[split] Fort McMurray On Fire

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Kellemora
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[split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by Kellemora »

Don't know what type of video feed newspapers have changed to, but I've yet to find a player which plays them.
I don't have a problem watching video's anywhere else, only newspaper feeds. Strange.
I did notice it shows the names of the frame segments behind the image if I scroll up and back down again.
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Re: Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by yogi »

I'm guessing it has something to do with those "non free" codecs that are not supplied with most Linux distributions. The news sites most likely don't put a lot of effort to reach their Linux audience. Try viewing it on your Windows 10 machine if you are interested.
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Re: Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by Kellemora »

Sorry Yogi, I was a bit misleading in my response. I should have been more specific.
On THIS computer, which I use to surf the web, I cannot see but hear HTML5 videos on Google Chrome, and yes the gstreamer1.0-libav is up to date.

I have three computers using Debian 8.3 and they all displayed HTML5 until the most recent update.
ONLY THIS COMPUTER will not display HTML5, while the other two computers do so without problems.

If I use Firefox or Chromium, which is Google Chromes base, I can see them OK.
It's only Google Chrome, and only on THIS computer.
Why I've not figured out yet. It might be associated with the graphics driver, and I've tried turning off some of the things which can cause problems on slower graphics cards.
I'm not the only one having problems using Google Chrome with HTML5 on some computers, while it works on others.

On a different note: There is a Google Chrome setting file you get to through the browser using a local URL address.
On a Windows machine, there are lines you can change from Yes to No or Active to Disabled.
The particular lines I need to change do not appear on the Linux versions of Google Chrome.
One example is the ability for tabs to load in the background while not in focus.
Google turned this option OFF, so only the tab in focus will load.
We can turn this option back to ON on any Windows machine, but not on a MAC or Linux computer.
For now we are partially getting around this problem by placing the cursor on the first tab, then using the scroll wheel to run down the tabs to open each one for 3 seconds then moving onto the next. They often stop loading after you move on to the next tab, but given enough time, they will finish loading on their own while not in focus.

I wonder if Google knows this is causing many of us to use Chromium instead of Google Chrome for many tasks we used to use Google Chrome for?
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Re: Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by yogi »

OK Gary, got it. Didn't realize the problem was machine specific. Google Chrome is installed here just to say I can. I seldom use it for anything but logging into this website's administrative control panel. And, the only reason I do that is to give me different visuals (skins) when I have multiple browsers open. I now use Waterfox in lieu of Firefox or it's Nightly build channel. Each tab is run in a different process and Waterfox is custom built for 64-bit machines.
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Re: Fort McMurray On Fire

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I meant to jump back in last night and say I finally located the problem.

When you close Google Chrome, it automatically replaces files in the .config folder, some of which I purposely deleted to force Google Chrome to use a file from the Root OPT folder. So it does not do this, I normally do not close Google Chrome, just bring it back to the Search page.

I updated the computer, did my usual routine of deleting the folders in .config, and changing the files in OPT I want it to use.
Opened Chrome and parked it on the Search page as always.

In the Launcher for Google Chrome, I have some added instructions.
Apparently during the system update, this line in the Launcher got changed.
After I spent over an hour checking everything else, I decided to compare my Launcher code string to see if I made a type or something. This is when I found it was changed back to the default Launch string.
So, I added the force codes back in again and everything started working as expected.

The biggest problem for me, and the main reason I use Google Chrome, is because of a bug introduced into Flash Player over a year ago. Adobe said they did it on purpose, so it is not a bug, and therefore will not fix the problem.
Google Chrome uses PepperFlash which they modify and maintain.

No other browser which uses Flash will let you use an OLD version of Flash, they will produce an error, or flat out not let you use it.
At least on Google Chrome, I can use the March 12, 2015 version of PepperFlash, the last known properly working Flash Player.
I'm going to be up that proverbial creek without a paddle should I not be able to use this version in the future.

Flash Player has nothing at all to do with the HTML5 issue, they are totally separate video players.

Well, now you know, I got it fixed.

I just hope as more places move to HTML5 they do not remove the bottom zoom level, if it is needed to use their programs properly.
I have tried different resolutions to achieve what I need to on computers that allow resolutions necessary.
But most of my computers I do not have the proper video drivers for, so am limited to what resolutions are available.
The Linux recommended driver never has the right codex I guess to make it function.
And if I install the correct one in the Kernel, the next update and I am faced with the black screen of death.
So I get by with the one Linux updates automatically in the kernel, and block the auto installed one which does not work.

OK, back to the salt mines for me! Have a great day Yogi!
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by yogi »

My understanding is that Flash is being deprecated, meaning made obsolete due to its inherent security problems. At some point in the future it will no longer be available. I deleted it from all my Windows machines and frankly have not missed it. One or two sites no longer show the Flash frame, but it's no big loss in my case. From what I can tell it's installed only in some versions of Ubuntu, but again, I have no need for it and don't bother with it in my Linux environment. The news video about the wild fires showed perfectly in all my Linux boxes, i.e., laptop, desktop, USB memory sticks, and virtual machines. I haven't tried it in my only Debian machine because that's a special purpose OS highly focused on security. It wouldn't install Flash just on general principles. :mrgreen:
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by Kellemora »

I'm on a website a few hours each day that uses Shockwave Flash, or Adobe Flash, which may be the same thing.
Since Google took over the maintenance of their version of Flash, called Pepper Flash, I found it to be a much better and more stable version of Flash.
However, they had to butcher it for some reason, so ever since the edition after the March 12th 2015 version was released, although it works just fine, it is missing its lowest zoom level. One can get by without using this lowest zoom level, IF they have enough screen resolution options to get around the new problem.
Normally, changing a computers screen resolution does not change what appears inside the Flash window, but in some cases it does, or at least I think it does.

The easiest way for me to explain what is happening here, and why I need to use the older Pepper Flash version.

Picture a 24 inch ruler in your head. The original 2009 or earlier Flash Player would show 16 inches of this ruler.
Somewhere around 2011 or 2012 they added a lower zoom level to Flash which allowed 18 inches of a 24 inch ruler to appear in the Flash Frame. It remained this way until the middle of 2015 when they not only removed the lowest zoom level, but also made the next zoom level larger, so now the Flash Player window only displays 14 inches of a 24 inch ruler. So it is much worse than the original Flash Player.

Unfortunately, the designers of the program I use cannot convert it to HTML5 without losing almost all of the features the program has become known for. There are many quirks about Adobe Flash that made their program possible. One of these is multiple layers, which can be spoofed and overloaded. They have not found a way to do this in HTML5 as of yet. It just isn't robust enough yet to allow what could be done using Flash. Technically HTML5 is still in its infancy and needs to grow considerably before it will become a viable alternative to Flash.

I'm not a programmer, so have no idea how they do what they do with the various programs out there.
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by yogi »

I've not done any Flash programming so that I don't know all the ins and outs. The reason why they can do some of the fancy (and irritating) things they do is that they take control of the kernel. Windows Active-X does something similar. This total control of the processes allows them to change all the rules and do whatever they feel is necessary to complete a task. And, this is a fine way to go about things providing that absolute control can be contained. Well, apparently it cannot. There are so many leaks into Flash, and by implication to your system's kernel, that Adobe has just abandoned trying to fix them all.

HTML 5 works on a higher level and does not have access to the systems kernel. Just that much of it makes it a better security situation. I don't know what the limits to HTML 5 will prove out to be, but there are frameworks out there that should cover whatever the markup can't do intrinsically. I think you are using one of them, bootstrap, on your own web pages.

This major flaw in Flash isn't anything new. It's been around for years; many years. Adobe announced quite a while ago that it was gradually abandoning support and that was the flag that should have tipped off developers that they need to write new programs. I don't quite see why you have to upgrade and then modify the new code. It seems that if you were able to run your software within a given environment, you should be able to keep that environment just for the archaic software. There are a lot of folks out there today using Windows XP exactly for that reason. Pepper Flash has you at their mercy, but I don't think you need to upgrade to that level.
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

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I'm sure you are familiar with graphics programs, like PhotoShop, Gimp, or possibly even the old AutoSketch.

Although none of the above are video players, they have something in common with Flash Player, which I do not think yet exists in HTML5, and that is they all used Layers, and Zoom.
One of the reasons I loved AutoSketch was its zoom was infinitesimal. Their larger AutoCAD program was limited.

The zoom levels in Flash are also limited, but used to be adequate. However, they are under the control of the program being viewed on Flash. So it is up to the program developer how many levels of zoom they allow, and these are usually in fixed steps.
To be honest, this is truly how it should be! However, Flash removed the lowest zoom level, so programmers can no longer make use of the lowest zoom level.

In graphics programs, you can add things on different layers, display all the layers, some of the layers, one of the layers, or none of the layers.
One of the reasons Flash became popular, especially with games, was because it used Layers. Programmers would provide a fixed layer you could not turn off, which was often their background, and other features, such as the scoreboard, players line-up, etc. But the users had the ability to hide or show certain things displayed on their game.
Farm Town is a good example of this, you can hide your crops, trees, flowers, etc.
And this is where the glitches in Flash Player could be utilized.
Farm Town itself does not let you plant a flower and a tree in the same spot, or place anything where something else is already using an anchor point.
However, due to the Layers in Flash, each of these items are placed on their own layer, so they can be turned on and off, IF the programmer gives the user that ability.
Now, even though they are turned off, you still can't put a tree over a flower or building, except for a glitch in Flash which if you reload the game with the layers turned off, you can then plant a tree over a flower, because the hidden layer didn't load, so the game doesn't know it is there until you unhide everything.

At present, if I understand correctly, HTML5 is only a viewport. It will only display what is sent to it to display. In and of itself it is neither a graphics program, nor a video editor, it's merely a viewport, which is why it is so secure.
It would be up to a program to display selective layers, as programmed to display one display on top of another.
But most of the programs written which use Flash, rely on the graphics capabilities of Flash.
Perhaps this is why it will be such a problem to rewrite for HTML5, because there would be no way to convert a program written for Flash to HTML5. It would be like trying to convert a graphics program to a monitor driver, just won't work.

Google too has been removing settings which most users don't know exist, because it takes a local URL address to get to them.
At one time, Flash used to have hidden settings users could get to if they knew how to get to them. Sometimes these were a hidden file, sometimes they required an URL to get to them. But you had to know which line to change or you could really mess things up big time. Most of these things were locked out to users eons ago now.

With so many programs relying on the lowest zoom level of Flash, although they do work without out, it becomes a royal pain, like having to scroll sideways to read every line of a document. Using the computers zoom feature does not change what is displayed inside the Flash Window. So the removal of the lowest zoom level used by many programs has reaped havoc for users everywhere.
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by yogi »

Aside from the security issues, I think what is happening with Flash is that making it functional for a 800x600 monitors has become irrelevant. The standard laptop seems to be 1280x768. (Then there is the insane world of mobile devices) I'm guessing your software was designed for the low resolution.

HTML is strictly a markup language for rendering web pages. The methods used in HTML never were intended to mimic what graphic applications can do. HTML can call your application and then embed it somewhere in the web page, but it cannot process the graphics as does Flash. That's one reason why Flash is often embedded in a frame. Technology has become more sophisticated these days and so has the markup language. HTML5 is specifically intended to handle the chaos in the mobile device world where responsive design is critical.

I understand layering and therein seems to be your problem. The program developers of your software have not moved up to what the standards are today. Again, I don't think that should be a problem if you keep your OS at a lower level that is compatible with your software. There are other ways to handle layers than those incorporated into Flash. I don't know if HTML5 specifically will address that issue in it's attempts at responsive design. But I am guessing Flash will be obsolete when and if they do.
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by Kellemora »

I hope I wasn't too confusing in my commentary.

The scale at what one sees inside of a Flash window or frame does not change regardless of the browsers zoom level, and in most cases, not the resolution your monitor is set at.
If you set your monitor to 1280 which most of us currently use, you may have to zoom out to 125 in your browser for the flash window to fill your screen.
At 800 the flash window may be larger than your screen so you have to zoom backwards down to 80 in your browser.

These two setting do not affect what is displayed inside the actual flash window.

Inside of Flash itself are also zoom settings, if programmed by those creating the flash display item to allow different zoom levels.

Most games and some spreadsheet displays using flash allow you to zoom in and out to see the whole board or only part of the board at at time.
Again, it is up to the programmer how many levels they will allow you to zoom in a flash player, but it must be within the established limits of the flash player itself.
Assume the original flash player had zoom levels of 2 to 20, and the programmer who displays their product in Flash, allowed you to select 2, 5, 10, & 15.
Flash was revamped, and a new zoom levels of 1 and 25 were added.
All the programmers jumped on the bandwagon and quickly added zoom level 1 to their programs.
This has worked great for almost a decade now.
SUDDENLY, the makers of Flash Player not only took away zoom level 1, but also took away zoom level 2, so the lowest zoom now available is zoom level 3, of which many of the programmers did not have programmed to use, their next step was zoom level 5.
Most of the programmers fixed this by adding zoom level 3 to their programs, and kept zoom levels 1, 5, 10, etc.

My point is, we loved having zoom level 1. And now, not only do we not have zoom level 1, be we also do not have zoom level 2. Zoom level 3 is the lowest you can get in the current flash player.

Many of us who run Linux and use PepperFlash discovered we can overwrite the new pepperflash with the old and it still works to get zoom level 1, provided the programmers of the program we are using did not remove the lower zoom levels when they added zoom level 3 to their programs, most didn't delete any part of their programs, just added the new zoom level 3 functionality. But since zoom levels 1 and 2 are no longer a part of flash, zoom level 3 is the lowest the program will let you go, unless you are using an older version of flash with those lower zoom levels.

You also have to be careful with your resolution settings as well.
Many of these wide screen monitors will display a square screen STRETCHED to fill the screen.

I have two identical monitors. If I set the resolution to a square display for the monitor in my desk, the second identical monitor will STRETCH the image width wise to fill the screen. Thus making a circle an oval, a square a rectangle, skinny people super fat, etc. I need to use the square display on the monitor inside my desk, because I view the monitor through a glass window through the top of my desk.
I could get out a saw and cut the opening larger, then get a router and rout the edges so a new larger sheet of glass will fit in such a way I could see the entire monitor width. But I like working on square monitor image. I use the second monitor to move other windows and tools off the working screen.
Like when using GIMP, the two main toolbars I can move up to the other monitor and off of my image working area.
Plus I know a circle is a circle and a square is a square.

OK, done rambling, hi hi...
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by Kellemora »

Well, it doesn't look like I have to worry about Flash being replaced anytime soon.

Only Actionscript3 FLAs without layers can be converted to HTML5 canvas, and not if they use vectorscript which is what most games use.
Also, Flash is used in ways HTML5 is not likely to achieve in the near future.
They can't even decide on which codex will be available to HTML5, or when they will implement features a large majority of Flash programs require.

There are also many features of HTML5 which will be grossly abused by advertisers, by making ads you have no way of blocking or getting around until you interact with them in a way the advertisers want.
If this is not stopped dead in its tracks from the git go, users will bypass HTML5 and force using other players for their content.

Now I can quit worrying.
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by yogi »

Adobe Flash as it stands today has big time security issues. Adobe recognizes the problem and is itself backing off on support as you can tell from it's absence in newer distros of Linux. Apple Computer (Linux based?) also does not support Flash in any way, shape, or form. It never did. I'm not sure about Android (also a Linux distro?), but I'll assume they too dropped Adobe which is why they developed their own open source version. So, what does that tell you? I can't say, but it tells me that the future of Flash is not bright. I sympathize with all the developers who invested in Adobe Flash tools to sell their creations. Unfortunately the world is becoming more and more complex and Flash cannot keep up.

HTML5 never was intended to replace Flash. As you point out it can't. That's because HTML5 is a markup language and not a software development tool. HTML has one mission in life, and that is to faithfully render what it is the author of web pages construct using tools of their own. HTML is intrinsically more secure than Flash because it's not messing with kernels or basic system function calls. That does not mean it is suited to replace Flash. Flash's replacement is a matter for Adobe and anyone else in the software business.

I've always admired you for your innovations and skills in adapting old technology to modern computers. You have a valuable knack for doing such things. I think you thrive on hacking (the good kind) and would not encourage you to stop. To my way of thinking it's much easier and more expedient to just stick with the old and to not upgrade. You know, like running Ubuntu 9.X instead of the fancy schmancy boxes you use today to try and make that old outdated software work. You are trying to fit square pegs into round holes, and I am constantly amazed at your ability to do so. But my point is that you don't have to.
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Re: [split] Fort McMurray On Fire

Post by Kellemora »

I do know the more complex a program becomes, the higher the number of entry points for hackers to squeeze through to cause damage to a system.
Where my wife used to work, they found one of the smileys was used to upload a doorway for hackers to get into the computers on the floor, but not into their mainframe.

One of the reasons my accounting computer is not connected to the Internet is so I can continue to run the ancient software I bought when I first got the computer. Once I had it running the way I wanted, I disconnected it and never added another upgrade or made any changes. Except for adding a new printer driver for a new printer which I did from the CD.

An old Windows 95 or 98 computer, if left in it's original state, will still work and run all the programs designed for it. But the minute you get on the upgrade bandwagon, then everything has to be upgraded.
The downfall of not upgrading is the data you saved on that machine, cannot often be read or used by the later programs made by the same company.

I have that problem with Family Tree Maker. The new versions cannot read the old versions. Unless you buy every other upgrade since then, and then try to find a computer those upgrades will run on.

I see the same problem with FLASH, and it's many upgrades over the years. Those who write programs for Flash had to keep making changes to their programs, and if they didn't, nobody could run their stuff on Flash anymore.

Way too many huge companies with offerings that run on Flash, have such high investments in Flash programming, I can't see them letting Flash drop the ball entirely. Perhaps this is why Google started issuing their own modifications as PepperFlash.
But even they made changes many of us consider undesirable, which is why we are still using an older version.
We can get used to using the newer version, but it is much more labor intensive to do so.
It's like trying to read a book and you have to manually move the scroll bar back and forth for each sentence.

In all honesty, I'm not the one who figured out we could still run an older version of PepperFlash. If you try to run and older version on a Windows machine, you are warned your Flash Player is out of date, and after a couple notices, it locks out the old player so you are forced to download and install the newest version. It may come to this on Linux Chrome too! I hope not, because the newer versions are horrible in many ways. Come to think of it, Googles browser is also getting worse with every update. But no other browser I know of can run older Flash versions, so we are stuck with the things Google Chrome has removed. Including the hidden setting one can get to by using URLs to get to some settings.

I don't think security matters much when they make changes forcing users to look for ways around those changes by using back door methods to restore proper functioning, such as is done by many Windows users in Google Chrome.
Unfortunately, the switch Linux users need to flip is not found in Linux versions, only Windows versions.

Some day we will all have bio based computers, hi hi...
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