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10951

General Software Discussion / Re: Fake Reviews: Amazon's Rotten Core

« Last post by mouser on August 31, 2012, 02:55 PM »

Thanks for understanding  

What I was trying to get at with the comment about "real" thread is that I think politics+religion don't really belong on DC, but they especially doesn't belong in active threads that are productively discussing some other issue.  Injecting such issues into an active thread is harmful and likely to derail things -- even if the diversion to politics and religion starts out harmlessly and without controversy -- because it inevitably gets ugly.

10952

General Software Discussion / Re: Fake Reviews: Amazon's Rotten Core

« Last post by mouser on August 31, 2012, 01:54 PM »

Guys and gals, please do not bring another real thread into politics debate land please.

10953

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

« Last post by mouser on August 30, 2012, 06:39 PM »

My next mini-boardgame-review is of "Survive: Escape from Atlantis"



Once a year I've been getting together with my family for a week, and it's my job to bring board games for the family to play.  This means bringing games that will, first and foremost, appeal to my beyond-cute 8yr old niece, but also my 70+ yr old parents.

This year the biggest hit was Survive: Escape from Atlantis, which was purchased based on the numerous recommendations on Board Game Geek saying that it was a fun family game.

To be honest, after reading the rules I had my doubts about how well the game would go over, because it's pretty cut-throat.  But the theme goes a long way towards keeping everything lighthearted and amusing.  The younger kids loved it, and the older people enjoyed it as well.  A great mix of luck and strategy and surprise, and quite easy to learn.

Very highly recommended for family gatherings: 9 of 10.

10954

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by mouser on August 30, 2012, 03:40 PM »

Next up for me is a book on set theory -- something I haven't read about since I was an undergraduate.

10955

Screenshot Captor / Re: Ctrl-C Copy to Clipboard Question

« Last post by mouser on August 30, 2012, 09:30 AM »

You're encountering a confusion that has come up before.. The problem is that Ctrl+C can do a different thing depending on where you are.

Here's what I think happens, perhaps you can verify:

If you hit Ctrl+C while in the main window, you should copy the IMAGE to the clipboard, and pasting it in your email will paste inline.

BUT if you are in the lefthand thumbnail panel, when you hit Ctrl+C you are copying the FILE to the clipboard, and pasting it will be like dropping a file into your email, as an attachment.

Does that make sense?  I could change it, but there is some logic to the way it works.

So if you want to copy and paste an image inline, it means you have to click in the main window area after selecting an image from the thumbnail panel, or use the Edit->Copy image to clipboard menu item, which should always work.

10956

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Paste As File 2.1.0.0

« Last post by mouser on August 30, 2012, 08:11 AM »

We can help provide web space for freeware/donationware if you need it.

10957

Living Room / Re: The Unraveling of OnLive

« Last post by mouser on August 29, 2012, 07:10 PM »

It seems clear to me that there was some honest-to-goodness impressive technical stuff being done by OnLive, and that they took an inspired risky new idea and made it work, at least to some extent.  For that, they deserve some real credit and admiration.

The thing that always sticks in my craw is the common thread I see in internet businesses, the fakery involved in pretending to have enough customers to be profitable in order to make it past one more round of funding, and then just continuing this cycle indefinitely until the inevitable crash.

10958

Living Room / Re: The Unraveling of OnLive

« Last post by mouser on August 29, 2012, 04:26 PM »

A more positive take:
http://arstechnica.c...-only-option-we-had/

10959

General Software Discussion / Re: Fake Reviews: Amazon's Rotten Core

« Last post by mouser on August 29, 2012, 12:27 PM »

I want to note that I love Amazon, and I wouldn't say this issue is Amazon's rotten "core" -- it's absolutely a hugely important and corrupt aspect, but not the core of what makes Amazon special.

10960

Living Room / The Unraveling of OnLive

« Last post by mouser on August 29, 2012, 12:25 PM »

An interesting read about how an interesting technology company could not make a profit.  Note the theme we've discussed before -- completely fantastical ginned-up grossly inflated membership/customer numbers, designed to create a false sense of momentum and source of profit, and a giant pile of cash being burned through at an astronomical rate.

The problem was simple. OnLive never made any money, and it was burning through as much as $5 million a month. As Perlman himself explained during the fateful all-hands meeting, the company had deployed thousands of servers that were sitting unused, and only ever had 1,600 concurrent users of the service worldwide. Over the past week, OnLive has tried to distance itself from that 1,600 number, but every former employee we spoke to in a position to know told us that it was true. "We were so optimistic at launch, but the users never came," one long-time staffer said. "There were all these reasons why we were going to be an instant success, but it didn't succeed instantly." Even if the users had come, though, some employees dispute whether the service could scale: OnLive needed a physical machine for each concurrent player, and though Steve continually pressed the team to figure out a method to virtualize the load, the current model might have been untenable.. Officially, the company states it has 2.5 million users, and 1.5 million active users, but staffers tell us those numbers count every single person who ever signed up for a free account, or tried it in the last year. The other thing you need to understand is that many of those users never paid a dime.

http://mobile.thever...274739/onlive-report

from http://waxy.org/

10961

General Software Discussion / Scott Hanselman's Posts on Getting the Most from Windows 8

« Last post by mouser on August 29, 2012, 12:11 PM »

A nice set of posts by Scott Hanselman describing how to be productive with Windows 8.  I've been hard on Windows 8 preview but some of this stuff looks pretty good.

... However, once it's installed, it's initially confusing but I have been using it every day all day since it was released and have got myself productive again. Here's what I ran into and how I realized that there's less reason to freak out than I originally thought.

http://www.hanselman...eeseOhThereItIs.aspx

See also: http://www.hanselman...ndows8StartMenu.aspx

10962

Living Room / Re: Anyone playing Mass Effect 2 game yet?

« Last post by mouser on August 29, 2012, 09:22 AM »

Finished ME3; it was impressive and good and I can't complain about anything, but ME2 was much more of an enjoyable experience for me.

I don't know if that's because ME2 was "better" or because ME2 and ME3 were similar enough that after playing ME2 all the novelty wore off.

Bottom line, I'd highly recommend playing ME2 or ME3, but probably not both, and I don't know which of the two to recommend more highly.

10963

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by mouser on August 28, 2012, 11:17 PM »

This baby tiger bounces just like Tigger from whinnie the pooh, and has a little dog as a friend.

from http://www.neatorama...ce-When-He-Grows-Up/

10964

Living Room / Re: Sansa Clip Zip: Wow!

« Last post by mouser on August 28, 2012, 10:26 PM »

Rockbox installed fine, seems to work well and solve both of my complaints.  Thank you for this thread 

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Living Room / Re: Sansa Clip Zip: Wow!

« Last post by mouser on August 28, 2012, 10:11 PM »

Ok i'm off to try Rockbox.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Fake Reviews: Amazon's Rotten Core

« Last post by mouser on August 28, 2012, 09:26 PM »

We are going to wake up one day and find out that half of the content on the internet (facebook accounts, twitter accounts, reviews, kickstarter donations, amazon reviews, etc.) is fake paid content designed to manufacture momentum and positive press.  Depressing.

Hopefully we will eventually find a way to get rid of this harmful practice.

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Living Room / Re: Sansa Clip Zip: Wow!

« Last post by mouser on August 28, 2012, 09:23 PM »

I bought a ClipZip for my recent trip to visit family.. It's ok but i can't say I love it.

Only two reasons, but they are real thorns in my side:

First, it takes the "I'm smarter than you" approach to organizing audio files, which you see in newer audio manager.  This means it doesnt matter how *I* organize the folders i put on the machine -- it's going to organize them based on found mp3 tags into Artist/Album/etc. This usually works fine but occasionally is a truly painful obstacle to finding stuff.

Second, a function that i find critical to saving battery life is the auto sleep function, where it goes to sleep after an hour or whatever of playing.  The ClipZip has such a function but it resets to being off every time it's powered on.  Not cool.

Haven't tried Rockbox so I have no idea if it would address any of those issues.

10968

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by mouser on August 28, 2012, 12:03 AM »

The Schoolboy, 8, who has struck up a remarkable friendship with a colony of alpine animals:
http://www.dailymail...a.html#ixzz24oXIG8Pc


from http://www.neatorama.com/

10969

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Paste As File 2.1.0.0

« Last post by mouser on August 27, 2012, 11:51 PM »

Mentioned on Freeware Genius:
http://www.freewareg...k-windows-extension/

10970

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: URL Capture in Chrome

« Last post by mouser on August 27, 2012, 04:56 PM »

Hi Malcolm,

Sorry for the delay in replying -- just got back into town.
I will check it out, should be fixable.

10971

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2012, 09:31 PM »

nice 

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Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Paste As File 2.1.0.0

« Last post by mouser on August 26, 2012, 02:38 PM »

Very nice, and excellent write up!

10973

Developer's Corner / Re: Any DC members thinking of trying Kickstarter?

« Last post by mouser on August 24, 2012, 11:17 AM »

I think I'll actually be trying to kickstarter a board/card game project before the year is up.. it's a simple game i've tinkered with for a while and after playing it with my family at the latest family gathering, and having a lot of fun, i think it's worth giving it a try.  i can handle the production of pieces/cards, but i would like to find someone who has the special skills at making a really polished professional looking kickstarter video for it -- that seems to be critical to success (the pitch video seems at least as important as the content of the game!).

10974

DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for July 9, 2012 - 100 Days of Summer Slumber

« Last post by mouser on August 23, 2012, 04:09 PM »

thank you muadib -- you are all set and should receive the next newsletter which should go out next week as soon as i get back in town reinvigorated with dc spirit after visiting family.

10975

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: Use in work environment ?

« Last post by mouser on August 23, 2012, 11:34 AM »

let's be honest, it's a wonder anyone finds anything on this site, there's just so many little nooks and crannies..