Recent Posts

3476

General Software Discussion / Re: Chocolatey...opinions? portable?

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 01:44 PM »

More info: OneGet is included in windows 10.  Go to the powershell console, and type Get-PackageProvider to see the providers available.  So I guess that maybe this was what MS was intending to include, but it wasn't finished for public consumption?

It can also install chocolatey packages: Get-PackageSource -Provider chocolatey retrieves the package source.  It looks quite interesting, but I have to do more research.

UPDATE: Get-Package from the powershell prompt shows *everything* you have installed.  It's pretty cool!

3477

General Software Discussion / Re: Chocolatey...opinions? portable?

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 01:35 PM »

More info: Gow is a shell, not a package manager.  It's an alternative for windows to Cygwin.  But it was a welcome find for other reasons, even so.  I'd stopped using Cygwin because it was so huge.  Gow is apparently small.

3478

General Software Discussion / Re: Chocolatey...opinions? portable?

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 01:31 PM »

.net is a part of Windows anyway, right?

-Tuxman (September 18, 2015, 01:11 PM)

It is.  But don't know what version it requires.  You'll need to have that particular version of .NET.  And all installations might not have it.  Usually .NET dependent programs aren't said to be 'truly portable', even though for all intents and purposes they might be.

3479

General Software Discussion / Re: Chocolatey...opinions? portable?

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 12:43 PM »

Zero Install looks quite nice.  The decentralized nature is intriguing, and it actually looks like something that might fit ewemoa's reqs.

UPDATE: Scratch that part about the reqs.  It requires .NET for the windows version.

UPDATE2: You might be able to build it from sources... it' uses OCAML, so I'm not sure why the windows version requires .NET.

3480

General Software Discussion / Re: Chocolatey...opinions? portable?

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 12:38 PM »

AUM in normal techical ling = Repo(sitory) for clarity of terminology.  And I wouldn't really view Windows Update as a repo, as you don't install from it- only update.  Microsoft had said to be developing a repo manager for Windows 10, but it is sadly not present.

By the same token, I'd not consider nuget to be in the same conversation, as it says in it's definition on nuget.org

NuGet is the package manager for the Microsoft development platform including .NET.

with development being the key word.  I'd put it in the same category as PsGet, as they're for very specific uses.

3481

Developer's Corner / Re: Confessions of a free-to-play games producer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 11:11 AM »

So does anyone know how these other games get this kind of info? "We know where you live, we know your income level, we know your relationships, your favorite sports teams, your political preferences. We know when you go to work, and where you work."

-TaoPhoenix (September 18, 2015, 08:44 AM)

Just a guess, but I imagine that it's because most people don't pay much attention to the permissions granted to games installed on their devices.  So the games are granted all sorts of permissions and simply watch whatever else is happening on the device and report back to the company.

-mwb1100 (September 18, 2015, 10:02 AM)

^ This.  I go on facebook sparingly, but I have one friend I play words with friends with, and though I know I shouldn't... I do.  And having fiddler up while you connect to that site?  It's quite eyeopening.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Even the one that I know is a single-man shop (Galaxy Legion) has some things in there that are being done by facebook that are quite dodgy.

3482

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 09:32 AM »

Why move things in fear of them becoming problems?  Aren't we having the same reactionary mindset in doing so?  I remember the day when things were moved to the basement when the conversation starting having a certain turn.  Now they're moved when nothing has even happened.  And that's just sad.  This is a tech issue, and a very real and personal issue to me from my other thread about leaving (it's a hard habit to break).  Now, people that have very interesting takes on said issue are excluded, as it's been moved to the place of exclusion.  Certain things need to start here.  And that's what I thought this was for... a place for discussion of religion and politics and philosophy on a tech board.  But now, it seems like it's becoming a dumping ground for things that might turn bad, even if they are tech issues.

Moving onto the topic at hand:

I feel partially responsible here for this being dumped in the basement (by even suggesting the possibility):

It's an unfortunate state of affairs. I can understand the frustration, but if you ignore the context of recent history, you're just leaving out too much.
And if that context is introduced, I think it's going to be unfortunately pretty much Basement material...

-tomos (September 16, 2015, 05:02 PM)

but if you ignore the context of recent history, you're just leaving out too much.

I'd disagree.  Looking at the item in question, you can see that there are no explosives.  And the original teacher told him "not to show it to anyone" without telling him why.  So the original teacher knew, and even after he told the sequence of events, was not consulted.  And they took him away in handcuffs.

A little more common sense and a little less alarmism would have defused this situation before it escalated to the point that it did.  After all, if he really was an extremist and they really did think it was a problem- why wasn't the school evacuated?  Why was the item taken without a EOD specialist being there first?  The excuses don't add up.

-wraith808 (September 16, 2015, 08:31 PM)

you're talking about the details of what happened - all these questions will hopefully be asked enough that it will bring about some change.

But my point was this:
if you look at why this has happened, and happens again and again, you have to look at all those things. The context. The history. The way society/people have chosen to cope/deal with things.

1) why people/a society chooses fear over (I'm unsure here - maybe it's simply that they choose it)
2) why people are afraid of muslims
3) why people are afraid of what is different

these are not easy questions to answer, especially #1 - people have fear, I think it's a case of then finding an outlet for that fear in them. They can let of steam in a semi-officially approved manner (#2) and sleep well without having to really look at WTF is going on inside of themselves...

-tomos (September 18, 2015, 03:09 AM)

And are our personal fears any excuse for visiting harm on others?  They're our personal fears, and we should deal with them personally, IMO, rather than dragging others into our own psychosis.

We as a society need to take responsibility for ourselves.  Full and total.  And take some kind of personal accountability for what our decisions cause.  It's one of the big things that force us to learn.  When there are no consequences to our bad actions and the harm that we inflict, people tend to overlook them.

3483

General Software Discussion / Re: Pale Moon and Firefox - The Honeymoon Period is Over

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 09:25 AM »

...Slimjet

-NigelH (September 13, 2015, 10:51 AM)

I just looked at Slimjet and *immediately* un-installed it!

I went looking at "settings" and it had "history" of the last fifteen days of my local machine activity!

Browsers are not supposed to know what your local machine is doing!


So to me that's almost a cousin to a Trojan Horse! Because if it knows all that, then I would quite easily believe it could be sent somewhere! It could be close to RansomWare if you're not careful!

-TaoPhoenix (September 18, 2015, 12:46 AM)

If it immediately had it, then it retrieved it from your local machine, not what it was personally collecting, no?  So the information is there, and it just accessed it.  So even after you uninstalled, it's still there.

Just food for thought.

3484

Developer's Corner / Re: Anyone doing Arduino or Raspberry Pi (or similar)?

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 09:22 AM »

I have an onion omega on the way.  That will be my first delve in to the subject.

3485

Developer's Corner / Re: Confessions of a free-to-play games producer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 18, 2015, 08:49 AM »

3486

Living Room / Re: The End of my Macbook Pro Experiment

« Last post by wraith808 on September 17, 2015, 08:03 PM »

Through a long and arduous process I managed to get OSX working in a VM so I could test some stuff with Unity "on a Mac."

One thing that was really ridiculous to me was something that I can't remember the exact details about anymore, but it was something like... I thought I had copied/installed my game onto the VM, but apparently it had just created a shortcut/link to a temporary folder, and I had to drag and drop the icon onto my hard drive in order to really install it. Or something really weird like that. As I said, I can't remember the specifics, but I have no idea how someone is supposed to know to do that weird thing to get things to work. You just have to intuit it or something.

-Deozaan (September 17, 2015, 04:35 PM)

Yup.  That's pretty standard installation.  I stopped trying to figure it out, and just did it.

3487

General Software Discussion / Re: WinAntiRansom lifetime key from WinPatrol: $15

« Last post by wraith808 on September 17, 2015, 04:27 PM »

Right... the lifetime license is for every purchase for a limited time- it's just that if you already have a subscription purchase, your subscription is automatically upgraded with a $15 charge for WinAntiRansom.  At least, that's what the e-mail said.

3488

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by wraith808 on September 17, 2015, 03:43 PM »

The police tell local news outlets that while they acknowledge that Mohamed didn't try to perpetrate a bomb hoax, they were also unsatisfied with his explanation.

"He would simply only tell us that it was a clock," police spokesman James McLellan says. "He didn't offer an explanation as to what it was for, why he created this device, why he brought it to school."

WTF?

Perhaps I can help:

Clock : a device other than a watch for indicating or measuring time commonly by means of hands moving on a dial; broadly : any periodic system by which time is measured

3489

General Software Discussion / Re: WinPatrol going subscription

« Last post by wraith808 on September 17, 2015, 03:29 PM »

Ruiware is releasing another piece of software in their suite- WinAntiRansom, to protect against RansomWare.  But more than that, they're offering to upgrade anyone that purchases it during the beta to Lifetime licenses on any WinPatrol/WinPrivacy subscriptions they may have.

Better yet, if you own a subscription license for WinPatrol, WinPrivacy or both, we'll convert them into a Lifetime license with the purchase of WinAntiRansom!

Check it out if you were interested in lifetime licensing: https://www.winpatro...nAntiRansom-private/

3490

General Software Discussion / Re: WinAntiRansom lifetime key from WinPatrol: $15

« Last post by wraith808 on September 17, 2015, 03:27 PM »

Just to point this bit out, because it's pretty major too for those lamenting the subscription licenses:

Better yet, if you own a subscription license for WinPatrol, WinPrivacy or both, we'll
convert them into a Lifetime license with the purchase of WinAntiRansom!

3491

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 10:35 PM »

Not really a basement topic as it refers to tech... and especially since the relocation of the basement link has pretty much turned it into a wasteland. 

* wraith808 sighs

3492

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for White-on-Black or Transparent Menu-Less Text Displayer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 09:47 PM »

Playing around some more- there's another problem that if something else is modal (SSC screen for instance), then I can't make it on top while it's modal, then after, it doesn't become topmost again, because I already tried and failed.  *sigh*

3493

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for White-on-Black or Transparent Menu-Less Text Displayer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 09:38 PM »

Ok, after playing around a bit, I think I might know why it's still not on top.  I have to figure out a good way to fix it... but after getting your flight sim up, select the window for TextOverlayTool.  Then position it over your Flight Sim.  I was trying it out with Star Wars: The Old Republic in full screen windowed.  At first it wasn't on top... but then when I focused it on top, and went back to the game, it worked fine (shown below).  I'm bringing the window back topmost when the window is deactivated, and without that deactivate, it's only using the regular topmost method.



Let me know if that works.

3494

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 09:32 PM »

The largest problem I see with technology is the speed of the world.  There was a bit with a terribly named product on DriveThruRPG recently.  It blew up over the weekend.  The company decided to slow things down, take time to download and read the product, and talk to the vendor.  They were lambasted that it wasn't down immediately.  Everything moves so fast- too fast when you can't let someone sort things out in business hours.

I see the same thing here... one teacher said "ooh, it could be a bomb!" and the ball was rolling at hypersonic speed.  No one, at any point, said "Hey, let's slow this down for a minute and think that this is a 14-year old boy, and we're setting an example to all of the students here".  In an e-mail they sent to the parents, they said "Talk to your child about what is inappropriate to bring to school."  A clock that he created from a circuit board for a school project is therefore "inappropriate"?

And now that the expected nationwide support won't be forthcoming, expect to see some self-righteous justifications, convoluted rationalizations, a hefty dose of doublespeak, and the tiniest bit of resentful back pedaling coming out of Irving over the next few days.

-40hz (September 16, 2015, 09:02 PM)

I'm getting my popcorn now.  Because anything else isn't going to do anything, so I might as well get some use out of the flames as I fiddle... *sigh*

3495

Living Room / Re: 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 08:31 PM »

but if you ignore the context of recent history, you're just leaving out too much.

Bingo! 

-nosh (September 16, 2015, 06:55 PM)

I'd disagree.  Looking at the item in question, you can see that there are no explosives.  And the original teacher told him "not to show it to anyone" without telling him why.  So the original teacher knew, and even after he told the sequence of events, was not consulted.  And they took him away in handcuffs.

A little more common sense and a little less alarmism would have defused this situation before it escalated to the point that it did.  After all, if he really was an extremist and they really did think it was a problem- why wasn't the school evacuated?  Why was the item taken without a EOD specialist being there first?  The excuses don't add up.

3496

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for White-on-Black or Transparent Menu-Less Text Displayer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 08:13 PM »

Using AHK, This is what I was able to get:

---------------------------
GetWindowClass.ahk
---------------------------
The active window's class is "HwndWrapper[TextOverlayTool.exe;;ad8ebf4a-4653-4ee9-ad96-c472c3c202f6]".
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------

And that was with that default code.  You just have to click on the TextOverlayTool window and click the hotkey.  And I get what you mean by windowspy now- the utility that comes with AHK.

With that, I figured out the problem.  There is a guid attached to the window - I guess to disambiguate multiple instances.  Notice the guid at the end of mine is different than the guid at the end of yours.  You'll have to use the following in your code:

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. #SingleInstance ignore
2. #NoEnv
3. SendMode Input
4. SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%
5. return
6.  
7. ; instead of Progman for desktop change to the
8. ; class for Flight Simulator (use WinSpy to get it)
9. SetTitleMatchMode, Regex
10. #IfWinActive ahk_class FS98MAIN
11. $Down::
12. ; instead of class for Notepad use the class
13. ; for Stickies
14. ControlSend,,{Down},ahk_class HwndWrapper\[TextOverlayTool.exe;;[\da-f\-]+]
15. return

What follows is the script that I actually used:

Code: Autohotkey [Select]

1. ^k::
2.         SetTitleMatchMode, Regex
3.         totclass = HwndWrapper\[TextOverlayTool.exe;;[\da-f\-]+]
4.         WinGetClass, class, A
5.         IfWinExist, ahk_class %totclass%
6.         {
7.                 WinActivate  ; Automatically uses the window found above.
8.                 Send, {Up}
9.         }
10.         WinActivate ahk_class %class%
11.        
12. return

It's a bit messy, and won't work for markdown files as the control can't get a focus in that case, so I'd have to manually focus it.  But for your purposes, as long as you load the file and set the cursor into the control, it should work.

And it was an interesting delve into AHK.  I used the basic version, as I wasn't sure that the other version would work with SciTE4AutoHotkey, and I wanted debugging to see what was going on.  But it was easy to get up and running in it.

3497

Living Room / 14 year-old boy arrested for creating a digital clock

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 04:22 PM »

Ahmed Mohamed, 14, arrested over clock mistaken for bomb

Is this how we inspire technical innovation in our youth?

3498

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for White-on-Black or Transparent Menu-Less Text Displayer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 04:20 PM »

I'll try also when I get home.  Never worked with AHK, and this looks like a good excuse to try

3499

Living Room / Re: The End of my Macbook Pro Experiment

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 04:05 PM »

Oh, and it creates these annoying .DS_Store files other dot-files all over the bloody place, which you can't turn off without resorting to OS-destabilizing hackery - just how arrogant is that? Especially considering that OSX only lets you mount NTFS volumes as read-only, but still infects the volumes with those dotfiles.

Un- and replugging external monitors is also quirky. For instance, it seems like the window manager doesn't flag windows as "maximized", just maximizes them... which has funny results when combined with the DPI scaling stuff ("retina", blargh, stop with the stupid marketing BS!). So I spent a couple of minutes moving & resizing windows around the laptop screen and two external monitors every morning.

-f0dder (September 16, 2015, 02:38 PM)

These two really suck.  And the fact that you can't get a window over a certain size on your main screen unless you go full screen.  That dock isn't all it's cracked up to be.  And what are those .DS_Store files for anyway?

3500

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for White-on-Black or Transparent Menu-Less Text Displayer

« Last post by wraith808 on September 16, 2015, 04:00 PM »

http://ahkscript.org...ands/WinGetClass.htm

It looks like it's the active window for that one declaration.  You can use the window title or text to get it also.