#site selection software

[mapzot98]

Choose Prime Locations for Grocery Stores: Ultimate Site Selection Software

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For more information:- https://www.mapzot.ai/grocery-store 

[healthylifewithus]

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[welcometoqueer]

I haven’t really seen any of the more recent U.S. election news hitting tumblr yet so here’s some updates (now edited with sources added):

There’s evidence of Trump cheating and interfering with the election.

Possible Russian interference.

Mail-in ballots are not being counted or “recognized” in multiple (notably swing) states.

30+ bomb threats were called in and shut down polling stations on Election Day.

20+ million votes are still unaccounted for, and that’s just to have the same voter turnout as 2020.

There was record voter turnout and new/first-time voter registration this year. We definitely should be well over the turnout in 2020.

U.S. citizens are using this site to demand, not only a recount, but a complete investigation into election fraud and interference for the reasons stated above:

Here is what I submitted as an example:

An investigation for election interference and fraud is required. We desperately need a recount or even a revote. The American people deserve the right to a free and fair election. There has been evidence unveiled of Trump cheating and committing election fraud which is illegal. There is some evidence of possible Russian interference. At least 30+ bomb threats were called in to polling places. Multiple, notably swing states, have ballots unaccounted for and voting machines not registering votes. Ballots and ballot boxes were tampered with and burned. Over 20 million votes that we know of are unaccounted for. With record turnout and new voter registration this year, there should be no possibility that there are less votes than even in the 2020 election.

Sources (working on finding more links but if anyone wants to add info, it’s appreciated):

FBI addressing Russian interference and bomb threats:

Emails released by Rachael Bellis (private account, can’t share original tweet) confirming Trump committing election fraud:

Pennsylvania's Centre County officials say they are working with their ballot scanner vendor to figure out why the county's mail-in ballot data is "not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software:”

Wisconsin recount:

[ID:

Multiple screenshots and images.

The first is a screenshot with a link and information for contacting the White House directly regarding election fraud. The instructions include choosing to leave a comment to President Joe Biden directly and to select election security as the reason.

The screenshot then instructs people to include any or all of the following information in a paragraph as a comment to the president:

32 fake bomb threats were called into Democratic leaning poll places, rendering polling places closed for at least an hour.

A lot of people reporting their ballots were not counted for various reasons.

This all occurred in swing states.

This is too coincidental that these things happen and swing in his favor after months of hinting at foul play.

Directly state that an investigation for tampering, interference, fraud is required, not just a recount.

The second image is from the FBI Twitter account that reads:

The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far. https://t.co/j3YfajVK1m — FBI (@FBI) November 5, 2024

The next four Gmail screenshots of an email sent to Rachael Bellis from Chris T. Spackman that read together as follows:

Dear BELLIS, RACHAEL E., The Dauphin County Board of Elections received a challenge to your absentee ballot you applied for in the November 5, 2024 General Election. The challenge argues that a provision of the Pennsylvania Election Code takes precedence over the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which requires states and counties to permit U.S. citizens who move overseas to vote by absentee ballot for federal offices based on their last U.S. residential address.

The full text of the challenge that was filed appears below this email.

You may respond to the challenge in any of the following ways:

1. Call the Bureau of Registration and Election at (717) 780-6360;

2. Email a statement to the Bureau at Election election@dauphincounty.gov. Any statement you submit regarding the period during which you lived in Dauphin County, any family or connections that you still have here, and why you are now residing abroad would be read into the record.

3. Appear in person at a Board of Elections hearing scheduled for Friday, November 8 at a time to be determined in the Commissioners Public Hearing Room, 4th floor of Dauphin County Administration Building, 2 S 20d St, Harrisburg, PA 17111. The meeting is also likely to be livestreamed on Facebook on the Dauphin County channel.

Sincerely,

Christopher T Spackman

TEXT OF CHALLENGE BEGINS

Dear Dauphin County Board of Elections,

I am submitting this challenge to an absentee ballot application pursuant to 25 Pa. Stat.

3146.8(f).

25 Pa. Stat. 3146.8(f) Any person challenging an application for an absentee ballot, an absentee ballot, an application for a mail-in ballot or a mail-in ballot for any of the reasons provided in this act shall deposit the sum of ten dollars ($10.00) in cash with the county board, which sum shall only be refunded if the challenge is sustained or if the challenge is withdrawn within five (5) days after the primary or election. If the challenge is dismissed by any lawful order then the deposit shall be forfeited. The county board shall deposit all deposit money in the general fund of the…

The rest of the forwarded email is cut off.

The last image is a screenshot of the official statement from the Centre County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners released on November 6, 2024 that states:

Centre County Working with Ballot Scanner Vendor to Export Election Results.

(Bellefonte, PA) -Centre County Elections Office is working continuously to provide mail-in ballot data in order to post unofficial results.

To this point, all ballots have been scanned, including all mail-in ballots.

Centre County's Election team and IT team have identified that the data are successfully being exported from the mail-in ballot scanners, but that the data is not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software.

Centre County's Administrator, John Franek, Jr. stated, "We have not stopped working, and we will continue to work until unofficial results are posted and reported to the Pennsylvania Department of State."

As a next step, Centre County has begun working with the equipment vendor to adjust configurations to make the two systems-the mail-in ballot scanner and the elections software where data are uploaded -compatible with one another.

We will provide updates as we make progress.

/end ID]

[cyberswift-story]

GIS-Based Solutions for Efficient Telecom Network Management

The telecom industry is undergoing rapid transformation, driven by the increasing demand for seamless connectivity, efficient network management, and improved customer experience. As networks become more complex, the need for innovative solutions to manage these networks has never been greater. Geographic Information System (GIS)-based solutions have emerged as a game-changer in the telecom sector, offering a robust platform for managing, analyzing, and visualizing network data. This blog explores how GIS-based solutions can revolutionize telecom network management, ensuring efficiency and reliability.

Learn more at https://www.cyberswift.com/blog/telecom-utility-solution-a-brief-overview/

[thegalleonsnest]

OK since I haven't seen too many people talk about this since twitter news usually strikes pretty fast over here whenever e'usk does anything ever, let me give ya'll the run down on two things that will go live on NOVEMBER 15TH and why people are mass migrating to Blue Sky once more; and provide resources to help protect your art and make the transition to Blue Sky easier if you so choose:

The Block function no longer blocks people as intended. It now basically acts as a glorified Mute button. Even when you block someone, they can still see your posts, but they can't engage in them. If your account is a Public one and not a Private one, people you blocked will see your posts.

They say because people can easily "share and hide harmful or private information about those they've blocked," they changed it this way for "greater transparency." When in reality, this is an extremely dangerous change, as the whole point of blocking is to cease interaction with people entirely for a plethora of reasons, i.e. stalking, harassment, spam, endangerment, or just plainly annoying and not wanting to see said tweets/accounts. or you know, for 18+ accounts who do not want minors interacting with them or their material at all (There is speculation saying these changes are specifically for Elon himself so he can do his own kind of stalking, and honestly, with the private likes change, it lowkey checks out in my opinion)

Also, this straight up goes against and may violate Apple and Google's app store policies and also is straight up illegal in Canada and probably other countries as well.

If this ACTUALLY goes through, twitter will only be available in select countries, probably exclusively in the US, which would collapse the site with the lost of users and stock, and probably be the last push it needs to kill the site. And if not, will be a very sad and exclusive platform made for specific kinds of people who line up with musk's line of thinking.

2. New policies regarding Grok AI and basically removing the option to opt out of Grok's information gathering to improve their software.

And anything you upload/post on the site is considered "fair game" with "royalty-free licenses" and they can do whatever they please with it. Primarily using any and all posts on twitter to train their Grok AI. A few months ago, there was a setting you can opt out of so they couldn't take anything you post to "improve" Grok, but I guess because so many people were opting out, they decided to make it mandatory as part of the policy change (This is mainly speculation from what I hear).

So this is considered the final straw for a LOT of people, especially artists who have been gripping on to twitter for as long as they can, but the AI nonsense is too much for people now, including myself. Lot's of people are moving to Blue Sky for good reason, and from personal experience, it is literally 10x better than twitter ever was, even before elon took over. There is no algorithm on there, and you can save "feeds" to your timeline to have a catered timelines to hop between if your looking for something specific like furry art or game dev stuff. It's taken them a bit to get off the ground and add much needed features, but it's genuinely so much better now

RESOURCES

Project Glaze & Cara

If you're an artist who's still on twitter or trying to ride it out for as long as you can for whatever reason you have, do yourself a favor and Glaze and/or Nightshade your work. Project Glaze is a free program designed to protect your art work from getting scrapped by AI machines. Glazing basically makes it harder to adapt and copy artwork that AI programs try to scan, while Nightshade basically "poisons" works to make AI libraries much more unstable and generate images completely off the mark. (These are layman's terms I'm using here, but follow the link to get more information)

The only problem with these programs is that they can be resource intensive for computers, and not every pc can run glaze. It's basically like rendering a frame/animation, you gotta let your pc sit there to get it glazed/nightshade, and depending on the intensity and power of your pc, this may take minutes to hours depending on how much you wanna protect your work.

HOWEVER, there are two alternatives, WebGlaze and Cara

WebGlaze is an in browser version of the program, so your pc doesn't have to do the heavy lifting. You do need to have an account with Glaze and be invited to use the program (I have not done so personally so I don't know much about the process.)

Cara is an artist focused site that doubles as both a portfolio site and a general social media platform. They've partnered with Glaze and have their own browser glazing called "Cara Glaze," and highly encourage users to post their work Glazed and are extremely anti-ai. You do get limited uses per day to glaze your work, so if you plan on doing a huge backlog uploading of your art, it may take awhile if your using just Cara Glaze.

Some twitter users have suggested glazing your art, cropping it, and overlaying it with a frame telling people to follow them elsewhere like on Bluesky. Here's a template someone provided if you wanna use this one or make your own.

Blue Sky Resources and Tips

So if your a twitter user and your about to realize the hellish task of refollowing a massive chunk of people you follow, have no fear, there's an extension called Sky Follower Bridge (Firefox & Chrome links). This is a very basic extension that makes it really easy to find people on Bluesky

It sorts them out by trying to find matching usernames, usernames in descriptions, or by screen name. It's not 100% perfect, there's a couple people I already follow on Blue Sky but the extension could not find them on twitter correctly, but I still found a huge chunk of people. Also if your worried that this extension is "iffy," they do have a github open with the source publicly available and the Blue Sky Team themselves have promoted the extension in their recent posts while welcoming new users to the platform.

FEEDS and LABELS

OK SO THE COOLEST PART ABOUT BLUESKY IS THE FEEDS SYSTEM. Basically if you've made a twitter list before, it's like that, but way more customizable and caters to specific types of posts/topics. Consolidating them into a timeline/feed that exclusively filled about those particular topics, or just people in general. There's thousands to pick and choose from!

Here's a couple of mine that I have saved and ready (down below). Some feeds I have saved so I can jump to seeing what my friends and mutuals are up to, and see their posts specifically so it doesn't get lost in reposts or other accounts, and also specialized feeds for browsing artists within the furry community.

The Furry Community feeds I have here were created by people who've built an algorithm to place any #furry or #furryart or other special tags like #Furrystreamer or #furrydev. They even have one for commissions, and yes you can say commissions on a post and not have it destroyed or shadow banned. You are safe.

If you want, and I highly recommend it to get visibility and check out a neat community, follow furryli.st to get added to their list and feeds. Once your on the list, even without a hashtag, you'll still pop up in their specialized feeds as just a member of the community there. There are plenty of other feeds out there besides this one, but I feel like a lot of people could use one like this. They even got ones for OC specific too I remember seeing somewhere.

And in terms of labels, they can be either ways to help label yourself with specific things or have user created accessibility settings to help better control your experience on Blue Sky.

And my personal favorite: Ai Imagery Labeler. Removes any AI stuff or hides it to the best of it's abilities, and it does a pretty good job, I have not seen anything AI related since subscribing to it.

Finally, HASHTAGS WORK & No need to censor yourself!

This is NOT like twitter or any other big named social media site AT ALL, so you don't have to work around words to get your stuff out there and be seen. There are literally feeds built around having commissions getting and art seen! Some people worry about bots and that has been a recent issue since a lot of people are migrating to Blue Sky, but it comes with any social media territory.

ALSO COOL PART,

you can search a hashtag on someone's profile and search exclusively on that profile as well! You can even put the hashtag in bio for easy access if you have a specialize tag like here on tumblr. OR EVEN BUILD YOUR OWN ART FEED FOR YOUR STUFF SPECIFICALLY!

So yeah, there's your quick run down about twitter's current burning building, how to protect your art, and what to do when you move to Blue Sky! Have fun!

[simmers-against-curseforge]

About Sims 4 Mod Manager

It came to my attention a few days ago that a popular program used for sorting custom content, Sims 4 Mod Manager, is based on Overwolf software. The issue with this is that ad placements on Overwolf programs give a 20-30% cut to Overwolf directly. As stated on their website. I know it is an Overwolf program because you can find Overwolf files within it:

Personally, I do not mind un-obstructive ads on free programs as long as they are vetted by the developer, but I do not want to give Overwolf any money. So I will be kindly contacting the developer via the contacts on his website and ask he divest and use a different avenue with the ads. Maybe moving to github instead. He is also recently released a curseforge integrated app.

If you are to request the divestment, please please do so with respect as to invite people INTO the conversation and not put them in a defensive position. No one likes to listen when they are being threatened or harassed. 🤷‍♀️

I know many will be disappointed with this news as it is a great, one of a kind program, so I wanted to offer some alternative methods besides manually sorting custom content:

Sims 4 Mod Assistant: A small app used to find duplicates and mod conflicts. Also supports filtering and moving files to other folders. Available on Mod the Sims and Github.

S4Pavir: It's not that pretty, but it can be used to view, remove, and sort cc. Available on Github.

You can also use sims tray importer to sort through cc. Dress your sims in all the cc you want to remove or place build/buy items on a lot. Save the sim/lot to your library and use Sims 4 tray importer to view the list of cc used, and open its file location to delete. Available on Luniversims (.fr)

Sims 4 Studio can also be used to view, edit, and delete cc. Available here.

Let me know of any other methods you know or notify me if there are any issues with these two programs.

Hopefully there is a positive outcome with reaching out to the creator. Please be respectful and you can use my pinned post as a reference for why curseforge is a problem. 🙏

Edit:

Update on Sims 4 Mod Manager

After going through the older versions of Sims 4 mod manager I have found out that Version 1.0.9 Beta (Windows 10, 11 for me) does not have Curseforge ads. I think this is suitable option to use the mod manager without giving direct ad revenue to Overwolf/Curseforge.

When you go to the Sims 4 Mod Manager site, click other versions and scroll until you find this version. It does not have all the current features, but it works. You can uninstall your current version by searching the app in your start menu (Windows), right click and select 'uninstall', and click 'uninstall' again once you find it in the list that comes up.

(I do not have Mac, so I do not know if the later version 1.1.3 Beta, will also not have ads. If you download it please let me know.) I will update my original S4MM post with this info and also put it in a reblog so hopefully everyone can see this.)

It doesn't have the sort to subfolders option, but my way around that is to sort cc into a "moving folder" and then open your regular file explorer and cut and paste those items to your sub-folder manually. Easy peasy!

[jess-total-mess]

I went digging through youtube, old posts, and shitty websites, along with my memories, and here you go! Hopefully these are accurate.

2013 — Unoffical Tumblr event “Mishapocalypse” happened, an online flash mob event wherein which Tumblrinas change their profile pictures to a specific picture of Misha Collins of Supernatural fame.

2014 — Users were given the option to get Tumblr Pro for free, and those who accepted were given top hats on their icons. Prompty after this, @staff announced that “Everyone with a top hat is now marked for account deletion. This is the only way we could destroy this horrible website. Happy April Fools day.”

2015 — The “Executive Suite 2016 Productivity Edition” essentially changed Tumblr into office software, allowing spreadsheets for memes, calculators that gave incorrect answers, and Coppy. Who gave “helpful tips”.

2016 — Tumblr voted to select the “new lizard king”, from Rick, Debrah, Mop and Wretched Tooth. However, more famously, an edited @staff post reads “for april fools we’re deleting this entire site sayonara you weeaboo shits”.

2017 — The Tumblr Horse Game was a feature that, when clicked, took users to a game wherein you had to collect shit from a pixelated horse. If you failed to do so, the horse died.

2018 — The answer to Bitcoin, is Tumblcoin! A parody of crytocurency.

2019 — Tumblr Memories, in which Tumbeasts were set loose. Remember them? The mascot from 2011, for service interruption announcements.

2020 — There was seemingly no prank this year. This was COVID-19.

2021 — Tumblr released “non-fungible tumblcryptids”, a parody of NFTs. There was a supposedly limited amount of them.

2022 — A light switch, when activated, would open up a variety of colourful things on the desktop dashboard, including a “Summon Crab!” button, which would summon a crab when activated. Other buttons made different sounds.

2023 — A feature similar to the Discord reaction function was temporarily added, using basic emojis.

2024 — Every user was given the option to opt-in to the boop o meter, and could boop, super boop, and evil boop other users who also opted in, earning up to three badges by doing so.

[santaeofficial]

cj your behavior is completely and totally unacceptable and you genuinely need to quit santae and get some help

Well I hate to break it to you Santae is the game I created. I’ve also loved every session with my therapist. I just refuse to allow a select few make me think differently about my creation, 15 years of work. I’m sorry you think opposite but we aren’t a corporation I’m a real person. You respond in a way that is beyond hurtful and expect no response and silence. I’m not going to be run off from my game. Please don’t forget I created Santae for myself to play away from every other site that had not so nice folks on there. I’ve allowed yall to take away my ability to just hang out with the community I built, randomly gift members, help during events playing the game when I’ve done it since day one and was never an issue till the ones with constant accusations or something we didn’t do right. Now, I’m to the point of you can do it better and faster I challenge you to do just that. I can also say 3 staff members have seen everything I’ve had planned out for years for Santae before AI and it’s more than you could ever imagine.

How could you say quit the game I built, my childhood dream, I busted my ass to earn as much money as I could and I funneled every single bit into Santae. Long before I could find the first person interested in helping with backend or frontend let alone content. You all see Santae how it has been since alpha. You weren’t there for over a year working on Santae uploading, configuring, developing features for Santae. I worked 12 - 24 hour shifts while doing Santae at the same time.

Who could run Santae, who knows the story, assets, plots, future pets and colors, NPCs, rpg aspect, Birthsigns? Sure I have it all written down. But it’s easier to say that and have no genuine reason other then some hate blog you picked some negative energy up on at, to be rude or disrespectful. I sincerely hope nobody ever wishes you quit your dreams.

But I refuse to allow anyone to bully me anymore, member, non-member, irl, This is my game and I deserve to enjoy it too. I promise you, you’d feel the same.

I’ve proved I wasn’t lying, I was called unprofessional but before that I was a liar about that something I knew I wasn’t and nobody believed me when I never gave anyone a reason not to and people quit playing hurting the game even more! I came forward with AB utilizing ai software to make a mash up board like she did when finding images on google. You can see this in a screenshot. I’ve asked them to respond publicly they refuse, their only statement was the one I shared how it’s not their fault if nobody believes me they are 100% drawn.

Again, please know I’m a real person, with emotions and work on something for 15 years and you do your absolute best and it always feels like you’ve falling short sometime or another.

There is so much negativity or this needs redone or you did this wrong. Or like today the complete incorrect item being blasted by multiple people so I showed screenshots from The last 3 variations, it’s overwhelming. We only have one programmer, and I’m not going to speak ill of them or any staff

[doritoz888]

Software for making y2k site banners and stuff

there's a software where you can just make buttons and banners and everything else for a NeoCities site or whatever it's here: https://archive.org/details/tucows_194830_AMI_GIF_Construction_Set_Pro when installing it, just select the shareware option in the menu

stuff i made with it

[mapzot98]

Elevate Your Gym's Success: The Ultimate Fitness and Gyms Site Selection Software

Secure the optimal location for your gym with innovative fitness and gyms site selection software. This advanced software provides detailed market analytics, customer demographic insights, and competitor evaluations to help you make the best decision for your fitness center. By leveraging advanced tools, you can identify high-potential areas and underserved markets, ensuring a strategic advantage in a competitive industry.

Ready to revolutionize your site selection process? Discover and choose the best site for your gym! Visit :- https://www.mapzot.ai/fitness-and-gyms 

[thereoncewasagirlnamedjane]

⋆⪩⪨˚ CALL SIGN: Jane “Janie” ▇▇

⋆⪩⪨˚ PROFILE: Twenty-six, she/her, East Asian DOB: 29/11/1998, Sagittarius ♐️

⋆⪩⪨˚ WRITES FOR: Select characters from the MCU Select Chris Evans characters Select Aaron Taylor-Johnson characters Select Lewis Pullman characters Follow @ficsbyjane for notifications

⋆⪩⪨˚ NOTES: I do not write 18+ content, nor do I ever write RPF. However, I will block blank/ageless blogs/minors for my own peace of mind.

⋆⪩⪨˚ LINKS: AO3 | CREATIVE CAMPAIGN

「 JAMES “BUCKY” BARNES 」

「 STEVEN G. ROGERS 」

「 CEVANS CHARACTERS 」

「 ATJOHNSON CHARACTERS 」

「 LPULLMAN CHARACTERS 」

「 BILLY RUSSO 」

「 JOAQUÍN TORRES 」

© 2024-2025 by thereoncewasagirlnamedjane. Do not repost, translate, or copy to third party sites. No part of this work may be fed into any AI software or websites. Minors are asked not to interact with my blog; you are responsible for your own media consumption. Blank/ageless blogs will be blocked.

[lazeecomet]

The Story of KLogs: What happens when an Mechanical Engineer codes

Since i no longer work at Wearhouse Automation Startup (WAS for short) and havnt for many years i feel as though i should recount the tale of the most bonkers program i ever wrote, but we need to establish some background

WAS has its HQ very far away from the big customer site and i worked as a Field Service Engineer (FSE) on site. so i learned early on that if a problem needed to be solved fast, WE had to do it. we never got many updates on what was coming down the pipeline for us or what issues were being worked on. this made us very independent

As such, we got good at reading the robot logs ourselves. it took too much time to send the logs off to HQ for analysis and get back what the problem was. we can read. now GETTING the logs is another thing.

the early robots we cut our teeth on used 2.4 gHz wifi to communicate with FSE's so dumping the logs was as simple as pushing a button in a little application and it would spit out a txt file

later on our robots were upgraded to use a 2.4 mHz xbee radio to communicate with us. which was FUCKING SLOW. and log dumping became a much more tedious process. you had to connect, go to logging mode, and then the robot would vomit all the logs in the past 2 min OR the entirety of its memory bank (only 2 options) into a terminal window. you would then save the terminal window and open it in a text editor to read them. it could take up to 5 min to dump the entire log file and if you didnt dump fast enough, the ACK messages from the control server would fill up the logs and erase the error as the memory overwrote itself.

this missing logs problem was a Big Deal for software who now weren't getting every log from every error so a NEW method of saving logs was devised: the robot would just vomit the log data in real time over a DIFFERENT radio and we would save it to a KQL server. Thanks Daddy Microsoft.

now whats KQL you may be asking. why, its Microsofts very own SQL clone! its Kusto Query Language. never mind that the system uses a SQL database for daily operations. lets use this proprietary Microsoft thing because they are paying us

so yay, problem solved. we now never miss the logs. so how do we read them if they are split up line by line in a database? why with a query of course!

select * from tbLogs where RobotUID = [64CharLongString] and timestamp > [UnixTimeCode]

if this makes no sense to you, CONGRATULATIONS! you found the problem with this setup. Most FSE's were BAD at SQL which meant they didnt read logs anymore. If you do understand what the query is, CONGRATULATIONS! you see why this is Very Stupid.

You could not search by robot name. each robot had some arbitrarily assigned 64 character long string as an identifier and the timestamps were not set to local time. so you had run a lookup query to find the right name and do some time zone math to figure out what part of the logs to read. oh yeah and you had to download KQL to view them. so now we had both SQL and KQL on our computers

NOBODY in the field like this.

But Daddy Microsoft comes to the rescue

see we didnt JUST get KQL with part of that deal. we got the entire Microsoft cloud suite. and some people (like me) had been automating emails and stuff with Power Automate

This is Microsoft Power Automate. its Microsoft's version of Scratch but it has hooks into everything Microsoft. SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Excel, it can integrate with all of it. i had been using it to send an email once a day with a list of all the robots in maintenance.

this gave me an idea

and i checked

and Power Automate had hooks for KQL

KLogs is actually short for Kusto Logs

I did not know how to program in Power Automate but damn it anything is better then writing KQL queries. so i got to work. and about 2 months later i had a BEHEMOTH of a Power Automate program. it lagged the webpage and many times when i tried to edit something my changes wouldn't take and i would have to click in very specific ways to ensure none of my variables were getting nuked. i dont think this was the intended purpose of Power Automate but this is what it did

the KLogger would watch a list of Teams chats and when someone typed "klogs" or pasted a copy of an ERROR mesage, it would spring into action.

it extracted the robot name from the message and timestamp from teams

it would lookup the name in the database to find the 64 long string UID and the location that robot was assigned too

it would reply to the message in teams saying it found a robot name and was getting logs

it would run a KQL query for the database and get the control system logs then export then into a CSV

it would save the CSV with the a .xls extension into a folder in ShairPoint (it would make a new folder for each day and location if it didnt have one already)

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a LINK to the file in SharePoint

it would then enter a loop and scour the robot logs looking for the keyword ESTOP to find the error. (it did this because Kusto was SLOWER then the xbee radio and had up to a 10 min delay on syncing)

if it found the error, it would adjust its start and end timestamps to capture it and export the robot logs book-ended from the event by ~ 1 min. if it didnt, it would use the timestamp from when it was triggered +/- 5 min

it saved THOSE logs to SharePoint the same way as before

it would send ANOTHER message in teams with a link to the files

it would then check if the error was 1 of 3 very specific type of error with the camera. if it was it extracted the base64 jpg image saved in KQL as a byte array, do the math to convert it, and save that as a jpg in SharePoint (and link it of course)

and then it would terminate. and if it encountered an error anywhere in all of this, i had logic where it would spit back an error message in Teams as plaintext explaining what step failed and the program would close gracefully

I deployed it without asking anyone at one of the sites that was struggling. i just pointed it at their chat and turned it on. it had a bit of a rocky start (spammed chat) but man did the FSE's LOVE IT.

about 6 months later software deployed their answer to reading the logs: a webpage that acted as a nice GUI to the KQL database. much better then an CSV file

it still needed you to scroll though a big drop-down of robot names and enter a timestamp, but i noticed something. all that did was just change part of the URL and refresh the webpage

SO I MADE KLOGS 2 AND HAD IT GENERATE THE URL FOR YOU AND REPLY TO YOUR MESSAGE WITH IT. (it also still did the control server and jpg stuff). Theres a non-zero chance that klogs was still in use long after i left that job

now i dont recommend anyone use power automate like this. its clunky and weird. i had to make a variable called "Carrage Return" which was a blank text box that i pressed enter one time in because it was incapable of understanding /n or generating a new line in any capacity OTHER then this (thanks support forum).

im also sure this probably is giving the actual programmer people anxiety. imagine working at a company and then some rando you've never seen but only heard about as "the FSE whos really good at root causing stuff", in a department that does not do any coding, managed to, in their spare time, build and release and entire workflow piggybacking on your work without any oversight, code review, or permission.....and everyone liked it

[vintage-tech]

useful information: How to get a USB Blu-Ray player to work on your computer

Not a post about vintage technology, just an explanation of what you think might be simple to do but isn't: There are Blu-Ray players that plug into your computer by USB, and you discover that just plugging it in doesn't make it work* in the same manner that CD-RWs or DVD-RWs are automatically recognised and function. You will see "BR Drive" in My Computer and the name of whatever movie you have inserted, but that's as far as you're able to go.

*There is software you can buy to make a Blu-Ray (internal or external) function, sure, and if an internal came with your computer it's likely already installed -- but if you're like me you don't have that software, you're cheap and won't pay for software, and you want to use what you have installed already or find free solutions.

Looking in the Blu-Ray drive's package, there's not a lot of info about what you're supposed to do. The above no-name Blu-Ray player cost $40 from a popular website; name-brand ones can set you back $120 or so. Looking around online for those instructions, I never saw the whole set of directions in one place, I had to cobble them together from 2 or 3 sites. And so here I share that list. To keep out of trouble, I'm not linking any files -- Google will help you.

Get VLC, the free video player available for pretty much any operating system. Thing is, it doesn't come with the internals to make it work with Blu-Ray even if when you go to the Play Media menu there is a radio button for selecting Blu-Ray.

Get MakeMKV, a decoder for reading Blu-Ray disks. This had been totally free during the beta testing period but it's come out and has a month or two trial period you can work in.

Get Java if you don't already have it. Reason for this is, the menu systems on Blu-Ray disks uses this... technically it's not required, however it does mean you don't have options such as special features, language and sound changes, or scene selection if you don't have Java installed; insert a disk, it can only play the movie.

Get the file libaacs.dll online so you have AACS decoding. I am told it hasn't been updated in awhile so there may be disks produced after 2013 that won't work right, but you won't know until you try.

There's a set of keys you will also want to have so that the player knows how to work with specific disks, and so do a search online for the "FindVUK Online Database". There will be a regularly-updated keydb.cfg archive file on that page to pick up.

Got those three programs installed and the other two files obtained? Okay, here are your instructions for assembly...

In VLC: go to Tools, Prefs, click "show all"… under the Input/Codecs heading is Access Modules then Blu-Ray: Select your region, A through C. You can change this if you need to for foreign disks. Next related action: go to My Computer and C:, click into Program Files and VLC, and this is where you copy the libaacs.dll file to.

In MakeMKV: click View, then Preferences, and under Integration - add VLC.

Confirm that Java is set up to work with VLC by going to the computer's Control Panel, going to System Properties, and into Environment Variables. Click System Variables, and click New to create this key if it doesn't already exist: … Name: Java … Value: [the location of the Java 'jre#.##' folder... use Browse to find it in C:\Program Files\Java]

Let's go back into My Computer and C:, this time go to Program Data, and then do a right-click in the window and select New and Folder. Rename this folder "aacs" (without the quotes), and then you click into it and copy the keydb.cfg file here.

REBOOT.

And now you should be able to recognise Blu-Ray disks in your player and play them. Three troubleshooting notes to offer in VLC:

"Disk corrupt" -- this means MakeMKV has not decoded and parsed the disk yet, or that you don't have the libaacs.dll in place so that it can decode the disk. ...After checking the VLC folder for the DLL to make sure, launch MakeMKV, then go to File, Play Disk, and select the Blu-Ray drive. Now it will grind a bit and figure out the disk's contents.

A note appears when a movie starts saying there will be no menus, but the movie plays fine -- Java isn't running. ...Invoke Java by going to the Java Settings in Start: Programs. You don't have to change anything here, so Exit, then eject the disk and put it back in to see if the movie's menu now appears.

Buffering between chapters, making the movie pause for a few seconds? There is a setting for this but I need to find that info page again for where that is. (If you find it, tell me where it is!)

I don't claim to know a lot but if you have any questions I might have some answers or suggestions. So far I've watched "Office Space" and Disney's "Coco" without any issues beside occasional buffering.

[lgbtqtext]

Hi!

I know you use Xara 3D Maker to make your posts, but do you know if there are any similar tools a complete beginner could use? Do you know of any apps or websites? Any tips for anyone starting out?

This site is what I use to make glitter text gifs. The only other animation software I can think of is Blender, which I tried but it is actually very hard to learn. There is also cooltext.com where you can make simple animated text, like flaming letters. And there is Make Word Art where you can make still images of text in different fonts and styles.

Honestly, Xara 3D Maker 7 seems intimidating to learn, but it's relatively easy once you know the buttons. There are some tutorials out there, and I will at some point make one for a simple animation and show the basics. I have no experience with animation outside of Xara 3D Maker, it's simple enough that you don't need to know how to work Blender or GIMP or anything super complicated.

As for tips for starting out with Xara 3D Maker, read and watch the tutorials. Those were my lifelines when I first started out. And if you like a particular animation/color combination or you have some text you want to use as a template, click File -> Save As... and save it. Then when you want to go back to it, click File -> Open... and select your saved text.

A major thing that would have saved me so much time spent manually cropping animations is to export the animation with the size selected as 'current window size,' the 'crop' box checked, and the 'transparent' box checked. I spent literal years manually cropping text with ezgif.com and GIMP before I decided to mess with the export options and it changed my life, lol.

Again, I'll make my own tutorial sometime. Xara 3D Maker 7 is honestly a lot of fun, and I don't regret paying for it. It was well worth the money to make these animations and some stuff for myself. You could watch the tutorials first and see if it's something you feel comfortable spending money on to try for yourself.

[mediamime]

Hi lovely, you've probably gotten so many notifications from me the past few days and I'm sorry but just loving all your content 😍 Your art is gorgeous and I've recently started S7 of Supernatural for the first time, so seeing your posts has been making my brain whirr in the happiest of ways!

I'm also so curious, how are you able to make GIFs? I've been on this hellsite forever at this point and never got around to learning that. Unless it's a state secret of course.

Oh, and I see you dropped this! 👑 That's better!

I will wear it proudly :')

Thank you so much for liking what I do! I wish you the best on your watch through, you have some really great stuff ahead (and some terrible, terrible things. Love this mess of a show!)

My gif making process is no secret. I've only started doing it recently and I'm still fighting with whether i compromise resolution or color grading for file size. But I'm tryin! There are no doubt better resources than me for this, but I'll walk through what I do.

**Side note, there are sites online that will let you upload clips and turn them into gifs for you. I've never really liked these for security purposes, but I'm sure things have gotten better since I've last messed with them.

Personally I go a little overboard, but I like having control of everything:

For all the stills / videos / gifs I pull, I use DaVinci Resolve. There is a free version of the application and its sick - I've never needed the paid version for the silly little edits I do in my spare time.

DaVinci Resolve looks very scary if you've never used video editing software before, but its actually pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it (not that I always know what I'm doing!) There are a bunch of great videos online that will walk you through how to use it as well.

Basic process:

Upload video into a project.

Mark in (start) and Mark out (end) the part of the video you want to make into a gif. I use the markers as I watch something and "cut" the video where needed.

Fuss with the export settings, select the part of the video you cut, and render!

If you are me, check the file size and immediately swear because you've forgotten to change the resolution again (I should just save it as a preset but I'm stubborn.)

Rinse, repeat!

As for getting videos, you can grab stuff from youtube if you want to clip a scene from anything on there. That's how I isolated the stupid tim and eric bit on my post about 'when i see Cas' lol. I use the CNVMP3 webpage to grab youtube videos and I've never had an issue with it.

Otherwise, all of my Supernatural specific stuff comes from my own blu-ray discs. I've gone through an arduous process of digitizing my physical media so I can watch it easier.

I can send you down the rabbit hole by suggesting MakeMKV and Handbrake applications, both free, if you have physical media you want to edit. I found reddit threads that taught me how to use them after a few google searches on the topic.

I'm very long winded, but hopefully that answers any questions! Thank you for the ask (and for the crown!)

[paquita-alpaca]

So, you paid for a subscription to an educational site—or, you know, a different type of site (no judgment, we all have our interests). Your subscription is ending, and you’re stressed about losing access to the beautiful collection of photos and videos that brought you joy, enlightenment, or something else entirely. Screenshotting and screen recording are your current go-tos, but let’s be honest, you deserve better than grainy pixels. Fear not! I’m here with a tutorial that will help you keep all those precious pixels forever.

Disclaimer: This is for Chrome on a desktop computer (other desktop browsers should work similarly). Mobile browsers are not your friends for this, sorry. Also, this only works for some sites, but it definitely works for certain spicy ones, if you catch my drift.

Photos:

- Open the webpage with the picture you want to save (your holy grail).

- Either press F12 or right-click on the picture and select Inspect. This will open the Developer Tools. I know, it looks scary, but I promise you, it’s not. We’re about to feel like hackers. 🕶️

- Go to the Sources tab.

- On the left, you’ll see a file tree. Explore it like you’re Indiana Jones. Somewhere in there, your photo is waiting for you in high resolution.

- Once you find it, click on the file, and a preview will pop up in the central panel. From there, it’s easy: Right-click → Save image as... Boom. Treasure secured.

Videos:

- Open the webpage with the video you need (your magnum opus).

- Open the Developer Tools again (F12 or right-click → Inspect). This time, go to the Network tab.

- Below that, select Media.

- Play the video. You’ll see a new line pop up in the Network tab like magic.

- Right-click on that new line and select Open in a new tab.

- In the new tab, the video will play. Just right-click and Save video as... You’re welcome.

And there you have it! A foolproof way to save your favorite pictures and videos in their full glory. Let me know if any of these steps weren’t clear, and I’ll help you out. Now go forth and download responsibly! 🫡

Source: Me, I am a software engineer.