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4301

General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe CS2 for free? (NOT SPAM)

« Last post by 40hz on January 07, 2013, 04:11 PM »

Like the saying goes: If it sounds too good to be true - it isn't.

This from Forbes and Adobe:

Update: Following a frenzy of Internet activity — and some confusion — it appears that Adobe isn’t giving away free copies of Adobe CS2.

Adobe scientist Dov Isaacs clarifies:

    On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated …

    You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2!

    What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don’t require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. (Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product download.) See <http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1114930>.

 

4302

General Software Discussion / Re: A new harddisk for my old notebook?

« Last post by 40hz on January 07, 2013, 01:33 PM »

Nice machine.

Ok:

Technical Data

Processor: Intel Pentium-M P740 (Dothan) 1,73 GHz, Centrino
Cache: L1: 32 KB, L2: 2MB, FSB 533 MHz, 915 Chipset
RAM: 1 x 512 MB DDR-SDRAM
HDD: 80GB, Ultra ATA/100
Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 6400 with Turbo Cache up to 128MB graphics memory. PCI Express
LAN: 10/100 MBit Ethernet
WLAN: 802.11 b/g
Modem: international V.90, 56K flex
Display: 15,4-Zoll TFT x-black(2nd generation, double lamp technology), WXGA, 1280 x 800 pixel
Sound: built in stereo speakers, Intel High Definition Audio Sound
Interfaces: i.LINK (IEEE 1394), 3 x USB 2.0, earphone, microphone input, RJ11, display output, ethernet 10 BaseT/100 Base-TX, 1x PCMCIA Typ-I/II CardBus, Memory-Stick-Slot (Duo, PRO compatible)
Optical Drive: Double Layer CD/DVD +/- Brenner + RW für CD und DVD
Size (mm): 36,4 x 2,5-3,6 x 26,5 (mm)
Weight (kg): 2,9 kg
Waranty: 2 years bring in warranty, optional extendable up to 4 years.

And you have a Toshiba MK6025GAS HD. Specs here.

So you definitely have the older ATA100 Ultra (also known as an ATA6) PATA type drive. That is not a SATA as I suspected.

First up, you'll need to take a look around and see if anybody has a suitable PATA drive in stock for purchase. One problem is that the ATA6's mostly came in 40GB or 80GB models. I don't recall if they came bigger than that, although I'd guess they probably also made them in 120 and 160GB sizes before they became obsolete. (UPDATE: They did. Seagate made a 160GB model.)

I ran a quick scan of all my usual sources and I don't see any drive of this type being available. At least not from any source I'd be comfortable sending my credit card info to.

Take a look around and see what you can find. Unfortunately, this quest may be over before it starts if a larger drive can't be located.

4303

General Software Discussion / Re: A new harddisk for my old notebook?

« Last post by 40hz on January 07, 2013, 12:55 PM »

Windows Easy Transfer

It works extremely well. Especially when it comes to moving the ever pesky Outlook PSTs to a new machine. It does not migrate applications however. Those will still need to be reinstalled manually. Which can be a problem if you bought OEM versions of MS Office which (by license) can't be transferred to new hardware - although I've seldom had a problem getting a new activation key from Redmond if it was for an older version of Office. YMMV.

4304

General Software Discussion / Re: A new harddisk for my old notebook?

« Last post by 40hz on January 07, 2013, 12:03 PM »

@helmut85 - Howdy! Never be afraid to ask anything here. This is Donation Coder. We don't indulge in ridicule since we're all lifelong learners.

So ok...

It's likely you have a non-SATA hard drive in your laptop.

While it's still possible to get an old-style PATA/ATA-6 drive, they're becoming expensive and difficult to find "in stock." Most drive manufacturers are phasing, or already have phased them out. So while still possibly doable it's not very cost effective.

I can relate. I tend to keep and use PCs a lot longer than I really should. I had about a half dozen perfectly workable Compaq laptops with small drives (and RAM capacity) that I recently gave away because they just weren't worth keeping any more. Even with Linux running on them.

IMHO the best option would be to bite the bullet at this point and spring for an inexpensive new laptop - then use Microsoft's free easy transfer tool to migrate your data and settings over to it. Look for one on sale. Or get a name brand factory refurbished unit. You can some very good deals that way.

Seriously, a 10 year old laptop doesn't have that much service life left in it. And if you replace the drive, you just spent good money to put a brand new drive in an old machine - with a version of Windows that is about to go off support from Microsoft. 

If, however, you still want to go with your original plan to get a new drive, give us the exact make and model of your laptop and we'll see what we can recommend to help you out.
 

4305

Living Room / Re: Probably the single best idea I've seen in a *very* long time.

« Last post by 40hz on January 06, 2013, 05:23 AM »

^Me too.
I'm always amazed by some people's reaction when I let my phone "ring through" to voicemail. Or when I turn it off. You'd think I was breaking a law - or murdering a kitten! You can see them visibly retraining themselves from picking it up they're so conditioned.

Even sadder is watching the really bad addicts immediately grab their own phones and do something (like text a message or check their FB) just to take the edge off their jones should I refuse to pick up mine.

Only a matter of time before somebody files a class action suit.  

4306

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 06, 2013, 05:14 AM »

Agree. Ever hear of a Raspberry Pi? Or an Arduino or Pandaboard?

Wat? Dude, I seriously hope you're trolling there.   

-Edvard (January 05, 2013, 11:37 PM)

Apologies. That was meant to be taken as a joke. Sorry if it didn't come across that way. 

4307

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 05, 2013, 05:33 PM »

I'd like the possibility for something different and conceivably more useful.

-Edvard (January 05, 2013, 04:35 PM)

Agree. Ever hear of a Raspberry Pi? Or an Arduino or Pandaboard? 

4308

Living Room / Probably the single best idea I've seen in a *very* long time.

« Last post by 40hz on January 05, 2013, 01:21 PM »

Yup! Works for me.

4309

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 05, 2013, 01:19 PM »

you just raised the bar for godfathers!

-superboyac (January 05, 2013, 01:10 PM)

More like the bar for godmothers.   (Her guitar - not mine. I'd never spring for gold hardware! )

4310

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

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

I'd rather they put their efforts into a genuine open tablet PC and forget about the smartphone idea entirely.

A well executed tablet is something they could pull off very easily by doing little more than building the fully featured and powerful unwalled and unrestricted tablet everybody has been asking for. (And mostly in vain. )  Breaking onto the phone market is an altogether different battle. And I still think they're out of their league with that.

Linux works best when you follow your own 'weird' and do what you think is best for your intended audience. You can't really do that in a heavily regulated area such as telecommunications. There are far too many sweetheart deals and regulatory carve-outs to  be innovative and genuinely customer-oriented.

Just my tuppence anyway.

4311

General Software Discussion / Re: HowTo repair Win 7's zip?

« Last post by 40hz on January 04, 2013, 06:15 PM »

Much easier to just make 7-zip the default program for ZIP files and not worry about it.

4312

General Software Discussion / Re: Software that sounded useful, so you bought it, but then...

« Last post by 40hz on January 04, 2013, 06:13 PM »

I think anybody who is in the habit of actually paying for software will run into that annoyance sooner or later.

Like TaoP, I'm usually pretty careful about what I pick so I haven't had too many bad surprises. Most that I did have bad experiences with were "vertical market" or "industry specific"  (i.e. productivity and accounting) type programs written by small developers.

4313

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 04, 2013, 11:04 AM »

A capital idea. I'm doing much the same these days - except with music and guitar design.

-40hz (January 03, 2013, 06:01 PM)

Guitars? I LOVE guitars!!  
(we've spoke of this before, though, haven't we?)
 

-Edvard (January 03, 2013, 11:01 PM)

Yes. We have.

4314

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 04, 2013, 11:02 AM »

God plays a 6-string! I think his current favourite is a Gibson Les Paul at the moment. But who knows? Could be a scalloped Fender.  

-Renegade (January 04, 2013, 12:21 AM)

My personal "deity" alternates between her 50th Anniversary Strat, her G&L Classic Bluesboy and her newest crush - an Epi Ultra-339. She owns a vintage Les Paul Custom too. But that's out on "indefinite loan" to our pro-musician godson.

4315

Living Room / Re: win7 + external HDD

« Last post by 40hz on January 04, 2013, 10:50 AM »

I noticed you mentioned different hubs earlier.

It's generally not recommended you plug an external HD into a hub.

At the risk of asking an unnecessary question, did you try plugging it in directly to the PC?

4316

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 06:03 PM »

Cartoons? I LOVE cartoons!! 

-Edvard (January 03, 2013, 05:50 PM)

Me too.

4317

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 06:01 PM »

Telecommunications and the radio spectrum are highly regulated in most parts of the world - both under local law and international treaty.

So while you can easily build any hardware device you like, there's no guarantee it will ever be allowed to access the telcom grid or legally use the airwaves. Because in such a highly regulated environment, all unrestricted devices (and most real innovations) are viewed as potential threats to the stability and security of the network. So a completely open and unlocked smartphone is the last thing that government regulators and telco network security departments want to see come onto the market. Or even be allowed.

And like the TV ad (Verizon?) says: a phone is only as good as the network it's on. Or more correctly: is allowed on.

And with all the patent trolling, vendor lock-in, and infighting going on in the smartphone market, I don't see any of the real players (AT&T, Verizon, Metro Mobile, Sprint, et al.) looking to add to their line of sanctioned smartphones.

To be frank, Canonical is completely out of its league here. And probably more than a little guilty of falling for the "better mousetrap" fallacy.

Exciting? Yes! But as my niece says : This is so not gonna happen.
 

-40hz (January 03, 2013, 03:27 PM)

ah...screw it all.  i honestly don't even care anymore.

i'm just going to go back to working on cartoons and ignoring the world.

-superboyac (January 03, 2013, 05:49 PM)

A capital idea. I'm doing much the same these days - except with music and guitar design.

Seriously though, it is interesting. But with all the powerful commercial and political interests arrayed against it, I don't give anything "open" in the smartphone universe much hope. It's not a battle that "open" can win.
 

4318

General Software Discussion / Re: Canonical now joins Microsoft and Apple in tracking users of its OS

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 04:25 PM »

If we can treat canonical as spyware then adding adsense ads on any blog also makes that site spyware host, no?

-mahesh2k (January 03, 2013, 04:22 PM)

Yes. It does IMHO. 

4319

General Software Discussion / Re: Canonical now joins Microsoft and Apple in tracking users of its OS

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 04:02 PM »

there is an option in System settings for turning off amazon lens.

-mahesh2k (January 03, 2013, 03:49 PM)

Isn't that called opt-out?

-Ath (January 03, 2013, 03:54 PM)

Apparently I missed that if so. In which case I stand corrected on that point.

I'll still stand behind the rest of what I said however.

4320

General Software Discussion / Re: Canonical now joins Microsoft and Apple in tracking users of its OS

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 03:58 PM »

^Myunity is not an official part of Ubuntu. AFAIK it's still an independently developed and maintained hack.

It's also not hosted in the official repositories. You need to add a ppa to your software sources on order to install it.

One more hoop to jump through...

That would be like saying you should never complain about something Microsoft did in Windows because there are tweaking tools you can download from Filehippo to fix them.
 

4321

General Software Discussion / Re: Canonical now joins Microsoft and Apple in tracking users of its OS

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 03:39 PM »

^They could have made it opt-in.

That's not very much to ask for is it?

But they didn't.

Nor did they include a simple and obvious mechanism to opt-out. (see below comments)

So since they're not doing it that way, perhaps it may be instructive to ask why.

Because it's obviously not an oversight on their part.

And it's always worth remembering that a background communication process makes no distinction between which parties are accessing it. If you deliberately punch a potential security hole in something, there's no sure way of knowing what might eventually crawl through it.


This isn't politics - or "just" another social or privacy issue. It's a legitimate network and data security concern.

-------------------------------
@m -

Especially RMS and EFF when they are making claims out of thin air.

-mahesh2k (January 03, 2013, 03:16 PM)

If you interpret  ;)what was being said by the EFF or RMS as "making claims out of thin air" then you really need to read what they said again.

4322

Living Room / Re: Ubuntu Linux smarthphone coming this year?

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 03:27 PM »

Telecommunications and the radio spectrum are highly regulated in most parts of the world - both under local law and international treaty.

So while you can easily build any hardware device you like, there's no guarantee it will ever be allowed to access the telcom grid or legally use the airwaves. Because in such a highly regulated environment, all unrestricted devices (and most real innovations) are viewed as potential threats to the stability and security of the network. So a completely open and unlocked smartphone is the last thing that government regulators and telco network security departments want to see come onto the market. Or even be allowed.

And like the TV ad (Verizon?) says: a phone is only as good as the network it's on. Or more correctly: is allowed on.

And with all the patent trolling, vendor lock-in, and infighting going on in the smartphone market, I don't see any of the real players (AT&T, Verizon, Metro Mobile, Sprint, et al.) looking to add to their line of sanctioned smartphones.

To be frank, Canonical is completely out of its league here. And probably more than a little guilty of falling for the "better mousetrap" fallacy.

Exciting? Yes! But as my niece says : This is so not gonna happen.
 

4323

General Software Discussion / Re: Canonical now joins Microsoft and Apple in tracking users of its OS

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 02:56 PM »

TBH, people using unity and ubuntu are smart enough

-mahesh2k (January 03, 2013, 12:53 PM)

Remains to be seen...

Possibly now with Ubu (and Linux) still not being mainstream enough for the average desktop.

But down the road, I wonder...

Especially after the number of WinPCs I've seen with all the crapware shortcuts still on the desktop two years after the owner first got their machine. (And many of these people have been using Windows since Win95!)

As the demographic changes, so too will the "monetization" games that get played.

Right now, Linux is fairly safe because it's still pretty geek. But if Canonical has its way, that won't be the case forever. Especially once they finally release their openly 'secret' tablet PC.

Just remember - whenever automated background processes are allowed to run (especially processes that have network communications capabilities) there is also a group of very knowledgeable people actively looking for ways to abuse and profit from it.



Such a high price to pay for a little (debatable) user convenience and profit opportunity.
 

4324

DC Gamer Club / MIT Game Labs - A Slower Speed of Light

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 12:43 PM »

Earlier this week I've started playing with a new open sourced "game" from MIT called A Slower Speed of Light.

From the website:

A Slower Speed of Light is a first-person game prototype in which players navigate a 3D space while picking up orbs that reduce the speed of light in increments. Custom-built, open-source relativistic graphics code allows the speed of light in the game to approach the player's own maximum walking speed. Visual effects of special relativity gradually become apparent to the player, increasing the challenge of gameplay. These effects, rendered in realtime to vertex accuracy, include the Doppler effect (red- and blue-shifting of visible light, and the shifting of infrared and ultraviolet light into the visible spectrum); the searchlight effect (increased brightness in the direction of travel); time dilation (differences in the perceived passage of time from the player and the outside world); Lorentz transformation (warping of space at near-light speeds); and the runtime effect (the ability to see objects as they were in the past, due to the travel time of light). Players can choose to share their mastery and experience of the game through Twitter. A Slower Speed of Light combines accessible gameplay and a fantasy setting with theoretical and computational physics research to deliver an engaging and pedagogically rich experience.

Popular Mechanics already has a better write-up on it than I have time to put together, so take a look over here for the details and some videos.

What's interesting for developers and gamers is MIT's plans to release the source code in 2013. So that what amounts to a "relativity game engine" will soon be available for incorporation into other games.

This promises an interesting opportunity for space simulations in that it may soon be possible to escape from the "space opera" mindset of interstellar travel as used by all those StarTrek and Star Wars clones and begin constructing FTL-based games that more accurately reflect relativistic physics and visual effects.

Exciting!

4325

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for sequential tasks

« Last post by 40hz on January 03, 2013, 09:58 AM »

If you can live with fixed 25 minute as opposed to variable time intervals, there's a well-established approach called the Pomodoro Technique that might work for you. FWIW, there's supposedly a "scientific reason for choosing a 25-minute task interval - but I don't know if there was ever any serious validation of that claim.

Read all about it here.

I mention Pomodoro because there's already a ton of software for Pomodoro enthusiasts since Pomodoro was quite the "thing" a few years back. It's even available for smartphones last I looked.

Find some here. A quick Google or Bing will find you many more.

Luck!