Recent Posts

3026

Living Room / Re: Should Illegal Downloaders Be Cut Off From the Internet?

« Last post by app103 on December 02, 2009, 09:09 PM »

If one single member of a household were to be suspected of a crime (any crime) would it be reasonable, fair, or even legal to throw the entire family in prison, without a trial, regardless of suspected involvement, and include without exception, anyone of any age?

Of course not!

So why should it be considered reasonable, fair, or legal to without a trial, deprive every member of a household, regardless of possible involvement, regardless of age, internet access on the basis of one member being suspected of illegal file sharing?

Why does it make sense to some people that if a 16 year old in the privacy of his bedroom, where his actions are not always known to his parents, does something that may or may not be illegal file sharing, is suspected by the ISP or some other entity to be illegal file sharing, that the entire family is punished?

Is it reasonable or fair to deprive mom of access to her blog, dad access to his online business, and little sister access to information to complete homework assignments, all on the basis of suspicion, without proving in a court of law that anything illegal actually happened?

3027

Living Room / Re: do you know good photo collection hosting site

« Last post by app103 on December 02, 2009, 02:31 PM »

There is also Webshots, Snapfish, Fotki, and Photo.net.

And don't forget about Dropbox. It does have a built in gallery for photos that is as easy to use as copying your pics to a certain folder on your hard drive. (use my referral link to get extra space for free)

3028

General Software Discussion / Re: The DonationCoder "Superior Antivirus" Award/Certification

« Last post by app103 on December 02, 2009, 09:19 AM »

While false positives are frustrating to those that are having their work flagged, it can be more frustrating to the user when the messages they get from their antivirus leave them confused as to whether or not they should delete it or keep it. Anything that confuses the user more will raise the potential of a real threat slipping through, due to user ignorance.

Anything that could make a real threat seem not so threatening, potentially will lead to the user making the wrong choice.

So, while I understand and share your frustration, it has to be balanced with the need for the security product to effectively do it's job on both the computers of the more savvy power user, as well as the complete newbie, and everyone in between.

The more text, info, and options you give the user at the time of detection, the more they will be confused, the more will go wrong, and the more infected people there will be.

Any alert from an antivirus no matter how simple is likely to put the user in a state of panic, in which they potentially will not think clearly. Yes, this info may help them but more likely the panic will make them unable to mentally process that info at the time it is given.

Now I am not saying this info should not be available to the user. It would be great if it was, but not at the time of detection or bothering the average user. If it were included in an "advanced mode" then I could agree with it and would even welcome it.

3029

Living Room / Re: 74% of the world, Google's Chrome OS is not for you

« Last post by app103 on December 01, 2009, 02:30 PM »

I wonder how many of the 5 billion without Internet access have no access to a computer, in which case an OS - free or not and  needing connectivity or not - is of little interest?

-mwb1100 (December 01, 2009, 02:03 PM)

Just because one doesn't have something doesn't mean they are not interested in having it. There are plenty of hungry people in this world that don't have food (or jobs) that would be sure interested in having some.

And a computer might just help them have the means of supporting themselves.

So let's put some computers in their hands, first...then get them connected.

Sounds better than a cheap computer they could really use but is useless because Chrome OS is on it and they have no internet.

3030

Living Room / 74% of the world, Google's Chrome OS is not for you

« Last post by app103 on December 01, 2009, 11:21 AM »

Google made a huge splash when it announced its plans for the Chrome operating system, a web-centric OS where essentially everything is run through a web browser. One great promise of Google’s Chrome OS is the arrival of low-cost, lightweight hardware, since most of the storage and other data handling is done in the cloud. Perhaps that 100-dollar computer will finally become a reality.

But there is a problem. A rather big one. The strength of the Chrome OS, that it makes maximum use of online resources, also limits its potential adoption. To have any real use of the OS you need a decent Internet connection, and that has some significant implications we need to look at.

5 billion without Internet access

Before we even discuss broadband, let us first get one piece of statistic out in the open: 74% of the world population doesn’t have Internet access. At all.

In other words, 5 billion of the world’s 6.8 billion people will have little use for Google’s Chrome OS because they don’t have Internet access.

http://royal.pingdom...e-os-is-not-for-you/

3031

Developer's Corner / Anyone really good with ActionScript3 and looking for work?

« Last post by app103 on November 30, 2009, 10:46 PM »

Someone I know is looking for a well versed ActionScript 3 Programmer for a very large project.

I have no other details about the project. If you want to know, you have to talk to him directly.

If you are interested, send me a PM and I'll put you in touch with him.

3032

Living Room / Re: New scamsites!

« Last post by app103 on November 30, 2009, 12:52 PM »

I think services mentioned below can be used to take these sites down.

# Phishtank (another opendns sister project)
# Web of Trust (Firefox plugin available)

-mahesh2k (January 31, 2009, 05:43 AM)

WOT would not have protected anyone from most of these scam sites until today. More than half of them didn't have any bad reputation marks. (I just changed that, though   )

By the way, WOT is also available for IE, so if you know anyone that would be dumb enough to get themselves in trouble, install it on their PC, for both IE and Firefox (if they have that, too)

Scannie, if you discover any more of them, be sure to let me know. I got buckets of red paint ready for their reputation pages on WOT. If you get a big enough list together I can post it on the WOT forum and get a lot more people behind flagging them, too.

3033

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you make these text-symbols appear on Windows XP?

« Last post by app103 on November 30, 2009, 11:13 AM »

You probably do not have the language support installed.

I would follow the instructions here and see if it helps:

http://www.microsoft...user/xpintlsupp.mspx

Usually that clears up the problem for most pages, although there will still be some issues with some text. (and there is some Apple specific stuff you are never going to be able to see unless you view it on a Mac)

3034

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread

« Last post by app103 on November 29, 2009, 02:17 PM »

Thank you to Paul and April. I'll check out these solutions. April, I replied to your suggestion at FriendFeed. I am not geek enough to figure out how to create additional profiles. I'm hoping you might lend me a hand?

Programmers don't realize how much easier they have it - normal PC users are not adept and command lines or knowing where what is on the hard drive. Oh I wish I had more geek in me so I could do what I need.

-GrowMap (November 29, 2009, 02:14 PM)

I'd be happy to help you if you were using Windows, but as a linux newbie, I am not qualified. You probably know a lot more about how to do things in Ubuntu than I do.

3035

General Software Discussion / Re: Top Greasemonkey userscripts that you use

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 01:21 PM »

Not really a GreaseMonkey script per se but almost as good:

GreaseFire

When you visit a web page that has compatible user scripts on Userscripts.org, this extension will highlight the Greasemonkey icon in the status bar. Right click the Greasemonkey icon and choose the "X scripts available" item to see and install the scripts available for the current page.

(see attachment in previous post)
I've picked up some interesting site specific scripts using it.

NOTE: You'll probably need to override compatibility to install in FireFox 3.5+ but it still works.

-4wd (November 24, 2009, 12:32 AM)

This would be great if there was a way to mark scripts it has found as "not interested" and them not to be shown again when you visit that site in the future. That way you would know about new scripts and not have to check each time you visit and sift through what could be a huge list on some sites.

For example, it shows me stuff when on DC that wouldn't be very useful because of the content of this forum isn't what would be intended for the script. (there is one specific to a certain type of movie forums running on smf) I don't want to see that every time I visit DC, but if there was anything new, I'd love to see that instead.

3036

Living Room / Re: Murdoch and Microsoft: When no one wants to buy your content, take it offline!

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 01:02 PM »

But who is going to care that Bing has the listings if they all lead to "you have to pay" pages? They will just consider all Murdoch's sites to be equal to search engine spam.

This isn't going to help Bing at all. In the long run I can only see it hurting.

3037

Living Room / Re: Murdoch and Microsoft: When no one wants to buy your content, take it offline!

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 09:15 AM »

Can anyone setup a greasemonkey script to exclude all of Murdoch's sites from Google search results?  

-zridling (November 25, 2009, 11:35 PM)

Sounds like a coding snack. Make a list of all the sites and post the request. (I'd use it)

EDIT: I found this one but I am sure it doesn't block it all, and it's only for Google News: http://userscripts.o...g/scripts/show/61545

3038

Living Room / Re: I'll donate $20 to Donation Coder if DC member PMs me a valid Google Wave invite

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 08:04 AM »

I just got 16 invites. If anyone wants one, send me a PM with your email address.

3039

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 08:02 AM »

I just got 16 invites. If anyone wants one, send me a PM with your email address.

3040

Living Room / Re: All Wordy and Junk: A brand new multi-author blog

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 07:29 AM »

I don't know. I'll have to go prod them on friendfeed. 

3041

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Program Idea Suggestion Thread

« Last post by app103 on November 26, 2009, 07:24 AM »

I sent the info to GrowMap elewhere, but for the benefit of any here that might want to do the same thing, it is possible with using multiple profiles:

http://www.howtogeek...es-at-the-same-time/

3042

Living Room / Re: Apple Declares Smoking Near Apple Computers Voids Warranty

« Last post by app103 on November 25, 2009, 05:45 AM »

Yeah, just the other day I was stopped at a road block.  The officer told me it was determined I had published software with a known bug in the code.  Apparently Mothers Against Dumb Debugging has determined the general public has for too long been victimized by promiscuous programmers who publish new programs before the old ones they've already written are perfect.

I tried to explain that none of my software was designed for battlefield use or keeping planes in the air.  They through me in the slammer anyway. I had to post bond and sign a binding contract that any users of my free software could get double their money back if they found a bug.

-MilesAhead (November 24, 2009, 09:56 PM)

3043

General Software Discussion / Re: Evernote alternative that has an online interface?

« Last post by app103 on November 25, 2009, 05:39 AM »

If you are going to use dropbox to save a copy of your offline database, online, then go for Surfulater.

As far as browser support for anything not Firefox/IE, Surfulater can create entries from clipboard content.

3044

Living Room / Re: Murdoch and Microsoft: When no one wants to buy your content, take it offline!

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 05:44 PM »

If you are curious as to whether or not you'll ever miss News Corp related content in Google, take a look at this: http://valleywag.gaw...no-big-loss/gallery/

3045

Living Room / Re: Apple Declares Smoking Near Apple Computers Voids Warranty

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 01:28 PM »

How much training is Apple going to give their employees about telling the difference between tobacco tar film and the grease film caused by keeping a computer in a kitchen?

3046

Living Room / Re: Murdoch and Microsoft: When no one wants to buy your content, take it offline!

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 01:12 PM »

What he's not telling you is that you can copy any WSJ.com headline, paste it into a Google search, and then read the entire story without paying a dime.

-zridling (November 24, 2009, 11:50 AM)

This is why he is pulling his content from Google. They can't adopt a 100% pay to read model and still be listed in Google. It goes against Google's rules.

Google has rules against showing one version of a page to their spiders and another to anyone that clicks through from search results. In order to get around that, Murdoch would have to remove his content from Google and go with an alternative, such as Bing, where Microsoft is dumb enough to pay Murdoch for the right to bend their own rules and do this.

There is no way Google would pay Murdoch for the "priviledge" to break Google's own rules, spidering their full content and then linking to "you have to pay" pages in search results.

The day Murdoch tries to force it on Google, even for free, is the day Google would slap them hard and drop them, no longer listing any content from their site.

And that is the full reality of this situation.

3047

General Software Discussion / Re: Evernote alternative that has an online interface?

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 10:32 AM »

Clipmarks comes to mind.

There are also some that save entire pages, rather than just clips. I can't recall the names of any though.

You can also do it from the Note in Google Reader bookmarklet, which gives you a blog-like page with an RSS feed for each category tag you assign to clippings. (you can control what tags are public and private)

3048

Living Room / Re: Apple Declares Smoking Near Apple Computers Voids Warranty

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 05:19 AM »

Why stop at smoking? Why not void the warranty if there is any evidence that you may have been drinking, too. We all know that alcohol and computing doesn't mix very well and people make more stupid mistakes when they are drunk than when they are sober...so why not?

If you get drunk and screw up your computer, they shouldn't have to fix it. </sarcasm>

3049

Living Room / Re: Murdoch and Microsoft: When no one wants to buy your content, take it offline!

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 05:07 AM »

Oh, good luck with that Murdoch. You'll be worse than experts-exchange when visitors get smacked with the "you have to pay to read this" notice. Most don't even want to register to read NYT articles for free.

Yet I don't see what Microsoft gains from the partnership. Murdoch's not in the business of sharing money.

-zridling (November 24, 2009, 01:37 AM)

Bragging rights, which they hope will lure more users away from Google to Bing.

3050

Living Room / Re: Why Do Companies Think Their Customers Are Idiots?

« Last post by app103 on November 24, 2009, 05:00 AM »

It clearly states you get a rebate check in 7-14 days. A rebate check is very different than a gift certificate. You cash a rebate check at your bank like any other check. It is as good as cash and you can spend it anywhere on anything.

If I were really upset about this, I'd probably go and file a complaint with whoever and whatever one files complaints for false advertising. I'd push the issue till I either got my cash or my traded in device back (plus expenses related to filing the complaint).

Who knows...maybe with enough complainers, it could be a class action.