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9301
Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free
« Last post by wraith808 on April 18, 2010, 11:40 AM »
I use tinyportal on my site... it integrates with SMF and turns it into more of a CMS/portal without diluting the forum feel to the site.  And I personally don't agree that something couldn't be added alongside donation coder without diluting it... but it seems that I'm one voice in the wilderness :)
9302
hehehe i think this was a joke post of some sort.. it certainly is proving amusing :)

Hmmm... I don't really think it was a joke post.  And though the solutions may not be applicable, the way that this was pointed out didn't seem apropos of the whole DC community feel.  You can give information in a way that doesn't seem condescending- especially to someone that's new to the site.

To me your list of speedup software seems overly excessive. I suspect a lot of overlapping functionality within this set.

When you start a gaming session, would it not be smarter to disable (MS Windows and 3rth party) services and other background tasks (indexing for example) that are not essential for the game? Throwing in the famous car analogy...'nothing beats cubic inches'.

Go and look at sites like www.blackviper.com to see which services can be disabled. Besides spending some time this solution is free, unlike all those more or less 'snakeoil' type of software you mentioned.

This seems like the way to point it out to someone that didn't know without making them feel defensive.  But that's just MHO...
9303
Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe
« Last post by wraith808 on April 16, 2010, 05:32 PM »
With open standards and open source, you sidestep that entire mess.

Like with SMF?  OSS is not the Holy Grail.  It has its ups and downs just like anything else, and when people start making money off of it, all bets are off.  You might have the source to one version, but that source isn't necessarily the next version that's put out there.
9304
Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free
« Last post by wraith808 on April 16, 2010, 01:05 PM »
But even if everything was running and ready... what do we do? Stop using the forum for a week and post only on the other SO thing? Then reconvene here and discuss the experience?

No, I think the point of such an activity would be to see how the new software could supplement the DoCo experience, not replace it.  In many cases, people come to DoCo and ask one question and don't ever post again.  Many people, I'm sure, don't even do that... but search for an answer and don't return.  The SO site would support that kind of experience. For discussion, you'd still have the SMF forums.  Some way to link between the two would be nice... (perhaps when you create a SO question, it automagically creates a discussion topic, and has a link to it, with a reciprocal link in the topic?)
9305
Living Room / Re: Yea, I won't be getting an iPad anytime soon
« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2010, 03:48 PM »
If it did multi tasking I might get one for myself, or maybe wait for the new iPhone?!

The iPad uses the iPhone OS (if a modified version), so I'm sure that if it isn't on the plate immediately when 4.0 comes out, a little after that it should have multi-tasking.
9306
Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free
« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2010, 03:47 PM »
I think it could be combined.  Sometimes people come for an answer to a question and don't really know where to post it, and aren't necessarily out to spur conversation; other times people come to the site to spur conversation- not necessarily for an answer.  Keep the current forum the way it is, but just like you have other subdomains, have answers.donationcoder.com (or something to that effect), and run that in this fashion for more of a Q&A.
9307
Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free
« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2010, 07:31 AM »
There's also OSQA - http://www.osqa.net/.  The thing I see wrong about using a hosted version like StackExchange is that you have to propose the idea, then it seems that you have minimal control over the site.  Not sure how that's going to work- I'd think a self-hosted version would be better.
9308
Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe
« Last post by wraith808 on April 15, 2010, 07:24 AM »
(I'm no fan of Adobe either, but you get what you deserve when playing with proprietary software and hardware.)

Get what you deserve?  That's sort of harsh language... like blaming the victim for being mugged just because they were walking through a bad neighborhood.  Some people prefer working with closed systems that just work... do they deserve to be gimped by the product maker whims?  It might be legal, but I wouldn't say it's ethical...
9309
Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe
« Last post by wraith808 on April 14, 2010, 10:54 AM »
Has anyone been paying any attention to the Apple iPhone developer license 3.3.1 issue?
I hadn't before now... thanks for the heads up.

For those not familiar with it already, Apple has restricted all iPhone development to Objective-C, C, and C++ (written/compiled in Xcode) (with some other allowances for HTML5 and JavaScript that have strict limitations). They are torpedoing a whole whack of technologies that people use for iPhone development:

  • MonoTouch

The general reaction so far is pretty vicious against Apple.

Novell (makers of MonoTouch) have been very diplomatic saying that they are asking for "clarifications", or in other words, they're looking to see if Apple wants to screw everyone, or just Adobe.

Thoughts?

The thing is... I'm a windows developer.  But in my house, I have 2 iPhones, and soon an iPod touch... and maybe... horrors... an iPad soon.  (Some friends bought it, I played with it, and it's not just BAIT... It's a really good experience!)

One of the big reasons for my buy-in is MonoTouch- I've even been looking at getting a Mac because I was going to dual boot windows 7 and mac's os so I could work on my iPhone.  But this... wow.  MonoTouch would let me use my C# skills on my apps... but this would take that away.

As Eoin said,
Of course if Apple were a monopoly like MS then the EU would probably already be stepping in to prevent this nonsense.

Which has always been my argument against doing the things to MS that have been done... you don't just kick the big guy, because the little guys are doing the same thing too... and right is right and wrong is wrong.  Apple has been a mini MS in their marketing for a while now, and IMO they should be policed in the same manner as MS.   In fact, their Market Cap is about to pass MS.. so who is the little guy now?
9310
Living Room / Re: UK amateur photographers: if you're good, don't use Boots!
« Last post by wraith808 on April 14, 2010, 09:07 AM »
And I disagree with your disagreement. ;) How do the store employees distinguish between "child pornography" and a parent taking pics of their kids having fun swimming, which just happens to be naked (as kids often are), or in the bath, or whatever? Not to mention, do you really think a child pornographer would be stupid enough to go and print something at a shop like that? How many people doing malicious things are really going to use a public service like that and risk getting caught? Do you think more criminals would be caught than innocents? Do you want the FBI knocking on your door one morning with a warrant after you drop off photos of your kids at the local printer? Sure it's an "innocent mistake" and you would eventually be cleared of any wrongdoing, but is it reasonable to go through that kind of ordeal just on the outside chance that it might possibly catch someone who could be doing something illegal? Surely there are better ways of finding and incriminating these people that will have less "collateral damage".

I totally agree with this view, and have a specific personal example that illustrates the result of the same sort of thinking.  My mom was a 4th grade teacher for a long time until she retired - 30 years or so.  During her last years there, her principal didn't like her- it seems that it was a problem of insecurity, as it seems that she (being young and female in a position that old men usually held) didn't get along with any teacher older than she, or any male teachers.  But back to the subject, my mom saw physical evidence on a child on one occasion- the kid had a welt on the side of his face.  He had never had any evidence of abuse before then- this was not a systematic thing, and she talked to him, and he said he'd smarted off to his mom, and she'd smacked him.  This incident got back to the principal, and she called child services... and in addition, the police so that my mom got carted away from the classroom in cuffs in front of her kids.  It turned out with investigation it was just that... he'd called his mom quite the bad word, and she'd smacked him across the mouth on the way to school.  Child services found no fault in my mom's actions, nor the actions of the mom.  It wasn't a regular occurrence at all.  They tried to cover up their actions by saying it was better to err on the side of caution, but it's very telling that they tried to settle monetarily with my mom out of court for the whole police thing.  My mom just got them to pay the attorney's fees and dropped it at that, even though the attorney had advised her that she could get a lot more, and indeed they were offering a lot more.

While it's true that we have civic responsibility, to prosecute someone because they don't police some other person's life seems very wrong.
9311
Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: crack tracker
« Last post by wraith808 on April 13, 2010, 06:40 PM »
^ Well, yes.  I'd hope that most supporters of this site would fall into the same category as you.  But in the world wide interwebs, there are more that don't share this point of view than do, unfortunately.
9312
Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"
« Last post by wraith808 on April 13, 2010, 01:36 PM »
And a good one. :thumbs:

I think that different people have varying opinions on the subject, and there has to be a middle ground.  It seems that not using google helps, though the viable alternatives that exist are few.  And it matters in those as to whether they are more or less likely to do anything untoward with the information (as some see even the profit off of such services an untoward situation).  Personally, on matters like that, it doesn't truly matter to me, either personally or collectively.  If they provide the service and I get to use it free of charge, then do what you will to stay in business, as long as it doesn't involve inconvenience or irritation to me.  And the same thing collectively as far as I'm concerned- everyone's got to make a dollar, and I have nothing against someone making it in this manner.
9313
Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"
« Last post by wraith808 on April 12, 2010, 02:05 PM »
And perhaps it's the entire issue of conflating privacy with liberty (not the same thing, though related) that is at the root of some of this disagreement.

Agreed whole heartedly, along with the personal understanding of the context of certain words, I think.  Someone said something earlier that I think really rings true- how much privacy one has in this world is really a function of one's belief that their actions/words are private.  Because really, privacy is not a tangible thing anymore in this world of technology IMO.
9314
Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"
« Last post by wraith808 on April 11, 2010, 09:26 PM »
You said that "That's wrong and tinfoil hat thinking IMO.", and we pretty much know that "tinfoil hat thinking" is used for undermining people, lightly mentioning that they are crazy enough to believe some crap that is normally by standard unacceptably stupid to believe by normal people. If that is not how you meant it please correct me.

Well, not to poke my nose into an altercation, but what I think when I see 'tinfoil hat thinking' is conspiracy theory... not that someone is crazy.  And that's the way I've always seen it used... not to undermine someone's position.   :two:
9315
Living Room / Re: "The More You Use Google, the More Google Knows about you"
« Last post by wraith808 on April 11, 2010, 01:49 PM »
Not necessarily. You have freedom to not to use those check cards, not use google or bing or any other. But again these solutions are not real solution really. On the other hand accepting that loss of privacy is a reality of life is exactly what has been wanted by the corporations, goverments etc.

Unless you have your own trunk into the internet, you can't get around the fact that your ISP has all of the information about you that anyone could ever want.  You might argue that the information won't be used/used in a negative manner... but aren't we arguing what if's against Google?
9316
I'm not suggesting that you do anything... I just thought it rather strange to condemn something to the title of 'Adware' forever based upon a bad decision.  But that's just me... I mean to say that your experience was negative is one thing, but Adware places a distinct negative connotation in the eyes of most users far beyond what the experience seems to warrant IMO.
9317
But I guess the question is... does it do that now?  And if it doesn't, was that a mistake?  Or do you call something adware even after it doesn't do it?  That's my point... perhaps they made a mistake, honest or not... does that classify things as adware even after it's rectified?
9318
I wasn't saying that fences itself explicitly warned the users, but they've IME been quite up front about the fact that it was required.  Perhaps the location of the warning was not at the appropriate place, but even before fences was released, I saw several times that Brad stated that impulse was their distribution engine and that everything would require it to be installed in order to install their software.  I just, again, see it as just a company with people who sometimes make bad decisions, just like any other.  Not being an apologist, but truthfully I don't want to water down the meaning of adware or any of the other negative members of the internet community by applying it to those who don't have such practices... a pet peeve of mine, I suppose.
9319
Also I believe that Stardock now states that Impulse will be installed when you install any other Stardock app. They got a ton of heat of the stealth downloads/installs.

They've *always* said that you need impulse to install their software since it came out.  It used to be that you had to install it for yourself then install whatever, then uninstall it.  But people complained, so I guess that was their response to the complaints.  I have it installed, and never use it unless I'm updating something, and it never bothers me with ads.  I think by default it installs something they experimented with at Christmas last year to get deals to their users.  I disabled it then, which is I guess why I don't get those. 

In absence of DRM, it will take a lot more than that for me to lump them in with negative companies though... just a company with people who sometimes make bad decisions, just like any other.
9320
Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In
« Last post by wraith808 on April 09, 2010, 08:36 AM »
The big thing about this 'closed ecosystem' mentality is that for most people for most devices, this has always been the case.  Cell phone?  Unless you get a smartphone, it's pretty much closed in any case.  And people want their phones to work first and foremost as a phone.  That's why I defected from WinMo... as much as I wanted to be on a platform I could actually program for using my existing skillset, the fact that my phone crashed so often was a disconcerting thing.  And it didn't get better at a speed that made me comfortable.  My last WinMo phone was only a little over a year ago.  And my wife had to use it after me for a bit until I could get her iPhone.. she's not a techie by any means, though she does have a bit of technical know how.  She longed for her LG Shine over the WinMo phone that I gave her, and was ready to throw it out of the window.  Closed ecosystem or not, the iPhone just works, and she's not in any way frustrated with it.  Before the phone it was the MP3 player for Apple.  Again, how many people *really* did anything out of the ecosystem of MP3 players?  What difference does it being closed matter to most people?  Not much, I hazard to say.  And the iPod, again, just works.  I loved my Rio Karma, but in the end, the experience between the Karma and the iPod were night and day.

So now they find themselves getting into a different market.  I think that's the reason that books are so important on the iPad.  The eBook readers are, again, a closed system.  Sure you can do some thing with them outside of the manufacturer's thinking- but for most people, they are just book readers.  But where I think Apple is going to have to adjust is at the same place they had to adjust on the iPhone... price.  No matter what they say, the price point puts it at the same place as devices with a lot more functionality.  And no matter the additional functionality, perception puts it not much above an eReader or iPhone.  Maybe they can get past this without lowering the price... but I tend to doubt it.
9321
Impulse isn't all that bad to me.  It's not something I keep running all the time, but I'd not go the route of saying it's adware...
9322
Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In
« Last post by wraith808 on April 08, 2010, 03:55 PM »
<snip />
Looking back at history, it may have appeared that way with the iPhone 1st gen too. Things that have already been mentioned in this thread like the atrocious handling if iWork documents sync, or the necessity of connecting to a primary computer system to even use the thing (forget about it being a great system for "grandma" or "average user" unless they already have a different PC, so let's drop that argument!). Not to mention the apparent issues with weight and ergonomics.

I think that their 1st gen products are historically usable, but not as polished as their mystique has made it out to be.  Look at the 1st gen iPod... it was an interesting idea, but nothing that I wanted.  But since it was usable in it's niche, they made enough money to stick around for a 2nd gen.  I think that they depend upon that, truthfully.  They have been unable to compete with Microsoft in the short game, so they've focused on the long game, and done a pretty good job of it also.
9323
Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In
« Last post by wraith808 on April 07, 2010, 08:33 PM »
What I've noticed about my app purchases is that most of them aren't on my iPhone anymore...
9324
Living Room / Re: File Size vs. Size on Disk: Why such a difference?
« Last post by wraith808 on April 07, 2010, 08:32 PM »
FAT and NTFS uses the term "cluster size", and multiple files cannot share clusters. NTFS has a size-optimization feature, though, where really-really small files can be stored along with the filesystem metadata about the file.

I guess you have a lot of really small files on that USB stick? Or a ridiculously large cluster size :)

But does that work on flash drives?  I know that fixed drives use that, but I thought that flash drives didn't allow that for speed considerations?
9325
Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In
« Last post by wraith808 on April 07, 2010, 02:19 PM »
I've still been on the fence- one of the reasons that I delayed my purchase of my nook.  But I read a couple of other reviews- and a couple by enthusiasts.  The downsides, even when watered down, mean that I'm not going to get it.  It's a little bit bigger than a nook.  But that little bit is enough.  And the weight... and the cost.  I can't see getting an iPad without 3G, and that price tag is a bit steep!  I really like the idea of extra apps- but the biggest thing that's a turn off to me is the one part that Apple really doesn't have too much of a say in... pricing of apps.  If I have an iPhone app, I want to be able to use an iPad specific version of the app if it's available for free... not buy a new version!  And the pricing of apps make it so that you can't purchase without consideration- with apps on the iPhone, I'll drop a dollar or two without going through the trouble of downloading a trial, then getting the final version.  But 10-15 bucks is getting to the point where I question the purchase.
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