Recent Posts

1501

Living Room / Re: Ancient Seagate 2.5 GB USB 1.1 drive still functioning perfectly...

« Last post by app103 on March 04, 2013, 02:54 PM »

That's a cute little thing!

1502

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by app103 on March 04, 2013, 09:53 AM »

Plenty of companies would have handled this by making him package it up in it's original packaging, ship it back to them at his expense (possibly to somewhere in China), include a check to cover shipping it back to him, tacked on something like a battery replacement fee, then do nothing but replace the battery and ship it back to him (never addressing the actual reason why he sent it back)...just to repeat the process when it still had issues. Total fees would be an amount to make you think twice about even bothering to send it back the first time.

I can't tell you the number of items I have purchased over the years that ended up in the trash because of support like this...things like headphones that cost me $6.99 and would have cost in excess of $15 to have the company replace them, while still under warranty.


And the battery example was how Sharp handled a defective watch, which I shipped back to them twice because it ran incredibly fast, each time paying return shipping costs and a battery replacement fee, and each time all they did was replace the battery and send it back to me. (The only reason why I didn't return the watch to place of purchase was because it was permanently out of stock, all I would have got was a refund, and I really wanted that cool looking watch)

1503

Living Room / Re: Microsoft may be after-taxed $1 Billion by Denmark

« Last post by app103 on March 04, 2013, 09:31 AM »

Hey, could we do this in the US for companies that offshore their labor to evade federal & state minimum wage laws, unemployment insurance, and Social Security taxes? 

1504

Living Room / Re: Seriously 'funny' idea - what if DRM was applied to physical objects?

« Last post by app103 on March 04, 2013, 08:52 AM »

I am never going to look at product recalls quite the same way again. I will always wonder if things like this were just DRM'd.  

Oh, and nice use of nichrome wire for something other than what I used it for back in 6th grade science class (cutting homework in half).

1505

Living Room / Re: You Don’t Want Super-High-Speed Internet...

« Last post by app103 on March 01, 2013, 02:17 PM »

Kind of reminds me of the sales pitch from a friend's dad, back when he was selling magazines door to door:

"You don't want to buy any magazines, do you, lady?"

Maybe he is in charge of PR at Time Warner Cable, now. 

1506

Living Room / Re: In Car Gadgets & Doodads

« Last post by app103 on March 01, 2013, 06:11 AM »

Here are 3 things I bought for my husband as gifts over the years, that he never thought he needed but ended up not wanting to leave home without:

• A spotlight - handy for seeing street signs and house numbers on unlit roads at night.
• An air compressor - handy for inflating a tire.
• A power inverter - handy for running AC devices off your car's battery. Keep your car running whenever you use this, unless you like a dead battery. There are ones available with a higher wattage output than the one I linked to, including ones you could run a coffee maker or my 700W microwave oven with. Just consider what you might want to run with it before buying one.

That power inverter may have ended up saving a friend's life, when he lost power during a storm and needed electricity to run his nebulizer. If it wasn't for my husband showing up at his house, he might not have been able to breathe. The friend went out and bought his own, right after that.

1507

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: Licence key

« Last post by app103 on March 01, 2013, 02:26 AM »

sethukumar.spidey, for most of DonationCoder's software it's usually located under the Help menu. Look for About (Enter new license key). Click that and there should be a button on that window to click which will bring up the box to paste in the key.

1508

Living Room / Re: Demolition man

« Last post by app103 on February 27, 2013, 11:00 PM »

I live with my own Demolition Man. I can't leave my hubby alone for 5 minutes without him breaking something. Look at what he did to my oven last night, while trying to make mini pizzas:


_{We call this "Franked up" as opposed to "f**ked up".}

Sometimes my daughter isn't much better. Instead of listening to me when I said "Wait till the oven cools and I'll fix it...I don't want to burn myself", right after she took that photo, she grabbed a pair of pot holders and attempted to fix it herself, accidentally completely removing the door on the left side, which required removal of the door on the right side to prevent the right hinge from bending or snapping. It would have been much easier for me to fix if she had not done that. I wouldn't have had to fuss with trying to pry the left hinge open, to slide the door back on.

1509

General Software Discussion / Re: Recycling hardware

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 05:56 PM »

Windows 7's virtual XP mode might be a way round that.

-oblivion (February 25, 2013, 11:30 AM)

Does it allow software to pass an OS version check by lying when you install something, reporting that you are attempting to install it on XP and not Win7?

1510

Living Room / Re: PayPal users are frauds :-(

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 05:36 PM »

Oh, by the way, Paypal has provided me with a way to force many companies to accept my Paypal to pay for purchases, including offline purchases. Their Mastercard debit card is great! 

1511

Living Room / Re: PayPal users are frauds :-(

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 05:31 PM »

Even if that happened a lot -- i'm not sure how that negatively effects a seller of digital goods -- they don't lose anything and paypal doesn't charge them anything when this happens, so what's the problem?

-mouser (February 25, 2013, 11:51 AM)

I have had this happen to me a few times before and you do lose money.

• Buyer pays with Paypal. (or donates to you)
• Paypal deducts their fee before you get the money.
• Buyer requests refund.
• Paypal refunds the entire amount to the buyer from your account.
• Paypal does not refund you the fee they charged you.
• You lose money on the transaction and Paypal still makes their profit.
• Paypal then warns you not to accept payments from shady sources, claiming if you do it too many times they will cancel your Paypal account. (This is kind of ridiculous on a donation because you can't control who clicks the donate button on your website.)

What's more, sometimes the buyer/donor doesn't request a refund or dispute it. Paypal takes it up on their own to dispute it and refund the money to them, holding the funds for 30 days and not even notifying the buyer/donor about it. And they won't release the funds back to you, even if you notify the buyer/donor and tell them about it and they contact Paypal, scream bloody hell at them and demand they give you the money....that they meant for you to have it.

The first time this happened to me, Paypal lost a customer because they refused to give me the money he donated and charged me for the transaction any way. He was so pissed at them that he closed his Paypal account.

He had never had a Paypal account before and opened one just to be able to donate to me. This botched transaction was his first Paypal experience...and his last.

It was this transaction that lead to me adding a 3rd donating option to my website.

• Donate through Paypal.
• Donate credits through this site.
• Purchase a grocery item from my Amazon Wishlist.

1512

General Software Discussion / Re: Recycling hardware

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 11:03 AM »

Should I reinstall ActiveSync on my PC and see if it leads me to anything I didn't think of a few years back

-oblivion (February 25, 2013, 06:35 AM)

I am a proud owner and user of an old HP Jornada 540 PocketPC (mostly for reading ebooks or chatting on IRC when hot weather drives me to a pc-free room that has air conditioning). I know from my father's experiences that once you upgrade beyond XP that it doesn't work with newer versions of ActiveSync and you can't install the older version it needs on Vista+.

This means that once I move beyond XP, my old Jornada may be completely useless.

This might be something you will want to keep in mind when considering what to do with your old device, especially if you haven't used it since your XP days (or if you plan on upgrading beyond XP). You could have the same ActiveSync issues.

1513

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free Software from Microsoft.

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 10:33 AM »

For an indy developer or hobbyist, taking advantage of these offers is much cheaper than buying or upgrading, and less restrictive than the free Express versions.

-app103 (February 25, 2013, 09:34 AM)

Which restrictions are you thinking of? AFAIK there's no restrictions on commercial use of the stuff you build with the express editions, and (at least for the 2012 versions) the stuff that's removed compared to the nonfree editions isn't too bad - you still get a very feature-rich IDE.

-f0dder (February 25, 2013, 09:54 AM)

In the past there has always been something in their Express versions that has lead to many developers that use it to consider something about it to be somewhat of a pain, thereby encouraging them to buy either standard or pro.

http://en.wikipedia....isual_Studio_Express

It may depend on what language you are using, but the Express versions may subject you to one or more of the following (this isn't an all inclusive list):

• No IDE support for databases other than SQL Server Express and Microsoft Access
• Limited options for debugging and breakpoints
• No support for creating Windows Services
• Limited deployment options for finished programs
• No resource editor.
• No built-in MFC support.
• No built-in x64 compiler
• No support for add-ins or IDE macros.
• No option for crash dump generation
• Reduced refactoring capabilities.

1514

Screenshot Captor / Re: fancy border question, not urgent

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 10:02 AM »

I think those shadow borders on the screenshots from the Firefox page were most likely applied with Photoshop.

1515

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free Software from Microsoft.

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 09:34 AM »

To date, Microsoft hasn't been able to crack the Adobe CS and F/OSS dominance of web development. So I think they're repeating a strategy similar to what they employed to burn Novell when they introduced NT in the server market - i.e. basically give their software away in order to establish a beachhead -  then lower the boom on pricing once the competition has been eliminated.

I think what they may also be doing is expanding the partner program to make it all encompassing.

Microsoft is moving away from standalone software and physical media for most of it's users, preferring them to migrate to its cloud-hosted product offerings. Most of their major corporate customers are already under license subscription/maintenance contracts. And the serious Windows devs are already in MSDN.

So what I think we're we're seeing here is an attempt to corral the hitherto elusive herd of web developers.

-40hz (February 25, 2013, 07:30 AM)

They have been trying to do that for some time, with other giveaways of Visual Studio in the past. So far it hasn't been very successful. Part of the problem may be that those that respond to these offers are not really web developers or have no intentions of using the copy of VS that they receive for web development (sticking with LAMP), and only want it for developing desktop software. For an indy developer or hobbyist, taking advantage of these offers is much cheaper than buying or upgrading, and less restrictive than the free Express versions.

1516

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by app103 on February 25, 2013, 09:01 AM »

Yes, his humor was disquieting because it was so self-deprecating, but that was his whole schtick; summed up in his famous tagline "I don't get no respect".  It's funny because we all have some degree of insecurity, and in some smaller or larger way can then sympathize; thus it becomes cathartic to laugh at those small insecurities brought larger than reality via the guise of absurd theater.

... or something like that.   

-Edvard (February 24, 2013, 03:33 PM)

Can't forget his adventure in rap music...

1517

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor 3.17 Beta Test - Feb 22, 2013 - Feedback Wanted

« Last post by app103 on February 23, 2013, 02:59 PM »

You seem to have "InverseColor" listed twice under paint mode:

1518

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by app103 on February 23, 2013, 11:31 AM »

Tesco are now testing all their vegetarian burgers for traces of unicorn.

-Renegade (February 23, 2013, 09:55 AM)

Am I the only one that immediately thought of this? 

1519

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor - Post your SC Clipart Requests Here

« Last post by app103 on February 21, 2013, 08:49 AM »

I have this desire for the clipart included with Screenshot Captor to look better than stuff from the Win3.1 era, so I am volunteering my services to recreate some of them and any new ones that people think would be useful.

And if you just can't wait for the new collection, there are a couple of packs already available on my art site, if you are in need of some better looking numbers. Just use the PNG images from these packs: These number packs have been included in Screenshot Captor 4.0, so there is no need to download them unless you want the additional image formats included in the packs.

1520

General Software Discussion / Re: Requesting a comic book editor

« Last post by app103 on February 21, 2013, 05:40 AM »

Perhaps nharding could be convinced to add the feature you want to DCDisplay?

1521

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by app103 on February 21, 2013, 05:25 AM »

I was reading this report on a blog about taking photos aboard airplanes (FCC regs. forbid it now, it seems), and someone in the comments had posted an amusing pic from a Delta flight:
(Thrown Off a United Airlines Flight for Taking Pictures!)
 (see attachment in previous post)

-IainB (February 21, 2013, 04:38 AM)

I want that sticker! 

1522

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Automatically create a site link list

« Last post by app103 on February 20, 2013, 01:27 AM »

I can't visualize what the problem is. Being a very visual person, I think I'd need some sort of image that would explain your directory structure, what you want included, what you don't want included, an indicator of what it is/isn't being included that you want changed, and screenshots of your dirhtml configuration. Then I'll be able to tell you what settings to change to get the output that you want.

1523

Living Room / Re: Hulu streaming entire Criterion Movie collection for free on Feb 16th and 17th

« Last post by app103 on February 17, 2013, 06:36 PM »

Hmmm...I am in the US but not all of these are free. Some of them require a subscription to Hulu Plus. 

I was just talking about this one with Stephen, the other day...and wanted my daughter to see it.

1524

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by app103 on February 17, 2013, 12:38 PM »

Personally, I thought the mental image my joke conjured up was funnier than the original. 

1525

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by app103 on February 17, 2013, 12:21 PM »

Oh, I got it...but I guess nobody got my joke. 

It was a play on the vintage eye charts that showed all E's, pointing in various directions, where you pointed your hand in whatever direction the E on the chart was pointing. They were mostly used with young children that might not be familiar enough with the alphabet to know the names of all the letters, yet, but could follow simple instructions.