Recent Posts

5151

Living Room / Re: On the Web: Google net neutrality stance gives Net’s future to corporations

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 11, 2010, 07:06 AM »

Ever hear of the concept of steering events from the shadows?

Corporations are against anything that hampers profit - That's the "in" -  Google concocts a scheme that it them pitches to Verizon allowing it to look (to the blind) like they (Google) were (innocently) just coerced into it. But the newly connected dynamic duo can then create a new playing field that they instantly control.

5152

Circle Dock / Re: Suggesting names for new derivitative of CircleDock

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 10, 2010, 01:32 PM »

Quirk-el Dock?

5153

Living Room / Re: Bermuda Triangle Solved

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 10, 2010, 01:30 PM »

Now you should be asking who created those fissions and therefore gases and why there...the mystery lives on 

-rgdot (August 10, 2010, 11:35 AM)

It's Cthulhu, of course.

-Deozaan (August 10, 2010, 12:10 PM)

Is he gearing up for the 2012 elections?  Why vote for the lesser evil...

-wraith808 (August 10, 2010, 01:02 PM)

I thought they canceled the 2012 elections on account of the planet being scheduled to explode in December? ...Something about a Hyper-Space Galactic Bypass.

5154

Living Room / Re: Bermuda Triangle Solved

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 10, 2010, 11:44 AM »

Now you should be asking who created those fissions and therefore gases and why there...the mystery lives on 

-rgdot (August 10, 2010, 11:35 AM)

...When Zolthar the great hits taco Thursday... All must suffer!

5155

Living Room / Re: Bermuda Triangle Solved

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 10, 2010, 11:42 AM »

I thought that navigational equipment also went haywire around the Bermuda Triangle. Or is that just in movies and stories about it?

-Deozaan (August 10, 2010, 11:35 AM)

The equipment that works off of (and therefore assumes) a specific air density will go "whacky" because a big cloud of natural gas ain't the type of air (same/correct density) it was intending to work with.

5156

Living Room / Re: Bermuda Triangle Solved

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 10, 2010, 11:36 AM »

The explosion would also sink any ships and oil structures in the vicinity and create a tsunami which would head toward Florida at 600 mph.

-app103 (August 10, 2010, 11:15 AM)

Oh goody... There's something to look forward to (I live in Florida).

5157

General Software Discussion / Re: Which archive software are we using in 2010 (and why)?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 10, 2010, 06:45 AM »

I usually use WinRar for extracting (right click file and extract) and rarely come across anything it can't handle.

I use Winzip for archiving (right click and archive) because the preferred format for distribution on the web is .zip and I don't want to fuss with doing things the more difficult way and actually run an application first and mess with settings to make a .zip.

-app103 (August 10, 2010, 12:21 AM)

In WinRAR if you pick the plain add to archive option from the context menu, you can then select compress as .zip in the dialog that opens. Granted it is a extra step, but it's not a real tricky one. WinZip just started to annoy me after a while...I don't even remember why.

IIRC WinRAR was the first program I actually bought a legal license for.

5158

Circle Dock / Re: Suggesting names for new derivitative of CircleDock

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 09, 2010, 07:06 AM »

Assuming the initials can be explained away to mean something else, why not do a spin-off style mash-up of the original name, like:

CD Top Docker

5159

Living Room / Re: Yea, but will your emotional robot mow my lawn?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 09, 2010, 06:55 AM »

Glorious ... As if anthropomorphism wasn't bad enough. Now they create machines that really can hate you.

 

5160

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 09, 2010, 06:47 AM »

Quite true, most of the basic phones are the old people style low vision phones that are positively hideous. I've currently got the plainest (Nokia) clamshell phone I could find and even it has a host of nonsense "features" that annoy the hell outa me. 4 music stores, 3 GPS mapping programs, shopping apps, and a bunch of nondescript hipster crapware that does I have no idea what.

It's a phone. ...that works poorly as a phone because I have to sort through all the crap to get to the phone features.

5161

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Machinarium Pirate Amnesty (for one week only)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 07, 2010, 07:43 AM »

I'm not much of a game player ... So I never heard of the game...But the high res no text version of that pic makes a fun wallpaper.

-Stoic Joker (August 06, 2010, 07:00 AM)

due to requests, they have added the hi-res sans text wallpaper image here.

-lanux128 (August 07, 2010, 06:28 AM)

Right, that's where I got it. But I figured it would be better for Machinarium if folks had to poke around a bit, before making off with their plunder ... so I didn't include the direct link.

5162

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 07, 2010, 07:37 AM »

I have never had the need for a portable computing device.  i don't use a smartphone, i barely use my cell phone, I have a laptop that I hardly use.  Actually, the most I ever used my laptop was a couple of years ago when I had it connected to my tv as a media center.  But now, i've replace it with my old desktop, which works much better.  There you go!  Once again, I am just a desktop guy.

-superboyac (August 06, 2010, 11:52 PM)

...Because there really is no good reason that we need to be that well connected. I've got a really nice Dell 6 year old laptop with a Gig of RAM and an 80GB HDD that dual boots between Win2k & XP. And I'd venture to say that I spent more time setting it up out of the box than I have using it since.

Smart phones I've got no use for either - I ain't gonna be texting/Googling/Shopping online from a motorcycle. That will just have to waite till I get where I'm going (which seldom takes long on a fast bike...).

Hence! ...I fully support your decision to do nothing.

5163

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Machinarium Pirate Amnesty (for one week only)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 06, 2010, 07:00 AM »

I'm not much of a game player ... So I never heard of the game...But the high res no text version of that pic makes a fun wallpaper.

5164

Living Room / Re: Sleep/hibernate problems in Windows 7

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 05, 2010, 03:59 PM »

hibernate and sleep just don't work very well with laptops

that's just stupidity talking -- laptops are where this feature should work best and is most useful.  don't listen to them.

might have been one of the HP software updates that introduced the problem

could very well be.

-mouser (August 05, 2010, 03:40 PM)

I think this falls under the category of a self fulfilling prophecy - You put HP's software on anything and it will run like crap. Printer drivers especially will reek havoc on sleep/hibernation/the computer.

5165

Circle Dock / Re: Return of Funds donated to the Touchscreen project.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 05, 2010, 12:38 PM »

Just wanted to mention that while I've never used the program, it seems like a hell of a nice one ... and I sent a small donation in the hopes that it can be kept alive.

5166

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 05, 2010, 10:10 AM »

If you want to just browse the web for 5 minutes, you hesitate to open the laptop, boot it, etc.  With a tablet, you'd just quickly do your thing and that's it.

-superboyac (August 05, 2010, 09:34 AM)

So you're saying that the tablets have the boot time of a light bulb?? <- Seriously, I'm curious/don't recall hearing that angle before)

While I currently don't have a budget, as it's pointless to create a plan to spend nothing... If forced to pick at this point, I'd go for one of the netbooks as a best of both worlds option. Mainly because you can just fold it shut (so the screen is protected), toss it where ever and go. Thre is no need to futz with some manner of bag/case/cover to prevent the ($$$) screen from being destroyed.

5167

Living Room / Re: Five Reasons Why People Hate Apple

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 05, 2010, 08:50 AM »

There is nothing worse than someone trying to sell you something that you A. have expressed no interest in learning about or possibly pursuing, B. Legitimately cannot afford, and C. is sold in a manner that says "You will be cool if you use this" or "You will now be in high society". It reminds me too much of organized religion or those door-to-door people who try and push "The watchtower" on my family. They assume that because they found something so great and useful in their lives, that everyone must know and be interested in the same.

-Josh (August 05, 2010, 06:36 AM)

Damn Straight!

5168

Circle Dock / Re: Change of Licensing from Version 2 (Cancelled)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 05, 2010, 08:44 AM »

The GPL might be unenforceable, but keep in mind it was a matter of respect. You're basically not giving a damn about what the original author wanted.
  from me.

So long, and thanks for [the lack of] all the fish.
To be honest, I expected more from a DC member.

-scancode (August 05, 2010, 07:29 AM)

...That seems a bit harsh - I doubt the original author wanted someone to become a cash hemorrhaging martyr. The costs described above are quite real, and have to be covered in some fashion that preferable doesn't include bankruptcy.

5169

General Software Discussion / Re: Office 2010 Spell Checker Broken

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 03, 2010, 12:24 PM »

The impression I got was this is a (oddly common) 2k3 up issue. So I guess something changed in 2k7 that is still in 2010 so 2k7 to 2010 is fine but 2k3 to 2k7 or 2010 tends to break the spell check.

5170

General Software Discussion / Office 2010 Spell Checker Broken

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 03, 2010, 11:04 AM »

Okay, this crap just cost me an hour and a half  So, I thought I'd share the short answer with the rest of the class...

Q. Office 2010 Professional Plus was installed on a Windows 7 system (mine) that previously had Office 2003 Professional. I  set the options in Outlook for Always Check Spelling Before Sending, but the only corrections done were capitalizing first letter in a sentence and days of the week. No misspelled words are corrected automatically or even manually in either Word or Outlook.  A manual spell check always finds no errors. Miscellaneous (Google) suggested repairs tried to no avail, so...

How can I activate the broken spell checker?

A. In the registry there is a folder named "override" (that shouldn't be there). Deleted it (make a backup first if you like) from the registry and now everything works just fine.

Here's the culprit:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Proofing Tools\1.0\Override


So moral is: Crash the Override and life is good(er)

5171

General Software Discussion / Re: Best app ore method to restore a Win7 system? (not a disk image)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 03, 2010, 07:26 AM »

Hmmm, I'm rapidly changing my opinion.  I just updated and now even if I select Custom Install I still get the BingBar and Window Live Sign On Assistant whether I like it or not.  I don't really want to uninstall 2 things every time I install one thing.  It's a royal pita!!

-MilesAhead (August 02, 2010, 09:16 PM)

Shark's doing that?!? I've got an if it ain't broke don't fix it policy when it comes to multimedia stuff. So I saved the install pack that worked back when and just keep reusing it (Yeah ThumbDrives). WMP with the compact corporate interface/skin is all I've ever used media player wise (ok I did fiddle with BS player for a bit back when - but I'm done now).

If the updates are now borked that does totally suck.

5172

General Software Discussion / Re: Best app ore method to restore a Win7 system? (not a disk image)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 02, 2010, 01:27 PM »

Not quite your question, but... Safest Win7 codec pack I've found is the one from www.Shark007.net (granted the sites is a bit of an atrocity, but...) - I've used it successfully on both 32 & 64bit machines, and it will play anything. Rented moves, downloaded movies, weird format cell phone movies - It's played everything I've thrown at it.

5173

Living Room / Re: The geek galaxy: Explained!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 02, 2010, 12:11 PM »

I almost broke my screen trying to kill that #$@% bug.

-AndeT1 (August 02, 2010, 11:30 AM)

ROFL - Been there, done that.

5174

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Office - Did you know?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 02, 2010, 12:07 PM »

Did you know that Microsoft office is licensed for use on 2 devices per license?

-Josh (August 02, 2010, 08:49 AM)

How would that work with the Office 2010 keyed-to-hardware license?

-cranioscopical (August 02, 2010, 09:42 AM)

IIRC that started with Office 2k3 (1 lic for desktop & laptop) but was a retail only option.

5175

General Software Discussion / Re: Sick and tired of this message!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on August 02, 2010, 12:04 PM »

If you can get and post the specifics, maybe we can help you out.

-40hz (August 02, 2010, 09:44 AM)

What specifics? Screenshots of event viewer?

-BCHOWDHURY (August 02, 2010, 11:55 AM)

That's a good place to start - at least then we can see the surrounding events leading up to the service failure. Also knowing what (or which) service(s) is/are failing would be helpful.