thŕattle

Snooping WordWeb

December 23, 2007 at 1:54 am · Filed under BumpedUpon

Having fully transitioned to Ubuntu, WordWeb is the only Windows application that I missed. After setting it to work on Ubuntu, one fine day, it gave this surprising message:
WordWeb

Bloody WordWeb was secretively snooping my StrawBee (thats how I named my lappy :). Some kinda system monitoring, without user granting permission. But that poor thing doesn’t know that it is running on Wine. I’m sure this isn’t an easter egg. I hate it.

Now, tell me whether you have any better dictionary that is offline & that runs on Linux.

Update #0: Response from Antony Lewis of WordWeb:

It isn’t snooping - Windows sends all programs a message when Windows is put on Standby/hibernate (etc). WordWeb just counts how long since the last one. (of course most people don’t see the message because they sensibly turn off or hibernate their machines)

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Sujai 11 months ago 1 point
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Hey..Glad to hear that you moved to Ubuntu! Welcome to the brave new world.

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Ranjhith 11 months ago 1 point
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@Sujai
Its all becos of the guys like you. Do spread the message. :)
The satisfaction is immense, if you get something working.

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Roopa 11 months ago 1 point
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Why not just use a dictionary written for Linux instead of loading WordWeb with 'Wine' and getting it drunk? I find the GNOME dictionary way more user friendly than WordWeb (and more stable too).

Wine makes sense only for those applications that don't have a Linux equivalent. Antony Lewis is right - sensible people don't see this message :P

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http://driftingaway.wordpress.com

Ranjhith 11 months ago 1 point
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@Roopa
GNOME one is online, I suppose. I need something that doesn't connect to the internet.

Sensible ppl shud be feared of such a message, so they might diligently switch-off their machines. :) Anyways, this is way too much for WordWeb to do that.

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Roopa 11 months ago 1 point
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yeah, the GNOME dictionary, by default, connects to the internet but you can tweak it to connect to a local dictionary server (check this ). It would be an one time effort (and if you can't take that effort, go back to Windows!) but once you get it working, it would be way less cumbersome than running WordWeb through Wine. I personally loved the GNOME dictionary that I missed when I switched to Windows...

If you think what WordWeb is doing isn't fair, how fair is it, running a program designed for Windows on Linux? Isn't that an insult to all the Windows programmers world-wide? huh? :P

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http://driftingaway.wordpress.com/

Ranjhith 10 months ago 1 point
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@Roopa
Thanks for coming back. :) Will check that out.

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