Intro to Bard

My introduction to Bard

Semantic clarification: I’m not introducing you, reader, to Bard. This is my experience of being introduced to Bard.

The answer to my first question, probably way too Turing-ish, shows that Bard is slow on the uptake as to context. I asked “What is the best use of Bard?” and received a description of the Dungeons and Dragons role.

What is the best use of Bard?
What is the best use of Bard?

Points for the honesty of Bard, because this is very different from the description from the email confirming my access, which described Bard as “…your creative and helpful collaborator, here to supercharge your imagination, boost your productivity, and bring your ideas to life.

I was disappointed. The makers of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves should be disappointed it didn’t display an add along with the response (how much you wanna bet the GA version will?). I gave similar feedback to Bard and moved to my next question.

My next question was “Which is better: ChatGPT or Bard?” The response was interesting. It didn’t rise to the bait of “my dog’s better than your dog” (yes, I’m that old) and gave a good answer that you can read for yourself in the screenshot and that I will summarize as ChatGPT will do your homework and Bard will do your Googling for you.

Which is better: ChatGPT or Bard?
Which is better: ChatGPT or Bard?

But how good is Bard at Googling? Having used Google since it’s year of inception, and having struggled for many years with its predecessors, I feel fairly adept at searching on Google. I worded my next query the way I would (will?) write the actual requirement for a project I’m working on: “What is the best ReactJS compatible image viewer with vector markup capability that can be stored in PostgresSQL?

What is the best ReactJS compatible image viewer with vector markup capability that can be stored in PostgresSQL?
What is the best ReactJS compatible image viewer with vector markup capability that can be stored in PostgresSQL?

The response was literal and detailed. It described only one product (“Feeling lucky?” anyone) and gave a detailed reason for the recommendation. I will definitely include the recommendation in my comparisons, and decide whether to ask Bard for other options or go back to my normal way of searching.

If you believe the vlogsphere, the push to get Bard operational and in the hands of Google users is the threat of ChatGPT bringing everyone over to B.I.N.G (Because It’s Not Google). For the practical and technical, I think Bard is an excellent response to that threat.  For the majority of folks, I think Bard is going to have a tough time for having come out of the gate this late.

And then…

After posting the first revision of this article I went back to continue the vector library search. Interestingly, while I can see the questions (aka prompts) that I had asked previously, I cannot access the answers. Glad I took screen shots, because after pasting in the same question I received a different response. This wasn’t too surprising as I have heard ChatGPT users have the same experience. Wanting a quick finish to the task, I then asked for the top 5 options. The first of the 5 was the same as the response in this request, but the suggestion given the first time was not in the top 5. Makes me curious what changed in 45 minutes for the first option that was the best to no longer be in the top 5?

And then #1 was never heard from again
And then #1 was never heard from again
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© Scott S. Nelson
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YouTube: Please bring back video speed control to the Roku app!

There is a support thread tracking the issue about not being able to manage playback speed using apps on devices other than Android (and only if not casting) at https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/153199802. I suggest following it for updates.

To get action on this, go to YouTube and submit feedback describing the issue and how it impacts your desire to use YouTube.

My use of YouTube is down 50% because of this issue. How about you?

If you don’t know where the feedback option is, please see the Featured Image for this post.

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© Scott S. Nelson
Temporarily Disable MWB to Update VSC

Malwarebytes and Visual Studio Code Updates

Either my Google search skills are degrading or the signal-to-noise ratio on this topic is so high only the noise comes through. Either way, I am posting a fix I should think would be easy to find but wasn’t…How to complete Visual Studio Code (VSC) updates with Malwarebytes Premium installed.

To say I found no answer is a bit of an exaggeration. I found several that were just plain unhelpful, and one that worked, but not acceptably. The first time this was an issue, I found an unacceptable solution (I say an, because I don’t consider removing Malwarebytes to be a solution, nor any of the less-polite suggestions of what to do with it) was to turn off Malwarebytes to run the update. While this works, every-vigilant Windows thinks it is an opportunity to win back territory for Defender and starts it, which prevents re-starting Malwarebytes. Being a busy techie, re-starting Windows is a long task because I always have at least 20 applications running.

So when the issue came up again today, I dove back into to the deeper Google waters, i.e., page 2 of the results, and did find a suggestion to temporarily uncheck “Enable Protection”. This must have been referring to a different version, as that was not one of the options. There were several others that could be disabled. To cut a long story short (note that whenever that phrase is uttered is inevitably too late already), I went through the options one by one and found that one that allows the installation to complete: Ransomware Protection.

Temporarily Disable MWB to Update VSC
Temporarily Disable MWB to Update VSC

Here’s hoping this post saves someone some time.

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© Scott S. Nelson

Simplifying the Off-Facebook Settings

Given that the media outlets reporting the steps to opt out of Facebook tracking also use Facebook tracking, the articles make it really complicated to get rid of all of it. So here is the simplified version:

  1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/activity_list (you may be prompted for you password even if logged in)
  2. Click Manage Your Off-Facebook Activity
  3. Click Manage Future Activity link
  4. Click Manage Future Activity button
  5. Toggle off Future Off-Facebook Activity (if you like some of the tracked ads, you can manage them individually, but you will also have to do that regularly)
  6. Go to https://www.facebook.com/off_facebook_activity/activity_list (yes, again, and you may again be prompted for you password even if logged in)
  7. Click Clear History link
  8. Click Clear History button

Cheers!

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All Work and No Play…Mass Update Your MP3s with Cover Art

Rather than buy a new car to get a dashboard computer, I just bought a tablet and mounted it on my ashtray. For the music, it is easier to see what is playing from cover art, but not all of my MP3s have it. So I went on a search..

I will save you the trials and errors of a half-dozen programs that will run on the latest patch of Windows but require adding the images one-by-one (I have 11,000 songs on the tablet). The only program I found that adds the images automagiclly is MP3 CoverTag. Well, it is supposed to because I read a dozen articles that said it did. Problem is, Microsoft has patched it to death and I could not run it.

I got around the patch issue by doing the following (extra steps added for those that didn’t already have the VMs handy):

  1. Download VirtualBox
  2. Download an old Microsoft-provided VM.
  3. Import the VM into VirtualBox. During the import or before starting it:
    1. Bump the RAM up to at least 2GB
    2. Add a shared folder that auto mounts where you will put your MP3s to update
  4. Start the VM and make sure Windows Update is set to Never Update
  5. Download MP3 CoverTag
  6. Log out and create a snapshot so you can always go back to it the state of an unpatched machine with MP3 CoverTag installed

Now you can run the unpatched VM and MP3 CoverTag will work.

Enjoy!

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