ares35

ares35 , 5 months ago

even netscape/mozilla was in on this game, with the open directory project (dmoz). aol eventually shut it down, but it apparently lives on independently as curlie.org - but i have no idea how current it is or anything.

ares35 , 5 months ago

can't happen here.. our current printer (an older, higher-end canon) has a whopping 50 page capacity input tray; and if you dare put 50 sheets in it, it'll choke on the first page it tries to pull through--so more like 35-40, max.

ares35 , 5 months ago

i've had both windows and linux mess-up dual boot setups.. so i started keeping them separate. either different systems, or run in a vm.

ares35 , 5 months ago

windows ain't done until nothing else runs.

ares35 , 5 months ago

around here, people use "alternate" vehicles, like atv, snowmobiles, lawn mowers and tractors, etc. to get to the bars because they lost their license. have not seen a forklift parked outside of one, though----yet.

ares35 , 5 months ago

some of their cars and trucks may still be wrapped-around a tree or in a ditch, or were impounded. and you can get ticketed for driving them without a license, but you can't get a ticket for cruising down the road on a lawn tractor without one (afaik, you could still get a dui though).

ares35 , 5 months ago

world's largest vendor of smartphones; largest manufacturer would technically be foxconn, wouldn't it?

ares35 , 5 months ago

fedex ground is still like the old rps, a poorly-managed collection of contractors and sub-contractors. only the air freight ('express') is really 'fedex'.

ares35 , 5 months ago

my own site for my very small business gets about 10 legit visitors a week, none of which have ever connected via a known vpn address (dating back some 15 years). another 100 page views a week on average from legit bots (msn, google, etc).

the rest (and well over 95% of overall traffic) is bots, scrapers, and hackers, many of which use addresses linked to vpn services and pound the sites on the server looking for exploitable scripts (wordpress related, usually; which we've never run here), login and contact forms. if i could simply 'flip a switch' and redirect all vpn traffic to a separate landing page, i would seriously consider doing so. it wouldn't affect site availability to our legit users and our target audience. but for now, mod_security is doing a stellar job and is the mvp.

ares35 , 5 months ago

some of our clients are on what the telco calls 'extended' dsl. they're waaaay tf out at the 'end of the line' where speeds can be as shitty as 250-500kbps; there's even a couple still on dialup. so we definitely consider the weight of a page and how many connections are made for each when we do our own sites.

ares35 , 5 months ago

since netscape navigator here. even used netscape during the dark ages (when aol controlled it).

ares35 , 5 months ago

without activation or a subscription, your current office installation will continue to read and view the files just fine, you just won't be able to edit and re-save them or create new ones.

there are a number of 'free' or open source alternative to several of the microsoft office applications (word, excel, and ppt), such as onlyoffice, libreoffice, softmaker, etc. set the default save format back to microsoft office format (docx, xlsx, pptx) for a more seamless transition. if your online drive is mounted in your os, any of these would be able to read/write to it like any other installed application.

older versions of microsoft office (2010 and earlier) may be 'out of date' and unsupported, but they still work and can be bought second-hand for cheap.

there is also free-to-use online versions of microsoft office and google docs (their respective online account required--and their anti-privacy policies apply). these would by default use their respective online storage.

if you are in university, you may be able to get a low-cost or even free microsoft office key or subscription from your school. check with your student i.t. help desk or school-run campus bookstore.

if you work for a larger company or institution that uses volume licenses of microsoft software, they may have a 'workplace discount' for a microsoft 365 sub, it's about $20-30 off per year (the more reasonable 'home use program' does not exist anymore).

ares35 , 5 months ago

openoffice is an asf project (apache. same organization that does the apache web server and many other projects); the code and project was donated to them by oracle. it still exists, its development cycle is just a tad slower than most would like.

libreoffice was forked off of openoffice when it was still an oracle project (they having acquired it when they bought sun microsystems).

ares35 , 5 months ago

just this morning some idiot didn't want to stop at a crosswalk in a 25mph downtown area....

the car that stopped going the other direction happened to be a cop car (who incidentally almost got rear-ended by some other idiot not paying attention).

as i stepped onto the curb on the other side of the road, i saw red and blue flashing behind me and heard them on their PA ordering the driver to pull over and stop at the next corner.

ares35 , 5 months ago

ya, it was a first for me. cops around here often don't stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk until after a car runs 'em over.

ares35 , 6 months ago

be kind to the poor pfc, he's paying by the week for seven years for that shitbox.

ares35 , 7 months ago

i mostly use windows on the tv, an old laptop and a wireless kb/trackpad. runs cool, even with the lid closed all the time. reliably wakes up outputting to the external 'monitor' as long as it hasn't 'lost' its connection to the tv (can't unplug that input temporarily for another device--would have to flip open the laptop lid later to re-enable the external-only setting), and it's new enough (skylake) to have decoding in hardware for the formats i've been using.

the other hdmi is a linux sff desktop set up similarly, but i haven't got all the kinks worked out yet.

use firefox (with addons and some userscripts|styles) for online sites, and usb externals or lan connection for 'saved' content. shortcuts on the desktop (to web sites, playlists, lan shares) function as the 'home screen' or 'launch' page.

i do have the tv 'online' atm, though, because a lot of pluto 'live' tv get watched here, and the tv 'app' is faster and more reliable than their web site. the remote has a hotkey for it, too, which goes directly to the last 'channel' it was on.

ares35 , 7 months ago

yup. just windows (or linux) desktop applications and networking. i don't need a '10-foot' ui; and don't (atm, anyway) need the remote streaming capabilities or other features of a jellyfin or plex.

the keyboard i have is an original logitech k400. it's really the piece that makes my setup usable, otherwise i'd have a full-sized separate kb and mouse sitting on the 'coffee table' (it's really just a low-standing tv shelf on wheels) instead.

ares35 , 7 months ago

this isn't much different than when microsoft added code specifically to break windows 3.1 when run under dr-dos instead of their own ms-dos. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code

ares35 , 7 months ago

none like that around here. they're all blindingly bright af along the main streets and downtown--probably 4-5x as many lamps in each fixture as actually needed, and going up and down hills they shine right in your eyes because they don't have adequate shades keeping the light 'down'.

residential areas still have the much easier-on-the-eyes sodium vapor lights, though--for now.

ares35 , 8 months ago

wikipedia foundation's financials are solid, stable, and healthy.

how's twitter doing lately, elon?

ares35 , 9 months ago

this is a very sensible alternative to actually going all-in on self-hosting mail, which is a total pain in the ass.

ares35 , 10 months ago

how does whisper do transcribing technical documents. like for lawyers, doctors, engineers and what not? or speakers with heavy accents?