Recent Posts

2151

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Deozaan on August 04, 2016, 03:16 AM »

Linux Users Reporting Windows 10 Anniversary Update Hoses Their Dual Boot Partitions

-Arizona Hot (August 03, 2016, 04:14 PM)

FWIW, I got the Anniversary Update on my netbook, which also has Linux Mint and Remix OS installed. The update didn't break my dual-dual boot setup.

2152

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 - The gloves come off!

« Last post by Deozaan on July 30, 2016, 08:29 PM »

The “free upgrade” to Windows 10 has ended.  It is now time for Microsoft to reel in their nets and start processing the catch.

Step 1: Substitute Cortana for local search and prevent users from disabling it.
Step 2: Prevent users from disabling ads and forced installs.

-xtabber (July 30, 2016, 07:28 AM)

If this is truly the case, and similar things to come, with no way to work around it or without them backing off after pushback, I may finally go for Linux as my main OS.

Linux/cross-platform support has come a long way in the past few years. Almost all of my reasons for staying on Windows are now available/possible on Linux without much hassle.

2153

Living Room / Re: Dino Run - cool online retro style multiplayer game

« Last post by Deozaan on July 27, 2016, 04:35 PM »

You can get Dino Run DX in a pay-what-you-want ($2+) kind of deal right now for the next ~4 days on IndieGameStand:

https://indiegamestand.com/deal/

2154

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 26, 2016, 03:34 PM »

I still would fail the critters level (13 is a lot when just catching 3 or 4 cubes at a time), I guess, as I'm not ver good at any game (I usually lose interest afer a few seconds) but just by keep playing sometimes helps me pass a level 

-Ath (July 24, 2016, 04:22 AM)

You may want to consider activating some time/moves boosters to help you out. They'll give you more time or moves when you get a combo. They're essential for completing the later stages of the game. Also, try going for different patterns. For example, try making a connection in the shape of a plus sign. That's 5 cubes right there. Or if you do a big one, that's 9!

Due to feedback like this, we're trying to figure out a way we could show tips now and then. Right now we're leaning to showing them on the loading screen, since we're aware that that lasts a bit longer than most people would prefer.

Oh, and the speed on the Nexus stays fast enough now, even after playing a bit longer.

-Ath (July 24, 2016, 04:22 AM)

Glad to hear it!

2155

General Software Discussion / Re: Trouble upgrading Acer Aspire One netbook from Win7 Starter to Win10 Home

« Last post by Deozaan on July 25, 2016, 05:10 PM »

Now do it again, but on a VM so you can truly be free to experiment with it.

2156

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Deozaan on July 25, 2016, 05:09 PM »

What we need is a new language, inspired by C++ and taking the lessons learned from these new C++ versions, but free from the historical burdens.

-mouser (July 25, 2016, 02:59 PM)

Isn't this what Go was designed for?

2157

Living Room / Re: Email Naming Convention for Personal Website

« Last post by Deozaan on July 23, 2016, 02:43 PM »

My domain is first letter of my name followed by my full surname and then .com.

-Attronarch (July 23, 2016, 10:32 AM)

Use your first name, backwards, minus the first letter. So if your name were Steven Thompson, your address would be [email protected]

Or if your first name happens to begin and end with the same letter, such as Kirk, then just do, (e.g.,) [email protected]

2158

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 23, 2016, 05:01 AM »

Thanks for the experience, and thanks for having me around.

-Ath (July 23, 2016, 04:21 AM)

Thanks for giving it a test drive.

If you don't mind giving a little more feedback, I'd like to hear what part(s) you consider too small to play? I used to test the game on my Galaxy Nexus^w (from 2011) which has a 4.65" screen, and I thought things looked fine. But we have made some changes to the UI since I last tested on that device. And these days it's so old and slow it can barely run the OS, so I don't even really use it anymore.

2159

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« Last post by Deozaan on July 23, 2016, 12:00 AM »

The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn

-MilesAhead (July 22, 2016, 12:41 PM)

Was that meant for this thread?

2160

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 22, 2016, 06:33 PM »

I don't know if it would be better or worse if they worked like real dice, just pointing out that they do not .

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 06:36 AM)

You're right, and I almost mentioned this in my previous reply:

They are like dice in every respect except that we rotate the image so it's always up-side up. As Durgan said, this was intentional. We thought it would look weird if the images were rotated all directions. It also seemed like a pretty complex thing to ask of players to learn/memorize all the orientations of a cube.

That said, I've been wondering to myself over the past couple of months if perhaps we're giving people too little credit for their (conscious or subconscious) spatial awareness to help them out. But I haven't brought it up because no one else has mentioned it until now.

I think it's at least worth a discussion.

2161

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 22, 2016, 04:24 AM »

After playing this game for a while I have one thing that bugs me a little -- the faces on each cube are arranged randomly.

I feel that if the faces had fixed positions like on a dice, then it would take a certain amount of mental skill to decide what way to rotate them in order to get the color you need in the quickest possible way.

-Jibz (July 22, 2016, 02:28 AM)

Pay a bit closer attention to the colors as you rotate the cubes. They are arranged like dice. In fact, we even have a stage that is themed with dice images.

The game also hints to the fact that the cubes are like dice. For example: red and blue are always on opposite sides from each other. You can see this because the red face has a blue background and vice versa. And the red and blue meters are next to each other on the side of the screen. So if you get red, but you wanted blue, just rotate it twice in any direction (but both times in the same direction) and you'll get blue.

We used to explain this in the tutorial, but we got complaints that the tutorial was too long, so we trimmed it down to pretty much the bare essentials so people could finish it in less than a minute if they were rushing through it.

or just point a camera at screen.

-mouser (July 21, 2016, 06:31 PM)

I feel like that would look terrible.

2162

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 06:03 PM »

i'd love to see some video of the game.

-mouser (July 21, 2016, 05:54 PM)

Me too.

It's a little difficult because it's a mobile game. We're still working out the details of how to either record straight from the mobile device, or to record in the Unity editor on a desktop machine and make it look like it was recorded on a mobile device.

2163

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 05:33 PM »

I've just submitted Beta 6 to Google Play. More details can be found here:

Cubiq Beta 6

0.1607.6 - 21 July 2016

• Added a back button to the Stage Complete screen. (Thanks Jibz)
• Fixed two wizards spawning on Arcane Arts theme. (Thanks Katelyn)
• Reduced chance for duplicate entries in leaderboards.
• Repositioned the feedback button for improved aesthetics.
• Fixed typo.

2164

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 02:23 PM »

Mario Kart Go.

2165

General Software Discussion / Re: Picasa to be 'phased out'

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 02:18 PM »

The file is apparently still available from there: Picasa  3.9 B 141.259

-IainB (July 21, 2016, 06:33 AM)

Thanks. That was a lot easier to get than the one I ended up with. And they have the same MD5 checksum, so it's the same file!

2166

Official Announcements / Re: Forum Upgraded August 30, 2015 - Report issues here

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 02:20 AM »

I'm not sure if this is an intended feature or not, but I just logged out of my forum account on a VM and that action logged me out everywhere. My desktop, my tablet, my phone. Everywhere.

2167

General Software Discussion / Re: Picasa to be 'phased out'

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 02:08 AM »

I managed to come across 3.9.141 (Build 259) which as far as I can tell is the latest version.

Jotti says it's clean: https://virusscan.jo...lescanjob/l7w48jpqb8

DC won't let me attach a file that large (13MB) so I used 7-Zip to make a split archive in 7MB (max) chunks. One fits in this post, the other will be posted just after this.

-Deozaan (July 21, 2016, 02:07 AM)

Here's part 2 and the rest of the instructions to get these files to work.

The forum wouldn't let me upload them with their original extensions (.001 and .002) so to get the files to work, you have to remove the ".7z" at the end of their filenames in order to extract them properly.

2168

General Software Discussion / Re: Picasa to be 'phased out'

« Last post by Deozaan on July 21, 2016, 02:07 AM »

I managed to come across 3.9.141 (Build 259) which as far as I can tell is the latest version.

Jotti says it's clean: https://virusscan.jo...lescanjob/l7w48jpqb8

DC won't let me attach a file that large (13MB) so I used 7-Zip to make a split archive in 7MB (max) chunks. One fits in this post, the other will be posted just after this.

2169

General Software Discussion / Re: Picasa to be 'phased out'

« Last post by Deozaan on July 20, 2016, 02:26 PM »

Does anyone have the installer for the Picasa desktop client? I already have it installed, but forgot to grab/archive a copy of the installer for future use.

I've searched the download sites but their download buttons just link to the Picasa website, which doesn't offer the download. I also tried archive.org but I guess Google used robots.txt to prevent it from archiving the download.

Google really wants Picasa dead.

2170

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome, your friendly spyware browser

« Last post by Deozaan on July 19, 2016, 03:12 PM »

I always thought Google made Chromium, too, but it was a version with less branding or proprietary parts so Linux users could use it.

-Deozaan (July 19, 2016, 01:29 PM)

I just looked more into Chromium. The blog is the Chrome blog. Any link from the Chromium website to a stable version of the browser just takes me to a download for Chrome. The link to the development version of Chromium takes me to development versions of Chrome. As I suspected, they are essentially the same browser, made by the same people. I'm not sure why Chromium is "for Linux" and Chrome is for Windows/MacOS but as far as I can tell, there is no Chromium browser for Windows, other than possibly unstable builds.

2171

Living Room / Re: recommendations for a free web host

« Last post by Deozaan on July 19, 2016, 02:55 PM »

I've used http://weebly.com/ in the past. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for a professional looking site, but it can handle a few static pages and a simple site.

2172

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome, your friendly spyware browser

« Last post by Deozaan on July 19, 2016, 01:29 PM »

Just as a matter of interest, isn't Chrome based on Chromium?

Would it not be better, (as in less tracking, etc), to use Chromium?

-4wd (July 19, 2016, 06:52 AM)

Yes Chrome is based on Chromium. Just because it's open source, doesn't mean it doesn't have tracking. Doesn't Firefox have tracking?

But maybe I misunderstood what Chromium is all about. I always thought Google made Chromium, too, but it was a version with less branding or proprietary parts so Linux users could use it. But now that I'm typing that "out loud" it doesn't seem to make sense. Time to look deeper into Chromium!

3. In my experience, Google products are some of the best, most convenient to use.

-Deozaan (July 19, 2016, 04:39 AM)

Google tends to dump products which don't make them enough money though. Remember Google Reader, the only Google product I've ever used despite of the already existing alternatives?

-Tuxman (July 19, 2016, 07:02 AM)

Yes. And since the loss of Google Reader, I just stopped using RSS feeds altogether, having never found anything as convenient. Which isn't to say that I looked very hard, or for very long. But I tried out a few alternatives and nothing suited me. I intended to wait a little while until a good alternative was made or discovered, but eventually I kind of forgot about it and never bothered looking into it again.

2173

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome, your friendly spyware browser

« Last post by Deozaan on July 19, 2016, 04:39 AM »

1. That picture is cropped in such a way as to make it look like you either have no choice in the matter or that it's opt-out. It's actually opt-in, as shown here: https://twitter.com/...s/755178336691884032

2. In my experience, targeted advertising is so bad--as in wrong and not at all aligned with my interests--that it almost might as well not be targeted. It just sucks. I'm with this guy: https://twitter.com/...s/754831240637902848

3. In my experience, Google products are some of the best, most convenient to use. If their products weren't so great I'd have a harder time dumping them because of crap like this (spyware). I'd really like to use products with comparable features, but without the tracking/spyware.

2174

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 15, 2016, 04:54 PM »

I've just submitted Beta 5 to Google Play. More details can be found here:

Cubiq Beta 5

0.1607.5 - 15 July 2016

• Fixed crashing during startup on some devices.
• Fixed "limit reached" bug which prevented watching ads to earn cubos.
• Fixed screen flashing when main menu appears.
• Nature Walk theme's leopard no longer gets stuck running in place after theme transition.

2175

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Cubiq - Beta Testers Wanted

« Last post by Deozaan on July 15, 2016, 02:54 AM »

Disabling dynamic backgrounds helped the heat issue here .

-Jibz (July 15, 2016, 02:43 AM)

Glad to hear it!


I just noticed the two of you have the same quote in your signatures:

Jibz: "A problem, properly stated, is a problem on it's way to being solved" -Buckminster Fuller
Ath: "A problem well stated is a problem half-solved." (Charles Kettering)