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1351

Developer's Corner / Re: Ludum Dare 29: April 25-28 Weekend

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 10:51 PM »

Something is misbehaving for me and I can't log into the LD site to comment. :  (

1352

Developer's Corner / Re: Ludum Dare 29: April 25-28 Weekend

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 10:33 PM »

Re this line from the writeup:
"I should have been working instead of playing." I think I disagree. If you work on a game and maybe you used those few minutes to fix something technical but suddenly discover at the end of the whole weekend that the result is miserably un-fun to actually play, to me that's the true heartbreak. Also I think playing *is* working because let's say as you are playing you suddenly discover that some aspect is really annoying, to me that's almost like a bug and then maybe you turn down the difficulty, or whatever. I peeked at a couple of older LD games from an earlier event, and I came across a few (that I didn't play) where people commented that the idea was cool but it turned out to be really hard.

Maybe there are some people who like their games tough, but if a game is so hard that I can't even get past the very early parts, I instantly lose interest. To me a more balanced game has a couple of really easy stages, a couple of "just easy" stages, a few medium ones, and then as it warms up it can pour on the difficulty. But if level 2 feels completely impossible, it's not my thing.

1353

General Software Discussion / Re: "Shadow Link" - A harmless example but a dangerous technique!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 10:18 PM »

Interesting explanation App.

"This is not a type of URL spoofing. It can not be used to make you think you are on your bank's site by changing the URL shown in the address bar. "

I have to take your word for it I guess because you're that scary taskbar girl, but I still don't fully believe it as a technique it can't be combined with another trick to make you think you're on your bank's site. I forget which of my notes has which info (this one and the one to the company) but in the example I used somewhere, if a page can be rebuilt that much, and the hacker sends you a link with "a referrer", why wouldn't it look like a bank site?

I don't care if they track my referrer for their metrics, but to have completely different content from the same web address really scares me!

1354

Developer's Corner / Re: Developers and the truth (or close to it)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 05:37 PM »

Heh I'm not even a programmer and both of those are great!

1355

General Software Discussion / Re: 4 (Maybe more) Absolute top go-to programs

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 05:16 PM »

Heh well for some reason I felt the browsers were "too obvious" but yeah I've been doing the Pale Moon Firefox shuffle for years now.

Some other cool notes though.

1356

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 29 - soooooo similar to Chrome

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 05:09 PM »

As skwire mentions, Firefox 29 - Classic Theme Restorer is a must. Unless you like chrome like interface..

Took me awhile to set everything back (interface) to pre-FF 29 (update various plugins and settings).

-Cloq (April 30, 2014, 12:18 PM)

Well that's a start, though it's different from the way I had it before, but I only use FF proper for a few things so I'll think about it.

1357

General Software Discussion / "Shadow Link" - A harmless example but a dangerous technique!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 12:44 PM »

Okay this one is a little scary to me.

Here's the awards page for a property company.

http://www.halstead....ards-and-recognition
Take a look at those "Leading Real Estate Companies of the World" links.

When you click on one, it goes to some page that talks about an affiliation between a broker network and the company. But if you copy and re-paste the address "http://www.leadingre.com/", it goes to a different site!

To me the "pasted version" is the "real site", and the other page is something on the broker's site. Fine. But don't re-use the link address to create some kind of "shadow page"!
 

What I can't figure out is where the redirect script/whatever is coming from!

To me that's dangerous because the method can be used for MUCH more nasty uses! We all are pretty good at defending Phishing attacks by looking at the address it points to like "www.sdgfdfgd.com/BOA-attack". But on that awards page, the link points to the "right" address!

So I'd appreciate some advice on how to stop that "shadow page" because that could be the mother of all phishing weapons. It seems to work cross browser and even with javascript off!

I'd also like to know the true address of the "shadow page".

To make it worse, the "favicon" changes! (I think that's the word.) The shadow page is clearly on the broker's site because it has their favicon. But when you re-paste the address in the title bar, it changes back to the "national" one! That's just nasty!

I am sending them a version of this note.

1358

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 29 - soooooo similar to Chrome

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 02:50 AM »

Firefox upgraded to 29 and it looks so similar to Chrome now that I have to take a closer look at the extension icons on top-right to assure I am in FF and not in Chrome.

At least it should have the 'fox' icon some where to differentiate it.

Regards,

Anand

-anandcoral (April 30, 2014, 02:24 AM)

Wow Anand is right. I tend to stay a version or two back. This new one is such a mess I might try to downgrade maybe Version 28 or something.

At least PaleMoon is sensible ... but I haven't updated that one yet!

1359

General Software Discussion / 4 (Maybe more) Absolute top go-to programs

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 02:37 AM »

Just a thread to mention some programs that are absolutely at the top of your daily list that you'd be annoyed not to have around. The trap here is that second tier that are useful but only on occasion.

With a little work I came up with mine:

Taskbar Shuffle just sitting there. I shuffle my tabs around all day long.

That slightly unheard-of Non-NANY entry here Trandesk is a desktop splitter so you can hide some work on one tab and then later goof off on another tab without the cognitive load of 12 open browser windows and X tabs.
(It was buried in the C+ contest. There are many other splitters, but this one is good enough for me.)

Then Mouser's SC with his 1-click tweak he put in a while ago.

Into Tom Revell's Stickies. The trick is you bury the stickies on tab 4 of Trandesk, and whatever else useful junk like task manager and more. Notice the little green monitor is visible on all four tabs. And it all sits there. So you have an explosion of open stickies there. But on Trandesk nodes 1 and 2, you can make your few new important stickies. Node 3 is left for misc temporary experiments.

Yes, there's a minor problem if you reboot, you lose your Sticky placement. With a lot of work you can get it back. The easier way I do it is just re-open Trandesk, copy the image and make a new Sticky on tabs one and 2 and one day when you are bored you have two copies of it on Node 4 so you can delete one.

Whew!

It's not hard limited to 4 - just my method of narrowing down the supply of "useful stuff" to a flow that is absolutely at the top of your list. But the theme is stuff you absolutely use every day.

1360

Living Room / Re: National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 30, 2014, 01:28 AM »

I'm not even a techie and that sounds like a video Mobius loop. "Instead of a password, you can have a 'credential' ". What is a credential?! And how do you provide it somewhere that can't be stolen in Heartbleed?!

And I agree with the opinion of scary-humor of "there is no central database to track these". Except... by the providers who issued them, right? I'd love to see *that* management meeting.

"So, how many of  these have we issued?"
"We don't know."
"Uh, how do you not know?"
"We just issue the things, we don't track them."

1361

Living Room / Re: Tech giants, chastened by Heartbleed, finally agree to fund OpenSSL

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2014, 11:39 AM »

Hmm, what part of seven, multi billion dollar companies weren't bothered to deal with this?!
Story after story, "cyber security initiative", and then one nasty flaw pwns the entire internet. Really.

1362

Living Room / Re: Microsoft Races To Fix Massive Internet Explorer Hack

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2014, 11:35 AM »

I just heard about this yesterday.  This site explains a couple of workarounds.

http://www.forbes.co...-1-in-4-pcs-exposed/

It appears XP users are basically screwed.   

-crabby3 (April 29, 2014, 09:31 AM)

People wanna comment? Is this massive!?

1363

N.A.N.Y. 2014 / Re: NANY 2014 Release - epCheck

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 29, 2014, 06:32 AM »

Disable and release with new fix's. ...

-nickodemos (April 03, 2014, 05:31 AM)

Hi all,
A bit of a random more general comment, I think it's a mistake to hold a release that has important fixes over one "tough feature". I think especially in this community we are pretty good at noticing new updates, so I approve of just "unloading" the interim build, which fixes annoyances, and then however long the killer feature takes it what it is. I'd think it might also reduce a tiny bit of cognitive load knowing that all the nuisance bugs are fixed and pushed, with only the "ornery feature" missing.

1364

Living Room / Re: ImgBurn - full of OpenCandy and other crap

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2014, 04:39 PM »

I will say that the OpenCandy offers did seem to always have an opt-out.  I still don't like it because the offers always seem to be for junk that no informed user would want.  OC offers an opt-out, but are relying on people to not understand what's happening. Also I wouldn't be at all surprised if even when OC offers an opt-out that some of the stuff installed via OC ('by permission') will install further junk that doesn't get an opt-out option.

-mwb1100 (April 28, 2014, 02:14 PM)

Oh oh! I know this one! We all played it in the 90's, that thing where you had to unclick buttons and not get wrecked! It was called Minefield!

http://en.wikipedia....x_Multiple_mines.png

Dammit, it stopped being a game!

1365

Living Room / Re: ImgBurn - full of OpenCandy and other crap

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2014, 04:34 PM »

What really gets my blood boiling is that I have both donated to ImgBurn in the past and have recommended it widely to other people (and asked them to donate too). Now the finger is likely to point at me if those people's computers get infected when ImgBurn offers an update.

-Carol Haynes (April 27, 2014, 04:03 AM)

This is a big problem - you come to know an item, recommend it a couple of times, then they pull these kinds of tricks. I'm pretty sure I've seen other threads like it recently.

1366

General Software Discussion / Re: Are there any simple graphic editors?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 28, 2014, 04:30 PM »

Thanks so much! I will try these.

-rdjw (April 28, 2014, 06:10 AM)

I'd like to know what you think of Real World Paint. It looks like it can do both your basics and a couple of the fancy things as well! But speaking of Simple, my use case is even more stripped than yours, so Vlastimil experimented with making a toggleable simple interface. One of the main features I discovered in Excel 2010 was a universal toggleable toolbar, so you put your favorite 9 things in a row.

I think he had to make mine by hand, but depending how long it took him and if he's still around he might be able to make you one too.

1367

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Luakit, dwb, and other alternative browsers

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 27, 2014, 10:54 PM »

I've been using the Nix version of Pale Moon courtesy of 4wd's thread here.

Although it's FF-based, it doesn't seem to exhibit many of the annoyances of its parent. I've been happy with it so far. Knock wood...

-40hz (April 27, 2014, 10:25 PM)

That's interesting because one branch of PaleMoon was supposed to be Windows optimized, so it's interesting that they are trying to do the same thing on the 'Nix side. Though I haven't seen any benefits, and at one point one of MilesAhead's tools BBSS only worked well on pure FF (though now it seems to have misbehaved on that side as well. At some point I'll post a note to that thread whenever I get the urge to bo bug hunting.)

For me the chief use is to run them both side by side as a minor technical finesse that certain sites with aggressive cookies can't see the other process, and also for aesthetic task management they are color coded on the taskbar.

1368

Living Room / Re: Cheap fountain pen shootout

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 27, 2014, 01:03 PM »

Funny little topic. Thirty years ago in Belgium I went through a phase as a child where I liked fountain pens - they just had a bit of an exotic feel to them, and at one point I think it felt like it was slightly easier to get better cursive because of the angles. My child's mind liked opening up the casing to replace/fiddle and occasionally make messes with the ink cartridges. I also used to draw mazes in grid notebooks. I think my brand of choice was something like $5 Reynolds.

Now I'm a ball point guy all the way - I had completely forgotten the things!

1369

Living Room / Re: WinXP is officially dead!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 27, 2014, 08:30 AM »

I happened to see this sentence in the article:
" We recommend applying a patch once available."

Uh... how is a patch being made available? Is it some kind of back door route via the government's support contract?

1370

Living Room / Re: Net Neutrality news from FCC today (4/24/2014). What do you guys make of it?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 24, 2014, 08:31 PM »

http://www.pcworld.c...rality-proposal.html

I'm not sure what to think of this.  I don't particularly like it mainly because I'm operating from a "if it ain't broke" perspective.  I love the way the internet has been the past 15 years.

What exactly is this "fixing"?  What was the problem?
what part of the net is not neutral already?

-superboyac (April 24, 2014, 04:22 PM)

Of course it is not "fixing" anything. It's just more of the politics-creep we are seeing semi-lately. In one way, it's been surprisingly long how long computing has remained sensibly stable and agnostic. Not counting Renny's delicate, subtle, soft touch to news events, it really is a bit of a late date for all these games.

I've been watching a marathon of the old Flash series from 1990 aka before modern computing really got going, and the writers really struggled a bit to write for the smart doctor character. But not one went into this political territory. It's a pretty pure snapshot that computers "just did" whatever they did.

Maybe about the time of the Matrix did we really get the first meta-comments that political forces could be brought to control computing.

1371

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Security Suites (2013/2014)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 22, 2014, 09:40 PM »

AVG!? - Heh surely you jest!?

No thanks. Long story short, they recommended white listing windows folder and signing all apps so that their heuristics wouldn't tag/kill/quarantine false positives.

The kicker.. their heuristics db/engine would "forget" that files xyz were safe and on later updates would tag/kill/quarantine files that were submitted to their engineers (they assured wouldn't get tagged by future updates). 5 Years of that BS was enough (stuck on contract).

AVG - Consumer version and enterprise version.

-Cloq (April 22, 2014, 09:26 PM)

Naw, I wasn't going to go with AVG - something else. I'm still not sure yet.

1372

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing Under Attack

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 22, 2014, 09:08 PM »

The technology seems to be really improving:

http://www.3dunivers...electric-prosthesis/

JOSE DELGADO, JR. COMPARES HIS $50 3D-PRINTED HAND TO HIS $42,000 MYOELECTRIC PROSTHESIS

...
It turns out, this simple, mechanical design provides Jose with more day-to-day functionality than his far more expensive myoelectric prosthesis.  If a part does break, I can easily print a new one for him in a matter of hours.

More at the link.

-Renegade (April 22, 2014, 08:45 AM)

Yeah I saw Slashdot's copy.

Way down in the comments a prosthetics expert posted a note that in this exact case the $50 hand worked better, but that across the board they do tend to be that expensive because the cost includes custom fitting and rehab therapy appointments.

1373

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Security Suites (2013/2014)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 22, 2014, 10:21 AM »

Windows XP was first released in 2001. Why stay with a 12-year old OS? When XP just came out if someone asked you advice on how to stay with Windows 95, what would you tell them? And there was only a 6 year span between those OSes!

Modernize, please. You don't have to go whole hog and upgrade to Windows 8.x, but at least move to Windows 7. If you have half-way decent specs in your PC with a decent graphics card you'll enjoy better performance than you did with XP. Once Microsoft officially drops support, you're going to start seeing your favorite programs dropping support as well & some will release new versions that won't even be able to install on XP any longer.

But to stay on the topic of this thread, which is security, even with the latest patches Windows XP is not as secure as the OSes that have come after it.

-Innuendo (February 21, 2014, 07:27 AM)

But here we are. There are millions of us who can't yet afford the time, software, and potential hardware risks of upgrading. My project machine from 2006 *might* be able to run Win7, but it's a long shot push.

Meanwhile MS seems to be saying they're copying Apple and not supporting an OS more than about 3 editions back so depending how they count, Win7 is already one step old.

I am holding on hard for Win9 to (re)define the landscape, to give us some desperately needed context to all of this. After all, Win7 was Vista's escape route, and a new CEO is at MS, he probably needed to shove 8.1 out the door, but I am hoping at the engineering level he makes Win9 the new OS to jump to.

1374

Living Room / Re: web hosts

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 22, 2014, 08:12 AM »

Thanks for the input all, getting a nice little list of options to mull over!

I'm still here representing Seraphimlabs.

At the moment my own site is down indefinitely, it is in dire need of an overhaul and redesign that I just plain haven't gotten to. But I do have servers still active, and can set you up with an account.

-SeraphimLabs (April 21, 2014, 04:32 PM)

I appreciate the offer, and if it was just me I'd probably jump on it. For present purposes though it's probably not what we're looking for. We're generally deploying 1-3 standalone client-owned sites per month and my parent company is going to require a service with a more obvious support structure to lean on when/if things do get bumpy.

-allen (April 22, 2014, 07:10 AM)

Hi Allen, my other winner of my survey that I actively support is Charles Decker of Decker Services (known in some forums as Deeplist.)
http://deckerservices.com/

They're both as sharp as they come, and I've worked a bit that at worst they can tag team a little on each other's issues on the rare chance they need a consulting tip.

By now you're a "Smart Client". Web Hosting has suffered in the last few years since Facebook - people don't post pictures of cats on their webpages anymore. But if you need stuff, either of those guys can do you well.

Regards,

--Tao

1375

Living Room / Re: web hosts

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 21, 2014, 09:11 PM »

I'm still here representing Seraphimlabs.

At the moment my own site is down indefinitely, it is in dire need of an overhaul and redesign that I just plain haven't gotten to. But I do have servers still active, and can set you up with an account.

-SeraphimLabs (April 21, 2014, 04:32 PM)

Yeah, don't play the "Judge Book by Cover" game here. Seraphim Labs won my exhaustive survey of free-yet-donation-appreciated hosts.

Though Seraphim, a tip, smash up a dumb site just so people have something to look at that resolves before Crabby's cats in the humor thread take them away again. : )  You know, 2003 style. You've been good by me, so don't crush yourself with a dead site. Just make it "Hosting by request. Submit ____ in this form here and we'll talk". Should take you three days tops given the near-genius you are.


Basically anyone here is way beyond the junk guys at FreeWebSpace.net that we all grew up on.