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#46
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On 15/03/2018 00:22:04, ultred ragnusen wrote:
mick wrote: It does seem to be SMBv2 if you look at the settings (gear wheel) in FE. Well, it is switched on by default on my iPad. Hi mick, That makes lots of sense that File Explorer uses SMB to share files with Windows, where it's actually an SMC "client", whereas the WiFi HD app on iOS seems to be an SMB server (in addition to being an HTTP & FTP server). http://i.cubeupload.com/ykPqDI.jpg The fact that File Explorer seems to be an SMB client means that, probably, all I have to do is get Samba working on Linux, which serves SMB shares over Linux, where File Explorer won't know the difference between the Linux \\DESKTOP\share and the Windows \\DESKTOP\share https://www.computerbeginnersguides....tful-aardvark/ If they're fully functional for free, then I might download them again, but not if they're just readers. They are free. No harm installing them, if you don't like just uninstall them again. Well, if MS Office is really free on iOS, where they can /edit/ files, then I'll try it (again) after all these years, but I'm too experienced to believe that they're free... 1. I installed Microsoft PowerPoint Word & Excel on the iPad. 2. On the desktop, I picked up these sample ppt, doc, and xls files: https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/to...amplepptx.pptx https://www2a.cdc.gov/cdcup/library/...n_Template.doc https://mdcune.psych.ucla.edu/module...ample_data.xls 3. I copied those files over to the File Explorer \\DESKTOP\share folder 4. I tap on each inside of File Explorer which brings them up 5. I hit the share button in that editor which allows the MS Office app In each app, it says "Read Only - You can't save changes to this file." The free iOS MS Office is just readers, which is what they always were. PPT: http://i.cubeupload.com/F6TX2D.jpg DOC: http://i.cubeupload.com/ggcSBX.jpg XLS: http://i.cubeupload.com/ubMHjc.jpg So I deleted all three apps, as they're no better than having nothing since the Apple no-name tool reads them all too. Sorry, they do indeed need a subscription to be fully operational, which I had forgotten. -- mick |
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#47
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On 15/03/2018 00:30:25, ultred ragnusen wrote:
mick wrote: I've got three win 10 desktops here, since the latest update 1709, they see each other fine. Before that, one of them was a pain. If it was not the first to be booted one of the others could never see it. Windows networking and flaky certainly go together, just like gin and tonic :-) Yup. I'm on 1709 and it's still as flaky as was 1511. I see the flakiness most with FTP URIs, where I use the native Windows File Explorer, which sometimes can connect no problem, but other times it can't connect, even though FileZilla or WinSCP has no problems connecting. So I've just assumed that Windows networking is just flaky. Someone with better understanding can explain why, but not me. I have given up on Linux. I tried many distros, the one I like most was Solydk https://solydxk.com/ Ubuntu 17.10 is pretty good now that they've ditched Unity. I could always get Linux to see the windows network but never get windows to see Linux. Well, I have that same experience with hard disks where Linux sees the entire Windows hard disk with no problem while Windows doesn't see the Linux hard disk (it's the same machine - I just boot to one or the other). Linux reads and writes to the Windows disk so beautifully that it's not funny. It's just perfect. Linux even uses "C:" as part of a file spec where the colon is just another character, so that makes it easy to cd to c:/data/ipad/share for example, for C:\data\ipad\share on Windows. Perhaps not a big deal but it would have been nice. I don't network Windows & Linux because it's a dual boot that is one or the other. Someone with more Linux experience maybe able to help you more with your question. I'm almost certain that the File Explorer SMB client won't even know the difference between the Linux \\DESKTOP\share and the Windows \\DESKTOP\share after I figure out and set up Samba SMB server on Linux. Best of luck, you're getting there :-) -- mick |
#48
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
mick wrote:
Then using FE you can transfer any files from windows to those iPad folders for viewing in whatever app you like. I wonder if there is a hidden, secret, file-number limit of the freeware File Explorer app on iOS? It stopped working, and says this now whenever I try to transfer files: Upgrade to Pro Version The Pro version can access more than one computer or NAS, manage files on network shares, and play more movie formats (AVI, MKV, XVID, etc) [Cancel] [Upgrade] So, the File Explorer app was ok, while it lasted, but it seems to have a file number limitation that it didn't tell us about in the beginning. But, we still learned something useful which is that an SMB/CIFS "client" on iOS will be a useful thing to have. Searching the app store, I see a "SMB Manager - CIFS Client" by LTD DevelSoftware https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smb-...141340577?mt=8 There is also RManager SMB/Cloud File Manager https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rman...981869721?mt=8 Running SMB Manager, it has a "Scan network" button which found: DESKTOP at smb://192.168.1.100 But it consistently said "Failed to connect to server" for some reason. Running RManager, it has a "+" button to add a "network service" of "SMB" which says it only works for one remote location (which is fine). It too said there was an SMB error. Hmmmm.... maybe I need to reboot Windows? I'll reboot Windows and try again since that's odd. |
#49
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On 15/03/2018 01:20:02, ultred ragnusen wrote:
mick wrote: Then using FE you can transfer any files from windows to those iPad folders for viewing in whatever app you like. I wonder if there is a hidden, secret, file-number limit of the freeware File Explorer app on iOS? It stopped working, and says this now whenever I try to transfer files: Upgrade to Pro Version The Pro version can access more than one computer or NAS, manage files on network shares, and play more movie formats (AVI, MKV, XVID, etc) [Cancel] [Upgrade] So, the File Explorer app was ok, while it lasted, but it seems to have a file number limitation that it didn't tell us about in the beginning. But, we still learned something useful which is that an SMB/CIFS "client" on iOS will be a useful thing to have. Searching the app store, I see a "SMB Manager - CIFS Client" by LTD DevelSoftware https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smb-...141340577?mt=8 There is also RManager SMB/Cloud File Manager https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rman...981869721?mt=8 Running SMB Manager, it has a "Scan network" button which found: DESKTOP at smb://192.168.1.100 But it consistently said "Failed to connect to server" for some reason. Running RManager, it has a "+" button to add a "network service" of "SMB" which says it only works for one remote location (which is fine). It too said there was an SMB error. Hmmmm.... maybe I need to reboot Windows? I'll reboot Windows and try again since that's odd. I don't know about any file limit on the free version of FE, but it would not surprise me as I have seen that on numerous free versions of software. To be honest, if you are going to transfer a lot of files like I do, mainly photos and videos, from the iPad to the PC, then $4.99 is well worth the expence. If you want to try other iPad file managers this might help. https://www.igeeksblog.com/best-ipad...nagement-apps/ -- mick |
#50
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
mick wrote:
I don't know about any file limit on the free version of FE, but it would not surprise me as I have seen that on numerous free versions of software. To be honest, if you are going to transfer a lot of files like I do, mainly photos and videos, from the iPad to the PC, then $4.99 is well worth the expence. If you want to try other iPad file managers this might help. https://www.igeeksblog.com/best-ipad...nagement-apps/ I'm an old man, where I have been fooled so many times in the past that it's pretty hard for an app to fool me today. Never is an app worth paying for. Never. The reason is that there is always more than one way to skin a cat. All the work in finding the good apps is paid off in dividends by all the others on this newgroup being able to just leverage that knowledge. So it behooves us to find a good app. I am convinced we'll find a good free SMB client on iOS which isn't limited. Problem is right now, all three SMB clients are failing on iOS so I suspect Windows is being very flaky on SMB serving. I rebooted both Windows and the iOS device but the iOS device can no longer connect to the Windows smb server. Why? I don't know why. It would be horrid if we have to set up SMB serving on Windows on every reboot. Can that be the problem? |
#51
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
mick wrote:
The free iOS MS Office is just readers, which is what they always were. PPT: http://i.cubeupload.com/F6TX2D.jpg DOC: http://i.cubeupload.com/ggcSBX.jpg XLS: http://i.cubeupload.com/ubMHjc.jpg So I deleted all three apps, as they're no better than having nothing since the Apple no-name tool reads them all too. Sorry, they do indeed need a subscription to be fully operational, which I had forgotten. No problem. I'm too old to be fooled because I have experience. I didn't believe that MS Office actually worked on iOS for free anyway. But since you said it did, I tried it out. But it's no different now than it was the day it came out. No worries. I'm concentrating now on figuring out how to test SMB working on Windows because it almost seems as if the Windows SMB server stopped working. |
#52
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On 15/03/2018 02:33:53, ultred ragnusen wrote:
mick wrote: I don't know about any file limit on the free version of FE, but it would not surprise me as I have seen that on numerous free versions of software. To be honest, if you are going to transfer a lot of files like I do, mainly photos and videos, from the iPad to the PC, then $4.99 is well worth the expence. If you want to try other iPad file managers this might help. https://www.igeeksblog.com/best-ipad...nagement-apps/ I'm an old man, where I have been fooled so many times in the past that it's pretty hard for an app to fool me today. Never is an app worth paying for. Never. The reason is that there is always more than one way to skin a cat. All the work in finding the good apps is paid off in dividends by all the others on this newgroup being able to just leverage that knowledge. So it behooves us to find a good app. I am convinced we'll find a good free SMB client on iOS which isn't limited. Problem is right now, all three SMB clients are failing on iOS so I suspect Windows is being very flaky on SMB serving. I rebooted both Windows and the iOS device but the iOS device can no longer connect to the Windows smb server. Why? I don't know why. It would be horrid if we have to set up SMB serving on Windows on every reboot. Can that be the problem? Connecting iOS to windows 10 and 7 has never been a problem here. It works every time. As for not paying or donating for an app, that is your choice. If I find an app that meets my needs I will pay or donate a reasonable amount to the author for taking the trouble to make my life easier based on its usefulness to me. -- mick |
#53
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
mick wrote:
Connecting iOS to windows 10 and 7 has never been a problem here. It works every time. Hi mick, Let's be clear that I connect every time with USB. Every time. And, I connect (almost) every time with iOS as an FTP server over WiFi. (I've proven over the years that Windows is just a bit flaky.) When I had a Bluetooth laptop, it connected (almost) every time. I suspect SMB is the same reliability. Being old and experienced in such things, I think my last set of SMB connection issues are perhaps user error on my part, particularly because I don't know Windows well enough to even test SMB on Windows itself. If I had a Windows test sequence to assure me that SMB was working, that would be helpful - so I'm looking for that as we speak. Apparently, Microsoft keeps messing with SMB settings with each release... How to detect, enable and disable SMBv1, SMBv2, and SMBv3 in Windows and Windows Server https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...in-windows-and Apparently, in the PowerShell, you can debug, but I haven't gotten the syntax correct yet to get meaningful output from "Get-SmbConnection". Since the "sc" command is an alias for PowerShell "Set-Content", this is what I got in the Windows command line (not Powershell, but cmd): sc query mrxsmb20 SERVICE_NAME: mrxsmb20 TYPE : 2 FILE_SYSTEM_DRIVER STATE : 4 RUNNING (STOPPABLE, NOT_PAUSABLE, IGNORES_SHUTDOWN) WIN32_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0) SERVICE_EXIT_CODE : 0 (0x0) CHECKPOINT : 0x0 WAIT_HINT : 0x0 sc query mrxsmb10 [SC] EnumQueryServicesStatus:OpenService FAILED 1060: The specified service does not exist as an installed service. As for not paying or donating for an app, that is your choice. I'm different than almost anyone you've ever met, although I'm sure helpful people like you and Paul and Mayayana are also different in that we're not greedy. We like to help everyone. It's not like I'm using hex editors to remove security in a payware program, where I'm just using the freeware as the freeware was designed to be used. How much of anyone's system is payware versus freeware? How many roads do you drive on that are not toll roads versus toll roads. If it's not a toll road, do you throw quarters out the window anyway? The huge advantage of freeware is that EVERYONE can leverage the solution, instantly. That's what I'm about in addition to solving my own problems. That's why I document things so profusely. So we can all move forward together. If I find an app that meets my needs I will pay or donate a reasonable amount to the author for taking the trouble to make my life easier based on its usefulness to me. This isn't a moral issue so you're welcome to donate or pay for software, just as I buy TurboTax every year because I have never found a free solution that works. But if software is intended to be free, and if I use it and it works, and if I then publicize that freeware that works, I'm actually helping the developer in a different way than you are. In fact, when I get around to it, I'm going to publish on the Android and iOS and Windows newsgroup a list of my highly organized well tested freeware, so others can benefit from my honest opinion of the tools. My opinion, as is yours, by the way, is worth a LOT more than most of those so-called reviews, because we're not making a cent out of our efforts to advertise the best free software for the task. Back on topic, this SMB client idea on iOS is a good one because the SMB server is native on Windows, and the Samba server is easily set up on Linux. I don't yet see how SMB clients on iOS are better for file transmission than FTP servers are on iOS but I haven't yet proven to myself that SMB is working on Windows so I will continue to test this idea. For the tribal knowledge archives, these are the solutions that worked to some degree where the goal is always to work on as many machines as possible without installing /anything/ on the desktop. NO ADDITIONAL (NON-NATIVE) SOFTWARE REQUIRED ON THE DESKTOP: 1. USB (seamless both ways on Windows, seamless one way on Linux) 2. FTP server (seamless both ways on Windows & Linux) 3. HTTP server (seamless both ways on Windows & Linux) 4. Bluetooth (this would work but I don't have BT or WiFi on my desktop) 5. SMB server (probably works - need to explore smb:// URIs on Win/Linux) 6. SMB client (works both ways on Windows - but it requires Samba on Linux) 7. App server (works both ways, e.g., VLC, perhaps it's just using http) REQUIRES additional (non-native) software on the desktop: 8. Apple-services (e.g., iMazing, can't possibly work in the real world) |
#54
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
-= Hawk =- wrote:
A single header field makes someone a troll. How interesting. I guess you do get your rocks off making assinine accusations. This incessant behavior makes you a troll calling troll. Just as there are small-minded people who think that all Black people are hoodlums, all Jews are greedy, all Germans are racist, and all Native Americans drunkards, there are plenty here with small minds who feel that anyone who employs privacy headers are trolls - even if they never troll. Nonetheless, the topic in this thread is how to enable anyone with an iOS device to easily slide files back and forth between iOS and Windows without installing anything on Windows. This is the current summary of tests of the helpful suggestions to date. NO ADDITIONAL (NON-NATIVE) SOFTWARE REQUIRED ON THE DESKTOP: 1. USB (seamless both ways on Windows, seamless one way on Linux) 2. FTP server (seamless both ways on Windows & Linux) 3. HTTP server (seamless both ways on Windows & Linux) 4. Bluetooth (this would work but I don't have BT or WiFi on my desktop) 5. SMB server (probably works - need to explore smb:// URIs on Win/Linux) 6. SMB client (works both ways on Windows - but it requires Samba on Linux) 7. App server (works both ways, e.g., VLC, perhaps it's just using http) REQUIRES additional (non-native) software on the desktop: 8. Apple-services (e.g., iMazing, can't possibly work in the real world) The stumbling block at the moment is SMB syntax, so if anyone here has a good way to test SMB on a single Windows desktop, that would be useful for all to try. |
#55
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On Thu, 15 Mar 2018 02:33:53 +0000 (UTC), ultred ragnusen
wrote: Never is an app worth paying for. Never. The reason is that there is always more than one way to skin a cat. Nonsense. And why did you contradict yourself in another message a few minutes later, saying "I buy TurboTax every year because I have never found a free solution that works"? |
#56
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On 15/03/2018 02:37:10, ultred ragnusen wrote:
mick wrote: The free iOS MS Office is just readers, which is what they always were. PPT: http://i.cubeupload.com/F6TX2D.jpg DOC: http://i.cubeupload.com/ggcSBX.jpg XLS: http://i.cubeupload.com/ubMHjc.jpg So I deleted all three apps, as they're no better than having nothing since the Apple no-name tool reads them all too. Sorry, they do indeed need a subscription to be fully operational, which I had forgotten. No problem. I'm too old to be fooled because I have experience. I didn't believe that MS Office actually worked on iOS for free anyway. But since you said it did, I tried it out. But it's no different now than it was the day it came out. No worries. I'm concentrating now on figuring out how to test SMB working on Windows because it almost seems as if the Windows SMB server stopped working. Well, perhaps we both got it slightly wrong with the Office apps. When creating a new file in Excel or Word on the iPad, then no, you cannot save it to windows unless you have an Office subscription. BUT You can load a file on the iPad from windows, work on it, and any changes will be saved to the file that resides on windows. -- mick |
#57
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
mick wrote:
Well, perhaps we both got it slightly wrong with the Office apps. When creating a new file in Excel or Word on the iPad, then no, you cannot save it to windows unless you have an Office subscription. BUT You can load a file on the iPad from windows, work on it, and any changes will be saved to the file that resides on windows. Hi Mick, Wow. I didn't realize that. I didn't test that out as I'm working on the SMB stuff, so we can take up what the free Office apps allow to write to at a future date. I have been successful getting Linux SMB set up which simply entailed setting up Samba, which worked, almost, the first time, where I easily copied a file from Linux over to the SMB server inside of WiFi HD. https://cubeupload.com/im/CiV2ox.jpg The Linux setup, as you can imagine, took a little getting used to: http://i.cubeupload.com/eWxdCE.jpg After I set up an SMB server (aka Samba) & client (aka smbclient) on Linux, the File Explorer app you recommended, which is an SMB client, can "see" the Linux smb shares too. http://i.cubeupload.com/H6ztFQ.jpg I also tried the "rmanager" smb client on iOS, which could also see the Linux SMB shares. http://i.cubeupload.com/kkcpp6.jpg I think most of my issues with SMB are purely setup related, since I have never dealt with SMB before. For example, on Linux, I tried to mount the iOS SMB share, but failed. mkdir ~/mount sudo mount //192.168.1.7/share ~/mount -o username=x,password=x mount error(95): Operation not supported Refer to the mount.cifs(8) manual page (e.g. man mount.cifs) sudo mount -t cifs //192.168.1.7/ ~/mount/ -o rw sudo mount -t cifs -o username=x,password=x //192.168.1.7/Documents ~/mount sudo umount ~/mount So one question is, given the known SMB share of: smb://192.167.1.7/Documents Since anyone would want to mount the SMB shares on Windows too, I wonder if anyone here knows how to mount SMB shares on Windows (or Linux)? |
#58
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
Ken Blake wrote:
Nonsense. And why did you contradict yourself in another message a few minutes later, saying "I buy TurboTax every year because I have never found a free solution that works"? Hi Ken, Your point is fair enough that I buy what I need to buy, such as Pinnacle Stuidos on Windows, or TurbuTax, or Microsoft Office (if I can get it at a huge discount), or Adobe Acrobat Writer (which was useful around version 4, 5, and 6, but then its usefulness tailed off as newer solutions arose). If I think really hard, those situations above are the only times I've needed to use not-freeware to solve perhaps many hundreds and most likely thousands of problems over the past few decades working with both personal computers and, in the past decade, on mobile devices. So, you are correct that in 1 out of a few thousand situations, you'll need to purchase the payware to perform aq function that isn't available in freeware. That's clearly not "never"; it's more likely 'rarely'. As a test of that statement, what functionity do you buy that you think doesn't exist in freeware on Windows? |
#59
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
On Thu, 15 Mar 2018 21:08:55 +0000 (UTC), Uultred ragnusen
wrote: Ken Blake wrote: Nonsense. And why did you contradict yourself in another message a few minutes later, saying "I buy TurboTax every year because I have never found a free solution that works"? Hi Ken, Your point is fair enough that I buy what I need to buy, such as Pinnacle Stuidos on Windows, or TurbuTax, or Microsoft Office (if I can get it at a huge discount), or Adobe Acrobat Writer (which was useful around version 4, 5, and 6, but then its usefulness tailed off as newer solutions arose). If I think really hard, those situations above are the only times I've needed to use not-freeware to solve perhaps many hundreds and most likely thousands of problems over the past few decades working with both personal computers and, in the past decade, on mobile devices. So, you are correct that in 1 out of a few thousand situations, you'll need to purchase the payware to perform aq function that isn't available in freeware. That's clearly not "never"; it's more likely 'rarely'. As a test of that statement, what functionity do you buy that you think doesn't exist in freeware on Windows? It's not a matter of functionality not existing. No two pieces of software that essentially do the same thing do it in exactly the same way. They are all different. Sometimes the differences are small; sometimes they are greater. Sometimes the differences don't matter to me (or to you); sometimes they do. Sometimes the difference are in features that I (or you) use a lot; sometimes they are features that I (or you never) use. And so on. So for those reasons, any of us can prefer one piece of software to another competing one. And we don't all have the same preferences. To take an example, I prefer FireFox to other browsers; I know many other people who prefer Chrome, which I don't like at all; I even know a few people who like Edge. Yes, with browsers, which are all (almost all?) free, it's not a matter of freeware vs payware, but it doesn't matter; my point remains: there is still lots of room for people to have different preferences, even though they essentially all do the same thing: load web pages. But if you want another example, I greatly prefer WordPerfect to all other word processors (including Microsoft Word, which is most people's preference). They are other word processors available, including several which are free. And despite all word processors essentially doing the same thing, the differences are enough that what's liked by one person isn't necessarily liked by everyone. I'm glad you admit that "Never is an app worth paying for" was an incorrect statement, but I don't even agree with you that "rarely" is correct. I agree that it often isn't (at least to me, but not necessarily to everybody), but it is often enough that even "rarely" isn't a good word to use. And *most* important, how often an application is worth paying for depends on *who* it is that wants to make a choice of applications. You (and many others) might not think that Program A is worth paying for and B is just good; I (and many others) might think that for my needs, A is much better than B and is well worth paying for. Because programs, even programs doing the same thing, vary so greatly, and because we all work in different ways, we all have different tastes. |
#60
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Do you have an iOS device? How to get it to xfer screenshots to Windows 10 easily without that iTunes abomination?
Ken Blake wrote:
It's not a matter of functionality not existing. No two pieces of software that essentially do the same thing do it in exactly the same way. Yup. I used to sell to the government, where they asked me to give them a list of things, however minor, that our software did that the competitor didn't do - and then - they wrote /that/ list into the bid contract. Trust me - the competitor's product was essentially the same functionality as ours - but they weren't /exactly/ alike. It's the difference between pork bellies, and two specific pork bellies. They are all different. Yup. Windows is the same as Linux which is the same as Mac at what they /do/ overall - but each one is different. Android is the same as iOS at what they do (e.g., they both make phone calls) - but each one is different. Hispanics are the same as Italics are the same as Germanics, but they have a category on government forms for Hispanics but not for the other Caucasians who are no different. I've heard that there are differences in everything, and even two snowflakes are different at some level. Two pieces of granite are different at some level. Two #2 Phillips screwdrivers are different at some level. Two #2 pencils are different at some level. Two cups of coffee are different at some level. Two 100Watt light bulbs are different at some level. Two tablets of penicillin are different at some level. I've heard this a thousand times from people who don't want to think. IMHO, anyone who says that things are so different that you can't lump them together in some sort of sensible category is definitely not an engineer, scientist, nor an organized thinker. Sometimes the differences are small; sometimes they are greater. Yup. Some #2 pencils are softer or harder than other #2 pencils. You make a statement that nobody could disagree with, so I won't. Sometimes the differences don't matter to me (or to you); sometimes they do. Yup. Some pebbles of granite are different than other pebbles of granite. Maybe it matters to you; maybe it doesn't. Sometimes the difference are in features that I (or you) use a lot; sometimes they are features that I (or you never) use. And so on. Yup. Some watches tell time in diamond studs; others use painted letters. So for those reasons, any of us can prefer one piece of software to another competing one. Yup. Some puppies have blue eyes, while others have green eyes. And we don't all have the same preferences. Yup. Some of us married blondes, while others married brunettes, and others still married black-haird women. To take an example, I prefer FireFox to other browsers; I know many other people who prefer Chrome, which I don't like at all; I even know a few people who like Edge. Yup. I have all the browsers. I must have 20 of them. I use each one for a single web site. I don't care what they are for the most part, but some do vpn, and others don't while some require background services while others don't - and yet - they all browse the web. Yes, with browsers, which are all (almost all?) free, it's not a matter of freeware vs payware, but it doesn't matter; my point remains: there is still lots of room for people to have different preferences, even though they essentially all do the same thing: load web pages. We agree. What does WinZip do that 7Zip doesn't do that matters? There's no way I'm ever going to disagree since I've been down this track a thousand times - where there are always people who want to tell me that one cigarette is different than another or that one ear of corn is different than another. Technically, they're always right - so I'm not going to argue with you that one apple is different than another apple. But if you want another example, I greatly prefer WordPerfect to all other word processors (including Microsoft Word, which is most people's preference). Yup. Microsoft Office is to Libre Office as one pork belly is to another. They are other word processors available, including several which are free. And despite all word processors essentially doing the same thing, the differences are enough that what's liked by one person isn't necessarily liked by everyone. Yup. Cara Cara oranges are different than Navel Oranges. Who can disagree with any of your premises? Not me. I'm glad you admit that "Never is an app worth paying for" was an incorrect statement, but I don't even agree with you that "rarely" is correct. Here's the first place we can meaningfully agree in that I'm old. Very old. Really really really old. I've installed, oh, I don't know, thousands of software in my time. I've solved thousands of problems, and maybe even tens of thousands of software problems in my day, and in doing so, rarely have I needed to purchase software for home use. (Business is different as the environment is completely different.) I agree that it often isn't (at least to me, but not necessarily to everybody), but it is often enough that even "rarely" isn't a good word to use. We can disagree on this one since, for me, it's rare that I can't find a freeware program to do what I want it to do, whether that's drawing curved arrows or an SMB server or an FTP client or a screenshot command or a personal calendar or a MUA or a Usenet client or a compression program, or whatever. And *most* important, how often an application is worth paying for depends on *who* it is that wants to make a choice of applications. You (and many others) might not think that Program A is worth paying for and B is just good; I (and many others) might think that for my needs, A is much better than B and is well worth paying for. Because programs, even programs doing the same thing, vary so greatly, and because we all work in different ways, we all have different tastes. I have a little story to tell that agrees with what you say, where I have a relative who is always buying software. She bought, for example, a CD/DVD burner package, which, to me, is crazy given that ImgBurn exists. She bought a screenshot program, where I can't imagine why anyone couldn't work with the free stuff. She even pays when the free stuff on a new computer expires, which, well, which I think is crazy, but, it's what people do. Hence, I can't disagree with anything you've said except in terms of degrees, where everyone puts different weights on everything we're talking about. |
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