General Computing Randomness

[stessier]

1440p with a 144 Hz or greater refresh rate will serve you fine for years to come.

[Daehawk]

I intentionally timestamped the video at this point to show you the color changing heat sink. Its not red hot as he will put his hand on it. But its pretty cool nonetheless

[Blackhawk]

Can someone explain the trend of redesigning nice, compact menus by switching to a big, blocky font and double- or triple-spacing between each menu item? I'm starting to see it everywhere, and I'm not a fan. The new Steam interface, for instance. Firefox for another. Firefox has spread out my bookmark items so far that what used to be one visible page now requires significant scrolling (there's a workaround, but it's fiddly and keeps getting reset every couple of months.)

[Hrothgar]

I'm going to guess accommodating touch screen interfaces. Fat fingers and all that.

[gilraen]

Can someone explain the trend of redesigning nice, compact menus by switching to a big, blocky font and double- or triple-spacing between each menu item?

Oh, it's been driving me crazy for years, not just in everyday stuff but professional work-related websites. Workday, UltiPro, Salesforce...apparently they all think that the height of web design is making everyone use their website on a phone because it looks like an absolute nightmare in a proper browser. (Salesforce kept an option to switch back to their "Classic" view and I may be the last person in our company to insist on using it...lol)

[Blackhawk]

Too bad there's no way for websites to create a separate, mobile version of websites. You know, like how you can request the desktop version on a mobile device. Oh, wait...

I mean, the Firefox and Steam Windows apps don't function on mobile devices. Yeah, there are touchscreen PCs, but do such a great majority of users run the Steam desktop app by tapping their monitor that it justifies changing it?

[Daehawk]

I just wish online food places used a standardized menu with prices kept updated. There are only a few with prices shown and a LOT now days that wont even let me see the menu after hours unless I start a pick up order for tomorrow. I dont want a pick up order today OR tomorrow I just want to see what you actually sell!! If you cant even let me see your menu online so I can be ready when I do go then I wont bother stopping in your place at all.

[stessier]

I suspect that is an edge case that is unlikely to get their attention.

[TheMix]

Can someone explain the trend of redesigning nice, compact menus by switching to a big, blocky font and double- or triple-spacing between each menu item?

Oh, it's been driving me crazy for years, not just in everyday stuff but professional work-related websites. Workday, UltiPro, Salesforce...apparently they all think that the height of web design is making everyone use their website on a phone because it looks like an absolute nightmare in a proper browser. (Salesforce kept an option to switch back to their "Classic" view and I may be the last person in our company to insist on using it...lol)

Oh, and let's not leave out the push to make everything a "social app". Outlook wants me to know that I can LIKE an email. I can't DISLIKE it. Because that would be wrong. My company's HR/paycheck app - same thing. Do I want to connect up with others in my company? No, I do not. Nor do I plan on LIKING or FOLLOWING Confluence wiki docs.

Now get off my lawn!

[Anonymous Bosch]

Can someone explain the trend of redesigning nice, compact menus by switching to a big, blocky font and double- or triple-spacing between each menu item? I'm starting to see it everywhere, and I'm not a fan. The new Steam interface, for instance.

FWIW, you should be able to easily restore the old Steam UI and appearance by first exiting your Steam client, and then appending "-vgui" to the end of the target value of your Steam shortcut, as shown here:



When you use the edited shortcut, you should have the old Steam UI back again (although it's anyone's guess as to how long this will continue to work).

[Blackhawk]

To be honest, while Steam is a convenient example because everyone else here knows it, it's not a terribly troublesome one so far, mostly because most of its menus only have a handful of items.

Something like Firefox is more of an issue. A bookmark folder from before the redesign held about 40 items before it went off of the page. After the redesign, it's like half that, and 2/3 of the extra space it's taking up is just dead space. For Firefox, there's a no-longer-supported compact mode that you can enable, but I find that it resets after every update, and, as with other such features, will likely be removed entirely at some point.

If it really is for mobile devices, I wish they'd recognize that a Windows PC generally isn't a mobile device. Yes, there are touchscreen PCs, but they are, as far as I know, the exception rather than the rule. Do the redesigns to support them, but make it a toggle they can turn on rather than applying it across the board.

Sites that have switched to massive fonts - some of those suckers must be 20 points with another 15 points of extra leading - fall into the same category.

[Daehawk]

Im not sure I like the steam redesign...yet. I think I will grow to like it more than the old one. its squared off and seems bigger...buttons / text and such. I just go so used to the old one it will take time. I dont really see a difference in its layout or use.

I will say I find the Steam webpage store annoying as it wont show me my game library that I own. If I want that I have to open my desktop app / launcher.

[Chraolic]

I will say I find the Steam webpage store annoying as it wont show me my game library that I own. If I want that I have to open my desktop app / launcher.

If you go under your username and select Games, the second tab will give you an absurdly long list of every single game you own. It's a horribly unwieldy way of doing it, but it is there.

[Blackhawk]

Im not sure I like the steam redesign...yet. I think I will grow to like it more than the old one. its squared off and seems bigger...buttons / text and such. I just go so used to the old one it will take time. I dont really see a difference in its layout or use.

I will say I find the Steam webpage store annoying as it wont show me my game library that I own. If I want that I have to open my desktop app / launcher.

Grab Augmented Steam. It's a browser plugin put out by the same people who run Is There Any Deal. I will add info to the Steam store page, telling you if you own a game you're looking at, and showing you the best current price on that game via other (legitimate) retailers and/or platforms. And yeah, it's safe.

[jztemple2]

Grab Augmented Steam. It's a browser plugin put out by the same people who run Is There Any Deal. I will add info to the Steam store page, telling you if you own a game you're looking at, and showing you the best current price on that game via other (legitimate) retailers and/or platforms. And yeah, it's safe.

I've used Augmented Steam for a long time. It's very helpful.

[Daehawk]

never heard of it. Will give it a try.

[Kasey Chang]

They used to go by the name "enhanced steam", IIRC.

[Blackhawk]

(Android related, mostly venting.)

I have four different authenticator apps on my phone from four different companies.

Every one of them has an abstract icon (blue padlock on a white background, starburst, blue shield on a blue background, etc.) And every last one of them is named, "Authenticator." If I need to get a code, I have to find it by trial and error, launching them one by one until I get lucky. I have been trying to rename them ("Bnet Authenticator", "MS Authenticator", etc) for a while now, but could never quite figure it out. So I finally got sick of it and did some research today. Do you know how you rename a shortcut in Android?

You don't. The functionality doesn't exist. How we're this far along in the OS's history and they don't have such a basic function is beyond me. The only way, apparently, to rename them is to completely replace your home screen and launcher with a third-party version. That's like running a shell on top of Windows, which is an absurd solution to the problem.

[Chraolic]

(Android related, mostly venting.)

I have four different authenticator apps on my phone from four different companies.

Every one of them has an abstract icon (blue padlock on a white background, starburst, blue shield on a blue background, etc.) And every last one of them is named, "Authenticator." If I need to get a code, I have to find it by trial and error, launching them one by one until I get lucky.

Don't you get a notification when there's a new request? I just accept the request or read the code from the notification.

[Kraken]

(Android related, mostly venting.)

I have four different authenticator apps on my phone from four different companies.

Every one of them has an abstract icon (blue padlock on a white background, starburst, blue shield on a blue background, etc.) And every last one of them is named, "Authenticator." If I need to get a code, I have to find it by trial and error, launching them one by one until I get lucky.

Don't you get a notification when there's a new request? I just accept the request or read the code from the notification.

You might need to give teh apps notification permission. My authenticator app stopped notifying me, and I discovered that it had turned off its permission. Settings > Apps > (App name) > Notifications

[Blackhawk]

(Android related, mostly venting.)

I have four different authenticator apps on my phone from four different companies.

Every one of them has an abstract icon (blue padlock on a white background, starburst, blue shield on a blue background, etc.) And every last one of them is named, "Authenticator." If I need to get a code, I have to find it by trial and error, launching them one by one until I get lucky.

Don't you get a notification when there's a new request? I just accept the request or read the code from the notification.

Not every authenticator uses requests, so not every one of them can use notifications. Steam does. Battle.net does (sometimes.) Others ask you for a code and wait for you to open the authenticator on your own to get it and type it in (the one that annoyed me so much this time was Epic, which goes through the Google athenticator, the same as Ubisoft and others.)

[gilraen]

I used to confuse the icons for Microsoft authenticator and Bnet authenticator. I ended up putting the Microsoft shortcut next to the Outlook shortcut for convenience. Although it always sends push notifications, so I hardly ever need to open it.

Since Blizzard is phasing out their authenticator app and putting the auth function inside the Battle.net app, that's no longer a problem anyway.

Google authenticator is the one with the multi-colored asterisk as the icon. It's also the one that I use dozens of times a day for work so the shortcut is in a pretty prominent spot and at this point I can find it with my eyes closed.

[Blackhawk]

It was more of an observation about not being able to rename a shortcut in an operating system in its 14th iteration.

[gilraen]

It was more of an observation about not being able to rename a shortcut in an operating system in its 14th iteration.

That's not how Android works from the underlying design standpoint. Android as an OS is hands-off when it comes to your UI preferences, which is why all of that functionality would be in the specific launcher that you use.

[Kasey Chang]

Do you know how you rename a shortcut in Android?

You don't. The functionality doesn't exist. How we're this far along in the OS's history and they don't have such a basic function is beyond me.

So use a different home app. There are dozens of free ones.

[Blackhawk]

All of which is what I originally said...

[Jaymon]

After much internal swearing, last weekend I successfully hosted karaoke in the living room.

But Jaymon. Hosting karaoke is easy! Thats what the advertisements say. But, no, no it isn't. There are all these karaoke machines, but they seem to be glorified speaker/mic combos. How do you get the music into them? Input the music from a separate device like a phone running an app, or a cd with special karaoke music, or a TF card that has downloaded music on it.

But how do you see the lyrics? Some machines display them on a tiny screen, some machines rely on your phone or tablet, some machines have an output to your tv. Seemed like a lot of extra stuff was needed when getting a karaoke machine.


I ended up using karafun app for windows. It works good. $10 a month for full access to 50k tracks.
hooked the computer to the tv. karafun has a mode that sets the lyrics as full screen on second monitor, so that was good.

I tried some microphones. Ran into, emm, snags. Tried some outputs, ran into, emm, snags.

Wireless input from the mic, or HDMI output to the TV as a speaker both produced unaceptable lag in the voice output. Fine for gaming, clearly not fine for karaoke. Used a wired mic to the actual 3.5mm mic input, and wired speaker from the 3.5mm output, and that worked great. Fortunatly the speakers were loud enough for the living room.

Lot of go arounds to make it work, but in the end, the Mrs had a 6 hour long karaoke birthday party, and everybody except me had a stellar time. I personally hate karaoke, and give it a high ranking in "top ten worst leasure activites invented by humans"


But I need to reclaim my computer from the living room. I found a micro PC with both headphone and mic plugs, hopefully it will work. Man,these tiny computers have become super inexpensive.

[Daehawk]

My FireFox has crashed like mad today. I used to see no crashes. The a year ago id see one in a blue moon. Today its crashed 6 or 7 times.

[Anonymous Bosch]

My FireFox has crashed like mad today. I used to see no crashes. The a year ago id see one in a blue moon. Today its crashed 6 or 7 times.

Firstly, try checking to make sure your Firefox client is up-to-date: In Firefox, click the three-lines menu and click Help. Then choose About Firefox to see if it is up-to-date. If you are, you will see a message indicating 'Firefox is up to date.' If you are not, there will be an option for you to update the browser, so make sure you do so.

Failing that, it's likely caused by something that's gone awry within the data in your profile folder (e.g. extensions, themes, plug-ins etc). So, try going through the troubleshooting steps provided by HowToGeek.com below:

How to Troubleshoot Mozilla Firefox Crashes

[Daehawk]

Thanks. yup up to date.

[Daehawk]

FF installed a patch today. Guess they knew there was a problem. Hope it doesn't make it worse.

[Daehawk]

Watched 5 or 6 videos on how crap the new 4060 ti 16 gig is and not to buy it and other crap about it. Then today I get an email from iBuypower or one of those talking about how great the card is and its in their new desktops and to buy now. Lol.

[Kasey Chang]

4060's not that bad, it's just not a leap in GPU power as the previous generations are. It's basically a 3070 that consumes a bit less power, but that's about it. At $300 or so, it's NOT a bad card that gets you DLSS and RTX and all that, if you didn't have it before, but it's NOT an "upgrade".

When the 1070 was introduced, it's like 50% faster than the 970.

Then when RTX 2070 was introduced, it's like a quantum leap ahead of 1070 with raytracing, Turing encoder, 200+ CUDA cores, though the price premium over a 1070 was significant.

When 3070 was introduced, it offered a roughly 40% faster over 2070 in most games.

But the 4060 is barely 20% faster than 3060, so NVIDIA had to lower the launch price, and right now it can be had for $300, with possibly discounts as well, depending on how badly the the retailers want to move them.

[Blackhawk]

4060's not that bad, it's just not a leap in GPU power as the previous generations are. It's basically a 3070 that consumes a bit less power, but that's about it. At $300 or so, it's NOT a bad card that gets you DLSS and RTX and all that, if you didn't have it before, but it's NOT an "upgrade".

It's not surprising. The -60 line have always been a discount model that has the power of the mid-range card from the previous generation. And the tech-elite have always snubbed them because they're not as fast as the rest of the current cards. That's not their job - they're there to give people who can't afford $700 for a new video card an option.

[Daehawk]

I was basing my views on a Pauls Hardware video. He stated the 3060 ti 8 gig is $399 and the 3060 ti 16 gig is $499 with no noticeable gains and is actually slower in some games.

I didn't clarify 3060 ti 16 gig.

[Rumpy]

It's a matter of perspective, I think. If you're used to better cards, then it's likely to disappoint, but it would still be an upgrade for some, like say, going from a 1050 Ti like mine.

[Kasey Chang]

Okay folks, this is a weird one. It's solved, but it's still weird.

I have a friend, who's trying to register at a government website. He claimed that he can't register, and about 5-6 people have tried to help him, and it didn't work. I'm his last hope. Hahaha. But his tech is not good so he wants me to get on the phone with him to help him communicate with tech support line of the government, even though we're calling the Chinese helpline, LOL.

So I watched him enter the info, and I verified the info is correct... on his iPhone. Yes, the keyboard's set to ENGLISH. And we hit NEXT... and "info incorrect" cannot continue. I've verified 3 times and even entered them myself... it's correct.

So we managed to call the helpline, and waited like 30 minutes, and 10 minutes before closing, they answered. Then the agent told me: please try doing the registration on a different device.

Apparently, the website is sensitive to Iphone's internal settings that if the phone's set to Chinese somewhere, the registration will choke, even though I looked over the phone (albeit, only shallowly) and it appears to be set to English...

So I registered him via my PC... and it worked. The verification went through without drama. Weird, heh?

[Daehawk]

You reckon its a cookie problem when Instagram wont keep you logged in? Everytime I go there I have to log in. I cant find a setting for it. So guessing its a cookie thing. I really HATE to clear my browsers cookies as I loose all passwords and logins that are stored. I cant remember them and have to reset each site I go to afterwards.

Is there a cookie search like for instagram only and I can just delete their cookies?

[Kasey Chang]

Got another oddball problem, this time on a phone. This gentleman has a Lenovo Android phone, with a very weird problem... the bottom like 10% of the screen doesn't react to touch. And there was NO damage that I can see. He claim it just stopped working, and he decided to factory reset it, and that didn't work. And now he can't complete the registration process because inevitably, the the phone would put a button in a place he can't touch to continue.

I tried to enable auto-rotation, which worked for a bit, but one of the final reg apps will NOT go landscape. I happen to have a Bluetooth keyboard with touchpad (yes, built-in mouse) and I was able to click through the reg screen and got to HOME properly... And I was able to move the icons off the toolbar... But eventually we got STILL back to those buttons that stays in the bottom untouch-able zone. I told him that it needs a full digitizer replacement, and it'll be at least 100, if not 200, and I don't even know it's available locally. He decided not to mess with it, no money. :-/

[Kasey Chang]

Is there a cookie search like for instagram only and I can just delete their cookies?

If it's Chrome, it'd be listed under saved passwords.