Recent Posts

26

Living Room / Re: Looking for smartphone

« Last post by tomos on June 30, 2023, 06:27 AM »

^ two and a bit years later:

Considering the Pixel 6a which is very similar to my last, the Pixel 4a 5g.

The 6a just about still available new here for €340.

I suspect I could get something similar even cheaper. Would be willing to pay more for a better camera though.

# I'm not a gamer, so don't really care much about the processor being high end
# I like the older pixel camera/ software combo -- I wouldn't want a worse camera at any rate
# I like the OLED screen
# also like that it's stock android

I'm not in touch with what's on offer these days -- if anyone suggests any alternatives I'd be happy 😁

27

N.A.N.Y. 2024 / Re: NANY 2024 - Tools for New York City Detective Mystery Boardgame

« Last post by tomos on June 08, 2023, 12:45 AM »

The maps look nice. I'm working my way through that thread.

I have done a little work with maps -- little and in a very limited way. Either getting a vector map & adding info; or occasionally using a scanned map, adding info; even drawing maps from scratch (i.e. "tracing" to create vector image - very time-consuming). I would then 'finalise' the map, adding colour if planned, generally making sure it looks good.

Ironically I'm no expert on preparing for publication, as this work would go to someone else who would check it and basically add it to a book.

I'll continue reading that thread and if I think I can help I'll get back to you. Likewise, if you think I can help, let me know!

A couple of maps here if you scroll down:
https://picsbytom.net/

28

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

« Last post by tomos on May 18, 2023, 04:52 PM »

Its a 'game' where the point is to navigate a badly designed UI as quickly and accurately as possible

-Target (May 18, 2023, 04:41 PM)

I've felt like that very often over the years

29

PBOL / Re: Message trying to recover PBOL

« Last post by tomos on April 18, 2023, 09:34 AM »

Point made

What was the solution?

-tomos (April 17, 2023, 01:21 PM)

So, what was the solution

30

PBOL / Re: Message trying to recover PBOL

« Last post by tomos on April 17, 2023, 01:21 PM »

Problem solved by my own means in absence of support.
 

-Contro (April 16, 2023, 12:33 PM)

What was the solution?

31

General Software Discussion / Re: Lastpass hacked proper

« Last post by tomos on March 23, 2023, 04:58 AM »

I'm one of those people who are slow to change, in this case, slow to move on from something I know is flawed.
Was given a big push by my lastpass extension in Vivaldi -- it started staying logged in between sessions (I hibernate the laptop). Just now, I started laptop and was able to make a payment via paypal using lastpass -- the computer hadnt been used for two days; I think then lastpass realised it shouldnt be logged in so it logged me out.

Anyways, that gave me the push to move to Keepass, just used it for the first time, seems fine

32

Screenshot Captor / Re: Getting Prompted during Delete Back

« Last post by tomos on March 09, 2023, 11:56 AM »

I don't know but did you try the recycle bin?

33

PublicDomainVic / Re: FolderComments - Edit Windows Explorer folder "Comments” column text (v0.1.0)

« Last post by tomos on February 28, 2023, 07:15 AM »

This is nice

34

Living Room / Re: Duplicated coding snack, does it count? (Mouser & community feedback)

« Last post by tomos on February 28, 2023, 07:04 AM »

- Should a duplicate coding snack be welcome at the board?
- Is it eligible for a donation reward?

-publicdomain (February 27, 2023, 02:22 PM)

# yeah, it's often been the case here that there's been two, or more, solutions created for a coding request. I'd say that we the users find it great. So then it's your call if you want to go for it or not.

# Donations can be given to anyone on the site, anytime, so that question is moot.

Great to see you active here Victor

35

Screenshot Captor / Re: DPI Setting

« Last post by tomos on February 14, 2023, 03:45 PM »

Hi, sorry I didn't get back sooner -- was partly because cause I don't have a clear answer.

An image is first and foremost defined by the number of pixels (x by y). DPI is really something pretty vague which is more related to printing scale than to display scale. But of course a word document is defined by its size if printed. It is probable that MS has a default DPI paste setting (72 dpi is very low res / old-fashioned, and would look terrible if printed, but I don't think there's any standard these days). I don't use MS Office myself.

I'd just change the default DPI on SC to 144, and see if you have any problems.

36

Screenshot Captor / Re: DPI Setting

« Last post by tomos on February 13, 2023, 03:05 PM »

Hi,
where is the image being pasted?

37

Find And Run Robot / Re: Error after closing and when opening

« Last post by tomos on February 03, 2023, 03:47 PM »

mouser's apps use the DonationCoder folder in the Documents folder. Now it seems to be having trouble writing to that directory -- do you use the Documents folder?

I came across this article -- could it be related?
Windows 11 - documents folder is linked to onedrive instead of the pc storage. can't unlink it

38

Screenshot Captor / Re: Convert images to grayscale or blak and white

« Last post by tomos on February 02, 2023, 06:04 AM »

Thanks for reporting back 

39

Find And Run Robot / Re: Error after closing and when opening

« Last post by tomos on January 31, 2023, 07:22 AM »

If it's not the portable version it should work. Maybe see what mouser says.

40

Find And Run Robot / Re: Error after closing and when opening

« Last post by tomos on January 31, 2023, 05:16 AM »

Could it be the case that you (1) downloaded the portable version and (2) put it somewhere that is write-protected e.g. the Program folder?

41

Living Room / Apple Lisa, the first (modern) GUI

« Last post by tomos on January 26, 2023, 07:32 AM »

Interesting article on the 40 year old Apple Lisa (arstechnica), one of the first computers for the public with a GUI. It's impressive how similar it is to modern Apple OS's -- but also to Windows:



The Lisa was a very capable machine. It costed almost the equivalent of $30k in todays money though ($10k at the time). The first Mac that came out shortly later was a lot cheaper, but very limited in comparison:

The seven applications bundled with the Lisa were remarkably full-featured at the time. LisaWrite, the word processor, includes a dictionary and spell checker, and it supports multiple fonts. Everything can be copied and pasted between apps, which is even more amazing since copy/paste didn’t exist yet and had to be invented by Larry Tesler. I could draw a simple ... logo in LisaDraw and easily copy it into my LisaWrite document.

[..]

Hitting its cost target was a good thing for the Mac, which sold much better than the Lisa. But it turned the computer into a less functional machine. Multitasking was gone—the original Mac could only run one application at a time. Autosaving was also gone, as was virtual memory and memory protection and Lisa OS’s resilient file system. It took many years for these features to return, by which time the price of both memory and hard drives had plummeted. In an alternate universe, the Lisa’s price could have steadily decreased while its capabilities kept growing. For example, the Lisa team had plans to extend the single level of undo to an unlimited undo.

42

Living Room / Re: Tips for failing eyesight? PC use

« Last post by tomos on January 20, 2023, 06:11 AM »

Almost a year on -- M's eyesight has deteriorated, but has been fairly stable the last while.

Current problems and some possible or attempted solutions:


(1) Windows scaling

This is the biggest problem: he can no longer read menus, or see symbols clearly.
I would like to increase Windows font size above current setting of 175%, but then dialogues would cut-off at the bottom of the screen (currently just about able to see e.g. the [Print] button in the print dialogue). Due to the regular 16:9 monitor ratio, screen height is a big problem. Yesterday I was considering rotating the monitor to portrait but I didnt have time to mess around with it. Will try it on my computer next week. Portrait would allow me to increase the size of everything -- but how much can one increase the scaling? ==>

Looking on my laptop settings here:
I can increase text to 225%, but can only increase "apps and text" to 175% (see "make everything bigger" below)



Wondering, if we got a larger monitor with a higher resolution, is all this stuff is even smaller -- or does Windows allow for more magnification on e.g 4k monitors?

 
(2) Browser (Firefox). Mainly for email (gmail)

# Dark theme causes some elements on gmail page to disappear (e.g. tickboxes, symbols)
# using Ctrl and plus/minus keys to zoom contents of the page seems like a great idea, but the text within an email will go off-screen on the right-hand side -- this cut-off text can no longer be reached (unless you reduce zoom/magnification)


(3) Windows Magnifying glass

# using Winkey and plus/minus keys to zoom -- I've shown him how to do this a couple of times, but he struggles with this. The overview is lost, and it can be hard to understand where you are on the page. Struggles with navigation. Will see how/if this helps him.


(4) Windows (10) high contrast theme

This unsuccessful (see gmail/dark theme above). His text programme (Softmaker Office) shows black text on a black background.
Is currently using Windows dark theme, which usually has white background for web pages etc. This seem okay atm so I'm not going to mess with it.

43

General Software Discussion / Re: Split a video in n equal parts.

« Last post by tomos on December 26, 2022, 05:16 AM »

^ did you find this page:
https://github.com/m...ossless-cut#download

44

General Software Discussion / Lastpass hacked proper

« Last post by tomos on December 23, 2022, 03:51 PM »

I'm sure everyone's heard about this:
Lastpass was hacked this summer a lot worse than they originally thought, or admitted. From the Lastpass blog -- Notice of Recent Security Incident

Stolen was:

information from backup that contained basic customer account information and related metadata including company names, end-user names, billing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, and the IP addresses from which customers were accessing the LastPass service. 

The threat actor was also able to copy a backup of customer vault data from the encrypted storage container which is stored in a proprietary binary format that contains both unencrypted data, such as website URLs, as well as fully-encrypted sensitive fields such as website usernames and passwords, secure notes, and form-filled data.

Arstechnica article:
LastPass users: Your info and password vault data are now in hackers’ hands

Hacked passwords are still encrypted, but I guess it's time to change all important passwords and start looking at alternatives to central storing of passwords. I see in the 2015 dc thread Lastpass Hacked preople already saying to avoid this approach.

45

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request: Keyboard Shortcut for toggling the Quick Capture Bar

« Last post by tomos on December 22, 2022, 05:37 PM »

Not quite what you're looking for, but may be of interest:
There is an auto-hide setting. Use the mouse to get it to show. (I'm on my phone, but would always recommend looking though all settings to see what it possible.)

46

N.A.N.Y. 2023 / Re: What is NANY plus Mug Alternate Image

« Last post by tomos on December 13, 2022, 01:14 AM »

Hamradio made a new alternate image for the NANY mug given to participants:
[ Invalid Attachment ]

-mouser (December 12, 2022, 07:59 PM)

Very nice !!

47

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: GraphicsFamily - The #1 Free Graphic Resources Marketplace

« Last post by tomos on December 08, 2022, 02:14 AM »

Hi Adi, your site looks great, wish you all the best with it

48

General Software Discussion / Re: Frameless v1.1.8 build 1

« Last post by tomos on December 08, 2022, 01:31 AM »

Here's Skwires page:
https://www.dcmember...com/skwire/software/

(Maybe the clickthrough is just not documented?)

49

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to unify the shopping in my desktop

« Last post by tomos on December 04, 2022, 01:56 PM »

Sounds like you're planning a lot of shopping Contro.

For big decisions I generally make a spreadsheet to compare products (e.g. I have one for speakers atm).

Re price, (depending on the product) I generally look in amazon, ebay, and one or two shopping / comparison sites. That's it for me. Can't really see why anyone would want or need more. The way you describe it, sounds like you need a database program / info-manager (?)

50

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to unify the shopping in my desktop

« Last post by tomos on December 03, 2022, 05:25 PM »

Do you mean this:

Here in Germany, idealo.de is starting to setup something along these lines. You search for your product and they [are starting to] offer to process payments. Fwiw their listings, and those of e.g. geizahls.de overlap but are different.

As you say contro, this is no small job. I think if the software or website existed that would do this in Spain, you would know about it.