* Posts by Peter in Seattle

16 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Apr 2012

Windows 10's latest update issue isn't a bug but a feature – to test your patience

Peter in Seattle

Re: So I got lucky!

Ditto, I suppose, although I think my update took a bit longer and was a little nerve-wracking:

My initial post-download, pre-restart install hung at 9% for *at least* 20 minutes (probably closer to 30); followed by a computer reboot rather than a windows restart — which I know because the Windows boot menu I'd enabled appeared — followed by *something* getting installed from 1% to 100%, with a non-standard progress display at the bottom of the screen; followed by another computer reboot; followed by a standard Windows update progress display going from 1% to 100%; followed by *another* computer reboot; followed by *another* standard Windows update progress display going from 1% to 100%; followed by a normal Windows restart (sans boot menu); followed by the Welcome screen. After logging in, I ran Windows update again, and a type of update for Windows Defender I don't recall seeing before got installed without requiring a restart. I then manually restarted Windows for good measure (as I usually do); Belarc Advisor gave me a clean bill of health; and I disabled updates using Sordum's Windows Update Blocker (as I always do between Patch Tuesdays to prevent drive-by updates). ShutUp10 didn't flag any reactivated privacy vulnerabilities and, most importantly, my computer isn't behaving any worse than it was before — in contrast to a few/several months back, where the Patch Tuesday install *seemed* to go smoothly but a number of things in Windows got borked and I had to restore a pre-update Macrium Reflect drive image for the first time and wait for a "fixed" update to become available.

VERY long story short, I guess I got lucky too. Still, though, it usually only takes me around five minutes to install Patch Tuesday updates, too. The LONG hang at 9% and the very unusual sequence of reboots had me on the verge of feeling anxious. If this story had popped up before Sunday, I probably would have held off, notwithstanding the three critical zero-day vulnerabilities that got patched. Speaking of which, back in the day when Windows Update was still serving up discrete updates for Windows, it was easy to vet Windows updates before installing them. If any of them were problematic, *someone* would post about it on the Net within thee days, tops. Nowadays, Windows-update bug reports seem to have all but disappeared from the Internet, or are showing up much later, like this one. Curious.

Something fishy is going on in Taiwan as folk change name to include 'salmon' for free sushi

Peter in Seattle

If sometime US senator, Treasury Secretary, and Chief Justice …

… Salmon P. Chase wasn't already pissed off about dying in 1873, I bet he he is now.

Thou shalt not hack indiscriminately, High Court of England tells Britain's spy agencies

Peter in Seattle

The great thing about British courts ...

... is that in the absence of a proper written constitution, they are free to just make stuff up, and sometimes in the right direction. On the other hand, American courts just make stuff up, and usually in the wrong direction (at least recently), notwithstanding a proper written constitution.

You think the UK coronavirus outbreak was bad? Just wait till winter: Study shows test-and-trace system is failing

Peter in Seattle

Re: Because the modelling has been so accurate thus far.......

[T]he UK in general are morons ....

Yanks and Brits really are cousins, aren't they? Except that we take it one step further with Florida. And Texas. And come to think of it, pretty much the entire South. Where's your Florida? Is it Spain? ;-)

Peter in Seattle

Re: Really?

Death is not the only concern; there's disability, as well. A couple of studies published in JAMA showed that around three quarters of COVID-19 survivors show signs of heart damage similar to that caused by a heart attack. This might explain the "chronic" fatigue and shortness of breath reported by some survivors. Involvement of other organs (kidneys, brain) is suspected as well. And of course, there can be residual lung damage. The big questions are how many survivors are seriously affected and how long their disability will last.

LibreOffice 6.4 nearly done as open-source office software project prepares for 10th anniversary

Peter in Seattle

Re: Can Writer handle typefaces yet?

This seems to be a moderately complicated question, and good luck finding a succinct, comprehensive, and accurate answer anywhere. So far as I can make out -- and I can't vouch for this personally, because my computers are too old and I haven't printed out any hard copies from LibreOffice on my Linux machine -- to get proper font rendering and kerning in LibreOffice, you have to:

(1) Use a computer whose hardware supports OpenGL 3.3 or higher, at least for proper onscreen rendering.

(2) Use OpenType fonts that have advanced typographical layout features. These fonts' advanced features are automatically supported by LibreOffice's "new" HarfBuzz text-rendering engine (introduced in LibreOffice 5.3). Postscript Type 1 fonts, TrueType fonts, and OpenType fonts lacking advanced layout features are not supported. (Formerly -- and still, I suppose -- you could get acceptable results using SIL Graphite-technology fonts, of which there are only a handful, in conjunction with the Typography Toolbar extension. Graphite is not yet an orphaned technology, but it has indisputably lost out to OpenType in "the market.")

(3) Run LibreOffice in Linux, or (maybe) in a Linux virtual machine. This is over my head technically, but apparently LibreOffice's Visual Class Library expresses glyph characteristics in integers rather than using floating-point arithmetic, and this can defeat HarfBuzz's ability to do finely tuned font positioning. According to real-world reports, the problem is limited to (or at least more glaringly obvious in) Windows and Mac. Why that would be, I don't know. Windows and Mac users say they have a serious problem; Linux users say they don't.

NOTE: Again, LibreOffice switched to HarfBuzz in LibreOffice 5.3. Before HarfBuzz, it apparently used a font-rendering engine based on macOS's -- an engine that side-stepped the "coarsening effect" of LibreOffice's Visual Class Library. Windows and Mac users can reportedly get better font rendering by using a pre-5.3 LibreOffice release. (By doing this, they obviously forgo subsequent bug fixes and features, and they forgo support for advanced typographic features unless they limit themselves to SIL Graphite fonts and use the Typography Toolbar. But one nice thing about LibreOffice is that user profiles have been back- and forward-compatible since LibreOffice 4.x -- releases 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x all use the LibreOffice 4 profile folder. This greatly reduces the hassle of doing a post-3.x, pre-5.3 downgrade or "parallel" install, and of doing a subsequent re-upgrade.)

Long story short, Linux users whose computers aren't too old and who stick to modern, well-designed, fully realized OpenType fonts should -- supposedly -- automatically get near-typesetting-caliber font rendering and positioning, both onscreen and in printouts. For now, at least, everyone else has to settle for less, and the results can be very conspicuously amateurish and ugly. If The Document Foundation is committed to maintaining LibreOffice as a bona fide cross-platform app, they should make fixing this problem a much higher priority. It's one of the first and most annoying shortcomings Windows users notice about the program, and for users who need professional-looking output, it can be a showstopper. (Seriously: in some circumstances it can look like you've been typing on a typewriter with bent keys. That may have been good enough for small businesses in the 1920s; in the 2020s, it is not.)

Cowardly Microsoft buries critical Hyper-V, WordPad, Office, Outlook, etc security patches in normal fixes

Peter in Seattle

Help a brother out, here. Did Microsoft just package a bunch of critical security updates in quality and security rollups but not in security-only rollups? I use WSUS Offline Update with the security-updates-only option to update my Windows 7 system, and I'm too old and tired to try to figure out from the article whether my approach will have me covered.

My Microsoft Office 365 woes: Constant crashes, malware macros – and settings from Hell

Peter in Seattle

Re: all those dumb "smart quotes."

That seems a little odd. I seem to recall that by default, LibreOffice 5 uses LibreOffice 4's pre-existing user profile (and thus, all of its settings). If you did a "parallel" (~portable) install of LibreOffice 5, and you wanted 5 to use your 4 profile, you'd have to edit 5's bootstrap.ini file with this as the last line in the [BOOTSTRAP] section:

UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/LibreOffice/4

I have the latest stable version of LibreOffice 4 as my installed version (because of its compatibility with the AltSearch extension); the last stable version of 3 as a parallel install (because of its compatibility with a couple of extensions I need less often); and several stable versions of 5 as parallel installs (for 64-bit, for the latest bells and whistles, and for regression testing). LibreOffice 3 has its own user profile, but as I mentioned, 4 and 5 share the same user profile, and I haven't noticed that any of my settings have ever been lost switching back and forth between 4 and 5. (It's just that some extensions don't work in 5, and that I have to re-consent to one extension's license every time I go back to 4.) But I usually work with smart quotes turned on, so your complaint could just be a bug I didn't get an opportunity to notice.

Dem-owned-crats: Now its congressional committee is hacked

Peter in Seattle

Re: Someone get Assange a cookie

Buckley v. Valeo is at least as problematic as Citizens United.

Lowland Scots plunged into panic by marauding ostrich family

Peter in Seattle

Re: Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie ...

In my version, the punchline was "The r'r'r'r'regiment has decided to r'r'replace!" -- conceding that even a regiment of dyed-in-the-wool Scotsmen place value above price.

Peter in Seattle

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie ...

When Robert Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire, wrote that line, he was probably inspired by the vision of a visiting Glaswegian facing off against two seemingly identical, seemingly enraged ostriches on the ol brig over the River Doon (and thinking he maybe should have declined his host's offer of a wee deoch-an-doris).

Also, I'm half-Irish and half-Scottish; half of me wants to drink and the other half doesn't want to pay for it. (Two nationalities insulted for the price of one! Something every Scotsman can grudgingly admire!)

Also, a Scottish sergeant-major in full highland dress showed up at a chemist's, extracted the most ripped-up, rattiest-looking used condom imaginable from his sporran, and asked the chemist how much it would cost to repair... You know what? Maybe I'd better not finish that joke. People might mistake affectionate teasing for condescension or disdain.

How to get 10Gbit/s home broadband in the US: Step 1. Move to Chattanooga, TN

Peter in Seattle

Re: EPB rocks hard

It's *Philip* Fry ... Philip *J.* Frey. And you thought you were in trouble with the *Bible Belt* crowd...

For pity's sake, you fool! DON'T UPGRADE it will make it worse

Peter in Seattle

If you protect the Google Maps cookie, you can make Old Google Maps stick (on a desktop, at least)

Good news: in a desktop browser at least, you CAN in fact "permanently" set Google Maps to the old version. You just have to avoid deleting the relevant cookie (which I *believe* is clients5.google.com, though I couldn't swear to it). I use CCleaner with CCEnhancer to do my cookie-cleaning (because it targets all major browsers with one setup and one operation), so after reverting to the Old Google Maps, I just moved the cookie's CCleaner listing to the "Cookies to Keep" list. Of course, you still have to revert to the Old Google Maps separately in each different browser that you use, but just once for each, so long as you don't delete their Google Maps cookie(s).

But tell me about it. I have a seven-year-old laptop that officially meets the system requirements for the New Google Maps. In real life, however, actually *using* the New Google Maps on it was an exercise in self-flagellation. If I hadn't figured out how to bring back Old Google Maps "permanently," I'd be using a different service.

Peter in Seattle

Windows' pre-supplied US-International keyboard layout works great for French ...

... and (for people used to the standard US keyboard, at least), there isn't much of a learning curve. It uses dead keys for diacritics. You type the dead key first and then the letter you want to apply it to, or a space if you want to type the dead key's originally assigned character. So:

grave key:

`a = à

`[space] = `

single quote / apostrophe key:

'e = é

'c = ç

'[space] = '

circumflex key:

^o = ô

^[space] = ^

double quote key:

"e = ë

"[space] = "

tilde key [shift+grave]

~n = ñ

~[space] = ~

The dead keys work for uppercase characters, too, and there are some useful AltGr (right Alt) key combinations as well:

French quotes:

AltGr+[ = «

AltGr+] = »

degree sign:

AltGr+shift+; = °

euro symbol:

AltGr+5= €

pound sterling symbol:

AltGr+shift+4 = £

and more.

But if switching from a UK layout to a US-based layout is problematic, you may be able to create a custom keyboard that is more suitable for you by using the latest version of Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC), which supports Windows 7 (but not Windows 8). You may even be able to replicate most of the OS X keyboard layout your wife is used to. A London software developer named Steve Marshall apparently came close, and he used a UK keyboard as the basis for his work. Better yet, he made his custom layout available to download. Here's the link to his journal entry, which in turn contains a link to the keyboard layout file:

http://stevemarshall.com/journal/mac-os-x-keyboard-layouts-on-windows/

(In case links are a no-no in Register comments, just search the Web for "Mac OS X Keyboard Layouts on Windows".)

Final remark: switching between QWERTY and AZERTY layouts is bad news for most production typists, unless they're some kind of savant. *Years* after switching from AZERTY to QWERTY, "muscle memory" from the old layout still had me hitting the wrong keys when I started getting tired.

FCC votes to bring faster internet to US schools

Peter in Seattle

Alternative headline

FCC decides to preserve noncompetitive, oligopolistic ISP market, use surcharges on other users to subsidize inflated charges for schools.

Samsung S III to enter Galaxy next month

Peter in Seattle

So, if things play out like last year ...

... it will take US carriers six months to cripple and bloat the OS and Americans should be able to buy a Galaxy S III sometime in November.