Root Access

allquixotic

2:12 PM

hii

@Bob doesn't he usually offer bad advice in comments so you can't downvote him? :P

Bob

0

Q: Pass all network traffic through a VPN service

I want all traffic on a home network to go through a VPN provider's service of my choice before reaching the outside internet. How do I make that happen? The network consists of Airport Express routers, so there's no built-in VPN functions to get there. I don't want VPN connection enabled client...

really?

TBH, I have absolutely no experience with Airport Express routers

though apparently they're designed for easy setup

allquixotic

@Bob what amazes me the most is that Apple's routers don't support VPN functionality

wait, no, that doesn't amaze me

most people who use Macs would be like "wut? "Vippin'"? wut's dat?"

it never amazes me when Apple products don't support XYZ because the whole point of Apple is to market sub-standard, feature-deprived crap onto people for a premium price

Bob

@allquixotic apparently, it does.. :S

apple.com/au/airportexpress/specs

> NAT, DHCP, PPPoE, VPN Passthrough (IPSec, PPTP and L2TP), DNS Proxy, SNMP, IPv6 (6to4 and manual tunnels)

allquixotic

then the person writing that question is wrong

Bob

...random unrelated listing of initialisms

wait what

operating temperature is only up to 35 degrees C?

o.O

allquixotic

2:22 PM

@Bob its cellophane chassis melts in temps above 35 C ;-)

Bob

WHAT

It requires Windows 7 or later?

?!?!

Rudá Almeida

@Bob For PC users. For mac users, it's OS X or OS X Lion

Bob

@RudáAlmeida Yea. I was referring to the PC side only.

compare TP-LINK:

Rudá Almeida

Also, there are different system requirements for managing, sharing printers, or just using the wifi functionality

Bob

> Microsoft® Windows® 98SE, NT, 2000, XP, Vista™ or Windows 7, MAC® OS, NetWare®, UNIX® or Linux.

Rudá Almeida

2:28 PM

I have changed a lot of the content of this question, maybe it suck less by now:

1

Q: phpMyAdmin doesn't accept valid MySQL credentials

I'm building a LAMP VM for dev/testing purposes. It runs CentOS 6 64 bits as a guest on a Ubuntu 12.04 64 bits host. Instead of Apache, I'm running nginx with PHP-FPM. All packages have been installed from repositories (base, epel, nginx and remi). I have also installed the phpmyadmin package...

centos mysql nginx phpmyadmin

Bob

@RudáAlmeida I don't see what would cause the minimum required version to be 7.

Rudá Almeida

@Bob Windows 7 or later, and AirPort Utility 5.6.1 (my guess)

HackToHell

@allquixotic so linus responded to xkcd :P

allquixotic

@Bob presumably if you use regular old WiFi or ethernet, it'll work fine on any OS

@HackToHell not Linus; he doesn't contribute to the open source graphics drivers

Bob

@RudáAlmeida Yes. But why would their utility require Win7?

allquixotic

2:29 PM

the Intel OSTC (Open Source Technology Center) developers in Portland, OR

Rudá Almeida

@Bob How the f@$% should I know? Ask the DEVs. Probably some glossy UI element that Apple loves so much is only present on Win7+

Bob

:P

allquixotic

but their work on smooth video playback precedes that xkcd post anyway

@Bob probably because Apple doesn't know their head from a hole in the ground when it comes to Windows versions and doesn't realize that it'll work fine on Vista or even XP

Bob

@allquixotic It says Setup and Administration

HackToHell

Bob

2:31 PM

I wonder if it has a web config page.

forums.appleinsider.com/t/60768/airport-express-and-web-ui

what is this..

go away Apple

6

> What does a web UI have over a native UI?

facepalm

HackToHell

Great steam does not start again :/

Rudá Almeida

@Bob What the... I dont't even...

@Bob Have you ever tried to pair a non-apple bluetooth headset with an iPhone?

Bob

@RudáAlmeida No. And I don't want to try.

HackToHell

What happens ? @Ruda

allquixotic

haha i pinned "go away Apple" (as a joke; I'll unpin it in a while)

Bob

2:36 PM

-_-

HackToHell

nooo, let it be pinned :P

Rudá Almeida

@HackToHell I did once, a couple years ago or so, on a 3GS if I recall correctly. You perform all the necessary steps, things should work but just don't, it won't pair and won't say the real cause is, it pairs only on apple headsets.

HackToHell

hopefully slhck does not come around :P

@Ruda like Xbox's proprietary bluetooth ?

allquixotic

@HackToHell slhck is the ruiner of fun

he burninated eye-of-the-tiger >:(

HackToHell

I am still not convinced that he is not a bot :/

he does too much much work in too short a time :p

Rudá Almeida

2:38 PM

@HackToHell I don't know, I've been using an xbox360 for about a week only. I know I tried plugging a generic USB analog controller with no luck

HackToHell

Would be surprised if they allowed that !

Bob

@RudáAlmeida They have a bit more of an excuse there, I guess

HackToHell

What the hell is this tag unixlike

Bob

Bluetooth headsets are pretty much standard

Joysticks.. I dunno. Don't they just come up as a generic USB HID device? Which I wouldn't really expect a console to have support for..

allquixotic

@HackToHell burn

@Bob depends :P long ago, no. these days, probably.

Rudá Almeida

2:42 PM

@Bob But it's Apple. It Just Works! TM. Unless it doesn't.

Bob

:P

Rudá Almeida

@allquixotic I had a reeeeeally old MIDI-game-port gamepad with a win95 driver in a floppy disk. Last month I got rid of it and bought a 2-analog-stick USB controller that looks exactly like a PS2 gamepad, but is USB and has windows drivers

allquixotic

i think my favorite gamepad was the Sega Genesis's

Journeyman Geek

oh god, midi

I have the logitech 310 I think

studiohack

question: will the advanced boot options load (F8) on a Dell machine, if the HDD is bad?

allquixotic

2:44 PM

it's hilarious that you would plug a joystick into a port designed for MIDI, on your sound card lol

Bob

@RudáAlmeida Non-USB-HID drivers?

I don't think those support analog signals

Journeyman Geek

@allquixotic: there's a good reason for that tho

studiohack

I can get the Recovery partition to show up when plugged in as an external drive, but not when booting the original PC

Bob

@studiohack The Advanced Boot Options is within Windows

Rudá Almeida

@Bob It's USB and I think it shows up as HID.

allquixotic

2:46 PM

"Sound, video and game controllers" is a historical mention of device class in the device manager that harkens back to the days of soundcards, joysticks and video capture devices and MIDI all being interrelated

Journeyman Geek

@studiohack: Its too late at night for me to remember this correctly, and the army drops my IQ.... but...

IIRC, the install key is in the registry. There's some software that lets you temporarily mount a registry hive and then you can run regular password recovery

Bob

Dell probably has a separate recovery partition, but I don't think it's usually assigned to F8 for fear of conflict

studiohack

@Bob oh. fail.

@Bob how would I access that then?

Rudá Almeida

@Bob I do have tried to get it working on Android, unsucessfully

1

Q: Using a USB game controller on Android

I have recently acquired a USB gamepad. It has two analog buttons, four L+R buttons, but is not a Playstation joystick -- it is recognized as a "Human iterface device" on Windows 7. Is there a way to make it work on ICS? I have a 4.0.2 Android tablet with a USB port and I can use a mouse or key...

4.0-ice-cream-sandwich gamepad

Bob

@studiohack see what comes up on the BIOS screen? Or try hitting Esc (though that's HP...)? :P

though that also sits on the HDD

studiohack

2:48 PM

@Bob just the regular POST and then there's no info... just that there's no boot device

Bob

so if the HDD is bad, you're out of luck (unless you have recovery CDs)

studiohack

it doesn't pick up the HDD.

Journeyman Geek

also see superuser.com/questions/59251/…

studiohack

The BIOS isn't helpful either.

Journeyman Geek

assuming you can get it accessed somehow

studiohack

2:48 PM

@JourneymanGeek oooh, nice.

yeah, that's assuming that Linux can pick up the HDD.

Bob

@studiohack you can normally adjust the splash screen timeout.. and the splash screen normally lists the F-codes...

Journeyman Geek

If I'm incoherent, I've been up since 4 ;p

yeah

Bob

@studiohack tried replugging it yet?

Journeyman Geek

being able to access the drive SOMEHOW is essential here

Bob

@studiohack geekpolice.net/…

studiohack

2:50 PM

@Bob only shows two - boot options (nada nothing - just like network, usb stick, etc). and BIOS

Bob

@JourneymanGeek stay safe...

studiohack

@Bob it's in the faulty laptop now

Bob

@studiohack ah. I suddenly remember my Dell computer now.. kinda

studiohack

@JourneymanGeek I was able to access the Recovery partition when plugged in as a external drive. But Windows wanted me to reformat the HDD when i wanted to access the regular partition

Bob

it just comes up as another bootable partition in boot options, IIRC

so if the HDD isn't detected, then.. yea

and you probably aren't going to get Linux to detect it if the BIOS can't..

HackToHell

2:51 PM

@allquixotic added to that meta tag cleanup thingy

Bob

@studiohack try testdisk on the regular partition

it's pretty good at recovering corrupt NTFS file systems

but first, clone the drive

ddrescue to some other place

studiohack

@Bob didn't work. failed.

Tanner

3:13 PM

@allquixotic haha my flag got marked as helpful xD faq............. comment was deleted.

studiohack

It's gonna take 60+ minutes to download the 50MB version of DSL (**** Small Linux) at the current speed of 8.5kb/sec

Tanner

@studiohack Still trying to get the key?

studiohack

@Tanner yeah.

@JourneymanGeek came to the rescue with an awesome SU post:

2

Q: Recovering Windows license keys from within a LiveCD environment in Linux

I'm curious if it's possible to retrieve the license keys of a Windows XP machine from within a LiveCD environment in Ubuntu. Normally, if I was in Windows, I would just run Magical Jellybean Keyfinder, but is there some way to do this from within a LiveCD environment?

linux livecd license-key

BUT: this all depends if I can get the HDD accessible in the Linux enviro

Bob

Kubuntu doesn't ship with vim :(

@studiohack your connection, or the other end?

allquixotic

@Tanner nice man, some sanity in SF finally

Tanner

3:24 PM

@allquixotic Nah, that was academia

after Luke sent that poor guy over there and they tore him a new one

(SF will always be insanity)

studiohack

@Bob yeah. work connection.

Bob

:(

studiohack

@Bob I'm an IT guy, so I have some free time here and there, so it's quite efficient to work on this (private) client's laptop while I support everyone else :P

allquixotic

OOOOOOOOOH the rain is turning to snow

HackToHell

what the

0

Q: Computer information regarding software

A desktop has expensive software on it.Can that software be damaged if the cords to the computer are cut while the computer is shutdown?

windows

Sathya

3:28 PM

0

Q: Computer information regarding software

A desktop has expensive software on it.Can that software be damaged if the cords to the computer are cut while the computer is shutdown?

dafuq

LOL

XD

LOL

@Sathya JINX

@allquixotic photo photo !!!! (^_^)

studiohack

3:31 PM

@allquixotic nothing here. you Eastern folks are either lucky or doomed. Not sure how I feel about you guys yet.

allquixotic

studiohack

@allquixotic that's your office view? I pictured you in a high rise, of about 5 stories, and you smack dab in the 3rd floor

Bob

@allquixotic What is this snow you speak of?

allquixotic

@studiohack yes, that's my office view... it's a 3 story building and I'm on the second story

studiohack

@allquixotic that looks like ground level?

allquixotic

3:36 PM

@studiohack the building is built into a hill... from one side it's the ground floor, from the other side it's the second floor

Bob

@allquixotic that's cheating

allquixotic

@Bob meh

@studiohack besides, we have so much land around here that there really aren't many "high rises"

even our customer's main complex only has 4 stories, and it has an enormous footprint in terms of land area

the inner city has tall, narrow buildings to be sure, but if you're out in the county or the burbs, you work in a 1 to 4 story building, period

we have windows from the floor to the ceiling, though. I like it :D

windows and Windows with a capital W

studiohack

@allquixotic in my ENTIRE state - we have two escalators... in one bank building. We don't have highrises here either lol

Tanner

4:06 PM

@Montana? :P

looool I meant to @studiohack that line but derped instead

amazon.com/Blue-Microphones-Icicle-Converter-Preamp/dp/…

WANT

allquixotic

nice

Tanner

...after I figure out where all my microphones went =S

allquixotic

i need that, a good singing mic with a windscreen, and some good editing software

please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. please don't shut down the IRS. I need my tax return dammit!

(directed at sequester / snowstorm)

Tanner

I played an open mic last night. First time in like... two years. lol.

studiohack

@Tanner nice guess lol

@allquixotic I thought you were OPM? wait, no. what branch is SS part of?

allquixotic

4:27 PM

@studiohack it's a separate agency

Social Security Administration

The United States Social Security Administration (SSA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits. To qualify for these benefits, most American workers pay Social Security taxes on their earnings; future benefits are based on the employees' contributions. The Social Security Administration was established by a law currently codified at . Its commissioner, Michael J. Astrue, was sworn in on February 12, 2007, for a six-year term. SSA is headqua...

Rudá Almeida

I just got this dialog box:

allquixotic

@RudáAlmeida PPA?

Rudá Almeida

Clicking on "close" or "install" don't get the updates installed.

@allquixotic Yeah, I browsed AU and got a few answers regarding importing keys and the like

I probably can perform these steps just fine, and I know where to look for

But fact this happens on Ubuntu, that's supposed to be "the" user-friendly linux distro...

The average user would just try a few times, give up and stop receiving updates

allquixotic

@RudáAlmeida the average user wouldn't install a PPA to begin with

you're falling into the trap of thinking that you're an average user when you've done something technical and screwed up your install or your package manager, and then go blaming it on Ubuntu for "not being easy"

@RudáAlmeida tell me, do you think this is user friendly?

every OS, regardless of how hard they try to hide it, is going to have some gorey details somewhere at some time

OS X, iOS, Android, Solaris, Linux, Windows (all versions), BSD, even embedded OSes with locked firmware all have issues

"user friendly" is not equivalent to "never shows its soft, buggy, broken underbelly" (which all OSes have)

Rudá Almeida

@allquixotic No, I'm trying to put myself on the shoes of the average user, considering Ubuntu is aimed at being user-friendly. I know I can much probably fix it in a few minutes, others would be clueless.

Also, I don't recall messing with the Software Center technical settings, but maybe I did, I'm a little technical after all.

Bob

4:37 PM

@allquixotic not always...

iOS..

I want to see the gorey details

allquixotic

my mom uses Ubuntu 12.10 every day for about 2 hours on her kitchen laptop, and for another 8 - 10 hours every holiday / weekend

Bob

that effing apple/itunes symbol isn't helping my debugging at all

allquixotic

the only thing she does administratively with the PC is apply updates when the prompt comes up asking her to update packages

Bob

(firmware update failure on boss's phone)

allquixotic

she's never had a problem doing that, and she never installs or removes packages, she just uses what I set up for her -- Chrome with Flash is all she ever needs or uses

Rudá Almeida

4:38 PM

@allquixotic In fact, to the average, "I won't ever read any dialog, just click to go away", that screen is so much better than the XP/Vista BSOD's...

Bob

@allquixotic fresh install of Kubuntu 12.04 for a friend. attempted an upgrade to 12.10.

Rudá Almeida

I like Chrome's error icon: "something went wrong, oh no".

Bob

broken the next day :P

allquixotic

@Bob some people like to "fiddle" with a system without really understanding what they're doing; these people are always going to be a problem unless they actually learn what they're doing

my dad is like that, and he has no end of problems with Windows 8

Rudá Almeida

The ideal error message: "Damn! Something went wrong. Call the nearest geek".

Bob

4:40 PM

@allquixotic that was a standard release upgrade

on a fresh install

allquixotic

my mom never fiddles with the system and she always has a very stable, fully working environment

Bob

nothing but Chromium was installed/changed

Tanner

@RudáAlmeida Past two days this user has called me because "her printer doesn't work." We have an session emulator that needs to be started and it was asking for her password. She was clicking cancel. :|

allquixotic

my mom is basically the ideal target market for a Chromebook, but she's currently running Ubuntu 12.10 on my old ThinkPad X61T

and it's worked great

Bob

'Hey Megan, it's your father. How do I print out a flowchart?'

allquixotic

4:41 PM

I almost forgot that she was running Linux because she doesn't complain to me at all

in fact, outside of work, every web browser she ever interacts with is on the Linux kernel. Android on her phone, Ubuntu on her laptop

Bob

also

This is how I explain computer problems to my cat. My cat usually seems happier than me.

allquixotic

even her tablet is Android ICS

Rudá Almeida

@Tanner ignorethecode.net/blog/2008/10/31/nobody-reads

@allquixotic OK, I get your point. And now I reconsider, it's possible I get this message because I installed some non-standard package. But I can't think what would it be, except for Dropbox I install everything from the default repos. That dialog had java all over it.

allquixotic

@RudáAlmeida So you need to find out what repository provides those packages and it's probably some PPA or something; otherwise you wouldn't get that error

Tanner

@RudáAlmeida Meh, that's from a designer's standpoint :P If it's your effing job to print something out, you damn well better be capable of reading the printer's error message or you need to be fired.

allquixotic

4:45 PM

besides, from a system designer's perspective, I would rather receive an error message, even if it confuses a user, than to just allow a package to install without being signed and the signing key trusted, because then you would get slammed for people getting hacked

I'd rather have someone say "it doesn't work!" than "I got hacked!" so if forced to choose, I choose break it

and if people don't read dialog boxes then you may as well change all that text to just a big, sideways sad face and leave it at that

with a message in /var/log/messages for the enterprising power user who wants to fix it

studiohack

@allquixotic oh. that's obvious since SSA is so big. /me headesk

allquixotic

as for that particular error message @Ruda, that it's happening in the first place is the fault of the user, not of Ubuntu, because all the repositories added when installing a fresh image are trusted automatically

so you've added a separate repository (whether you are aware of it or not) that causes that message, and that's your fault... when the user does something wrong and it's their fault and the system can't proceed without potentially violating security principles and enabling system compromise, you have two choices

Sathya

heee-la-rious

3

allquixotic

choice 1, break it and don't work, or choice 2, be Windows 95 and do it anyway because "it's convenient"

Sathya

(replace Stack Overflow with Super User, and 5 Stack Overflow users with any of Super User users. And add in me too)

Tanner

4:49 PM

> promote more internet vandalism than real knowledge or helpfulness.

Sathya

source: TL

Rudá Almeida

@Sathya TL?

Tanner

I have no words. That's just... wow...

Sathya

@RudáAlmeida teacher's lounge, the mod-only chat room

allquixotic

wow @ that

hey, considering they didn't pay anything for being yelled at for not thinking through their question properly, I think it's not a ripoff and they got a fairly good bargain

we didn't even charge them anything and had the courtesy to tell them that they're not thinking properly -- FOR FREE!

Tom Wijsman

4:50 PM

These are typically the people that would get themselves banned on IRC.

allquixotic

that's not a ripoff. what a ridiculous website

come to think of it, how can anything that's free be a ripoff?

Tom Wijsman

And "consdense to a few lines of code", it sounds like he's got it all wrong.

allquixotic

I probably would have agreed with him about 5 minutes after I first encountered a StackExchange site (I think it was SO, back in 2009 or so)

it's an acquired taste, it really is

Tanner

I think everyone goes through that phase, don't we?

allquixotic

but once you acquire it, it makes you think better, and you instantly become more valuable as an employee and a citizen of the world for it

Tanner

4:52 PM

Seems like everyone has one question that they got really pissed about, and then moved on and laugh about it later.

allquixotic

@Tanner the only people who never really experience that are people who read Eric S. Raymond's "How To Ask Questions The Right Way" from beginning to end, memorized it and committed it to heart, and had prior practice asking good questions on mailing lists or IRC

seriously, for people like me who, in the 2000s, cut our teeth on open source mailing lists and IRC channels, the SE network was fairly easy to adjust to

catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Bob

@Tanner It was a while before I asked a question...

too scared, tbh :P

allquixotic

@Bob I want to find the first question JonSkeet ever asked and VTC it

hahahahahahahahaha

Bob

@allquixotic too late

322

Q: What's the strangest corner case you've seen in C# or .NET?

I collect a few corner cases and brain teasers and would always like to hear more. The page only really covers C# language bits and bobs, but I also find core .NET things interesting too. For example, here's one which isn't on the page, but which I find incredible: string x = new string(new char...

c# .net

allquixotic

LOL

Tom Wijsman

4:56 PM

EU just gave MS a 561 million fine because you can't "choose" the search engine in IE (and it comes bundled with Bing / Yahoo as default).

uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/…

Tanner

ahahaha my first post ever was an answer to a shopping question: superuser.com/questions/451180/…

Tom Wijsman

2

A: Hard drive disk size smaller than labeled - 320GB drive contains only 60GB

You might want to completely wipe and test the disk with special tools from the brand of the hard disk, that will ensure that you will see the right information. If that doesn't help, the hard drive either has a wrong sticker or is providing the wrong information.

allquixotic

@TomWijsman yeah, read that on /.

Tom Wijsman

Never searched my first answer, seems a normal one.

Bob

@allquixotic also appeared somewhere on reddit. bunch of idiots commenting...

Tom Wijsman

4:58 PM

@allquixotic: Not sure if I have to interpret that as Root (Access), Slant or Slashdot. :D

Bob

@TomWijsman wasn't that about browser choice, not search engine?

allquixotic

@TomWijsman you're missing an x, and it should be expanded to Slashdot

Tom Wijsman

@Bob Well, I just said what local news said, so I am unsure now... :D

Bob

@TomWijsman the article you linked mentions failing to offer users a choice of web browser

allquixotic

you know, there are a LOT of operating systems, both commercial and non-commercial, that allow the user to select a browser post-install by installing one, but don't explicitly say "hey, there are other browsers you can choose!" upon installing...

such as, just about every other OS on the planet besides Windows EU Edition

Bob

5:02 PM

hm

my first post (answer) was .. bleh.

Tom Wijsman

Okay, seems local news got it wrong.

allquixotic

Ubuntu, OS X, Android, iOS... Hell, is it even possible to run Firefox or Opera on iOS without using Webkit underneath?

Bob

@allquixotic apparently it had something to do with IE being offered free and implementing its own standards, therefore killing Netscape

back in 2004.

allquixotic

@Bob I'm well aware of the browser wars of the past, but why are they dredging this up now, long after Netscape is dead?

Bob

@allquixotic I don't recall seeing ay alternative browsers for iOS

@allquixotic some contract till 2014

allquixotic

5:04 PM

ah, weird

Bob

and something to do with a complaint by Opera in 2007

@allquixotic support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/945460

First, Chrome for iOS isn't really chrome. It is only Safari with a new skin and the Chrome Syncing features built in. Apple won't allow a different web engine (like Gecko, which Firefox uses) on iOS, nor will it provide access to some of the API's that a web browser needs to run as fast as Safari. While we may work around these issues later on, it's not currently possible for Firefox to be on iOS.

allquixotic

I've no love for Microsoft, but it seems unfair that Microsoft is receiving this treatment when Apple isn't receiving any fines for only allowing iOS to run WebKit

Bob

WinRT is doing something similar

and people are up in arms about that

meanwhile, iOS's been doing it for half a decade -_-

allquixotic

my opinion is that the technical lockout of installing a third party web browser engine is a more heinous crime than just installing a default browser and not notifying users about competing browsers

Bob

I remember trying to find Opera Mobile, and only finding Opera Mini (which renders pages on Opera's own servers)

@allquixotic supposedly, MS was... ahem... abusing its OS monopoly by bundling a free web browser

and something to do with not allowing OEMs to distribute Netscape with Windows

allquixotic

5:07 PM

I actually agree with that to an extent

but to what extent does Apple have an iOS monopoly? well, for one, on the target hardware, they have a 100% monopoly unless some super hacker manages to install Android on an iPhone

Bob

at least nowadays, you can argue that a web browser is an integral part of an OS...

allquixotic

but if you count Android devices as being in the same product family as iOS devices, then Apple does not have a monopoly, it has kind of a duopoly, with Android actually having the majority

Bob

or you can say including Win32 is abusing its Windows NT kernel monopoly

allquixotic

@Bob don't give the EU any ideas

Bob

lol

allquixotic

5:09 PM

How do you define a software monopoly, though? This is a legitimate question.

iOS is a monopoly software operating system on Apple hardware

Bob

and at what point is software lumped into another category?

allquixotic

but in the entire world, if you look outside of Apple's hardware products, you find other products with comparable features that are not locked into Apple's monopoly

so it's a sticky situation

Bob

IE is a browser. Great. Supposedly distinct from an OS.

allquixotic

when Microsoft HAD a monopoly in the golden age of the desktop personal computer, they actually had a COMPLETE monopoly over ALL digital computing in the entire consumer market, because we had no smartphones or chromebooks

Bob

But the Trident rendering engine is very heavily integrated with Windows

allquixotic

5:10 PM

that might be the problem: they had >90% market share over an entire industry -- digital computing in home and business environments

Bob

that's part of it, the reason they could be prosecuted

but at the time a browser was considered separate too

allquixotic

they didn't monopolize the hardware, but because of a complete lack of meaningful competition in the software side, it was pretty obviously a monopoly

Bob

...wut

> In 1998, Sun Microsystems raised a complaint about the lack of disclosure of some of the interfaces to Windows NT. The case widened when the EU examined how streaming media technologies were integrated with Windows.

allquixotic

huh

I guess Sun Microsystems wanted to be able to play Sun Audio files on Windows out of the box :D

Au file format

The Au file format is a simple audio file format introduced by Sun Microsystems. The format was common on NeXT systems and on early Web pages. Originally it was headerless, being simply 8-bit µ-law-encoded data at an 8000 Hz sample rate. Hardware from other vendors often used sample rates as high as 8192 Hz, often integer factors of video clock signals. Newer files have a header that consists of six unsigned 32-bit words, an optional information chunk and then the data (in big endian format). Although the format now supports many audio encoding formats, it remains associated wi...

Bob

oh wait

the original browser thing was actually by the US

1998

2004 EU was WMP bundling

allquixotic

5:15 PM

what astounds me is that, since Internet Explorer has always been free, Microsoft derives practically no monetary gain from continuing to ship it, since they could just bundle Chrome out of the box and users would be happier (from the better features and standards compliance), and they could let IE slowly die

I guess back in the old day when they wanted to lock everyone into ActiveX plugins, it had its purpose

but the momentum behind ActiveX is long gone, and there are only a few ghostly/ghastly remnants of it remaining in production systems; the rest of the world has moved on to using Flash, Java, or HTML5 for the same purposes as ActiveX used to serve

Bob

and MS promised a browser choice with Windows 7... 2009 or something

@allquixotic also, nonstandard JS and HTML

allquixotic

browserchoice.eu

been around for ages, not sure why they got fined again if that's been up, maybe they took it down though

Bob

@allquixotic something about the SP1 update breaking it

which got fixed after 14 months

I dunno

and they want to 'make an example' of MS or something

for violating that contract

allquixotic

you know what's funny is that the little blurb under ALL the browsers on browserchoice.eu mentions "fast" or "speed"

Bob

:P

allquixotic

5:19 PM

did Netscape and early IE (arguably, all IE up until IE 10) really operate that slowly, that the #1 feature of browsers these days is speed?

Bob

I'm sticking with Firefox. And not just because I'm used to it; it would be quite literally impossible to run Chrome/IE with this many tabs

736 and counting

Chrome is my backup browser at the moment, though IE10 seems alright

yesterday, by Bob

open IE9 => start downloading Firefox => browse to Visual Studio Express download page => see download details for C# Express 2010 => Click Install Now => "microsoft.com is not responding" => "recover webpage" => IE9 is not responding => ... ... ... => process hosting MS website crashes => finish downloading, installing, Firefox => download VC# 2010 Express in Firefox with no problems

that's probably my biggest problem with IE9

the page process freezes randomly :\

Oliver Salzburg

Home \o/

Tanner

Just started my i Series class...

allquixotic

aww man

what's the name of that privacy wiki or something where they give some kind of scorecard to all different websites on their privacy policy

i forgot it

Bob

5:34 PM

hey, it's not too bad today:

Ping statistics for 74.125.237.104:
    Packets: Sent = 521, Received = 314, Lost = 207 (39% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 3553ms, Average = 560ms

though that doesn't cuont the dozens of dns lookup failures trying to get the ping started... :S

Luke

6:09 PM

@Paul @allquixotic Figured out the email issue... It was their bloody Norton 360

Uninstalled, their email works properly!

studiohack

@Luke AV is so invasive.

Luke

Uninstalled, used MSE, works perfect! I figured (before realizing it was 360) that disabling it would have been enough

I know I'm gonna have a drink tonight after I drop my son off

Tanner

@Luke I swear MSE is the best thing Microsoft has ever made. It's the only antivirus that doesn't make me want to hang myself.

Tom Wijsman

6:26 PM

@Bob: Okay, they said browser on the local news here; they zoom in on the image the wrong way though.

Luke

6:42 PM

Agreed

KronoS

6:55 PM

Terrible answer to a terrible question

studiohack

7:08 PM

Ran SLAX but the HDD doesn't show up. (not mounted on the Desktop). So... this is a fail.

allquixotic

haha, my -2 answer to a -1 question got accepted... nice

and I'm the one that downvoted the question :D

Tanner

haha

allquixotic

7:40 PM

Dafuq? Run Windows 8 Modern UI apps on the desktop in a window, and explicitly close them! O_O

2

Oliver Salzburg

Anyone ever used one of these guys' previous products? kickstarter.com/projects/quo/…

I really wouldn't mind one of those ultimate collector boxes :D

Luke

So it can run Mac OSX, Linux and Windows natively? Without any sort of hacks on the User's part?

Oliver Salzburg

@Luke It seems like they're claiming that

Luke

I'll believe it when I see it, with my authentic Mac OSX DVD

Oliver Salzburg

I just read through the project page and thought it sounded pretty awesome :D

allquixotic

7:51 PM

@Luke surely not simultaneously

I think it means one at a time

Oliver Salzburg

@allquixotic Of course not, how would that even work? :D

3 monitors with a different OS on each?

Luke

If only, @OliverSalzburg, if only...

@allquixotic Someone just stole that link for a question... Lol

0

Q: Is it possible to use Metro apps in "desktop mode"?

Some of the metro apps are pretty interesting and could spare the user to install third-party apps, like the PDF reader app, the messenger app, ... The major issue with these apps is that it seems impossible to launch them in a windowed mode, which is not convenient for desktop users. Does an...

windows-8 modern-ui

allquixotic

@Luke lame

must be a stardock employee haha

Luke

Probably

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