Messages

26

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« on: June 12, 2011, 05:48 PM »

The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.

-doctorfrog (June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM)

There are outlets other than b&n and amazon for purchasing non-drm books.  And if one of them actually modified something on the device that you didn't purchase from them, that would be a very bad thing for them (and pretty stupid also, as most would have backups - or in the case of a couple of outlets you can re-download).

-wraith808 (June 12, 2011, 08:50 AM)

Correct. However, your activity can still be monitored and stored. What if something you downloaded one day was determined to fit a sought-after terrorist profile tomorrow? It wouldn't matter if it had DRM or not, or where you got it, the device itself has an umbilical to somewhere else, and there isn't anything stopping it from quietly storing records of your activity. The policy attached to devices is cause for concern as well as the files themselves.

I'm not personally worried about this happening to me, but that doesn't mean it isn't something that isn't going to happen to anyone, ever. Libraries stood up against US government demands to turn over book borrowing records. Verizon and other telecoms didn't. Would an ebook retailer?

27

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« on: June 11, 2011, 11:29 PM »

What about e-books published in open formats that are DRM free?

-Deozaan (June 10, 2011, 05:39 AM)

The device is still capable of tying personally identifiable information about you to the book, and remotely deleting or modifying it. There are no laws that I'm aware of that would keep Amazon, or any other company, from doing either of these things, or simply recording your behavior quietly, as the collected data awaits a sales opportunity or subpoena. Can't do this on a massive scale with physical books.

OR CAN YOU (tinfoil)

28

Living Room / Re: xkcd - why we should fear the cloud

« on: June 07, 2011, 02:02 AM »

Hm, the guy running the cloud has a douchebag hat.

Appropriate.

29

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: GameShui Launcher

« on: June 07, 2011, 01:56 AM »

Take or leave this bit of criticism:

If I use a game launcher at all, I would want it to look like a collection. Like this:

http://darkadia.com/...r/doctorfrog/library

As it is, my current game launcher is based on Pegtop's PStart program. It's slim, quick, customizable, and relies on no external runtimes:



Note that Steam is capable of looking roughly like either of these: like a Library, or like a Launcher.

30

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Freeware] TimeClue - a simple time reminder that fades the desktop

« on: May 12, 2011, 03:32 AM »

TimeClue can be configured via a dialog now. Just right click the app icon in system tray and choose "Options..." from the shortcut menu.
 (see attachment in previous post)

-musetips (May 10, 2011, 05:16 AM)

You've got my attention.  

I know it ain't much, but *clink*

31

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [Freeware] TimeClue - a simple time reminder that fades the desktop

« on: May 08, 2011, 11:21 PM »

Nice idea. I'd love to see this with some configurable options:

• adjustable color/saturation/
• adjustable max opaqueness
• audible chime
• duration of fade
• choose your own time periods
• bonus: configurable settings for specific events/times

Configurable in a textfile or a dialog, it'd be all the same to me.

32

General Software Discussion / Re: Software recommendations for writers

« on: May 06, 2011, 02:27 PM »

Everything's a distraction. Q10 is awesome as heck for just getting stuff out.

http://www.baara.com/q10/

Although I did get distracted trying to come up with the perfect "80's amber terminal" theme for it.

edit: this appears very similar to WriteMonkey, which seems to have a few more features, like bold, italics, export features and such. Might have to check that one out.

33

Living Room / Re: Daily Autohotkey

« on: May 05, 2011, 03:24 PM »

• Anuran, of course (my idea, skillfully coded by Skwire)
• Belvedere, to clean out my downloads directory every week
• hktunes, to control iTunes

34

Living Room / Re: The anti-piracy lobby makes a convincing argument

« on: April 17, 2011, 02:50 PM »

Here's Google's latest attempt to stop us upload copyrighted material.

-Eóin (April 17, 2011, 02:26 PM)

Hey, that's pretty neat! I can't wait for the video that explains fair use of copyrighted material in greater depth!

I'll just wait here for it to be produced!

35

General Software Discussion / Re: I want a game for Christmas: turn-based

« on: December 19, 2010, 10:44 PM »

TBS fantasy, eh:
I've heard Age of Wonders is pretty good: http://www.gog.com/e...wonders_shadow_magic
If your lappy can handle it, Civ IV is cheap, great, and has Fall From Heaven, a very deep fantasy mod.

36

General Software Discussion / Using WinWget to back up a WordPress.com site?

« on: December 15, 2010, 03:02 PM »

I have some trust issues with the cloud, so I don't like keeping everything online with no offline backups. I'd like to have a local mirror of my WordPress blog (http://drfrog.wordpress.com), in case something happens. I already regularly export the XML file, but I'd like a much more thorough backup. I'm new to WinWget, and it looks pretty good, but I'm a little puzzled by the lack of documentation and the arcane command line switches. Rather than read through an online man page and go through several iterations of trial and error, I'd like a little guidance instead.

Here's what I'd like to do:
- completely mirror and have a local copy of the site, at an infinite link depth
- convert links to use local assets only
- include assets that are stored on the files subdomain (drfrog.files.wordpress.com), as winwget seems to skip over these
- be able to run and re-run a profile and have it reliably update the local copy of the site without any weird behavior

- best case scenario: be able to download the entire blog, ready to upload to a fresh server of my choice with minimal/no link conversion

thanks!

--frog

37

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Toggle mouse acceleration with a simple program

« on: November 03, 2010, 01:29 PM »

Just saw this on gHacks: http://www.ghacks.ne...-settings-per-mouse/

It promises to be exactly what I need, a program that's smart enough to differentiate between multiple pointing devices and apply separate sensitivity settings for each.

Why Windows can't do this on its own is still a mystery, my work laptop has up to three devices on it: a touchpad, a joystick nub, and a wireless mouse, all with their own little sensitivity quirks. There are literally millions of laptops like this out there.

Down side: It's nagware, which costs 7.50 in european moon money to register.

edit: http://sourceforge.n...rojects/automousesw/ appears to be an open source solution.

38

DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for November 2nd, 2010 - "MegaLetter"

« on: November 02, 2010, 01:56 PM »

Always enjoy your newsletters, mouser!

39

Living Room / Re: Am I the only one who finds the new Apps-based world boring?

« on: October 04, 2010, 04:20 PM »

I currently work at a pretty decent tech company staffed with intelligent, nice, hardworking people, and most of them are absolutely glued to their iPhones. If there's a spare second on an elevator ride or five seconds wait in a line, they're staring at that little screen.

I bet they're much more productive for it, I really do, because of the connectivity of the thing, and all the miracles you can accomplish with it. But me, when I step away from my desk, I'm done looking at screens, and I'm done working for the five minutes it takes for a bathroom break or a wait in line for coffee. Email can wait, text messages can wait, the whole business can wait until I get back to my chair. I don't need constant updates of everything.

And I have absolutely no interest in cute little apps made for those 30-second stretches of time. Good god man, I don't have many thoughts in my head, but the ones I have there, I'm pretty grateful for. Video games, video streaming, and constant internet activity have driven me to crave distraction, I don't need anymore stuff calling for my attention!

And I'm kind of sad about this, because I feel like I'm lacking compared to these people.

40

Post New Requests Here / Re: NEDK - Not Enough Damn Keys (Apple Wireless Keyboard Extender)

« on: August 19, 2010, 02:58 PM »

Cool, I'm grateful for your efforts.

41

Post New Requests Here / NEDK - Not Enough Damn Keys (Apple Wireless Keyboard Extender)

« on: August 16, 2010, 01:45 PM »

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I love my Apple Wireless Keyboard. It's pretty great. What I don't like is that Apple has basically no interest in supporting it natively in Windows 7, and hasn't made the keyboard drivers available to the likes of myself.

This means that I don't have any of the functions offered by the Fn key. This means I've had to do without PgUp, PgDn, Delete, Home, End, PrintScrn, and the context menu.

Ideally, I'd like to get my hands on the Windows 7 64x keyboard driver that Apple should have included with the keyboard in the first place. For one thing, I'd have access to Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn by simply using Fn+Arrows.

Well, fine. I've dealt with it pretty well so far, using SharpKeys, I've reassigned a few of the buttons so that I can have a few of the above, and rearrange the Win, Alt, and Ctrl keys so they make sense to my muscle memory. But SharpKeys can only assign one button function per button, and I don't have the surplus of buttons needed to replicate them all.

So, here's what I'm after:

I want to turn the Caps Lock key into a toggler for key functions for the right shift key.

Tap the Caps Lock, and instead of toggling Caps (which I never use), it rotates between the following functions for the shift key: PgUp, PgDn, Delete, Home, End, PrintScrn. I can then tap the right shift key and use it for that function.

Further, I should be able to choose which of the keys appear in the rotation, and the order in which they rotate. This could be done in a gui or a config file, either is fine.

Finally, there should be a tray app with a status indicator as to the current key function, and an audio prompt every time the keys are toggled. Better yet, customizable sounds for each of the key functions, so I can have a voice say "Print Screen" when the PrntScrn key is activated.

This sounds like a job for AutoHotKey, can it accomplish this? Or, does someone have the Win 7 64-bit driver for the Apple Wireless Keyboard?

Note: A project called UAWKS with AHK came out that attempted to do this, but it doesn't work with the current gen of keyboards, and is essentially a dead project, largely because of the difficulty of accessing the Fn button. This is why I'm not asking for Fn button support, it's probably too hard. But if you're up to it... it'd be a much better solution.

42

Finished Programs / Re: TransItSpec - 2 levels of transparency and on-top for specific windows

« on: July 01, 2010, 01:55 PM »

Hm, I didn't see that as an option. Guess it pays to read the fine print.

Though I wouldn't mind a usability improvement to make this feature more accessible, this thread can be closed, I've found my app. Thanks lanux + skrommel!

43

Finished Programs / Re: TransItSpec - 2 levels of transparency and on-top for specific windows

« on: June 30, 2010, 12:55 PM »

That's a great tool also! However, I want 2 levels of transparency, based on whether the target window is active or inactive. Maybe Skrommel would be willing to make an addition?

44

Finished Programs / SOLVED: TransItSpec - 2 levels of transparency and on-top for specific windows

« on: June 29, 2010, 12:55 PM »

TransItSpec - 2 levels of transparency for specific windows

Console2 (http://gog.is/console2) has a few great little features:

- user-definable transparency when the app is selected.
- user-definable transparency when the app is in the background.
- an always-on-top option for the window.

I'd like to bring this feature to other, specific windows as well. I don't want this to affect all windows at once, just the one or two windows I define.

Use case: a window can be sitting on top of all others, but nearly invisible in its transparency. When it is clicked on, it becomes more visible. Great for crowded monitors with chat windows, running video, open consoles, or system meters.

Skrommel's Transother offers similar functionality, but it applies it like a howitzer, affecting every window on the screen. I'd like my app to be more selective.

45

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the best software uninstaller tool?

« on: May 22, 2010, 11:27 PM »

What about for 64 bit Windows?

46

DcUpdater / Re: is DC updater only for FARR?

« on: May 22, 2010, 11:26 PM »

I think each one that's set up properly will have a .dcupdate file in the install directory. Double-click that file, which should be associated with DC Updater, and you should be able to update.

47

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite keyboard customizations?

« on: May 22, 2010, 08:17 PM »

I just made the move from a full-sized keyboard to an Apple wireless keyboard. So, needless to say, I'm overloading many keys with shortcuts these days.

Mostly, I'm using bbkeys.dll, which comes with bblean, for a lot of stuff. Due to laziness, I'm relying on a mix of PStart (which has an excellent and easy-to-setup hotkey feature) and nircmd for easy app launching and some system control stuff.

It's a lot to go through, but it's a heck of a keyboard. I love the thing.

links (extremely lazy, i know)
http://gog.is/bblean
http://gog.is/pstart/menu
http://gog.is/nircmd

48

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: simple loop machine for wav, mp3, etc. files

« on: May 11, 2010, 11:24 PM »

Sweet, thanks!

--frog

49

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: simple loop machine for wav, mp3, etc. files

« on: May 09, 2010, 02:01 PM »

Bump. Hey Skwire, I wonder if you'd consider adding the following features:

- User toggle: minimize to tray
- User toggle: start in tray
- User toggle: start playing most recent track on startup

Use case: I sometimes play birdsong for my birds during the day, it'd be nice to just launch the app, and have it play in the background without taking residence on the taskbar.

50

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: PoMTAW - Power Management That Actually Works

« on: May 06, 2010, 08:53 PM »

That looks like it does much of what I ask, but at the price of $25. That's a bit steep.