Recent Posts

2001

Living Room / Re: PrECISE - It's the New SOPA/PIPA/ACTA

« Last post by superboyac on February 24, 2012, 11:48 AM »

There are a few companies which would NEVER get my money, like Sony Music. Weird enough that many artists still think they need a big marketing company to promote their stuff, even in times of the internet.

-Tuxman (February 24, 2012, 03:43 AM)

Unfortunately, Sony keeps tempting me with their new gadgets.   
Cmon Sparx tablet!!

-superboyac (February 24, 2012, 10:21 AM)

Just get yourself a Rasberry Pi to sooth the unbearable urges of your inner geek. They're only $25 - and they'll be shipping very shortly.

-40hz (February 24, 2012, 10:41 AM)

That looks great!!  I'll definitely be playing around with that.

2002

Living Room / Re: PrECISE - It's the New SOPA/PIPA/ACTA

« Last post by superboyac on February 24, 2012, 10:21 AM »

There are a few companies which would NEVER get my money, like Sony Music. Weird enough that many artists still think they need a big marketing company to promote their stuff, even in times of the internet.

-Tuxman (February 24, 2012, 03:43 AM)

Unfortunately, Sony keeps tempting me with their new gadgets.   
Cmon Sparx tablet!!

2003

Living Room / Re: PrECISE - It's the New SOPA/PIPA/ACTA

« Last post by superboyac on February 23, 2012, 10:53 PM »

^^To me, on a smaller more personal scale, this means to watch what I spend my money on.  I'm trying my best to give money directly to those who are producing what I desire.  For example, instead of handing my money to the cashier, I'd rather hand it to a neighbor growing tomatoes.  The problem is the big expenses, the ones that count, those go directly into the system and all sorts of people you don't know about nor ever will get their hands on it immediately.  These are things like mortgages, most kinds of leases, internet/mobile services, those big electronic purchases you save for, etc.  It's tough.

Practicing this is also difficult because it's more work.  I have to think about who are the right people that I want to pay.  I have to look for and find people who are good at what they do.  It involves a lot of interaction, a lot of legwork.  It could all be for naught, but it feels good.

2004

Living Room / Re: Who's up for a DonationCoder talk show?

« Last post by superboyac on February 22, 2012, 05:41 PM »

Any thoughts on a first recording date?

-Stephen66515 (February 22, 2012, 04:07 PM)

No sorry.   
I still have a lot of setting up to do.

2005

Living Room / Re: Who's up for a DonationCoder talk show?

« Last post by superboyac on February 22, 2012, 03:13 PM »

*bump*

Dead project? 

-Stephen66515 (February 15, 2012, 07:50 PM)

No!  I still want to try it.  I'm not comfortable with my setup right now.  I've already purchased like $200 of stuff.  It's the website work that is the most difficult for me.  I don't know how to embed my icecast stream into a simple html page.

I already have some notes about you for talking points.  Hope you don't mind me nosing around!

-superboyac (February 15, 2012, 10:52 PM)

Does it have to be Embedded? Why not convert the pod show into an Mp3? That's one form factor people will need anyway right? Then you just post it.

Meanwhile I'm about half way to being a good blogger, I struggle with being badly distractible. I have an amazing amount of "feeder" notes on my computer if someone wanted to be the "Polish & Publish" half. However I suspect that 50% of them would bore the audience with the esoteric nature. : (

-TaoPhoenix (February 22, 2012, 02:45 PM)

Yes, I plan to make the mp3 available.  Part of this exercise is to try something new and try to push the limits of where we can take this technology.  I know I can do this in easier ways id necessary.

2006

Living Room / Re: Losing my e-Book religion

« Last post by superboyac on February 22, 2012, 09:01 AM »

I'm not going to weigh in on who is worse in regards to B&N or Amazon. What I would like to do is encourage the OP to look at what's available in Android tablets before blindly buying the Kindle Fire. The Android Market has both the Nook & Kindle apps (as well as a slew of other ereader apps) and they all work on every Android tablet.

-Innuendo (February 21, 2012, 05:51 PM)

Oh, I don't plan to get a proprietary device again.  My iPad has the Kindle app (and has had it already installed- just never used).  I just plan to buy a cheap book, see if I need a CC, and if there is a need for the CC, I'll stick with the devil I know.  Because I'm a reader, and I enjoy the format, and several novelists release their books in one DRM format or another.  So if the choice is not to read or read in the short term, though it might seem short sighted, I'll read.

-wraith808 (February 21, 2012, 09:33 PM)

I came to the same conclusion with my ipad experiment.  Just too much hastle.  I want to say I've spent more time trying to get a pdf from one app to another than I have actually spent reading the pdf.

Even jailbroken, there are a lot of painful moments.  I found out how you can move files around in the iOS file system, but it's not the most convenient thing in the world.

I hope that Sparx tablet that 40hz posted a couple of weeks ago turns out to be good.  And, of course, I still have high hopes for a good Windows 8 tablet.

And i've even done an experiment with myself lately.  Since I've been using all these different devices, for several weeks I had them all right next to me in my evening reading area.  Laptop, ipad, android tablet, and books.  When the tablets were new, I used them primarily.  But I quickly got annoyed by how slow it was to do anything really good, AND uncomfortable.  But it was somewhat convenient.

Now, I thought that using a tablet for internet browsing would be perfect, but because there's no keyboard, I quickly went back to the laptop.  Especially for those moments in documentaries when you want to pause and search the net a little.  Laptop is still way better for that.

Then for reading, I eventually started reaching for the laptop again.  And books still are good.  And wraith, I know I questioned you on this before, but the Kindle really is far easier on the eyes than the tablets.  I didn't realize it until reading it for about 15 minutes.  That e-paper is lovely.

So my tablet experience has not been very positive.  The place I use it the most is the coffee shop, GPS in my car, or when I need to check something real quick on the move (how most people use their smartphone).  So it's useful and definitely part of my ecosystem now, but of all my tools, it's the one I can do without.

2007

Living Room / Re: PrECISE - It's the New SOPA/PIPA/ACTA

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 05:20 PM »

Senator Orrin Hatch says the Government should blow up a few hundred thousands computers to help combat piracy on the Internet.
http://www.dethroneh...end-of-the-internet/

-antelopemeat (February 21, 2012, 03:22 PM)

If this is serious, these guys have lost it.  Without even addressing how right/wrong it is, to me it just demonstrates someone who is totally out of touch, especially given the authority that he is trusted with: an authority that directly affects the lives of a hell of a lot of people.  Where are the intelligent people?  Where are they?  Where can I go to find them?  Are they all running away and hiding?

2008

Living Room / Re: Big corps and how difficult they make it to help their customers

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 03:27 PM »

Actually, they do.  It's just not something that they have on their site.  I know this from experience.  You probably need to find the person that closed the contract- their access to support is based on your contract.

-wraith808 (February 21, 2012, 03:17 PM)

I understand that.  It's just a shitty way to do it.  My point is this: if you actually CARE about customer support, you make it as easy as possible.  They know for a fact that if they make it a little harder to find a number or email, most people will just give up trying to contact them.  And this means there is less work for them for customer support.  No small business would EVER get away with that.  If you're a small business and you don't bend over backwards for your customer these days, you will fail immediately.

So while you're statement is technically true, you sort of missed the point of the whole thing.  (I don't mean that personally, I love your posts!).  My intent here was to deliberately move away from the neutral point of view (which I normally tend to take, you know, try to give others the benefit of the doubt).  But this is far too common a practice with the big companies for me to be neutral about it.  They are monopolizing EVERY SINGLE advantage out there in the market, and leaving the little guys to fight to the death for the scraps.  it's not neutral, I'm angry.  And glad to be.

You can see another example of me getting angry here from a couple of years ago:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=23858.0

2009

Living Room / Re: Google: Do no evil (once you're caught)

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 03:07 PM »

So maybe the fact people are still arguing about the 2000 election is not a bad thing. We're sometimes a little too naive about the integrity of the American political process for our own good.
 

-40hz (February 21, 2012, 02:06 PM)

AHHHH!!  Stop 40!!  Stop making me grow up!

2010

Living Room / Re: Big corps and how difficult they make it to help their customers

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 03:03 PM »

Ok — but how do you really feel about them? 

-cranioscopical (February 21, 2012, 02:30 PM)

I've become very sensitive to it.  I just started a side business a couple of years ago, and we go out of our way to make sure the customers are happy.  We answer calls immediately, we're polite and helpful, we answer questions within hours.  And it's a TON of work to do that, but I don't see any alternative.  When these guys do this, AND they have the money to do it better, and instead they do even less...that really just gets me riled up.  How can a big company not have a phone number? 

This is their business philosophy:

2011

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote 50% off on BitsDuJour tomorrow - 22 Feb 2012

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 02:58 PM »

I will buy someone here a Rightnote Pro license if they do the following for me:
using this tool:
http://www.projekktor.com/

Create a static html page (a single page, no database stuff) with a single instance of that video player centered on the page, with dynamic positioning (if you make the window size larger/smaller, it stays centered).  Also, there needs to be a playlist for the player there, too.  So, one player window, and below it a list of things to click on that plays in the player.  I want the list to be a full list, not something you need to click through to navigate (no scrolling or hidden items).

It doesn't have to be perfect or anything.  If it's just the player on the page and it works, I can take it from there.  i'll tweak it until it looks just right, etc.  For me, the hardest part is just getting something up and learning all the codes and stuff.

2012

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is not dead... Minimalistic UI Madness Never dies.

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 01:13 PM »

The biggest mistake is making Linux what it's not.

-rgdot (February 21, 2012, 12:39 PM)

Fortunately, the only big player in the Linux camp that's doing that is Mark Shuttleworth with Ubuntu.

I personally think all this dumbing-down will eventually backfire. Much like the disco music craze did back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Funny thing too...disco sold millions of albums, and there were several disco clubs in almost any town big enough to support even a rudimentary night life scene.

But once the 90s rolled around, virtually nobody could ever "remember" liking disco, buying the music, practicing the dance moves, or going to the clubs. Pretty funny huh? I guess disguised interplanetary visitors were what floated that multi-billion dollar industry for almost 8 years.

I'm guessing dummy versions of Linux will follow in the same wake of abandonment once people realize it's demeaning to act like you're stupider and more helpless than you really are. This is a cycle we go through about every 25 years.
 

-40hz (February 21, 2012, 01:09 PM)

I'd like to hear more about this...I'll let you know.

Disco has always been a fascinating example.

2013

Living Room / Big corps and how difficult they make it to help their customers

« Last post by superboyac on February 21, 2012, 12:35 PM »

So I'm at work, and we have one of those very expensive Cisco/Tandberg video conferencing systems.  I have some configuration questions, so I went on the website to find a number to call.  Nothing.  Not a single fucking number anywhere to be found.  You think that's just an innocent oversight?  Think again.
So they have contact form, where you have to fill out all your personal information just to have the privilege of making contact with the honorable Cisco employees.  So I fill it out and get all sorts of big red errors....the country wasn't filled out, excuse me!  Then I fixed everything and it said I didn't have the State filled out.  I looked, and there's no box for State!!  I'm telling you, these companies are doing all they can to take as much as they can without doing ANY work.  Customer service?  Gone as soon as you buy something.  This is wrong, guys.  This is just making everyone feel shitty.  It's no way to do business.

And these are all the people that are making the world feel guilty about the copyright stuff and all these other privacy/content issues currently being battled out.  That's always their MO: make people feel guilty, wield some authoritative power, manipulate all the information available until it becomes impossible to find the truth, steal as much money as possible while providing as little service as possible.  And the whole time, they are making YOU feel guilty, and they are acting like they are the ones fighting the good fight of justice, freedom, liberty, and moral goodness.

And these assholes won't even let you call them after you've given them thousands of dollars for a fucking camera.

2014

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote PRO 50% off

« Last post by superboyac on February 20, 2012, 10:11 PM »

^^very nifty interface.  I like it!

I think what tranglos is saying, and it's the way I think about it also (eerily close!), is like this:
we use google so much now, and our brains are so used to the way it works (extremely powerful searching), that trying to find a program that can mimic that to some degree is a lost cause.  So trying to get my tags or tree hierarchies to give me the ultimate flexibility of a google-type search is fruitless.  I tried looking for the "perfect" notetaker for years.  But when i really started thinking about it, while I like a powerful search, I don't really use it much anyway.  I'm more of a browse-and-find guy myself, because I am very distrustful of my own mind, and I'm not sure if I spelled something correctly, or if I'm consistent with my organization philosophy.  So, if it's too hard to find or if I'm too impatient, I'll just go to google or wikipedia.  If the searching is nice enough, that's what I like.  I like colors and highlighted terms, and live searching, and any kind of nifty interface.  But I really don't use it much at all.  I sometimes laugh when I really think about the actual features I use a lot because it really comes down to like 5 things or less.  Like, i get a kick out of having a button for inserting a horizontal line.  Ridiculous, eh?

2015

Living Room / Re: Google: Do no evil (once you're caught)

« Last post by superboyac on February 20, 2012, 02:32 PM »

For me, the surprise is the expectation of privacy at this point. Using acts like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, DMCA, etc., both political parties in Washington have deep-pocketed interests in controlling the internet for corporations and regulated by the FCC. This way, we get back to the AOL/Compuserve days of the internet where -- like radio and TV -- where the only way it will be any good is if you have to pay for every little thing that's worth seeing.  (see attachment in previous post)Right now, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, and Apple (among a few others) are determined to erect walls around their corner of the net. Congress will keep sending SOPA clones to the floor until they get one through, and then they'll "amend" the law year after year after that until the internet is just as crappy as everything else we find. Obama has already set in motion the Internet ID [PDF] idea, where law enforcement has first dibs on your ID, your location, what you're viewing, where you go, who you like, etc. It's already extremely difficult surf the web anonymously using various methods. Tin foil hat? You can fit me for one. And if you don't agree to hand your "right" to privacy (long gone), then you'll be labeled someone who aids and abets terrorists and pedophiles.

• Free apps from Google? Only if we can use all online info for our benefit. (And if asked, we'll gladly hand it over to the police if they ask.)
• Want friends or your business on Facebook? Only if we can rape your life; you don't own your online life, we do.
• Want to enjoy Apple products? Only if you pay for and buy into our ecosystem completely. No questions asked.

Everything good seems to get turned to shit, mostly because of corporations or jerks like the US or Chinese governments. I have to go now. I think I hear the FBI breaking down the door.

-zridling (February 20, 2012, 02:23 PM)

Amen, brutha.

2016

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

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 11:33 PM »

^Wow. Didn't take long for that video link to get taken down!

-40hz (February 19, 2012, 05:31 PM)

Of course, it took far longer when youtube was first becoming big.  The lesson is, if you need it to grow your business, you can cheat...but once you're very big, it's ok to take the role of the most efficient copyright police known to man.  if these links were taken down when youtube first started this quickly...would youtube be who it is now?   

2017

Screenshot Captor / Re: Any "hand model volunteers" out there?

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 11:03 PM »

 
I was afraid I crossed the line there, good thing you have a sense of humor! 

If you want to use my hands, feel free!  It's your funeral, though.
here's the problem: I have a good nail/flesh ratio.  But they're not the most masculine looking hands...and they're brown!

2018

Living Room / Re: Google: Do no evil (once you're caught)

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 05:31 PM »

Sweet vindication really does taste sweet.

-Innuendo (February 19, 2012, 10:45 AM)

+1. But it's a very bitter-sweetness. I would rather I had been completely wrong about them. 

Hmm...maybe we need a tinfoil hat forum badge?

Let's ask Mouser!

@Mouser - can we get a member forum badge for 'skeptics and cynics without honor'? And let it be a tinfoil hat?
 

-40hz (February 19, 2012, 01:03 PM)

And just yesterday I posted that I felt Google was still one of the good guys.

2019

General Software Discussion / Anyone have a Google Earth Pro subscription? I need to make an animation.

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 05:19 PM »

If anyone is willing to help me make an animation of 3 points on Google Earth Pro and export it to a video file, I'd really appreciate it.

2020

Screenshot Captor / Re: Any "hand model volunteers" out there?

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 03:20 PM »

It's that pinky nail.  Too much flesh around it.  Looks like the way Jason's hockey mask is embedded on his head.


Yeah...you need George Costanza.

2021

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O&O Defrag 14.5 Professional discount 81% on february 18, 2012

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 02:39 PM »

I've never been a fan of O&O's defrag program, but I'm probably a fringe case as I run a lot of my drives right on the edge of running out of space & there's only been one defragger that I have ever encountered that could 100% defrag a drive that's 95+% full and it wasn't O&O's offering.

-Innuendo (February 19, 2012, 10:51 AM)

What do you use for packed drives?

2022

Living Room / Re: Anyone playing Mass Effect 2 game yet?

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 02:17 PM »

I guess omnipotence isn't all it's cracked up to be

-Jibz (February 19, 2012, 03:59 AM)

2023

General Software Discussion / Re: I spy...with my little eye...on my hard drive...

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 01:11 AM »

DTsearch:
Awesome!!  Love it.  Expensive.  It's a little too intense for casual use.  But if you want features, power, or just to get it to work exactly the way you want it to, this is the one.

-superboyac (February 18, 2012, 11:54 PM)

In 2008, DTSearch didn't index MS Word or pdf comments (see my post above and that). But Archivarius does.
So, IMO, in terms of reliability, Archivarius wins the content indexing contest... What good is a content indexer if it misses some of it ?

-Armando (February 19, 2012, 12:40 AM)

Very true.  I don't really recommend DTSearch for most people at all.  The only time I came around to DT was when I was trying to do a very particular search...like fancy regex type of issues.  It was more for the excercise of it than anything else.  But Archivarius, I use that every single day.

2024

Living Room / Re: Anyone playing Mass Effect 2 game yet?

« Last post by superboyac on February 19, 2012, 12:40 AM »

 
The mouser IRC conversation on page 1 is classic!!  Mouser, when you go off like that, it's gold!!  Gold, Jerry!!

I'm exactly the same way.  I haven't played any video games since Unreal in college.  My video game life is usually this:
--Install game
--Look for the code for "god mode"
--play game
--shoot things mindlessly, walk through walls, marvel at the new graphics and new monsters
--wait impatiently for the cut scenes
--get extremely disappointed at the ending after god-moding for 6 hours straight.

2025

General Software Discussion / Re: I spy...with my little eye...on my hard drive...

« Last post by superboyac on February 18, 2012, 11:54 PM »

i agree with those here using the combination-software setup.  It's funny, the DC community here has really fallen in love with Everything and Locate32.  I'm one of them...and I think we know what we're talking about here.   

Anyway, I've been around and around on the desktop search issues over the years.  And you guys know how unreasonably picky I am.

Windows Desktop Search:
I used this at work for a while because we use Outlook and it keeps nagging you for installing it if you don't turn it off.  Anyway, it's decent, but nothing spectacular.  Not the most flexible application in the world.  I never had a real problem with it other than I was just not all that impressed.

Google Desktop:
I've only used this a couple of times.  Again, not terribly impressed by it.  I also don't like personally using too many google software unless they are really great (gmail, sketchup, earth) because google is too big for my comfort.  I don't necessarily think google is a bad guy, I actually have no reason to think that yet, but their size just makes me want to avoid them if I can help it.  Anyway, I've never really given GDS a fair shot, but from what I saw...meh.

DTsearch:
Awesome!!  Love it.  Expensive.  It's a little too intense for casual use.  But if you want features, power, or just to get it to work exactly the way you want it to, this is the one.

Archivarius:
This is the best bang for the buck.  For most users I would recommend this one.  It's fantastic, it's lightweight, it can probably read more file types than anything out there.  It's relatively cheap, but not free like the others.  Still, they deserve a little money for how nice it is.  I rely on this one for my personal business.  The only obvious downside to it is that it shows all document contents, including emails, in plain text, so the previews can be a little frustrating to read (like html emails).  But I got used to it pretty quickly.  What I really like about it is how fast and responsive it is.  WDS and GDS are very sluggish compared to it.  The Archivarius guys are good guys, I would say our community here would welcome them with wide open arms.


Ian, I didn't realize GDS was killed.  That's very interesting.  It's interesting that the company that is THE search company discontinued its personal search tool.  Not a good feeling for me.  If anybody can make a dynamite personal search tool, it's Google.  They have all the right algorithms and resources.  So killing off that product is a little suspicious.  They probably just don't want anything to do with desktop tools if they can help it.  They want to go all cloud.  I hope they never get rid of their pop3 email feature, or google earth, or sketchup as desktop tools.