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[@IainB:]

@IainB: At last, the solution. I'm all four that!

I'm a bit baffeled by the tatical 180 between this and Iainb's first post ... But, Yeah lets get this last Idea pushed through as quick as possible. Gia would be a good place to start.

One of the reasons that bit.ly is in such widespread use is

People are lazy, and deluded into thinking security is the other guys problem. Regardless of how chronically incredibly dangerous this practice is ~OMG~ it's Fun! - Because the whole point of the internet is FaceBook, marketing & vanity...

Yes, I'm a bit cranky today. 

Problem seems to me to be mostly with the automation - because they're not automatically checking to see if the link is long enough to need shortening. (i.e. running www.wdc.com through bit.ly helps who?)

if(strlen(link) < Screen_Width_of_Typical_Cell_Phone) {
  Skip_it;
}

[not]

Well I was trying to respond to 40hz ... but I don't type fast enough.

Along those lines (but just to the side), I also thing that the documentation requirement would (most likely) spin the whole thing off into the weeds. Let me just toss a few thing out in that direction:

1. A fully "packaged" application is (headed to being) more about marketing than coding. If you have something with that much work into it ... You'll be needing to rationalize not selling it (so the kids can eat), before deciding to giving it away.

2. A truly exceptional application is one that fills it's intended purpose in a complete, elegant, and user friendly way - Not the one that comes in a fancy box (e.g. turd polish).

On a side note: I'm currently looking into doing the documentation for TC2010; which is a program I've been using for over 10 years - and am currently writing (you just can't get any more familiar with a program than that) - But if anything sinks the project, it will be that.

NANY (near as I can tell) Is a programming contest. Which says to me, that it's all about the code. I've long maintained the if something is truly done (written/designed) well...It doesn't need to be explained.

One of my favorite programs is SoftGears wWhoIS, it's a CLI program, with no documentation (that I've seen) ... and it doesn't need any either - it's usage is self explanatory - and I'd be lost without it.

One of DC's primary features is the Coding Snacks section. Where any Joe-off-the-street can gain access to a real live programmer, and ask if idea X is viable. Sometimes it's a clever enough niche to be made real, and sometimes it's and opportunity to educate the requester about an existing feature or application. Neither is bad.

NANY seems to work off the same vein, except it is driven by something kicking around in the head of the entrant. Holidays offer lots of downtime that isn't necessarily always filled with bustling, frolicking & family activities. If an idea can be slapped together in a presentable fashion, that will convey it intended purpose well ... It then has the potential to develop into (or inspire) something wonderful at a later date. Just because some entrants are better (more skilled) or faster than others (I'm slow as hell) doesn't mean their ideas will always pan out. The people that never fail, are frequently the ones that never really try either (failing is a good thing).

One of the things that took me (being more of a nuts-&-bolts guy) a while to grasp is that DC has a bit of an academic slant - e.g. The point of a discussion is to discuss the point, drawing a conclusion is optional. That's part of it's charm, and something that should not change.

i don't know.. that open letter is not so much about apple opening up its products/APIs/etc., it seems more about people wanting press access.

I think it's being presented as an Iceberg tip.

Adobe Acrobat has an Unregister option that is designed to allow moving license X to Machine Y. Acrobat puts the option in either the help or tools menu iirc.

I think the model works fantastically for what they use it for, for focused question+answers by experts.  But we are much more conversational here, so i'm not sure it would be a good match.. and i don't know how you could combine them.

I think the "combine them" is the holy grail part...

It's been widely discussed here that having one medium (forum) is not necessarily the best fit for all the different things that DC do. Some of the question and answer posts would definitely fit better where a subsequent viewer can jump to the best answer... or read them all if they want.

What's the best xxx get out of date so quickly sometimes.

But if it's not possible to combine, then maybe it's best to live with the restrictions to maintain our conversational tone?

Why not do something like Experts-Exchange.com? Question is asked->discussion ensues->answer is found - and then marked (boldly) as Accepted Answer. That post also gets a different title bar color so it's easy to scroll to if you just need a quick answer.

That's not a bad mix of the two.

iPad's printing functionality:



SCNR

Okay, That's funny.     

Normally I hook up to Windows systems. And to manage those I use the MS RDP protocol, it is faster and more stable than whatever edition from VNC offers. Whatever I have to do locally on those machines is done with their standard explorer...again speed and stability.

I'll 2nd that.

I hadn't thought of FTP for file transfers, but (I like it) it makes sense - Explorer over VPN is crap (too much overhead).

Edit:[/b] I forgot to ask -- I found this Global Atom Viewer but it appears to be a Japanese application.  It seems to be handy when doing RegisterHotKey-related things.  Do you know of anything similar in English?

Don't believe I've ever seen anything like that one. But an English version might make a good Coding Snack.


On the Windows key links, I don't believe I've been to that page specifically, but the gist of what I skimmed looks to be inline with everything else I'd been reading at the time. I'll have to try and give it a complete read later to see what kind of how to create a UI that doesn't suck tips I can glean.

Tangential note...

The Windows keys do not work reliably because they're a reserved System Key.

I was just reading about RegisterHotKey:

Yepper... That was the page that got me to thinking...

The F12 key is reserved for use by the debugger at all times, so it should not be registered as a hot key. Even when you are not debugging an application, F12 is reserved in case a kernel-mode debugger or a just-in-time debugger is resident.

I noticed that the latest T-Clock 2010 doesn't allow F12 to be registered

BTW, do you know of a good list of reserved keys?  What I've found so far is:

  http://www.aquariussoft.c...elp-windows-shortcuts.asp

(Pardon the side track - But I just remembered something - There is a program Listed here on the board called ActiveHotKeys that was a total Life Saver when I was working on the configurable hotkeys part. It was the only reason I found out that I was registering the keys properly, but with the wrong information (which is why nothing had worked in testing (for 2 days)). So... I just wanted to throw in a quick pitch for it.

Anyhow, I never did find a truly complete list of (default) Windows HotKeys (but I love collecting them), which is why I started putting together a database of them - which I then never had time to finish. It's a bit plain (ok it's ugly) but works:

Stoic Joker's HotKey db


Oh, and if you have any suggestions on/for the Time Sync "feature" (mess) I'm still futzing with it.

Well... While I was beating the web bushes for a bit more elegant solution to the SetSystemTime debacle (hehe) I ran across this tutorial series that looks to be right about what you're after (Replete with Code Samples):

Asking the User for Credentials

I've got 2 monitors that sit side by side both angled slightly inward. I sit directly facing the the center point where they meet, with the taskbar on the left so the notification area is always in my field of view. Only time I have to move my head is to glance down at the keyboard - because I still can't type... *shrug*

I do however generally take my glasses off while computing, because the progressive lenses have a "viewing Channel" that requires you to move your head to avoid bluring/distortion. I may eventually need to get a pair of regular (non-progressive or bifocal) glasses for the comp but for now my mid range vision still works fine with the 1280 x 1024 resolution on the 2 17" 4:3 monitors I have.

ROFL ... Now you know where I was at when the question first arose ... By default Windows XP, Vista, & 7 all auto sync with time.windows.com every 7 days - which was (a large) part of the justification for dropping the feature to begin with.

But I too have a thing about time ... So I continued to entertain the possibilitys... And Kazubon wrote the time sync code back in 95. Hence with a (slightly major) revamp of the socket handling code it wasn't really difficult to put back in - Where & how were the tricky parts. That and If I make it available to anyone, it has to be available for everyone, including the folks who are running (my all time favorite OS) Windows 2000. So... (hehe) ...Here we are.

The feature isn't at all finished, as I still have to add an auto-prompt for preferred NTP server if none is configured, and I'm just hoping to glean some input on what else (if anything) to add to it, to make it as user friendly as possible - without compromising security.

LOL ... You weren't the first (or the only one) to inquire about it.

The sticking point is that setting the time in Windows (Vista/7/etc.) requires administrative rights and/or a UAC prompt acceptance (All roads lead to the SetSystemTime(&NewTime) function). So regardless of what I do with the code, I either have to require the program be run with administrative rights, or saddle the user with UAC prompts ... Which will result in the program being run with administrative rights. That, of course would violate one of the core design requirements that I set forth back in 06 (come to think of it, it was more like 03 when I started the project).

Fortunately, I like a challenge. So I cooked up this little scheme which allows the time to be quickly sync'ed from an administrative command prompt - which I'm guessing most of us tend to frequently run and/or keep handy. It's kind of a Power User Easter Egg if you will...

The primary question, at this point, is whether or not this scheme fits your definition of an acceptably convenient solution to (time Sync) problem X?? ...If it does, I'll continue flushing it out with a UI for server & logging configuration etc..

(Forcing a logoff) Sounds like a great way to lose data - Why not just use Win + L to lock the session when leaving the computer?

[mouser...]

Okay, Time Synchronization: (mouser...) Being that it was stated that a manual sync would be acceptable...It gave me a bit of (~Artistic~License~) Latitude. I did not want to have TC2010 triggering any manner of Administrative Rights/UAC Issues/Prompts. So, The best (Have-Your-Cake-and-Eat-it-Too) solution I could concoct was to (give TC2010 a split personality) run the Time Sync from a 2nd session via the command line.

Hence the TC2010 still does not require Administrative Rights - But the Time Sync (which it now has) does. Navigate to the TC2010 with an Administrative Command Prompt and run Clock /Sync This will partially load a 2nd (hook-less) copy of TC2010 that will synchronize the time with the selected NTP Server and then exit.

[attachimg=1]

Now As I mentioned this is a rough draft, so there is currently no interface to configure the time server with. The registry entry will (for the moment) need to be manually added to the registry here:
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Stoic Joker's\T-Clock 2010\SNTP
Type: REG_SZ
Name: Server
Value: [Your Choice of Time Servers]

You can also add (to the same location):
Type: DWORD
Name: SaveLog
Value: 1 (default of false)

To have it create SNTP.log in its own directory (which currently (unavoidably) tends to fail if it's in Program Files on Vista/7) - Choices for now are either log -or- MessageBox sync successful message.

While I am releasing this (rough-hewn) feature a bit early, the object is to see how well this compromise is received - before I poured a ton of time into something that totally sucks...

Feedback (desperately needed) Appreciated!

[O]

I decided to format it and when I went to do that I found out that the default cluster size for FAT is 32 KiB.

...Which is why I mentioned the MS Oformat utility earlier - That's what it's for - creating low cluster size FAT/FAT32 partitions that can easily/safely be converted to NTFS (with Win2k era convert.exe). It was a required procedure back then if you wanted/needed the NTFS compression to work...and were going to be starting with a FAT drive (for whatever reason).

[Oformat]

If you use the Oformat utility from a Win2k/XP setup disk (should be in tools - iirc), you can format the disk as FAT/FAT32 with (almost) any cluster size you want/need.

Okay, at this point I've managed to create, modify, fix, resurrect, compound, befriend, and finally kill about 15 new buggs that crawled out of the woodwork in the process of addressing the above (Win + A) issue. Seems there was a lurking flaw in the design of the structure I created for handling the hotkey configuration sets, that caused the whole thing to hit the fan on a x64 box (most of my testing is done on a XP VPC).

Anyhow... I've now locked out the Windows Keys and any other combination that may tend to get folks in trouble (i.e. Shift + A-Z, etc.).

So... Since I've now (between here and the office) been coding for 17hrs straight, I'm going to go fall over dead.

BTW, I have not succeeded in getting a hotkey with the windows key to work.  Should it?

That is/was one of those I was on-the-fence issues I'd planned to get back to later. The Windows keys do not work reliably because they're a reserved System Key. While I'd toyed with trying to make it work (to see if I could), I suspect it would be a very bad coding practice to foist on the users. The standard Windows Shortcut options block them from being used ...(for a reason)... So, I will also in the next build.

Thank you, for your continued efforts at poking holes in my code

Also, FFS, make Notepad detect other line endings than CR+LF.

Now there's one I will happily 2nd! (Damn that's annoying)

[if you ever delete an app from your iPad, any documents stored with that app are deleted as well.]

It the other half of the bookends set for this.

It gets worse. There is no way to share the same document with more than one iPad app. For example, a Word document imported to Pages cannot be accessed by any other iPad app, even other apps that can open Word documents. The only work-around is to import the document twice, once for each app. Further, if you ever delete an app from your iPad, any documents stored with that app are deleted as well.

Their (insanely) mandatory auto-saves should greatly assist in making a royal mess of things also.

Holy crap Apple, seriously? *That's* how your shiny new toy handles data sync? Wow. Just... wow.

Seriously, why the shock? ...This is a perfect Apple "File Sharing" efficiency match for the MacBook Wheel...

I use to love Partition Magic until Symantec assimilated Power Quest - I just couldn't trust it after that.

I've been (happily) using Paragon HDM for awhile, but their Bootable CD tends to cry (and refuse to load) about Screen Resolution a bit too often (e.g. it burned me on-site once).

This certainly looks clean enough, so I'll give it a shot. Thanks for the tip.