If you haven't done so already, follow all the instructions in this howtogeek article to get a much darker Windows 10 experience.

But if you don't wish to read through this, a very brief summary: in the article the author states that the best results were achieved using a tool called WindowsBlinds. The tool is not free, but also not too expensive. It allows you to create your own dark theme for any/all software packages (Microsoft and 3rd party), but there are also already pre-made dark themes. These cost also money, though.

And as this period of the year is an expensive one already, you might not be waiting for extra expenses like this.

Let me say first that I have no idea about the list of alternatives for WindowBlinds that I will present here, so don't complain if your Windows computer gets botched beyond recognition:

• https://cairodesktop.com
• http://www.litestep.info

These ones are discontinued and are just added for completion. Don't use these, unless you don't mind losing everything:

• http://bb4win.sourceforge.net/bblean/
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/emerge/
• http://sharpe.sourceforge.net
• http://bb4win.sourceforge.net

These also appear to be old:

• https://aeroblend.en.softonic.com/
• https://mycolors.en.softonic.com/

For myself, I am using the F.Lux freeware to dim the lights at night. And that is sufficient for my needs, but I understand your needs are more severe and I don't think F.Lux will be of much use to you. Just as Windows own "night light" won't do. Hence my list of suggestions.

Running your own mail-server won't cost you, if you have a spare computer and lots of time to read about mail-server configuration and security.

But if you don't have a spare computer or want to spend a lot of time on setting up and maintaining such a server, you'd better sign up for a service that has one or more mail-admins and can offer mail service for 1.4 USD per month. It's just not worth the hassle.

While mail configuration/maintenance isn't very difficult (with a 'beast' like PostFix on Linux), it is far from easy if you need to learn about this while you're busy setting one up. And, depending on your capacity of learning, can be a huge time-sink too. So, having a service for that amount of money on a monthly basis to get all those 'headaches' out of the way, should sound more than reasonable.

You should be able to adjust the defaults in the configuration of your FireFox browser. That includes map links and should be relatively easy to do. Google is still your friend.

However, if you can't or the botched installation made a mess of many more settings than just maps, try and look for a button to reset your configuration of FireFox to 'default', 'original default' or something similar. Make sure you create a backup of your current configuration first (MozBack, if I remember correctly)!

You can also create a new user profile in FireFox and manually copy things from your old profile into the new one. The latter options do not sound like fun and they aren't.

Consider it a lesson learned regarding installing software that has been dreamed up by Apple. Should not be allowed to be installed on anything that isn't Apple hardware, as those users are accustomed to the 'Apple's way or the highway'-mentality that comes with their software. There are more than enough video-cutters that are based on ffMpeg, which is excellent video manipulation software by itself. Although it has a steep learning curve in that form. But there are many (freeware)solutions that make working with ffMpeg a lot easier.

You will need a database server and likely a separate client for that particular database.

You can get and use Express editions from Microsoft (SQL Server) and Oracle. Both are free, but limited in the amount of data they can store at a given time. Last time I checked, for Oracle XE it was 10 GByte (not counting the system tables) and 12 GByte for SQL Server Express. These also offer a client (each an extra 1 GByte to download), which help you out with the creation of SQL queries and even show you where your queries can be optimized, as these allow you to investigate any query at a low level. That is, of course, if such things interest you.

MySQL (or MariaDB, the fork of MySQL by the creator of MySQL) is good to learn, as you can find a lot of examples on the internet and the phpMyAdmin web-based client is handy for managing such a database.
PostgeSQL is also freely available (open source) and very powerful. You can get the pgAdmin web-based manager to manage and study SQL.

Remember though, as each of the databases I mention here have their own dialect of SQL, queries might not be applicable on another type of DB server.

SQL Server and Oracle are used a lot in enterprises, while MySQL/MariaDB is used a lot for web pages. So, depending on where you think you will end up using your SQL skills, choose accordingly.

However, if I'm honest, the Microsoft DB server and client combo is most likely the easiest way for you to learn SQL with. The editor for queries is based on the one included in the Visual Code IDE and comes with a lot of help. Setting it up is also rather easy, especially when the client and server are installed on the same machine.

... And you don't have to worry so much about content becoming unreadable after 10 years or more, just because you have moved to a different version of Office.

-Shades (October 21, 2019, 10:28 PM)

Yes, think many of us have been there. I'd definitely strip out any MS coding from the result before I used it.

Regarding the page you attached to this post, there's a huge css <style> section, and it uses tables for layout. I've been using HTML5 for at least two years, and it's also a lot easier with GRID, going back to this - while just having to concentrate on content is "easier", but is psychologically "ancient and unclean". Note the design brainwashed response, .  So I'll keep it in mind for if something else doesn't work, or it more trouble than its worth. But Shades, thanks again for the suggestion and attachments. I appreciate your effort and time.

-fredemeister (October 22, 2019, 05:48 PM)

The reason why I like AsciiDoc is that the document itself is text-based and human readable. The conversion to HTML was done with the HTML converter that is built into the AsciiDocFX editor and apparently does generate old-skool HTML. The example I created has a lot of content pretty much suited for tables, so it seems a pretty logical choice

The converter in the AsciiDocFX editor can generate 1 file only, unfortunately. Separating content from layout is an excellent idea in most, if not all, use-cases.

Tables and HTML...a no-no nowadays. The bad thing about tables is that they put some (severe) limitations on content. The good thing about tables is that there is no browser that interprets tables different than the others and all of them render tables really fast. Trouble does start when you start nesting them for layout purposes. Talk about a Pandora's box that should never have been opened...

Believe me, there was little effort involved with the creating of the AsciiDoc pages. It took more time writing the initial post (I tend to be a bit long winded with those, as you notice with this one yet again  ).

[ Attachments fixed ]

I'm not familiar with the forum software you use on the back-end of your site, but most (if not all) have a 404-page (or landing page as you call it) built in. It is on you how to dress that page up, as some only display one simple line of text. You can "dress" that page up in whatever way you want, using a (WYSIWYG?) HTML editor. Of those there are enough free ones around.

Personally, I would spend the time to make a rather nice looking (yet simple) 404-page with a link to the home page of your forum, a (funny) message regarding the 404 error and the overall theme of your forum, plus a message about being automatically re-directed to the home page and use the HTML feature called: re-direct.

That make users getting the 404 message automatically be redirected to the forum home page (or any other page you like). You can specify how much time such a redirect should take place. 30 Seconds, maybe a minute or something like this.

While it doesn't do much for search engine rankings, your users and search engine bots do appreciate a proper 404 page.

How easy or difficult all of the above is, that depends on the design of the forum software. And the willingness/time to learn a bit about the underlying system of the forum software you use and a bit of basic HTML.

For your reference: examples of 404-pages from established websites.

How motorcyclists think people react when they drive by...

-Target (October 07, 2019, 05:42 PM)

Then let me counter with this video. You have to get through the first 2 minutes or so with a narrator who is not too fluent in English and spouts what he does with a heavy accent. But after those two minutes or so, the engines on the bikes start doing their "thing"...

Honda CBX 1050:

I have no problem surfing with any browser on any system here internally to visit my 'internal only' mediawiki installation. Which can be accessed by typing the following: http://192.168.1.1/wiki     Works in FireFox, Palemoon, Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, Edge (both).

Chrome/Chromium-based browsers do have the issue as reported when using names. But that's because these browsers consult external DNS servers first and these don't know about your internally hosted website(s), so that ends up in a fail.

To combat that is to run your own DNS server internally and configure on your router (or the device that hands out the IP addresses in your LAN) to use the internal DNS server as primary and the external DNS server of your choice as secondary, tertiary etc. That's what I have done here and works for the Chrome/Chromium-based browsers.

Way too much effort for a standard home network setup? Sure. But you must keep the Chrome/Chromium-based browser fanatics appeased. Even if you can show that FF is the better browser in this regard.

Remove the gateway setting in the network settings and only allow admin(s) to adjust the network settings. That will prevent internet access, while the LAN remains to work in a fashion. Meaning that if you know the IP numbers of the machines in the LAN you want to "talk" to, you can still access them normally. NetBios settings should take care of granting access to computers in the LAN by name, but as I don't know how you have set-up your network, that might not work. Can be problematic with shared printers, depending on how you have shared (a) printer(s) in your network. That is, if you do not run your own (properly configured) DNS server in your LAN. 

Is a pretty brutal solution, but you are sure no-one's attention is diverted to the internet. Maybe with finding ways around the block you just have put in front of your students. But that's another matter.

Description
A Handy Dandy System Admin Tool

Good! One of those "why haven't I done that" ideas.

-cranioscopical (September 09, 2019, 01:36 PM)

Unfortunately not the case: GEGeek Toolkit  When the guy started with this project he offered it as freeware. Nowadays you must donate before you even get access to it. I found an old freeware version of this software and it is impressive. All tools you need and like to do every (maintenance) task you can think of on a Windows computer. Most of it is portable software, some software will install. This also keeps an eye out for updates of the software you use with GEGeek and it allows you to easily launch the software of your choosing.

As the version I have is old (2012 if I remember correctly), there are quite some issues with available software and the updates. But you do get what an Herculean effort this is and why he (more or less) demands donations for the latest and greatest. Working with that old version (or trying to make it work by yourself) isn't recommended.

GEGeek, by now, is very extensive and I am usually of the opinion that less is more. So I am interested in what the OP can come up with. 

 

If you barely play games and if you play older titles (4 years or older), you could go for a GPU that is passively cooled. I try to get those card for workstations (as those shouldn't game at all), but also for personal use. They can handle quite some load and once I had one that had such a large metal convector mounted, that I could add a standard 80x80mm case fan onto it (once the owner started to complain that his system would reboot "at random").

A "there, I fixed it for you"-solution? Yes, but it kept going for another 2 years. Likely it still works, but it is an AGP model.... I am not allowed to throw away anything, unless approved.  Case fans are easy to come by and easy to replace. GPU coolers are not. Getting a second hand one for donor purposes, you should ask how much those donor fans had to work, before the chips gave out.

New passively cooled GPUs usually come with (much) smaller metal convectors, so extending "life" by adding a case fan is often not an option anymore. But my boss is getting a 3D printer and when that thing works, options will be back. That is to say, I can live/work with a PC that has fans working at full power all the time. Because that is the thing with case fans, not all models come with hardware that allows their RPMs to be adjustable. Just 'not at all' or 'full on, baby'. That I more often than not use a headphone when working, sure helps in that regard.

By default, GPUs in desktops (towers) have their fan(s) point downwards. Which is not the most ideal position, as air is sucked into the card, heated and then blown out to the bottom. Dust particles in that air can and do collect inside the GPU cooling fan(s). And dust tends to stick to fan blades too. With enough time, those cause an imbalance that becomes worse until you actually start to hear it. By that time, it will be very hard to get those fans back in proper working order again. By taking those fans apart, it is also not a given that their construction allows you to put it back together again in a proper fashion. The times I have tried, it was always working well for a week or two, but then problems would be back, often with a vengeance.

GPU fans are often small and of an irregular size, even between models from the same manufacturer. Replacement or repair isn't always an option. So, most people go and buy a new GPU. Meaning there is no incentive for NVidia or AMD to give a hoot about repair/replacement of GPU fans. And in countries where you can get replacement parts easily, who cares... 

Here in Paraguay, Amazon, Newegg, Ebay and the like are not an option. It can easily take 3 or 4 weeks for things to arrive from the US at the PY border and your order gets slapped with a border "tax" that can be ridiculous. Given that there are not many stores in the capital that sell PC hardware. The few that do, charge a lot. So much, that if you have need for one or more parts that costs you 200 USD or over, you better take a vacation day and take the bus to a border city about 450 kilometers away from the capital and go buy parts there. Yes, the price difference makes it worth to travel.

A time-sink this huge, that is always a possibility though, so repair is still a thing here in these parts of the world.
[/rant]

Update time:

I have been very busy the last 2 weeks converting a document that has been growing for over 15 years. Not only is the document extensive, it is also filled to the brim with internal and external references. Although the document looks rather simple when looking at it in Word, it isn't and I suspect that got PanDoc a bit of it's rocker and produced a pretty big mess after conversion.

So the last weeks I have been busy "taking the document apart in the tiniest pieces, created templates for those pieces, repaired whatever was garbled up by PanDoc and start building it back up again.
 In the mean time I have worked a lot with AsciiDocFX, Brackets (+ asciidoc plugin), IntelliJ Idea (v2019.2 Community edition +asciidoc plugin), Eclipse (+asciidoctor plugin), VSCode 1.37.1 (asciidoc plugin) and Notepad++ with asciidoc extension. The last one is more like a new programming language to be added for colored syntax. There is really nothing more to it.

My experiences so far:
All editors, with the exception of Notepad++, consume a boatload of resources when working on more complex documents. VSCode was the worst of the lot in my case. After 30 minutes or so, it would use around 6GByte of RAM and continuously between 80% and 90% of all CPU resources. Proper previews were a problem as well. Not a success.

Then I tried IntelliJ Idea. That also consumed almost as much RAM and CPU as VSCode did, but that was somewhat justified as the preview worked better, but it would also validate syntax/style and show you where you were making (minor) mistakes. While that last part is very handy when working with more complex documentation, it was still too much of a burden on this PC (A10 APU at 4GHz with 24GByte of RAM).

By that time, I was thinking "to hell with it" and used Brackets. Having tried that editor a few years back and not liking the experience one bit, this time around it was pretty nice to use with AsciiDoc. There is no real-time preview available, so it isn't consuming that much resources. You can however enable a preview at your convenience. The preview isn't as complete as the one from IntelliJ IDEA, but way better than the one from VSCode. There is also a section in the preview that shows you syntax/style errors (rudimentary, but still).

For "funsies", I also tried Eclipse again with the now nearly finished document. The real-time preview functionality in that editor is standing head and shoulders above the rest regarding rendering speed. A very pleasant surprise that was. It takes between 10 and 20 seconds to do a complete re-render of a document that describes almost 600 script commands and some of those are very extensive.

Feature-wise AsciiDocFX is the best, it's real-time preview isn't fast, but also not as complete as others, which limits my use for it. But Brackets and Eclipse were pleasant surprises, each in their own way.

So if you have relatively simple AsciiDoc documents to create, AsciiDocX is probably your best bet. For conversion and/or repair of existing documents (with some complexity), I would say to focus on Brackets and Eclipse. Brackets, if you have grokked enough AsciiDoc syntax and can work without real-time previews. Or Eclipse, if there is a need for a real-time preview that won't slow you down that much.

Oops, forgot about Notepad++. The syntax highlighting works rather well and as it is the least extensive editor of the bunch, it is pretty fast. But without a preview option, you'd better have a pretty firm grasp of the AsciiDoc syntax and have a very clear idea how you want your new document to be structured. That requires a lot of discipline, which people that code for a living have less issues with than other mortals. Its usefulness as AsciiDoc editor is therefore limited for most.


All of the editors discussed in this particular post can be used as a portableApp, if that is a thing for you.


Caveat:
AsciiDocFX can be finicky. I have used it on many different computers with lots of different versions of Windows and never gave any issue, until I tried it at home. There is a continuous error about the JVM not able to start because of max memory allocation. No matter what change I made in those settings, it just refused to start. Yet, IntelliJ and Eclipse are also Java-based and have no issue working on this system. Something I thought worth mentioning for those considering editors.