Recent Posts

1801

Living Room / Re: Best Vodka IMHO

« Last post by app103 on July 01, 2012, 04:51 PM »

Found this yesterday. Not sure I'd use the expensive stuff for this but I suppose Schmirnoff is good enough. I also wouldn't use Skittles. I'd probably opt for Jelly Belly jellybeans. There are places where you can buy the single flavors by the pound....much better variety of flavors than Skittles.

Not sure why I keep thinking about the hot buttered popcorn flavored ones. Maybe because it would be really bizarre as a vodka flavor. 

Tips where I found this says you should probably let it sit for a month instead of 1 or 2 days. They also said it would work with Mike & Ikes, which is where the Jelly Belly idea came from. They are all similar candies.

1802

General Software Discussion / Re: A windows mess in the task bar

« Last post by app103 on July 01, 2012, 04:07 AM »

I like nice long buttons where I can easily read the text. I have no issues with the buttons being too short to read them on my taskbar. 

This is one of the many benefits of having your taskbar on the side and extending it as far as it will go, and putting it on autohide.

The first 2 screenshots in my post here will show you how I have it: https://www.donation....msg238489#msg238489

Yes, I am running XP with classic theme there, but you can do it in Win7 as well, and with aero, or whatever crap they have for themes now. And it is easy to do...just unlock your taskbar and drag it to the side and stretch it. (I don't lock mine because I like the little bands that separate each toolbar, and they disappear if you lock the taskbar)

The only time my buttons get shortened is when I have a ton of open windows, enough to fill all the space on the taskbar, resulting in Windows making 2 columns of them, at which point they become about half the length, which is still pretty wide compared to what you have now.

It will take a little getting used to but once you do, you may never go back to that sliver of a taskbar at the bottom of the screen. I have had my taskbar like this for the last 13 years, ever since my first PC was given to me with it preconfigured that way, back in the Win98 days.

But be careful...if you get too used to it, it will make using another OS very uncomfortable. I have issues with Ubuntu because I can't take my Windows taskbar with me. 

1803

Living Room / Re: Facebook Changed Everyone’s Email to @Facebook.com; Here’s How to Fix It

« Last post by app103 on June 27, 2012, 04:22 AM »

Sophos seems to agree with me about the spam, but I have given it a bit more thought and there is more than one Facebook feature to be exploited here and it will probably result in highly targeted spam, as I describe here: http://cranialsoup.b...edible-targeted.html

1804

Living Room / Re: Facebook Changed Everyone’s Email to @Facebook.com; Here’s How to Fix It

« Last post by app103 on June 26, 2012, 01:51 AM »

It doesn't matter if you hide the email address, it still exists. And if you have one of those custom facebook URL's, it is easy to guess the email address. It's the name in your URL @facebook.com.

Before the email address was optional, now it is not. You have it whether you want it or not, plan to use it or not, hide it or not. And you don't get to choose one that is different than the name you already use for facbook's custom URL.

And it will be so easy for the spammers to figure it out, even if you remove it from your profile.

If you have ever made a comment on a company's fan page, ever liked something popular, friended anyone else that has, they will easily find you to spam you.

Just imagine the notifications for every spam message, mixed in with the ones for private messages from friends and family.

This is going to be a disaster for Facebook with a lot of people closing their accounts and going elsewhere. Just a matter of time, now.

1805

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: List Newest Files In Some Folder

« Last post by app103 on June 25, 2012, 06:31 AM »

You might prefer a different way of displaying it in Explorer. Right click and select Arrange icons by> Modified. Then check off Show in Groups.

Unlike the standard details view, when new files are added, they are auto-sorted into the groups, rather than being added to the bottom of the list, so there is no refreshing involved to keep them sorted.

1806

General Software Discussion / Re: VLC Hit 1 BILLION Downloads

« Last post by app103 on June 25, 2012, 06:14 AM »

1 billion downloads does not equal 1 billion users, or even 1 billion computers, or anywhere near close to it. VLC doesn't auto-update on Windows. It checks for new versions but you then have to visit the site and download the new version yourself, each and every time there is an update. I wonder what percentage of that 1 billion downloads were people just updating their existing copies.

1807

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

« Last post by app103 on June 24, 2012, 05:47 PM »

One of the greatest Pink Floyd tributes that I have ever heard. There is a whole lot of very subtle stuff in here, hiding behind the obvious.

Shadow Gallery - Floydian Memories

1808

Living Room / Re: Science News Roundup

« Last post by app103 on June 20, 2012, 04:01 PM »

The story about the diet soda...

People that do not drink diet soda on a regular basis generally do not like diet soda and think it tastes funny, so it would be reasonable to assume that the pleasure from the sweetness would be differently displayed.

I wonder what the results would be for long time heavy drinkers of diet sodas, that prefers the artificial sweetners and actually think real sugar tastes awful (yes, we do exist). Would sugar light up the same parts of the brain as it would in normal people? Would it light up the parts of the brain associated with bad tastes or unpleasurable experiences?

About the grasshoppers' terror...

Sounds like a survival thing, beneficial to the grasshoppers. If there are predators present, it's not a good environment for survival. By causing less vegetation to grow, they make it an even less hospitable environment for their species, driving them to find greener pastures where there would be not only more vegetation, but less predators, as well.

The study on the success of movies based on advertising costs...

The first rule of advertising states:

He who has a thing to sell
who goes and whispers in a well
Is not apt to get the dollars
as he who climbs the hill and hollers.

It would be reasonable to assume that if he can afford a megaphone, he'll sell even more...and if he can hire more people with megaphones to climb up on other hills, even more.

We could probably repeat the study with similar results here in the US, but based on politicians and the money raised and spent to finance their campaigns, and the election results that follow. This is what all the noise over corporations being able to funnel unlimited amounts of money into campaign funds is all about, essentially allowing corporations to buy elections. The politician with the largest purse, generally wins, and corporations are in a better position to finance political campaigns than private citizens are, very much the same way the big movie studios can buy more viewers than a small indy company can, based solely on the cash available to spend on advertising.


About the milk fats...

There is a good reason why lactose intolerance in most species of adult mammals is the norm.

1809

Living Room / Re: Google deletes G+ emails out of your INBOX without your consent?

« Last post by app103 on June 20, 2012, 03:13 PM »

This kind of practice isn't all that new. AOL has been doing something similar for over 13 years. They allow you to unsend emails that have not been read by the recipient, as long as the emails were sent between 2 AOL members. You could look in your inbox, see an unread email from another AOL member, and then right before your eyes, watch it disappear in real-time, as the sender decides he really doesn't want you to read it.

Notice in your G+ settings that it mentions "notification delivery" and "receive notifications" and never actually explicitly states that they will "email" you a notification.

I think in the G+ case, they do not treat the notifications as if they were actual emails, so if the original message is deleted, the notification goes with it. Just because it's in your inbox doesn't mean it's an actual email, in the case of messages sent between Google services. If they had added a separate sidebar panel with those messages instead of merging them with your unread mail list and it only contained current messages, and only G+ messages, I think it would have been more obvious that they really aren't emails.

Honestly, I don't see this as anything to panic or get bent out of shape over. It's not like they are deleting emails directly sent by 3rd parties. When they start deleting DC newsletters from my inbox, then it's time to panic and grab the pitchforks. 

1810

Living Room / Re: World's first 'tax' on Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7

« Last post by app103 on June 15, 2012, 12:31 PM »

Interesting that they are targeting IE7 users only and offering browser suggestions that do not include upgrading to a newer version of IE. I wonder why that is?

Could it be possible that they are just a bunch of obnoxious browser bigots?

1811

General Software Discussion / Re: DropBox to drop support for Public folder (no more direct links)

« Last post by app103 on June 15, 2012, 11:40 AM »

This is really bad for me. Will have to find reliable alternative file hosting for the files linked to on some of my blogs.

1812

Living Room / Re: Help the Animals

« Last post by app103 on June 11, 2012, 03:07 PM »

Looks like they won!

1813

Living Room / Re: The Zombie Apocalypse starts now....in Miami

« Last post by app103 on June 10, 2012, 04:29 PM »

‘Dead' boy in Brazil wakes up in his coffin at his funeral and asks his father for water. Everyone screams, and he lies down dead again.

http://www.heraldsun...frf7n6-1226386975762

1814

Living Room / Re: Help the Animals

« Last post by app103 on June 10, 2012, 11:53 AM »

Done!

1815

General Software Discussion / Re: Popup Translator Shootout?

« Last post by app103 on June 10, 2012, 11:44 AM »

Wow, that's funny: I just had a look at the Client for Google Translate, and it currently offers a free version that supports only "translation from Microsoft Translator". Nice, isn't it?

-yksyks (June 10, 2012, 08:54 AM)

That's because the Google Translate API is no longer available for free. Developers can not develop apps using it unless they are willing to pay Google. Not likely you will find very many freeware developers that are willing to pay Google and then give away the app for free. I sure wasn't willing to do that, which is why Fried Babelfish no longer works.

1816

Living Room / Re: The Zombie Apocalypse starts now....in Miami

« Last post by app103 on May 31, 2012, 03:37 PM »

This one from my home state of NJ:

Man stabs himself and throws intestines at police

1817

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Charity?

« Last post by app103 on May 29, 2012, 03:54 PM »

You might try contacting a charity that refurbishes used computers for distribution to low income families or inner city schools and find out what kind of stuff they need. If you can help them out, that might be the way to go.

1818

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft takes on Dropbox with major SkyDrive update

« Last post by app103 on April 24, 2012, 07:40 AM »

Has anyone been successful in downloading and installing their application on XP?

I am getting "not a valid Win32 application" errors when attempting to run the installer. I have downloaded it countless times, with different browsers, same issue every time.

1819

Living Room / Re: Apple Sued Again - By Parents...

« Last post by app103 on April 21, 2012, 05:54 AM »

I kind of lump this kind of in-game marketing to children into the same category as what happened in the 80's with the 900 phone numbers that racked up enormous phone bills for parents with their kids calling their favorite cartoon characters and Santa Clause for $2.00/minute auto-billed to their phone bill.

The phone companies instituted a voluntary block that parents could apply to their accounts to block anyone from calling 900 numbers, and soon after, there was a law passed that made it illegal to market 900 numbers (and other similar auto-charge things) to kids.

With this example, and the resulting laws that were enacted, Apple may be in some really hot water with this, or at the very least, the app developers that are deliberately marketing the auto-billed stuff to kids.

1820

Post New Requests Here / Re: Enter my blog to post

« Last post by app103 on April 18, 2012, 08:57 PM »

Ejem.

The program is espectacular.
Best Regards
Your soft is espectacular too.

But I would like an alternative to microsoft. Make me bad remembering. Please.
 

-Contro (April 18, 2012, 09:22 AM)

I have never found a better blog editor, or one even near as good.

1821

Living Room / Re: Top 10 Survival Tricks for When the Zombie Apocalypse Hits :: Lifehacker

« Last post by app103 on April 18, 2012, 07:07 AM »

This is my Zombie Apocalypse weapon of choice.




_{I have no plans on becoming zombie food or infected, and thereby attacking my family, friends, or neighbors. Since attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse would be a futile endeavor, it only makes sense to have some control over how you die. The gun holds a single bullet, which is all I would need to ensure that I won't jeopardize the survival of the dummies that think they actually have a chance.}

1822

Post New Requests Here / Re: Enter my blog to post

« Last post by app103 on April 18, 2012, 06:44 AM »

I am not sure if I understand this.

You have multiple gmail accounts, and multiple blogs, and you want to be able to log in to post to each blog with the correct user/pass combo?

This sounds like something that could be easily done with Windows Live Writer, when adding the blog to it. Each blog is configured separately with you having to add the user/pass/url for it. You can configure it for multiple blogs and multiple gmail accounts (and even multiple blogging platforms), and it won't affect or be affected by which account you are currently logged in with, in your browser.

1823

Living Room / Re: Ugliest Web Page Contest

« Last post by app103 on April 13, 2012, 02:16 AM »

Nothing makes visitors want to kill you faster than forcing their browser into Kiosk mode.

-Stoic Joker (April 12, 2012, 11:09 AM)

I found something worse and used it on my first site. It was a desktop wallpaper site that had a unique way of demoing the wallpapers before you made the decision to apply it to your desktop. Using javascript that only worked correctly in IE 5 & 6, it would stretch the full sized wallpaper, full screen (with a button to close it and return to the original page).

The problem was with AOL users. The AOL browser, while IE based, didn't support opening pages full screen. Now if all it did was cause AOL to crash, it would have been bad enough, causing one to lose all their open pages, unsaved email drafts, open IM conversations, and losing your internet connection.

But no, it was worse than that...it cause a BSOD when viewed in the AOL browser, forcing one to have to reboot. 

1824

General Software Discussion / Re: Newbie Needs Advice For Packaging Audio

« Last post by app103 on April 11, 2012, 09:14 AM »

Hi, Erika. Welcome to the site.

I got a chance to see the site you are talking about (before the link was removed) and it seems to be using 1shoppingcart.

1825

Living Room / Re: Ugliest Web Page Contest

« Last post by app103 on April 10, 2012, 06:07 PM »

@Renegade
You forgot few smaller but important rules:
- big images must be scaled down with width/height (no thumbnails allowed),
- mouse cursor movement must be followed by some crazy shit (i.e. stars),
- MIDI sound must be played over and over, and over again.

BTW Some template: http://www.angelfire...per/badwebs/main.htm

-fenixproductions (April 10, 2012, 02:34 PM)

You just described my first website.