I find it a bit amusing how Special Folders have evolved, and less so how programs have perverted them. At this point, NT and X desktop environments mostly agree about the dumping grounds in your home directory or “User Profile”. Programs not so much.

One of the things I do find amusing is this compat trick:

C:UsersTerry>dir /A:H Documents
Volume in drive C has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 9278-0228

Directory of C:UsersTerryDocuments

2015-02-28 20:24 0 Default.rdp
2019-08-14 21:31 402 desktop.ini
2019-07-02 23:22 My Music [C:UsersTerryMusic]
2019-07-02 23:22 My Pictures [C:UsersTerryPictures]
2019-07-02 23:22 My Videos [C:UsersTerryVideos]
2 File(s) 402 bytes
3 Dir(s) 295,411,253,248 bytes free

C:UsersTerry>;

A long time ago the content was like “My DocumentsMy Pictures”. And then eventually when the concept of multiple users took off, we ended up with “%UserProfile%My DocumentsMy Pictures” and so on, until we finally ended up with the modern path. Kindly, some Microsoftie decided ‘Users’ was a lot nicer than ‘Documents and Settings’ as far as prefixes go for where you store user profiles.

So while %UserProfile%Pictures is the legit place on my modern system: if for some reason you still wanted to access them through the documents folder: hidden junctions will redirect you. Thus keeping old software working. Once upon a time this was probably important for keeping software written for Windows 95 and early NT working.

Curiously there is a hidden junction of “Documents and Settings [CUsers]” at the top of my %SystemDrive% but there are none for the really-damned-old “My Documents” at the top of the drive. I wouldn’t be surprised however if compatibility trunks for older software faked those.

Also, I kind of feel glad that I haven’t really touched a live Windows 9x install since the Pentium 4 was still sexy ^_^. That might sound less fun if you consider that I know where to reach for install discs that makes XP look young enough to be playing with Fischer Price…. but I’m not interested in running a virtual machine to jog the ol’ meatbag memory.

Behind the Scenes: Redesigning the Note Editor in Evernote.

Rather nice look at things. The fancier concept of a checklist and editing is a positive, since at best some of their clients have had the daisy chain of enter -> newline + checkbox; but mostly that was it. Sometimes related bugs as well–I used to use Evernote for my shopping list and groaned at that.

Table editing in Evernote has been both a sore and a sweet spot over the years, largely based on what client you were using. For me, mostly a sore one because my 90% interface is the mobile apps. Where the PC and Web editors tend to due the best. The current PC client has a simple but pretty complete way of doing tables, and the Android version just has rudimentary editing support.

The kind of drag/drop manipulation of table cells is a UX ballpark that over the years, I just stopped assuming anyone still cares that much about my workflows versus their five o’clock thanks to the effort it takes to pull that off. About the only time I tend to expect such drag and drop niceties to work in document editors is in Microsoft office. A coworker relies on Outlook and it’s got many nifty things like that if you abuse its features, and let’s just say if I was doing the same I’d have a host of other problems than dragging and dropping stuff in a rich text editor 😜.

Whenever I walk out and the direct sunlight hitting my chest feels really good, I blame my Floridian upbringing; where escaping from the sun was like closing your eyes while living on the surface of a star.

That my brain’s internal monologue tends to sound like “Ahh, きもち” is a more modern problem.

Fruits Basket – s01e22 – Because I Was Happy.

I kind of hoped that Hanajima’s history would pop up sooner than later. Thus making an episode filled with more than a bit sad and some good humor as well.

The role of Tohru and Uotani in the story, strikes me as showing their essential natures without losing the episode’s focus on Hanajima. If you want a good story: the characters are where it’s at.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 still getting security patches four years after release

In recent years: Samsung has done well to resolve the one problem I actually had with their firmware updates: the lack of security patches.

Generally, I found upgrades to knew versions of Android were nearly a year behind their phones. Perhaps a small price to pay given they were largely stable releases and the tablet builds cut most of the bloat from their phones while keeping the useful features.

Android has also evolved into such a state that I don’t really care about getting the latest version of the OS anymore. By the time Google does something user facing that worth while: it’s almost time for a new device. Kind of like a certain other operating system: the previous version or two still runs most of the apps.

The part that’s bothered me is the security updates. Most of my tablets didn’t get squat for that, as security was bundled with the OS upgrades and the occasional patch.

Meanwhile the Tab S2 and Tab S3 have been a very different experience versus the other Samsung Tablets I’ve owned over the years. Pretty much every quarter the security patches rolls out. Seeing security patches every 3-4 months is a lot better than every 8-16 months or so. On the flip side my Motorola on Google Fi gets monthly patching.

Don’t think I’ve ever had yellowfin tuna before, but the combination of sales and coupon clipping made me decide to experiment. It was definitely a success.

Along with the fish, a Knorr side of Mexican rice and sauteed peppers, onions, chickpeas, and mushrooms probably aren’t a normal combination: so much as what I was in the mood for, lol.

Nebo 2.3.

Gotta admit: the new support for keyboard input is kind of nice. MyScript’s handwriting recognition is pretty damned good, probably the best you can expect today. But I’ve generally found that the times it gets things a little off, thanks likely to the quality of my handwriting, it’s usually an idiosyncrasy that’s a pain to connect. If it’s not in the apps correction list, odds are retyping the letters or word in question is faster than fixing it by pen.

My plans for the weekend are quite imaginative: eat, drink, and be merry.

ZDNet: Android Google Play app with 100 million downloads starts to deliver malware.

Other than for the app’s users, I fail to see how this isn’t a win for the community as a whole.

The problem inherent with using someone else’s software is that it is just that—someone else’s software! You’re trusting them with access to your stuff. Often all of your stuff.  When your getting the software through a third party repository: you’re also trusting the distributor to not do anything nasty.

Rather than bitch and moan: we should celebrate that it was detected and dealt with, and decry those who violated that trust from their users.

People often underestimate the trust that running other people’s stuff on your machine means. One of the great things about modern operating systems like Android and iOS is they tend to silo data from applications behind permission brokering. Traditionally the applications you run on a computer have the same access to it that you do. That made sense when computers were few and rarely networked beyond multiple serial terminals. Increasingly less so when you can just download a .exe file and it can do whatever you could.

Trust matters! Respect your users.

A few small goofs nearly threw the world into nuclear war.

Personally, I think we’re more likely to see misunderstandings snowball and jump start the apocalypse than we ever will be because some evil bastard decided on a first strike.

For the most part I like to believe that most people default to good, for lack of an inherent belligerents. We’re more likely to nuke^H^H^H^H kill our neighbors because of misscommunication or cascading failures than because we’d like to see them all wiped out. Most people have dampers on the level of crazy, if nothing else because they want to keep living more than they hate folks.

I rather like the comparison the article makes to Damocles Sword. Because at best, the risk of going to thermonuclear war over a 49¢ part failing may depend on someone not wanting to end the entire world without being pretty darn sure it was with their last breath. And between the major powers we’ve got more than enough nuclear weapons to keep the fallout going.