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76

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Aphelion Science Fiction Fantasy Horror Webzine 2013!

« on: April 16, 2013, 08:35 AM »

Okay, here we go!

I shall post a promotional piece for the Science Fiction - Fantasy - Horror - Poetry webzine Aphelion.

It's been around since 1997. However we gradually lost the "regular" posters through attrition and we haven't undertaken much marketing at all. This post is "semi-unauthorized". That means I'm doing it ad-hoc, with a wink and a nod to "what isn't forbidden becomes Do First and Ask Permission Later"!  

I am the (somewhat erratic!) Archives Editor over there. It was a fluid position that evolved out of my interests in poking around in information related to past issues and lately some basic manual site stats. There aren't many trackers - they might be using some basic stuff on the back end, but it's certainly not crushed with stuff, and Ghostery only shows Google Analytics, which from what I know of their culture is probably "just because it's likely best of breed" and not at all related to our more intense focus on the goings-on of Google.

This campaign:
Since darn near everyone on DC is smarter than me, you're one of two crews I would like to encourage to join and post a note about at least a couple of stories! They do have a focus on newer and developing writers, so go REAL EASY on the comments - if you see something that a writer could have improved, PLEASE work REAL HARD to soft-ball it! As part of a bit of backstory that we don't need to visit here, in this somewhat fragile year it's important to get a couple of really nice newcomers, because we/they don't have a Basement to put anything hotblooded.

I would love to see say 7-12 strong enthused newcomers sign up who hope to be around for at least a couple of months!

*Important Signup Note* They recently had a rather severe spam problem, so they put in an extremely aggressive anti-spam measure. Even if you are not a SciFi fan, I also would like to do a call to arms for the DC crew who is as tech savvy as they get, to do some kind of False-Negative test. That means to sign up and post at least one nice note, to test if by accident we're not losing real users. Bathwater, Babies.

Holler at me in this thread for any specific notes you folks may have.

The Lead intro page:
http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/ - typically a graphic that changes for each issue
They do a "Flip" where the current month issue is on a "hardlocked" set of links by story/item category such as Short Stories. So if you get busy, and want to go back next month, they'll be gone (temporarily!) and replaced by the new issue. There's a big topic in Archives, but that's another day.

The intro Editorial by the senior editor:
http://www.aphelion-...tions/editorial.html

Short Stories:
http://www.aphelion-...sections/shorts.html

Poetry:
http://www.aphelion-...sections/poetry.html

"Features:" - most usually an instructional article on writing but a few other things sometimes
http://www.aphelion-...ctions/features.html

I would appreciate it if interested people would drop a note here too, just to close the loop so I both know who is headed over there, but also for the data check of that signup-test.

On the first two posts over there (because any single one might vanish from visibility because I am turbo posting this week!) to mention that me, Tao sent you from Donation Coder. Plus it's an excuse to Cross Brand and all those other fun business terms! Go DC!  
Watch the horde of smart people show up and impress the hell out of them!

The current cover image is here:

http://www.aphelion-...mages/ap171cover.jpg



Cheers!

77

General Software Discussion / Favorite Firefox Builds for Windows?

« on: April 13, 2013, 03:16 PM »

Hallo gang.

This time I am approaching the browser question from a different angle. The opener.

I like Firefox.

The funny thing is, web services especially Yahoo Mail like to keep track of logins and so even if you close and re-open your browser instance, it/they tend to ask "weren't you logged in as X? Log in again (or click here to change user names).  Other things include if I have a bunch of browser windows open it's a pain to try to save the whole sessions etc.

My cute workaround is: use different FF builds! For example, PaleMoon. Instead of the usual "which is better", right now they look almost equal. But they count as separate apps, so I can have two sets of Yahoo mails, or I can close one and keep all the windows open on another, etc. It's also a nice visual cue to see the orange fox has one set of articles, the blue moon has another set.

But I need another couple. I have at least three and sometimes four different Yahoo mails to juggle, and it would be nice to have another couple of colors!  : )

So do you have favorite FF builds that do something neat?

78

General Software Discussion / Canonical and China announce collaboration

« on: March 22, 2013, 11:14 AM »

Okay, let me try to answer the top couple of FAQs right out of the gate.

Canonical and Chinese standards body announce Ubuntu collaboration
http://www.canonical...ubuntu-collaboration

1. Concerns about what Canonical is up to.
2. Concerns about what China is up to.
Answer to both: Yes there are.

*But*, *if* they magically agree on a neutral collaboration without the 21st century sneaky agenda trend, this is the *type* of partnership I have wanted to see for a decade.

1. Start with a (mostly!?) FOSS Linux OS that already has some traction.
2. Add China's scary production power.
3. Add China's slightly mysterious user base
4. After they get their act together, (and yes Made In China now means iPhone grade, not new year's novelties), you might just get the mythical Third OS to wedge into the OS wars. I'm thinking long term here, say 7 years. Ignore a few petty cheap power grabs here and there. The Linux community has shuffled around "we're Indie and we like it, that is, until we can't use it for _____ reason."

I'm not sure anyone can really unseat MS - that would be THE biggest tech news of the decade beyond which all else pales. They really are close to Too Big To Fail. But just suppose they did. Would you pick Apple's OS X or a Canonical-China Distro!? I have NO IDEA how to evaluate that one! But just supposing they waited in the wings and began producing $300 machines, they'd slowly begin to seep into the "average user landscape". ("I dunno, it's one of those Chinese Linux machines. I just check my email and Facebook on it. Works for me.")

(I think I'm missing a closing paragraph but I'll just post this.)  : )

79

General Software Discussion / Data Execution Prevention notes

« on: March 20, 2013, 10:44 AM »

Elsewhere I'd remarked that I was getting bad user experiences when DEP was kicking in. But what kept bothering me was "it didn't used to be that hard!" Turns out that some time back I installed EMET, which hooked into the DEP settings (and then greyed them out in the normal system properties area!)

So when a printer driver suite bounced today, I went over to EMET and turned DEP off. It's rarely/never caught any malware -the only programs that bounce are mostly legit, if maybe sloppily written.

So it is a total case of what was supposed to be security was making me miserable. 

80

Commercial Licensing of DonationCoder Software / Additional DC commercial licensing discussion

« on: March 15, 2013, 02:01 AM »

This new section of our forum will focus on questions and answers related to the commercial licensing of DonationCoder.com software.

If you are interested in licensing or deploying any of our software for company-wide use, we'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Or perhaps you would be interested in hiring us for custom software development?

You can contact us directly using the contact form on the website, or via email at [email protected], or just ask your question publicly in this section.

-mouser (March 15, 2013, 01:33 AM)

I'll start the discussion mostly echoing a note from Mouser earlier. Mouser, how detailed do you want to get into the issues we glanced over last time? They proved to be somewhat surprisingly complex.

I'm on the verge of blasting a bunch of new threads to organize the topics. Good idea or bad idea?

Also I'd change it from "Licensing" to more broadly "commercializing" because I am the type to commission something but then make it Public Domain or some such.

81

General Software Discussion / (Software metaphor) Not just bugs... bedbugs!

« on: March 14, 2013, 11:16 PM »

A fun little thread for when you get a bug and it's not just a cute little daddy longlegs spider that you can reboot windows to make it go away (remember those Indian support level 1 tech scripts?)

No, this is a bug in software that you have to figuratively throw out all the furniture, freeze your books for three months in a certified freezer facility, wash all your clothes in special soap, hire the exterminator seven times, pay fees for violating landlord rules, and risk losing your lease. Software version.

Anyone been THERE?    

(Based on advice from a buddy not to bring home random otherwise-cool books and stuff from the street in NY.)

82

General Software Discussion / Apple and the future of Macs - a difficult topic for me

« on: January 28, 2013, 06:34 PM »

Okay, I must be getting old and grouchy, because this opinion article hit a nerve.

http://www.businessi...e-is-thrilled-2013-1

In older days, we had basically free DOS fueling the surge of beige boxes and the rise of the business market etc. Then Apple did make the world at least wake up to what a graphical UI could do. After a few good years, they then drifted into a shrinking niche while MS pulled those eight odd years of sleazy lock-in deals from about Win95 to WinXP & Server2003. Then they got stuck.

Meanwhile Apple saw surprising success with the whole Mac OS revolution, but to me it was still pretty niche, not to mention the beyond aggressive obsolescence strategy. But that was supposed to be okay, right? "Mac OS was the prettied-up *nixxy OS for the masses, and if you Get a Mac, Justin Long will be your friend." Or something.

So now with the typically click-baity headline, Apple's tablet seems to be chewing into its Mac line. But can Apple be truly "happy" killing its own line of Macs? Is it even possible to "kill" the "PC-thingie" (or Mac etc)? Yes, it might stabilize down into "a shadow of its former glory days" but I don't even understand how it is possible to get serious work done on an iPad. Not "read 8 webpages of news and fire off an email", but full document creation and control, plus the software side. How do you even work on a device that basically doesn't create files?!! 

83

Post New Requests Here / Simple Mp3 Processor

« on: January 11, 2013, 10:58 PM »

I'm starting to like some minimalist versions of functional programs when I have small use cases that don't need the other 95 awesome features all wrapped into programs. Much like my shout out to Vladimir on the paint program, lately I'm itching for one for mp3's. My quick&dirty processing falls into only about 4-5 operations. Changes to Pitch, Tempo, Speed (both at once for convenience), Echo, and cuts of extra junk such as dead time and ads, or even what I consider bad intro/ends of songs. Then just play it to be sure, then save/export it. Undo is crucial because I'd do a series such as "tempo down 15%, Tempo down 25%, Tempo down 37%, Pitch Dn 25%, Echo 4ms by 4ms THEN PitchDn25%" and eventually I'd get tired of it all and exit. End result is some 3-7 files of an mp3, which then gets played by Skwire's Looper.

The problem with all the awesome programs is it's just too much overwhelming awesome noise. I just downloaded Renny's Guitar Drum Trainer Again, with the same dismayed feeling as last time: I'm-Not-Worthy of all the effort he put in there; I only do 5 things. Anyone want to take this on? Both Skwire and Renny have engines, (though anyone else can whack at it if they want) so I know it's never that easy, but I like to think "stripping down" code is easier than writing it.

84

Living Room / Linguistics identifies anonymous users

« on: January 09, 2013, 01:36 AM »

Linguistics identifies anonymous users
http://www.scmagazin...anonymous-users.aspx

They just really can't stand people having anonymous speech!  

85

Developer's Corner / "NTLM 100% Broken Using Hashes Derived From Captures"

« on: January 08, 2013, 07:27 PM »

I'll leave this one to my betters:

"NTLM 100% Broken Using Hashes Derived From Captures"
http://it.slashdot.o...erived-from-captures

"Microsoft has posted a little guidance for those who need to turn off NTLM."
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2793313
Systems that are affected in a default configuration are primarily at risk, such as systems that are running Microsoft Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. For example, by default, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 both support NTLMv1 authentication.
To have us fix this problem for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section.

Fix this problem
Microsoft Fix it 50969

------------------

So how serious is this for ordinary home users? If I click "Fix it" will I suddenly lose my Wifi connection?

86

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Web Research Data Management Collection

« on: January 08, 2013, 05:03 AM »

Okay gang,

Time to pull together a post on a larger theme spread among some of the components I have been working on.

Problem: How to start a web research project with as little of the rote maintenance of hand-creating pieces as possible.
Note - Focus on Firefox. Tweaks may be needed for other browsers.  Start by creating a simple master project folder in Wndows.

I: Browser
1. Firefox Extension - Session Manager
In Firefox, either under Tools/Addons (or possibly a different path if you use one of the altered menu bars) install the Session Manager addon. This will probably require "restarting" Firefox so try not to do this with any sensitive windows open because it might break the connection. In Tools-Session Manager-Session Manager submenu-Session Manager Options, you might be interested in changing the location that it saves the sessions. (I happen to hate "My Documents".)

2. Open your batch of research as a series of tabs. Rearrange them as you like, etc.

3. Tools-Session Manager-Session Manager submenu-Save Current Window (or save the whole session.) So this means that you can reconstitute the browser with the tabs to review again later.

4. MilesAhead put in something called "BBSS" aka "Browser Bunch Session Save".
From this thread -
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=30913.0
https://www.donation...30913.0;attach=68638

This makes a paired list of browser tab titles and URLs that you can paste into a spreadsheet. Importantly, the text file of URLs has a second use below.

87

Site/Forum Features / Chat Down?

« on: January 02, 2013, 09:19 PM »

I haven't been able to log into the chat for a good couple of days now. Anyone know?

88

General Software Discussion / Antivirus Software Performs Poorly Against New Threats

« on: January 02, 2013, 08:54 AM »

I'll just open this with a quick link to Slashdot's version of the news, without repeating all their links etc.
Antivirus Software Performs Poorly Against New Threats
http://it.slashdot.o...-against-new-threats

The main report is here:
http://www.imperva.c...ivirus_Solutions.pdf

My initial remark is that Microsoft is noted at the top of the "market share" list, yet as they are a little unemphasized in the detailed reporting charts.

89

General Software Discussion / Monster.com is a heavy site

« on: December 29, 2012, 10:50 PM »

Ghostery reported it was trying to block some 15 items. Monster wasn't happy with admuncher and/or Ghostery active.  Damn tracking cookies etc.

90

Living Room / Chinese Laborer pleads for help in Halloween Decorations

« on: December 29, 2012, 01:57 PM »

This is kinda scary!

http://shine.yahoo.c...tions-202400773.html

91

General Software Discussion / Purging old stuff off your comp

« on: December 22, 2012, 09:44 AM »

General thread for deciding that "enough is enough" and removing stuff that maybe was your thang in prior years but no longer.

I deleted another 20-30 programs today (including I overshot and nuked my Adobe PDF printer, oops!) just to try to clarify what's on my rig. I have done a lot of trial experiments over the years, but unlike some of you hotshots, I just can't recall why some 70 programs even do anymore, so let's say I put 5 of them back, maybe twice a decade it's not a bad thing to just clean house. Heh a few reports have come in that my comp is starting to creak at the edges, so maybe somewhere in this cleanup I'll remove some ultra-obscure cross-dependencies/whatever and get a bit of performance back.

Edit: could be as much as 5-7 gigs worth of stuff, not "crap" because it got there for some whatever reason, but it's all just too much anymore.

92

Developer's Corner / Enlightenment 0.17 is out! (With awesome web page copy!)

« on: December 22, 2012, 08:39 AM »

I'm way out of my depth here but I figured this would interest someone. In what might be one of the longest dev cycles ever, apparently after *twelve* years of dev (          )  work, the new Enlightenment environment is out. It claims to be a response to all the dumb-ifying trend of some of the latest environments. The web page announcement is awesome:

(In part)
Enlightenment 0.17 (a.k.a E17) is the next generation of graphical desktop shell from the Enlightenment project. When you first run it and get past the initial setup wizard, you should end up with a desktop not unlike the above. It is a very traditional UNIX/X11 style desktop, because that is what E primarily is and attempts to be, BUT with a bunch of bells, whistles and modernities that were never there, as well as a different core design philosophy.
...
Also be aware that this page is large and is meant to provide a lot of important information. It is not for the tl;dr; (too long, didn't read) set of people with minimal attention span. It contains lots of that scary thing called "text" and "information". It is assumed that you can make use of the education you have been provided with that allows you to read and comprehend what has been written.
...
    WE HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

    We are not always that serious a bunch. Deal with it. We have a sense of Humor. We exercise it regularly. You may call it "unprofessional". We call it "having a life".
...
And for the tweaker heads amongst you, there is an option for every occasion. We don't go quietly into the night and remove options when no one is looking. None of those new big version releases with fanfare and "Hey look! Now with half the options you used to have!". We sneak in when you least expect it and plant a whole forest of new option seeds, watching them spring to life. We nail new options to walls on a regular basis. We bake options-cakes and hand them out at parties. Options are good. Options are awesome. We have lots of them. Spend some quality time getting to know your new garden of options in E17. It may just finally give you the control you have been pining for.

 

93

General Software Discussion / Firefox CPU usage

« on: December 21, 2012, 11:06 AM »

When I open new webpages, especially about 4-5 in a row, my cpu usage slams through the roof in Firefox. Is that normal? Do modern webpages use a lot of client-side rendering to save on server overhead? Or should I look at one of those alternative Firefox builds again?

94

Living Room / Facebook floating the idea of charging $1 per "prioritized message"

« on: December 21, 2012, 11:03 AM »

Well, the Monetization is picking up steam. Facebook wants to charge a buck to route a message out of "other" into your "inbox". This just means that if spammers will spam, they just need money to do it.

Let's see, looking among the links to post, if I can find an intelligent article...

This one's not bad:
http://gadgets.ndtv....o-non-friends-308165

"Facebook contended that it was making a priority of developing ways to profit from posts shared between friends at the social network.

Facebook sparked a rebellion of Instagram users this week with proposed policy changes intended to improve the ability to make money from the smartphone photo sharing service it bought this year.

Instagram backed off the policy changes in the face of the backlash."

Edit: Fark's summary:
"Facebook: Okay, so we built this absurd mail system that often sends messages to an "other" folder that most people don't even know about. But no worries, we've got a new system where, for $1, users can make sure their mail goes to the right place"

95

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / N.A.N.Y. 2013- PDF Batch Saver

« on: December 19, 2012, 03:12 PM »

Another of my Commissions, just in time for NANY.

Alpha1:

http://www.freevoteu...20Alpha1%2012-19.zip

What it is supposed to do:
Take a list of URLs and save them to PDFs with a couple of different numbering methods.

I'm sure there are still edge cases but this is the first usable copy I have.

96

General Software Discussion / Firefox Print All Tabs (to PDF)

« on: December 12, 2012, 10:09 AM »

This is bothering me because it's apparently way harder than it should be. MilesAhead did the BBSS widget that grabs tabs and creates a paired list of titles and URLs. What would be nice is to have another widget that scrolls through in the same way and saves each tab one by one.

Unfortunately, with a few web searches, it isn't easy for lil' ol' me to find one. I tried a couple of the suggested add-ons, but they don't work for me. Is that a fallout of FF being on literally 18.0? (Remember the good ol' days when we debated V3.x and V 4.x? over the course of a year? Version 18.0? Really?! Chrome envy much? Did someone discover version numbers = revenue!? )

This "can't be that hard". Scroll Tab, issue a print command, bonus feature= if it sees a duplicate (because the positions shift on Monster.com, you can get the same page twice) just append a copy2 or something the second time.

Instead I am getting nothing useful out of three search engines over a dev span of some 8 years.

Can the DC gang that specializes in "external scripts" do what no one else has been able to (easily find) in 8 years? There's only 4 features in the entire process, but I just burned 8 hours doing it manually; there's no reason it has to be that hard.

Note1: If it helps, I can set Adobe PDF Printer as my default printer in like 5 clicks, so y'all don't have to get hung up thinking PDFs are scary, I just need it to read the page, automatically append Copy2 Copy3 whatever until it gets a valid name, then save it, and move on. )

97

Finished Programs / DONE: Double-Click Desktop Reset

« on: December 01, 2012, 03:09 PM »

This is another of those snacks to save steps.

I sometimes like to put a picture on my desktop background. Then when I am satisfied, I want it to go away. However, the main method I know of to make it go away is:

RightClick/Properties/DesktopTab/ScrollUp/None/Apply/OK

Whew! Way too much work to blister through a bunch of pics as desktops!

Anyone wanna go after this one?

Cheers,

Tao

Extra Credit: P.S. my use case is Win XP, but last I recall from Win Vista and 7 and who knows about 8, they deleted that function entirely, so it might be useful for people on those OS's to have this widget work for them as well.

98

General Software Discussion / Separating features into Basic and Advanced

« on: November 29, 2012, 09:34 AM »

Elsewhere:

maybe it would be worth considering separating FARR's options into basic vs. advanced?

-phitsc (November 29, 2012, 09:02 AM)

In many cases I approve of this kind of separation. Perhaps the challenge is which features are so fundamental they need to be in the Basic set, but roughly I think it helps discoverability.  I think this is one of the things Apple picked up on, though possibly to the frowns of expert users.

Echoing a remark I made elsewhere, I do a lot of simple-use-cases with programs that are capable of much more. Chops to Mouser for adding my one use into SC captor so that I didn't feel torn between DC loyalty and how I actually work. In other programs especially the graphics ones, I often do no more than cutting and pasting sections to blot out annoying portions, change the stretch dimensions, then resave the modded version. So I don't need all the wild fancy tricks that the pros use, and I'm happy for them to live behind some menu like "advanced".

What do y'all think? Do you approve of the hierarchical layering of features, or should they all be equally accessible?

99

General Software Discussion / Windows "Blue"

« on: November 28, 2012, 02:02 PM »

Fresh off Windows 8, the MS Marketing dept has changed directions again.
http://news.softpedi...-Rumors-310494.shtml

"The Redmondians are reportedly planning to make Windows Blue a low-cost or even free operating system, just to make sure all users will make the move to the new OS. The Windows SDK would also be updated to the new release, while Microsoft would encourage developers to create apps for Windows Blue, with a lowered focus on Windows 8.
...
Last but not least, Windows Blue would also be the first product supposed to kick off a yearly update schedule for Microsoft, as the Redmond-based technology giant is looking into ways to challenge the other companies on the market, such as Apple and Google."

What does all that even mean, contextually? Firefox's trick of renaming tweaks into "major versions"? So all of us "waiting for Windows 9", apparently that now means July!

"...and will comprise significant UI changes, most likely supposed to address the controversial Windows 8 features."
I'll let everyone take their skeet shots at that one! 

100

Living Room / US judge orders piracy trial to test IP evidence

« on: October 09, 2012, 11:52 PM »

http://www.bbc.co.uk.../technology-19887765

"A landmark case in the US will test whether internet piracy claims made by copyright firms will stand up in court.

Such cases rely on identifying the IP address of machines from which content was illegally downloaded as evidence of wrongdoing."

(Grump: The US needs the BBC to tell us our news. /Grump)

Slashdot was all over the wireless wifi topic, but if I were the defense I'd be worried they didn't split the topic into what happens with boring ordinary landlines. I'll leave that to my betters: can a landline IP address do what the prosecution wants or does that get shifted and bundled too much?