Avatar Issues

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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

The quotes are for specific phrases as opposed to individual keywords. It has it's usefulness but the profile Google keeps on you is still in effect even when you do the quoted search. Google and Facebook go hand in hand sharing data. You can't do one without the other keeping track of you, and it doesn't matter if you do not have an account with one of them. The only way around this tracking gambit is to kill all the sharing permissions in both Google and Facebook, and then delete (not disable) the accounts. Those two are so pervasive that it would be nearly impossible for most people to do that.

Duck Duck Go is fine, but you got to get used to it or be happy with a lot of the irrelevant results you get. Speaking of irrelevant, Bing has to be the worst search engine ever invented. It makes me long for the good old days of Internet Explorer. LOL
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I have Web Crawler, Bing, Yahoo, and a couple of others I use besides Google.
It really depends on what I'm looking for which one works the best.
I've tried several and most of them were not very good.

The good old days there was not all that much out there to find and sort through, so of course a search brought up the few things that fit the category you were looking for, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

Search engines of every ilk have been evolving ever since their release into the wilds. The amount of information indexed in 2019 is magnitudes greater than what was available when IE6 ruled the browsing world. The problem I'm seeing is that the original mission of providing relevant data is being diminished in favor of marketing the data collected about eager searchers. Facebook used to be a real social network, but today is nothing more than malware designed to collect personal information about it's users. Google came on with a little more transparency, but that no longer is the case with them. I shouldn't complain too much. It's all happening on the PUBLIC network; well, public for the time being.
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I was conditioned as a Ham Radio Operator that ANYTHING you put over the PUBLIC AIRWAVES can be read by anyone who intercepts that signal.
I've always used the Internet with the same caution in mind.
If you put it out there, it is out there forever, and anyone can read it.
No matter how many methods of encryption or security they come up with, it can always be broken and your stuff made public.
So don't put anything private out there for the world to see, even if you think it is safe.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

I understand and agree completely. My concern is not so much what information is out there. After all, I am the guy who puts it there in the first place. What nobody is emphasizing is that companies are profiting from my personal information without asking me if it's OK. For the longest time Facebook denied they ever did such a thing, but now they are testifying in congress about what they do with the information they have about you. The permissions you give these data miners is buried in their terms of service which can only be understood by a panel of Harvard lawyers. They are now being forced to tell you what they are doing, but they are saying it in terms you cannot understand. Google, to their credit, is getting better at explaining things and giving you a lot of leeway for permissions. Even so, they are not exactly telling you how much money they are making off your account. However, they did institute a new policy lately where they say they can terminate your Google account (YouTube in particular) if they deem it isn't monetized enough. WTF is that all about?
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I think we all knew they had to be selling data in order to provide their service for free.
There is a lot they cannot sell though, because they would be in violation of copyright laws.
They snuck into their terms of service they they can use an image we post for advertising purposes.
But they keep changing the wording, they can use it for a whole lot more than that now.
However, if someone posts someone else's copyrighted images, and they swipe it to use themselves, they can get sued.
Places like Shutterstock has sued them several times and won. Which in a way doesn't seem fair since they didn't put the image up, one of the users did. However, they then used the image elsewhere for their own purposes, and that's why they got sued.

Most of us who do put things up WANT them to be Shared with others, especially if it has something to do with something we are selling in a roundabout way or getting a commission from.

I've never heard of anyone getting terminated yet. Heck, there are plenty of things still out there that come up for people who have been dead for over a decade now. I still get a notice for my late sisters birthday, and see where an occasional comment appears on her wall. I don't see how they can monetize that, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

My concerns about Facebook are not in regard to copyrighted material. I'm not running a business or promoting anything other than this website. Yet, every word I ever typed into Facebook is in their database along with a log of my activity on the Internet that had nothing to with the Facebook website. They know quite a lot about me because I gave them permission to collect information about my behavior and to do with it whatever pleases them. That's all part and parcel of the terms of service. You are clever enough to know nothing is free in this world, but there are literally a billion clueless people on Facebook every day who do not know how much money Facebook is making off their private and personal information. Caveat emptor at its best.
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

NOTHING is ever FREE, ever! Somebody has to pay for it, and it takes Money to do so.
So if something is Free, you are paying for it somehow, and one of the most common ways is they sell your data.

I didn't work there, but a company who made mailing lists and telephone lists was near us.
They hired something like 30 to 35 people who just sat there all day entering data into their massive database.
Most of the info they were entering was coming from credit reporting agencies, stores, credit card companies, and even banks.
They entered the name, address, phone number, and type of purchase if known, and sometimes their age if known.
Their computers would form lists to sell based on location, age, type of purchases made, and whatever other data they were able to glean on each person.
Then they had a whole sales force out there selling these lists to every telemarketer and mail advertising agency they could get to buy them. Apparently they made big money doing this!
Sadly, they do not update their information very often either.
I was getting some snail mail advertisements for my first wife at my current address.
One time this ad happened to be from an insurance company I dealt with myself and knew the agent.
He said he paid 250 bucks for a short list of people who lived within his zip code.
When I told him one of the ads I got from him was for someone who has never lived in this town ever, and explained it was the name of my ex-wife who remarried back in the early 1980's and still lived in Missouri where she has always lived.
Whoever sold you this list you used, you got ripped off big time.
About three days later another ad came from him for my wife's deceased father.
I didn't bother to tell him about that one. But I know he paid a lot to mail out all those advertisements.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

While I think the people in marketing use some highly suspicious methods, I also understand that they have a right to generate profits for their company any legal way they can. Facebook caters to that crowd big time. The purpose of their web site started out to be a social network and has now evolved into a massive data collection enterprise. In other words the people who bought into Facebook for it's "free" entertainment value are the commodity. They are being used by the site's management in surreptitious ways that go well beyond simple targeted marketing. The net effect is that places such as Facebook are not merely collecting data about its users. They are actively influencing people's behavior as well.

The concept of caveat emptor applies to the purchasers of databases and lists as well as to the people who comprise those lists.
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

Agreed with Farcebook's evil ways, hi hi.

What I forgot to mention in the last message.
When I open a folder or file on another computer through the LAN so it is Mounted on my computer.
I can leave it there mounted, add files, remove files, edit files, no problem.
But Rsync cannot use that already mounted folder to copy to.
Apparently Rsync always requires Root to do so.
Ironically, I changed one to Root to check, and sure enough, Rsync would then work, however, I couldn't access the files unless I was Root, so that was not a good idea, hi hi. I had to set it back to what it was before I changed it.

The NAS I got from you can also load and run Rsync and draw the information from other computers.
I had to do that with my previous NAS also. It could go out and collect files, but I couldn't send files to it using Rsync.
So I always did it backwards and set up the cron job on the NAS to go and collect the files from my external file server drive.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

You impress me as a man of great logic and reason, which is why I'm amazed that you are able to use rsync successfully. The NAS has backup capability built into it, but I don't know anything more than that about it. I don't know if it will back up to a remote storage or not, for example. If it can, that would be more like peer to peer than trying to put a Windows share into the mix. The only time I did file transfers from the NAS was via telnet. Telnet is designed to do exactly what we are talking about here, but it is all manual. In any case, since I am Windows-centric here, I have little need to do backups from a Linux source. The more you tell me about rsync, the more I am convinced it's not for me. LOL
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

You are 100% correct Yogi.
I decided to look at the NAS itself, and it has TONS of things you can do with it.
One of those is backing up remote computers and all drives connected to that computer.
And you can Sync them all together also so any change you make on your computer gets saved on the NAS.
That's all the further I've looked into it so far. But the set-up looks plain and simple!

Which brings me back to the fetch and put problems I had years ago with my off-site backups.

Many moons ago, I bought a tape drive for backups.
I don't remember exactly how it worked, but it saved everything, including the system, and in such a way you could drop in a new hard drive and restore the system and it would boot up and work perfectly.
I had tested it several times to make sure it did what it claimed to do.
There was only one snag I hit, and that was when I tried to restore the backup from an E-Machine to a Compaq computer.
Although it loaded like it should, I got a warning that the serial numbers for the motherboard didn't match.
I never figured a way around that one.
But at least the tape drive would let me install all files to an existing Windows XP install.
So, after I reloaded Windows XP and got it registered, then the tape backup put everything back, including how I had things set up before.
After I went through that, even if a machine came with an OEM version on it, I erased it, reformatted the disk and installed one of my Official MS XP OS's.
I also learned you cannot use the serial number for an OEM MS XP on another machine in a few cases. Had to have an Official MS XP serial number from a bought disk. And of course, not have it currently registered, hi hi.

Oh well, all that registration malarkey ended when I went with Linux!
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

The NAS you have is the first one I ever purchased. At that time all I wanted was a place on the network for storing files. I knew there had to be some smarts behind that capability, but I didn't expect to be buying a fully fledged server. I broke into it one day and discovered the name of the OS; something like Tiny Linux. Then I looked at the binaries and there were a lot more than I had expected. I don't know what I expected to find, but it wasn't a Linux server. Being the server that it is, you can run service software on it, and that's how the backup software happens to be on an NAS. A lot of people use NAS for surveillance storage, and that comes as standard equipment too.

The replacement for the NAS you have is one step up and has a lot more capability. I can install php, for example, and use it to develop web pages. As I said previously, I don't need anything more than storage space and hesitate to use what I have as a mirror. But, if I did use the NAS as a backup source, that is exactly what I'd be doing with it.

Those Microsoft guys are adamant when it comes to making people use their licenses the way they were intended to be used. I don't blame them for being overly protective because a lot of folks feel it's their god given right to have a copy of Windows and not pay for the privileged, I've known a few people who bragged how they were running pirated software because they felt Microsoft was abusing them with charges for an operating system. Why not use Linux, I ask. I don't want to learn how, was a typical response. So, yeah. Pay the Piper or go play some other game.
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I have about two dozen Windows Licenses here. The majority of them are from OEM installed XP versions, but I have like six that are Official Windows Disks, XP-Home (3), XP-Pro (1), XP-Pro-MCE (2). I also have official 95, 98, 3.0, & 3.11.

XP is long expired, and I have a ISO of XP-Pro-MCE with service pack 3, so I don't know why I couldn't install it again. They should still let you install and use it and allow you to get the registration setup back so it doesn't stop working.

Don't know why, but I've been getting e-mail advertisements from Mickey$oft for their AVAST.
Saw a few ads for it on social media too.

I remember BeOs, which I think was renamed Haiku, which I think is still out there, it does not use the Linux Kernel.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

I'm pretty sure Microsoft changed their licensing policy since the days of XP. It used to be that a license would buy you use of the OS on a single machine. One backup copy in archive was allowed. Then they changed it to one specific machine so that you could not move your licensed copy to another computer. It had to stay with the registered system. There was a gray area for machines that were upgraded, which supposedly was allowed. I got a new hard drive for the Windows 7 machine, but everything else stayed the same. They blessed that and allowed activation. I will be testing that aspect of the licensing once again come January, or whenever I migrate from MBR to GPT formatted disks.

Then again, there was the time I bought a laptop with an OEM version of Windows 7 installed. After a year or two I upgraded that to Windows 10 Insiders Preview edition. I used that for a couple years before I got another laptop with an OEM version of Windows 10 this time. I didn't want the OEM version in that particular laptop so I took the drive from the first laptop and installed it into the newest laptop. It would not authenticate because the machine wasn't the original one. That's how I discovered that they changed their licensing policy.

I'm not sure what Microsoft AVAST is. I know about antivirus software that goes by that name, but it's not from Microsoft.
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I didn't mean to say Avast, I meant to say AZURE!

When you install Windows it reads the serial number of the motherboard, and when you register, it is registered to that serial number.
It is possible to get them to reregister if you buy a new motherboard, but you usually have to send them a receipt for the computer repair or for the purchase of a new motherboard. They are getting nasty in their old age!
And with so many people doing most of their stuff using a Cell Phone now, I'm actually surprised at them cutting off their nose to spite their face.

They are slowly losing their share of the Desktop/Laptop arena also. They did come back up after their big drop down to 88%, but are once again dropping, seems like they lost 4% in 2019 dropping from 94, back down to 90% again.
Windows 10 has not gone over very big, the vast majority have dropped back to Windows 7, especially businesses who use Windows machines on their floor.

I also read an article about businesses who switched from desktops to laptops have found a 40% reduction in work accomplished, although as far as versatility, it has risen about 5% is all.
But security issues have become the biggest threat to giving each employee who needs a computer a laptop to keep with them. To circumvent the security issues they are having all the office work done on-line to their servers.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

OK - Azure ads make more sense than Avast ads from Microsoft. :lol:

I think the market share numbers depend on who is issuing them. I don't doubt that they are all accurate as far as they go; some go farther than others, obviously. Every time there is a change people object to it, and I think that's what you are reading about Windows 10. Just like you will find Windows XP in some shops, you will also find those where Windows 7 will not be upgraded. In fact Microsoft already announced that you can buy extended support beyond next month's cut-off, but only if you are an enterprise and willing to pay a lot. That tells me Microsoft knows there are some die hard Windows 7 fans (raises my hand) and is willing to reach out to them.

The alternative to desktops, and Windows, is to use a mobile device. Android Smartphones are the rage, but tablets and laptops are filling in where bulky desktops used to reside. There is no more security risk on a smartphone than there is on a desktop regardless of who the manufacturer is. Linux has become the #1 server target much the same as Windows is the general usage target. My point is that all OS's are targets now that they all are pretty much at parity with each other.
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I know most of the numbers you read anywhere are usually just picked from air, hi hi.

Windows can go by licenses issued easily enough, in which case it probably shows I have at least half a dozen active myself right now, since I do have a Windows OS installed on several of my computers, even though I don't use it.
Linux doesn't track who is using their OS, the only thing they go by is how many downloads were made.
And many of us only download ONE copy and then load it on several computers. So although I have Debian on 6 to 8 computers, I only downloaded one copy.

Ubuntu often uses the number of unique hits to their Repositories. One person may download several programs so they also track how many total hits, but when counting users they only count each person or computer once, no matter how many times it downloaded a program through Synaptic. But then that number includes Linux Mint and other Ubuntu based Distro's using their repositories as well. So is obviously bloated a bit.

I have a friend who is so paranoid, although he never does anything he has to worry about, he has tons of programs that not only block everything, but everything goes into a sandbox and on a computer he clears every single day. If there is something he wants to keep, then he filters it big time searching for anything and everything before moving it over to his computer system. Overkill to the max, hi hi.
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yogi
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by yogi »

The best numbers for OS use were taken by people who monitor traffic through the main Internet switch points. It's a simple matter of looking at the User Agent string of the browser. I lost track of those guys after I posted what I found there a few years ago. Windows had over 90% market share back then. If they are truly down to 90% today, then I'd have to say Android and Apple are failing at their task. LOL

Download counters for Linux always make me chuckle. Every time I load up a new session on USB or VB or HDD I download a fresh copy of the Linux distro at the moment. I have 3-4 Ubuntu installs but easily 50+ downloads of it. I'm not the only guy doing that either. Of course I do have permanent storage as well but that only gets used if necessary, which isn't often. So, if you are distorting the Windows usage numbers, I personally must account for a few percentage points of Linux. :lol:
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Kellemora
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Re: Avatar Issues

Post by Kellemora »

I read an article not to long ago that I thought was really strange.
A spokesperson said they have no idea how many computers have Windows on them.
The reason for this is computer manufacturers buy blocks of serial numbers for the Windows version they are installing.
They may buy 1 block or 100 blocks and not use all the serial numbers in a block.
So the only thing we can really go by are the number of activation's for a particular version.
And just because someone activated a version, they may not be using it as their main operating system.
Nevertheless, it still counts as being activated and therefore they are counted as a user.
Oh, almost forgot, the number of serial numbers sold to manufacturers is 20% greater than the number of serial numbers that get activated.
Large companies also buy a block or two of serial numbers because it is cheaper for them to overbuy in bulk. They may only have 80 machines in use, but buy a 100 licenses.

I guess their count would be fairly accurate since they go by activation's, while the best Linux can do is pick-from-air.
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