Recent Posts

426

Living Room / Re: Java 8 Delayed

« Last post by f0dder on April 22, 2013, 03:09 PM »

I saw that but I sorta ignored it ... "how bad can the security be?!"

-TaoPhoenix (April 20, 2013, 12:36 AM)

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad

Plus I am as much of one to upgrade to new crispy version numbers, so at least they seem to be going a bit old school and not releasing "Java 8" on the heels of "Java 7.7, 7.8, 7.9". Or something. (Whatever little they can get away with!)

-TaoPhoenix (April 20, 2013, 12:36 AM)

"Java 8" is actually "Java 1.8" - iirc they started this weirdness with (what whould have been) Java 1.5. Mean people might say they should've added a zero-dot prefix instead, but hey

Sad to see it's being postponed - Java7 was a major letdown, with not very much interesting stuff added - I miss lambdas. It would indeed be foolish of them to ship Java8 without lambda support.

427

Living Room / Re: Google forbids resale or lending of Glass

« Last post by f0dder on April 22, 2013, 01:34 PM »

I can understand - and accept - if this is for the first batch of Glasses, which to me seemed to be meant mostly for developers. Early access to nifty hardware often comes with some pretty draconian NDAs, just look at console development kits, for instance.

But if that stuff is in the general terms for all Glass devices to come? Whoa

428

General Software Discussion / Re: Worst Javascript/other intrusions?

« Last post by f0dder on April 22, 2013, 01:27 PM »

Are you serious or are you just being sarcastic?

-eleman (April 19, 2013, 03:46 PM)

Being serious.

Hmm. Let's start with the clarifications. AdBlock Edge is a spinoff of AdBlock Plus. Somewhere in there was an argument that AdBlock would in fact allow "nice ads" through.

-TaoPhoenix (April 19, 2013, 04:08 PM)

Yup, by default ABP allows some google adwords or whatever, but there's a config option to block entirely. Can't say I don't understand the developer, and I believe it has caused perhaps a bit too much fuzz - I can certainly live with that option and its default... OTOH, perhaps things would've been worse if there hadn't been all that fuzz.

Ghostery then I agree is different, and reports-then-shutdowns misc ad trackers. Sure whatever that company is gets some data, but I haven't tried to find an OSS replacement for Ghostery yet.

-TaoPhoenix (April 19, 2013, 04:08 PM)

I don't believe it sends data unless you enable the "GhostRank" feedback thingy? But yes, the company behind is related to the ad business, so there's reason to be wary - still, unless somebody finds out it sneaks data back home without consent, it's a pretty decent addon

So THEN, we get to Javascript. Problem is, the few times I tried to totally nuke it, some page would come along on a 1-time shot I'd wish it would work. So NoScript was bad news. I kinda like Elemon's idea - Blacklist pages that are the worst offenders. ___ Site I posted above, but apparently Slate is pretty bad too.

-TaoPhoenix (April 19, 2013, 04:08 PM)

Sure, backlisting  will take care of annoyances on sites - but IMHO that's not a very good reason to do JavaScript blocking. I use it to drastically reduce the risk of drive-by infections, you really do need whitelisting against that. And once you get into the habit, it really isn't that much bother - only need a bit of fiddling when you visit a new domain.

But hey, I also avoid Flash and Java in my main browser - if I need to watch flash, I temporarily fire up Chrome for that specific URL. I only need Java for NemID, and that steaming pile of manure(*) is only allowed to run in a Linux VM.

(*): NemID, that is - while I despise applets with lots of bileful nerdrage, Java and the JVM itself are decent enough.

429

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by f0dder on April 19, 2013, 04:03 PM »

So, back in... not sure exactly when, but early 2000s, pre-2003, I bought a used NAD 314 (originally purchased in 1996, the receipt says). It's been a trusty friend, and undergone repairs once - but I got tired of smacking it around to get all the speakers working.

So, Wednesday, I went out and bought this beauty:

A Cambridge Audio azur 651A. It's super nice to have decent audio again, without having to smack the amp around every few minutes - and tight bass and treble sections seem to have quite tighter response. I can't tell much of a difference when listening to Nick Cave, Depeche Mode or The Cure... but stuff like VNV Nation and Suicide Commando, or Metallica's "...and Justice For All"? Wow.

Not sure my neighbors appreciate it as much as I do, though.

Also, I kinda wanted an amp with TOSlink, but stereo amps sporting that had ridiculous pricetags, and generally wouldn't be able to downmix surround signals (though handling stereo at 24bit 96 or 192KHz). This amp has an USB input, connecting it to a computer makes it show up as a generic USB audio device, capable of 16bit@33/44.1/48KHz... good enough for me, especially at the pricetag. And it even works without a hitch on Linux, who would've thought?!

Next up: getting the NAD C521BEE fixed... all the smacking around of the NAD314 has gotten the laser desynced, so it doesn't play CDs anymore

430

General Software Discussion / Re: Worst Javascript/other intrusions?

« Last post by f0dder on April 19, 2013, 03:40 PM »

If you're going to block javascript, use noscript or don't bother. And it's really not that much bother once you get into the habit.

You can't really call ghostery an "adblockplus" spinoff, they do quite different (and complimentary) things.

The next step is RefControl+RequestPolicy... this does add a fair amount of management overhead for first-time visits to new sites, but IMHO it's worth it... you'll end up blocking a crapload of stuff that even ABP+Ghostery+NoScript misses.

You'll also want to turn RC+RP off temporarily if you're shopping, because it's way too much bother once credit-card handling stuff is involved... but it's really nice armor for your everyday surfing

431

Developer's Corner / Re: Do you use a good office chair when programming?

« Last post by f0dder on April 15, 2013, 03:29 PM »

p3lb0x should post some pics of the various chairs he has mutilated. Spends way too much time in front of the computer, that kiddo, and just can't sit still.

-f0dder (June 12, 2008, 06:38 PM)

Sorry, both chairs have already been thrown out as well as the yoga ball. My current chairs seat is not attached though and the padding is coming loose.

-p3lb0x (April 15, 2013, 09:42 AM)

At least you have those two sturdy old desktop cabinets you can wear down

432

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by f0dder on April 11, 2013, 12:14 AM »

Just for fun, I installed a bitcoin miner yesterday evening, and joined a mining pool.

If my maths is any good, it seemed like - at the current rate - it would take me around 400 days to mine one single BTC, even though I used a GPU miner (on my not-so-recent-but-still-relatively-beefy GTX460... but OK, AMD/ATI cards are better for mining). And do note the "at the current rate" - mining gets progressively harder as the minting-limit approaches.

Guess one has to gamble the bubble (or resort to botcoining :p) in order to cash out on the scheme - and neither is my cuppa tea.

433

General Software Discussion / Re: convert MOBI or EPUB ebook format to PDF while influencing font size?

« Last post by f0dder on April 11, 2013, 12:08 AM »

HanllyJimes: are you, perchance, affiliated with said product in any way?

434

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodbye OpenOffice, Hello LibreOffice

« Last post by f0dder on April 10, 2013, 06:58 AM »

* f0dder sighs and counts to ten.

435

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodbye OpenOffice, Hello LibreOffice

« Last post by f0dder on April 10, 2013, 06:48 AM »

Next step: "Goodbye LibreOffice, hello SoftMaker Office". Once it has .ods support...!

-Tuxman (April 10, 2013, 02:35 AM)

LibreOffice might suck a bit, but it's gratis - that matters to a lot of people.

436

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodbye OpenOffice, Hello LibreOffice

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2013, 04:19 PM »

EDIT: It finished and Windows reports it is 184MB.

-Deozaan (April 09, 2013, 02:46 PM)

Round-nearest vs. truncate-to-zero? :-)

437

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodbye OpenOffice, Hello LibreOffice

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2013, 02:43 PM »

OK then I downloaded the correct file, the top link. It comes down as an MSI file but only 79.9 MB. Can't seem to get the entire file to download. Weird!

-J-Mac (April 09, 2013, 02:14 PM)

If your browser is bugging out or your internet connection is unstable, downloading with a torrent client might be a good idea - it's more resilient against errors, and where you often need to restart downloads from the beginning, torrent clients only have to restart a single failed chunks.

438

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodbye OpenOffice, Hello LibreOffice

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2013, 11:32 AM »

I cant download Libreoffice. It apparently is a torrent download from their site. Claims it is a 185 MB file but only 7.79 MB is downloaded. Do I need a torrent program to get this?

-J-Mac (April 09, 2013, 09:44 AM)

I think you might be clicking on the wrong link -- confusingly, the links for the installer and for the torrent are very close:

-Jibz (April 09, 2013, 11:26 AM)

I've been confused by this at least twice

Might be on purpose? - they save bandwidth when people download with a torrent client.

439

General Software Discussion / Re: MagicRAR

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2013, 11:30 AM »

Please do not revive old threads from the dead just to post advertisements - I've asked the moderators to put a lock on it so it can rest in peace.

440

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by f0dder on April 09, 2013, 02:03 AM »

The initiator of the Bitcoin experiment went under the pseudonym of Satoshi Nakamoto. Towards the end of 2010 Satoshi apparently left the project saying he had moved on to other things.

-IainB (April 08, 2013, 07:22 PM)

• Come up with a processing-intensive alternative currency.
• Write efficient botnet code.
• ...?
• Profit!

441

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

« Last post by f0dder on April 08, 2013, 03:27 PM »

I beg you a judgment about the penultimate message I posted, the message with the girl sleeping on her breast. I consider it very funny but a (male) member considers it inappropriate instead. I am ready to remove it but first I am curious to know what's your impression.

-Giampy (April 08, 2013, 03:00 PM)

It's not something that triggered my humor-o-meter very much, but taste differs - didn't find it offensive (given that this thread is marked NSFW). Dunno if it's a bit too much for some people, and whether stuff like that should be put in a spoiler tag along with a disclaimer?

I personally don't mind either way

442

General Software Discussion / Re: Readability - Get rid of the clutter so you can read!

« Last post by f0dder on April 08, 2013, 01:51 PM »

Since the thread was revived, I'll piggyback too:

I really like how Readability formats pages... but is there any way to not make it push the content to the Readability site? And not having to enable/whitelist JavaScript on the page I want in a readable format?

Alternatives to readability would be OK as well, since I don't need the "read later" and whatever features.

443

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: UTF-8 bug?

« Last post by f0dder on April 08, 2013, 10:37 AM »

Does CHS support Unicode characters at all?

(most of? all of?) mouser's stuff is written in Borland C++ Builder, which didn't use to have Unicode support. A few quick searches on the board doesn't seem to indicate that mouser has switched to a version with Unicode support (...which would probably mean a fair amount of source code changes as well).

444

Living Room / Re: Discourse in Practice

« Last post by f0dder on April 07, 2013, 04:48 PM »

It does persist progress.  Not sure by what mechanism it does it, but it does persist progress.  And that's the reason behind the endless scrolling.

-wraith808 (April 07, 2013, 12:44 PM)

...and I'd hope it does it in a database-persisted setting rather than a cookie - because otherwise, it's useless . Given that the team behind Discourse are pretty skilled (even if they chose RoR :p), I'd expect it not to be a cookie hack.

Doesn't change my overall sentiment, though.

445

Living Room / Re: Discourse in Practice

« Last post by f0dder on April 07, 2013, 10:00 AM »

I hate "endless scrolling" with a passion.

It makes the scrollbar useless (both for scrolling and as a visual indicator of progress) once you're a few pages down, and if I'm searching for something specific in a thread, I often have an idea that it's a page n+/-3 (or whatever), something you just don't get with endless scrolling. Oh, and if a site doesn't persist "progress", or persists it in a cookie, that's just extra hate-fuel, since I often switch browsers and machines.

446

General Software Discussion / Re: convert MOBI or EPUB ebook format to PDF while influencing font size?

« Last post by f0dder on April 07, 2013, 06:17 AM »

cecillovell2: are you, perchance, affiliated with said product in any way?

447

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by f0dder on April 06, 2013, 03:04 PM »

^I think the "notable" (as in worth noticing) reference is that the malware's primary goal is to steal CPU cycles for the author's gain, rather than to steal user data from the host machine as is usually the case.

-40hz (April 06, 2013, 01:43 PM)

Yup - but as app also noted, it's not new by any stretch

(Nor is the use of botnets for CPU-intensive work itself - they've been used in the past for stuff like factoring RSA keys).

448

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by f0dder on April 06, 2013, 12:01 PM »

What Took Them So Long Dept...
India comes trough! The previously suggested zombie bitcoin miner is real. From the folks at Geek.com:

A new piece of malware is floating around, but that seems like par for the course these days. What makes this malicious bit of code notable is the goal its creators have in mind

-40hz (April 06, 2013, 11:59 AM)

Note that "notable" doesn't mean "not seen before" - botcoining is hardly new.

449

Living Room / Re: Disney to shut LucasArts games studio, lay off workers

« Last post by f0dder on April 06, 2013, 06:35 AM »

LucasArts might not have come up with any interesting games for quite a while, but still... they were my childhood in a far greater way than Disney ever were. Screw you, Disney.

450

General Software Discussion / Re: thunderbird alternative

« Last post by f0dder on April 04, 2013, 05:57 AM »

Tried The Bat!?

-Tuxman (April 04, 2013, 05:40 AM)

Been there, done that, migrated to Thunderbird.