Recent Posts

4626

Living Room / Dumbing-down of the educational system?

« Last post by IainB on October 14, 2012, 07:43 PM »

In a post here: Re: Thermageddon? Postponed! @Renegade referred to the dumbing-down process in the US (education system). I read the links/references he provided with interest.

Coincidentally, I was reminded of this when I read this comment on the Cartesian Product blog about the Maths "A" level papers in the UK, where a comparison is made between "A" level papers from 1982 and modern-day:

• Maths ‘A’ level: now for a tough one
• Maths ‘A’ level dumbing down: the proof

"A" ("Advanced") level exams in the UK used to be amongst the hardest exams a student might face until his/her 2nd or 3rd year at university. Not any more, it seems.
Presumably science (chemistry, physics, biology) and liberal studies are all getting the same sort of treatment. This could probably help to explain a lot.

CORRECTION: 2012-10-17

CORRECTION:
Oops. More haste less speed required on my part. Looks like my speed-reading might have crashed into a full stop and killed Comprehension in the process. Sorry.
In the post linked above (see Opening Post), the author doesn't state that he has proven that dumbing down has occurred, but that he has "dumbed down". I missed that bit - all I saw was the headline that he had provided "a proof".
He has corrected me in his blog: The great dumbing down debate

-IainB (October 16, 2012, 09:01 PM)

4627

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

« Last post by IainB on October 14, 2012, 08:47 AM »

4628

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by IainB on October 14, 2012, 06:10 AM »

Very revealing.
(Copied from Slashgear sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Leaked AT&T training documents reveal anti-piracy plan
Brittany Hillen, Oct 12th 2012   

A leaked batch of AT&T training documents reveal an anti-piracy plan in the books, which includes sending warning notices to flagged accounts. In what seems to be a completely draconian measure, any subscriber who’s account is flagged multiple times for copyright infringement will have access to frequently-visited websites (Facebook? YouTube?) blocked until they complete an online course on copyright. The warning notices will begin on November 28th.

This comes after the team-up of AT&T, Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon, who joined ranks with the MPAA and RIAA to form the Center for Copyright Information (CCI). The providers and MPAA/RIAA set out an agreement in which Internet subscribers would receive warnings for downloading copyrighted items. The subscriber will receive several warnings before the provider can then enact a harsher punishment.

None of the five providers have publicly commented on their involvement in the anti-piracy scheme. The leaked AT&T training documents provide the first glimpse into the plan, which is not without (extensive) controversy. The documents explain the upcoming changes to staff, and include this bit of info: “AT&T will not share any personally identifiable information about its customers with content owners until authorized by the customer or required to do so by law.”

An alleged source within the Center for Copyright Information told TorrentFreak that all five providers planned to launch the program on the same day. If true, this means that Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, and Time Warner customers will begin receiving piracy notices November 28th, in addition to AT&T subscribers. The “online education tutorial on copyright” will be triggered on the fifth or sixth warning notice, at which point access to certain frequently visited websites will be blocked until the tutorial is completed.

[via TorrentFreak]

4629

Living Room / Re: Do Not Track

« Last post by IainB on October 14, 2012, 03:10 AM »

generate bogus tracking events.

-f0dder (October 13, 2012, 04:50 AM)

A loaf of bread
A jug of wine
And you by my side
My little Raspberry Pi
Generating fake tracking data 24x7
Yup. That's what the cloud and homebrew clusters are made for...
Besides, DoS attacks are illegal. But pushing a ton of bogus tuples into cyberspace is no crime.

-40hz (October 13, 2012, 08:27 PM)

What a superb idea! I like it.    
Takes the JunkBuster random cookie jarfile approach to the next level - and then some!

4630

General Software Discussion / OCR - comparisons of different software/capability

« Last post by IainB on October 14, 2012, 02:51 AM »

Objective:
To run a quick comparison of the difference in accuracy between some of the different OCR capability available on/from my laptop and in the Cloud:
   ○ MS Office 2007 MSPVIEW.EXE (laptop).
   ○ MS OneNote (laptop).
   ○ ABBYY Screenshot Reader (laptop).
   ○ Google docs (Cloud).

Method:
Input data is in the form of a .tif image document, made by scanning a laser-printed document (black on white). The image was of a date-ordered financial statement.
For the purposes of the comparison, I just focussed on a range of dates in the date column, not the whole document image.
The table below has had all the OCRed results put into the same font and font size, and the single image has been resized/aligned, so that it is easy to compare the results across columns.

Results:
   ○ The errors have been highlighted in yellow.
   ○ It is evidently a tie between OneNote OCR and ABBYY clip OCR, both with 100% accuracy.
   ○ Google docs OCR is a very close second, with only one error - it missed a dot(!).
   ○ MSPVIEW seems to have made no data errors, but has inserted spaces where there were none.

4631

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: free ABBYY Screenshot Reader

« Last post by IainB on October 13, 2012, 09:46 PM »

I just checked and you can apparently still get the FREE ABBY Screenshot Reader "RETAIL" (2011 Christmas giveaway) software - download from http://fr7.abbyy.com...enshotReader_ESD.exe

The "newer" version I have (dated 2009-11-20) seems to work just the same as the giveaway version (apparently dated 2009-01), so I don't know what the difference is - if any.

4632

Living Room / Re: The Man Who Made The First Supersonic Parachute Jump, Just Not On Purpose...

« Last post by IainB on October 13, 2012, 08:56 PM »

...but how in the world can you control an aircraft without any air flowing over the control surfaces?  Methinks this was a little exaggerated.

-Tinman57 (October 13, 2012, 06:13 PM)

No, I think there must be quite a lot of free air in space, else how could the soundwaves from spaceships reach you? I mean, you can hear them swishing or humming past in all the space movies.   

4633

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by IainB on October 13, 2012, 08:28 PM »

...threatening to move

-tomos (October 13, 2012, 05:45 PM)

If the powers behind this have arranged it such that the consumer is likely to be stitched up sideways, then "threatening to move" could be infeasible or an empty threat. "Move where" exactly?

4634

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

« Last post by IainB on October 13, 2012, 04:46 PM »

Looks like there's some money due back some to Amazon Kindle accounts.
(ArsTechnica post copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Amazon to customers: three publishers settled antitrust suit, expect refund
After Apple and five publishers were sued for price-fixing, three have settled.
by Megan Geuss - Oct 13, 2012 9:00 pm UTC

On Saturday, Amazon started e-mailing its Kindle customers, alerting them to a possible credit coming their way courtesy of Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster. The three publishers were pulled into an antitrust suit in April by the Department of Justice, along with two other e-book publishers (Penguin and Macmillan) and Apple, as part of a massive antitrust case that started after the EU began investigating e-book prices. 16 states filed their own antitrust suits against the publishers and Apple as well.

"Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster have settled an antitrust lawsuit about e-book prices," Amazon’s notification reads, "Under the proposed settlements, the publishers will provide funds for a credit that will be applied directly to your Amazon.com account. If the Court approves the settlements, the account credit will appear automatically and can be used to purchase Kindle books or print books."

While the settlement still needs to be approved by the court at a hearing on February 8, 2013, Hachette, Harper Collins, and Simon & Schuster have already set up a $69 million fund to pay back customers. According to Amazon, customers can expect a credit in the range of $0.30 to $1.32 for each eligible e-book the customer bought between April 2012 and May 2012 on a Kindle. Customers can also request the credit in the form of a check.

The news of the settlement is in keeping with rumors earlier this year that three publishers were in talks to settle the lawsuits, although it was unclear which of the five were discussing the matter. Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan have not settled with the DoJ and will likely go to trial in 2013.

Amazon is clearly happy with the decsion, as it notes at the end of its e-mail, "In addition to the account credit, the settlements impose limitations on the publishers’ ability to set e-book prices. We think these settlements are a big win for customers and look forward to lowering prices on more Kindle books in the future."

4635

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PDF-XChange Viewer ($FREE version) - Mini-Review (as at 2012-10-04)

« Last post by IainB on October 13, 2012, 09:31 AM »

Wow, it has OCR.

-tomos (October 04, 2012, 05:49 AM)

I need to say that in my setup the included OCR has never given a useful result. Not even once!
Apart from that this, I am most satisfied with my Pro version.

-Curt (October 13, 2012, 06:49 AM)

That's a pity. I hadn't got around to testing that out yet.
The OCR in Qiqqa is superb, by the way.

4636

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PDF-XChange Viewer ($FREE version) - Mini-Review (as at 2012-10-04)

« Last post by IainB on October 13, 2012, 09:22 AM »

...They also have a version with colours. But then you will first need to click "Other software" and scroll some more, not knowing what you are looking for! Really a bizarre design!

-Curt (October 13, 2012, 07:11 AM)

Yes, their website does seem a rather strange design. I think it might be written by a visually/perceptually disabled person, for others of similar disability.

4637

Living Room / Re: Do Not Track

« Last post by IainB on October 12, 2012, 04:45 PM »

And set a custom X-DONT-TRACK-SCREW-YOU HTTP header

-f0dder (October 12, 2012, 01:06 PM)

Hm... ...Can we tweak the header hard enough to make the ad server spit burnt cookies for a few cycles after we say hi?

-Stoic Joker (October 12, 2012, 02:51 PM)

The Internet Junkbuster used to do this and more. From memory, the features I used included:

• 1. act as a local proxy server for your browser.
• 2. had a blocklist file that used regular expressions to set up sophisticated filters, to filter out content you didn't want (was real easy to add stuff on the fly as you browsed); you could could add to or swap blocklists with other Junkbuster users to save having to duplicate effort.
• 3. sent "do not fetch" commands to webservers, so unwanted/filtered junk was not sent to your PC (thus reducing bandwidth utilisation - important for me as I was using slowspeed dialup connections in Asia at the time);
• 4. spoofed whatever you wanted into your HTTP header - e.g., mine said I was using an obsolete model of a Mac computer, an obsolete Mosaic browser, and email address [email protected], plus it said DO NOT TRACK);
• 5. collected all incoming cookies in a secure INBOUND cookie jar, and wouldn't send them out (unless you wanted to).
• 6. could send OUTBOUND cookies at random from a standard jarfile of previously stored cookies, which you could add to or swap with other Junkbuster users, thus frustrating the demographic objective of using cookies.

Refer also:

• Privoxy
• Proxomitron

4638

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by IainB on October 12, 2012, 03:25 PM »

The Six Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan has apparently been implemented and is now up and almost running:
(Only part of this post from TorrentFreak is copied below. Read the rest at the link.)

AT&T Starts Six-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan Next Month, Will Block Websites
by Ernesto

Last year the MPAA and RIAA teamed up with five major Internet providers in the United States to launch the Center for Copyright Information (CCI).

The parties agreed on a system through which subscribers are warned that their copyright infringements are unacceptable. After several warnings ISPs may then take a variety of repressive measures to punish the alleged infringers.

Thus far the participating Internet providers have refused to comment to the press on any of the details including the launch date. But, leaked internal AT&T training documents obtained by TorrentFreak provide a unique insight into the controversial plan.

The documents inform AT&T staff about the upcoming changes, beginning with the following overview.

“In an effort to assist content owners with combating on-line piracy, AT&T will be sending alert e-mails to customers who are identified as having been downloading copyrighted content without authorization from the copyright owner.”

“The reports are made by the content owners and are of IP-addresses that are associated with copyright infringing activities. AT&T will not share any personally identifiable information about its customers with content owners until authorized by the customer or required to do so by law.”

The papers further reveal the launch date of the copyright alerts system as November 28. A source connected to the CCI previously confirmed to TorrentFreak that all providers were planning to start on the same date, which means that Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon are expected to have a simultaneous launch.

The training documents also give insight into the measures AT&T will take to punish those who receive a 5th and 6th alert.

When repeated infringers try to access certain websites they will be redirected to an educational page. To lift the blockade, AT&T will require these customers to complete an “online education tutorial on copyright”.

The training does not give any information on what sites will be blocked temporarily, but it’s mentioned that “access to many of the most frequently visited websites is restricted”. What the copyright education tutorial entails remains a mystery.
...(Read the rest at the link.)

4639

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PDF-XChange Viewer ($FREE version) - Mini-Review (as at 2012-10-04)

« Last post by IainB on October 12, 2012, 06:08 AM »

...You can try DarkScreen (and F.lux):
http://fx-software.b.../03/dark-screen.html
http://stereopsis.com/flux/

-panzer (October 12, 2012, 02:52 AM)

Thanks for the links. I had tried f.lux some time back (not sure when exactly as I carelessly did not make any notes about it) and rapidly uninstalled it. As I recall, I didn't like the colour. However, since then much has changed and I have taken control of my AMD/ATI laptop display and drivers (see separate thread referring to ATI Tray as being part of the resolution). So, after reading your suggestion I have reinstalled f.lux and will give it a proper trial. Using it now and hopefully adapting to it!    

I shall also probably give Fx Software's Dark Screen a whirl at some stage. Have downloaded it in preparation.

4640

Living Room / Re: Do Not Track

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 10:01 PM »

Legislators slam advertising group for advising members to avoid Do Not Track technology

Yes, but will legislators actually do anything about it?
(Sound of crickets chirping.)

-IainB (October 11, 2012, 03:50 PM)

When I first read about DNT in IE and saw what had been done and what was expected, I have to admit to skeptically thinking that it would be best to avoid the whole idea, and I switched it OFF in IE. I could smell a rat.
This was because I could not see that M$oft were a likely candidate as consumer champion for leading the revolt on this one, mainly because M$oft have historically shown themselves to be the ones who are always first in line to assault the consumer (or anyone else, for that matter) if it's for their own gain. They are an excellent corporate psychopath.

I reckoned that it was more likely that M$oft would be doing this for their own gain, and that it could probably be a deliberate effort to to effect a reduction in Google's advertising click revenues.

In any event, the DNT approach needed to get the buy-in of the advertisers, and again historically they have been able to demonstrate that, as a group, they are unlikely to be able to change their ways and not force their self-serving advertising strategies on the consumer.

IE suggesting that it was possible to "think philanthropy and empathy" with and on the consumers' behalf?
Yeah, right.

4641

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PDF-XChange Viewer ($FREE version) - Mini-Review (as at 2012-10-04)

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 09:30 PM »

@Tuxman and @PhilB66: Yes, Sumatra's bright yellow background drove my eyeballs crazy too - "perceptual disorganisation" I think is the correct term.
To change it, I looked in the Help notes on the SumatraPDF Home Page
There is a link there: command-line arguments that Sumatra understands
- where it said: (this is from my installation notes made at the time)

SumatraPDF
Command Line Overview
The general format of the command line for SumatraPDF is
SumatraPDF.exe [Options ...] [Filepath ...]
All options start with a dash and have (where indicated) arguments that have to follow them immediately. Anything that isn't recognized as an option will be interpreted as a file path. It's possible to freely mix file paths and command line options.
List of recognized command line options
   • -bg-color <hexcolor>
   Changes the yellow background color to a different color. See e.g. http://html-color-co.../webfarben_hexcodes/ for a way to generate the hexcode for a color. E.g.
  -bg-color #999999 <-- I put this in the Shortcut (2012-05-25 1047hrs) as it had a horribly bright yellow background set as standard.
   Shortcut string now reads: "C:\Program Files (x86)\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" -bg-color #999999
   changes the color to gray.

(I was OK with grey - my preferred background on my still sometimes rather too-bright laptop screen.)

Sorry, I omitted to mention this earlier.    

4642

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 03:50 PM »

Legislators slam advertising group for advising members to avoid Do Not Track technology

Yes, but will legislators actually do anything about it?

(Sound of crickets chirping.)

4643

General Software Discussion / ERROR (Solved): The protocol "oneindex" does not have a registered program.

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 01:49 PM »

ERROR (Solved): The protocol "oneindex" does not have a registered program.
A fix to a very annoying OneNote problem: (Win 7-64, Microft Office 2007, OneNote)
   ERROR: (When trying to open a search find to a OneNote item, in the Start menu.)

Unable to open this Internet Shortcut. The protocol "oneindex" does not have a registered program.

A google search eventually turned up this post "answer" in Microsft Community/Office/Windows 7:
OneNote Search Location not available
- which contained details for a registry file fix:

Spoiler

   Posted by steigerm on 23/06/2010 at 09:44
   The solution posted by PCM2 is ONLY for Office 2010!
   Use this one for Office 2007:
   
   
   ----------
   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5858A72C-C2B4-4DD7-B2BF-B76DB1BD9F6C}]
   @="Microsoft OneNote Namespace Extension for Windows Desktop Search"
   
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5858A72C-C2B4-4DD7-B2BF-B76DB1BD9F6C}\InprocServer32]
   @="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\ONFILTER.DLL"
   "ThreadingModel"="Both"
   
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5858A72C-C2B4-4DD7-B2BF-B76DB1BD9F6C}\ProgID]
   @="OneIndex.ShellFolder.1"
   
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5858A72C-C2B4-4DD7-B2BF-B76DB1BD9F6C}\ShellFolder]
   "Attributes"=dword:20180000
   "WANTSFORPARSING"=""
   
   [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{5858A72C-C2B4-4DD7-B2BF-B76DB1BD9F6C}\VersionIndependentProgID]
   @="OneIndex.ShellFolder"
   ----------

I applied the fix, and the Search was OK and now resulted in:

4644

Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 12:58 PM »

@wraith808: Thanks for the explanation and links.
US law is a bit of a mystery to me as I have only studied UK and NZ criminal, contract and commercial law.

You suggest that "...but this was most likely a civil seizure..." but if that is the case, then I do not understand why the police/FBI/SS etc . were so heavily involved with the police and SS (GCSB) in NZ.
As far as I was aware, in any civil actions in NZ, the police would not normally get involved - only if a crime had been committed.
For example:

I was reminded of this a while back when trying to retrieve some property of mine that a previously trusted friend had inexplicably deliberately taken and disposed of - sold and/or given away - knowing that it was wrong to do so. I wanted to recover the property which had some real financial value but which - more importantly - was irreplaceable and had a high intrinsic value for me. I phoned up my local police HQ, gave them the details, and asked for advice,, and they promptly asked me for full details of the person, their home address, etc. When I asked "Why?", the officer I was speaking to said that what I had described was an instance of "common theft", which is a crime, and which they deal with a lot, and that they would pursue the offender and charge them on that basis. I asked "Would you also recover the stolen goods?" and they said probably not, because it was usually difficult to retrieve stolen goods except when someone was "fencing" them to known contacts for a living (which I don't think was the case here).
When I said that I didn't actually want to lay a charge against the thief (it would have given them a police record and made life very difficult for them in future employment), but that I did want to recover the stolen goods, they advised me to take out a civil action in the Civil Court to recover the goods or the financial equivalent/replacement costs, and they (the police) would not need to be involved.

4645

General Software Discussion / Searching for information in audio notes in OneNote.

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 12:20 PM »

Searching for information in audio notes in OneNote.
The OneNote Help File is extensive and comprehensive, but OneNote is chock-a-block with useful features, and the usefulness of some of of those features is sometimes left up to the user to discover.
I have a habit of taking short written notes in a paper notebook when attending any meeting. Since starting to use OneNote, I have also started to take audio notes via my telephone - which doubles as a dictaphone and which is also sensitive enough to pick up a discussion in a meeting.
I have installed a journalling add-in to OneNote, where notes can be made logged in a journalised form for a particular date/time.
I transcribe my handwritten meeting notes into a journal entry in OneNote, and copy the related audio notes in as an embedded and playable .MP3 file within OneNote.
I also sometimes make a copy of radio talks that I listen to, and embed those as playable .MP3 files within a journalled OneNote entry.

The other day I was reading something that used the expression "right to be rich". It seemed an unusual expression, but I thought that I had come across it before, but I could not remember where or in what context. I thought it might have been in a meeting discussion, but did not recall any such discussion where the phrase would probably have been uttered.
Anyway, I eventually got around to searching for it in OneNote, and was very impressed with what I found and the ease with which I found it. OneNote had apparently transcribed and indexed all the voice items that it could detect in my audio recordings (I checked, and it has done this with the sung audio lyrics part of the music .MP3 files that I had saved into OneNote). It takes you straight to the audio clip and the position (time) in the audio clip that the searched item occurs:

4646

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft OneNote 2007 - some experiential Tips & Tricks

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 11:35 AM »

I changed the title of this thread to shift the context a bit, the idea being to develop the thread into a generally more helpful/informative/useful direction that other DCF users might like to contribute to.
The original opening post describes an odd/undocumented aspect of OneNote that I have not yet fully resolved/understood.

The background to my changing the title of the thread is that I have been gradually and progressively exploring the use of OneNote for about three years now. However, I still regard OneNote as being only a temporary/provisional/interim solution.. My main uses for OneNote include using it to:

• Act as PIM (Personal Information Manager) for general Personal/Business information.
• Help me to explore and co-ordinate scientific literature and notes on same. (In conjunction and some functional overlap with the reference management system Qiqqa and also Calibre.)
• Gather info and then read/analyze what has been gathered.
• Act as a general note-taking tool.
• Provide for basic/essential note-formatting (e.g., bulleted/numbered lists with multi-indentation if required), including tables, images (mandatory where needed) - e.g. figures from papers in the notes; make concept maps or diagrams as aids to comprehension/understanding).
• Provide easy, simple and fast wiki-like hyperlinking to notes within other OneNote Notebooks, to URLs on the Internet, and to files (documents/images) on my local hard drive. (Though document/image files can be embedded in the OneNote Notebooks as well, if you want.)
• Form an integral part of the Windows Search functionality for the local client/PC, so that the one search function can access all information sources, or at least as many as possible.

I arrived at OneNote after having tried and discarded as "not useful enough for my needs" many other PIMs and note-taking applications over the years. I still review some of these periodically, as they are updated. Some of them are very good - e.g., one in particular that I have used for years and that I am still using - InfoSelect (IS) - though I have stuck with IS8 (version 8 ), after trialling IS2007 (version 9), and the latest IS10 (version 10).

The shortcomings of these others were generally and variously things that reflected my requirements:

• Difficulty/inability to accommodate copies of RTF or HTML notes, though IS8 did have the ability at one time to incorporate native web pages, but that was dependent on the then prevailing/current version of IE (Internet Explorer) and the ability was "broken" when IE was updated.
• Non-existant or difficult/cumbesome wiki-like hyperlinking.
• Inability to make tables.
• Did not include simple arithmetical functions.
• Difficult/impossible to incorporate images or draw images.
• Primary dependency on accessing cloud-based data or functionality (e.g., as in Evernote) if you want full (unconstrained) functionality of the tool on  the client PC - which is mandatory for my requirements.

The ideal is not yet in my grasp, hence I say that the temporary/provisional/interim solution I have come up with is Onenote. It allows me to do the main things that I mention above - and quite a bit more - but nothing is perfect.
So this isn't intended as a OneNote "fanboy" thread. As a Onenote user, I am always interested in examples/case studies - if only just for reference - as to how I can improve on how I might be able to make more advantageous/beneficial use of OneNote.
What I intend to do is share those things that I might have learned in this regard, and I would be very interested to read of other DC Forum members' experiences, problems, workarounds or tips regarding OneNote. There seem to be only a few websites with very useful notes about OneNote, so perhaps this discussion thread might be able to fill some gaps.

4647

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PDF-XChange Viewer ($FREE version) - Mini-Review (as at 2012-10-04)

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 10:02 AM »

PDF-XChange Viewer gets mentioned in an interesting context in a post in the discussion forum at outlinersoftware.com:

Software Recommendation (Onenote vs. Others)
Posted by quant
Oct 10, 2012 at 08:32 PM

If you read a lot a of scietific literature, which I presume most is in pdf, I can suggest my setup:

• pdf xchange viewer - allows notetaking, highlighling etc. I also use my own tags like “mystop”, “mynote: ...”, “mytodo: ...” etc to mark what has to be done, where i stopped reading, etc
• archivarius, dtsearch or similar for quick finding of what you need to find in 100s of articles/books + your own tags
• a pdf comment collector - tool to collect your pdf notes into one doc - this is tool i helped to develop, i use it to go quickly over my notes in pdf files. I also use colour coding, the initial notes are yellow, those processes and stored in Ultra Recall are grey - easy to go through them by colour in pdf exchange viewer
• Ultra Recall - to store all my important notes, pictures (in my case math formulas) etc, it’s all indexed so fast to find what i need

ps: the above setup helped me to get a phd in math, and i still use it on a daily basis in my job

4648

Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 09:51 AM »

Confuzzling. The US judiciary apparently want Dotcom extradited because they cannot put him on trial until he is in the US.
However, it seemed to me that they had already established his guilt in something, having effectively somehow already charged and tried him in his absence - otherwise why sequester all his personal and business assets as they would do for a confirmed criminal?
The illegality (QED) of the arrest/seizure behaviours so far would seem to support this.

Per ArsTechnica post:
Megaupload to remain under indictment pending Dotcom extradition
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Megaupload to remain under indictment pending Dotcom extradition
by Timothy B. Lee

A United States judge has rejected Megaupload's effort to escape the reach of US criminal law. Lawyers for Megaupload have argued that its lack of a US mailing address makes it impossible for the government to properly indict the file-sharing company. But in a Friday ruling, Judge Liam O'Grady ruled that the government may be able to satisfy the law by serving notice on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom once he has been extradited to the United States.

American law requires that when the government criminally indicts a corporation, it must send notice of the indictment to the corporation's last known address in the United States. But Megaupload is a Hong Kong-based corporation, and its founder Kim Dotcom lives in New Zealand. Megaupload's lawyers argued that since Megaupload has no US address to send notice to, the government cannot satisfy the requirements of the law and therefore cannot indict Megaupload at all.

While that might seem like a perverse result, Megaupload attorneys made the case in July oral arguments that this was exactly what Congress intended. They contended that the misdeeds of Hong Kong corporations should be dealt with under Hong Kong law, and that it was unreasonable to expect a corporation with no US presence to defend itself in a courtroom halfway around the world.

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

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 07:45 AM »

Whoopee! An interesting and (IMO) positive development covered by Ars Technica: Court rules book scanning is fair use, suggesting Google Books victory
(Post copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Court rules book scanning is fair use, suggesting Google Books victory
Judge rules for Google's library partners in lawsuit brought by Authors Guild.
by Timothy B. Lee - Oct 11, 2012 3:15 am UTC

The Author's Guild has suffered another major setback in its fight to stop Google's ambitious book-scanning project. The Guild lost a key ally when Google settled with a coalition of major publishers last week. Now a judge has ruled that the libraries who have provided Google with their books to scan are protected by copyright's fair use doctrine. While the decision doesn't guarantee that Google will win—that's still to be decided in a separate lawsuit—the reasoning of this week's decision bodes well for Google's case.

Most of the books Google scans for its book program come from libraries. After Google scans each book, it provides a digital image and a text version of the book to the library that owns the original. The libraries then contribute the digital files to a repository called the Hathitrust Digital Library, which uses them for three purposes: preservation, a full-text search engine, and electronic access for disabled patrons who cannot read the print copies of the books.

There are four factors the courts consider in fair use cases. Judge Harold Baer sided squarely with the libraries on all four factors.

Probably the most important factor is the first factor: the "purpose and character" of the use. The courts have held that "transformative" uses are generally fair. For example, it's fair use for a search engine to display thumbnails of copyrighted images in search results. Judge Baer ruled that the libraries' intended uses for its digital copies are similarly transformative.

"The use to which the works in the HDL are put is transformative because the copies serve an entirely different purpose than the original works: the purpose is superior search capabilities rather than actual access to copyrighted material," wrote Judge Baer. "The search capabilities of the HDL have already given rise to new methods of academic inquiry such as text mining." Similarly, Judge Baer noted, the scanning program allows blind readers to read the books, something they can't do with the original.

Also key is the fourth factor: the impact on the market for the works. While a book search engine obviously doesn't undermine the market for paper books, the authors had argued that a finding of fair use would hamper their ability to earn revenue by selling the right to scan their books. But Judge Baer rejected this argument as fundamentally circular. He quoted a previous court decision that made the point: "Were a court automatically to conclude in every case that potential licensing revenues were impermissibly impaired simply because the secondary user did not pay a fee for the right to engage in the use, the fourth factor would always favor the copyright owner."

The libraries' fair use argument is somewhat stronger than Google's because they are non-profit organizations with fundamentally educational missions. But significantly, Judge Baer did not rely heavily on this fact in siding with the libraries. Instead, he focused on the transformative nature of the libraries' use. And since Google is making virtually the same use of its own scanned copies of the books, it's a safe bet that there are some happy lawyers in Mountain View this evening.

The copyright scholar (and sometime Ars contributor) James Grimmelmann called the ruling a "near-complete victory" for the libraries. Indeed, he said, the decision "makes the case seem so lopsided that it makes the appeal into an uphill battle. Perhaps together with the AAP [American Association of Publishers] settlement, this is a moment for a reevaluation of the Authors Guild’s suit against Google. My estimate of the likelihood of settlement just went up substantially."

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Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by IainB on October 11, 2012, 07:00 AM »

Potentially threatening moves afoot: see discussion thread Re: Major ISPs to implement "Six strike" rule

- the discussion stems from the post at Demand Progress.org: Tell ISPs: No Punitive "Six Strikes" Plan -- Or We'll Take Our Business Elsewhere

I personally wonder if this isn't a pincer move - likely to be a fait accompli - by the State in collaboration with the **AA.
It otherwise rather looks like the thin end of a very big wedge.
The implications could be pretty stunning. Assign regulation and monitoring responsibility to the **AA or those service providers selected by the **AA. At the moment, there may be some possibility that an Internet services user/consumer could "take their business elsewhere", but watch this space and see if that potential doesn't evaporate to become a myth.
For example, consider the possibility that only "licensed" ISPs will be approved to provide Internet services, and they won't get a licence if they don't enforce the "Six Strikes" policy (or whatever it mutates into) in its entirety.
The US$35 you would have to pay to even start to assert your rights would seem to be unconstitutional. If it goes ahead, then you might be able to expect that price to multiply a hundredfold to make it prohibitively expensive to fight for your rights. Best to just capitulate then.

Where I wrote:

How bad could the loss of Intenet freedoms get?
Try this for size - maybe coming to a State near you soon...
Google Users in Pakistan Suffer as ISPs Block Sites Without Reason
I guess it couldn't be all that bad really - I mean, you'd at least still be able to browse the local government websites and government-approved websites.

-IainB (October 02, 2012, 03:07 AM)

- I couldn't really have foreseen that a US "free-market" prototype version of the Iranian model - i.e., along the line of this Six Strikes model - was already on the drawing-board.