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6701

General Software Discussion / Re: Does your workplace group collaboration tool "suck"?

« Last post by 40hz on October 31, 2011, 08:55 AM »

I have two clients that are currently using collaboration/CRM tools quite successfully. In both cases it works well because all employees have been given to understand that if something (i.e. service history update, client issue, budget, meeting notes, project document, etc.) which is supposed to be in there isn't, then whoever was responsible for dropping the ball would be fired.

To Superboy's earlier point, the effectiveness of these things are totally dependent on people consistently using them.

In the case of my clients, hanging a sword over people to use the system seemed to do the trick until it became habit.

Like Gerry Weinberg said: In the end, *every* technical problem comes down to a 'people problem.' And if it doesn't - check again.

-------

FYI: one client uses SalesForce and the other a super tricked-out version of SugarCRM in case anybody's interested.

Note: Neither was inexpensive to implement. Both dropped in excess of $75k getting their systems exactly right.

6702

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« Last post by 40hz on October 29, 2011, 10:22 PM »

It gets wonkier.

-Renegade (October 29, 2011, 11:10 AM)

And progressively harder to believe in some places.

But then again, this is from the authorized biography. So I'd expect a there was a certain amount of 'design' that went into it. Like so many other biographies.

In the immortal words of Huckleberry Finn:

"You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth."   from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
 

6703

Living Room / Re: RIP Sir Jimmy :(

« Last post by 40hz on October 29, 2011, 10:07 PM »

He was an interesting guy.
I spent some time with him when we both were prisoners guests at the same health spa (Champneys) back in the 70's

-cranioscopical (October 29, 2011, 09:47 PM)

Hmm...

Just googled Champneys.

Took a look at their brochure too.

Somehow, I don't think I'd mind a brief incarceration there...

 

6704

Living Room / Re: Hard drive shortage

« Last post by 40hz on October 29, 2011, 09:51 PM »

You guys gotta see this to believe it: http://www.ebay.com/..._trksid=p3286.c0.m14

LOL

-db90h (October 29, 2011, 08:42 PM)

I'd like to think they screwed up with some pricing updates. Because looking at the site, prices are all over the place. You've got a WD WD1001FAES Black 1TB 64MB 7200RPM SATA6.0 Hard Drive listed with the same seller for $199 - which is high compared to two weeks ago. But it's not totally insane.

Weird...

6705

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extension "Download Statusbar" Now Adware - Maybe Malware

« Last post by 40hz on October 29, 2011, 09:53 AM »

"Open downloads in a new tab" is alright too. I just don't like window overload.

-Tuxman (October 29, 2011, 09:44 AM)

+1.

That looks like it's pretty much the only game in town for the time being.

6706

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extension "Download Statusbar" Now Adware - Maybe Malware

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 06:24 PM »

Firefox already has a download window. And a built-in download manager.

So...since all the pieces are already in place, would it really kill Mozilla to just provide some sort of download meter as part of Firefox?

They're supposedly committed to breaking updating the thing every three months or so.

And I'm sure whatever sweetheart deal they got for making a version of FF with Bing as the default search provider should be providing enough additional revenue for their coffers that they could do this.

I mean look, some underpaid independent developer managed to do it. So how hard could it be for Mozilla?

Just my 2¢ anyway.

6707

Living Room / Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 02:35 PM »

^Fortunately, most federal courts have not agreed with the constitutionality of those laws.

Unfortunately, in places where these laws are being abused, police continue to do so with impunity despite repeated warnings from the courts.

I was chatting about this with one of the older police officers in my town while waiting for a pizza. His take was that some cops felt the public "intimidation benefit" was worth it even if the charges always got thrown out of court.

He also felt there were generational differences driving much of it. "Problem with some of the younger guys is they think and act with a gang mentality," he said. "Kids in the late eighties and the nineties had all this 'gangsta' stuff showing up in movies and the songs they listened to. Many of these kids grew up thinking certain gang behaviors were acceptable. And now some of them see their badge as being in the biggest and toughest gang in town. It's cool to be a cop today."

Interesting...

What's wrong with this picture>

 

6708

General Software Discussion / Re: The Glorious Return of Shell Extension City

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 01:33 PM »

I had forgotten just how useful a thing Shell Extension City is.

Just this morning I noticed something in the feed that was the perfect solution to a problem that cropped up yesterday.

This is not the first time I've had that happen with this website.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome back Shell Extension City!

6709

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extension "Download Statusbar" Now Adware - Maybe Malware

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 01:13 PM »

This morning I removed Download Status Bar from all my personal and business PCs. And I'll be issuing an advisory to all my clients recommending they do the same.

While it is possible to reinstall the previous version, I feel any program author has the absolute right to set the terms and conditions (no matter how misguided) for the continued use of their products. And since the current (albeit unspoken) terms for DSB now seem to include acceptance of silent installations and unreported changes to user settings, I want nothing further to do with it. Even if it would be possible to circumvent the changes by reverting to an earlier version.

To be perfectly blunt, I no longer trust this developer. And I am no longer interested in installing anything he may come up with in the future. No matter how useful or 'clean' it is. And that will remain the case even if he/she sees the wrongness in what's been done and removes the offending code from DSB.

I might have felt differently had the developer publicly announced the change. I might not have been happy about it. But at least I could better respect his decision. Especially if he provided a paid version which did not include the nonsense that would come with the free version. While I still would have removed DSB from my machines if a clean version wasn't available, in fairness I would only alert my clients rather than send a strong recommendation for DSB's immediate removal.

So it goes...

Onward!

6710

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extension "Download Statusbar" Now Adware - Maybe Malware

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 11:18 AM »

Silent update in FF?

Ungood. Double-plus ungood.

No wonder it disappeared (was removed?) from the Mozilla add-on directory.

Oh well..."Boomp-boomp-boomp! Another one bites the dust!" as Freddie would have said.

Shame. That was one of my "must haves." I even contributed.  

6711

Living Room / Re: Stupid Murderers and Computer Search Histories =D

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 08:03 AM »

Perfect.

I'll put him right up there with those two guys who kidnapped a jewelry store owner's wife and wanted him to pack up his entire inventory in return for her release.

They wrote the ransom note on the back of an old envelope.

The envelope was addressed to one of the kidnappers.

A heavily armed SpecOps police team went to the address on the envelope and found the woman, angry but unharmed, tied up in the garage - and the two kidnappers sitting in the living room watching a ballgame.

6712

Living Room / Re: Hard drive shortage

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 07:55 AM »

LOL, all hard drives sold out or doubled+ at almost all big name retailers, locally and online. Speculators are now driving up the prices. How affected the supply really is we won't know for a while...

-db90h (October 28, 2011, 06:49 AM)

Good point. Once the carpetbaggers and opportunists start making a run on the supply, any near-term shortages are likely to be strongly affected by those vermin.

6713

General Software Discussion / Re: spidering search results from a website

« Last post by 40hz on October 28, 2011, 06:58 AM »

You could always save a clipping of your search results pages for later use.

I'd suggest ReadItLater or Instapaper if you want to save pages to the cloud. The categorization and organizing tools are pretty lightweight however. Their biggest advantage is they both have extensive support for smartphones ("There's a bloody app for that!) which is their biggest plus IMO. Especially since I do a lot of research using my phone whenever I get a spare minute and I'm away from my desk - which is almost always.

Both ReadItLater and Instapaper will give you a free account so it makes sense to try them both to see which, if either, you prefer. Each works slightly differently and most people have a strong preference for one or the other despite the small differences between them. (Note: Instapaper currently has better integration (i.e. there's a button for it) in most iOS based RSS readers. But RiL is rapidly closing that gap.)

For your local machine you could take a look at Canaware NetNotes, Microsoft's OneNote, the web clipper feature in Evernote, The Scrapbook extension for Firefox, or the more academically oriented Zotero. Each has its strong points. Each has maddening limitations. All have their rabid fans.

If you go this route, resign yourself to the likelihood you'll only find something close to what you're actually are looking for unless you write your own.

Depending on which of the above you go with, you may be able to park a copy of your datafile up on DropBox or some other cloud storage provider and access it from there. If you use OneNote you can take advantage of the 25Gb of storage and sharing Microsoft will give you for the asking and sync your notebooks through SkyDrive. Clipping webpages isn't as fluid as it could be with OneNote. But if you're collaborating with others, the SkyDrive feature alone is worth it's weight in gold. Microsoft intends to go hog wild with it once Windows 8 is out. Look here for their official propaganda.

I personally prefer and use NetNotes in conjunction with ReadItLater for most of what I do. I use ReadItLater as my 'junk drawer' inbox. From there it goes into NetNotes, which handles my neatly organized collections. Used in conjunction with a good RSS reader and it's amazing the amount of "good stuff" you can stay on top of. (Fantastic if you author a blog and are always on he lookout for good news or topics to blather on about.)

Maybe the above is not the most elegant combo. But I've been using it for years so I've got it down cold by now and I'm happy with it.

Your mileage may vary...

Luck!

6714

Found Deals and Discounts / Box.net offering 50Gb free lifetime accounts thru Dec 2 to iOS users.

« Last post by 40hz on October 27, 2011, 11:27 PM »

If you're an iOS (iPhone, iPad) user like yours truly, here's something free that might help ease your mother's shame.

Size matters: Get a FREE 50 GB lifetime account for file storage and sharing through Dec. 2, 2011. To get your automatic upgrade, download the Box app on your iPhone or iPad and register or sign in to your account - it's that easy. Box provides simple, secure sharing from anywhere – letting you easily store files online, send big files fast, access content on-the-go, and collaborate with others. Box for iPhone and iPad lets you:

• View files directly on your iPhone and iPad
• Share files easily with a link
• Upload photos to your Box account (iPhones only)
• Open files in other apps installed on your device, like Documents to Go and GoodReader (iPads only)
• Secure content with file-level encryption, a four-digit passcode and automatic logout when the app is closed
• Project files from Box to a TV, LCD monitor or projector via AV Out (iPads and iPhone 4S only); wirelessly stream content using AirPlay (iPad 2 and iPhone 4S only)
• Wirelessly print to AirPrint-enabled printers (iPads only)

No wonder more than 7 million users, including 77% of the FORTUNE 500, rely on Box for simple, secure content sharing.

“With the iPad and Box, our sales teams can get to information right away – they don’t even have to boot up their computer. The iPad and Box have eliminated that very scary ‘is the computer going to start' moment – completely." -- Charlie Hunter-Schyff, Head of Planning at O2 Media, Telefónica

The above pretty much sums it up. Download the app to your iOS device and register through that. All it requires is an email address (which it doesn't seem to verify - I used one of my throwaway GMail accounts) and a password. Three seconds later you have 50Gb of lifetime free storage/sharing with a 100Mb per file upload limit. That's a much sweeter deal than their standard 5Gb/25Mb free package.

Once your account is set up you can access it through any browser or supported mobile device (including Android and Blackberry).

Good deal! Available through December 2, 2010.

Jump on it.

6715

Living Room / Re: Hard drive shortage

« Last post by 40hz on October 27, 2011, 05:54 PM »

The prices will probably soar only until people stop buying them. It's not like you'll starve to death if you can't get a cheap new hard drive. You either bite the bullet if you absolutely need one, or put off upgrading if you don't. 
 

6716

Living Room / Re: Albany City & NY State Police refuse orders to arrest peaceful protestors

« Last post by 40hz on October 27, 2011, 05:25 PM »

^Easy to be negative  But I'll still take something done right (even if it is allegedly for the wrong reason) than seeing another wrong if it comes down to that simple a choice. 

6717

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« Last post by 40hz on October 26, 2011, 06:41 PM »

IMHO most of the reality distortion comes from the desire of many of his admirers (and to some extent Mr. Jobs himself) to be portrayed as something other than what he actually was: a businessman.



I think once more people realize and the accept the fact that Steve Jobs was a businessman - and not an inventor, programmer, designer, or engineer - both his role, and his contribution to Apple (and to the industry in general) will become easier to put into perspective. And more likely be discussed in a civil and rational manner a result.

Just my 2¢

6718

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« Last post by 40hz on October 26, 2011, 03:26 PM »

And one last point I'll add- most people can't say that they truly innovated *anything* without dependence on *any* other technologies, so take that for what its worth.

-wraith808 (October 26, 2011, 03:13 PM)

+1

Science historian James Burke based a career and three educational TV series (Connections, Connections² and Connections³) on that very same insight.

 

6719

Living Room / Re: Steve Jobs is dead.

« Last post by 40hz on October 26, 2011, 03:10 PM »

Can somebody point at one device Apple has produced that wasn't based on an existing product or products?

-Carol Haynes (October 26, 2011, 02:22 PM)

No. There aren't any.

Sorry his genius was repackaging, re-badging, marketing, stealing ideas and then suing the originator for patent infringement.

If there is one true achievement Jobs and his empire can claim it is the current state of patent laws.

-Carol Haynes (October 26, 2011, 02:22 PM)

+1! Apple was the first business AFAICT that tried to get around the rule you couldn't patent an idea by creating the legal fiction that eventually came to be known as the "look & feel" argument when they accused Microsoft of copying an Apple 'innovation' (i.e. resizeable and moveable windows) which Apple had wholly lifted from Xerox PARC.

Years later, Jobs would claim to have paid Xerox $1 for the use of their desktop concept. But apparently no record survived of that deal. Or at least not enough of a record to prevent Xerox from suing Apple for stealing PARC's ideas several years after the Macintosh came out.

 So it goes...

6720

Living Room / Re: Albany City & NY State Police refuse orders to arrest peaceful protestors

« Last post by 40hz on October 26, 2011, 03:00 PM »

I do. I have a mortgage to pay off.

6721

Living Room / Re: Albany City & NY State Police refuse orders to arrest peaceful protestors

« Last post by 40hz on October 26, 2011, 02:52 PM »

Yay for the Amerikan influence.

-f0dder (October 26, 2011, 01:48 PM)

@f0dder- I predict the EU will greatly miss the United States once it's finally gone in about 50 years. Imagine... No more single ogre to blame for all the world's domestic, economic, and social problems. How very inconvenient. That was a lesson learned the hard way by the US when the Soviet Union unexpectedly collapsed under its own weight.

The US dealt with it by turning on itself since there wasn't anybody else handy who was big and different enough to pick an ideological fight with.

Best hope China will be as easy to deal with as we usually were. I would suggest, however, people be a little more circumspect when openly slagging Peking for anything. They tend to take it much more seriously. Often to the point of feeling the need to take direct action over it.    

Luck with that.  

6722

Living Room / Re: Good book to learn PHP?

« Last post by 40hz on October 26, 2011, 07:42 AM »

I took a look at the suggested W3schools.com website.

I think what's there will fit the bill as a decent 'starter book.' Or it will for me at least since I do program. A little. Sorta.  

6723

Living Room / Re: Wikileaks says financial 'blockade' could put it out of business

« Last post by 40hz on October 25, 2011, 09:19 PM »

Before releasing anything in public, they should have data-mined and cross-referenced things heavily, and worked together with global media to run some in-depth unveiling of corruption.

-f0dder (October 25, 2011, 08:25 PM)

Spot on the sugar in turn.

As it stands, it looks more like it was 'counting coup' than anything of substance.

-wraith808 (October 25, 2011, 08:34 PM)

Maybe not originally. But once celebrity status was attained, that does seem to be what happened.

And considering the fate of the person allegedly responsible for leaking much of the information, that seems a shame.

-wraith808 (October 25, 2011, 08:34 PM)

Yes. Serving out a sentence where you'll spend 23 out of every 24 hours for the next 30 years in a standard 8' X 10' cell in some godforsaken military prison is a pretty ghastly fate. Especially when you're a kid who will likely live long enough to serve all 30 years of it.

The word shame hardly begins to cover it.

6724

Living Room / Albany City & NY State Police refuse orders to arrest peaceful protestors

« Last post by 40hz on October 25, 2011, 05:28 PM »

OMG! Two separate police agencies remembered they're living in the United States of America and refused to be used as political goon squads.

Can  this be the first indication that sanity is finally starting to return to America after an 11-year hiatus?  

This in from the Albany Times Union. (Emphasis added. Full article here.)

Under pressure to make arrests, police and troopers push back
Governor's office urged mayor to press police to make arrests at protest
By BRENDAN J. LYONS Senior writer
Updated 09:17 a.m., Monday, October 24, 2011

ALBANY -- In a tense battle of wills, state troopers and Albany police held off making arrests of dozens of protesters near the Capitol over the weekend even as Albany's mayor, under pressure from Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration, had urged his police chief to enforce a city curfew.

The situation intensified late Friday evening when Jennings, who has cultivated a strong relationship with Cuomo, directed his department to arrest protesters who refused to leave the city-owned portion of a large park that's across Washington Avenue from the Capitol and City Hall.

At the Capitol, in anticipation of possibly dozens of arrests, a State Police civil disturbance unit was quietly activated, according to officials briefed on the matter but not authorized to comment publicly. But as the curfew neared, the group of protesters estimated at several hundred moved across an invisible line in the park from state land onto city property.

"We were ready to make arrests if needed, but these people complied with our orders," a State Police official said. However, he added that State Police supported the defiant posture of Albany police leaders to hold off making arrests for the low-level offense of trespassing, in part because of concern it could incite a riot or draw thousands of protesters in a backlash that could endanger police and the public.

"We don't have those resources, and these people were not causing trouble," the official said. "The bottom line is the police know policing, not the governor and not the mayor."

*
*
*
The police strategy in Albany was evident early Friday. Krokoff issued a departmentwide memo instructing officers "to be continually aware of the possibility that a small element may intentionally seek to draw us into conflict," according to a copy obtained by the Times Union. "At this time I have no intention of assigning officers to monitor, watch, videotape or influence any behavior that is conducted by our citizens peacefully demonstrating in Academy Park. ... In the event we are required to respond to a crime in progress or a reported crime, we will do so in the same manner that we do on a daily basis."

Nice to see some people remember what we were taught in civics class way back when they still used to teach civics in grammar school.

 

6725

General Software Discussion / Re: SoftMaker Office 2012 BETA testing

« Last post by 40hz on October 25, 2011, 05:08 PM »

Thx Curt!

I was wondering when the second beta would be out.

FYI - the first was very impressive.  Can't wait to see if they fixed the two minor glitches I ran into - and if the email client is ready.