topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Thursday November 13, 2025, 12:01 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Recent Posts

Pages: prev1 ... 95 96 97 98 99 [100] 101 102 103 104 105 ... 175next
2476
Not exactly funny, but fun.
http://www.taghua.com/

Makes a kind of tree pattern and it matters where your mouse is.

2477
Hmm, I thought that I posted a link to CISPA passing the US House, but now I can't find it.
2478
Living Room / Re: An End To The Aggregation Debate?
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 17, 2013, 11:35 AM »
If I was careful, there's a massive copyright issue there.
2479
Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 17, 2013, 10:38 AM »
Yay for Non American accents. So which accent is it?   :)
2480
Living Room / Re: Recommend free image hosting site?
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 17, 2013, 08:34 AM »
What features do you need is the question.
Nothing much.  I'm having a problem with my eBay UK account, which has suddenly started sending "New items that match:" messages in an odd format.  eBay UK seem impossible to contact by normal means, only through their Web site, so you have to use the online messaging system.  Tech support wanted a screenshot, but there doesn't seem to be a way of attaching anything to the messages, which only have a limited text space anyway.  Hence needing an independent image hosting service.

I used TechSmith's freeware Jing, which hosts images online, but whined about updates, and I felt I wanted more freedom in what screenshot/annotation program to use.

Just again for discussion, how many images do you have? I'm close to hosting them myself.
2481
I hesitate to propose illegal responses to illegal spam, but I'm curious whether anyone has tried a DDoS attack on the reply links in spam messages?

I disapprove of this, because I look at the reply links as a hobby, and they look more like hacked add'ys than a big entity.
2482
 It looks like a pretty awesome website.  I'm sending out links to it in my "istuff" newsletter.....

(Faux Rabid Madman)
"Not good enough! Sign up yourself! Now!"
 :P

But yes, thank you! Yes, the retro design has come up a few times. But have at it! Post a couple of story comments!
2483
Living Room / Re: Recommend free image hosting site?
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 16, 2013, 07:59 PM »
Please can you recommend a free image hosting site?  I'm only looking for a repository for screenshots at present, rather than a photographer's gallery.

I'm aware that a few have been mentioned, especially with respect to SSC, but was wondering about pros and cons.

Thanks...

As much out of wanting to know how y'all do things, why precisely do you need an "image" site? Last I knew they often take pictures down after say 90 days of inactivity, etc. Why not just get free web space and smash up a linker page?
2484
@Tao - please try to convince them to redo their landing page! That is so 90s seeing nothing other than a piece of cover art with a hard to read "enter" link on it. I found it mildly annoying. And next gen doesn't have the patience for somebody trying to be playful.

Much as it bugs me to say it (since I too like to do things my way) unless you have compelling content on your landing page you're going to lose at least half of your first time visitors right then and there.

I'd also strongly suggest they update their entire site design to something a little more...um...contemporary looking? (As in easier and more inviting to read.)

Just my :two:

Totally fair comment, but it's difficult to answer. Off hand note that the entire graphic pic is clickable. But yes, to your main points:
Suppose for the moment we treat the second page in as the "landing page".
http://www.aphelion-...tions/editorial.html

That's sorta the top of the rest of the site, so that's as "compelling" as it gets.

And if you're talking about "contemporary", that IS the contemporary design! The first design was even creakier! But yes, we don't have a graphic-web designer on hand, so that design is going to stay there for a fair while. The best I/We can do is hope to retro-market it. On the Chicken-Egg gyro engine of Readers - Design - Readers - Design, we're at such a lull right now any increase in readers and forum commenters is a plus, and then if we surpass wildest dreams, that's a topic for some other *year*.  :o

P.S. The art is specially picked to be Copyright Encumbrance Free! Dunno yet how to spin THAT to our advantage, but there it is!

I have also speculated it might be in the running for the longest running SciFi webzine. As motivation permits, I'll dig into that.

2485
"Hurry Act Now!"
They do a Mid Month Flip, so in fact I'd like to encourage people to visit today, not from the cliche, but because then the stories vanish into the still-clunky Archives process we have.

Plus I turbo posted a grand slam over there and you can't just let me have the total last word THAT easily!   :P
2486
Okay, here we go!

I shall post a promotional piece for the Science Fiction - Fantasy - Horror - Poetry webzine Aphelion.

It's been around since 1997. However we gradually lost the "regular" posters through attrition and we haven't undertaken much marketing at all. This post is "semi-unauthorized". That means I'm doing it ad-hoc, with a wink and a nod to "what isn't forbidden becomes Do First and Ask Permission Later"!  8)

I am the (somewhat erratic!) Archives Editor over there. It was a fluid position that evolved out of my interests in poking around in information related to past issues and lately some basic manual site stats. There aren't many trackers - they might be using some basic stuff on the back end, but it's certainly not crushed with stuff, and Ghostery only shows Google Analytics, which from what I know of their culture is probably "just because it's likely best of breed" and not at all related to our more intense focus on the goings-on of Google.

This campaign:
Since darn near everyone on DC is smarter than me, you're one of two crews I would like to encourage to join and post a note about at least a couple of stories! They do have a focus on newer and developing writers, so go REAL EASY on the comments - if you see something that a writer could have improved, PLEASE work REAL HARD to soft-ball it! As part of a bit of backstory that we don't need to visit here, in this somewhat fragile year it's important to get a couple of really nice newcomers, because we/they don't have a Basement to put anything hotblooded.

I would love to see say 7-12 strong enthused newcomers sign up who hope to be around for at least a couple of months!

*Important Signup Note* They recently had a rather severe spam problem, so they put in an extremely aggressive anti-spam measure. Even if you are not a SciFi fan, I also would like to do a call to arms for the DC crew who is as tech savvy as they get, to do some kind of False-Negative test. That means to sign up and post at least one nice note, to test if by accident we're not losing real users. Bathwater, Babies.

Holler at me in this thread for any specific notes you folks may have.

The Lead intro page:
http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/ - typically a graphic that changes for each issue
They do a "Flip" where the current month issue is on a "hardlocked" set of links by story/item category such as Short Stories. So if you get busy, and want to go back next month, they'll be gone (temporarily!) and replaced by the new issue. There's a big topic in Archives, but that's another day.

The intro Editorial by the senior editor:
http://www.aphelion-...tions/editorial.html

Short Stories:
http://www.aphelion-...sections/shorts.html

Poetry:
http://www.aphelion-...sections/poetry.html

"Features:" - most usually an instructional article on writing but a few other things sometimes
http://www.aphelion-...ctions/features.html

I would appreciate it if interested people would drop a note here too, just to close the loop so I both know who is headed over there, but also for the data check of that signup-test.

On the first two posts over there (because any single one might vanish from visibility because I am turbo posting this week!) to mention that me, Tao sent you from Donation Coder. Plus it's an excuse to Cross Brand and all those other fun business terms! Go DC!  :Thmbsup:
Watch the horde of smart people show up and impress the hell out of them!

The current cover image is here:

http://www.aphelion-...mages/ap171cover.jpg

ap171cover.jpg

Cheers!


2487

I do a modest amount of version control myself on my little projects, but I use the filename to do it. I don't have any master system - it moves around from project to project.

I'll use regular save for each change to the "main trunk" just because the slight chance of a botch would destroy it without saving in a bunch of say 12 steps to create the starter file.

But then yes, I go heavily into "Save As" land. I use a mix of descriptive text and number-letter codes. So for a little project like modifying Steve Perry's song Oh Sherry I'd end up with a whole suite of drafts such as:

OhSherry
OhSherry Cut1 (such as removing dead time or maybe a radio announcer from a radio copy)
OhSherry Cut1 SpdDn25%
OhSherry Cut1 SpdDn25% Echo 4-4 (4 ms delay, 4 ms length of echo)
OhSherry Cut1 SpdDn25% Echo 4-4 PitchDn15%

2488
Developer's Corner / Re: Do you use a good office chair when programming?
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 15, 2013, 09:30 AM »
Hmm, I did okay with a couple from either Staples or W. B. Mason for about $150 each.
2489
Borland C++ Builder Contest / Re: Trandesk Multiple Desktops
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 15, 2013, 09:23 AM »
Wow, i'm pleased to know you use it.
I am not sure where the source code is as of now, but if you come up with it, i'd be happy to take a look.


Yay, Relipse has surfaced!

However, I have no idea how to come up with the source code because you made it for a challenge here ... so I don't know how anyone would get the source code. (I certainly don't know how to reverse engineer a binary!) From the silly humanities-guy questions dept, where would the source code have gone? Did you change computers since then and maybe didn't copy it over? I'd think a raw file dump of your machine would dig it up from some random place it might have been stuffed into.

2490
Interesting thread.
I don't create music, but I grok some of the system build themes here. A couple of thoughts:

1. The main use case I see about updating is watching for new features in new versions of your favorite programs.

2. Back before I got lazy and quit caring, I used to maintain "parallel" machines. So one was designed to be pounded on, that's where you fiddle and test stuff. Then you load over your best rig settings/progs onto the "main" machine.
2491
Living Room / Re: Worst Client Comments Turned Into Posters
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 14, 2013, 09:44 AM »
I do admit I'm in the "I'll know part of what I want when I see it" dept. It's sorta like you can't ask for what you don't know exists.
2492
Point 3 im not really following -- i think your saying that listing them on some public wall of shame might get them desired attention.  

This is the *Semi-Reverse* of what I am saying. I believe that they *don't care* if they get on a wall, because the wall would likely only capture some throwaway element. If they have a hyper-fast revolver-system, their throwaways are good for a week max, so who cares if they get on a wall. The trick they could bank on to counter your wall of shame idea is very few people could/would track down DEEP links such as "prada-handbags-now" is run on ip 26.352.18.287 (I made that up), which *also owns* "leather-handbags-you-know-you-want-them", which THEN links to "GBI" (Global Brands Inc, purposely nothing sounding name), which is then a shell for 12 sister companies, each of which uses a different payment processor ...

etc.

2493
I think your item #1 is almost certainly correct.

Your item #2 is not though. Of course they wont care if they "get on a wall" -- but if that wall was used by google to remove them (or even just decrease in web search), or have their emails marked as spam, it would devestate their business overnight.  that's my whole point -- this entire industry of behavior could be eliminated in short order if the folks who are ALREADY defacto choosing winners and losers and badguys and goodguys decided to take some action against these spammers.

Naw, you're just a nice Mouser who isn't thinking in the gutter enough.

Theory:
Those kinds of links themselves are just "redirects" and pointers and other things so they don't plan to be searched, they plan to be "live clicked" by the site userbase. I am postulating that these companies aren't run by idiots, they have been doing this for over five years (!!) so they have some kind of shuffle-aggregator-splitter plan going.
2494
^^ Yes, people seem to be waking up to this, albeit belatedly.
For example: CISPA Amendment Proves Everyone's Fears Were Justified While Failing To Assuage Them

  The government has a knack for the "small print" and how they word things that leaves the door wide open for the government spooks to do their thing, all while sharing with local law enforcement and tech companies that benefit from private information.  Most likely it's also another one of those "follow the money" bills.

  No matter how you look at it, it's Orwellian.

Some of that, and some of just blatant chutpah, steamrolling over the obvious "rights" so hard you don't even know where to pick up from total disbelief.

Edit:
Snark: "You remember those 'InAlienable Rights'? They're Alienable. All of them."  /Snark
2495
Even "Unit 61398 of the Chinese Army" is chilling! I can barely remember that number! It's like it's picked to have no mnemonic value ever!

P.S. Yay Luxembourg, the most "forgettable nice country ever" for getting into the news!
2496
There's something more complicated going on here. After a 12 second nod to "first world problems", let's poke at this.

1. I believe the posts are coming from second/third world countries. Last I looked into that kind of thing, 1000 spam posts might only cost $50. Could be less. So the money is "trivial".

2. What if the company doesn't care? The problem with a wall of shame is believing that the company cares. But if they have some kind of model that revolves around flash mob type sales, who cares if they get on some wall? Have y'all *looked* at the companies involved? They point to some domain like "Prada-Handbags-4-cheap-for-all.com" or whatever. Like any savvy consumer would buy there! Not!

3. Meta-Models
Then it gets even wilder. What if they don't actually plan to sell much of anything at all!? Let's suppose they have 10 of each item just to cover emergencies. Maybe someone would click the link and go look. What then if they were an *AD company*? Then the viewer looks, doesn't buy, but they get served an ad impression, so "They Win".

Those are just starter points. I know, it's old hat to say "It's ___ year", but it is. Basically like we all knew, the rise of the internet is the single most disruptive tech change for the past 40-50-60 years. Life REALLY did used to be simple in the 70's. I'll stop here just to get the thread moving.
2497
General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite Firefox Builds for Windows?
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 13, 2013, 03:31 PM »
Why not use a single mail account to manage all the addresses? I know Gmail and Hotmail (or whatever microsoft calls it this year) can do that. I bet Yahoo also provides that functionality.

You can use labels to clearly identify mails from various accounts.

Interesting, but it feels like it would become a mix of overwhelming and confusing. Lemme check my stats...

There's the "mailing list email" that gathers/parks "grey mail" that technically isn't spam, because I know I signed up for it, which has some 5,000+ emails by now. The "family" email has another couple of thousand. The "leading internet persona" email tied to my screen handle that you see has several thousand more, and then there's the new one for the job search and a little networking that is beginning to gather a lot of Monster auto-emails but also traps junk job offers. And within those email systems they already have sort folders with filters on them. Then there's a couple of light use recreational emails as well.

So the system has has worked pretty well for several years. I just need a couple new FF builds for convenience : )
2498
^I love TP's suggestion. Simple, neat, and effective.  :Thmbsup:

And now for some spiraling goodness! And no boobies!

http://dontclickthis...tingods.name/avp.gif
2499
General Software Discussion / Favorite Firefox Builds for Windows?
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 13, 2013, 03:16 PM »

Hallo gang.

This time I am approaching the browser question from a different angle. The opener.

I like Firefox.

The funny thing is, web services especially Yahoo Mail like to keep track of logins and so even if you close and re-open your browser instance, it/they tend to ask "weren't you logged in as X? Log in again (or click here to change user names).  Other things include if I have a bunch of browser windows open it's a pain to try to save the whole sessions etc.

My cute workaround is: use different FF builds! For example, PaleMoon. Instead of the usual "which is better", right now they look almost equal. But they count as separate apps, so I can have two sets of Yahoo mails, or I can close one and keep all the windows open on another, etc. It's also a nice visual cue to see the orange fox has one set of articles, the blue moon has another set.

But I need another couple. I have at least three and sometimes four different Yahoo mails to juggle, and it would be nice to have another couple of colors!  : )

So do you have favorite FF builds that do something neat?

2500
Living Room / Re: Newly coined term, "internet fury"? A sad article...
« Last post by TaoPhoenix on April 13, 2013, 03:02 PM »
And let me also point out that when there is an interesting thread with an interesting issue to discuss, it's a real shame when it gets derailed into a discussion of off-topic stuff.  It's fun sometimes but not every post has to be an excuse to post some random video or anecdote that takes us spiraling off topic.

I like to spiral as much as anyone, but what I have tried to do and suggest for others is to copy/quote the portion then "spiral it" in one of the three "Spiral threads" - either the humor NSFW one, or one of the basement political threads.
Pages: prev1 ... 95 96 97 98 99 [100] 101 102 103 104 105 ... 175next