#Mac Computer Screen Replacement

[appleservicecentreicuresolutions]

Mac Computer Screen Repair

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[scootatwoni]

Finally got a Real Actual Computer(TM) to replace my 2015-ish macbook that got me through late highschool, community college and university

laptop still works (despite everything its been through...guhh) and I'll be hanging onto it until it eventually croaks but man i'm so happy to have moved away from mac. becos i can like. actually do stuff now.

like play mysims with reasonable loadtimes ah ha ha

[macbookrepairdubaiae]

Macbook Repair Dubai

MacBook keyboard repair - cleaning | engraving | replacement

If you have landed on this page, then you probably have a problem with your MacBook keyboard. Possible symptoms:

the laptop does not respond to pressing any specific keys (possibly all)

crunch/crackle/squelching of liquid and other bacchanalia when pressing the keys

Causes of keyboard failure

Mechanical failure of buttons and their fasteners

Contact with liquids (water, wine, Pepsi, etc.)

Failure of the elements of the motherboard responsible for the operation of the keyboard

Keyboard repair or replacement?

If the problem is related to individual keys and is easy enough to fix, then an inexpensive repair is worth it.

If any liquid gets into the keyboard, we recommend a slightly more expensive replacement of the keyboard unit.

Case statistics

99% replacement | 1% repair

[exeggcute]

none of this is new info, but you know I have the "loves to write lists and compile links" disposition, so I thought it might be helpful to share some of the tips I've seen about how to make sure you're sharing legitimate palestinian evacuation fundraisers and bundle all those tips into a single handy reference post.

this is a spreadsheet of legitimate ("vetted") fundraisers on tumblr.

this post explains how the people who maintain this spreadsheet confirm the legitimacy of each fundraiser they add.

this podcast episode ("yousef and the fourth move") explains why evacuation fundraisers are often organized by people who don't live in gaza and/or who may not be immediate relatives of the people trying to evacuate. it's part three of a series about a man named yousef and his family; parts one and two aren't required listening for part three to make sense, but if you have a few hours to spare then I wholeheartedly recommend listening to all of them.

this is the process that I personally have been using to check whether a particular fundraiser has been vetted:

spreadsheet method

open the vetted fundraisers spreadsheet.

inside this spreadsheet, open the "find..." menu. on a windows computer, this shortcut is ctrl+F. on a mac, this shortcut is cmd+F. on a mobile device, click the three dots menu in the upper right corner of your screen, then select Find and replace.

search for the last name of the person or family in the fundraiser. you may get several results because last names obviously aren't unique; keep hitting "next" until you've looked at all the results.

if you find an entry in the spreadsheet that has the exact same name and whose gofundme link leads to the same fundraiser associated with the blog, it's legitimate. if you don't find an entry in the spreadsheet that matches the blog's fundraiser, that does not mean it's a scam. try the next method below!

tumblr search method

copy the username of the tumblr who originally posted the fundraiser and/or sent you a message asking you to boost the fundraiser. (for example, username123)

paste this username into tumblr's search bar.

for best results, click the All types drop-down menu, then select Text. since the search page is often dominated by asks sent by username123 (which people then answer and tag with their username), this helps narrow things down a bit.

look to see if any people who are not username123 have made posts confirming that username123 is legitimate. this includes people who've reblogged fundraisers and added notes, people who've compiled masterlists, and people sharing hyperlinks to other posts confirming a fundraiser's legitimacy. if the message seems to be "yep, looks legit," then it's safe to assume it's legit.

this is not a comprehensive list, but here are some of the usernames I've seen associated with "yep, looks legit"-type posts and who I've come to trust by association. (disclaimers: I am not mutuals with any of the users, and not all of them do the vetting firsthand, but the ones who don't vet posts themselves still seem to be careful about what they share and therefore are a good lead to follow. also, don't bug these people to vet fundraisers for you unless they've specifically indicated that they're open to that.)

90-ghost

el-shab-hussein

nabulsi

appsa

northgazaupdates

retvolution

communistchilchuck

neptunerings

a-shade-of-blue

shimamitsu

neither of these methods yielded anything definitive; what now?

it may just be too early to tell. unless a trusted source has shared overwhelming evidence that a particular fundraiser is a scam (which seems to be a very very rare occurrence), the best thing you can do is ignore it. don't report their blog as spam, because there's a good chance it's a legitimate fundraiser who just hasn't been vetted yet.

[sstechnetwork]

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[garamkathaa-blog]

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[nonsensical-pixels]

it's been ages since i made buy mode stuff... so back on the monique'd computers train we go 😎 here are six new pc's for ts2, originally from @lumenniveus's gamergigs collection for ts4! all of course function as monique's hacked computers, and have 2 recolourable subsets 🥰

close-up previews are below the cut, and a collection file is included for ease of browsing - plus a readme. everything is incredibly low-poly, which ik we all love! if anyone has any computers they'd like monique'd, hit me up.

DOWNLOAD: SFS | MF 🍎

credits of course go to @lumenniveus for this incredibly awesome set! i can never say no to more monique's hacked computers, and credits for those naturally go to monique herself 🥰

ITEMS INCLUDED

Artist's Setup AR1-3L - $1800, 837 polys Creative Display S1MTiQ - $880, 984 polys Crystallized AERO - $8400, 886 polys MAC Mini - $2800, 649 polys Mini PC AUR0R-4 - $1100. 574 polys Tower PC D4NT3 - $6400, 1182 polys

COLLECTION ICON

THINGS TO NOTE

All of the PC's are animated... or I at least tried to make them animated around the mouse area. LMK if that didn't really work!

These are compatible with screen replacements, as shown below:

if there are any issues that you find with this set, please don't be afraid to let me know! happy simming, and when you download this, do keep in mind,

Love, ~ Ky 🥰

[ @4t2ccdatabase ]

[colleendoran]

Great Big Good Omens Graphic Novel Update

AKA A Visit From Bildad the Shuhite.

The past year or so has been one long visit from this guy, whereupon he smiteth my goats and burneth my crops, woe unto the woeful cartoonist.

Gaze upon the horror of Bildad the Shuhite.

You kind of have to be a Good Omens fan to get this joke, but trust me, it's hilarious.

Anyway, as a long time Good Omens novel fan, you may imagine how thrilled I was to get picked to adapt the graphic novel.

 Go me!  

This is quite a task, I have to say, especially since I was originally going to just draw (and color) it, but I ended up writing the adaptation as well. Tricky to fit a 400 page novel into a 160-ish page graphic novel, especially when so much of the humor is dependent on the language, and not necessarily on the visuals.

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Anyway, I started out the gate like a herd of turtles, because  right away I got COVID which knocked me on my butt. 

And COVID brain fog? That's a thing. I already struggle with brain fog due to autoimmune disease, and COVID made it worse.

Not complainin' just sayin'.

This set a few of the assignments on my plate back, which pushed starting Good Omens back. 

But hey, big fat lead time! No worries!

Then my computer crawled toward the grave.

My trusty MAC Pro Tower was nearly 15 years old when its sturdy heart ground to a near-halt with daily crashes. I finally got around to doing some diagnostics; some of its little brain actions were at 5% functionality. I had no reliable backups.

There are so many issues with getting a new computer when you haven't had a new computer or peripherals in nearly fifteen years and all of your software, including your Photoshop program is fifteen years old.

At the time, I was still on rural internet...which means dial-up speed.

Whatever you have for internet in the city, roll that clock back to about 2001.

That's what I had. I not only had to replace almost all of my hardware but I had to load and update all programs at dial-up speed.

Welcome to my gigabyte hell.

The entire process of replacing the equipment and programs took weeks and then I had to relearn all the software.

All of this was super expensive in terms of money and time cost.

But I was not daunted! Nosirree!

I still had a huge lead time! I can do anything! I have an iron will!

And boy, howdy, I was going to need it.

At about the same time, a big fatcat quadrillionaire client who had hired me years ago to develop a big, major transmedia project for which I was paid almost entirely in stock, went bankrupt leaving everyone holding the bag, and taking a huge chunk of my future retirement fund with it.

I wrote a very snarky almost hilarious Patreon post about it, but am not entirely in a position to speak freely because I don't want to get sued. Even though I had to go to court over it, (and I had to do that over Zoom at dial-up speed,) I'm pretty sure I'll never get anything out of this drama, and neither will anyone else involved, except millionaire dude and his buddies who all walked away with huge multi-million dollar bonuses weeks before they declared bankruptcy, all the while claiming they would not declare bankruptcy.

Even the accountant got $250,000 a month to shut down the business, while creators got nothing.

That in itself was enough drama for the year, but we were only at February by that point, and with all those months left, 2023 had a lot more to throw at me.

Fresh from my return from my Society of Illustrators show, and a lovely time at MOCCA, it was time to face practical medical issues, health updates, screening, and the like. I did my adult duty and then went back to work hoping for no news, but still had a weird feeling there would be news.

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I had a bad feeling.

Then there was news.

I was called back for tests and more tests. This took weeks. The ubiquitous biopsy looked, even to me staring at the screen in real time, like bad news. 

It also hurt like a mofo after the anesthesia wore off. I wasn't expecting that.

Then I got the official bad news.

Cancer which runs in my family finally got me. Frankly, I was surprised I didn't get it sooner.

Stage 0, and treatment would likely be fast and complication-free. Face the peril, get it over with, and get back to work. 

I requested surgery months in the future so I could finish Good Omens first, but my doc convinced me the risk of waiting was too great. Get it done now.

"You're really healthy," my doc said. Despite an auto-immune issue which plagues me, I am way healthier than the average schmoe of late middle age. She informed me I would not even need any chemo or radiation if I took care of this now.

So I canceled my appearance at San Diego Comic Con. I did not inform the Good Omens team of my issues right away, thinking this would not interfere with my work schedule, but I did contact my agent to inform her of the issue. I also contacted a lawyer to rewrite my will and make sure the team had access to my digital files in case there were complications.

Then I got back to work, and hoped for the best.

Eff this guy.

Before I could even plant my carcass on the surgery table, I got a massive case of ocular shingles.

I didn't even know there was such a thing. 

There I was, minding my own business. I go to bed one night with a scratchy eye, and by 4 PM the next day, I was in the emergency room being told if I didn't get immediate specialist treatment, I was in big trouble.

I got transferred to another hospital and got all the scary details, with the extra horrid news that I could not possibly have cancer surgery until I was free of shingles, and if I did not follow a rather brutal treatment procedure - which meant super-painful  eye drops every half hour, twenty-four hours a day and daily hospital treatment - I could lose the eye entirely, or be blinded, or best case scenario, get permanent eye damage.

What was even funnier (yeah, hilarity) is the drops are so toxic if you don't use the medication just right, you can go blind anyway.

Hi Ho.

Ulcer is on the right. That big green blob.

I had just finished telling my cancer surgeon I did not even really care about getting cancer, was happy it was just stage zero, had no issues with scarring, wanted no reconstruction, all I cared about was my work. 

Just cut it out and get me back to work.

And now I wondered if I was going to lose my ability to work anyway.

Shingles often accompanies cancer because of the stress on the immune system, and yeah, it's not pretty. This is me looking like all heck after I started to get better.

The first couple of weeks were pretty demoralizing as I expected a straight trajectory to wellness. But it was up and down all the way. 

Some days I could not see out of either eye at all. The swelling was so bad that I had to reach around to my good eye to prop the lid open. Light sensitivity made seeing out of either eye almost impossible. Outdoors, even with sunglasses, I had to be led around by the hand.

I had an amazing doctor. I meticulously followed his instructions, and I think he was surprised I did. The treatment is really difficult, and if you don't do it just right no matter how painful it gets, you will be sorry. 

To my amazement, after about a month, my doctor informed me I had no vision loss in the eye at all. "This never happens," he said.

I'd spent a couple of weeks there trying to learn to draw in the near-dark with one eye, and in the end, I got all my sight back.

I could no longer wear contact lenses (I don't really wear them anyway, unless I'm going to the movies,) would need hard core sun protection for awhile, and the neuralgia and sun sensitivity were likely to linger. But I could get back to work.

I have never been more grateful in my life.

Neuralgia sucks, by the way, I'm still dealing with it months later.

Anyway, I decided to finally go ahead and tell the Good Omens team what was going on, especially since this was all happening around the time the Kickstarter was gearing up.

Now that I was sure I'd passed the eye peril, and my surgery for Stage 0 was going to be no big deal, I figured all was a go. I was still pretty uncomfortable and weak, and my ideal deadline was blown, but with the book not coming out for more than a year, all would be OK. I quit a bunch of jobs I had lined up to start after Good Omens, since the project was going to run far longer than I'd planned.

Everybody on the team was super-nice, and I was pretty optimistic at this time. But work was going pretty slow during, as you may imagine.

But again...lots of lead time still left, go me.

Then I finally got my surgery.

Which was not as happy an experience as I had been hoping for.

My family said the doc came out of the operating room looking like she'd been pulled backwards through a pipe, She informed them the tumor which looked tiny on the scan was "...huge and her insides are a mess."

Which was super not fun news.

Eff this guy.

The tumor was hiding behind some dense tissue and cysts. After more tests, it was determined I'd need another surgery and was going to have to get further treatments after all.

The biopsy had been really painful, but the discomfort was gone after about a week, so no biggee. The second surgery was, weirdly, not as painful as the biopsy, but the fatigue was big time.

By then, the Good Omens Kickstarter had about run its course, and the record-breaker was both gratifying and a source of immense social pressure.

I'd already turned most of my social media over to an assistant, and I'm glad I did.

But the next surgery was what really kicked me on my keister.

All in all, they took out an area the size of a baseball. It was  hard to move and wiped me out for weeks and weeks. I could not take care of myself. I'd begun losing hair by this time anyway, and finally just lopped it off since it was too heavy for me to care for myself. The cut hides the bald spots pretty well.

After about a month, I got the go-ahead to travel to my show at the San Diego Comic Con Museum (which is running until the first week of April, BTW). I was very happy I had enough energy to do it. But as soon as I got back, I had to return to treatment.

Since I live way out in the country, going into the city to various hospitals and pharmacies was a real challenge. I made more than 100 trips last year, and a drive to the compounding pharmacy which produced the specialist eye medicine I could not get anywhere else was six hours alone.

Naturally, I wasn't getting anything done during this time.

But at least my main hospital is super swank.

The oncology treatment went smoothly, until it didn't. The feels don't hit you until the end. By then I was flattened.

So flattened that I was too weak to control myself, fell over, and smashed my face into some equipment.

Nearly tore off my damn nostril.

Eff this guy.

Anyway, it was a bad year.

Here's what went right.

I have a good health insurance policy. The final tally on my health care costs ended up being about $150,000. I paid about 18% of that, including insurance. I had a high deductible and some experimental medicine insurance didn't cover. I had savings,  enough to cover the months I wasn't working, and my Patreon is also very supportive. So you didn't see me running a Gofundme or anything.

Thanks to everyone who ever bought one of my books.

No, none of that money was Good Omens Kickstarter money. I won't get most of my pay on that for months, which is just as well because it kept my taxes lower last year when I needed a break.

So, yay.

My nose is nearly healed. I opted out of plastic surgery, and it just sealed up by itself. I'll never be ready for my closeup, but who the hell cares.

I got to ring the bell.

I had a very, VERY hard time getting back to work, especially with regard to focus and concentration. My work hours dropped by over 2/3. I was so fractured and weak, time kept slipping away while I sat in the studio like a zombie. Most of the last six months were a wash.

I assumed focus issues were due (in part) to stress, so sought counseling. This seemed like a good idea at first, but when the counselor asked me to detail my issues with anxiety, I spent two weeks doing just that and getting way more anxious, which was not helpful.

After that I went EFF THIS NOISE, I want practical tools, not touchy feelies (no judgment on people who need touchy-feelies, I need a pragmatic solution and I need it now,) so tried using the body doubling focus group technique for concentration and deep work.

Within two weeks, I returned to normal work hours.

I got rural broadband, jumping me from dial up speed to 1 GB per second.

It's a miracle.

Massive doses of Vitamin D3 and K2. Yay.

The new computer works great.

The Kickstarter did so well, we got to expand the graphic novel to 200 pages. Double yay.

I'm running late, but everyone on the Good Omens team is super supportive. I don't know if I am going to make the book late or not, but if I do, well, it surely wasn't on purpose, and it won't be super late anyway. I still have months of lead time left.

I used to be something of a social media addict, but now I hardly ever even look at it, haven't been directly on some sites in over a year, and no longer miss it. It used to seem important and now doesn't.

More time for real life.

While I think the last year aged me about twenty years, I actually like me better with short hair. I'm keeping it.

OK. Rough year. 

Not complainin', just sayin'.

Back to work on The Book.

And only a day left to vote for Good Omens, Neil Gaiman, and Sandman in the Comicscene Awards. Thanks. 

[jjeremysstash]

Fixing Windows 11 - A Masterpost

Windows 11 is absolute crap for a good bunch of stuff so yeah, have a masterpost with most of the things I've found around to fix it haha (they're not all here because I did stuff around and I don't remember what)

I also have a ko-fi if ever you want to help.

Stopping W11 from making you create an account/setting up your computer without internet (with a way to create gpedit.msc if your version doesn't have it)

Fixing the Taskbar (in case you also don't like the grouped Battery/internet/sound or the way the windows look)(there's more to it, check the settings)

How to move the volume and luminosity pop ups (so you can finally see those sweet sweet subtitles)

In case ModernFlyouts doesn't automatically start up, possible solution

Fixing the Start Menu (ExplorerPatcher can do that too, btw)

How to show all options right away

A way to stop Outlook (new)'s forced install (great if you're using the calendar)

https://github.com/matej137/OutlookRemover

(Tumblr doesn't want to embed the link for some reason)

How to remove Copilot if you have it (I don't, but it might be because I'm in Europe??)

Archive

Apparently Copilot is being forced on people so hummm

Other stuff not specifically related to the shit W11 did

Changing the size of the scroll bars

How to fully remove Cortana

Website with tools to fix W10 and W11

[ms-demeanor]

One thing that I keep seeing whenever I make posts that are critical of macs is folks in the notes going "they make great computers for the money if you just buy used/refurbs - everyone knows not to buy new" and A) no they don't know that, most people go looking for a new computer unless they have already exhausted the new options in their budget and B) no they don't make great computers for the money, and being used doesn't do anything to make them easier to work on or repair or upgrade.

Here's a breakdown of the anti-consumer, anti-repair features recently introduced in macbooks. If you don't want to watch the video, here's how it's summed up:

In the end the Macbook Pro is a laptop with a soldered-on SSD and RAM, a battery secured with glue, not screws, a keyboard held in with rivets, a display and lid angle sensor no third party can replace without apple. But it has modular ports so I guess that’s something. But I don’t think it’s worthy of IFixIt’s four out of ten reparability score because if it breaks you have to face apple’s repair cost; with no repair competition they can charge whatever they like. You either front the cost, or toss the laptop, leaving me wondering “who really owns this computer?��

Apple doesn't make great computers for the money because they are doing everything possible to make sure that you don't actually own your computer, you just lease the hardware from apple and they determine how long it is allowed to function.

The lid angle sensor discussed in this video replaces a much simpler sensor that has been used in laptops for twenty years AND calibrating the sensor after a repair requires access to proprietary apple software that isn't accessible to either users or third party repair shops. There's no reason for this software not to be included as a diagnostic tool on your computer except that Apple doesn't want users working on apple computers. If your screen breaks, or if the fragile cable that is part of the sensor wears down, your only option to fix this computer is to pay apple.

How long does apple plan to support this hardware? What if you pay $3k for a computer today and it breaks in 7 years - will they still calibrate the replacement screen for you or will they tell you it's time for new hardware EVEN THOUGH YOU COULD HAVE ATTAINED FUNCTIONAL HARDWARE THAT WILL WORK IF APPLE'S SOFTWARE TELLS IT TO?

Look at this article talking about "how long" apple supports various types of hardware. It coos over the fact that a 2013 MacBook Air could be getting updates to this day. That's the longest example in this article, and that's *hardware* support, not the life cycle of the operating system. That is dogshit. That is straight-up dogshit.

Apple computers are DRM locked in a way that windows machines only wish they could pull off, and the apple-only chips are a part of that. They want an entirely walled garden so they can entirely control your interactions with the computer that they own and you're just renting.

Even if they made the best hardware in the world that would last a thousand years and gave you flowers on your birthday it wouldn't matter because modern apple computers don't ever actually belong to apple customers, at the end of the day they belong to apple, and that's on purpose.

This is hardware as a service. This is John Deere. This is subscription access to the things you buy, and if it isn't exactly that right at this moment, that is where things have been heading ever since they realized it was possible to exert a control that granular over their users.

With all sympathy to people who are forced to use them, Fuck Apple I Hope That They Fall Into The Ocean And Are Hidden Away From The Honest Light Of The Sun For Their Crimes.

[appleservicecentreicuresolutions]

MacBook logic board Repair

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[sugurugetos]

☆ UPSCALING LOW QUALITY FOOTAGE

what i used: • 2021 macbook pro with m1 chip (390/500gb storage used she's hanging in there) • photoshop 2020 • mpv (for screencaps but this isn't needed!) • handbrake (available for linux, mac and windows here) • video source to gif

what is handbrake? basically its a software that helps you change the format of videos, such as for certain devices or screens, or in the case that we're going to utilise, quality and frame rate!

disclaimer: handbrake is super easy to use and very beginner friendly for this procedure and it can make a video go from 30fps to 60fps however it does not replace the quality of true 4k/blue/master-pro res files. in the gif below, this is the level of detail in a master pro-res file.

getting started it's easiest first to note the timestamps of the video you want to encode, and keep in mind that unless your computer is incredibly powerful, i wouldn't try to encode an hour worth of footage in one run! my laptop could handle about 30 seconds in one go before she started toasting.

using handbrake: once you've downloaded the software, open the software and it will come up with a pop up window asking you to open the video source (that is presumably saved within your folders) and go ahead and do so!

in the range section, use the drop down button to navigate to seconds and enter your timestamp. the duration on the side will show how long of the footage you're gonna encode is!

then go down to the save as, and give your footage 'to be snipped' a name. this isn't necessary but useful because if you're planning to say, encode 3 or 4 small parts of footage in one sitting, each encoding instance will overwrite the previous one. so i just call mine 'cut 1', 'cut 2' and so on.

next go to preset, and there you'll see such a wide variety of options that you can play around with, with differing qualities, frame rates, sound options, and so on. for the sake of this tutorial, i'm using 'superhq 2160p60 4k av1 surround' and i've used the drop down menu to select it! then go ahead and press start! the time taken to complete depends on the duration of footage that you sent to encode! you'll find your encoded video as an .mp4 file in your designated folder (which you can change via browse at the bottom)

what next? • if you prefer to open footage directly into photoshop (my ps can't handle it), then go for it! • if you screencap as i do, then just use mpv or whatever screencapping program you prefer to make the screencaps and open in ps in your usual manner. • you can use the timestamps to further process the video through vapoursynth to denoise, but i've yet to try that!

the results for this first set of example footage, i used footage from the be the sun concert file, which is almost 2 hours in length and 4gb in file size.

you can see the difference in the smooth frame rate of the footage, as well as the quality of the sharpening!

and to utilise the bane of gifmaking, a gose episode, notorious for dodgy pixelated frames and less hd quality in 1080p on youtube, i ran it through the same settings!

these are the exact same files, downloaded using 4k video downloader and with the same sharpening, but see how on the original file, the sharpening looks a bit more harsh and 'outlined' while it seems to sit softer on the encoded 4k version!

so i mainly use handbrake for dvd files, or not-so-hd 1080p youtube videos or videos that seem a bit clunkier but i had never tried them on a tv/film file so take a look below! i used a 1gb (so not very good quality) of a show (as compared to its 4gb files).

as i said at the start in the disclaimer, handbrake can't replicate true file quality, as you'd expect to see in a proper hd bluray/t*rrent file of a show but there's an interesting difference in the frame rate. personally it's not something i would utilise much there but its all up to individual preference on how someone prefers to have their gifs <3

this is a very basic run-through of how i used handbrake, as i haven't really explored all its features and i use this as a quick process when i'm running through seventeen dvd/dl files but i feel like it would work well on general youtube videos (such as interviews, episodes, behind the scenes) and feel free to send an ask/message for any help/clarification! <33

[peltk9]

A Simple (relative!) Way to Save a Lot of Fanfic to EPUB at Once

Disclosure: This is a relatively simple way. There are still a lot of steps and requires a little bit of computer know-how. However, many other processes involve copy-pasting URLs one-by-one, which, for 100+ fics, takes a long time.

This guide is particularly meant for Fanfiction.net works, which, at the time of writing, can no longer be downloaded in bulk from the Calibre FanFicFare plugin (rip in peace). FicHub can still reliably download from FFN, and there is a FicHub CLI to bulk-download from a list of URLs.

Regarding AO3: Using FicHub CLI with AO3 appears to be a bit finicky. FicHub CLI is more likely to give up on URLs in longer lists. Your mileage may vary. Personally, I recommend either the in-built AO3 downloader (one-by-one downloading only) or the FanFicFare Calibre plugin (for bulk downloading). EDIT: there is also this python program from tumblr user nianeyna: https://nianeyna.tumblr.com/post/659921552559783936

Regarding Wattpad: It does not look like FicHub can download from Wattpad. However, FanFicFare can download from Wattpad.

What You Will Need

Windows PC (theoretically this will work on a Mac or Linux, but will require different steps vis-à-vis python and the command prompt)

Firefox

Python (version 3)

Notepad++

fichub-cli

If you don't have Python installed, and don't know how, please follow this tutorial: https://realpython.com/installing-python/#how-to-install-from-the-full-installer (if it asks to create an account to view, open in a private window)

(I know the full installer works for the purposes of this tutorial, but you'll need to make sure you install pip--under Customize Installation--and add Python to the PATH. I am unsure if the Windows App version does both of these.)

Install Notepad++ from the official site: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

If you installed Python correctly, then to install fichub-cli (https://github.com/FicHub/fichub-cli):

Open the Command Prompt in Windows (Windows search bar "cmd")

Copy-paste the following: pip install -U fichub-cli

Hit 'Enter'

Wait for the Command Prompt to do it's thing . . . and you're done!

Instructions

Getting the URLs - FanFic dot Net Favorites version

(These instructions are specifically for the Favorite Stories on a user's account, but can be modified to get any story URL on any page of FFN.)

Open Firefox and go to FFN. Now go to the mobile version of the site by clicking the smartphone icon on the top bar, left-ish side of the screen. You can also replace the 'www' in the URL to 'm'.

Log into FFN if you aren't already, then go to your account > Favorite Stories. The reason why we're using the mobile site is because it won't paginate your favorites. All your favorite stories will be all on one page, which means it's only one copy-paste for everything.

Right-click anywhere on the page and hit 'Inspect (Q)'. This will pull up DevTools, which will give us a nice place to get all the URLs. Look at the left-most panel in the the 'Inspector' tab. It should have a bunch of HTML code in. Find the <tbody> that's right before a bunch of <tr>...</tr>.

Right click the <tbody>, Copy > Inner HTML.

Open Notepad++. In a new file, paste in that Inner HTML we just copied. This is where we extract just the URLs for the stories from the mess of HTML by having some fun with regular expressions.

Open the Find & Replace in Notepad++ (Ctrl+F, or on the top bar Search > Replace ...). In the window, make sure you're on the 'Replace' tab. In the bottom-left-ish of the window is some Search Mode options. Select 'Regular expression' and check the box labeled '. matches newline'.

In 'Find what': .*?(/s/\d*/1/) In 'Replace with': $1\n

At this point, you should be able to click 'Replace All'; but if you want, click 'Find Next' to see Notepad++ highlight the first place it finds a regular expression match and click 'Replace' to see it change that highlighted section to just the /s/ . . . /1/ part (the /s/ . . . /1/ is the story URL on FFN). Depending on where your cursor was when you first opened Find & Replace, you may need to click 'Replace' once or twice even after 'Replace All'. You may also need to move your cursor to before the very first letter.

Once you've clicked 'Replace All', you should be left with a long list of partial URLs, looking like /s/ . . . /1/. There will be one section of unneeded HTML, probably near the bottom of the page. Manually delete it to leave only the URLs.

Now to change those partial URLs to a full URL. Open the Find & Replace again. In the Search Mode, select 'Normal'.

In 'Find what': /s/ In 'Replace with': https://m.fanfiction.net/s/

Click 'Replace All' (and maybe 'Replace' once or twice if needed--move your cursor to before the very first letter if needed) and now the list of partial URLs should be full FFN mobile URLs.

Save as a .txt file with whatever name you want.

Using FicHub CLI

First and foremost make a new folder somewhere on your computer. Name it whatever you like, but remember where it is and what you named it. Take the TXT file of URLs and move it into that new folder.

Open Command Prompt (Windows search bar "cmd"). In Command Prompt, navigate to the folder you made. If you don't know how to change directories in Command Prompt, this guide can help: https://www.howtogeek.com/659411/how-to-change-directories-in-command-prompt-on-windows-10/

For example, if I made a folder called 'FFNDownloads-2024-01-01' on my Desktop, I would type: cd Desktop/FFNDownloads-2024-01-01 in the command line and hit 'Enter'.

Once the Command Prompt is looking into the folder where your URL list is, type the following into the command line: fichub_cli -i [NAME].txt

Replace the [NAME] with the name of your URL list file. So, for example, if I named my URL list 'ffnurl.txt', I would enter: fichub_cli -i ffnurl.txt

Hit 'Enter' and the FicHub CLI will start it's magic. It can be a bit hard to read what's happening, because some of the text is dark blue, but it will print out how many URLs it finds, then check if there are duplicates, and then go through them one by one and start downloading them into an EPUB. The EPUB files will be saved in the same folder the Command Prompt is currently looking in--which should be that folder you just created.

There is a progress bar at the bottom of the Command Prompt with a rough estimate of time left. If you have 200 or more URLs, FicHub CLI can take an hour or more. Leave the Command Prompt alone until you're done. If you need, you can still use the rest of your computer, including the Internet. Just be careful to leave the folder and Command Prompt alone until the FicHub CLI is finished.

(Why does it take so long? As a general rule, polite internet behavior for robots, like the FicHub, is to ask websites for things slowly. If a robot asks for a lot of things quickly, it can overwhelm the website and make it difficult for the website to work properly. Some internet spam attacks do this, asking for a lot, quickly in order to disable a website. FicHub CLI is slow so that it doesn't get flagged as spam.)

Once FicHub CLI is done, it will make an output.log file. You can delete that if you want, it's basically a copy of the TXT file with the URLs inside. If there were any problems, FicHub CLI will also make an err.log file. Both LOG files can be opened in Notepad++ or in the default Windows Notepad. The err.log file will have a list of any URLs the FicHub CLI couldn't download, for whatever reason. I've found that if I make a new TXT file with just the error URLs copied right from the err.log file and re-run FucHub CLI on that TXT, most of the time they will be downloaded without problem.

Any lingering error files (hopefully less than 10 at this point, if any), you can go through the https://fichub.net/ site to download them one-by-one.

Et voilà, you have successfully downloaded a lot of fanfiction, all at once, as EPUB files. Once Python and fichub-cli are installed, then the process can be repeated to get any new or updated fics. All you need to do is create a TXT file of URLs for new/updated fics, and FicHub CLI will do the rest.

[ceekbee]

(An editorial I wrote on the Trump election for Policy Magazine)

Orwell Redux: 1984 has Arrived, Just a Little Late

It took 40 years, but 1984 has finally arrived, with red MAGA hats replacing Orwell’s drab, totalitarian grey. But make no mistake, Donald Trump’s massive win was a Triumph of Orwellian slogans over democratic engagement. It was driven by an apparent longing for manipulative simplicity in the face of complex global realities.

Having grown up in the 1980s, I thought I knew something about Orwell’s 1984 vision of a future of mass surveillance and strongman control. But Big Tech promised to liberate us from this nightmare future. What was clear on election night, however, is that Big Tech money and technology toxified democratic engagement and drove the agenda of a faux-populist grifter.

Are you old enough to remember that night in January, 1984, when a small-time California computer company called Apple went all-in with a Super Bowl ad directed by Ridley Scott? The ad brilliantly played on our 1984 fears with a crowd of shorn cyberslaves mesmerized by Big Brother brainwashing them on a jumbotron. The defining moment comes when a female athlete appears in vivid colour and hurls a sledgehammer at the screen, shutting down the propaganda feed amid a shower of sparks.

And then the punch line, “You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

We were sold. I know I was. The dystopian future could be beaten. Silicon Valley promised a future of connectivity, individual autonomy and freedom. All we had to do was buy the gadgets.

And then more gadgets. And then more.

In the 80s, 90s and for good parts of the 2000s I was one of the many believers in the premise that if people had the power to do their own research, create networks of increasingly large groups who only knew each other through their digital IP address it would inevitably lead to spreading creativity and democracy. How could it not make people smarter and more engaged?

The Silicon Valley pioneers presented themselves as idealistic mavericks willing to move fast and break the stodgy political, economic structures holding us back. But that wasn’t the real story of the Big Tech revolution. It was born as a project of the US military. And from the beginning, the digital revolution was driven by a culture of toxic alpha-male libertarianism. By the time it exploded onto the world stage in the mid 1980s, author Max Fisher writes in The Chaos Machine that it was deeply rooted, in “the unashamed capitalism of the Reagan ’80s.” These “mavericks” believed that they had the right to arbitrarily rewire democracy and society.

What could possibly go wrong?

The 1984 Mac ad promised individual autonomy in the face of looming mass conformity and state surveillance. What we failed to grasp is the cost that came from allowing a few tech giants to rewire everything from democracy to our personal relationships. We paid little attention as our every online move was tracked by ever more-powerful machine-driven AI. Few noticed when our online “experiences” were siloed into increasingly isolated chambers of information. And only the tech giants knew that the secret sauce of the digital revolution was that disinformation and rage was the most powerful driver to keep our eyes locked on our screens.

I write this as a recovering digital utopian. Our global economies have been rewired to the benefit of libertarian capitalists and our addiction to gadgets has led to measurable breakdowns in social trust and rising online hate.

My Facebook feed has become a swamp of ugly and vicious memes generated by AI and Bot farms attacking the prime minister, climate action and “woke” individuals who dare express concern for environment or minority rights. As an elected official who has dealt with relentless harassment, I just recently received my first AI-generated death threat. It is such a far cry from those idealistic, Google “Don’t be evil” days when we believed internet interactions would inevitably build community, not tear them down. For a few years, it worked.

We looked to defy an Orwellian future defined by lies. But what we learned is that in a 140 (or even 280)-character world, slogans move quicker than truth. And what has driven the right-wing power of Trump, Bolsanaro and other propaganda actors is the exploitation of the immediacy and seduction of the internet to weaponize thought in the form of slogans that tap into a proud, defiant, terrified vulnerability.

How does democracy compete with that?

The connection between Trump and Silicon Valley goes deeper than how the Steve Bannons of the world broke the political code on rage algorithms. Huge amounts of money were used to ensure Trump’s election because right-wing tech billionaires understood the irresistible connection between the rise of AI, profits and undemocratic government power. Ben Tarnoff, writing in the New York Review of Books, states that Silicon Valley venture capitalists see Trump as key to the “linkages between the public and private sectors…in which tech companies would partner with the state to strengthen its coercive capacities at home and abroad.”

It took four decades, but 1984 finally arrived. It isn’t the grey world of military strongmen but an ugly marriage of toxic AI, billionaire capitalists and grifter politicians. What is perhaps the most dystopian factor of all, is just how cynical and mean it is.

I know that there are other lessons from the 80s to show us a better way. They are the pre-millennial memories that can help unwire our lives into a more sustainable future.

Policy Contributing Writer Charlie Angus is the MP for Timmins-James Bay and frontman for the band Grievous Angels. His new book Dangerous Memory Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed is published by House of Anansi Press

[bjsmall]

03.08.24

I used my Linux laptop to take a look at a old presentation which had been stored on a compact disc for 14 years!

I inserted the disc, which opened in Nemo, Linux Mint's file manager. It was called Ben's Disc. One item was stored on the disc, a PowerPoint presentation that I had created, which was last accessed on the 19th of September 2010!

The presentation is about caring for hamsters, featuring photos of Rodney, who I had as a pet at the time, having previously cared for the school hamster Hammond. We would later have another pet hamster six years later called Betty.

I kept the file as a .ppt, which is a legacy Microsoft Office file format used in Office 97 to 2003.

Office legacy formats were replaced by the office XML (Extensible Markup Language) format introduced in Office 2007 and later, also known as .pptx. However, the legacy format continues to work in most office apps.

I had it in this format for the Abbey School where I did a presentation, using Office 2003 at the time.

Also the presentation is shown in the classic default 4.3 full screen aspect ratio, so it could fit on to the interactive board!

Opening the presentation which was in the .ppt format in LibreOffice, caused some font issues.

I decided to upload it to Google Drive, so I can see it on any device using Slides. No formatting issues here!

I ejected the CD disc from the optical DVD drive afterwards.

I also added a handy 'Computer' shortcut to Nemo's toolbar, I went to Edit > File Management Preferences > Toolbar and clicked the icon I wanted to add to do this.

This was a fun project, which has bought an old presentation back. The CD disc was destroyed afterwards!

Click link below to find Pets at Home products for your hamster:

https://www.petsathome.com/product/listing/small-animal/hamster

Underneath is a picture of Betty, aka 'Betty Hammy Mac Hamster Face!'

[garamkathaa-blog]

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