Posts by localgeek

Adobe fixed Acrobat bug, neglected to mention whole zero-day exploit thing

Just recently I discovered the open source SumatraPDF. Light, free and fast. I prefer it over using a browser for viewing as it has a TOC frame for quick navigation (no scrolling up and down to get back to the index).

If every PC is going to be an AI PC, they better be as good at all the things trad PCs can do

Re: Pre-owned

I did exactly that about 18 months ago. I bought a refurbished Dell Latitude laptop from a seller with good ratings on Amazon. It's a decently spec'ed business class machine (16 GB RAM), that set me back around $200. I replaced the tired battery and installed a faster NVMe for another $50 or so.

It's running Linux Mint like a champ, and still gets periodic BIOS updates. I've got Steam installed with a few older titles like Serious Sam and Half Life, which run more than acceptably. (I'm not a big gamer, so I haven't tried anything more resource intensive.)

WordStar 7, the last ever DOS version, is re-released for free

Re: No f-n interruptions

Maybe a year ago, I stumbled upon the free FocusWriter word processor. I have it running on both a Windows and two Linux machines, and in each case have it configured to use a black background with amber text - just like my first monochrome monitor back in the mid-90s.

If you're looking for an unobtrusive program that just does what it's supposed to do without making constant unwanted suggestions, it's worth checking out.

Smartphone is already many folks' only computer – say hi to optional desktop mode in Android 15 beta

Re: The kids today, eh?

I think of my phone as a backup for the times I can't use a desktop computer. Part of that is probably getting older in terms of my thought processes, plus the fact that I find staring at a tiny pocket computer screen tiring on my eyes. And despite using mobile devices since my early Droid, I still dislike touchscreens for typing more than a brief text.

Given a sufficiently powerful phone that you can dock with external displays and peripherals, I could get by with that.

X marks the spot where Twitter's severance math doesn't add up

Re: "Thanks for your support!!"

If only there were a parable about a man forgiven an enormous debt trying to shake down someone who owed him a much smaller amount that might apply here.

Microsoft really does not want Windows 11 running on ancient PCs

Re: Alternative operating systems are available

MX Linux is a nice distro that still releases a 32-bit version of their software. I ran it on an old netbook until I sold it last year.

LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

Re: Rent seeking

We bought a 65" Sceptre TV when we moved into our current house 2 years ago. It may not be a high-end device, but it works well enough for our needs, and it's dumb as a brick - like a TV screen ought to be. I use it mainly to watch the occasional DVD. While we do have a Roku connected, Pi-Hole does a decent job blocking ads there.

NASA experts looked through 800 UFO sightings and found essentially nothing

Warp Drive

They won't take any notice of us until we invent the warp drive. I saw a documentary about this one time.

Europol warns ChatGPT already helping folks commit crimes

I can confirm the accuracy of this statement. I once had the police called on me by a paranoid neighborhood watch captain. I was taking photos of random, innocuous things (not even people) in my own neighborhood with a vintage camera. They sent two officers to investigate my "suspicious" activity.

Ransomware crooks steal 3m+ patients' medical records, personal info

Record Profits and Accountability

I read a recent report about hospitals, much like big oil companies, enjoying record profits of late. It doesn't appear those excess dollars are being reinvested in protecting their customers' private information, and the token year of credit monitoring after the fact is being treated as just another cost of doing business. Steep, mandatory payouts directly to affected patients might help their administrations re-prioritize cybersecurity.

Scammers steal $4 million in crypto during face-to-face meeting

NFC?

Is it possible that some kind of NFC vulnerability was exploited? If the thief had to get close enough to take photos of a small screen, would that be close enough?

Here's something communism is good at: Making smartphones less annoying

Re: The phone I want doesn't exist

I bought a refurbished Pixel 4a earlier this year for the express purpose of installing GrapheneOS. The installation is web based and went surprisingly smoothly. I think I paid around US $130 for the phone. So far, it's running very well.

Elon Musk to abused Twitter users: Your tormentors are coming back

Don't Blame Autism

I'm diagnosed on the spectrum, and can say definitively that Musk is an asshole because he enjoys being one. Autism / Asperger's is a social impairment, but his neurological differences don't fully account for his mistreatment of other people.

Consultant plays Metaverse MythBuster. Here's why they're wrong

Re: "where they fill a room with LED screens"

That was my first thought, too. What better way to keep the population docile and distracted than through living in an immersive, fictional world?

Playing jigsaw on my roof: They can ID you from your hygiene habits

Re: Scrodinger's Shredder

Unless, that is, one of the members of your household is a floppy-eared basset hound. I always make a point of turning off my small office shredder between uses to avoid a canine disaster.

Researchers reckon 500k PCs infested with malware after dodgy downloads install even more nasties from Bitbucket

Re: Instant karma

Great program. I use it (legally) as a Photoshop replacement. It also has the added advantage of not being rental software. Buy it once and own it.

Are you getting it? Yes, armageddon it: Mass hysteria takes hold as the Windows 7 axe falls

Re: Panic? What Panic?

I have found one browser that still supports XP, and that's MyPal. It's based on Palemoon. I was poking around on my old Asus EeePC earlier today, and there was a new version posted in just the past few months.

Also, ClamWin still works with XP.

Google causes more facial-recog pain, machine learning goes quantum ­– and how to lose a job if an AI doesn't like your face

I'm on the spectrum, and don't have problems making eye contact in most cases. I'm more likely to trigger concern by failing to break eye contact at normal intervals. While I do try to approximate "normal" breaks, I'm not always successful at it. My facial expressions don't always reflect typical behavior, either.

In any event, this process of weeding out applicants via an AI evaluation is bound to end poorly for a host of people, and for a host of reasons.

Fairphone 3 stripped to the modular essentials: Glue? What glue?

The headphone jack on my LG V30 got worn out (I use it a lot), and it was difficult to make any plugs stay securely inserted. Thankfully, it was still under warranty, and I got the whole phone swapped out for free.

Lights, camera, camera, camera, action: iPhone, iPad, Watch, chip biz in new iPhone, iPad, Watch, chip shocker

Re: Peak tech

Years before that, Edwin Land developed the groundbreaking Polaroid SX-70, a true SLR-type folding camera that required considerable creativity and engineering.

Hong Kong ISPs beg Chinese govt not to impose Great Firewall on them

Re: Question

Judging from the alt text, I'd say it's almost certainly a stock photo.

Buying a Chromebook? Don't forget to check that best-before date

Re: That's Chromebook right out of my buying list then

The key difference here being that you can't pay ANY price to get support for your Chromebook after the 6.5 years is up. Our house is over 70 years old, but we always have the option of hiring a plumber to fix our ancient pipes.

Adobe chomps down more fat subs revenue, points sucking straw at all your delicious customer data

Re: Escaped

Another +1 for Affinity Photo. As a photographer, it does nearly everything I need for a standalone Photoshop replacement. I use it in conjunction with Alienskin's Exposure X4 software, which is a quite capable replacement for Lightroom. Between the two, I'm well covered for editing.

IBM so very, very sorry after jobs page casually asks hopefuls: Are you white, black... or yellow?

Re: On a similar topic ...

In the days when you could write in your own option, I would consistently enter "human" as my race.

Whats(goes)App must come down... World in shock as Zuck decides to intertwine Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp

Re: Damn

I live in the US, and have to admit I don't know anyone who uses WhatsApp, either. If they do, they don't talk to me about it. I think the first time I'd ever heard of it was when they got bought by Facebook.

Peak Apple: This time it's SERIOUS, Tim

Nonplussed

If I may be a bit pedantic here (and I'm not waiting for permission), I'm a bit nonplussed about the writer's use of "nonplussed" in this article. He writes: "If you're nonplussed about having to upgrade your trusty iPhone after two years, you may as well wait three." Why anyone should be surprised or confused about the upgrade process is beyond me.

More here: https://www.punctuationmatters.com/nonplussed-definition/

iPhone XS: Just another £300 for a better cam- Wait, come back!

Re: 2018 is the year of stupidly sized phones

I had to take the current A+ test last week. CompTIA is still touting any phone from 5-7" as a "phablet." Given that nearly all smartphones are now larger than 5", I'm thinking it's time to retire the designation.

My LG V30 is already unreasonably large to squeeze into my pants pocket.

It's April 2018, and we've had to sit on this Windows 10 Spring Creators Update headline for days

Re: Beefed up Cortana

I disabled and hid Cortana immediately after installing Windows 10. I wonder if this "beefed up" version is going to override my settings and re-enable a tool I don't want or need?

Modern life is rubbish – so why not take a trip down memory lane with Windows File Manager?

I remember list.com fondly. A simple, but useful way to browse through directories and quickly view the contents of text files.

One solution to wreck privacy-hating websites: Flood them with bogus info using browser tools

Re: Mutant 59

Companies love to double dip. Just look at all the commercials we now pay to watch at the movie theater.

Less than half of paying ransomware targets get their files back

A really cheap and easy way to do offsite backups is to buy yourself a large-capacity external drive, and rent a small safety deposit box. It's surprisingly inexpensive. I update mine every few months, which is a bit of a nuisance, but worth the peace of mind as a last ditch option to recover the lion's share of my data in the event that my other backups should fail.

Alternatively, you might try keeping a drive at the home of a friend of family member. This worked out pretty well for me until the in-laws lost my previous drive (encrypted, naturally).

I'm anti-Google, please elect me: Senate hopeful rides tech backlash

Re: Obama was far worse than Trump WRT Silicon Valley

That may have been true at the time. If you go to Google now and try both terms, it will fill in some (mostly innocuous) suggestions.

We already give up our privacy to use phones, why not with cars too?

Re: best "to buy a really old car that isn't super-connected"

If that had happened to me, I'd have insisted they remove the unauthorized "upgrade," and I'd be sure to notify the manager that this was not an acceptable practice.

'Utterly unusable' MS Word dumped by SciFi author Charles Stross

Re: well that might be OK as an amateur

As I recall, author Piers Anthony uses all OSS for writing his novels. Maybe someone else drops it into Word later on, but he's certainly a professional writer.

How to strip pesky copyright watermarks from photos ... says a FACEBOOK photo bod

Re: As far as I am concerned

Even if the image is of you, you do not own the copyright to the photo. The copyright always rests with the photographer. In the US, the photographer has great leeway in how that photo gets used. They could sell it as a print, include it in a photo coffee book and do a variety of other things with "your" photo. As long as it was taken in a place where you have no expectation of privacy and doesn't violate any laws, there's not anything you can say about it. The only thing they cannot do without your written consent is use it for commercial purposes (i.e., in an ad).

Re: Wait a minute

I don't know about other countries, but here in the US I'm 99% sure that if a company sends you unsolicited merchandise, you are under NO obligation to return the item or send it back. Otherwise you'd be forced to bear the burden of paying to return something you never requested in the first place.

Top tip, power users – upgrading Ubuntu may knacker your Linux PC

Re: No problem for me.

No major problems with the upgrade here to Xubuntu 14.04. The only glitch I ran into was a problem where Xfce didn't want to let me change my wallpaper. I'm not sure exactly what I did to fix it, but I think I mostly just logged off and back on the session and it magically went back to normal.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS: Great changes, but sssh don't mention the...

The same is true for us photographers. I have multiple backups and edited versions of a single file. While I can search for images in Lightroom, for example, I rarely use that feature. I have carefully organized my photos using a number of criteria that make sense to me.

Only rarely do I search for anything on my computer.

'BILLION-YEAR DISK' to help FUTURE LIFEFORMS study us

Cave Drawings?

So far, our oldest written surviving communication seems to be cave drawings, followed by the written word chiseled on rock tablets. At least it lasts longer than archival paper. Maybe the aliens will head for the caves when they arrive on post-apocalyptic earth?

Gift-giving gotchas: How to avoid Xmas morning EMBARRASSMENT

Just a moment on camera battery advice

There's some sensible advice in this piece, but I'd hasten to add a clarification regarding camera batteries. If the gifted camera is a DSLR, with their correspondingly large batteries, it is unlikely that anyone would wear it down in a day. Those behemoths can easily fire off a couple thousand shots before expiring, and even most pros are unlikely to do so in a single day.

However, if the camera in question is a point-and-shoot or one of the newer compact, mirrorless cameras (such as my Fujifilm X-E2), you're looking at an upper limit of around 300-350 snaps before the battery is depleted - fewer if you're shooting in cold conditions. That might still be more than a typical snapper uses in a day, but for ardent shutterbugs it may not be nearly enough. Fortunately, third-party spares (like the Wasabi batteries) are generally cheap and reliable. Spend the tiny amount of extra cash and stock up!

Chinese gamer plays on while BMW burns to the ground

Re: Not just games

I'm one of apparently 3 people on the planet that remembers the name Duffy Moon. I've lifted some heavy rocks with his inspiration...

Inventor whips lenscap off 3D-printed pinhole camera

Anything that promotes film usage...

... is a good thing in my book. Even Lomography, with it's overpriced "hipster" (whatever that means) cameras, has played a significant role in the film resurgence. I was an early adopter of digital cameras, having been given a Kodak DC40 (we're talking about 1/3 of a megapixel as I recall, with a serial interface and limited to scant internal memory) in the late 90s. I've owned a succession of digital cameras since that time and continue to shoot more than my share of digipixels.

But a few years ago I discovered the Holga, then "graduated" to a plethora of assorted toy and more serious medium format cameras. I started using my trusty old Konica TC-X again - an SLR I bought in '87 when I was taking a high school photography class. Today I've got a small arsenal of film cameras that includes everything from 110 cameras (yes, they're making 110 film again) to instant cameras old and new (like the handy little Fujifilm Instax Mini 8). So many, in fact, that I'm having to thin out my collection a bit.

Film will always be a niche market, but there's been a growing interest in the medium for the past several years. Interestingly, a lot of the momentum comes from young people who have used digital their entire lives. Then they discover this archaic medium where you don't get to see your photos until later. There's a sense of mystery and anticipation. And your pictures have a different kind of look - a look old dudes try to simulate with expensive Photoshop plugins. And, relative to the cost of buying a high-end DSLR every few years, film can be relatively inexpensive, especially if you develop your own b&w. You get a new "sensor" with every roll you run though a 40+ year old camera.

It's a shame I don't have a 3D printer. But I've already given my wife my Christmas wish list, which includes a hopeful request for a Holga 120 pinhole camera.

Facebook unwraps SHARING IS CARING photo album function

We already have such a photo sharing forum

It's called Flickr. And they don't degrade all of your photos when you upload them.

Only 1 in 5 Americans believe in pure evolution – and that's an upswing

Re: Slight confusion here

If you really think that the faith grounded in fact amounts to "hearsay," then on what grounds do you accept any claims about ancient history, since you weren't there to obtain an eyewitness account?

I'm guessing you probably would attribute Plato's "Apology" to Plato (and, indirectly, to the teachings of Socrates), even though you never met the man and most likely are relying on a 20th century English translation of his work to read it. Absolute skepticism about every ancient claim will leave you with nothing meaningful to say about it.

Stay away from the light, Kodak! Look, here's $406m to keep you alive

Re: You what?

The potential resolution really depends on the capabilities of the scanning device. A drum scanner can eke out tremendous amount of data from a 35mm or medium format negative, even though typical consumer scanners don't come close. And while not exactly square, tabular grain films like T-Max are rectangular.

Re: it's dead Jim

For some people, using film is whimsy. But there's some serious photography being done by talented people on medium and large format, in particular. Just search Flickr or Google+ for "medium format" and take a look at some of the work you find there. I don't see how anyone could look at the serious photography still shot on film in 2013, and pronounce it dead. A lot of younger people are rediscovering film and some will shoot with nothing else!

Sure there are the hipsters who buy a plastic Holga, shoot a roll and then move on to something more interesting and trendy. (There's nothing wrong with shooting Holgas, mind you - I still use mine.) On the other hand, the cost of quality, vintage camera gear keeps climbing. There's clearly a demand for it. I've been back to film for around 3-4 years now, and have no intention of quitting. As long as there's a sufficient market, film will be the preferred medium of a sizable niche market.

Film Isn't Dead

I can't speak to the future of Kodak. It's clear they've made some poor decisions, and their future remains a giant question mark. But as the assertion that "people still aren't buying old fashioned film... well, that just ain't so. I shoot both digital and film, and I've got a freezer full of film. I typically shoot a roll or two a week. Fuji, Ilford and some lesser known names are still pumping out film in a variety of formats. A company in Europe just recently released a brand new b&w emulsion.

Just because it's a niche doesn't mean the craft of analog photography is dead. Take a look at Flickr and you'll notice dozen of groups specifically dedicated to shooting all manner of film and film cameras. Several of these groups are extremely active. There's also an active web forum called APUG (Analog Photographers User Group), which generates at least 1500+ posts over a typical weekend. Then you have Lomography selling their (admittedly plasticy) cameras online and in various brick and mortar locations around the world. On top of that, in the last couple of years 110 film has gone back into production after being abandoned by the major film companies. And the Impossible Project has similarly taken up the instant film market for Polaroid cameras.

There's a lot going on in film today!

What happens when Facebook follows MySpace?

Re: Good old silver halide negs will still be readable in 50 years - USB? I doubt it.

I shoot a good deal of film these days, as well as digital imagery. And I'm inclined to agree that my negatives are far more likely to survive the next century intact than are the ones and zeroes that reside on today's digital storage mediums.

Nearly 2 MILLION US Facebook users quit social network

You're Welcome, Mr. Zuckerberg

I said goodbye over a month ago, and my daily distraction level has greatly decreased.

Google plus Google Plus: You give us info, we sell it!

So far, so good

As long as they continue to respect the difference between a public and a private post shared only with intended circles, I don't have a problem with the current business model. I moved from Facebook (although I keep a foot over there for my slower friends), precisely because of the control I have over my content. If Google wants to keep people like me, they'll continue to respect that content in private circles remains that way.