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Topics - allen [ switch to compact view ]

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1
N.A.N.Y. 2022 / Pledge: Search Thing
« on: December 14, 2021, 05:44 PM »
This is something I was going to hack together for myself, but figured why not throw on a frontend and share it with friends. It is currently untitled.

Platform: The web
Price: Free

What is it? Just a simple interface for defining search engines with shortcuts - similar to Duck Duck Go !BANGS or browser built in custom search.

Why? Duck Duck Go/Neeva/Etc. offer limited functionality in this regard, defining search engines for me but no way to add my own search tools. Browser custom search engines work great in a given browser, but they are not portable. Enter Search my Search: define my favorite search engines with shortcut (n) and query (https://neeva.com/search?q=%s) pairs, then set this as my default search engine which will always have all my favorite searches ready to go on any browser on any platform. Authentication will be purely email based, don't want to mess with UN/passwords.


2
Hey all! It has been a long time. I've been lurking, but not posting and I feel terrible for just jumping in because I need something... but I do, and here I am.

The short version is my awful ex wife deviously managed to get my wife fired from her job. (IRL. My life. The sitcom.) I'd love to share the whole messy story, but this is a publicly indexed forum, so I better not.

Anyway, my wife has a graduate degree in communications and a background in journalism. She is frantically writing freelance pieces to supplement our income until she can find stable employment, but writer's don't get paid a fraction what they ought to.

So here's my ask. I am looking for side web development projects to close some of that income gap. With nearly 20 years in web development, I know my stuff -- Mouser will vouch for me. I can't compete with offshore outsourcing rates, but my rates are 1/2 to 1/4 agency rates, with every bit the agency experience, and a much higher standard for myself than you'll get from a burned out code monkey.

php & JavaScript are my strongest, but I'm pretty flexible. I can prototype WordPress sites faster than you can describe the project in email (okay, maybe not quite, but I'm fast). So if you know anybody looking for help, please put put us in touch.

I appreciate anything you can throw my way.

3
Living Room / Courier Prime
« on: March 17, 2015, 08:56 AM »
"It's Courier, just better."

These fonts are pretty nice. The sans-serif variants are probably the most attractive monospace sans-serif I've seen.

Courier Prime is a lovely font designed with screenwriters in mind (but suitable for all).
Now type designer Alan Dague-Greene and screenwriter/developer John August have released Courier Prime Sans - designed to be used as a generic text editing font - and Courier Prime Source, optimised for coders.
Courier Prime Source features larger line height, new asterisk, slashed zero and straight-legged italic “f.”
All released for free under the SIL Open Font License (OFL) license.

-Source

4
Living Room / The Old City
« on: December 05, 2014, 10:20 AM »
I've been looking forward to this "Game" for quite some time. I haven't had a chance to play it yet, but it looks sublime. It's not so much a conventional game as a puzzle/exploration game. I think like Myst but in real time first person 3D.

A decaying city from a civilization long past. A sewer-dwelling isolationist and his hunt for knowledge. A forgotten childhood and the few memories that remain.

Set in the outskirts of a long-abandoned metropolis, The Old City: Leviathan drops you into a strange world accompanied by nothing but the protagonist's poetic musings and an atmospheric score. You'll need to explore and absorb the world around you if you ever hope to understand the history of the eponymous city, and how you came to be there.

This is a world that morphs and changes when you least expect it, teetering on the boundary between dreams and reality. Your only goal: to understand.

We sought to discard the esoteric puzzles and repetitive gameplay loops of traditional games in favor of a pure narrative experience that delves into philosophical themes oft neglected by the medium.
A common phrase used in this context is “gameplay first.” The assumption is that anything other than the gameplay mechanics themselves is secondary and even unnecessary. Dear Esther was one of the first to challenge that concept, opening the door for titles such as The Stanley Parable and Gone Home, and we intend to build upon that foundation.

Players have the option to simply walk from start to finish, but the real meat of the game lies in the hidden nooks and crannies of the world; in secret areas, behind closed doors, and in a 30,000 word novella that reveals itself as the game progresses.

Up to five hours long in its own right, The Old City: Leviathan is the first part of a larger story, and is set to be released late in 2014.


It's out now, and 25% off on steam for a limited time.

5
Living Room / Sponsor me! 100 miles in 10 Days for Charity
« on: September 02, 2014, 04:45 PM »
10661825_10152724800724271_2950500223993888455_o.jpg

I'm running 100 miles in 10 days to support a good cause -- I'm looking for sponsors in the For Lucas 10 x 10 challenge. To sponsor my run, go to forlucas.com. You can either donate in my name (Allen Day) or mention me in the comments. If you want to donate now, great--that'll put the pressure on. If you want to donate by the mile after I finish, even better, but please let me know you're doing it. It'll serve as encouragement to finish... and maybe run a couple extra miles.

For more info on the challenge and charity, check out the for lucas 10 x 10 running dad challenge.

Thanks, and please spread the word if you're so inclined!

Via Facebook

6
Living Room / web hosts
« on: April 21, 2014, 11:03 AM »
All right DC brain trust... my company is in need of a new web host for our clients, as Hostgator has been in a significant state of decline over the last couple years. Ideally we're looking for shared hosting plans as VPS managing/reselling has proven to be more trouble than it's worth for a shop as small as ours. 

I can read feature lists and prices as well as the next guy, but what I'd really like is recommendations based on real experience--especially if you've used a host for a long-ish time and are happy with them. Obviously reliability is important, customer service being a close second priority.

7
General Software Discussion / Beyond Compare v4 Open Beta
« on: February 28, 2014, 01:26 PM »

Looks like pricing For v3 pro to version 4 pro (windows only) is going to be 25 bucks

  • Mac OS X Version
  • New Home View
  • 3-way Folder Merge Pro only
  • Ad Hoc Unimportant Text
  • WebDAV, Subversion and Dropbox Support Pro only
  • Overhauled Picture Compare
  • Overhauled Preferences Dialog with Search
  • Hex Compare wraps lines to fit the window, and adds in-line editing.
  • New View Patch command shows diff/patch files as a text comparison.
  • Added new text comparison algorithm choice based on Bram Cohen's Patience Diff.
  • HTML folder comparison reports can now embed links to file comparisons.
  • Improved appearance on high DPI (retina) displays.
  • Version Compare now compares the fixed PE header in addition to the version resource.
  • Zipx archives can be compared, complete with PPMd, LZMA, WavPack, and WinZip's JPEG compression.

Beyond Compare v4 Beta

8
General Software Discussion / Windows 8.1 Preview
« on: June 27, 2013, 08:56 AM »
Yesterday Microsoft released a public preview of Windows 8.1 featuring the return of the Start button, an overhauled unified search and Internet Explorer 11. Anybody take it for a spin?

9
General Software Discussion / Opera 15 Preview
« on: May 28, 2013, 08:39 AM »

First preview of the Webkit based Opera 15 is out.

So how different is Opera 15 from Opera 12.15, the latest stable desktop version? You may not notice that many changes on first glance but there are many if you look deeper.

  • The icons in the bottom bar including the zoom slider are not there anymore.
  • You cannot open a small sidebar panel with often used icons anymore.
  • The appearance menu is not available anymore. It seems that you cannot customize the look and feel of the browser anymore. This includes toolbars, icons and their position and visibility in the browser. No tabs on side.
  • The browser settings are limited.  Examples of removed preferences include selecting helper applications for selected programs, font selection, all tabs options and file type actions.
  • The opera:config page is no longer available.
  • Chromium developer tools are now used. Bye bye Dragonfly.
  • Opera Notes is not available.
  • Custom shortcuts and many mouse gestures missing.
  • Bookmarks not available yet.
  • No RSS.
  • Opera Extensions are not supported.

[Source]


I'm going to be playing with it today... we'll see how it goes. The one thing I'm excited about is M2 becoming a standalone mail client -- that's something I've really always hoped for.

10
Living Room / Microsoft Surface RT - I got one.
« on: January 11, 2013, 08:55 PM »
I've made it no secret that I have embraced the direction Microsoft has headed lately. When the Surface RT was announced, I immediately fell in love with the hardware form factor and had used Windows 8 enough to know that touch input was the way to go. Darn things are expensive though. . .

Just after the Holidays I saw an offer from billmelater for no interest on purchases of 500 bucks if paid for within a year . . . I just couldn't resist and pulled the trigger.

My biggest fear was buyer's remorse. . . but man, I love this thing. More than I'd hoped to. The touch gestures, once learned, are incredibly natural and intuitive. It's the first time I've felt this comfortable with an interface since WebOS. The hardware is very beautifully designed and it's clearly a high quality/well assembled machine.

Most of the time, I'm just in the Modern (Metro) UI. It's excellent for simple "tablet" functionality. I browse the web (these forums at this very moment), read email, mind my social networks . . . pretty much everything except programming.  It's the best tablet by far I've ever plopped down on the couch with.

Before I'd actually had my hands on this thing, I kind of wished that Microsoft had not included the ability to access the full desktop on the RT devices. It looked like it was going to be a jarring blemish on the elegant "Modern" interface. Now that I've spent time with the device, I no longer feel that way at all. I never see the desktop unless I want to--but it's great knowing it's there. I've got the full version of office at my disposal, as well as all the standard Windows default applications from calculator to power shell. I can plugin a USB hub with mouse and keyboard and it's like a laptop. I don't spend much time on the desktop--but like I said, it's nice to know it's there. Personally, I was mostly in the market for a tablet not a computer replacement. As it turned out, I'm getting a lot more productivity out of it than I planned. When I need to write something, I love grabbing this and a keyboard and finding somewhere more comfortable than my desk to get it done.

The Surface RT certainly is not for everybody but I sure do love it.

11
General Software Discussion / Dart Programming Language
« on: October 10, 2011, 10:32 PM »
Today, Google released an early version of its attempt to replace JavaScript, Dart. It'll be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.  There are a few things I like about it, but I am not sold on its necessity or viability. Of course, they said the same of Chrome. Maybe Google will bully JS out of the picture. . . or maybe there'll be one more technology web developers will be forced to commit to their arsenal. | dartlang.org

Dart is a new class-based programming language for creating structured web applications. Developed with the goals of simplicity, efficiency, and scalability, the Dart language combines powerful new language features with familiar language constructs into a clear, readable syntax.

standards.png

12
Usually I try to find a special occasion for a WinPatrol PLUS sale but I can tell from recent activity the economy is rough on everyone. For the next two days I'm  offering our lifetime upgrade to the newest WinPatrol PLUS for only $14.95 USD or half price our regular price.

http://winpatrol.stores.yahoo.net/winplusmemre.html

The "WinPatrol PLUS Super Family Pack" is also discounted 15 USD. $34.95 grants you use on unlimited computers owned and used by all family members within your household including kids away at school.

13
General Software Discussion / Google Music Beta Now Live
« on: May 10, 2011, 10:43 AM »
. . . of course, you have to get your hands on an invidation to see.  Sign up here

14
General Software Discussion / Dropquest
« on: January 15, 2011, 03:46 PM »
Anybody who uses dropbox can earn an extra free gigabyte of space by completing this scavenger hunt:

https://www.dropbox.com/dropquest2011/

15
Clipboard Help+Spell / Exclusions
« on: January 14, 2011, 04:36 PM »
The exclusions functionality in the settings appears to be filename only, is this the case? I'd stopped using CHS because it logged passwords copied from my password manager. I see that in the options, it tells me all sorts of info about the last active window -- is it possible to use this information (namely %windowtitle% in this case) for exclusion?

16
Living Room / Safari 4
« on: March 22, 2009, 11:10 AM »
Safari 4 (beta) is now available bringing quite a few changes -- and it's supposedly the fastest thing out there (though Opera was left out of the comparison).  For windows users, it boasts a more native look (Personally, I hate the brushed metal look) and, like Chrome, has moved the tabs up to the title bar. (I'm not sure if Safari previously had the private browsing mode, but it does now--another Chrome inspiration?)  The font anti-aliasing is optional, you can now use native window font display and, apparently, there's a whole lot more.  http://www.apple.com...afari/whats-new.html

17
Living Room / lala.com music
« on: December 23, 2008, 05:21 PM »
I signed up for lala back in '96 or so, logged in once, shrugged and never looked back.  I've discovered, however, that they've reinvented their service.  Previously a CD swapping website (Pay a small fee to the website to trade CD for CD with other people), lala has become its own digital music market place.

There are a few things I really love about lala.  First of all, with their Music Mover, you can scan and upload your mp3 collection to the lala servers.  Anything you own on your computer will be available to you for streaming on their service from anywhere -- making your music collection as easy to take from computer to computer as a password.

At no point while listening to your library of music through their website will you be accosted with ads.  The website is 100% ad free, supported by what I feel to be an extremely fair price model -- I think everybody wins.

With music you don't own, you're allowed to listen to anything once -- so no making your purchase decision based on a 30 second clip.   After you've heard the song once, you revert to the clip though.  If you only want to listen to the song via their streaming service, you can purchase them for .10 a track. (Though when you sign up, the first 50 are free).

If you want drm-free mp3's, you can purchase tracks for .89 each. If you've already purchased the web album, that's figured into the price--you'll pay .79 on top of the .10 already paid.  If you're using the Music Mover, they'll automatically be downloaded to your computer. Alternatively, of course, you can download them manually.

There are some social features built in as well -- relatively minimalistic and tasteful.  You can follow people to see what they're listening to, send recommendations to your friends, and correspond via public blurbs.

Generally speaking, I am extremely satisfied (excited, even) with lala. Having finished uploading my library, I've been using it as my primary player.

Some caveats, of course--It's probably limited to US Residents, legally speaking. Licensing issues.  You can only download a purchased mp3 once -- so don't lose it.  Lastly, it's probably not a great service for people whose library is in another format as mp3 is all lala works with.

You've got nothing to lose, and 50 free web songs to gain so may as well try it out if you're even the least bit curious.  If you want to net me 10 free web songs, you can use my referrel code.  Or, if referrel codes seem tacky and annoy you, you can always just go to lala.com. Feel free to say hey to "Allen" there, so I can peak at what you're listening to.

18
General Software Discussion / Cross Browser Testing
« on: December 19, 2008, 10:59 AM »
I love Cross Browser Testing. It's really exactly what I've been looking for for the last decade.

Using Java or your own VCN software, CrossBrowserTesting (CBT) allows you to connect remotely to a desktop operating system of your choice -- Ubuntu (linux), Mac, and various versions of windows (98-vista) with full administrative privileges.  From here, you can test your websites (or software applications) against these other configurations.  You can't, on the fly, swap operating systems -- and as such, will find yourself going through multiple sessions to test against everything you need to.  But at the end of the day, multiple sessions is a lot easier than cross browser testing without access to everything.

snapshot2.png
Ubuntu

It works great, and if you only need to use it briefly/casually it won't cost you a thing. You can launch free 5 minute sessions as often as you'd like.   Free sessions may result in a few minutes waiting in a queue, though, as others are trying to get in.   Alternatively, you can purchase credits for around $1 apiece (with discounts when you buy in greater quantities) giving you priority when requesting a session with an OS.  No queue and, at 5 minutes/credit you can maintain sessions longer than 5 minutes for more time consuming testing.  Finally, there's a monthly subscription option -- which gives you "Unlimited" time for a flat monthly rate. Subscriptions are 29.95 for the first month, 19.95 for all months following -- for a limited time.  The prices are scheduled to go up in the future.  For a limited time, you can get a price lock in at the 19.95 rate.

snapshot1.png
Pretending I have a Mac

Within a session, you have the ability to take a snapshot of the desktop's current state, which you can save to your CBT account as well as cross post to flickr.  Handy for keeping on hand snapshots of display peculiarities or the output of a debugger.  Or making photos for a thread post, ala... these. You can even turn the photos into a slide show

snapshot3.png
Digg isn't so hot on IE5. FFx 1 handles it like a pro, though

As a web developer, I've found crossbrowsertesting to be a real godsend.  I no longer have to search for people with the OS/Browser configuration I wish to test, I no longer need to go through hoops to maintain multiple versions of any given browser; from the comfort of my browser of choice, I can see the Internet as seen from a plethora of web browsers.

19
Living Room / AINOP Wireless
« on: August 10, 2008, 10:19 PM »
We have been extremely unhappy with our ISP for the last 18 months that we've been with them, and especially tormented over the last 6-8 months. In our defense, we've been with them for this long for lack of other options.  Neither DSL, Satellite nor Cable can provide service to our location, leaving Wireless as our only option. It's costing us USD 40/month -- which is more than we've paid for DSL in the past. The connection is supposed to be a 1Mbps connection however our bandwidth tests usually only go up to 150kbps, 300 rarely.  What's worse, is the connectivity is extremely intermittent--often timing out when doing even basic things like web page loading with only one of us using our systems. If we're both using our computers? Forget about it.

The reason we got the Internet, foregoing our thoughts of going offline for a while, is that my wife needs to be able to VPN for her job... she's, obviously, been unable to and as such we've lost gas money on her having to commute when it shouldn't be necessary.  Additionally, I do a significant amount of free lance web development these days. . . it usually takes me several tries over 20 minutes to upload a 3kb file. Three. The situation has been very frustrating.

For the first several months, we called them at least every couple weeks--often weekly.  Generally, they'd ping our radio and assure us we had an "amazing" connection, tell us to reset our radio and be done with it.  Other times they'd send tech teams out (whose actions and fumbling did not instill me with confidence in their knowledge of the job) to "fix" our connection--which would strangely often lead to even worse connectivity.

Eventually, it got to the point where we'd call and conveniently no techs would be available, but we could leave a message.  Our calls were never, not once returned.  I distinctly remember one incident when the woman answering the phone submitted a ticket on our behalf.  A week later, when we hadn't heard from them, my wife called--and that same woman found the ticket, denied having been the one to submit it, and insisted it had already been closed.  Furiously, we managed to get in touch directly with the owner.

Shortly after sharing our grief with him, late last Autumn, they finally tried moving our radio up higher on the roof--and for a brief time, we had a decent connection.  Still nowhere near the 1Mbps promised, closer to 400 or 500k but at least a reliable connection.  Then the radio suddenly stopped working early on in the winter.  Not wanting to grave our high roof with ice and snow as factors (I cannot fault them for this) they "temporarily" installed another low level radio, reducing our connection to the worst it had been to date.  Our experience has been one that started poorly and systematically was reduced to a service I would honestly qualify as inferior to a middle of the road dial up connection.

We've spent the entirety of this summer calling them to get it fixed. Same old story. No one there to talk to us, no one to return our calls -- we're billed for awful internet, helpless to contact anyone who will help.  We'd already contacted the competing wireless providers but their tight schedules (short summers means high volume, low time to do aloft installs) left us perpetually waiting for a consultation.

With little else we could do, we submitted a petition through the Better Business Bureau.  We know they have no real legal teeth, but we hoped that our provider cared enough about their reputation to resolve the matter in light of our taking these measures.

In the mean time, we did manage to get initial "surveys" from the two competing wireless providers.  The first didn't have a tower near enough to provide us a *satisfactory* connection and wasn't going to do an install. I'd rather be turned down than sold a can of shit.  Amusing note: He saw our dual radios strapped on the house, asked if we were with AINOP, and chuckled saying that they do a *lot* of installs for unhappy customers.  The other company said they could provide us with service, also noticed the radios, and said 3 out of 4 of the houses he visited that day were existing AINOP customers.  Stellar record.

Two weeks passed and we'd heard nothing.  Through random chance, I learned that a man who works at the gas station at the corner works at AINOP and he called them for me.  It not being me who called, they answered the phone! The next day, they sent someone out while we weren't home. They left a note on the door assuring us that moving the antennae higher wouldn't help matters, that the tower was having problems and they'd fix it immediately. Struck us funny that their tower was broken for 8 months and no one noticed... but what do we know?

Not surprisingly, the connection did not improve.  Instead, we were finally greeted with a response:

Mr. and Mrs. Day,
It has come to our attention that you have complained many times about our Internet service being slow and unusable.  However, I have investigated and found that the situation is, in fact the opposite from what you described.  Your IP address is consistently consuming the majority of the bandwidth available from our tower.  From my point of view, your connection to our tower must be excellent, and indeed, you are receiving better service (and more bandwidth) than most of our other customers that are on the same tower.
It is a sad commentary that I need to tell you that we are no longer going to provide you with our service.  As of August 31st 2008, we will be terminating your service and picking up our equipment.  We have providing you with excellent service and tech support.  If we were to move your radio as you requested it would not improve anything, as your speed and connection are both amazing.  I have looked back on your connection and can see huge amounts of traffic passing through.  We don’t feel that you have any reason to complain about what you have received.  Unfortunately we are unable to please you as a customer therefore we are giving you these couple of weeks to find another provider.

[name obfuscated]
Assistant Wireless Manager
Netherland Office Products & Aroostook Internet

Upon receiving this, my wife was livid. It was them who'd told us we'd need to move the radio back up, not us; their "investigation" never came into our home to see what we were enduring. Their "excellent" service consisted of ignoring us and blocking us out constantly.  An altogether false letter of termination their plan to keep the BBB from faulting them?

Unable to contain herself, my wife took time off work. She left the office and came home, picked up the letter from the technician indicating the tower was "broken" (Excellent service or broken tower, what is it?), printed out 5 bandwidth tests, all but one less than 300k, and stormed into their office.  Initially, they put down her printed bandwidth tests saying they wouldn't look at them until they could confirm we weren't doing other things to throttle our bandwidth for those tests. What would we have to gain from such a scam, I don't know! All we want is... Internet for our Money! They confirmed *nothing* else was happening, saying "If this is true, this connection isn't satisfactory"... no shit.

The sender of the above letter then took my wife into another room, to illustrate our excessive bandwidth usage.  My wife admitted to me, she was nervous--afraid my late nights were consumed with some pornography fetish--making her look like a fool when our bandwidth was in fact through the roof--but lo! and behold! Our massive bandwidth amounted to a 300 megabyte download, once, over the course of 2-3 hours -- otherwise, we had almost no throughput.  Did they not check this *before* they sent the letter illustrating our excess? Or are they foolish enough to think that 300 megs is abuse of a *broad band* connection?

After a time of shooting down their baseless claims, they finally asked what exactly we wanted them to do... which was simple... come to our house, look at our connection.

The man in charge, perhaps still not altogether convinced of our authenticity--perhaps in disbelief that they served such a lousy connection for such a long period?  He sent the author of the above letter to my house the same day--I was instructed to unplug my xbox, disconnect my wife's computer from the LAN and let her use a single computer to test our connection.  I obliged.  She immediately came to the conclusion that we had a really lousy Internet connection. Tomorrow, a team of two technicians are coming out and I was strictly instructed not to let them leave until I'm pleased with the bandwidth test--1M being the baseline, but she said up to 4 are possible with a proper signal.  Here's to hoping.  But if the last 18 months have taught me anything, it's don't expect a bit from AINOP.

Supposedly, in the time we've been with them, there has been a complete change of hands and a significant change of bodies in the web providing departments.  So who knows, maybe they're on a path to amend their ways. Stranger things have happened.

What really bothered us wasn't the bad connection. I respect technical limitations and can forgive human error.  But having had this problem for *this* long and never being given the benefit of the doubt, just immediately dismissed as malcontents is offensive.  To spend over a year accusing us of having a stellar connection while I can barely check my gmail is absurd.

Tomorrow is the big day.  Having spent a couple hundred dollars for the initial install and 40 dollars a month for a year and a half... will we finally have padded their pockets sufficiently to be granted proper access to the Interwebs?

20
General Software Discussion / Evernote Beta now Open
« on: June 30, 2008, 08:49 PM »
Evernote version 3 is now in Open beta, no invites are necessary to sign up.  Space is unlimited, bandwidth is is 40 megs for free users and 500 for "premium" users -- dropping 45 bucks for a year of premium will net you a free Evernote T-shirt. (A really nice looking shirt, in my opinion)

The web version has been completely redesigned and their web clipper has also been improved.  Not much new to offer for the Evernote 2.0  users who are disappointed in what might be considered a number of regressions moving forward to 3.0, but its current state is much improved from when I first started using the beta.  Also much to my delight, the updates are coming far more frequently.

There are still a great number of issues I'd like to see addressed--mostly having to do with non-overlapping features between the web and client versions and how it's much easier to do some things from one and other things via the other, which I've mentioned at length a number of times on their forums. Of course, so long as they leave the "Beta" suffix on the version, I am not too upset with the state of it.

21
Living Room / Opera 9.5
« on: June 12, 2008, 08:19 AM »
Opera has released version 9.5 of their web browser for windows, linux and mac in 29 languages. Lots of great changes, including the fastest browser getting even faster, tighter security, a web developer tool suite "DragonFly", improved address bar, improved tab handling, and a slew of other features, tweaks and fixes.

. . . of course, since most of the Opera users here have been using the betas for some time the download won't change much!

22
Living Room / Google Shell
« on: June 03, 2008, 06:53 PM »
I don't know that there is any practical use for this, per se . . . but effectively combines two of my favorite things--google and the shell--to create a pretty cool little interface.

gsh.gif

Visit Goosh The Unofficial Google Shell

23
Living Room / Opera Stumbler
« on: June 03, 2008, 06:37 PM »
The Opera/AJAX thread reminded me of something I've been greatly enjoying for the last few weeks and have failed to mention here.

While StumbleUpon's website works flawlessly with Opera, the devs at StumbleUpon have insisted it wasn't possible to bring StumbleUpon to the Opera community citing Opera technical shortcomings.   I've disagreed, and limped along using a number of custom buttons I'd made that allowed me to do most of the core functions--rating, commenting, et cetera.  More ambitiously, Kyle Anderson developed a custom menu/toolbar for Opera that effectively brings all of Stumbles features over to Opera seamlessly.  Even better, in its menu form I find it far more keyboard friendly than the official StumbleUpon toolbar.

preview-01.png

Opera Stumbler

24
Living Room / 7 Years Heidi
« on: May 27, 2008, 02:47 PM »
Recently my wife entered Adrian J. Cartwood’s 7 Million in 7 Years contest in hopes of being taken under his wing to be guided to independent wealth by means of good old fashioned pragmatism and financial sense.

Being selected for the contest requires (beyond willingness and enthusiasm) generating a bit of attention for herself. Beyond that, I'm not sure what all it entails--this is her baby. I've resolved for my role to be one of support and obedience.  Living up to that, I'm asking for my generous friends here at donationcoder to donate just a minute of your time to check out her entry and, if you would, leave some words of encouragement.

Her "introduction" is located here -- which is presumably the more important link as it's under Mr. Cartwood's umbrella.

Additionally, you can find her personal blog here.  We've only begun working on it, so please don't mind the cobwebs, clutter and other potential hazards of a construction zone.  One thing I can say for Heidi, my bride, is that when she goes for something she goes for it with an uninterruptable fervor--and she's always keen to help others.  I expect before too long, her blog could be both interesting and informative.  Your attention, words of support and encouragement getting through the badlands of new beginnings would be most appreciated.

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Living Room / Online Game: Kingdom of Loathing
« on: May 16, 2008, 04:07 PM »
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A recent discussion with mouser about the need for more games that focus on hillarity over skill brought it to my attention that there has been very little mention here of one of my all time favorite games -- Kingdom of Loathing.

The Kingdom of Loathing is a web based role playing game.  The gameplay is primarily single player, as your character proceeds to acquire equipment, food, booze, and meat (the game's currency) as means to progress on various quests.  In that regard, it's pretty standard as an RPG.  Where it's truly uncommon is its character -- from the character classes to the areas to the enemies, everything is an extremely absurd parody of something. It's funny, irreverent and generally fun.

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There are also some multiplayer aspects to it, as you'd expect from an online game.  The economy is purely player driven, most items in the game able to be bought and sold player to player.  It features a chat where players can communicate in real time, clans for players to team together to help one another out and some simple player versus player mechanics.

Whether you just sit back, relax and play it casually or delve deeper into the economy or making faster, more effecient "ascensions", there's plenty to do.  New items are added constantly and new quests and areas are added every now and then as well.  I've been playing KoL for a little over two years now and am still amused enough by it to continue playing for years to come.  If you do sign up, look up "Terrae", that's me!
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