Windows 10 Upgrade – How it Went

(Give a like and share with a friend who needs this info please, I don’t have $100000 pr team, it’s just me here)
First I had a friend send me a link to Microsoft’s site where they explain how to install.
So no.. I never got the notification that the update/upgrade said
Here’s the link to the Windows 10 download. Be sure to read everything and make sure you have every piece of requested and required information and meet all requirements before moving on.
I have the end user license agreement available in pdf form.
I followed the instructions on that page, got my serial key ready and plugged in a dvd and a usb (belt and suspenders) and downloaded the media creation tool for my system, and just installed and hit the “next” button maybe three times. If that.

after about 35 minutes of downloading and 20 minutes of finalizing

For your Nvidia video cards, let windows update your drivers, it may take a few minutes but just let windows handle it.

Cool thing is I have been running dual monitors for a little while, so when the computer booted up, I had not one but two start menus and it is not a cloned desktop. Desktop icons right where I left them before the upgrade.
I did my run through of tests.
Run:
GIMP
AutoCAD
Photoshop
Adobe CS3

Nothing had a hang up.
Next will be a few more tests (to be added later) and then I will try and uninstall/roll back my operating system back to Windows 7.

The Cons:
windows 10 okay, nothing spectacular other than dual start menus when you have two monitors. after that…. bleh..
Taskbar looks a bit like the fake taskbars we’d put on windows 3.1
Redmond ? Whirling dervish? or Caldera skin? what was it called?
Start menu is a bit lacking. and please let’s not change the word “program” to “App” even if you are trying to force us to buy cloud space for the “apps” that we already paid for, for our 2 tb store bought personal hard drives.

Microsoft Internet Explorer seems to still be there.
and windows 10 still calls for it


Now this could just be because I am on an upgrade instead of a full install of windows 10. Uncertain as of yet. Wait for a few more updates.

Finally found Control Panel type stuff
startcontrolpanel
Just right click the start menu and you will see many of the control panel functions.

Settings for EDGE

Edge Settings

Edge Settings

Mostly the same as Firefox, top right of teh browser. You can also change the color of your browser there.

 

Why was windows 10 free?

How I Re-enabled Flash on FireFox

flashfixfirefox

In a previous post you see I explain why killing Flash is bad. So this post is to show how I enabled my Flash  on firefox (which Is a bit of a task because I have to careful and accountable for my actions, so I do not recommend you try this)
I got sick of accepting flash on every single website I went to. Flas is in website ads used by Google and other Advertisers, so the notice came up on every single website I traveled to. This is an annoyance. Well I solved taht issue, and this is how.
I opened Mozilla FireFox and typed this in the address bar
about:config
Then I pressed enter.
Then in the search box I typed
blocklist

When the list of items with “blocklist” in their title populated, I look for
extensions.blocklist.enabled
I right click that line  and change it’s status from “True” to “False” (this was a temporary fix. Read the update below)
enableflash
Then go to my list of plugins and check their status and see if all of my plug ins are up to date. Then update all plug ins.

I am currently looking for a way to change the items in the blocklist so that I can exclude Flash.

**update**
From that same blocklist (search results posted above), you will see there are 2 blocklist URLs. The longer of the two is the one that I downloaded and saved to my documents folder.
“extensions.blocklist.url; https://blocklist.addons.mozilla.org/blocklist/3/%APP_ID%/%APP_VERSION%/%PRODUCT%/%BUILD_ID%/%BUILD_TARGET%/%LOCALE%/%CHANNEL%/%OS_VERSION%/%DISTRIBUTION%/%DISTRIBUTION_VERSION%/%PING_COUNT%/%TOTAL_PING_COUNT%/%DAYS_SINCE_LAST_PING%/”

Now say “C:\Users\TRUXTER\Documents\%DAYS_SINCE_LAST_PING%.xml”

I told firefox to check there for the blocklist. Next, I edited the XML file in notepad++ and stripped out all valid Flash descriptions and left the known virus ones that aren’t really flash Or what looked like Firefox is blocking a real phishing site.

Changed blocklist status back to enabled/true.
Rebooted Firefox and and began surfing the internet and flash is working fine again.
fixflashonfirefox

 

Double checked my plugins and everything is fine again
flashpluginworks

Only issue is I have no idea if this will go back to normal when Firefox quits this stupid game and puts things back to normal.

I would upload this and let you all download the edited one but I don’t want any liability for anything you do, so I am not advising you try this at all. Just telling you what I did. It wasn’t a whole lot of work, just about 3 minutes of hitting “find next” and deleting lines out. From opening bracket to closing brackets.

Why Forced Flash Shutdown Is Bad

flashblock_firefox
Web browsers have taken upon themselves to block the flash on websites with a warning that the website is unsafe. Instead of just putting the notice over the area the flash is in, they put a notification at the top of the page.
blockedbyfirefox

Adobe tries to help with a “how to enable flash” walk through but Firefox no longer allows this
flashenablefirefox
The act of closing flash from websites, though the intention of preventing “Viruses” is a great idea, bit it is a false claim to say that flash is the most vulnerable software used on websites.
sure the websites that you get a virus from are most likely using flash. This does not in any sense say that you are getting the virus from flash. If anything you are getting the virus from a tricked up java script.
Some of the simplest viruses can be written in visual basic. And they are likely the utmost common virus injected through the web today.

and yes your HTML5 puffy site is using a VB file at some point.

If you are seeing a GIF as your saving grace from flash. Then you are sadly mistaken. You are just guzzling down unnecessary bandwidth.

This is just a simple push to bring everyone to design HTML5 websites. This stripping the flash use function of the web browsers to make the websites “Responsive” and move everyone to HTML5, is sort of like extortion.
HTML5 and responsive sites, though they look cooler on your cell phone, are less website, less informative. And simply a dumbed down puffy website. You can’t even zoom most html5 websites to see the details.

Simply put, a responsive website is a website dumbed down to work with a cell phone. This is software reducing it’s self to allow the hardware to keep up. This is how you plateau in hardware acceleration. When the software exceeds the ability of the hardware, the hardware must evolve. When the hardware and the software agree to stabilize, no one evolves. If they would have done this years ago we’d still be looking at black screens with yellow/green text. And we’d be happy with that because we couldn’t imagine it getting any better.

Besides, there are far too many websites out there that I have to keep accepting the flash to load because of this 3 ring web browser shun, and it is getting annoying. They could end up upsetting ADOBE and causing a huge court issue of this.

Simply put: it would be like Mcdonalds Taco bell and pizza hutt stopping using card board because it smells less cool. Now we all have to carry our food in wet paper bags because a few kids think it’s the bee’s knees and the next evolution.

Complacency is not evolution.

Let the users chose what they want to see.

How I fixed my Firefox to work with flash again

Fire alarm Symbols Blocks – Free

Addressable fire alarm initiating devices.

Fire Alarm Symbol Blocks

Fire Alarm Symbol Blocks

A few fire alarm cad blocks that have unique attributes and functions to simplify fire alarm design.
These are blocks that I have used in fire alarm design for a few years but recently revamped. These are the ones I backed up for just in case I don’t like my new changes. Since my new changes to the fire alarm blocks went well, I am going ahead and giving these away for free.
Please keep in mind that I also have more on my FireAlarmDWG.com website that are for sale. They have even more simplified and smoother functions.

If you are the designer for your company and you have sales members who need a better way to make bids, direct them to my Fire Alarm gimp brushes (free also) this will save you so much headache in designs.

Here are the fire alarm device symbols .

Fire alarm symbols Free

and just for fun here are some fire alarm blocks I made in Superhero fashion.

These autocad blocks can be dropped into your drawings or templates as you see fit.

The smoke detector and the pull station and the heat detector and duct detector symbols are all addressable. at the moment of insertion to drawings you will be prompted to title the device numerically that way you can get a running count from the moment you design. This allows your fire alarm system to have an exact format per plans. Not the other way around.

The horn strobe blocks have menus to select multiple options from. such as left facing or right facing. The horn strobe you see that is a typical wall mounted horn strobe, actually has a few features and the option to change to any fire alarm symbol you chose. This allows for change orders or changes per manager or ahj or customer.

Fire Alarm Symbol Brushes For Gimp

fire_alarm_symbols

As you may know I have been working on a fire alarm autocad template full of blocks and symbols to make my fire alarm design job a bit easier.
I also have been working on a fun side project. Fire Alarm Templates.

Sometimes I get floor plans in tiff or jpg format. When I do I have to lay that in as an xref and trace the walls. Well sometimes the bid is too low to do that efficiently and the company still make a profit. Sometimes there is just a need to get a quick device count for a bid. Well I came up with a way to get the symbols onto the tiff to send back to the customer.

To get these brushes for free, just download from here

Fire alarm Symbol Brushed for Gimp
And then place the brushes into this folder on your computer (with g.i.m.p. turned off)

C:\Users\(your-Name)\.gimp-2.6\brushes

Currently only works as the pencil mode brush. Scale it at size 10.

This has made take-off and bid tasks much faster and much easier. Except the fact that you have to eyeball the coverage. No tool as of just yet for measuring coverage. This will come eventually.
Use your best guess.

DISCLAIMER:

These symbol brushes are for general idea only, not for construction and not for permit use.

Reddit’s Current state of protest 7/3/2015

reddit_outrage
Currently Reddit is seeing a bit of a protest due to the letting go of a moderator in the Ask me Anything (AMA) section. Reddit let go of a moderator who’s name is Victoria.

Much of the protest is just bandwagon action from people who never even subscribed to the subreddit called ask me anything. The kids and adults who protest to whatever is being protested and many just for the laughs to add to the jokes. Which makes it look like this moderator is someone with a huge fan-base.

voat.coThere are many posts on Reddit saying they will leave Reddit for another website called VOAT.CO.  Which Voat.co seems to be currently suffering from the sudden influx of users and readers.  so the front page is a notice saying that Voat.Co is currently down.
Voat.Co is somewhat of a clone of Reddit, which actually got it’s idea and platform from people who jumped ship and left Digg.com. After Reddit copied digg, Facebook brought in the like button and never added a dislike . This is still a take from digg’s platform due to the fact that the more liked posts get moved to be seen by more people.

Nonetheless, Reddit’s front page is full of bashings while all of their subreddits have gone private and nothing is being seen by new visitors of Reddit.

In the end reddit is getting a nice flow of visitors and steady activity in protest to Reddit.

 

Hands On Galaxy S6 Edge

Samsung Galaxy S6

Samsung Galaxy S6

If the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge really does have Gorilla glass as I have been told, that did not feel like I expected.
The S6 Edge was very thin and light weight. The screen was wide yet narrow.
What I felt while holding that phone was in no way similar to the reviews I have been seeing. The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, though it felt smooth to the touch and nearly seamless, it felt kind cheap. Not inexpensive but felt poorly made. Almost like a doll house wide screen tv. as if it would just crumble the first time you set anything on it. Reminded me on the Sanyo Zio but much more costly. With the curved edges and the plastic feeling screen.

No idea how you put a screen cover on that phone. Or even a case that would be effective and still allow you to use that silly edge area.
Sure that gives you more tools to add but what if the screen was flat, that stuff would still work and a case would serve an actual purpose.
The menu system didn’t feel like anything innovative has been created either. and yes I am quite used to feeling teh sides of the phone while I navigate.
The battery Specs online say 2,600mAh in the system settings, while the comparable budget phone ZTE Grand™ X Max+ has a 3200mAh battery.  the battery could be better.

Not interested in the Galaxy 6 Edge.

Review scoring:
Feel– 5/10
Look– 9/10
Navigation– 7/10
Durability– 4/10
Battery life– 8/10

Total review score = 5/10

Is Computer Technology in a Slump?

Sure computer technology is in a slump.
A slump created by the lazy and braggadocios.
The ignorant with money to burn, and the poor who want to look like they have money to burn.
It is now taboo to show people Technology you created from scratch. It makes you look poor and unworthy of honor. No longer do we feel the pride of learning new things and piecing together our ideas and things we learned, into one space to make the things we need.

We have built ourselves into a corner of ignorance.

We used to hack our phones to have web browsers they didn’t have before. We used to get our phones to surf the internet when no one even considered it useful. and we did it with phones that didn’t have a touch screen or a scroll wheel. We created our own mp3 players to suit our phones per model and we would burn that to a 3.5 disk or to a c.d. so we wouldn’t have to rebuild when we changed our phones, we’d just have to modify to work with the version of Symbian on the phone. but now, everything is right there for free with ads, or for sale. No one has to learn anymore. We just nod and smile when someone calls you stupid for not knowing about some app they just downloaded that does what you did 10 years ago, manually. And for god’s sake you can’t tell them this, or they will call you a hipster.

Tech trends are a shame.

All websites are starting to look the exact same crappy HTML 5 over simplified big buttons so people can use it better on their little phone displays that no one can compile a good Java or flash player for.

The days of complexity are gone.
Now are the days of “look, shiney and simple”
and complacency.

It is as if we have dumbed ourselves.

There was a time when software exceeded the abilities of hardware. Which caused the hardware makers to try harder. build better. To evolve.
But now the software makers aren’t trying to create the new.. the more bundled. the bigger deal to make people buy it.
They want to make it easy and super light weight, so you pay again to buy the other crap that used to be in the older version, one by one.

We have become the fat consumer.
And tech… The world for the outsiders… Became fashion-ware for the trendy.
where abilities and functionality no longer matter, just the name brand and brag-ability.
$10,000? Made by apple? Of course it has features functions and abilities that their $150 watch does not have.
In the day when we dreamed of that, we dreamt of hackability. The ability to mod that computer on your wrist to have your own functions to fit your own needs. Now you just download someone else’s idea (app) that best suits you and like it and show off what you downloaded.

We had our DVR. Our home entertainment center from a computer we built with a series of hard drives stacked together to burn our tv shows onto while we worked. With hundreds upon hundreds of function. Those are gone and now we have it in a “cloud” (some hairy dude’s server in his basement Shhhh) and we install an ap for some of the functions and Features with nothing to want to learn.

Java 8 not compatible with Windows Xp

java-8_xp
Xp users, your days are numbered.
You will soon be finding more and more software not working with your computer.
This being said, I have to say the most taboo statement in computer Tech world…. Probably a good idea to stop doing updates to items on your Xp computer.
Java 8 installation now tells you that is no longer compatible with your operating system but still says “if you wanna try it go ahead, don’t blame us though” in a round about way.
To be exact:
Java 8 requires a newer version of Windows. You may continue with the installation, but for Java to work as specified we recommend upgrading your operating system. Please refer to http://java.com/sysreq

Something tells me it will be just a year or two before we start getting this notice on windows vista and windows 7.

How To Change Notepad ++ Spellcheck Language

Got sick of Notepad Plus Plus telling me there is a spelling issue with the word “color” and telling me that “colour” is the better option. I selected English and couldn’t find how to select which version of English spelling.
When designing websites, the word “color” comes up quite often.
So seeing that stupid squiggly line under.
So I started digging around in the settings. Just I could not find the setting for the spell checker to select between British English and American English.

Click on “Plugins”
nppsettingslanguage

Click on DSpellcheck Then Click on Settings

spellchecksettingsnpp

At midway where it says “Language” click the drop down menu on the right and select the language you need.
If it is not listed then click on the button that says “Download Dictionaries”
And that should take you to

ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/software/openoffice/contrib/dictionaries/

Now you just use the checkboxes to select the languages you want in your dictionaries.

spellchecksfilesnpp