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5076

Living Room / Re: Don Lapre died sorta recently

« Last post by IainB on June 23, 2012, 12:52 AM »

...And someone def. edited his Wiki page because a couple years ago he was fighting stuff, but as of whenever that last edit went through, they decided all that no longer mattered. He committed an apparent suicide on October 2, 2011 while awaiting trial in federal custody.

-TaoPhoenix (June 22, 2012, 06:28 PM)

The key could be in the phrase:

"...they decided all that no longer mattered."

Wikipedia editors can arguably be said to fall into 2 main groups:

• 1. "Official" editors.
• 2. "Everyone else who edits either as anonymous or (like me) under a pseudonym.

But these groups can be further divided into degrees of bias/rationality, including, for example:

• (a) People whose contributions are relatively straight up-and-down - balanced and objective.
• (b) People whose contributions are wonky and biased due to belief in some religio-political ideology (which arguably could include activist atheists).
• (c) People who are intrinsically a bit wonky - e.g., they may have a bee in their bonnet about something, or a chip on their shoulder.
• (d) People whose contributions are merely internet vandalism or graffiti.

Somehow, the above pattern is supposed to enable "crowdsourcing" of a sifted collection of accurate, factual and credible human knowledge.

Hmm...
I can't see it myself. The sieve has a lot of holes in it. Unless maybe you could call Wikipedia "homeopathic knowledge", I suppose.    

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that groups 1 and 2 will each have their degrees of bias in (a) -->(d).
There have apparently been reported cases where Wikipedia have fired their editors - for example, including one who lied about (invented) his academic qualifications and used his position to bias any articles that did not align with his particular religio-political ideology, and remove any countering arguments. - i.e., he was a wacko, if not borderline psychotic.
However, those few instances cannot be expected to stop the tide of natural human irrationality.
Without proper and objective editorial control, Wikipedia could just become an increasingly large ocean of information, true knowledge with an an admixture of propaganda, myth and absurd nonsense.

Which is why I stopped contributing to Wikipedia, after  - in my naivety - initially putting considerable effort into it.
I took the articles that I had created and recreated them somewhere else where only I and some people who I knew cared about the truth and integrity of the subject matter could edit the material, leaving the Wikipedia stuff for entropy to take care of.
(Which, incidentally, is what led to some friends asking me to develop a website about a famous plastic surgeon whom they hold in high regard for his very real help in improving the human lot.)

So maybe someone could do likewise - i.e., create a website about Don Lapre, and tell his true story - whatever that may be.
Shakespeare probably had it right with his ironic:
"The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones."

5077

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt index (I think): how to fix?

« Last post by IainB on June 23, 2012, 12:02 AM »

Well, it's a digression, but worth learning from nontheless:

http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en

Mediainfo: want to hear some shady shit??  Check this out:
-- go download the mediainfo installer
......I got tricked about this last year with some other askjeeves toolbar or something.  They put that pause there on purpose, and they are total assholes for doing so. (see attachment in previous post)

-superboyac (June 22, 2012, 03:06 PM)

Yes, I noticed this sneaky underhanded attempt to get the AVG Toolbar installed, and nearly got caught too, after @4wd pointed me to use MediaInfo in another discussion thread:

Before investing any time in trying different editing software could you run MediaInfo over one of the files to see what it really is ?

-4wd (June 14, 2012, 09:17 PM)

Just did this. Here's a screenshot of the MediaInfo window. Is that enough? (see attachment in previous post)

-IainB (June 15, 2012, 11:25 AM)

I was very suspicious of MediaInfo after that. One of the really handy things about W7FC (Windows 7 Firewall Control) is that it always alerts and asks you what to do when a new proggy wants to communicate outwards. I just select "Disable" (block) all the stuff I hold as suspect or potentially suspect because unknown - e.g., including things I am merely trialling - as soon as it has installed. That's after it has got through various virus and MalwareBytes checks, of course.
As here, for example:

5078

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

« Last post by IainB on June 22, 2012, 11:35 PM »

We called it a 'Prophylactic Power Refresh' when I was with Telstra, ie. it solved the likelihood of further problems. 

-4wd (June 22, 2012, 09:59 PM)

Har-de-har-har. Very droll.

5079

Living Room / Re: Google deletes G+ emails out of your INBOX without your consent?

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2012, 09:40 PM »

I for one was unaware that the G+ comments could be and indeed were being subject to actions where they could be automatically removed/erased from items in your Inbox, without your say-so, as per the manner described in the opening post.

There is a general rule related to the design for privacy and security of personal email - a principle - that one's Inbox is personal, private, secure, sacrosanct and, for most purposes, inviolable.
Making the point that Yahoo or whatever have been abrogating the principle for years does nothing to ameliorate the action, merely serving to show Yahoo or whatever for what they really are. I had already arrived at the conclusion a long time ago that I wouldn't touch Yahoo with a bargepole.

For me though, this is a new discovery. It is not just that it seems to be yet another of a growing number of reasons that have surfaced for not using Gmail - and especially G+ - but one with more weight than many of the other reasons.
Whilst I had also previously arrived at the conclusion that I wouldn't touch G+ with a bargepole, it now seems that I'm definitely going to have to consider leaving Gmail after this. Which is a pity, as, being skeptical I had only slowly started to trust and rely on Google and Gmail in the first place, operating on the maxim "By their fruits ye shall know them." - Mathew 7:16.

Unfortunately, Google seems to have just undone themselves somewhat, according to the same maxim. There's not a lot you can do to repair a situation where you have once breached someone's trust. It's kinda permanent. If you can do it once, then you can do it again and probably will.

This is more evidence - if any were needed - that "Do no evil." is a just a cynical cliché. But that knowledge is not necessarily a bad thing per se, because it has at least stripped off any possibly naive trust I might have built up in Google, so that I can see them more objectively as just another mediocre service supplier on a flat grey plain of mediocre service suppliers.
Ah well, "You get what you pay for", I suppose.

PS: Not forgetting:

"Ability proves itself by deeds." (Aesop's fables - The bees and wasps, and the hornet)

5080

Living Room / Re: Google deletes G+ emails out of your INBOX without your consent?

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2012, 08:24 PM »

Thanks, IainB, for the clarification.  Interesting strategy!...

-cyberdiva (June 21, 2012, 08:52 AM)

By the way, what gets forwarded to the backup Gmail account and to the Group is the email together with any and all attachments.
Interestingly, the Group seems to have no finite upper storage volume constraint, unlike Gmail.

5081

Living Room / Re: Google deletes G+ emails out of your INBOX without your consent?

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2012, 11:31 AM »

...My only reservation is that it stil.l puts your email at the mercy of Google.  These days, that makes me slightly uneasy.

-cyberdiva (June 21, 2012, 08:52 AM)

You and me both.
I do another infrequent backup of all of the email in my main Google account.
I don't think you can trust any Google services after they have shown how they can pull a service offline at the drop of a hat.

5082

Living Room / Re: Denial of economic crisis contagion in the Eurozone.

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2012, 11:26 AM »

What a brilliant collection of clichés!
Is there a name for this? It looks to be a new class of cliché altogether.
They are amusing anyway - in their own right, I mean - but if they are all true sources and not made up just as a joke, then they are a truly hilarious joke on the people and mindsets that caused them to be uttered.

I wonder, are they real clichés - statements made independently and without concious reference to one another, as in "going forward", or "at this point in time"?
Or were they perhaps made deliberately as a cynical script - like Obama's empty "...one of our greatest/most important allies" cliché said directly to almost each and every visiting representative from other, smaller nations?

I suspect that it could be a deliberate Euro word-play. If you make such statements from the point of view of each collapsing economy in the Euro-daisy chain, then they are all equal, but still collectively "together". No separatism. Safety in numbers, that sort of thing. No given economy can be singled out as being absolutely "the worst", since "the worst" has an ambiguous definition.

I am not a Euro-taxpayer, but I reckon it might be worth paying unelected Euro-politicians their high salaries if they can come up with amazing jokes like this. Euro-taxpayers might not agree with this, of course.

5083

Living Room / Re: Even if you do nothing else today, you MUST at least join Kickstriker.

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2012, 06:56 AM »

Hahahahaha~!

-Renegade (June 21, 2012, 05:23 AM)

Made me larf too. I really like that site - it's quite a good spoof.
The pun Kickstriker<-->Kickstarter is quite clever too...pokes fun at an already seriously overworked cliché.

Oops. Looks like a DCF post above by @stephen66515 was deleted/censored (?). Or did he somehow delete it hisself?

5084

Living Room / Re: Google deletes G+ emails out of your INBOX without your consent?

« Last post by IainB on June 21, 2012, 12:18 AM »

I have dual real-time automatic backup of my Gmail account organised. I would already have 2 copies of such a deleted email - one in each of the separate backups.

-IainB (June 20, 2012, 08:44 AM)

Iain, I'm just curious--what do you use to backup your Gmail account in real time?  Did you create your own backup program, or are you using a third-party software program?

-cyberdiva (June 20, 2012, 11:44 AM)

Oops, sorry. I was a bit hasty there and did not complete the statement.
What I was referring to is that I auto-forward all incoming email to a second (backup) Gmail account, and also to a Google Group (of which I am the sole member).
So that gives me almost real-time backup of all incoming email, to two locations.
The Group one is useful because I can access my email in Groups and reply to that email from within Groups, even from behind most clients' firewalls (whereas Gmail access is often blocked by default).
I rarely, if ever, use clients' email systems to conduct personal email communication.

5085

Living Room / Re: Even if you do nothing else today, you MUST at least join Kickstriker.

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 11:55 PM »

Oh, ...erm, parody. Right.     




____________________________________
I thought it was too good to put in the humour thread.
That someone should try to shut the site up from making legitimate speech/comment was rich though.

5086

Post New Requests Here / Re: Chop off extra junk in file names

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 10:21 PM »

+1 from me for BRU (Bulk Rename Utility) for this. I had a similarly rather complicated renaming problem, and my usual problem-solver (xplorer²) couldn't help. I used BRU after reading a post about it on the DC forum.

WARNING:

Using BRU makes my brain hurt, but it's a very powerful tool. You could really screw up with it big time too.

-IainB (April 02, 2012, 06:55 PM)

5087

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt index (I think): how to fix?

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 09:56 PM »

Nasty.
Not sure if this is of any use or if you have "been there/done that". I did a quick google (corrupted allocation table index NTFS -FAT) and found these for a start:

Repair-corrupt-master-file-table
Source: http://www.ehow.com/...ster-file-table.html
The master file table is a portion of new technology file systems (NTFS) that store information regarding all files and directories on a particular drive, making it a crucial part of your computer. Repairing a corrupt master file table is accomplished by using the disk repair tools in your operating system, a procedure that will take anywhere from 20 minutes to more than an hour depending on the state and speed of your hard drive and computer.

Instructions

• 1. Click "Start," "Programs" and open "Accessories."
• 2. Right-click "Command Prompt" and select "Run as Administrator."
• 3. Type "chkdsk x: /r" and press "Enter," replacing "x" with the letter of the drive containing the corrupt master file table.
• 4. Press "Y" to confirm the scan and repair.
• 5. Restart your computer. The PC will automatically scan the drive for errors at start-up, repairing errors that are found and repairing the master file table.

Rebuild-corrupt-master-file-table
Source: http://www.ehow.com/...ster-file-table.html
The Master File Table contains all data concerning the logical structure of information on a hard drive, including operating system locations, operating system boot options and the logical placement of all data on the drive. Due to any number of factors, this table can become corrupt through hard drive failure or malicious software. The Windows operating system provides a simple tool for rebuilding the Master File Table.

Instructions

• 1. Click the "Start" button located in the lower-left corner of the Windows desktop.
• 2. Type "chkdsk /f C:" in the text box next to the "Run" heading without quotes. Change the letter "C" if that is not the drive you are attempting to recover.
• 3. Click the "OK" button on the dialog box that appears to begin the recovery process. This launches the check disk utility that scans the entire drive for logical errors in an attempt to correct them. If the master file table is recoverable, it is fixed during this process. Depending on the size of the hard drive, this may take several minutes to several hours.

5088

Living Room / Denial of economic crisis contagion in the Eurozone.

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 09:46 PM »

I lifted the image from a Samizdata post - here.

5089

Living Room / Re: Even if you do nothing else today, you MUST at least join Kickstriker.

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 08:26 PM »

The amazing Kickstriker initiative is apparently already being targetted by...
...corporates claiming copyright infringement - e.g., here.

5090

Living Room / Even if you do nothing else today, you MUST at least join Kickstriker.

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 08:15 PM »

Screenshot from the amazing Kickstriker initiative's site at http://kickstriker.com/


From the Kickstriker site at http://kickstriker.com/about:

About Kickstriker
Kickstriker is a fundraising platform for activists, engineers and others working to resolve global conflicts. We believe that crowdfunding holds the potential to address many conflicts around the globe by allowing those who care to directly support potential solutions. These solutions might take the form of military action, supplying equipment and arms to those in need or the development of new military technologies with immediate applications in the field. Rather than waiting for national governments, coalitions and international bodies like the UN, NATO, EU and AU to decide to address a conflict--a process that can take years of deliberation--Kickstriker users are funding solutions that can be on the ground in weeks.

Kickstriker was built by three graduate students in the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU: Josh Begley, Mehan Jayasuriya and James Borda. Following the massive success of Invisible Children's "Kony 2012" campaign, we found ourselves excited about the potential that crowdsourcing held for addressing global conflicts. We were equally disappointed when that campaign unraveled, amid a backlash and public scandal. While "Kony 2012" succeeded at raising awareness and connecting potential activists with an issue, it ultimately failed due to suspicions regarding the role that Invisible Children played as a middleman. Kickstriker is our attempt to cut out the middleman in online activism, allowing funders to directly support the causes they care about.

While we are in beta, we will not be accepting any new project proposals. We hope to roll out a project submission process in the coming weeks, contingent on the success of the initial round of projects. If you would like to get in...

(You can read the rest on the website.)

5091

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 07:54 PM »

Just to augment the points I made in the above post, here's an example of forceful protection of corporate taxation in action. In this case, it's the Ports Authority of New York (a public corporation, funded by taxation) using the Police (another public corporation, funded by taxation) to enforce and protect their revenue streams by punitively penalising the New York taxpayers who have taken advantage of apparently legitimate means to minimise the cost of their tax payment (the toll across the George Washington Bridge) to the Ports Authority.
Have you got that?

...This taxation effectively manifests as a seemingly hostile and extortionate act against consumers, and it has been legalised...

-IainB (June 20, 2012, 07:21 PM)

So here we apparently have a prime example of superb and unashamed collaborative parasitism by two parasitic public service corporations.
I would have hoped that this sort of silliness could only happen in "America The Free", but I'm none too sanguine about that.   /sarc off
Police Ticketing Informal Rideshare Participants Based On No Law

This probably falls into the "Read and weep" category.

5092

Living Room / Re: Selling Something? Go to Jail! That's copyright infringement... :-/

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 07:21 PM »

It seems to me that the problem essentially lies within the concept of IP (Intellectual Property), which concept seems to have been picked up by Big Corporates and other rent-seekers, and  legally re-engineered into a set of weapons (e.g., copyright, patents, licencing, artificial barriers to entry) to create/maintain monopoly or oligopoly positions and guarantee resulting revenue-streams in perpetuity, in the form of a toll tax that we must all pay.
This sort of thing is happening where democratic and capitalist religio-political ideologies prevail, but it could (and has) happened in one form or another where socialist-communist and Fascist ideologies prevail.

This taxation effectively manifests as a seemingly hostile and extortionate act against consumers, and it has been legalised.
For a worst case example, you probably need do no more than look towards (say) Monsanto and GM corn and the injustices they have forced upon hapless farmers in, for example, the US, and India.

There is an ironic joke somewhere in here in the form of the term "Consumer Protection" - which is apparently a myth to pacify and make us feel comfortable whilst being held ever more still in the legal straightjackets fabricated by our lawmakers, so that the large and small parasitic leeches can continue to fasten and feed ever more voraciously on us consumers, who are at the bottom of the food chain.

This is classic corporate psychopathy in action, once again refined and sanctioned by statute/law. We are already turned into serfs.
The recipients of the IP taxes are usually in the form of fat, greedy, lazy, selfish, uncaring, unproductive corporate psychopaths. They stifle creativity by taking ownership of its product and then taxing us for it and prohibiting the creative production or use of anything similar, in perpetuity.
We should not complain, as they are merely performing very well and in the exact manner that we (society and lawmakers) set them up to do. The individual - the serf - has apparently embraced and condoned his own serfdom.

It is only a matter of time before these psychopathic corporations, in one form or another - e.g., maybe as a "benevolent" World Government - exact further tolls on citizens. Think a tax on carbon, on air, on potable water, on a patent on the human genome - i.e., on life itself. It has arguably already started.

We seem to intuitively or instinctively know that this is ethically/morally reprehensible, but at the same time we seem to be powerless against the Masters that we have made for ourselves. Serfdom = slavery.

What can you do about it? Well, you don't have to accept it. You could try being disobedient or rebellious against the status quo, but that could bankrupt you with fines, or land you in prison, or both. This is the remorseless force exerted on the slave.
However, there is still one place where - for the time being at least - we can allow ourselves to live in freedom, and that is in our minds.

Serendipitously, I came across this post today, that seems to put this kind of point across much better than I can.
Nina Paley Explains Intellectual Disobedience

Nina Paley Explains Intellectual Disobedience
from the people-are-going-to-create-and-share dept

Nina Paley (filmmaker, activist, occasional Techdirt contributor, and many other things) has given an interesting interview with O'Reilly's Mac Slocum, in which she talks about the concept of "intellectual disobedience" -- merging "intellectual property" with "civil disobedience." Nina argues that if you believe in creating and sharing culture these days, copyright infringement is almost necessary, and people shouldn't apologize for it, but should stand up for what they're doing:

"A lot of people infringe copyright and they're apologetic ... If you know as much about the law as, unfortunately, I do, I cannot claim ignorance and I cannot claim fair use ... I know that I'm infringing copyright and I don't apologize for it."

The phrase "intellectual disobedience" has a call-to-arms ring to it, but Paley characterized it as an introspective personal choice driven by a need to create. "It's important for me as an artist to make art, and the degree of self-censorship that is required by the law is too great," Paley said. "In order to have integrity as a human being and as an artist, I guess I'm going to be conscientiously violating the law because there's no way to comply with the law and remain a free human being."

5093

Living Room / Google deletes G+ emails out of your INBOX without your consent?

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 08:44 AM »

Something that some of us might not have been aware of.
The title is taken from a post at Slashdot:
Google deletes G+ emails out of INBOX without consent?

the_B0fh writes
"Make sure you enable emailed notification in G+
Create a public post on G+.
Have a friend post a comment.
Check your INBOX — see the comment.
Have friend delete comment.
See that email disappear from your INBOX.

Isn't that a pretty major violation of trust?"

Sure looks like it could be.
However, it probably wouldn't affect me, because I have dual real-time automatic backup of my Gmail account organised. I would already have 2 copies of such a deleted email - one in each of the separate backups.

5094

Living Room / Re: The more you know, the less you want to live on this planet.

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 02:28 AM »

All of those things are things that are part of your environment.
The amazing thing is that we are still alive and healthy, despite all the incessant natural and unnatural assaults on our bodies, from things in the environment.
That's some marvellous adaptive and self-repairing machine you've got there - your body.

5095

Developer's Corner / Re: Ethics and Responsibility Question

« Last post by IainB on June 20, 2012, 02:16 AM »

The OP presents a typical poser of the sort that HP used to pose in their "business ethics and responsibility" training programme. All new hires had to undergo online induction training in this. The ethics programme may have had little real benefit for HP though, as the organisation seems to have suffered from serial ethical execution errors from the top executive down, over a number of years.

Golden rule #1 - Operate from the basis of principled action. Formulate some ethical principles, and stick to them.
The principle here is clear communication upwards of any areas of ethical concern.
A general rule-of-thumb I was taught in consulting in the UK Defence/SS sector is to always report upwards in writing any instances or circumstances of actual or suspected fraud or unethical practice in a client account or in your own organisation. Your opinion is irrelevant, and your job is not to sleuth out the truth or otherwise of the matter - it will be out-of-scope of the Terms of Reference for the project you are engaged in. Just the facts and salient points as you know them is all you need to communicate.
You would usually do this as an email to your staff manager and CCd to the account/commercial manager, and would ask the former (in that email) for advice as to what action (if any) he/she may require you to take other than reporting the matter.

Golden rule #2 - Paranoia.

• (a) Always ensure that at least two (2) people are sent the email, but address it to one only (CC the other), so as to focus responsibility for action. Also CC a Central Corporate File, if your company operates such a thing.
• (b) Make sure you retain a personal copy of the email. You could forward it (do not Bcc it) to your private email address, and then delete the forwarded email from your outgoing email store, or (safer) print the email off and retain the hardcopy at home or somewhere else safe, but not in the office anyway. Scan it to a document image.

This achieves:

• 1. Monkey-handling: The removal of the monkey from your back and the placement of it on 2 of your superordinates' backs. They would generally be expected get on with discussing an appropriate action between themselves, and you would be entitled to the courtesy of a written response from your staff manager, answering your Q and telling you what their approach is to be.
• 2. CTAM (Cover-The-Ass-Method): as an insurance/protection of your own career. You can be certain that, "when push comes to shove" or if the SHTF, no-one else will be interested in protecting it for you, as they will be too busy protecting their own hides.

If you receive a verbal response from either of them, whether in a formal meeting discussion or just in passing, then send them both an email confirming your understanding of the discussion.
Repeat and rinse: same paranoia and CTAM as above, with this email and any others.

Golden rule #3 - Just remember to always keep it in writing.

The proof of the pudding:
This training has served me well over the years as a sort of Teflon coating. It has enabled me to survive unscathed several serious attempts by defective, unscrupulous or politically-motivated characters - in my own organisation or a client or associate organisation - to drag me down, or get me out of the way, or associate and tarnish me with blame for their own and/or someone else's unethical/corrupt or otherwise unprofessional practices or mistakes.
I have felt obliged to leave some companies where I could not be bothered continuing to work in such dysfunctional organisations, but in each case I have been paid a lot of exit money ($$$) to keep my mouth shut, and in two of the most egregious examples I was later invited back by senior management, to find that the defective people had been fired with prejudice in my absence and there was a saner working environment.

5096

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

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2012, 10:35 AM »

@Renegade: The g+ joke is probably true, but unkind.  Made me smile.    

Here's some PC fixit stats.:

5097

Living Room / Re: Techie News Roundup

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2012, 12:56 AM »

Council reverses ban on school dinner blog
I've written an emailed letter of complaint to Argyll and Bute Council at their website complaints page:
http://www.argyll-bu...ments-and-complaints

-IainB (June 15, 2012, 09:48 AM)

Looks like @VEG's NeverSeconds blog is back on the air.
As reported at techdirt - here.

NeverSeconds is a blog by a 9-year old primary school student, Martha Payne, photographing and blogging about the school lunches she's served daily...
...
...just as in the case with The Oatmeal v. Funnyjunk, this Streisand Effect is being used to turn an attempt at censorship into a way to raise money for charity. Martha put up a crowdfunding page to try to raise £7,000 for a charity and it's already made over £48,000.

Actually, right now it stands at £85,429.63:
- as reported on the NeverSeconds blog - here.
But it's still counting - now:

£88,163.03 raised of £7,000.00 target

- as per the JustGiving donations site - here.

5098

Living Room / Re: Techie News Roundup

« Last post by IainB on June 19, 2012, 12:11 AM »

...Do I really want a company that specializes in selling private data to have my cell phone number?!

-TaoPhoenix (June 15, 2012, 10:19 AM)

Of course you do.

"Facebook is your Friend."

Yeah, right.

5099

Mini-Reviews by Members / Stick-A-Note + Universal Viewer - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on June 18, 2012, 05:15 AM »

Originally posted:	2012-06-18
Last updated	2018-07-11

Basic Info

App Name	Stick A Note by Anand K. Gupta, - and used in conjunction with Universal Viewer Free from http://www.uvviewsoft.com/
Thumbs-Up Rating
App URL	Stick-A-Note from http://sites.google.com/site/stickanote/ and Universal Viewer Free from http://www.uvviewsoft.com/
App Version Reviewed	Stick-A-Note Freeware v3.0.1 (2017-12-27) Universal Viewer Free v5.7.2.0 (2012-06) (there is a more recent version)
Test System Specs	Installed/run on Win7-64 HP, Win8/8.1-64 Pro, Win10-64 Pro
Supported OSes	Previous versions of Windows up to an including Win10-64 Pro
Support Methods	Stick-A-Note: Refer to website Feedback page: http://https//sites....kanote/home/feedback Universal Viewer: Refer to Support page: http://www.uvviewsoft.com/support.htm
Upgrade Policy	Upgrades also freeware, posted to the websites (which have other tools also available from their respective developers)
Trial Version Available?	Stick-A-Note is FREEWARE, and so is Universal Viewer Free, though, confusingly, some of the latter's plugins may be Shareware/Honestyware (and the UV Navigator panel might be such a plugin, I think).
Pricing Scheme	(Not applicable.)

1. About:



2. Introduction:
In a separate DCF discussion thread:
Re: Gmail Notes (Sidebar add-on for Firefox only) - Mini Review
- I commented:

@TaoPhoenix:
Well, I think you're quite right about Stick A Note, and I was wrong (too hasty).
I had previously just given Stick A Note a very hasty and cursory once-over. It didn't seem to work properly and the notes didn't seem to persist, so I uninstalled it, thinking to come back and recheck it at a later stage. But I hadn't done so yet.
After reading your comment, I installed the latest version of Stick A Note, and it seems to work fine and the notes persist (are sticky), even (and especially) in Gmail. I've not seen that before - a sort of "local" form of Gmail Notes, without the frills or the cloud.
And I like that the notes are stored in one location as .TXT files. Makes them small and easily indexed/searchable.
I think maybe you or I should do a thorough trial and mini-review of Stick A Note now!

-IainB (March 29, 2012, 02:30 AM)

So, here is a review of Stick-A-Note being used with something that helps to make Stick-A-Note even more useful from an information management perspective - i.e. Universal Viewer.


3. Overview:
Stick-A-Note arose from a project by @anandcoral - NANY 2012 - Pledge & Final Release: Stick A Note
Anand's website describes Stick-A-Note as useful for sticking a text note to any window of a program or document. The note shows only on that window and "moves" with it - i.e., can be brought back when that window is opened again (as long as Stick-A-Note is running also).




4. Who could make use of Stick-A-Note + Universal Viewer: (Used in conjunction with each other.)
Anybody who:

• (a) wants to be able to make persistent sticky notes on any window.
• (b) wants to be able to view all their SAN notes in a tree view.

5. The Good:
Stick-A-Note is an excellent tool for making ad hoc persistent notes on any window - as long as it has a unique Window Title.
If the user is OK with only being able to see/review all their notes as .txt files, then that is OK, but if they want a "tree viewer", then they could use, for example, Universal Viewer, Windows Explorer or xplorer².
As an example, here are some Stick-A-Note .txt files (name is prefixed "SAN") in a directory:

***Add image or change?


6. Constraints and "needs improvement" section:
Stick-A-Note on its own does exactly what it was designed to do.
There can only be one note allowed per window.
I am not aware of any constraint on the amount of text that is allowed in a note.
From my perspective, it was lacking a "tree viewer" for its .txt Note files, and the Universal Viewer therefore seemed a useful addition, as well as being a powerful multi-purpose viewer in its own right. However, I have tended to prefer use the rather good built-in xplorer² viewer, rather than Universal Viewer.


7. Why I think you should use this software:

• Stick-A-Note is a very handy ad hoc sticky note tool!
• A viewing tool such as Universal Viewer or the xplorer² file viewer helps to extend its usefulness in terms of making the notes more readily viewable.

8. How it compares to similar apps:
Stick-A-Note: is listed on alternativeTo as an alternative to several sticky note apps.: Stick A Note:

Anand's website gives an example of two possible alternatives:

• GumNotes - freeware and shareware.- http://www.gumnotes.com/ (I have briefly trialled this, and it is quite good).
• Quick Notes Plus - shareware - http://conceptworld.com/QNP (I have not properly trialled this).

I found GumNotes not as intuitive as Stick-A-Note, but it does have a good - though proprietary - notes viewer.


9. Conclusions:

• Stick-A-Note is a simple and minimalistic app. which does what it was designed to do, and very well. Very sticky/persistent notes.
• Universal Viewer: If you don't already have a good file viewer, then UV could be well worth considering as an adjunct to Stick-A-Note, especially as it can also view image files and many other formats of document files (not just .txt) that you may have in the same directory as the Stick-A-Note .txt files.

10. More notes/examples:

• 1. Here is Stick-A-Note in action on this page in Firefox:
  
  ***Add image or change?
  
  
  
• 2. This is using Windows Explorer with Preview Pane enabled, rather than using Universal Viewer:
  
  ***Add image or change?
  
  
  
• 3. This is using xplorer² with Quick Review pane enabled, rather than using Universal Viewer:
  I have settled on using this for max flexibility and ease of use. It gives a better display, and I can search/filter and then immediately manually edit (just press the F3 key) the SaN*.txt files, if I want - which suits my needs well:
  
  ***Add image or change?
  
  

5100

General Software Discussion / Re: Test: Does latency reduction via RAM upgrade lift software performance?

« Last post by IainB on June 18, 2012, 01:00 AM »

After using these laptops for some time with the RAM upgrades, the experience continues to be that "everything seems to run faster".
In an effort to improve the screen display quality I have also now turned on (previously turned off most) all the settings for max graphics quality - on both laptops - which, theoretically should place extra load on the CPUs. However, the user experience is that display quality/resolution has improved and there has been no perceptible waiting/latency from any processes.

I have also switched off any GPU tweaks (both laptops have ATI Radeon GPUs), as I read on 3Dguru that the GPUs generally only achieve performance benefits by lossy methods. In our case, the user experience is that display quality/resolution seems to have slightly improved and there has been no perceptible waiting/latency from any processes. If you were into RPG (utilising lots of graphics load on the GPU), then I suppose that you might notice a difference.

CONCLUSION so far: This real-world test overall seems to have provided some pretty good empiric evidence that the best and cheapest major performance improvement you can probably give any PC or laptop is arguably likely be a RAM upgrade. I suspect that it could seem to give new life to older PCs and help to defer their replacement date.