OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[-Deborah-]

The android apps can be overwhelming. At first it seems like it's impossible to figure out which ones are BS and which ones are useful.

For the android, googlemaps/navigate is a must have, I love Pulse as a news feed reader (very intuitive), I surprisingly use "color flashlight" a whole lot (all it does is turn your screen into a solid color of your choice... makeshift flash light). "quick settings" is nice too for changing your phone settings on the fly.

For games angry birds is obviously a big hit, plants vs zombies is good too, and then wordfeud (scrabble) and a bunch of card games are nice to have to kill time. I'm sure there are more time wasters out there too.

A good blog to follow for android stuff is http://www.androidcentral.com/ (download pulse and then put this one in your feeds).

Mashable and lifehacker are also good blogs that will occasionally have good info on android apps though they are not focused on android stuff only.

You might try Better Keyboard 8 if it is still free. I have always used a physical phone keyboard until this current phone (HTC Thunderbolt), and I am having trouble with the screen keyboard. After a couple of months I still don't like it, but Better Keyboard 8 seemed to help.

Good info, guys, thanks!

[nhwbrooklyn]

Oh try out Spotify for music.. I hear it's better than pandora by a whole lot. It just came to the u.s. after being in Europe for a year or so.

It's a free service with ads, but you can purchase ad free subscriptions.

[Topweasel]

W7 is really Vista and W8 is the actual release.

That is BS.

[CGVT]

Oh try out Spotify for music.. I hear it's better than pandora by a whole lot. It just came to the u.s. after being in Europe for a year or so.

It's a free service with ads, but you can purchase ad free subscriptions.

I really like my Pandora stations. I doubt that I'll try it

[Topweasel]

Got a question for any network knowledgeable IT people here.

My company has two products. One sends a stream of data to a TCPIP port, the other listens on that port and processes the data. Somebody decided that security was an issue and brought up SSL encryption to secure the data.

I know nothing about SSL and little about the parts of the products that are sending/listening for the data. Every search I do on SSL talks about having a certificate associated to a website...what do I when there is no website in between the two parts of the process.

SSL Is a certificate based system but what the websites do is hand out the certificate when you attempt a connection and most of the time they are digitally signed for fraud protection. On the non-website based setups, I believe it is just about enabling certificate based access into whatever service you are using. SSL like a CA cert where users have one and all access is granted there, its a per connection cert where it grants a limited time decryption code so that it can use a randomly generated encryption.

[nhwbrooklyn]

To sign up for a spotify account you actually still need to be invited (slow roll out I guess)

Here is the sign up.

http://www.spotify.com/us/hello-america/

[Darl McrBride]

Mason,

Web server isn't needed, see SFTP, SSH, etc. I use a library called synapse for something similar,

http://synapse.ararat.cz/doku.php

Look at their docs and join their mailing list and you will find a lot of non-webserver info. Don't be nervous about the .cz, they've been around for a long time and their library is tops, IMO.

[Marko69]

Got a heating customer of mine just back from an extended holiday in America. He now hates UK toilets and wants an American style turbo suck flush toilet. Any of you guys know the technical term for these toilets? I've typed in all types of shit (no pun intended) into a google search......, one of the searches was "sucking toilet" but it came back with gay suck action in toilet and lesbians get into sucking action in toilet etc etc. Appreciate all smart arse replies and serious ones, if any!

[nhwbrooklyn]

Oh yeah... the kind of toilets that if you make too good a seal on the seat when you flush you could be in serious danger. Those are the ticket.

[mason reese]

Got a heating customer of mine just back from an extended holiday in America. He now hates UK toilets and wants an American style turbo suck flush toilet. Any of you guys know the technical term for these toilets? I've typed in all types of shit (no pun intended) into a google search......, one of the searches was "sucking toilet" but it came back with gay suck action in toilet and lesbians get into sucking action in toilet etc etc. Appreciate all smart arse replies and serious ones, if any!

You talking about a resevoir toilet that just has a more powerful flush, or a public urinal style flushometer types?


.

[Marko69]

The guy is looking for the water action that actually happens in the toilet bowl......., here in the UK, we have rim jets that swirls the water around and the larger neck in the bowl acts as a siphon and it pulls the products of waste down....., it's a very lazy affair and sometimes shits with life-jackets on don't go away. He wants that bowl action where by the water is sucked down into the smaller necked bowl, the water actually disappears during the flush. I've been to quite a few merchants in Edinburgh to ask, only to be met with blank vacant, typical plumbing merchant type stares. I just need to know what that action is called......., is it turbo action? Suck action? Vacuum action?........, I could source this bog a lot easier if I knew what I was asking for.

Mason, I saw that very flush valve on a YouTube video......, there was not anything that bog would not flush......, interesting video!

[SeattleLionsFan]

Marlo, we had a low flow toilet that had a "jet assist"(for lack of a better term). I have no idea what they are called but mine at least worked by shooting a jet of water down the pipe. At least thats what it sounded like to me.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Try pressure assisted toilets. That might be it.

[Marko69]

Thanks SLF, I've taken down some notes......., I will return to the zombies at the plumbing merchant with the info.

[SeattleLionsFan]

Do y'all use low flow toilets over your way?

Btw you might get a kick out of this. As you know mrs slf and I are headed to Scotland in September. She says to me the other day "Scotland isn't an island?" me "well it's on an island with england and wales.". She "I thought we were going to go under the channel" me "no sweetie that is France.". She "is Ireland an island?" me " yeah but it's got northern Ireland at the top". She "shut the fuck up. Ireland and northern Ireland are different?". Me "yeah northern Ireland is part of the UK". Her "Ireland is it's own country?"

The missus is brilliant but not much for geography!