Recent Posts

726

General Software Discussion / Re: What HTML5 can do -- cool site

« Last post by zridling on September 14, 2010, 02:00 AM »

One reason to love HTML5 if no other: Disney/ABC/ESPN hates it because:

(1) No room for ads. Without the ability to insert ads, Disney-ABC has little interest in moving towards HTML5. By pushing users towards an exclusive Disney or ABC mobile app, Disney can then insert their own ads at and re-direct users towards ABC-only content without fear of losing them to other content providers.

(2) Little to no copyright protection. This is a major gripe most media companies have when displaying their content and could be another reason why others may stay with a dedicated app for each network.

___________________
In the race toward Idiocracy, I could live with fewer ads in what life I have left!

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Living Room / Re: Simple Google

« Last post by zridling on September 10, 2010, 04:27 PM »

Great find. Here's a long list that lays out all the menu options for searches:
http://www.usability...om/simply_google.htm

Definitely not mobile-friendly, though.

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Living Room / Re: Does Flash or java make websites suck?

« Last post by zridling on September 09, 2010, 11:58 AM »

Depends. For the most part, Flash is overused and heavy on resources, making it terrible for mobile computing. If your site is built primarily on content -- even photographic content -- there should be little or no need for Flash. If it's built for gaming, video, or some other purpose, then it can make sense.

Obvious question: Why is everything Adobe does so fat and heavy-handed?

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General Software Discussion / See and Download the new Ubuntu 10.10 Wallpapers and Themes

« Last post by zridling on September 08, 2010, 06:21 PM »

The SoftSailor site has a jump on the new Ubuntu 10.10 wallpapers and themes, and a few versions of the software included under its GNOME 2.32 desktop environment. I swear some are familiar.



PS: I swear picture #5 looks like a wet nipple! Freud would say sometimes a raindrop is just a raindrop.

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General Software Discussion / Re: What HTML5 can do -- cool site

« Last post by zridling on September 08, 2010, 06:11 PM »

Doesn't work for me at all.  Tried it in Firefox and in Chrome.  I enter my address, it loads, I click Play Film, and nothing happens. HTML 5 is awesome!  ... 

-cthorpe (September 08, 2010, 12:19 PM)

Didn't work on my birthplace address either, which is odd, given I can find it all day on Google Maps/street view. I keyed in my current address and bingo. If you haven't seen it, it's merely a clever presentation using video, maps, and a person running down the street to get to your address, and then it pans up and outward (all to music).

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General Software Discussion / What HTML5 can do -- cool site

« Last post by zridling on September 06, 2010, 11:07 PM »

Check out The Wilderness Downtown, preferably using Chrome. Hit full screen, key in your address, and wait for it to load.

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's a good Linux distro for a multi-touch capable laptop?

« Last post by zridling on September 06, 2010, 06:17 PM »

Thanks for reading the article and comments for more info, Deozaan. 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Yet another application tapping into the "cloud" market.

« Last post by zridling on September 03, 2010, 06:33 PM »

Beyond one mere app, look for more companies to bundle services to guarantee themselves more money. For example, at home, you've seen your cable or phone company expand to phone/data/tv services, hoping you'll take the easy way and just buy "the package" from one source each month. And once they make that experience difficult enough, it's inconvenient enough to not want to repeat the experience anytime soon.

On the software side, Microsoft has long done this between OS and office suite; Apple with its OS and gadgets; and Google with its "services," notably Gmail. If you're using one, why not all, instead of using a better online (office) app from Microsoft?
__________________
PS: Ever notice that with tiered cable TV packages, all the original-content channels are hoisted onto the most expensive tier? Reminds me of Al Pacino's speech in The Devil's Advocate: "While you're hopping from one foot to the other, they're laughing their asses off!"

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's a good Linux distro for a multi-touch capable laptop?

« Last post by zridling on September 01, 2010, 10:42 AM »

Next month in Ubuntu's 10.10 version should have this capability. I don't expect HP to share any drivers for that new laptop, however. Also, several Android notebooks will include this, too.

http://news.cnet.com..._3-20013760-264.html

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General Software Discussion / Re: 27 Good Reasons to Love Linux

« Last post by zridling on September 01, 2010, 10:37 AM »

If Ubuntu is your first (and only?) brush with Linux, I urge users to consider another distro, almost any other distro. My personal problem with Ubuntu is that the team leaves far too many problems within each release, that a great distro like Mint comes along and fixes.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Also, it's easy to tell from the responses those who have actually used a good Linux distro and those who haven't in a while and are hating. The article doesn't claim exclusivity or perfection for Linux, just a list of reasons to give it a try. Guys like f0dder see that as a call to yet another flame war. Jeez, start a blog, for your rants are so tired by now.

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Living Room / MIT's biopic of 4chan's founder, Chris Poole (moot)

« Last post by zridling on August 31, 2010, 09:36 AM »

Julian Dibbell does the honors of telling us more about Chris Poole, 4chan's founder.

http://www.technolog...eview.com/web/25997/

"Like many people, Poole thinks there are better ways than Moses's to manage the tangled social, cultural, and infrastructural needs of a community of millions. But unlike most people--let alone most 22-year-olds--he actually has some experience doing just that. Seven years ago, Poole created the website 4chan, an online community that now has nearly 11 million monthly users and is, in some respects, as unruly as any metropolis. The site is what's known as an image board, a type of online message forum that encourages users to post both images and text, and its users now contribute more than a million messages a day, their content tending in the aggregate toward a unique mix of humor, pornography, offensiveness, and, at times, borderline legality. It has long been one of the largest message forums in the world, but Poole, the only owner 4chan has ever had, continues to run it as he has always done: in his spare time, with a little help from online volunteers and just enough advertising revenue to cover bandwidth costs."

___________________________
If you haven't visited 4chan yet, it suffers from the same ennui that the rest of the net sees. After a while, you won't see anything new, you'll just be looking (again) for something you once found.

WARNING: 4chan is NSFW due to nudity, language, etc.

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General Software Discussion / 27 Good Reasons to Love Linux

« Last post by zridling on August 31, 2010, 09:19 AM »

Linuxaria serves up 27 good reasons to love Linux on hubpages.com. Among them are:
- Ease of use (yes, believe it!)
- Free software and games
- No more piracy, registration, validation, verification, or cost
- One-click upgrades and updates
- Great music players
- Stability, viruses aren't a concern, no more defrag, no more reboots
- Choose your desktop (want it to look and work like Win7 or OSX? no problem)
- Use workspaces, not 11 different windows open at one time
- Support is universal

_______________________
More Tux wallpapers

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Living Room / Re: New Desktop - Super Easy OS Upgrade

« Last post by zridling on August 27, 2010, 10:13 PM »

Great news, Renegade! On the Linux side, several big distros now have seamless upgrades, too. But to be fair, you're only upgrading two things on Linux -- the kernel and the desktop environment -- both or either of which you could upgrade on your own at any time depending on your existing distro version.

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Living Room / Re: WTH... Steam is NOT coming to Linux?!?

« Last post by zridling on August 27, 2010, 10:10 PM »

Two reasons: proprietary code (of course), and simple numbers. If there's not money to be made, there's no reason for them to spend the time. I don't figure gaming will ever be sufficiently open source, except for games you don't want to play!

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Living Room / Re: I'm ready for the TV revolution to hit!

« Last post by zridling on August 19, 2010, 06:33 PM »

Yea, App's insight on how the program content is merely there to interrupt the ads is true to my experience. Long ago, Howard Stern would do 38-40 minutes of his show each hour and then take a 20-minute ad break. It was great radio, because you could stay and listen to the wacky ads or you could flip the station for a determined time.

But as ads continue their creep into everything, I'm reminded how prescient the movie Idiocracy (2006) really was. They're even running onscreen YouTube popup ads in between plays during the St. Louis Rams preseason football game last week. It was maddening. And if I listen to a baseball radio broadcast, the announcer is busy trying to read an ad in between pitches. These instances alone confirm App's insight.

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Living Room / Re: I'm ready for the TV revolution to hit!

« Last post by zridling on August 18, 2010, 08:50 PM »

Don't expect it to happen. I've long bitched about having to buy 200 channels when I only ever watch and tape shows from five. The reason? Same as it always is: MONEY. Google proved to be a sellout on net neutrality and that really game-changing Nexus One idea, and it's already doing the same for its TV proposal of merging the net and broadcast channels. If providers can only charge you for the channels you actually watch, then they couldn't shove 9 channels of ESPN and 41 channels of religious programming down your throat.

Like everything else consumers want, the most powerful forces in the universe are aligned to prevent you from getting near it. Even if you do find someone on your side for a while, Google will sell you out (or whomever).

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Living Room / Re: Lists of Forums with help on home contractor problems (roof, heating, etc.)

« Last post by zridling on August 15, 2010, 12:58 PM »

I subscribe to The Family Handyman magazine and it's been a great resource of tips over the years. Worth every penny.
http://www.familyhandyman.com/
 
_______________
PS: Thanks Steveorg, for the Fixitnow site. Very nice!

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Living Room / Re: On the Web: Google net neutrality stance gives Net’s future to corporations

« Last post by zridling on August 13, 2010, 07:32 PM »

What is needed is legislation to correct the current cluster-****, as well as a truly open OS (like an embedded Linux) and open hardware that will run an OS that they consumer can choose.

-Renegade (August 13, 2010, 02:25 AM)

Recall back in 2007, this was the original purpose of Google's dive into mobile, to build the eventual Nexus One, which the customer could buy, and then have many phone companies vie for its service/data contract. But then Verizon and Sprint decided to do their own hardware and suddenly Google was left wondering who was going to enable their search page by default. Suddenly the Nexus is dropped and Google is paying to have each carrier to use its search/mapping service on its phones (as long as Google dropped that whole "let's give the customer the choice" thing.

It's like being forced to vote for either a bad or worse candidate for public office. If you step outside and vote for a third guy, in most cases you just tossed the election to the "worse" choice. Oy. Lots of cliches apply, among them: Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

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Living Room / Re: On the Web: Google net neutrality stance gives Net’s future to corporations

« Last post by zridling on August 12, 2010, 10:44 PM »

Too many people are getting way too rich these days by gimmicks instead of providing a service that people need. That's why these things are happening. The underlying intentions of all these companies is a gimmick rather than a service that people are demanding and need.

-superboyac (August 12, 2010, 03:07 PM)

This is what makes me want to fight like a psycho and simultaneously just give up. We never get what we want. And forget about being rewarded for brand loyalty. You're made to feel like a freeloading idiot for even bringing that quaint subject up.

As others have noted, Google used their "open internet" mantra to their marketing advantage until they were in position to get the most guaranteed money. I fully understand the sole, heartless nature of a corporation is to make money, pure and simple. But as superboyac says, it's no longer about making a honest profit, it's about creating all kinds of tricks and traps to separate you from your money. "You want a phone? Here's a mini-computer, but we're going to restrict every single thing that comes with it, and we'll charge you by the minute if you want to do anything interesting with it (web, video, etc.)."

After Google, Apple, and Microsoft rape the web you once knew and loved, what's left? Shut it down and take up knitting, I suppose.

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Developer's Corner / Re: Why computer programs should not be patentable -- in easy-to-understand terms

« Last post by zridling on August 12, 2010, 10:30 PM »

So... you wouldn't mind me posting nudie pics of you on Teh Intarwebs^TM? After all, a JPEG is "just one gigantic number".

-f0dder (August 12, 2010, 10:45 AM)

Not at all. Except this would be a civil crime, would it not?

And you wouldn't mind me posting the algorithm to generate legitimate credit card numbers?  After all, it's just "one gigantic number".

-wraith808 (August 12, 2010, 10:53 AM)

Wow, you got that? Again, I suppose if you did, you'd be sentenced to a long prison term.
________________________
Fill me in: How do the examples you cite validate software patents?
- Should (educational) math programs be patented?
- Should public voting software be patented?
- Should spreadsheet programs used by the government be patented?

If numbers are used to certify, support evidence (such as DNA), verify, bill, or compensate, shouldn't their code be open to inspection?

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Developer's Corner / Why computer programs should not be patentable -- in easy-to-understand terms

« Last post by zridling on August 12, 2010, 07:09 AM »

A.J. Venter cleverly lays out the case on Why computer programs should not be patentable -- in easy-to-understand terms.



“Programming a computer is, essentially, just discovering a number that suits the programmers wishes.”

Make the vairable X equal to 0;
Start a loop here:
Write the binary representation of X into a new file.
increase X by 1
continue the above loop until the program is interrupted by deliberately killing it (an infinite loop);

With this simple program – I can create an exact copy of every single program ever written and – this is important – every single program that CAN ever be written.

*Text files, executable, source code, pdf’s all files in fact are saved as just one gigantic number on a computer. The computer just follows a set of rules to make sense of them. The exact rules differ between architectures – on an 8-bit computer if you tell it that the file is “text” it will read every 8 digits, take that as a number by itself and find a corresponding letter from a chart (known as the ascii set), on 32-bit and higher computers it reads more – and can refer to longer and more complete charts like unicode – but ultimately – what gets saved on the disk is still just one big number. Here-in lies the secret to what lets the “universal Turing machine” actually work – software is data.

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Living Room / Re: On the Web: Google net neutrality stance gives Net’s future to corporations

« Last post by zridling on August 11, 2010, 09:10 PM »

From a moral perspective, I can't fathom why so many people believe that forcing the communications providers to surrender their property to government control is the right thing to do. It seems that we've simply gotten so used to having completely open access, that we are entitled to it. But by what moral law do we gain control over another's property?

-CWuestefeld (August 11, 2010, 12:45 PM)

Those airwaves belong to the people -- licensed through their government -- in which the corporation wishes to profit from, not the corporations. The reality is that telecom giants have always written their own laws (and most regs) for the politicians (in the US) to pass. You'd be surprised how little money it takes to sway a politician's vote on any issue, especially tech issues. Profits are fine and well, but not at the expense of liberty, which corporations are first to exclude right out of the EULA and TOS.

The "internet" as we know it would have never happened -- or been created -- if it were left to corporations. They would have throttled us all to Compuserve or some nonsense. There certainly would be no companies built for searching it! You either have a neutral Net or you don't. Corporations can't stand the internet in its original form -- not enough money in it for THEM. Google and Verizon have decided on their own that it's okay to discriminate data priority, depending on whose sending (profiting) and who's receiving (paying). Simply put, this is a sellout for Google, a company built by hackers. The bigger a company gets, the more money they make, the less they defend anything to do with their original hacking roots.

edit: punctuation

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General Software Discussion / Re: Which archive software are we using in 2010 (and why)?

« Last post by zridling on August 11, 2010, 08:46 PM »

7-zip here. I regularly have to download database dump files. The biggest one is a 200GByte database and it is always made available to me as a rar-archive...of 16+ GByte.

-Shades (August 11, 2010, 08:23 PM)

Now that's a MAN'S file there, baby! 

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Living Room / Re: On the Web: Google net neutrality stance gives Net’s future to corporations

« Last post by zridling on August 10, 2010, 08:37 PM »

Google (and Verizon and Apple) have definitely made sure that all future mobile computing will suck chunks. This horse crap is pure EVIL in all caps. So much for slogans, Google.

What I don't understand is how this is even allowed, period. You SELL a DEVICE, of which the phone part of the device is the least used! I can make phone calls from any PC, but does any PC (including a Mac) come with the restriction that I must use the ISP that the PC manufacturer chooses for me? WTF, man! No one would ever buy a carrier-dependent PC.

Be sure to check out Ryan Singel's excellent analysis of this total suckfest: Why Google Became A Carrier-Humping, Net Neutrality Surrender Monkey.

May I say that Google sucks as bad as Apple (in my view).   I'm considering not having a phone at all, just using skype here and there when I need to. It will certainly confuse the bill collectors.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Which archive software are we using in 2010 (and why)?

« Last post by zridling on August 10, 2010, 08:22 PM »

tomos, the WinRAR license is a [true] Lifetime license. It's also cross-platform, meaning, that my old Windows license key also gives me a license to use their Linux version.

Surprised no one has said PeaZip yet.

I've been using KDE's built-in Ark with openSUSE Linux for a while now. It's by no means sexy, but it provides a great set of right-click options in any file manager.