Recent Posts

6351

General Software Discussion / Re: Avast Installs Chrome

« Last post by wraith808 on February 14, 2013, 11:35 AM »

I see it from the US.  Instead of going to downloads, go to support->Downloads->Installation files.  It's the first link.

6352

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera to move to webkit/chromium rendering engines

« Last post by wraith808 on February 13, 2013, 02:35 PM »

More discussion going on here.

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Living Room / Re: Website under attack ... help needed

« Last post by wraith808 on February 12, 2013, 08:07 AM »

Thanks everyone - the common thread to the sites that have been affected seem to be out of date Joomla installations. I don't as a matter of course update Joomla websites for clients when they won't pay for support

-Carol Haynes (February 12, 2013, 04:11 AM)

I don't know what more you could be expected to do, so long as they are aware of the risk they take by not having their sites regularly updated by you. I'm not sure if you could offer an update service fee that would be lower than your support fee.

-Dormouse (February 12, 2013, 07:39 AM)

This.  And perhaps a retainer so that when updates come around, it's not as large an expense.  I have a client that does this- pays me monthly a smaller amount, and when I have to do things, I take it out of that.

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Living Room / Re: Ever had a question you wanted to ask Bill Gates?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 11, 2013, 08:20 PM »

No.  

-40hz (February 11, 2013, 07:51 PM)

 

This was a good one:

> > > Anything left on your bucket list?

> > (BG) Don't die...

> Good luck

He may be serious

Another good one... there are some zingers!

>> Windows 7 or Windows 8?
>> Be honest Bill.

> (BG) Higher is better.

Windows 2000 ftw!

Ok... the best one...

It looks like you're answering an AMA? Would you like help?

no response, but still- that wins the internet.

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Living Room / Re: Website under attack ... help needed

« Last post by wraith808 on February 11, 2013, 04:48 PM »

replace the index file with a blank index file and see if it still redirects.

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Living Room / Re: Website under attack ... help needed

« Last post by wraith808 on February 11, 2013, 04:36 PM »

^ I had it happen to me when I was using Joomla, and this was exactly what had happened, so good advice (and on the relaxing.  Easy to say, hard to do, but it works) 

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Living Room / Ever had a question you wanted to ask Bill Gates?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 11, 2013, 04:11 PM »

What does he think of the company's direction with Surface?

Why did they kill off Courier?

"Just for Renegade"

Why does the B&MG foundation work with Monsanto?

He's doing a Reddit AMA right now.  Anyone who knows Reddit knows that nothing is off limits.  He might and might not answer- but I think people learned from Woody Harrelson.  So have at it! (via Engadget)

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General Software Discussion / Re: Game Author Posts on The Pirate Bay

« Last post by wraith808 on February 11, 2013, 10:36 AM »

I think it's because the authors consider themselves artists more than businessmen. I mean, it would make sense to see people enjoy your art and think you're awesome.

-p3lb0x (February 11, 2013, 10:00 AM)

No, I think it's because they are adapting to the reality of the situation.  You aren't going to stop the pirating, at most you're going to slightly inconvenience them (and possibly majorly inconvenience your customers).  Their efforts on the site at worst will have no effect (other than they generate a few license keys) and at best, turn some people pirating into customers; if not for this effort, then for their next.  I don't do it, but I know people that do- and most of them are reacting to something; prices, bad games, bad DRM, companies shafting them (GOTY editions really pissed a lot of early adopters off- especially when released at the same time as expansions or DRM).  Many of them, once the condition that causes it goes away, actually buy the game.

Is it ideal?  No.  Do I agree with it?  No.  But either you adapt, or you become the RIAA/MPAA.

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Post New Requests Here / Re: program to run older games (win95, etc) on windows 8

« Last post by wraith808 on February 09, 2013, 12:43 PM »

If the game is actually a dos mode game, dosbox would be an easier way to go.

However, if it is not (or you'd rather go the VM route), another alternative to VMWare is VirtualBox.

The manual and a FAQ for the manual are available to help you get started.

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Living Room / Re: Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

« Last post by wraith808 on February 09, 2013, 12:03 PM »

How much does he pay for media coverage? (Hint - it's not nothing. )

-Renegade (February 09, 2013, 11:04 AM)

But does he seek it out?  And to what end?  Is he still doing something commercial?

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Living Room / Re: Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

« Last post by wraith808 on February 09, 2013, 10:39 AM »

We know about his donations mainly just because media likes to talk about him, so I think; God Bless him for it, it may not mean as much as what a normal person does, but he should be rewarded for it rather than just told that it's not enough. Plenty of people give none and are not criticised for it.

-Fred Nerd (February 09, 2013, 07:59 AM)

Not necessarily rewarded per-se... but it just struck me as odd when someone does something and it's like "it's not enough".  I remember when Oprah opened a school in Africa (not saying anything about what happened after), but people criticized her saying she should have given it to the education board in Chicago.

In response to that, I remember when someone in a bad neighborhood where the police had old vests (they give out- I didn't know that before then), and one officer had actually been killed with a vest on because the protection provided was inadequate.  He bought the top of the line vests for each officer in the department.  They said that any contributions had to be in cash and given to the department, not the officers, to do with as they would.

But I always get the feeling it is that (at least) 75% of the reasoning behind it is tax deductions and PR.

-Shades (February 09, 2013, 04:14 AM)

In every instance that it's brought up (including this one), I've had the impression that the information hasn't come from him on amounts, but from investigation.  And the amount that he's given is well beyond the cap based on his income.  The IRS will only let you donate a certain sum before they don't count towards deductions.

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Living Room / Re: Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

« Last post by wraith808 on February 09, 2013, 01:14 AM »

So... there's a lot of billionaires that don't give anywhere near as much.  And when one does, we say 'whatever, it doesn't mean anything anyway'?  Hmmm...

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Living Room / Re: Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 11:00 PM »

I'm a bit more skeptical there.

-Renegade (February 08, 2013, 10:15 PM)

Has anyone ever actually asked him what he meant by that quote?  And if he meant birth control being delivered knowingly in vaccines in areas where the population growth is out of control, is that a bad thing?  Just playing Devil's Advocate here.

I'm significantly not impressed by the amount.  After you have a few billion, what's the difference?

-Rover (February 08, 2013, 10:55 PM)

If it's half of his reported wealth, that's not impressive?

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Living Room / Bill Gates has donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 09:38 PM »

Bill Gates had [sic] donated over $36,854,000,000 in his lifetime.

Even more impressive -  he's convinced 92 of his billionaire peers (including Mark Zuckerberg, Ted Turner, and Warren Buffett, and George Lucas) to sign his Giving Pledge and commit to donating the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

6365

General Software Discussion / Re: Avast Installs Chrome

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 09:02 PM »

^ 

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Living Room / Re: Stop Using Internet Explorer Until Patched

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 09:01 PM »

users of Internet Explorer should jump ship for the next few days as all versions of the browser are at risk of malware attacks.

-Tinman57 (February 08, 2013, 07:25 PM)

Or just add IE to EMET.

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Finished Programs / Re: DONE: KeyMOUSE (Control your mouse with keyboard keys)

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 04:36 PM »

Is this your software?  Then you should (a) state your affiliation, and (b) not hijack someone else's thread.  There's a section for announcing your software product, and anyone is welcome to post there.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Avast Installs Chrome

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 04:35 PM »

I agree but if you don't use custom install on every install you deserve what you get these days - especially when you are using free software.

-Carol Haynes (February 08, 2013, 03:46 PM)

I'd not say that.  That's accepting that this is good practice.  They need to be called on it.  Especially with people out there who don't know this.  How many computers have you had to service because joe normal used a regular install?  If we excuse it, then that number will go up, and I wouldn't say that it is deserved, IMO.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Avast Installs Chrome

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 02:54 PM »

It does install Google Chrome and Google Toolbar for IE but it is a very clear option if you use custom install.

-Carol Haynes (February 08, 2013, 02:48 PM)

So if you don't use a custom install, there's no option not to install it?  That's still not kosher, IMO.

6370

Post New Requests Here / Re: program to run older games (win95, etc) on windows 8

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 01:26 PM »

Do the games run in DOS?  A lot of the games in windows 95 actually launch a DOS session behind the scenes rather than using DirectX and rendering in Windows.  If so, you could try DOSBox.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Avast Installs Chrome

« Last post by wraith808 on February 08, 2013, 09:49 AM »

which make me wonder what incentives Google is offering to software authors that this is now happening.

-40hz (February 08, 2013, 06:07 AM)

It makes me wonder whether Google tolerates this behavior - that'd be piss-poor of them, and be a pretty damn clear violation of "do no evil".

-f0dder (February 08, 2013, 09:16 AM)

That bird has flown the coop.  The horns are out, and the cackling has begun.

6372

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Powershell Plus Now Free

« Last post by wraith808 on February 07, 2013, 09:27 PM »

Thanks for the heads up!

6373

Developer's Corner / Re: Jeff Artwood, from StackOverflow/coding horror, tries to fix forum software

« Last post by wraith808 on February 07, 2013, 09:23 PM »

Conversation already going on here.

6374

Living Room / Re: Yet another reason why I often wish I lived in Massachusettes

« Last post by wraith808 on February 07, 2013, 02:48 PM »

Amazon still will be.  They've already tackled this in advance, especially for people like me that don't live in the city.  To go anywhere and buy something, I have to go 40 minutes to the city, look around, get it, and come back home.  Or, I pay $70 a year for Prime, and then I can buy it on Amazon for less, and get it tomorrow in most cases.  They're actually changing that tomorrow to today.  That's what the local distribution centers are for.   It also saves me the collateral damage of getting stuff I don't need because I'm already at the store.

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Developer's Corner / Discourse - A discussion platform by StackExchange's Jeff Atwood

« Last post by wraith808 on February 06, 2013, 07:20 PM »

StackExchange's Jeff Atwood switches to Ruby on Rails and Postgres; code dumps entire new project at once -- Discourse, a platform for community discussion. (github project)

It actually looks pretty cool.