The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

But I like having the temp in the taskbar too.

I also like Office Ribbons

There's a few suggestions for alternatives on the last few pages of the thread:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/?topic=25940.0

Another option would be to grab Rainmeter and look into custom weather skins. Unfortunately a lot of them are on DeviantArt which requires a login to download anything now *grumbles loudly*

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Personally, I just use the weather tile that Windows 10 had pre-installed in the start menu, though I'm probably a rarity in that I actually like 10's tiled menu (being able to fix the tiny shortcut icons helps).

Wn10's tile menu isn't a transcendent horror, and i can deal with it.

But when win10 reintroduced the Start Menu after trying ti kill it in Win8.1, they did the typical MS thing and fixed what wasn't broken. Every Windows release makes changes to the UI, requiring the user to relearn it, and find out where Windows put a particular setting this time. Win10 diddled the Start Mene and moved things around.

There was a simple fix for that - an open source utility called Classic Shell. By default, the classic shell menu looks and acts like the Win7 start Menu. If you want the tiled menu, it's a click away, but I normally don't.

My big peeve is Win10's virtual windows facility. The good part is it's built-in. The bad part is minimal configurability. I used to use a third-party virtual screen utility that would display the windows as thumbnails in the Task Bar, and selecting which I wanted to view was a mouse click away. That's irretrievably broken on Win10.

And while there are other virtual window managers out there that still work, none directly integrate with Win10, and i have yet to see a new third-party window manager built for Win10.
______
Dennis

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

There's a few suggestions for alternatives on the last few pages of the thread:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/?topic=25940.0

Another option would be to grab Rainmeter and look into custom weather skins. Unfortunately a lot of them are on DeviantArt which requires a login to download anything now *grumbles loudly*

The only thing I'm likely to skin is next door's cat

BR

[ownedbycats]

Smallish vent: When a program won't let you remap the keyboard shortcuts. The two worst are a global shortcut that activates when you're in another program, or a shortcut I'd find useful except that I can't actually use it effectively because of my stupid hands.

[ownedbycats]

Well, my poor old aging Kobo Aura HD went and reset itself again. Good thing my Libra H2O is on the way.

On the upside, I just now discovered the 'Download all' option. I'm not sure why I never noticed it before.

[ownedbycats]

I've been enjoying my Kobo Libra H2O a lot so far! Except... when trying to plug it in. Mostly thanks to my fine motor coordination issues, plugging a cable (both OEM and my spare generic) into the port is... difficult. It usually takes me 2-3 tries.

[Solitaire1]

I originally posted this in the "Corrupt A Topic" thread, but it seems appropriate for this thread.

-----------

Is it time to return to simplicity when it comes to listening to music? It seems that there are so many options for listening to music that it has become a bit overwhelming. Sometimes I miss the days when it was simple, you put a CD in your CD player, pressed "Play", and then enjoy.

Even something like Minidisc was very simple when it came to listening to music. Record the songs you want to a Minidisc (if you used an optical cable you didn't even have to set a recording level), put in the player, hit "Play", and enjoy. It was great for portable music.

The only slight issue was you had was to record the Minidisc in real time, but it was countered by Minidisc being a semi-permanent format. Unless you heat the Minidisc to a certain temperature the recordings are permanent and the recordings won't degrade with repeated playing. You record a Minidisc once and you're done. This is an improvement over the days of the compact cassette where you had to occasionally re-record a tape since the original recording would degrade with repeated playing.

Now, it seems that music has become much more of a job than it used to be. Maintaining a music library on your computer, verifying, correcting, and updating the metadata, and finally getting it on your listening device, is often a lot of work.

At times, I've considered returning to CD since it takes about 10 minutes to burn a CD-R (I can put about 6 hours of music on the disc [I burn at the highest sound quality]), put it in my player and enjoy my music. No syncing, no worrying about metadata (my player's just show a folder number and track number), and I can easily burn a report of the contents of the CD-R.

[4691mls]

I still listen to CDs in my 15-year-old car. Haven't ever felt like spending the money to modernize the sound system.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

[...] Is it time to return to simplicity when it comes to listening to music? [...]

Which of course had me humming, "Remember When the Music" by Harry Chapin.

[cromag]

I do most of my listening to MP3s these days, and most of those MP3s came from the bins of CDs and LPs that I still have in the basement and the garage. But, I do still have CD/DVD drives on my computers, and there's a CD player connected to the stereo in the living room.

When it comes to the car, I never liked CDs. It was too difficult to slip a CD into the slot while keeping my eyes on the road. And the broad dynamic range of a CD is great for critical listening, but in a noisy car the quiet passages were too quiet and the loud passages were too loud, so I was constantly fiddling with the volume control. I always liked the much maligned cassette better for listening on the road.

But whatever format works is the format to use!

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by gmw

Which of course had me humming, "Remember When the Music" by Harry Chapin.

While my mind went straight to a verse from the Bible, the same one I always think of whenever "4 Yorkshiremen" show up - Ecclesiastes 7:10

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Now, it seems that music has become much more of a job than it used to be. Maintaining a music library on your computer, verifying, correcting, and updating the metadata, and finally getting it on your listening device, is often a lot of work.

Yes, I agree.

I rip to lossless FLAC. After ripping using Foobar2000, I then run MusicBrainz Picard to tag the files.

Then I move the files to its final home, and scan it into my players library (Kodi)

But it doesn't end there, because now I have to convert those songs to MP3 so I can load them onto my iPhone and onto a USB stick for the car, so more fiddling.

And where do I listen to my music the most? No, not on my very expensive home setup using my high quality flac files.

No, not in my car with my fairly reasonable sound system.

But on my iphone for when I am on the treadmill or jogging around the park, using some cheap disposable headset I buy at the $2 shop.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by cromag

I do most of my listening to MP3s these days, and most of those MP3s came from the bins of CDs and LPs that I still have in the basement and the garage. But, I do still have CD/DVD drives on my computers, and there's a CD player connected to the stereo in the living room.

When it comes to the car, I never liked CDs. It was too difficult to slip a CD into the slot while keeping my eyes on the road. And the broad dynamic range of a CD is great for critical listening, but in a noisy car the quiet passages were too quiet and the loud passages were too loud, so I was constantly fiddling with the volume control. I always liked the much maligned cassette better for listening on the road.

But whatever format works is the format to use!

I agree with the last sentence. Whatever works the best.

Making MP3 CDs isn't that difficult since I use MediaMonkey. First I set up the the way the disc will be burn. This includes the type (Red Book CD or data CD), the way the songs will be arranged on the disc (a single list of songs or divided into folders), and then the format (I burn to 320kbps CBR MP3 but if I need more space I choose V0 Variable Bitrate MP3). Once set up it is done.

The actual burning process is fairly simple: Select the songs, make sure they will fit on the disc, and then burn the CD. About 10 minutes later it is finished (it takes me longer because I have it verify the songs).

I haven't had an issue with CDs in the car since I just insert the one I want to listen to before I start driving and that one CD contains enough songs/podcasts to last me for hours.

[4691mls]

Stupid autocorrect
It will not let me type the word I L L (as in sick). No matter how many times I backspace and try again it keeps inserting an apostrophe.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

Stupid autocorrect
It will not let me type the word I L L (as in sick). No matter how many times I backspace and try again it keeps inserting an apostrophe.

Particularly frustrating when you ARE. Sorry bout all that.