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6301

Living Room / Re: Emperor's New Clothes Kickstarter

« Last post by wraith808 on March 09, 2013, 06:25 PM »

^ That's a possibility- you can cancel your pledge.  But even without that, there's a large amount of money pledged.  It just seems strange.  I mean, I wouldn't even waste $1 on this, unless I knew it was for a purpose.  And other than the tongue in cheek promotion, there doesn't appear to be any indication that it is.

6302

Living Room / This is my brain on Kickstarter

« Last post by wraith808 on March 09, 2013, 04:47 PM »

Even though I haven't kept up with the articles (mostly because it seemed that there wasn't a lot of interest), I'm still an avid visitor to Kickstarter.  Through it I've found some really cool stuff that might not have been funded otherwise.  And I have a pretty good track record in things that I've contributed to actually delivering.

I found an article on The New York Times blogs entitled This Is My Brain on Kickstarter.  It's a good article, and he says a lot of the things that I've been thinking for a while better than I could have.

I back things that I want for the most part, though some I back just because they're good ideas as he says in the article.  But more than anything, I want to be on the other side one day, and its a very interesting process to watch until that day.

6303

Living Room / Emperor's New Clothes Kickstarter

« Last post by wraith808 on March 09, 2013, 04:42 PM »

Just came across the project Emperor's New Clothes on Kickstarter.  Am I missing something?  Or is this a meta kickstarter.  I thought it was a joke... then I saw the money funded to it.

And look at the kicktraq.  Am I missing something?

6304

Living Room / Re: SimCity - EA shows us all how to ruin a landmark game with DRM.

« Last post by wraith808 on March 09, 2013, 04:38 PM »

Wow... I wonder how quickly that leaves the channel.  Or Maxis leaves EA.  Or both.

6305

Living Room / Re: SimCity - EA shows us all how to ruin a landmark game with DRM.

« Last post by wraith808 on March 09, 2013, 04:15 PM »

retweeted by 'simcity'?  Is that the official channel?

6306

Living Room / Re: SimCity - EA shows us all how to ruin a landmark game with DRM.

« Last post by wraith808 on March 08, 2013, 08:56 AM »

Same thing happened with Assassin's Creed... and we see that ubisoft is still experimenting with it.  They'll keep doing it until they can get it to work... no matter how it doesn't help with piracy, and no matter how much clamor there is.  That is, unless someone can take a big enough hit that the shareholders complain.

6307

General Software Discussion / Re: jolidrive: All your cloud services in one place.

« Last post by wraith808 on March 08, 2013, 07:23 AM »

Well yes... you can do the same with otixo.  But you get used to the convenience.  I notice one thing that Otixo has that Jolicloud doesn't and it makes it a little less useful to me, unfortunately- S3.  That would be a cool addition.

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General Software Discussion / Re: jolidrive: All your cloud services in one place.

« Last post by wraith808 on March 07, 2013, 02:26 PM »

There's another app for the same thing - http://otixo.com/.  They've recently gone pay.  I wonder about the same thing on this.

Just musing...

6309

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by wraith808 on March 07, 2013, 01:45 PM »

Dunno about GPU - haven't researched the market for a while, but I've been burned enough by bad AMD/ATi drivers (and noisy fans) that it'd take some convincing. And they still don't support PhysX, do they?

-f0dder (March 07, 2013, 11:46 AM)

Not had many problems with ATI/AMD drivers (far fewer than I had with nVidia on my last system). There were a few dodgy Catalyst releases early in version 12 but verion 13 seems rock steady to me.

-Carol Haynes (March 07, 2013, 12:04 PM)

Ditto here.  I used to be a diehard nvidia fan.  But not now.

6310

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by wraith808 on March 06, 2013, 09:25 PM »

@wraith - PoE? I think you meant EoP this time didn't you?

-40hz (March 06, 2013, 05:28 PM)

Whoops.  Yes. 

@Miz - re: Graphics cards - I sometimes think it's a waste to worry too much about future-proofing your GPU since the technology evolves so rapidly that no matter what you buy today, you'll wish you had the money to get something else a year from now.

So since the GPU is one of the easiest things to swap out, I'm more inclined to re-alocate any money I find for a new build to the things that can't be most easily changed, such as the CPU or mobo. After that I go for what gives me the most bang-for-the-buck overall performance-wise; or, that adds additional capabilities - like more easily supporting multiple VMs. That (to me) means maxing out the RAM first, and then going for a better GPU.

But I'm also not a heavy duty gamer. I like games, but I don't need this week's bleeding-edge masterpiece to have fun. And most of what I do enjoy isn't the latest or the greatest by a long shot. So your priorities and expectations may be different than mine. And rightly so if they are...

-40hz (March 06, 2013, 05:28 PM)

If I hadn't just gone through this (and wasn't also a heavy duty gamer), then I'd probably agree with you.  But having done it, I can say that as he already has a pretty good MB and CPU, the biggest bang for his buck is going to be taking that $100 step.

6311

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by wraith808 on March 06, 2013, 04:54 PM »

That case is a good choice- I went with the Storm Scout, and I haven't regretted it.  I'd prefer that one, but I think the differences between the two are a personal choice.

If you want to be able to run everything for a while, I'd recommend upgrading from the HD7770.  It's a solid choice, but it's the bare minimum with the latest architecture (a couple of good reviews here and here).  I'd recommend spending the extra if you can and going with the 7870 (comparison).  I speak from experience, because I was in the same boat a couple of years ago with a $150 range card vs a $250 range card.  I'm still running it, but I'm finding it just adequate after 2 years (my cards and comparisons)

The extra $100 would have pushed my rig up a bit in price.  But now I wonder if I'd be more satisfied now with that expenditure earlier.

Moving on, I totally agree on the wireless with everyone else.  I had the same concerns- and I'd give you a bit from what I learned there also; unless your computer is far away from your router, I'd look at wired.  even if it is far away, I'd still look at wired, and power over ethernet.  Both of those have served me a lot better than wireless.

The power supply and memory- I think Carol has that covered, and I'd totally agree with her assessments personally.  And her last statements on price are right on, also.

6312

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by wraith808 on March 06, 2013, 03:10 PM »

Most people that I deal with have not seen a way to setup Windows 8 without using an email address.

On at least one computer I set up I could see no way to avoid using an email address except refusing to connect to the internet when prompted - that way it let you set up a local account - up until then it was insistent that you use a live.com address.

I presume different manufacturers organise the setup process in different ways.

Whatever - the majority of non-techie end users just turn on and follow the instructions. When MS says enter your email address now they do it without questioning and end up with a live.com account whether they ever want to use it or not.

I haven't seen anyone (except me) using Office 2013 (and I am going to uninstall it and put 2010 on) and that defaults to SkyDrive for all saving and loading. Yes you can change it but I come across too many end users who have no idea how to save something other than by clicking Save - they don't even know where the files are stored.

This is a worrying development in all major OSes because they are ripe targets for hackers and over time the picking are going to make it more and more worth it. Unfortunately the one thing that seems to be clear is that the hackers keep showing they have the upper hand!!

-Carol Haynes (March 06, 2013, 04:24 AM)

It's on the main page when you set up your account- it's on the bottom right corner- skip this step.  This was in a plain vanilla installation of Windows 8, so I'm not sure if manufacturer's do something with pre-installed versions.  The one thing that having a live account does is make sure they at least set up a password- most machines don't even have one, so I don't really see the difference?  You can't even do anything with it that would affect the local computer without authenticating.

6313

Living Room / Re: Building a Desktop

« Last post by wraith808 on March 06, 2013, 03:06 PM »

What do you usually use the machine for?  Just wondering before I chime in.

6314

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by wraith808 on March 05, 2013, 12:44 PM »

Ohhhh!  The point is that clients are stupid.  That's a statement I can get behind!


...unless I'm the client...

6315

Living Room / Re: Yahoo email servers hacked

« Last post by wraith808 on March 05, 2013, 11:59 AM »

It's only going to get worse as consumers are pushed to cloud services - hell if you buy a Windows 8 machine most people seem to think that HAVE to sign up for a Windows Live (aka hotmail) account and have their machine permanently linked to Microsoft's servers.

-Carol Haynes (March 05, 2013, 02:44 AM)

Precisely.

Once again Carol is spot on.

Right now I'm dealing with two small companies that have brought in Windows 8. Every single Win 8 installation they've done so far was set up with Windows Live. When I asked them why they did that, they said (as Carol observed) they didn't think they had a choice in the matter. And if Microsoft's app store ever catches on, you really won't have a choice since you'll need to have a Live account to use it.

Sorry. But this really sucks.

-40hz (March 05, 2013, 08:22 AM)

It's pretty obvious in the setup, IMO.  

And you can also set up your account with 2-stage authentication that way.

6316

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Qiqqa - Reference Management System - Mini-Review

« Last post by wraith808 on March 04, 2013, 11:35 AM »

Are these libraries indexed in place?  Or are they truly imported into Qigga's data structure?

6317

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by wraith808 on March 04, 2013, 10:09 AM »

I guess I'm just old fashioned enough to feel that if you're a company with the resources and budget Microsoft can bring to bear on product development, it's not unreasonable to expect a device that works as advertised - and have a company that is willing and able to stand behind it.

-40hz (March 04, 2013, 09:21 AM)

But they were.  And they did.  There was a problem with a couple of CS reps, and all the person could say was I'm sorry about the issue, because they weren't those people.  They also did help him that same night, though just with a refund.  And he even said from research that it appeared to be an isolated issue.

It wasn't that the hardware wasn't bad.  It wasn't that it didn't work for him.  It wasn't that he didn't like it.

It was that he had a bad experience with CS.

If he had prefaced the article with that, and/or put that in the title, I'd not have a problem with it.  But it's a tech site, complaining about CS, and not being overly up front about that fact in the title or at the beginning of the article.

That's my problem with it.

6318

Living Room / Re: Why Russell Holly returned his Microsoft Surface Pro - A Cautionary Tale

« Last post by wraith808 on March 04, 2013, 08:37 AM »

Hmmm... this comment sums up my feelings after reading that article.

Seriously? You've "returned Surface Pro, and unlikely to purchase another piece of hardware directly from Microsoft ever again" because one Microsoft store you came to happened to be closed and another was too long a drive to make it that very night? And you think this is a story worth publishing to millions of people?

It's like those people on newegg that give 1 star reviews to Asus motherboards because FedEx took too long to deliver.

6319

Living Room / Re: You Don’t Want Super-High-Speed Internet...

« Last post by wraith808 on March 01, 2013, 10:27 AM »

I think that this is the same as Kotick's remarks to gamers- the sign that a company doesn't really respect its consumers.

Hey!  I was actually civil with that remark...  I should get cookies!


For more interesting reading, see Gamasutra's response.

6320

Living Room / You Don’t Want Super-High-Speed Internet...

« Last post by wraith808 on March 01, 2013, 06:33 AM »

...Says Time Warner Cable

Sounds like a joke with a bad punchline.  But it's not.

Photo: Flickr/Tristan Schmurr

You Don’t Want Super-High-Speed Internet, Says Time Warner Cable (via Wired)


(I started to start this in the basement, just because of the response I wanted to give.  But I refrained, so at least it can start here.)

6321

Community Giveaways / 1 Copy of Trine up for grabs (on SteamGifts)

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2013, 06:01 PM »

Experimenting with using SteamGifts to get rid of all of my additional copies of games.  Up for grabs this time is Trine, a fantasy action game where the player can create and use physics-based objects to beat hazardous puzzles and threatening enemies.

I've set the following restrictions on this giveaway:
1. You must be a member of the DonationCoder Steam group.
2. You must be at least a supporting member.  If you are a participant and want to enter, message me and I'll decide based on your participation in the Community.

It starts tomorrow, March 1st, and runs through March 15th.  I have a whole spreadsheet of stuff to give away, so this is just the first in this series.

Link to Giveaway

Let me know if you have any questions (or suggestions).

Thanks!

6322

JGPaiva's GridMove and Ahk Tools / Re: GridMove at github

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2013, 12:46 PM »

I went through this a little bit ago, and from my research, I'd say just write it, using another license as a base- or just use the CC-BY-NC-SA that you're using as they just recommend that you don't use it, mostly because of the terminology, which really only comes into effect if you plan on enforcing it through legal means. 

The only way the license really means anything is if it is enforced, and the only way that happens if you're not going to do it is by using a license that the FSF (I hate that appropriation of the word free... but that's a bigger issue) supports, so that they can go after the offender.

A couple of references that I found before:
http://programmers.s...age-like-cc-by-nc-sa

http://stackoverflow...r-software-on-github

http://www.quora.com...ive-Commons-BY-NC-SA

6323

Living Room / Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router.

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2013, 12:33 PM »

Some good ones

 

6324

Living Room / Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router.

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2013, 11:44 AM »

^ That was more my point.

6325

Living Room / Re: Why a one-room West Virginia library runs a $20,000 Cisco router.

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2013, 10:57 AM »

Paying your fair share of taxes is not the problem here.

-Shades (February 27, 2013, 07:17 AM)

I'd disagree.  I see the point that you're making- that it's the use (and the people) that spawns the waste.

Let's look at it from a different perspective.  If you were paying a utility for a service, and they squandered the monies that had been paid, but didn't have the money left to provide you with your basic services, what would be your option?  You'd switch.

Our government is not able to provide basic services- in some cases schools are having budgets cut because the local municipality doesn't have the money, and the government investment has gone down. But the library next door has a $25,000 router needlessly, that could have funded some of the programs that were cut.

What are your options?  You don't have the option as you do with the utility, i.e. put your money somewhere that better makes use of the funds.  You don't have the option with Social Security to put your money somewhere that you will be able to make use of it when you need it rather than trust that it will be there, even when all indications point to 'no'.

That's why I think that paying your fair share comes into the equation.

That's the main reason why I don't respond to RFPs from government (or non-profits) any more. Too many "cozy arrangements" and "unvoiced understandings" lurking inside the process. Most times, the preferred vendor has already been selected. The RFP 'cattle call' is only to secure the requisite number of "additional competitive bids" (as required by law) before awarding the contract to the party they originally intended to hand it to.

-40hz (February 27, 2013, 09:03 AM)

I found that out the hard way after spending several hours, and not a few dollars to come up with a competitive proposal for a couple of RFPs.  The same people would win... and I also found out that if you curried favor with those people, you could get some of the 'subcontracts' before hand.