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8551

Living Room / Re: Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on March 03, 2011, 09:44 AM »

A free solution to backing up not only gmail, but a lot of other mail options.

http://www.mailstore.../mailstore-home.aspx

(from http://gigaom.com/co...up-my-gmail-account/)

8552

General Software Discussion / Re: Serial Key Storage for Windows

« Last post by wraith808 on March 02, 2011, 02:53 PM »

It's tiny, reliable, and does one thing extremely well - which makes it a perfect app for portable use. Everything is stored in the executable so there's no separate datafile to go looking for. Sweet!
 (see attachment in previous post)

fSekrit is a small application for keeping securely encrypted notes. These notes are truly stand-alone; the editor program and your note are merged together into a tiny self-contained program file, bypassing the need to install a special application to view your data. This makes fSekrit ideal for keeping encrypted notes on, for example, USB flash drives.

Luck!

-40hz (February 25, 2011, 06:05 AM)

I just realized that you have obscured the directory, but not the keys!  Will that be problematic?

8553

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by wraith808 on March 02, 2011, 01:10 PM »

I use it on my site, and it's not been a big deal, maintenance wise.  As far as the future direction (or lack thereof), I haven't really paid attention, but without that larger dialogue, and with where we are in regards to the forums, I made that suggestion based on the fact that the integration is already there, so it would seem to be the path of least resistance/most compatibility with the current platform.

8554

Developer's Corner / Re: Discussion of CMS suggestions for the DC software directory

« Last post by wraith808 on March 02, 2011, 12:00 PM »

Another possibility is modifying something that integrates with SMF, like tinyportal.

8555

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by wraith808 on March 01, 2011, 09:03 PM »

I love this place. Will donate the second week of March. Just finished putting LibreOffice over the top. My nips are tingly! Oh wait, that's TMI.

 

-zridling (March 01, 2011, 08:41 PM)

Thanks for keeping us abreast...

-timns (March 01, 2011, 08:42 PM)

Are you trying to out-pun Chris?

8556

Living Room / Re: Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on March 01, 2011, 01:25 PM »

An article on some ways to back up your gmail on lifehacker.

And on a interesting note about the actual incident, no e-mails were lost- they are being restored from tape

Now, cue the privacy advocates, i.e. what does that mean when you *actually* delete an e-mail?

8557

Living Room / Re: Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on March 01, 2011, 09:54 AM »

A good article about the happy medium between "don't trust the cloud", and CYA...

http://gigaom.com/co...hen-the-cloud-fails/

8558

General Software Discussion / Re: PS2 Emulator for Geforce 210 , is it possible !

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 09:12 PM »

Truthfully, I'm not sure about the hardware requirements, but just by googling PS2 Emulator I found some sites that specialize in that sort of thing.  For such specialized information, one of those would probably be a better place to ask.

8559

Living Room / Re: Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 08:58 PM »

Very timely... I'm actually in the process of moving my email server over to Gmail and getting rid of running my own email server.

I'll still be moving over to Google Apps there anyways. I always maintain local copies, so as long as the basics work, I'll be fine.

-Renegade (February 28, 2011, 07:22 PM)

Local copies of the e-mails via POP access?  What about the documents?  And the calendars?  There's a big focus on e-mail from this incident- but the cloud is much more than e-mail...

8560

Living Room / Re: Should ebook users have any rights?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 08:56 PM »

Remote deletion already happened on the Kindle.  Here's the NY Times article about it: Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle

-jaden (February 28, 2011, 07:02 PM)

Well, yes.  But my question was the kindle apps.  You know, for the PC, iPhone, Android... do they have the same sort of hooks in there?  Is it the Kindle as an e-book platform, or the Kindle as a hardware platform?

8561

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 08:54 PM »

mate my case is awfully clear throughout the thread, if you cant see my points now then I'm really not sure what I can do about it. To me u guys seems to be nailing on this username/identity issue lol, to me such diversion tactics only add to the confusion and serve no one any good.

-lotusrootstarch (February 28, 2011, 06:49 PM)

Actually, to many of us it's clear as mud.  And those people you seem to brush off/ignore, as if we're not worth your time?  Perhaps that's not the case, but it sure feels like it, especially when the only replies to any of my queries has been to say how wrong I am about where you're coming from in regards to your contribution, even though I never really called it into question.

* wraith808 shrugs

8562

Living Room / Re: Should ebook users have any rights?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 06:08 PM »

The problem with remotely deleting comes in large part from the comibination of hardware and software, I think.  I wonder if they have the same capabilities with the kindle app.

8563

Living Room / Re: Help: Recommend flash drive(s) for small files

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 01:56 PM »

Here's a thread on this.  It's from 2009, but there's a lot of good info.

You could probably run tests on it and get good info on the actual transfers; there's some info on that here.  Again, it's from 2009, but the program links provided still work other than Chip Genius and Check Flash.

Chip Genius seems to be at http://www.fake-memory.com/index.html, though it seems that this site is only for verifying if a chip is fake (the original purpose of that post).  More on Check Flash (and some other speed utilities) can be found at http://www.makeuseof...flash-drive-windows/, and a download link for Check Flash can be found at http://www.softpedia...sk/Check-Flash.shtml.

I use the cloud sync route; I was concerned about having the internet available, but it's not really a big issue, it turns out (at least for me).  I can recommend Dropbox and Jungle Disk for the sync.

8564

Official Announcements / Re: UnReplied Topic Fridays on the DonationCoder.com Forums (URT-Fri)

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 12:58 PM »

Also, a few requests to make it simpler:
1 - please remove the "moved" posts from there, they take a large percentage of the list
2 - maybe we could have a "show only topics started by new members" thing (where "new" would have some sensible definition), since most of the threads in that page are really started by long-time members.

-jgpaiva (February 28, 2011, 12:57 PM)

I was thinking both of these... I was going to do the new member by clicking on the name and seeing how many posts and prioritizing that way, but your suggestion makes so much more sense!

8565

Official Announcements / Re: UnReplied Topic Fridays on the DonationCoder.com Forums (URT-Fri)

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 12:55 PM »

I'll commit to helping... though it will probably be anytime that I have downtime and no topics to reply to

Edit: On that note, is there a way to make the moved topic post not show up in this view?  And maybe very old topics also? And how far do we want to go back with this starting out?

8566

Living Room / Re: Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 12:27 PM »

Also, apart from pure hardware and software reliability, there's the people and the decisions they make. If I value my data, I'm more likely to value it more than Google is ever going to.

-Armando (February 28, 2011, 11:25 AM)

This is very true.  And from the experience standpoint, my only point over the whole thing was directed more at me than anyone else.  These are things that you tend to turn a blind eye to/get way too comfortable with than is truly warranted.  And it really takes a critical eye to look at your own setup and see all of the points of failure.

I guess that's the reason that security consultants make a whole lot more money than I do.

Failures and security breaks are the cloud's 800-lb. gorilla if you ask me, on top of privacy issues.

-zridling (February 28, 2011, 11:41 AM)

I'd totally agree.  On the one hand, the providers of cloud services want you to trust them.  On the other hand, they don't want to accept liability.  Those two incompatible approaches have never been truly tested IMO.  I have close to 50GB of my data backed up on Amazon's S3 services, in addition to being on a few different drives in different physical locations.  Amazon touts the rock solid bullet proof nature of their S3 services- but if something happened, how much liability would they actually take, even though I'm paying for the service?  They talk about credits for data being unavailable, and the small likelihood of your data being lost- but what if it does happen?  In all of their guarantees, they make no statement of liability in case of data loss.  What does that mean to my data?

8567

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 09:57 AM »

There are only 2 names on that very short list, and I think it would be safe to say you are not wraith808.  

-app103 (February 28, 2011, 09:46 AM)

There are more, I would assume... anything supporting or above would apply, I'd think (charter members may not have donated, but I'd assume that most have).

8568

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 09:31 AM »

Mouser can't do it alone.  And he does encourage people outside of the 'senior member circle' to contribute in whatever ways they can- I know from personal experience.

-wraith808 (February 28, 2011, 06:42 AM)

Not in the right ways, still not... i also know from personal experience... before you joined the site m8.

-lotusrootstarch (February 28, 2011, 07:43 AM)

That's sort of the idea that I'm getting at ... would you say that sort of thing to me if you were posting under your *real* username?  You say not to focus on the username that you're using- but you're *very* deprecating.  And not in a nice way most of the time- smilies only cover up the nature of language to a point.  There's a way to be critical, but still be uplifting... and truthfully, your posts aren't it from what I've seen.  But I haven't seen *anyone* that's been here that long be that way.  If I had, it would have been a pretty sharp contrast to anyone that I've seen in my short time here (that's sarcasm, if you can't tell).  There are ways to bring attention to problems, and then there are other ways...

8569

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 06:42 AM »

Hehehe I'm here merely to point out the problems, look at all the responses I got here -- all pointing finger directly at me, and it's never even about me, it's about problems.

So app you made me feel very bad about myself under this username... alright I'm defeated... so what? It doesn't fix any problems I mentioned.

Ouch you guys really have no idea... 'nuff said. best of luck. cheers.  

-lotusrootstarch (February 28, 2011, 06:13 AM)

Not pointing the finger at you... they're instead asking you to clarify your responses.  And of all the people asking that you clarify responses (to something other than just reviews, which seems to be the only sticking point, and one easily overcome if you write some if you're that passionate about it) you don't answer.  The fact that your responses are picked and chosen seems disingenuous to me at least.  No one's pointing a finger as you say... I explicitly said that in my last post.  But got no response to the questions raised.

I think app put it best:

This is a community driven site, and everything is provided by unpaid volunteer members of this community. If you, a member of this community, is going to complain, you should be prepared to also be part of that solution.

Therefore, I propose you volunteer to write a major shoot-out review, instead of just complaining that someone else hasn't volunteered to do one in quite awhile.

When you are finished, you can then volunteer to contact all your big name A-list blogger friends and see if you can get them interested enough in it to write about it. Don't have any A-list blogger friends? Well, I guess you'll have to figure out how to make some.

Then you can volunteer to hit the major social networks and post about it, reaching out to the masses on Digg, Mixx, Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed, StumbleUpon, etc.

Then you can contact all the developers of the apps you reviewed and ask them if they would be interested in giving discounts to DC members, and maybe donate a few copies for a giveaway drawing.

If you run into any problems that you think the community can provide assistance with, make a post and ask for some help. (I'll be willing to help by contacting some of the bloggers I know, once you have finished your big review, I'll also vote it up on both Mixx and Digg, and give you a post or like on friendfeed, a tweet or retweet on twitter, and a thumbs up on StumbleUpon)

When you are finished with all that, you can work on your next complaint.

See, this is what people in this community do when they think something should be done...we shut up, roll up our sleeves and do it, instead of complaining that someone else won't volunteer to do it for us.

And an annual fundraiser is justified, as long as there are bills that need to be paid. To say we shouldn't have one is saying we should shut down the site and go away, because if we don't pay the bills, the hosting company will pull the plug on us and that is exactly what will happen to this site....it will go away. Is that what you want?

-app103 (February 28, 2011, 04:17 AM)

That was a succinct explanation of all of the things laid at your door to respond to in one central post.  Mouser can't do it alone.  And he does encourage people outside of the 'senior member circle' to contribute in whatever ways they can- I know from personal experience.  So are you ready to pick up your own gauntlet?  Or just slink away after a piffy 'cheers'?  Or maybe not to slink away- maybe to contribute under another name.  But your contributions under *that* name won't help to shore up your arguments; they'll go towards the reputation of *that* name while this is left to be 'blast[ed] to oblivion by a single button'.

Thoughts?

8570

Living Room / Re: Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on February 28, 2011, 06:29 AM »

"What else are you supposed to expect."

... Isn't this the perfect warning : don't trust "the cloud". Well, not too much. Backup your data yourself, have duplicates on site and elsewhere.

The best cheap and easy e-mail solution I found (a long time ago) was to have my own domain and forward everything to various e-mail services... and then download stuff to Outlook. So I'm not tied to any specific company and I can own all my correspondence. The only risk I'm taking is to loose my domain... Very unlikely.

I'm not familiar with the google apps for domains contracts, so I can't comment...

-Armando (February 27, 2011, 11:20 PM)

Actually, what are you doing with your backups?  Most of us take risks/have points of failure that we don't even realize.  And before you say that it's unlikely, I've had the perfect storm before.  RAID1 - both drives failed.  The latest backups were corrupted, and I didn't know (code red on my server).  I had to go back so far in my backups, that they were barely useful.

And are your servers truly more reliable than google's, when you look at it?  Or is it a false sense of security?  Not saying that a backup is not better than none... just that it's good to assess things after a while- that's the way that my perfect storm snuck up on me.

Anyone got a good suggestion on how to do it - quick and easily.

-nudone (February 28, 2011, 03:30 AM)

I have been using GMail Backup for quite awhile. Just fill out the info in it and set the location of the folder where you want it to store the backups. It will download everything as .eml files, which can be opened in most popular desktop email apps.

Right now the site is unreachable, spits back a page full of errors. I suppose their server is being hit pretty hard with all the publicity and worry. Might have to give it a few days till you can reach the site and download the app.

-app103 (February 28, 2011, 03:41 AM)

I've had a copy for a while, and tried to use it, but I kept getting errors, so I haven't really looked into why or anything else.  Have you ever received multiple errors and gotten an empty archive?  Maybe if I downloaded the newest version...  I have to find my license again...

8571

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2011, 10:52 PM »

I'm not accusing anyone not not working hard or any time... don't get me wrong on that.

There's something wrong about how this site operates!

-lotusrootstarch (February 27, 2011, 10:49 PM)

Why?  Because you think so?  What do you think is so wrong about how the site operates?  You haven't even stated your case... just a few data points and a few disagreements- no real concrete vision of what you think it should be.  And if mouser doesn't agree, and doesn't want it to become that, then why are you right and why is he wrong?

8572

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2011, 10:51 PM »

There's no point convincing me to leave or shut up, that's not your objective! Let's face it, after almost 6 years of operation:
 (see attachment in previous post)
This is the vote of confidence.. or not?

-lotusrootstarch (February 27, 2011, 10:46 PM)

And those numbers are pretty good for a small site, especially one that is operated on no external exposure other than voluntary, and has no ads anywhere.  What do you expect?  And if that's not what's wanted, then why is it bad?

Why do you consider this a lack of confidence to have (by your numbers) 2683 new members in a month?  There are sites that would kill for that kind of penetration, but you consider it bad?  And the most online is the most online at any given time- not the total during the course of the day.  I just don't get where you're going with the numbers.

8573

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2011, 10:42 PM »

wraith808:

I was here much longer than you know. I volunteered/helped on this site way more than you know. You just don't know it, period.

-lotusrootstarch (February 27, 2011, 10:41 PM)

That's why I'm asking, not accusing.  Why not answer rather than just give a brush off?  If what you say is true (and I'm not challenging or saying it's not... just... wondering), then why not use that username?  Why not come forward and give your opinions?  Critical thought is very important to the survival of any venture, and one would think that the people with the most experience would have the most critical thought as resources to the site- so appropriately framed criticism would be welcome, and very much discussed, I'd think.  But even in the way that you responded to me- does having this other id make you feel free to be disparaging in a non-friendly nor respectful manner?

8574

Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2011, 10:35 PM »

Hi mouser,

I can understand where you come from... and I know there're *plans*, but may I challenge you to defer the fundraiser until something big is released officially.

Sorry, I just don't understand why all these plans are deferred/delayed but not the fundraiser, which has a set time, set goal, and gets done without delay.

-lotusrootstarch (February 27, 2011, 10:24 PM)

I just don't understand that your ire over the changes which *you* point out, that are *not necessarily the focus of most of the visitors to the site* are the most important just because you're being a squeaky wheel?  If you don't agree with the fundraiser, don't donate?  That seems like the easiest approach instead of a campaign of negative posting?  Or maybe volunteer, as all of the things that happen on the site are on a volunteer basis?  Be part of the solution- not part of the problem.  If the reviews are bothering you- make some!

The major portion of the site that is of great use is the forums.  Reviews are updated there.  Software is updated there.  A lot (most) of the fundraiser is held there.  People get help there, and software is downloaded from there.  There is value in the community itself, and the things needed to support it- more than a portal page.  And the users of the site congregate at the forum- not at the portal page that you pointed out.  That's why the forums get the most focus.  And I know that I've received a lot of value from that section- the main portion of the site was just what drew me here, more than what keeps me a part of the community.

Another couple of questions- you are concerned about the community; are you a part of it under whatever pseudonym that you donated under?  Are you afraid of repercussions if you were critical under that user name?

8575

Living Room / Gmail accidentally resets some accounts

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2011, 10:21 PM »

http://www.engadget....of-correspondence-v/

Some gmail users lost all of their data (the supposed percentage affected is .08%, or approximately 150k users by estimates of gmail's user base.  Many people on the conversation at engadget talk about the fact that a free service lost e-mail... what else are you supposed to expect.  But as a person that took a long time to move to gmail (and for the longest time I used a re-direct at my own domain to route e-mails to gmail and my own domain to be downloaded), one of the reasons I moved to actually using my gmail e-mail address was because of exactly those kinds of implied assurances in advertisements, and a level of comfort that was my own fault.

After years of reconditioning myself to use my gmail email addresses, I now find myself at a crossroads- should I move back to my own e-mail address and use gmail merely a convenience?

But the real question is, even if they aren't contractually obligated to see to the security of e-mails of their users, are they not trying to make users comfortable with their service so that there will be that assumption that google is a safe place to keep your e-mails rather than the old fashioned way of using mail servers?  And what about google apps for domains?  What kind of assurances do they give you with those?  Especially since you're essentially in the same boat?  My company is moving to google apps for domains- I'm pretty sure that as a pretty big player in their market, this switch wouldn't have been made if there weren't some assurances.

Thoughts?