Recent Posts

2351

Living Room / Re: This belongs in Posting 101

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2014, 08:59 AM »

@C - I think it may be your machine. I just went over and everything works fine there for me.

Try closing and reopening your browser and try again.

Sometimes (very rarely) the forum gets confused about a posting, times out on the upload, and then won't let you post because it's still in limbo on the screen refresh. If that's the case, just copy what you wanted to post, go back to the forum home, then return to the topic, paste your comment back in and post it again.
Luck! .

2352

Non-Windows Software / Re: Steam: now has working beta of in-home streaming capability for games and apps

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2014, 07:56 AM »

This does raise an issue that's being discussed in the Linux game dev world: Will Steam's In-home Streaming finally remove any motivation to develop native games for Linux? If you can develop for Windows, with its vastly larger userbase, why spend money porting to Linux at all? Especially now that a nix user can be told: "Just stream it from a Windows box"?

It's an interesting question. And a very real concern since the economics favors not porting. Many nix users who are diehard game fans already (of necessity) keep some flavor of Windows in house purely for gaming purposes. They either have a separate game box, run Windows in a VM, use a copy of CodeWeaver's CrossOver, or can dual boot into it. So the serious (i.e. buying) gaming crowd is already there.

Yep...very interesting question.

2353

Living Room / Re: Programmers: What size monitors do you guys prefer?

« Last post by 40hz on February 05, 2014, 07:22 AM »

Anyone use a rotated monitor in portrait mode for coding?

-mouser (February 04, 2014, 03:04 PM)

I used a Radius Pivot monitor with a Mac IIsi for years until it finally gave up the ghost around 1999. I didn't use it for for coding. But I did use it for some serious animation and comic book scriptwriting projects. (Scriptwriting is very similar similar to coding when you think about it.)



I really liked it. I noticed I could focus better for some strange reason whenever I flipped it to portrait. But I also find enabling typewriter sounds helps me to concentrate. So take what I've said about the monitor for what it's worth considering it's coming from me.
 

2354

General Software Discussion / Re: How In-app Purchases Has Destroyed The Industry

« Last post by 40hz on February 04, 2014, 01:29 PM »

The new immersive gaming experience:

2355

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by 40hz on February 04, 2014, 01:10 PM »

Five reasons I'd rather run Windows 8 than Linux  ZDNet

That article is so chock-full of trollbait, it should have been sent trip-trapping over a bridge.  The author even says as much ("Prove me right.").  
Seems like it never fails that when the Windows vs. Linux rant fests begin, all manner of facts, lies, damn lies, generalities, opinions, assumptions, straw men, and ad hominems ALL get loaded in the troll-cannons at once and fired with complete impunity and disregard for public safety by both parties.  I was sick of it years ago, and I'm sick of it now.

-Edvard (February 04, 2014, 01:21 AM)

Amen. That anti-nix spiel has been played so often that I'm amazed it still gets played any more.  

But then again, look at Dave Gewirtz's bio page. Hardly surprising considering where (and by whom) his bread gets buttered.

Like the old saying goes "Cui bono?"  

2356

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by 40hz on February 04, 2014, 12:22 PM »

I just heard about SplashTop. I haven't used it myself, but from what I've heard, it's very fast (unlike TeamViewer, which takes forever sometimes to update the screen).

It might be worth looking into.

-Deozaan (February 03, 2014, 08:17 PM)

Thx for the heads-up Deo. I'll give it a try.

FWIW I never found TeamViewer to take forever to do anything. It's as light or lighter than any other RD tool I've ever used. But I guess it really all depends on the the quality and speed of the network connection so YMMV.
 

2357

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by 40hz on February 04, 2014, 12:17 PM »

The different tasks need different solutions. I try to one-way remote control of my students with TNM.

-ADNY78 (February 04, 2014, 10:08 AM)

@ADNY78 - Nice! I took a quick look and TNM seems like a very ca[able tool for remote monitoring and tech notification. I'm going to have to play with that a bit when I get a chance.

But I didn't see that it had a remote desktop feature which I feel is essential for providing remote support to a client. Did I miss it by any chance?
 

2358

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by 40hz on February 04, 2014, 05:00 AM »

I usually light up a cig and hit the start button,
(...)  
I launch my XP several times a day, so I do smoke a lot...

-Curt (February 02, 2008, 08:40 AM)

today the 4'th of February 2014 it is my 1 year anniversary for not smoking!

I just had to tell  

-Curt (February 04, 2014, 03:35 AM)

Congrats Curt! I was a two pack a day guy. I gave it up New Year's Eve December 31, 1996. I'm now 17+ years smoke-free and I've never regretted it. Truth is, I'm probably still alive today because I did.
 

2359

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 05:23 PM »

That small company A has no idea that in 2011 Sauron_Clone8 will buy them out to shut them down, just because some 3/4 executive manager decided that was an action item to do.

-TaoPhoenix (February 03, 2014, 04:14 PM)

I think the more common scenario is that no new product or service will survive unscathed in this era of megacorps and patent trolls asserting IP claims. So the "smart" startup strategy is to become a thorn in some behemoth's side fast enough that they decide to buy you out while you're still chump change to acquire. The fact our startup shareholders can easily retire on it speaks volumes as to what chump change is to different people depending on their size.

I've heard VCs say you should only plan to create in order to get bought out. Not build a company to last the ages like before.

Heck, even a big and well-heeled 'new' company isn't immune. Look how IBM mucked up Twitter's planned IPO by waiting until just the right moment to assert an utterly bogus patent claim when Twitter wouldn't cut them in.

2360

General Software Discussion / Fixing a "MVSCR80.dll missing" error following a recent iTunes (v11.1.4) update.

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 02:13 PM »

Ran into an annoying error last night with my GF's Win7 laptop following a failed update of iTunes v11.1.4. Once it happened, you could not reinstall iTunes, and a message similar to this one kept popping up:



A quick Google shows we weren't alone experiencing this problem.

As it turns out, this is fairly easy to fix. You have to manually remove  iTunes and its related helper apps, then reinstall a fresh copy running as Administrator. Full instructions are here.


Notes:

1) Some of the info on the web says you may need to do this in Safe Mode if you can't boot normally. We didn't run into that problem.

2) Pay attention to the uninstall sequence for Apple's components. They need to be removed in the order specified.

2) I couldn't get iTunes to download normally from the Apple website. To get around that, I went to www.ninite.com and had it generate an installer for iTunes. Running that as Administrator worked the charm.

 

2361

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 10:34 AM »

Yay lanux128!!!

2362

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

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 10:32 AM »

2363

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 10:03 AM »

so Crossloop joins Hamachi and Logmein in the pay-to-use realm..

-lanux128 (February 03, 2014, 08:02 AM)

It's not so much that as how it's now only available bundled in (AVG makes pains to say it's included free) with a bunch of AVG cloud services you probably won't want. If they merely wanted to make it 'pay-only' that wouldn't have been a problem. They could have moved the old subscription base over and continued without anyone minding -or- announced there wouldn't be any renewals and served out the subscription periods. Instead they've elected to be disruptive by immediately shutting down the service and only offering refunds to current subscribers.

Nope! This is pure carrot and stick. You want CrossLoop? Well it's not for sale. But...if you want to subscribe to a pile of AVG things you may not want (or are getting from other suppliers) you can magically get CrossLoop for "free."

It's the old 'bundle blackmail,' (aka dog-in-the-hayloft) marketing strategy at work here.

Like I said: jive move AVG...

(Can anybody tell I'm really pissed about this? )

2364

Living Room / Re: good Videos [short films] here :)

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 09:49 AM »

It's been mentioned previously in this thread. But I didn't get around to watching it until last night. It's called Changing Batteries, and it's easily the saddest little animation I've ever seen - even if many here will see the ending coming like I did.

Anybody who works as a caregiver, or is responsible for an elderly parent, will find this little tale especially poignant.

2365

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by 40hz on February 03, 2014, 05:50 AM »

I preferred Crossloop over TeamViewer because it lacked the capability to allow remote access without somebody physically at the local machine to grant it. Most of my clients are in the legal or financial services sector. So that was a major selling point. I know you don't need to setup unattended access in TeamViewer. But with this crowd, there's a big difference between "not able" and "not enabled" when it comes to that sort of feature. And I don't blame them.

Now I get to call everybody this week and tell them CrossLoop is no longer available and we'll be putting in for subscription refunds - and yeah, sorry I didn't give them more of a heads up.

Monday, monday...

2366

General Software Discussion / Re: CrossLoop – Simple Secure Screen Sharing

« Last post by 40hz on February 02, 2014, 08:59 PM »

Pretty jive move just pulling the plug on everything - including paid subscriptions- with zero warning - and no comment other than to say it's being done "pursuant to the terms of use." Most companies would give existing subscribers time to transition rather than abruptly kill a service and offer refunds. Like I said: jive move.

BTW - I checked out the AVG page, and discovered they don't post pricing anywhere. Generally not a good sign when that happens.

2367

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

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2014, 05:28 PM »

Here's an interesting bit of news. Not so much a music video although definitely music related.

From Reason comes this story:

(Note: if you can sit, without gagging, through the blatant hypocrisy, self-righteousness arrogance, and pompous tone of the government spokesperson's comments in this video, you're doing better than me.)

Gibson Commemorates Fed Raid with Government Series II Les Paul

Meredith Bragg & Anthony L. Fisher|Feb. 1, 2014 11:00 am

Two years after Gibson factories in Tennessee were raided by government agents, the venerable guitar manufacturer has released a special Government Series II Les Paul. As the press release explains:

    Great Gibson electric guitars have long been a means of fighting the establishment, so when the powers that be confiscated stocks of tonewoods from the Gibson factory in Nashville—only to return them once there was a resolution and the investigation ended—it was an event worth celebrating. Introducing the Government Series II Les Paul, a striking new guitar from Gibson USA for 2014 that suitably marks this infamous time in Gibson’s history.

    ...Each Government Series II Les Paul also includes a genuine piece of Gibson USA history in its solid rosewood fingerboard, which is made from wood returned to Gibson by the US government after the resolution.

Reason TV reported on the Gibson case back in 2012. Original text from February 23, 2012 video is below.

    "They...come in with weapons, they seized a half-million dollars worth of property, they shut our factory down, and they have not charged us with anything," says Gibson Guitars CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, referring to the August 2011 raid on his Nashville and Memphis factories by agents from the Departments of Homeland Security and Fish & Wildlife.

    The feds raided Gibson for using an inappropriate tariff code on wood from India, which is a violation of the anti-trafficking statute known as The Lacey Act. At issue is not whether the wood in question was endangered, but whether the wood was the correct level of thickness and finish before being exported from India. "India is wanting to ensure that raw wood is not exported without some labor content from India," says Juskiewicz.

    Andrea Johnson of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) counters that "it's not up to Gibson to decide which laws...they want to respect." She points out that Gibson had previously been raided under The Lacey Act for imports from Madagascar.

    This much is clear: The government has yet to file any charges or allow Gibson a day in court to makes its case, much less retrieve its materials. "This is not about responsible forestry and sustainable wood or illegal logging, this is about a bureaucratic law," argues Juszkiewicz, who testified last year before a congressional hearing convened by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). It is, he says, "a blank check for abuse."

And it was a raid by Homeland Security and the Dept. of Fish & Wildlife??? Over a pile of cut wood?  Unreal.

"Sleep tight tonite boys and girls." One more example of your tax dollars at work!  -\

2368

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

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2014, 05:21 PM »

@40hz:

-Shades (February 01, 2014, 04:33 PM)

No...it was more like an observation that most of the good female singers she knows tend to look somewhat...um...endowed?

Something to do with the lung capacity beneath... Why? Did you think she meant something else by it?  

2369

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

« Last post by 40hz on February 01, 2014, 03:07 PM »

Not quite sure what to make of this one. (FWIW my blues guitarist GF said "They might be on to something when it comes to singers.")

 

2370

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by 40hz on January 30, 2014, 01:05 PM »

I think he meant the Big-Brother section the video was from. *Shrug*


HOLY WTF!!!!!!!
Authorities Want Remote Access To Californians’ Home CCTV Footage ‘For The Greater Good’

I shouldn't be reading this stuff ... I'm going to end up with health issues.

-Stoic Joker (January 30, 2014, 12:44 PM)

The New Miranda

"You have the right to know you no longer have any rights. Any technology you install and pay for will be used against you in a court of law. Or anywhere else it can cause humiliation, pain and grief for you if somebody in government is having a particularly bad day...or just didn't like 'your attitude.'"
 

2371

Living Room / Re: Google sells Motorola to Lenovo for $3bn

« Last post by 40hz on January 30, 2014, 11:18 AM »

Boy is Lenovo ever on a roll! IBM just sold their entire x86-based server business to them for $2.3 billion.

Lenovo will take charge of IBM's System x, BladeCenter and Flex System blade servers and switches, x86-based Flex integrated systems, NeXtScale and iDataPlex servers and associated software, blade networking and maintenance operations.

Apparently IBM now sees it's future in datacenters and its Watson-based services and supercomputers.

2372

Living Room / Re: Hard Drive Brand Reliability Data

« Last post by 40hz on January 30, 2014, 08:18 AM »

I've hardly ever used drives other than Seagate and I've yet to encounter one that flaked out in the first few years of use.
OTOH, I've used a handful of WD drives and around half of them had problems a lot earlier than I was accustomed to.
Maybe it's a regional thing? More likely, just dumb luck.

-nosh (January 30, 2014, 02:28 AM)

I think it probably has as much to do with the manufacturing batch and model as it does with the brand for consumer drives. These low-cost/high-capacity drives aren't tested all that extensively. And the test sample size is kept smaller than for 'enterprise' drives in order to keep the production costs down. Far cheaper for a manufacturer to allow for a higher failure rate and simply replace drives under warranty, than it is to more thoroughly QC all the drives in a production run.

Consumer drives also have a greater likelihood of being 'accidentally' manhandled in retail shipment and storage. That may not be enough to cause a drive to fail right out of the box. But it can lead to premature failure. I've personally heard former Big Box and office store employees boast about slamming electronics around whenever The Boss wasn't looking. And there are plenty of YouTube videos of postal and other delivery drivers slam dunking boxes marked "fragile" on porches to not take that possibility into account either.

At the end of the day, I think a drive just lives as long as it does. (Much like us!) You can do some things to up the likelihood of a long productive life. But there are no guarantees. Only trends and probabilities.
 

2373

Living Room / AT&T/FCC - and the move to put all OUR eggs in one basket.

« Last post by 40hz on January 30, 2014, 07:53 AM »

At last! The perfect plan to make all telecommunications more easy to spy on - AND - remove any system redundancy or fallback in the event of a cyberattack or other disaster.

This from the If It Ain't Broke - Break It!" Department:

AT&T plan to shut off Public Switched Telephone Network moves ahead at FCC
FCC to greenlight IP phone trials, but won't completely deregulate AT&T.


On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to take its first major step toward letting AT&T and other carriers replace the country's traditional phone system with one that works entirely over Internet Protocol networks...

Here's a question:

In return for being allowed to move the entire US phone system (which "just works" under extremely adverse conditions and whose infrastructure is already paid for) over to a more high tech system (that is intrinsically more fragile and open to abuse and vandalism)...may we expect significant price reductions for AT&T customers considering Ma Bell will soon be saving large amounts of money by going over to a virtual system?

And especially since the savings realized on servicing FISA court orders alone should be huge once the transition is made?

 

Note: the plan is to end public wired service. You can be sure Uncle Sam and his ilk will be in no rush to completely abandon their wired systems.

2374

Non-Windows Software / Mint: Temper, temper Mr. Clement Lefebvre

« Last post by 40hz on January 29, 2014, 12:04 PM »

It seems the powers that be over at Linux Mint have yanked a very useful Mint-specific remastering tool from their repositories - and then went on to delete all references to it on their website. The tool in question is called mintconstructor.

Remastering is the process of taking a well-supported version of an OS and customizing it to your own specifications. Similar to 'slipstreaming' in the Windows world, Linux remastering is far more flexible and extensive.

The Wikipedia definition

Software remastering is the process of customizing a software or operating system distribution for personal or "off-label" usage. It is particularly associated with some Linux distributions, since most Linux distributions started as a remastered version of another distribution, notably Slackware from SLS Linux; Yellow Dog Linux, Mandriva, and TurboLinux from Red Hat Linux and Linux Mint from Ubuntu, which itself is a remaster of Debian. Microsoft Windows has also been modified and remastered, and various utility applications exist that combine Windows updates and device drivers with the original Windows CD/DVD installation media, a process known as slipstreaming. Many video games have also been modified (or modded) and upgraded, with additional content, levels, or game features. Notably Counter-Strike, has been created in this manner and went on to be marketed as a commercial product.

The term remastering is taken from the audio production process, and was popularized by Klaus Knopper, creator of the Knoppix live distro, which has traditionally encouraged its users to hack the distribution in this manner to suit their needs; appropriately, Knoppix itself is a remaster of Debian.

Many major Linux distros have a remastering tool. And so did Mint. Or at least did until this week...  

The official story is that mintconstructor was removed from Mint's repositories in response to some people doing new Linux distros based on Mint (i.e. StudioEdition and Dewdrop) that used Mint's trademark and branding without permission. Mint founder Clement Lefebvre had this to say when asked:

Monsta Says:
November 14th, 2013 at 6:06 am

And not a single word about why mintConstructor has been silently removed from the repositories and github (and its tutorial deleted from the community website).

Edit by Clem: Hi Monsta. I might write about it on Segfault after the stable release and if you catch me on IRC in the meantime I’ll be happy to explain what happened. To give you a quick answer: The reason we no longer distribute it is because it’s hurting our project much more than it’s helping a few people in our community remaster Mint for their personal needs. The reason it happened overnight was because, apparently, we released two editions we never worked on (Studio Edition and Dewdrop). Some people used our name, logos and identity to promote their own products, and in some cases to our own community. Branding issues and policies are sensitive topics on which we need a discussion. We’ve seen great remasters over the years and we know people also use the tool for personal use. That’s something we need to think about long term. What had to be done quickly though was to contact the so-called “Linux Mint” maintainers and to politely ask them to stop using our identity (hopefully they replied by now and I’ll read their email post Mint 16), and to discontinue the tool they were using which made it all possible for them to do so in the first place.

This is an example of what Clem allegedly got his knickers all in a twist about:



Zapping the tool from the repository with no warning might have been surprising enough. But then Clement went on to have the mintconstructor tutorial removed from the Mint community website as well. (Can you say: WTF?)

Clem's answer plus the scorched earth response that followed over at Mint seems to be more than a little extreme to me and smacks more of a snit than a measured response to an out-of-control problem. Ken Starks (Blog of Helios/Reglue) weighed in on all of this with an essay posted on FossForce that fairly looks at both sides of the equation. And he ends up shaking his head much like I did over what happened along with the reasons given for it.

(Read what Ken has to say here.)

Seriously people...when it comes to things Linux, sometimes we're our own worst enemies.

2375

Non-Windows Software / Re: Steam: now has working beta of in-home streaming capability for games and apps

« Last post by 40hz on January 29, 2014, 05:35 AM »

^They've tried to make the LAS more newbie friendly at the request of many of their viewers. The old LAS, with cofounder Brian Lunduke, was definitely "sink or swim" if you weren't already familiar with the topics or technologies being discussed.  Their newer IT-oriented TechSnap show is much more geek if you're looking for something catering more to the pro.