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Messages - tamasd [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: [1] 2 3next
1
TreeProjects should be able to quickly and easily transform KeyNote NF stuff into a TreeProjects database, otherwise considering a software change will be hard for anyone with a lot of notes.
Keynote has some kind of RTF file export, export and import RTF files into TreeProjects.
If that wouldn't work for you, export from Keynote to Treepad format, then use Ultrarecall to import Treepad, export to RTF files and import those into TreeProjects. Or maybe open the Treepad format directly in Treepad and export to RTF - I don't remember whether Treepad has RTF export, but it should.


2
Living Room / Re: Experiences buying software on eBay?
« on: November 25, 2008, 08:48 AM »
Thanks for all the comments.

I didn't buy a software on Ebay yet just because I didn't have a need, but generally I wouldn't have any problem with purchasing software there.

My biggest concern is the way how Codegear/Embarcadero handle licenses. Due to the stupid policies like not allowing non-US customers an access to US online shop. So that they wouldn't freeze my license for example, if I purchased one that was for a US market.

But maybe I'm just paranoid.

It seems another option would be to purchase from one of their resellers in other countries, eg. Russian shop seems not to be blocking IP addresses, and the prices are not much higher than in US shop.

In overall, I have positive experiences with Paypal/Ebay, but negative ones too (like sitting on a phone two hours in total, trying to resolve a trivial case of closing an old abandoned account, so that someone who sent their money accidentally could get their money back, nothing resolved, and not that there was any fault on my side, there seemed to be simply no way to do it for them technically, though they wouldn't tell anything, not even whether it's possible or impossible, just yeah yeah nodding all the time), and I don't put much trust into their "guarantees", just that "usually they might work".

3
Living Room / Re: Experiences buying software on eBay?
« on: November 24, 2008, 09:17 AM »
Hi Marek, I'm now considering D2009 upgrade from my D6. Local reseller asking for $950 for Pro version upgrade download version, Embarcadero has $355 (after discount) but they won't let me buy (perhaps could be overcome by tunneling through some US IP address, not sure), and on Ebay someone is selling a box for $298.

So wondering if you or someone else have a positive experience with that, in particular whether there were any problems on Embarcadero side (allowing the upgrade to be registered)?

4
Anyway, David (the author) told me that in a few weeks there will be a web version of FullRecall

You had good info! It's now on http://fullrecall.com/online
I only had a chance to log-in, not to review as I had no remaining items for today. Interface is simple, in Fullrecall twist. Pretty nice.

(Not sure about SuperMemo in this respect, I think I read that SuperMemo UX (not Supermemo 2006) can be synced with their online Supermemo.net.)

5
Entering all the parameters of a task on MLP is quite a long winded process.
That's true. I almost never enter the extra info, so for me it's OK. I guess it will improve in the future when multi-column tree might be added.

On TDL it is all on one screen. And the search and filter abilities are much better.
Did you check the latest filtering, that was added with version 2? I can't think of what more could be added (except perhaps as above with the extra info, maybe it might take more steps than TDL, not sure).

So I always think "attractive but not efficient, don't buy".
Interesting, I always thought about MLO as "not much attractive,but very efficient".
I also tested TDL few times, it's very good, but I couldn't stand it GUI-wise.

6
FreePOPs is probably the best, some end users prefer Izzymail which is a web interface with similar functionality.

7
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: GemX Crazy Summer Specials
« on: June 23, 2008, 02:50 AM »
I used to frequent their forums.
Don't use DO right now.
It has a couple of bugs, but what software doesn't.
They communicate poorly, and that's what annoyed most people. Well if you post plenty of stuff on their forums, help each other, post tips and so on, and one day you come there and the forum is deleted, that's not good way to improve user relations.
As for the support, I have good experience, I had my support requests replied promptly.
What I have seen on the forums before they were shut down, were many cases of people not receiving their paid license codes for days or weeks. That can happen (junk mail filters and so on), but there clearly wasn't a good backup procedure in place to handle that.

For most people, the only factor shall be whether the software works for them, and as with any software if the existing bugs don't go in your way, go for it. The concept of DO is great, the linking and stuff.

8
Living Room / Re: Career Advice : Masters Degree
« on: June 17, 2008, 08:53 AM »
Not sure how this matches what you are looking for (it's in campus full-time, in UK), but it's .net specialization:
http://www.dcs.hull..../dotNetMSc/index.htm

9
Living Room / Re: The 10 most annoying programs on the Internet
« on: June 02, 2008, 11:26 AM »
Of course it's slower! But it also has a huge amount of functionality in it too that you don't get in the other "readers."
Functionality that 99% of users don't need nor care about nor really understand...explain that to someone who just wants "to read that pdf".
It's not that hard to significantly speed up AR, but again, a venture that most of the users will prefer not to go through.

10
Btw. Supermemo has a relatively lively user group on Yahoo Groups.
Fullrecall used to have web forums, but they are not linked from the main website anymore for about two months already.

11
Supermemo's interface is closer to Windows 3.1 than to Windows XP, and that is just 10 years too old for me.
FR interface is not much fancy or modern either,but yeah it's way easier and better than SM interface. Due to cross-platform reasons FR doesn't use the native GUI capabilities of each platform, but uses cross-platform GUI solution the Fox Toolkit.

Furthermore, if FullRecall keeps adding features at it's current rate, I think it will soon overtake SuperMemo's userbase.  Hopefully, it will force Supermemo to update its interface.
Interestingly enough David the FR author was supposed to be an author of SM for Linux, or Supermemo "Light", don't remember well, nor why it didn't happen.
The thing with SM interface is that it would have to be a full program rewrite, long hard work with software of this functionality range. Also it's written in Delphi, and I believe the Delphi controls are not yet 100% Unicode compatible. Maybe Piotr Wozniak waits for the right time to make the rewrite, once the tools will be "just right".... SM was rewritten completely several times in the past, so it's not a completely hopeless wish to have it happen one more time.

Btw. there was a list of planned features for FR, can't find it now, it was probably removed.

12
I use both Supermemo and Fullrecall. (And tested many of the free alternatives, usually very shortly though.)

As for the algorithmical difference, I don't dare to go into what's better, nor most users would be interested in that anyway. Piotr Wozniak had some interesting thoughts on the shortcomings of neural network implementation...on the other hand David the FR author thinks neural network is better and more flexible and adjusting to your learning patterns. Fullrecall's algorithm is more "behind the curtain" while with SM you have more reporting and generally get better feel for what's going on behind the curtain.
Also FR aims for maximum retention, while Supermemo allows you to set certain percentage, so called forgetting index, which significantly influences the effectiveness of your learning (time spent on using the software).

Both are relatively strong cross-platform wise, but Fullrecall is much better in that aspect.

Fullrecall is better with Unicode. Supermemo improved recently, but it doesn't have complete Unicode support yet.

If you need to use sounds for example, SM has native player, while FR runs any player on the computer. I found that rather annoying (with FR) over time, but maybe I didn't configure it well, not sure....

SM is much more flexible, if you need to author something more complex than simple question and answer. Or make sure to check the incremental reading technique.

SM has cluttered interface that's target of ongoing complaints, but you can switch to Beginner or Basic level, which is OK for majority of users anyway.

Both require that you use them every day, and both have some provisions if you miss some longer time to avoid "messing the system".

FR uses XML files for database (secondary, natively it has own format) if you wish to manipulate db programmatically, SM uses own db format but can export to XML.

SM has much better reporting functions.

What's rather important for many: if you mark item that you don't know it in Fullrecall, it will schedule next repetition usually in X days (depends how far you are in the learning process, and what neural network learned so far). Whereas with SM, it will keep such item for daily review at the same day (so called final drill). Some people can't be without that, some people just ignore the final drill, your choice.

My choice:

Fullrecall for : cross-platform needs, languages like Japanese (Unicode), or just for plain amazed by having neural network learn your learning patterns (there was even some graphical report for that, sadly removed in recent versions), GUI simplicity.

Supermemo for : sounds, incremental reading, one platform without syncing needs, text formatting and richer authoring features, you more in control (eg. setting different forgetting index for some exam where you pass with 50% of points and different for a field where you need to remember 80-90%, will save you time)

My hacks to use foreign language using flashcards:
1) first learn the item, then enter it into flashcard software
2) don't use it for the easy items - keep your database as small as possible to maximize effectiveness, unless you have plenty of free time
3) use longer sentences, where words are in context, instead of just one word for question and one word for an answer
4) Visit the forum on www.how-to-learn-any-language.com for fantastic community with foreign language learning tips

13
Supermemo is just too much and the interface is insane, there's no need to deal with that for most people...
That's true. It's also fair to say that for most people the Beginner or Basic level is quite enough, one can switch through menu File > Level. And these levels have way more acceptable interface than the Advanced level.

Anyway, David (the author) told me that in a few weeks there will be a web version of FullRecall that will use the server database and that will solve all these mobility problems.
So that's what he was working on silently for the last few weeks. I kind of hoped it will be the web version, and not anything else. As it's quite uncommon for David to keep silent for 2 months - he keeps updating the program very frequently, that's one of great things about Fullrecall.

For those interested in Supermemo, there is a large and quite interesting article from April 21st about Piotr Wozniak the author of the Supermemo method and software, at Wired site: http://stag.wired.co...ozniak?currentPage=1

14
both use supermemo v5 algorithm
Mnemosyne uses supermemo 2 algorithm, and anki as well - at least they indicate so on the homepage.

15
EssentialPIM doesn't come with an email module.

16
Nobody "knows how" when it comes to Palm. If you are doing anything for Palm platform, you have to hack your way through, you learn every moment, new incompatibilities, new bugs, it doesn't come on a golden plate as many are undocumented, it must be learned through the process, no one knows who didn't go through it. And once you know it all, new model comes and again you know nothing and have to hack your way through it.

That Slaven, or Jim, decided not to go through it to the end, is an easy calculation to me: it would bring a negligible if any increase in sales in Barca, while taking way too many developer hours.

At the time in the past when I was subscribed to a non-public Palm developers discussion group, some dedicated Palm programmers left the platform or threatened to, because of bugs in Palm implementations, incompatibilities introduced with every other model, and no clear future (one was almost tempted to say "no future") of Palm platform.

These were people who have drawn 100% of their income from Palm software.

Barca doesn't, Palm sync is just extra, and I wonder if having Palm sync would increase Barca sales even by 1%.  It's true every now and then someone asks for a Palm sync, but it's just a tiny drop in the sea of users.

My Palm is covered by dust, as developers of software I rely on nowadays on Windows, mostly decided to not even bother by Palm and if anything only consider Windows mobile platform in their plans. Sad.

17
Living Room / Re: Vista source code leaked!
« on: April 05, 2008, 08:36 PM »
What...it's not programmed in Visual Basic ? :)

 :Thmbsup:

18
The development of Palm sync for Barca was stopped long ago while in beta. It perhaps might work with some older models, but I doubt the development will be resurrected under current conditions (approach towards Palm developers, new models/new OS far in sight, and userbase declining). And that's while Slaven the lead developer is a Palm user himself, so the reasons to stop working on Palm sync must have been pretty strong.

19
Link directory software that allows custom fields.
But it would require some customization, mainly for templates.

http://www.esyndicat.com/
http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/

Both have free and paid versions.

20
Living Room / Re: RAPIDSHARE.COM sucks!
« on: March 30, 2008, 05:30 PM »
Well...it might as well be a part of their business model. They operate on the very edge. Of all the rapidshare links I have ever seen posted anywhere, I can't remember one that was for a legal stuff.
They are in the business of annoying people who don't want to pay for the stuff (books, software, movies, ... ), enough to make them pay for the right to download pirated stuff. That's a tough sell to make.

Btw. the above is just my own experience, drawing mostly from few student forums I visit. I might as well be wrong and perhaps most of the stuff on rapidshare is perfectly legal I don't know.

21
General Software Discussion / Re: What's the current 'killer app'?
« on: March 30, 2008, 02:52 PM »
There are some applications (Scrivener, Textmate, Tinderbox) that keep me seriouosly considering moving from Windows to MacOS.

22
Living Room / Re: The MacBook Air is So Thin…
« on: March 29, 2008, 03:40 PM »
This didn’t get him out of being responsible for the computer though. Newsweek, the company he works for, is now responsible and is paying Apple for an $1800 computer that is so thin, it vanished without a trace.
Hillarious. Smart marketing. No matter whether it's a real story or premade/injected by Apple marketing execs, I bet neither the reporter nor the Newsweek paid $1800. I like it  8)

23
Well....GMail is great product.

But I still use offline email client - it's substantially quicker to switch mailboxes, and somewhat quicker to display a message. The spam filtering works my way, not the Google way, and I trust my antispam so much that I don't check Junk folder anymore. Unlike Gmail, with GMail I always have  good messages end up as spam. Some of them come from Google, go figure (Google Alerts service, Google Groups administrator notifications).
Not having to check Junk folder saves me significant amounts of time, quicker email and folder loading saves some as well.
And then the other obvious reasons, but the above pretty much sums up the top ones in my book.

24
Actually wondering.

I have visited some Windows email client software websites, and while still actively developed, the extras they offer (skins, plugins, ....) while plentiful usually date few years back. No recent stuff.

Also few email clients come to mind that went bankrupt (or some other kind of metamorphosis, like Eudora) recently.

Did all the users move to Thunderbird?

Or did all the developers (as the skins and plugins were mostly third party stuff) move over to Linux ?

Sounds to me like this part of shareware market is dying out, or am I completely wrong?

25
Developer's Corner / Re: oDesk
« on: February 25, 2008, 03:04 PM »
I used to work as a freelancer in certain field, and some guys eventually turned up that offered to those who will give them the work, a screenshot of every single action they took on their behalf. It worked pretty well with some employers.
As a freelancer, I would go that route only if I really had to (there was no other work for me).
As an employer, I wouldn't go this route, as
a] my time in most cases will be much more valued as that of the freelancer's, and the last thing I want is to waste my time browsing screenshot
b] I only want to establish business connection with people based on mutual trust
Of course, under certain circumstances, it might be "the right choice" despite of the above. Generally in both cases (as a freelancer and as an employer), I would use that tool only if I had to (given the circumstances).
It's not bad idea.
And there is a lot of control freaks between potential employers (at least in the group that I worked for), who will think this is a godsend and will jump on it and some even enjoy the hours spent browsing screenshots.
So it will bring jobs to those freelancers who don't mind giving up the privacy.

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