Re: [CGUYS] Hp Hulk Monitor
Excuse me for asking the obvious question, but have you tried the adjustment buttons on the front of the monitor? If you have young kids, that is one of the things they eventually get around to messing with, whereas the adults just forget that those buttons are there. I found the display manuals here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/manualCategory?lc=encc=usproduct=324213dlc=en Let us know how it turns out. From: One Man [mailto:one911...@yahoo.com] The display on the monitor of my hp pavilion f1703 running windoze xp has transformed its insipid blue background to hulk green. Anything I can do or is it time to buy a new monitor, preferable made my macintosh? ;) With thanks in advance ... * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] WFB's Hatred of Apple Knows No Bounds
Worse, this is not CIO magazine's own writers saying this, they are quoting an analyst with Technology Business Research who essentially is implying that consumer confidence rebounded in the second quarter, but only for Apple users. That is some interesting professional analysis and fact-checking there. For the doubters, read it yourself: http://www.cio.com/article/497823/Apple_Beats_Recession_Sells_More_Macs_Touts_Value_ At least a bad is an article in The Inquirer which touted IDC's misguided predictions for the quarter as established fact in an article, Apple tanks in the pc market, just days before Apple released their financial report. http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1433741/apple-tanks-pc-market From:t.piwowar t...@tjpa.com After all this is CIO magazine. They cater to bone heads. Note their story on Apple's 2nd quarter 12% gain (while the industry slumped 3%) is not attributed to anything Apple did: But I don't know how much of this is Apple's doing. The real change, I think, is more of consumer confidence. That is horse shit. Consumer confidence did not rebound in the 2nd quarter. If anything, people were cutting back and looking at expenses carefully. A careful shopper is more likely to buy the better product. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Friendly neighbors?
Neal Stephson's own words, from his Slashdot interview: Neal: You guessed right: I embraced OS X as soon as it was available and have never looked back. So a lot of In the beginning was the command line is now obsolete. I keep meaning to update it, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to say this is unlikely. Read it yourself at http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/04/10/20/1518217.shtml?tid=192tid=214tid=126tid=11 I know it is pedantic, but Mike the correct usage is toe the line, not tow the line. From:mike xha...@gmail.com Your logic problem here is you believe using a mac makes you creative. Anyone who has to use a mac to be creative, ain't so creative. Those who feel compelled to write will do so with computer or quill, in whatever conditions. On that note, a fun book to be sure..you should stay away from it Tom, it doesn't tow your line. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-Was-Command-Line-Neal-Stephenson/dp/0380815931 On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 2:37 PM, t.piwowar t...@tjpa.com wrote: I guess it also proves that creative people don't use PCs willingly. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Switching, and why
Well, with the caveat that a Markov model is not really a good description of the real world, then yes, macs look good for increasing their market share. In the Markov two-state model, if p and q are the respective probabilities of a mac-windows switch and a windows-mac switch, then the system tends to a steady state ratio q::p of macs to windows, so you'd only need to have this ratio to be greater than the current proportion of macs::windows to see macs increase share. In other words, given the current windows dominance, mac users would have to be MORE likely to switch than windows users by a pretty big factor in order for mac share to stay where it is or decline. Again, this is a fairly simplistic model and not necessarily a good description of what happens in the real world. Let's wait for Apple's financial report and see how mac sales compare to windows pc sales over the same period to get an idea of what is happening right now. On Jul 19, 2009, at 10:51 PM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: From:t.piwowar t...@tjpa.com Subject: Re: Switching, and why Do I get you right, you are saying that there is nowhere for Windows to go but down? On Jul 19, 2009, at 6:02 PM, David K Watson wrote: Even so, it is fun to note (for the purposes of riling up some people) that in the scenario where either switch was equally likely, you'd approach a steady state in which there were equal numbers of windows and mac users. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Switching, and why
Of course, anecdotal evidence is worth almost nothing, but even if we accept it as being representative, we still don't actually know the switching probabilities here. For example, the windows-mac and mac-windows switching probabilities could be the same and you'd still see many times more windows-mac switchers because there are so many more windows users to begin with, so seeing many more windows-mac switchers than mac-windows switchers does not by itself tell us the probability of switching. Even so, it is fun to note (for the purposes of riling up some people) that in the scenario where either switch was equally likely, you'd approach a steady state in which there were equal numbers of windows and mac users. In fact, given the current ratio of windows to mac users, the probability of a windows user switching to a mac could be quite a bit less than the probability of a mac user switching to windows, and you could still see an increase in mac usage. From the responses to the initial question I see that it is very apparent that there is a far greater degree of probability that a Windows user will switch from Windows to Macintosh, or even Linux, than the other way around for their personal use This little poll has satisfied my curiosity on the question. Those who are fully satisfied with what they have been using, and are not going to switch in any case, and perhaps would not even contemplate such, were not the subject of the query in the first place, so their responses were moot. Steve * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Batch downloading of bank check images
Actually, some gas stations still do give discounts for cash, like the one I frequent. I still pay by credit card most of the time though, as I generally would save less than $ 1 and usually don't carry a lot of cash on me. From:Matthew Taylor taylorsmatt...@gmail.com Subject: Re: Batch downloading of bank check images Why would we object? We might not use the restroom in the merchant's establishment, but the cost for it is folded into the merchants cost of doing business and thus reflected in the price. Not every minor cost should be itemized or made a la carte. We do have a choice, most of us preferred the alternative. Remember cash discounts for gas, etc.? Was not worth the hassle for most folks and most gas stations did away with it. Matthew * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] What the ...
If you had dug a little deeper, you would have found that Apple EOLed AppleWorks two years ago. The links on that page are all for the updater, not AppleWorks itself. At 6:52 PM -0700 7/9/09, Jeff Miles wrote: You are quite right! I never really looked at it beyond it opening read me files. Like I said, I don't do much text stuff other then email. If you had bothered to Google Appleworks, you would have found that it is available for free download at: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/apple/macosx_updates/appleworks629formac.html -- Roger Lovettsville, VA * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Spiteful Win7 Release
From:mike xha...@gmail.com I like how once again Apple is forcing users to upgrade their OS if they want to run the newest Safari. Good thing they have no market share to speak of. It looks like either you or somebody you read saw that one option for getting Safari is via the Software Update panel, and concluded that Safari required an OS update. It doesn't. For Mac users, Safari 4 is available through software update or as a standalone installer for both Tiger and Leopard. For Windows, it runs on XP forward, same as Safari 3. There is the one issue that Top Sites and Cover Flow won't work on some older machines if they have an insufficient graphics card, but that's not an OS issue. Safari had an 8.43% browser share as of May, and Safari 4 downloads topped 11 million (more than half of them for Windows) in its first three days of availability, so they DO have a fairly decent market share. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Apple Does it Right
Since you speak of her job in the past tense, I suspect that the newspaper was running a pre-OS X system. Even well-managed OS 9 and pre-OS 9 systems were occasionally prone to extension and control panel conflicts if you used any beyond a basic set, and your wife's newspaper probably had to use a set that was more finicky than most. Also (Tom would know better about this than me) it seems like publishers were among the last switchers to OS X. My home town newspaper was still using OS 9 two years ago! By the way when my wife worked at the newspaper she would always complain about their computers, and problems they were having. Oh by the way they were an all Mac shop. Stewart * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Apple Does it Right
How much more beyond that to include Exchange support? In Snow Leopard, you'll have to pay a hefty $0 extra to get it. Microsoft might actually have something to be happy about in this regard, because Snow Leopard's Exchange support requires the most recent version of Exchange, so this will provide one more incentive for businesses to upgrade their exchange servers. From:John Duncan Yoyo johnduncany...@gmail.com On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 4:43 PM, t.piwowar t...@tjpa.com wrote: Snow Leopard vs Leopard looks to be more of an SE type of upgrade, much like Win7 vs. Vista. Accordingly Apple will charge $29 for the upgrade. How many zeros will we need to add to that to get M$'s Win7 price? The cheapo Win7 releases at Best Buy seem to be 50 and 100 for upgrades. I heard it was from Vista only. http://lifehacker.com/5283189/best-buys-upgrade-pricing-for-windows-7-free-50-100-depending-on-your-situation -- * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Apple Does it Right
Well, the people who are most likely to upgrade their OS are the ones who have recently bought a new one. A significant proportion of XP users in this group are ones who had to buy a Vista license in order to run XP, so the XP - Win7 upgrade cost should not apply to them. As for the rest of the XP users who want to upgrade to Windows 7, MS can't make the cost of the direct upgrade so expensive that people will consider the option of combining an upgrade to Vista with a Vista - Win7 upgrade. I have no idea what any of those prices are, though I'd expect that the cost of the intermediate upgrade to Vista will fall like a meteor once Windows 7 is released. From:t.piwowar t...@tjpa.com On Jun 9, 2009, at 8:43 PM, John Duncan Yoyo wrote: The cheapo Win7 releases at Best Buy seem to be 50 and 100 for upgrades. I heard it was from Vista only. The Apple upgrade is from any version and not for a crippled version of the OS. Since most people would be upgrading from XP and don't want crippleware, what does a real upgrade cost? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Subject: Re: When I think know...
SInce this topic came up, the London Homesick Blues (The I want to go home with the Armadillo... song that used to open the Austin City Limits program) has been playing in my head. From:Jeff Wright jswri...@gmail.com Looks like a great place, Rev, it's a shame that it's gone. What a list of bands that played there! -Original Message- From: Computer Guys Discussion List [mailto:COMPUTERGUYS- l...@listserv.aol.com] On Behalf Of Rev. Stewart Marshall Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 9:15 AM To: COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] When I think know... Yes sadly it was. Saw Marshall Tucker there way back when I was in college and Charlie Daniel's was the backup band. Stewart At 10:51 PM 6/1/2009, you wrote: That's so cool Rev, that I want it on a hat. This can't be the place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_World_Headquarters * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Xbox Natal
The running game on the Wii Fit doesn't use the balance board either. It uses the motion sensor in the remote. You put the remote in a waist pocket for this. On a related note, Nintendo has announced the Wii Fit Plus at E3. It has new games (one lets you pretend to be Mario) and it also has a finger pulse monitor. To bring it back on topic, Natal looks like it could have quite a bit of latency. This would not be surprising, given how computationally intensive the recognition software must be. If true, that would drive me crazy. On Jun 2, 2009, at 12:47 PM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: From:Rev. Stewart Marshall popoz...@earthlink.net No the one from EA Sports you ruin in place. (No footpad) it has a sensor that attaches to your thigh along with the other two sensors that tracks full body movement. You have to remember this does not use the Balance Board from Wii Fitness. It is a totally separate game. Here is a web link that explains what all Ea Sports Active does. http://www.ea.com/games/ea-sports-active In a similar vein they are also coming out with Tiger Woods Golf 10 this summer that includes a new motion sensor for playing games. It is supposed to be much closer to real life motion. So if you are a lousy golfer in real life you will be a lousy golfer on Tiger Woods (in my case this is the description) Stewart At 11:12 AM 6/2/2009, you wrote: I think the Wii one can only assume you are 'running' because of your movement on the footpad. The natal appears to be the Wii for full body, not just hands and feet. It's a full body motion sensing system. On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 8:43 AM, Rev. Stewart Marshall * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Mac or PC laptop?
I second what Betty said, with the addition that if you did get a mac, then the Boot Camp partition can be used to run windows both natively and in a virtual machine, and Apple's drivers lets you keep much of the functionality of the extremely cool multi-touch trackpad in Windows. I've been told that Crossover Mac and Wine still do not work very well with Matlab so you'd want to run Window's natively in a Boot Camp partition and/or in a virtual machine. The latest comparisons I've seen still give the edge to Parallels over all the virtualization choices. Betty is also right that Mathematica is way better than Matlab, but you are probably stuck with that. Generally, site licenses are only concerned with the number of licenses for the software and don't care about OS versions. Also, some licenses only care about the number of concurrent uses of the software so you might also be able to have multiple OS versions as well, if you wanted it and if your employers were cooperative. From:b_s-wilk b1sun...@yahoo.es Thus, my question: can a Mac run PC programs well enough to make a Mac laptop a desirable choice, or is there no reason to prefer a Mac laptop over a PC laptop? Please note that I am not a PC or Mac partisan. I've never owned a laptop nor a Mac, so I have no opinion at all about the differences between the PC and the Mac until I have tried both at some length. In your case, a quality PC might be a better choice, as long as it's not one of the cheap ones. The $600 laptop may look like a bargain, but I wouldn't want to run Matlab [Mathematica is better] on anything less than a computer that has the 'pro' version of Windows. Our HP notebook that retails at $1000 is barely adequate--same age as my MacBook, $200 less, with much lower specs. I like Toshiba, Alien [for video], but am stuck with HP, Compaq, Dell. If you decide on a MacBook or Pro, [MacBook doesn't have PC card slot] you can run Windows apps natively with Boot Camp, in emulation [Parallels, VMWare], or without Windows using Crossover Mac or Wine. Gives you more choices. There are plenty of very good free or shareware open source apps for Macs. Ask for a list when you need it. The two things I notice immediately in Mac OS X are the display quality and mouse control. Running Windows on a Mac won't let you see that. Wine or Crossover Mac might. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] BING
It's a funny quote, but it ignores the fact that Wolfram Alpha was never intended from the start to be a Google killer. From a PC World article: The first thing Wolfram Research co-founder Theodore Grey wants you to know is what Alpha is not: It is no Google killer, as it's been called by some reports. In fact, Alpha is very, very different from a search engine. Alpha is fairly good at what it is supposed to do, which is to present data systematically and to do analysis of that data that you are unlikely to find on any web page. And it ties in really well with Mathematica if you want to do a more sophisticated analysis of that data. There is plenty of room for Alpha to coexist alongside Google, and I expect that eventually Alpha results will turn up in Google search results for some queries in much the same way Wikipedia results do now. Bing, I'm not so sure of. I went to the site, saw the explanatory video and was not impressed. I'll reserve final judgement until I can try it out myself a few times, though. Why the name? Is MS trying to capture the all-important mobster fan base? Or are cherries somehow involved? On May 29, 2009, at 11:00 AM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: From:Allen Firstenberg cg...@addventure.com Subject: Re: BING Even better as a recursive algorithm:Bing Is Not Google My two favorite quotes about it so far: Bing and WolframAlpha are competing to be the next failed google killer. Bing - Microsoft's latest attempt at irrelevancy. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Actiontec modem [was: Airport network ...]
Sorry to take so long to comment on this, I have been recovering from a bad cold. That is not the way FIOS is setup at my house. The fiber optic cable runs from the pole to the FIOS box outside the house and from there it is only a coax cable inside the house which is split to serve different devices. One coax line goes to the Actiontec and others go to set top boxes. The Actiontec only provides internet and wireless routing, and does not interact at all (as far as I can tell) with the television service. For example, the actiontec modem and our set top boxes had to be separately authenticated in order to work, and the set top boxes were authenticated and tested for operability before the Actiontec. We have two different kinds of set top boxes, a big one for our main TV that has the station schedule guide and video on demand capabilities and two smaller ones that just serves us the non- interactive channels. They all have coax input and operate without problems if the Actiontec is unplugged. I am quite sure that this is Verizon's standard FIOS setup. However, what you describe might sometimes be true. I think I saw an ethernet port on the outside box before they sealed it up. Also, my mom gets TV and internet (not FIOS) from the phone company in her town, and I think that has ethernet to the set top boxes, with video and ethernet outputs for TV and internet respectively. Except for her limited channel availability, that is a cool setup. Whenever she gets a phone call, she gets an alert on the TV screen with caller ID information. From:John Duncan Yoyo johnduncany...@gmail.com On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 1:16 PM, Rev. Stewart Marshall popoz...@earthlink.net wrote: OK first of all if it is COAX it is not DSL it is cable service. (I looked it up this is a FIOS modem router.) The airport should probably be disconnected and solely let the wireless MacBook be looking only for the DSL wireless base station. Another scenario is to hook the Airport into the router (one of the L:AN ports) and try connecting your mothers MacBook to the Airport and not the Actiontec. They use the Actiontec to feed the the TV boxes through the COAX on my FIOS setup. The network comes in on an ethernet cable from the outside FIOS box to the Actiontec router/modem. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Airport network not connecting with macbook
I had prepared a fairly detailed reply about how to set up your Airport to use a USB printer, then I noticed the IP in your printer name and looked it up. The Canon PIXMA iP90v has built-in wireless. If you go to http://www.usa.canon.com/ and look for the downloads for your printer, you can find the latest setup utility and drivers. From:Sandra Raredon aster...@gmail.com Thank you David for the very informative response! She is getting the signal from the wireless modem and using the WEP key printed on the modem. The ESSID is also the same as on the modem. I will remove the airport bas= e station and see what happens; the base station then is not needed in this case, since she is getting a signal from the dsl modem. She also has a small Canon PIXMA printer, iP90v. Everytime she wants to print she just takes the macbook and walks it to the printer and connects t= o it via usb. Can the Airport base station be used in this case to get the printer to work wirelessly from the Macbook? Thanks again. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Airport network not connecting with macbook
First, turn off the Airport for now, so it doesn't complicate things. Also, go to Network preferences for your macbook and select the Show Airport status in menu bar option if you haven't already. Try unplugging the power from the Verizon modem and see if the MacBook is still getting a signal. Given the bad performance your mom's been having in the same room as the modem, I'm betting she isn't even connecting to her own modem and is instead using someone else's open network. Whether that's the case or not, power the Verizon modem back up and make sure that the lights indicate that it's getting a network connection and the wireless is turned on. If the modem lights are not showing green, make sure that the coax cable is firmly connected to the modem,and if so, then call Verizon to straighten things out. (They'll want you to have the Macbook connected to the modem with an ethernet cable for this.) If the modem shows green after it is powered up (after a few seconds of blinking you should see green lights next to the power, world and antenna symbols on the modem), try connecting again. Sometimes the modem will freeze for no good reason and re-powering will fix it. Click on the airport symbol in the menu bar and make sure that it is your modem's wireless that you are connecting to. The factory defaults for the modem's wireless name (ESSID) and password (WEP key) are printed on a plate on the modem. If the verizon modem is not in the list of available networks when you click on the airport symbol in the menu bar, then reset the modem to its factory default by gently poking a paperclip end into the reset switch hole in the back and holding it there for a few seconds, then try again. Once you have gotten a wireless connection to your modem, go to the Network pane of System Preferences, select the airport and the advanced tab, and delete every network but yours from the preferred networks list to make it less likely that you join someone else's network by accident. If you get this working, check to see if it is adequate to your mom's needs. If it is, then the airport base station is an unnecessary complication and I'd just forget about it. If the Verizon modem's range is not good enough, or if your mom wants to be able to print by wireless to a USB printer, then get back to us on that. From:Sandra Raredon aster...@gmail.com I have looked over the whole system at my mother' house yesterday. Wow, I dont know how she even got on line!!!. Here is the actual scenario: DSL wireless modem from Verizon , Actiontec model M 1424WR. The coax cable is coming into the house and is attached to the wireless modem...(.the modem has a cheap looking moveable antenna). The only other thing attached to the modem is the ac adapter..there are no other cable= s or wires plugged into the modem. The modem is in the same room where the ne= w MacBook is located. In another room at back of the house, there is the Airport base station, looks like an Igloo). The only things attached to that are a telephone line, and a ac adapter. The MacBook does pick up a signalbut it must be the signal from the wireless modemit takes a long time for internet sites to open etc.. I am wondering how to get a better connection? The Airport was put in because it routed the signal to a mac mini. An ethernet cable was used between the mac mini and the base station. The mac mini is no longer in th= e house. The Airport base station just sits on the desk in the back room. I really would appreciate any more ideas how to make this better. Thanks, Sandra. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Revealed Truth
The Nation magazine has been completely dependent on a wealthy benefactor since it started publishing 100 years ago. It has yet to make one dime of profit on its own and would have gone out of business decades ago otherwise. Just to provide a slight correction and a little context here, The Nation has turned a profit in three or four years of its publication, which started in 1865, much more than 100 years ago. Its conservative counterparts, The National Review and The Weekly Standard have never turned a profit, and The Weekly Standard at least is supposedly very much a commercial enterprise. The Weekly Standard is completely dependent on a single wealthy benefactor, Rupert Murdoch, while The National Review stays afloat from a somewhat broader base of wealthy supporters. That base is not nearly as broad as that of The Nation, many whose supporters are not wealthy. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Revealed Truth
So the choice is to read one mag who supports enhanced interrogation, or one that thought Joe was a great guy when he was killing as many as 20,000 Russians a month? I think that you have been confusing The Nation with The New Republic. The New Republic was was generally quite pro-soviet until the cold war started, but I do not think that the same can be said for The Nation. Also, The New Republic's founding was 1917, closer to the 100 years you claimed for The Nation. Just to play devil's advocate (because I think that you are providing absurd alternatives), let's say that you are right, and rephrase your question. Should you choose a publication that made a mistake 60 years ago, or one that has been wrong much more recently? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Shareware {WAS: Photo editing software]
Go back to GraphicConverter's developer's website, http://www.lemkesoft.com/, and pay attention to the testimonials animation on the left margin. Eventually you'll see I used GraphicConverter for free for two years before buying a license. Follow the link to the GraphicConverter product page, you'll see the phrase, And the best is that you can test our award-winning software practically without any restrictions* at your leisure until you decide to make the purchase. So it looks like Thorsen Lemke is fine with people using GraphicConverter for as long as it takes for them to decide to buy a license. From:Chris Dunford seed...@gmail.com I have run across a number of shareware apps over time that are actually fully functional and completely unrestricted in any way even if a fee is not paid. Right, but even if the software is fully functional, the user could still be in violation of the license agreement. My point is really that shareware users should be aware of what the license permits after the trial period is up. The fact that it keeps working doesn't mean that it's legal to use it. Again, I'm not bring this up to chastise you guys in any way. I'm just pointing out that this is a very common misunderstanding about shareware in general. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Shareware {WAS: Photo editing software]
A slight correction and addendum: It is Thorsten Lemke, not Thorsen, and the asterisk on the practically without any restrictions* part tells about the delay on starting up and batch mode being disabled. Go back to GraphicConverter's developer's website, http://www.lemkesoft.com/, and pay attention to the testimonials animation on the left margin. Eventually you'll see I used GraphicConverter for free for two years before buying a license. Follow the link to the GraphicConverter product page, you'll see the phrase, And the best is that you can test our award-winning software practically without any restrictions* at your leisure until you decide to make the purchase. So it looks like Thorsen Lemke is fine with people using GraphicConverter for as long as it takes for them to decide to buy a license. From:Chris Dunford seed...@gmail.com I have run across a number of shareware apps over time that are actually fully functional and completely unrestricted in any way even if a fee is not paid. Right, but even if the software is fully functional, the user could still be in violation of the license agreement. My point is really that shareware users should be aware of what the license permits after the trial period is up. The fact that it keeps working doesn't mean that it's legal to use it. Again, I'm not bring this up to chastise you guys in any way. I'm just pointing out that this is a very common misunderstanding about shareware in general. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Win7 XPM Intel [Was: Win7 Speed Improvement]
Parallels is coming out with a XP virtualization tool for Windows 7. That might work where MS's XP mode won't. I've read a couple of reviews on XP mode in Windows 7 so far. One class of reviews says essentially that XPM is great for its very limited intended use, and the others say that XPM is awful because it's too limited. So far everyone agrees that XP mode has some big limitations. XP mode is based on VirtualPC which MS purchased from elsewhere, and it is pretty clear that they haven't put very much work into VirtualPC since they bought it. Parallels is apparently betting that their product will be enough better than XPM that people will be willing to pay for it. It sounds like a good bet, since XPM will only be available for some of the more expensive versions of Windows 7 and you will have to install XP into XP mode from scratch. In comparison, Parallels performs better, and it has a handy migration tool for converting your real XP machine into a virtual one, and you can run multiple OSs on it. From:Snyder, Mark - IdM (IS) mark.sny...@ngc.com Okay, Chris, so you didn't bother to read it. You're a swordsman, not a scholar: few clues (or cares). For those who aren't know-it-alls: In W7, XPM requires _specific_ versions of Intel's -VT processors or AMD-V processors. My 2009 company laptop does not qualify. Thank you, Mark Snyder -Original Message- Ars has a nice article with the bizarre news that XP mode in W7 requires _specific_ versions of AMD or Intel's processors: XPM requires a virtualization mode that most, but not all, AMD and Intel processors support. I don't follow exactly what you think is so bizarre about this. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Firewall Logging: Are these a problem?
Apple's documentation is often dated. They are much faster a putting new stuff up than at taking obsolete info down. Except that one of the ADC articles I quoted was explicitly written for Leopard, and I could show you other articles as well, like one on writing 64 bit code for Leopard which explicitly cautions you to use the CUPS filter to write a 64 bit printer driver, etc. As for cupsd not showing up in Leopard's Activity Monitor for you, that is a puzzler. It shows up for me (clean install, so it isn't a leftover from Tiger), and it shows up on every Leopard mac I have looked at that has a printer installed. The printers involved so far include HP BW and color laserjets, an HP inkjet, a Brother inkjet and a Canon imageRunner photocopier/printer/scanner (generic postscript driver for that, Canon is bad about OS X drivers for their big machines). All of the printers are of fairly recent vintage, and I've looked at 5 computers so far, with Leopard native on 4 of them and an upgrade on one. So, some possible explanations (from my perspective) are: 1) You checked for cupsd on a mac that hasn't had a printer set up for it in System Preferences, so maybe CUPS would not have been turned on, 2) You weren't looking at all processes in Activity Monitor, but were looking at my processes instead (something I've done at times.) 3) We are living in parallel universes connected by the web, where each of us is right. (I don't give this one much credence.) There are undoubtedly other possibilities I haven't thought of. We can agree to disagree on this until more convincing evidence comes to light, since it doesn't make much difference in practical terms. If printing is working quite well for everyone, there is less need to be concerned with the guts of the OS. But if you are interested in pursuing this a little more, I'd like to know what you see if you run Activity Monitor while printing, particularly if your printers are connected by USB, because all of my examples were of networked printers. In any case, to return to the original question in this thread, given what I've seen, if you have a network printer in your printer list, then having CUPS showing up in your firewall log is probably a fairly common experience. On May 5, 2009, at 12:00 AM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: From:Tom Piwowar t...@tjpa.com But I still think I am right on this one. The Apple Developers' Center's Leopard Reference Library has the page http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/Printing/idxCUPS- date.html, that says: Apple's documentation is often dated. They are much faster a putting new stuff up than at taking obsolete info down. Activity Monitor under Tiger shows the cupsd process running. Under Leopard it is no longer there. How's that for evidence? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Firewall Logging: Are these a problem?
I remember those times too. There were user-installable versions of CUPS that some people used even after it was included in 10.2, including (I think) a commercial professional version that supposedly worked better than than the others. Also, even if you stuck with the limited implementation in 10.2, if you had a printer that was the least bit exotic, you would have to search and manually install the appropriate printer descriptor file for it. Good times (not!). But I still think I am right on this one. The Apple Developers' Center's Leopard Reference Library has the page http://developer.apple.com/referencelibrary/Printing/idxCUPS- date.html, that says: CUPS The Common Unix Printing System (CUP) is the de facto print spooler for Mac OS X. CUPS has a complete API that printer vendors can use to write printer drivers or provide other functionality for particular printer models. It provides complete printing services to most PostScript and raster printers. and http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Printing/index.html says: Leopard Guides Printing The Mac OS X printing system is based on CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System). Mac OS X printing supports PostScript and raster printers, and offers features such as job spooling via IPP (Internet Printing Protocol), and PDF and Quartz imaging. The printing system allows applications to present extensible user interfaces so that developers can extend Apple's interface rather than write code to override it. In other words, CUPS is not the printer drivers, it is the printer driver interface, and it seems highly likely to me that you are using it. I'd say that the reason you no longer needed to understand CUPS in depth is that Apple got it working so smoothly below the surface. As for the Printer Setup Utility, its true that it isn't a standalone application in Leopard, but isn't it now part of the Print Fax preference pane in System Preferences, as the thing you get when you click + to add a printer? From:Tom Piwowar t...@tjpa.com Apple licensed, then purchased CUPS for a reason. Printing was a mess in 10.0 and 10.1, but with the addition of CUPS in 10.2, OS X users became able to use every printer that Unix/Linux users could. This brings back bad memories. If the anyone thinks M$ is having a bad time with Vista, that's nothing compared to the first 3 versions of OS X. They were unusable. For a while it was looking to me that Apple would not survive. Back then I was studying up on CUPS because it looked like the only way out of the printing mess, but then the need to understand CUPS vanished. The PostScript printers I use mostly install cleanly using the OS's built-in PostScript support. The non-PostScript printers I have used come with their own drivers, that seem to work fine. The Printer Setup Utility that CUPS used was eliminated in Leopard (X.5) and the CUPS port is no longer active. I could be wrong, but I don't think I'm using CUPS. I think CUPS remains as an option in case you have a printer that is not otherwise supported. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Firewall Logging: Are these a problem?
Tom, I think you are wrong about most people not using CUPS for printing, (at least on OS X, which is what I think you are talking about). I'm pretty sure that CUPS is the system that the printing GUI interacts with. A neat trick that I recently re-discovered backs this up. In OS X, if you point your browser to http://127.0.0.1:631/printers, you'll get taken to a web interface to your machine's CUPS printers. If you try it, you'll see all your real printers and any non-system virtual printers (like Adobe's PDF engine) that you have installed. That page will let you do some things with your printers that you might not be able to do in Print Center. Apple licensed, then purchased CUPS for a reason. Printing was a mess in 10.0 and 10.1, but with the addition of CUPS in 10.2, OS X users became able to use every printer that Unix/Linux users could. From:Tom Piwowar t...@tjpa.com So which of these listeners identified on Alvin's computer are untrustworthy? Well he is running a Unix so he is probably better off than someone running notorious Windows. Nevertheless, listening to a port that supports a function you do not need has no benefit and a (probably small) potential risk. The CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) is only useful if he is using CUPS printing. Most people don't. The Netadmin port I don't know about. I know my Mac is not listening to that port. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Airport network not connecting with macbook
You shouldn't need a new Airport, the problem seems to be with your network settings, with your system holding on to an old setting that it ought to forget. When you have deleted the old network and leave the Network settings pane and you are given the option to apply new settings, are you sure that you are accepting the Apply new network settings option? If that wasn't the problem, try going to the Advanced Tab of the network settings and deleting the old network again, only this time uncheck the Remember any Network this computer has joined option first. Then quit the new network and rejoin it, then go back and recheck that option so you don't have to type in the network password every time you join it. Another thing you can try is to go to the Network pane of System Preferences, and at the top where you see the Location: popup menu, select Edit locations…, create a new location and use that in place of the one you are using now. From:Sandra Raredon aster...@gmail.com My mom recently upgraded from Ibook to MacBook, Leopard OS. Everytime she wants to use wi-fi , her new computer keeps trying to log on the old networ= k name. She is using a new network, so there is a conflict now. We tried to go to the advance mode and delete the old network, but it keeps coming back. If I get a new Airport express (she was and is using the Aiport base station now), the small plug in adapterwill that solve the problem? Th= e problem is, I do not know anything about setting up networkall she want= s to do is use her macbook in the kitchen, and connect via wi-fi. Does she need another Airport base station or will an Airport express work..thanks for helping! * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Vanishing Windows PC RESULTS
Here are a few things you can try: 1) Go to Startup Disk in System Preferences and see if the partition shows up there. It probably won't, since it is not showing up in Disk Utility or when you start up with the option key held down, but you might get lucky. 2) In Disk Utility, try selecting the hard disk and then the Mac partition, and note the capacity of each. Is there very little difference between their two sizes, or is the Mac partition size smaller than the hard disk capacity by the size of the Windows partition? If the Windows partition size is missing from the mac partition, that is a good sign that the Windows partition is still there but hidden somehow. While you have Disk Utility open, verify the disk, and if it shows problems, boot up from the software disk and repair the disk and see if this helps. 3) Reset the PRAM. The PRAM and NVRAM (which is reset at the same time) contains some disk boot information. Reseting them may therefore help. 4) I second the earlier suggestion that you start up your computer in target disk mode connected to another computer and find out what the other computer sees. 5) As already suggested, try a disk utility like Disk Warrior or Drive 10. Subject: Re: Vanishing Windows PC RESULTS Well, back to the old drawing board. My husband reports that Disc Utility does not show the partition with Windows. He says that it might show up in 10.5 [which he says he's going to install on the computer eventually--and maybe sooner, now that this problem has cropped up]. I'm now on 10.4. I don't have to have the Windows side in the next 5 minutes or anything, but I feel that I really need to know what happened to it. --Constance * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Vanishing Windows PC RESULTS
You report lots of problems with partitions in Windows and Linux, then on the basis of a single reported incident on a Mac whose cause is so far unknown, you say I don't see how this reflects well on Apple…? It sounds to me like you are saying (to paraphrase Churchill) that OS X is the worst operating system, except for all the others. I second your view that dual booting should generally be avoided, though. If you must do it, the other OS should probably be on a hard drive separate from the main one. From:Paul Cannon pecan...@bellatlantic.net … I don't see how this reflects well on Apple if their OS or boot manager makes other partitions disappear whether they be Linux or MS. If the Mac software she is using or whatever she is using to control the boot process seems to be not working correctly, how does that reflect on the quality of the machine/sw? In the past, I had lots of issues triple-booting a particular machine using Windows to manage the boot process. I fixed the problem by using a product called System Commander that in my opinion managed the boot process/partitions better than MS. For Linux, grub has its own issues and solutions. To make it easier on myself, I tend not to dual boot anymore and keep machines with just a single OS on them. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Vanishing Windows PC RESULTS
It is perfectly OK to criticize Apple, I do so myself sometimes (and don't get Tom started on the Finder). I was wondering about your reasoning. Given the missing sentence (which I didn't understand at the time and omitted because I thought it irrelevant), you do make more sense. Thanks for connecting the dots for me. Regarding Apple's operating system, OS X is not just based on Unix, it **is** a Unix. Apple has gone to the trouble of getting Open Group certification that OS X 10.5 is an official Unix, as is OS X 10.5 server. Since you like Unix, you might get a kick out of a user signature that I sometimes see on Slashdot which says, OS X: Because making Unix user-friendly was easier than fixing Windows. From:Paul Cannon pecan...@bellatlantic.net You seem to have omitted my previous sentence. I don't see the rationale on toasting mysterious partitions vanishing. This was in response to Tom's sentence And a toast to many other mysterious Windows vanishings in the future. :) It is quite rare for me to see a partition problem at work or home using MS or Linux. Sorry, if you took my post as a slam on Apple - I did not mean it to be. OS X to my understanding is Unix based with eye candy (bsd influenced or whatever term you prefer). What is not to like? :) As you rightly pointed out, partition issues do occur under Windows, Linux as well as Apple. As for your followup to the user for things to try, I hope that the partition reappears and that your suggestions provide a resolution. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] M$ [Was: iTunes: Crap or not.]
I hate looking like the person who has to have the last word on the subject, but I followed your suggestion that I read the entire thread in order, and I'd like to say what I found. This started with a discussion about whether it should be a list rule that we not write M$ for MS or Windoze for Windows. You replied casually that someone once misquoted you using M$ for MS. Tom appears to have misread your post as continuing the censorship discussion, because he responded to your post giving the censorship idea all the mockery that it deserves. In turn, you apparently did not see that Tom had done this, and you reacted by putting words into Tom's mouth and accusing him of believing something he obviously doesn't. You say that you wanted an apology from Tom, but at this point how could you think you deserve one, if you have parried his supposed offense with the same behavior? How about after you do it 4 or 5 more times with increasing stridency? It was only then, after all this baiting, that Tom unleashed his comments about your handlers/pull your card/MS minders which continued the escalation. That is a fairly restrained response for anyone on this list. As for Tom implying that you made the whole thing up, tempers were high all around at this point, but he did not insinuate this until after you first wouldn't help him find the post because you had to do your taxes and he tried and failed to find it on his own because he didn't look in the really old archives. And so forth. Rather than anyone demanding an apology, I propose we all apologize. Tom can apologize for using your post to reply to a previous discussion (whether he did it intentionally or not), you can apologize for overreacting to what you thought Tom intended, and I'll apologize for . . . uh, whatever it was that I did wrong. Actually, I'm sorry for my part in escalating the flame war, for making too much fun of those 2005 posts, etc. OK? From:Chris Dunford ch...@covesoftware.com You feign outrage (or perhaps you really are outraged) that Tom can't find the post on the basis of the scanty evidence you provide, and you provide better directions and demand an apology from Tom. It is that crazy post that I responded to, not your rather mild comment at the beginning. I asked Tom to apologize because he first chastised me, in a very snarky message, for saying something that I didn't say and then very clearly implied, in full view of anyone in the world with a computer, that I made the whole thing up. Was I pissed off? Oh, yes. You bet I was. You wouldn't be? He has now been proved wrong. A one-word post would have sufficed: Sorry. Unfortunately, he won't even own up to what he did, much less say that. I think this speaks volumes. But I'm done with this. I now know who's the kid with purple lips who swears he never touched the grape juice. I'd rather be the certain [person] with the crazy posts than that kid. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] M$ [Was: iTunes: Crap or not.]
I don't know about Tom, but I followed those directions and did one better: I actually went back to look at the offending post (previous in thread). The person who offended you so much quotes your entire post WITHOUT ALTERATION, in which you talk about MS-bashing for its own sake, then he starts his reply with M$ bashing for it own sake Microsoft makes Sake, is it any good? ;- and goes on to reply to your argument without using this at all. So: 1) He does quote you completely and accurately, and with attribution 2) He does misquote you in a brief snippet he uses, but the clear use of that snippet is to refer readers to the part of your original post that he wants to make a lame pun about. It wasn't intended to change the original meaning of what you wrote at all, and wasn't used at all in the real part of his response. 3) Evidence strongly suggests that he had simply mistyped the snippet and was not making a deliberate change. Notice in the snippet he writes it where you wrote its, and in his post you'll see that he reflexively types M$ when referring to Microsoft. Now, you may think that I am far too easy-going, but if someone quotes me fully and accurately, but then misquotes a piece of a phrase of mine to make a joke, and the misquote is possibly a transcription error on his part, then I really doubt that I would waste the effort of commenting on it. And I really, really doubt that the umbrage of it would rankle so much that I would still remember and raise a huge fuss about it four years later. I take back what I said about finding this thread tiresome. I have begun to find it hugely entertaining. I impatiently await the next comments on the subject. From:Chris Dunford ch...@covesoftware.com Subject: Re: M$ [Was: iTunes: Crap or not.] Using your hint (but still no links) I searched the database for posts with 7 Windows or Windows 7 and M$, but I came up dry. I can't find any evidence that the offensive event ever happened. When I search on I have no major arguments with the content I get just one hit and that is your current post to which I am now replying. So I can't find any evidence that the protest was ever lodged. The folks who run the archive tell me there is no way to delete posts once they have entered the archive. So strange. It is as if the whole thing never happened. This is intolerable. You don't know how to search your own archive, nor are you apparently aware that MARC does not provide a usable link from search results. And then you pretty much say that I am making this up. I will give you explicit instructions. 1. Go to http://cguys.org. 2. Find the section labeled List Archives. 3. Click the MARC link. 4. Type I have no major arguments in the Search Box. 5. See the item dated 2005-06-16. 6. Apologize. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] M$ [Was: iTunes: Crap or not.]
From:Chris Dunford ch...@covesoftware.com snip This is intolerable. You don't know how to search your own archive, nor are you apparently aware that MARC does not provide a usable link from search results. And then you pretty much say that I am making this up. I will give you explicit instructions. snip From:Tom Piwowar t...@tjpa.com snip The MARC does provide usable links. I can't see why it gives you any problems. http://marc.info/?l=computerguys-lw=2r=1s=I+have+no+major+argumentsq=b Note that your 4-year-old post does not quote the text so I can't go looking for the text you objected to and I can't go looking for the original text. snip Before we have a flame war over this too, let me point out that if you click on the MARC link from inside the cguys.org page, the url in the navigation toolbar stays http://cguys.org/ no matter what search you do, but if you open a new window with that link, you get http://marc.info/?l=computerguys-l as the initial url and the results of actions taken on the page are visible in the url. Even if you didn't figure this out Chris, it is still a bit disingenuous to say that MARC does not provide a usable link from search results. The search results page gives every one of its results as a link to the original message. For example, your original response to the original offense (taken from the search results page) is at http://marc.info/?l=computerguys-lm=119878094935907w=2 Also, on the message page itself there is a link to download the message in RAW format. You do know, don't you, that you don't have to get an url solely from the navigation toolbar, and that you can right click on a link inside a page to copy its location? I ask this seemingly stupid question because that is the only way that I can see that you would really believe that doing a search of MARC from inside the cguys.org page does not provide a usable link from search results. And Tom, you couldn't click on [prev in thread] at the top of the archived message to find what the original offense was? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] M$ [Was: iTunes: Crap or not.]
I wasn't replying to your first comment in this thread, but to the more recent ones. Yes, your first recent comment was mild, but you used it and Tom's somewhat snarky response to it as the basis for a fair amount of hectoring over whether or not it was OK to misquote someone, a question that answers itself but that you seemingly had an intense desire to have Tom answer. The back-and-forth between you and Tom escalates and slides over to the issue of the contents of the original post. You feign outrage (or perhaps you really are outraged) that Tom can't find the post on the basis of the scanty evidence you provide, and you provide better directions and demand an apology from Tom. It is that crazy post that I responded to, not your rather mild comment at the beginning. I'll point out again that not only is your response all out of proportion, so was your response to the original offense (mild though it was), in view of the fact that the offender: 1) Did quote you fully and accurately elsewhere in his post, 2) Misquoted you in a single line intended as a joke, 3) Probably did it by accident. While I think you took offense unnecessarily 4 years ago, I agree your response then was mild. If either Tom or you had been similarly mild even once in your recent back-and-forth, this grossly overinflated and overheated thread would be done with by now. Remember, a gentle answer turneth away wrath (did I get that right, Rev?). From:Chris Dunford ch...@covesoftware.com The person who offended you so much ... You (and Tom) are blowing my rather mild comment all out of proportion. I mentioned it because it came to mind in the context of the discussion. This isn't something I spend every night stewing about; I simply remember that it happened because it is so unusual, even on the lawless Internet, for a quote to be altered. I didn't ask anyone to do anything. I didn't expect a follow-up of any kind. I certainly didn't expect Tom to respond with a very snide comment about requiring reverence to MS. You'll also note that my reply to the original person was also pretty mild. I agreed with the content of his message and just asked him to be more careful about quoting. I included the words hoping not to give offense. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] M$ [Was: iTunes: Crap or not.]
This is a very common tactic of yours, claiming because Tom hasn't said something about a behavior that he is condoning it. In the first place this is an invalid argument. In the second place, why do you want Tom to be the arbiter of other people's behavior on this list? The proper person to complain to is the person who did it, so if you want to properly address your complaint to the right person, why don't you search through the list archives, find out who did it, and complain directly to them, with a link to the offending post? That is the right thing to do, even if it is a little late. It really is bad form to claim an offense without backing it up. In other words, I am finding this line of argument tiresome, I don't think that it is making any points for you, and I'd be really happy if you would move to something more substantive. If it were true it would be yet another tempest in a tea pot, something of no consequence. Is somebody writing M$ instead of MS the best diversion from reality that our dear WFBs can come up with? Bottom line is that they can't continue their good-because-its-cheap propaganda campaign any further so they have to change the subject with feigned outrage. Silly boys. I want to confirm that you are saying it is OK to alter quoted text. I am not talking about someone writing M$, I am talking about someone who deliberately changed text when he quoted it. This is *not* the same as somebody writing M$ instead of MS. In your opinion, this is OK. No crap about Windows, WFBs, reality, or propaganda. Is it OK to alter text that you are quoting, or not? Here is a list of all possible answers to the question: 1. Yes, it is OK to alter quoted text. 2. No, it is never OK to alter quoted text. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Vote for Old Blue Eyes!
I'm betting that he didn't notice the bit of the URL that got wrapped to the next line. This is a good time to remind people that if you don't want to use tinyurl or similar service, you can wrap the URL with and most mail clients will link to the whole URL even if it is wrapped across multiple lines. Try it here http://www.businessinsider.com/what-should-microsoft-call-its-search-engine-bing-kumo-poll-2009-4 This is what I get: The page you are trying to reach does not exist. http://www.businessinsider.com/what-should-microsoft-call-its-search-engine-bin g-kumo-poll-2009-4 Works for me. Do you have your Vista Alternate Reality Firewall on? Besides, Old Blue Eyes was Sintra. All those musical geezers look the same to me. Sue, you must be a lot older than I am. On the other hand, voting for Sin would be fine too. Imagine MS putting up a $100M ad budget to promote sin! The Rev. would just have to hang it up. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] First Place? [Was: Not cool enough [was re: Laptop Hunters]
One box has superior specs, better reviews, and higher customer satisfaction ratings. The other one is cheaper and sells more. Where do you get your figures? I looked on amazon, and the Wii had better customer satisfaction ratings there than any of the Xbox models. That also seems to be the general understanding on the tech sites I visit. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] MS Office for Mac--Corrupt fonts
My memory is that the font is identified as corrupt, and you can choose to delete it or leave it in place. If you validate the fonts, what happens when you validate corrupt fonts. They get repaired or identified as needing to be replaced? db * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Can't print -- OS X Leopard
Have you checked to see if the firmware has been altered? Security measures (including blocking USB ports) are often implemented by making changes in the firmware, and this won't be fixed by wiping the drive and reinstalling OS X. The problem is, if the bank altered the firmware, they likely protected the firmware with a password as well. A quick way to see if the firmware is password protected is to start up the computer while holding down the option key (this launches startup manager). If you see an icon for your hard drive then there is not a firmware password, but if you see a password box next to the image of a lock, then the firmware has password protection and you will have to disable it. I think restarting with a different amount of memory will disable the firmware password and allow you to restore the default settings. If the firmware is password protected, you should definitely circumvent the password and reset the firmware, and this will likely fix your problem. You may want to consider resetting or reinstalling the firmware in any case, just to eliminate the possibility that this is the source of your problems. You might find the following helpful. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379 http://maczealots.com/tutorials/security/ http://macsig.umich.edu/public/viewHowTo.php?HowToID=66 On Mar 13, 2009, at 12:00 AM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: Maybe I'll just wipe the drive and start over to exorcise the bank's network settings. That would be a good thing to do. In your situation archive and install may be insufficient. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] MS Office for Mac--Corrupt fonts
The thing you tried will not work if a font is in fact corrupt, and reinstalling Office may not fix it either. To check for corrupt fonts, open the Font Book application, select all the fonts and use the Validate Fonts selection under the File menu. Also, drag the Fonts folder from the Office installation (located in the office folder that is inside the Microsoft Office applications folder) onto the Font Book window and validate those fonts as well. This is assuming a proprietary font manager like Suitcase is not being used, in which case, see what kind of options it has as well. A co-worker, who is Mac-based, keeps getting a font is corrupt when opening MS Word for Mac. I had him delete what I thought were the right preferences, but no luck. His Excel hangs on opening, too. Just delete the whole suite re-install? tia. david David Turk Manager, Preservation Imaging Services Indiana Historical Society Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana History Center 450 W. Ohio St. Indianapolis, IN 46202 (317) 232-4592 dt...@indianahistory.org * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Search operators [was: those pesky browsers!]
The page http://search.ufl.edu/user_help.html documents a lot of advanced Google search operators besides the usual , OR, -, and the aforementioned site: . For example, you can use + to search for something exactly as written, * for wildcards, inurl: to search for occurrences only in the url, intext: to search for occurrences only in the text of the page, and link: to restrict the search to pages which link to the given site. Is there a way to have google search only specific sites, like search:imdb watchmen ? Actually, I think it would go something like: watchmen site imdb.com Put a colog after site watchmen site:imdb.com * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Linux newbie question
In the terminal, type sudo yum install galeon You will be prompted for your password, after which the install should proceed. If you want to learn linux/unix on your own, IBM's website has a number of tutorials. I think you need a membership (free) to view some of the articles, but the effort of a sign-in is well worth it. I suggest you start here: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/newto/ Good luck! I am running Fedora 10. I went to download another browser, Galeon. It stated that Galeon is part of Fedora Extras, the community-driven part of Fedora. To install, simply type: yum install galeon. I went to terminal and typed: yum install galeon. I was told that I did not have privileges to do that. I know my root user password, but how do I identify myself as the root user when using the terminal. Root user is not one of the choices when I log on. What should I do? Thanks Steve * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Story [Was Redefining history]
You must be thinking of the Heinlein story Let There Be Light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_There_Be_Light_(short_story) The Ursula K. Le Guin story, “The New Atlantis” was also about the discovery of a cheap and easy way to capture energy, only in this case the enemy was a pseudo-communist state that used energy scarcity to control its populace. That story felt more realistic to me than most of Heinlein's stuff does. Recently I've been remembering an early Robert Heinlein story ... I bet lots of folks on this list know it... the one where they discover a way to capture energy from the sun at no or very little cost... (and fight big companies that don't want this information made public) ... the usual Heinlein interplay between a smart scientist guy and an equally smart wise-cracking woman... I can't recall the name of the story, or find it on my shelves. But I find myself remembering it these days, and thinking if that is ever going to become a reality, now would be a real good time. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Charter to file for bankruptcy
This doesn't directly affect me, but I expect it will affect some of you: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/charter-file-bankruptcy-april-1/story.aspx?guid=%7B14171E23-A3D2-4740-ADDE-024BB74F80D6%7Ddist=msr_2 Cable operator Charter Communications, weighed down by huge debt for many years, said Thursday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by April 1 under the terms of an agreement with some of its creditors. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Needlepoint
I have two ideas for you. The more sane one is to use T-shirt transfers. You print onto the transfer sheet (standard paper size), then iron the pattern onto the shirt, or in this case, the canvas. For a larger image, break it up onto several sheets and piece them together on the canvas. You can find the sheets online and maybe at Staples. I know that people have used them on fairly coarse canvas like tote bags, so it should work fine for making a template on needlepoint canvas. The next is kind of a wacky idea, but ice cream shops like Carvel can print fairly detailed scanned images onto blank ice cream cakes with edible ink, so why not canvas? Some of those cakes are pretty big. I don't know how much the ink would run, presumably not too much for low rez images, but the real problem would be persuading the machine operator to try it. At 03:25 PM 02/04/2009 -0500, b_s-wilk wrote Wait! Here's a computer question: Can you scan a picture you like and print it on canvas using an injet printer set to low res so it doesn't bleed through? If you can put CDs/DVDs in special inkjet printers, why not needlepoint canvas? [except for size] Betty I'm not sure about running canvas through a printer. :) I don't do needlepoint--I do counted cross stitch, and work from a chart. I do have cross stitch software that will allow you to scan a picture and turn it into an editable chart, with thread colors coded and named in 2 brands of floss. It's not particularly easy to obtain really good results, but it's fun to play with. Couldn't you do needlepoint from a chart? Sue * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Audio transfer
Assuming that you are using Audacity for legitimate purposes (otherwise we shouldn't help you and Tom will yell at us), what are your issues? I've only used Audacity a little bit, but I've tried it on OS X and Linux, and I haven't seen any loss of functionality on OS X. The only real issue I have had in my limited use is in selecting the input source. Audacity is stuck on the default in OS X and you have to change the source with the MIDI setup utility in the Utilities folder. This workaround and others is on the audacity wiki at http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mac_Bugs. See if your issue is there. At the risk of incurring wrath by discussing something digital on this foru= m, I have a question:=A0 I've used Audacity to transfer tape recording to d= igital, and the results are quite good.=A0 However, in Mac I don't seem to = have full access to the program's controls.=A0 No complaints whatsoever abo= ut the .aiff files, they hold all the signal on the tapes, but I would like= to have some more opportunity to shape the eventual files.=A0 Any thoughts= ? =0A=0A=0A * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] COMPUTERGUYS-L Digest - 3 Feb 2009 - Special issue (#2009-138)
To change the application for a single file, it's very similar to the windows situation. Right-click on the file and in the popup menu select the application from the Open With… menu item. Or, open the application and drop the file icon onto the application icon in the dock. To permanently change the application that opens all files of a given type, select a file of that type and Get Info on it (using the File menu or command-I or by right-clicking on it). Expand the Open With: section of the Info window if it is not already expanded (click on the right-pointing triangle), select the application you want to use from the menu there, then use the Change All… button. If you do this to use Preview to open PDFs instead of Acrobat Reader, PDFs will open much more quickly, and as a recent thread pointed out, you can do copy/paste from some PDFs with Preview but not with Reader. On Feb 3, 2009, at 2:00 PM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: Subject: Re: Opening jpeg files I'm having the same problem with OS X since the update, except that they are pc docs now opening in textedit rather than wp. Can you help? With thanks in advance. --- On Tue, 2/3/09, Tony B ton...@gmail.com wrote: From: Tony B ton...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Opening jpeg files To: COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2009, 12:30 PM Locate the file in an Explorer window (My Computer), right-click it and select Open with, and be sure to select the checkbox to always open with the app you choose. On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Ralph rs9...@gmail.com wrote: Somehow, my WinXP has lost its pointer to which program is supposed to open jpeg files - which is a pain because I don't know what I was using. Any suggestions? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] TERRIBLE SUBJECT! [Was: COMPUTERGUYS-L Digest - 3 Feb 2009...
As I've said before (but not recently), I get the list in digest form and have to paste in the subject line manually. Sometimes I forget. I apologize for doing it again (as I have apologized for doing it previously). It would be horribly distracting for me to get each posting as it comes in, particularly with the current discussion raging on spouting bad economic arguments that are painful for me to read. Hence, the digest. Anyone else feeling the same way about that discussion may want to consider switching to digest for a while, and just scroll past the nonsense at their own convenience. There are so many postings, the digest is arriving quite frequently, so using it won't put you very much out of sync. Good answer. Terrible subject line. Especially now, as the thread that ate the CGUYS list continues, it is important to have the correct subject line on replies. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] cut and paste a pdf
When I opened it in Acrobat Reader I couldn't copy. The document properties in Acrobat shows Content Copying: Not allowed Content Copying for Accessibility: Allowed Apparently, different viewers interpret these properties differently, since (as others have reported) it can be copied from it when it is opened in Safari using whatever (non-Adobe) PDF plugin I have, and likewise for Preview or in a little app called PDFview. Since it can be copied from using Evince in linux, I guess the solution isn't necessarily Get a Mac. Something else that would work is to run it through an OCR program, most of these can now be used with any PDF that can be opened. You're right, that doc is protected. If you can't talk them into sending you one that isn't, you may be forced to ocr. On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 3:36 PM, gerald ger...@slawecki.com wrote: link http://www.fanniemae.com/ir/pdf/earnings/2008/q32008.pdf * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Scanned
Of course, now that Adobe has opened up the pdf format, this may change. But for now, it's just not an editing format. I agree that PDF is not an editing format. But it was never really intended to be, it was intended to be a fixed presentation format. Also, while it is only recently that PDF became a published ISO open standard, it has been open since soon after its inception. The first version of Acrobat did not sell well and had stiff competition, so Adobe gave away Acrobat Reader and granted royalty free use to anyone who made applications to read or edit PDF documents as a way to sell more copies of Acrobat. This is why OS X has been able to have a built-in PDF engine from the beginning, and why OpenOffice, StarOffice, and TeX mathematical typesetting applications have had the ability to write their output to PDF for quite a while now. OS X's print to PDF feature is great, by the way. I use it regularly when sending documents that the recipient doesn't need to edit because that way I don't have to worry whether or not they can read it. Leopard gained the ability for PDF's to have working hyperlinks, at least for PDF's produced from Apple applications. I know it's not as good as Acrobat, but it's good enough for me, and it's free with the OS. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Scanned
Yeah, I got the PDF add-on for my older Office distribution at the same time I got the add-on for opening the newer Office formats. I'm guessing that they did this because OpenOffice has had a PDF feature for a while now. Competition is good! Speaking of the new Office formats, I thought that one reason for moving to them was that they were less prone to corruption. Yet I just got a collection of about 24 *.docx files (originally a plain text questionnaire that apparently everyone filled out in Word), and one of them was unreadable. OS X's print to PDF feature is great, by the way. I use it regularly when sending documents that the recipient doesn't need to edit because that way I don't have to worry whether or not they can read it. Leopard gained the ability for PDF's to have working hyperlinks, at least for PDF's produced from Apple applications. I know it's not as good as Acrobat, but it's good enough for me, and it's free with the OS. Office 2007 has this feature now, as a free add-on. It's great to have this option, as we've depended on PDFCreator until now. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Save to PDF?, was Re: [CGUYS] Scanned
Yes, I meant the Save as PDF… option on the Print dialog box. Calling it Print to PDF is fairly common, I think, unless my memory betrays me. As to the problem you had, the save as PDF option has always worked properly for me, but for some reason Preview will sometimes open up PDFs with a high magnification setting if the autoscale preference is selected. Could this be what happened to you? If so, the fix is to choose the preferences setting to open PDFs at 100% scaling. Do you mean Save as PDF ? When I last used this feature on a Pages version 3.0.2 wp document, it saved the PDF in a hug font, larger than the original Pages wp document. I thought pdfs were to preserve the look of the original. What did I do wrong? OS X's print to PDF feature is great, by the way. I use it regularly when sending documents that the recipient doesn't need to edit because that way I don't have to worry whether or not they can read it. Leopard gained the ability for PDF's to have working hyperlinks, at least for PDF's produced from Apple applications. I know it's not as good as Acrobat, but it's good enough for me, and it's free with the OS. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] pdf's was scanned
my understanding is that tif is one of the more efficient methods of file compression for pics. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TIFF, which also matches my memory, Today, most TIFF images and readers remain based upon uncompressed 32-bit CMYK or 24-bit RGB images. The article goes on to say that the TIFF format does offer the option of lossless LZW compression, but this isn't necessarily better than other file compression methods. The GIF image format uses LZW, for example. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Family Project
Wait a minute, she tells you front right and then you hear it as coming from the front, and when she tells you rear right you hear it as coming from the rear? That sounds like it could be suggestion to me. As an experiment, try it on an unsuspecting friend with the headphones on backwards and see what they say. It is my understanding that you get a crude sense of direction from the slight time difference between the time it takes a sound to reach each ear, and you get accuracy from moving your head and additional cues such as reflected sound. In high school, I remember reading about an elegant experiment demonstrating the importance of head motion in directional hearing. In the experiment, microphones were attached to the ears of a mannequin head and connected to headphones of a test subject, with both heads pointing the same direction. When the mannequin head was fixed, the subject had very little accuracy in determining the direction that sounds came from. But when the mannequin's head was strapped on top the subject's head and could move with the subject, then the subject's accuracy was greatly improved. Supposedly, 3D headphones work by exaggerating the interference patterns you naturally hear by having sounds from a source reach each ear at different times. To me, this sounds more like producing a hyper-realistic sensation than contributing much in the way of extra information. Everyone's sensory experience is interpreted, and there are experiments galore that show that what we hear depends an awful lot on our expectations and visual cues. So it could be for example that in your game you hear someone sneaking up behind you because you don't see them on the screen. Come on over than and I'll show you. When she says Front Right it definitely sounds forward of when she says Rear Right. No movement is needed. It may be nice to factor in movement for pinning down a noise in the game world, but more often in games I just want to know if I'm being attacked from the rear. There's little time for waving the head around to try to figure out _where_ behind me the sound is coming from. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] COMPUTERGUYS-L Digest - 7 Jan 2009 (#2009-20)
A few people with certain configurations had problems with doing the Leopard update via Software Update. This has presumably been fixed. If you are worried about this, download the update from Apple and use that instead. If you are really worried, back up your system first. Aside from that, I haven't had or read about any problems. For my Tiger update, I had the same issue that I've had two times before, which is that when I go to the networking pane of software preferences the first time after the update, I get a drop down message saying your network preferences have been changed that keeps coming back every time I click the OK button. This is fixed by being quick and clicking on the show all button the instant between when the message slides up and drops down again, which ends the looping when you go to network preferences. Other than that silly issue which few people get, I have not had any update problems. I have a bootable clone of each of my system's hard drive using SuperDuper!. Updating the clone using the update only changed files feature is very quick, so I nearly always do it before a software update. I don't know from experience, but I would imagine that a restoring from a bad update by the same method would be similarly quick. For SuperDuper!, you need the purchased version to get this feature, but CarbonCopyCloner recently added a similar feature to its product. On Jan 8, 2009, at 12:00 AM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: Subject: Re: Mac Updates I've been hanging back for over three weeks. Should I go with one or both of them or continue to hang back? Comment are welcome from everyone. Tom Piwowar wrote: I see that Apple has an update for Leopard (10.5.6) and Tiger (Security Update 2008-008). Does anybody have any comments about either of them? Reports of problems are running above average. I'm hanging back. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Windows 7 Public Beta: 1st Major Blooper
I'm not complaining about a product you get for free that I don't even get. That would be Tom (about windows 7 beta) and Chris (about MobileMe). Tom at least has the excuse that he supports many Windows machines and needs to know what is coming down the pipe. What I did was to first point out that there was a falsehood (calling something a misstatement when it isn't), then to note that a OS-to-OS comparison doesn't hold and give a fairly typical example of how Apple handles its mistakes. In any case, what's the matter with complaining? Obviously, you don't get Tom, yet you complain about him all the time. How about complaining about a product you get for free? When you aren't even one of the people getting the product? On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 2:44 PM, David K Watson davidkirkwat...@gmail.com wrote: Why is it that servers not getting activation keys to the beta testers does not counts as screwing up the activation keys? The phrase simply says that there was a problem with the keys, not that the wrong keys were sent. Also, if you want to compare MS to Apple, the proper comparison is OS vs OS. Funnily enough, OS X doesn't have activation keys. I didn't mind the MobileMe problems, which lasted maybe a week for one of the issues and two weeks for the other one, because Apple apologized profusely and gave me 3 months free each time. A half year's free service for a few weeks of subpar performance was a very good deal for me. Arstechnica.com reports that they screwed up the activation keys. Yawn. We can trust you to misstate pretty much everything. It does get old, though, a little. They didn't screw up the keys. The problem isn't in the keys. Or in Windows. The problem is in the servers getting the keys to the beta testers. It's a good thing that Apple is so good at this kind of thing, otherwise they might also have had server problems rolling out new products. Hey, wait a minute! And, oh, yes, the beta works without the activation key anyway. Unlike the iPhones that couldn't be activated. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Windows 7 Public Beta: 1st Major Blooper
It's a good thing that Apple is so good at this kind of thing, otherwise they might also have had server problems rolling out new products. Hey, wait a minute! Isn't this a big stretch, comparing the somewhat routine operation of serving product activation keys with Apple's launch of a brand new, fairly sophisticated product? Even the great and powerful Google has had problems with gmail not unlike some of the problems Apple had with MobileMe. And don't forget the agony that Blackberry users had when RIM bungled an upgrade to its servers. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Windows 7 Public Beta: 1st Major Blooper
I can agree with the problem not being with the OS to a certain extent, but having a problem with mis- or un-served activation keys is only an issue if your product needs them in the first place. Windows needs them, OS X doesn't. Don't ascribe this to hardware lock-in either, my old desktop ran the first five versions of OS X and I don't think any of them asked for product activation. I don't understand why they are serving activation keys for Windows 7 beta if they are completely unnecessary. Is there some kind of grace period before you need to enter in the key, or are the keys solely for the purpose of testing an inoperative activation system? Google was not my friend here. Also, if you want to compare MS to Apple, the proper comparison is OS vs OS. Not if the problem isn't in the OS, which it wasn't. The problem had nothing to do with Windows whatsoever. It was in the servers delivering keys to the beta testers. Not to mention that you don't need the key anyway, so the whole thing is just Tom making noise. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Windows 7 Public Beta: 1st Major Blooper
Are you saying that because Tom made a wild comparison, its fine if you do it? Didn't your momma ever tell you that just because somebody else does it, doesn't mean that it's OK for you to do it? :)) Turning a little more serious again, while Tom may just possibly be a wee bit extreme in comparing the Zune Dec 31 problem to a crashing jumbo jet, one of the articles I read reported on a DJ who uses his Zune for his engagements and lost the use of it on what was quite possibly his biggest gig of the year. It's not quite a jumbo jet crashing, but it certainly was a major PITA for some people. Isn't this a big stretch, comparing the somewhat routine operation of serving product activation keys with Apple's launch of a brand new, fairly sophisticated product You mean like equating temporarily hung MP3 players to crashing jumbo jets and collapsing bridges? :) * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Zunepocalypse
I'm sorry, but bashing MS over this while praising Apple assumes that Apple finds all bugs in all third-party components, and I think I can pretty well assure you that it doesn't. I question this assertion. Bashing MS over this while praising Apple does not assume that Apple finds *all* such bugs, it only assumes that Apple is somewhat better than MS at it. Isn't this something you yourself think is correct (see below)? Putting aside Apple, bashing MS over this assumes that MS carelessly missed something that it really shouldn't have, something some of us believe that others don't. You can say that Apple does a better job, and that is probably correct. But they aren't perfect, which makes me think that the MS-bashing over this is rather hypocritical. Again, why does Apple have to be perfect? The argument does not depend on absolute conditions. If Apple does a better job, why is it hypocritical to want Microsoft to improve? Here, I think you are saying that Apple does a better job overall, but MS shouldn't be criticized for this one mistake. Considered as a single incident, this again boils down to the question as to whether the mistake is one that proper testing should have caught. Regardless of that, if you agree that Apple is better at catching these bugs than MS then it should be easy to understand that this particular bug feels like a legitimate part of a larger pattern (whether it actually is or not) and therefore triggers the frustration with MS that a lot of us have as a consequence of that larger pattern. In other words, the MS criticism is still somewhat justified, just misdirected. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Zunepocalypse
This is just plain bizarre. It is plainly obvious that no one is going to check every line of code in every third party component. Such a task would be almost as difficult as originating the code in the first place. That question is purely rhetorical and as such needs no answer. There is, however, such a thing as acting with due diligence to make sure that those third-party components actually work for you in the way you envision. Not checking every line of code, but certainly running a test suite to uncover any potential problems. In the case of a essential calendaring component, it would be reasonable to assume that this would include checking various critical dates, like Dec 31, Jan 1 for every year and Feb 29, Mar 1 for leap years. Heck, it would be a fairly easy test to automate, checking every single day well beyond the expected life of the product would not be unreasonable. Plainly, no one at Microsoft made sure that this test was properly done--not terribly surprising because we already had indications that Zune 1.0 was a rush job. Now, there is room to argue as to whether or not Apple is this sloppy as often as Microsoft seems to be. I tend to think not, but you can argue otherwise with examples like the most recent software update, which in a few cases did not download fully but tried to execute anyway. On Jan 5, 2009, at 12:00 AM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: Subject: Re: Zunepocalypse Statements that include terms like every, all, none, always, or never usually have the answer built into the question. Your ridiculous, stacked-deck question is unworthy. As Mike notes, you have finally answered the question, rather circuitously, with No, Apple does not check every line of code in every third-party component. If you admit (finally) that no one checks -every- line of code in -every- component, then you cannot classify MS as incompetent because it failed to check -this- one line of code in -this- one component. There simply is no logic in your position that no one completely validates every component, yet MS is clueless because it failed to do exactly that. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Making room on OSX primary drive?
Possibly not as good as WhatSize, but free for 30 days/ 10 tries is File Buddy http://www.skytag.com/filebuddy/ It's good for figuring out what big chunks of disk space is being used for. I just checked ... it's free for use with 20 GB of files, $12.95 for unlimited data size use. Not a bad price never-the-less.Can you recommend a similar software for use with PC's/ Windows? So it used to be free, but $12.95 seems fair. I have used something like this for Windows, SpaceMonger. I do remember that it was not such a good a user interface. I would google on disk space analyzer for a better one (then let me know what you found). * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] PC and MAC interchanges
As others have pointed out, there is no risk in switching to a Mac, as it can boot XP and Vista natively via Boot Camp, or you can run Windows inside OS X as a virtual machine using Parallels, VMware, VirtualBox, or other virtualization software. If it turns out that you really don't like OS X (unlikely!), you can turn it into a well-built Apple-branded Windows PC. I recall reading about someone who did this on purpose, because they liked the hardware better than the standard PC choices. As for VPNs, I have not had any problems connecting to them, neither the kinds directly supported by OS X nor the ones that require connection client software like that Juno provides. And if you need it, OS X also handles VNC connections very well, with Macs OR PCs. Macs will handle virtually all kinds of file types, though they may need some third-party add-ons in the case of movie files. I can't recall having problems with any other sort of file for quite some time. Some people (including Tom, who shouts FTFF every time the issue is raised) have problems with the finder interface. It has never bothered me very much, but I don't generally have to do massive finder operations. Personally, as someone who has experience in both worlds, I find that on Macs, the OS just gets out of my way and lets me do my work. On a Mac, dialog boxes seem almost always to be organized in a way so that you can handle them with a minimum of distraction, but in Windows seem to require more of your attention, disrupting your flow (and there are more of them, too, it seems). In going between OSes, your most immediate inconvenience will be the difference between keyboard shortcuts. This bothered me for a while until I finally spent some time consciously practicing the key combinations on the different systems, so that I am now much less likely to mix them up when I have to switch. I was lucky enough that I got a multi-touch trackpad MacBook when my old powerbook died (but not lucky enough to get the multi-touch track+click-pad), and the multi-touch features are extremely easy to learn and quite addictive. Now, any other trackpad computer feels awkward and clumsy. As for the learning curve, basic operation can be learned fairly quickly and naturally, and the rest depends on the degree of sophistication you need. A young cousin of mine is a junior in the high school in the town her family just moved to, where she was given a MacBook for the year with barely any training on using it. She had only had experience with Windows before. She came with her family for a holiday visit to my mother's house, where we had a long session together with my Mac, and I'd say she used OS X very naturally and capably. She even showed me some stuff with GarageBand that I didn't know about. She became a sincere convert to Macs very shortly after getting hers, and won't even touch her Dad's slick new PC. I am posting this with great reluctance. While I am truly wanting legitimate information, I know I am risking a lot of posturing in the PC vs. Mac, MS vs. the world camps, etc and would prefer to just get the straight info without all the politics, posturing, name-calling etc. I have been a dedicated PC user since they came out. So has my wife. Both of our workplaces are fully and 100% PC and it is imperative that we are able to connect from home (VPNs etc) and more importantly to have our work products at home be fully compatible with the products that are coming out of the hundreds of PCs that inhabit our professional careers and workplaces. And so our desktops and laptops at home are all PC and windows-based (some Vista, some XP pro). Like many, I have always wanted a Mac. In fact when I was a young 'un in academia I would have preferred my first computer to be a Mac but I couldn't afford it. I recognize that price differentials are not what they used to be so price per se is no longer an issue. Communicating with and being compatible with 2 workplaces is however of utmost criticality. So my questions relate to what is the real-world experience of Mac users in what is still a predominantly PC-world. I cannot afford an expensive experiment of buying my first Mac and finding out that, while I may love what I can do with it at home, it causes me grief when trying to be fully and transparently compatible with work. Main applications that need to be seamlessly integrated are all of the MS office suite (esp. Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint). Are the Mac versions of these REALLY interchangeable with the PC versions? Or do I need to run the a Mac in some sort of PC-emulation mode? And if so, why bother, as in, do the benefits of a Mac disappear if you are not running it in some native mode. In short, if I bit the bullet and went Mac, what will be the advantages and what will be the hurdles I will face in needing to stay fully compatible and connected to my PC-based world out there? And, while
Re: [CGUYS] Linux Drivers
The Powerbook uses the PowerPC processor architecture. According to the Ubuntu Wiki, Ubuntu for PowerPC is no longer officially supported, and is a community port. How good it is depends on how dedicated and experienced the PowerPC community is. I'd guess that it is pretty good, but that some less common stuff is no longer ported to PowerPC. You can read about it and make your own judgements at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PowerPC, which also gives you download info. Don't be put off by the known issues page. As for drivers, I wouldn't worry about them. Nowadays, installation CDs/DVDs/ISOs typically carry all the drivers for most hardware configurations. I recall that there had been problems with drivers for some components, like wireless, for Powerbook linux installs because the component manufacturers were not being very open, but they have either become more forthcoming or their drivers have been reverse-engineered. I am about to enter the Linux world by installing Ubuntu on my wifes old PowerBook. Is there a central place I can look for drivers or do I have to go to the manufacturer's website? Any other advice as I enter this world? Steve * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Good Time to Buy Zunes
What? We were having a quasi-rational discussion actually comparing iPods and Zunes, and you break out the labels and say how some of us are dirty iPod-lovers out to smear the Zune? Instead of making the ad hominem attacks, why don't you tell us again what the Zune can do now that it couldn't do two years ago, since it apparently didn't make much of an impression (on me, at least) last time? Let me point out again that I am relatively agnostic on the subject, as I have only a shuffle at the moment, and rely mostly on my laptop and stereo for my music needs, and I don't feel the need for anything else at the moment. At the same time I said that the comparison article is dated, I believe I also pointed out that Mac users have some Zune support via Songbird. I don't see how that makes me rabidly anti-Zune. That's a two year old review comparing the now Classic iPod with essentially the same Zune of today. Oranges to oranges: comparing comparable models is an honest evaluation. Also, although the Zune hardware hasn't changed a whole lot, the firmware has been greatly enhanced. It can do a lot of stuff it couldn't do two years ago. Of course, we had this same discussion a couple of months ago and no AFBs would give a millimeter of ground. It ain't an iPod, therefore it's automatically worthless, and even attempting to compare it to iPod is blasphemous. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Mac Updates
I ran the Tiger update on my desktop mac and the Leopard update on all the family laptops right away, as all systems are recently backed up. The Leopard updates took a bit longer than average to install and reboot, but not scarily so. The updates haven't caused me any problems nor have they made many overt improvements. It may be my imagination, but it seems like I can work longer in Safari before it starts to bog down and I have to restart it. This is probably only an issue if you keep a ridiculous number of tabs open like I do. Despite supposed wireless and network fixes, the update still hasn't cured my main annoyance, which is that when I reboot, Airport will not pick up my preferred wireless (Time Capsule wireless N) network right away, and instead will bypass the Time Capsule connection in favor of a local open network. Of course, the big issue is that the update fixes some serious security vulnerabilities, so you might not want to hold out too long. I see that Apple has an update for Leopard (10.5.6) and Tiger (Security Update 2008-008). Does anybody have any comments about either of them? Steve * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Good Time to Buy Zunes
It was an honest evaluation at the time it was written, when both products were the best of their respective companies and the market hasn't evolved to where it is today. Not so much today. More importantly, where have you gone that you have been able to test these things on a Zune? At absolutely every store I've been to, the Zune is awkwardly embedded in a fixed metal frame, or is behind a glass display, while the iPods are usually on a tether so you can actually pick them up and use them. An unkind person might say that MS's sales department doesn't want you to be able to make a good comparison with other players. By the way, I only have a shuffle myself, since my 2nd gen ipod died a year ago. I and keep my music library on my desktop and mirrored on my laptop, and find that the shuffle is all I need when I am not near one of those. If capacity is an issue, the touch does come in a 32 Gb model. And let be apologize in advance for being pedantic (I can't help myself sometimes), but it's cachet. That's a two year old review comparing the now Classic iPod with essentially the same Zune of today. Oranges to oranges: comparing comparable models is an honest evaluation. From what I've seen online and from playing with Zune demos, the Zune is actually better for the more scratch-resistant design, wi-fi, larger screen and radio. I bought a refurbed 80 GB iPod classic as it was significantly less expensive than either the 120 GB Zune or iPod and I don't need 120 GB. However, I do need more than 16 GB and I don't need the caché pump tax of the Touch or iPhone. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Good Time to Buy Zunes
That's a two year old review comparing the now Classic iPod with essentially the same Zune of today. The points in favor of a iPod still hold for the touch screen version, aside from the issues over screen size (iPod wins) and scroll wheel (now moot). Also, I believe that the Zune can be used with the Mac via Songbird. Descent summary; http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/portable-media/zune-vs-ipod-the-final-word-on-who -should-get-your-money-215107.php ...tom, whatzit gonna take4u2getaZune?? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] parallels 4.0
A few people have reported problems with the Parallels upgrade. My understanding is that most of the problems occur with virtual machines originally created with other virtualization software and imported into Parallels 3. Another set of complaints was over reverting to version 3 because Parallels 4 converts the Virtual Machines to a new format and some careless users neglected to back up their VMs before upgrading, despite warnings. I believe that there are now workable fixes for most of these issues. Also, there was a recent update to v. 4 that fixes some of these problems. You can always download and try Parallels 4 for 30 days first to see if you want to buy it. To do it safely, you should make sure that you have recent copies of your VM's and the Parallels 3 installer before you install 4, and that you uninstall 3 before installing 4. If it turns out you don't like or have problems with 4, then you can uninstall it and reinstall 3. For myself, I upgraded and didn't have any problems with either my Windows or Linux VMs, one of which was originally imported from VirtualPC. Parallels 4 is much better than 3 for me. It does not consume as many system resources as version 3 when the VM is idling, and it fixes some little things that I found irritating. For example, closing the Parallels browser window doesn't quit Parallels 4 like it did in 3. A nice touch is that the virtual machine format conversion turns the virtual machine folder into a data bundle with an image of the VM's last active screen, so you can more quickly find the one you want, and can launch it by double-clicking on it. If you use Linux at all, the new Parallels Tools will now install on newer versions of Linux that had problems with the old tools, bringing back finder integration (cursor sharing, etc.)for those OSes. A new feature that I personally am eager to try out is the ability to create OS X server VMs. my wife wants to spend $40 to UG her parallels 30 to 40. is it worth $40? she runs a lot of windows apps. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] router/accesspoint
You have to reconfigure the router to use wpa. Look at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r17679150-Howto-make-ActionTec-MI424WR-a-network-bridge Follow the first part of the article directions for accessing the router configuration interface. Note that under the usual settings, you have to be directly plugged into the router by ethernet cable in order to access the router interface. If neither of the usual passwords work, reset the router (hold down the reset button on the back for a while), then the default login will work. Once you've gotten into the router interface, it is fairly easy to find the page for the security settings and change them to your liking. Do not follow the rest of the directions in the above link on how to turn the router into a bridge. If you screw things up, resetting the router will take you back to the original security settings and the default password. my sister has fios and now has an IBMT23Win2000 for which we got a netgear wg511t pc card accesspoint which lets her fileshare and internet share via an actiontec mi424wr gateway router supplied by verizon ...however, I am having misery trying to help her to set up wpa as it will only run with wep so far ...any advice? * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] 802.11N and Mac?
I have had a 1TB Time Capsule since June, and it works pretty well for me. I haven't had to use it to restore my MacBook, but I have used it a couple of times to rescue a file I had mistakenly deleted or otherwise messed up. I set it up to operate with user accounts for each member of my family, which gives us each a private network disk and a common one. This gives us an easy way to transfer files between computers and keeps my Time Machine backup image more secure. I am still concerned about how good it is as a backup solution though, so I regularly clone my hard drive to an external disk. Also, I recently had an issue where the Time Machine backup failed because it couldn't mount the backup disk image. I blame this on our microwave, which sometimes interrupts the wireless network and probably did so at a critical point in an hourly backup. I was able to repair the disk image with Disk Utility (which took a while) and then spotlight had to re-index the disk image at the next incremental backup (which also took a while), but Time Machine has again worked properly ever since. I wanted something like a Time Capsule because I didn't want to have an external drive plugged into my laptop semi-permanently. I got the Time Capsule with built-in storage because I didn't want to have to deal with an extra set of cords and I didn't want to have to worry about whether an external USB disk would wake and sleep correctly. From what I've read though, an Airport Extreme with a good external drive works as well as a Time Capsule and has the advantage of the drive being swappable if the Airport should fail. If I had a desktop capable of running Leopard, I would definitely use an attached drive or spare internal drive for my Time Machine disk. I'm thinking about moving from 802.11G to 802.11N, I have a Mac and am wondering if getting an Airport Express with or without disk drives would be a good thing. I have a home NAS that has gigabit ethernet, of course the DSL isn't close to that so internet access would still be slow. Are the drives with the airport now a reasonable back-up strategy? (initially wired, once backed up that would happen via wireless at least occasionally) * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Help! Apple Mail Ghosts
You are right that you can't rebuild the inbox. However, expand the inbox (click on the right-pointing triangle next to the inbox) and you should be able to rebuild each of the single account inboxes under the main inbox. If you rebuilt all your inboxes and all of your other mailboxes, you'll get back some space and you won't have the mismatch between messages showing and actual messages as often. I also second the idea of checking your mail via the web. I remember once having a similar type of problem that was caused because the message on the server immediately before the ghost message was corrupted in a way that the mail server couldn't handle. If you can, log into your account on the web and try deleting the ghost messages there as well as anything preceding them that looks suspicious. If that doesn't work, I'd try again to move the messages out and rebuilding the mailbox. This time try it t for just those messages in the problem account, and keep holding the mouse down over the new location when dragging them over until you can see that Mail is ready to move them, because Mail can be very slow in moving a lot of messages. This is particularly true for mailboxes that haven't been rebuilt in a while. Mathew, Thanks for the idea, but when I try to move the messages, they just bounce back to the Inbox. Also, Mail doesn't allow the Inbox to be rebuilt (at least on my machine!). It would be interesting if it's allowable on someone else's machine. Alvin On Nov 3, 2008, at 8:17 PM, Matthew Taylor wrote: You might try moving all the messages out of the inbox into another local folder (you can always move them back if you want). With your inbox zeroed out, rebuild the mailbox. Use the web interface for your mail account to make certain the headers or entire messages are not still on the server - if they are, delete them there. Matthew On Nov 3, 2008, at 4:38 PM, Alvin Auerbach wrote: ClamXav 1.1.1 looked at Apple's Mail and found 2 incoming messages that were suspicious, and asked to delete them. I gave the okay, and the messages were moved to the computer's trash. However, the 2 messages are still listed in the Inbox. box. When I open them, they are blank - ghosts! When I delete them, they remain in the Inbox. When I drag them to another mailbox - Trash, Junk, anything, they remain in the Inbox. I used [command-delete]. Didn't work. I opened the Mail folder in my Home library, and dragged the INBOX.imapmbox folder to the desktop. Mail created another one, and the ghost messages remain, and the Messages folder with in the Inbox folder is empty. I checked Apple and Google, and found a problem like that with AOL mail, and the solution was to update the OS. Both my OS and my Mail program are the latest version. I found a reference to a similar problem, but their solution was to change the type of email account. Rebuild the Mailbox does not apply to the Inbox. I replaced the app from my Leopard disk. The message count is often wrong, but I ignored it. Is this a clue? I save most of my mail, and the size of my Mail folder is 1.45 GB. Is that a factor? Does anyone have any ideas on how to exorcise these ghost messages?! Alvin * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Real Player download mngr.
Tom is right that RealPlayer/RealOne is an obnoxious piece of crud and shouldn't ever have been installed. If you insist on keeping it, start up Realplayer and disable the Enable web Downloading and Recording option. In Windows, this would be in the Preferences under the Tools menu, so for the Mac I would look in Preferences under the RealPlayer menu. Do this even if you do ultimately decide to junk RealPlayer, because it may have put a browser plugin and/or a startup item in other places in your system. But really, try living without it and see if you miss it. If you must have an external player other than QuickTime, try VLC. Also, some of the media types that you think you need RealPlayer for can be handled by the flip4mac plugin/preference pane. Look them both up at versiontracker.com. Thanks for the input, but anymore productive answer then just get rid of it? Jeff M On Nov 2, 2008, at 3:17 PM, Tom Piwowar wrote: An an iMac running OS-10.5.5, does anyone know how to shut off this Real Player download manager thing? Should never have allowed it to install in the first place. Have you tried dragging RealPlayer or RealOne Player into the trash and emptying the trash? That is the official uninstall method. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] iMove HD 5.0 question
Quite a lot depends on the speed of your machine. Given that you are not running the latest version of iMovie (the last iMovie to call itself HD was version 6 and the most recent version of iMovie is version 7), I suspect that your experience is not out of line for your hardware. I think that iMovie HD 5.0 was current for PowerPC macs mostly running at less than 1 GHz, and I recall that for them, some tasks had to be set up to work overnight. If your Mac will support it, try using iMovie HD 6 (which has a design similar to iMovie HD 5) or even iMovie 7 (radically redesigned) to see if they are better optimized. Apple made iMovie HD 6 a free download because many users were disgruntled with the redesign of iMovie 7. I was trying to work on some clips I just imported, immediately got a Letterboxing-This may take awhile message. It's been doing that for 3 hours now. I assume this is because I shot the video in 16:9 aspect, but does it really take that long (about 30 minutes of video total)? tia. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] My Big, Fat FIOS Installation [was: just one..]
My FIOS installation last July was very similar. The only real issue was with the set top boxes. The salesman had signed us up for an HD converter, telling us that it would work with our SD set and we would avoid the hassle of upgrading in case we ever did get an HD set, but the installer said that the HD converter wouldn't work and he could only set us up with an SD box, which he fortunately had in his truck. Either the salesman was ignorant (he didn't seem to be) or else he was padding his sales to increase his commission. I hope that Verizon actually checks for this kind of behavior when computing commisions. We also got a plain digital converter, which is basically a small set top box without the online guide and interactive features. This was for the TV tuner card on one of our desktop computers, where the internet can substitute for the online guide. (I also get the unencrypted channels on my laptop using an Elgato Eye 250+). The installer was flummoxed that his internet installer program would not work on our Mac and had to phone in to find out where to get the Mac version, which I didn't use anyway. I did most of the stuff it would have done (set up my initial email account and configured it in my email programs) manually, in order to avoid having it do anything I would not have wanted it to do. As for channel lineups, in our area Verizon had a huge channel realignment (no significant changes in the offerings, just the channel numbering) on September 10. For several weeks before this, there was a notification in the now showing box that appears briefly when you change the channel and in the online channel guide, telling us about the change and where the channel would be moved. Comcast would absolutely never do anything like this. Instead, my experience was that every month or so Comcast would change several channels without notice and I would have to search through the channel lineup to see where it went. I would find anything new completely by accident. Overall, I am quite happy with the service three months in. I would have preferred a better router, but this one works well enough once I adjusted its settings to work better with my dotmac/mobileme account. My wife was unhappy at first that Verizon didn't have the local access channels that Comcast carries, but Verizon has since added them. Keep me informed. I'm pleased that you were able to get through but I'm very concerned that it wasn't easier. I am particularly interested in knowing how smoothly the installation goes and what your opinion of the product is. Following up on this from a couple weeks ago at Eric's request. The FIOS install went very smoothly. Long, 6 hours (!), but that involved the following: -Pulling a line from the street. -Installing the ONT (Optical Network Interface) on the house. -Drilling through the outside wall to run the coax from the ONT (a bit nervous there, but the installer was very neat and sealed the hole afterwards). -Attaching to the inside phone wiring. -Installing the inside terminal w/ the battery backup. -Running new coax inside the house for TV (2 sets). -Needed to run back to the distribution node, a street over, to get the phone working -Installed the router, which is wireless with a 4-port wired internal hub. The installer was cool with me going into the router interface and turning off the wireless, since I already have a wireless network. NOTE: The default setting is for WEP (Weally Extra Pathetic) encryption, and you have to hunt around, but you can enable WPA2. There is also a built-in firewall, so if you don't have one already (I already have a hardware firewall), this could be used, but it's off by default. -It took a while to get my main PC to come up on the router. I forgot that I had given it a static IP a while back while troubleshooting an intermittent connection. -Confirmed that the all 3 services were working and programmed the TV remotes. -Gave a quick primer on the DVR component. I will say that I love having this. I never had a Tivo before, but I suspect that I'll keep this after the freebie year is up. It's an 80 hour model made by Motorola. As far as the FIOS service goes, it is excellent, far and away better than Comcast, by miles. The TV guide interface makes the Comcast interface look like DOS. Verizon's is colorful and easy to read, responsive and works much better. I used pay-per-view on Comcast a couple times and it was awful. Terrible, grainy video quality and the unit would reply to button presses (pause, play, FF) a few seconds after the button was pressed. That can get old quickly. The FIOS DVR is almost DVD player quick. The TV picture (standard definition) and vastly better than Comcast's with none of the annoying pixilation and drop outs we would get regularly. Phone service is clear and it's nice to have caller ID after not having it for years. Internet service is quick; I got the 10
Re: [CGUYS] My Big, Fat FIOS Installation [was: just one..]
Does the DVR have any external ports to save recordings to e-sata drives? or network computers? Once it is on coax will any digital tuner work or do you need a Verizon Box? Mike I can't answer about the DVR, but once your house coax is connected to the FIOS box, your signal will be all digital. You will need a Verizon box to get most of your subscribed cable channels. Any other digital tuner will at best get only the unencrypted channels available in ClearQAM, which consists mostly of the channels that are also broadcast locally and the audio-only channels provided by Music Choice and Urge. You would have to check your tuner to see what kind of signals it can receive. At a minimum, you'll probably want a standard set top box for your primary TV, because the online guide is really helpful, and you may also want the VOD and other interactive features. For secondary TVs, you might be satisfied with a digital adapter, which does not have the online channel guide or any interactive features, but does let you tune into all of the SD cable channels. It goes for $3.99/mo. If you have something that will take a CableCard, I believe that you can get one of those from Verizon as well. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] EEK! RAID!
I may be sorry for reviving one of our more acrimonious recent threads, but I thought this might contribute to the discussion: Why RAID 5 Stops Working in 2009, http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=162 The storage version of Y2k? No, it’s a function of capacity growth and RAID 5’s limitations. If you are thinking about SATA RAID for home or business use, or using RAID today, you need to know why. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] List archive not updating
The mail list archive at http://www.mail-archive.com/computerguys-l@listserv.aol.com/maillist.html and the recent postings at http://www.cguys.org/ are supposed to be current, but recently I've noticed that they often are not. Why is that, and can it be fixed? I get this list in digest form, so before posting I check both places in an effort to make sure that I am not being redundant. Today, neither of them showed anything about RAID, so I posted my comment about it, and it turned out that there were already at least a half-dozen comments about the same article. I would like to avoid making such redundant posts in the future, but I cannot deal with the level of distraction I would get from switching from digest. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] MS-tastic
Come on Stewart. You know that they were protesting a tax imposed by fiat by King George. You know, the whole Taxation without representation thing. Taxes are the dues you pay for living in relative safety and freedom. Paying taxes is also the Christian thing to do, if I understand the Render unto Caesar teaching properly. Well the gentleman at the Boston Tea Party certainly thought so, and there was a rebellion (Called a revolutionary war) fought over that concept. Stewart At 07:58 AM 10/18/2008, you wrote: You mean it's patriotic to not pay you taxes!? Why didn't I think of that! No wonder the radical right loves the lying Joe the non-plumber. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] recover deleted photos from mac
I had forgotten (if I ever knew) that Safari could do that. Alternatively, in the finder you can use the menu item Go Go to folder ... (or type the menu shortcut command-shift-G) and type /private in the window that appears to go to the private folder. As for the original iPhoto problem, if it is version 6 or earlier, then I'm pretty sure that the deleted files are deleted via the Finder and can only be recovered by a file recovery utility once you've emptied the trash, if they haven't already been overwritten by disk activity. If you've installed version 7 of iPhoto that comes with iLife 08, then there is still hope. In iPhoto, look in the trash on the sidebar and see if the photos are still there. As a last resort, in the finder go to your iPhoto Library package (typically in the Pictures folder in your home folder), open it by right- or control-clicking on it and selecting Show Package Contents from the menu, and then root around in the Originals folder to see if your pictures are still there. There was a recent thread about why iPhoto made it so hard to do things with its photos in the Finder. This problem is one of the reasons why. It is very easy to get rid of files forever in the finder. In iPhoto, not as much. I accidently deleted photos from mac mini (Tiger). Are these photos recoverable? Thanks for any help on this. I did something like that this week too. I deleted some songs from iTunes, instead of just deleting a playlist, then emptied the trash. I also wanted to save a flash file that was streaming from a friend's web page. Although I usually use OnyX or command-line to make invisible files visible, I used Safari to find them because it's faster. Open Safari. To get into the invisible trash files, type: file:/// trash -- I found 3 items that don't show up when I open the Trash window. If photos aren't there, then look in the invisible tmp files. Go back to Safari, type file:///private. Look in any folder labeled tmp, like file:///private/var/tmp/ and file:///private/tmp. When you find your photos, look at file:///usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/COOKIES or file:///usr/share/emacs/21.2/etc/JOKES, and enjoy yourself. Still not there? Might need recovery software. DID YOU BACK UP YOU PHOTOS??? Betty * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Help fuddy-duddy with VCR question
The EyeTV 250 is great. I love mine. The reason it can be used with TV game boxes is because it combines the TV signal decoder with a fast video co-processor, which in Game Mode has no perceptible time lag. The co-processor is also used in exporting recordings to other formats. The EyeTV 250 has coax, composite and s-video inputs, so you can have several devices connected at once. Jim, if you already have FiOS, you can connect your coax cable directly to to your 250 to get unencrypted digital (Clear QAM) channels. If your FiOS is similar to mine, this will include all of the local (in a fairly broad sense) broadcast channels and some of their secondary broadcasts, the URGE radio and Music Choice audio channels (nearly 100 of these), some religion and shopping and weather channels, etc. For some reason I also get WGN. I receive 161 unencrypted channels all told, but I have a lot of duplication because some channels are in both SD and HD and I get both NY and Philly network stations. If you do connect it to a set top box, for time-shifting purposes you supposedly can set up EyeTV's scheduler to work with an infrared blaster to change the channel at the time of recording. I've recently started using an EyeTV 250 to time-shift TV programs. Have only had it for a few days so am still learning about it.In addition to processing both analog and digital signals it allows me to record my old VHS tapes to DVD. 'course you need a working VHS player to do this. Also has a connection to allow X-Box to use the computer monitor. I bought mine as a refurb from OWC - www.macsales.com The digital picture quality is terrific on my monitor in a resizable window. I am using a cheap ($20) antenna sitting on a shelf in the office. Saved recordings tend to be huge but it ships with a version of Toast so you can processes it as you like. Plan to try to connect it up to Fios TV converter box when I have time. Not as simple a solution as recording direct to VHS however it does have its pluses. Jim * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Ars- Future of Driving
Home Solar panels have to be manufactured in a plant that emits polluntants into the atmosphere ... The have to be part of your statement is wrong. I recently read about a solar panel plant that is itself solar powered. Even under today's most common manufacturing processes, the carbon expended in the manufacture of the panels is quickly recouped by the carbon savings from the electricity that they produce. Unfortunately, it currently takes quite a bit longer to recoup the installation costs, but even that is coming down. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Help fuddy-duddy with VCR question
Just to be clear: you can only get the _UN_encrypted digital signals. The majority of the FiOS channels are encrypted. This means you won't get most of the channels people generally buy cable for, like USA, TBS, TNT, SciFi, Comedy, TCM, AMC, CNBC, CNN, MSNBC, etc. If you have subscribed to any movie packages, you also won't get them without the set top box. What you do get is all the stations that are broadcast over the air in a large region around where you live, some of their secondary feeds, a few miscellaneous other channels, and many audio channels. Jim, if you already have FiOS, you can connect your coax cable directly to to your 250 to get unencrypted digital (Clear QAM) channels. David, this is great news. Maybe I'll send one of the digital boxes back to Verizon and save the monthly fee. Thanks. If your FiOS is similar to mine, this will include all of the local (in a fairly broad sense) broadcast channels and some of their secondary broadcasts, the URGE radio and Music Choice audio channels (nearly 100 of these), some religion and shopping and weather channels, etc. For some reason I also get WGN. I receive 161 unencrypted channels all told, but I have a lot of duplication because some channels are in both SD and HD and I get both NY and Philly network stations. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] OpenOffice Goes Native on Intel Macs
StarOffice 9 (beta) is also out and has a native version for intel macs. It will supposedly be coming out of beta in November. Also NeoOffice is Mac-only and will run natively on both PowerPC and Intel macs. All three share the same code based on StarOffice, but StarOffice is commercial while OpenOffice and NeoOffice are free. Also, since the code has to be ported to the mac, NeoOffice tends to lag a bit behind the other two, which are basically even. I have been trying the beta of StarOffice 9, and I can tell you that it loads much more quickly than earlier versions of OpenOffice and NeoOffice did (I haven't tried version 3 of OpenOffice yet). StarOffice is arguably better for business purposes (customer support is built into the price and includes indemnification from intellectual property lawsuits), and OpenOffice is fine for casual use. OpenOffice 3.0 is out and there is a native version for Intel-based Macs. No need to run X11 anymore. http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2008/10/openofficeorg_becomes_an_even_better_alternat_1.html * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Downloading photos from Samsung mobile phone, Windo
If your Glyde and your computer have bluetooth, you might try doing a bluetooth pairing between them and see if you can get your photos that way. Strangely, the bluetooth pairing will sometimes give options unavailable from the data cable. There is also free phone data manager software called BitPim at http://www.bitpim.org/. It is multiplatform, and on fully supported models will let you transfer any data to and from the phone, including ringtones and pictures. Unfortunately, they say that Samsung phones are not fully supported, but that some models have more support than others. I haven't used it myself yet, but I plan to use it to add some ringtones to my phone, a LG from Verizon. I tried for the first time to transfer photos from my Samsung GLYDE. I installed the USB driver, but did not install the VCast Music Manager. After rebooting and connecting the phone, I can see the Samsung USB USB Driver and the Samsung Mobile Modem in the device manager (I found a posting on a forum that suggested this as a way to determine whether the hardware is working). * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Mathematica [was: Zune]
I wasn't really trying to correct you, Betty. You were making the case that while Photoshop is available for both WIndows and OS X, the OS still makes a difference. I wanted to make the point that although Mathematica is remarkably similar across platforms, the OS matters even there. An example that is closer to your Photoshop example is Microsoft Office. The Windows and Mac versions share the same file formats, but the programs themselves always have big differences. Visual Basic is missing on the latest Mac version, for example. And it reportedly is slower and more crash-prone on the Mac than it is on Windows. There is now a beta version of StarOffice for the Mac which is extremely similar to the Windows and Unin/Linux versions, and Google Apps behaves uniformly across platforms. If these catch on sufficiently, perhaps Microsoft will be pressured to reform and make Office more consistent across platforms. Of course, consumers might take that as one more reason they don't need Windows. When my son was at UMd, he used whatever computer was available. He had a Mac iLamp of his own and bought his own copy of Mathematica for OS X. In the lab at his job in the sub-sub-sub-basement of the Physics Dept, and for class labs, I think he used both Unix and Windows computers. He didn't mention which worked best, and that was 5 years ago. I'd expect that if it was written for Unix, that would be the OS of choice to run it, including Linux and OS X, but I don't use the program myself. Thanks for the clarification. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Zune [was: iTunes 8 causing BSOD]
The OS is not entirely irrelevant for Mathematica, either. Mathematica is a little slower and somewhat more unstable on Windows than it is for OS X and other Unix or Linux OSs. This mostly shows up when doing highly memory-intensive operations. Also, while it is true that a self-contained Mathematica notebook will very likely produce the same results in any supported OS, Mathematica users frequently want to do things to external files, so Windows users will write their code using Windows file path specifications, while unix file path specification works for everyone else. There are various tedious workarounds that allow you to write OS independent notebooks in these cases, but they are such a nuisance that even experienced Mathematica programmers seldom use them, and instead rewrite the offending parts of their code when they move to or from Windows. Right, and this brings up a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. Photoshop is in the same boat as Mathematica in this respect: it runs perfectly well on both Windows and Mac, so the operating system is irrelevant. Nevertheless, when Tom discovers that a few Microsoft print ads were done using Mac Photoshop, he is compelled to post a message saying I would not use Windows for such an important job either. What's the point? Where's the value in that? Is there anything to that post whatsoever, other than yet another gratuitous and meaningless slam at Microsoft? No, Photoshop is hideous on the PC because it doesn't have the color management tools or the video clarity to do fine, accurate details. It also takes many more steps to do the same task on a PC compared to a Mac. I've turned down jobs because they wanted me to use a PC, even though I could have made more money, charging by the hour. Print shops have a terrible time cleaning up Windows files before they can even use the prepress software. Most use Macs for the cleanup, although print shops often use Macs, Windows, and Linux in the same shop. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] 2nd MS GS Ad Out
On the heels of the second Gates and Seinfeld ad comes the news that Seinfeld is being dumped. Here is a cynical take on the matter from The Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/seinfeld_campaign_over/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/seinfeld_campaign_over/ Microsoft dumps hilarious comedy duo Microsoft has ditched its Jerry Seinfeld-fronted advertising campaign, after everyone thought it was crap. According to Redmond's spinners, dropping the awkward, unfunny, boring ads now was always the plan, Valleywag reports. A statement yesterday said: We will be executing the second phase of our advertising campaign tomorrow, as planned from the start. Etc. My own take is that I think that the Gates and Seinfeld advertising campaign about Nothing was hugely successful. I am sure that marketing surveys would show that approval ratings of Nothing have gone up tremendously as a result of the campaign, and that in fact some people now like Nothing better than Vista. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Will HP Replace Windows with Its Own OS?
Between the Mac, Windows and Linux OS's, Linux is the most rapidly changing of them all, so your experience several years ago is likely dated. You might want to look again. As for Matlab, I wasn't sure of your meaning. If you were referring to its availability, it does come in Linux, Mac (Intel) and Solaris versions, though I think some of the toolboxes are Windows only. If you were saying that the license is Windows-only, you should check again. It is often the case that the license is based on the number of seats, not the platform. If your licensing is indeed tied to Windows and can't be transferred, you could go virtual and run Matlab in Windows in a virtual machine. Sun's VirtualBox is free if you want to give it a try. I don't know about the other virtualization offerings, but Parallels has a way you can transfer your real machine to a virtual one. If you aren't using any Matlab toolboxes (unlikely, Matlab is notorious for needing a toolbox to do nearly anything useful), you could try replacing it with one of the open source programs Octave or FreeMat, which offer a good degree of Matlab compatibility and are multiplatform. The statistical computing and graphics package R is also multiplatform and has a Matlab emulation package. Of course, if you use Matlab quite frequently and at a high level, these alternatives likely will not work for you. As a longtime PC user, I agree that Windows could be a better OS. But I'm not sure about switching to Linux. After checking several years ago, there were a lot of things that I have been accustomed to using Windows that I couldn't use with Linux. Is there a comparison between Windows Linux on the web? What would I do with essential software that is supplied to me via a site license from my employer that offers only Windows versions? One such is Matlab, an engineering application. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Will HP Replace Windows with Its Own OS?
I have no user experience with them, but there are Virtualizations that allow running of Windows applications under Linux. One of them is known as Wine I belive. Not quite. Wine is a system add-on that attempts (with some success) to run windows programs natively in Linux. This is different from virtualization, which emulates parts or all of the virtual machine and still requires Windows to run Windows software. Wine's name is in fact a recursive acronym for WINE Is Not an Emulator. A number of windows applications work pretty well in Linux under Wine, but Matlab is not yet one of them. There is no lack of virtualization software for Linux, though. Off the top of my head, there are VMware, Parallels, VirtualBox, Xen and QEMU and there are at least a half-dozen others. For desktop linux use, you'd probably want to use Parallels or VMware (commercial but inexpensive) or VMware (free for most uses). * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] COMPUTERGUYS-L Digest - 12 Sep 2008 - Special issue (#2008-600)
My favorite humorous (or humorous if you are a touchy about Windows) take on the second ad came from a recent posting on Slashdot http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/12/1328211 ... Microsoft has introduced a new advertisement in which the aging former CEO and comedian take up residence with a family, causing infighting and malicious plots by the family members. Although the ad does not mention Microsoft's operating system directly, it does mirror the real world experience of the company's products — appearing where not wanted, hard to remove, causing administration headaches, and finally being forced out in hopes of getting one's living space back. I think I get it. This is a $300M ad campaign about nothing. It is MS's way of showing us its power. By burning $300M on this like it was nothing it proves they are powerful. You're right, nobody else has ever done ads where the intent isn't obvious. The only possible reason for these ads is to show how powerful MS is. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Upgrading Mac Hard Drives
To transfer the contents of the drive, put the new drive into a drive enclosure, connect it to your machine and use either CarbonCopyCloner http://www.bombich.com/ or SuperDuper! http://www.shirt-pocket.com/ to create a bootable copy of your hard drive. Both are free to use, SuperDuper! is slightly better in my opinion. Also, if your backup strategy includes keeping a clone of your hard drive, the purchased version of SuperDuper! has a smart copy feature that will do incremental backups of your hard drives in much less time than it takes to do a complete clone from scratch. Neither CarbonCopyCloner nor SuperDuper! will clone the Boot Camp partition because of its different filesystem. You will have to either reinstall windows or clone your windows partition using windows backup software like Winclone. You could also buy Parallels or VMware virtualization software and import your current windows partition into a virtual machine. You can let the Windows virtual machine operate the whole screen, giving you an experience nearly indistinguishable from running Windows natively, and you'd probably never miss not being able to natively boot windows. As for replacing the hard drive, look at the instruction guides and make very sure that the task is within your range of competency, and make sure you won't be violating any extended warranty agreements. You may want to find a professional to do it for you. Fortunately, replacing a hard drive is a lot easier for your hardware than it was for some of the previous generations of macs. You can find detailed instructions for the MacBook at http://www.ifixit.com/, where you can also buy the special screwdrivers you'll need if you don't have them already. For the G5 iMac, look in http://www.apple.com/support/doityourself/, or use one of these guides: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/imacG5_17inch_harddrive.pdf http://manuals.info.apple.com/en/imacg5_20inch_HardDrive.pdf You can also look at http://www.macinstruct.com/ for hard drive cloning and hardware help, and http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/ has lots of discussions of all kinds of hardware upgrades. I'm looking for instructions as to how to upgrade (to a larger capacity) the hard drives on a G-5 iMac (now running OS 10.3.9) and a two-year old MacBook (running 10.5 and Windows XP via Boot Camp). Can anyone point me to step-by-step instructions - particularly how to transfer the contents of the existing hard drives to the new ones - perhaps by cloning (if that's the right term). Is it possible to preserve the two partitions on the MacBook or would I have to reinstall Windows? TIA David * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Google Joins Apple to Develop Webkit
It _IS_ a big deal. Chrome has a number of amazing features (though some of them are obvious in retrospect). I predict just about every other browser developer will be scrambling to incorporate them into their browsers, followed by Microsoft with IE some years later. (This is not a gratuitous slam. MS earned it.) Chrome will be multithreaded, with each tab running in its own sandboxed process, which permits a whole new level of security, stability and privacy features. Chrome also has a thoroughly revamped javascript engine (to be open-sourced in its own project) that is faster, more efficient, and more capable of handling large tasks. Chrome comes with an entirely new anti-phishing and malware detection engine that Google is making available to other browser makers. Any of these alone would be a big deal. Ho Hum. Yet another browser. This might actually be big news if it was being *released* tomorrow. WOW! This is a big deal. Google is developing its own web browser, called Chrome. It is chock full of important new features. Even more WOW! is that Chrome will be based on the WebKit browser framework. WebKit is a fork of the KDE KHTML browser engine that was started by Apple (Safari is Apple-branded WebKit). WebKit is Open Source Software (LGPL and BSD licenses). So Safari and Chrome should be expected to track each other closely. The loser here will be FireFox. Brain dead IE users will continue running IE no matter what happens. A nice summary at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10029914-2.html * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] iPhoto (Was: Interesting quotes about using a Mac)
I see some people have already answered some of Constance's problems while I was typing this. I apologize for having some redundant content. It's true--iPhoto has a number of annoying features. Most annoying, it puts all your photos in a single folder such that individual images are not accessible EXCEPT within iPhoto. If you don't like this behavior go to iPhoto preferences, and uncheck the Copy items to the iPhoto Library (under the advanced tab). iPhoto will then keep track of pictures in their original locations, the same way the similar option in iTunes works. You can't just open a folder and access individual pictures. If you want to get an image or throw it away, you have to do it from within iPhoto. Yes you can, actually. The most recent version of iPhoto keeps everything in a package, which is just a special kind of folder. Right- or Control-click the iPhoto library and select Show package contents. You will find the originals in the folder called Originals, sorted into folders by year and then by event. There is also a folder for modified pictures, organized the same way. In iPhoto, you can go directly to the file by right-clicking on the thumbnail and selecting Show file (seems much easier to me). Of course, messing with the library contents directly will have consequences, the most likely one being that iPhoto will do a tedious rebuilding of the library to account for your changes the next time you launch it. You can also mess up albums and slideshows (which just consist of pointers to picture files and don't actually contain copies of the pictures themselves) by deleting or moving an image file that they use. WARNING: You are better off leaving the iPhoto library alone. To avoid problems, copy the library or its photo contents and work with the copies. You have been warned. If you want to get an image or throw it away, you have to do it from within iPhoto. If there is a problem with the Big File, you have REALLY got problems. If there is a problem with the iPhoto Library package, it is most likely a problem with the database that iPhoto wasn't smart enough to detect and fix on its own. You can force iPhoto to rebuild the library by launching iPhoto while holding down the command and option keys (this is for iPhoto 08, the procedure may be different for earlier versions). The only problems I have heard of people having with the iPhoto library happened when they upgraded iPhoto to a new version (this happened to me) or because they did something stupid while tinkering with the iPhoto library package (another reason not to do it). Rebuilding the library will almost always fix the problem, at least to the extent of recovering the originals you haven't deleted. Adobe's high-end program Lightroom doesn't have this problem. It's also $299. Does anyone know a less expensive (or shareware) photo organizing program--with some editing features--that works with Mac? Or is there a work-around for iPhoto that would fix this problem? If you are still unhappy with iPhoto, try GraphicConverter. It has a fairly good photo browser that you can do basic file and editing operations within. You can use it forever without paying, with only a 10 second wait (grows to 30 seconds at some point, I think.), or you can pay $30 to forgo the wait and also get the batch editing feature turned on. It is probably best to use GraphicConverter for files NOT in the iPhoto library, and GraphicConverter won't let you see into the library from the file menu but if you really insist on doing so, dragging the iPhoto Library onto the GraphicConverter icon will open it in a browser window as if it were an ordinary folder and not a package. Do so at your own risk. Archive your library, or only work with a copy. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] What we actually get for our money...
The wikipedia article you quote says about its table, This is a list of tax rates around the world. ... It is not intended to represent the true tax burden to either the corporation or the individual in the listed country. So it's doesn't really settle the matter. On the contrary side, according to a recent NY Times article that I am too lazy to look up, a recent survey found that two thirds of american corporations pay no taxes at all, and it appears that many of them do this by reporting a disproportionate fraction of their worldwide expenses on their US tax returns. You may also want to look at what Paul Krugman will have to say on the matter. He gives the beginnings of his take (more will be forthcoming) in a recent blog entry, http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/the-greek-menace/ in which he points out that the statutory minimum tax rate is seldom the actual tax rate and that we really shouldn't compare ourselves to exceptional countries. Countries such as Monaco, Luxembourg, Iran, United Arab Emirates, etc., that are in the wikipedia list are certainly ones that I would say probably aren't good items for comparison. On Aug 20, 2008, at 1:45 PM, COMPUTERGUYS-L automatic digest system wrote: Subject: Re: What we actually get for our money... Not so. It is the highest in the industrialized world. See Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_around_the_world and click on the Corporate column to sort b_s-wilk wrote: The United States has the lowest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world. That's effectively subsidizing just about all corporations. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] please help with VISTA
If Tom were to use virtualization, he'd be better off doing it on a Mac or Linux machine, because virtualization is notoriously buggy and runs with too much overhead on Vista. However, if he is running the legacy software as one of his primary applications, he would be adding a layer of complexity that he probably wouldn't want. However, he should also be wary of too much reliance on legacy systems. As an example, consider the following: http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1132588.html California state computers can't handle pay cut, controller says, It turns out that the California payroll system is a legacy COBOL system being held together with spit and baling wire. From:John Duncan Yoyo [EMAIL PROTECTED] Does this sound like a good plan? Get a new fast Vista machine because that is what is out there. Load XP on a virtual machine running under Vista to handle legacy software. From:Tom Piwowar [EMAIL PROTECTED] Vista is not so bad unless you want to run legacy software.. Of course I want to run legacy software. Workflows have been developed over many years, sometimes decades. I don't want some punk programmer telling me I have to re-engineer my business. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] VMs (was please help with VISTA)
Really? What software do you use? What kind of host system (RAM in particular)? From:mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] I've been running various VM's on xp and vistanary a bug. Overhead? I don't have a screamin machine but it seems plenty fast enough. Mike On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 9:46 AM, David K Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: If Tom were to use virtualization, he'd be better off doing it on a Mac or Linux machine, because virtualization is notoriously buggy and runs with too much overhead on Vista. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] contextual menus = crash
Betty, I found this http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=28757 which may be applicable. It says that problems like yours are typically caused when you have - installed software that added a bad contextual menu item, or - removed software that left a contextual menu item behind. My own guess would have been a bad mouse/bad mouse driver. Does the problem still occur with the mouse unplugged using control-click to get the contextual menu? If it's not the mouse, I'd look in the /Library/Contextual Menu Items folders (your home one and the global one) and delete the ones that got added last. A web search shows Stuffit as a likely culprit in this regard, and I've had issues with the global contextual menu items that GraphicConverter wants to install when you first start it up. An additional thing you can try: log into safe mode and see if the problem occurs there. If it does, then you have a problem with one of the things that safe mode turns off, like an kernel extension, a startup item, or a login item. Good luck. betty Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:29:32 -0700 Using Control+click or right-click in most applications causes app to crash. Reinstalled updates, Safari, security patches, ran OnyX, repaired permissions, ran repairs from X install disk. Problem started with system update and installing Safari last week. Where do I start throwing prefs, library/system files and add-ons away? There's not much on this computer, but I don't want to start from scratch. Contextual menus are useful. I miss them. MacBook 2.16 GHz, 2007, OS X v.10.4.11 Betty * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
Re: [CGUYS] Macs in business...take 3: Fear Factor
Are you really trying to say that you have never, in your vast experience, come across the acronym FUD or any of the many things Microsoft has done that this label has been applied to? I'm not saying you should believe all of those things, though some are quite believable. I am just wondering if you are pretending ignorance as some sort of debating ploy, or if you actually have managed to miss out on all of it. Or is there another alternative? David mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Date:Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:20:11 -0700 From:mike [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Macs in business...take 3: Fear Factor I call BS on this post. Major. Give us that commercial Tom, that ad in the monthly pc mag...something, back this shtuff up once. Mike On Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 8:17 AM, Tom Piwowar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Microsoft has been very effective at marketing by fear. Their message is that deviating from their products will make you an outcast. Your computer will break, nobody will be able to read your files, and everything sent to you will be gibberish. * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
[CGUYS] Macs in business...take 4: Price competitiveness
Speaking of debating ploys, another good one is to change the subject. :-) After Strong Quarter, Apple Signals Changes in Its Prices http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/technology/22apple.html?nl=techemc=techa1 ...Apple executives hinted during a conference call about Apple’s third-quarter financial statement that they would price products more aggressively in the future. It planned on taking away what Peter Oppenheimer, the company’s chief financial officer, called an 'umbrella for our competitors.' It looks like Apple hopes to be able to to dispel the perception that Macs are too expensive while they continue to push their business- friendly features like Exchange messaging. They also have a fantastic no-risk argument for cautious business types in being able to say that their OS comes free with their hardware, which can be used to run windows, either in a virtual machine during a transition period, or as the primary OS should things not work out otherwise. Still, many businesses are much more conservative than business leaders portray themselves to be. My favorite examples of this is all the old mainframes that are still maintained in order to run COBOL programs. David * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *
