Recent Posts

626

Living Room / Re: Hating on AVG antivirus/firewall (internet security)

« Last post by Shades on June 04, 2018, 12:53 PM »

My security measures (for home) are practically similar to what wraith808 applies. The Windows Firewall is good and doesn't demand much resources. It's interface isn't that great, but there are solutions for that as well. Since Windows Vista/7 the Windows firewall has been so good that I never used another one again. Heck, even the one in Windows XP was already half decent.

Windows Defender might not be the best of the absolute best, but it is good and in combination with common sense and a good add-blocker, you are already very secure. Then add MalwareBytes and notice how much faster your computer is, while being protected against the lion's share of culprits on the internet. Keep all of these tools up-to-date and you will have the smoothest Windows experience your computer can provide.

Nowadays the anti-virus software itself is being targeted, because of the amount of low-level access and rights these suites claim and their ability to process every type of file (to see if a file has been infected) on your computer.   

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Living Room / Re: Windows 10 April 2018 upgrade woes - anyone any ideas?

« Last post by Shades on June 01, 2018, 11:57 PM »

On the TomsHardware site there is a similar thread created that describes the problem of OP almost verbatim. In one of the posts from that thread was a suggestion to leave it on and wait. That person mentioned that after 20 minutes of watching the boot screen, it suddenly continued and booted into Windows. 

In the Lenovo forum a post from 2017 describes all the steps the person took so his system would boot again after experiencing a very similar problem. Scroll to the middle of the page to see the steps. It involves recreating the boot section on the hard disk, which appears to be a good strategy for the solution to the problem of the OP.

More research revealed that it is likely LSE (Lenovo Service Engine) is the culprit. It is part of the boot procedure, has a security vulnerability and Microsoft patched this recently. There is a way to get rid of LSE, see this link.

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Living Room / Re: Clever simple gadget - usb stick that lights up in color on notifications

« Last post by Shades on June 01, 2018, 11:23 PM »

After buying a memory expansion for my Amiga 500 back in the day, it came with a led, showing me when it was being used. I always enjoyed having such visual indicators. In the early days of Windows and computer cases there were still visual indicators (or 'blinkenlights') but those were already more generalized. Nowadays it seems to me that even these generic indicators are phased out.

Network related equipment still makes use of the 'blinkenlights' but that stuff is usually hidden away in server rooms and relegated to the back of computers. Thanks for bringing these glowing USB lights to my attention. 

629

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for two particular softwares

« Last post by Shades on May 29, 2018, 07:51 PM »

The last request is easily answered: John's Background Switcher. That is a great wallpaper "swapper", but is not made by a DonationCoder. At least, I don't think the creator is a member here. What I am sure of is that it never was a N.A.N.Y. entry.

Is this helpful in answering your first request?

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: ZOOM Player MAX 14 for FREE 2018-May-23

« Last post by Shades on May 26, 2018, 03:21 PM »

Did the same as a test on an Asus ZenPad (the 10 inch version) they handed to me so I could repair it. On that tablet VLC for Android had no problem to play avi, mp4, mkv files with 1080p content that uses HVEC (x265) encoding. Now I am not a fan of the tablet as a concept and I found the repair job more interesting than the device itself. But if I had to get a tablet, that model I would seriously consider.

631

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: ZOOM Player MAX 14 for FREE 2018-May-23

« Last post by Shades on May 26, 2018, 12:21 PM »

With so many very capable video players available for free, who would want this player? Most of these free players are skinnable, meaning thatif you don't like the look, you (or by using the skin from someone else) can alter that.

I'm not saying this is a bad player or anything, I just fail to see its value.

632

Non-Windows Software / Re: Wanted - Free (or cheap) wifi calling app for Android

« Last post by Shades on May 20, 2018, 06:16 PM »

@app103
Don't know how the situation in the US is, but here in PY I got a prepay sim card and I am using that for more than 10 years now and the last time I "charged" it with call minutes is almost 2 years ago. My phone receives voice calls normally and I can make/receive voice calls through WiFi (WhatsApp).

The reason I don't charge my phone with money anymore is that I hardly make voice calls and on the moments I needed to It was always without "saldo" (as they call it here), because telco's here charge you for commercial messages they send to you. After deciding that such a game isn't worth playing at all, I just stopped charging my phone with "saldo" and see where I end up. I receive much less commercial messages and till now no message that the sim card will be taken out of service if I don't put "saldo" on the phone.

Sim-only pre-paid numbers are not available to you? It might worth a try to find that out, because that would seem to me the simplest way to keep using your old phone well within budget and with luck even free.

This article on How-to-geek, might prove to be useful as well.

633

Living Room / Re: Canadian adventures

« Last post by Shades on May 18, 2018, 06:10 PM »

In that sense I have been blessed growing up in a country where it doesn't take too much effort to put cables in the ground by people who know very well how to do just that. Sure, it is more expensive and cumbersome when repairs are needed, but the thing is that the amount of times a repair is needed, drops to near zero. Especially in geologically stable places.

Another advantage is that in a lot of situations you can plan to do maintenance on telecom cables or gas/water pipes when for example the electricity company opens the street/sidewalk to do an upgrade. If more than one type of company does work this way, they can divide the costs of opening and closing the street/sidewalk back up. That is enough of a cost saver for any company to actively search for such partnering deals where they can.

In the end, companies have more ROI putting cables into the ground, customers enjoy a much more stable services provided over these cables and, in most cases, do not have to worry long about circumventing dangerous situations that can be introduced when streets/sidewalks are opened up.

Distribution of services through cables going through the air? Last resort for people living or working in locations directly above bedrock, but for a lot of places (in 1st world countries as well) it sounds like lazyness to me. Most consider the Netherlands to be a first world country and in all my time living there (spread over different cities in the southern part and 33 years) is that you will have power, gas, water, cable and telephone services available, as long as you pay your monthly bills and do not pull any main switch yourself in your residence. Snow, ice, storms, heat...all of that doesn't affect availability.

Here in Paraguay all cables go through the air and reliability just isn't there. Transformers on poles that blow out seemingly at random, car/truck accidents, trees storms so strong that power cables (with separators in between them!) still manage to touch each other, heavy rains...it is almost like companies "providing" their services through the 'cable in air' method settle for saying "at least we tried" to their customers. A sign of weakness anywhere in the world, if you would ask me (and I know you didn't).

Internet here in the capital of PY, in a highly commercial part where electricity and connectivity is paramount for most businesses/shops, is spotty at best when it rains. Which it is doing right now. So in that sense, we (rgdot and Shades) are kindred spirits.

634

General Software Discussion / Re: Best sites to hire a coder/programmer for a one-time job?

« Last post by Shades on May 18, 2018, 11:09 AM »

By taking the software from someone else for the purpose of de-compiling and manipulation of that code, you will enter very "murky waters" at best, depending on the license the software is published under.

635

General Software Discussion / Re: eff says immediately disable or uninstall tools that auto decrypt PGP email

« Last post by Shades on May 14, 2018, 09:21 PM »

A simple workaround for those that need this functionality in their mail client: disable the (automatic) opening of mail messages with HTML content.

For those able to read the source of mail messages: copy-paste the content of the encrypted message to another piece of software that is not your mail client, but which is (rudimentary) able to process the encrypted content anyway.

Automatic opening/viewing of mail messages should be prohibited in practically every imaginable use case scenario anyway. Efail is just the latest example of this.

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General Software Discussion / Re: desktop sharing tool

« Last post by Shades on May 14, 2018, 01:43 AM »

AnyDesk is quite similar to TeamViewer, because a lot of the original developers left TeamViewer to work on that instead. AnyDesk doesn't bother you with on-screen messages/mails to upgrade to the newest version. TeamViewer does not do backwards-compatibility so well. And that is by design as they almost force you to upgrade to their newest commercially licensed (expensive) products and it could happen that you cannot take over the computer you need/want, because of too different versions between your own computer and the one you try to take over.

Can you still spend quite some time having the person on the other end of the line download the latest TeamViewer and install it and possibly open up ports on their firewall, etc. I have been using the free version of Anydesk for almost 2 years now and while the software gets regular updates, there is hardly any "pushing" to newer versions going on. A much more relaxed stance, which I can appreciate. Likely also the reason why those devs left TeamViewer in the first place.   

637

Living Room / Re: My board game recommendations for family holidays

« Last post by Shades on May 11, 2018, 09:50 AM »

Maybe we can get together a group that likes to play at a leisurely pace to play some of these.

-wraith808 (May 10, 2018, 02:32 PM)

If such a group would happen here, count me in.

638

General Software Discussion / Re: Unstoppable Copier -- freeware that saved my bacon

« Last post by Shades on May 11, 2018, 09:34 AM »

Interestingly the windows disk scanning/checking functions didn't seem to see anything wrong.. But a handful of files were unreadable due to hardware read failure on the hard disk.  During my recovery attempts sometimes the drive just disconnected itself from the system and disapeared.

In the end I was able to get 99.99% of everything back..   Most of the disk was still working and the files that were corrupt I had backups of -- all but one which had some mail from one account that I had to do some manual work to recover.

All in all, it was pretty painless, but I was reminded of how much worse it could have been.  The experience exposed a couple of holes in my backup plans, and reminded me how important having full drive images are to making recovery from a crash a painless process.  Because of that, I am going to increase the frequency of my full drive backups from once a month to once a week.

-mouser (May 10, 2018, 12:54 PM)

CHKDSK moves files around whenever it encounters a file that is stored in a location on the hard disk that has been marked as bad. That is like fixing the symptom, and then forgetting to apply the cure. If you have a spare computer that can boot from pen drive or CD, use the MHDD tool to really find out what is really wrong with your hard disk, possibly even adjust the capacity if the error(s) are located near to the beginning or end of the hard disk. By doing that, you can repurpose the disk again (for non-essential stuff) for years to come.

You have to boot from the MHDD disk and tests can take a long time (hours!), depending on the storage capacity of the disk and the speed of the onboard hard disk controller from the computer you use to run MHDD on. However, afterwards you will have a very good idea what is really wrong in a way that no Windows based tool and/or S.M.A.R.T. technology can ever compare with.

639

Living Room / Re: Looking for smartphone

« Last post by Shades on May 06, 2018, 11:40 AM »

Done something strange. I was pointed to the Kyocera Brigadier, which is an older model phone (the one I have runs Android 5.1.1), for a total of 80 USD (bying, shipping, flashing to make it work in PY and extra cover. It feels solid, rather heavy in your hand (which I find a plus), lasts 3 days on a battery charge (longer when disabling location, wifi etc.).

Although an older phone it does support NFC and wireless charging. I'm happy to use it as replacement for my current daily driver, a Huawei P8 Lite. The camera is not great on both phones, but that is not a consideration in my mind or use cases.

Anyway, dismissing older model phones immediately would be unwise, especially for the price. There is also it's newer brother, the Kyocera Torque G03, which improves significantly on all hardware specs of the Brigadier model, Android version etc....except for NFC. which is dropped. The website I link to in this post allows you to have specs of several phones next to each other for easier comparison. Also allows to compare prices with several online webstores too. That should make Kalos life (and ours ) easier.

640

Living Room / Re: Data connection through audio jack

« Last post by Shades on May 01, 2018, 07:56 PM »

I think that the cable allows you to connect the watch to an audio device so it can play the music from the watch.

It is more likely that you need a decent USB phone charger cable (which also allows for data transfer) to transfer music to the watch. As most people already have multiple cables of that sort in their possession, it is overkill to supply such a cable with the watch. Makes it a lot cheaper as well.

641

General Software Discussion / Re: What's going on with Java?

« Last post by Shades on April 28, 2018, 10:39 PM »

To be more specific: copied the complete 'jre' folder (without any adjustments) into the root folder of the Java software. Most of the Java applications I have been trying were database clients.

[rant time]
And that is mainly because of the company DataStax who used to make a GUI application for their Cassandra database product (NoSQL). Cassandra is a welcome addition, because it can store big amounts of data very fast on even (relatively) low-end hardware. Faster than Oracle and SQL Server can manage. Differences between retrieval of data between Oracle, SQL Server and Cassandra are very small on the same hardware.

Anyway, Windows support for their GUI to create/execute queries on modern versions of the Cassandra database software has been dropped without warning. Just for those that are in need of a solution to this crappy treatment of Datastax, The Visual Studio Code editor has a pretty good extension for connecting and creating/executing queries on Cassandra databases. Both can be obtained and used freely. Unfortunately, I had to wade through a lot of solutions that wouldn't work with the latest Cassandra, weren't maintained anymore or actively block access before forking over between 200 USD to 500 USD per license, before I found out that VSCode was able to do this as well.

Not even Oracle is that stingy with their Oracle database client software. And as a company you should really be ashamed about that, because the sales-pitch from Oracle consists of the term "or else....." and the gesture of slitting your throat!).
[/rant time]

642

General Software Discussion / Re: What's going on with Java?

« Last post by Shades on April 28, 2018, 02:04 PM »

Most Java-based applications I have encountered the last year or so, work fine with a copy of the 'jre' folder I pulled from a computer with Java installed. They do function as advertised on my system where no Java has ever been installed.

Java applications usually work just fine when they can access the Java executables for which they are designed. Updating Java itself can seriously mess things up.

Including the (appropriate) jre folder is not necessarily a bad thing, from the application's user standpoint at least. Security/maintenance-wise, this move is or will be an issue. Still, in a crude manner, (Docker) containers and this move with Java are quite alike and share therefore the same positives and flaws. 

643

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

« Last post by Shades on April 22, 2018, 10:12 PM »

"If a law of physics is broken, does it make a sound?"

That question leads to much more important questions, such as: if you happen to break a law of physics, how much jail time do you face? What kind of jail you can expect to be put into? And is there in such a jail also an unwritten rule about dropping the soap? 

644

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

« Last post by Shades on April 21, 2018, 12:33 PM »

If a law of physics is broken, does it make a sound?

-Arizona Hot (April 21, 2018, 11:46 AM)

Yes, but it travels at the speed of light, so your ears can't hear it...

645

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Maya Paint effects screensaver randomizer

« Last post by Shades on April 19, 2018, 08:12 AM »

Thanks for the download, it is much appreciated.

I did not respond sooner, because I was retrieving the other screensavers for you. But now I see that you have edited your post. You were successful in getting the MotionPicture screensaver?

646

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Maya Paint effects screensaver randomizer

« Last post by Shades on April 16, 2018, 09:15 PM »

Went through my hoard collection of vintage software to see if I still got a working copy of the screensaver itself and the tweaking software. Normally I'm not much of a screensaver person, but Maya Paint Effects, Electric Sheep and MotionPicture screensavers are truly great.

Unfortunately it was bupkiss for both on my end. Still had access to the Electric Sheep and MotionPicture screensavers, but not Maya or TweakMPE.

@ Ponsonnet:
If you still have the Maya screensaver, would you mind put it up somewhere for me to download? Google provides more than enough links, yet none of them actually allow me to download it anymore.

647

Living Room / Re: US Internet providers - suggestions needed

« Last post by Shades on April 06, 2018, 10:17 PM »

Do neighboring buildings have the same issues as her building does? If not, then the cause must be in the building. Network sniffing could also be a good idea. Tools like WireShark and NetworkMiner give you a very detailed overview from what is actually happening on the network. WireShark is the most extensive, but you need to know what you are looking at. Because if you don't you will "drown" in the huge amounts of data presented on your computer.

What is handy from WireShark is the coloring of lines. An occasional black line during a capture of 10 minutes or something like that, it's not good, but should not affect the internet experience too much. But if you get large amounts of those, like I got when my line was just installed, you are having serious problems. However, with a bit of understanding, you can identify in which part of the internet connection things go wrong.

Spoiler

Well, over the years people here in PY and NL hired my services for connecting their home to their ISP, but also to fix the mess of the previous "tech", whether that may have been themselves, the kid next door, a niece/nephew etc.

Double NAT I always encounter. Lots of overlapping signals/channels too. Shoddy UTP cabling too (with non-standard lengths of cable), cable modems attached to rusted coax connectors, (very) old model coax connectors provided by the cable company years ago. Sometimes even the cardinal sin, a signal amplifier between coax connector and cable modem. All big no-no's and things you can rather easily fix yourself.

In NL cable companies (still) operate under similar monopoly rules/regulations as the US. However, they do mention which type/model of coax connector you must use in combination with their modem. And no, even if a new but different type/model connector is installed by the owner of the building, you will still get a crappy internet connection. Those connectors are really not made all equal, even though they appear to look the same. Shoddy workmanship with the correct type/model of connector? Yep, another way to get a (very) crappy internet connection. If you get a visit from a tech in NL, that is always the first thing they check.

Of course, it is possible that there is a problem getting internet to the building over the remainder from the network of the cable ISP. And that is indeed something they will need to fix. However, the "last mile" between ISP and a home is more often the cause of crappy internet connections. To clarify: in NL all lines for coax, electricity, telephone, gas and water to a home are put into the ground. Makes all those networks extremely reliable. And that includes internet through cable modems, glass fiber and copper phone-lines. Cable companies normally use 1 small, grey metal box per street to provide each house with a coax signal. And as long as nobody crashes their car/truck into those, they work well.

The last house I called home in NL, was a house that was already 50 years old. Still, after the cable company upgraded their little grey box for the neighborhood and me replacing the coax connector for a supported model, my cable internet connection worked flawlessly. And that was over 20 year old coax cable between the grey box in the street and the house. Keeping the cable modem as close as possible to the coax connector is also very helpful and from that point on using a CAT5e UTP cable to a router/switch physically about 10 meters removed from the coax connector (but I needed almost 25 meters of UTP cable to work it out of sight).

In four years I had no issues with that setup and then I became an expat in PY...where all lines for electricity, telephone, coax and fiber are above ground. Very unreliable. So much so, that most ISPs use WiMax for interconnecting neighborhoods instead. Such service is also available for normal residences too. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that WiMax is practically as reliable as a cabled network. Especially compared with the misery that are consumer grade WiFi devices.

Sorry for another long rant. 

 

 

648

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by Shades on April 05, 2018, 12:34 AM »

There are a few grammar mistakes in the screenshot of that message. As a non-native speaker/writer of English, I may not assume my English is great. But I like to think it is good enough to spot the bad grammar in places. Bad English is almost always a sign of a scam.

Also, you must call Microsoft, because of a Google Chrome critical error? Without an error code? If you expect any help from the provided telephone number or the real telephone number without an error code or at least a concise note regarding the nature of the error, dream on.

Most of the remaining content is just spreading panic in the mind of the user with generic terms...

Separately, each of the above statements should have triggered your bullsh.t detector. In combination it almost becomes funny, at least for people proficient in reading error messages.

Granted, that is not a skill mastered by most users. And that is where the creators of the message bank on. However, if I can already spot the bad grammar, a native speaker of English would certainly spot them, likely even more. Bad English in error messages created by an organization as Google (which employs geniuses in every shape and form)? Really?

Even if you don't have a brain "wired" for computers, just your skill in English should already have been enough to identify this message as a scam.

649

Living Room / Re: US Internet providers - suggestions needed

« Last post by Shades on April 04, 2018, 09:07 AM »

Does she connect her gear with WiFi or UTP cable?

If you have the option on your computer or laptop, first try a cable connected directly to the modem device provided by your ISP before starting to complain to your ISP. That way you are sure the problem of a shoddy connection isn't caused by the WiFi setup in your friends house.

Bit of a rant:
While a monopoly is indeed a bad thing for digital/analog goods delivered to the customer, with regards to internet access the customer isn't always aware that they themselves (unconsciously) can be just as problematic towards their internet connection as their ISP can be. Especially with consumer-grade WiFi devices you can get into a lot of trouble.

If you are able to connect by UTP cable to the modem and there is suddenly no problem accessing sites and whatever else she needs/wants to do on the internet, the ISP is already not to blame, they only have to provide the internet at speeds agreed upon for the contract that exists between your friend and her ISP. Anything more is goodwill on the end of the ISP.

With WiFi, there are some ground rules to follow. If you do, you build a much more stable WiFi network setup, even with consumer-grade WiFi devices. Usually you start by disabling WiFi on the modem of the ISP and bring the internet signal by 1 UTP cable to a much more optimal place in your house for better WiFi coverage. Get a decent WiFi router and connect the UTP cable from the modem to this router. One single cable is easy enough to work out of sight.

Most people here will know already, but for clarity: do not use the WAN port on this router! Ever! Because if you do, you create a double NAT setup, which will make troubleshooting WiFi issues a real pain in the behind. Tape over that port, glue it shut, whatever you think is best to prevent future mishaps. If you have a lot of area to cover, you could use another single UTP cable to connect another WiFi router. When you use more than one WiFi device, do not use the same channel and preferably also not the same name.

For any WiFi device select manually channel 1 or 6 or 11. No other channels should be used. Coordinate with your neighbors to do the same on their WiFi devices if you have to. If you do, their WiFi coverage will improve as well, for no costs.

650

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone here actually use the Microsoft Store?

« Last post by Shades on March 29, 2018, 07:02 PM »

On a very few occasions I did enter the store to find out about a tool. But that was when I still had a Windows 8.1 phone. For Windows on my computers I never saw the need to enter the MS Store. Never spent any money in there, that is certain.