Positioning the Windows Explorer windows

Ken,

GMTA!!! I do a little tutoring on learning the basics of the computer,
and am putting together a "visual aid" for just this.

Pretty much the same here, though directed at kids wanting to write
programs. I've never actually made something like that to actually *look*
at though, mostly trying to get them to visualize it was enough.

But I'll just use loose, stapled docs as files rather than having to deal
with the bulk of binders.

I myself like the concept of binders: You identify the containing papers by
the name on the front of the binder, and (normally) can replace that name
without messing with the contents. It also allows you to easily replace a
sheet anywhere you like. The binder itself also represents the sector
linkage list as present in the FAT. When you lose it the sheets are still
there, but will be hard to find back and handle.

.... than again, I tended to explain the whole drive format structure. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

"I'm aging like fine wine: I'm getting fruitier and more complex"

Rudy,

On 3/8/18 12:52 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
... than again, I tended to explain the whole drive format structure.:-)

Similar to what I drew out in the link I provided in another message, or
even more in depth?

--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Ken,

Similar to what I drew out in the link I provided in another message, or
even more in depth?

Well, I've got little to go on to be certain about that. All you (seem to)
have said about it is "But I'll just use loose, stapled docs as files rather
than having to deal with the bulk of binders." ...

But there certainly is a possibility. At some point I often explained the
functioning of the BR, partitions and the MBR too (mostly as a result of the
advice to keep the OS and the users own data on seperate "drives").
Sometimes the act of data recovery (undeleting files) also came in to take a
bow, and with it how you can have all the data/sectors, but due to the loss
of the "binders" cannot access it in any meaningfull way anymore (quick
format).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
It's a beta orgy, not a product.
[]
That's gone straight into my quotes file (-; [with attribution]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The average US shareholding lasts 22 seconds. Nobody knows who invented the
fire hydrant: the patent records were destroyed in a fire. Sandcastles kill
more people than sharks. Your brain uses less power than the light in your
fridge. The Statue of Liberty wears size 879 shoes.
- John Lloyd, QI supremo (RT, 2014/9/27-10/3)

On 3/7/18 8:31 PM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| Linux typically has a 6-16 month support cycle. Everything
| is constantly updating. You get Acme Editor 2.332.123.435
| and then it needs abc.lib 3.5432.76.12.1. 3.5432.12.0 just
| won't cut it.
|
| Would/could this be due to the Linux community trying to play catchup?
| Get done in 2 years what it took MS and Apple 20 years to do? (Numbers
| just for explanation.)
|
Not in my experience. I've tried Linux off and on
since the late 90s. To me the best analogy is the
greasemonkey who's always working on his car,
which is always on the front lawn, never has a finish
coat of paint, and is rarely driven. The Linux crowd
do it as a hobby.

Many of the programs even reflect that. It's
fashionable to never get to v. 1. If I remember
correctly, WINE took 20 years to reach v. 1.0,
yet it's updated *every 10 days*. It's a beta
orgy, not a product.

| I get tired of being told you have to go to about:config in order to
| make so many changes. A long time ago there were discussions in the FF
| newsgroup about making those settings easier for the average person to
| change. Never happened.
|

No, and as you implied, it's getting worse. Less and
less settings in the GUI. More and more settings
added to about:config. There's still no comprehensive
list of what they all mean. Often when I look one up
the only info I can find is bug discussions among
Mozilla programmers. I finally wrote my own help
file so I wouldn't have to keep looking things up.
But then they add new stuff.

geo-enabled: Do you want to let them track your location?

dom.webnotifications.enabled: Do you want to let FF
regularly call home to pick up commercial spam for
you?

services.push.enabled: Would you like for
websites to be able to keep a hidden, open
page in FF at all times so that they can
send you messages at any time?

experiments.enabled: Would you like to allow
the willy nilly download of experimental
extensions as part of Mozilla's telemetry
spyware ....

Now that I know about them, I disabled them.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

Wolf,

Nice analogy. Mind if I steal it? :-)

.... Damn! I know I forgot something: To copyright it so noone can use it
in my lifetime +70 years (IIRC).

But go ahead ofcourse. Thank you for mentioning you find it good enough to
use. Always nice to hear. :-)

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On 3/8/18 3:42 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
Ken,

Similar to what I drew out in the link I provided in another message, or
even more in depth?

Well, I've got little to go on to be certain about that. All you (seem to)
have said about it is "But I'll just use loose, stapled docs as files rather
than having to deal with the bulk of binders." ...

A cardboard box, trimmed in height to let the file folders stick out the
top. 3 file folders standing in the box, A, B, and C. Inside folder A,
more folders, say A1, A2, and A3. In folder A1 is A1a, A1b, A1c.

Inside folder A will be some paper stapled together to represent a
single file/document, but it is not inside folder A1. Or, 3 or 4
bunches of paper, each representing a file/document. And so on.

Does that make more sense?
But there certainly is a possibility. At some point I often explained the
functioning of the BR, partitions and the MBR too (mostly as a result of the
advice to keep the OS and the users own data on seperate "drives").
Sometimes the act of data recovery (undeleting files) also came in to take a
bow, and with it how you can have all the data/sectors, but due to the loss
of the "binders" cannot access it in any meaningfull way anymore (quick
format).

Binders=boot record??? When I read binders, my mind with straight to 3
ring binders. That was making no sense. LOL

That's a bit more detailed than I usually go, unless it seems the
individual will easily grasp it at that point. But I also recommend the
user have their data on different partitions/drives. with drives being
the preferred route. But with 1TB drives, and laptops usually only
having 1 drive bay, another drive is usually not a viable solution for
laptop owners. They don't want to drag that crap around! LOL

Ken Blake and I disagree on the idea of partitioning of the same drive,
but you can only work with what you have and what the owner is willing
to do.


--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

"Ken Springer" wrote

| experiments.enabled: Would you like to allow
| the willy nilly download of experimental
| extensions as part of Mozilla's telemetry
| spyware ....
|
| Now that I know about them, I disabled them.
|
I made a CHM help file here, in case it
might be useful:

https://www.jsware.net/jsware/browse...hp5#mozprefchm

It needs to be updated already, though. FF 58
changes things dramatically (or is it 57?). For
instance, one of the big changes coming up will
be WebAssembly. Basically compiled software
running in the browser. (The lesson of ActiveX
seems to be forgotten.)

I've decided to stay with v. 52 indefinitely. I'm
not sure whether it supports WebAssembly or even
what prefs might relate to WebAssembly. It's very
time-consuming researching this stuff and keeping
up-to-date.

On 3/8/18 8:14 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| experiments.enabled: Would you like to allow
| the willy nilly download of experimental
| extensions as part of Mozilla's telemetry
| spyware ....
|
| Now that I know about them, I disabled them.
|
I made a CHM help file here, in case it
might be useful:

https://www.jsware.net/jsware/browse...hp5#mozprefchm

It needs to be updated already, though. FF 58
changes things dramatically (or is it 57?). For
instance, one of the big changes coming up will
be WebAssembly. Basically compiled software
running in the browser. (The lesson of ActiveX
seems to be forgotten.)

58.0.2, 64 bit is current on my Mac.

One thing that's changed, it's now dom.push.enabled, not
services.push.enabled. At least, that's what I'm assuming since
services.push.enabled doesn't exist in my config file. A couple others
don't exist either. So maybe your CHM file is being rapidly outdated.
I've decided to stay with v. 52 indefinitely. I'm
not sure whether it supports WebAssembly or even
what prefs might relate to WebAssembly. It's very
time-consuming researching this stuff and keeping
up-to-date.




--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

On 3/8/18 8:14 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| experiments.enabled: Would you like to allow
| the willy nilly download of experimental
| extensions as part of Mozilla's telemetry
| spyware ....
|
| Now that I know about them, I disabled them.
|
I made a CHM help file here, in case it
might be useful:

https://www.jsware.net/jsware/browse...hp5#mozprefchm

It needs to be updated already, though. FF 58
changes things dramatically (or is it 57?). For
instance, one of the big changes coming up will
be WebAssembly. Basically compiled software
running in the browser. (The lesson of ActiveX
seems to be forgotten.)

Never mind my comment about being out of date! LOL

I've decided to stay with v. 52 indefinitely. I'm
not sure whether it supports WebAssembly or even
what prefs might relate to WebAssembly. It's very
time-consuming researching this stuff and keeping
up-to-date.




--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"

"Ken Springer" wrote


| One thing that's changed, it's now dom.push.enabled, not
| services.push.enabled. At least, that's what I'm assuming since
| services.push.enabled doesn't exist in my config file.

Can of worms. It looks like services.push.enabled
is current but I didn't have dom.push.enabled. The dom*
settings are usually related to javascript. So it may be
a distinction between allowing javascript to do it vs
allowing it to happen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/com..._web_push_api/

I've been creating the CHM by getting the all prefs file
from an installer and then looking up everything in there.
But some don't even exist by default and in general
it's very time-consuming, since there's never been a
comprehensive doc written for prefs. (Which is really
absurd, since the Miozilla developers all have to know
what these things mean in order to work on the
functionality.)

I guess it's also possible that things sometimes get
removed. I know they do sometimes get reworked.
Can you say "seat of the pants"?

Ken,

A cardboard box, trimmed [snip]

We definitily have a different way of looking at it. I myself imagine the
boxes closed, with a name ontop (living room, bedroom, attick). You have to
really open them to see what is inside (files and/or more folders. Maybe
even empty). It also allows you to stack them (into a container/transport
vehicle).

Reading your explanation I get the image of of a filing cabinet: Each drawer
represents a folder, and each file represents ... well, a file. :-)
Although I have used the analogy too, it does not scale all that well to
folders-within-folders. But I got away with that by designate a filing room
as the "parent" folder, and a halway with filing rooms as the grandparent
folder. Add floors to get a great-grandparent. Normally that is as far as
most people need to go to imagine another layer of folders onto of that.

Does that make more sense?

Yes, it does. I hope your story includes storage shelves though (but as
representation for what ?), as I would not want to see those stacked. :-)
(have seen them stacked in real life, and you don't want to need to search
in there. :-\ )

Binders=boot record???

In my explanation ? Nope, not really. The boot record is followed by a
File Allocation Table (FAT for short), which is used to indicate which
sectors (sheets) belong to which binder (file) (and ofcourse which sectors
are still free, but thats thats not part of our visualisation). While in
the computer the name of a file is present in the folder structure, it only
contains an index to the first-used sector (or cluster actually) of a file.
With it you need to look into the FAT to find the next one. (My apologies
this already known to you).

When I read binders, my mind with straight to 3 ring binders.

Yes, that where *exactly* the ones that I ment (well, I always imagine the
18-ring ones, as those kept my papers whole, even when I mistreated them
:-) )

But I also recommend the user have their data on different
partitions/drives. with drives being the preferred route.

Yesteryear, when drives could hold *much* less than today, that was my
preferred setup too. But nowerdays with its 2 Terra byte smallest size and
my *total* usage (OS and all of my data partitions) of not even 50 GByte it
would be silly to use two of them.

Also, I'm not quite sure what nowerdays the benefits of having two physical
drives would be (for a single-OS configuration).

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

In message , R.Wieser
writes:
Ken,

A cardboard box, trimmed [snip]

We definitily have a different way of looking at it. I myself imagine the
boxes closed, with a name ontop (living room, bedroom, attick). You have to
really open them to see what is inside (files and/or more folders. Maybe
even empty). It also allows you to stack them (into a container/transport
vehicle).

Reading your explanation I get the image of of a filing cabinet: Each drawer
represents a folder, and each file represents ... well, a file. :-)
Although I have used the analogy too, it does not scale all that well to
folders-within-folders. But I got away with that by designate a filing room
as the "parent" folder, and a halway with filing rooms as the grandparent
folder. Add floors to get a great-grandparent. Normally that is as far as
most people need to go to imagine another layer of folders onto of that.

You're going up; I want to go down. Explaining that you can make folders
within folders within folders ad infinitum is the other thing I want to
do.
[]
But I also recommend the user have their data on different
partitions/drives. with drives being the preferred route.

Yesteryear, when drives could hold *much* less than today, that was my
preferred setup too. But nowerdays with its 2 Terra byte smallest size and
my *total* usage (OS and all of my data partitions) of not even 50 GByte it
would be silly to use two of them.

I think this is for a whole different level of user to the ones we're
discussing above as far as understanding the basic file/older concepts
is concerned, but I will still always keep OS-and-software on a
different partition (or drive) to my data, but nowadays not mostly for
size reasons, but instead because I don't want anything which scrambles
the OS partition to (have _too_ much chance to) scramble the data one.
(There is still _some_ size aspect, in that I _image_ my OS-and-software
partition [and any hidden ones], so I can restore them in the event of
disaster [disc failure, ransomware, or some "update" or similar
rendering the system unbootable], but just _sync_ my data partition -
and keeping them separate makes the imaging process faster, so I'm more
likely to do it more often.)

Also, I'm not quite sure what nowerdays the benefits of having two physical
drives would be (for a single-OS configuration).

See above: if something kills your OS, your data is _probably_ still
safe, unless what killed it was ransomware or similar. In the event of
anything other than ransomware (such as disc death), restoring the OS
alone from image will restore access to the data without having to
restore _that_.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


John
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

We shall never - never! - allow foreigners to run our economy. They might cure
it. (George Mikes, "How to be Decadent" [1977].)

In message , Mayayana
writes:
"Ken Springer" wrote

| experiments.enabled: Would you like to allow
| the willy nilly download of experimental
| extensions as part of Mozilla's telemetry
| spyware ....
|
| Now that I know about them, I disabled them.
|
I made a CHM help file here, in case it
might be useful:

https://www.jsware.net/jsware/browse...hp5#mozprefchm

Obviously represents a VAST amount of work. Thanks a lot. (The rest of
the browsertips page bears reading, too: be prepared for Mayayana's take
on things, but it's pragmatic [and mostly aligns with my own anyway so I
didn't find much I disagreed with].)

It needs to be updated already, though. FF 58
changes things dramatically (or is it 57?). For
instance, one of the big changes coming up will
be WebAssembly. Basically compiled software
running in the browser. (The lesson of ActiveX
seems to be forgotten.)

The file is dated 2017. Still very useful for anyone using earlier
versions (and probably fairly useful for later).

I've decided to stay with v. 52 indefinitely. I'm
not sure whether it supports WebAssembly or even
what prefs might relate to WebAssembly. It's very
time-consuming researching this stuff and keeping
up-to-date.


Indeed. Hence gratefulness for you doing a lot of it for us!
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

We shall never - never! - allow foreigners to run our economy. They might cure
it. (George Mikes, "How to be Decadent" [1977].)

On 3/8/18 9:27 AM, R.Wieser wrote:
Ken,

A cardboard box, trimmed [snip]

We definitily have a different way of looking at it. I myself imagine the
boxes closed, with a name ontop (living room, bedroom, attick). You have to
really open them to see what is inside (files and/or more folders. Maybe
even empty). It also allows you to stack them (into a container/transport
vehicle).

Ah, a box in a box thing, now I get it.

Reading your explanation I get the image of of a filing cabinet: Each drawer
represents a folder, and each file represents ... well, a file. :-)
Although I have used the analogy too, it does not scale all that well to
folders-within-folders. But I got away with that by designate a filing room
as the "parent" folder, and a halway with filing rooms as the grandparent
folder. Add floors to get a great-grandparent. Normally that is as far as
most people need to go to imagine another layer of folders onto of that.

Does that make more sense?

Make sense to me, but I think folder actually work better, because the
icons are... well... folders. LOL And the icons for a document may
look like a piece of paper

I don't go as deep as you i figure if they don't understand it by the
3rd level, they aren't going to get it at that point in time. And I
don't think it's a good idea to leave open the possibility of them
thinking you can do the "box in a box" thing an unlimited number of
levels deep. While I don't know if there's a limit on the number of
levels, there is the limit in the length of the path.

Yes, it does. I hope your story includes storage shelves though (but as
representation for what ?), as I would not want to see those stacked. :-)
(have seen them stacked in real life, and you don't want to need to search
in there. :-\ )

I use shelves when I explain Libraries. Too keep it short, the items
you see under Libraries is the same as in the old fashioned library card
files. The thumbnail you see is not real, it's just a pictured of the
item you want, which is stored in the bowels of the library (their hard
drive).

Binders=boot record???

In my explanation ? Nope, not really. The boot record is followed by a
File Allocation Table (FAT for short), which is used to indicate which
sectors (sheets) belong to which binder (file) (and ofcourse which sectors
are still free, but thats thats not part of our visualisation). While in
the computer the name of a file is present in the folder structure, it only
contains an index to the first-used sector (or cluster actually) of a file.
With it you need to look into the FAT to find the next one. (My apologies
this already known to you).

No apologies necessary, I did know this. But another reader may not.

Back in my 8-bit days, I'd spent hours typing a document for the local
fire department. Then, in exhaustion, deleted it. After some good
sleep, I learned how the system linked one sector to another. It too
about 2 hours with a sector editor, but I got it all back. It was not a
windows/DOS box, and I didn't know of any other way of doing it. It
sure beat retyping, though. LOL

When I read binders, my mind with straight to 3 ring binders.

Yes, that where *exactly* the ones that I ment (well, I always imagine the
18-ring ones, as those kept my papers whole, even when I mistreated them
:-) )

But I also recommend the user have their data on different
partitions/drives. with drives being the preferred route.

Yesteryear, when drives could hold *much* less than today, that was my
preferred setup too. But nowerdays with its 2 Terra byte smallest size and
my *total* usage (OS and all of my data partitions) of not even 50 GByte it
would be silly to use two of them.

Also, I'm not quite sure what nowerdays the benefits of having two physical
drives would be (for a single-OS configuration).

Just to see if I could do it, I built my newest computer when 8.0 came
out. 2 drives, with the boot drive being SSD, the data drive is a
mechanical.

Reason 1: The SSD would give me faster boot times.

Reason 2: I always assume the worst, that malware will try to infect
the data. But, if you do things in a non-standard way, I.E. on a
separate drive, maybe a particular malware won't go looking for that and
infect/damage your data.

Reason 3: It's a lot quicker to reinstall the OS if you have already
eliminated having to deal with your data.

But, still do backups. I'm much better at doing backups on the Mac with
Time Machine than I do on any of my Windows systems. It's just so
damned much easier. If I knew of any or a competent Windows backup that
worked the way Time Machine does, I'd jump right on that.



--
Ken
Mac OS X 10.11.6
Firefox 53.0.2 (64 bit)
Thunderbird 52.0
"My brain is like lightning, a quick flash
and it's gone!"