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Recent Posts

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4101
Living Room / Re: Do you collect anything?
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 11, 2008, 05:53 PM »
"old school" anatomy books
-Darwin
Those can cost an arm and a leg!

old "school anatomy books"
-Darwin
They're in a different class.

4102
just before I married my wife, she renewed her subscription to McAfee

What, and you went ahead with the wedding?  :o

4103
But doesn't anyone with any sense/knowledge avoid McAfee anyway?

Speaking as one who is ill equipped to enter a battle of wits, I must protest on behalf of myself and the rest of the WOODen tops. 
We in the World Organization Of Dopes fail to see why people without sense and/or knowledge in this area should be penalized.

We're the very people most likely to be spooked into turning away in fear from perfectly respectable, legitimate, safe software.
More importantly, we are the most susceptible to inheriting items such as McAfee through slick marketing techniques.

It's also true that this kind of issue emanates from most, if not all, A-V vendors at some point.

Perhaps it's because I've seen a few issues lately, but I have a sense that the problem is increasing.
Maybe it's just that more and more insidious stuff is being released into the wild...?

4104
Living Room / Re: Most useless
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 11, 2008, 02:47 PM »
#3 for me was the Expert Pad from Sharp, a hard-shell version of the Apple Newton.

It synchronized with the PC on connection, with no further user intervention. It also did recognition of real grown-up, joined-up handwriting.
Unfortunately it was so slow and inaccurate that it proved impractical.
My Expert Pad also ate 1 set of 4 AA batteries per day (sometimes two).
The thing was about the size of a paperback book, 4 MB in ROM, 640k in RAM, 336 x 240 pixel LCD, and ran Newton OS up to 1.3.

I bought mine some time during the early 90's and have seldom wanted anything to work properly as much as I wanted the Expert Pad to do the job.
But, I'd be sitting in a meeting, laboriously entering an appointment, and would look up to see every eye in the room rivetted to the snail's pace of my hand traversing the screen. Not the image I wanted to foster with a sleek new toy.
It was a bitter disappointment.

4105

The problem's wider than just McAfee's fun and games, though isn't it?

AVG Free is one of the scanners that I use. 
It has happily scanned and passed executable files belonging to PECompact for ages. 
Then, suddenly, the identical files all are suspect and quarantined. Next... oops they're OK again.

Annoying though this is, I suppose, from a user's point of view, I'd rather have it this way round
-- better safe than sorry -- than fall foul of something nasty.

OTOH, were a product of mine left with mud sticking to it due to some innuendo I'd be hopping mad.

4106
Living Room / Re: Notebook display issue - ATI Radeon 200M
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 10, 2008, 05:41 PM »

Really pleased to learn that things worked out to your satisfaction!

4107
Living Room / Re: Most useless
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 10, 2008, 09:06 AM »
Absolutely!  :)
4108
General Software Discussion / Re: GAOTD & Virus
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 10, 2008, 08:44 AM »
This left a lot of broken disks on the street.

Not to mention headless passengers!

4109
Living Room / Re: Do you collect anything?
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 10, 2008, 08:41 AM »
I needed to collect something just to provide folks with something to get me for a gift

So you're in the 'so hard to buy for' category too  :)

The remark made me think about gifts and acquisitions so, if anyone else is interested, look here.

4110
Living Room / Most useless
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 10, 2008, 08:36 AM »
Picking up on a comment from here

Can we try a three-part question here?

2)  What is the most useless gift you ever received?

3)  What is the most useless computer-related item you ever acquired?

4111
Living Room / So there IS a twilight zone!
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 10, 2008, 07:21 AM »
Research Reveals Internet "Black Holes"
Apparently, internet traffic can land in black holes sometimes, and just... vanish.  Despite the fact that everything seems hunky dory!


here

Anyway, as I was sayi..^       !

4112
Living Room / Re: Do you collect anything?
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 09, 2008, 09:10 AM »
I own 1500 books

BOOKS!  Life is full of irony. When I moved to where I now live I disposed of almost all of my books -- almost 7,000 at that time.
(I did keep a small collection of what I consider to be essential reference material.)
Now, in these larger premises, I have an empty main floor room which could have been the perfect library.

Occasionally I become glum about the books that are gone (when, for example, I find that the local, rural library has fewer of something on its shelves that I used to own). Mostly, however, I feel liberated by the absence of all that STUFF. Having access to the internet helps, and I've found that buying a few volumes a second time -- when really pressed -- is better than housing material that's not essential.

I'm now reasonably good at using and then disposing of newer items. For some reason it's much tougher to dump stuff that's decades old, no matter how useless it may be. Perhaps the need to hang on to junk comes from living though some hard times, including rationing.

Now that I come to think of it, my workshop has an inordinate number of tools. (It takes a certain dexterity to use all 10 electric drills at once,  especially when manipulating a brace-and-bit or three.) I suppose that's a collection, but in my blinkered way I never really thought of it as such :-[

4113
Living Room / Re: Do you collect anything?
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 08, 2008, 09:42 AM »
Do you collect anything?

I'm glad you asked!

Modesty has prevented my speaking out sooner.
I don't want to appear boastful,
And please don't bruit this about,
But I have assembled one of the finest collections in the world.
It's taken years,
And it's not been without cost.
It's required my wardrobe to be constantly updated,
And exponential increases in closet space.
What's more the conditions have had to be just right
And carefully maintained.
Whatever the sacrifice, however,
It paid off in the end.


Say what?
What is it?

Oh...
Spoiler
pocket fluff.   ;)



4114
DesktopCoral / Re: DesktopCoral gets a mention at CyberNet
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 07, 2008, 01:29 PM »
Oho! So you like requests based on weird ideas, eh?

I hear the sound of distant flood gates opening...

4115
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: TopazMoment on GAOTD
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 07, 2008, 01:22 PM »
Change the options for enhancement?
4116


You probably found this, and I'm not sure it's the answer you want anyway but, just in case...

Spoiler
1) Set the Shuttle to pause (push the play button briefly). The music will stop playing, and the green LED will blink.

2) Go into "Hold" mode by holding the play button for (3) seconds. Once engaged, the orange LED rapidly blinks (4) times. Trying to activate any button on the front panel will NOT work, with the orange LED appearing to remind you that you've put the Shuttle into hold (key lock-out) mode. FWIW, this is a good mode to use when working out, since it's easy for buttons to be pressed accidently when working out.

3) After (1) minute, the Shuttle will automatically go into hibernation (energy conservation) mode. If you still have your ear buds in, you'll hear the amp clicking off, giving total silence (you won't hear that bit of background hiss that you usually hear). Be sure to leave the power slider in it's current position, though, as turning it 'off' will over-ride hibernation.

Pushing any of front panel controls at this point will do NOTHING: e.g. pushing the volume or fast-forward buttons will do nothing, and you won't even see the orange LED blink to confirm a button push.

The exception is the PLAY button: push it, and the orange LED lights. Now the LED will light for subsequent pushes of any of the other buttons, too. This is the "awakening" mode, in that the amps haven't kicked on, etc, but the Shuffle is now receptive to being awoken. If no buttons are pushed within (1) minute, it automatically goes back into hibernation mode.

4) When you want to use the Shuffle again (say, the next day at the gym), press the play button for three seconds, and a green LED will flash (4) times, confirming you've unlocked the Shuffle from hibernation and "hold" mode.

5) Now press play, and the Shuffle should continue playing from where you last left off.

    from here

4117
Living Room / Re: BEAT THIS! ;)
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 06, 2008, 09:07 PM »
Like a lot of us around here I spend what many would consider to be far too much time at one or other of the computers.

When I go away on vacation, I'm gone. Don't take one, don't use one, don't give the electronic world a second thought.

On my return I'm back at the keyboard within about 12 hours.

Should probably take a lot more vacations away from home!  :o

4118
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: TopazMoment on GAOTD
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 06, 2008, 03:41 PM »
Thanks, Dormouse.  I've been busy and hadn't noticed it.

Appreciated! :Thmbsup:

4119
Living Room / Re: How many people work from home?
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 04, 2008, 07:13 PM »

Been working from home for the past decade.

Don't miss the daily commute, don't miss the overheads.

Sometimes  (but rarely)  miss the ability to discuss problems and brainstorm stuff face-to-face.

4120
In the 60's, I could open by Dad's passenger side VW Beetle with one of those long handled metal combs!
Was that a permanent solution?

4121
Living Room / Re: Your happiness right now
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 04, 2008, 02:44 PM »
... and what's REALLY cool is when you then try it again on "Hard" and finally manage to get high 'scores'! :)
I'd like to get to 100% here, so can you tell me how to enable god mode?

4122
Living Room / Re: Microsoft extends XP--for budget laptops only.
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 04, 2008, 11:29 AM »
I suppose it's inevitable -- and seems to depend so much on the roulette-like chance of having the right hardware/drivers combination -- but this whole
Vista is a dog vs. Vista flies dichotomy is a bit too widespread for comfort.

I'd hate to endure Carol's tribulations
                                                   
but I'd love to enjoy the kind of experience reported by justice
                                                                                     

4123
Living Room / Re: Your happiness right now
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 04, 2008, 11:11 AM »
I am suffering 'end of project blues' today.
The reverse for me.  Just put to bed a fiendishly tricky one which resolved very nicely.
No big deal, just the pleasant feeling that I can go back to being retired... until the next time.

I have this niggly feeling that my nicely paid bossy job is really a waste of me
-iphigenie
Good managers are hard to find. Perhaps you undervalue your contribution in that area.

Wonder if you're more likely to fill this in when you are extra happy / unhappy, polarising the results..
-justice
...or reading this coincides with some circumstance.  Just about every poll here is susceptible to bias, eh?  ;)

4124
Living Room / Re: Microsoft extends XP--for budget laptops only.
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 03, 2008, 09:06 PM »
If Adobe insist on 64-bit Vista I think they will find a huge group of people cross grading to the Mac. Who in their right mind would want to be forced to use Vista for PhotoShop ?

Well, it is only a rumour so far, and one can still use the 32-bit version on XP. Anyway, can one access a ton of memory with Photoshop on the Mac? I thought that was fairly limited too.


HUGE (and I mean exponentially H...U...G...E) waste of disc space.

I don't like the idea of that but, I suppose on today's systems it scarcely matters. (Remember when we all felt that Windows 3 was profligate with resources?)  What kind of brake does that put on access times?

I've not even tried Vista and I'm not very interested in doing so. It'll be forced down my throat soon enough I'm sure.
There are a few reasons why I have to use Windows, and XP is by far the best Windows experience I've had. For the moment I've no desire to  rock the boat.


4125
Living Room / Re: Microsoft extends XP--for budget laptops only.
« Last post by cranioscopical on April 03, 2008, 06:18 PM »
Well, the scuttlebutt is that 64-bit Photoshop will be Vista only (at least to begin with). 
It was to keep abreast of Adobe apps that I first moved from W98 to XP.
Doom 3 was just a bonus  ;D
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