The computing stuff rant thread

[PeteB99]

Time Machine has decided it can't do any backups as my external disk is read only. Disk utility says there's nothing wrong with it, It won't let me change the permissions as the Superuser, Demounting the disk doesn't seem to help and a reboot hasn't either.

What next to try?

[Vernon]

Is it possible the "time machine" user can't see the disk as writable? I'm not sure how you'd check this off the top of my head (somewhere in users), but it gives you something to google.

[philip]

Time Machine has decided it can't do any backups as my external disk is read only. Disk utility says there's nothing wrong with it, It won't let me change the permissions as the Superuser, Demounting the disk doesn't seem to help and a reboot hasn't either.

What next to try?

I'm not a mac user but I would try disk repair on the external disk: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT210898

[Update: maybe you already tried that with disk utility]

[philip]

I suppose the other thing to try is to make a copy of the read-only disk, or maybe you already have a second backup, and then reformat the problem disk.

[Bledlow]

I paid for a genuine Windows 11 DVD but apparently my PC doesn't have TPM 2.0 and it can't be enabled, so it's useless.  It is well above minimum specifications otherwise.  It would cost about £500 to buy something of very similar spec with TPM.

I managed to stop the pestering to install Windows 11 on one of our computers (the old one kept for when we both want  to do something for which a more than laptop size screen is desirable) by letting it proceed a bit. It very soon said "Oh bugger, can't do it". Yes - that's normal for a modestly specced (but perfectly adequate for what it's used for) PC of that vintage.

[Jaded]

Is it possible the "time machine" user can't see the disk as writable? I'm not sure how you'd check this off the top of my head (somewhere in users), but it gives you something to google.

Get info  for the disk, and check the ownerships down the bottom of the get info pane

[Mr Larrington]

My laptop knows full well it can’t run 11 and hasn’t even tried to pester me with upgrades.  Unlike the desktop jobs chiz.

[rogerzilla]

TPM 2.0 is the usual deal-breaker.  Anything over 10 years old probably won't have it, and cheaper PCs made for a few years after won't have it either.

[ian]

Time Machine has decided it can't do any backups as my external disk is read only. Disk utility says there's nothing wrong with it, It won't let me change the permissions as the Superuser, Demounting the disk doesn't seem to help and a reboot hasn't either.

What next to try?

This has happened to me before. If I recall, turn Time Machine off in the preferences, then eject the external disk (from the desktop and unplug if it's external), power down your computer, make and drink a cup of tea, restart your computer, reconnect the drive, go back to Time Machine preferences and turn it back on and re-select the drive. This seemed to work for me and seemed to keep all the old backups.

[spesh]

Further to Polar Bear and Bledlow's complaints about Avast/AVG in the "Free antivirus for Windows 10?" thread...

Avast have taken their "Upgrade to the premium version" pestering to a whole new level by making me an offer I can't refuse. Well, there is a way to refuse, which I'll get to in a moment.

Had the "licence is about to expire" notifications, which I don't recall getting a year ago, and quite why one needs to renew/reactivate the free version of an app is beyond me, but hey, this ought to be straightforward enough so I click on the "renew" button and when presented with a choice of Free Antivirus and their "recommended" premium internet security package, I select the free version. So far so good, however, here's where the fun begins...

I then get another pop-up saying, "Thank you for activating Avast Free Antivirus ... We want to thank you with a big, one-time loyalty discount for Avast Premium Security." But there's no option to decline with a "Thanks but no thanks" button - there's just a "Continue with upgrade" button, which then presents me with a choice of subscription options and again, no opt-out button. If that's the way they are going to play it, I don't care how much of a discount they are offering me, I'm refusing on general principle - but the only way to do that is to kill the Avast pop-up via Task Manager.

Doing this makes Avast re-start - and after it's done this, it turns out that the cake "Thank you for activating Avast Free Antivirus" is a lie, because the app is still telling me that the licence is due to expire. There are several ways of - theoretically - reactivating Free Antivirus, and they all result in the "Thank you for activating, but we're going to force the premium version on you anyway" pop-up. 

Frankly, Avast can get in the sea. This is more than just annoying, it feels decidedly unethical.

[Mr Larrington]

No, Belarussian modder known only as “Jazzycat”, you cannot have that many variants in a single file without getting errors caching model instances.

DNAMHIKT.

[SoreTween]

I have to have another rant about the absolutely fucking piss poor provision of simple graphics tools on linux.  All I want is an MS paint equivalent, can I find one?  Can I bollocks.  Pinta is the closest but that has the ever so slight flaw that it can't print.  FFS.
Today I wanted to do another simple screenshot, crop & paste of 3 images.  Having given up on the other options with a sigh I fired up the ultimate sledgehammer to crack this nut - gimp.  Screenshot, paste & crop the first image to be the background fine.  Take the second screenshot, paste it into another gimp canvas to crop the small area I want.  Except that the rectangle select tool doesn't fucking work on a second image.  The god of image manipulation programs?  My hairy arse. Every time I try to drag the rectangle select it just moves image 2 on it's canvas.  Try switching to a different tool & back to rectangle select, still it just grabs image 2 instead of applying the active tool. I have to use Pinta to crop the second image & paste it into canvas 1.

What a pile of shite.

[TheLurker]

.. Pinta is the closest but that has the ever so slight flaw that it can't print.  FFS.

Well. I've been using Pinta for several years now and I'd never noticed that.  I mainly use it for resizing and cropping photographs of toy aeroplanes for our group's newsletter - which leads me to a simple-ish fix.  If you haven't already got it, install Libre Office and paste the images into a document and print that.  It's a faff, but it's a hell of a lot simpler than pissing about with complicated graphics tools.

I'd probably just use two instances of Pinta.  Crop/resize background in one and then cut and paste the overlay from the second instance then drop the composite into Writer and print from there.

You could use Inkscape cos it's a lot easier to get to grips with than *other* graphics tools and the selection tools work. However.... if you install the appimage, guess what?  Yup, appimages can't access the printers so although there is a print option you can't effing use it.  What you can do though is export the image to PDF and print the PDF from your favourite PDF viewer.  It's how I do plans and plan fragments for the toy aeroplanes.

[perpetual dan]

I have to have another rant about the absolutely fucking piss poor provision of simple graphics tools on linux.  All I want is an MS paint equivalent, can I find one?  Can I bollocks.  Pinta is the closest but that has the ever so slight flaw that it can't print.  FFS.
Today I wanted to do another simple screenshot, crop & paste of 3 images.  Having given up on the other options with a sigh I fired up the ultimate sledgehammer to crack this nut - gimp.  Screenshot, paste & crop the first image to be the background fine.  Take the second screenshot, paste it into another gimp canvas to crop the small area I want.  Except that the rectangle select tool doesn't fucking work on a second image.  The god of image manipulation programs?  My hairy arse. Every time I try to drag the rectangle select it just moves image 2 on it's canvas.  Try switching to a different tool & back to rectangle select, still it just grabs image 2 instead of applying the active tool. I have to use Pinta to crop the second image & paste it into canvas 1.

What a pile of shite.

That’s weird with gimp and selecting. When it’s done that with me it’s usually been a wrong layer selected problem. Though I’m confused by the pasting into a canvas - is that different to opening an image in some subtle way. (I use gimp a fair bit, but have my own little path I take and there’s many things I’ve never touched in it.)

I’ve never used pinta, but could you save and then print from image viewer?

[SoreTween]

Yes to both the above routes but really, why on earth should I need two programs to do something I could do on Windows 3.11 with free included software?  Pinta can work with multiple images by the way, no need for two instances.

I suppose you could count the two instances of MSPaint as two programs... 

[TheLurker]

... why on earth should I need two programs to do something I could do on Windows 3.11 with free included software? 

Ah, philosophical questions. 

I agree it is a bit of a pain, but for me it's a lesser evil than having to maintain complicated firewalls and other filters to prevent M$ updating *my* machine without my say so and to stop the OS 'phoning home and don't get me started on subscription models for effing word processing software.  I quite like the price as well. 

[chopstick]

I have to have another rant about the absolutely fucking piss poor provision of simple graphics tools on linux.  All I want is an MS paint equivalent, can I find one?  Can I bollocks.  Pinta is the closest but that has the ever so slight flaw that it can't print.  FFS.
Today I wanted to do another simple screenshot, crop & paste of 3 images.  Having given up on the other options with a sigh I fired up the ultimate sledgehammer to crack this nut - gimp.  Screenshot, paste & crop the first image to be the background fine.  Take the second screenshot, paste it into another gimp canvas to crop the small area I want.  Except that the rectangle select tool doesn't fucking work on a second image.  The god of image manipulation programs?  My hairy arse. Every time I try to drag the rectangle select it just moves image 2 on it's canvas.  Try switching to a different tool & back to rectangle select, still it just grabs image 2 instead of applying the active tool. I have to use Pinta to crop the second image & paste it into canvas 1.

What a pile of shite.

Re Gimp and the rectangular select tool - I might be off the mark but how about Select - None (Shift+CTRL+A) before attempting to use the Select tool?

[Kim]

I must say, there's a conspicuous lack of something with the simple functionality of Paint Shop Pro 5.

GIMP has improved a lot over the years, but it's still really difficult to work out how to perform basic editing functions when you only do graphics stuff once in a blue moon.  At least the UI doesn't seem to change every time you load it any more.

[ian]

Someone should get around to inventing a computer that does all that out of the box. Make it shiny too.

[Mr Larrington]

According to Wikinaccurate Pinta originally came from the same peops as paint dot net, which serves for 99% of this Unit’s image-jibbling.  Inability to print thus seems a curious omission.

[Pickled Onion]

I have to have another rant about the absolutely fucking piss poor provision of simple graphics tools on linux.  All I want is an MS paint equivalent, can I find one?  Can I bollocks.  Pinta is the closest but that has the ever so slight flaw that it can't print.  FFS.
Today I wanted to do another simple screenshot, crop & paste of 3 images.  Having given up on the other options with a sigh I fired up the ultimate sledgehammer to crack this nut - gimp.  Screenshot, paste & crop the first image to be the background fine.  Take the second screenshot, paste it into another gimp canvas to crop the small area I want.  Except that the rectangle select tool doesn't fucking work on a second image.  The god of image manipulation programs?  My hairy arse. Every time I try to drag the rectangle select it just moves image 2 on it's canvas.  Try switching to a different tool & back to rectangle select, still it just grabs image 2 instead of applying the active tool. I have to use Pinta to crop the second image & paste it into canvas 1.

What a pile of shite.

[Unhelpful glib comment] How much did you pay for it?

gimp is open source, so if it doesn't work the way it should, or the way you think is should, simply fix it and open a pull request

Or, if you don't fancy spending a few years learning C programming, you can open a feature request/bug report. Who knows, someone may fix it for you. For free.

[TheLurker]

Esprit d'escalier.

I just thought to check something.  If Image Viewer (it comes with Mint, your distro may vary) is installed then use that to print the composite after you've assembled it in Pinta.

This may be why Pinta doesn't provide a print option, because there are sooo many image viewer utils that do print.  No point in re-inventing wheel.

[hubner]

I have to have another rant about the absolutely fucking piss poor provision of simple graphics tools on linux.  All I want is an MS paint equivalent, can I find one?  Can I bollocks.  Pinta is the closest but that has the ever so slight flaw that it can't print.  FFS.
Today I wanted to do another simple screenshot, crop & paste of 3 images.  Having given up on the other options with a sigh I fired up the ultimate sledgehammer to crack this nut - gimp.  Screenshot, paste & crop the first image to be the background fine.  Take the second screenshot, paste it into another gimp canvas to crop the small area I want.  Except that the rectangle select tool doesn't fucking work on a second image.  The god of image manipulation programs?  My hairy arse. Every time I try to drag the rectangle select it just moves image 2 on it's canvas.  Try switching to a different tool & back to rectangle select, still it just grabs image 2 instead of applying the active tool. I have to use Pinta to crop the second image & paste it into canvas 1.

What a pile of shite.

I've just tried it, it seems to work for me. There's an actual crop tool as well as the rectangle select tool.

[SoreTween]

OK, hands up, my ignorance at play here.  There seems to be levels of selection at play.  When you paste from clipboard the image is selected as indicated by a line of black marching ants around it.  But this is not the same selection as in the select tool, (white marching ants on a black line except when it uses visually identical to above black marching ants).

Re Gimp and the rectangular select tool - I might be off the mark but how about Select - None (Shift+CTRL+A) before attempting to use the Select tool?

You do have to select none to be able to use the selection tool but the selection that is selected after paste is not the selection that is cleared by 'Select none' (I tried that) or by Shift+Ctrl+A (did not know that shortcut).
To clear the pasted selection you have to click on the canvas outside the pasted image.  Either click outside and then you can select an area entirely within the pasted image or start your selection outside.  This I only figured out because upon going back to see if I'd been an idiot the blank canvas I created happened to be bigger than the pasted test image.
If you select all you get a line of black marching ants that looks like the 'paste from cliboard' selection border but isn't.  'Select all' black ants can be cleared by select none, 'paste from clipboard' black ants can only be cleared by clicking a blank area of canvas.

If the above is totally confusing then I've correctly conveyed the experience.

[SoreTween]

Oh FFS 

I've resisted Faecebook, twitter & all the rest of that shit since the beginning but recently, like in the last two weeks, I caved in & got an FB account.  I set up a dedicated yahoo mail account in my own name and to be used for nothing else and then used that to open a FB account.  I didn't give them a mobile number because that would instantly tie me to all my less careful friends, acquaintances and colleagues whose phone has been raped by FB over the years.  Thousands of them.  FB can't positively identify who my friends are, which school I went to, my grandmothers shoe size, which side I dress etc etc.  They can't advertise to me because I turned all that shit off in the account.  But nor can they monetise me and that hurts them.

So today I find I'm blocked for 'activity that does not follow Community Standards'.  The only way to unlock it?  Provide a phone number.

Fuck off.

Facebook among other things assume that if person X is interested in predilection Y then all person X's contacts might be too so sell that advertising lead.  I really don't want someone assuming I'm into midget porn just because someone I worked with 8 years ago is (I can think of several past colleagues whose nocturnal interests I have no interest in knowing I have great desire to never know).
More seriously my phone number is in the phones belonging to a number of Russian nationals.  All seem nice, talented and hard working people with whom I have enjoyed working and sinking some beers.  All appear to be as pissed off with Putin as the rest of us but when the western TLAs go looking for Russian sympathisers they'll talk to the big data harvesters first and then make assumptions.  I need my UK security clearance.

Fuck off some more FB.

I created the account as my local cycling club uses it. Coincidentally it is the club monthly meeting tonight, I shall be attending