Messages

9226

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini Review of SugarSync and DropBox

« on: May 03, 2010, 09:54 PM »

It has been a little over a week, and I'm canceling my SugarSync account and opting for the full version of DropBox.  SugarSync has a lot of cool features, as I said.  But DropBox just works.

I've been trying to find out where I want folders, what folders I want to sync, and what kind of structure I want to have.  So that involves renaming folders, moving folders, etc.  As I said in my earlier post, I had a few hiccups with that.  But I just had my first major scare which would have been pretty catastrophic if I didn't have DropBox watching the same folder.  I was moving one of my document folders, and when I copied and pasted the folder, I guess because the folder already existed, SugarSync lost track of the folder and said it wasn't being synced.  There was just a blank folder where it was and my only option was to remove it.  I found out that it wasn't just the folder that was blank- SugarSync had actually deleted the files in the folder!  I checked on my desktop right after that, and lo and behold, they were gone from there too.  And though I've been pretty careful, there were two files there I didn't have backed up anywhere else!  I checked dropbox, and it had synced everything also.  But then I checked the deleted items, and was able to restore them.  

I've *never* had a problem with DropBox like this, and I do a lot of moving and re-organizing things with it all the time.  I did find out after the fact that the documents were in the trash on the website, so I could have restored them that way, but the point is I shouldn't have *had* to restore them.

I can't recommend SugarSync after this, even with the cool features.  Get the core features right first, then start branching out, which is what I guess DropBox has done.

UPDATE:  I'll never even try SugarSync again- the injury just caused was too egregrious for them to *ever* restore my confidence.  I was removing SugarSync from my machines- I guess I should have known to back up everything that I ever synced with them.  During the uninstall, it stated that "no files would be removed".  [Expletive Deleted]!  They removed *everything* from my machine.  Again, DropBox saved me.  I saw a few very irate people while doing my research, and just assumed that they were nutcases, because of the vehemence of their denouncement of the software.  I know understand them intimately.

UPDATE: The error message that when compared to the deleted files made me so irate:

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Living Room / Re: My new digital camera...

« on: May 03, 2010, 03:47 PM »

Congrats Hamm... glad to see concrete evidence that the DC way of contributing works!

Now we all can see what happens if viewfinder way to save up those credits!

-cranioscopical (May 03, 2010, 03:24 PM)

I don't get this 

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Steam Sale: 50% off Guild Wars Trilogy

« on: May 03, 2010, 09:28 AM »

Buy now play later!

-Deozaan (May 02, 2010, 03:52 PM)

:: stares at his already mountainous buy-now-play-later stack of games ::

I better pass on this one. I haven't even finished Fallout 3 yet.

-Innuendo (May 03, 2010, 07:14 AM)

We could compare stacks, and I'm pretty sure you would be a paragon compared to me

• Dragon Age: Origins
• Mass Effect 2
• Borderlands
• Fallout 3
• Warhammer DOW II

And that's just off the top of my head.

So get it... you know you want to

9229

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 07:16 PM »

...Depending on who got ahold of it. You say you could do a great deal with it - Okay... - At what age? The one you are now, or the one you were in 1975? (It's a gamble on my part, you could be in your 60s now...

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 05:20 PM)

Not in my 60s, but in 79 I made a science project in which I made a robot arm that could move up and down... and I had to wire a circuit board and bridge it to my Apple II computer and made a program to allow the user to control it from the keyboard.  A few years later... but not much.

Keep in mind the intention was to share a glimmer of thing to come with the throng of frothing accolades - Not to copy Uber Secret Chip X and rush it into production at competitor Y. Apple created "the Monster" that got off the chain - Gizmodo just gave it a carrot. A is business as usual. Were B the case I'd (still laugh, but) agree with you.

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 05:20 PM)

No matter what their intent was, they were still doing it by illegal means that they just thought they could get away with.  It's not the size of the incident, but the principle behind it.  You traffic in stolen goods, you get slammed if caught.

-Legal fees = a vacuum.

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 05:20 PM)

Not if it goes like you think it should and nothing happens to them legally.  See how that works?

Accountable for what? Depriving Lord Jobs of a teensy weensy little spark from his next over-the-top release worship revival light show? If they actually had a product... other than their immense marketing hype inducer machine, this would be a total non-issue.

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 05:20 PM)

No... accountability for breaking the law.  And I'm no apple apologist, but its just the rule of law at work.  And you start breaking it down at these levels, and you pave the way for future grander violations.  Which is one of the reasons it's lame of them to bring the journalistic shield into play since you're using something that's meant to protect real journalists in a way that in the future could limit it when it really needs to be used.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 03:48 PM »

So if you take a computer today and take it back to 1975 it would be worth nothing?  Yeah... I'd like to see that.  Even without the OS, it would still be worth quite a bit,

-wraith808 (April 30, 2010, 02:14 PM)

Once again to whom? Back in 75 there was what maybe a dozen or so engineers that would have had a clue what they were looking at - To anyone else on the planet it's a doorstop.

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 03:30 PM)

If you had given a *working* computer to me in 1975, I could have figured out quite a few things without an OS.  Give it to someone with a lab and degree... yeah.  You don't need an OS to learn quite a bit from the computer.  I guarantee if you'd give something like this to IBM the landscape when you got back to 2010 would be a *lot* different.  I'm not saying it would be instantaneous, but...

Gizmodo made more than the $5k on the phone, and the person that sold it made more than the $100 that is speculated.  If it wasn't worth more than $100 how do you explain that?  But I suppose that makes no difference in calculating worth?

  Gizmodo Made money on the phone? I thought they paid $5k for the phone - or did Apple reimburse them the finders fee + gratuity?

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 03:30 PM)

Gizmodo makes money from traffic.  You don't think that this story boosted their traffic?  Therefore boost in traffic = money = profit on $5k.

All we really have here is a bully (Apple) that's gone crying to the (Fuzz) teacher because they got their bluff called. They got their silly damn phone back - everybody's even - let it go. There's just no profit in destroying Chan's poor ass.

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 03:30 PM)

There's a certain thing called a deterrent.  Gawker was warned about this when they *put* out the bounty, and they were able to get hardware from the bounty after being warned...   I wouldn't mind at all seeing them fry.  I don't agree with the tactics of the police, but I do think they need to be held accountable.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 02:14 PM »

So if you take a computer today and take it back to 1975 it would be worth nothing?  Yeah... I'd like to see that.  Even without the OS, it would still be worth quite a bit, and thinking that it wouldn't be makes me see that perhaps I should bow out of this conversation.  It's quite obvious that *even without the OS* a next generation iPhone is worth more than $100 intrinsically.  Gizmodo made more than the $5k on the phone, and the person that sold it made more than the $100 that is speculated.  If it wasn't worth more than $100 how do you explain that?  But I suppose that makes no difference in calculating worth?

And as a BTW, I know for a *fact* that my Volvo will crank without the Central Electric Module installed and working- because I've had to do it before.  Just as the iPhone without the OS still starts.  The hardware does indeed work... you just have to replace the software.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 01:09 PM »

Hm... So you would consider a car to be working - Even if it did not have an engine - Just because you could toss one in it?

This car would viably be considered "working" by whom exactly?

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 01:06 PM)

Not an equitable comparison.  We're talking software and hardware... and an engine is definitely hardware.  It's more like does a car run without the software installed.  It might not run correctly and be useable, but for sure it does run.  And by those definitions is *still* not appreciably devalued for the lack as it can be replaced easily enough.

9233

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 12:44 PM »

So it still worked... they just didn't have an image to restore because iPhone 4.0 OS is not out yet.

-wraith808 (April 30, 2010, 10:46 AM)

Except it didn't, because they didn't have the means to make it work. Only Apple did.

-Dormouse (April 30, 2010, 10:56 AM)

I can play too...

Except it will, once the 4.0 OS is released.  And it did, in that the device itself worked.  They just didn't have the software portion.  What value is on the software, and what value is on the hardware?  As I said... semantics.

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General Software Discussion / Re: 15 Hacks Every Dropbox User Should Know

« on: April 30, 2010, 12:43 PM »

I don't know about that whole truecrypt thing and it syncing on the parts of files that have changed.  I haven't tried syncing anything truly large with the service.  Has anyone else done so?

-wraith808 (April 30, 2010, 10:39 AM)

I'm not sure about that either. But I saw someone in the comments say that you have to be careful with TrueCrypt and DropBox because the TC volume is only updated after it has been dismounted.

So if you forgot to dismount the volume before you left, you won't have the updated files synced.

-Deozaan (April 30, 2010, 12:16 PM)

I wonder about that... if you forget to to dismount it, then use it in the other location, then dismount in both locations, how does it resolve the differences... especially in an encrypted format like this?  And I still have doubts that it can sync the delta of the volume, especially considering that it's encrypted.

9235

Developer's Corner / Re: C# Books (Recomendations)

« on: April 30, 2010, 12:41 PM »

• Practical .NET2 and C#2 - Much more in-depth information that will give you a better understanding of how C# works internally, and how it interacts with the .Net platform. This is how I got to really understand closures, for example.

-CWuestefeld (April 30, 2010, 11:27 AM)

I started to recommend that one because it's just *so* good... but with the changes introduced in C# 3 and .NET 3 and 3.5, I was on the fence as to whether it was a fair recommendation still.  I also like C# Design Patterns, but didn't recommend it for the same reasons.

9236

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 10:46 AM »

It was just wiped.  From the original gizmodo article:

This iPhone behaves exactly like an iPhone does when connected to a computer, with the proper boot sequence and "connect to iTunes" restore functionality. Xcode and iTunes both see this as an iPhone. Mac OS X's System Profiler also reports this as an iPhone in restore mode, which is a natural consequence of remotely wiping the phone, but report different  product identifiers (both CPID and CPRV) than either the 3G or the 3GS.

So it still worked... they just didn't have an image to restore because iPhone 4.0 OS is not out yet.

According to the person who found it, this iPhone was running iPhone OS 4.0 before the iPhone 4.0 announcement. The person was able to play with it and see the iPhone 4.0 features. Then, Apple remotely killed the phone before we got access to it. We were unable to restore because each firmware is device specific—3GS firmware only loads on 3GS devices—and the there are no firmwares available for this unreleased phone. Which is another clue to its authenticity.

All from URL http://gizmodo.com/5...s-apples-next-iphone to give the reference.

But all of this is neither here nor there.  To try to value this at under $100 is purest redirection, and if they tried to do it in court would be lame and quickly get them slapped by the judge (figuratively of course).  All parties in this can share in the blame, because all were wrong, IMO.  Like that other article said:

a) Gawker/Nick Denton = guilty
b) Jason Chen = guilty (of being gullible)
c) iPhone seller = guilty
d) Using Shield Law defense = lame
e) Gestapo Cops = very lame

No matter that he was an opposing blogger or not, doesn't mean that he can't make relevant points.  And IMO they are totally relevant.

9237

General Software Discussion / Re: 15 Hacks Every Dropbox User Should Know

« on: April 30, 2010, 10:39 AM »

More dropbox goodness from Lifehacker:

The Cleverest Ways to Use Dropbox That You're Not Using

http://lifehacker.co...that-youre-not-using

I don't know about that whole truecrypt thing and it syncing on the parts of files that have changed.  I haven't tried syncing anything truly large with the service.  Has anyone else done so?

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 30, 2010, 09:08 AM »

For a prototype iPhone that's fully workable and not akin to the used market at all?  And has extra features that you won't find in any iPhone?  I defy you to find any judge that would value that at less than $100.

-wraith808 (April 29, 2010, 09:43 AM)

Except it was quickly not workable at all. So used phone of unknown origin, that doesn't work. Value low.

-Dormouse (April 30, 2010, 07:45 AM)

Where do you get that it was not workable?  They wiped the data remotely.  You can do the same thing with MobileMe.  It doesn't make the phone unuseable- it just wipes it to remove your personal data.

From http://www.appleinsi...te_wipe_service.html

A third button, Remote Wipe, says it "will permanently delete all media and data on your iPhone, restoring it to factory settings. This will not suspend your wireless service. Once wiped, your iPhone will no longer be able to display messages or be located".

Apple's support page notes "If the iPhone or iPod touch is online (turned on and connected to a data network such as Edge, 3G, or Wi-Fi), information deletion begins within seconds, and a confirmation email that the remote wipe has begun is sent to your MobileMe email account. If the iPhone or iPod touch is offline (not turned on or not connected to a data network), the information will be deleted the next time the device is online."

The site also points out, "If you later find your iPhone or iPod touch after it has been erased, you can restore your information by connecting the device to your computer and restoring it from a previous backup using iTunes." The page also warned, "If you don’t expect to later find your iPhone, you should suspend your wireless service through your wireless service provider. If you don’t, you’ll continue to be responsible for any phone calls or other charges incurred."

9239

General Software Discussion / Re: Review of 7 Cloud Storage Services

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:59 PM »

^ It looked interesting from the interface perspective, but I couldn't get it running because of restrictions at my jobsite.  What were the negatives?

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:57 PM »

It's interesting that the police seem to be going after Gizmodo rather than the original finder.

-Dormouse (April 29, 2010, 06:00 PM)

Just because the focus has only so far been on Chen doesn't mean they aren't looking at the original finder- indeed, that could be one of the reasons behind the seizure.

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Developer's Corner / Re: C# Books (Recomendations)

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:55 PM »

Ummm... he said C#

I've been purchasing the manning books as of late, and all of them have been good.

I can recommend without reservation

• C# in Depth
• Windows Forms in Action

Also of note are Essential C# 3.0 and Professional C# 2008.

9242

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 29, 2010, 04:40 PM »

The legal definition of theft in this case is defined by California code- and it is a bit wider than your comment takes into account.  There is a legal responsibility in California to return found material.  That's where theft and possibly felony actions come into play.  Were they wrong for their actions in their raid?  Yes.  But does this make Giz, Gawker, and Chen less wrong for what they did under the law?  Money is on no right now...

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 29, 2010, 09:43 AM »

Sorry, but I'm going to have to insist on this point. I really don't think that it is up for debate.

Value in a legal sense cannot be determined by a single individual/agent/company. If it were, in any given lawsuit, people could value their time at astronomical amounts. However, this doesn't happen, and the courts do not recognize those sorts of claims.

Like I mentioned above, just because you value something, doesn't mean that it actually has that value in the broad sense of the term.

-Renegade (April 29, 2010, 09:19 AM)

For a prototype iPhone that's fully workable and not akin to the used market at all?  And has extra features that you won't find in any iPhone?  I defy you to find any judge that would value that at less than $100.

If I leave something anywhere, and someone sells it, I would feel violated.

-wraith808 (April 28, 2010, 07:16 PM)

I agree. But I think this is a little bit different.

For instance, if you lost something and the person who found it tried to return it to you--and you refused to take it back--would that change your opinion about them selling it?

-Deozaan (April 28, 2010, 07:55 PM)

This is being used as a reasoning in a lot of posts in this thread... so reference?  And even so- why call tech support?  Why not call apple and ask for the person?  Even after the phone was wiped, he knew the person's name... else why did it appear in the article?

-wraith808 (April 29, 2010, 08:35 AM)

I'm not sure that he knew the person's name. All of this came out well after the fact. The articles had the benefit of hindsight. For the specific details, I have not seen anything in depth to support that he knew or did not know the name of the engineer that lost the phone. If anyone has seen that, it would be nice if they could post a link.

But to be honest, I seriously doubt that most people know how to get somebody's name out of a phone. Even if it wasn't wiped quickly, and he had time to check, I don't know that he would have been able to find the guys name.

-Renegade (April 29, 2010, 09:19 AM)

From http://gizmodo.com/5...lost-the-next-iphone

During that time, he played with it. It seemed like a normal iPhone. "I thought it was just an iPhone 3GS," he told me in a telephone interview. "It just looked like one. I tried the camera, but it crashed three times." The iPhone didn't seem to have any special features, just two bar codes stuck on its back: 8800601pex1 and N90_DVT_GE4X_0493. Next to the volume keys there was another sticker: iPhone SWE-L200221. Apart from that, just six pages of applications. One of them was Facebook. And there, on the Facebook screen, was the Apple engineer, Gray Powell.

He knew.  And from the same page, something about the fact that he did apparently call Apple about the phone- I guess I overlooked it.  But yes, he definitely knew the person's name.  And with that information, the fact that he called several numbers seems more disingenuous.  I'd call their office and ask for the guy.  I'm sure at some point you can call and get a person on the phone... and knowing his facebook page, he could have messaged the guy on facebook...  seems like CYA to me.


UPDATE: An interesting analysis... and some more links

http://www.onenewspa...OLEN-iPhone-Case.htm
http://www.guardian....zmodo-paid-iphone-4g
http://www.pcmag.com...CRSS03069TX1K0001121

9244

General Software Discussion / Review of 7 Cloud Storage Services

« on: April 29, 2010, 09:36 AM »

Considering I just did a review of SugarSync vs. Dropbox, I thought this review on Tom's very timely-

http://www.tomsguide...ing,review-1539.html

There's actually no overlap with my review, as the author reviews:

• Box.net
• Carbonite
• Google
• i365 EVault SaaS
• MediaFire Pro
• Microsoft Live Mesh
• Microsoft SkyDrive

For the short synopsis, it appears that they don't really favor any above the other.  I tried mesh for my purposes, but it's not accessible from work which immediately voided that option for me.

9245

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:35 AM »

If I leave something anywhere, and someone sells it, I would feel violated.

-wraith808 (April 28, 2010, 07:16 PM)

I agree. But I think this is a little bit different.

For instance, if you lost something and the person who found it tried to return it to you--and you refused to take it back--would that change your opinion about them selling it?

-Deozaan (April 28, 2010, 07:55 PM)

This is being used as a reasoning in a lot of posts in this thread... so reference?  And even so- why call tech support?  Why not call apple and ask for the person?  Even after the phone was wiped, he knew the person's name... else why did it appear in the article?

9246

DC Gamer Club / Re: Lets get organized so we can get gaming!

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:28 AM »

I dropped xfire a while ago... it became stuck on Star Trek Online for some reason, and the tracking became useless.  Anytime I was not in a game, I was 'playing' star trek online... annoying.

9247

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 28, 2010, 07:16 PM »

If I leave something anywhere, and someone sells it, I would feel violated.  People lose stuff all the time- that doesn't make it right that someone sells it.  And it definitely doesn't make it right that someone sells it knowing who it belongs to.  We might have to agree to disagree on this one- I'm not even talking about legal rights, but morality, even though I do believe that what they did should have been legally wrong also.

9248

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 28, 2010, 10:48 AM »

• The person tries to RETURN THE IPHONE TO APPLE
• Apple ignores all (several) attempts to return the phone

-Renegade (April 28, 2010, 06:04 AM)

Reference?  From everything I read, the person was going to try to return it... then the next day the data was wiped remotely.  He was still going to try to return it, but then noticed that something was different, and after he realized that it wasn't just an vanilla iPhone decided to sell it.

9249

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini Review of SugarSync and DropBox

« on: April 28, 2010, 10:43 AM »

I understand that on the public folders... but this part applies to private folders too (upload any files), and is the more troubling part.

You will only upload, post, submit or otherwise transmit data and/or files: (i) that you have the lawful right to use, copy, distribute, transmit, or display; or (ii) that does not infringe the intellectual property rights or violate the privacy rights of any third party (including, without limitation, copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other intellectual property right, or moral right or right of publicity). Dropbox has adopted and implemented a policy that permits the deletion of files that violate this policy, and that permits the termination in appropriate circumstances of the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe or are believed to be or are charged with repeatedly infringing the rights of copyright holders. Please see the Dropbox Copyright Policy for further information at http://www.dropbox.com/dmca.

And the fact that it's purely in their discretion, and unlike SugarSync can be done without someone filing a violation. 

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« on: April 27, 2010, 08:37 PM »

I don't have a problem with getting a story, as long as its by ethical means.  Bloggers want to make money from their work, and want to be considered as legitimate media outlets, but use paycheck journalism to get their stories and don't want to be held accountable for their actions.  Who can pay $5000 for a phone that they know is not the person's who they are paying, and think that's right?