I normally spend my time on my computers in the company of a Linux distribution, but since I'm a retired "Windows Janitor", I get bugged a lot to "take a look" at friends/neighbors machines. Since the last version of Windows I spent any great amount of time with was XP, I figured I'd better see what all the hoopla was about Windows 8/8.1. I came into a retail copy of 8.1 instead of $$$ for some work I did on a neighbors system, so I figured I'd grab a spare laptop drive and install it so I could get familiar with it, so as not to come off as derpy when the inevitable calls on 8.1/10 start hitting my phone. The install was as smooth as silk, and the system looked/worked fine, after installing the MANDATORY ClassicShell. The inevitable WU notification came and told me I had 100+ updates, so I turned it loose to do its thing.. Once the updates installed, and a reboot, I logged into the system and KABLOOOIE.. right after login, one of the new-style BSOD's telling me there was a video_tdr_failure in one of the pieces of the Nvidia driver that WU forced down my systems throat.. After some googling to find that MS, in its infinite wisdom, had changed the old "F8" to get to safemode, I managed to figure it out and installed the latest/greatest from the Nvidia website, which made the Quadro FX770M in my system happy... Now I hear that MS, once again, in its infinite wisdom, is gonna take away the capability of permanently skipping crap updates in Windows 10, I'm getting close to the point of heading back to Linux, and telling friends that "if you want my help, you get rid of Windows and use Linux"....
Providing SS numbers, credit card numbers, bank info and personal info to Lifelock actually may make a person less safe
Ya think? How about WHEN Lifelock gets hacked, and ALL of your data, you *trusted* to Lifelock is up for sale on one of those "darknet" sites.. With all these MUCH larger companies getting hacked left and right, WHY would you trust Lifelock with your private data, so they can ---ahem-- protect you?? Ever since their CEO put his social security number on their commercials, and immediately got it compromised, I've considered Lifelock a bad joke. I've always wondered what that stupid sounding disclaimer they quickly throw in at the end ot their commecials.. The one that says "network does not cover all transactions".. Sounds like a sneaky way to say "you get your ID stolen, we *may* not help you..." I'm not the least bit surprised the FTC is going after them.. YOU GO, FTC!!!!!.
Damn... With todays trains, THAT would be a LONG walk, since most of the stack-trains you see on the class 1 railroads are a mile long (or more)... if they still do that, that is some seriously good exercise for the crew...
YESSSS... Up until 2012, my wife and I had bought Hyundai cars since 2000. We had two Hyundai Santa Fe's over the years and loved them. She decided she wanted another SUV to replace her little Hyundai Accent. For *some* reason we wound up going to a Ford dealer and buying a 2012 Escape.. EVERY time I drive the fucking thing, I wish to HELL we'd bought another Santa Fe.. I'd be here all day listing the gripes I have with this fucking car..
I've got a 2012 Ford Escape, with that stupid piece of shit, "Sync by Microsoft" radio/cd player/mp3 player/bluetooth handsfree... When I say "stupid piece of shit" I'm being polite... Since its my wifes car, and she loves herself some Sirus/XM, I reluctantly pay the $17/mo. She started complaining about "dead spots", where the radio would cut out, and often show a "no signal".. I drove the car for a week and noticed the same thing.. Usually only happened sitting at a stop light. It occurred on whatever channel the radio was on. Being into ham radio, I noticed a strong resemblence to what a cheap vhf/uhf radio being used near a strong adjacent channel signal source, termed "desense", where the strong adjacent signal blocks the cheap receiver. I suspect there is some traffic control transmitter at the intersections that is blasting the cheap-ass front end of the satellite radio... As if this wasn't enough, trying to pair either mine or my wifes Android phone to the bluetooth handsfree was/is a non-starter.. We've had the car since 2012, and I've had several Android phones of different mfgrs in that period and NONE of them would pair with this car's crapfest system. What happens is you go to pair a new phone, Sync puts up a pairing code on the screen, and a dialog box comes up on the phone and you start to enter the 6 digit code and 3 digits in, you get an error saying "can't pair with this device"... Since its happened on at LEAST 5 different phones, I'm convinced its the crapfest "Sync by Microsoft"...../rant off
You mean the "next scheduled maintainance" that is NOT AT THE CAR DEALERSHIP?? For every new car I've ever owned, the ONLY reason I ever go back to the dealership for ANYthing is if something fails and its under warrantee.. All other service is done by my friendly local shop... at 1/3 or less of what the fucking dealership would charge for the same service... I seriously doubt my local shop, that I've been taking cars to for years, is gonna upload MY data off MY car to the manufacturer... The ONLY way this is going to change is if the law that prevents manufacturers from penalizing buyers, warrantee-wise by getting service somewhere besides the dealership (something Magnuson bill or somesuch) is repealed and we're *forced* to use the dealership service dept.. I'm sure the manufacturers would *love* to have THAT happen.....
Since I retired, I use Linux almost exclusively, but since I get bugged by friends/family/neighbors to fix their Windows booboos, I figured it was time to see for myself what abortion MS had wrought with Windows 8/8.1. Since I'd done some work for a neighbor who was short on cash, but had a spare boxed copy of Win8.1, I took the copy of Windows, kind of wondering what I'd ever do with it.. Decided to take a spare drive and install it on my Dell laptop. The install went fine, and, sure enough, this sure the hell doesn't look like XP (the last MS OS I *really* dealt with).. Installed a bunch of stuff with Ninite, then came the 100+ updates, and a reboot.. After the reboot, and login to the desktop, first thing out of the machine was kaboom, a nice lite blue screen telling me there was a problem and the machine had stopped.. A "VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE" in part of the nvidia driver that apparently had been applied in the mass of updates.. A bit of googly-ness showed that this was a common thing with the crap video drivers that Windows update carries.. So a visit to safe mode (no longer as easy to get to as XP's safe mode was) and an install of the latest driver from Nvidia itself.. Now the machine works nicely, with classicshell and some other tweaks that "fix" the idiocy that is Windows 8/8.1... But as for me, after this little trip into MS-land, I'm back to Linux....
California *causes* cancer... Soooo glad I escaped that state back in the mid 90s, of course, being I'm in an adjacent state (Nevada) all the current refugees from there are bringing the stupid mindless liberal idiocy with them, trying to "Californicate" Nevada.... (shudder)
I believe that if the majority of Americans who are fed up with the lawlessness by this (and previous) administrations are able to somehow "right the ship of state" in the near future, Edward Snowdon will claim a place in history like this nations heros during the revolutionary war, for example, Paul Revere.. Considering Mr Snowdon did a similar service to the nation as Paul Revere...
Am a Debian fan, and seriously pissed that Debian decided to slide down the systemd shithole, so I decided to check out the Debian fork, Devuan.. Seems they have taken Jessie and ripped that systemd abortion out.. Am currently running it in a Virtualbox vm, time will tell if I go with Devuan over Debian....
Aww come on.. You know IMAX has got to keep their army of liars err lawyers busy... Gotta generate those "billable hours", so said bozos can keep up the payments on their yachts/BMWs/Mercedes.../sarcasm
I just wish I could block all of the Republican fundraisers *still* calling me after nearly 10 years of NOT being an (R).. I realized, back during BushJrs second term that both the (R) and (D) political parties were eeeee-vil and had no good ideas for America... At least its fun to tell them off when they call.. Kinda feel sorry for the poor guy on the other end, when I cut loose on them....
YES!! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!! Nomorobo ROCKS!! Hardly a day goes by where the phone doesn't ring ONCE. then stop.. Had to train the wife to wait to see if there was a second (or third) ring before she answered it... Just wish it would work on our cellphones, but I've yet to find a way... At least, on the cellphone I have call-control, which does a fair job of reducing the crap calls
I have the house phone on Voipo, which includes that "Nomorobo" functionality.. LOVE it.. At least 3 or 4 times/day, the house phone will ring once then stop, which tells me yet another robocaller got eaten up by nomorobo.. Prior to moving the phone to Voipo, I'd been on Vonage for a few years, and it was one of the top requests by users, as indicated by their forums, to add a "blacklist" feature, yet they never did add it.. I discovered Voipo and its $149 for 2 years+included ATA and found that it did have a very nice blacklist feature... Moving was a no-brainer...
You can't use the IRS tax refunds as a sign of the gentle benevolence of the government.
The words "gentle" and "benevolence" and "government" have NO business in the same sentence... Especially when you're talking about the IRS.. The IRS belongs back in the old USSR, not what passes for a "free" country..
Just another datapoint in making the case that this government has as its ultimate goal of making EVERYONE a criminal. With the hundreds of thousands of pages in the US Code plus all of the regulations put out by the unelected bureaucrats in both DC AND all 50 state capitols, it has become virtually impossible to not be afoul of many of these laws/regulations. Its then just a matter of law enforcement swooping down on said "lawbreaker" and shuffling the victim off to the slammer, or simply fining the victim such that it causes destruction of the victims (and his/her familys) livelihood.. America is going down the tubes, thanks to both parties and the armies of unelected bureaucrats...... May God Help Us!!!
$109.. if you can believe Neweggs *already up* "Windows 10 Home"... http://www.newegg.com/Product/..... If MS is gonna give it away free to Win7/8 current users, *why* is NewEgg thinking people are going to pay *them* $109 for it... oh wait.. I think somebody famous once said "A sucker is born every minute".... Guess that answers THAT question...
(cough) Ninite (cough).... The ONLY way to get GIMP and a LOT of other good stuff freeware/opensource programs for Windows.. Back when I still used Windows, I wouldn't be without it...
Then it sounds to me that we have a case of the "left hand" not having a clue what the "right hand" is doing.. vis a vis the Dice/Slashdot crew and the Dice/ Sourceforge crew... Is that about it??
For those who still use Windows and want GIMP (and a LOT of other opensource and freeware Windows programs) you can't beat Ninite.. https://ninite.com/ Ninite does all of the work to make sure you only get the desired opensource program and NONE of the crapware/malware garbage that so many installers are adding on today.. (Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Oracle... You and your fuckin' Ask toolbar on Java installs)... Thankfully I've switched completely to Linux and don't have to worry about that crap...
Google is declaring that Google Photos lets you backup and store "unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free."
Thats until they're NOT.... Google has a VERY nasty habit of cranking up these spiffy services, running them for a while, getting everybody onboard
with them, then turning them off.... Stay away!! STAY FAR AWAY!!
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I normally spend my time on my computers in the company of a Linux distribution, but since I'm a retired "Windows Janitor", I get bugged a lot to "take a look" at friends/neighbors machines. Since the last version of Windows I spent any great amount of time with was XP, I figured I'd better see what all the hoopla was about Windows 8/8.1. I came into a retail copy of 8.1 instead of $$$ for some work I did on a neighbors system, so I figured I'd grab a spare laptop drive and install it so I could get familiar with it, so as not to come off as derpy when the inevitable calls on 8.1/10 start hitting my phone. The install was as smooth as silk, and the system looked/worked fine, after installing the MANDATORY ClassicShell. The inevitable WU notification came and told me I had 100+ updates, so I turned it loose to do its thing.. Once the updates installed, and a reboot, I logged into the system and KABLOOOIE.. right after login, one of the new-style BSOD's telling me there was a video_tdr_failure in one of the pieces of the Nvidia driver that WU forced down my systems throat.. After some googling to find that MS, in its infinite wisdom, had changed the old "F8" to get to safemode, I managed to figure it out and installed the latest/greatest from the Nvidia website, which made the Quadro FX770M in my system happy... Now I hear that MS, once again, in its infinite wisdom, is gonna take away the capability of permanently skipping crap updates in Windows 10, I'm getting close to the point of heading back to Linux, and telling friends that "if you want my help, you get rid of Windows and use Linux"....
So put ClassicShell on it and you won't ever have to see that shit again....
Providing SS numbers, credit card numbers, bank info and personal info to Lifelock actually may make a person less safe
Ya think? How about WHEN Lifelock gets hacked, and ALL of your data, you *trusted* to Lifelock is up for sale on one of those "darknet" sites.. With all these MUCH larger companies getting hacked left and right, WHY would you trust Lifelock with your private data, so they can ---ahem-- protect you?? Ever since their
CEO put his social security number on their commercials, and immediately got it compromised, I've considered Lifelock a bad joke. I've always wondered what that stupid sounding disclaimer they quickly throw in at the end ot their commecials.. The one that says "network does not cover all transactions".. Sounds like a sneaky way to say "you get your ID stolen, we *may* not help you..." I'm not the least bit surprised the FTC is going after them.. YOU GO, FTC!!!!!.
Damn... With todays trains, THAT would be a LONG walk, since most of the stack-trains you see on the class 1 railroads are a mile long (or more)... if they still do that, that is some seriously good exercise for the crew...
YESSSS... Up until 2012, my wife and I had bought Hyundai cars since 2000. We had two Hyundai Santa Fe's over the years and loved them. She decided she wanted another SUV to replace her little Hyundai Accent. For *some* reason we wound up going to a Ford dealer and buying a 2012 Escape.. EVERY time I drive the fucking thing, I wish to HELL we'd bought another Santa Fe.. I'd be here all day listing the gripes I have with this fucking car..
I've got a 2012 Ford Escape, with that stupid piece of shit, "Sync by Microsoft" radio/cd player/mp3 player/bluetooth handsfree... When I say "stupid piece of shit" I'm being polite... Since its my wifes car, and she loves herself some Sirus/XM, I reluctantly pay the $17/mo. She started complaining about "dead spots", where the radio would cut out, and often show a "no signal".. I drove the car for a week and noticed the same thing.. Usually only happened sitting at a stop light. It occurred on whatever channel the radio was on. Being into ham radio, I noticed a strong resemblence to what a cheap vhf/uhf radio being used near a strong adjacent channel signal source, termed "desense", where the strong adjacent signal blocks the cheap receiver. I suspect there is some traffic control transmitter at the intersections that is blasting the cheap-ass front end of the satellite radio... As if this wasn't enough, trying to pair either mine or my wifes Android phone to the bluetooth handsfree was/is a non-starter.. We've had the car since 2012, and I've had several Android phones of different mfgrs in that period and NONE of them would pair with this car's crapfest system. What happens is you go to pair a new phone, Sync puts up a pairing code on the screen, and a dialog box comes up on the phone and you start to enter the 6 digit code and 3 digits in, you get an error saying "can't pair with this device"... Since its happened on at LEAST 5 different phones, I'm convinced its the crapfest "Sync by Microsoft"..... /rant off
You mean the "next scheduled maintainance" that is NOT AT THE CAR DEALERSHIP?? For every new car I've ever owned, the ONLY reason I ever go back to the dealership for ANYthing is if something fails and its under warrantee.. All other service is done by my friendly local shop... at 1/3 or less of what the fucking dealership would charge for the same service... I seriously doubt my local shop, that I've been taking cars to for years, is gonna upload MY data off MY car to the manufacturer... The ONLY way this is going to change is if the law that prevents manufacturers from penalizing buyers, warrantee-wise by getting service somewhere besides the dealership (something Magnuson bill or somesuch) is repealed and we're *forced* to use the dealership service dept.. I'm sure the manufacturers would *love* to have THAT happen.....
Since I retired, I use Linux almost exclusively, but since I get bugged by friends/family/neighbors to fix their Windows booboos, I figured it was time to see for myself what abortion MS had wrought with Windows 8/8.1. Since I'd done some work for a neighbor who was short on cash, but had a spare boxed copy of Win8.1, I took the copy of Windows, kind of wondering what I'd ever do with it.. Decided to take a spare drive and install it on my Dell laptop. The install went fine, and, sure enough, this sure the hell doesn't look like XP (the last MS OS I *really* dealt with).. Installed a bunch of stuff with Ninite, then came the 100+ updates, and a reboot.. After the reboot, and login to the desktop, first thing out of the machine was kaboom, a nice lite blue screen telling me there was a problem and the machine had stopped.. A "VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE" in part of the nvidia driver that apparently had been applied in the mass of updates.. A bit of googly-ness showed that this was a common thing with the crap video drivers that Windows update carries.. So a visit to safe mode (no longer as easy to get to as XP's safe mode was) and an install of the latest driver from Nvidia itself.. Now the machine works nicely, with classicshell and some other tweaks that "fix" the idiocy that is Windows 8/8.1... But as for me, after this little trip into MS-land, I'm back to Linux....
Apple's quality has really dropped the last couple of years.
Thank Tim Cook....
California *causes* cancer... Soooo glad I escaped that state back in the mid 90s, of course, being I'm in an adjacent state (Nevada) all the current refugees from there are bringing the stupid mindless liberal idiocy with them, trying to "Californicate" Nevada.... (shudder)
I believe that if the majority of Americans who are fed up with the lawlessness by this (and previous) administrations are able to somehow "right the ship of state" in the near future, Edward Snowdon will claim a place in history like this nations heros during the revolutionary war, for example, Paul Revere.. Considering Mr Snowdon did a similar service to the nation as Paul Revere...
Am a Debian fan, and seriously pissed that Debian decided to slide down the systemd shithole, so I decided to check out the Debian fork, Devuan.. Seems they have taken Jessie and ripped that systemd abortion out.. Am currently running it in a Virtualbox vm, time will tell if I go with Devuan over Debian....
Aww come on.. You know IMAX has got to keep their army of liars err lawyers busy... Gotta generate those "billable hours", so said bozos can keep up the payments on their yachts/BMWs/Mercedes... /sarcasm
I just wish I could block all of the Republican fundraisers *still* calling me after nearly 10 years of NOT being an (R).. I realized, back during BushJrs second term that both the (R) and (D) political parties were eeeee-vil and had no good ideas for America... At least its fun to tell them off when they call.. Kinda feel sorry for the poor guy on the other end, when I cut loose on them....
YES!! A THOUSAND TIMES YES!! Nomorobo ROCKS!! Hardly a day goes by where the phone doesn't ring ONCE. then stop.. Had to train the wife to wait to see if there was a second (or third) ring before she answered it... Just wish it would work on our cellphones, but I've yet to find a way... At least, on the cellphone I have call-control, which does a fair job of reducing the crap calls
I have the house phone on Voipo, which includes that "Nomorobo" functionality.. LOVE it.. At least 3 or 4 times/day, the house phone will ring once then stop, which tells me yet another robocaller got eaten up by nomorobo.. Prior to moving the phone to Voipo, I'd been on Vonage for a few years, and it was one of the top requests by users, as indicated by their forums, to add a "blacklist" feature, yet they never did add it.. I discovered Voipo and its $149 for 2 years+included ATA and found that it did have a very nice blacklist feature... Moving was a no-brainer...
You can't use the IRS tax refunds as a sign of the gentle benevolence of the government.
The words "gentle" and "benevolence" and "government" have NO business in the same sentence... Especially when you're talking about the IRS.. The IRS belongs back in the old USSR, not what passes for a "free" country..
Just another datapoint in making the case that this government has as its ultimate goal of making EVERYONE a criminal. With the hundreds of thousands of pages in the US Code plus all of the regulations put out by the unelected bureaucrats in both DC AND all 50 state capitols, it has become virtually impossible to not be afoul of many of these laws/regulations. Its then just a matter of law enforcement swooping down on said "lawbreaker" and shuffling the victim off to the slammer, or simply fining the victim such that it causes destruction of the victims (and his/her familys) livelihood..
America is going down the tubes, thanks to both parties and the armies of unelected bureaucrats...... May God Help Us!!!
$109.. if you can believe Neweggs *already up* "Windows 10 Home"... http://www.newegg.com/Product/... .. If MS is gonna give it away free to Win7/8 current users, *why* is NewEgg thinking people are going to pay *them* $109 for it... oh wait.. I think somebody famous once said "A sucker is born every minute".... Guess that answers THAT question...
(cough) Ninite (cough) .... The ONLY way to get GIMP and a LOT of other good stuff freeware/opensource programs for Windows.. Back when I still used Windows, I wouldn't be without it...
Then it sounds to me that we have a case of the "left hand" not having a clue what the "right hand" is doing.. vis a vis the Dice/Slashdot crew and the Dice/ Sourceforge crew... Is that about it??
For those who still use Windows and want GIMP (and a LOT of other opensource and freeware Windows programs) you can't beat Ninite.. https://ninite.com/ Ninite does all of the work to make sure you only get the desired opensource program and NONE of the crapware/malware garbage that so many installers are adding on today.. (Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Oracle... You and your fuckin' Ask toolbar on Java installs)... Thankfully I've switched completely to Linux and don't have to worry about that crap...
Yeah... Google replaces the "hardware failure" with a "business decision failure".... Same difference, your data's gone...
Then pay them, they have a paid option too.
And do you think that paying them will stop them from killing this service too, when they get the urge? I say STAY THE HELL AWAY!!!
Google is declaring that Google Photos lets you backup and store "unlimited, high-quality photos and videos, for free."
Thats until they're NOT.... Google has a VERY nasty habit of cranking up these spiffy services, running them for a while, getting everybody onboard
with them, then turning them off.... Stay away!! STAY FAR AWAY!!