Recent Posts

201

Living Room / Re: strong micro usb cable

« Last post by mwb1100 on October 10, 2015, 01:24 PM »

it should also charge/sync fast (not like cheap alternatives that make the phone charge in 12h)

-kalos (October 10, 2015, 09:11 AM)

I thought it was the charger that controlled this, not the cable (except for devices that used entirely proprietary charging cables).

202

Living Room / Re: Is it reasonable to *require* phone nr. when purchasing software?

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 23, 2015, 12:37 AM »

Sure, no problem. Here's my phone number: (111) 222-3333

-Stoic Joker (September 22, 2015, 06:07 PM)

(301) 555-1313 or (202) 456-1414 for me.

And if (not) necessary, my "address" is either:

  - 1313 Mockingbird Lane, or

  - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

203

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox drastically bleeding market share

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 20, 2015, 11:15 AM »

I hope that Firefox/Mozilla can turn it around, because every time I have tried Chrome I've hated it.

204

General Software Discussion / Re: JetBrains (IntelliJ IDEA, Resharper, etc) moving to a pure subscription model

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 18, 2015, 05:35 PM »

JetBrains has announced some changes - they're still going to a subscription model, but the changes they've made are significant compared to the original announcement:

•     We are moving forward with subscriptions with important adjustments.
•     You will receive a perpetual fallback license once you pay for a year up front or 12 consecutive months.
•     You will receive up to 40% discount for continuous subscription.
•     You will be able to use the software without an Internet connection.
•     Current customers with active or recently expired upgrade subscription get first two years of subscription for the price of one.
•     We still recommend you take 10 minutes to read it all for the complete details.

-http://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2015/09/18/final-update-on-the-jetbrains-toolbox-announcement/

More detail: http://blog.jetbrain...ouncement/#more-7340

Take particular note of which version becomes perpetual. It's the version that was in effect when a 12 month subscription period started, not the version in effect when a subscription expires.  Not ideal, but it's probably something that most people can work with.

205

Developer's Corner / Re: Confessions of a free-to-play games producer

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 18, 2015, 10:02 AM »

So does anyone know how these other games get this kind of info? "We know where you live, we know your income level, we know your relationships, your favorite sports teams, your political preferences. We know when you go to work, and where you work."

-TaoPhoenix (September 18, 2015, 08:44 AM)

Just a guess, but I imagine that it's because most people don't pay much attention to the permissions granted to games installed on their devices.  So the games are granted all sorts of permissions and simply watch whatever else is happening on the device and report back to the company.

206

Living Room / Re: The End of my Macbook Pro Experiment

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 16, 2015, 06:03 PM »

And what are those .DS_Store files for anyway?

-wraith808 (September 16, 2015, 04:05 PM)

They're basically Apple's version of desktop.ini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.DS_Store

207

DC Gamer Club / Re: Amnesia: The Dark Descent for free during the next 24 hours (Sep. 15, 2015)

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 15, 2015, 09:04 PM »

Thanks for posting this!

208

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Hyper Plan 50% off

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 14, 2015, 05:58 PM »

I like the simplicity of notecards for tracking tasks, so this looks like it might be a good fit for me.

Don't remember seeing it before.

-rgdot (September 14, 2015, 01:57 PM)

According to the wayback machine on archive.org, it looks like it started availability last December.  According to a comment left by the vendor in a previous BDJ offer, they also develop "Perfect Table Plan" software (http://www.perfecttableplan.com/).  Perfect Table Plan looks like a rather specialized bit of software, but the website might give an indication of how well HyperPlan might be supported.  It's a good sign that several of the requests made in comments to the last BDJ offer for HyperPlan have apparently already been implemented - particularly clickable links in the notes.  Actually, the old comment stream on BDJ seems to be very favorable (and I think that BDJ is often a tough crowd), with the developer also being very engaged in the discussion.

I look forward to any opinions you might form - I'm not sure if I'll get much chance to try it out.  If it's any good, $20 for a per-user (limited to 5 machines, but cross PC/Mac) license would be a nice bargain.  But software like this is really sensitive to matching how one thinks and wants to move things around, so it's really impossible to know if it's a good fit without trying it out.

209

General Software Discussion / Re: Pale Moon and Firefox - The Honeymoon Period is Over

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 12, 2015, 08:52 PM »

Furthermore, what good is a Firefox clone that doesn't have active development of extensions to increase its functionality?

-Innuendo (September 12, 2015, 10:18 AM)

As long as Greasemonkey works, I'm good. And if they do something to break Greasemonkey, I'll just stick with the last version that does work until... maybe forever.

210

DC Gamer Club / Re: Buy a mystery game with GOG's Indie Piñatas!

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 12, 2015, 02:51 AM »

The question is, does that make the piñata the gift? Or in other words, does the piñata have to be claimed to an account before the game inside is revealed? Or can you use the gifting method to find out what the game is before you decide which account to send it to?

-Deozaan (September 12, 2015, 12:31 AM)

I'm not sure, but I would have guessed that the game is revealed when you get the gift code.

Hmm... GOG has a 30-day money-back guarantee. I wonder if it works with the piñata promotion as well.

-Deozaan (September 12, 2015, 12:31 AM)

From some posts in the forum, GOG will refund (as long as you have not downloaded, I think) or turn the game into a gift code if you ask support to do so.

211

DC Gamer Club / Re: Buy a mystery game with GOG's Indie Piñatas!

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 11, 2015, 11:32 PM »

For something like this you should always buy as a 'gift' to make it easier to sell/trade/give away if you don't like it. If you do like it, you can always redeem the gift code yourself.

212

DC Gamer Club / Re: Buy a mystery game with GOG's Indie Piñatas!

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 11, 2015, 04:25 PM »

I haven't bought, but I like that you get a small burst of confetti when you hit the "piñata" to buy the random game.

213

General Software Discussion / JetBrains (IntelliJ IDEA, Resharper, etc) moving to a pure subscription model

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 10, 2015, 07:08 PM »

JetBrains, the developer of some popular development tools such as the IntelliJ IDEAJava IDE and the Resharper add-in for Visual Studio, is moving to a pure subscription model for most of its products in November.

Once that happens, you will no longer be able to purchase a license for those products that will work perpetually (if I understand the press release and FAQ):

  - https://www.jetbrains.com/toolbox/

This looks like it'll bring a lower initial cost for these tools, but I for one like the idea that if I need to I can fire up a two year old tool without hassling with making sure a subscription is currently in effect.  I wonder how upset their existing customer base will be (or not be)?

Actually, now that I look at things again, the planned regular prices for the one year subscription don't always look like a discount from today's perpetual license. In fact for some, the price is going up (WebStorm is $50 for an individual license today, and will be $99 for a 1 year subscription under the planned model)!

214

DC Gamer Club / Re: GOG Scores Bethesda!

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 10, 2015, 05:24 PM »

Erm... Does this have anything to do with GOG or Bethesda?

-Deozaan (September 10, 2015, 03:23 PM)

Well, Humble's not GOG, and Ubisoft isn't Bethesda.  And you know what they say about double negatives.

215

General Software Discussion / Re: What online services do you pay for?

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 05, 2015, 05:44 PM »

Our household pays for Hulu Plus, Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Between those three services we have little regret cutting the cable cord.  Since ditching Comcast for TV we're also able to get our Internet from a fiber optic provider for a much lower cost.  The bandwidth isn't as fast as we used to get with Comcast, but it's plenty fast enough. Why pay for speed you don't need?

We're paying less than half what we were paying to Comcast, and the Amazon Prime could kind of be considered a freebie - we had signed up for that back when it was only for the free shipping, so the free Prime video is basically a throw in.

The only regret is sports:

  - MLB games are only on cable or MLB's streaming package. but the MLB Internet package will black-out the local team's games (maybe I can solve that problem with PIA?)
  - while NFL games are mostly on over the air broadcasts (free!), I have a crappy antenna setup so it's hit or miss for me. One day I'll fix that with a decent antenna.

216

Developer's Corner / Re: Hack font v.2

« Last post by mwb1100 on September 02, 2015, 02:56 AM »

I'll definitely give it a try.  From a quick glance, one problem I might run into is that the "filled zero" ('0') tends to look somewhat like an "at sign" ('@').  I'll have to see if this is really a problem in practice.

217

Found Deals and Discounts / Free until Aug 31 2015: Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones: Humble Deluxe Edition

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 30, 2015, 05:45 PM »

As far as I can tell, no strings attached (other than having to have a Humble Bundle account):

    Free until Aug 31 2015: Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones: Humble Deluxe Edition

Both a DRM-free download and a Steam key is provided.

I'm not sure if "until Aug 31" means "through August 31" or "through August 30".  Their sales normally rollover at 10am Pacific time, so I wouldn't be surprised if this ends at 10am Pacific tomorrow.

In other words, if you're interested, get it today.

218

General Software Discussion / Re: Raymond.cc roundup of ad blocking extensions

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 28, 2015, 05:46 PM »

I find the whole uBlock/uBlock Origin thing to be an unfortunate and confusing mess.

I guess I'm just glad that Adguard seemed to perform respectably, even if it wasn't a top performer. I've been happy with it.

219

General Software Discussion / Re: So, what pdf reader app is your fav?

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 26, 2015, 12:48 AM »

Unfortunately for me, now I have some work to do seeing if I like Sumatra 3.x.

-mwb1100 (August 24, 2015, 02:46 PM)

I think I'll be sticking with STDU for now.  Sumatra's tabs are nice, but they don't scale very well to 10 or more - it just keeps squeezing tabs onto a single row, making them smaller an smaller.  STDU will get to a point where it'll scroll them, and also has a window where all the tabs are listed.

STDU also has a nice "search all" feature that's missing from Sumatra.

On the other hand, I have several PDFs that use ligatures (mostly character combinations of "fi") and Sumatra handles copy/paste and searching of text that contains ligatures perfectly (by converting the ligatures to the equivalent ASCII characters). STDU doesn't do this conversion, so searches must contain the ligature character code and pastes of that text generally needs to be fixed up.

So I'll keep an eye on Sumatra.

220

General Software Discussion / Re: So, what pdf reader app is your fav?

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 24, 2015, 02:46 PM »

@mwb1100: I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, Sumatra v3.0 has tabs - "The biggest change in this version is addition of tabs, contributed by Stefan Stefanov." http://blog.kowalczy...PDF-30-released.html :-)

-Lintalist (August 24, 2015, 02:13 PM)

Once again my world-class laziness is exposed on the Internet for all to see.  I swear that as I was typing the message I thought, "I should check if Sumatra has tabs now", but then I thought: "eh, someone will let me know..."

Unfortunately for me, now I have some work to do seeing if I like Sumatra 3.x.

Thanks for the update!

221

General Software Discussion / Re: So, what pdf reader app is your fav?

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 24, 2015, 02:07 PM »

I used to use Sumatra for its browser integration, but have since relied on the Firefox jsPDF capability for that.

For stand-alone reading I use STDU for it's tabbed interface and lack of crapware loaded in it's installer.  I also get the sense that it's less likely to be vulnerable to an exploit, but I'm basing that mainly on the fact that it's not Adobe and that I'm pretty sure it doesn't support scripting (which i think is sometimes the vector for malware in PDFs).

If Sumatra supported a tabbed interface, I'd probably use that just by virtue of it being open source. Last time I looked, the Sumatra dev wasn't interested in adding tabbed viewing.

222

General Review Discussion / Re: Maintaining online privacy, security and anonymity.

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 19, 2015, 06:01 PM »

I use two different adblockers:

  - at home I use AdGuard, which I got on some lifetime license deal (similar to the one that seems to run perpetually on stacksocial now). No complaints.

  - at work I can't install AdGuard, so I replace the hosts file with one from mvps.org.   This works amazing well for such a simple solution.  It does have the slight drawback that occasionally web pages will have a few somewhat ugly "red 'X'" boxes for content that can't be found, but who cares?  Also, once every couple of months I click on a link that doesn't work because it was an affiliate link that got blocked by the hosts file.  That can be mildly annoying, but I usually decide that i can live without going to wherever the link was going to take me or I figure out a way to get there without the affiliate link via google.

223

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote 50% discount to August 31

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 19, 2015, 02:30 PM »

I settled on Surfulater (SUL) long ago, and I like it very much.  there are two things that it doesn't do that I really, really miss:

  - spell checking
  - synchronization of databases across different machines (using either the network or a USB drive is fine)

I'm not looking forward to testing out a new note-taker app, especially since I think that the next version of SUL(the cloud-based "clibu") will probably be what I ultimately want.

Does anyone who currently uses RightNote (particularly if they have experience with SUL) think that I should take a closer look at RightNote?

224

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ultimate Zip 7.0 [free]

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 18, 2015, 11:38 AM »

I use PowerArchivevr, but mainly because I bought a license years ago and it's a lifetime license.  PA is a nice package of archiving, backup, and even ISO mounting tools, but the main thing that keeps me using it is it's ability to encrypt archives including the names of the files in the archive.

I think that that capability has been added to the newer zip standard (zipx?), but back when I started using it in PA, the standard for encrypting zip archives left the directory of the archive unencrypted.

The developer of PA has an active support forum and the updates keep coming, so if you're looking for an archiver with a lot of features and good support, I'd recommend it.  But I'd suggest living with 7zip for a while first before paying for anything,

225

General Software Discussion / Re: What's up with WinPatrol?

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 16, 2015, 01:40 PM »

I know that BillP isn't the developer of WinPatrol anymore, but his Twitter feed talks about Google 'red-listing' his freeware (taskcatcher?) starting on August 10:

Google tells me "Yes, this site has hosted malicious software over the past 90 days. It infected 0 domain(s), including . "

-https://twitter.com/BillP

He's not happy with Google/Chrome...