Recent Posts

426

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Greasemonkey script etc to hide Slashdot Video box?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 15, 2015, 06:30 PM »

Slashdot has been struggling for a while, and Dice seems to have its own ideas on UI layout. It seems the much reviled Beta one is parked for a while, but a few days ago, something truly awful appeared: This video box:



It's pretty clear in the page source it gets pulled with (variants by day?) code that starts off with stuff like this:



So I'm looking for some way it simply gets hidden local side, then the rest of the page would just be normal and I can pretend it wasn't there.

Mouser seems to think this is a good thing for Greasemonkey. (Which I've never used much! So I'll need some user help!)

Thoughts?

427

General Software Discussion / Re: Maxthon Browser Users: Maybe one of you has already solved this

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 14, 2015, 09:21 AM »

Okay, not counting it's a couple of clicks, I'll do my usual "foot in mouth" routine and ask what you are trying to add, that's not "Right Click / Properties" in regular Windows!

-TaoPhoenix (June 13, 2015, 07:09 PM)

Since MilesAhead's screenshot seems different from my system, I'll post one of my own to hopefully explain my confusion.



Does anyone else have this on their system? Does it do what he wants?

428

General Software Discussion / Re: Maxthon Browser Users: Maybe one of you has already solved this

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 13, 2015, 07:09 PM »

Okay, not counting it's a couple of clicks, I'll do my usual "foot in mouth" routine and ask what you are trying to add, that's not "Right Click / Properties" in regular Windows!

429

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 09, 2015, 08:33 AM »

Wouldn't it be terribly insulting if you had a brain implant that connected it to the internet and your brain didn't meet the requirements to update to Win 10.

-Arizona Hot (June 08, 2015, 10:12 PM)

This is funny today but it so feels like an issue for about the year 2022!

430

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Version Bin - Versioning software

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 09, 2015, 08:27 AM »

An "outsider" question,

What exactly is PasteBin bringing to this task flow? If code is text (before compiling), isn't this just managing text files? I'm buying a foot-extractor-from-mouth on Ebay, but why doesn't just naming a file with a version number and saving it into a local repository or something work?

Also, that old model of $25 per "Shareware" title is badly faded, circa 2002.

Before I ran out of dev funds, I was working on a "super text processor" where the last few menus just "did stuff", and this would be a case of that. So there's no need to keep inventing backbones 12 times in a row every time we want to encapsulate a feature. It's all just text. So smash all of that functioning into a single text app and just make it a menu item. Then you get to keep all the raw text processing power, but you just keep adding crazy-wild-cool text features on top of things in those last X menus.

431

General Software Discussion / Re: simply create a projection

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 09, 2015, 08:15 AM »

Wow, Kalos, this is one of your more unusual requests.

I think I'm stuck in a few places.

What is a projection?

And about all this copying, what exactly are you trying to do, that a good copy and control-V twelve times won't do?

432

General Software Discussion / Re: Softmaker Office 2016 released

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 09, 2015, 08:12 AM »

Considering that the only difference between Standard and Professional in the previous version was four dictionaries and an email client, (which is now essentially a free program included in the suite), you have to wonder how crippled a Standard version will be that would make the creation of it viable.

-4wd (June 09, 2015, 04:53 AM)

Going slightly sideways on the topic, I always thought that the best diff split between "standard" and "Pro" was/were a few narrow but insanely useful features, which do chew up dev time to make them usable. I've only come across a few programs like that, but the balance does exist.

433

General Software Discussion / Re: raffle/random choice software

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 09, 2015, 08:08 AM »

Forgive me if I'm getting out of my depth. I have a way of doing that.

But given this statement,
"It expects a hundred or more applications for about 20 awards"

I don't get why something like thirty lines of 1980's grade Basic code doesn't work?

Aka, putting a few frills on the front end, this should be a snap as a Coding Snack here!

434

Living Room / Re: A short history of Google's algorithm updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 08, 2015, 09:10 PM »

I'm a grumpy old bird, so to me this "mobile-geddon" thing feels really weird. "Oh, your site doesn't have a mobile version? Well, okay, so Google won't bother reporting searches for it!"

435

General Software Discussion / Re: Android like Typing Assistant for Windows PC?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 08, 2015, 01:19 PM »

One of the problems a predictive text app could pose for writing a thesis, is that if it is choosing the words and phrases from existing papers in your possession, it could inadvertently cause your thesis to trigger a positive result on a plagiarism checker. If you do use an app, you are going to have to be very careful and make sure you test the results, thoroughly. 

-app103 (June 08, 2015, 11:07 AM)

We went over that App. To me that's not his biggest problem, and the ball is still in his court. The one I honed in on, was a Chicken and Egg issue of if he has to rely on software to provide cool-looking-phrases, then he's got dangerous gaps in his knowledge!

436

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 08, 2015, 01:16 PM »

The Mac's main remaining advantage at this point is reputation, the *idea* that it's easier to use. We all know how the placebo effect works, right? And confirmation bias? And over-justification? All of these logical failings are factors in the ongoing success of the Mac desktop platform, in my opinion. Which probably boils down largely to good marketing and product positioning.

-JavaJones (June 08, 2015, 12:57 PM)

As the endlessly quotable Randall Munroe of xkcd has pointed out, over-using "placebo effects" has it own problems!

If I were to have had the energy and motivation (and a subjunctive mood?), I would have made a few charts of the top 25 commands on *three* OS's - Windows, Mac, and a couple variants of Linux.

Linux gets all fancy because it's essentially the only one that separates "the Kernel" from the "User Interface". Neither Windows or Mac OS X does that. So it's essentially new OS'es every time, and I keep saying MS must have some nasty trademarks on it that prevent the Linux guys from just creating a duplicate Right Click menu.

So, going back to this thing, OS X isn't all that "easier to use" - Remember how Win XP refuses to die - so the same "arguments" have to apply and back in 2004 that was all about security, not ease of use.

437

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 08, 2015, 05:17 AM »

I'm a little confused.

Don't you turn auto-complete off and a bunch of other things, nuke everything once, then it should be okay from then on?

I don't get why this has to be an add-on.

438

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 07, 2015, 02:43 PM »

Collectible Card Games are a tricky subject to review!

Can you give us more of the mechanics details? For example, in the classic Magic the Gathering, the raw mechanic went something like

Creatures Attack (Plus Modifiers) + Spells, try to defeat the opponent first.

MtG eventually sprawled into a monolith that eventually took turns I didn't agree with, with the whole "your cards are only good for about two years before we declare them 'too old to use'. "

So what's the appealing part of this new game? Is it just reliving the glory days of MtG of 1993 with a SciFi spin?

439

General Software Discussion / Re: Android like Typing Assistant for Windows PC?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 03:30 PM »

I see your private message, so I'll post most of my notes there. For this thread, I'll bring up (to be elaborated in my private notes) that before you get to the word checker, you might need something else to organize your "main new point of your research" and then your backup proofs and examples. I'll say more in my notes.

440

General Software Discussion / Re: Android like Typing Assistant for Windows PC?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 01:42 PM »

but you want to write a scientific thesis -
surely the standard of English will have to be a lot better than for spam ?

-tomos (June 05, 2015, 12:55 PM)

Exactly, and that is the reason I'll be giving scientific articles as an input to that tool.

-lifeh2o (June 05, 2015, 01:07 PM)

Well, by this point it's becoming a bit of a personal challenge! Send me a chunk of your thesis and I'll ask you a question no tool can ever point out to you! You can copy and paste it into a personal message here. I'll have a pointed question within seventeen minutes : )


It's the Loebner Challenge in reverse.

441

General Software Discussion / Re: Android like Typing Assistant for Windows PC?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 01:04 PM »

They make sentence which look like a real readable sentences but in fact are stupidly connected long sentences. But they do the job of fooling search engines very well.

-lifeh2o (June 05, 2015, 12:51 PM)

but you want to write a scientific thesis -
surely the standard of English will have to be a lot better than for spam ?

-tomos (June 05, 2015, 12:55 PM)

Yes, this is exactly what is bothering me about what he wants to do!

442

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 11:45 AM »

Heh it would be an awesome job and a webseries if someone paid for ex $1000 per day for a guy to physically walk into all these places and ask them pointed questions : )

443

General Software Discussion / Re: Android like Typing Assistant for Windows PC?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 11:41 AM »

I am a student and English is kind of my secondary language. While writing my research thesis I find it quite difficult to use the right words at the right place. I have a lot of research papers in my collection. I am only imagining that if I give a tool those research papers, some technical articles found on web and some other well written stuff. A tool like that will help me choosing the right words and sentences in my thesis.

There is http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ which highlights long sentences, suggest simpler words etc.
Another is http://writefullapp.com/ which looks almost perfect for technical writing and does almost the same thing as I am looking for. But it is not free and it looks on internet for similar sentences to suggest the right sentence.

-lifeh2o (June 05, 2015, 11:34 AM)

Well, recognizing that since you haven't said what subject your thesis is on, I could get wildly out of my depth, but try this -

I'm fairly strong on the linguistic - liberal arts front, so toss me a draft of something by email and I'll throw you "the intelligent layman's questions". Then I can work with you to show you some types of questions a person can ask that can never be fixed just by the types of tools you are looking for.

I'm at [email protected]

I have some passing layman's interests in AI, so this would be a fun project! (And these days trying to get my health better, I need a couple of fun things to rebuild my concentration on!)

(P.s. Holler when you've sent something, because I am doing a few hobbies today and need to know when to look. I don't have those "you've got mail" auto-links to email like a lot of people have, for various reasons.)

444

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tresorit - Cloud storage service (FREE) - Mini-Review. (WARNING!)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 11:27 AM »

XIV Inactive Free Accounts
62. If You have chosen a plan with no charge ("Free Account") and if Your Free Account was inactive for at least one-hundred and twenty (120) days and no valid User Plan is bound to Your Free Account, Tresorit will send You a notice. Fifteen (15) days after such notice, Tresorit may suspend Your Free Account or delete all of Your Content related to Your Free Account, and/or we may terminate the Agreement between You and Tresorit.

-IainB (June 04, 2015, 05:03 AM)

The policy itself of deleting "inactive" accounts that aren't paying for service doesn't really bother me.

The question, really, is did you receive the notification emails about the deletion of your account, and if not, why not?

-Deozaan (June 04, 2015, 02:41 PM)

Well, since the point of a data backup in the cloud is supposed to be super security, it *would* bother me like here if they made their deletion policy that aggressive!

It's a *backup* service, how are they deciding that for example "data from January isn't active and needed in April, ho hum, it's three months later?!"  Just as one example, Tax Season does that every year, or all accountants' quarterly filing preps, or making Christmas preparations in September, and so on!

Even for "hobbyist" providers, I advocated a year's minimum time to assume the account is active, and I think two years is a good idea. If they're trying to nuke data every three months, it's like when I studied free hosting providers and we called that "overselling".

So I'm pretty heavily with Iain, what we're not seeing is what revenue they think they are getting by trying to get so nasty starting closeout procedures so soon. And since everyone seems to want phone numbers these days, it might be interesting if a phone call was an alternate method to try to reach a customer if their data is about to be deleted.

Because not many people have THIRD backups, so this could cause catastrophic losses of time/money/energy/data requirements retention risk and more, *just because some data company is bored and can't be bothered to keep your data for more than a quarter.*

445

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 11:21 AM »

That's like in the top ten spams ever! Where/why did it show up? Are you connected to gaming sites/ forums / mailing lists?

We could have a sub-theme of coolest spam ever. I don't recall any now, but I've had a couple of beauties over the years.

446

General Software Discussion / Re: Android like Typing Assistant for Windows PC?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 10:34 AM »

There are keyboards available for Android which suggest user the next word as he is typing. Once installed some of them learn users previous conversations and suggest for next.

Is there anything similar for windows PC? I am writing a technical article and my English is not very good. I feel a great lack of words and vocabulary to describe something.

Won't that be a great idea if I give a tool a few related technical articles (or research papers) and when I start typing it suggest me words or sentences (like android keyboards). And in result I'll have a very good looking article with a very good vocabulary?

-lifeh2o (June 05, 2015, 06:30 AM)

You will probably be better off getting yourself a language partner. Yours is one of the classic cases where pseudo-AI typing assistants crash terribly! It does sound like English is your second or third language ... but you can't fudge it just with a typing tool! My phone is older, but you wouldn't believe the disastrous attempts it makes trying to "auto-suggest" words! I have to make a smile and tell it "no... I am typing Collinear, not colander (like the kitchen tool to take the water out of pasta!) Stop that!"

And unlike random text, in a technical article, every sentence counts!

What is your native language? And what are the papers on?

447

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 01:37 AM »

IainB: Do you write for a magazine, newspaper, website, or blog?  I ask because you ALWAYS post huge walls of text (I'm not bitching here) that contain huge amounts of information...and I feel like you should be writing for $$$ lol

-Stephen66515 (June 05, 2015, 01:27 AM)

Done!
From Mouser's little idea from a while ago, I just gave him $2 in CodyBucks! Because underneath "huge walls of text" is ... thoroughness ... which matters when a "secure data service" threatens to nuke your data on day 96 if you don't "log in and look at it".

448

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt alternative

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 05, 2015, 01:28 AM »

Coincidentally, I just read this in my feed-reader: Governments of the World Agree: Encryption Must Die!.
I think the writer makes a point - or two - but probably nothing that we collectively might not have already independently observed.
However, the article got me to thinking: Wouldn't it be a piece of bad luck if, for some merely technical reason, TC and other perfectly good encryption systems discussed in this thread were not supported by new operating systems or file systems ... for example, (say) in Win10 or later?   

-IainB (June 04, 2015, 10:18 PM)

"Never assume malice before assuming incompetence". Except here they begin to twist together...

I'll bring up the harmless case ... Media Center. Of all the stuff that's falling off the page with the Win 10 upgrade, why is THAT suddenly getting nuked?

Linking about three things together, (from NeoWin's copy) "If you have Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Pro with Media Center, or Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center and you install Windows 10, Windows Media Center will be removed."  I haven't dug, but I didn't see any splashy reasons why - this from the company that prided itself on supporting stuff back to like Dos 3.x or something. So Media Center was important enough to be part of two full iterations of the OS, and now it is going to "be removed"?! What is THAT?!

The other ones are fiddling with versions of stuff, but this is a major application that is mysteriously "getting removed". It's not about the media ... it's about "____ getting removed when you upgrade". Now mash that up with their announced "rolling upgrades" and how we're all nervous at the lack of hardcoded iso's or whatever for milestones. It's that whole "we are changing what you think your OS will do. Pray we don't change it further when we decide TrueCrypt will be removed when you upgrade."

449

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tresorit - Cloud storage service (FREE) - Mini-Review. (WARNING!)

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 04, 2015, 06:57 PM »

I have a little bit of experience here because I see these kinds of programs as just "fancier" versions of a survey I did a while back on FreeWebSpace.net
(Heh Damnit, Nostalgia, now I have to go post a 6-month update over there!)

Seraphim, you might want to chime in if nothing else but for milk and cookies!
: )

Seraphim Labs was one of my winners because in my survey period, I actively looked at these kinds of expiration periods for free accounts, and severely downrated any service that enforced them. To me, it seemed that if you're running a backup service, you can expect a lot of stationary data. My opinion is they want the logins that fast to force page views of their ads or whatever for little pennies of revenue. When I did my survey, one point I argued was that an expiration period should be at least a year.

I would advise anyone looking into any kind of these data services to check the expirations as "part of the whole package reviews". Because if you have say four options to choose from, and one has some important features but a mean expiration timer clock, you just get ruthless and because half of you are programmers, just make a script that says "Oh yeah? You guys think you are hot stuff because you can delete my account and play little power games? Well, I have some VERY important pictures of Stegosauruses you MUST not delete, that I update regularly. Oh look, I'm not seeing your little ads because a script is updating my account. So take your little plastic power sword and go away."

450

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on June 04, 2015, 06:45 PM »

I have IainB's 5300 if no one beats me to posting. I wasn't sure what to do because it's a complicated big post. I was gonna just post a snip but I could use some advice.

(Iain, it's the Tresorit one.)