Messages

26

General Software Discussion / Re: Organize files using virtual folders

« on: September 22, 2012, 05:46 AM »

I've been hoping for that kind of solution for a while, so curious what people find

What i want to do is avoid having to *manage* my files and folders like I have to.
In my email I have switched to a "big archive pot" and using search and virtual categorisation for finding things. This was because at some point around 2000 i was spending more time moving and reorganising email than actually processing it.
I've managed to do the same for photos and music thanks to the standard tags available there. Doesn't matter where they are

For documents, I am not there yet.
I've looked at some of the tagging options, but the amount of work of switching makes me hesitate - knowing what has worked (or not) for others would be valuable. One thing I wont do is move them all into a database like some of the document management tools do. Feels far too risky, documents need to stay in files on disk

27

Developer's Corner / Re: Amazon Allows Eliminating Ads on Kindle - Is this idiotic?

« on: September 21, 2012, 08:20 AM »

It's not clear at all when you look at the product page that you are getting the product at a discount in exchange for getting ads.

On the UK page there is(was, when i last looked, i havent checked this week) no mention of ads - and the price is not that different from other readers or android tablets. It doesn't appear all that subsidised and you'd think that the "you must buy ebooks on amazon" tie-in is already enough to justify the subsidy.

28

Living Room / Re: Self-Portrait Camera - Casio EX-TR150

« on: September 21, 2012, 06:43 AM »

girls who have been squeezed in the gender pigeonhole, I guess...

one day all these manufacturers full of patronising old gits will wake up having lost half the worlds population as customers. Here's to hoping

29

Living Room / Re: In Search Of Good Web Based RSS Reader

« on: September 21, 2012, 03:46 AM »

I use newsblur, went away from google reader when it removed the social element. Might revisit it in the light of G+

Newsblur has some nice features, but it, too, marks things read when you browse by default. But the configuration supports "mark as read after n seconds" and "mark as read on keypress".
The tool has some intelligence to it, sharing (both publishing to blogs and sites, and creating your own share feed within newsblur. I dont use mine much but it would be http://superiphi.newsblur.com), saving - the usual stuff.

http://www.newsblur.com/

30

Developer's Corner / Re: Amazon Allows Eliminating Ads on Kindle - Is this idiotic?

« on: September 21, 2012, 03:19 AM »

Think of what an ad on the screen saver implies: it implies that when I am not using my device, and it is perhaps on the coffee table or my desk at work, it is broadcasting ads. And because up to now screensavers have always been personal choices, it is communicating to people around that I endorse this brand.

There is implicit endorsement assigned to something shown on a personal screen. That's why advertisers should jump on this for the short time it will work, and that's why people should run away from it in horror. But then people "like" a brand on facebook just for a chance to win a freebie, even though it will push an ad (with endorsement!) on all their friends feeds, so perhaps I am the only one horrified by being hijacked to promote brands I might object to.

If I am not, there will be a lawsuit "kindle showed ads I object to on religious grounds" or "kindle on my desk showed ad that could have got me fired"... it will happen

31

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Postbox 3 - $9.95

« on: September 16, 2012, 01:28 PM »

I have been using Postbox for well over a year - I find it nice for email and interaction management. Fast search, and I have a lot of email and quite a few accounts.

Happy to share any knowledge I might have acquired on it

32

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: September 12, 2012, 05:25 AM »

Fantasy but in a non euro-medieval setting. Really got me, and I am picky and jaded when it comes to fantasy or magical realism.

-iphigenie (September 10, 2012, 02:16 AM)

There are some good fantasy series set in pseudo-mediaeval, pseudo-North European milieus, but it's been done to death.  It's a refreshing change to find something different, so thanks for that one.

FWIW, authors of fantasies that I've enjoyed, who set their works in relatively unusual worlds, include Sarah Ash, Garth Nix, Caroline Stevermer, Michael Marshall Smith, Steph Swainston, Naomi Novik, P.C. Hodgell, Chris Wooding, Jonathan Stroud, Marcus Sedgwick, Jan Siegel/Amanda Hemingway, and Chris Wooding.

-rjbull (September 10, 2012, 03:28 PM)

Enough names I recognise to suggest you will indeed enjoy these books.

And I notice I managed in my writing and rewriting of those 3 lines to loose the bit that says that the setting is pre-european-invasion Mexico (with huge liberties taken, of course).

Other books/series in the fantasy vein enjoyed recently:

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Shadows of the Apt. The premise doesn't quite work if you think too much about it, but if you don't try to imagine "how would this world have happened" and go with the flow, it's extremely enjoyable. The clash of civilisation models, industrial revolution and the fact that the characters are not simple good/evil but have understandable motivations and conflicts of loyalties. Also, he has no qualms killing characters so this keeps you on your toes when reading.

The Inheritance Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin - very mythological/ancient epic feeling, kind of weird, About geopolitics, change, gods and mortals and their relationship. It all feels both familiar and alien and utterly fresh - although I don't think this format will work for more than a few books.

33

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« on: September 10, 2012, 02:16 AM »

Aliette de Bodard's trilogy - I read it on ebook (direct from angryrobot) but I think I'll get the book so I can lend it and make R read it

Fantasy but in a non euro-medieval setting. Really got me, and I am picky and jaded when it comes to fantasy or magical realism. It feels truly different - very different type of belief system and society - and the books are structured as detective stories as much as heroic fantasy

http://aliettedeboda...bibliography/novels/

[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

PS: her blog also lists science fiction, learning vietnamese and vietnamese/chinese cooking, and maths.

34

Living Room / Re: Fake User Reviews...The unwinding scandal

« on: September 08, 2012, 03:48 AM »

I'm not sure why people are surprised.

The "customer testimonials" on product advertisements, in brochures and websites are also usually fake, crafted by the marketing department. Not necessarily because the product is bad, sometimes because most people don't want to be quoted in ads no matter how they like the product.

And in our day and age where people increasingly hesitate to buy a product on amazon that doesn't have reviews, of course people start thinking of ways to kick start it

35

Living Room / Re: Nokia's new Lumia 920 phone doesn't impress. But why? (no reason)

« on: September 08, 2012, 03:34 AM »

Actually I thought it looked really neat that phone

Of course R here has the N9 and wow, what a superb piece of hardware.

The not impressed part is all about the brand and the perceived "miss" (i.e. Nokia is punished repeatedly for failing to have been Apple, like Yahoo is punished repeatedly for not having become Google.)
There were several misses (eg: releasing really neat mini tablets early but refusing to put a phone chip/stack in them. They could have owned...) but they are not helped by management being pushed by investors into directions and fights it cannot win, just because thats what investors think will bring the share price up

36

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: aShampoo

« on: September 04, 2012, 06:37 AM »

Been using that one for years - v6,7,8,9, now on 10. There's not a huge amount of change between 8, 9, 10 (havent checked 11) but the tool is solid and has never caused me problems on any of my computers. I lost count of how many licenses I have bought over the years

37

Living Room / Re: Please (oh please!) let this be a joke...

« on: August 22, 2012, 02:13 AM »

Sad thing is that they need to create doubt in order to make sales... that'd be a hell of a marketing angle

38

Living Room / Re: Go dark for IE - October 26, 2012

« on: August 21, 2012, 03:52 AM »

I can't count how many times some stupid browser detection rules caught me as collateral damage - either too new a version (after a new release), or Opera etc. I typically tweet how lame they are, and never go back.

First, if you are going to block IE 8 then you ought to block older Firefox, early chrome, people who have older smartphones (how dare they not buy a new one every 6 months!) and pretty much every release of Safari. And you probably will end up blocking people on Linux or BSD by mistake - or people using secure/solid IE derivative browsers. And everyone on XP that can't run FF or chrome. That's a lot of people to call names and antagonise.

And blocking people on older computers might make sense if you're selling only to the digital crowd, but even then, be careful. You might be surprised what people are using outside the "i have the latest computer to impress my friends" crowd.

If you can't put in the effort to support ie 6, 7, 8 (or opera) then that is fine. Understandable considering some of the hacks on has to do, the knowledge it requires and all the testing effort. But you don't have to be an ass about it and cast judgment on people and rub their noses in it.

And if it is to put some of the annoying new features of modern web design that make a site hard to use, navigate and impossible to bookmark, well then, I have no sympathy for you.

Websites ought to be designed for their users, not used for their designer to compete in the cool leagues of featuritis...

oops, soapbox alert. getting off

39

Living Room / Re: Wikileaks - Julian Assange Granted Asylum by Ecuador

« on: August 18, 2012, 12:58 PM »

Transparency and embarrassment are just *that* threatening, it's worth destroying world treaties, the balance of power and everything over.

 

40

Living Room / Re: Wikileaks - Julian Assange Granted Asylum by Ecuador

« on: August 17, 2012, 08:05 AM »

I wish the UK and EU countries were always so eager to interrogate and prosecute allegations of rape. They are usually pretty quick to sweep them under the carpet, especially between people who have first had consensual sex (which was the case here).

Now I find it quite possible that Assange has a certain arrogance and lack of attention and that he might miss messages that say "not again" or "not in this way", and that starting again would not be a crime, but refusing to stop would be. But even as a stringent feminist I find it hard to believe that this is all about this.

No country threatens to storm an embassy for a rape, and nobody talks of sending death squads and it being terrorist activity on the topic of condoms.

41

Living Room / Re: Windows 8: Yes, it's that bad

« on: August 16, 2012, 03:11 AM »

it seems to me that having two kinds of interfaces (metro touch-centric vs desktop) is going to be a schizophrenic situation for developers and microsoft itself, and it's hard for me to envision their not being serious consequences for this approach -- like splitting the windows developers into first and second class citizens with the new microsoft app store stuff, etc. Or requiring users to shift between different modes of using their computer based on what application they are using -- creating a daily conflict of user interface standards.  We shall see..

-mouser (August 16, 2012, 01:35 AM)

This situation is quite common - it exists for games developers (mouse, gamepad, touch, joystick), it exists for phone app developers (2 types of touch interface and non touch as well). It hasn't killed those ecosystems, so I suspect with sufficiently solid frameworks and SDK it will be fairly easy to adapt apps to touch/no touch options on the PC too. At least you'd hope MS has thought about that and plans to make it easy for devs.

42

Living Room / Re: What's the best registry cleaner? Ask Leo says: none

« on: August 16, 2012, 01:32 AM »

I too have had CCleaner but recently (since win7 at least) whenever I run it and look at the keys, they are minor things that arent worth removing (associations that have no associated app, so what?), things I dont want removed because I know what they are (placeholders and references)

So I pretty much dont that mode at all except now and then after an uninstall or upgrade to see if there's old junk (very rare)

43

Living Room / Re: Windows 8: Yes, it's that bad

« on: August 16, 2012, 01:25 AM »

Any major change of UI will normally get reviled - people hate every time a website changes anything, facebook, twitter, any! People hate changes to gnome, the new UI on Ubuntu. People hate when an app changes or a browser changes...

Or at least, one hears about the haters most. Then people adapt and on average figure out "hey, this is actually pretty good for ..." and find solutions for the bits they cant adapt to.

And it's probably worst of all for anything that isn't cool. You're supposed to hate windows, you're supposed to make excuses why you use it (facebook is slowly the same too)

44

General Software Discussion / Re: Steam set to become app store

« on: August 14, 2012, 07:10 PM »

IMHO a slightly worrying development - the Steam servers barely cope with what they are doing now without adding loads of cloud-based app type stuff.

I have no problems with the internet at all but I frequently get 'Cannot connect to steam' on first attempt to open Steam when it is trying to login - and when opening pages in the Steam browser windows I could sometimes go and make a cup of coffee in the time I wait for the page to actually appear. (They never open immediately and the Steam browser make IE look positively whizzo - which is strange because as far as I can tell it is an IE shell ???)

The other issue is that when Steam feels the need to update stuff they never ask your permission and unless you have a very fast broadband (and Steam in a good mood) you could easily find yourself waiting for a couple of hours (or even days) bfor you can open an app depending on the size of download. (I have a customer whose son plays Steam games and on average it takes him between 7 to 10 days to get new games installed - even when he buys it it on DVD). Of course you can't amuse yourself in the meantime by playing another game because that suspends the download!

-Carol Haynes (August 12, 2012, 02:15 PM)

I've had lots of gripes with Steam but never seen unable to connect unless I am fully offline.

I think the "pause downloads while you play" is configurable somewhere

I used to buy a lot on Impulse but it now rarely offers much that is not US-only. So I migrated to buying on gamersgate at least as often as on steam, based on price and idealism, far less fancy social features but downloads are totally separated from playing and playing never requires online (except in cases where the game originally used lame DRM, like Assassin's Creed 2. I buy *these* on steam). There even is a chat/screenshot overlay if one is so inclined, one that uses normal chat). It's in part because I like diversity and competition, and in part because it doesn't matter what I do, when I am offline I rarely can play steam, there's always some reason or other why it wont let me start offline.

I also often buy from the developer, even when it is a little more expensive than Steam or Gamersgate.

And I have games on Desura and gog.com too - what i lack isnt games, its time to play

45

DC Gamer Club / Re: Defense Grid 2 launched via Kickstarter

« on: August 14, 2012, 07:02 PM »

My card's just been charged. Yay for them 

I think I still have a few codes to Defense Grid 1 in the donation coder thread if someone hasnt played it

46

General Software Discussion / Re: Arranges in a txt file

« on: August 12, 2012, 09:51 AM »

You can probably just open it in Excel, then save it as a CSV.

-Renegade (August 12, 2012, 07:18 AM)

I don't know how to do it. I obtain
first;second;third;fourth
but without "
 

-Contro (August 12, 2012, 09:38 AM)

yeah, Outlook will only add "" if there is a space or a comma/semi colon in the text I think. Extremely annoying as I too have needed to get proper quotes everywhere in the past. Trying to remember what I did

47

Living Room / Re: It's Official: Many DC'ers Are Psychopaths~! :P

« on: August 12, 2012, 09:48 AM »

"what's wrong with you" is the oldest trick in the book to silence other people. It's also a great sales trick - convince enough of the population that something is wrong with them/their bodies/their mind and you can sell them things for a long time. It's also a great control trick - the more time people spend on making themselves acceptable, the more they are kept busy chasing, the less time they have to think or challenge...

I keep thinking the range of acceptable choices and behaviours keeps getting narrower because there is less and less space at the edges/frontiers where people can go. It's obviously an evolution of the "not good" variety, especially for people who can't help being different, or people who are by temperament tricksters or boundary pushers.

PS: not being on facebook would be being a sociopath, not a psychopath. just sayin...

PPS: I remember reading that the guy up in Norway had done/said/posted things on facebook, so their premises are probably off (these guys probably arent on facebook AFTER the fact cause their profiles were disconnected asap to investigate and to protect innocent connections etc.)

PPPS: actually, "what's wrong with you" is the thing that jumps into my head whenever i read almost any article in that newspaper. Which I try to avoid, as it winds me up so.

48

General Software Discussion / Re: Steam set to become app store

« on: August 12, 2012, 09:35 AM »

So Impulse/Gamestop is trying to become Steam while Steam is adding things that the original Stardock Impulse had...

49

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Gamersgate] Spring Sales (Up to 80% off)

« on: May 24, 2012, 11:29 AM »

In my donation gamer list i have a few obscure games that are redeemed via GG

50

Mircryption / Re: WeeChat Version 0.3.0 is released ! :)

« on: May 16, 2012, 01:21 AM »

I don't use irc much these days (i should visit the DC channel, shouldnt i?) but weechat is my default option nowadays - the multi platform angle was the main reason I tried it, but it stayed on my machine because it is pretty nicely done