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Recent Posts

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1401
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: thebrain
« Last post by superboyac on November 21, 2012, 06:18 PM »
I've tried this one out 3 times over the years, the most intensive workout I gave it was a few months ago.  It's a unique product with a fantastic interface and pretty productive.  I don't know what to say about it, though.  It's like...in the end, it doesn't matter.  I've spent a decade trying to wrangle in my own personal information management system.  I'd put it this way, if your JOB requires you to know a lot of random bits of information and you are required to keep track of it, etc...then it's a good thing to get.  It would also be good for professional collaboration in information collection and analysis is the goal.

But for personal use and if you think it's going to help you keep track of things, i think you will quickly find yourself using it less and less.  But this is not unique to the Brain.  This has been my experience with all PIMs.  Also, no matter how nifty things get, I can't ever break myself away from the old school tree structured PIMs.  I use RightNote now almost exclusively, not because it's amazing...just because.

40hz, my recommendation is to continue using whatever hodge pdoge of information is currently working for you.  I use rightnote for serious notetaking.  I use everything to search my files.  Archivarius to search inside files.  And for organization, I use file naming and folder structuring techniques.  This is all I need.  I keep trying to add niftier tools like the Brain into the mix, but they don't stick.  If you were to use the brain seriously, it would interfere with your file/folder organization because I think you'd feel the need to duplicate that effort inside the brain.  And then you will get tired of it.  And then you will find out that it's not as good/flexible/easy as file/folder organization.  I have never been able to sustain "virtual" organization such as tagging systems and fancy PIM interfaces nearly as long and comfortably as file/folder organization.  Too much work and too virtual.
1402
General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?
« Last post by superboyac on November 21, 2012, 05:13 PM »
By now I have read all the posts in this thread, and I must say, you people have made me feel that Windows 7 will be my last Windows; I really like all my small-company-written programs - but it seems they will die out! No, it can't be so. it mustn't.

Right now I would prefer to stick to Win 7, but on a new machine.
I'm with you, sort of. I'm too clueless where this is all leading to be sure.  Maybe an older wiseman (40!) can clue us in on what the future holds for this.  Here's how I feel: if Windows becomes unfriendly to small developers like mouser and all these other wonderful programmers that make the tools that we use on an almost multi-daily basis, and if MS official ecosystem doesn't offer those kinds of things, then either I stop being a computer hobbyist or turn to Linux and focus my efforts there.  Now, the former is very possible as I start focusing on the things i really want to accomplish, which is independent of computing platforms and software...but uses all those tools.  I don't think I'll be spending 15 years like before eagerly trying every OS, software, freeware, programming language I can get my hands one...I've done that and i've gained a very powerful set of skills that will allow me to get a lot of shit done with fewer resources than many people can imagine.

I don't care anymore is what I'm saying.  I'm going to use the thing that helps me accomplish my own ideas, not vice versa.  I find this the only healthy way to free myself of all of this nonsense.  If a big company doesn't care about the small developers, then I don't really care about them.  I'm not mad at them, i just don't care about them.  i care about the small developers because they care about me.
1403
General Software Discussion / Re: Are you going to wait for Windows 9?
« Last post by superboyac on November 21, 2012, 03:05 PM »
A comment that resonates with me from somewhere on the web:
Once I gave Metro a chance on my desktop computer, it was pretty good. But I still installed a start screen remover and program to get my start menu back. Windows 8 has some really good features for power users... I'm sure everyone knows by now.
1404
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 20, 2012, 08:08 PM »
Funnily enough, now that Zune is out of the equation iTunes and that connector problem seems to be the only way to sync podcasts right now. (You can subscribe to them via the Marketplace on the phone, but there's no desktop connection and no way to add podcasts that aren't in the market place. . . )
Do you think MS is going to insist on their closed ecosystem?  Or do you think people are going to start complaining a lot and they will open up the features?  I think the latter will happen, but I'm way out of the loop.  I'm more worried that MS has designed the OS in such a way that certain important functions won't even be accessible to developers that were accessible with previous windows versions.

I am almost certain that it wasn't a purposeful move, they just didn't get it done before launch. Like every other complaint I have with Windows Phone 8, this is functionality that was previously accomplished using the Zune desktop application that they didn't account for when cutting Zune out of the picture.

It could be worse, though -- at least in the US I have access to podcasts in the store. The international community just can't listen to podcasts unless they do so using a third party application.
I think I feel the same way.  From everything I've heard, MS and Nokia did their best to rush the phone out.  Not sure what they were so concerned about schedule-wise, though.  Perhaps 12/21?  ;D
1405
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 20, 2012, 07:15 PM »
Funnily enough, now that Zune is out of the equation iTunes and that connector problem seems to be the only way to sync podcasts right now. (You can subscribe to them via the Marketplace on the phone, but there's no desktop connection and no way to add podcasts that aren't in the market place. . . )
Do you think MS is going to insist on their closed ecosystem?  Or do you think people are going to start complaining a lot and they will open up the features?  I think the latter will happen, but I'm way out of the loop.  I'm more worried that MS has designed the OS in such a way that certain important functions won't even be accessible to developers that were accessible with previous windows versions.
1406
Living Room / Re: A secret society uncovered 250 years later
« Last post by superboyac on November 20, 2012, 07:13 PM »
That is seriously dark stuff, and a very deep rabbit hole.

I dunno, it seemed all a little hollow to me after a while. I don't have any interest in "irrelevant" alien invaders from Atlantis who all died out or whatever. It's a bit like the tree falling in the forest with no one around. So for the moment I will assume any cabals are made of H. Sapiens.

Next, my interests in new age changed, and moved away from obscurity for its own sake. Astrology, Alchemy, Crystals, many kinds of rituals, and so on, don't seem to do much in my particular experience. My more recent interpretation of alternative materials is whether I can directly apply a principle to enhance my life in a provable external way.

As for interlocking cabals, I don't care about them either. They're essentially another "unprovable theory" in the context of every day life. In one sense, the only things secret cabals can do is use money to get power and use power to make more money, so they can have at it. Except maybe making my unemployment worse, cabal-musical-chairs doesn't really affect me, so I choose not to burn up mental energy on that maze. There's plenty of lower level corruption to get grumpy at.

So in the end, as I moved last week, in the process of pruning down my library collection I discarded my copies. I'm just out of energy to wade through them for concepts for my growth system. I'm sure there are some in there, but as of right now I don't think any of it will be "found there and nowhere else and be stunningly life changing."
good post TP.
1407
Living Room / Re: Anything wrong with formatting a USB stick in NTFS?
« Last post by superboyac on November 20, 2012, 07:12 PM »
^ I use Zentimo (used to be usb safely remove) for that.

I got a free copy of Safely Remove. It was totally inconsistent on my machines. Basically a waste of time hitting the button.

Plus you don't want to "safely remove" hardware that is seen as a fixed drive, like the bare drives in my docks. Flush buffer kill power does it. Sync.exe works on everything, even Win9x. I've been using it since 9x days.

Really?  What was inconsistent?  I've been using it for a couple of years and have had no problems, but maybe I'm doing something dangerous?  I've used it to eject usb drives and esata drives in docks.
1408
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 11:16 PM »
My takeaway is, I'm turning off video uploading. Should I make a video, I'll plug it in to my pc.
How would you get it off the phone and on the pc?  windows explorer?
1409
Living Room / Re: A secret society uncovered 250 years later
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 11:01 PM »
quite interesting stuff, PK.
1410
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 10:01 PM »
I photos are very good, a couple of people even mentioned so to me.  How much better?  I don't know, I know the iphone is pretty good also.  I'd say it might be a little better than that.

Video: pretty damn good, wow.  This thing records crisp full 1080p videos.  That's pretty awesome for a phone.  I have a good 1080p digital camcorder, and there is a significant difference, but probably a lot less than I expected.  Huge files.  If you want, I'd be interested in you recording a 2-3 minute best quality video clip, and share how your skydrive syncing went.
1411
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 09:39 PM »
It loaded instantly. Oh, I had the mobile version setting enabled (I only have 1G of data :)

The full version of the site... the progress bar was at half and the text visible maybe two seconds in, then the bar filled up and it took a few more seconds before it stopped loading. The whole process probably was 15 or 20 seconds, tops. By comparison, it wasn't much faster in Chrome on my desktop. Granted, this was over WiFi, but we're not comparing ISP's here :)

I clicked through for a while and any given story was fully readable within 2-4 seconds, there still was some loading time after that varying from 15 to 30 seconds but it's just that crap in the sidebar being pulled in by AJAX.

Switching to 4g (3 bars, I don't think LTE?) slowed it down a little bit but still faster that your 30-60 seconds. I still could read the article within 3-5 seconds.
Interesting.  Thanks, seems like mine is fine.  I'll go back to mobile versions, maybe those are better.

[edit]
mobile versions are not bad!  faster.  And really, they're basically the desktop versions without the ads.
1412
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 09:08 PM »
ok allen...quick test (if you don't mind):
how long does it take you to load www.latimes.com ?
For me, it takes about 10 seconds for 90% of the page to load, and another 30-60 seconds for the last few bits, maybe 10% of the progress bar.  Clicking the first article...pretty much the same story.  This is with LTE and 4/5 bars enabled.
1413
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 09:04 PM »
OK, I'll try it out for another week and see what happens.  It could be the websites I'm visiting...if java, flash is not supported, that explains why those don't work.  I also tried mainly discussion forums, and those have pretty intense page loading stuff going on versus a normal site.

I removed most of the apps I downloaded since I read some caused problems.  They were not very good anyway, most of them didn't work as expected, and a lot of them were really made for WP7.

And regarding the videos...I think my problem is just that they are big videos.  The crazy thing is it looked like zero progress was being made with the uploads whenever I checked on the phone, but now I check skydrive and see that a lot of the files have been synced just fine.  So it could be just the phone's interface...not very helpful in letting you know what is going on.

The other thing about the videos is that a 1080p video is a large thing.  A 2-minute recording is like 200-300MB.  And the phone needs to first convert the file to mp4 before uploading.  This is all pretty heavy stuff, so no wonder it takes a while.  It's doing it on a mobile processor, so i get that. heck, my desktop will need some seconds to do the same with it's fully loaded specs.
1414
Living Room / Re: Your Smart Device Predictions?
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 08:52 PM »
Seems (to me) that PC's are getting dumbed down - the hardware capabilities are still there, but the current money makers are devices like 'smart' phones, tablets, and game consoles (which collectively don't have anywhere near the same capability) so that's where the focus is, ie adding 'significant' features and functionality to devices in order to make them appear more useful/capable than they actually are, and at the same time limiting or neglecting similar advances in desktop applications (which already had all that and more...)
Totally.  What irks me is that most of that stuff was available on the regular pc as SOFTWARE!  All they've done is make each software into a piece of hardware.  The real innovation has been portability.  The software and the OSs are honestly a little lamer than they used to be.  But the portability is the big thing, and along with that, the connectivity (wifi, cellular) <--those are true advancements, no need for hype.
1415
Living Room / Re: Your Smart Device Predictions?
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 08:47 PM »
Seems to me like the devices are going from more complex to more simple, with the cloud and the big boys taking care of most geek stuff behind the scenes.  That's certainly what's happened to the computer.  From what I can tell, the whole personal computer thing peaked somewhere during 1995-2005.  There was DOS, Windows, internet, lots of great software.

Now it feels like the innovations are largely minor, but super-hyped.  Feels like the big boys are trying to squeeze as much money out of the whole industry as possible while keeping the actual real productive innovations as minor as possible.  OO...bigger phone screens, whoop dee do.  A lot of tinker-friendly features have been removed and continue to be removed.  Curious people and ideamen are made more and more to feel like illegal hackers unless they are working for one of the big boys.

But really...I think I'm just growing up or something. ;D

  I read an article on the internet that pretty much said the same thing.  These companies are releasing technology a little at a time, only giving you the older technology.  Once they've made their money on that, they'll release the next big thing that's been sitting on the shelf for years....
Can you find that article?  I'd be interested...
Yeah right?  It sure feels that way.  And 40hz mentioned how the european and asian countries had more advanced tech than we do long before we get it, which kind of shocked me.  To me, that confirms that we are becoming less and less intelligent as a nation because it means that a)we buy into hype and are unable to think for ourselves critically b)other countries are working harder than we are.

It's also hard for me to imagine the internet being rolled out without the military first using it for a decade or two, right?  Is it possible that the planners and authorities could have overlooked the power that the internet brought to the world?  Maybe, sure...I just doubt it a little.  I can't tell, I was a kid when it started, so to me it was just cool.  Now that I think about it, I can't help but see the meaning of economies, national borders, and wars drastically changing in our lifetime because of how easy and fast it is to get information.
1416
Living Room / Re: A secret society uncovered 250 years later
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 08:28 PM »
  I had an uncle and a grandfather that were both Masons.  When asked about what they did and what went on in the meetings, I was told that they couldn't tell me.  All spooky stuff to me.....
I've been to a couple of Masonic lodges for unrelated events.  I didn't learn anything interesting, and I was looking!  I can't tell anymore what the deal with them is.  Either they really are/were an influential secret society, or it's just nothing?  Sheesh.  All I remember was that there was a big bible under a glass case right before entering the auditorium.  There were portraits of just (i'm sorry) the most classic white people I could imagine...seriously, all white...sideburns and suits and all...probably names like Chester Macarthur, etc.

  I had an uncle and a grandfather that were both Masons.  When asked about what they did and what went on in the meetings, I was told that they couldn't tell me.  All spooky stuff to me.....
I find that odd and fascinating.  I mean, it could just mean that they meet and get wasted with strippers or something, rather than coming with schemes to rule the world.  The former jives more with what I've seen men do when they get together, but I also don't get a chance to observe and hang around many masons.
1417
Living Room / Re: A secret society uncovered 250 years later
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 08:20 PM »
it has to take something pretty powerful for an ugly dude like him to score!!
Yeah, but I wonder who's Kissinger now.

-cranioscopical (November 19, 2012, 06:57 PM)
;D  ;)
1418
Living Room / Re: Your Smart Device Predictions?
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 08:12 PM »
Seems to me like the devices are going from more complex to more simple, with the cloud and the big boys taking care of most geek stuff behind the scenes.  That's certainly what's happened to the computer.  From what I can tell, the whole personal computer thing peaked somewhere during 1995-2005.  There was DOS, Windows, internet, lots of great software.

Now it feels like the innovations are largely minor, but super-hyped.  Feels like the big boys are trying to squeeze as much money out of the whole industry as possible while keeping the actual real productive innovations as minor as possible.  OO...bigger phone screens, whoop dee do.  A lot of tinker-friendly features have been removed and continue to be removed.  Curious people and ideamen are made more and more to feel like illegal hackers unless they are working for one of the big boys.

But really...I think I'm just growing up or something. ;D
1419
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 08:02 PM »
Allen, so the large videos seem to be uploading with wifi now, although it's hard to tell exactly when and what is happening.  Between yesterday and today, I've had to reboot the phone about 5 times.  Sometimes the wifi wasn't working and I was getting upload errors.  Sometimes the LTE connection wasn't working on websites (very slow and would not finish loading).  Restarting seems to fix these problems somewhat (like normal Windows).  But is this a cause for concern, or just something normal to get used to?
1420
Santa, you do realize...

...this means war.

I don't get it.
Maybe it's not funny...shouldn't need an explanation.  Fail!
1421
santa-justwait.jpg
1422
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 05:43 PM »
I haven't had any problem with the camera roll auto uploading. Under photos, I have skydrive set to best quality (needs Wi-Fi) for both and it has worked. I don't think there's any way to get the other folders to sync at this time (Though the backup settings seem to imply ALL photos should be backed up). Have you tried rebooting the phone?

I am quite sure Java and Flash are never going to happen. With WP7, I don't think it was possible to make a browser that didn't use IE at the core--I'm guessing it's the same way with WP8. Maybe you should stick with Android :)
lol, no I'm good for now.  I do like the phone.  Yeah, I think rebooting fixed it, but I won't find out till I get home.  Seems like I was installing the skydrive desktop last night and messing around with the phone a lot (installing lots of apps, etc.).  I restarted the phone and things seemed to work better.  I had to reenter most of my account passwords to get things working again.  I read others had similar issues.

I like the phone more than the others available.  I'm not a huge fan of google, so bing is fine also.  I switched back to bing since it works better with the phone.  It's all good...overall less headaches than android for the accounts.
1423
Living Room / Re: Well, I got it: Nokia Lumia 920, Windows 8
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 03:14 PM »
My "Camera Roll" automatically uploads but that's it. . . I'd have thought everything would.
the photos in the camera roll uploaded fine (but not automatically).  The videos don't upload at all, it just hangs where it says "uploading..." and it just sits there forever (i left it overnight).

As for the auto uploading, I have mine set to only do it when wifi is available.  well, it never does it.  How do you get it to actually do it?

Also, java and flash?  internet explorer is very slow.  speedtest.net will not load.  lakersground.net takes forever to load, and I have LTE.  If these issues remain, I may have to consider getting another phone.
1424
Living Room / Re: Anything wrong with formatting a USB stick in NTFS?
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 03:11 PM »
lol  ;D thanks guys, very helpful.  I'll just leave it be for now.
1425
Living Room / Anything wrong with formatting a USB stick in NTFS?
« Last post by superboyac on November 19, 2012, 12:36 PM »
All USB sticks come formatted as FAT.  But FAT can't store large multi-gigabyte files.  Does anyone see any problems with formatting a disk in NTFS?  I can't come up with a reason not to...
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