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4001

Living Room / Re: Chinese Cyberattacks

« Last post by 40hz on February 20, 2013, 09:55 AM »

^ ok...i won't cheat and google...I'm guessing:

  

40hz answers

 1. Johnny Lennon (may he rest in peace) (I actually knew this one!)

    2. dunno

    3. John again! (Remember this one too!)

So by logical deduction, (and figuring you probably found them all on the same book or web page) is #2 Mr. Lennon also?

4002

Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?

« Last post by 40hz on February 20, 2013, 09:26 AM »

Many times you can get around snarky problems, and get significantly better performance and features, going over to a third-party firmware replacement such as Polarcloud's Tomato or DD-WRT.

Right now I'm going through a Linksys WRT150N that was previously sitting in a client's junk bin because it was unreliable. It required frequent reboots, bogged under more than one user, and was dog slow (28-37Mbs) as shipped from the factory.  When subsequently upgraded with Linksys's new firmware (on the recommendation of Linksys's own tech support) - that finally broke the thing once and for all. However, with DD-WRT (v24 build 13575) installed, it's rock solid and gives me a very steady 117Mbs with 55% signal strength after going through a floor and three walls. Not too shabby for some freeware installed on a piece of equipment that was slated for the scrapheap.

That said, this solution is not for the faint of heart even if it isn't a technical challenge to install either of the above. It's only when an installation goes wrong that it can get extremely...um...educational. You haven't really lived until you've needed to learn the differences between tftp, tftpd, ftp, ncftp, ftpd, and pure-ftpd to do a reload - or better yet - had to fire up a soldering iron to create a JTAG cable and then attach it to the circuit board of a cheapo bricked router!  <*GRIN*>

Doing a DD-WRT or Tomato load isn't an option here unfortunately. The TP-Link TD-8950ND isn't listed as a supported device for either package.
 

4003

Living Room / Re: Chinese Cyberattacks

« Last post by 40hz on February 20, 2013, 08:49 AM »

@Ren - it used to make me laugh too. Not so much any more.

4004

Living Room / Re: Chinese Cyberattacks

« Last post by 40hz on February 20, 2013, 06:27 AM »

Dangerous games.

I sincerely hope China doesn't seriously frighten the USA.

For all their intelligence and sophistication, they still fail to grasp how utterly psychotic and violent this country and its leaders can get when seriously frightened. I would have thought the last 12 years alone would have presented enough examples that China wouldn't be so naive as to indulge in ongoing and obvious provocation like they seem to be doing.

4005

Living Room / Re: More speed/bandwidth from an 802.11n laptop<-->WiFi Router/Modem connection?

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 10:03 PM »

^+1 with all of the above.

One thing you might try is disabling IPv6 support on all your devices if you're not using it. (Most people aren't.) In some rare cases you'll get a slight performance boost since it's one less thing your hardware has to pay attention to. Hardly worth it IMO unless IPv6 is actually causing problems on your network - which I doubt it is - but that's about all I can suggest.
 

4006

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 05:32 PM »

And with that,  Curt scores his 5757th post!



 

4007

General Software Discussion / Re: How-to on taking ownership of your new UEFI equipped PC

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 05:26 PM »

it doesnt win any prizes for accessibility

-tomos (February 18, 2013, 12:14 PM)

My problem was with the sentence: >even if you only ever plan to run Windows<.
1) It is very clumsy English.
2) A computer can officially only run Windows 8 if it has the very same "new UEFI secure boot platform",
so it doesn't matter what else I might be planning, if my plans included Win 8

-Curt (February 18, 2013, 04:35 PM)

@Curt - Since I'm a grandmaster of writing overly wordy and clumsy English, you have my sympathies.

And you are correct. Just removing the word "ever" from the sentence would make it clearer and less clumsy...

           even if you only ever plan to run Windows

Or you could mentally restructure it to read:

            even if Windows is all you ever plan on running

Unfortunately for you Curt, you probably have a better grasp of proper English than many who speak it natively. Try not to let our use (and misuse) of the language drive you too crazy.

4008

Find And Run Robot / Re: Disatisfied with default skins, decided to make my own in autohotkey

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 04:07 PM »

Interesting... assuming the image is still there - I can't see it.

Oops! Skip it. I refreshed the page and it appeared. Funny it didn't load first time.

It looks pretty. But it's also hard for me to read. So guess I'd call that: "pretty hard to read."

4009

General Software Discussion / Re: How-to on taking ownership of your new UEFI equipped PC

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 03:34 PM »

Not end-user-simple, but the steps are pretty logical?

-f0dder (February 17, 2013, 03:46 PM)

Agree. But it is much more complex (and manufacturer/model dependent) than I would have wished.


They have so very much to 'show' us...

Especially since it's so unnecessary to implement it the way they have. And how effective SB will be still remains to be seen. I suspect it will only be temporarily effective against the 'cookbook' malware composers and the hax0r/script-kiddie types. I'm pretty sure all it will do to the professional bad guys is make some extra work for them.  (Although I wouldn't mind being completely wrong on that point. There are still some things I don't want to be right about.  )

I expect my Linux cohorts will be walking a lot of newer users through it slowly - and probably just "doing it for" most Linux newbies and first-time adopters.

So it goes.

4010

General Software Discussion / Re: Rumors of Adobe releasing CS2 for free? (true or NOT true)

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 01:07 PM »

I think Carol has it correct. They're looking the other way because it isn't worth forcing the issue. And if it does become an issue they still have legal recourse if necessary.

When Microsoft was attempting to establish Office as the de facto productivity suite they overlooked a great deal of the casual piracy taking place. Once Office was established; and WordPerfect, Lotus, Harvard Graphics, Smart, and other rivals were safely out of the way, Microsoft started getting serious about their licensing by introducing a much more real activation program that included Genuine Advantage. As some competitors pointed out back then, how can you compete when Office is effectively free?

I think a little of that is also in Adobe's strategy.

4011

Living Room / Re: 3000 Days Online: 30th May 2013

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 07:28 AM »

Shall we take cues from Pinky & The Brain? World Domination sound good to anyone?

-Renegade (February 17, 2013, 01:16 PM)

I'd like the sound of Intergalactic Conquest better! (Why think small?)
 (see attachment in previous post)

-40hz (February 18, 2013, 07:09 AM)

 

You eat an elephant one bite at a time.

-Renegade (February 18, 2013, 07:11 AM)

Ok. Today DoCo. Tomorrow the world. And the rest of the Universe no later than Tuesday next.

4012

Living Room / Re: Inspiring Story of Rual Community Laying Down Broadband Infrastructure

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 07:24 AM »

It is very inspiring. And full props to them for doing it.

But they also privately ponied up 500,000 to start - and plan on spending an additional 1.5 million to complete it. I wonder what it costs to get patched into it?

I'm guessing that despite the "rural" moniker, this 'village' is rather affluent? Judging by some of the houses that were shown on the newsclip, it looks like it's a heavily gentrified old farming area.

I only ask because anything is possible if you have a small enough steering committee with a lot of money behind it. Look how fast a members-only golf course or yacht club (with dining room and spa) can get built. Contrast that with how long it takes to repave half a mile of suburban road - or put in a new sidewalk.

My town recently replaced a very small 2-lane trestle traffic bridge (built in 1937) that crosses a very shallow stream about 15 feet wide. It took them over two years to complete it and reopen the road. Which shows the importance of private action when important things need doing. A contractor I talked to (who does that sort of work) said the entire job should have needed no more than four or five months max - with the bulk of that time taken up removing the old bridge and allowing any new concrete pouring to cure and settle.

Even worse, once it was obviously completed (about 18-20 months after the project began), the barriers blocking the road weren't removed for several additional months. Calls to the town to find out what was going on went nowhere. It wasn't until somebody finally called the local news and brought their attention to the situation that anything happened. The papers ran a short story (with photos) about the "perpetually closed bridge" and lo and behold - the road was magically reopened within the week.
 

4013

Living Room / Re: 3000 Days Online: 30th May 2013

« Last post by 40hz on February 18, 2013, 07:09 AM »

Shall we take cues from Pinky & The Brain? World Domination sound good to anyone?

-Renegade (February 17, 2013, 01:16 PM)

I'd like the sound of Intergalactic Conquest better! (Why think small?)

4014

Living Room / Re: Hulu streaming entire Criterion Movie collection for free on Feb 16th and 17th

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2013, 10:47 PM »

^Apologies. The announcement I was going off of said entire collection.

FWIW I had no problems with it earlier today on anything I watched. But starting around 10:00pm it's been locking up and going into limbo routinely. I'm guessing there may be too many viewers on their free feed.

4015

General Software Discussion / Re: How-to on taking ownership of your new UEFI equipped PC

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2013, 06:41 PM »

@Curt- he's recommending you always take ownership.

4016

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2013, 05:54 PM »

I see. So, basically, switching from LibreOffice would not make much sense. Damn.

-Tuxman (December 07, 2012, 08:14 AM)

I've used both.

SoftMaker has more of an MS Office 2003 feel to it. Libre is Libre and not overly concerned about being quite so close to the MS Office experience as SoftMaker seems to be.

Functionally they're equivalent to each other although SoftMaker feels lighter on some PCs. However, with the advent of Libre v4 that may change since they're finally cutting out the Java nonsense previous versions were saddled with. 

If you're happy with Libre there's really no major reason to switch unless you're curious or like to try new software. That said, SoftMaker puts out a fine product - so it might be worth a try just to see if you like it more.

 

4017

Living Room / Hulu streaming entire Criterion Movie collection for free on Feb 16th and 17th

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2013, 07:58 AM »

Time to catch up on all those serious, artsy, and weirdo cult movies you meant to rent and watch someday.

This weekend only Hulu is providing free access to its entire Criterion Collection list.

Bergman films, Samauri classics, art house, vintage horror, sci-fi...there's something there for every taste.

And unfortunately, it's geo-restricted to US viewers although there are faitly easy ways of getting around that which have been discussed previously in other DoCo threads.

4018

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia

« Last post by 40hz on February 17, 2013, 07:47 AM »

Seriously helpful post at Gizmo's Tech Support Alert:
Millions of Free eBooks and Audio Books Online

-IainB (February 17, 2013, 03:27 AM)

You'll also want to pay a visit OpenCulture which as been maintaining curated lists of free courses, language lessons, books, audio and movies for some time now.

Their daily e-mail newsletter is actually wort subscribing to. Always three or four tings to look at - and zero adverting plus no spam.

Highly recommended!

4019

General Software Discussion / How-to on taking ownership of your new UEFI equipped PC

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2013, 07:38 PM »

From the blog of Jim Bottomley comes a mostly complete step-by-step on pwning your own UEFI PC:

Owning your Windows 8 UEFI Platform
Posted on 15 February 2013 by jejb   

Even if you only ever plan to run Windows or stock distributions of Linux that already have secure boot support, I’d encourage everybody who has a new UEFI secure boot platform to take ownership of it.  The way you do this is by installing your own Platform Key.  Once you have done this, you can use key database maintenance tools like keytool to edit all the keys on the Platform and move the platform programmatically from Setup Mode to User Mode and back again.  This blog post describes how you go about doing this.

<more>

Read full article here.

Warning: It's not exactly a simple or intuitive process,
 

4020

General Software Discussion / Encrypted Media Proposal for DRM capabilities to be added to HTML5?

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2013, 07:31 PM »

Unreal.   

This from Glyn Moody's Open Enterprise blog over at ComputerworldUK.:

BBC Attacks the Open Web, GNU/Linux in Danger

Published 12:50, 13 February 13

The Web is one of the most dramatic demonstrations of the power of openness, alongside free software, which not coincidentally runs most of it and the rest of the Internet. At the heart of that openness lies HTML, a completely open way of sharing information. So what would be a really stupid thing you could do to try to throttle that openness and innovation? Why, yes: adding DRM to HTML so that you can lock down Web page elements:

This proposal extends HTMLMediaElement providing APIs to control playback of protected content.

The API supports use cases ranging from simple clear key decryption to high value video (given an appropriate user agent implementation). License/key exchange is controlled by the application, facilitating the development of robust playback applications supporting a range of content decryption and protection technologies.

This exposes once more the fundamental tension between the free and open Internet and copyright; as I've said many times in my talks on this theme, you only get to choose one.

That the companies behind this extraordinary idea of adding DRM to HTML - Google, Microsoft and Netflix - are more interested in their control than your freedom will come as no surprise; after all, they are profit-based concerns, and money talks. But the last organisation I would have expected - or, perhaps, hoped - to see adding its support to this fundamental perversion of the open Web would be dear old Auntie - the BBC. And yet here is a submission from last week where it does precisely that:

The BBC supports the publication of the first draft of the Encrypted Media Extensions Proposal.

Read the rest of the article here.

4021

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone testing Daminion Media Manager ?

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2013, 05:30 PM »

Looks to be a very nice program. But I personally can't justify taking the time to give it a thorough tryout because I know I'll never end up purchasing a license for it.

-40hz (February 16, 2013, 01:05 PM)

The standalone version is free ...

-joiwind (February 16, 2013, 04:56 PM)

It's not an issue of the price. It's more an issue of how much I'd need something that was so feature rich. I'm also mostly over to Linux these days so I already use Darktable which handles everything I need to do (plus more than I'll ever need  ) when it comes to digital images.
 

4022

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone testing Daminion Media Manager ?

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2013, 01:05 PM »

Looks to be a very nice program. But I personally can't justify taking the time to give it a thorough tryout because I know I'll never end up purchasing a license for it.

4023

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2013, 12:57 PM »

I think it comes down to the difference between art and entertainment. Some movies are entertaining. Some are genuine works of art. Occasionally you'll find one that's a rare combination of both.

But in the end it's not so much a matter of what's "good" or "bad." It's just a matter of what you like. And since our tastes evolve - and at what stage in your life you find yourself liking it.

There are no absolutes here.

4024

Living Room / Re: Scientists Claim They’ve Built a Computer That Never Crashes

« Last post by 40hz on February 16, 2013, 12:44 PM »

Sounds very much like the approach developed for the Linda "coordination language" developed by David Gerlertner and discussed in his book Mirror Worlds.

Linda-like systems are parallel and distributed programming models that use unstructured collections of tuples as a communication mechanism between different processes.

Sometimes the more a concept appears to be new, the more it's just more of the same.

--------------

It also depends on how you're defining a "crash" or a "computer." And at what level of abstraction or virtualization. Hypervisors routinely stay up even when a hosted VM locks up. So does that also count as a computer that never crashes?

4025

Living Room / Re: proofreading on pc

« Last post by 40hz on February 14, 2013, 08:43 PM »

I just tape a piece of paper on my tablet the same size as the working area.  Works great!

-Edvard (February 14, 2013, 06:42 PM)

Smart. A lot easier to remove than whiteout.