-law in China, he says that nothing rattled there.  

As it happens, a colleague here in NJ was on a conference call to Toronto. They felt the quake a short time after we did, it was interesting to note the time delay.