Recent Posts

3076

General Software Discussion / Re: finding all the sites pinterest uses

« Last post by Deozaan on February 28, 2015, 04:45 PM »

If you're using OpenDNS, you can try to access Pinterest and then when it doesn't work, take a look at the recently blocked domains and it should give you some clue as to which CDNs or other domains Pinterest is attempting to use.

3077

General Software Discussion / Re: Why won't my laptop run Firefox?

« Last post by Deozaan on February 28, 2015, 04:25 PM »

One change was the introduction of SpiderMonkey 24 JavaScript engine! (Exclamation mark because I all along have said, without KNOWING, there were some "Java problems", and now it seems I may have been right.)

-Curt (February 28, 2015, 12:54 PM)

Not to be pedantic, but JavaScript and Java are two very different things. Calling JavaScript^w "Java^w" is like calling hamburger^w "ham^w"

3078

DC Gamer Club / Re: Far Cry 4 was amazing

« Last post by Deozaan on February 27, 2015, 06:32 PM »

NSFW:

3079

DC Gamer Club / Re: Dying Light

« Last post by Deozaan on February 27, 2015, 05:48 PM »

NSFW:

3080

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

« Last post by Deozaan on February 27, 2015, 05:19 PM »

three letters of recommendation from yourself.

-Arizona Hot (February 27, 2015, 01:36 PM)

I, I, and I.

3081

Living Room / Re: Pick a number between 1 and 10

« Last post by Deozaan on February 27, 2015, 05:04 PM »

Far be it from me to inject a real question into this thread, but here is a real question:
In our normal base 10, we have a protocol for SPEAKING large numbers, so 154 is "one hundred and fifty four".
Using the same logic, what would be the generic method for similarly SPEAKING large numbers in other bases?

-mouser (February 27, 2015, 12:46 PM)

IMO writing and speaking are two different things. Words don't mean anything, except the meaning we give them. Spoken words are sounds that represent ideas. Written words are symbols to represent ideas. Neither spoken nor written language has any inherent meaning. Otherwise we wouldn't have to learn how to speak/write other languages. "15" does not mean "fifteen" just as it doesn't mean "0x0F". However, from a mathematical point of view, when talking about the numbers these symbols/sounds represent, 15 is equal to fifteen is equal to 0x0F. Therefore they can be used interchangeably. Since (to the best of my knowledge) nearly all humans use base-10 when speaking numbers, it would be correct to pronounce 0x0F as the base-10 equivalent (15) in the language you are speaking.

It's all just a different way to say the same thing. We encounter the same issue in spoken languages as well. I might say "fifteen" but someone who doesn't speak English will have no idea what I'm talking about. Or even if someone does understand English, but the rest of the conversation is happening in French, someone would be understandable confused if I suddenly said "fifteen" using a different language.

In other words, use the language you will be understood in, as determined by context and requirements (obviously you should say/write 0x0F if you're talking about a computer data type that must be in hex) of the overall conversation.

Of course, part of the point of a riddle is to be tricky. And saying "ten" when you're talking about "10" in binary is intentionally misleading, not to mention technically incorrect. That's why it works better as a written riddle/pun. Because you're not giving yourself away that you really mean "two", e.g.,:

There are 10 kinds of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

3082

Screenshot Captor / SOLVED: Automatic border selection cutting into window

« Last post by Deozaan on February 25, 2015, 05:11 PM »

I was trying to capture a window using the fullscreen capture, relying on the automatic border selection so I could just press the crop button and have an image of just the window. But I was running into a problem where the automatic border selection was cutting into the edges of the window, erasing some of the image I wanted to keep when I pressed the crop button.



This was annoying because it meant I had to manually grab the borders of the selection in order for it to become a rectangle. But I looked in the SC settings and found a few solutions.

The first solution I found was in Window Capturing 1. I just enabled the box that said "Restrict this operation to a rectangular region" which worked fine for my purposes:



Even though the above solution worked just fine for me, in the end, I decided that at the moment I didn't need to be capturing any of the Aero Glass effects. So I unchecked that in Window Capturing 1 and also unchecked the option to "Try to detect (active) window transparent/rounded borders using dark backgrounds" (which was probably the root of the problem) in the Window Capturing 2 section.

Now capturing is working very well:



Just thought I'd post about it here in case anyone else has a similar problem and needs help with a solution.

3083

Living Room / Re: Multimeters are indispensable when working with any electrical apparatus.

« Last post by Deozaan on February 25, 2015, 02:59 PM »

I'd love to hear DC members' recommendations for a particular model/brand of multimeter, as I've been playing with the idea of purchasing one for myself, but don't really know what sort of features/quality to look for.

3084

Living Room / Re: Meshnets are happening (mini-Internets that connect to the Internet)

« Last post by Deozaan on February 24, 2015, 04:34 PM »

http://www.pittmesh.net/

-Deozaan (February 24, 2015, 01:32 AM)

That's what his metamesh link links to, right?  Or is that something different?

-wraith808 (February 24, 2015, 02:29 PM)

You're right.

I figured since the Buffalo mesh was linked to the buffalomesh.net, the Pittsburgh mesh ought to have a link to its official site, instead of the ... uh... whatever that was. As I said, I got lazy.

3085

Living Room / Re: Meshnets are happening (mini-Internets that connect to the Internet)

« Last post by Deozaan on February 24, 2015, 12:29 PM »

I figured I should post some other commentary along with my link . . . but then I got lazy.

3086

Living Room / Re: Meshnets are happening (mini-Internets that connect to the Internet)

« Last post by Deozaan on February 24, 2015, 01:32 AM »

http://www.pittmesh.net/

3087

General Software Discussion / Re: remote control of pc via android phone

« Last post by Deozaan on February 20, 2015, 03:55 PM »

can't I do it via that microsoft remote desktop? I like the idea not to have an installed app in my laptop and this microsoft program may work directly with Windows

-kalos (February 20, 2015, 02:41 PM)

Yes, you probably can. But I don't use the Microsoft app/program, so I can't tell you how to do it.

If it's asking for an IP, you probably need to use some sort of Dynamic DNS/IP updater which will allow you point a domain name at your computer at all times, no matter what the IP address is for your computer.

3088

General Software Discussion / Re: remote control of pc via android phone

« Last post by Deozaan on February 20, 2015, 02:24 PM »

If you use TeamViewer you'll need:

On your PC:
TeamViewer -- I got the All-in-One version

On your Android:
TeamViewer

Then just sign into your account on both devices and you should be able to access your laptop without needing to know any IP address or anything.



For Chrome Remote Desktop, you'll need:

On your PC:
Chrome
Chrome Remote Desktop

On your Android:
Chrome Remote Desktop

You'll need to configure the CRD extension on your PC and assign your PC a name and PIN. After that, you should be able to access it from your Android using the PIN without needing an IP or anything.

3089

Living Room / Re: The Untold Story of the Invention of the Game Cartridge

« Last post by Deozaan on February 20, 2015, 02:12 AM »

Ever heard of Apple? All their devices are self-enclosed "cartridges." iPhone 5S came out 6 months after iPhone 5? Take the iPhone 5 "cartridge" out of your pocket and replace it with th iPhone 5S "cartridge."

3090

General Software Discussion / Re: remote control of pc via android phone

« Last post by Deozaan on February 20, 2015, 02:07 AM »

This doesn't address the WOL aspect of your desires, but FWIW, I used to use TeamViewer to remote to my PC with pretty good results. But I've since moved on to Chrome Remote Desktop (by Google). It suits my needs a lot better, especially since I got a BT keyboard for my Android device for when I'm really trying to accomplish something remotely (as opposed to e.g., just copying a file into a shared folder so it will sync with my phone/tablet).

Of course, it requires you install Chrome and the Chrome Remote Desktop extension on your PC. I'd recommend it.

(And I still keep TeamViewer installed as a backup in the rare cases where CRD somehow fails to meet my needs.)

3091

Living Room / Re: Destroying your hard drive is the only way to stop this super-advanced malware

« Last post by Deozaan on February 18, 2015, 02:44 PM »

While it's simple for end users to re-flash their hard drives using executable files provided by manufacturers, it's just about impossible for an outsider to reverse engineer a hard drive, read the existing firmware, and create malicious versions.

-http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/

This may be due to my own ignorance on these matters, but I don't understand their claims about it being nearly impossible to be able to read the hard drive firmware and figure it out. People have hacked other "black boxes" by poking and prodding, reverse engineered them, and then written custom code to run on them. What makes hard drive firmwares so different from anything else?

3092

Living Room / Re: Three articles on what kind of high quality (gaming) monitor you should buy

« Last post by Deozaan on February 18, 2015, 12:05 PM »

IIRC older (CRT) monitors allowed higher refresh rates but I think for some reason they were more necessary there.

-tomos (February 18, 2015, 04:05 AM)

Because of the flickering! Remember how taking a video of a CRT would show the flickering due to the difference in recording framerate and CRT refresh rate? Modern LCD/LED panels don't have the same issue, AFAIK.

3093

Living Room / Re: Hackers can use RFID readers to steal payment card numbers

« Last post by Deozaan on February 17, 2015, 07:35 PM »

IE11 (Developer Tools):
 (see attachment in previous post)
It ain't very exciting, certainly nothing to soil your pants over.

Pale Moon (Web Developer->Inspector): (see attachment in previous post)
Comodo Dragon (Tools->Developer Tools): (see attachment in previous post)

-4wd (February 15, 2015, 03:35 AM)

There's a difference between View Source and Developer Tools.

If I view source in Chrome, it's blank. If I open the developer console (ctrl-shift-J) in Chrome, it shows me the standard HTML stuff.

3094

General Software Discussion / Re: The return of Clippy! Microsoft says more about their digital assistant Cortana

« Last post by Deozaan on February 14, 2015, 09:55 PM »

Good to know, and thanks as well!

That's still pretty shady/slimy of them.

3095

General Software Discussion / Re: The return of Clippy! Microsoft says more about their digital assistant Cortana

« Last post by Deozaan on February 13, 2015, 08:59 PM »

The crapware that gets bundled with things like Java is a completely different discussion, because that stuff does get detected and removed by anti-spyware.

-app103 (February 12, 2015, 07:13 PM)

It actually doesn't.  The ask toolbar isn't considered to be malware, at least by any of the scanners that I use.  At most, it's flagged as questionable.  The official Java installer installs the Ask toolbar.  And Oracle is just as large as the other players. And no one says anything about it.

-wraith808 (February 12, 2015, 07:37 PM)

Also, Oracle didn't make the Ask toolbar, while Apple did make iTunes and Siri, Google did make the Google toolbar and the Chrome browser, and Microsoft did make Cortana, and a ton of other crap that I can't recall at this moment.

While Oracle can be blamed for bundling questionable software and with the way they present it in their installer, they can't be blamed for what the Ask toolbar actually contains or does.

Should anti-malware prevent you from installing Java or deactivate/remove Java if it is found on your system? Or just the Ask toolbar, which is not Oracle's product? That is the difference.

-app103 (February 12, 2015, 07:55 PM)

I really don't think there's a difference.  They made a *deal* to bundle it.  Which means they make revenue from it.  Which makes them culpable in my opinion.  Sourcing the product is just semantics.

-wraith808 (February 12, 2015, 09:40 PM)

IMO it's worse that they didn't make it. By bundling it with their software and defaulting it to opt-out rather than opt-in, they're surreptitiously getting it installed on people's computers and implicitly endorsing the Ask toolbar and the shady tactics they use to get it installed on your system.

It isn't, "Hey, we made another product that we think is so great we're sure you'll like it."

Rather, it's, "Let's hope they don't notice we're installing something we have nothing to do with so we can profit off them while infecting them with mal/spyware."

3096

Living Room / Re: Hackers can use RFID readers to steal payment card numbers

« Last post by Deozaan on February 13, 2015, 06:35 PM »

This is news? Like, new news? I thought RFID chips broadcasting their data being a security risk was a known issue for years. Maybe longer than a decade.

If you take a hammer and smash your credit card in just the right spot, it will destroy the RFID chip. Or you could also nuke it in the microwave for a few seconds to destroy it.

1) Visit this URL: http://www.tombom.co.uk
2) View the source.
3) Crap your pants.

-Renegade (February 13, 2015, 07:55 AM)

I can't get to step 3 because step 2 just says boo!

Site down/link bad perhaps?

-Stoic Joker (February 13, 2015, 11:26 AM)

For me:
Step 1 says "Boo!"
Step 2 is blank/empty source.
Step 3 in progress.

3097

General Software Discussion / Re: OneNote is now free (for reals this time)

« Last post by Deozaan on February 13, 2015, 12:37 PM »

It seems Microsoft has removed all feature restrictions and now OneNote is completely free (as in price) instead of freemium:

Microsoft makes OneNote for Windows completely free by removing all feature restrictions

3098

General Software Discussion / Re: Smartphones et al. and their software, batteries and keyboards

« Last post by Deozaan on February 12, 2015, 02:03 AM »

This is probably only a "feature" in games.

-Deozaan (February 10, 2015, 05:02 PM)

Virtual consumables paid for with real money?  I don't think I'll be going there!    Thanks for clarifying.

-rjbull (February 11, 2015, 03:17 PM)

Yes. And there are people who pay thousands of dollars on a single "free" app/game with these IAPs. It's lucrative madness.

3099

Living Room / Re: Funky Character Art

« Last post by Deozaan on February 12, 2015, 01:59 AM »

I really like this one:

٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶

At different font sizes, the expression can seem to change:

٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶ ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶

But it may or may not display correctly, depending on the character encoding of your browser.

Here's another:

ᶘᵒᴥᵒᶅ

Here's a good place to find a few of them: Emoticon^w

3100

Living Room / Re: Polaroid Socialmatic 14MP Wi-Fi Digital Instant Print & Share Camera

« Last post by Deozaan on February 12, 2015, 01:50 AM »

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QFVLL6U/

Fixed that for you.

I read a few reviews. I didn't see anything noteworthy. What am I missing?