Messages

76

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Metro has gone ...

« on: August 08, 2012, 05:26 AM »

aCertainCompany patented rectangles and the colour white, so I think we better all take a look at our display pics, or hire a good lawyer.

77

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« on: July 21, 2012, 03:40 AM »

Moore's Law +1   

My addendum to Moore's law: The gadget/feature/price we laugh at now will be standard in 2 years

78

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Antivirus Software a Waste of Money?

« on: April 05, 2012, 06:02 PM »

I got a few viruses when I first started with computers back in 2000 or so.
Then I learned to clean it all up and after playing with useless, resource hogging AV, I now run totally unsecured.

I use Firefox with adblock and flashblock, and know a bit about what email links to open. Also, I do like a software firewall, but even just Windows one is fine.

Also I have found that just about anything can be cleaned with autoruns and HijackThis. Or at least that has always found the problem for me.
I have everything backed up, so that is 'safe'. Just a bit worried about banking and credit cards. So far no worries. Maybe just lucky, but I have had less viruses and problems (ok, none) compared to friends who run Norton 360 or whatever the scaremongers have sold them.


Not saying this is a good idea, but it works for me. Or seems to.



The other one I would like to do, but don't want to pay for the bandwidth is update Windows to spec. Windows Genuine Advantage put me off that anyway.

79

Living Room / Re: Employers asking job seekers for Facebook passwords

« on: March 23, 2012, 05:35 AM »

Already prepared. I can swear on a lie detector that the password to my Facebook account (one that's existed for many years) is ******* Now, you work out which of my many accounts that is, and then work out why I set up an account and then abandoned it, after accepting the likes of 'Jimmy Cocksnot' (not made up)

80

General Software Discussion / Re: A Siri challenger emerges. Meet Evi.

« on: February 19, 2012, 05:22 AM »

A bit useless in reality. I asked it how I could get a date with Taylor Swift and it only gave me her website

-Fred Nerd (February 16, 2012, 08:40 PM)

Don't give up, Fred!!! She's patiently waiting for you to find a way to communicate with her!

-Innuendo (February 17, 2012, 01:39 PM)

There were those 2 college guys who set up www.ahugfromtaylorswift.com and she heard about it and ended up doing meeting them. But thats been done now, so I need something else.

Hey, I might get a song written about me. I'll make sure it includes a DC reference.. The royalties would pay hosting for a long time.

81

General Software Discussion / Re: A Siri challenger emerges. Meet Evi.

« on: February 16, 2012, 08:40 PM »

I got it and had a play with it. Its fun.
A bit useless in reality. I asked it how I could get a date with Taylor Swift and it only gave me her website

I have had an idea for a long time of what is needed and wanted to code it myself but I'm never going to be good enough.
I was a voice recognition keyboard.
NOT to recognise words, but to be totally local and recognise letters. When driving its not too hard to touch 'reply', then dictate, n-o-t-space-t-o-n-i-g-h-t-commar-space-t-r-y-space-t-o-m-o-r-r-o-w-space-eight-colon-three-zero.
Surely this wouldn't be too hard to code.

Anyone want to try?

82

Living Room / Re: Anatomy of a Tear-Jerker: Very cool article on why songs give you chills

« on: February 16, 2012, 08:16 PM »

See if this one gets you -- Our Town by Iris Dement.  It definitely does me.  I think her voice is doing that thing the essay talks about:

-mouser (February 15, 2012, 03:36 PM)

+1 Iris Dement.

83

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« on: February 05, 2012, 03:57 AM »

Its ok, people. Google has successfully updated the Earth. (some time last year, I had forgotten I took this pic)

Methinks Google thinks its God.

84

Living Room / Re: Woz likes Android

« on: January 31, 2012, 08:02 PM »

Interesting read, is that normally a true source of info?

Personally, I prefer the customiseability of Windows to anything. Compare 'Right-click->graphics properties' and the 10 tabs with 50 checkboxes each, or go to 'System settings->display' one small page. And ICS has LESS than Gingerbread had.

Bring on the Windows 8 phones.

85

Living Room / Re: 2012 WARNING! I'm here and... cough... gack... ZAP! Argh!!!

« on: December 31, 2011, 03:30 PM »

I even survived to the next morning. Welcome to 2012, for those in USA, its bright and sunny (Nowra Australia)   


Have a good year, don't forget to turn out the lights on 2011 before leaving it.

Fred

86

Living Room / Re: Adware is not freeware, right?

« on: December 26, 2011, 08:23 PM »

I meant the geek who was a geek because thats how they actually are, not the geek who just wants to appear that way to people around them.
People who actually spend time DOING things like programming, and not just talking about it.

People say Sheldon reminds them of me, it just annoys me. He spends too much time socialising ineptly. While I am perfectly capable but just have other things that amuse me more than other people.

87

Living Room / Re: Adware is not freeware, right?

« on: December 26, 2011, 03:12 AM »

While we're on things that annoy us:

Firstly, 15- 20 years ago a phone with a battery that only lasted a day (just, with light use) and then needs 3 hours to charge would have been laughed at. But I paid good money for my Google Nexus.

Not to mention that Gingerbread already had too few settings (what to display, where to display it, in short: everything that Win95 allowed me to set on a 64Mhz processor and 64MB ram) but now I got the update for Ice Cream Sandwich and its a lot smoother looking, BUT:
Less customiseable (I can't find the 'turn off all animations' [and certainly no check boxes for each one like all geeks want), colour scheme looks pretty, but not good in bad light/dust/quick glances  or anything that tradesmen want and no 'Right click, properties, set colour scheme'

Everything you do nowadays seems to be going the Apple way "Tell us what you want and we'll get it for you" And I'm not happy with always getting something that is almost, but not quite nothing like tea (Douglas Adams, not sure if I got it right)

Now I love being able to do stuff while I'm away from my laptop/desktop but stop limiting it to a useless level. Someone emailed me a .doc file the other day but somehow removed the .doc from the name. I knew it was either .doc or .pdf and in a minute had it working on my laptop, but the Nexus refused to download it since it didn't recognise it.

I think the basic problem is that now the money is in selling to the masses and so everyone treats users as total idiots since most of them are.

Please, someone, make me a dos/console phone. Long battey life even if it weighs half a kilo, no touchscreen that doesn't work with wet hands, or gets dirty if you are called while working on something greasy, small screen for controlling it, just enough to type on the physical keyboard. And with USB support. Can add a screen on then for graphics, and a stylus for sketching.
Has to support AHK or similar and be able to run a compiler to work on project on the move.

Fred.

Oh, and Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory is nothing like a reak geek.

88

Living Room / Re: LHC Finds HBP? Or at least...they think they did...Awesome if confirmed!

« on: December 17, 2011, 05:10 AM »

Not only do scientist hate the term, but so do Christians. It makes fun of both science and religion for the sake of a cheap word.

Or maybe its just me.

I see no problem with finding the Higgs Boson or finding anything else.
Was it Galileo who said that the Bible tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go?
Well the Higgs Boson is the opposite.

Also just because that means it was possible that it all happened with an expansion of a waveform or something, it still doesn't mean that's what happened.

Sort of the 'God made the world complete with old dinosaur bones' theory.

Its all good fun 
You see the results your way, I see them mine and everyone has a good time.

89

Living Room / Re: Kicked Off the Plane for Games

« on: December 09, 2011, 04:51 AM »

Having friends who are flight attendants, I'm of the opinion that, while I agree that media players and such cause no problems (heck, I take off in my ultralight with phone on and iPod on all the time. I take phone calls while flying), but don't blame the flight crew. They have a job to do, and that's not serve meals; its to save your life if something does go wrong.
These guys get well trained in survival/escape techniques, but it all goes to nothing if everyone is used to treating them as if they know nothing.

90

Living Room / Re: Three little words

« on: December 05, 2011, 06:10 AM »

Me: Can count words
Them: Can't Count

91

Living Room / Re: iPhone feature which poses a high privacy risk everytime you take a picture?

« on: October 16, 2011, 04:24 AM »

Dunno... I just think the world is better when we don't automatically assume that terrorists and child molesters are stalking us on every street corner. The media has created such a massive reality distortion field around so many issues there, and the field isn't a good one -- it's pure fear. Not a particularly nice way to live.

-Renegade (October 14, 2011, 03:36 PM)

If people don't make it so tempting for people to become stalkers/identity thieves etc. then there wouldn't be so many of them. Its like not leaving valuables in your car. If nobody leaves valuables in cars, no-one is tempted to steal them, so if a one off chance comes up no-one is used to stealing and it doesn't get stolen.

With geotagging, if everyone does it, it means that there is a chance of finding something out about people so it turns people into even more stalkers.

FaceBook is bad enough as it is. Its not socially acceptable to meet someone one night, next morning you are finding out their life story, family, education, work, address, past addresses, where they went on holidays, what they wear and if they go to wild parties.

I hate talking to a friend and having the:
"Oh, did I tell you about my trip?"
"I read it on FB"
And nothing more to say.

So if we try to keep things private, we'll create a closed culture that can only be beneficial.

92

Living Room / Re: The Life-Changing $20 Rightward-Facing Cow

« on: October 06, 2011, 03:45 AM »

I once had 52 pickup on my Win 3.11 computer
(for those of you who haven't 'played' 52 pickup, you throw all 52 cards all over the place and the victim who agreed to a game has to pick them up)

Sometimes the ridiculous is best.

93

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« on: October 06, 2011, 03:35 AM »

Not only did Jobs die, but it looks like the iPhone has also died. It used to be the trendsetter, but the iphone 4S has nothing revolotuionary in it.
(And before you say the camera, go buy a $100 FinePix or whatever they're calling them now. A phone NEVER compares.)

94

Living Room / Re: The Boozernet...

« on: September 22, 2011, 07:01 AM »

Luckily it looks like he saw the joke in the morning. I sent a really appologetic text and he was all good about it.

Phew, made my day.

95

Living Room / Re: The Boozernet...

« on: September 21, 2011, 09:30 AM »

Yeah, I just REALLY stuffed up.
Normally I stick to easy stuff after a few drinks, but someone was insisting that I pay an outstanding running account. I wanted to wait until I saw them and use my card, but they insisted, so I transferred it. I put a description of 'that shut you up?' and sent.
Ummmm, accounts are managed by the head boss, who I did NOT want to annoy. Unfortunately I did. A lot. I hope this works out smoother than it was earlier. I promised him a case of beer.

96

Living Room / Re: Should I Get A Divorce?

« on: September 06, 2011, 08:56 AM »

I was given a iPod touch to 'work out' for an older friend.

Ok initial impressions are that of total 'People put up with this???????'

Someone had loaded music on it which wouldn't play. Wrong encoding I presume.
Anyway, I plugged it into my PC and ran iTunes (I have an iPod Classic, as much as I hate Apple and hate my iPod, it is the only thing to hold over 13000 songs in 320AAC) Now, up comes a message saying 'do you want to sync with this library? Big time NO. But it still wiped the Touch anyway. Didn't put anything on, just wiped it.

Contrast a 'Droid device. USB plug in. Locate new drive, find music, put music on, put pictures on, App files, whatever, unplug and its all there.

Just seems sooooooo limited, and very restrictive

It seemed slightly more responsive than my nexus and nicer scrolling, but you got the idea it was only because it was really not doing much. No meat to the apps.

Anyway. I used to think that fanboism was only a game. But its totally justified.

I now think Apple as USELESS as well as Evil.

97

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« on: September 04, 2011, 07:14 AM »

I'm not too much off a graffitist, but I have signed a few gents toilets with "The Future of Australia is in Your Hands"

98

Living Room / Re: Should I Get A Divorce?

« on: September 04, 2011, 07:11 AM »

I don't know about a divorce, but it is one of the questions my daughter now asks before considering dating a guy:

Do you own a computer? (REQUIRED!) Is it a Mac, and if so, what OS is it running (Linux is OK).

-app103 (September 03, 2011, 02:53 AM)

I think your daughter has an easier time than guys like me who keep meeting girls who are attracted to shiny things like iPhones that all their friends have. Oh, and Macbook Air is sooooo cute (lolz).
And yes, in Australia, Apple has really taken off. You have to either be broke and get a cheap droid or a serious techie to get anything other than an iPhone.

PS, what's your daughter's number?


PPS, AHK is one reason I only want a PC girl. It has been considered romantic to write custom scripts for someone special. "....and press CTRL+Q, it displays your name......."

99

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« on: June 21, 2011, 09:34 PM »

English is NOT the language of logic:

A wife asks her engineer husband "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6."

A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.

The wife asks him "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?"

He replied "They had eggs."

100

Living Room / Foxtrot on Apple Comics

« on: June 20, 2011, 06:17 PM »

Apple has a sense of humour? Hmmm, thats a really risky bet,

http://www.foxtrot.com/2010/03/03212010/