Just Computers

On occasion, the matter of computers pops up in non-related threads, and sometimes diverts the thread to such an extent that it dies.

I would like to suggest that all matters concerning computers be restricted to this thread. If computer issues come up in another thread, you can reference this thread rather than cluttering the other thread, then come here and make your post.

When computer-specific issues arise - such as Richard's invaluable notifications of newly-discovered malware (I'm updating my iPhone at this moment), this would be the place to post it rather than starting a new thread.

Just a suggestion.

That works for me. Make it a sticky.

Glad to hear you like it. I will stick it.

To get things started, I will move a couple of posts from the Just for Fun topic.

Referencing the disk caddies in the What Is It thread.

These are very cool. You mount the bracket and then the drives just slide in and click in place. A push of a button and the drive pops out.

I am getting rid of all my spinners. I have two SSDs - one for the system and one for the drive which is used a lot - and will replace the last remaining spinner, which is mostly for on-line archives, when I decide how I want to go. There are various mounting and interface configurations for SSDs. Some of them are just too expensive right now to justify them.

One of the configurations is M.2, which is a tiny drive (40g. 22mm x 80mm) which pops into a slot on the mother board, requiring no cabling. The biggest problem - if you can believe this - is that there is a screw required to install the drive. Computers don't come with that screw and SSDs are not shipped with it. You have to go out and find one, and they are incredibly difficult to find (unless you want to pay twenty dollars plus tax and shipping for a pack of five screws worth about seven cents apiece).

Not wanting to be screwed( Rolling Eyes ) like that, I looked around and found several of the the exact screws holding together an old hard drive which I use as a door stop. Really, I use it as a door stop.

Installed the What Is It disk caddy today. Works as expected. Makes it much easier to plug in the cables, as the drive can be free of the caddy when doing so, and then just slid in place. Very handy.

In its original configuration, the computer has space for three 3.5" hard drives and one m.2 drive. With these new holders and using 2.5" SSDs, I can have up to eight drives in the box. For the eighth drive, which will go on a PCIe card, I will have to learn a lot more about NVME than I know now. And the drives for that standard are big bucks. I will forego that for now, but at some point I will probably give it a shot (Mother Nature willing). Big NVME drives make these SSDs I have look like floppy disks speedwise. Almost unbelievable performance from them: five or six times the speed of my current SSDs.

And I have absolutely no need for them. That's what makes them fun.

If the SSDs are seen as just another drive, do you have any problems with Windows recognizing eight drives? I thought there was a limitation of, like, C to E being drive letters. Maybe they fixed that.

I stopped using the Opera browser quite a while ago because it started developing performance issues. Apparently, quite a few people have stuck with it.

Opera announces data breach: stored passwords stolen for 1.7M users

NoCoPilot wrote:

If the SSDs are seen as just another drive, do you have any problems with Windows recognizing eight drives?  I thought there was a limitation of, like, C to E being drive letters. Maybe they fixed that.

That was never an issue with Windows. Any letter can be used, therefore the limit is twenty-six (logical) drives. Any number of drives can be attached as NAS and addressed by path.

richard09 wrote:

I stopped using the Opera browser quite a while ago because it started developing performance issues. Apparently, quite a few people have stuck with it.

I have heard that the Opera browser was vulnerable. I tried it a long time ago but  didn't like it.

Just a tid bit.

If you have an iPhone and go to the app store and start a download, there is no way to cancel it. You can only pause it.

It's easy enough to delete an app.

Yes, it is. But I wasn't talking about deleting an app. I was talking about cancelling a download. Different animal.

Sure -- but downloading and installing an app involves lots of background APIs and cancelling halfway through could cause lots of orphans.

There would only be a problem if the download software was poorly written.

Took delivery of a new Kindle a few minutes ago. The display on the old one gave up after only nine years. My wife had pre-ordered it for me - it was actually in the first shipment of Kindles that went out in 2007. They sold out in about four or five hours after they went on sale, and there were no more for several months.

The new one has a for-shit interface. It may be the Windows 10 of e-book readers.

The new device has touch screen, which the old one did not, so I immediately - and accidentally - started a download. Tap on the book image again and it asked if I wanted to cancel the download. Tap on yes and it was cancelled. No problem.

Just sayin....

Books don't embed APIs.

Just sayin'.

I have no idea what you mean by "background APIs" or "embed[ded] APIs." No idea whatsoever. I am quite familiar with the acronym API in programming, but not in the way you have used it. But I will humbly admit that I do not know everything. Can you explain what you mean?

Application program interfaces tell applications -- apps, in the mobile world -- how to access memory and databases (like "contacts") and user-entered preferences in order to make an app run on a given platform.  I'm sure you're aware of this.

Books are flat text files, formatted by the book reader app into something dressier than flat text.

The content of the file being downloaded has nothing to do with the program which is downloading it. All are just ones and zeroes.

Quote :

Application program interfaces tell applications -- apps, in the mobile world -- how to access memory and databases (like "contacts") and user-entered preferences in order to make an app run on a given platform. I'm sure you're aware of this.

The abbreviation "app" is short for application program.

An API is a "path" which an application program uses to access - typically, but not always - the operating system. An API does nothing other than allow the application program to make a call to a routine in another program. The operating system, normally through the use of DLLs, allows application programs to request the execution of functions within the OS. The OS does this by making public the name of the function and specifying the required parameters. The application program will load the DLL during its operation and make calls to that code as required.

The API does not tell another program how to access memory or databases. The API provides a method for one program to access another program which knows how to do those things.

So, do books utilize dynamic link libraries?

I would think not, but that has nothing what-so-fucking-ever to do with downloading a bunch of bytes.

My original comment was one expressing surprise that a download from the app store could not be terminated. I'm sure that the engineers and programmers at Apple have the ability to provide that functionality. Just as the programmers for browsers, news readers, and Kindles can provide it. Just as I provided it in programs I wrote. I'm sure Apple has a reason for it, but all I was doing was just taking notice of it.

Was this a free download or a download for a fee?

Free.

Well then it should've allowed you to cancel it before finishing. Dunno why it didn't. Maybe I should try one myself.

Trouble is, with my wide bandwidth even a large download only takes a few seconds.

Okay, I chose a random free app download.  Let it start downloading.  Tapped it again -- it gave me the "Get" icon again.  Tapped again and it started from zero again.

Looks to me like it stopped the download?

Canceled it again and there was no icon on my desktop.

That's bizarre. I used the google and found many people looking for a way in which to stop the downloads, even on Apple user forums. No one had anything that worked. When I tap the icon again, I get a pause indicator.

Did you test the download on your phone or on the Mac?