Recent Posts

1776

Living Room / Re: Amazon patents "anti-window shopping" tech

« Last post by Deozaan on July 16, 2017, 10:39 PM »

So is this a defensive patent which Amazon will use to keep benefiting from such behavior? So the likes of Walmart and Barnes & Noble can't stop you from checking the price on Amazon?

I don't see what the use is other than to piss off customers that are currently on your store, however, as you could just turn off your wi-fi connection and use your cell phone's connection instead.

-wraith808 (July 16, 2017, 08:21 PM)

That assumes you are paying for a data plan. Most people with cell phones probably are, but still... there are some people who don't pay extra for data.

1777

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

« Last post by Deozaan on July 16, 2017, 10:29 PM »

I was going to download them all just for kicks and giggles but both of the "download all" buttons resulted in HTTP 500 Errors and I'm too lazy to bother downloading them manually.

1778

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Deozaan on July 16, 2017, 02:01 AM »

My opinion is that if you like Windows 7 you'll probably like Windows 10, assuming you don't have to worry about older hardware that might not be properly supported these days.

I'm also using a machine approximately the same age as yours. I custom built it around this time of year in 2011.  It's a Core i7-2600K, with 16GB RAM. I've given it occasional HDD/SDD upgrades over the years, but other than that it has done well and still feels really snappy. The only thing I feel ever really holds me back (sometimes) is my GPU, which is an AMD Radeon HD 6870. But that's just for graphically intense things such as video games.

I've been using Windows 10 since it launched and have been very happy with it on this machine. As with all versions of Windows, Windows 10 has some quirks, but it didn't take me long to adjust and learn how to deal with them to the point which I no longer really notice them. That said, your experience may vary from mine.

Your current system is beefy enough (mine certainly is) that you could probably handle installing Windows 10 in a VM to give it a test drive. It won't have native performance, of course, but at least you'll be able to get a feel for things before you make the leap.

1779

DC Gamer Club / Jotun: Valhalla Edition free on Steam & GOG

« Last post by Deozaan on July 14, 2017, 03:36 PM »

For a limited time you can claim Jotun to your Steam account or to your GOG account.

I've never played it so I can't attest to whether or not it's any good. But at this price, it's worth looking into (or just claiming "just in case").

1780

General Software Discussion / Re: Twist app - "My Company Tried Slack For Two Years. This Is Why We Quit."

« Last post by Deozaan on July 14, 2017, 03:33 PM »

So, it seems to me that Slack is like a modernized IRC and Twist is like modernized email with proper group support (solving the problem of reply-to-all and forwarding, etc.). Interesting.

-Deozaan (July 14, 2017, 02:48 PM)

What do you mean by proper group support?  If you've not used it recently, I can show where these features are for comparison.

-wraith808 (July 14, 2017, 03:18 PM)

I mean email with proper group conversations.

Trying to have an email conversation with a large group is cumbersome and messy. Lots of forwards and reply-to-alls and "didn't you see my email?" etc.

I was comparing Twist to email, not to Slack. I was not saying that Slack doesn't have group support.

1781

General Software Discussion / Re: Twist app - "My Company Tried Slack For Two Years. This Is Why We Quit."

« Last post by Deozaan on July 14, 2017, 02:48 PM »

So, it seems to me that Slack is like a modernized IRC and Twist is like modernized email with proper group support (solving the problem of reply-to-all and forwarding, etc.). Interesting.

1782

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft and Skype atrocity

« Last post by Deozaan on July 13, 2017, 07:41 PM »

I actually use Skype for calling landlines. There is a very cheap subscription (cca 10 EUR per month) with which you can call most of the landlines in the world for free.

-Attronarch (July 13, 2017, 07:15 AM)

You can call landlines for free using Google Voice + Hangouts, but that may be limited to USA (and surrounding countries?), so your experience may vary. That is, I know you can also call other countries with Google Voice, but it costs money to do so. And I'm not sure how much of that is because that's how the service is for everyone, everywhere, or that's just the rates/services for me as a US resident.



Kind of off-topic, but since we're discussing all sorts of messaging apps:

I use Signal on my phones, (also via a Chrome app from the computer)

-4wd (July 13, 2017, 04:17 AM)

I found Telegram after searching for a Signal alternative. I really wanted to use Signal because it seemed to be the most recommended for security/privacy but the Android app doesn't work on any of my aging Android devices and I hate having to use the ugly Chrome app. It basically meant I'd never get a message from anyone if I wasn't at my PC with the Chrome app running. One of the things I really like about Telegram is that it runs pretty much everywhere (with native OS applications, too!) so I can always stay in contact when I need to.

1783

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft and Skype atrocity

« Last post by Deozaan on July 13, 2017, 02:20 AM »

Oh yeah, and Discord is pretty good for quick and easy group chats, including voice chatting. But again, no video.

In my opinion, it's kind of like Slack, but geared toward gamers, yet still totally useable for non-gaming purposes. I think I prefer it over Slack.

1784

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft and Skype atrocity

« Last post by Deozaan on July 13, 2017, 02:14 AM »

Since we're recommending alternatives, I've recently become a pretty big fan of Telegram. It doesn't do video chat, but it does have voice chat (like phone calls, currently limited to 1-on-1) as well as "voice messages" which are akin to instant voicemail or, in other words, you record a message which the recipient(s) can listen to at their leisure in a non-real-time fashion. It also has other standard messaging/texting features and group chats and stuff like that. And it works on just about every platform in use these days. Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, or browser-based, wherever you need it, it's there.

My only real complaint about it is that creating an account is tied to a phone number. I think that's really stupid and would love to have an account not tied to a phone number. But the good news is that once you have your account, you never really have to use the number again. So if it were that important, I could have just bought a prepaid "burner phone" for 1 month and used it to activate my account and then never top off that phone account again.

Since the main draw of Skype is probably the video chats, often with groups of people, I can see how Telegram isn't exactly a replacement for Skype. But I used to be an avid user of Hangouts (and Google Talk before that) but Google's recent-ish changes to . . . well, everything, I guess . . . have made me start weaning myself off their services where practical. I've pretty much moved completely away from Hangouts except for when I need it for Google Voice. That said, Hangouts is still a pretty good solution for video chats, in my experience.

1785

General Software Discussion / Re: Ubuntu (CLI) now available on the Windows Store

« Last post by Deozaan on July 11, 2017, 05:50 PM »

Looking at it, you still have to go through the same steps, which is strange.

-wraith808 (July 11, 2017, 05:10 PM)

Hmmm, yeah, I missed that. Interesting.

1786

General Software Discussion / Re: Ubuntu (CLI) now available on the Windows Store

« Last post by Deozaan on July 11, 2017, 04:58 PM »

The current offering is still quite restrictive, and keeps being restricted to insider previews it seems, I recall it was available a year ago, before the 1607 release of Win 10? Or was that another incarnation/beta. (MS policy: Buy our next version!) ?

-Ath (July 11, 2017, 03:32 PM)

Before, you had to enable some advanced and somewhat hidden features within Windows 10 to enable the Linux shell. Now it's as easy as joining the Insider program and clicking install from the Windows Store. I suspect that in the future it will no longer be restricted to Windows Insiders and anyone will be able to install it from the Windows Store.

I have software that I've purchased from the store, and I never use it, because I hate having to go into the stupid interface of the start menu in order to get to them.

-wraith808 (July 11, 2017, 01:00 PM)

I'm not sure what you mean with this one. Are you not able to create shortcuts for Store apps? I rarely use the start menu these days anyway because it's so much easier to just press the Windows key and type the first few letters of whatever I want to open.

1787

General Software Discussion / Ubuntu (CLI) now available on the Windows Store

« Last post by Deozaan on July 11, 2017, 12:32 PM »

You can now download the Ubuntu command-line interface (AKA shell) from the Windows Store, with some caveats.

The store listing appears, but it says it's only compatible with Windows 10 version 16190.0 or higher, which is only available as part of the Windows Insiders program at the moment.

Even still. This is an interesting and useful development for anyone who ever fired up a VM just to run a few Linux commands.

1788

Living Room / Re: grab urls

« Last post by Deozaan on July 09, 2017, 03:41 PM »

Did threads just get merged or have I been into the cider too much?

-4wd (July 09, 2017, 03:35 PM)

They got merged. You can tell by some of the pixels , also because some of the posts have different topics than others.

1789

Post New Requests Here / Re: Folder Sorter by IMDB genre / ratings

« Last post by Deozaan on July 08, 2017, 12:48 PM »

The legend returns!

Welcome back Skrommel! We hope you'll stick around a while.

1790

General Software Discussion / MOVED: Warning "Invallid value for registry" appear

« Last post by Deozaan on July 07, 2017, 01:15 AM »

This topic has been moved to Screenshot Captor.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=44041.0

1791

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« Last post by Deozaan on July 05, 2017, 01:46 PM »

There's a copypasta error on line 31. And it looks like some things are never used, such as the monkey enum on line 24 and the strawberry struct from line 32.

1792

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 04, 2017, 01:07 PM »

Look up a few Tomos.  He just misquoted- it was Deo.

-wraith808 (July 04, 2017, 09:44 AM)

Yes, that's true. But he then clarified his post to say that he thought tomos might also doing what I said I may have been doing. So it's not that different.

I think you may be unconsciously doing what @Deozaan says of himself, "I suppose I may have projected my own opinion of the situation into my interpretation of his meaning."

-IainB (July 02, 2017, 09:34 PM)

1793

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Windscribe - Get 50GB free VPN bandwidth every month for life

« Last post by Deozaan on July 04, 2017, 12:57 PM »

At the moment, you can get 60GB per month for free using the code: SOS60GBS

Sign up for a free account and apply the code, it can also be applied to existing free accounts, (tested working, eg. 10GB/month -> 60GB/month).

-4wd (July 04, 2017, 05:36 AM)

I just upgraded my 50 GB/mo plan to the 60 GB/mo plan with this code.

1794

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 02, 2017, 09:49 PM »

@tomos: I listened to it all again, wondering whether I had missed something YV (Yanis Varoufakis) said about QE (Quantitative Easing). I think you are probably correct where you say "I suppose I may have projected my own opinion of the situation into my interpretation of his meaning."

-IainB (July 02, 2017, 09:34 PM)

I said that.

1795

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

« Last post by Deozaan on July 02, 2017, 06:27 PM »

This is just too damn good not to share.  Enjoy! 

-Edvard (July 02, 2017, 05:19 PM)

For some reason that video reminded me of this one I shared early on in this thread:

Here's one I came upon a day or two ago.

This isn't the actual music video to the song. Some guy on YouTube just grabbed a random music video from the 70s and cut it to make it slightly relevant to the music of Mogwai.

The result is a "What the heck?" which gradually turns into a chuckle, and perhaps even hilarity.

-Deozaan (February 19, 2009, 04:07 AM)

1796

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 02, 2017, 06:17 PM »

It seemed to me he spoke of it derisively.

-Deozaan (July 02, 2017, 04:01 PM)

He calls it 'pragmatic', and bemoans the ECB's workaround for not being able to do the same.

-tomos (July 02, 2017, 04:10 PM)

You're right. I didn't understand that word due to his accent. I suppose I may have projected my own opinion of the situation into my interpretation of his meaning.

1797

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 02, 2017, 04:01 PM »

It seemed to me he spoke of it derisively.

1798

DC Gamer Club / Re: Factorio - Automate All the Things!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 01, 2017, 05:31 PM »

Any chance to watch the video of your game play?

-erikts (December 19, 2016, 11:43 PM)

Not sure if you actually wanted to see me specifically play, or just gameplay in general. If you want gameplay in general, there are plenty of nice Let's Plays on Youtube (as I already said).

If you specifically wanted to see me play, I'm working on a new series of videos.

https://www.youtube....roo7Hz2YWxI9NY4NUEYK

Audio quality isn't great. Sorry. I've already recorded several videos and am working on uploading them bit by bit, so if I get any feedback on any of the earlier videos, you won't see me respond to it in video until perhaps much later.

Enjoy! Or don't.

1799

Living Room / Re: Anti-procrastination Hacks: Dynamic Unordered Todo List

« Last post by Deozaan on June 30, 2017, 11:42 PM »

Sorry, I meant to specify that I was responding to mouser's idea. Not your 3-item todo list. I'll update the message to reflect that.

1800

Living Room / Re: Anti-procrastination Hacks: Dynamic Unordered Todo List

« Last post by Deozaan on June 30, 2017, 08:26 PM »

Essentially I am just reporting that one thing I have found particularly helpful in avoid procrastination on a project is to keep a list (in a google doc in this case) of tons of random unordered "mini-tasks" that need to be done for the project.

So it's just a to-do list that we all know about.

But the point is to have a list you can add to and delete from at any time in any order.

-mouser (June 30, 2017, 04:16 AM)

Sounds like a basic Trello board to me. Which I believe is based on the scrum agile development philosophy's taskboard.