To Download or Not to Download.....

That's today's Question Everything...

 

Fascinating! But what the hell is it?

 

I was trying to install PC-BSD 9.0 from a DVD made from a .iso image, and it suddenly began frantically scrolling down lines of code from the top toward the bottom of the screen, so fast it was all a blur. The camera froze that action here, creating an impression it wasn't moving very fast, but really it was going like a bat outa one of those very hot places. Then after several minutes of that,

it suddenly switched to a rapidly alternating view of two screens - this second one shown above, and a plain but sickly white one. 

 

I'd scanned that iso file with two different antivirus programs, and both reported it to be clean, but this whole thing was acting a lot like one of those types of malware called a 'compression bomb'. When I checked in disk management, that whole partition of the hard drive was totally full of something. No spare room on that half of this drive at all. Luckily, the Win-7 on the other half of the drive remained untouched by all this. So I used EaseUS Partition Master to do

a fresh format of that partition, and clean that mess off it.

 

I think there may be something wrong with that freebie operating system if it won't even unpack and install without making a mess like this. Now I know why it's 'free' - we earn every damned penny of the price of an operating system just while trying to get it to install without doing any permanent damage. 

 

Those 'Autumn Leaves'....

They're back !

More Gershwin, More Rhythm, More Hiromi

This little lady dedicated her arrangement to Oscar Peterson who did a similar but much shorter version back in 1951 which was almost as manic as this, and
this is simply fantastic. Too bad George Gershwin couldn't hear what she's done with "I Got Rhythm". 

Fascinating Rhythm...

I was looking for this being played by George himself, because he did have his own 15-minute radio show for a while, but I couldn't find it. So I had to settle for someone else doing one of George's famous compositions from the Roaring Twenties when men were men, and the gals were all naturally double-breasted.

The difference with long zoom...

Here's a zoom of 50X looking at a local mountain peak, Crown Mountain....

Here's that same peak near center frame without using any zoom....

New traffic helicopter maybe?

This was flitting around overhead, probably watching the evening gridlock out of the downtown core on the Lions Gate Bridge while I was taking that last shot of the new house up the hill from here, so I took its picture too.

That new house: today's progress

This was taken around 4:00 pm....

And this one about 5:00 pm.

Windows 8: Release Preview vs RTM version

There's an article here in InformationWeek titled 'Windows 8 RTM: 8 Changes From Release Preview' and I won't bore you with the whole list, because you can use the link above for that, if you wish, but I would like to comment on some of those points....

(1.) Tattoos:
That's an inaccurate description of some new backgrounds available for the Start Screen where all those multi-colored tiles reside, and there's several patterned ones, but only one plain one. You can switch the colors with a slider underneath the row of icons showing your choices.

(2.) New Desktop Backgrounds:
The author says there's now as many as 14. So what? I've never had a problem with the backgrounds, because the same ones that have worked in Windows 7 have also worked equally well in Win-8 RP. He says there's also a new image for the Lock Screen (that first one before you hit "CTRL" to move it out of the way to access your login screen) and that doesn't worry me either, because it's already possible to select different ones, including a nice little button marked 'Browse' with which you can browse to your own image files and pick out one you might prefer to the pre-chosen selections. And that 'new' one from the folks at Microsoft, showing an artsy-fartsy illustration of their nice old Seattle Space Needle should have been an honest-to-God photo instead of that tacky art.

(3.) Apps for sale:
Some are still free, but developers can now charge you anywhere from $1.49 to $999.00 for their digital darlings in the Windows Store. Isn't that just Peachy? Don't you just love it? And you thought those annoying little mucketts were actually a freely included part of the program, to make it work as planned, huh? Well, Pilgrim, you were wrong about that, and so was I. Damn it! One more Thumbs Down for Windows 8!

(4.) A Bing App:
So what took them so long? It's a Microsoft invention, right?

(5.) Enhanced 'People' App:
All I need now are some enhanced people.... the standard models leave a lot to be desired, Kiddies - would I lie to you?

6. Less space waste:
Which takes up more space - a Start Button, or a whole screen full of boxes of bullshit? Don't all yell at once, Kiddies - take turns!

7. Faster, smoother performance:
With every new operating system, they say this, and it's a moveable feast, Folks. It all comes down to what kind of hardware you're using, and also how often you do your housekeeping to clean out the clutter in those Temp folders, and remember, there's now two of those: one under your own user-name and another in the main Windows system folder, and they aren't the same one shown twice, either. It's two separate Temp folders. I recommend you get the latest version of Glary Utilities, that wonderful freebie one-click cleaner-upper of cluttered PCs. It works like a charm and saves you manually surfing your system for Temp folders and other junk collections.

(8.) Aero is gone. Really.
The man said it all right there, almost. What he didn't say was that lately, we have been seeing Microsoft discontinue features or support for features like this or those Sidebar Gadgets formerly considered very advantageous while flogging Windows Vista and its vastly-improved offspring Windows 7 to the reluctant unwashed masses desperately clinging to outmoded Windows XP. So now, those folks ought to be happy, because we're going backward when forward fails.
Isn't progress wonderful? And how do you feel about losing parts of a system you've already paid for, and thought was yours to keep on using? That's my Question Everything for today, Dear Reader.

The new house is looking better....

Today, it's getting its roof, and from the look of the sky here, not a minute too soon either.

Windows 8 Theme: Neuschwanstein Castle

Last night, I collected ten images of the famous Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, and this morning, I resized and cropped those to make a 10-image Windows 8 Theme, and it looks something like this....

Microsoft already has a Windows 7 Theme called 'Castles of Europe' in which there are 24 images of European castles, including one of Neuschwanstein, but I wanted a better one of it, and ended up making my own theme of just that one spectacular castle. 

Adding your own theme to Windows 8 is much the same as for Windows 7:-

(1.) Collect a set of images, and use a photo-editing program like Arcsoft's PhotoStudio to resize them to fit your desktop's native resolution.
(2.) Rename them to include consecutive numbering so they'll display in the order of your choice.
(3.) Create a new folder for them, named DesktopBackground. That's all one word with capital letters at the beginning of both 'Desktop' and 'Background'
because that's the way your Windows Registry likes it.
(4.) Once you've done that, and have all your pictures inside that new folder named DesktopBackground, make another folder named for the name of your new theme, and then drag the DesktopBackground folder into that one.
(5.) Now go into Control Panel, to Folder Options, and click on the 'View' tab.
Look down that list in View for 'Hidden files and folders' and under that click inside the little circle for 'show hidden files, folders, and drives'. Click 'OK' and
close the window(s).
(6.) Now, go into your main user's name folder, where you will see a formerly hidden one called AppData. In AppData, click to open folder Local, then Microsoft, then Windows, and in it look for one named Themes. Drag your newly created theme folder into that Themes folder. Then look inside that Themes folder for the folder named for your new theme, open it to see the DesktopBackground folder, open that, and select all the images. When all images are selected, right-click one of them and from the drop-down list choose 'Set as desktop background'. 
(7.) You should immediately notice that your desktop's background has now changed to an image from your own new theme, and you can close all those open windows on your desktop. Then, right-click anywhere on the desktop and at the bottom of that drop-down's list, click on 'Personalize'. This opens the
Personalization window where you should see your newly-created theme as an icon in the upper left corner of the window, shown as unnamed. Right-click it and give it a name - the one you chose earlier - and then click 'Save Changes'.
(8.) You can now use the buttons along the lower edge of that Personalization window to select the desired timing for each image to be displayed on your monitor during its slideshow-style presentation, and you can also choose the color you like for the taskbar and windows frames to be used while that theme is active. To switch to another theme, as with themes provided by Microsoft, simply click on the one you'd prefer from the ones displayed in the folder, and it will switch to the new choice. Your theme will work just like the ones that came with your Windows 8. So have fun giving your desktop a personal touch.
(9.) Go back to Control Panel => Folder Options => View and reset that entry for 'hidden files, folders, and drives' to hide it again (if you wish).

Ancient Egyptian game Senet runs in Win-8

If you have kids, or know someone who does, here's a neat game that comes to us from three or four thousand years ago, thanks to the nice folks at the British Museum. It's a little like Cribbage and a little like Checkers, but not exactly like any of those, and it's for two players who race one another to see who gets all their markers off the board first. Here's the game board.....

The rules for playing it are shown on its web page. Have fun, Kids!

 For an interactive demonstration to get you started, keep clicking on the word 'next' in the lower right corner of the game window on its web page.

Worth its weight in gold....

Here's Winroll, a very handy little freebie from back in the good old days of XP and Vasta Vista (Ugh!) and Wonderful Windows 7, which is patterned after Windowshade, and it looks like this, before you click on the title bar's top frame to tell it to roll everything up into that top bar....

And after you click that top edge of the active window, and it rolls it up out of the way, so you can use something else, or see what's under it, it looks like this.......

How's that for making room on the desktop? And yes, my Windows 7 gadgets are still working in Windows 8 Release Preview, and if they stop doing that, I'm going to send Mighty Microsoft a carefully-worded nasty feedback on it.
Not that it would help, you understand, but it might make me feel better for maybe 30 seconds or so.... instead of frightening my neighbors with loud and colorful cursing. Mighty Microsoft seemingly being among those who refuse to learn from history and thus are condemned to repeat it..... and that brings me once again to Today's Question Everything: "Is Windows 8 going to be the next Windows Vista (Ugh!) ?"  

And for those who can't wait to see the Readme for Winroll, yes, it restores the full window the next time you click that top bar that is now all there is.
So don't panic, Kiddies - it works just fine, and the price is right.

Update: Translation tool for Windows

This isn't a desktop gadget but that's probably just as well. There's more room for larger texts, and a few more choices of what to do with all that. And it looks like this....

And it's based on the Bing translator formerly available as a desktop gadget from Mighty Microsoft, who have been slightly less than helpful to those of us now contemplating being without our handy dandy desktop gadgets. So to our
friends at Mighty Microsoft, may I only say "Shame on you! You're supposed to be bigger than this, and it's time you demonstrated that. You wouldn't need to resort to trickery to keep from starving to death if you were more responsive to the needs, hopes and desires of your long-suffering Windows users!"

Windows Sidebar Gadgets..... history?

Some time back, and for rather obvious reasons, Google stopped allowing their little Translator gadget to operate on other platforms like Windows. They want you to use their own browser, Chrome.  I prefer Firefox, so that was a problem.

I went looking for Microsoft's own version of a universal translator, and found that it doesn't work as well as Google's version, but beggars can't be choosers.
But I really wanted something better, so when I found another site that offered its own version of the Google application, I downloaded it. Big Mistake! It installed a toolbar called 'Incredibar' in spite of the fact that during the installation process, I'd specifically unchecked the not-so-obvious little box for choosing to install or not install that toolbar. Then, I had trouble getting rid of it.

In Control Panel, it had installed not only its own program, but also a second one generically named 'Web Assistant'. The only way to tell the two were related was by checking the date of installation, which showed the same dates.

Note: Incredibar/Web Assistant also installs a browser search-engine hijacker called 'MyStart' and even after removing those two programs from your PC, you
will still have Incredibar/Incredimail embedded within your Config files in the Firefox browser - over two dozen entries - and it's faster to remove and then re-install Firefox rather than piddle around trying to remove all that crap. So this is not a fun thing to get into, for sure! 

Finally, after all that, I get to the part where I can test this Brand-X translator, and I found it's the same old gadget from Google, which now says 'Unable to connect to Internet'. Because...... - so I was right back where I started, but much later, and considerably more annoyed. So if you're looking for a gadget like Google's but for Windows, Good Luck, because Microsoft is now advising us to stop using that handy Windows Sidebar and all its Gadgets, and they are no longer providing a page for them where you could download them.

I must note here that back when Mighty Microsoft was flogging Vista (Ugh!) and later Wonderful Windows 7, they were touting that Sidebar and its handy gadgets as an added convenience and enhancement to Windows, and it helped them with its acceptance and usefulness to users. But now that Windows 8 is on the doorstep, and Microsoft is becoming sensitive to criticism that Windows 8 doesn't offer desktop users any really noticeable advantages over Windows 7, they are apparently removing this Sidebar feature and its Gadgets from Windows 7 to 'encourage' us to switch to the less convenient Windows 8. And in my humble opinion, shooting themselves in the foot while denying users the convenience of a long-running feature which really isn't as serious a security risk as they are now saying it is just isn't a smart way to go. And if the Sidebar and its Gadgets really are a serious security risk, then today's Question Everything would have to be: "Why did it take you three years to discover a security loophole in your otherwise excellent feature? - A feature that helped you make Windows 7 the preferred operating system among Windows users."

Is it just me, or do the rest of you smell something rotten here? 

Please Note: I've checked other sites, and I'm far from alone in suspecting that
this is a ploy by Microsoft to force us into becoming more susceptible to using
Windows 8, by making us less happy with good old Windows 7. Those so-called security concerns don't hold water with me because any program added into a system will be vulnerable to attacks, and that's why we have protected ourselves with various security programs like anti-virus protection, etc., and as long as we keep those up-to-date, as most of us do, then we ought to be OK.
This looks to me like Mighty Microsoft is biting the hands that feed it, so that they can grab our wallets while we're reaching for the painkillers....

Mark Olive57 days ago

I for one am highly dubious of Microsoft's motives here. They desperately need more people developing for Metro as it's the big selling point of Windows 8, so what do they do? Conveniently find a security vulnerability in desktop gadgets, which they are then deliberately vague about, and instead of fixing it, decide to disable them entirely. And remove them from Windows 8, for good measure. Installing ANY kind of program from an unknown source has potential security risks, regardless of whether it's a gadget or not, so it's a ridiculous argument to make in the first place. This is just another tactic to try and push users into upgrading to Windows 8.

Mark Olive57 days ago

I for one am highly dubious of Microsoft's motives here. They desperately need more people developing for Metro as it's the big selling point of Windows 8, so what do they do? Conveniently find a security vulnerability in desktop gadgets, which they are then deliberately vague about, and instead of fixing it, decide to disable them entirely. And remove them from Windows 8, for good measure. Installing ANY kind of program from an unknown source has potential security risks, regardless of whether it's a gadget or not, so it's a ridiculous argument to make in the first place. This is just another tactic to try and push users into upgrading to Windows 8.

Mark Olive57 days ago

I for one am highly dubious of Microsoft's motives here. They desperately need more people developing for Metro as it's the big selling point of Windows 8, so what do they do? Conveniently find a security vulnerability in desktop gadgets, which they are then deliberately vague about, and instead of fixing it, decide to disable them entirely. And remove them from Windows 8, for good measure. Installing ANY kind of program from an unknown source has potential security risks, regardless of whether it's a gadget or not, so it's a ridiculous argument to make in the first place. This is just another tactic to try and push users into upgrading to Windows 8.

Mark Olive57 days ago

I for one am highly dubious of Microsoft's motives here. They desperately need more people developing for Metro as it's the big selling point of Windows 8, so what do they do? Conveniently find a security vulnerability in desktop gadgets, which they are then deliberately vague about, and instead of fixing it, decide to disable them entirely. And remove them from Windows 8, for good measure. Installing ANY kind of program from an unknown source has potential security risks, regardless of whether it's a gadget or not, so it's a ridiculous argument to make in the first place. This is just another tactic to try and push users into upgrading to Windows 8.

Mark Olive57 days ago

I for one am highly dubious of Microsoft's motives here. They desperately need more people developing for Metro as it's the big selling point of Windows 8, so what do they do? Conveniently find a security vulnerability in desktop gadgets, which they are then deliberately vague about, and instead of fixing it, decide to disable them entirely. And remove them from Windows 8, for good measure. Installing ANY kind of program from an unknown source has potential security risks, regardless of whether it's a gadget or not, so it's a ridiculous argument to make in the first place. This is just another tactic to try and push users into upgrading to Window

Two views: tonight's sunset

One of the better ones all summer...

( It's not the cloudless skies that make for the best results, in either pictures or life.)

Note to Monsieur Beep! on your blog's entry today

Since we can't leave comments on yours, I hope this will serve instead...

Thanks for posting the picture of your dogs, and for letting me know that you are in fact still alive and well. Old Farts like myself tend to worry about such things, because our own 'road of life' is getting visibly shorter as time goes by.

Those are good looking little dogs. Where I am, we are not allowed to have pets unless those are other people. Dogs might be a lot less trouble...

Thanks for getting in touch again - it's good to hear from you.

Around the neighborhood....

Weeding the garden

 

Catching some sun by the pool

 

At the APEC gathering....

Our Prime Minister 'Hairspray' Harper had a one-to-one with 'Vlad The Lad' Putin in which they disagreed over Syria and other subjects. 

 Elsewhere in the news Putin takes on Romney over Romney's recent rhetoric about Russia and its dangers. While I have no sympathy for Romney and his reported beliefs, in all fairness it should be pointed out that there have recently been reports in the Asian press, such as China's Xinhuanet that said Putin was now hoping to forge alliances with both India and China, and also renew links to former Soviet satellite states, among other reasons because he wanted to limit the influence of the U.S.A. in Asia.  So Romney might have been partly right to
be concerned. Putin, the former KGB operative, has a squinty-eyed shifty look about him, and in my humble opinion bears careful watching. He didn't get where he is by being the quintessential 'Mr. Nice Guy', and you could bet your sweet bippy on that.

Speaking of the foreign media, Chidanand Rajghatta in his blog appearing in the Times of India seems decidedly envious of the abilities of former President Clinton and current President Obama at giving speeches. He also makes some pointed remarks about his own Indian government representatives, whom he doesn't rate well at all.  By the way, this Wikipedia article explains that the Times of India is the world's largest circulation English language newspaper.

Star Trek is 46, .....

.... So here's a peek down Memory Lane, at Commander Spock, and Captain Kirk, and two uncharacteristically overdressed ladies. This picture is memorable if only because the men are wearing shorter skirts than the ladies are, and that didn't happen very often for sure! And now we know why....

Sunset....