Woot! FF looks to be back to normal again. All my add-ons re-enabled themselves. I did need to manually enable my 'theme' of choice, but that too might have taken care of itself had I given it more time.

YESYESYESYESYES!!!!!!! Firefox works again!!!


My hopes got up reading Decrepit's post but when I checked, it still didn't work. But then I remembered I didn't have Studies enabled and after waiting awhile, it's all back now!! What better b-day present could I get?

WOO HOO!!!! Happy Birthday then !!!!

Just read one of the emails appearing in my in-box overnight. Photobucket rears its ugly head once again. I'm informed of its new policy. A policy that supposedly affects only a 'small' percentage of users. As of 1 Jun 2019, Free Accounts now have a 25mb storage limit! 25mb!!!!!! Users in excess of that will have all their images watermarked and blurred.

I gave up on PB years ago. Haven't uploaded a new image there in ages. But...a decent portion of images in my long neglected official Minecraft forums Hill Fort thread are hosted at Photobucket. As are many images found throughout my many various Oblivion posts at the old official Bethesda forums.

So far as I know I have originals for all those images stored locally, so I lose nothing of sentimental value. Still, it's yet another sad sign of the way the internet seems to be heading.

Decrepit, I got the same em from pb yesterday. Happily, I do keep all my hosted screenies on a thumbdrive in my desk as well. I hope they go down the tubes - even when they were totally free I fired them years ago and went to imgur.

I have no clue how many pics would be in 25 mb; but I'm sure my account is over that. I can't retrieve mine because I've changed emails several times and can't remember my password with them. So my images there are lost. When Renee let me know they had unlocked the images they were holding hostage a while back, I copied as many of them as I could to my hard drive; but I'm sure a lot of them will end up lost anyway. I did notice that the images of Maxical now say in big letters across the front "Proudly displayed by Photobucket" on them. I agree with Acadian, I hope they crash and burn. When they were active before all this started they were loading adware on our PC's and had so many ads taking over their page that we couldn't see the pics we were trying to see.

What they could have done was limited our accounts to that 25 mg and only open up more space if we got paid accounts = that would have been fair; and much better than letting ads over run them to the point we couldn't use the site = then hijacking our pics. It is the way they handled everything that turned me off them.

Imgur is starting to show the same early issues that I should have taken as warning signs when they happened at PB; so I'm planning to take a preemptive strike and copy them to an external hard drive too. Thanks for that tip, Acadian!

I host my images on my own server, but I still keep a backup copy on another machine. Same with the web pages for the mods and stories.

That's in addition to the regular server backups. I need to start keeping one at a different location, in case the house burns down or blows away.

HOLY COW!!!

Ghastley's House:



https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q...A3i3gVEq5E7DjGG

Just got a call from "Cardholder Services." It was a dude!!!!!!!!!!!

Sounds like a poker site.


Trying to get files for a DOS bootup disk. Downloaded something that I will try on the now non-functional 3.1 computer. Doesn't hurt.

Males can be scammers too!

<nods> As many of these Cardholder Services calls as I've gotten over the years, I believe this was the first time it wasn't a female's voice.

YouTube video on Google (search engine) vs DuckDuckGo (search engine).

Just bought some diskettes. Ten in an unopened box and a few old ones because one of them had drivers for Windows 95 and one which had drivers for DOS!


Also bought a Windows 98 computer. Should work wonders with my DOS games!

Doh!

Good luck bird.

Urgh.

"goes back to 2011"


Good thing I bought mine in 2009 then


Thnx!

Not really an issue, but...

...I'm putzing around with Brave Browser again. On a lark I decided to watch ep16 of my YouTube TpF series. To my surprise, viewing it at 1080p Full Screen with Brave seems less affected by compression degradation than when I watch via Firefox. Thinking it a fluke I watched ep13, then ancient ep5. My opinion held. Not sure what's up with that. Most likely I simply misremember what they look like on Firefox.

A day late, an order short.

Putzing around at NewEgg the other day I noticed two-packs of the DD4-3000 15CAS RAM housed in my primary computer, priced $79US! I paid $120US when assembling the PC mid 2017. Considering how expensive RAM has been for quite some time, and that my original intent was to install 32gb, I thought it over and decided to take the plunge. Researched yesterday to insure these are indeed the exact same modules as mine. Logged on NewEgg this morning to order. SOLD OUT! Oh well, it's not as if a really need those extra 16gb. But boy would I like 'em, at the right price.

It dawns on me I neglected to provide an update on my PC monitor issue. Wasn't able to fix the Samsung. Broke down and bought a new monitor. Due to the confined area I'm able to place it in I'm limited 24-25" monitors. At that size, combined with the distance I sit from the screen (3'), 1080p is good enough. I did brake down and go for a high-refresh monitor, 144. It has free-sync, not a useless feature now that my Nvidia card supports it. I'm not overly impressed with its image. The Samsung had better picture quality before its problem began. It's not bad once warmed up...but boy do it take forever to do so! Very washed out until then. On the plus side it has a very nice base...sturdy yet easy to manipulate. Its user controls are easier to figure out and use than the Samsung.

At any rate, here's what I bought: Viewsonic XG2402.

Tried my Windows 95 computer yesterday and it seems to work fine. Got MK3 to work with no issues, however Red Baron complains about memory issues. Will work on that and on the other stuff come fall/winter.

Can you watch it again on Firefox to be sure?







Obviously everyone else thought it was a good price too, lol.








Wow, 24" !!! I'm still looking at one 19" monitor, lol.











Awesome!!! Does this mean you are going to make me jealous by playing Chips Challenge?

Think my monitor is 23 inch. Or 27, to heck if I can remember. I'd have to measure it.

<nods> Monitors/TVs are officially sized diagonally, so you'll need to measure that way. If measured horizontally, mine is something like 22.5" including frame.

@mALX
The RAM I want reappeared. It now sells for circa $140US. That's more than I paid for the two sticks I already have. Thanks but no thanks.

I already do that on the Millennium

But yeas; I'm gonna put everything I can from the Win 3.1/Millennium on the 95.

Heck no, I don't blame you. I wonder if the guy pricing these items doesn't have a clue. (first priced WAY too low, then priced over what it should be?).

Bold:

"GAAAAAAAAAH!"


Actually; I just found my old HP machine the other day, (hadn't been able to find it since our move here) = but the monitor for it was left outside on our deck and has been rained on. It was one of those enormous old monitors shaped like a cone. That PC is so old that I don't think the connections for my little flat monitor would work on it; and don't know if it even has USB ports for current keyboards. The keyboard it came with had a round shaped connector. It did have a floppy disk of all the Microsoft games (actually, there were two disks of the games) - but I don't know where those discs are anymore since our move. (but Chips Challenge was loaded on that PC when I moved it here; so may still be on there).

So it may take a while to get set up; but I might still be able to play it, lol.

I suspect the lesser price might be NewEgg liquidating inventory of a particular vendor, likely one they are no longer doing business with.

BTW, I can't remember if you ever gave Firefox a try. If so, did/does it remove whatever it was that kept you from seeing upper-left corner text in my YouTube vids?

I gave it a try years ago and once again about a year ago; and even transferred my Bookmarks over to it. I kept going back to Google because of the familiarity of where everything was and especially for the ability to resize all print so I can see it. Firefox had a download that was supposed to allow the resizing of print; you had to re-code it and it was a LOT of trouble and the end result was not good at all. In Google text resizing is built in and so easy to use that it isn't even a noticeable extra step. So I dumped Firefox and was going to try out the other Browser you gave me a link to = Brave. I have not had the time to thoroughly check it out yet; too much real life stuff has been happening since then, but I do plan to try it.

If the round connector is a SMALL one, there are inexpensive USB to PS2 connectors

like this

For the monitor, any VGA (blue 9-pin cable) should work and most flat screens still have a VGA connection.

Awesome! I wonder if Radio Shack will have a connector like that? Thanks, Treydoggie!!!

If not you can order one online most likely.

Not an issue exactly, but a few days ago I bought this video convertor. It connects your VCR to a computer, and allows you to copy VHS tapes to digital. It works really well. I still have a few old shows on videotape that have never been released on dvd. Things like Civil War Journal and VR-5.

The only downside is that you have to actually play the videotape on your tv while you do the transfer. So it is time-consuming. I try to do it when I am taking a bath, or playing games on my main computer (I use a laptop to do the transfers). It originally saves the transfer as a mpg file, and has a built in converter that can turn int into a much smaller MP4 file, and can increase the resolution to as high as 1024 x 768. I have been doing the latter for space. I don't see any real loss in quality.

Probably because the quality is not so good to begin with. These are 30 year old videotapes after all. They never looked or sounded that good to begin with, at least by current standards. But at least now I can save this stuff, which would otherwise slip into oblivion after the last used VCR could not longer be bought on Ebay.

I also found that the video editor built into Windows does open these files, allowing you to cut out parts that ran too long, like into the next episode. It is really slow though, given the file sizes for a 45 minute episode.

So if you have any old tapes you want to preserve, this does work.

This is amazing! I haven't had a VHS that worked in forever; and ... think I still have a stack of VHS tapes I kept just in case there was ever a way to see them again!

Windows notified me of an update as I shut down for the night yesterday. Booting up this morning I was greeted by a long update routine, including at least three reboots. Thought maybe it was the big Windows10 Spring 2019 Update. Nope. It's sill version 1803, the Spring 2018 update.

Whatever else this update does, it corrects a weird issue that set in maybe a week ago, where my Sound Blaster (audio) and Nvidia (video) Control Panel settings reset to DEFAULT values every time the computer shuts down or enters sleep mode.

hmmm... attempted to log into the 'new' official Beth Forums a few minutes ago. Message about incorrect name and/or password puts up. But...they're the name and password I've used since setting up my account there. Anyone else run into this?

Can't say I have


Got a new old monitor home from work. And a Compaq, no less! Perfect for my DOS games!

I just logged in over at BethSoft forums. I did have to sign in since I hadn't been there for so long but it remembered by username/password and logged me right in. Of course the place still looks totally foreign to me as I think I've been there less than once a year since they changed to the 'new' forums.

Thanks, Acadian. After reading your post I returned to Beth and had no problem logging in. Just a temporary glitch, I reckon.

Or a man-in-the-middle attack to get your sign-on credentials. They put up a fake screen that looks just like the real one, record your name and password, and then tell you it failed. That gets you to re-try, confirming the details, because you could really have made a mistake the first time. Once they have a consistent set of credentials, get out of the way and let you through to the real site. It's not a new idea. I first did it back in the early seventies with mainframe systems, when I worked on security for those.

I'd recommend changing that password.

Though I doubt anything evil is afoot I went ahead and changed my Beth password. No biggie, and it cost me only a few minutes of time.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/06/14/on...e_battleground/ - I didn't recognise any Beth/Zeni content, but there's a lot more in their portfolio than I play.

I do have the same credentials for all the forums etc. where there's nothing of value for them to steal, but different, unique ones for any paid content, such as ESO or Steam. I'm not happy with the ESO forums using the same details as the game, but that just means their forum alone gets the more secure password, etc. and it does have some utility in requiring that forum users are also game account holders.

My parents had given me their old 10 gig Presario decades ago; it is the last PC I had that would play Chips.



Myspace used to be famous for having this "Middle man" attack. Everyone's PC's got loaded up with spy and adware from them; and who knows what else. It took me forever to clean the junk off my old PC, I finally had to reformat it. Then Myspace said it wouldn't allow access to anyone using Internet Explorer anymore; but by then everyone had migrated to FB or other social sites. Too bad, because I really hate FB.

Not an 'issue,' I don't think, but...

I still run Win10 1803, having never got the 1809 update. Not sure what's up with that. I can of course force the issue, but would rather not. I now wonder if I'll receive the new 1903 update, which looks to include a few things I 'might' actually like.

Had a scare two evenings ago. Was surfing the web with Firefox. All of a sudden Malwarebytes begins blocking outgoing 'suspicious' traffic every few seconds. This goes on for some time. Closed all open programs. Shut down computer. Turned on computer several minutes later. Opened Firefox. Same issue. Closed Firefox. Launched Brave. Same issue. Getting worried now. All that came to mind is that Avast (anti-virus) has, in the past, warned that a somewhat recent Firefox add-on extension is potentially unreliable. Disabled and removed it. No change. Switched to Brave. Browsed for some time. No Malwarbytes blockage messages! Was sort of late by then so shut down PC for the day. Next morning I launched it to find all's well (so far as I know) again. Whether it was the extension or something else I do not know. Just glad the PC isn't hosed. Hurrah for Malwarebytes for blocking potentially harmful outgoing traffic.

Only peripherally computer related: a well done video on the differences between OLED and QLED TVs.

Again only peripherally related: two short power outages yesterday morning, followed by a pre announced overnight three hour outage to repair/replace 'critical' equipment.

Scary. Do let us know if you find out for sure what it was, Decrepit.

I got a warning that my version of Windows was nearing end of life and I was running the same version.

I cant for the life of me figure out why it never updated after that version.

I got an error trying to update, something about incompatible Intel RST driver. Fixed that problem and could update.