The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[gmw]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

[...] Minor rant: I hate it when installing a program and they shove shortcuts to the the uninstaller, the documentation, links to the website, etc... in the Start Menu. I hated it years ago and I hate it today.

And shortcuts dumped on the desktop. Leave my desktop alone! If I want it there I'll put it there.

[ownedbycats]

Also, GOG Galaxy puts the start menu shortcuts back every time you update a game. Despite it being a game launcher itself. No option to disable it. Not sure what they were thinking (or if they even were).

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by gmw

And shortcuts dumped on the desktop. Leave my desktop alone! If I want it there I'll put it there.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

Muchly

BR

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by gmw

And shortcuts dumped on the desktop. Leave my desktop alone! If I want it there I'll put it there.

This one surprised me a bit because I can't remember the last time I installed an app that did this silently. Unchecking the option has become default, but I'm glad it is presented as an option in all the software I use, even if it is opt-out.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by gmw

From what I've seen the initial load problem (at least) does seem to be DNS related. I've been using CloudFlare for DNS and I've been wondering if I should change, but most other sites have been working okay.

What interests me is that this happens on only one of your connected devices. I would triple check the settings on that machine. External DNS resolution problems would bite all of your machines.

There are several third-party DNS resolver services. Google has one. OpenDNS is another. Cloudflare's is a third.

What I use is OpenDNS. Like almost everyone, I have a home network, and devices connect to my WiFi router, (The desktop connects via CAT5 cable directly to the route4. MY SO's laptop and mine connect via WiFi, as do several Android devices. A plus for OpenDNS is that it maintains a badlist of sites known to serve malware and blocks access to them. I looked at Cloudflare's offering, but saw no compelling reason to switch. I am not that concerned by privacy, and Cloudflare was not noticeably faster than OpenDNS
here.

Cloudflare is widely used by sites as a shield against things like DDOS attacks, and lots of folks were interested when they announced a DNS service touting speed and ease of configuration., with special attention to privacy, and it got widely adopted.

But any centralized service can have issues. Last year, the annual World Science Fiction Convention was to take place in Wellington, NZ. COVID-19 happened. In person gatherings were not possible, so CoNZealand decided to go virtual, using Zoom for programming and Discord for social stuff. I found myself on the tech staff assisting in this.

During the run up to the con, staffers suddenly discovered access to various resources had gone away. The first thought was of course "It's a problem on my machine. Recheck all network settings and reboot." That did not solve the problem.

The underlying issue was a configuration error on Cloudflare's end. They have major servers in a number of locations around the world. They were trying to do load balancing, and redirect traffic from a heavily loaded server to others to reduce congestion. Unfortunately, they made an error in the command to do that. Instead of redirecting from the congested server to others, it redirected traffic from the other servers to the one whose congestion they were trying to reduce. Essentially, they DDOSed themselves. This had all sorts of side effects, like impacting DNS resolution services to folks who used Cloudflare as primary DNS resolver.

(In my setup, primary and secondary DNS resolution is pointed at OpenDNS, but my ISP's DNS server is a worst case fallback If they are all down, I likely have worse problems than being able to reach the internet. )

This was one of the more dramatic "Oops!" moments I have seen on the Internet. I thought about it when a configuration issue at Facebook made Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp unavailable for a period. This has produced calls to break up Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp. Unfortunately, that's not really a solution for the problem.
______
Dennis

[gmw]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What interests me is that this happens on only one of your connected devices. I would triple check the settings on that machine. External DNS resolution problems would bite all of your machines.
[...]

You are making the assumption that DNS is configured at the external router, or the same on all devices - you're right in my case, but it's not necessarily so. Of course that doesn't change the recommendation to check the settings on the particular device.

I've been using CloudFlare for a year or two now, before that it was Google. I think I did try OpenDNS for a time. Keep them guessing, I say.

I cannot speak for Bradles, who brought this up originally, but in my case the device on which I have the problem is also the only one I regularly use to access MR. When I said "similar" I was referring to the problem seeming MR specific rather than device specific, which I cannot say. In my case I've also wondered if it could be browser related: I recently moved to Vivaldi, and really like it, but it's behaviour when loading of tabs can make for some oddities. I've had too much work on to spend much time on the problem - it came on its own, so I've been hoping it will go the same way.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by gmw

I recently moved to Vivaldi, and really like it, but it's behaviour when loading of tabs can make for some oddities.

Another Vivaldi user!

[chickpea]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

So, what bit of technology has annoyed you today?

Calibre. Unwisely, it turns out, updated to 5.x and found that the DeDRM plugin no longer works.

So uninstalled and went back to 4.23, and now I can't delete books from the database AND DeDrm still doesn't work. Oy.

I might have to export all my books, completely expunge Calibre from my system, reinstall from scratch, add the plugin, and hope that fixes it.

Unless anyone has a better idea?

[cromag]

Originally Posted by chickpea

Calibre. Unwisely, it turns out, updated to 5.x and found that the DeDRM plugin no longer works.

So uninstalled and went back to 4.23, and now I can't delete books from the database AND DeDrm still doesn't work. Oy.

I might have to export all my books, completely expunge Calibre from my system, reinstall from scratch, add the plugin, and hope that fixes it.

Unless anyone has a better idea?

Go back to the main Forums listing page, cursor down to E-Book Software section and check out the Calibre forum.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by chickpea

Calibre. Unwisely, it turns out, updated to 5.x and found that the DeDRM plugin no longer works.

So uninstalled and went back to 4.23, and now I can't delete books from the database AND DeDrm still doesn't work. Oy.

I might have to export all my books, completely expunge Calibre from my system, reinstall from scratch, add the plugin, and hope that fixes it.

Unless anyone has a better idea?

You need DeDRM 7.2.1. Can't link directly but it should be the first result on google.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

You need DeDRM 7.2.1. Can't link directly but it should be the first result on google.

Googling isn't that difficult.

https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/...-2-1-released/

[badgoodDeb]

I think she meant we aren't ALLOWED to link directly to it, but can give clues to finding it.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I think she meant we aren't ALLOWED to link directly to it, but can give clues to finding it.

Yes, pretty much.

[John F]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

I think she meant we aren't ALLOWED to link directly to it, but can give clues to finding it.

Who is this "we"? Is there some cult I'm unaware of that forbids links?

[ownedbycats]

Rule eight. "direct download links to DRM-removal tools" is not allowed; telling people to google Apprentice Alf's blog is the workaround.