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Comment Re:Trustworthy? Gandi or PairNic (Score 1) 295

PairNIC, operated by Pair Networks. From their web site: "Launched in January 1996 and profitable since its second month of operation...". I have hosted with them for many years and their reliability is unbeatable. If you are a US-based business you can't escape US jurisdiction anyway and probably won't mind paying a couple of dollars more.

I've been using Pairnic for all of my domain names, no complaints, and the prices seem reasonable. I use them to host my website, too. At one point I switched to someone else (phpwebhosting.com, I don't know if they're still around) and complaints from my site's users about slow/unresponsive pages went from zero to daily, at least. I switched back to pair.com and those complaints dropped back to zero.

Comment Re:Oh yeah, this is just what I want (Score 3, Informative) 71

Me either. I have ~250 gigabytes of pictures to back up, and I wanted to do it offsite (they're our family memories). Before Glacier came along, I was looking at building NAS machines for my brother and I that we would host each other's backup data. It would've worked, but what a PITA, and a lot of up-front expense. Glacier is easy, and cheap - my AWS bill last month was $2.50. For that kind of money, it's hard to justify the time and expense of rolling my own remote NAS solution. (I know over the long run I might be able to build the remote NAS solution for less money, but figure in electricity costs and potential drive replacements, and I'm not sure that solution would be that much cheaper. It would all depend on how long the drives last.)

Comment Re:"Dreaded"? (Score 1) 183

I saw a young woman in EPCOT back in December that was walking around with the selfie stick constantly extended. It looked like she was videoing her entire vacation... and she was at the center of the video the whole time. Everything else in EPCOT was background - all of its beautiful buildings, people in costumes, performances, fountains, etc. The amount of narcissism required to accomplish that astounds me. I get self conscious when my wife and I snap one or two pictures of ourselves (no selfie stick). I can't imagine having - and watching - and entire video of myself walking around all day.

Comment Re:Changes based on the Season (Score 1) 304

He rides outside when the weather is good and uses an indoor solution when the weather is bad, and you say he's likely a danger when he rides outside again? Seems a bit extreme. People don't forget balance and handling when they get outside again; neck problems kept me off bikes for ~10 years and I was able to hop right back into it without a problem.

If you're so tightly wound that a wiggle out of the guy next to you would cause a problem, then you're the danger, not him.

Comment Re:someone explain for the ignorant (Score 1) 449

Gah. I had the opportunity to visit Vienna, Austria for work last summer, and my chip-and-signature cards were useless for automated kiosks. Fortunately a friend had lent me a few euros before I left, so I was able to use cash to purchase U-Bahn fare. Thanks to reading Slashdot comments, I knew about this problem and asked before the trip, and the credit card company (the one contracted by my employer for our company cards) said, "Errr, what? We have European travelers all the time and you're the first to ask!" But the same damn company has issued a chip-and-signature (personal) card to me for years. Yearrgghhh.

Austria seemed to be more of a cash operation anyway. I got a few odd looks when I pulled out the card, and I quickly realized cash was the norm. I even ran into one place that refused the card. The people were awesomely friendly, though. Austria is definitely on the list for a second visit.

Comment Re:os x IS certified official Unix (Score 1) 393

I'm with you. I bought a Macbook Pro in 2009 because I didn't like any of the Linux laptop offerings, and I didn't want another Windows machine. I figured if I didn't like OS X, I could run Linux on it. Well, here we are over 5 years later and I'm still running OS X it. It's pretty nice, and I still have the command line.

That said, I'm typing this on a Kubuntu 14.04 desktop, and it's pretty nice too. My one gripe is that it seems a bit flaky compared to my prior Slackware installs - weird things like the login box showing on different monitors when I boot up (today it was on the second monitor; yesterday it was on the primary). Things like that make me a bit nervous, but aside from those it does work well. I just wish I'd installed Kubuntu 64 bit instead of 32 bit...I'm not sure why I did that, probably because of issues I had with libraries under Slackware64. (I still use Slackware on my server, but it's due for a software upgrade...I haven't decided what route to go with it.)

Comment Re:Manual config (Score 1) 64

My experience with the WRT54G v1.1 was ten years of trouble free use. I replaced it only because I wanted a faster network (I move large files around frequently). In fact, I still have my WRT54G, and I needed to come up with a way to get internet access for one device to multiple devices at a show we run, so I installed dd-wrt or openwrt on it and had it connecting to two wireless networks (one with net access and our private one). Even when I was running a live video stream through that connection, the WRT54G performed perfectly. I wish my newer Netgear router was as reliable as my WRT54G was; it requires a power cycle every few weeks.

Comment Re:Quantum Leap (Score 1) 480

I'd often say, "That was the best episode of Quantum Leap ever!", after seeing the week's episode. There were a few clunkers or whatever, but for the most part...wow. Such a great show. I wish the DVDs had the original music though. :(

Comment Re:Any actual examples? (Score 1) 598

I keep typing ... A-l-i-c-e- -C-o...

As soon as I type the first 'o', itunes suggests "Alice COOPER", and autocompletes what I'm typing; and it helpfully capitalizes the 'o' I just typed too. I literally could not find any way to get itunes to accept "Alice Cooper" into the box via the keyboard. I resorted to typing Alice Cooper in notepad, and using paste in iTunes as the ONLY way to fix the artist name.

A few versions back that dialog box worked just fine.

That's just one tiny example that represents an entire CLASS of grief I have with apple software these days. I run into the same sorts of grief all over the place.

Even clippy was less annoying... at least it asked if you wanted help, and you say no, and you could even turn it off. Apple now just assumes you need help, won't let you say no or turn it off, and won't even let you fix its incorrect guesses. UX idiocy.

You know, I'm seeing that in Safari on my MB Pro. I have a home-brew photo database with a web front end, and for picture #1 I might type a caption like, "skater types on slashdot", then for the second picture which happens to be of me, I'll type in "skater". Then it fills in the "...types on slashdot" and I have to fight with it to keep that part away. I thought it was because my computer is running slowly and I was typing quickly, but it sounds exactly like what you're seeing.

Comment Re: Nosedive (Score 1) 598

I gave my iPhone to my daughter and bought a Nexus 5 precisely because getting the operating system (iOS 7 at that point) was just one big piece of suckage, and having to use the iTunes software to move songs, video and books off my computer. iTunes may actually be the worst software I've seen any major software house produce. If its designers and coders had any sense of honor, they'd find the highest building they could, and leap off of it.

Android has its flaws, but when I plug my into my computer's USB port, I can copy files on and off without trouble, create new directories, without any hassle at all.

The worst part of my saga is that my wife went out and bought an iPhone and an iPod, and I was trying to show her how to move all her MP3s on to those devices, and I discovered the newest version of iTunes is every bit as awful and non-intuitive as its forebears. After an hour of fucking about, my wife finally admitted that she should have gone with Android.

I had exactly the opposite problem with Android - getting music on to my S3 was a nightmare; after wasting many hours fighting with it, I finally had to buy software to sync over the air, and that never worked all that well. I never could get my Macbook Pro or my Linux desktop to recognize my Android phone when I plugged it in, even with the Android drivers for OS X that are available. When the iPhone 6 came out, I preordered one and was able to load songs on to it with just a couple clicks and some time to sync, no problem. Maybe iTunes for Windows is bad, but it always seems to work fine for me under OS X.

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