Recent Posts

676

General Software Discussion / Re: how can I do this in excel?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 23, 2015, 11:11 AM »

There's some "medium tech" solutions here, but I am thinking of one of my low level hacks.
: )

Last I understood, the excel file is like an "index" to stuff in the folder.

So not counting things like minor diffs between excel I don't currently have and Libre Office, I do think you can do this, "look locally in a folder" by doing a type of "double processor" where one cell grabs the full "hardlink" downloaded or not, then does something like Right$ reading right to left and dumping the rest because the final file name isn't changing but only the initial path.

Maybe I can whack something together as a demo.

I used to do a lot of this kind of thing, so your manager isn't wholly wrong, the question is whether we can "connect all the pieces".

677

Living Room / Re: The Dreams thread...

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 23, 2015, 01:47 AM »

Bumping this.

It came up in the chat room tonight and might amuse me in some coming nights.

I have had vivid dreams before too.

678

General Software Discussion / Re: Note/Idea taking software!

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 22, 2015, 09:03 PM »

hulkbuster, there are already any number of threads on DC about notetaking!  If you only want notes, not reminders, you might look at MemPad (free) or CintaNotes (free and payware versions), both of them portable.

-rjbull (March 18, 2015, 04:06 PM)

(Joke)
Hi!
I am looking for a good program to manage all the threads on note taking software!

679

General Software Discussion / Re: MxNitro Browser

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 22, 2015, 09:01 PM »

I haven't worried about how fast pages load in ten years, so I don't get that metric. To me there's ten other issues to argue about over browsers besides speed.

680

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft is retiring Internet Explorer

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 22, 2015, 08:59 PM »

Bye bye to IE.

http://www.usatoday....ct-spartan/24909091/

Microsoft sends Internet Explorer to tech's scrapheap

SAN FRANCISCO — It's the end of the line for Internet Explorer.

The much maligned browser that battled Netscape to guide people around the World Wide Web was consigned to history this week by Microsoft, joining Palm Pilots, flip phones and Myspace as relics of a distant digital age.

A staple of the Internet for nearly two decades, the Explorer brand will be replaced by a flashier, speedier browser codenamed Project Spartan that will run on phones, tablets and personal computers but is expressly made for a new era of mobile devices.

Junking the Explorer brand is part of a new game plan at Microsoft. CEO Satya Nadella is determined to remake the aging technology giant as an innovator rather than a follower.

Even when it debuted, Explorer was a me-too product. Browser pioneer Netscape Navigator was the world's first commercial Web browser. It ignited the Internet boom and had already transformed how people roamed the Web. Even the Explorer name was derived from Navigator.

"Explorer was never a cool brand," Silicon Valley futurist Paul Saffo says. "It's like one step from AOL."

More at the link.

I wonder if they'll continue to make it available, or for how long. A lot of people depend on IE.

-Renegade (March 22, 2015, 05:38 PM)

A big part of things is the divide between branding and the backbone.

Part of me giggles about an alternate universe story where Windows 9 exists. "Mommy! Mommy! Microsoft is contributing millions to education! See, I can count! 7,8,10!"

I've seen varying rumbles on whether the backbone is still Trident or a new engine. Also unclear is the compatibility. So if people "need IE", it's the open question of whether Spartan will run whatever.

Someone else was rumbling about whether the brand change lets them try to ditch some ancient clunker code. But back from IE6 days, sometimes apps were optimized to use that clunker code just to get the app to work.

681

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 22, 2015, 10:41 AM »

If you have a spare hard disk and sufficiently sized pen drive laying around, feel free to download a trial iso of Windows 8(.1), create a boot-able pen drive using that iso (Rufus is one of the easiest tools I know), disconnect your main hard disk, connect the spare hard disk and start installing.

There is no surer way to test if your system is able to handle a new OS. And by disconnecting your main hard disk you won't make any (unintentional) changes to your main OS. After you are done testing...disconnect the spare hard disk and reconnect your main hard disk and you are ready to roll again in the comforts of your trusted OS.

-Shades (March 22, 2015, 09:19 AM)

Well,

besides the work involved, I also really don't believe in anything but the final real thing. So that's why I liked the quick 15 min test with cpu z.

MS moves stuff around and edge cases happen too much for me to get involved with anything before the final rollout.

682

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 21, 2015, 10:03 PM »

(see attachment in previous post)
Windows 10: Will your PC run it?   ZDNet

This is for the people who are not running Win 10 now, but who expect to be when it is finished.

-Arizona Hot (March 21, 2015, 06:36 PM)

Of all the options, ... "install Win 8.1" and stuff ... no.

But I think I like the prelim encouragement by this snip:

"Download and run a handy utility called CPU-Z. Look under Instructions and if you see SSE2, EM64T (indicates the processor has support for PAE) and either VT-d or VT-x (which is what's needed for NX support) then you're ready to rock."

... And mine does. So other things could go wrong, but that's promising!

683

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 21, 2015, 05:25 PM »

Windows 10 makes disabling UEFI Secure Boot optional:

http://www.extremete...er-operating-systems

That is to say, Microsoft required an option to disable Secure Boot previously, but now that option is optional with Windows 10, meaning some hardware may not allow you to install non-Secure Boot OSes.

-Deozaan (March 21, 2015, 03:26 PM)

Classic MS.

I'm missing my meme for when lately "tin foil hat people" are proving to be right a few times.

So they do some 2-3 step process. "Yeah, we put in this tech that can hardware lock our OS on there without you installing your own. But don't worry, it will be required to have a disable option."

Later:
"Oh look, now we made that *optional* for the OEM's." Ahem ... for nice sums of cash to the OEM or something.

And now it keeps putting cognitive burdens on even medium savvy customers who just go down to Best Buy and buy a box and have their ISO all ready ... and only later their tech expert buddy tells them it's hardware locked. And I'm aching to know what error message that throws up! Who decides the error message? MS? The OEM?


And what do stores do for return policies? Can you imagine the rage of that medium-savvy customer who bought a box for *nix, later finds out it's locked, then the mean store managers tell them "sorry, we don't refund for that. The machine is working perfectly".

I wonder if there's legal ground for one of those "fit for a purpose" type cases. I forget all the three types, but it's just ringing a bell.

684

Living Room / Re: Windows 10 will be free for "genuine and non-genuine" users

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 21, 2015, 03:17 PM »

It's one of those funny MS moves. "You can upgrade, because we want you to feel teh shinyness, but it won't be legit".

-TaoPhoenix (March 21, 2015, 12:38 PM)

What's 'funny' (and not as in funny ha-ha) is that Microsoft is refusing to comment on what the differences will be experienced by the user of a legitimate vs. non-legitimate license.

It's very weird all the way around. If you aren't legit, you can upgrade, but it won't be a real upgrade and we refuse to tell you why it won't be considered to be or what the ramifications of that will be.

-Innuendo (March 21, 2015, 01:46 PM)

First of all yes, I didn't mean haha, I meant "playing a very complicated game".

If it's "proven" (and let's pass for a moment on false positives) as a non-legit copy, that gives them room to do all kinds of weird things to the very limits they think their $1000/hr legal team thinks they can get away with.

But what?

Is MS allowed by law to install their own custom spyware and snoop the address/other contact info of a "non-legit" user? Could they then wrap all of that into a package with a bowtie and feed it to a police force?

So then it gets all meta - why would a non-legit user WANT to upgrade? What do they get out of it? Wouldn't they sniff out that there's got to be a trap in there somewhere?

685

Living Room / Re: Windows 10 will be free for "genuine and non-genuine" users

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 21, 2015, 12:38 PM »

(see attachment in previous post)
Windows 10 upgrades from pirated predecessors won't be legit - CNET

-Arizona Hot (March 21, 2015, 04:46 AM)

Yeah I saw this headline on slashdot.

It's one of those funny MS moves. "You can upgrade, because we want you to feel teh shinyness, but it won't be legit".

686

Living Room / Re: Windows 10 will be free for "genuine and non-genuine" users

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 19, 2015, 10:13 PM »

The way I read it, from one of the UK magazines, was that the upgrade was automatic provided that you had automatic Windows updates turned on.  In other words, you wouldn't get a disk.

-rjbull (March 18, 2015, 04:30 PM)

I can see why Microsoft is doing it that way, but I really don't relish having to spend x amount of time installing Crusty-OS v1.0 in order to just sit and wait y amount of time while Teh-New-N-Shiny v2.0 downloads to install over the top leaving crusty, non-tasty bits all around your hard drive.

-Innuendo (March 19, 2015, 07:27 PM)

No no no!
The new OS is your nice salad and the other bits are croutons!
 

687

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 19, 2015, 10:12 PM »

I haven't really kept up with the build news.

But I'm encouraged a couple people are saying they managed to tighten some code so it has a chance to run on older machines.

688

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 19, 2015, 07:14 AM »

https://github.com/p...csteve/cloud-to-butt

And here is the results, on a serious, in-depth article on cloud computing. Try to read it with a straight face. 

https://dl.dropboxus...3/frenfit/mybutt.png

-app103 (March 19, 2015, 03:18 AM)

nope, couldnt read it with a straight face

-tomos (March 19, 2015, 05:49 AM)

I'll just mention the line "they just rent what they need from my butt".
Rent?!
 

689

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

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 19, 2015, 03:37 AM »

Old PSA...

-Renegade (March 18, 2015, 11:01 PM)

A rather odd tone for this one.

We've seen "this is your brain on drugs" and stuff.

This one gets into "which is your doctor meds" and which are "nasty drugs".

690

Living Room / Re: Windows 10 will be free for "genuine and non-genuine" users

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 18, 2015, 10:38 AM »

Well, the malware floats around. It's just about how much of it latches on like a leech.

All the UI stuff aside, I'll be interested in the security reports of Win10.

691

General Software Discussion / Re: script to notify for specific excel cell values

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 17, 2015, 11:00 AM »

Presuming it's in-file, another layman-guess is that you do a conditional if statement on another cell so that it goes something like "if (today-OtherDate) > X AND if cell = empty, then Y other cell becomes "Alert" else "Safe".

Then you just do some kind of action that makes sure formulas refresh in the file such that if it's just sitting there in a file while you're working it checks like maybe every six hours.

692

General Software Discussion / Re: script to notify for specific excel cell values

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 17, 2015, 10:58 AM »

hello!

I was thinking of a script
a web script, an AHK script, a macro inside the excel file, not sure yet
that will monitor a specific cell and notify if it is still empty after 5 days or if it is still empty after 14/04/2015, etc
is that possible?

thanks!

-kalos (March 17, 2015, 09:54 AM)

When is it supposed to notify you? When you open the excel file or "whenever" like some external popup when you are doing something else?

Seems like the second case is a little harder because the page wouldn't be actively be in processing as an application, though it can't be impossible. Layman-pseudo-guess from me would be something like speed-opening the file just to run scripts and closing it again, though that could get a little weird on comp processing delays at odd seeming times.

693

General Software Discussion / Re: my problem with programming

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 17, 2015, 06:59 AM »

Get yourself a good book for beginners and let it hold your hand a bit and walk you through some manageable assignments without overwhelming you.

-mouser (March 17, 2015, 01:45 AM)

Along that line it may be a good idea to start with a language designed for children.  Usually the basic idea is brought home explicitly.  Elementary Basic I found in a bargain bin.  It made it clear why one would write a program, explained the solution to each problem in pseudo-code, then provided the source.  Unfortunately I guess it was never ported to anything other than GW Basic.  That came with most every Dos PC in those days.

But I would think a teaching language for children would be the way to go.  I have no idea which one though:
https://en.wikipedia...g_languages#Children

-MilesAhead (March 17, 2015, 06:00 AM)

I'm gonna chime in here with a couple of caveats of Basic.

What you want to do matters tremendously vs your desire to program. Layman me considers Basic to be something like a third cousin to the legendary Fortran scientific language. Crunching basic arithmetic equations/inequalities and simple logic is "easy". It's just when you expand your sights that it gets hard!

The knowledge base required in your mind to program effectively really is pretty hard. So you could do well to see if you can narrow down the types of things you want to tend to do and maybe "specialize". So after you have the ten lines etc mentioned above to get a program going, you may discover you really want to deal with processing incoming data sets, maybe from files, and so you're not so concerned about gorgeous User Interfaces. So maybe your UI evolves into something like French taught by an Australian (I had a teacher like that once!), but if it works for *you*, that's "good enough for now".

Then later if you want to make it useful for the world, you can enlist help saying, "hey, some/most of my features are here, but can you help me clean it up?"

694

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2015, 07:18 PM »

I just glanced at it ... still too minimalist. It's rapidly becoming for me that Palemoon is the browser to beat, and once you have something that works, other newcomers stack against it.

-TaoPhoenix (March 16, 2015, 12:05 PM)

How is Palemoon for CPU usage? I find that Firefox is simply a CPU hog and untenable for me, so I only use it very rarely.

-Renegade (March 16, 2015, 06:56 PM)

Heh just for you Renny, I'll put a little rhetorical spin on this one!

By using Trandesk (Only at DonationCoder.com!) as an example of a desktop splitter, I have Task Manager permanently running with that little green CPU usage indicator.

In horribly unscientific fashion, I can't do cross browser tests because the other ones are all tainted with that hijacker thing and I can't bring myself to do the work to ferret it out.

Meanwhile, back under the Pale Moon light, (which was the only browser that didn't get eaten by that thing!), an important case is if you browse flash streamer sites because then it does get dragged down by plugin container and related stuff.

Meanwhile the rest of the time it doesn't seem to use too much, except erratically when scrolling some pages. I think some of that can be mitigated the more blockers you have, but it's not clear.

Mouser, maybe you want to split this off and do a Pale Moon thread?

Then Renny you can give me a couple of sites that are among the reasons you don't like "FF Branded" and I can review them. When it's not annoying Skwire, my machine is just middle line 1st gen Kentsfield quad core with 2Gb ram, aka not a gaming screamer to skew the results.

(What? You think my DeLorean with a flux capacitor is what's making it so fast?! hehe)

695

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2015, 04:24 PM »

After the transition period, it will not be possible to install unsigned extensions in Release or Beta versions of Firefox. There won’t be any preferences or command line options to disable this.

So, for my own good, you're not even going to allow me to override your decision and install whatever software/extensions I want on my own machine?

How does an open source group even come to a decision like that? How is that open?

-Deozaan (March 16, 2015, 04:00 PM)

(Bitter) No. Because FF decided their market is "hipsters not cool enough to go for Apple but with none of the tech skills of the original FF spirit." (/Bitter)

All this junk is making me always go WWPMD as in What Would Pale Moon Do. Besides the very nice oasis on the UI side with my familiar menus, the P-M people also seem to try to keep some sanity back in the browser when they can. I'm still on the old version, but will this change filter in there?

You'd hope a plugin dev would be thorough enough to sign the addons, but often times it's hobbyists just trying to release something cool, in that spirit.

It would be a shame if it all got chilly and locked them all out.

696

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2015, 04:19 PM »

My bad, Pale Moon still has the option Firefox doesn't ...

-4wd (February 27, 2015, 04:56 PM)

I've got it! Palemoon is my favorite extension!

697

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SunsetScreen v1.0

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2015, 04:15 PM »

I like to take programs and find unusual new uses for them. The one that sparks me here is that it doesn't just need to be for sleep, but it can be also a type of non-lexic alarm clock. So if you're just doing your thing, the screen change can signal you're supposed to do something.

698

General Software Discussion / Re: Vivaldi, the new Web browser for power users

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 16, 2015, 12:05 PM »

I just glanced at it ... still too minimalist. It's rapidly becoming for me that Palemoon is the browser to beat, and once you have something that works, other newcomers stack against it.

699

Living Room / Re: Once-in-a-century Pi Day 03/14/15

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 15, 2015, 10:26 AM »

And here it is!

A Sweet potato pecan pie from the Heights Tavern in Washington Heights NY City.

700

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: spring cleaning

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on March 15, 2015, 09:59 AM »

More mumblings...
I went to a tour of Washington Heights NY yesterday, and my geography is so bad I didn't even know the Harlem River existed!


But to get home, there is no single train! But same kind of trick as above, you get help from a local asking which train to take and then an intersection, so that gets you the first leg. Then you get off and since you're another four streets away somewhere, at the half way point you ask where the best place to get a 7 train is, and punch that in. Then you can get home.