Recent Posts

5001

Living Room / Re: if proxy connection works - who is blocking me: my ISP or the server?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 05, 2010, 02:56 PM »

Given where the trace routs were failing his ISP won't have a clue (nor should they really). I was looking like a corrupt routing table at the hosting companies border.

Send packets from network X to ... outer space

5002

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Internet disconnection logger

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 05, 2010, 09:18 AM »

Wow! That is a nightmare.

One test that is left is for a crossed pair between you and the CO.

During one of the many battles I had with them I managed to raise enough hell to warrant two techs at the house with a third "on call" at the CO.

They disconnected the wiring on my end.

They disconnected the wiring on their end.

They connected a handset to the now (allegidly...) completely "disconnected" pair that ran between me and the CO...

...And were rather astonished to hear an old woman talking a mile a minute (and quite clearly I might add).

That's when they (finally) really looked at the cable pair I was connected to the CO with ... And discovered it made several trips (random loops actually) up and down a 2 mile strip of road by my house before heading over to the CO (where it was supposed to go directly) in addition to being crossed with the nice chatty lady's phone line (and etc.).

You may have something like that going on.

5003

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Internet disconnection logger

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 05, 2010, 06:31 AM »

I'd rather try shaving with a band-saw than call the flowchart reading idiots at (CenturyLink) my ISP, so I understand your pain. But, are you sure the issue is on their side of the wire?

I have seen routers on the edge start dropping packets like mad which can look like an internet issue. I have no idea how you're configured but have you made sure you can ping to and through the local hardware? And did you run the test(s) with a large unfragmented packet?

I actually had to go through this once with "Tech Support", as I didn't have time to meander through their myriad of baby steps to get (them) to the obvious. I could ping my (static) public IP (WAN side of router), but I couldn't ping the WAN gateway (aggregator/CO/on-ramp to their equipment). So I managed to talk flowchart boy into pinging my IP (which I new he couldn't) to finally convince him that the issue was with their equipment. Specifically it was with the wiring cut by the trenching crew who had left their truck next to a big hole up the street. Flowchart boy (lacking the ability to think for himself) didn't have an internal memo saying there was an outage so he "logically" assumed the problem had to be mine...

Anyhow... If you tell me how you're configured I can give you a few ideas on how to slam them into a wall hard enough to see/find/finally go look for the problem.

5004

Living Room / Re: ICANN set to open the TLD flood gates

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 04, 2010, 07:41 PM »

It does seem a reasonably safe assertion that they would all quickly jump in line for that too...

5005

Living Room / Re: ICANN set to open the TLD flood gates

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 04, 2010, 06:26 PM »

Or [email protected] - with a redirect to a web store featuring brightly colored plastic spit cups.

Strange humor v2 - Your move 

5006

Living Room / Re: Would someone mind recommending a good laser printer?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 04, 2010, 12:35 PM »

the wife used glossy inkjet paper in it

-Rocketboy (November 04, 2010, 12:19 PM)

In a Laser Printer?!? That's an incredibly bad idea. The glossy coating can (and frequently does) melt when the paper goes through the fuser, which will gum up the rollers and leave you with a $300 repair bill.

5007

Living Room / Re: Should I buy a tablet pc, ipad, netbook, or other?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 04, 2010, 06:51 AM »

20 years ago if you were standing on a street corner wildly stabbing an appliance with a wiener, they'd lock you up.

My how the world has changed.

5008

General Software Discussion / Re: Format Factory ASSHOLE installation of Ask.com

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 04, 2010, 06:39 AM »

My dad once told me that sympathy was in the dictionary ... Right between shit and syphilus... (Mom looked awful pissed when he said it)

Anyhow... As Darwin said, great rant and I too agree.

5009

General Software Discussion / Re: How many times do I have to update my mutherf---ing Flash??

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 02, 2010, 03:29 PM »

If you don't reboot very often (I don't) you don't get the Flash update prompt very often.

I hate Flash on general principals, it's just a lazy way of adding gaudy crap to a site that didn't need to be there in the first place.

Oooo an animated banner on the top of a page - That's distracting as hell and makes my eyes try to cross vertically.

5010

Living Room / Re: Ideas for christmas geek presents

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 01, 2010, 06:56 AM »

Those should make getting through airport security interesting.

5011

Living Room / Re: Laptop choice: better CPU or more RAM ?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on November 01, 2010, 06:47 AM »

Makes it pretty much impossible to use outside in sunshine, but it's a nice crisp display when used inside. YMMV.

-f0dder (November 01, 2010, 03:13 AM)

  Being that one of the items on my to-do list is to spec a new laptop for a client that frequently works outside (in sunshine) ... What exactly are "we" calling a "Glare-Type Display"?

5012

Living Room / Re: win 7 laptop can't connect to xp desktop via wifi

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 30, 2010, 09:59 AM »

I tried to find something on NetBIOS that was informative and concise...but this was the best I could do:
How NetBIOS Name Resolution Really Works

The WINS stuff won't apply but the rest may be helpful in narrowing down the culprit.

Before you have to dig through all that, are any of your machine names longer that 15 characters? If they are that can cause NetBIOS name resolution to fail.

5013

Living Room / Re: win 7 laptop can't connect to xp desktop via wifi

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 30, 2010, 09:09 AM »

Why should using the ISPs DNS make any difference to a local network setup?

-Carol Haynes (October 30, 2010, 04:04 AM)

I'd be curious about that also, given that the Windows default H node name resolution depends on (NetBIOS) broadcast first and only then looks to DNS. And as you said neither the ISP nor Open DNS will have DNS (Domain Naming System) info for a (workgroup) nonexistent internal domain.

However in patthecat's defense, network printers in a workgroup are notoriously bad at name resolution and can frequently require several restarts before remembering to announce themselves on the wire so they can be found.

5014

Living Room / Re: Diffen.com: Wiki-based Website where you compare things

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 02:48 PM »

Sadly, they do not list the difference between shit and shinola.

 

5015

Living Room / Re: I'm thinking about learning how to program.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 02:44 PM »

It's hard for me to imagine any new learner being anything but negatively impacted by all of the plethora of tools and commands in Visual Studio.  I've been programming for 30 years and i still find these super powerful IDEs a bit overwhelming and distracting.. If you're just starting out learning how to program you might be better off using a simple text editor for your code, and focusing on the language itself and not trying to master a complex development editor/tool at the same time.

-mouser (October 29, 2010, 07:49 AM)

That's why I strip the VS UI down to just the basic main menu (no toolbars), the project window, and the code I'm working on. Build window pops up during compile then sinks back out of the way.

Me like simple clean interface.

5016

General Software Discussion / Re: What the heck am I doing wrong with MS Word page numbering?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 02:34 PM »

It might be worth checking that all your headers have the same style/styles however you intended.

-AndyM (October 29, 2010, 01:21 PM)

Excellent point.

Inconsistent formatting in large Word documents is a sure fire way to end up with a corrupt file. I had this issue with a client that frequently does complex 50+ page documents that were (passed through the office staff for editing) consistently blowing-up on them. Once they worked out internally how they were all going to handle the formatting, the problem vanished.

5017

Living Room / Re: "ICE" Your Cell phone

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 02:26 PM »

Don't most people have people in their contact list like "Mom" "Dad" "Wife", etc?

Kind of makes "ICE" redundant.

-Deozaan (October 29, 2010, 01:15 PM)

I don't have my wife in as 'wife', and she'd be my emergency contact.  I'd think that most married people would be the same.  And there's always the case where you don't *want* your mom or dad called (my mom is elderly and miles away... I'd not want her disturbed if something happened to me).

-wraith808 (October 29, 2010, 02:21 PM)

My folks are local, but I'd have to second that one myself.

5018

General Software Discussion / Re: remove objects from photos

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 07:12 AM »

Outstanding - It just had a bit of a to good to be true feel to it that I was tripping over.

5019

Living Room / Re: Can I use a remote pc's static ip because I haven't got one?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 07:10 AM »

You do realize that the Windows native Remote Desktop Protocol uses very little bandwidth when configured properly, right?

5020

Living Room / Re: win 7 laptop can't connect to xp desktop via wifi

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 29, 2010, 06:32 AM »

The laptop can see and connect to my desktop computer which is running win7 pro x64, but it cannot connect to another computer on the network running windows xp pro x86 by typing it's name. The laptop can however connect to the xp computer if it types in the ip address of the xp computer.

-nite_monkey (October 28, 2010, 04:05 PM)

If it can connect by IP, it can connect. So fiddling with SSIDs, sharing permissions, & etc. is probably just a good way to break something else.

Ping the IP, I'm guessing you can.

Ping the Name, I'm guessing you can't

Make sure that NetBIOS name resolution is enabled on all the relevent adapters, because this is a NetBIOS name resolution issue.

It could be a fight over who is the Browse Master, or it might just not be anouncing itself correctly. This is a big part of why I hate working on WorkGroup networks; XP is prone to pull this crap, and I never did find a clear cut method of troubleshooting it.

5021

General Software Discussion / Re: remove objects from photos

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 27, 2010, 06:54 AM »

Wire Pilot/Wire Pilot Lite are designed to remove linear objects.
http://www.colorpilot.com/wire.htm

-sajman99 (October 26, 2010, 03:42 PM)

Impressive results, but is that a stand alone app, or just a plug-in? ...Or both?

5022

General Software Discussion / Re: Pros & Cons of Remote Libraries?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 26, 2010, 08:33 AM »

Maybe a little background?  This question arose during a happy hour conversation as a result of an event occurring at a young Webmaster's site.  She swears she'll never use a remote reference again, and another agrees with her.  Then a couple of scripters are adamant about remote usage, and two of us just cannot make up our minds - we can see both sides, always a detriment to convincing argument .  Hence, this post.

-barney (October 26, 2010, 07:03 AM)

Two things come to mind:
1. Nothing is fool-proof, so no matter what you do there will be a potential for hiccups...Just try to aim for the smaller ones.

2. Sounds like a job for more robust code. Like doing some version checking so people with iPads aren't locked out of a Flash only website. The bells-N-whistles are nice as long as you don't make the site too dependent on them.

In a nutshell, how big is the library file?
Huge, let somebody else handle it (especially if it's free).
Tiny, sure can't hurt to toss it in.

Browser caching seems fairly (safe) reliable these days.

5023

Living Room / Re: Just when you thought all the good ideas were taken!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 25, 2010, 11:12 AM »

No, the trick would be to thread the cork so it can screw itself into the bottle.

5024

Developer's Corner / Re: Web Debate: Give Us Simplicity So We Can Ignore You

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 25, 2010, 06:43 AM »

So what does that mean? Maybe that, for any  given software : 1- Function should be clear and in accordance with its form, 2-  form should be in total accordance with its function. As corollaries : 3- form should make the functions clear and completely understandable, transparent and easy to use to its users. Then, when that has been achieved : 4- form can be made more aesthetic, pleasing, so that #1, #2 and #3 are actually reinforced... And some sensory pleasure can be felt...

-Armando (October 24, 2010, 06:56 PM)

Okay, I had to read that 3 times...But I'll sign it.

5025

Living Room / Re: Just when you thought all the good ideas were taken!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on October 24, 2010, 04:50 PM »

1. standardize the basic remote control protocol (on/off, change channel, volume up/down, basic DVD controls like start pause, fat forward, etc).  Once in place and enough stuff follows it you have the joy of being able to use any remote control for the 99% of what you want.  If you need to program recordings or do picture-in-picture, then you'll have to dig up the remote for the particular unit.  But if you just want to watch something, off you go.  Oh, and when you buy a new universal remote (or need to change the batteries in the one you have), you may never have to bother with programming it.

-mwb1100 (October 24, 2010, 02:54 PM)

If ever there was an idea who's time had come... You have totally got my vote on this one!