Recent Posts

9601

Living Room / Re: Build a $200 Linux PC -- How-to by ExtremeTech

« Last post by Renegade on July 27, 2010, 04:09 PM »

I kind of wonder why nobody ever goes for Solaris. It really is the mack-daddy of all operating systems. Nothing comes close to it. Hot swappable mother boards? Yep. Solaris has that, and it don't need no stinkin' app to do it~!

9602

Living Room / Re: New Government Rules make Jailbreaking Legal

« Last post by Renegade on July 27, 2010, 04:08 PM »

Now if we could only get a baby step in the right direction for patents... THAT would really shift the landscape.

9603

Living Room / Re: Get out your crayons to help Apple... ;)

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 09:17 PM »

Indeed it is more challenging.  They used all the parts on those nice shiny black ones.  Now that no one is buying the "Jobs Handjob"(TM), they're bleaching the black ones to make the white ones, hoping they'll sell! 

-wraith808 (July 26, 2010, 07:50 PM)

Hey? Is Jobs using protection? Are those iPhone condoms covers whatevers made of pure latex? Are Apple users being infected with AIDS (Apple iPhone Diseases & Syndromes)? And is that bleach environmentally friendly?

9604

Living Room / Re: sarcopaths unite!

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 09:13 PM »

or cut to the chase.

-Shades (July 26, 2010, 08:50 PM)

Chase? I usually cut to the cheese~!

9605

Living Room / Re: Sleep/hibernate problems in Windows 7

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 07:41 PM »

If I recall correctly, there is a setting that stops the Hibernate option from becoming available. At the moment I have the same issue, but no time to solve it for now. I'll check back later if I have time to solve it and post something more useful.

9606

Living Room / Re: Get out your crayons to help Apple... ;)

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 07:37 PM »

<insert sarcasm punctuation here....>

-Target (July 26, 2010, 07:02 PM)

Hahahahaha~! Nice one~!

9607

Living Room / Get out your crayons to help Apple... ;)

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 06:55 PM »

Apple announced this morning it would be delaying production of the white iPhone until later this year.

The official reason for the delay: White iPhones are "more challenging to manufacture than we originally expected."

Source

More challenging? Muahahahahahahhahahah~! Now I've heard it all!

Ummm... Then again... Have the kids eaten all the white crayons?

This post was brought to you by the letter A and the number 5.

9608

Living Room / Re: Build a $200 Linux PC -- How-to by ExtremeTech

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 06:37 PM »

The benchmarks they have there against a $300 box are pretty impressive.

9609

Living Room / Re: sarcopaths unite!

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 06:29 PM »

[sarcasm]I believe that they missed out on a bbcode version...[/sarcasm]

9610

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

« Last post by Renegade on July 26, 2010, 03:55 AM »

In the Internet Bible vein, this is a site of mine that Nudone helped with (artwork):

-Renegade (July 25, 2010, 07:00 PM)

I LOVE that site! Nudone did a fantastic job with the art. It has a lot of personality. I wish you'd put some more stuff up there, though. I have been waiting since forever. 

Oh, and your site is currently not working. 

-app103 (July 26, 2010, 01:24 AM)

Thanks! I do plan on getting back to it at some point, but I've just got too much on my plate at the moment. Nudone is also extremely busy as well.

It's working again. I was doing some upgrades, and had to roll back. (Grrrrr...) It's a very rare occurrence, but it happens. Usually my upgrade downtime is around 5 seconds up to about 30. Today was ridiculous. (Gory tech details omitted, as well as gorier lazy planning details. )

9611

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

« Last post by Renegade on July 25, 2010, 07:00 PM »

In the Internet Bible vein, this is a site of mine that Nudone helped with (artwork):

Potentially Offensive

Fuck Satan:

9612

Living Room / Re: Apple Leads in Security Vulnerabilities...

« Last post by Renegade on July 25, 2010, 05:51 AM »

Attackers have noticeable shifted attacks from operating systems to third party software, and Apple, along with Adobe and Oracle, happens to produce several popular programs, including iTunes, Quicktime and the Safari browser.

Attack vectors have been analysed by Secunia as well. Remote attacks are still on the rise while local network and system attacks slowly declining.

The analysis confirms the growing trend of exploiting third party software.

And none of this should be surprising at all. For YEARS Microsoft has been the most attacked vendor because they have been the most popular. They have also been working on security a lot, and specifically from Windows 2000 (that is where NT displaced 98/DOS), but with a much greater public emphasis since Windows XP.

Apple has had the least secure OS for years now. It's the first OS to get rooted at the Blackhat security convention.

But as above, this will get swept under the rug and denied by the fanboys. A fellow I know, a fanboy, flat out denies that it is POSSIBLE for anything to go wrong on a mac. No viruses, nothing. Impossible. That's just how fanatical some people are. It's a religion and it's zealots are just wonky.

Just to repeat:

The analysis confirms the growing trend of exploiting third party software.

This is because Windows has had such a nightmarish time with security, and has been locked down so tight, that it's simply moronic to try to exploit it when 3rd party software presents an easy option.

Mozilla Firefox  tops the vulnerability listing with 96 reported vulnerabilities, followed by Safari with 84, Java and Google Chrome with 70, Adobe Reader with 69, Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR with 51, Apple iTunes with 48 and Mozilla Thunderbird with 36.

The top Microsoft programs are Internet Explorer with 49, Excel Viewer with 37 and Excel with 30.

    Typically, a user can patch 35% of the vulnerabilities with one update mechanism (Microsoft’s), and needs to master another 13 or more different update-mechanisms to patch 65% of the 3rd party program vulnerabilities.

Which is a bit telling... It seems to me that the real FUD isn't coming out of Redmond anymore. However, I don't really expect anything to change. Microsoft makes for a good punching bad afterall.

9613

Living Room / Great Apple/Jobs Cartoon

« Last post by Renegade on July 21, 2010, 11:53 AM »

It's in Chinese, but it's still easy to understand. Very well done, and hilarious!

9614

Living Room / Re: Software Industry Conference - Dallas, Texas -- Pics

« Last post by Renegade on July 21, 2010, 10:11 AM »

fun.. wish we could have had a donationcoder tshirt on display..

-mouser (July 17, 2010, 05:20 PM)

Or join the ASP to start. A lot of ASP members come out.

-Renegade (July 17, 2010, 05:29 PM)

These guys? Back in the day, they believed that actually asking for donations for software (vs. requiring them) would upset the entire shareware ecosystem. In fact, that was a membership requirement, to make it clear that paying for the software was a legal requirement vs. a donation. So they would sort of be the anti-donationcoder.

-daddydave (July 19, 2010, 04:47 PM)

Hahahaha~! Well, not really. They did manage to drive the shareware model forward and now almost all software is sold that way. (Try before you buy.)

9615

Living Room / Re: Software Industry Conference - Dallas, Texas -- Pics

« Last post by Renegade on July 18, 2010, 08:44 PM »

nice pics, have you met any DoCo members yet? ironic that the host venue's internet speed is poor given that they're hosting an event for the software industry.

-lanux128 (July 17, 2010, 11:31 PM)

Nope. Didn't meet any there. I think that it ends up like that (slow speeds) because of high use. They really need to get more bandwidth there. I did get some time at some very high speeds, but that was rare.

In any event, more SIC pics up here.

There are a few people in there that are behind products that most people here know, e.g. Greg Weir is behind Tucows and Butterscotch.com, and Nico Westerdale is behind Bits du Jour.

9616

Living Room / Re: Software Industry Conference - Dallas, Texas -- Pics

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2010, 05:29 PM »

fun.. wish we could have had a donationcoder tshirt on display..

-mouser (July 17, 2010, 05:20 PM)

You should come out some year! It's a lot of fun.

Or join the ASP to start. A lot of ASP members come out.

9617

Living Room / Re: Software Industry Conference - Dallas, Texas -- Pics

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2010, 05:12 PM »

I have some more up here. More to come, but the Internet speed here at the hotel is horrid. It can't even maintain a connection, which screws with FTP badly. So... we do what we can.

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Living Room / Re: Software Industry Conference - Dallas, Texas -- Pics

« Last post by Renegade on July 17, 2010, 01:12 AM »

I'm the dude with the mohawk.

9619

Living Room / Software Industry Conference - Dallas, Texas -- Pics

« Last post by Renegade on July 16, 2010, 05:39 PM »

I'm uploading some pics of the Software Industry Conference (SIC) at my blog for anyone interested. You can find them here. No time to label them yet...

I'll post back with more later.

9620

Living Room / Re: The Fallacy of One Thing Leading to Another

« Last post by Renegade on July 10, 2010, 09:54 AM »

Wow. That someone would take the time to write a game to run a concentration camp... Stunning...

But I don't really see all that much difference between playing a rape/murder game and watching the 6 o'clock news; it's full of it, and it's only entertainment. Either way, it's using rape/murder/disaster as entertainment. One is fake/digital, and the other is real. So which is sicker?

9621

Living Room / Re: Does serif matter in web fonts?

« Last post by Renegade on July 10, 2010, 07:56 AM »

Seogue UI is a very nice Sans Serif font. I've started to use it in development as it's readability is very good.

Mentioned above, yes -- serif fonts are more difficult to read onscreen (this is a widely known thing among designers). I mentioned my reasons as to why (resolution).

9622

Living Room / Re: App Culture vs. Free Culture

« Last post by Renegade on July 09, 2010, 09:56 AM »

btw for the record i think that 30% is way way too high, and is the kind of mark up that you could only get away with by having a near-monopoly control over access by consumers.

-mouser (July 08, 2010, 02:49 PM)

Yes and no. 30% isn't too high if the store is doing some work. The iTunes store does exactly zero work -- it adds zero relative value. It's the ONLY option for consumers. If anything, as pointed out above, it acts to the detriment of consumers. Good software doesn't rise to the top --- good SELLING software rises to the top. i.e. You are charged 30% for the 'privilege' of being admitted to the store. Freeware is admitted because if they didn't, consumers wouldn't buy the iPhone at all.

If someone goes out and gets customers, then 30% is fair, and even low sometimes. The app store doesn't do that. It robs you of 30% for sending you to the bottom of the LOOOOONNNNNGGGG list and scraping 30% off the sales to the 3 people that find you...

For percentages, think of it this way --- I will give anyone out there a 50% commission on sales for getting me customers that I would not otherwise get. It's good for me and you. After all, 100% of nothing (customers that I would not get otherwise) is nothing, where 50% is something.

For other software, 3% could be "high".

There have been cases of paying for customers for freeware, and they have added value.

It's a VERY broad topic, and I think each case needs to be evaluated on its own.

My $0.02 anyways.

9623

Living Room / Re: Does serif matter in web fonts?

« Last post by Renegade on July 09, 2010, 09:31 AM »

Serif fonts in print are easier to read. The purpose of the serif is to guide your eye along the text for easier reading. This doesn't work properly on the web so much though, which is why 40Hz had recommended Georgia.

Sans Serif in print is often used to give things a bolder, more modern look. Look inside the covers of any books you have. You'll see Serif fonts used almost exclusively.

Comic Sans is used very commonly to demonstrate that the designer is a complete moron.

I believe that the core reason for Serifs being easier in print and Sans Serif being easier onscreen is due to the low resolution on monitors/screens. While you'll hear about the human eye only being able to detect differences down to a certain level, I think that's really about "NOTICE", and not "PERCEIVE". The same happens with audio -- "the minimum audible tone is 20 Hz" -- and I know that to be only partially true as humans can detect down to 3 Hz, e.g. A tiger roars in the distance, and your hair stands on end as you 'perceive' the low end of the roar, but don't "hear" the higher frequencies. I believe that the same analog applies to vision. My $0.02 anyways.

9624

Living Room / Re: More ammunition why patents are EVIL

« Last post by Renegade on July 07, 2010, 07:20 AM »

At some point the insanity really needs to end. But when will that be?

I still want to patent breathing...

9625

Living Room / Re: Question about video codecs/containers and playback differences.

« Last post by Renegade on July 06, 2010, 09:10 AM »

WMV and WMA are actually extremely good. The problem is WMP. WMP is a platform, and not really a player so much. It's better to fire up Visual Studio, drop in the WMP control, and get that working. You don't have the WMP heaviness then. WMP, Real/RealPlayer/QuickTime are all platforms. My favorite there is RealPlayer, then WMP running very close behind. QT is just garbage to use.

If you work with WMV, try using the Microsoft Windows Media Encoder. It's pretty good. Keep in mind that it's really a platform, and so you have a bit of overhead for a few platformish things there.

I'm not sure, but WMV seems to be a bit heavier to decode than some others. Perhaps someone that's more up on things can comment. I've not done a lot of work with it in a few years.