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1726

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on April 06, 2016, 01:43 AM »

I recommended this package in the thread: Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model

1727

General Software Discussion / Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model

« Last post by IainB on April 06, 2016, 01:41 AM »

Even if it is just used for budgeting, one of the best accounting tools on the market - Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - would be extremely hard to beat, and the user can easily extended their use of the tool into accounting (personal or business), if/as and when they wanted, without having to fork out any money - since it is $FREE and Microsoft are still quietly supporting it in the Windows 10 OS, so it is likely to continue to be useful for a long time yet.
Refer: Microsoft Money Plus Sunset - Mini-Review

6.0 Why I think you should use this product:
For home or business users wanting to better manage their financial affairs and budgets, this software could be of enormous help.
__________________________

-IainB (May 28, 2015, 06:35 PM)

1728

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Everdesk (with Google Add-on) - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on April 05, 2016, 07:31 PM »

UPDATE: 2016-04-06 - Good news!: I really wanted to have a licence for this EverDesk-Gmail version and had decided to await a BDJ or GAOTD discounted offer or similar - due to the cost. Then I wondered whether I could get a discount from EverDesk directly, so I emailed their support desk, asked them if they could give me a discount, pointed them to this review and expressed my real interest in their product over the years. I have just received an email from them. They have had me on their database since my 2012 EverDesk-Standard licence, and they gave me a licence for the EverDesk-Gmail version FREE because I had effectively been promoting their software by extolling its features and benefits. I am very grateful for this.   

1729

Living Room / Re: What Killed the Middle Class?

« Last post by IainB on April 04, 2016, 06:17 AM »

Capitalism is not the system of the past; it is the system of the future—if mankind is to have a future. Those who wish to fight for it, must discard the title of “conservatives.” “Conservatism” has always been a misleading name, inappropriate to America. Today, there is nothing left to “conserve”: the established political philosophy, the intellectual orthodoxy, and the status quo are collectivism. Those who reject all the basic premises of collectivism are radicals in the proper sense of the word: “radical” means “fundamental.” Today, the fighters for capitalism have to be, not bankrupt “conservatives,” but new radicals, new intellectuals and, above all, new, dedicated moralists.

— Ayn Rand

1730

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Everdesk (with Google Add-on) - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on April 04, 2016, 04:28 AM »

UPDATE: 2016-04-04 - After an extended period of on-and-off trialling of EverDesk, I have updated the Opening Post and have moved this from "under trial" to "I want to buy it now".

1731

Living Room / Re: Do we have any musical people on DC?

« Last post by IainB on April 04, 2016, 12:31 AM »

One reason I like music is because it is so beautifully logical - especially most classical music and religious music (including choral music, most of which I enjoy singing and listening to a great deal).
Good post about that here: The Math Behind Beethoven’s Music

- and one of the commenters posted a useful link to a copy of Science and Music, by Sir James Jeans.

1732

Living Room / Re: What Killed the Middle Class?

« Last post by IainB on April 03, 2016, 05:02 PM »

@rgdot:

The middle class discussion and how it is being decimated is exactly due to problems created by those mentioned in the so called biased posts. If people choose to ignore one of the main reasons for the problems brought up by OP then it is little surprise we are at this point.
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-rgdot (April 03, 2016, 10:41 AM)

That does not seem to follow. The OP represents a perspective from economic history (refer to the links for the details thereof), with no reference to the responsibility or significance of, or polarisation with any present-day actors of any specific political party (or not that I am aware of, at any rate).
That history shows long-term trends at work. For example, there has essentially been a move from State A income distribution as a percentage of GDP, to State B. This had occurred over several decades.

So, it would seem unlikely that one could associate the names of recent/current/prospective future POTUSes or senators with this decades-long trend, but yet you say these things  are "...exactly due to problems created by those mentioned in the so called biased posts".
I do not understand this reasoning, because those POTUSes or senators cannot reach back in time and claim to have altered events decades in the past.

1733

Living Room / Re: What Killed the Middle Class?

« Last post by IainB on April 03, 2016, 03:33 AM »

Ah well, the OP was (I thought) an interesting perspective from economic history, and thus worthy of discussion (a good way to learn and develop one's thinking), but regrettably it seems to have so far ended up doing little more than stimulate a hailstorm of often off-topic and somewhat characteristically polarised US-political views and bias.
I had simply thought it was an interesting and complex puzzle.

1734

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2016, 03:21 AM »

I was trying to figure out how we could get back the Briefcase functionality in Win10.
There are discussions and Registry hack solutions for Win7 and Win8, but not proven for Win10 - for example:

• How To Restore The Missing Briefcase Feature In Windows 8 RTM
• Add Windows Briefcase in Windows 10 technical preview

Interestingly, as someone comments in the latter item:

"...how Microsoft makes up words,  or changes the meaning of words to mean something completely different than common usage.   Instead of saying we (Microsoft) got rid of briefcase because we want to force users to use the cloud and eventually pay for storage, we deprecated (sounds nicer though) it."
______________________

Has anyone in the DC Forum succeeded in getting the Briefcase functionality back in Win10?   

1735

Living Room / Re: What Killed the Middle Class?

« Last post by IainB on April 01, 2016, 05:05 AM »

^^ Yes. That's what it is.

1736

Living Room / Re: What Killed the Middle Class?

« Last post by IainB on March 31, 2016, 03:52 PM »

@40hz:

...There's an awful lot to unpack and think about in that post of yours before I could hope to offer anything intelligent or considered in response. ...
__________________________

-40hz (March 30, 2016, 06:04 PM)

Sorry, I  didn't mean to do a "core dump" on it, it's just that my mind can't abide some kinds of puzzles without seemingly being compelled to try and solve them, and reading what I did helped to make bits of a jigsaw fall into place, in my mind - things that "didn't make sense" before now had a workable theory to describe under what conditions they could make sense.
That was what led to my making the post in this thread, anyway, as I thought that others might find the theory and ideas generated interesting and worth exploring.

1737

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by IainB on March 28, 2016, 08:12 PM »

IainB + please forgive me! + but that background colour can not go unchallenged! Is it even a colour, or is it maybe grayly gravy?!!
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-Curt (March 28, 2016, 02:17 PM)

Sorry. It's grey, because that's how I have my background colour set for the DC website - too bright and glary for my eyes otherwise. Ergonomically, black print on a grey background is easy on the eyes (less contrast and still quite legible).
Anyway, stop complaining. I was in a hurry to get the screenshot whilst the count was still at 100 - @holt might've made a new post at any time, and then I'd have missed the opportunity. I thought his post was amusing.
The count is still at 100, so I've taken a normal-coloured screenshot and posted it above as well. Ach! Glary. Must restore my nice grey background now...

Hmm. Interesting. Is it just me, or do the colours look brighter/richer on the grey background screenshot clip, and a bit washed-out on the normal blue background?
I've changed my screen background back to grey, and it still seems to me as though the grey screenshot has richer colours.
I produced the clips in exactly the same way - OneNote screen clipper to capture the image into CHS, then ScreenshotCaptor to apply a frame and shadow.

1738

Living Room / holt hits his 100'th post

« Last post by IainB on March 28, 2016, 02:01 PM »

Screenshot(s) for posterity:

1739

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Note field display disappears [Bug?]

« Last post by IainB on March 28, 2016, 10:44 AM »

^^ Absolutely! I have regarded my CHS databases as critical backup for years now. I even duplicated them on alternative backup, JIC.
Bit paranoid really.   

1740

Living Room / What Killed the Middle Class?

« Last post by IainB on March 28, 2016, 12:43 AM »

Gary North's newsletter (refer https://www.garynorth.com) had a link to this post on the Of Two Minds blog: What Killed the Middle Class?

I think that blog is usually focused on US affairs, which I am kinda ignorant of, and I didn't know that the middle class had been or were being killed off, but after reading the article posted I consider myself better-educated.
I had wondered why IT salaries had tended to tank since the '80s in the Western economies, and there, amongst the charts was a probable explanation of what had happened:

• from 1947 to 1979, the earned income for labour had tended to be linked to and closely trailed the growth in productivity, but from 1980 onwards, the link seems to have been dramatically broken.

Not only that, but also earned income measured as a percentage share of GDP (a standard economic measure) seems to have been on a steadily declining trend since at least the 1960s (approx. 50%) becoming approx. 43% today, with earned income hitting a short-term peak (approx. 47%) around 2000 - during the Internet boom.

I hadn't realised or known any of this, having been busy doing other things.

The indication seems to be that as productivity and GDP continue to grow, the demand for labour continues to reduce, hence it's price is falling, thus it seems that labour is becoming progressively redundant (surplus to requirements or no longer needed).
There is too much labour available, competing for work where there is a diminishing demand for labour. International corporations will seek arbitrage over labour-rates to access the lowest per capita labour costs of the labour pool - these typically can be had by means of outsourcing production to countries offering traditionally good production facilities with the most attractively low labour rates (e.g., outsourcing, offshoring).
So it's presumably only going to get worse. It's like a race to the bottom for labour rates.

This is ironic, because, to be able to consume goods and services, people must have the wherewithal (personal disposable income) to pay for them - they need to have the propensity to consume. However, with declining real incomes (QED), fewer potential consumers will be able to afford such consumption.

So who is receiving the income/profit from the sale of the GDP? Well, it seems it must be corporations, and their shareholders and corporate executives - typically high net-worth members of society. That is, people not tied to earned income from their own direct production.
But are there enough of the 1% to consume all that is produced? No, and they probably don't need/want most of it. So what is likely to be happening is that increasingly corporations will focus on the production of luxury goods and services aimed at the growing market targeting the demands of those high net worth individuals - stuff that they want. Boats, planes, cars, houses, toys, etc.

There was an interesting post at Brookings Institution: Make elites compete: Why the 1% earn so much and what to do about it | Brookings Institution
That post points out that the top 1 percent of U.S. residents now earn 21 percent of total national income, up from 10 percent in 1979.
The article discusses the myths that have grown up around wealth and education, and that the key thing about the top 1% is that they don't so much earn their income as get themselves into cartels, closed syndicates, trade associations in restraint of trade, etc. - so that they don't have to compete for getting a large proportion of high-value unearned income.

Interestingly, the author advocates fixing this by opening up the 1% to more free-market enterprise and competition of the classic capitalist religio-political ideology - and he may be right, I don't know. However, I presume that it would have to be done by legislative force, as they could be expected to strenuously resist such a change - and their number may even include those (lawmakers) who would be required to legislate that change.
However, as someone who knows that economic history shows that that ideology has categorically largely been responsible for enabling millions to drag themselves out of poverty, I can't help but think that the current situation is out of control and is reversing the situation, effectively having slowly driven those masses back towards poverty (QED) at the growing enrichment of the 1%, since the '60s. This possibility had never occurred to me before.

If the system is broken now (and that would arguably seem to be the case), then we have been presumably unable to stop this rot since at least the '60s, thus, advocating more of the selfsame capitalist religio-political ideology as a solution doesn't really seem entirely rational to me - I mean, it surely seems to be a non sequitur ("it does not follow") at least.

Now I have no idea what the solution might be - assuming that there is one - and I'm not posting this as a polemic for any given economic religio-political ideology, but merely as something probably worth thinking about and discussing.
I for one don't have any desire to see humanity driven backwards economically into the Middle Ages where serfdom was the norm and the unelected 1%, or something, ruled over people as despotic barons doing the State/King's bidding - much as they seem to have done as economic historians have described in, for example, the Philippines today.

1741

Living Room / Re: Switzerland-based ProtonMail, yet another secure email service

« Last post by IainB on March 27, 2016, 10:24 PM »

@holt: Eh? I'm rather confuzzled now.
Your earlier post hadn't mentioned anything about "...I combine it with Tor", so I don't know what that's about.

In your second post, the "Top 10 " link refers to Yandex as "...Yandex.Mail could function as a full we-based IMAP client" - that is, if it was upgraded. That's what i meant about mobile-only - the site you linked to earlier seemed to indicate that actually Yandex.Mail wasn't a pukka web-based IMAP client.
I only posted my comment to suggest politely that you might have posted your comment in a thread where it was not relevant.

I'm sure Yandex is very good (Why wouldn't it be?), but - and I could be wrong, of course - it doesn't seem to be trying to portray itself as providing a secure encrypted email service such as ProtonMail - does it?   

1742

General Software Discussion / OneNote Bug: Persistent tendency for any page to auto-reset to 100% zoom level.

« Last post by IainB on March 27, 2016, 09:49 PM »

Just in case this might help existing OneNote users.
I have also posted about this on the OneNote user forum as it seems to not have been posted as a bug elsewhere (not that I can find, at any rate).
It only recently started to happen.

Mar.2016 update bug? - OneNote 2016 - Extremely annoying and persistent tendency for any page to auto-reset to 100% zoom level.

This is an error/bug that seems to have been introduced into OneNote 2016 in the latest but one (penultimate) Office 2016 Updates. It only started happening after the update anyway, and had been working fine before.
This error/bug manifests as an extremely annoying and persistent tendency for any page to auto-reset to 100% zoom level.
Regardless of what you had previously set as the zoom level and whatever you might try to reset in the zoom box (I usually have it set at 115%), it keeps dynamically restoring all viewed pages to 100%.
This is a real PITA for me as a user, but, because it is not a critical error, I presume that Microsoft developers will get around to fixing it sometime later.
So, I am therefore not holding my breath and have written an AutoHotKey macro workaround to it for myself - hardly an ideal solution, but it is simpler than repetitively typing Alt, W, Q, 115%, Enter every few minutes.
Hope this helps or is of use.

1743

Living Room / Re: Switzerland-based ProtonMail, yet another secure email service

« Last post by IainB on March 27, 2016, 07:19 PM »

I wonder what anyone thinks of Yandex; I like that they don't require a mobile number.

-holt (March 27, 2016, 03:57 PM)

That looks like a link to a mobile-based email service, which is apparently not "secure" in the same context as this thread (is it?).

1744

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Classic Shell (shell alternative for Windows 10, 8, 7) - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on March 27, 2016, 06:33 PM »

2016-03-28: Update to the opening post, and 5 x  - as the latest stable version of Classic Shell is now 4.2.5, and almost 2 years have passed since my last update      - during which time Classic Shell has gone from strength to strength, having by now been in active development for 6 years and has tens of millions of downloads.

If DCF users aren't already using Classic Shell on their Windows 8 and upwards PCs, then they could do a lot worse that give it a try.

I was reminded to do this long-overdue update after reading this very interesting post: Sorry Microsoft, I have no use for Live Tiles - gHacks Tech News
From my perspective I entirely agree with that post, and not only do I have no use for Live Tiles, but also I don't have any use for any Tiles.
I never have had any use for Windows tiles. I thought that they were part of the failed Windows 8 experiment, and I don't understand why MS seems to continue to want to ram tiles onto our desktop and into our eyeballs.
I started using the Classic Start Menu shell in Win8 and I continue using it now that I have upgraded to Win10-64 Pro - on all the PCs that I support for my users.
Classic Shell is an ergonomic godsend for any Windows PC user.
With Classic Shell, the user rarely sees or has to remove tiles from their view. The user simply forgets the tiles even exist.

1745

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Note field display disappears [Bug?]

« Last post by IainB on March 27, 2016, 05:32 PM »

...But based on your description of the fix, i may be able to track down the problem.  Looking into it now.
__________________________

-mouser (March 25, 2016, 09:00 PM)

Many thanks!    

I wrote above:

The fact that I seem to be the only one to have reported it probably indicates that no-one else noticed it as:

• (a) they don't tend to need or make use of the CHS functionality in quite the same way as I do, and
• (b) it is an episodic and obscure error, and
• (c) one would not necessarily realise that something was missing unless one needed it precisely at that time that the error was occurring.

__________________________

-IainB (March 21, 2016, 03:40 PM)

As regards (a) above, it is definitely the case that I am making more/greater use of CHS now than I was previously, and this has entailed a greatly increased frequency of use of the Title field for many clip records, in the manner described.
So the increasing frequency of use of the Title field coupled with the episodic nature of the error means that it is manifestly more likely that I will observe that the Title field is missing precisely at that time that the error is occurring.

My increasing frequency of use of the Title field is unlikely to reduce now as I have determined that CHS will be used as:

• (i) a key strategic and primary data/knowledge capture store and
• (ii) a secondary PIM (Personal Information Manager)

- for a majority of the information/knowledge that I gather and that may not need to be passed into my primary PIM, OneNote.
I am also managing the capture "detritus" - and that I have mentioned elsewhere - within CHS, through periodic manual inspection and housekeeping. Thus, whatever I retain in CHS is largely going to be flagged as "Favourite" and sorted into Virtual Folders (especially now that you have automated the SQL for easy VF search/filter - for which thankyou!).   

I have InfoSelect as another secondary PIM, and I am wanting to largely "freeze" that AS-IS and migrate away from it over time.

So, as a CHS user I am becoming increasingly reliant on CHS. Hence my gratitude for your checking out this episodic and apparently relatively obscure error.

1746

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Some Thoughts on Sony's DPT-S1 (Digital Paper System)

« Last post by IainB on March 24, 2016, 12:21 PM »

@ewemoa: Thanks for the feedback. Pity. I guess it's not as OCR-smart or useful as I had wanted, but it still seems to be an excellent e-reader, albeit a bit pricey.

1747

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful - Zotero

« Last post by IainB on March 24, 2016, 11:12 AM »

Zotero is an amazing new bibliographic reference manager. Calling it an "extension" doesn't do it justice. It behaves like a full-fledged application within Firefox. If you're a student, academician, researcher or writer, you really should check this out. If you've been saving for Endnote or RefWorks, you can probably spend that money on something else.
__________________________

-rkrause (October 07, 2006, 09:19 PM)

+ 1 from me.

(Attribution link corrected 2016-04-08 1431hrs.)

1748

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by IainB on March 24, 2016, 11:10 AM »

Classic Theme Restorer or Status 4 Evar.

-Tuxman (March 21, 2016, 10:35 AM)

Thanks!
Classic Theme Restorer works, though I am unsure whether I want the rest of what it does. Still experimenting...
Status 4 Evar seems to have been abandoned, so I didn't try it.

1749

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: OpenDNS + DNSCrypt - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on March 22, 2016, 12:46 PM »

@f0dder: Yes, I'm inclined to agree with what you wrote there - though I don't have your level of knowledge, I'm sure.

As I understand it, the improved security from using DNSCrypt is in the path between the PC and the OpenDNS node(s), with the ISP's node acting as a blind, passive pass-through in the middle. That potentially avoids a lot of government snooping which could take place (per statute) at that point, and avoids potential man-in-the-middle attacks and DNS leakage.
Whilst your transactions are outbound from and responses are inbound to the OpenDNS node(s), I guess they are anybody's game.
Post-SnowdenGate, and now that Cisco is owner of OpenDNS, then I presume that the supposition of NSA surveillance could likely be fairly accurate - even if it wasn't before.
Deceit seems to be the norm in the area of surveillance and espionage, and that means you can't tell whose lying about what. Even Snowden could be a plant to put the targets of surveillance off the scent. How would we be able to know?

1750

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Some Thoughts on Sony's DPT-S1 (Digital Paper System)

« Last post by IainB on March 22, 2016, 11:07 AM »

@ewemoa: Here are two small, single-page .PDF docs. They contain the same single-page visual material, but one is just an image document - so its text is visible but not copyable/searchable - and one is the image document which has been OCR'd, so its text is copyable/searchable.
You can download them from the links:
Test file Image only.pdf
Test file Image-OCR.pdf

The test is, using the DPT-S1, can you copy/search and otherwise operate on the image-only document in the same way as you can with the image-OCR document?