Messages

226

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« on: July 15, 2013, 11:27 AM »

Interesting/entertaining discussion on YoungTurks

227

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8's Task Manager -- Slow as Hell.

« on: July 14, 2013, 01:29 PM »

I am using Windows Defender and Windows Firewall (both preinstalled in Win 8 as standard)- so I shouldn't be having problems because of 3rd party security software!

228

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8's Task Manager -- Slow as Hell.

« on: July 14, 2013, 12:49 PM »

Same here - even slow from the taskbar context menu. I did notice it was using over 20% CPU when it finally launched and then dropped back to nothing.

I absolutely hate the new task manager. I am sure it has better stuff in it than previous versions but I find it a confused layout, slow to use and one thing I really hate is that MSCONFIG no longer gives you a quick way to disable startup items - it sends you to task manager to fiddle with apps one at a time.

Haven't tried any of the alternative task managers but I bet some of them work better.

229

Living Room / Re: The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!

« on: July 12, 2013, 04:42 PM »

Here is a great idea for healthy "ice cream".

Handful of frozen fruit per person (works really well with raspberries, blackberries etc.)
Couple of table spoons of natural chilled yoghurt

Use a heavy duty hand blender to smash up the fruit with the yoghurt (Note it needs to be heavy duty to deal with lumps of frozen fruit, and works best with a hand blender in a tall narrow container, see what I use below).

The frozen fruit freezes the chilled yoghurt and if you mash it up until the fruit is completely mushed up it makes a fantastic, almost instant, smooth ice cream.

If you have a sweet tooth you might want to add a little caster sugar but personally I prefer it without.

Don't try and make too much at once.

Have it with some fresh fruit (strawberries are great) and get you daily intake of vitamins in a yummy bowl full.


This is the blender I use: http://www.bamix.com/de-luxe-190.html - was recommended by Gordon Ramsey and is fantastic - but not cheap, the bowl with this version can be used for grinding spices and even mincing meat, and this http://www.bamix.com/krug-09-lt-214.html is what I use to make it in. You can even make "whipped cream" from chilled skimmed milk - see http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=dzVD5jCSpGg

230

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« on: July 12, 2013, 04:23 PM »

On the BBC Snowden meeting in Moscow with Human Rights Lawyers:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...orld-europe-23283684

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Living Room / Re: The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!

« on: July 09, 2013, 11:48 AM »

Every day i have to fight off the urge for candy!

-mouser (June 07, 2013, 03:03 AM)

Sugar's a vegetable isn't it?

-cranioscopical (July 09, 2013, 08:21 AM)

Yep - but only if you are bovine!

232

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Windows Internet Explorer 8 Problems

« on: July 02, 2013, 10:11 AM »

Go to Internet Options and try resetting IE to 'factory default settings' (Use the reset button of the final tab). That also disables all the crap that accumulates in the background with IE.

Also try flushing your DNS cache (CMD prompt and type IPCONFIG /FlushDNS ) - you will need to disconnect and reconnect again from the network after that (pull the wire or switch off WiFi for a minute - alternatively restart your computer).

233

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Windows Internet Explorer 8 Problems

« on: July 01, 2013, 04:24 PM »

If it isn't a daft question why use IE8 when it is causing so much grief?

234

Living Room / Re: Interesting Amazon MP3 development

« on: June 30, 2013, 10:59 AM »

It is quite possible to buy a CD from Amazon and then list it for sale again on Amazon (which costs nothing until you sell it). Anyone can sell on Amazon. I often buy stuff on Amazon that is new but slightly cheaper from a third party seller.

235

Living Room / Re: Interesting Amazon MP3 development

« on: June 29, 2013, 10:38 AM »

No more uncontrollable physical media

-40hz (June 29, 2013, 06:30 AM)

Odd though as they have moved to unprotected MP3 format which is even easier to share than physical media.

236

Living Room / Re: Interesting Amazon MP3 development

« on: June 29, 2013, 04:39 AM »

Most, if not all, the digital downloads I have seen with DVDs require the redemption of a code on a slip inside the box. The boxes also say a digital copy is included. If I redeemed the code and then flogged the DVD the buyer won't get the digital copy. At least in the UK.

There are no video downloads from amazon.co.uk yet and they even dropped their rental system. Having said that I still think this is a very odd marketing decision for the manufacturers to allow ... or is this a prelude to the complete disappearance of physical products and this is the way to move customers into the new digital only world?

237

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« on: June 28, 2013, 07:15 PM »

Doesn't alter the fact that the US has been continuously at war somewhere in the world since the second world war - and only ever to further their own financial needs - there is very little ideological content these days just economics. ut note those economic considerations don't benefit the American people - only the uber-rich puppet-masters.

The sensible thing to have done after Snowden's revelations would have been for the administration to through their hands up in horror and start a genuine investigation into illegal surveillance. At least then they wouldn't have shown their hand as the designers of all this crap. They should have given Snowden a reward, patted him on the back, put him on the dollar bill as a national standard for honesty and democracy and then quietly go back to business as usual.

Instead their petty minded, corrupt lying ways means that ultimately at best he will spend the rest of his life under voluntary house arrest and at worst they may even execute him through legal trickery or more likely covertly. It is now a matter of pride not to let his public service be seen for what it is.

"Land of the free, home of the brave" not for a long time outside the usual political doublespeak.

I don't dislike American's - every American I have met has been friendly, kind and considerate (and mostly appalled at what the US political system has become) - but your democracy is as dead as Europe's. All this taking democracy to the world is nothing but horseshit to cover up the real smell.

238

Living Room / Re: Interesting Amazon MP3 development

« on: June 28, 2013, 07:01 PM »

The confusion I have is that Amazon give you the MP3 version of CDs in your cloud account. As far as I can tell once you have them you are not breaking copyright by selling the CD and keeping the MP3 files.

Actually in the UK it is illegal (though unlikely to be enforced) to rip CDs to MP3. Under currently legislation copying any copyright material is forbidden for any reason - including making digital backup copies, or ripping to MP3 players. This is particularly clear where any form of copy protection is used - it is technically illegal to own software or hardware that could potentially have the capacity to break copy protection - even if that is not the intention of the software, device or owner. It is a law that assumes guilt rather than innocence - so much for the law.

Effectively Amazon's new scheme means you can buy a CD (often cheaper than MP3 versions anyway, esp. for classical music) and then legally sell the CD still sealed as new and make a profit on the deal. In the meantime Amazon have given you a copy of the album in MP3 format. Have they really thought this through? (I just checked the terms and conditions and it says nothing about the MP3s only being there for the duration of the ownership of the CD - the only condition is if you download the MP3s and then cancel the order they will charge you for the MP3 version). See http://www.amazon.co...amp;nodeId=201123480

The difference with DVD and BluRay with downloadable content is that I think the license says it is for the owner of the DVD or BD - it would therefore not be the same thing. Also to get the download codes you have to open the package to you can't really sell it as new (esp. since the code, advertised on the pack, has been removed or already claimed).

Oddly I didn't ask Amazon for this service - I am not sure the copyright holders are going to be too happy with it either.

239

Living Room / Re: EU Court - Piracy Tax On Printers

« on: June 28, 2013, 09:58 AM »

There is a logical conclusion to the EU ruling - copy what you like now you are paying for it.

Since they are charging a levy for people making copies they can't argue that copying is illegal any longer.

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Living Room / Interesting Amazon MP3 development

« on: June 27, 2013, 10:21 AM »

Not sure if this is only new to the UK but I got a surprise today when I purchased a CD at Amazon.

They have added most of the CDs I have ever purchased from Amazon to my Cloud account and I can download the MP3 versions of those and also listen to them by streaming if I want.

This was new to me.

It is an interesting development because I have found it irritating that sort of things I like to purchase are often cheaper in CD format than MP3. Where is the incentive now to buy MP3s at all when purchasing CD gives you physical and digital copies?

Another question that is less obvious is what is the legal situation if you then sell the CD version you purchased? Since Amazon has added the digital content to your account presumably it belongs to you - there doesn't seem to be any way that Amazon can possibly police whether you still have the CD. Surely this will mean some people will buy the CD, download the MP3 files and then sell the CD and effectively get the music for free ???

It doesn't really affect me too much because I listen to classical music mostly and hate MP3 versions so I will be keeping all my CDs (hell I still have hundreds of vinyl records and cassette tapes that I can't bring myself to part with).

241

General Software Discussion / Re: Test: Does latency reduction via RAM upgrade lift software performance?

« on: June 27, 2013, 03:14 AM »

The base score isn't going to change in the WE Tool. You cannot get above 5.9 unless you have an SSD installed. How is upgrading RAM suposed to affect Graphics performance - basically what it is saying is that the GPU is underpowered (true on most domestic laptops).

The biggest change by increasing RAM is to reduce pagefile swapping which is a huge burden on heavily used machines. There is an argument to turn of the pagefile altogether if you have 8Gb of RAM or more - not sure if this is such a good idea or not (never tried it) but you could try with a minimal pagefile size (to allow for minidumping on error).

242

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« on: June 24, 2013, 05:39 PM »

LOL - spot on.

Next step will be to start extradition on sex charges, terrorism or anything else they can dream up.

When are the American people going to stand up and say 'not in our name' .... 'no more'.

Beggars belief (but then so does the UK for knowing using all this stuff illegally too).

Ashamed to say my MP is William Hague, the UK Foreign Secretary. His response was 'nothing to worry about if you haven't done anything wrong'. Isn't that almost the definition of a Totalitarian State?

243

Living Room / Re: The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!

« on: June 19, 2013, 04:02 PM »

Scare of the scales!

Eating better but exercise is hopeless

244

General Software Discussion / Re: From the B.F.D. Dept. - Microsoft releases first video preview of Win 8.1

« on: June 08, 2013, 11:49 AM »

I have yet to meet a customer who likes Windows 8 (mostly home users) and they are relieved when I point them at Start8.

From what I have gathered the 'new' start button in 8.1 just takes you back to the start screen (saves scrabbling in the corner I suppose but doesn't address a fundamental need for business and mouse users).

245

Living Room / Re: The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!

« on: June 06, 2013, 04:00 PM »

Hmmm - setback - strawberries are looking very good and I succumbed to making proper strawberry icecream - fatal!

Having said that went for an evening walk and made friends with a young deer - longest encounter with a wild deer I have ever had and only a few feet away. Not sure who was more curious about the other!

246

Living Room / Re: The DonationCoder.com 30-Day Healthy Eating and Exercise Challenge!

« on: June 01, 2013, 06:07 AM »

Check in ...

Good with food (lots of salad, veg and fruit, small amounts of meat) except for Wednesday when I went to the theatre and ended up eating out!

Exercise not so good - been suffering from insomnia and it is very hard to get motivated to do anything much. Even cello practice has suffered in the last week!

Alcohol - couple of glasses of red wine ... that's it folks.

247

General Software Discussion / Re: Custom webmail recommendations (to switch from gmail)

« on: May 31, 2013, 06:49 PM »

A hosting package that includes CPanel includes 3 different webmail interfaces and also gives POP and IMAP access to the same accounts.

Most hosts will also offer secure connections - but to use your own domain name securely you would have to buy an SSL certificate.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Custom webmail recommendations (to switch from gmail)

« on: May 31, 2013, 05:52 PM »

Kinda tangential, but I have been using Yahoo mail for almost a decade, half of which because it was Not-Gmail, rather than any real liking for the "quality". But Yahoo seems to be the only other major web mail service out there.

I'll plead ignorance on Hotmail, your choice of one more, and then it drops off a cliff.

-TaoPhoenix (May 31, 2013, 05:48 PM)

I would thoroughly recommend avoiding Yahoo like the plague. The websoftware is flaky at best (doesn't even work in some browsers when you sign up) and their servers are constantly being hacked - plus the advertising is chronic.

249

General Software Discussion / Re: Help needed with computer problem

« on: May 26, 2013, 11:26 AM »

Capacitor issue on the motherboard?

250

Found Deals and Discounts / Raxco (aka PerfectDisk) 35 years celebration with 35% of any product

« on: May 25, 2013, 01:17 AM »

Just use the code 35THBDAY at the checkout until 28th May 2013