Recent Posts

576

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Amazon] Absolutely Great Square Pack - $9.99 for shitload of games!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 02:25 PM »

In that case can someone help me out too ;-)

577

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Amazon] Absolutely Great Square Pack - $9.99 for shitload of games!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 10:48 AM »

Thanks - I won't bother pursuing it then. I have a number of the games anyway.

578

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Amazon] Absolutely Great Square Pack - $9.99 for shitload of games!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 10:05 AM »

If you buy downloadable games on Amazon do they supply a Steam key or is it via Amazon's cloud? I presume they must supply a Steam key since they need to be activated on Steam.

Anyone know if Steam keys are regional? I know games are released in different regions on different dates but I assumed that was just a shop thing?

If anyone has bought it and knows they got a Steam key(s) I can refund a payment by PayPal if you grab me a copy!

(PS Seems to be online again)

579

Living Room / Re: How Many Planets Are There?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 05:04 AM »

What about satellites that are larger than some of the 'planets'?

580

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Amazon] Absolutely Great Square Pack - $9.99 for shitload of games!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 05:03 AM »

Yes - I see it now and at that price it is worth it.

In the UK you can add it to the basket but you can't check out - US only.

How does this work since you are downloading on Steam and we have Steam in the UK?

581

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: [Amazon] Absolutely Great Square Pack - $9.99 for shitload of games!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 14, 2012, 02:32 AM »

I just looked but it says price is $164.88 !!!

Overpriced compared to prices on Steam and you don't have the advantage of getting them on disk - they are still downloads!

You could get the complete Deus Ex pack included in that same price bought direct from Steam.

582

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2012, 03:25 PM »

Since vision seems to be our most convincing sense

-superboyac (October 11, 2012, 01:20 PM)

ROFLMAO ... that was a joke ... right?

583

Living Room / Re: How to tell if the Universe is a computer simulation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2012, 12:23 PM »

There was someone talking about this stuff on the Discovery Channel series "Through the Worm Hole".

Interesting idea - as computer simulations get better and better (eg. computer games) and simulated characters get better and better AI at what point do the characters become 'sentient' and would they know they are a simulation?

If a quantum description of the universe is correct (and most indications seem to point in that direction) then are we actually characters in a future version of the Sims? The capricious nature of some human behaviour perhaps suggests so ;-)

584

Living Room / Re: RFID Tracking IDs in Schools - Non-compliance = Exclusion

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 11, 2012, 03:14 AM »

Sorry I didn't mean for this thread to be totally hijacked into discussing school lunches and Linux prOn !!!

The 'thrust' of my post was about fingerprinting entire schools (in response to the original post). Personally I would rather carry a chipped ID card in school than have to submit to finger printing - what's next DNA tests? And what real safeguards can a school from government and law enforcement to stop all this data ending up in a national database (which has been discussed by politicians in the UK for decades).

585

Living Room / Re: RFID Tracking IDs in Schools - Non-compliance = Exclusion

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2012, 11:19 AM »

Actually the lunches are good and reasonably healthy in UK schools these days after a protracted TV series pointed out how dreadful they were. Certainly the local school has good veg, salad and fruit based lunches with very limited access to junk food. Having said that finger printing an entire school - including staff ... what next - branding barcodes?

586

Living Room / Re: RFID Tracking IDs in Schools - Non-compliance = Exclusion

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2012, 10:03 AM »

Local school here requires finger prints to use the lunch service (and they take both thumbs - just in case you lose one!).

Don't know about anyone else but if I lost a thumb I don't think my first thought would be 'how do I get my school lunch?' !!!

587

Living Room / Re: Major ISPs to implement "Six strike" rule

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2012, 06:21 AM »

Thanks nudone - not sure at the moment - some video streaming sites but thinking about it if they are geo restricted I probably won't be able to sign up anyway as they will need a US address. I will have a think about it and PM you if I figure it out!

588

Living Room / Re: Major ISPs to implement "Six strike" rule

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 10, 2012, 05:05 AM »

Does anyone know if there are any good US VPN services that I could use to access content which is geo restricted?

589

General Software Discussion / Re: Even Paul Allen is a little confused by Windows 8, but it gets better

« Last post by Carol Haynes on October 06, 2012, 03:47 AM »

1980s computing was one thing at a time (which is pretty much what not-Metro is).

Can't set the desktop as default - never going to happen. Simple reason: not-Metro = App Store = Money, desktop = too much freedom to choose and MS don't get their cut.

My prediction: Windows 9 (if they dare) or 10 = no destktop at all = lots of cash for MS.

Office 2013 is already aiming at the not-Metro interface - the rest will follow. Do you really think other companies such as Adobe won't follow the bandwagon and risk getting left without their major platform in a few years?

MS hasn't got their heads up their arse not listening to people - they know exactly what they are doing and the word is simply MONEY.

The other thing is MS is definitely working towards software as a service. Already they have said Office 2013 won't be available in a multi seat Home and Student version - instead they are encouraging software subscription per seat. I'd guess by the next incarnation of Office they will only offer subscription services - and I bet they get round the idea that people are still using Office 2013, 2007 and 2010 by making the next version of windows only backward compatible with 2013 to force adoption.

590

General Software Discussion / Re: Nuance PDF Reader - Acresso-FLEXnet agent is Annoyware/Adware WARNING.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 30, 2012, 05:45 AM »

Haven't used it in years (I have Adobe Acrobat installed) but Foxit PDF software always used to get good reviews.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/

FWIW Nuance have always been awful (IMHO) - as far as I can tell all there stuff is just rebranded products from other companies (which they presumably bought out) and it is all over priced for what it actually does.

591

General Software Discussion / Re: The Demise of the Desktop (Free ALTools licenses too!)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 27, 2012, 04:24 AM »

Are we seeing the desktop in its death-throes?

-Renegade (September 27, 2012, 12:03 AM)

If the money grabbing ripoff merchants at Apple, Google and Microsoft get their way.

592

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 23, 2012, 05:53 AM »

Absolutely hilarious - if every missing road, distorted/inaccurate picture, missing town, missing country (!) etc. and transit error were reported to Apple in real time and their users followed their advice the Apple Cloud would meltdown within 5 minutes - it would be one hell of a DOS on Apple.

Having said that the overnight queue of 1300 people outside the London Regent's Street store are all to stupid to know how to report an error to Apple.

The only good thing is that when iPhone 5 is released most Apple users won't be able to find their stores ;-)

Seriously if they have ANY sense whatsoever they will immediately replace the maps App it the old Google version and admit defeat. It will be months at best (and probably years) before this debacle is fixed and by that time no one - not even the Apple fanboys - will trust Apple Maps ever again!

593

Living Room / Re: 1080p playback: hardware discussion

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 22, 2012, 07:00 AM »

I'd be surprised if a Raspberry Pi would do it. It's fun to play with but I don't think it would handle the throughput of 1080p playback.

Struggles to run a browser at speed in my experience.


Now there is a project for linking Pis together to form multicore 'super computers' - that might be a nice route to try ;-)

594

Living Room / Re: Strange Windows Explorer problem - anyone know how to fix this?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 20, 2012, 03:29 AM »

I presume this is your own product? If so could you state your financial involvement.

595

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 16, 2012, 06:53 AM »

Interesting question about the downgrade - I thought all OEMs had to lock the BIOS to Windows 8 so that no other operating system can be installed.

How would go about installing Windows 7 on a machine locked to Windows 8?

596

General Software Discussion / Re: Roboform, crippling the export function and Bits Du Jour censorship

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 14, 2012, 07:04 AM »

It has to be a lock in mechanism - they took (and are still taking) enough shit about their license changes - now they want to make sure they don't lose any more customers by locking them into a proprietary format which effectively cannot be exported.

They are a bunch of "duckers and divers" out to screw money out of people for a now substandard service and product and their support attitude stinks. Basically whenever anyone criticizes their cashflow orientated decisions that rob their customers of choices they tell them to go away or censor their posts. They did exactly the smae when people like me with lifetime licenses were screwed - basically told me to bugger off and stop asking questions.

The fact that the only update they have made to version 6 since the license debacle is to stop people exporting sums up their attitude to their customers.

Best thing to do with RoboForm is to stop using it altogether and make sure none of your friends or colleagues do.

I moved to LastPass Pro and don't regret it at all. I happily pay my annual $12 and bought a UBIKEY to make my login more secure.

597

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2012, 07:18 PM »

I want to thank Microsoft for Windows 8 - I really do.

I published an article in 3 local newsletters about what is coming in Windows 8 and have got a lot of work building new Windows 7 boxes and upgrading Vista and XP before 7 disappears off the shelves.

Thanks Microsoft. ;-)

598

DC Gamer Club / Build a Bundle 3 from Groupees

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2012, 06:34 PM »

Just a heads up - new Build a Bundle out from Groupees:

http://groupees.com/bab3

The promotion runs for two weeks.

Games include:

• Artery Studios Secret of the Magic Crystals
• Sandswept Studios Detour
• North of Earth Omegalodon
• DQ Team War in a Box: Paper Tanks
• Blue Giant Interactive APOX
• Muse Games CreaVures
• Meridian4 Chrome + SpecForce
• Layernet Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World
• Zaxis Games 99 Levels to Hell

Same approach applies - choose 2 to 9 games and pay what you like (minimum $1.50).

Some games have Steam keys (most), some Desura keys and some have DRM free downloads too.

If progressive targets are met more games will be added to the bundle.

Enjoy.

599

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 13, 2012, 04:49 PM »

Part 1:
http://youtu.be/FFhjDX-DUew

-zridling (September 11, 2012, 02:54 AM)

Best comment on YT:

People with PCs like to watch people having sex on their computers.
People with Macs like to have sex WITH their computers.

600

General Software Discussion / Re: Steal Windows 8 and Microsoft probably won't mind?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 08, 2012, 03:07 PM »

Is it my imagination or does that look like Tim Minchin?