Recent Posts

3201

Living Room / Comcast Upselling - and wrong about the upsell!

« Last post by wraith808 on January 14, 2016, 12:13 PM »

I saw this bit on Ghacks via consumerist:

http://consumerist.c...l-me-on-a-new-modem/

BB knows that sometimes customers can indeed be left out in the cold by using old tech — just ask all those people who had to scramble for digital antennas and cable boxes when that changeover happened — so he called Comcast to ask exactly what he was missing out on with his old modem. He says the support rep would only tell him that he wasn’t enjoying the full benefits of the upgraded modem, but failed to provide any real technical info about what this meant.
“Now they’ve moved to more aggressive measures to try to get me to upgrade,” writes BB. “The other day as I was browsing the web on my phone, on my home WiFi, I got a pop-up notice while browsing on wired.com.” (see screenshot above)
In big red letters, the notice alerts BB that there is some “Action Needed” on his service.
It reads:
“Our records indicate that the cable modem, which you currently use for your XFINITY Internet service, may not be able to receive the full range of our speeds. To ensure you’re receiving the full benefits of your XFINITY Internet service, please replace your cable modem.”
“This feels like a step too far,” writes BB. “It just feels invasive in a way I’m not comfortable with.”
A Comcast exec we talked to argued that this is not an attempt to upsell the customer on a new modem, and instead characterized the alert as an educational tool to let the customer know that their device may be nearing the end of its life cycle. They explained that while an older modem may work, it may also no longer be receiving necessary, regular software updates and bug fixes.

I've been getting the same alerts.  The only difference between him and me is that my modem IS new, and it IS on their list of modems.  In fact, it's on the TOP of their list.

But still I get notifications.

3202

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 13, 2016, 06:04 PM »

Thanks!  Some good info there

3203

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 13, 2016, 03:00 PM »

I have another question.  Someone said before that the Nook tablet uses Lollipop.  The Nook on bn doesn't say what version of Android is included, but the S2 elsewhere says 5.0.

Anyone have any insight into that?

http://www.amazon.co...-Black/dp/B010OTFRYU

http://nook.barnesan...nch-tablet/379004444

http://www.engadget....axy-tab-s2-hands-on/

http://www.engadget....alaxy-tab-s2-review/

3204

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 12, 2016, 05:03 PM »

That's good advice!  Thanks!

3205

Living Room / Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 11:33 PM »

IMPORTANT: uBlock Origin is completely unrelated to the site "ublock.org".

What are people here using?

-Renegade (January 11, 2016, 10:16 PM)

There are two version from the cluster that happened with the original maintainer of ublock.  Ublock Origin is the one from Gorhil- the original maintainer.  And that statement about not being associate is true, because ublock (non-origin) is the one from the person that took it over.  I use uBlock non-origin.

3206

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 10:31 PM »

Ah... thanks!  I figured it out... it was swipe with the edge of your hand across the screen.

3207

Living Room / Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 10:09 PM »

If they'd go back to 'dumb ads' then I think that they wouldn't have this problem.  Images... and pay the artist/photographer.  Like magazine ads.  But... progress, right?

3208

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

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 10:07 PM »

I wasn't really in the news cycle yesterday, so I hadn't heard.  I could have done without knowing that I'm living in a world without David Bowie.

3209

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 06:42 PM »

Chuwi tablets turn up on OzBargain (search link) fairly regularly, you can peruse the comments there.

-4wd (January 11, 2016, 06:31 PM)

Thanks.  Another option bites the dust.

For anyone interested: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/228113

3210

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 06:18 PM »

Samsung Tab (Nook) is just a Tab 4 with some Barnes & Noble apps added.  It runs the Samsung Touchwiz UI over Android 4.4 (Kit Kat).  It's a low end tablet with a low res screen (1280 X 800), a slow processor and an older version of Android, which is what you'd expect for $139, which is what it sells for now at B&N.

-xtabber (January 11, 2016, 04:40 PM)

There are different galaxy tablets.  I was talking about the one that is the equivalent of the Tab E.

http://nook.barnesan...ook-tablet/379004465

As far as running something on top of KitKat, that's what I'm trying to discern.  Everything that they show in those UI pictures is a widget.  I've removed all of those, and my setup looks the same as a vanilla android device.  Now I'm not android saavy, so there might be something else I need to look at.  But the basic control panel stuff looks just like the images I've seen of others on my current tablet, which is the Tab 4.  I even look at the images of touchwiz on the stock tab devices, and that's not what my device looks like.  But given that I'm not an android user, perhaps I'm missing something that differentiates it.  As soon as I can figure out how to take a screenshot, I'll upload something

And that bit about the lack of expandability basically lets me know that I'd not want it.  Thanks!

On the subject of tablets, the Dell also looks like an intriguing choice.  I just want something to read on, and to experiment a bit more on.  But with that caveat, maybe it's better if I go with a different Android device.  Hmm... thanks for the food for thought!

3211

Living Room / Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 05:46 PM »

That's weird. I'm running AdGuard and uBlock Origin and NoScript and the article loads for me.

Try this:

https://archive.is/n0gIV

-Deozaan (January 11, 2016, 04:27 PM)

That worked. And it was a lot faster loading something, than the original site was at loading nothing.  Go figure.   

3212

Living Room / Re: Forbes forces users to disable ad blockers, promptly serves malware.

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 03:44 PM »

I can't see it with ublock and disconnect enabled.  And after your bit about forbes, I'm not disabling my adblockers to see the site.

3213

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 03:43 PM »

It runs vanilla Android and not Samsung's customized crap.

-Deozaan (January 11, 2016, 02:39 PM)

My samsung (Nook) doesn't seem to have anything customized.  It has a few widgets that you can choose to install, and apps... but the interface is the same as far as I know.  Do you know what this 'customized crap' entails?

3214

Living Room / Re: Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 03:35 PM »

Where did you hear about it? I've never heard of Chuwi and I see no customer reviews at that link.

-Deozaan (January 11, 2016, 02:39 PM)

http://www.amazon.co...ranty/dp/B015Z1O8Y2/

Try that one.

3215

Living Room / Looking at an android tablet

« Last post by wraith808 on January 11, 2016, 01:38 PM »

I have an Android Nook tablet currently, but haven't really looked at moving from iOS to Android seriously.  Still not sure that I'm looking to do so, but I am intrigued.

1. Has anyone heard anything about the Chuwi?

http://www.amazon.co...p/product/B019RDTS58

Everything I've seen has been complimentary.. which makes me suspicious.

2. My other choice I'm looking at is the Galaxy Tab E

http://www.amazon.co...Black/dp/B018QAYM7C/

I lose the Windows option, but maybe that's just a disaster waiting to happen.  And I can also get the Nook version.

3. The third choice I'm looking at is the Nexus 9

http://www.amazon.co...White/dp/B00M6UC6LI/

It's a bit more expensive.  And I don't know why it's worth the added expense.

Any ideas on any of these three?  Or any others that would be suggested?

3216

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« Last post by wraith808 on January 10, 2016, 01:23 PM »

Nope. Haven't seen it yet. Haven't had time. I'll wait for the online version. But, I still really like Star Wars a lot. Even if I don't have posters of it all over the house, and dress up like SW characters...

-Renegade (January 10, 2016, 01:48 AM)

The funny thing is... back before video and being able to see it outside of that venue, I saw Star Wars over 100 times in the theatre.  I haven't seen the new one at all, yet.  It's not like something I can miss.

I also attribute it to being a kid at the time

3217

DC Gamer Club / Re: ShinyLoot shutting down

« Last post by wraith808 on January 08, 2016, 03:54 PM »

https://www.reddit.c...t_they_mean_for_you/

http://www.polygon.c...ay-market-game-codes

As far as legitimate distributors, it's a function of steamworks for steam.  I'm not sure how it works on other platforms (uPlay, origin, etc), but Steam is the distribution method, and it also doubles as a store.  Only when you look at steam the store as the only entity does it not make sense.  Looking at steam as the distribution method, is where you get into how the third parties get into the business.

3218

DC Gamer Club / No more pirated games in two years, cracking group warns

« Last post by wraith808 on January 08, 2016, 12:44 PM »

Hyperbole and frustration?  Or real concern?  I got out of the cracking scene years ago, but I still pay attention to the goings on.

https://torrentfreak...-group-warns-160106/

In the past most games would be playable for free before their official debut but increasingly pirates are being made to wait for big titles to have their protection defeated, or ‘cracked’ as it’s more commonly known. In fact, aside from many dozens of dedicated piracy forums, there’s even an entire sub-Reddit community dedicated to providing the status of cracks.

One of the hottest topics involves the Avalanche Studios/Square Enix title Just Cause 3. Released on December 1, 2015 and despite massive demand, the game has still not been cracked. The problem appears to lie with the robustness of the technology protecting the game.

Just Cause 3 uses the latest iteration of Denuvo, an anti-tamper technology developed by Denuvo Software Solutions GmbH. While its secrets are best known to its creators, Denuvo is a secondary encryption system which protects existing and underlying DRM products.

Another source for the same info: http://www.eurogamer...o-game-crack-success


But what is Denuvo?  A blurb from their site:

272 days! That's how long one of the latest Denuvo-protected games from CI Games (Lords of the Fallen) has gone without being cracked. That’s simply unprecedented and it’s a testament to one of Denuvo’s core principles: always keep innovating. Our latest innovation, Denuvo Anti-Tamper, allows publishers to reap the benefits of stamping out all piracy attempts in the crucial first weeks of a title’s release. We’d love to do the same for you.

Denuvo Anti-Tamper and SecuROM can be ordered through our close partnership with Sony DADC.

An old, but relevant article on Denuvo, and the difference between it and DRM.

http://www.eurogamer...nuvo-anti-tamper-drm

What protected Dragon Age: Inquisition was Anti-Tamper technology by an Austrian company called Denuvo. It's tech that acts as a forcefield around whatever DRM the game has - such as EA Origin. To use Denuvo's language, it prevents "debugging, reverse engineering and changing of executable files". Literally, it stops tampering. Exactly how it works is Denuvo's trade secret.

But, as Denuvo was at pains to point out to me, "It is not a DRM solution." There's no rights management (as in Digital Rights Management) or licence management going on.

"Anti-Tamper is fundamentally different from DRM," I was told. "For example, if you add anti-tamper to a title without a DRM such as Steam, then Anti-Tamper is completely inert. Anti-Tamper only works in combination with an existing DRM system."

Interesting bit of a coda:

"Due to our recent success in the past two years, some publishers are even considering releasing console-only titles for the PC platform," he said.

It's naive to believe game piracy is about to be stamped out, because I don't believe it ever will be, but Denuvo's Anti-Tamper technology has achieved the most significant victory against it that I can remember.

"On a side note," Thomas Goebl aadded, "one other complaint we've heard is that since our solution keeps a game crack-free during the initial sales window, players cannot use a cracked version to test whether the game will run on their system prior to buying it. However, we believe that most consumers can test games they want to buy without resorting to cracks (either via official demos or via convenient refund policies most platforms now offer)."

Is this security by obscurity (no one really knows how it works) going to work?  It seems that the bar is also low for it currently, as most legitimate sales for major games happen within 30 days of release, and so publishers may consider Denuvo a success if it meant a game took significantly longer to be cracked. (link to similar story on Ars)

3219

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by wraith808 on January 08, 2016, 12:32 PM »

The waiting frustrated me too much , I'd advice to use the MCT, get it from here

-Ath (January 08, 2016, 09:11 AM)

Me too TBH..

-Stoic Joker (January 08, 2016, 11:04 AM)

Can you use that on multiple machines?  I've downloaded it for one machine- but have others I'm looking at upgrading.

3220

General Software Discussion / Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model

« Last post by wraith808 on January 08, 2016, 12:31 PM »

Nothing serious to hold them back other than whatever deal they have with their stakeholders or potential buyer.

-40hz (January 08, 2016, 05:09 AM)

That's the part that scares me about this move.  It seems more a positioning move after you find out there's not a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  And that scares me.

This is a bit off-topic, but related: taking the maxim "time is money," has anyone tried to apply the YNAB philosophy to time management itself? Could this be replicated by let's say using two Google Calendars, one for the "budget" and the other for "actual"?

-dr_andus (January 08, 2016, 11:48 AM)

That's actually a good idea for an experiment.  And then the experiment could be taken to the software world if it works.  I think the largest part of the problem with trying that is going to be granularity.  Every dollar has a name is one of the tenets of the financial strategy.  What's the equivalent of a dollar?  Maybe that's good for a different thread?

3221

DC Gamer Club / Re: ShinyLoot shutting down

« Last post by wraith808 on January 07, 2016, 10:01 PM »

I'd never even heard of this.  Oh well...

3222

General Software Discussion / Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model

« Last post by wraith808 on January 07, 2016, 10:00 PM »

This is the bit about AIR. 

While this is true, I believe the YNAB installer comes with all the AIR dependencies. So I don't see why you couldn't also run the included version of AIR for as long as you could run YNAB.

-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:44 PM)

AndAir is a dead-end technology that's just waiting to tombstone. The minute a major update to Air breaks YNAB, your options will be to "upgrade" to whatever web-based product YNAB is currently planning to offer - or to find another desktop alternative.

-40hz (January 07, 2016, 08:06 PM)

I think 40 answered your question.  And with MS deleting files that don't follow their standards, I think that day might be sooner than later.

I have a whole year for NANY... maybe I'll give a try at a basic version of this...

-wraith808 (January 07, 2016, 03:04 PM)

I thought I read about it here, but looking through this thread, I can't find any reference to it. Some folks are already trying to organize an open source YNAB 4 replacement called Budget First.

You can join the discussion in the Google Group here:

https://groups.googl...#!forum/budget-first

Or you can follow the GitHub repo here:

https://github.com/B...getFirst/BudgetFirst

-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:50 PM)

Yeah, I saw that.  I also saw that it's not very organized yet.  Which was the reason that I was thinking about trying a simple one myself.  They don't even know what languages they are using nor what assets they have.

I don't see a problem with this. I mean, that's assuming that you're OK with having your data stored on their servers in the first place (which I'm not). But how can they transfer ownership without also transferring the data they have on you? There'd be nothing worth buying if they couldn't also get the customers along with the product.

Imagine if your bank merged with another bank and you were suddenly without a bank account because they didn't include a similar clause about disclosing your personal information in the event of a merger.

-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 04:32 PM)

In general, they have to renegotiate to get your business... whether that's just a we're doing this, do you want to continue to use your account, rather than it being automatic.  My bank just merged with another bank.  And we had to OK our accounts being a part of the merger.

However, what I'm concerned most about is the first part.  They use the aggregates of your data.  Which means it's not as encrypted in state as they say it is.  At least, it's not encrypted to them and they make no bones about it.

3223

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by wraith808 on January 07, 2016, 03:22 PM »

One of the first movies that got me into Sci-Fi in a big way wasn't Star Wars - but the Last Starfighter.

Two interesting articles (the second is more sad than interesting)

The Last Starfighter Was Ahead of Its Time, and That's Its Biggest Problem

Steven Spielberg Couldn’t Even Get the Rights to Remake ‘The Last Starfighter’

3224

General Software Discussion / Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model

« Last post by wraith808 on January 07, 2016, 03:04 PM »

YNAB 4 users out there. Would you still recommend for a newbie to buy YNAB 4 at this stage?

What could go wrong when support runs out at end of 2016? Would that mean it may no longer be possible to download account data from banks?

-dr_andus (January 06, 2016, 02:40 PM)

If you think you can run YNAB 4 as is for years (and there's no reason to assume you won't be able to) then yes, I would recommend YNAB 4. That said, the software isn't really that special. It's the philosophy/method that is so awesome. So be sure to read up on that and use YNAB to implement and follow the method.

I don't think importing data from banks would break either, unless they change their format. You just download a CSV, OFX (Microsoft Money), or a Quicken format file of all your transactions from your bank and YNAB can import them into your accounts. There's no reason for that to suddenly break next year.

Someone told me that they'd been using really old finance software for 15 years before they switched to YNAB last year. They expect to continue using YNAB 4 for the next 15 years.

I suspect I will be, too.

-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 03:14 AM)

The on difference that I think has to be taken into consideration is the fact that YNAB is not a native compiled application, but a combination of actionscript and flash that runs on a proprietary engine ( AIR), so it's lifetime is tied to AIR.  That conceivably doesn't mean anything different in the short term, but in the long term, could.

-wraith808 (January 07, 2016, 12:52 PM)

You could just read their method and do it on a a couple of spreadsheets if it ever did stop working. IIRC, they came up with it using nothing but paper and highlighters.

-40hz (January 07, 2016, 12:55 PM)

Dave Ramsey uses the same method.  Again, because of privacy issues (surprising because of Dave Ramsey, but oh well), I won't be using it.  But he has low tech ways of doing the same thing.

http://www.daveramse...DGETING-cEnv-p1.html

I have a whole year for NANY... maybe I'll give a try at a basic version of this...

3225

General Software Discussion / Re: YNAB moving to a subscription model

« Last post by wraith808 on January 07, 2016, 12:52 PM »

YNAB 4 users out there. Would you still recommend for a newbie to buy YNAB 4 at this stage?

What could go wrong when support runs out at end of 2016? Would that mean it may no longer be possible to download account data from banks?

-dr_andus (January 06, 2016, 02:40 PM)

If you think you can run YNAB 4 as is for years (and there's no reason to assume you won't be able to) then yes, I would recommend YNAB 4. That said, the software isn't really that special. It's the philosophy/method that is so awesome. So be sure to read up on that and use YNAB to implement and follow the method.

I don't think importing data from banks would break either, unless they change their format. You just download a CSV, OFX (Microsoft Money), or a Quicken format file of all your transactions from your bank and YNAB can import them into your accounts. There's no reason for that to suddenly break next year.

Someone told me that they'd been using really old finance software for 15 years before they switched to YNAB last year. They expect to continue using YNAB 4 for the next 15 years.

I suspect I will be, too.

-Deozaan (January 07, 2016, 03:14 AM)

The on difference that I think has to be taken into consideration is the fact that YNAB is not a native compiled application, but a combination of actionscript and flash that runs on a proprietary engine ( AIR), so it's lifetime is tied to AIR.  That conceivably doesn't mean anything different in the short term, but in the long term, could.