Recent Posts

1751

General Software Discussion / Re: Etcher - A better way to "burn" disc images to SD cards and USB drives

« Last post by Deozaan on August 19, 2017, 02:12 PM »

For me it is weird that a tool like Rufus (which writes .iso, .img, .zip, .vhd, .gz, .bzip2, .xz and .lzma files) only needs around 850KByte to its job,

-Shades (August 19, 2017, 01:15 PM)

Thanks for correcting my misonception about what filetypes Rufus is capable of writing. Like I said, I'd never really used it before and in my couple minutes of playing around with the interface to check it out real quick it seemed like .iso was the only format it would allow me to browse for.

while Etcher claims more than 18MByte for doing the same, while hiding everything in a dreadfully simple interface.
[...]
Etcher comes with an interface that is dreadfully similar to a lot of websites today.

-Shades (August 19, 2017, 01:15 PM)

The filesize and website-like interface are probably both explained by the fact that it essentially is a website. So in order to be portable it has to bundle an HTML engine, JavaScript engine, etc, for the consistent look across all platforms.

1752

General Software Discussion / Re: Etcher - A better way to "burn" disc images to SD cards and USB drives

« Last post by Deozaan on August 19, 2017, 04:11 AM »

I've never actually used Rufus, so I can't say I'm especially qualified to answer that question. But I do have it in my PortableApps folder, so I ran it real quick and I can see it's a lot more complicated than Etcher.

That's not to say that it's impossibly difficult to figure out. And in some cases those advanced features in Rufus may be wanted or needed over what Etcher provides.

My impression of Rufus from looking at it for a minute or two is that it seems to be a USB drive formatter, which also offers flashing images to the drive as an almost hidden feature. And on that note, it seems Rufus only accepts .iso formatted files. Etcher supports a variety of formats, such as iso, zip, img, dmg, raw, xz, and more.



So that's one way in which Etcher is ostensibly better than Rufus.

That said, I'm not saying it's absolutely better than everything else in every way possible. But I like that it's simple, straightforward, and does what I need without complicating things. I feel like I could send a link to Etcher and a disc image to a person who is "computer illiterate" and trust that they could operate it successfully on their first try. And since most of the time when I'm flashing an image onto a drive I don't care for any other settings or customizations and just want the drive to have the data on it, Etcher will fit my needs 99% of the time.

And since it hasn't been mentioned here before, I thought the good folks of DC might be interested in learning about it.

1753

General Software Discussion / Etcher - A simple way to "burn" disc images to SD cards and USB drives

« Last post by Deozaan on August 18, 2017, 09:14 PM »

I recently discovered Etcher, which is a nice utility you can use to easily write disc images to USB drives and SD cards. It's great for things such as bootable Linux Live OSes or flashing an SD card for an IoT/SBC device.

Some notable features:

• It prevents you from overwriting your internal drives.
• It verifies that the media was flashed correctly.
• It's cross platform, working on Linux, Windows, and MacOS.
• It's portable. No need to install.

Check it out at etcher.io

1754

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Internet Explorer Smile Always Add-On (Reward: $20)

« Last post by Deozaan on August 18, 2017, 08:22 PM »

silekonn,

It seems there have been a series of misunderstandings in this thread. Please accept my apologies for the part I played in those misunderstandings.

1755

DC Gamer Club / Re: Deadlight free on GOG for the next 2 days

« Last post by Deozaan on August 15, 2017, 03:40 PM »

I think that's part of the dismay this time around. GOG have done the pinata thing before and people are saying that last time you could gift them if you wanted to.

1756

DC Gamer Club / Re: Deadlight free on GOG for the next 2 days

« Last post by Deozaan on August 15, 2017, 03:28 AM »

And if you don't like it, there is always the option to gift it to friends/family (who would be entertained by these).

-Shades (August 14, 2017, 11:21 PM)

The Pinata FAQ says that the pinatas unlock directly to your account. So no gifting if you don't like it.

The only exception is that if you already own all the games that can be found inside a pinata, then you will receive a giftable pinata.

1757

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

« Last post by Deozaan on August 14, 2017, 03:13 PM »

I saw a similar one somewhere (probably imgur) that said something to the effect of:

My Parents in 1998:
"Don't trust anybody on the internet!"

My Parents in 2017:
"Random person on the internet said X so it must be true!"

1758

DC Gamer Club / Re: Deadlight free on GOG for the next 2 days

« Last post by Deozaan on August 14, 2017, 02:45 PM »

Thanks!

The Pinata thing is weird. I mean, I understand how or why some people would find it appealing. You could get a nice $45 game for $3. But you could also get a game you have absolutely no interest in and will never play or use.

But it's basically gambling and I'm generally averse to that. I just don't have a lot of disposable income for things like that. Then again, if I won the lottery I would have plenty of money to spend on gambling!

And it seems some people are getting games that are the same price as the pinata, or just a few cents more. Or in (at least) one case, a game would have been a cent cheaper to buy outright than buying the pinata, due to the sales price ($2.99 vs. $3) on the game.

1759

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Internet Explorer Smile Always Add-On (Reward: $20)

« Last post by Deozaan on August 14, 2017, 01:20 AM »

I am 99% certain that skrommel doesn't care about the $5. He's a very generous person whom I have never known to ask for compensation for his Coding Snacks. But that's besides the point.

My point is that because you said you would pay him $5 for his effort--even though it didn't fit exactly what you had in mind--you should do so. It's called being an honest person who has integrity.

But I don't see the need to harp on the subject any further. We'll let your actions speak for themselves.

1760

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Internet Explorer Smile Always Add-On (Reward: $20)

« Last post by Deozaan on August 12, 2017, 08:38 PM »

I'm puzzled by your defensive response, silekonn.

he might have attempted to ascertain a clearer picture of what was sought.

-silekonn (August 12, 2017, 02:20 AM)

Which is exactly what wraith808 was doing. And skrommel himself did ask for a clearer picture of what was sought but didn't receive a response for over two weeks:

So you want the extension available on the Microsoft Store, and running in both Internet Explorer and Edge?

-skrommel (July 23, 2017, 06:54 AM)

Furthermore:

I do appreciate this and will throw Skrommel a $5 spot for his effort.

-silekonn (August 09, 2017, 12:03 PM)

My initial $20 stands as does the $5 for skrommel if he feels it is warranted.

-silekonn (August 12, 2017, 02:20 AM)

You have stated that you will donate $5 toward skrommel, so it is my opinion that you should keep your word and do so. And not on the condition that he asks you to do so, but rather because you already said that you would.

We're normally a friendly and welcoming bunch, but please forgive us for being wary of a newcomer who joins the forums, offers a reward for a coding request, lowers the offered amount, and then becomes unnecessarily defensive when asked simple questions (which were asked in an attempt to help fulfill the original request!) and then seemingly tries to weasel his way out of paying even the reduced amount which was promised.

1761

General Software Discussion / Re: Intelligent Time Zone display (online or local)

« Last post by Deozaan on August 11, 2017, 07:37 PM »

I know of two other people who use/like/prefer Windows phones. So take heart. You're not alone.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were tens of you out there!

1762

General Software Discussion / Re: Git, Mercurial, SVN, and CVS affected by severe vulnerability

« Last post by Deozaan on August 11, 2017, 07:34 PM »

I have pretty much always used https:// to clone (or otherwise interact with) repositories with Hg. But ssh does seem to be what the main online VCS services (Github, Bitbucket, etc.) try to push on you by default.

1763

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Keyboard Kard

« Last post by Deozaan on August 11, 2017, 07:27 PM »

Neat. It reminds me of PasswordCard. Except this one has a built-in method of helping you remember your password for various places.

1764

General Software Discussion / Re: Git, Mercurial, SVN, and CVS affected by severe vulnerability

« Last post by Deozaan on August 11, 2017, 07:22 PM »

Or just use a sane VCS.

-Tuxman (August 11, 2017, 12:46 PM)

Such as?

I thought you liked Mercurial.

1765

General Software Discussion / Git, Mercurial, SVN, and CVS affected by severe vulnerability

« Last post by Deozaan on August 11, 2017, 10:17 AM »

Discovered by Joern Schneeweisz, a security researcher for Recurity Labs, the flaw relies on tricking users into cloning (copying) a source code project via an "ssh://" link.

Social engineering not necessary to exploit the flaw

Schneeweisz says that a URL in the form of "ssh://-oProxyCommand=some-command" allows an attacker to execute commands on the computer of the user performing the clone operation.

"While it might be tricky to convince a user to clone a repository with a rather shady looking ssh:// URL, this attack vector is exploitable in a more sneaky way when it comes to Git submodules," Schneeweisz explains.

"It is possible to create a Git repository that contains a crafted ssh:// submodule URL. When such a repository is cloned recursively, or the submodule is updated, the ssh:// payload will trigger," the researcher added.

-https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/source-code-management-tools-affected-by-severe-vulnerability/

Patches to fix the vulnerability should already have been released, so be sure to update your version control to protect yourself from this vulnerability.

Read more about it here: https://www.bleeping...evere-vulnerability/

1766

Living Room / Re: Cat version of the Blair Witch Project

« Last post by Deozaan on August 04, 2017, 02:34 PM »

*cue theme from The Outer Limits*

1767

Living Room / Your Anonymous Data Isn't Anonymous, and the Web of (Broken) Trust

« Last post by Deozaan on August 03, 2017, 05:07 PM »

An interesting article on how trivial it is to link "anonymized" data to real people, and how Web of Trust probably shouldn't be trusted.

In August 2016, a data broker received a phone call from a woman named Anna Rosenberg, who worked for a small startup in Tel Aviv. Rosenberg claimed she was training a neural network, a type of computing architecture inspired by the human brain, and needed a large set of browsing data to do so. The startup she was working for was well-funded and purchasing the data wouldn't be a problem. But given the number of brokers out there, Rosenberg wasn't going to purchase the browsing data from just anyone. She wanted a free trial.

[...]

After receiving her free trial data [...] Eckert's first task with the data was to find out if her browsing data was included in the dataset. To do this, she queried the data for the URL linked with her company's login page, which generates a unique ID for each employee.

[...]

Although it turned out her browser history wasn't in the data set, by querying the data for her company's login page Eckert discovered that a number of her colleagues were in the data by matching the unique login IDs from the company's page to the individuals.

With this information, Eckert would've been able to see her colleagues' entire browsing history for the last month. One of the colleagues included in the dataset was a close friend of hers, and she reached out to him to let him know that she had his browsing history. The question she had was which browser plugin was collecting and selling this data.

To answer this question, Eckert had her colleague delete one browser plugin every hour until he disappeared from the live data. On the seventh plugin, he disappeared. This suggested that the plugin collecting and selling his browser data was, ironically enough, called Web of Trust, which offers "free tools for safe search and web browsing."

-https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gygx7y/your-anonymous-browsing-data-isnt-actually-anonymous

Read the rest of the article here:

https://motherboard....t-actually-anonymous

1768

Living Room / Re: Just new here

« Last post by Deozaan on August 03, 2017, 03:31 AM »

Hello and welcome.

Might I recommend that you make a post in the introduce yourself thread?

1769

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

« Last post by Deozaan on August 02, 2017, 12:33 PM »

The ear and tip of the tail are both the same landmass.

1770

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by Deozaan on July 25, 2017, 06:52 PM »

Nice!

1771

Living Room / Re: Where was DC mentioned today?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 23, 2017, 07:54 PM »

Someone has suggested to me that it might have been a mention by Kim Komando.

-mouser (July 23, 2017, 02:30 PM)

The only thing I found on the site was a mention of Screenshot Captor last December.

1772

DC Gamer Club / Re: Shadow Warrior Free for Next 48 hours (2017-07-20)

« Last post by Deozaan on July 20, 2017, 01:35 PM »

Thanks!

Don't forget that Humble has started implementing a time limit for redemption of keys after they're claimed.

Note: You must redeem your free Shadow Warrior key by 10AM Pacific on Saturday, August 5th, 2017!

1773

Living Room / Re: Where was DC mentioned today?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 19, 2017, 12:50 AM »

I'm not sure, but I've also noticed an influx of new folks here on the forums lately. It seems to be correlated with Skrommel's return.

So, good news all around.

1774

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: DC member wraith808 agrees to join spammer-killing squad

« Last post by Deozaan on July 19, 2017, 12:48 AM »

I'm Deozaan and I approve of this message.

1775

Living Room / Re: Largest FREE Microsoft ebook giveaway EVAR!!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 17, 2017, 01:59 PM »

Somebody posted about that on here a few days ago.

-wraith808 (July 16, 2017, 08:18 PM)

Aw crap, seriously?  I searched for it and everything...

-Edvard (July 16, 2017, 11:13 PM)

For what it's worth, I seem to have missed the other post. And I also couldn't find it when searching for it.