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Guys, I don't think Damien is going to remove contents in individual user decks. This is entirely about the shared deck section of the website. If someone has a comment from Damien somewhere that says he's going to start deleting content from individual user decks then feel free to link it to prove me wrong, but I don't think he has.
So the whole, "I gotta sync to my own private server!" thing is a bit hysterical and unwarranted at this point.
Edited: 2015-03-05, 5:12 am
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While the wording in the copyright notice was poor, I think you're right that the odds this would be enforced for private decks is tiny. Damien has better things to do. I'm still looking into it, if for no reason than the fact that my decks are huge and syncing new content to AnkiWeb is sloooooow. Honestly, the only reason I use AnkiWeb at all is because it's convenient.
This entire incident does highlight for me that the data sharing mechanisms across PCs and mobile devices in Anki is rather poor. Either you sync everything through AnkiWeb (which is slow, and eats up space that Damien has generously provided for free up until now), or you go through the cumbersome process of exporting a collection through iTunes and re-importing it when you need to sync back up with the desktop to add new content. Syncing with a private server isn't supported in iOS, and even if it were, it's a complicated solution to a rather simple problem.
I'd love to see some better options for syncing and file sharing on mobile devices - e.g., support for FTP, shared folders, etc. Many of the other apps I use on my iPad (GoodReader, OPlayer) support a variety of data transfer methods; it'd be great to see Anki follow suit.
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Actually, I've always wanted my own private Anki server, and my reasons are pretty simple.
1. It looks like it might be fun to set one up.
2. I like to control as much of my data as possible, and that means I like to host as much of my own online stuff as I can.
3. No matter what happens to Anki the company, it won't interfere with my studying, and that's all I really care about.
I don't really care if they ask for my Full Legal Name, because we all know my Full Legal Name is JOHN SMITH. >_>a
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It will be great to have options to sync with Dropbox, Box, etc
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Has anyone read the new terms and conditions? I wonder if they have always been like that. It does state that they can extract items from and view your personal decks, and that the currently free syncing feature may switch to a 'freemium' or paid model in the future.
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That sounds like generic boilerplate to cover them, because it's a business necessity, but it still comes across as pretty creepy.
I guess it's time to start learning how to roll my own server. Better to start experimenting now, and have it up and running, just in case everything goes in a direction I don't like in 6-12 months. Good times.
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FYI, you don't really have to roll your own server (unless you're really hot to) - local syncing works fine, isn't that much of a hassle, and is about 10x faster than uploading through AnkiWeb, esp. for large content such as subs2srs-derived decks.
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When u have more than 2 devices local sync will be a nightmare.... I just hate relying on cables/computers
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How do you local sync between ankidroid and windows?
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My WinBook $69 tablet showed up today... it's pretty good. Storage kind of sucks, in that half of the 16GB is eaten by Windows, but I expected that much. (I've got a micro SD I can drop in if I need to.) I ran Ninite to get the Start button back, and removed the ESET crapware. Increasing the font size to 125% helped a lot, too. The Japanese IME installed without any trouble, either.
Only annoying thing-- closing windows, because the buttons are frickin' tiny. And you need to use a finger. An eraser won't do the trick.
Now I'm going to finish letting it charge, then get Anki up and running. Whee.
Edited: 2015-03-10, 2:24 pm
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Why would an eraser work on a capacitive touch screen? Did I waste my money on one of those touch screen pens when I bought my tablet?
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Nah, I was hoping I could cheat with an eraser. I'm used to using things with dedicated stylii, so I'm new to this capacitive pen thing.
Also, the first run of Windows update took over an hour, plus a restart.
Edited: 2015-03-10, 4:35 pm
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So copying Documents > Anki to a micro SD from my desktop, then copying that to User > Documents on the WinBook made it all really easy to copy everything over.
But dang, everything was tiny. I found the "Windows 8 touchscreen" Anki plugin, and that made the buttons big enough to use. (Kind of close to the bottom of the screen, but really handy!)
All of my cards had to have the font tags fixed by boosting the sizes by 20 px or so. Seemed to do the trick for me. The tablet runs a little hot, but for a $69 tablet, it does a really good job as an AnkiBox. I imagine you could install full-fledged Core and run it locally without any problems, but I haven't tried that yet.
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I'll shut up about the WinBook after this. I fiddled with the display settings (under Customize) and got the display up to 150%, so it's working pretty well now as a tablet. I also picked up a $9 stylus, and everything seems to work just fine, Anki-wise. At 125%, it's still hard to close windows and select things, let alone read some of the text. I'd consider 150% to be the minimum, unless you use a mouse/physical keyboard combo.
Also, it really can't run more than 1 program at a time. And if you try to run Chrome, it's going to choke if you load more than 2 or 3 tabs (especially if it's something like YouTube). There's only 1GB of RAM on this thing, so it just can't handle any programs that are memory hogs. Battery life isn't great. I'd give it 4-5 hours tops. Not sure how it handles being kept in sleep mode for long periods, battery-wise. Probably not too well.
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I'm not sure-- keep my Kindles separated by language. But if they're all mixed up, it's probably doable.
Export the table you want and import it into Excel, you could sort the words from A-Z, and that *should* put the EN words up top, and you could just chop them off.
A regex search would knock them out, too, but I kind of suck at regex.