Recent Posts

501

Living Room / Re: Seagate starts shipping 8TB hard drives, with 10TB and HAMR on the horizon

« Last post by ewemoa on July 28, 2014, 05:52 PM »

While I don't feel the need for more space on a single drive, what I wouldn't mind having is better redundancy across multiple storage units without a lot of hassle (e.g. configuration, maintenance, compatibility limitations, etc.).

I had hopes for the like of Drobo -- anyone used one of their products lately?

502

General Software Discussion / Re: Tried git-annex / git-annex assistant?

« Last post by ewemoa on July 24, 2014, 10:54 PM »

Thanks for trying

May be it will be more generally accessible at some point down the line.

503

General Software Discussion / Re: Tried git-annex / git-annex assistant?

« Last post by ewemoa on July 23, 2014, 08:21 PM »

Perhaps this is what is being suggested by the error:

1. Line 2 of git-annex-autostart.vbs is failing
2. Line 2 seems to be requesting that the command "git annex assistant --autostart" be executed
3. If the failure is due to a file being failed to be located, may be the process executing the vbs file is not able to locate the executable for "git".

Since the windows support seems to be in beta, may be it's better to wait until it's more polished.

504

General Software Discussion / Re: Tried git-annex / git-annex assistant?

« Last post by ewemoa on July 21, 2014, 09:27 PM »

I haven't installed this software yet so have no experience using it -- but the message seems to be saying something about not being able to find some file.

I didn't figure out whether it's the file named:

  "C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\git-annex-autostart.vbs"

that is missing or whether there is something mentioned in that file that might be missing.  Have you looked to see whether that file exists and if so, what the contents are?

505

Living Room / Re: Replicant developers find and close Samsung Galaxy backdoor

« Last post by ewemoa on July 19, 2014, 11:08 PM »

The FSF encourages all current Samsung Galaxy owners to appeal publicly to SamsungMobile for an explanation (they can also be emailed).

-Renegade (July 13, 2014, 07:24 PM)

I've been wondering whether this bit has been acted upon in some organized / coordinated fashion.

Anyone know?

506

General Software Discussion / Recommendation for offline "QR Code Generating" Firefox Add-on / Extension?

« Last post by ewemoa on July 19, 2014, 11:03 PM »

I'm looking for a Firefox add-on to show a QR code of the currently visible page -- preferably not leaking URL info via the network (so offline QR code generation) and without having to restart.

Some candidates that turned up included:

Offline QR generator
QR Code Image Generator

A reviewer suggested the following might also work offline:

QrCodeR

Anyone have a favorite that seems applicable?

507

Non-Windows Software / Re: *NIX: Relatively Minimal Host OS for VirtualBox Use

« Last post by ewemoa on July 18, 2014, 07:26 PM »

Have since put together a "relatively minimal VirtualBox host" setup using NixOS.

The installation process goes something like:

• Boot from live media
• Log in as root
• Partition disk
• Mount the root partition
• Create a file describing the desired system result (e.g. install VirtualBox, disable IPv6, etc.)
• Run a command that builds a system based on the description from the previous step
• Reboot

Except for the specifics of the description, details can be found at:

  http://nixos.org/nixos/manual/#sec-installation

NixOS still has some rough spots for sure, but it seems quite promising.


Attached should be a gzipped tarball of a sample description (the 2 files in the resulting directory should live under /mnt/etc/nixos when installing).  This is for a machine with a single storage device (sda) with 2 partitions, sda1 for root and sda2 for swap.  The setup includes XFCE and VirtualBox.

508

Living Room / Re: Oh god...It's him!

« Last post by ewemoa on July 16, 2014, 06:53 PM »

Good to see / hear from you

509

Living Room / Re: What is the logic of bezier curves? (for Illustrator pen tool)

« Last post by ewemoa on July 15, 2014, 05:27 PM »

Does this help at all?

Bezier Curves and Surfaces: An Intuitive Approach

510

Living Room / Re: Does anyone understand what Android does with contact photos?

« Last post by ewemoa on July 14, 2014, 06:18 PM »

Don't have an answer to your question, but the following seems to support what you said about 720x720:

  http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17834815/how-to-find-the-max-image-size-supported-for-contacts-images

511

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

« Last post by ewemoa on July 13, 2014, 08:14 PM »

You just have to get an extra wide chair, like the ones made for guys that weigh 300+ lbs. 

-app103 (July 13, 2014, 01:24 PM)

That sounds like a good idea -- thanks for suggesting it. 

512

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by ewemoa on July 13, 2014, 02:22 AM »

 

Have We Been Interpreting Quantum Mechanics Wrong This Whole Time  Science  WIRED

-Arizona Hot (July 04, 2014, 08:01 PM)

Very much appreciated this one.  Thanks!

513

General Software Discussion / Tried git-annex / git-annex assistant?

« Last post by ewemoa on July 12, 2014, 05:28 AM »

Any one tried the git-annex system?

Quoted below are two use cases:

use case: The Archivist

Bob has many drives to archive his data, most of them kept offline, in a safe place.

With git-annex, Bob has a single directory tree that includes all his files, even if their content is being stored offline. He can reorganize his files using that tree, committing new versions to git, without worry about accidentally deleting anything.

When Bob needs access to some files, git-annex can tell him which drive(s) they're on, and easily make them available. Indeed, every drive knows what is on every other drive.

Bob thinks long-term, and so he appreciates that git-annex uses a simple repository format. He knows his files will be accessible in the future even if the world has forgotten about git-annex and git.

Run in a cron job, git-annex adds new files to archival drives at night. It also helps Bob keep track of intentional, and unintentional copies of files, and logs information he can use to decide when it's time to duplicate the content of old drives.

use case: The Nomad

Alice is always on the move, often with her trusty netbook and a small handheld terabyte USB drive, or a smaller USB keydrive. She has a server out there on the net. She stores data, encrypted in the Cloud.

All these things can have different files on them, but Alice no longer has to deal with the tedious process of keeping them manually in sync, or remembering where she put a file. git-annex manages all these data sources as if they were git remotes.

When she has 1 bar on her cell, Alice queues up interesting files on her server for later. At a coffee shop, she has git-annex download them to her USB drive. High in the sky or in a remote cabin, she catches up on podcasts, videos, and games, first letting git-annex copy them from her USB drive to the netbook (this saves battery power).

When she's done, she tells git-annex which to keep and which to remove. They're all removed from her netbook to save space, and Alice knows that next time she syncs up to the net, her changes will be synced back to her server.

Also from the homepage:

git-annex is designed for git users who love the command line. For everyone else, the git-annex assistant turns git-annex into an easy to use folder synchroniser.

514

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by ewemoa on July 12, 2014, 03:10 AM »

After struggling (and failing) to get a mechanical keyboard recognized by an ATEN kvm, came across and got the following replacement:

  Uniclass AH-04

Switching can be done via physical switches on the kvm unit or via the keyboard -- although the unit looks like it can use an AC adapter, it doesn't come with one and it has worked so far without one.

Works like a charm -- quite happy so far

515

Non-Windows Software / Re: NIX: KDE anyone? First thoughts.

« Last post by ewemoa on July 09, 2014, 07:03 PM »

I checked that file out after changing the value but didn't notice any difference, but perhaps the file hadn't updated...or something

Thanks!

516

Non-Windows Software / Re: NIX: KDE anyone? First thoughts.

« Last post by ewemoa on July 09, 2014, 05:26 AM »

Thanks -- any advice on performing "merges" with existing settings?

FWIW, attached is a copy of xfce4-keyboard-shortcuts.xml

I didn't find the setting related to Window Manager Tweaks -> Accessibility -> Key used to grab and move windows -- is that in there too?

517

Non-Windows Software / Re: NIX: KDE anyone? First thoughts.

« Last post by ewemoa on July 08, 2014, 06:45 PM »

I wonder why more desktop environments/managers/etc. don't go for using the Windows key to stay out of application key usage territory...seems like such a nice solution.

-ewemoa (June 13, 2014, 12:54 AM)

Tweaked the 3 sections that looked to contain keyboard settings in XFCE4 to try to avoid potential conflicts with various applications -- by judicious use of the Windows key.  Now I'd like to reuse these settings on other machines.  Anyone know of a good way to do so?  Didn't have much luck turning up any kind of export / import of settings...

518

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android malware

« Last post by ewemoa on July 04, 2014, 09:07 PM »

I wondered about the word "mostly"

519

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android malware

« Last post by ewemoa on July 02, 2014, 10:16 PM »

Thanks for sharing this.

I don't do banking via Android apps either.

520

Living Room / Re: BitPay introduces "BitAuth" - New authentication technology

« Last post by ewemoa on July 02, 2014, 09:44 PM »

Patience is a virtue?

521

Living Room / Re: BitPay introduces "BitAuth" - New authentication technology

« Last post by ewemoa on July 02, 2014, 05:17 AM »

Hmm, I thought this kind of scheme might be useful in providing a small number of authentication "tokens" (possibly down to one) for reuse across many systems -- but without some of the downsides of existing systems which claim to provide a sort of single-sign-on system.

522

Living Room / Re: BitPay introduces "BitAuth" - New authentication technology

« Last post by ewemoa on July 02, 2014, 03:44 AM »

So will it be possible to sign up at DC forums using this?

523

Living Room / Re: What Are Your Favorite Science Blogs?

« Last post by ewemoa on June 30, 2014, 03:30 AM »

How is the one you mentioned that had the bit on sugar?

  http://www.ucsusa.org/

524

Non-Windows Software / Re: LINUX: It's official - Mint 17 "Quiana" released to distribution

« Last post by ewemoa on June 30, 2014, 03:10 AM »

v2 releases of Mate and Cinnamon are avaliable:

  http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2662

Apparently they contain the following fixes:

MDM crash with non-xrandr compatible GPUs

...

Dangerously ambiguous label could lead people to mistakenly wipe their hard drive

...

Driver Manager didn’t handle missing firmwares correctly

...

Corrupted APT sources when / partition wasn’t formatted

...

Better out of the box experience for Steam, Wine, Skype, LibreOffice-base

...

All level 1 updates were added

See the post for more details.

525

Living Room / Re: Interview with Dr. Richard Stallman at CEBE 2014

« Last post by ewemoa on June 29, 2014, 08:20 AM »

Thanks for sharing!