Messages

26

General Software Discussion / Re: Neowin reviews Windows 8 - Leave your pre-conceived notions at the door

« on: October 25, 2012, 06:53 AM »

This is quite an intersting discussion.  Just this morning, I completed a survey by InfoWorld Research, focused on the consumerization of IT and yesterday I read this piece on SlashDot:

http://news.slashdot...shdot+%28Slashdot%29

I tried Windows 8 when the Consumer Preview version was offered earlier this year.  It was slightly buggy and I found without a touch interface it was difficult to use.  I also understood the strategy of making some form of Windows a direct competitor to iOS. Whether or not it is a successful strategy is beyond me.

My thought is that the overwhelming popularity of iThings has got a lot of computer/IT companies in a Big Fat Stir(tm), but all I am seeing from any of them is a sheep-like determination to make a product just like an iThing.  It may have pretty colourful squares on it, but in my estimation, Win8 is essentially a wanna-be-like.

Pursuant to the SlashDot article linked above, the copy-catism seems to have taken Microsoft right down the rabbit hole into another walled garden app store.  I have never liked that idea and I look forward to the witch burnings and drownings I predict will occur when Microsoft starts taking a 30% cut (or whatever it is) of every product that goes through its own store.

Finally, and I understand *I* might get burned at the stake here myself, I am no fan of portable devices like the iThings and data capable phones. I don't believe them to be innovation, but rather a step backwards and very much playing into the hands of entities both corporate and governmental who want to double-speak me and control parts of my life they have no business concerning themselves with.  While the move to the "cloud" has certainly opened some doors to convenience, I use these services with the expectation that they will be yanked from under my feet, the moment I stop measuring up to someones expectations in some way. Consider the poor woman reported this week, who lost her library of legitimately purchased eBooks, just because Amazon is run by a bunch of pricks. With the reliance of portable devices on such cloud services and their attendant walled-garden purchase/installation setups, I'm staying way clear.  If I can't secure my purchase in my own home, on a non-connected device, I'll have no part of it.

27

DC Gamer Club / Re: razer nostromo

« on: September 12, 2012, 05:57 AM »

I don't use the razor, but I did use the original n50 model and still use the follow-up n52 model.

I had never been a big fps player until BF1942 came out.  A friend of mine got me involved and in trying to figure out why I was so bad at the game, I discovered he was using an n50.  So I found one and gave it a try and haven't looked back!

I've used it also for non-fps games and have on ocassion come across other applications, that if I used more, I would probably get the Nostromo involved with that too.

Even for games where the controls are mostly asdw, it's far more comfortable to hit those keys on the Nostromo than on the keyboard.

As it turns out, despite my wonderful Nostromo, I still suck hugely in BF3 but at least now I don't have an over stressed and aching wrist from my left hand being all twisted up on the keyboard.

Cheers!

28

General Software Discussion / Re: Wierd Chrome browser behaviour; or Have I not been paying attention?

« on: June 22, 2012, 06:09 AM »

Many thanks.

I've read about the process seperation in Chrome but I never actually looked to see how/if it would manifest itself in Task Manager. It's fairly impressive in a "holy crap, what the....." kind of way

I *didn't* know about the inbuilt Chrome Task Manager, so that was a nice perk, and indeed I have 9 extensions installed.

Thanks for the info.

29

General Software Discussion / Wierd Chrome browser behaviour; or Have I not been paying attention?

« on: June 21, 2012, 06:50 AM »

I just noticed this morning that the Chrome browser is misbehaving in an odd way.

I accidentally opened task manager this morning to see 9 instances of chrome.exe *32 running.  I had one browser open.

I closed it and all instances immediately disappeared.  I fired it up again and nine instances immediately reappeared.

Is this normal? My computer's performance does not appear to be impacted, but I'm concerned none-the-less.

Do I have cause for worry or is this some new fangled programming technique of which I am unaware?  Chrome fans keep telling me what a fantastic browser it is because of it's non-standard/non-traditional underpinnings, but I have my doubts.

Thanks for any advice.

30

Living Room / Re: Microsoft's New Surface Tablet Hybrid

« on: June 20, 2012, 06:52 AM »

I like the idea of this thing - I look forward to finding 5 spare minutes between now and eternity to watch the video.

I have only two concerns:

1. The Windows Metro interface - I loath it. Just that simple
2. Apple-like douche-baggery

I can alway mod that crap Metro interface away, so this is a minor concern

However, if MS plays the same sort of nonsense games with an App Store, like Apple does, then there is no reason to buy this thing.

In fact, when I first heard the announcement I thought to myself that MS was finally going to give us a tablet we could use in the ways that Apple won't let us.  I've even read a couple of blog posts by Apple fanbois that sort of run along the same line.

If MS *does* institute an App Store only approach, then they can go kiss Apple's fat red hairy butt because they're just offering another Apple competitor rather than any sort of innovation.

Give me something that's NOT that damned iPad.

31

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« on: April 10, 2012, 07:25 PM »

The Xbox setup works well enough, but it's the second one I've had. It has stopped playing DVDs and while it still streams on the home network, the day is coming when it will just not turn on one day.

Carol, I'm digging into a very weirdly written manual for the TV to see what it can do. It's a 32 inch Bravia but I'm pretty certain it nothing fancy based on what I paid for it.

I realize I missed the mark in my previous comment. I need a consumer's guide to file formats. People keep giving me things to watch and they all play well on my gear but roughly half of the folks I pass the stuff on to, aren't able to play them on their gear.  I`d like to understand why and how I can correct this.

It`s not a pressing matter though. I should probably just watch the convo and follow any references provided.

4wd, I like the idea of the network media player, but I find myself with an embarrassment of riches at the moment, in that, I have spare computer gear I`d like to use if it would improve on the Xbox setup. In the meantime, thanks for the reference on container formats.  A lot to digest and I`m finding a lot of it inexplicably difficult to grok.

32

Living Room / Re: Xvid Video converter for Windows 7 x64 - any ideas?

« on: April 10, 2012, 06:27 AM »

This is an aside to the main thread.

Admittedly, I know less than just a little bit about video, codecs etc. In fact I post here, because I just lost the thread on this convo when 4wd hit containers. This is not your fault

Is theere a site or doc you can point to, that could give a basic crash course on "domestic video taming" as it were.

I have been wanting to setup some sort of streaming from computer to TV and have been using xbmc on an old xBox, but feel there is more I could be doing.

33

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Social Media Program do you use? (e.g. Tweetdeck)

« on: March 21, 2012, 07:15 AM »

I am still using the original Air based TweetDeck. I upgraded to a new computer just after the product was bought out by Twitter and got stuck with the new TweetDeck app, which is about as close to a tragedy you can get in comparision.

I tried a BUNCH of other clients - Sobees and Seesmic came close to doing the job - but none of them did as good a job as Air TweetDeck.  I can't seem to find the Air installation program for the last Air release of TweetDeck, so when at home, I'm now stuck to using two computers at the same time, if I want to Tweet - my laptop still has the old TweetDeck installed.

I'm, no programmer, but I'd certainly support someone's effort to rebuild the original TweetDeck or to build a client with the same look and feel.  If you are familiar with the Air version, compare it to Sobees and Seesmic to see how you can get close and then totally fark it up with inscrutible interface design.

If fact, that's the major problem with almost all Twitter clients out there.  They are made by people who haven't got an effing clue about interface design. I think they saw how perfect TweetDeck was and decided the only way they could compete was with a different look and feel.

They were horribly wrong.

Twitter is the only social site for which I use an app.  I'm on Google+ regularly, but their web interface is quite good.  I also have a Facebook account, but only use that to stay in touch with friends who only use Facebook.  When the next ice age comes, I will ensure they are sent to the leading edge of the glacier to stand there and hold it back - neanderthals that they are.

I use several others, but that might take the track of this discussion too far afield.

34

Living Room / Re: Firefox and LastPass problems

« on: February 27, 2012, 06:16 AM »

Hi Carol, for your information gathering purposes, here is what I use.

I'm using Firefox 10.0.2 and LastPass 1.90.0.  I am *not* having the issues you report.

However, right after I first installed LastPass (I also use it in Chrome version 17.0.963.56 m), everytime I'd startup either browser, I kept getting an error about how the browser couldn't redirect to the address it was given, did I still want to try that?  This happened because I have to manually connect to the Internet at home and have to start a browser to talk to my router.

I have not been able to determine what address the browser wants to contact, but always assumed it was a LastPass server.

Now, having read about your issue, I realize that error has not raised it's head in a month or two.

Aside from that, my issues with LastPass are mostly cosmetic.

35

Official Announcements / Re: I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012

« on: February 17, 2012, 06:21 AM »

No. Don't do it, even for a month or a week or a day.

I swear, if there are ads on this website, I will NEVER come back and all my friends (which is about 99 percent of your subscribers) will never come back either cuz I'll tell them not to!  And I'll bad mouth you all over the intertubes and NO ONE will ever visit again!  And if you KEEP advertising, I'll launch my lEEt haxor-skilz and THEN you'll be sorry - quite possibly more sorry than you are reading this now...lol!

Okay, so there is the radically opposed and most defionitely insane opposition vote, cuz you know, so far everyone has been accepting of the experiment and that's not right!  Every discussion needs an out of bounds, frivolous and slightly crazy response to a reasonable approach.

After all, it's the Internet dammit! (and I have to live up to my Bryon James avatar pic)

I look forward to the result of the experiment (and so do my haxor-skilz).

36

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« on: February 15, 2012, 06:35 AM »

(over 50 eyes)

-Daleus (January 24, 2012, 06:33 AM)

Wow, with >50 eyes you sure must read fast!

-cranioscopical (January 24, 2012, 01:43 PM)

Doh! Yeah. And it takes hours to clean my glasses when I've been out in the rain.

37

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Windows 7 desktop background changer?

« on: January 26, 2012, 07:29 AM »

I use "John's Background Switcher" -> http://johnsadventur.../backgroundswitcher/

It can change every 10 seconds...god help you if that isn't fast enough!

It can show the same pic on multiple monitors or different pics.  I don't use the stretching features, but they are there and there are several of them, so you should be able to find what you need.

Let us know if that works ouyt for you.

Cheers!

38

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« on: January 24, 2012, 06:36 AM »

Looking back over this thread, I wonder has anyone done a review of Qiqqa?

I followed the link to their site, but as I am not an academic, I'm not certain I would have a use for this program.

I'm going to download it anyway such is the power of a DC recommendation - I'll try *any* program you folks suggest, to see just what it can do for me.

39

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« on: January 24, 2012, 06:33 AM »

I got myself a Kobo eReader late last fall, about the same time that I ran across Calibre.  I got it originally because I wanted to be able to carry around my collection of out of print Traveller rules books.

Well, *that* was a disappointment - for old stuff like those Traveller books, you get image scans of pages and not real pdf documents.  Still, if I don't mind going blind occasionally (over 50 eyes) I can still read them.  I later discovered a program that would actually OCR scan a pdf file and give me the text!  Awesome, and I am now converting my collection to text, so that I can re-lay it out and convert to ePub which is the native format for the Kobo, although it handles others.

Of course, I am totally foolish to spend this much time on such a project, quite likely *more* time than I will spend reading the blasted things.  Yay OCD!

So, I have been adding to Calibre about a dozen at a time, as I get them converted.  I also have been combing the Gutenberg Project for old out of print science fiction and recently added from there, a collection of Charles Dickens books.  I actually read A Christmas Carole over the holidays, after being a devoted fan of the 1950's movie starring Alistair Simm.  It was fun to discover the movie does not stray far from the book.

So, so far, my experience with Calibre has been flawless.  It's ability to handle copious eBook formats in it's library, it's ability to convert between them, being cross-platform *and* (haven't tried this one yet) it comes with a server you can run on your network and use wirelessly to reload your reader has me bowled over!

40

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy Remote access to another PC?

« on: November 28, 2011, 10:41 AM »

Just to drop back to the Windows discussion for a moment.  Have you tried Remote Assistance?  Something completely different that Remote Desktop, and works pretty well.

Also, I have used several incarnations of VNC or TeamViewer with success.

41

Living Room / Re: Sansa Clip Zip: Wow!

« on: October 14, 2011, 07:12 AM »

I'm along time fan of the Sansa stuff.

I purchased my first Sansa MP3 player about 5-6 years ago.

It's small, has a easily readable lcd screen, needs nothing proprietary and best of all it's powered by a single AAA battery which they estimate gives 19 hours of playtime. That's roughly 3 hours of listening pleasure a day, to get through a week, and that estimate is pretty much dead on!

I'm still working through my first NiMH AAA rechargeable and I use the thing every week.  And it's still working. In fact I've worn out two sets of headphones since I bought this thing.

Oh yeah, the sound quality has always been superb.

What I'd really like to find is some non-earbud style headphones that will last.  My last pair, some Sony wrap around the back of your head jobbies barely lasted three months before a wire stopped working and I lost one half of the 'phones.

I can't wear earbuds due to hearing issues and I generally hate them anyway as they never stay in my ears.

I wouldn't pay hundreds for good headphones but I would go better than 9.95 for something that lasts

All recommends accepted.

42

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Share your mouse and keyboard with multiple Mac or Windows computers

« on: September 26, 2011, 09:14 AM »

deleted cuz I wasn't watching what I was doing and mis-posted.

43

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Share your mouse and keyboard with multiple Mac or Windows computers

« on: September 26, 2011, 08:24 AM »

ShareMouse website is not available today when I tried a download.

I'm quite interested in checking this out, especially as I tried the ridiculous MS Mouse Without Borders thing last week.

Mouse Without Borders is a horrible FAIL at best.  It totally relies on MS WorkGroup networking, which has always been crap. There was no way I could get two computers to connect through a desktop switch, even though they could ping each other.  Because of the switch, they couldn't grok each others Computer Name and so wouldn't talk.  Totally not workable for here at work, which is where I have the real requirement.  Might work for a home setup.

I'm interesetd to find out if ShareMouse uses something modern like an IP address rather than old MS horsecrap networking models.

I'll continue to try the site today, to see if it comes back up.  DonationCoder may have killed it! (which would be a good sign)

44

Living Room / Re: Firefox fixes the version number problem

« on: August 17, 2011, 08:52 AM »

I agree with all of the stated reasons Automatic, uncontrollable updates are unsavory.

For myself, I wish they'd fix the problem with getting rid of add-ons that don't work after an update.  Never been able to get the things uninstalled. Instead they are rendered "disabled" but lag around in the list until the next version release.

Of course, that problem would be resolved if there was some proper notification during updates/upgrades that plugins won't work, and I mean a specific notification of *which* add-on doesn't work, with the option to rollback the current installation.

And no I won't stop bashing IE.

45

Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« on: August 15, 2011, 08:59 AM »

My experience with Steam has been mixed.

It started with Civ5.  I bought the media in a store and eagerly installed it only to find I had to connect to the 'tubes for some reason.

In my case, I live in a rural area and at the time had no internet options.  So I had to hump my computer into town, to a friends place, just so that I could validate the game or whatever the frack it is that made the online connection necessary.

Now that I have an internet connection, albeit I might as well not it's so crappy, it's less of an issue, but to be frank I play in "offline mode" because the game loads about 300-500% faster (I haven't really clocked this but usually I had time to take a piss and make a cup of tea before the game was ready to play.  The first time I went offline, I was getting up to go for the piss and the game was suddenly ready to play!)  Further, it will take me 6-10 hours to download today's average sized game.  Bite my ass - I could drive to another province to buy the game and come back, install and start playing in less friggin time.

On the plus side of the equation, I have been able to track down some older games I was never able to purchase when they were on the store shelf, and are now imposszible to find in a used bin.  There are also many many sales and if you missed it this time, if you're pateint you'll see it come around again in the rotation.

Overall though, I am not happy with the connect to the net requirement, just to validate a license which I just purchased and entered by hand into the damned game.  If that wasn't enough, why did you jerks make me enter the thing in the first place?

As for the wide variety of games available from Steam, well yeah there are many.  But frankly about half of them are the kind of bullshit you find on Facebook. Yuck! Quantity does not equal quality.

As for Steam as a "social media hub" it's slow, and incredibly badly designed.  Just try for the first time, to send an IM to a friend to invite them. Frustrating as hell to navigate the moronically unintuitive interface - more frustrating as I'm already bald and have no more fucking hair to pull out.

Apologies for the rant and language, maybe that's the ultimate review of Steam, all on it's own.

46

General Software Discussion / Monitor folder, print and then archive document?

« on: July 06, 2011, 02:33 PM »

I'm pretty sure one of you has already created this program.  Unfortunately, even after the couple of years I've been hanging out here, I *still* am clueless when it comes to trying to find programs I think someone has already done.

On the other hand, everytime I've asked if someone knew of a program that does something, you've all been very quick to help out.  I hope that is still so.

I have a very bizarre printing problem that can't be handled natively in Windows.  I have output from a PuTTy derivative that needs to print landscape to letter sized paper.  One of my hardware techs wrote a little proggie to handle the problem under XP (using output from QVTnet), but now the user has moved to Win7 (and using KiTTy) and said little proggie is now a bust.

I am looking for something that can monitor a folder, print a file dropped into it, and then preserve that file (because the user is a luser and needs to review his work regularly). It would also need to utilize a paper size as defined by Windows.

The reports are wide print jobs and to avoid wrapping lines, we define a custom paper size of 11 inches wide by 8.5 inches long, with no margins, to avoid the line wrap (this all used to be printed to line printers and then to dot matrix printers, all which have finally died).

Any help appreciated and if you need further details, I'm all ready to answer questions.

Cheers!

47

General Software Discussion / Re: Web Browser Quiz

« on: May 20, 2011, 07:03 AM »

Keystrokes available in various browsers, for going to the next or previous search term in your browser.

I think.

48

Living Room / Re: Worlds leading experts...How is this status given?

« on: May 18, 2011, 10:08 AM »

Ah cool.

All I have to do is find a brothel to solve the world's leading problems

49

Living Room / Re: Now you're REALLY screwed...

« on: May 17, 2011, 09:11 AM »

It's a comfort, albeit a cold one, that I will eventually get screwed, even if it isn't in this lifetime as so many women have told me.

50

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« on: May 13, 2011, 06:51 AM »

I'm sorry, but I think the salient point for me in that guys post, is that he tried to explain a technical issue via an episode of a trashy sitcom.

I can't trust that kind of knowledge.  I'm in the "..not buying a new drive twice a year" crowd on this one. Don't care if they are 5 bucks a pop, I want reliability and in his list of how many days 'til failure, only one unit appeared to last more than a year, with many of them failing far before that.

Sorry, I'll wait the extra few nanoseconds which my brain can't recognize anyway, for longer more reliable storage.  While there are applications for a fast storage solution, speed isn't everything and in fact it's mostly nothing.