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Super Thanks! Character Map was here all along!!!

Cheers, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

Your comment about the IBM PC arriving with the BASIC language stirred a memory. Around that time I subscribed to several magazines, including BYTE. I remember seeing an advertisement for an Apple computer – Lisa or Macintosh I forget which – and I remember carefully re-re-re-reading the ad looking for the languages supported. (I was a language and translator developer in my early days) – and could not find what languages it supported.

Odd!??!!!

This was my first exposure to a computer that was meant to be USED rather than PROGRAMMED!
Thanks for the memories, Chris

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jburk07, Will Fastie

Will, thank you for your excellent timing. I was thinking of buying a printer in St John’s two weeks ago – my first trip out of Bonavista (Newfoundland) since I moved here six years ago. The store I visited (Mount Pearl) started at around $130 for an all-in-one.

WF>>>  The price of the 5150 is twice that of an entry-level EcoTank printer, a premium I decided to pay because …

… but for people like me who rely on long-term purchases it makes sense to pay more up-front and not have to worry about returning things to get fixed/maintained. I want to start using my printer and NEVER have to let it go.

Of course with all-in-ones starting at $50 https://www.staples.ca/products/3092385-en-hp-deskjet-2842e-wireless-all-in-one-printer-scanner-copier-bright-lilac?listId=collection I suppose I could think in terms of ordering a new one each year. One dollar a week? I am retired and my printing needs are low.

WF>>>  Manual feed is through the rear. That’s the same for most EcoTank models, but in a space-limited situation like mine, …

What happens when you rotate the printer horizontally through ninety degrees? Then you have sideways feeding, and how often, really, do you need to see/operate that miniscule control panel?

Thanks again for the timely article full of facts. Chris Greaves

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Will Fastie, DaveBoston

PD>>> What cheeses me off: Peter Deegan

Peter Deegan doesn’t cheese me off; I’ll buy him a coffee next time he’s in Bonavista Newfoundland, so …

PD>>> Having endured and written about Microsoft Office for more than two decades, I offer my list of annoyances and timewasters in Microsoft Office, especially Word.

I was developing applications in Word6 before I switched to Office 97/VBA. My latest version is Office 2003, which gives you an idea, because what I say below is basically a mirror of your complaints coming at you today from over two decades ago

PD>>> AutoSave should be available to all documents, not used as a marketing tool for Microsoft to sell OneDrive and SharePoint. The same goes for Rename and Move. See Figure 3, in which Word is pitching an upload to OneDrive, even though the user intends to save locally.

I wrote MostRecentlyUSEd to expand the then-9 limit on the File menu list. MRUse remembers as many entries as YOU choose (based on stale-date) and remembers the latest selection point in your document; the drop-down list can be sorted by drive, path, name, extent, DLM and so on. But see “Picture” from your comments, below.

PD>>> Dialog boxes with clumsy navigation – No search option

That some dialogue boxes can be re-sized and some can’t is a MAJOR design flaw. OK, so one team didn’t think of it and the other team did. Make it standard across all dialogue boxes (preferably with the more flexible option)

PD>>> Fast document-location link File selection for things such as Insert Picture or link templates doesn’t include a “document location” option,

MRUse sets the Pictures and Documents paths as a courtesy to the user. If you are working today in T:\Greaves\Training\Everything\Tutorial\Section04\, then that’s probably where you want to save your New and unsaved document, right?

PD>>> These days, it’s common for all related files to be in one folder …

No excuses. Back in 1983 each project (a.k.a. all related files) was on a separate floppy disk, let alone a separate folder. Who dropped the ball? (That’s FOUR decades ago)

PD>>> Too many changes: … Redmond chooses to ignore the many customers who prefer stability over innovation.

I remember The Ribbon being announced as a space-saver, yet it took/takes up I think four times the vertical height of a toolbar; space I’m not going to get back without extra effort to locate functions. Another argument was that “users had too many toolbars open, wasting space” but (a) that was never a problem seen at any client site I can remember and (b) that problem is solved by better education and training at no cost to Microsoft.

PD>>> Too many Outlooks

We all remember the time when there were two “Explorers” don’t we? There was the one we used to locate files on a chunk of plastic and metal sitting on our desk, and there was the new one that we used to locate files on pieces of plastic and metal sitting on other people’s desks, or with increasing frequency, on server farms just outside the city boundaries. (Why stop there? Why not rename Edit-Find “Explorer” …)

PD>>> Grammar settings in Word

Enter my rules-based spell-checker that recognized that corporations had departments (HR, R&D, Legal, S&M and so on) and that what might be a typo in an HR document would be acceptable Latin in a legal document. The rules included paths, so that each rule could be applied ONLY to documents in that folder tree. And yes, you could use the same idea for grammar, readability, or anything that depends on context.

Why such a long response to your post? Because if an IBM 1620 FORTRAN II programmer from way back can think of and implement these ideas in Word2003/VBA, then Redmond is a failure.
We should always hold dear to our hearts that Microsoft is NOT a software company/developer; Microsoft is a successful marketing and sales force.
Cheers, Chris

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driftless

” … For example, I’ve divided my personal funds into accounts at …”
My grandma pre-empted you with “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”
(grin)
Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

“That reason is simple: if it’s wrong to do something without a computer, it’s still wrong to do it with a computer.”

 

Thank You.

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rc primak, Michael Covington

“I do not like Quicken’s continued scare tactics. ”

Will, I agree.

I walk away from any sales pitch that tries to scare me rather than listen to me and reason with me.

But then I also walk out of stores where a sales-clerk tells me that “this offer is only good for today”.

Cheers, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

Captions: I learned last week that YouTube videos in Russian or Arabic etc are legible when I turn on Captions. Google/YouTube converts the video captions to English for me! Hurrah! Chris

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RG>>> A simple question which will make all the difference…Are you programming for fun or profit?

Hi RG. Well, a simple question deserves a complex answer, so …

I started at Uni, programming because it was fun.

Then I spent 44 years programming for fun for people who were stupid enough to pay me for doing what I thought of as fun. I met a lot of industries along the way.

Since 2012 I have been back to programming for fun, but over the past ten years, it has become less like fun and feels more like being a slave to Microsoft updates and changes that are, if beneficial, beneficial largely to non-developers.

 

I have not done maintenance of new development of any one of my applications since June, while I nut out where I’m trying to go.

That’s why I’m looking for a forum that is heavy on the business of migration, rather than on any specific platform for development.

 

 

RG>>> In either case if you move away from MS you’ll leave VBA behind and have to learn a new language which you state you do not want to do so I’m a bit confused.

RG, you’re allowed to be confused. Right now I am unsure of where to go, if to go at all.

Last time I counted I’d written (for pay!) in almost fifty languages. They came  at the rate of one to four each year in the late 60s and the 70s. In 1987 I dug in my heels, and that turns out to have been a good decision. A quarter of a century in what is a single language “Office VBA”

I know that if I switch from MS Windows/Office my data formats will change and I will have to learn a new language. I am contemplating this switch because I am no longer happy in the MS camp.

If I get another 25 years of LIFE I’ll be happy, regardless of my programming language (grin).

 

FWIW back in 2016 I took a copy of LibreOffice with me on vacation; their language is similar to VBA, to the level at which I can probably write some language-translator code (my original profession) to convert VBA to the LibreOffice version, so a new language is not such a terrible thing. The more applications one has the more economic sense it makes to write a translator application.

Thanks for the questions!

Cheers, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

cijan>>> *Sorry Chris, I think the link got gibbled …

Now I have to go buy a whole turkey instead of just the thighs so that I  can complain that “my giblets are gibbled”. Cute word. Thanks!

 

cijan>>> *In terms of usefulness… you never know!

I can understand the utility for people who are car-mobile; I have driven at least twice in every mainland state of the USA, and emergency alerts might have been useful then, but I was always just bopping along, so even the bush-fire in Idaho was fun, because I got to chat with a park ranger (?) for a while, which made MY day more interesting. As the time was not quite ten o’clock, I was probably the first Western Australian HE had seen that day (grin).

 

My situation now is that not only do I rarely leave Bonavista, but I rarely leave my house-lot – there is so much to do in 1/6 of an acre! After 1,753 days here I have made the trip to Clarenville (90 minutes) but three times, one of them under protest.

Especially I think that emergency and amber alerts make much more sense in settled areas of Canada and the USA. If you were ever wanted by the police, the last place you should hide is Bonavista at the tip of the peninsula. And if a Tornado comes, where-ya-gunna-run-to?

 

I now see that providing it stays at twice a year, it’s not worth the risk of gibbling (hooray!) my phone.

Thanks again, Chris

 

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

Deanna, I read your articles in full each time a newsletter arrives.

“One quirk to note: To close any pop-up box without using it, click it so it has the focus, then hit Esc on your keyboard. It took me much longer than it should have to figure that out.”

You need a copy of my card “A month’s worth of Savvy Shortcuts”.
The card has not been updated since I retired, and has my old Toronto telephone number, so I don’t hand it out blindly anymore.

A postal address will get you a laminated card that you can prop up on your desk. An email address will get you a PDF copy of the card.

You can contact me as CPRGreaves.
Cheers, Chris

Moderator Edit: Removed implied email address. Please do not post (or imply obviously) personal information for security reasons.

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

<h3>Reply to cijan</h3>
cijan >>  Seems like a lot of bother trying to remove or monkey with your Android OS in terms of the Emergency Alert System. Can’t speak to annoyances from other Android apps that you want to remove permanently from your LG phone.

I agree. I am convinced. I have no real annoyance” from Amazon Shopping and the other 50% of the apps in the screen, just that I occasionally tap on one when I don’t mean to and have then to back out of there. That. And the space the things take up.

My thinking was “If getting rid of Emergency Alerts is as simple as replacing one executable file with a much smaller one, then why not take advantage of the opportunity to free up a lot more space.

 

cijan >>  Here is a site specific to Canadian Emergency Alerts:
https://www.alertready.ca&#8230; and yes, it is the official one, as found from the Gov of Canada public safety site.

The #8230 is bad for me, but the raw link https://www.alertready.ca/ works fine. The survey link leads to “The survey is currently under maintenance. Please come back later”.  The “click here” leads to “COMING SOON Public Survey” from which I gather that it is now too late to take part in the most recent survey.

No matter, I am interested in a simple mechanism for removing a specific App and following the surveys would not help me in that goal.

 

cijan >>  Can I opt out of receiving alerts? “Therefore, it is not possible to opt out of receiving the alerts”.

Understood.

“wireless public alerting is geo-targeted and can be very specific to a limited area of coverage” This caught my interest. Twenty years ago a colleague suggested I write a (Windows application) that based on a Canadian postal code (e.g. M5S 1X5) would scan daily police reports and target emails according to their criteria. M5X 1X5 would put you at Bloor & Brunswick, while pruned back to “M” would give you all of Metro Toronto.

 

cijan >>  but you could put the phone on silent mode on the test dates/times

True, but then I found myself doing the extra work to turn down the sound for that period, and then extra work to see if I missed any phone calls; or having to interrupt my podcast listening. And yes, I know it was only twice a year (for now), but my initial thrust as a simple way to just get rid of the thing with something as simple as a FileCopy.

And yes, I have spent enough time reading this stuff and replying (grin) to last me until I turn 237 years old!

 

cijan >>  Here’s the test schedule with dates/times for each province:

Thanks for this. I see that we are done for the year. Presumably sometime in December Canada will issue the calendar for next year.

I note that for 2023 so far Newfoundland and Labrador have issued “3 civil emergency and 1 AMBER alert;”. I imagine that these must have been in The Big Smoke (St John’s population 111,000)

I have spent a bit of time trying to imagine an emergency alert for Bonavista (population 3,500). If the scheme water was poisoned I’d be little affected since I harvest rainwater for consumption. A conflagration? No high-rises buildings here; wooden-framed houses, but each on an individual lot and of concern only if it is an adjacent neighbour. An amber alert for a vehicle I can understand, but since it is a 90-minUte drive to the highway, it’s the sort of place where two cop cars can effectively stretch a net right across the peninsula.

 

Thanks, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

<h3>Reply to Joep517</h3>
5 Reasons Why You Should Avoid Android Rooting

1. Warranty Expiration

In my case I can forget about warranty; The phone was bought loclly from an agency that was associated with an insurance agency. The phone agency has gone out of business. The nearest phone agency is a 90-minute drive away and I haven’t owned a car since 2003.

I understand that I may void the warranty, but essentially warranty does not apply to me.

I do have the previous phone (shattered screen) which is still usable, so I have a backup smart phone. Swap the SIM card and I’m back in business (limping)

2. Android Bricking

See above. To my mind this is akin to what happens when I say “I don’t know what this file in C:\Windows\System32 does, but it is huge; I will delete it to free up space”.

The same risk, the same effects.

3. Irreversible Damage

See above.

4. Degrade Battery Performance

Like death, battery performance degradation comes to all of us. I think that the point here is accelerated degradation of battery performance.

I no longer am scotting around downtown Toroontoa and the GTA wheeling and dealing. I fall asleep listening to an audio book, listen to SBS Sydney podcasts in French, Spanish and Italian when I am out walking or gardening, and sometimes forget to check for voice-mails for three days.

My current lifestyle does not tie me to a phone during business hours, or indeed any time at all.

The day that the battery absolutely refuses to hold a charge, my smart phone will turn itself into a land line – tethered to the house by the power adapatre/charger. So be it.

I shall lose the abaility to take photos of the plants in my garden, but then I still have the older phone for that.

5. Inoperable Device Performance

“Android rooting may cause inoperable device performance like hanging etc.”

Inoperable performance is to my mind equivalent to “Brick”. My bottom line is that if, say, Plant-Snap or Leaf-Snap ceases to work, well then I have lost the ability to be a mobile cataloguer. I can always take a photo and use Google images.

That argument may not be true for all mobile apps. For example, if the built-in phone app starts to hang dursing a conversation, then I have essentially turned my phone into a brick.

6. (MY added point) I do not know enough about Android apps/OS to be sure that fudging an app today will not cause corruption when Android decides it is time for an update to the OS. Maybe the update detects that “EmergencyAlert.exe” is fudged and replaces it with the newer version 1.2.3.4.567879. And since Android updates occure more frequently than Emergency Alerts (I’m guessing), my risky fudge will be obliterated before the next Emergency Alert test comes along.

Summary: I think that my question here is “Am I so desperate to remove a built-in app that I don’t mind losing the phone (as if I had dropped it into the Atlantic ocean)?

The answer to that has to be “NO”. As Cijan has pointed out, it seems like a lot of trouble to remove a twice-yealy test of Emergency Alerts. And I cannot put up an argument for “freeing up space” with 6.6/8.2 GB in use.

How to Remove Unwanted Pre-Installed Apps on Android Without Root

Disable Pre-Installed Apps: This I have done already for a slew of apps whose services I do not need. Since disabling is done through the O/S there should be no harm in doing this (Settings, Apps and notifications, Apps, Emergency alerts, Disable/Force Stop)

How to Remove Bloatware From Android: This is my line.

FWIW I did the build-number trick and was rewarded with a message:

“Congratulations you are now a developer”. I exited Settings and restarted the phone. I am still a developer. This remonds me of the ad in Playboy “As soon as you learned how to make babies, you needed to learn how not to. If all else fails I shall backup my contact list and reset the phone.

How To Uninstall Default (Built-In) Apps From Your Android Phone

By the time I had worked my back up the stack to this article I was convinced that I should NOT messa around with the business of faking appps on my smartphone. Anyway,, I read on:-

“remove default or pre-installed Android apps on just a single tap”  I no l.onger believe this “just a single tap” business. I stopped believing it when, some thirty years ago, I began hearing “just a single click”; it is, as you will see if you watch a classroom of students, several wrist and arm movements to get the mouse cursor to the spot, and then a click.

“EXA System App Remover is one of the best Android apps I found recently that claims that it can uninstall the system’s built-in apps from your Android smartphone. You should give it a try as it is free to download and use.”

Let me see now: it is said to be one of the best, it claims, I should give it a try. I get the feeling that the author of the article hasn’t actually used the app. So why should I?

“This app also claims for uninstalling default or built-in Android apps from your phone. This application helps you to freeze pre-installed applications on your phone.” Sane deal: claims; helps. And “freeze” is a new term to me.

“System App Remover is also one of the best … Some of the latest Android versions don’t support this app. But what’s the loss in an attempt? You can try if it works on your Android smartphone or not.”

I have covered “what’s the loss” in the first section of this post. The loss can be as catastrophic as joep517 pointed out, and which I now believe.

 

Thanks, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

Conclusion: There is no simple way to replace an Android app with a dummy executable and fool the o/s.

Detailed responses below,

Thanks, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.

Chris Greaves wrote:

…before I fire off a complaint/suggestion to the manufacturers.

“Unfortunately, due to the design structure of the program, it is not possible to change the size of the window. To implement it, a fundamental change is needed, which is not possible now.”

Which leaves me wondering about the rest of the fundamental design!

Cheers, Chris

Unless you're in a hurry, just wait.