Recent Posts

201

Living Room / Re: For a good cause, please take a moment to donate some goodwill only.

« Last post by Eóin on April 10, 2011, 03:26 PM »

Voted for Quinn, and gotta say it really was my favorite of the bunch.

202

General Software Discussion / Re: How Apple “Lost” the PC Wars

« Last post by Eóin on April 08, 2011, 11:04 AM »

So a fanboi is annoyed that the plebs of this world were more interested in games, which the pc was batter at, than word processing, which his Mac was better at. So us plebs bought PCs while unfortunately the enlightened few weren't buying enough “computers for creative people” to sustain Apple.

Oh how unfair the world has been to him and his favorite company.

203

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on April 04, 2011, 02:50 PM »

Well yes, give an inch and they'll take mile, so of course everyone should be vigilant. But dissing OC and the developers who use it today because they might turn evil tomorrow is not vigilance, it's paranoia.

204

Living Room / Re: Cracking the credit card code (I always wondered)

« Last post by Eóin on April 04, 2011, 10:43 AM »

Interesting, worked on my Mastercard. Now the real question is how do I generate new valid credit card details.

205

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on April 04, 2011, 10:02 AM »

If a once off usability metric is all 'spyware' ever did we would probably never have had Ad aware or Spybot Search and Destroy. No one would have considered that type of reporting malicious.

206

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on April 03, 2011, 05:02 PM »

I would guess that Phil is referring to the OC screen in the installer, as in this shot from earlier



where it definitely is implied that the author implicitly recommends the advertised product. Nonetheless it seems rather trivial and nitpicking, we don't get our knickers in a knot when a Google ad might not have been personally tested by every maintainer whose site which displays the ad.

This comes back around again to the double standards some people have. What the OC dll does and reports back on is trivial and benign and also seems perfectly legitimate. An advertising company needs info on how their ads are perceived, and stats like how long a user navigates through the installer do just that. Sure you could call that spying, really the application is its just reporting how it was used.

I return to the example of apps website, as she is one of the more vocal against OC, though in truth, almost any website online could used. The tracking and spying done on apps sites is much more intrusive and much broader than OC. And yet we all get on with our lives and accept that tracking, suddenly however when OC does similar, indeed much more benign, stat reporting we have people freaking out because "I just don't trust those guys". That's not a rational argument, it's hysteria.

207

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on April 01, 2011, 09:18 AM »

I have decided to contact the FSF to see what they have to say about the matter

-app103 (March 31, 2011, 10:43 PM)

Just remember that the FSF are very much GPL centric. There are a tonne of other OSS licenses. Case and point, the BSD license is OS, and anyone would be very hard pressed to cliam that OpenBSD is not opensource. But they explicitly do not grant the right to simply repackage and redistribute their Operating System CD.

Rather they retain a copyright over the CD layout

The OpenBSD project does not make the ISO images used to master the official CDs available for download. The reason is simply that we would like you to buy the CD sets to help fund ongoing OpenBSD development. The official OpenBSD CD-ROM layout is copyright Theo de Raadt. Theo does not permit people to redistribute images of the official OpenBSD CDs. As an incentive for people to buy the CD set, some extras are included in the package as well (artwork, stickers etc).

Note that only the CD layout is copyrighted, OpenBSD itself is free. Nothing precludes someone else from downloading OpenBSD and making their own CD.

-http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq3.html

An opensource application with OC included is very similar, you can rebuild and repackage the application and redistribute it, but you just can't include OC.

208

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 31, 2011, 10:27 PM »

As much as I tend to defend OC (for some reason) I do think the term 'installation' is confusing both apps and 40hz's real points.

The issue is that even if you run the installer and say no to everything, at some stage the OC DLL gets loaded and executed. So if you are of the opinion that you don't trust OC, then there is just no way you can install the original application.

This is the no opt-out issue, you can't opt out of OC getting to run on your PC and doing whatever it does, benign though that may be.

To me it's a non issue, I don't know the authors of most of the software on my PC, and for none of the opensource programs did I go and compile the code myself, or even glance over it, so I'm already placing a great deal of trust in complete strangers.

Personally, if anything OC have earned my trust from what I've read in this thread, so if a DLL wants to run I don't really care.

209

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 31, 2011, 10:04 PM »

I should be able to compile an exact copy and when you toss in the OC dll, that isn't possible. I should also be able to change any of it any way I see fit and redistribute those changes, and if I am not allowed to change and redistribute the OC dll, then it has no business being placed on my system, without that right, along with an open source application.

-app103 (March 31, 2011, 09:20 PM)

No, not in the slightest do you have that automatic right. Only if the developers wants to let you do that then you should be allowed to and not all OS licenses do grant that right. GPL developers tend to want to allow to that, but even the GPL is very clear that the license doesn't extend to other software bundled with the GPL'd application.

210

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 31, 2011, 10:35 AM »

"Oh, but the lifetime license isn't for <newname>, it was for <oldname>" tactics?

-f0dder (March 31, 2011, 04:07 AM)

Actually a friend bought FL cheap on a special promotion years ago. The lifetime license included the upgrade to Studio. They really do look after their customers 

211

General Software Discussion / Re: SIGIL, free ePub editor

« Last post by Eóin on March 26, 2011, 11:29 AM »

Curt, when starting from a clean install MikTeX + LyX is quite easy. But when it comes to recovering from an old or failed install the MikTeX installer leaves a lot to be desired.

212

General Software Discussion / Re: What Android Apps Do You Use?

« Last post by Eóin on March 24, 2011, 07:06 AM »

Wow, for someone who absolutely adores their Android phone,I feel like I'm seriously under using it reading after this thread. Well lots of stuff now to play with though

Like Deozaan, I run CyanogenMod. My phone isn't even an Android phone at all, it's the HTC HD2, a WinMo 6.5 phone. But the fantastic hackers over at xda-developers have gotten a host of different OSes running on it. It's incredible really and I've switched to Android full time.

As for applications, well as I said, I feel like a lightweight. but here goes.

• AdFree
• Swype
• SpiderOak
• KeePassDroid
• reddit is fun
• Chandroid
• Titanium Backup

I didn't include links as all but the Swype beta are on the Market. Since my phone is a custom ROM I should also give credit to the particular one I run, it's TyphooN CyanogenMod 7, a ROM which tracks the daily updates to CyanogenMods upcoming version 7 which is based on Gingerbread.

Deozaan, you should check out G1 at xda-developers. There are alternative ROMs being developed there. I notice one for Gingerbread.

Indeed anyone who wants to start playing with custom ROMs should check out xda-dev

213

General Software Discussion / Re: Bumfuzzled again: PHP doesn't work on ONE (1) page <whimper /> ...

« Last post by Eóin on March 22, 2011, 07:46 PM »

One guess, shouldn't the extension have to be .php, i.e. index.php?

214

Screenshot Captor / Re: New pixelate effect for Screenshot Captor

« Last post by Eóin on March 21, 2011, 09:58 AM »

I love the grid lines, makes the screenshots look so much more elegant

215

General Software Discussion / Re: SRWare Iron 5.0.380 beta browser

« Last post by Eóin on March 19, 2011, 10:49 AM »

Well I've been using it since sajman99 told us about it (thanks sajman99 btw ) I've had zero issues.

216

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by Eóin on March 16, 2011, 04:12 PM »

timns, writing LaTeX content is pretty darn simple, that is the point of it after all. But writing your own style files is difficult, the underlying descriptive language, TeX, is a fully fledged programming language. That said, most style files out there expose tonnes of variables so you can tweak their look easily, but if you want to start from scratch you're in for a lot of work.

For fun, look at pages 8+ of An Acronym Environment for LATEX2ε. The files is the manual to the Acronym package and the pages I mentioned go through the code involved. It truly all looks like gobbledegoop to me.

217

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by Eóin on March 16, 2011, 01:08 PM »

The thing about writing large technical-ish documents is that it's entirely nonlinear. You're skipping back and forth between chapters, editing, adding bits, removing, etc. That makes it impossible to manage document layout midway. There's no point getting all your page breaks just perfect only to add a large paragraph somewhere and find now every page breaks halfway.

Mind you, this talk of LyX has my intrigued. When version 2.0 is out for Windows I'll definitely be giving it a serious test drive, maybe I'll write a mini-review too, but not till after I'm confident I gave it a fair chance.

218

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by Eóin on March 16, 2011, 11:05 AM »

To sum up:
Why wouldn't somebody want Latex with a live preview?  Let's say it was available right now, and implemented really well.  Most people would NOT prefer to go back to another way.  That's all I'm saying.

-superboyac (March 16, 2011, 09:11 AM)

LaTeX wasn't designed to be WYSIWYG, so providing one doesn't simply mean it's hard work, it means you'd have to fight the underlying engine. Would anyone really want to use a program when the two core parts of it are constantly at each others throats.

WYSIWYM is perfect for LaTeX, which is why LyX can do it, but that's not ideal for someone who wants to tweak every little detail.

All the latex people say that there's no preview because it's intentional.  "It's not WYSIWYG".  But I don't think that's the real reason.  I think the real reason is that it's difficult and takes a lot of time to program an interface that accurately (somewhat) shows to live document with all the styles attached.  And then they defend it with the usual language that programmers like to tell people like me: it's more efficient, keyboard shortcuts are better, I can do more with [insert more difficult method here] way.

-superboyac (March 16, 2011, 09:10 AM)

Wow, so presumptuous...

219

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by Eóin on March 15, 2011, 09:51 PM »

I don't know LyX, but I do know LaTeX which is what LyX builds on. LaTeX is all about removing you, the writer, from the typesetting. Basically you're just supposed to type and then rely on the TeX engine to compile your document in a beautiful PDF. It will do that, and it will do it well.

Again, I don't know how easy or not LyX is to use, but at the moment I myself wouldn't consider using a LaTeX GUI. For me a LaTeX document is like a webpage, you have the content and styling separate, so you can change one easily without affecting the other. When you write a LaTeX document in the markup code, it's easy to try out loads of different styles. I did my Thesis this way, so doing large documents is very possible.

A thing to remember though is that LaTeX wants you to only provide the content, it wants to be left alone to decide the typesetting. Frankly LaTeX assumes you, the writer, is useless at typesetting and document design, and will fight you tooth an nail every time you disagree with it. That include small things like page breaks, it believes it knows better than you.

This behavior is largely by design, most people aren't designers and will often produce awful end products if given access to such features.

Personally I'd say go with raw LaTeX code, possible with the XeLaTeX compiler so that you can easily use system fonts. Also go with the MikTeX distribution, it's Windows orientated and very simple to use.

Of course by all means give LyX a whirl, but I couldn't imagine doing my Thesis (~160 pages, full of math equations, tables and graphs) in WYSIWYM or WYSIWYG program.

220

Living Room / Re: Interesting calming essay about nuclear power plan situation in Japan

« Last post by Eóin on March 13, 2011, 01:22 PM »

Excellent read.

221

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 10, 2011, 05:40 AM »

If your browser rejects 3rd party tracking cookies by default and you change the setting to accept them, do you have anyone to blame but yourself when you end up with 3rd party tracking cookies?

-app103 (March 09, 2011, 09:14 PM)

Well I use both SRWare Iron and FireFox and both stored the cookies without me changing any default setting, so not sure what you mean there.

I can see why a software developer might be tempted to use OC. I have battled with the thought myself but ultimately I can't bring myself to do it because I don't trust OC at all.

-app103 (March 09, 2011, 09:14 PM)

That's fine, I respect that completely, I have similar reservations about other companies myself. I also fully respect your desire to know whose visiting your site, and to make revenue from it. I don't find the tracking or ads on your site in anyway, shape or form offensive. But I do think they are every bit as 'evil' as OC, I just don't consider that to be really evil at all.

Your own distrust of OC shouldn't mean you complain about their legitimate actions.

222

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 09, 2011, 07:57 PM »

Sorry you feel that way

-app103 (March 09, 2011, 07:17 PM)

I don't actually feel that way, and I certainly don't think your blog is 'evil'. But I do consider the three points I made to still be valid, it's is hypocritical for anyone to diss OC's behavior, while defending those same actions when a website does them.

Renegade is perfectly correct here when he calls out peoples double standards when it comes to desktop applications versus mobile and web applications

Also, frankly, trying to claim cookies are ok because they are easier to remove, while a reg entry is evil because it's harder to remove is not logical. You're arbitrarily drawing a line and saying 'easier than this is ok while harder than this is evil' and, conveniently, you've chosen to carefully position that line such that it defends your argument.

223

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 09, 2011, 05:12 PM »

True, true. Maybe I should have compared the DLL to an image or document file, PDF exploits anyone

224

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 09, 2011, 04:18 PM »

40hz, no I'm not upset, I just never understood why people seem so angry at OpenCandy and yet turn a blind eye to, or at least don't seem to care that much about, others which do the same, and often worse.

I'm not saying I think what OC does is fine and dandy, I'm asking why are people singling it out?

And again, I'm really not upset, not in the slightest. Also I know you didn't write the article, nor is it your site. But I just couldn't let slide the irony of an article complaining about OC while at the same time carrying out all the same evils, discovering that bit of hypocrisy pretty much made my day

225

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by Eóin on March 09, 2011, 03:44 PM »

Just out of curiosity: are you going to state right up front on your download and product info pages that it contains OpenCandy, identify it as an adware application, and say that if you don't want to install it you'll need to explicitly tell it not to? and that tracking software may remain on their machine even if they later "uninstall" it.

Or are you going to let them find out about it after they download and start installing like it seems everybody who is including it does?

-40hz (March 08, 2011, 08:11 AM)

Well 40hz, I didn't see you warn me (us?) that the article you linked to was on a page
a) full of ads
b) which used at least 1 type of tracking mechanism
c) left behind files on my PC (numerous cookies, at least two of which were for tracking my browsing habits) even after I browsed away from the page.

That article, was every bit as evil as people seem to claim OC is.