Recent Posts

751

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone know of a software that can record file modification times?

« Last post by Edvard on December 04, 2013, 01:12 AM »

how many files, and how often do they change?

is this something that could be polled hourly or every xx minutes?

That would be my question as well, because it sounds like it'd make a great coding snack. 

752

Non-Windows Software / ExplainShell explains those cryptic command options

« Last post by Edvard on December 03, 2013, 08:48 PM »

Mouser mentioned this in IRC, and there's a nice little write-up at Ghacks here:
http://www.ghacks.ne...mand-line-arguments/

Explain Shell is a free online service that will break down command line arguments that you enter for you. If you do not know what the commands find . -type f -print0, tar xzvf archive.tar.gz or iptables -A INPUT -i eth0 -s ip-to-block -j DROP do, you can find out now using the service.

http://explainshell.com/



Pretty snazzy! 

753

Non-Windows Software / Re: LINUX: Linux Mint 16 "Petra" just released

« Last post by Edvard on December 01, 2013, 09:44 PM »

Ah, I should have been more clear as well...  I am running Debian "Testing", not Linux Mint.  I used to be a Ubuntu fan, but it has gone downhill since 9.10, IMNSHO.  I went back to Debian and I've gotten along with it so well that I intend to stay.

Though I will admit Mint looks pretty slick...

754

Non-Windows Software / Re: LINUX: Linux Mint 16 "Petra" just released

« Last post by Edvard on December 01, 2013, 08:56 PM »

If it's based on "Testing" I'd say there's more than one update

I do an 'aptitude update/full-upgrade' every week or so and it's always huge.  And in the past couple of months, they've been obsolete-ing tons of packages.

755

General Software Discussion / Re: I hate the word "anathema"

« Last post by Edvard on November 16, 2013, 11:50 AM »

So, according to the root meanings of "flame" and "inflame", then "flammable" means "if you manage to catch this on fire, it will burn with flames", but "inflammable" means "burnable to varying degrees, but visible flames not explicitly required"

Interesting...

756

Living Room / Re: Looking for a seventies music title...

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2013, 02:42 AM »

Not the '70s, but the gestalt bears a resemblance:

757

Living Room / Re: Looking for a seventies music title...

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2013, 02:30 AM »

I think I have an inkling of what you're looking for, but I heard it a long time ago in the company of some very interesting individuals whose whereabouts I no longer know.

You mentioned french; perhaps a female singer covering Plastic Bertrand's "Ça Plane Pour Moi"? (the lyrics apparently make no sense, even in the original french).

As an aside, I did find something interesting in my searches:

Prisencolinensinainciusol^w

The song was produced with the purpose of exposing Italian pop artists and musicians who were deceiving the public, pretending to speak/understand English lyrics and plagiarizing American and English songs, so this was a satirical parody to underscore the fact that those artists and musicians were not fluent in any form of English at all, and the Italian public would accept and popularize any song sounding like English, whether or not it was accurate.

Or maybe it could be one of these?:
http://www.who-sang-...ord-song-titles.html

758

Living Room / Re: How long do hard drives actually live for?

« Last post by Edvard on November 13, 2013, 01:33 AM »

From the anecdotal-tale-to-the-contrary-department: I still have a handful of less-than-1GB drives that still fire up just fine, though they don't hold much, and I can count on that same hand how many disk drives I've had fail while it was installed and being used.  Every time I've had a disk fail it was because I had taken it out to install a newer, larger one, and later tried to install it in a different machine. 
CD-ROM drives, on the other hand... let's just say I should buy them in bulk. 

759

Living Room / Re: Arduino Leonardo Touchboard

« Last post by Edvard on November 12, 2013, 08:52 PM »

I felt that way about "tapping" in the 80s; felt that way about digital stompboxes in the '90s, felt that way about Autotune and anything Line6 in the '00s.  I haven't found anything to be stodgy about for the '10s.  Maybe I'm finally old enough to not care.  Oh, wait... no more than 6 strings on a guitar, and 4 on the bass (though I'll allow for the bass if you're good enough to actually use all those extra strings), and dagnabbit, if you're going to make some music and call it "dubstep", don't drill my eardrums with a fire alarm noise and call it "bass".  

And while you're at it, much props if you ditch your Kaoss or Launchpad for a Leonardo Touchboard and some bananas and wire.  

760

General Software Discussion / Re: I hate the word "anathema"

« Last post by Edvard on November 11, 2013, 07:23 PM »

I like the word; so descriptive and to-the-point when applied properly to the appropriate subject.

Double-up on "properly" and "appropriate".  When was the last time you excommunicated a heretic? 

And double-kudos to your punny bone if it's your dog's name. Hint: look it up 

761

Living Room / Re: Arduino Leonardo Touchboard

« Last post by Edvard on November 11, 2013, 07:09 PM »

Most musicians adapt fairly rapidly to new instrument interfaces - as long as they're logical and consistent in operation.

I would amend that to say "Most younger/incredibly creative musicians..." as, believe it or not though I'm sure you're aware, musicians can be a downright stodgy bunch when something newfangled comes along that "all the kids are using" even when it's "logical and consistent" (yours truly guilty as charged).  

Darn kids, always changing the game before I'm done playing...  

762

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Edvard on November 11, 2013, 06:58 PM »

Adobe users' purloined passwords were PATHETIC

Yes, but the hints were something to behold:

763

Living Room / Re: Arduino Leonardo Touchboard

« Last post by Edvard on November 06, 2013, 09:07 PM »

Theremin is the key.  Once you grasp why theremins work the way they do, sensing proximity is no problem for anything from theremins to burglar alarms to making interesting gadgets with microcontrollers.  I'm thinking a homebrew HotHand-type midi controller, without the need for the funky ring.  

764

Living Room / Re: Arduino Leonardo Touchboard

« Last post by Edvard on November 06, 2013, 01:48 AM »

Looks like a bit of advance on the MakeyMakey concept.  Based on the same chip too.  Very nice.

765

Living Room / Lavabit's court documents unsealed; what THEY wanted, and Lavabit's appeal...

« Last post by Edvard on October 22, 2013, 11:59 PM »

Great stuff, and IANAL, but IMO Lavabit's got some good legs to stand on in their appeal.

The government has suggested that it's entitled to get Lavabit's private keys for three reasons: the Pen Register Statute, the Stored Communications Act, and a grand jury subpoena. Lavabit attacks all three of those in its appeal.

http://arstechnica.c...retap-our-own-users/

from somewheres I fergit

766

Living Room / Re: Programming/Coder humor

« Last post by Edvard on October 22, 2013, 11:27 PM »

From an IRC conversation:

767

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by Edvard on October 21, 2013, 11:40 PM »

This is pretty interesting:

So I just moved into a new apartment, and made a big discovery.

http://themetapictur...er-my-new-apartment/
 

768

Living Room / Re: Was the iOS 7 "look" created using Microsoft Word?

« Last post by Edvard on October 21, 2013, 08:03 PM »

Exact opposite here... Word makes me foam at the mouth. 
Publisher, on the other hand is like... I dunno... Magic or something ... and that's coming from a Linux guy! 

769

General Software Discussion / Re: How to avoid creating/using a Microsoft Account when upgrading to Win 8.1

« Last post by Edvard on October 21, 2013, 07:55 PM »

Of course this is not wholly on topic but ... please Linux people fix various Linux wifi issues so that I can dump Windows even more quickly.

-rgdot (October 21, 2013, 05:49 PM)

What's the issues?  I and certain of my compatriots would certainly be willing to help troubleshoot, especially if it results in giving Redmond the bird... a nattily dressed flightless aquatic bird, that is.  

@Tomos: Thanks for finding that.  I think my son already has a Live account, but he'll surely be uninterested in using THAT as his login.  Not sure if he will be wanting to upgrade, though.  Once bitten...

770

Non-Windows Software / Re: A real debate over Mir? This is gonna be good if it ever happens!

« Last post by Edvard on October 21, 2013, 01:28 AM »

No, my point was that such behavior was unbecoming of folks on BOTH sides, and said nothing about libel.  Mark could have taken the high road and either ignored the attacks altogether or come up with some coherent reasons as to why Mir is technically superior.  But he didn't.  He didn't even "refute back" anything.  Instead, he engaged in the same name-calling his detractors are guilty of.  Personally, I would welcome some well-reasoned arguments in a fairly-moderated point-for-point technical debate, rather than an over-the-internet mud-slinging match.

771

Non-Windows Software / Re: A real debate over Mir? This is gonna be good if it ever happens!

« Last post by Edvard on October 21, 2013, 12:17 AM »

Mr. Shuttleworth "shows his less professional side" in making ad hominem statements against those who dislike Mir.  I couldn't care less, plain ol' Xorg works just grand so far, and hopefully the superior technology wins in the end rather than egos and politics (yeah, right).  I have less than high hopes about it with bad form being shown on both sides.

40Hz, could you pass the popcorn?

772

General Software Discussion / Re: LZIP - When you THINK you've seen it all...

« Last post by Edvard on October 16, 2013, 08:19 PM »

Seems to have some pretty nifty features. Especially good are its integrity and file recovery capabilities.

-40hz (October 14, 2013, 12:53 PM)

It seems as though it is aimed squarely at IT pros and sys admins. Definitely not for regular user-land.

-Renegade (October 14, 2013, 08:20 PM)

So the site says it's got the script-friendliness of bzip2, and the (totally unscientific) benchmarks show it to be comparable to the speed of gzip.
What's not to love for user-land use?  Installing now...

773

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for recording audio continuously

« Last post by Edvard on October 15, 2013, 01:50 AM »

I think what you're looking for is "Voice Activated recording", much like how a security camera with motion sensor works in that it starts recording when the input to the sound card is over a certain threshold, and pauses when things are silent.
There are also auto-started programs that can be set to start and stop recording at certain times, like a DVR.
There are a few out there, this is what I could find:

Triggered:
-ScanRec. The original website is down, but it's available from Softpedia, Software Informer, etc., just do a search for "Scanner Recorder" or "ScanRec", you'll find it.  Only records to WAV format, but does have a buffer so it starts the audio recording from just before the trigger, so you don't get clipping. Freeware
-VoxRecorder
http://antoninoporci...xoom.it/VoxRecorder/
Same as above, don't know if it buffers though. Freeware
-ReCall
http://sagebrush.com/recall.htm
As requested, this runs in the background, listening for audio.  Not free; $14.95 or ReCall-PRO for $29.95

Timer-based:
-AutoRec
http://www.scott-inc.com/html/AR.htm
Free.

Both:
-LoopRecorder
http://www.looprecorder.de/
Can run in the background.
Free, with a Pro version for way too much money, but apparently NASA used it.
-Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
Has both Timed Recording and Sound-activated Recording features.  Free and Open Source.

774

General Software Discussion / Let's get Chocolatey!

« Last post by Edvard on October 14, 2013, 05:18 PM »

I see it's already been mentioned here, but I found it just recently when re-installing a Windows parition, and thought it deserved a little more exposure.

Let's get Chocolatey!
Chocolatey NuGet is a Machine Package Manager, somewhat like apt-get, but built with Windows in mind.

Easy Install!
To install chocolatey now, open a command prompt and paste the text from the box below and press enter.

[Select]

c:\> @powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy unrestricted -Command "iex ((new-object net.webclient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH=%PATH%;%systemdrive%\chocolatey\bin

http://chocolatey.org/

from 5 Steps to a better Windows Command Line

775

Living Room / Re: The issue of Ad-Blocking in our browsers.

« Last post by Edvard on October 04, 2013, 01:57 AM »

The saddest part:

Having worked at (and left in disgust) an ad-driven company, the answer is simple and clear: The most annoying ads yield the best click-through rates

I can believe it, thoroughly and whole-heartedly, after talking with absolute idiots doing bizarre things with their cellphones and expecting me at customer service to fix it, after multiple times telling my mother-in-law what's OK and not OK to click while surfing political sites and I still have to spend 3 hours every time I visit because "the computer is running a little slow, can you take a look at it?" only to find that not only is it slow, but half the start menu and desktop icons are gone because "We have detected a virus on your computer.  Totally clean the virus now for only $29.99!", and taking a handful of Tylenol after reading my mother's posts on Facebook "This is not a hoax!  Confirmed by Snopes... "