The Spam Thread!

[Blackberry Bun]

Seriously, the more I read about that hurricane, the more I get worried.

[RAMChYLD]

Well, I'd say my friends in Delaware are already well prepared. And Prue will be fine. Chicago's a long way from NY (she did move to Chicago, right?)

[cpd2009]

Well, I'd say my friends in Delaware are already well prepared. And Prue will be fine. Chicago's a long way from NY (she did move to Chicago, right?)

I thought she moved to upstate New York.

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I GOT to have this watch...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.shopnbc.com/Whimsical_Watches_Kids_Japanese_Quartz_Polar_Bear_Leather_Strap_Watch/617-520.aspx?storeid=1&cm_re=SearchList-_-N-_-N&prop=Watches|229&prop=Children%27s%20Watches|3005&icid=DN-_-WATCHES-_-Childrens">http://www.shopnbc.com/Whimsical_Watche ... -Childrens</a><!-- m -->

This is a kids watch, but according to the specs, the length is about 9 inches, which should be large enough for my wrist.

I love my red Timex watch I got for Christmas last year, but Polar Bears change Everything!

[Blackberry Bun]

Well, I'd say my friends in Delaware are already well prepared. And Prue will be fine. Chicago's a long way from NY (she did move to Chicago, right?)

I don't know if she has moved again, but the last info I have is that she lives near Lake Ontario.

[RAMChYLD]

I don't know if she has moved again, but the last info I have is that she lives near Lake Ontario.

Well, I think she'll be fine. Lake Ontario is on the other side of New York.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://maps.google.com/?ll=41.119382,-76.37043&spn=4.104825,10.821533&t=v&z=7">https://maps.google.com/?ll=41.119382,- ... 33&t=v&z=7</a><!-- m -->

Believe it or not, New York is huge. The hurricane will likely hit the big city itself, but not the other part of New York. Lake Ontario is some 300 kilometers from the city(!).

That's the one inherent problem with the naming scheme of American towns - the state can be named after the city, and it may not necessarily be the same state where the city is in. For example, Washington DC (where the White House is) is actually across the continent from Seattle, Washington (home of Microsoft).

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Okay, so I found the root cause of Sally's corruption. The little rabblerouser is, unbelievably, Avast.

After restoring her ghost backup and running the updates about half a dozen times, I began to notice a pattern in that the corruption starts after Avast is updated to the newest version. On the 6th time I made the restore, I uninstalled Avast instead before running the updates. So far so good.

Then I took a System Restore snapshot, and proceeded to installed Avast. Sure enough, Hell broke lose.

To be doubly sure, I booted into safe mode, restored the snapshot, uninstalled Avast using the Avast Uninstall utility, and did a check disk to repair any damage Avast may have caused.

Sure enough, the corruption stopped.

I've fallen Sally back to my old stand-by, AVG. So far, so good. Apparently the latest update to Avast broke support for Windows XP Pro X64 edition. I should probably ask them on Facebook.

On the bootnote, the latest version of AVG has adopted the fugly Metro/Modern interface. Well, as long as that causes it to consume less memory, CPU and GPU power I guess.

[cpd2009]

Okay, so I found the root cause of Sally's corruption. The little rabblerouser is, unbelievably, Avast.

After restoring her ghost backup and running the updates about half a dozen times, I began to notice a pattern in that the corruption starts after Avast is updated to the newest version. On the 6th time I made the restore, I uninstalled Avast instead before running the updates. So far so good.

Then I took a System Restore snapshot, and proceeded to installed Avast. Sure enough, Hell broke lose.

To be doubly sure, I booted into safe mode, restored the snapshot, uninstalled Avast using the Avast Uninstall utility, and did a check disk to repair any damage Avast may have caused.

Sure enough, the corruption stopped.

I've fallen Sally back to my old stand-by, AVG. So far, so good. Apparently the latest update to Avast broke support for Windows XP Pro X64 edition. I should probably ask them on Facebook.

On the bootnote, the latest version of AVG has adopted the fugly Metro/Modern interface. Well, as long as that causes it to consume less memory, CPU and GPU power I guess.

I did notice that when I had to install AVG on an office computer last month. Why couldn't they just keep their old interface and not jump on the bandwagon?

Even MS Office 2013 will sport a Metro look. People had trouble getting used to the Ribbon interface introduced in Office 2007, now they will have to learn yet another new interface.

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David, I have a question....how long does Eva's battery last while playing nothing but games with the WiFi off?

Herman seems to last only two and a half hours when playing Angry Birds nonstop while on battery power and with WiFi off. Normally, he lasts about five hours doing other non-GPU intensive tasks.

I could compare it to Fluttershy, the Android 2.3 tablet, but it's extremely difficult to install or update all my apps because of how the factory divided her internal memory. Moving an app to the "MicroSD card" only moves it to a different partition of the internal memory, not to the real MicroSD card. And for some reason, Amazon AppStore apps download to her FAT32 partition, which is only 220mb, which means it fills up fast. Add to the fact she only has 2gb of internal memory, while Herman has 4gb.

Herman's battery life should be expected since I found him for $90 at a home improvement warehouse that sells electronics, but Fluttershy seemed to last longer.

[RAMChYLD]

I did notice that when I had to install AVG on an office computer last month. Why couldn't they just keep their old interface and not jump on the bandwagon?

Even MS Office 2013 will sport a Metro look. People had trouble getting used to the Ribbon interface introduced in Office 2007, now they will have to learn yet another new interface.

Well, as I said before, it's not necessarily a bad thing. The upshot is that the interface uses less memory and CPU/GPU power to draw and is much more responsive. Which compared to the previous interface, is an improvement. I ditched AVG partially because the new interface introduced around 2007-2008 started consuming much more memory and CPU power, and was causing a slowdown on Helen and Dongwa's earlier incarnation- which were Athlon XP (Pentium III class) CPUs with no more than 512MB of RAM.

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David, I have a question....how long does Eva's battery last while playing nothing but games with the WiFi off?

Herman seems to last only two and a half hours when playing Angry Birds nonstop while on battery power and with WiFi off. Normally, he lasts about five hours doing other non-GPU intensive tasks.

I could compare it to Fluttershy, the Android 2.3 tablet, but it's extremely difficult to install or update all my apps because of how the factory divided her internal memory. Moving an app to the "MicroSD card" only moves it to a different partition of the internal memory, not to the real MicroSD card. And for some reason, Amazon AppStore apps download to her FAT32 partition, which is only 220mb, which means it fills up fast. Add to the fact she only has 2gb of internal memory, while Herman has 4gb.

Herman's battery life should be expected since I found him for $90 at a home improvement warehouse that sells electronics, but Fluttershy seemed to last longer.

Well, with The Sims Freeplay on Eva and WiFi on, I seem to get almost a day's worth of gaming out of her. I've never actually tried playing her full-time with Wi-Fi off, mainly because most of the games I play require the Internet to work (surprisingly, this is the case for The Sims Freeplay. Seems that EA is actually using the cloud to process the game logic and the iPad game is only a client).

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Man, cough syrup is making me sleepy. Damn you flu!

Rain outside isn't helping... Can;'t evne tipe striagit

[huckleberrypie]

Dayquil or Nyquil?

[cpd2009]

I have a feeling that Fluttershy may soon becoming too old, just like Eva and 1st gen iPads.

I reset her, redownloaded the Amazon AppStore, and installed Angry Birds Seasons and Where's My Water.

Angry Birds Seasons won't launch at all, and Where's My Water runs until it gets to the loading screen, and then crashes. I also noted some worrying graphical artifacting on the loading screen.

I'm trying to get an app that has system logs to see what is causing Angry Birds Seasons to not launch, but more than anything, it must be the damned Planned Obsolescence. If it installed on Android 2.3, why won't it run? She is very well capable of running Angry Birds.

Update: Well, it's not Fluttershy after all. I tried updating AB Seasons to the latest release on Herman, and I am getting the same result. AB Seasons appears to be launching but it dumps me back at the app launcher.

I may email Rovio or Amazon about this.

[RAMChYLD]

Dayquil or Nyquil?

Some herbal brand I've never heard off before. Has a picture of a leaf on the bottle, claims to contain Ivy leaf extract.

Tastes damn good tho. Like honey....

DayQuil and NyQuil are not sold over here because they contain alcohol (yeah, them Muslims are that picky...)