Recent Posts

1376

Living Room / Re: Amazon: clicking 'Unhelpful' on Customer Review now has NO effect

« Last post by 4wd on May 03, 2016, 10:11 PM »

And there are often many different listings for exactly the same product.

And sometimes there's one listing for similar products. I bought a Lodge cast iron skillet today.

...

The reviews are similarly mixed for all eight sizes. Here the items are basically similar but if you were interested in buying a really large skillet wouldn't you want to read the reviews for just that size? Too bad, there's no way to filter it down. Sometimes there are different materials used for similar items, the other reviews are completely meaningless then.

-nosh (May 03, 2016, 05:10 PM)

There is:

Click: See all 8,289 customer reviews (newest first)

On the next screen:


The option presented in the dropdown will be the product you are looking at, eg. if you had selected 17" then that's the choice that will be displayed.

1377

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Not-so-mini review of CrashPlan backup software

« Last post by 4wd on May 02, 2016, 09:28 PM »

Non-US first-time users of IDrive Express may want to keep in mind that there is an extra shipping cost for receiving and returning the Express drive for seeding the account with your data, and there may also be an extra import duty or VAT on it, which is silly, as you're not buying the drive, just borrowing it and then returning it, but, oh, well... It was still a good deal compared to other options.

-dr_andus (May 02, 2016, 05:33 AM)

Looks like they changed their terms since I mentioned them back here.

However, under item 7 of their current Hard Drive Shipment Agreement, (available on the iDrive Express order page in your account), you can ask for reimbursement:

7. You will be responsible for arranging shipping, handling, tracking and insuring the temporary storage device back to IDrive. Return shipping payment is available via a pre-paid shipping label for US customers. Non-US customers may need to pay return shipping fees, but can request reimbursement from IDrive. Reimbursement is not guaranteed. IDrive assumes no liability for a lost or damaged drive or for loss or breach of data during the return shipment process. You acknowledge that if you don't use the current version of IDrive application to backup your data to the device, it is possible that the data is possibly stored unencrypted on the hard drive and that no sensitive data is included.

Can't hurt to ask.

1378

Living Room / Re: Amazon: clicking 'Unhelpful' on Customer Review now has NO effect

« Last post by 4wd on May 02, 2016, 08:36 PM »

Sure, you want to protect other people from being cheated, but there is (as you know) a place to review the seller themselves, and I imagine that people check this for anything that's not Prime (I know I do).

-CWuestefeld (May 02, 2016, 01:37 PM)

Exactly, I check this more than I check the product reviews since for the items I buy on Amazon, a fake generally tends to stand out, (eg. any 128GB MicroSD <US$25).  I want to know if the item has a very good chance of being delivered in one piece or at all.

1379

Living Room / Re: Android - Observations from Long Term Use

« Last post by 4wd on May 02, 2016, 01:42 AM »

SD Cards.  You have this great facility to add storage- and only some things are able to be put there.  And there seems to be no rhyme or reason to what is able to be put there.  I now only use my SD card for long term storage of items and content.  It's 4 times larger than my internal memory, and I can't put my apps there and have to have them on my 32GB internal using space.

-wraith808 (April 20, 2016, 08:13 PM)

Taken care of in Android 6 via what they call Adoptable Storage - but naturally that introduces other limitations, (like not being able to remove the MicroSD and have the device work properly).

1380

Living Room / Re: Amazon: clicking 'Unhelpful' on Customer Review now has NO effect

« Last post by 4wd on May 01, 2016, 11:23 PM »

I complained to Amazon about the incident and checked the listing for the phone case just out of curiosity, it was being sold by another seller whom I've bought from several times and know to be honest. So my negative review was directly affecting their sales.

-nosh (May 01, 2016, 07:43 PM)

Isn't that the point?

It dissuades sellers from selling fake goods no matter who they are.  Unless they state that the item is a copy/non-genuine in the description, exactly how honest are they ?

1381

General Software Discussion / Re: Script to edit registry setting all network profiles to private

« Last post by 4wd on April 29, 2016, 11:45 PM »

I looked evrywhere.

-questorfla (April 29, 2016, 11:03 PM)

Except your emails for 15 December 2015

Already answered for you way back then

Bit shorter:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. Set-NetConnectionProfile -Name (get-netconnectionprofile).Name -NetworkCategory Private

Create a shortcut, set the Target to:

Code: Text [Select]

1. %SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -noprofile -executionpolicy bypass -Command "Set-NetConnectionProfile -Name (Get-NetConnectionProfile).Name -NetworkCategory Private | Out-Null"

Open Properties on it, set Run as administrator under Shortcut->Advanced

Shortcut attached but Windows will probably complain about it being untrusted, still you can create your own using the info in it.

1382

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by 4wd on April 29, 2016, 10:56 PM »

New toys acquired in the past week or so 



1) Flexible USB LED light (Amazon)
2) Xiaomi 10000 mAh Powerbank (Amazon)
3) ROMOSS 10400 mAh Sense 4 Powerbank w/ LCD capacity display (Amazon)
4) Tronsmart 5 port USB charger (1 x QuickCharge 2.0 + 4 x VoltIQ ports) (Amazon)
5) Xiaomi Mi Band 1S Activity tracker w/ HR sensing (Amazon)
6) Tronsmart 3 port USB car charger (1 x QuickCharge 2.0 + 2 x VoltIQ ports) (Amazon)
7) MEE Audio Touch Advanced Bluetooth Headphones (Amazon) (Were less than half RRP just under a week ago ... so ...)

Except for the MEE Audio Touch headphones (Amazon) all the items were bought via TinyDeal, GeekBuying, GearBest, or EverBuying as deals came up.

1383

General Software Discussion / Re: Script to edit registry setting all network profiles to private

« Last post by 4wd on April 29, 2016, 10:15 PM »

For the current active connection, in an elevated PowerShell console:

Code: PowerShell [Select]

1. $net = get-netconnectionprofile;Set-NetConnectionProfile -Name $net.Name -NetworkCategory Private

1384

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone using Blackbird?

« Last post by 4wd on April 27, 2016, 08:01 PM »

Whoops! Spoke too soon. Blackbird is a bit like a blunderbus! I think I shall avoid it.

-IainB (April 27, 2016, 05:05 PM)

You could use Shutup10 for selective disabling.  Or create a System Restore point, (or use something else), run Blackbird, then run Shutup10 to enable the services you want.

1385

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by 4wd on April 27, 2016, 12:09 AM »

Blue Man Group - The Complex Rock Tour Live (75 min)

1386

Living Room / Re: Custom dice for board games, etc.

« Last post by 4wd on April 26, 2016, 11:02 PM »

Dice & Games LTD (UK) do custom dice with different colour each side, minimum order is 25 though.

But there may be companies in the USA that also do laser engraving.

1387

Living Room / Re: Share your photos! Travel shots, photoblogs, etc.

« Last post by 4wd on April 26, 2016, 08:14 PM »

I love that open fir with the "bar" (or spent bottles?) on the "mantle".

-JavaJones (April 26, 2016, 02:19 PM)

They're empties, except for Davies High Plains Hut - it's a refuge hut, over the doorway are a couple of bottles of water and cans of corn, green beans, tuna, etc.

King Cassilis^w gold mine:

1388

Living Room / Re: Share your photos! Travel shots, photoblogs, etc.

« Last post by 4wd on April 26, 2016, 07:01 AM »

Another weekend 4wding, so a few more huts of the Victorian High Country:

McDonalds Hut (1st night)


Davies High Plains Hut (2nd night)


Marthavale hut (3rd night - some previous campers had allowed the fire to escape the confines of the fireplace, hence the ruined part of the wall)

1389

General Software Discussion / Re: ActivePresenter: most powerful Screen Recording free solution

« Last post by 4wd on April 21, 2016, 07:39 AM »

……
But they seem to re-encode the whole video stream again which can take hours, (6+ hours for a 3.5 hour capture).

-4wd (April 20, 2016, 01:59 AM)

I have no experience in editing such a long video.
But you case brings me more confidence for the quality of AP -- maybe slow, but reliable, not like some other apps which will crash for large file or long time capture.

-xbeta (April 21, 2016, 12:13 AM)

There was no editing, it was a direct export of captured video - I prefer to do editing in Sony Movie Studio.

Also, the quality of the export is less than the captured video because they re-encode to a lower bitrate when they don't have to.

If you are not doing any editing within AP and want to use the capture as-is, it is better to not use the Export to Video function of AP and do it yourself using ffmpeg:

Code: Text [Select]

1. ffmpeg -i K:\10000_Video_001.1.mkv -i K:\10001_Audio_002.wav -c:v copy -c:a libvo_aacenc output.mp4

This will encode the audio stream to AAC and copy the video stream into an MP4 container file - and it will do it in a few minutes.

1390

Living Room / Re: Android - Observations from Long Term Use

« Last post by 4wd on April 20, 2016, 07:49 PM »

I find android devices agreeable, provided that nothing is updated. ever.

-eleman (April 20, 2016, 01:28 PM)

The only problem with that idea is when they update the service to which an app is chained and you have to use the updated app.

Updates (of the os, as well as the apps) seem like serving a single purpose: making the device slower, so that you'll go buy a new one.

And this is different from computers in what way?

Same as cranioscopical, root the device as soon as you get it and remove everything that's not required, (or flash a ROM that does what you want, not what the manufacturer thinks you want) - makes for a much more pleasant experience.

1391

General Software Discussion / Re: Utility to convert embedded hyperlinks to displayed text

« Last post by 4wd on April 20, 2016, 07:08 PM »

Find and replace hyperlinks in a PDF

Replace the second step with a DOS find/replace command or do it in Powershell.

Of course your problem is going to be correlating the link text that's displayed in the PDF with the actual link

1392

General Software Discussion / Re: ActivePresenter: most powerful Screen Recording free solution

« Last post by 4wd on April 20, 2016, 01:59 AM »

I'll add a +1 for the free edition, it works flawlessly for me but I do think the Export to MP4 video is among the slowest conversion I have ever seen.

Since the video is captured in MPEG4-AVC in a MKV container and the audio is captured as a PCM WAV file, it should just be a matter of encoding the WAV to AAC and remuxing into an MP4 container which would only take a few minutes.

But they seem to re-encode the whole video stream again which can take hours, (6+ hours for a 3.5 hour capture).

1393

Living Room / Re: Twist Tie alternative?

« Last post by 4wd on April 20, 2016, 01:42 AM »

Something I just saw in the local $2 shop, (for $2.49 ):

Soft coated wire tie, cut it to length, ~4mm in diameter:

1394

Post New Requests Here / Re: Multi Video Player

« Last post by 4wd on April 19, 2016, 08:50 PM »

4wd, you are right, it works after enabling internet in the VM.

as you mentioned it connects to 104.27.136.35 (an IP address that is part of the CloudFlare)
and also 216.58.213.46 (a Google IP address).

maybe someone with Wireshark knowledge wants to have a look at, what's happening here exactly ?
for myself, I am not sure about this software, I'll probably revert to a backup before installation... 

-spankmonkey (April 19, 2016, 04:45 PM)

Knock yourself out

It's just analytics and a check for latest version, (I've removed the gzip encoded stuff from below):

Code: Text [Select]

1. GET http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/analytics/ HTTP/1.1
2. Accept: */*
3. Accept-Language: en-AU
4. Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
5. User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/7.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
6. Host: www.awesomevideoplayer.com
7. Connection: Keep-Alive
8.  
9.  
10. HTTP/1.1 200 OK
11. Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:40:52 GMT
12. Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
13. Transfer-Encoding: chunked
14. Connection: keep-alive
15. Set-Cookie: __cfduid=dfdbc4432660f3b0be7cef0ff8f1947c81461116451; expires=Thu, 20-Apr-17 01:40:51 GMT; path=/; domain=.awesomevideoplayer.com; HttpOnly
16. Last-Modified: Fri, 05 Feb 2016 05:38:28 GMT
17. ngpass_ngall: 1
18. Server: cloudflare-nginx
19. CF-RAY: 2964e3feddb61d4a-MEL
20. Content-Encoding: gzip
21.  
22.  
23. ------------------------------------------------------------------
24.  
25. GET http://ajax.cloudflare.com/cdn-cgi/nexp/dok3v=e982913d31/cloudflare.min.js HTTP/1.1
26. Accept: */*
27. Referer: http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/analytics/
28. Accept-Language: en-AU
29. Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
30. User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/7.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
31. Host: ajax.cloudflare.com
32. Connection: Keep-Alive
33.  
34.  
35. HTTP/1.1 200 OK
36. Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:40:53 GMT
37. Content-Type: text/javascript
38. Transfer-Encoding: chunked
39. Connection: keep-alive
40. Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d11f2ab2067415fb718c4092f802dd1341461116453; expires=Thu, 20-Apr-17 01:40:53 GMT; path=/; domain=.cloudflare.com; HttpOnly
41. Last-Modified: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 23:10:30 GMT
42. Expires: Thu, 20 Apr 2017 01:40:53 GMT
43. Cache-Control: public, max-age=31536000
44. Server: cloudflare-nginx
45. CF-RAY: 2964e40828e71d74-MEL
46. Content-Encoding: gzip
47.  
48.  
49. ------------------------------------------------------------------
50.  
51. GET http://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js HTTP/1.1
52. Accept: */*
53. Referer: http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/analytics/
54. Accept-Language: en-AU
55. Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
56. User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/7.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
57. Host: www.google-analytics.com
58. Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
59.  
60.  
61. HTTP/1.1 502 Fiddler - DNS Lookup Failed
62. Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:40:54 GMT
63. Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
64. Connection: close
65. Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
66. Timestamp: 11:40:54.235
67.  
68. [Fiddler] DNS Lookup for "www.google-analytics.com" failed. System.Net.Sockets.SocketException The requested name is valid, but no data of the requested type was found                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
69.  
70. ------------------------------------------------------------------
71.  
72. GET http://www.google-analytics.com/ga.js HTTP/1.1
73. Accept: */*
74. Referer: http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/analytics/
75. Accept-Language: en-AU
76. Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
77. User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/7.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
78. Host: www.google-analytics.com
79. Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive
80.  
81.  
82. HTTP/1.1 502 Fiddler - DNS Lookup Failed
83. Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:40:54 GMT
84. Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
85. Connection: close
86. Cache-Control: no-cache, must-revalidate
87. Timestamp: 11:40:54.272
88.  
89. [Fiddler] DNS Lookup for "www.google-analytics.com" failed. System.Net.Sockets.SocketException The requested name is valid, but no data of the requested type was found                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
90.  
91. ------------------------------------------------------------------
92.  
93. GET http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/cdn-cgi/pe/bag2?r[]=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.awesomevideoplayer.com%2Fcdn-cgi%2Fnexp%2Fdok3v%3D1613a3a185%2Fcloudflare%2Fjson.js HTTP/1.1
94. Accept: */*
95. PE-Token: 2cf8c89dd81ac9464f7fe5c324fd7134fad534a7-1461116452-1800
96. Referer: http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/analytics/
97. Accept-Language: en-au
98. Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
99. User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/7.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; .NET CLR 3.5.30729)
100. Host: www.awesomevideoplayer.com
101. Connection: Keep-Alive
102. Cookie: __cfduid=dfdbc4432660f3b0be7cef0ff8f1947c81461116451
103.  
104.  
105. HTTP/1.1 200 OK
106. Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:40:54 GMT
107. Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="z6=nMcx'sZoInoqQ_gvt"
108. Transfer-Encoding: chunked
109. Connection: keep-alive
110. Server: cloudflare-nginx
111. CF-RAY: 2964e40a5dff1d4a-MEL
112. Content-Encoding: gzip
113.  
114. ------------------------------------------------------------------
115.  
116. GET http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/download/latest.xml HTTP/1.1
117. Host: www.awesomevideoplayer.com
118. Cache-Control: no-store,no-cache
119. Pragma: no-cache
120. Connection: Keep-Alive
121.  
122.  
123. HTTP/1.1 200 OK
124. Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 01:40:55 GMT
125. Content-Type: application/xml
126. Content-Length: 228
127. Connection: keep-alive
128. Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d36596fe11bad42cf3291653396c0caf61461116455; expires=Thu, 20-Apr-17 01:40:55 GMT; path=/; domain=.awesomevideoplayer.com; HttpOnly
129. Last-Modified: Mon, 18 Jan 2016 06:26:12 GMT
130. Expires: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 01:41:04 GMT
131. Cache-Control: max-age=604800
132. ngpass_ngstatic: 1
133. Accept-Ranges: bytes
134. Server: cloudflare-nginx
135. CF-RAY: 2964e4151e521d4a-MEL
136.  
137. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
138. <item>
139. <title>An Update for the Awesome Video Player is Available</title>
140. <version>1.0.5.1</version>
141. <changelog>http://www.awesomevideoplayer.com/download/changelog.html</changelog>
142. </item>
143.  
144. ------------------------------------------------------------------

1395

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: AData s102 256GB USB 3.0 flash drive $94.99

« Last post by 4wd on April 19, 2016, 08:19 PM »

And you can remove the case if you want.

-x16wda (April 19, 2016, 06:54 PM)

Then stick heatshrink tubing around them or put in a piece of plastic tube and fill with epoxy

I've got sliders from Toshiba, Lexar, Kingston, PNY, and PQI - the only one that screwed up is the PQI, (it's Al cover fell off and the case fell apart), I still use it caseless for firmware flashing, (it's only 1GB).

1396

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: AData s102 256GB USB 3.0 flash drive $94.99

« Last post by 4wd on April 19, 2016, 07:50 AM »

Lexar S75 256GB USB3.0 for US$49.99 (Free shipping if USA, US$5.23 for Australia for example).

1397

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Change (sub) folder(s) date based on newest/oldest file in the folder

« Last post by 4wd on April 18, 2016, 11:38 PM »

Any suggestions?

-dcwul62 (April 17, 2016, 01:51 AM)

Yes, repeat after me:

"SetFolDate is a program that has nothing to do with a script, which is actually what I'm talking about."

Apart from that, I haven't installed DOpus 12b because I don't have one of these:

1398

Living Room / Re: Twist Tie alternative?

« Last post by 4wd on April 18, 2016, 11:13 PM »

Just because I hate it when a bud falls out and I could get them for $8 I bought these JVC Earclip Buds

-MilesAhead (April 17, 2016, 08:46 PM)

I have a pair of these: MEE Audio M6P

Bit more expensive but the sound quality is excellent and the memory wire is a lot more comfortable than the plastic variations.

1399

Post New Requests Here / Re: Multi Video Player

« Last post by 4wd on April 18, 2016, 10:05 PM »

Also I was not able to find a portable version.

-spankmonkey (April 18, 2016, 04:10 PM)

You can extract the setup file using UniExtract (with latest innounp), you'll end up with this:



It will only run for a few seconds if it doesn't have internet access:

19/04/2016 12:53:55 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52047 | 104.72.70.25 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:55 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52046 | 104.72.70.9 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:53 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52045 | 104.27.137.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:53 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52045 | 104.27.136.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52043 | 104.27.137.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52042 | 104.27.137.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52041 | 104.27.136.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52040 | 104.27.136.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52039 | 104.27.137.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52038 | 104.27.137.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52036 | 104.27.136.35 | 80 | 6
19/04/2016 12:53:49 | 1104 | Awesome Video Player | avplayer.exe | Out | 52037 | 104.27.136.35 | 80 | 6

If you allow it internet access, it will stay open.

Looks like it only needs access on the first run, subsequent runs with blocked access worked OK - probably some hard-coded version check that's not done very well.

Any more than 6 videos made it non responsive on my system using GPU rendering, (AMD HD6850 1GB) - CPU rendering didn't work at all using the same files, (even if only 1 file).

1400

Shareware Discounts for Members / Re: Searching for "SAPIEN free PrimalForms Community Edition"

« Last post by 4wd on April 16, 2016, 03:32 AM »

This is actually very handy for whipping up an interface using drag-n-drop and XAML code is automatically generated for you. The VS text editor lets you tweak whatever you like. When you are finished with the interface, remove the 'x:' part from the object names you used in your GUI and you can use the remaining code directly in PowerShell.

-Shades (April 15, 2016, 05:27 PM)

Yeah, I went this way because it required no dependencies other than what was already on the system, good for when you want to just email a script somewhere, (or post on a forum).