Recent Posts

6326

General Software Discussion / Re: Run a security check on your Gmail account - if not already done

« Last post by IainB on December 28, 2010, 04:12 PM »

@wraith808: Yes, thanks:

"...so a U.S. access isn't necessarily something malign."

I have a New Zealand IP address, which was why the US IP addresses that did a POP3 were a worry. I shall update my post to reflect this.

@Deozaan: Yes, thanks:

"...so they can't do anything before signing in again and by then you should have changed your password."

That was one of the points I was trying to make, but didn't do very well. I shall update my post to make this quite clear.

6327

Living Room / Re: Naming and Shaming Bad Forums with Bad Ethics

« Last post by IainB on December 28, 2010, 03:30 PM »

In a separate topic, @superboyac posed what he later reckoned was a deliberately provocative question: "Why do we go out of our way to be unhelpful in forums?".
You could look at his Q as being relevant to this topic (i.e., "Naming and Shaming Bad Forums with Bad Ethics").

As well as suggesting that his Q was a loaded Q, full of assumptions, and thus likely to generate a random/irrational response, I also suggested - in a response to @mrainey that:

At the risk of being repetitious, I thought it had been conclusively established a while back elsewhere in this forum -
e.g., Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?
- that the most effective method for improving the DC forum's feel-good factor and avoiding things sucking was to plaster animated pictures of Angelina Jolie in scant or zero attire all over the place.

So, in this case, the answer could be equally simple (with some modification):

• Instigate an auto-parsing of the grammar of every single initial/new topic post.
• If the parsing detects that a question is being asked, then this triggers an auto-response post/comment from the Moderator.
• The first part of the Moderator's post displays a largish (say) 4cm high animated icon of a naked Angelina Jolie - or maybe any babe - blowing you a kiss or doing something nastier.
• The second part of the post could say something like, "97.63% of people who asked this or a similar question managed to obtain a satisfactory answer by "googling" it (i.e., by searching for it on http:\google.com), or by RTM (Reading The Manual). Have you already tried these? If you have, then please reply to this comment with "I already tried that, thanks." and members of our forum will no doubt be falling over themselves to help you! Meanwhile, enjoy the image above and have a nice day!

Results?

• This would be guaranteed to blast the user experience up by a factor of 150% (at least)! Do the math!        
• The take-away would an enormous feel-good factor for 99.97% of your target audience, who will tell 87.3% of their friends about it, 99% of whom will rush off to try it out and tell their friends about it, thus increasing the number of users of the DC forum asking inane questions at an exponential rate!      
• A 100% reduction in "forum fatigue" from responding to the same old questions or variations of the same, time and time again.

Editor's note: 93.75% of statistics are made up.

6328

General Software Discussion / Run a security check on your Gmail account - if not already done

« Last post by IainB on December 28, 2010, 09:06 AM »

Following the recent hacking and publishing of Gawker Media customers' (commenters') email IDs and passwords (yes, passwords - how dumb can that be?), I had been checking my Gmail account security - and I had a surprise when I did it (for details, read on).

SUGGEST YOU DO THIS WEEKLY: (if you do not already do it.)
Start up Gmail in your browser.
Near the bottom of the main Gmail page, it says something like:
Last account activity: 57 minutes ago on this computer.  Details

When you click on "Details", you get taken to a page "Activity on this account". A table gives details of the 10 latest accesses, the 1st being your current session..
If you have any open sessions (e.g., if you left sessions open from another PC connected to the account, or if someone has open sessions from unauthorised access to your account), there will be a button that says to close them. Click on that button. The button will go away and you will get something like:
"This account does not seem to be open in any other location."

Now only you are looking at the account.

EDIT 2010-12-29 1112hrs: You have momentarily shut out any other users accessing your account. The objective is to move quickly and prevent any other account users doing anything before signing in again, by which time they will not be able to sign in, because by then you should have changed the account password and security question.

Scan the table for any Browser or POP3 accesses from IP addresses that were not yours from some other location or device.
Take a screen shot of it before doing anything further, because anything you do may scroll the oldest accesses off the table.

You can check the IP addresses here: http://projecthoneypot.org/search_ip.php
It will tell you which country it is in, and whether anything suspect has been reported for that IP address recently (i.e., it is still a "bad" IP address"). If they have the IP address, but no recent reports, then it means that they have had reports in the past, but it's probably OK now.

In any event, if there are any IP addresses that were not yours (either for browser or POP3 access), then:

    * change your password immediately (make it a "strong" one);
    * change the security question;
    * SAVE all changes;
    * whilst you are at it, get a second email address in the event you need to restore access to your account, having been locked out from it.
    * whilst you are at it, set up the SMS alert.

I did all this, because, to my great surprise I had POP3 (reading current inbox messages) accesses from some US-based IP addresses. I have no idea what they were up to, but they can't do any more POP3 accesses now.

EDIT 2010-12-29 1112hrs: Because my IP address is in New Zealand, a U.S. access was categorically something unwanted or potentially malign.

Hope this is useful/helpful to someone.

6329

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Security Essentials

« Last post by IainB on December 28, 2010, 07:09 AM »

After running the MSE ß, I downloaded and installed the latest version ("About" now reads):
 - Security Essentials Version: 2.0.657.0
 - Antimalware Client Version: 3.0.8107.0
 - Engine Version: 1.1.6402.0
 - Antivirus definition: 1.95.2722.0
 - Antispyware definition: 1.95.2722.0

On 2010-12-29, I read A Typical Freelance Job and as a result I downloaded, installed and ran the free version of Malwarebytes, which found these registry entries (no actual viruses or Trojans) - this is from the log:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\{1D4DB7D2-6EC9-47A3-BD87-1E41684E07BB} (Adware.MyWebSearch) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Registry Data Items Infected:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell\(default) (Hijack.Drives) -> Bad: (open) Good: (none) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\StartMenuLogoff (PUM.Hijack.StartMenu) -> Bad: (1) Good: (0) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

6330

Living Room / Re: Naming and Shaming Bad Forums with Bad Ethics

« Last post by IainB on December 26, 2010, 11:23 PM »

@Stephen66515: "Ethics" is usually more about maintaining moral principles in behaviour and business. It would seem to be just plain rudeness/bad manners to tell people to "google it" or "RTFM", and my principles prevent me from being rude to others.
After years of lecturing, consulting and generally trying to maintain a politely helpful and positive approach to people's questions (including being a volunteer on aardvark), I eventually decided on three (sorry, four) basic rules:
Rule 1: that there is no limit to our ignorance (including mine), and I should accept that;
Rule 2: to limit the contribution of my cognitive surplus to such people and their infinite ignorance/questions, by encouraging them to take more responsibility for seeking out/discovering their own answers.
Rule 3: that people generally seem to have little respect for and to have a limited capacity to internalise answers/knowledge which have come too easily to them, so generally avoid giving them any answers.
Rule 4: in any event, avoid "telling them the answer" or pushing my opinion forwards without substantiation in theory, experience and good practice (this takes work to communicate).

When I have strayed from these rules, I have usually regretted it (I think it has happened once in the DC forum).

Therefore, rather than tell people to "google it" or "RTFM", IF I decide to assist them at all, then - and even if I think that I know the answer already - I nowadays usually google it, or check Wikipedia (say) or RTFM for them, and then send them the results or source links, with the suggestion that  they could probably get even more useful information if they hunted around a bit more themselves or played about with the google search string. This is just helping people to help themselves.

6331

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell - Top Priority Requests for 2011

« Last post by IainB on December 23, 2010, 08:24 AM »

What @cranioscopical said:

Images!

+1 vote from me.

Also, per separate post elsewhere in the DC forum:

Please note that I have updated the post Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?.
UPDATE 2010-12-23: I just found ClipGuru v2.9.0 as at 2010-03-10 on freewarefiles.com.
I have also saved this for people to download from Box.net in case it goes from freewarefiles.com.

Suggestion: Consider copying some of the features of ClipGuru - e.g., retaining the URL as part of the clip info where you have clipped from a website.

6332

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Clipboard Help+Spell - Top Priority Requests for 2011

« Last post by IainB on December 22, 2010, 07:20 PM »

From: Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one? - « Reply #23 on: 2010-05-07, 22:40:44 »

Quote from: Ampa on Today at 19:50:16
Please Mouser, can we have a way to integrate FARR and CHS?
(Cross link to previous threads asking similar things)

Funnily enough, I was thinking only today that if there were an additional feature that I would like to see in CHS, it would probably be the option/ability to search for a character string using the FARR search box (i.e, same as KlipKeeper).

KK has a useful thing in the shape of the ability to search the klips for a character string using the FARR search box. It's very fast. By comparison, though CHS has more functionality and is pretty sophisticated, I have sometimes found it to be a bit tedious to find an old clip in CHS, whereas it pops up real fast in the KK/FARR search. (e.g., kk +sall string)

+1 vote from me.

6333

General Software Discussion / Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?

« Last post by IainB on December 22, 2010, 06:57 AM »

@mouser: Good idea! Where would you suggest that we start building this "required new features/fiunctionality" list?

6334

General Software Discussion / Re: Alternatives to Ditto

« Last post by IainB on December 22, 2010, 05:54 AM »

Please note that I have updated the post Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?.
UPDATE 2010-12-23: I just found ClipGuru v2.9.0 as at 2010-03-10 on freewarefiles.com.
I have also saved this for people to download from Box.net in case it goes from freewarefiles.com.

6335

General Software Discussion / Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?

« Last post by IainB on December 22, 2010, 05:51 AM »

Please note that I have updated the post Re: Clipboard Managing-Which one?.
UPDATE 2010-12-23: I just found ClipGuru v2.9.0 as at 2010-03-10 on freewarefiles.com.
I have also saved this for people to download from Box.net in case it goes from freewarefiles.com.

6336

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by IainB on December 12, 2010, 06:28 AM »

@Deozaan: If you pursue that line of thought, then you risk giving something valuable away - freedom of expression.
As per my above post, after their unfortunate article, Ars are still invited to "get lost".

The ars technica article on adblocking was an amazing 1,101 words long, adding up to what some people (not me, you understand) might say was impressively specious - if not downright fallacious - reasoning, with begging thrown in for good measure and all intended as an attempt to substantiate an otherwise unfounded and insubstantial POV whilst at the same time attempting to twist the arms of the readers into conceding to that POV.

Some people might particularly notice the implicit and powerful threat:

"We've done a test and you know what? If you don't unblock our ads, then we'll...we'll jolly well take our toys away, and boy! - will you be sorry then! Try to read our site then, sucker!"

Those people might go on to add that whatever content they wish to appear on their PC monitors, what is deserving of their finite cognitive surplus and what they wish to pay for with their finite and hard-earned cash is largely up to them and that no amount of coercion or implied threat is going to alter that, so get lost.

Wow! What have we here? Oh no! Eyes hazing over with red...anger...must destroy...cannot stop...nooooooo!...not that!...not a rant!...
--- WARNING! Start of rant ---
When you consider that this medium (the web) that we are using was originally designed to enable the free flow and communication of scientific information and research, it is not easy to understand why the users would wish to allow it to become so dominated by political or commercial interests - i.e., by Big Brother or Big Business and other commercial entities - that they give away their freedoms and let it be turned into another form of the Commercial v. Paid-for TV business model.

I stopped watching commercial TV years ago because I could not tolerate the incessantly repeated drivelling adverts and execrable quality of programming. I could not tolerate the Paid-for TV providers either, because, if anything, they provided an even worse experience in terms of quality of programming (though a lot of it is arguably due to the sheer volume of Americanised dumbed-down programming).

The Internet has transformed the world of human freedom of communication of information. This freedom is under attack.
The Internet use (e.g., blogging) has caused a slow death in traditional biased and Big Business-driven monopoly newspaper media, with some of those media trying to retire behind pay-walls as a last-gasp strategy for survival, or, like Ars, employing blackmail to get you to "do it their way".

Consider the millions of dollars spent by the RIAA over the last few years as they attack their customers in a last-ditch struggle to turn back the tide and control the medium, rather than develop a new business model to replace their obsolete business model (made obsolete by the use of P2P and other file sharing across the Internet).
Alternatively, consider what is currently happening to Wikileaks as Big Brother and Big Business attempt to attack and muzzle the freedom of access to public information.
It is one helluva sick society that enables and condones such attacks on our freedoms.
--- End of rant ---

PS: By the way, any sarcasm in any of the above is entirely intentional.

6337

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.89.01 - Nov 21, 2010

« Last post by IainB on December 08, 2010, 03:32 PM »

Could somebody help me with this SSC scrolling window capture problem please? I have SSC v2.89.01.
I have been using SSC for quite a while but have only recently tried using the capture of scrolling windows feature (e.g., a web page that is bigger than 1 screen deep), because I only just now needed a web page image capture.

However, SSC seems only able to perform an incomplete capture with errors in it (see image below), and it's a consistently repeatable error. Before it completes this "bad" capture, there is a lot of flickering of the screen and the browser window goes black, and sort of thin vertical white progress lines appear, disappear and re-appear.
As a workaround, I installed a Firefox add-in called FireShot, which seems to work perfectly, but, because SSC has such a brilliant toolset     , I would like to keep it all in SSC and not have to use another SS utility (like FireShot).
I read the Help in SSC and the caveat about messing with SSC scrolling settings:

IMPORTANT: Scrolling Window Exception Settings are an advanced feature not for use by normal users.

Even though I am abnormal, I still felt it best to heed the warning and so did not mess with the settings.   

I wondered if it was "user error", but I cannot see that I am doing anything incorrectly.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

6338

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Security Essentials

« Last post by IainB on December 04, 2010, 04:54 AM »

I would recommend that you trial the ß MSE (suck-it-and-see). I haven't had any issues with it so far. It had a minor bug that I reported to MS (that's what ßs are for though).

6339

Living Room / Re: Glowing web review of Logitech G930 wireless headset

« Last post by IainB on October 21, 2010, 09:01 AM »

@mouser: Many thanks for the pointer.    
I've been looking for something like these for ages.
This earphone/mic headset looks pretty impressive - for gaming, music listening, or Skype use, for example.
And they are WIRELESS, good for up to approx 40' range, apparently. Though I have tried wireless (Bluetooth) headphone/mic sets before, they were absolute rubbish, and I've never seen anything like these Logitech jobs before. Not bad from the glowing review - I followed the link to read the detailed review. Wow.

UPDATE: I ran a comparison on the Logitech website, between the older G35 and the new G930 headsets.
            Apparently the G930 headset doesn't do stereo(?). How can that be?
            The G930 is not cheap either.

6340

Living Room / Re: Why do we go out of our way to be unhelpful in forums?

« Last post by IainB on October 01, 2010, 10:07 PM »

@Deozaan:

Please no! I can't stand that woman!

She's a woman? Wow. I had no idea. I thought it was all plastic surgery on a bloke.
Ah well, yet another illusion shattered.

6341

Living Room / Re: Why do we go out of our way to be unhelpful in forums?

« Last post by IainB on September 29, 2010, 10:16 AM »

@superboyac: Your question is a loaded question - full of assumption - and thus may provoke a random/irrational response.

Trying to be rational: My experience of the DC forum is that most respondents/commenters seem to be pretty helpful  - or as helpful as they are able.

What you probably inevitably find in forums though is "forum fatigue" from responding to the same old questions or variations of the same, time and time again. Then the respondent probably tries to be as brief as possible. It could all seem rather dull and boring after several repetitions.
For example, I found this happening to me when I volunteered myself for ardvark, so I had "standard answers" at the ready for the repetitive questions. Realising that I was probably wasting my time, I eventually made a decision to stop making any response at all. The most productive and consistent thing to do for a repetitive process is to automate it. "Googling" a question would seem to do that quite well.

@mrainey:

"Why does EVERYTHING SUCK?"

At the risk of being repetitious, I thought it had been conclusively established a while back elsewhere in this forum -
e.g., https://www.donation....msg202946#msg202946
- that the most effective method for improving the DC forum's feel-good factor and avoiding things sucking was to plaster animated pictures of Angelina Jolie in scant or zero attire all over the place.
 

6342

Living Room / Re: Some Google Blogger questions

« Last post by IainB on September 29, 2010, 09:27 AM »

@kyrathaba: As suggested by @40hz, you could find answers to your questions by creating a blog on Google Blogger and then saving ot to a .XML file.
I have done exactly that with two Blogger blogs and can state that:
(a) The XML file contains either images or links to your images in Picasa albums, as uploaded to the blog. After you have restored your blog on a new website though, you would be wise to doublecheck the integrity of all of the material migrated. Some of it does not seem to make the migration, and I am not sure what the conditions are for this to happen.
(b) The XML file does not contain videos, but only links to videos, as uploaded to the blog.
(c) The XML file contains text/HTML. In fact, double-clicking on it will open it in IE and you can browse it in IE - which gives a text-only view.
(d) I would suppose that you should be able to export, or export-then-convert, a Blogger blog to a hard drive HTML directory structure that exactly reproduced the blog's online appearance and functionality - but only if you grabbed the blog template HTML and then experimented with a folder structure.

Hope this helps or is of use.

6343

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Security Essentials

« Last post by IainB on September 29, 2010, 06:41 AM »

+1 for what @Bamse said.

6344

Living Room / Re: Hilarious video, for those old enough to appreciate it.

« Last post by IainB on September 25, 2010, 10:01 AM »

@ljbirns: Yes, you may well be right.
The mindlessness of modern-day PC ("Political Correctness") is explored quite well in The Retreat From Reason

6345

Living Room / Re: Hilarious video, for those old enough to appreciate it.

« Last post by IainB on September 24, 2010, 12:24 AM »

@app103: Yes, I thought it was very funny too, and not in bad taste.

6346

Living Room / Re: Where have all the trackballs gone!

« Last post by IainB on September 23, 2010, 11:58 PM »

Wow! That Logitech Wireless Trackball M570 looks very nice.

The first time I saw a trackball it was of an embedded-in-the-desk variety, on the Warfare Command/Control Deck of the HMS Invincible, when I was given a personal tour of it in about 1984. The trackball moved the cross-hairs on a big Tektronix radar monitor. You clicked on any vessel blip within an approx 70 nautical mile radar range and after a few seconds the screen displayed all the likely details about that vessel (country of origin, charter contract, etc.) - after having searched Navy and commercial shipping (manifestoes) databases via onboard systems and via a satellite link. It gave a probability as to whether the vessel was friend or foe. If it was deemed "foe", then punching a big fat red button off to the right apparently invoked a strike of sufficient missiles to blow it out of the water. The button was apparently disabled when the command deck was not operational.

The only trackball I actually used was a thumb-ball one that clipped onto the side of my Toshiba laptop, in 1992. Since then I became a dab hand at using those nifty TrackPoint/AccuPoint levers placed in the middle of the keyboard, and I later settled for the touchpad as favourite - for its ergonomics and minimal RSI.

6347

Living Room / Re: Hilarious video, for those old enough to appreciate it.

« Last post by IainB on September 23, 2010, 11:05 PM »

I can't see the video on that link, but if it is the "Blond typist goes back to work after many years" one that I sent to my blond daughter a while back, she thought it was very sexist and didn't take kindly to it at all.
 

6348

General Software Discussion / Re: Drupal is f*cked

« Last post by IainB on September 23, 2010, 10:18 PM »

@Carol Haynes: Yes, of course, it looks great in MS IE, and (perhaps unsurprisingly?) not too brill in Firefox. It was that way when the thing was implemented in 2004, and it doesn't seem to have been changed since. I think it's probably an obscure system parameter that they (Powerco) don't know how to set, rather than a product fault. By the way, it looks even worse in Chrome!    

My comment, however, was not about the quality of the site as viewed in different browsers, but about the relative straightforwardness of the implementation - whereat it exceeded the 80-20 rule (Pareto principle) by a country mile.
Looked good for Microsoft!    

I really couldn't have cared less whether we had used MCMS, Drupal, Plone, or Disney-Goofy as a CMS otherwise. I just managed the implementation of the CMS that the client had decided to use, to meet client requirements, and from that perspective it was an impressively straightforward excercise and the client Sponsor was delighted with it. I did point out to them - several times, actually - the differences of viewing the site in different browsers, but I guess it was probably not a priority for them at the time. The CMS nevertheless made for a good and robust website and met/exceeded all client requirements.
Another happy Microsoft customer!

6349

General Software Discussion / Re: Drupal is f*cked

« Last post by IainB on September 23, 2010, 08:35 PM »

If you contrast Drupal with a commercial content management system that is dead basic and easy to install and implement - e.g., MCMS (Microsoft Content Management Server) - then you can see the difference in stark relief.
I managed a project to install MCMS for a client - at a time when I knew nothing about MCMS. It all went without a hitch. I was very impressed with the product - and I do not sing Microsoft's praises very often.
See for yourself - the MCMS site is here: Powerco (New Zealand)

If you contrast Drupal with another open source CMS, then again you might see the difference in stark relief.
For example, you can see a Plone site here: Aiglon College
(IMHO that is a nice and effective website, and with pretty good ergonomics too.)

6350

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft finally allows small business use of Security Essentials for free

« Last post by IainB on September 23, 2010, 07:53 PM »

A great idea, but...
WARNING! --- START OF RANT ---

"...we are extremely excited today to let you know that Microsoft is..."

The word "excited", as used here, is straight out of the Bullshit Bingo phrasebook.
Why do they have to be "excited" at all? What on earth is exciting about it anyway? Are you excited about it? Why? They must have been planning this for ages, so the professed "excitement" must surely be insincere.

I really do get fed up with this BS - Google are just as bad. I read most of the Google-related blogs, and I have lost count of the number of times they say "...we are excited to announce that...etc." with moronic, mind-numbing repetition. I think Amway started the rot by using the term as standard BS in the '80s, with their "exciting bisnez" of pyramid marketing of mediocre products.
--- END OF RANT ---

Having let off steam, I have to say that the free personal-use version of Microsoft Security Essentials seems to be very good, stable and non-intrusive (also see comments on this elsewhere in this forum). I was using that free Personal version and then switched to using the new ß of it when Microsoft released it a short while back, and it seems pretty much faultless. A great anti-virus product IMHO.  

This announcement probably presages a genuine free advantage to small businesses and is likely to engender improved market acceptance/approval of Microsoft's new, and apparently less predatory (than historically) marketing tactics. Time will tell.