Recent Posts

626

Living Room / Re: Easiest laptop (brand) to take apart ?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 30, 2011, 08:53 PM »

Looking for a laptop for a friend I noticed that TigerDirect often includes nice pictures of the bottom of laptops, in many cases with the covers removed so you can see what is easily accessed. Here's a good example: http://www.tigerdire...24329&CatId=4938 (scroll down)

Anyway I thought it might be helpful.

- Oshyan

627

Living Room / Re: Can you read this?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 30, 2011, 02:23 PM »

Of course this only works on people that are literate.

-housetier (April 29, 2011, 07:08 PM)

Ironically such a text is only likely to come *from* someone who's not.

It seems to work best for English texts, other languages (even my primary) doen't read as easy as English when mangled up like this.

-Ath (April 30, 2011, 03:46 AM)

Once again proving that English is mostly gibberish anyway?

- Oshyan

628

Living Room / Re: The great toilet paper debate

« Last post by JavaJones on April 27, 2011, 06:11 PM »

Haha, oh my! I have totally *had* this debate with a significant other and, I think, offended her a little bit (mostly because I was "too" passionate about it ). This infographic is awesome.

- Oshyan

629

Living Room / Re: Easiest laptop (brand) to take apart ?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 05:19 PM »

Build-your-own laptops are of questionable necessity as far as I'm concerned. I'd like it if they were easier to take apart and maintain from a hardware perspective, but just about anything you make end-user upgradeable is going to add bulk and potential positioning limitations which affect overall design. I'd rather have a well-designed laptop than an easily upgraded one, personally.

I've not heard of the capacitor issue affecting laptops but then why shouldn't it I guess. I did run into one or two desktop boards that had it.

- Oshyan

630

Living Room / Re: The Foreclosure Scam

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 04:47 PM »

Between HOAs and mortgage firms, my view on homeownership is seriously cynical.

-wraith808 (April 23, 2011, 04:28 PM)

Likewise! I am *happy* to be a renter.

- Oshyan

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Living Room / Re: The Foreclosure Scam

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 04:08 PM »

That calls for breaking my usual non-swearing decorum: that is fucked up! 

- Oshyan

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Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 03:54 PM »

Hah! That's brilliant Deo.

- Oshyan

633

Living Room / Re: Please kill me now - just bought an iPad off of eBay

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 03:23 PM »

More like chameleon was taunted with iPhone, but whatever.

- Oshyan

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Living Room / Re: Easiest laptop (brand) to take apart ?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 03:22 PM »

I wonder if the more "generic" laptops like Sager are any easier...

- Oshyan

635

Living Room / Re: Happy Birthday Renegade!

« Last post by JavaJones on April 23, 2011, 03:21 AM »

Happy birthday!

- Oshyan

636

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quick Comparision of Flickr/ipernity/PicassaWeb

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 10:21 PM »

Yeah SmugMug seems like the best overall option, I'm just hoping for something that is free, or at least more customizable without paying a lot (the more customizable versions of SmugMug are pricier than I'd like).

- Oshyan

637

Living Room / Re: What's your experience with 3rd party color inkjet ink replacement?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 08:51 PM »

I suppose my question is what does *not* "accepting it as just the way things are done" look like?

- Oshyan

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Living Room / Re: What's your experience with 3rd party color inkjet ink replacement?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 08:42 PM »

Everything on the internet is free, and yet somehow people are making massive money on it by getting paid not from their direct consumers.  Printers are dirt cheap because they can make a profit by doing all these convoluted things to keep you from buying 3rd party ink for it.  My gut feeling is that this kind of convolution is not healthy -- that it distorts the way we view and interact with the stuff we consume, and poisons the well for companies that do not want to do business this way.  It makes it very hard for consumers to truly compare prices and know what they are getting.

-mouser (April 22, 2011, 08:34 PM)

YES. And I agree with this wholeheartedly. I feel like *I* can still compare prices and make reasonable judgments and purchase decisions, but agree that the overall market is severely distorted by these kinds of tactics. I wish they didn't exist. Ultimately all I'm saying though is that the end result for me may not be that different as far as total cost. If a printer that could do high-speed photo and black and white printing like I have on my desk here was $500 (instead of the $89 I paid), how many ink cartridges is that? How many years will it take me to use $500 worth of ink, and how much would those years of use have cost in some older system where presumably ink may have been cheaper? Or have we ever had such a time?

- Oshyan

639

Living Room / Re: What's your experience with 3rd party color inkjet ink replacement?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 08:32 PM »

Oh believe me I know about the "Gillette Model" and how it has changed things. I'm not a fan. But I suspect razor (hardware) prices have not changed so dramatically as printer (hardware) prices have, and it's also somewhat different because in the case of the razor, really all you have is a handle; it's not only useless without the razor (as is a printer without ink), it's not even an expensive or particularly complex thing. Printers are not like that, they *are* complex, potentially expensive, etc. The fact that we have technology as complex and powerful as in modern printers at such cheap prices is a nice enough thing to me that I can look past the ink prices generally speaking. But again I'm not a heavy printer.

- Oshyan

640

Living Room / Re: What's your experience with 3rd party color inkjet ink replacement?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 08:16 PM »

It's interesting to me actually that people take the view that with printers so cheap, the ink should also be cheap. We all know the ink price subsidizes the printer cost. With actual hardware cost coming ever downward, are we not supremely lucky to have home printers that for $80 or less can print photos of a quality unheard of 10 years ago at 10 times the price? My perspective tends to be, with the printers as cheap as they are, the ink just balances it out over time. I don't *like* it, but I understand and ultimately don't begrudge it too much. Crappy drivers, ink drying out, and clogged print heads bother me more. Which is why HP is out in my book (bad drivers), and I'm still a bit wary of Epson (old clogged head problem).

All that being said I'm not a person who does a ton of printing. I print the occasional paper document in black and white and seldom color, and then the occasional photo print. So I don't use a ton of ink.

- Oshyan

641

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quick Comparision of Flickr/ipernity/PicassaWeb

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 08:13 PM »

Thanks for the further info. I've hosted galleries on a number of platforms before. If you're not familiar with hosting your own web apps then it'd be more complicated but I'm fairly experienced with Joomla, SMF forum, and a number of other web systems, so a gallery is not particularly more complicated. That being said again it's the social element that I'd miss with a self-hosting approach. While I love Wikipedia's extensive app comparison lists for jumping off points, they sometimes make the decision harder, not easier, since there are so many options.

The 23-based options seem interesting, but what I really want is people to be able to comment on my photos on *my* site with a Facebook account, and just notify people of a new *gallery* being posted (or new single image optionally, but I tend to upload in batches and wouldn't want to see 70 individual image posts show up on my wall!). I'll look into the options with 23 and see if it can somehow do what I want. The 30 picture per month limit is somewhat frustrating though. If I'm going to pay, I might as well put in slightly more for SmugMug (20 Euro for 23 vs. $40 a year for Smug). SmugMug's presentation and gallery style is still unbeaten as far as I'm concerned (23 is actually somewhat lackluster in this area for picture enlarging in particular).

If I do end up setting up Piwigo or another locally hosted solution I'll let you all know how that goes, hehe.

- Oshyan

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Living Room / Re: Flash Game of the Week: Zombie Cats

« Last post by JavaJones on April 22, 2011, 05:04 PM »

It's one of those twist endings guys, don't you get it?

- Oshyan

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quick Comparision of Flickr/ipernity/PicassaWeb

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 03:16 PM »

Thanks for the recommendation city_zen. This continues to be an area of interest for me as well. I agree that Flickr is best for the community aspect, which is a bit frustrating as I still really dislike its whole system and approach. I think SmugMug being pay-only really limits its general community participation. Would be nice if they had a free, albeit very limited, option. Or maybe even something where they interface with other systems for storage (Picasa, for example) while presenting photos through their interface (Picasa, Flickr, and others have APIs that would allow this, although there may be legal restrictions). If they had free accounts at least you could get more people participating and commenting, even if they weren't particularly active uploaders. The lack of good social feedback on other systems besides Flickr is a real source of frustration for me. Even on Flickr none of my actual (real life) friends are active, so I've taken to just posting on Facebook for general comment/feedback/sharing, and then posting in Picasa for archival. I plan to remove my photos from Facebook regularly due to their evil, evil Terms of Service (which basically claims a non-exclusive right to use your photos for whatever they want!). I really wish there were a better, unified alternative. Maybe something with Facebook Connect so my FB friends could easily comment, but with better ToS than FB itself. Hmm...

I'm planning to move to a self-hosted gallery for archival soon. Looking at this: http://piwigo.org/ Just noticed it has some Facebook plugins too: http://fr.piwigo.org...ion_view.php?eid=481 http://piwigo.org/ex...ion_view.php?eid=469
Have any of you considered self-hosting vs. the big hosted sites discussed here? If so, why did you decide against it?

- Oshyan

644

Site/Forum Features / Re: I think we should close the Company Complaints and Compliments Section

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 02:22 PM »

I agree, if it stays it needs closer monitoring and moderation. Just, as tomos said, that's not really DC's style in general (in the other forum sections). As long as there are people willing to moderate it who will do a good job I'm fine seeing it stick around, but personally I would just ditch it.

Mouser's latest point about fewer sections being better is also important and one I agree with, along with the fact that it does seem (in my eyes) to give those posts extra "weight".

- Oshyan

645

Site/Forum Features / Re: I think we should close the Company Complaints and Compliments Section

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 01:56 PM »

Honestly I think having a whole section for it invites *more* topics of that kind, and makes for more contentious ones as well. Granted you could have the occasional thread turn nasty in the main forum, but I suspect it would be less often, and in general be less abused. Just my gut feeling though.

- Oshyan

646

Site/Forum Features / Re: I think we should close the Company Complaints and Compliments Section

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 01:25 PM »

What exactly is the value of having it separated from other discussion areas? It really does just draw attention to it (good or bad).

- Oshyan

647

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA : Voice Changing Application {VCA}

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 12:29 PM »

Yeah, you might find a tool to do it but the results will be better with even an amateur voice actor I reckon.

- Oshyan

648

Site/Forum Features / Re: I think we should close the Company Complaints and Compliments Section

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 12:27 PM »

Works for me.

- Oshyan

649

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA : Voice Changing Application {VCA}

« Last post by JavaJones on April 21, 2011, 10:52 AM »

A friend of mine used to participate in a voice acting forum where people would volunteer to work on various projects (some were also paid). I don't remember which forum it was exactly but you might try these:
http://voiceactingal....com/board/forum.php
http://voicechasers.com/forum/

- Oshyan

650

General Software Discussion / Re: Complaint about Bartels Media \ the PhraseExpress people

« Last post by JavaJones on April 20, 2011, 08:16 PM »

There was a negative response from some members initially which, while potentially also overblown, I took to be partly driven by some past issues with BartelsMedia's participation in forum threads. Whether that's appropriate or not, it seemed like a factor. So I'll grant that probably contributed to the thread's downward spiral, but I think more measured and professional messages from Bartels would have prevented an initial response being so negative, as well as further negativity in the thread. Not to mention previous posts in other threads.

It's not necessarily "fair" but as a company I believe it's always best to take the high road and maintain a level of professionalism no matter what you're dealing with. Sometimes silence can also be the best course, frustrating as it may be to not say anything.

- Oshyan