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5376

Living Room / Re: Scroogle R.I.P.

« Last post by IainB on April 08, 2012, 11:15 PM »

I switched from Scroogle to DuckDuckGo.com to my greatest satisfaction. Startpage is also getting better.

-brahman (April 03, 2012, 02:09 PM)

Yes, I recently switched to DDG and it looks quite good to me, so far.

5377

Living Room / Re: Cool Video: News report from 1981 about the Internet.

« Last post by IainB on April 08, 2012, 10:50 PM »

This might have been part of the Telext and Videotext technology that started up in the '60s and 70s and was generally well under way by 1981 - e.g., Teletex(t), Videotex(t), CeeFax, Prestel, Minitel, etc.
It seemed rather confusing, because it was a mish-mash of competitive, proprietary technology offerings.

I think Teletext became the de facto standard in UK/Europe, and was (or maybe still is being?) delivered via TV broadcast. (You saw "TXT" buttons on some TV remote controls if the TV had a Telext decoder fitted.) The data was carried for free in previously unused bandwidth (blank screen lines) in the TV transmissions. It was quite useful - e.g., on-screen updated information on things such as football results, weather, news, etc.

In the early '90s, something a bit similar seemed to have happened to Radio in the UK. The BBC was making digital radio information transmissions on FM, which could be utilised if you had a DR receiver. I recall hiring a car in the UK in the '90s. It had DR which could display transmitted information about the FM station (e.g., currently playing program name), and even brief traffic reports peculiar to your local FM transmitter's area. The reports appeared on a small car radio LCD display.
Bit dangerous if you were trying to read it whilst driving.

EDIT: Teletext is apparently alive and well, in NZ at least:
What is Teletext? TVNZ TELETEXT HAS IMPROVED
(Link also contains a brief history of the development of Teletext from the '70s.)

5378

Living Room / ODDNS: Decentralized and Open DNS To Defeat Censorship

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 08:46 PM »

This is interesting:
ODDNS: Decentralized and Open DNS To Defeat Censorship
(Text of the post is below. There is a diagram in the actual post - click the link.)

For the last couple of years discussion around censorship of websites in the West has become as prolific as the that around already established blockades in countries such as China and Iran. While meddling with the Internet’s DNS is the weapon of choice for censors, a new P2P system called ODDNS hopes to put control back in the hands of the people.

The Internet’s Domain Name System, which translates human-readable URLs into IP addresses so that web users can more easily find Internet sites, has become a battle ground for censorship during the last couple of years.

From residing almost exclusively in the awareness of computer engineers and nerds, recent attempts by various copyright holders to censor sites such as The Pirate Bay and introduce even more broad powers with the introduction of the SOPA legislation in the US, the existence and mechanisms of the Internet’s DNS have now broken through into the mainstream.

In a response to growing attempts at censorship, various alternative DNS systems have been proposed with an emphasis on those that can’t be meddled with by the authorities. The latest, called ODDNS, comes out of France.

As its name suggests, ODDNS (Open and Decentralized DNS) is an open and decentralized DNS system running on the P2P (Peer-to-Peer) model. It’s creator, web developer Jimmy Rudolf, told PCinpact he invented the system with two specific aims in mind.

The first, and of most interest to people fighting censorship, is to “show governments that it is not possible to prevent people from talking.”

The second, of interest to anyone who owns and maintain their own domain names, is to take back control of them. “I find it absurd to have to regularly pay for a domain name,” Rudolf explained.

ODDNS is an application which allows everyone running the software to share information about domain names with each other, a bit like how a P2P network functions. ODDNS can supplement or even replace regular DNS.

Because domain names and related IP addresses are shared among peers in the network, they can no longer be censored. Furthermore, buying a domain name from a registrar is no longer required since people running ODDNS can create and maintain their own.

Still under development, as expected the source code to ODDNS is licensed under GNU GPLv3. PCinpact reports that the current ODDNS website will be updated next week and the first beta release of the software will follow shortly after.

Of course the success of the project will sit on the developers’ ability to overcome the technical hurdles and, crucially, if they can encourage enough people to come on board and stay on board. The desire to stick with this kind of system will be driven by need so more censorship will become this and similar projects’ lifeblood.

5379

Screenshot Captor / Some Post-Capture Options mutually exclusive?

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 08:32 PM »

Thought I'd better mention this in this board. I'm not sure whether the override is an intentional feature.
I figured out today that SSC was giving me just the image file path, not the image, with both boxes ticked for these Post-Capture Options:

• Copy Image to Clipboard
• Copy File Path to Clipboard

The second tickbox apparently overrides the first. (see attachment in previous post)

-IainB (April 07, 2012, 02:25 PM)

5380

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: FreeFileSync - automated backup - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 08:02 PM »

Does it store different versions of the files for backup and archiving purposes?

-kalos (April 07, 2012, 07:14 PM)

 - I think this might answer your Q:

It is highly customisable and includes real-time monitoring capability and maintenance of versions in the backups.

-IainB (February 18, 2012, 08:51 AM)

5381

General Software Discussion / Re: xls to png

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 02:25 PM »

if you used (say) ScreenShotCaptor (SSC), then the image is captured into SSC's working buffer and saved as a file. However, I think SSC does not get the image copied into the Clipboard.

-IainB (April 07, 2012, 12:46 PM)

see SC Options >Post Capture Options
Select "Copy image to clipboard" :-)

-tomos (April 07, 2012, 12:49 PM)

Thanks @tomos! I felt sure there would be a way to do that.
EDIT: Oops. Spoke too soon.
My SSC seems to give me just the image file path, not the image.
The second tickbox apparently overrides the first.

5382

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

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 12:50 PM »

This is worth a laugh or 2:
http://www.huffingto...etention_For_Browser
 (see attachment in previous post)
That there is just so utterly ridiculous... "Although he was correct... Alex would be better off simply accepting my teachings without resistance." That's seriously ****ed. Ignorance is strength.
 (see attachment in previous post)
Foxfire.exe~!
Nothing like making a mockery of education... Because resistance is futile~!

-Renegade (April 05, 2012, 10:37 PM)

If these are true, then your point is spot-on:

- ignorance is strength.

- or rather, ignorance can be and is used as a lever to indoctrinate, browbeat and manipulate people's (in this case children's) minds. Splattergate was a superb example of that practice.

The irony is that insisting that children believe what their teacher tells them is true, without proof, actually invites children to override their critical thinking (CT being something that teachers are supposed to help their students develop).
In that first example (1Km > 1 Mile) there seems to be at least these 4 logical fallacies in play:

• argumentum ad hominem (argument against the person)
• argumentum ad baculum (appeal to fear).
• argumentum ad ignorantiam (forwarding a proposition without any certain proof).
• argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to authority).

An amazing achievement by a so-called "teacher"! Could that be another nominee for The Skeksy Award?

5383

General Software Discussion / Re: xls to png

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 12:46 PM »

I'm not sure about Excel 2003, but the (non-intuitive) Excel 2007 approach described above works fine. The image is copied into the Clipboard and can be pasted from there.

Just a thought: Alternatively, if you used (say) ScreenShotCaptor (SSC), then the image is captured into SSC's working buffer and saved as a file. However, I think SSC does not get the image copied into the Clipboard. So, to get the image into the Clipboard, you have to select the image (or a part of it) captured in SSC, copy it and then you can paste it from the Clipboard.

5384

Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

« Last post by IainB on April 07, 2012, 11:04 AM »

Amen! The scientific journal scam has to end -- these scientific articles, funded in good part by public dollars, need to be free.

-mouser (April 07, 2012, 07:57 AM)

Yes, I think it is very heartening to see this.
It could be the start of freeing up a lot of publicly-funded research (knowledge), but I think that could be wishful thinking. From experience, I strongly doubt that it will happen. The Wikipedia entry on Elsevier indicates that:

...In 2010, Elsevier reported a profit margin of 36% on revenues of $3.2 billion.

In separate discussions in the DC forum, we have probably pretty well explored the boundaries of power of the Corporation and its obligations to its stockholders. This is all about money and power. So the prospect of earning forward potential revenues amounting to many billions of dollars will likely not be abandoned easily, unless (say) some form of government anti-trust regulation kicks in, in a deliberate market restructuring.
 
What it might need is (say) for someone like Amazon to take a hand in disruptively restructuring the market that is Elsevier's niche. Given what Amazon has been and is doing in aggressive fashion, this is not outside the bounds of possibility, but I wouldn't care to make a guess on the probability of Amazon becoming that kind of white knight. It might be more likely that Elsevier could (say) decide to pre-empt that and diversify by buying up Amazon anyway. Who knows?

A bit of background as to why I say the above:

Spoiler

I have mixed feelings about Elsevier.
The company as it is today has some really interesting (to me) history. It essentially evolved out of a huge multi-national corporation called Reed International (formerly Reed Ltd., Reed Group) that acquired it years ago. I coincidentally happen to have used Reed's corporate libraries and management for information regarding its operation whilst writing a thesis (a study of the pulp and paper packaging industry and its effect on the UK economic model).
Reed incrementally evolved or "absorbed" itself into its subsidiary Elsevier.
Originally an accumulation of acquired (taken over) roofing felt and paper, pulp and packing manufacturing companies - with some pretty big manufacturing operations worldwide - Reed came to generally dominate its market sector. Because I knew how the company ticked, as the years passed I held onto my Reed stock as a large part of my investment portfolio.

Reed seemed to grow largely by acquisition and diversification. It became a humongous operation. It had diversified vertically and horizontally into newsprint (paper) manufacture and decorating products (notably the Polycell range) and a range of small publishing companies, including Elsevier.
My attention was elsewhere and I rather lost track of Reed, but I think it was largely in the '80s that they embarked on asset-stripping and selling off most of their old core pulp and paper manufacturing operations, due to them having become only marginally profitable. I gathered that product obsolescence and the market dynamics had changed. Still a stockholder, I watched as Reed's  annual reports showed them progressively taking a path where they acquired and built upon (consolidated) the publishing operation called Elsevier. It seemed to me at first to be an experimental activity, until they progressively divested themselves of (sold off) the old Reed operations, becoming just Elsevier. They had found a niche with Elsevier, which I guess they planned to expand and dominate - and they did expand, and I think they do dominate it today. Scientific, Academic, Pharmaceutical research and media publishing is a big and seemingly somewhat incestuous business. The organisations involved have very deep pockets and powerfully influential (read $$$) government lobbies (QED).

The Elsevier website's "history" page is here, but it does not really reflect any of the above, though you can get an idea of the company's impressively comprehensive market breadth and scope from their website.
Money, locked-up knowledge, and power.

5385

Living Room / Re: It's Official - Anonymous are Terrorists

« Last post by IainB on April 06, 2012, 08:09 PM »

Wife: Bin Laden Hid in Pakistan, Not Caves, for Decade
http://news.yahoo.co...news-topstories.html
"Osama bin Laden's youngest wife has revealed that the al Qaeda leader spent a vast majority of his time after the 9/11 attacks not hiding in caves but living in Pakistani cities, where he moved several times and fathered a handful of children. ...the most wanted man in the world skipped from home to home in Peshawar, Swat and Haripur, Pakistan before settling in Abbottabad for about the last six years of his life."

-TaoPhoenix (April 06, 2012, 05:11 PM)

I don't see what relevance that has to anything.
The interventionist wars or other military actions by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq, and other places in the Middle East, Africa and the Indian sub-continent (e.g., belatedly taking out Bin Laden in Pakistan) would theoretically have served to boost the economies of the US in particular. WW2 showed that nothing improves national GDP like a good war (think of all that ordinance needed by the military), and the more prolonged the better for the economic growth.

At the point when the US military media publicly proclaimed the circumstances of Bin laden being killed and later buried at sea, skeptics would be able to question that the US intelligence had not known of his whereabouts for years. It was apparently common knowledge in Pakistan.
But, there you are. If you have made a political decision to pull out of those warlike activities (for whatever reason), then the scapegoat for the wars would need to be formally terminated. So it was all a "success" you see?
Bin Laden's termination would probably have been just a matter of time - a "tidy this loose end up" type of job. He could probably have anticipated that there would eventually have to be such an action at some stage. He must surely have had some serious life insurance risks. I bet the life insurance company actuaries would never have sold him a life insurance policy, regardless of how healthy he might have been and even at an astronomical premium.

5386

Living Room / Re: Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

« Last post by IainB on April 06, 2012, 07:40 PM »

Speaking of Elsevier (which we were): 1000 scientists and counting boycott Elsevier journal publishing

-IainB (January 30, 2012, 04:29 AM)

Wow. It's apparently now up to 8,800 scholars and scientists boycotting Elsevier - and counting: An Open Letter to Academic Publishers About Open Access

5387

Official Announcements / Re: DC reference online

« Last post by IainB on April 06, 2012, 08:45 AM »

I believe ShellCity was the very first place that ever wrote about DonationCoder -- many people discovered us from that great site. 

-mouser (April 05, 2012, 10:22 PM)

I am a fan of Shell City's. I think it was a reference in Shell City that first led me to DC.

5388

Post New Requests Here / Re: Level - Copy files from various sources into one flat folder

« Last post by IainB on April 06, 2012, 08:39 AM »

I am a bit of a novice in this, and I might misunderstand what's required here, but after reading this discussion thread, I just now sat down with xplorer² to see whether I could meet the apparent requirements, and:

1. Created a Junction folder (Reparse point).
2. Created a scrap pane (a sort of virtual folder).
3. Selected several folders and flattened them and their contents into the scrap pane, creating a flat file (you could save this for future use as a reusable CIDA file - a particularly useful/powerful feature in xplorer²).
4. Copied all files in the scrap pane.
5. Pasted them into the Junction folder (I think this this effectively creates a "Library" containing pointers to all the files pasted).
This reproduced the flat file structure in the Junction folder.
The above steps should apply for Win XP and Win7-64bit Home Premium.

I then:

1. Created a new Library in Windows Explorer.
- then performed steps 2, 3, 4 above in xplorer².
5. Using Windows Explorer, pasted them into the Library folder (I think this effectively creates a "Library" containing pointers to all the files pasted).
This reproduced the flat file structure in the Library.
The above steps should apply for Win7-64bit Home Premium.

I could be wrong, of course, but I think this means that:
(a) You could then access the Reparse point folder or Win7 Library as your central (consolidated) server "directory".
(b) This directory would reflect realtime any changes to the source folders/files included in the flattened file.
(c) You do not need to copy any actual files anywhere to create the central (consolidated) server "directory".

The main constraints here I think would be:

• You can only do this in NTFS formatted file systems/drives.
• The Reparse points can not be created to work across a network, so you would need to have it all on a single server with directly attached drives - and of course, the web site will be able to access the central (consolidated) server "directory". I am unsure whether this constraint applies to Win7 "Libraries", but I would expect it probably does.

I have been experimenting using this approach to create a structured (not a flat file) central (consolidated) "directory" to hold all of the target folders to go into my FreeFileSync backup. This is instead of the conventional and rather tedious approach of individually specifying in FFS which target folders to back up. So FFS would just back up whatever was in the central (consolidated) "directory", and I could change the contents of that directory to manage backups of changes to the range of backup target files/folders.

Caveat:

• Mucking about with Junction folders (Reparse points) could be risky if you are not careful with your file-naming (I always include the word "Junction" in a Reparse point folder name).
• Anything you do to a logical folder or file in a Junction folder directly affects the actual folder or file on disk.

Hope this all makes sense and is of use/help to someone.    

5389

Living Room / Re: More YouTube Censorship

« Last post by IainB on April 05, 2012, 09:02 AM »

Well, you've had things such as, for example:

• The publication of the World Government Plan (The Covenant) by the proponents of AGW;
• An AGW spokesman coming out and specifying that their "Cause" is World Government;
• The proposal of a new "World Bank" to collect punitive carbon taxes/fines and redistribute that wealth to poorer countries, and it's to have immunity from prosecution too, under the wing of the UN;
• The UN IPCC's litany of "mistakes" and misinformation, and a stochastic lie in the shape of the "hockey stick";
• The proposal by a scientist to genetically modify humans to adapt them to accepting the AGW creed;
• Now a sociologist recommending that skeptics be "treated" for their skepticism as though it were a social crime;
• The Climategate 1 and 2 FOIA files;
• The Gleickgate fraud.

What else do you need?
Hmm...if it smells like a rat and looks like a rat, then...but no, I see no rats here.    
Could it all be just a big joke?    

5390

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Feature Request: Clear items on request

« Last post by IainB on April 04, 2012, 05:44 AM »

Would you guys want a feature that basically said "WIPE EVERYTHING" (backup database files, all clips, empty recycle bin, etc.)

-mouser (April 03, 2012, 10:26 PM)

Well, it might be useful - maybe "nice-to-have" rather than "highly desirable" or "mandatory", from my perspective though.
I wouldn't be likely to use it much. When I want a secure delete, I toss files in a shredder in xplorer².

5391

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: "mouse hill" area above the start menu where the mouse speed is throttled

« Last post by IainB on April 04, 2012, 05:25 AM »

I have a similar problem.
Because I am impatient, my laptop touchpad settings are set on nearly full acceleration, but then I sometimes find that the pointer (cursor) overshoots the destination I have in mind. Which is annoying.     
I have therefore set the Shift key to act as a damper. This is easily done in the standard touchpad settings. If you are moving the cursor and then you hold down the Shift key, the mouse/pointer slows down to a crawl.
Results:
No more overshoots.
More precise pointing.

I suppose you could modify the mouse settings to improve on this, using an AHK script. The script could sense when the pointer was approaching a specific area (co-ordinates), and then AHK would send a Shift-key to the keyboard buffer, thus slowing down the pointer. Something like that, anyway. I would use it.

5392

General Software Discussion / Re: Tip: Fast saving of html pages in Firefox by renaming them with a short name

« Last post by IainB on April 04, 2012, 04:03 AM »

Thankx. I shall play around with that approach.

5393

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« Last post by IainB on April 03, 2012, 04:56 PM »

You an also right click on the drive and do a Boot time scan which optimises Windows files during the next restart. Makes a big difference.

-Carol Haynes (April 03, 2012, 07:58 AM)

Ah, thanks. I didn't know that feature existed! Shoulda' RTM?
Tried it anyway and will see if I can notice an improved loading speed. Theoretically, it should make things more efficient or have a speed-up effect - same as all housekeeping really (e.g., including cleaning the garbage out of the Registry, defragging the disk, or running cleanmgr).

5394

General Software Discussion / Re: Tip: Fast saving of html pages in Firefox by renaming them with a short name

« Last post by IainB on April 03, 2012, 03:39 PM »

For my part I do this manually :
https://www.donation...opic=23782.msg215928

-jity2 (April 03, 2012, 03:31 AM)

@jity2 I don't think I had seen your post about this. Thanks for referring to it in the other discussion thread.

Could you explain please:
With your method, how do you file and index the saved pages for easy/fast lookup or reference at a later stage?

I have been using Scrapbook for this for a couple or few years and have a very large amount of saved data on my hard drive, in a single Scrapbook library. (I have tried splitting it into separate libraries, but it is a bit tedious to manage then.)
The Scrapbook Library is non-proprietary, so I can search in it using either Scrapbook's index/search function, or the Windows Desktop Search. However, I would always be interested in a simpler/faster method of saving and searching/retrieving saved web pages if you had one.

Could you do what you do without using iMacros? I avoided using that a few years back after discovering that it installed some kind of adware Trojan.

5395

Living Room / Re: Post Your Funny Videos Here [NSFW]

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2012, 09:25 PM »

You are about to enter a place known as "The Gloaming Area."

-Deozaan (April 02, 2012, 08:01 AM)

Well, that was, erm, interesting...

5396

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PerfectDisk Free Edition

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2012, 08:54 PM »

Thanks for posting re this @Innuendo.
Just thought I'd post some feedback:

• I downloaded and installed PDFE (64bit version) and it seems to work fine.   
• I noticed that it apparently hooks into and uses the Win7 defragger, taking over its scheduled operation.
• The reports it gives are quite informative and with some useful charts, and I like that the reports can be saved/printed.
• I was nervously wondering whether shuffling around my disk data during the defrag process might cause my Hard Disk Sentinel to detect some more bad sectors - back in Oct. 2011 it detected 21 bad sectors on the disk surface - but there hasn't been a murmur from HDS so far, praise be to Magneto!

5397

General Review Discussion / Re: Quick Review: Collusion - Firefox "tracking" add-on

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2012, 08:26 PM »

...I just turned Ghostery back on, but I am still getting clicks from Youtube. So is that a false positive from the Collusion that it "attempted to set a cookie" or is Youtube setting something else that Ghostery can't find and block?

-TaoPhoenix (March 14, 2012, 06:55 PM)

I wondered about this also, and am working to figure out whether these pests are actually being blocked.
Thinking wistfully of resuscitating JunkBuster...     

5398

General Software Discussion / Re: BULK Rename Utility

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2012, 06:55 PM »

Or here Mini-Reviews by Members - I love the Bulk Rename Utility!  

-AbteriX (February 29, 2012, 12:42 PM)

I have added a post to that review:

This review needs updating.
SUPERB piece of software!    
Bulk renames those files that other file renamers cannot rename.

...nor by deranged freeware zealots

-rjbull (March 08, 2012, 05:35 PM)

I object to the potential implication that I may be "deranged". I are not.

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

5399

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: I love the Bulk Rename Utility!

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2012, 06:38 PM »

This review needs updating.
SUPERB piece of software!   
Bulk renames those files that other file renamers cannot rename.

5400

Living Room / Re: How the heck did she capture my phone display?

« Last post by IainB on April 02, 2012, 10:27 AM »

How do you do that by accident?

-Deozaan (April 02, 2012, 08:03 AM)

My daughter Lily is 10 years old.
She has always been a dab hand at discovering undocumented features of TV remote controls, cameras and cellphones, and computer games. She presses everything just to see what it does.