RatCreature's Journal

...is there some tool that let's you download all the Tumblr posts you liked? I've been good about downloading fanfic as I go along, but fanart much less so. I don't reblog with my Tumblr, but my likes are visible.

And now I don't have my tab groups anymore, and I have no idea from where I can at least retrieve the URLs as a list or something. :(

ETA: And I just discovered that the FlashGot extension also doesn't work anymore, and that was what allowed me to download the audio from dictionary sites such as dict.leo.org to put on my own flashcards for vocabulary revision. Is there any other way I can download these?

I have a new android tablet and I want Chrome to display my tabs like my old tablet does. That one displays tabs like on a desktop, with a tab-thing showing the title at the top and all are sort of in the same window like in a desktop browser. My new tablet does the annoying mobile browser display, where there is the little square next to the url that shows a number. Both tablets have Android 6 and the same Chrome so surely there has to be an option somewhere to tell Chrome how it should display its tabs, and yet I can't find it anywhere. And nothing that I tried putting into Google was any help either.

After the untimely destruction of my last one (lesson learned: don't read while walking, at least not unless you have seriously rugged your e-reader to take a lot of impact), I got a replacement today. I briefly considered just getting the same model again, because I liked my PocketBook Lux Touch 3, but actually it now cost 12€ more than eleven months ago when I bought it, and it would have been kind of depressing to get just the same again for more money now that the tech is almost a year older.

So instead I spent a little more still to get the new PocketBook Touch HD, which as the name indicates has a HD display, is faster with twice the memory and can play audio. My preference for PocketBook is that I want to be able to use my e-reader without having to register it anywhere or be associated with any store. PocketBook offers a cloud backup and synchronization service too, but you can just skip that. Also it supports the Adobe DRM my public library uses.

One thing that made me apprehensive is that while most reviews liked the hardware they cautioned about bugs in the firmware. Some reviews also claimed that it stopped working entirely when they tried to update said firmware, but I put these down to inexperience in coping with technical difficulties.

I was already familiar with how horrible and glitchy their firmware updates are from my previous PocketBook, but they also offer multiple ways of troubleshooting, restoring corrupted systems and their support is decent.

And true to form the thing hung during the initial firmware update, but actually it resolved more easily than last time. After a call to their support line, it took only one reset and connecting the e-reader to my laptop during the update for it to finish correctly. Apparently the thing likes to be connected to a power supply while updating, and may hang if it is not, even if it is nearly fully charged. Only the manual doesn't tell you that. (I was clever enough this time around to try this during their office hours, whereas last time I tried over the weekend and only got an answer to my, then slightly different, problem via mail on Monday, when I had already managed to resolve it with a lot of trial and error.)

Anyway, once I was past that (and disabled automatic updates), so far it seems to work okay when I tried stuff, though some problems might only show with longer use. I mean, my previous one has glitched a few times with books for no reason I could discern, like it would sometimes not display a page but exit to the menu, even though when I checked the ebook source code in that place on my computer I could never see anything unusual (like broken formatting or code or such) that might explain this. It wasn't happening often, maybe half a dozen times per several hundreds of files, but still annoying. And a few times it crashed for no reason, so even picking the old one again I would not have been bug-free.

The HD display of the new one is noticeably nicer and crisper than my previous one, and it is faster when loading things, when browsing the library and when reacting in general. So that is very nice. It connects fine to Calibre (though the translation of Calibre tags into "genres" is not ideal for my use of tags in particular with fanfic), and its own library organization got even better than previously.

Anyway so far I'm happy with it.

I bought myself a Nexus 7 tablet. Right now I'm still really confused by it. It doesn't help that the thing has no instruction manual whatsoever. Seriously, just a slip of paper with a URL for Google's online help that also points out on an image which button to press to turn the device on, which I guess is somewhat useful because there are no symbols near the two buttons, so nothing to tell you that the smaller is the on switch and the larger the volume control, but it is a *bit* minimalist as far as documentation goes. This is especially hilarious as the warranty information card tells me that I ought to read the instruction manual and only use it in accordance with that to not void the warranty...

Also I have barely looked at two or three things and Google already prodded me four times to sign up for Google+. I mean, I expected to decline once during sign-up, but it wants me to turn on various Google services with bizarre frequency, as seemingly every icon I look at wants me to agree to allow Google to sign me up for something, or track me and share my data even while I'm not using that particular thing to "enhance" something or other, like it wants to share location info with search services and then turn on the Google web search history (which I have disabled), and allow it to share that data with whomever.

I still have to find out how I can get stuff I already have on my computer, like ebooks, onto it easily. And decide which ebook reader app I ought to use. There seem to be quite many of them. In case that you use an android device as an ereader, do you have a favorite? Also what other apps do you like? This is the first time I'm using something like this, so I'm a bit lost.

ETA: And now it just signed me up for Youtube without me doing anything besides clicking on a demo video for an ereader app, wtf?

My laptop won't boot anymore. It just makes some noises and then shuts down again. :(

I did have the foresight to buy a four year extended warranty when I got it, which is useful, since it is just after the two year usual one (quite suspicious that), so I ought to get it repaired on that. But of course I was less than scrupulous about backing up all my stuff (my last full backup is some weeks old), and my creaky, old desktop is not as nice to use, and of course you can't take a desktop to use it from the comfort of your bed covered by a warm blanket either. And who knows how long the repair will take.

So I'm likely to be around less online with this inconvenience. :(

ETA: Maybe it's not quite dead? Just before bringing it to the store I tried one last time to boot it, just to be sure not to embarrass myself (I've had that happen in the past that in the store a computer suddenly changed its mind about being broken), and this time, unlike the last four or five times I tried to turn it on, the laptop booted normally, pretending it hadn't played dead brick for the last few hours. Obviously right now I'm scrambling to do the backing up I'd neglected, to get all my data.

The logs I looked at, do not show anything for the time around 2am last night when I turned it off and the boot now. Obviously right now I'm highly suspicious of the laptop. Once all my data is copied, I'll risk turning it off and see whether it'll start again. I hope it'll remain non-dead *crosses fingers*, to spare myself the repair hassle, though even if it does, my trust in it is severely shaken.

ETA2: I finished the backup, and the laptop turns on again after I turn it off. So for now I'll hold off from bringing it for repair, as obviously I can't reproduce its total failure, which is both good (because I have a functioning laptop) and bad (because it feels more unreliable than the usual computer having failed me for no reason I can discern). I guess I just have to be very diligent about backups and hope for the best.

I've accessed Google Docs for the first time in a while, and apparently they are discontinuing it? Instead there will be a "Google Drive" for which you need to download some program that doesn't even have a Linux version? *siiigh*

It is a rather cheap one, having cost €400 (plus a bit over €20 for an extended repair warranty lasting four years which I thought was worth it to reassure me that I'll get use out of my investment for a while), but this was still quite a big expense for me. It's a HP 625, and it came with a SuSE Enterprise Linux trial thing, but I've just installed Ubuntu on it, because from what I understood you have to pay Novell for using the updates or something like that. I suppose I might already have paid with the computer and would have just needed to register, but I couldn't find any sensible instructions, and while I used older SuSE Linux in the past, this one's interface wasn't all that great when I checked it out.

Also the guy in the store where I bought it recommended installing an new Linux anyway, saying that the Linux on it wasn't a regular version, but he had assured me that he had installed Ubuntu without problems on this model. And because I didn't have to pay for a Windows license, I got more memory and a larger hard disk than the version of the laptop that was sold with Windows at this price. So I have 4GB RAM and a 320GB disk.

So far everything works really nicely. The Ubuntu install went okay overall, though my first try, when I choose to download updates right away stalled with a bizarre I/O error at the end right before the restart, and left me with a non-starting system, but my second try to install what was on the CD then download updates later worked out. Unlike with my old laptop (may it RIP) with this one the power management and battery monitor works under linux, and the wireless worked right away, also it can do the better encryption, so now my wlan is safer since I could enable that in my router. Sound, touchpad, graphic acceleration work too. The fan is not too loud, and it doesn't seem to heat up too much either. The keyboard is quite nice too, though I keep thinking the keys ought to be further to the left, because unlike my last one this laptop has the special keys on the left side, but I ought to get used to that soon enough. I haven't yet checked everything, and still have to customize a lot, but it seems really promising.

In the last installment my beloved laptop died, not recognizing its hard disk any longer, without the option to rescue anything from a Live CD, as its DVD drive had died a while ago.

Anyway, in an attempt to maybe salvage some of the lost data (my first HD failure since 1998, I've been complacent about frequent backups) I got myself an SATA/IDE to USB converter thingy, hoping to plug that into the disk, and then follow a data recovery guide, which explains how to image a damaged disk (I also got a shiny new external hard disk with plenty of space so I can store it) to then do repair work on that image and hopefully salvage stuff.

However, before I even got to that stage I've been defeated by screws. I got the disk out of the laptop okay, but it is in a metal frame you slide in, and the cable of the converter does not fit onto the disk while it is in the metal thing. But I can't get the screws loose. They don't budge at all, the only effect I'm having is denting my screw driver head. Admittedly said tool is a cheap and dingy little thing (I got it with some computer part or other), but I suspect if the screw driver was harder I'd only end up damaging the screws instead. :(

You know what I hate? When a program, for no discernible reason, changes what it does so that an action you have done a thousand times in exactly this manner just doesn't work anymore, because inadvertently you changed some setting or clicked something or picked something without meaning to, but you can't discern anywhere what has changed and fix it. So after trying for some time you have no choice but to save and restart the program in hopes that the default behavior will be restored.

Just now I tried to do a simple copy & paste in GIMP, and it inserted the new layer just fine, but the moving tool refused to work on this newly inserted layer, so I couldn't move it to the right place. There was no symbol attached to this layer in the layer view that indicated it being in any way different from any of the other layers that I had previously inserted and moved. I have no idea what I did that suddenly broke the move tool without warning. I hate that. And now I find that even with a restart the default setting hasn't been restored, so it seems to have remembered whatever messed up option caused this. I still can't move the layer I pasted, WTF? Why are you doing this to me GIMP?

Do any of you have an idea what can suddenly break a move tool like that so that you just can't grab a layer anymore to move it with the tool? I know I didn't pick this intentionally, so I must have clicked accidentally somewhere or something. Argh.

Does this kind of thing happen to other people, that your software just doesn't do a routine task anymore and you have no idea how you broke it?

At first I thought it was just Gmail that had trouble loading for me, but their search engine is timing out on me as well. And I seem not alone. I actually found twitter useful for just about the first time and searched there for Gmail and Google complaints happening right now, and it seems I'm not alone with this problem.

What the frell did photobucket do to their image upload? It's been a few months since I last uploaded a photo to my account, but I never had a problem, though their flash(?)-thingy for bulk uploading never worked for me. But now I click on the upload button, and a small window with the title bar "select files" pops up, but I don't actually see anything in the window, just some wildly flickering movement, and then my browser crashes.

What is wrong with these people? Why did they have to break their site?

Are there other ways to upload to photobucket, like FF extensions or something, that don't use the website? Or do I just have to stop using their site entirely?

ETA: After looking at their help I found a way to use the old uploader, which I would have clicked had the link to it been visible in the box at my screen resolution and font size, but it was not, but cut off by the box frame and thus hidden. FAIL, photobucket, FAIL.

When I had trouble accessing Gmail yesterday afternoon I soon chalked that up to the more widespread problems accessing any Google service around here for a couple of hours, at least if you have the German T-Com as your ISP.

Okay whatever, my ISP broke their internet, it apparently happens even if they still can't explain what exactly caused the glitch. Though it is very annoying to have all Google services (not just the search engine and Gmail, but everything including Blogspot, YouTube and so on) return with DNS errors for you -- the internet looks very broken all of a sudden. Not to mention that this came on top of LJ's problems yesterday.

But a few hours later in the evening Google's search engine would load again for me, same for most of their other stuff, and I can get even to my mail through POP, which is something at least, but the Gmail webinterface still stubbornly refuses to load for me, just giving a DNS error.

This is very annoying. I also find it baffling -- how can everything be up again with the rest of the Google website, and my email be there too somewhere, seeing how I can get it through POP, but the two sides won't come together as webmail?

I've a question about the gmail interface that is really starting to bug me: In the standard web interface you get a navigation/menu bar at top of the page leading to other google services. However for me its look isn't consitent. Sometimes it looks like in this screenshot, with the link to the google reader hidden in the "more" menu, which is somewhat inconvenient because besides the mail itself the reader is one of the services I actually use, unlike the calendar for example.

I still could live with that if it was just the standard organization, however sometimes it tantalizes me with a more useful arrangement, and the menu looks like in this screenshot, with the link plainly in sight, not hidden beneath the "more". I have no idea when or for what reasons gmail chooses to display one or the other. I have tried to reproduce the different menus by logging into gmail first, or logging into the reader first, by having both open at the same time, but it seems random. And nowhere in the settings have I found anything to choose how the menu is displayed.

Why does gmail do this, and how do I get it to display the menu like in the second screenshot permanently?

So yesterday I tried whether my desktop might be able to use the DSL modem directly, and that wasn't it, i.e. that didn't work with either the onboard ethernet or the network card. So the problem is definitely that for some reason OpenSuSE won't handle either ethernet controller right, actually I think since they are both Realtek they might use the same driver module. Anyway, today I got a couple of distros as Live Linux CDs to see whether another distro would cause less problems.

The good news is that Kubuntu 6.10 (i.e. the KDE version of Ubuntu) worked with the onboard ethernet out of the box, connected to my router automatically and I had internet access without doing anything (which is as it should be if you plug in your computer to your router), so the chances are that if I installed Kubuntu permanently it would work too.

However, I have never used Kubuntu or Ubunutu, which as I understand it uses a different packaging system than the RPM based OpenSuSE, I think it's those Debian packages, and a different installation interface, and I have used some version of SuSE ever since I switched to Linux many years ago (in 1998, iirc), so I'm kind of anxious about having to get used to another distro. Then again, there are significant changes between releases of the SuSE distro as well, and since I have no idea what I could still try to make the ethernet work, I think I will go ahead and just try Kubuntu.

So does anyone on my f-list use Ubuntu? Is it easy to get used to? Comfortable?

ETA: WTF?!? The Kubuntu Installer won't find and configure my network even though the Kubuntu LiveCD (same Kubuntu version) did? This all sucks so much. Why can't the frelling computer just work? Argh.