Topics

51

Living Room / PIM functions on a Smartphone when no signal or web? Impossible?

« on: September 25, 2010, 12:36 PM »

One of the reasons I prefer classic PDAs to smartphones is that it seems nonsensical to spend $700 a year for a data plan just for the privilege of entering my own data. On top of that, for the rss feeds and web sites I track, I feel like a daily sync to the PDA using something like Plucker or iSilo is plenty timely enough. (iSilo in particular is available on a wide range of PDA platforms, even the newer ones like Android and iPhone.) However I am constantly looking for information that will give me confidence that I can use a modern smartphone without a data plan, since I often see smartphones on ebay for a low price because it only works with a wireless carrier with a not-so-great reputation. And I have been without a PDA for a while, I have had two digitizers gone bad (Palm Tungsten T3 and Dell Axim), and I am incompetent at replacing them. This leads me to believe the newer devices must have more reliable digitizers, which makes sense.

I remember when Palm's new Web OS was coming out, there was an emphasis on not making it a door stop when you didn't have a signal. What I am curious about is if anyone has had any success in using a modern smartphone without a data plan, be it Android, iPhone, WebOS, or whatever else is out there. I am primarily interested in PIM functions: tasks, notes, calendar, contacts, not so much email and obviously that is not going to work anyway without a data connection.

52

Developer's Corner / API or Lists of human language ways to express dates in Outlook

« on: September 25, 2010, 10:02 AM »

If I press Enter in Outlook below, yesterday will be a perfectly acceptable due date and it will converted to yesterday's date.


I can also specify something like Friday and it will figure out I mean the upcoming Friday.

What I am looking for is either a complete list documenting all ways to specify dates in Outlook in plain English (or plain Urdu depending on your regional settings, although kal means both yesterday and tomorrow in Urdu, so I guess that wouldn't work) or an Outlook API to convert those plain language dates to real dates so that I can use them in programs outside of Outlook. Anyone know of anything like that out there?

53

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / How do you use Categories in your task or calendar management?

« on: September 25, 2010, 09:52 AM »

Since I don't see a "Getting Organized" section for 2010, and people are still posting in this section, I have to assume "of 2009" no longer applies. So here is my "getting organized" question.

This is a question for people who use tasks in any task managment software. Or, if you like, appointments or calendar items in any calendar software. Do you use categories (or tags) for your tasks and calendar items? If so, how do you use them? I am especially interested in non-GTD uses for categories, although use of categories by GTD users for purposes other than GTD contexts or GTD projects would also be interesting. This question is for any task or calendar management you use, RTM, Outlook, Toodledo, or what have you.

54

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 TaskDaddy Missing/Future Features Poll

« on: September 22, 2010, 07:28 AM »

Notice that some should be quick to implement and others may take years. For this poll, don't worry about that. That's my problem, not yours*. It is a fact that most of the work on TaskDaddy is done in 15 minute spurts while the kids are asleep or at school. But if a feature is going to take a while to implement, that may be all the more reason to get started on it, despite the fact that may put it out of scope for NANY which has to be complete by 1/1/2011.

*Technically it could be yours if you really want that feature.

55

Living Room / Do virus scanners need to get stupid again?

« on: September 10, 2010, 04:28 PM »

Remember back when virus scanners were basically glorified grep and all they did was search for signatures in files all day long? And we were warned virus scanners would have to get smarter and detect specific behavior rather than just mindlessly search for strings in files?  Nowadays we have virus scanners that try to detect suspicious behavior. The unintended consequence seems to be that now the burden is on the user to determine whether a particular DLL call behavior is suspicious or not. It's enough to make a person wish for the glory days of virus scanners when if you got a message saying a virus detected, you could be fairly confident a virus was detected. Being good at recognizing false positives has become a requirement of using antivirus software much more than it used to be in my opinion. Granted, it helps to avoid crap virus scanners (or ones that exaggerate the possible threat), but even the ones I recommend (avast or Microsoft Security Essentials or Symantec* if you want to spend money) politely bring up warnings of suspicious behavior likely to freak out a non-techie.

Do virus scanners need to get "dumb" again and just search for signatures instead of trying to be so smart? I'm kidding in a way, but also semi-serious. Or have I mischaracterized?

*Actually I haven't seen it in Symantec, but maybe that is because I don't use it, because I don't want to spend money.

56

General Software Discussion / Any Firefox addon to do multiple searches in same search engine?

« on: August 06, 2010, 05:29 AM »

I'm trying to find a Firefox addon to do multiple searches in a single search engine (I have Chrome installed too, so that would probably be fine). I'm not sure what the UI would be but one way to do it would be to offer a text area to paste a list of your things you want to do a search on,  hit submit and you see several tabs open up, each representing search results for a line item.

So for example, you paste in or type in a list of actors, and you get an IMDB search for each actor.

57

General Software Discussion / Karaoke software recommendations?

« on: July 23, 2010, 12:20 PM »

Can anyone recommend any karaoke software? It doesn't have to be freeware necessarily, but fairly inexpensive. It would be good if it allows me to make recordings of my kids singing along the songs.

CD-G as a format is pretty funny, who would have thought burning text to a CD would require a special burner? So I have no use for it.

58

Developer's Corner / Style guidelines for how to structure helpfiles?

« on: July 07, 2010, 03:03 PM »

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, pointers, or good examples of best practices for organizing a help file. My Google fu fails me...

EDIT: Did find this from searching delicious:
http://www.uxmatters...erative-approach.php

59

General Software Discussion / Entering Windows 7 password after machine it is idle annoyance

« on: July 01, 2010, 02:16 PM »

This is starting to drive me nuts, I noticed this in the Windows 7 RC, and it still happens in Windows 7 OEM version for me (different motherboard IIRC), I am curious as to whether it happens to anyone else. When I return to my PC after leaving it idle, I go to it, press Ctrl-Alt-Del, type in my password and get in. This works about half the time. The other half, I find myself picking up the mouse after entering Ctrl-Alt-Del because the Password field is not selected, selecting the field with the mouse and then putting it in. I know I can Tab but why should I have to. Could this be a software/driver conflict?

60

Find And Run Robot / Break/Pause 1, Break/Pause 2, Break/Pause 3

« on: June 29, 2010, 09:32 PM »

Why are there 3 different versions of Pause/Break in the hotkey dropdown? Are they for different types of keyboards?

61

Living Room / How do you sort an XML file?

« on: June 23, 2010, 11:17 AM »

You have an XML file containing data. You have a frequent need to sort this XML file by various text elements within the XML file: last update time, name, category, image resolution, for example. How do you do it? (You can use a command line program or a GUI, or maybe there's some way to do this in Excel?)

62

Developer's Corner / I guess I'm not using a static variable then

« on: June 14, 2010, 05:53 PM »

63

Living Room / Set Firefox about:config settings from the command line. How?

« on: June 12, 2010, 12:23 PM »

Is there a way to merge a set of Firefox about:config settings into an existing prefs.js file from the command line, if you want to automate the process? Like with the Windows Registry, you can share a .reg file, is there a filetype like that for the Firefox "registry", or something fairly simple like that?

I've figured out how to make keyboard shortcuts for the DownThemAll add-in (surprisingly they are not built in) using the keyconfig extension and want to make them as easy to share as possible. What do you suggest?

64

Living Room / I'm not George Jetson anymore!

« on: June 10, 2010, 01:47 PM »

Finally remembered had an old avatar I drew lying around somewhere...

65

Living Room / Here's an advertisement you can't block, turn away from, or fast forward through

« on: June 04, 2010, 07:10 PM »

There's something in the air along a busy local road, and it's not just exhaust fumes: It's the smell of grilled steak, courtesy of what appears to be the nation's first scented highway billboard.

I apologize in advance for what surely is the worst Charlotte Observer headline since "Oldest Living Man Dead".

Eau de marketing, with hint of pepper

In one minute, my reaction went from "Hey, that's kind of cool" to "So, you can't really 'look away' from the billboard" to "Time to pass a NOSE ordinance." Also, although it's not exactly the smell of meat, some vegetarians might have something to say about it, too.

66

Clipboard Help+Spell / Any screencast for Clipboard Help+Spell?

« on: June 03, 2010, 09:07 AM »

I'm figuring it wouldn't hurt to ask if there is any screencast for CHS, since I see screencasts for other things. I have this installed but can't get in too much of a flow with it. I find the help file a bit confusing.

67

Living Room / Which scripting tool do you normally use, AutoHotKey or AutoIt3?

« on: June 01, 2010, 04:20 PM »

Mainly I am trying to get a feel for how many closet AutoIt3 scripters are lurking out there (hence I didn't ask about WSH, Perl, or any number of other scripting languages). From appearances this looks like an All-Autohotkey shop, but appearances can be deceiving.  I know I've seen one or two of you in the AutoIt3 forums.  Make yourself known! Are there coding snacks that will never be written because the person who has an interest in writing it is more comfortable with AutoIt3? (And it is respectfully requested if possible that this is not turned into a debate as to which is better, that seems to have been covered in previous threads)

68

What's the Best? / What's the best: Wiki Host?

« on: May 26, 2010, 05:13 PM »

What's the most flexible wiki-specific hosting site, for people not wanting to host it themselves? (e.g.., PBWiki etc.)

Some characteristics to think about (I'm sure I've forgotten some):

- Is it ad supported or can you put your own ads?
- Wiki software used (MediaWiki or Proprietary)
- Cost if any
- Ease of editing (do non-technical people feel comfortable with it?)
- Spam prevention features
- Moderation features
- Types of content supported

69

Developer's Corner / Vista/Windows 7 install locations. Discuss.

« on: May 26, 2010, 10:48 AM »

OK, people these days like their applications to be portable, and store their configuration in the same folder as the exe.

But Windows Vista and 7 really don't like it if you have to save your configuration file back into any subfolder of Program Files, so normally you as a developer would just put in in %APPDATA%\program name, right?

All right, so when you are writing the installer (not every user wants to bother with zips), it seems you have a couple of choices:

1. Ask the user if (s)he wants a portable install or a regular install. If it is a portable install, store the settings in the same folder as the program. Otherwise, store the settings in the registry and %APPDATA%\program name

2. Just make the default install location C:\Tools\program name and store the settings in the same folder always. Keep things simple. Make it easy to copy to USB stick later if needed.

Either way, of course, the user can change the default install folder. I'm probably the only one with a folder called C:\Tools so an attentive user may want to change it to C:\Utilities or something. Or back to C:\Program Files which breaks my plan.

I've been leaning toward #2 for a while. Microsoft doesn't try to stop anyone from saving to C:\Tools so that bit of security by obscurity is bypassed. When I as a user install a program, if it's a zip file, C:\Tools is where it goes. If it's some random program and I suspect that the program uses an INI file instead of the registry, C:\Tools is where it goes.

This is learned behavior. Before Vista, I was conditioned to put everything in Program Files, even if the app came to me as a zip file. In Vista, if I tried this, the first time I needed to save settings back to an INI file inside a subfolder of C:\Program Files, it didn't even give a UAC prompt, it simply did one of these two things:

a. It would simply fail.

b. It would appear to work, but it was actually saving to file to a redirected location within my user profile. So I and seemingly the programs themselves had trouble finding the program settings because we had to look in both the real Program Files folder and the virtual Program Files folder within my user profile.

So what I used to do in Vista was
1. Make a note of the folder name the installer created
2. Uninstall the program
3. Make sure the program folder was still there and set the permissions so that I had permissions to write to it
4. Reinstall the program

This seems to be less of an issue with Windows 7, which is around the time I decided to install more programs in C:\Tools. If I put a file in one of the forbidden locations, I usually get a UAC prompt and it lets me continue. I haven't thought much about folder redirection since moving on to Windows 7, so either it has become more transparent, or it's because this is around the time I started installing things to the Tools folder more frequently. I'm curious now, I'll see if I can find the redirected folders on my main box (which runs Windows 7) when I get a chance. It's strange that I don't remember ever even seeing them in Windows 7.

(And yes, I know UAC and folder redirection can be turned off, but I never felt good about doing that.)

This is my most rambling post ever; basically I want to know what you folks think about install locations, should the installer ask the user if he wants it to be portable, or just install it somewhere like C:\Tools where it won't matter. Or is there a third (or fourth, or fifth) way?

70

Developer's Corner / Double quoted command line arguments

« on: May 24, 2010, 07:03 PM »

You know how command line arguments with spaces have to be in double quotes in Windows for pretty much any program?

taskdaddy "@@Errand Go to the market"

Are the double quotes locale dependent, i.e.

taskdaddy «@@Errand Allez à la marché»

or do "English" double quotes work in every region?

The formal second person when talking to yourself is probably wrong grammatically, but you get the idea.

71

Living Room / What are your favorite keyboard customizations?

« on: May 22, 2010, 11:53 AM »

I have a brand new Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 which is very customizable via the Intellitype software.

I have set up the Zoom Slider so that it acts as a scroller instead of zoomer (google for details). I think you could also use it as a volume control.

I have the key with a "Home" icon set so that it sends a Win-Shift-S to toggle between "show all" and "hide all" in Zhorn Software'e excellent Stickies. Before I did that, I was closing them, having to fish them out of the Stickies manager and then having to reposition them; or sleeping them, which kept creating duplicates; or I would roll them up, which can be done by double clicking the title, but they were still getting in the way. And Win-Shift-S a bit of a pain to enter. My repurposed Home key works perfectly, and I can't imagine opening up a web browser that way.

So what are your own favorite custom keyboard tricks for whatever keyboard you use? Maybe I can get some ideas.

72

Circle Dock / CircleDock Hotkeys with 2 non-toggle keys

« on: May 22, 2010, 10:07 AM »

I can't say that I've ever seen a hotkey with more than one non-toggle key in it. How do I enter Alt-Space-N? (see image attachment)

73

Circle Dock / Number of icons in a folder stack fan

« on: May 21, 2010, 09:21 AM »

I think I know the answer to this but I'll ask anyway.

Is there a direct way to control how many icons are shown in the StandaloneStack "fan" or it just a function of things like icon size and spacing?

Also is the fan scrollable? Like for example, if there are 4 icons in the fan, is there a way to scroll the next 4 icons into view?

74

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / NANY 2011 Release: TaskDaddy Release

« on: May 13, 2010, 09:53 AM »

NANY 2011 Entry Information

Application Name	TaskDaddy
Version	Release
Short Description	TaskDaddy takes a single line of input from you and turns it into an Outlook task without having to open the full interface of Outlook. It's intended to be a quick way to input tasks. It is inspired by Bob Menke's Add Task script, written in VBScript. TaskDaddy, however, is written in AutoIt3. It works as both a GUI and a command line tool.
Supported OSes	Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or 7 (32 or 64bit)
Web Page	https://github.com/daddydave/taskdaddy
Download Link	July 29, 2021 Release (yes, almost 10 years later. Not a typo!): TaskDaddy.2021.07.29.zip (617.3 kB - downloaded 129 times.)
System Requirements	Microsoft Windows XP, Vista, or 7 (32 or 64bit) Microsoft Outlook 2007 or 2010. Outlook Express doesn't use the Outlook object model and will not work.
Version History	July 21, 2021 TaskDaddy.2021.07.29.zip (617.3 kB - downloaded 129 times.) Removed dependencies on _OptParse.au3 or Outlook.au3, and as a result, it can be compiled again. Source code moved to https://github.com/daddydave/taskdaddy September 19, 2010 Pre Release: Fixed label wrapping bug. Fixed duplicate GUI window bug. "Skip" and "Cancel All" buttons added to the GUI window when confirming individual tasks in file input (using /f and /p). Blank lines now ignored when using file input. Help file completely reorganized and rewritten, some of the changes include (1) the command line interface de-emphasized; (2) removal of screenshots with old name LaserTask, including the examples of command line use within shortcuts; and (3) removal of version number from help file. June 26, 2010 Pre Pre Pre Alpha:  Changed UI font from "Segoe UI" to the OS default GUI font (Segoe UI or Tahoma, as needed). Segoe UI is included in Office 2007, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. This is the only difference between this and the June 24 release June 24, 2010 Pre Pre Pre Alpha:
Author	daddydave

Description
TaskDaddy takes a single line of input from you and turns it into an Outlook task without having to open the full interface of Outlook. It's intended to be a quick way to input tasks into Outlook. It can be used by anyone who wants to put tasks into Outlook, but power users may want to take advantage of the command line interface which allows input of tasks from the command line. Potential applications of the command line interface are Windows shortcuts, Task Scheduler, adding tasks from FARR or Launchy, etc.

Features
You can create Outlook tasks from a compact GUI, from the command line, or from an input file.

Planned Features
The interface for the combined use of the -p and -f options could use some work. For example, Skip and Cancel buttons and a progress indicator would be nice.
At some point I want to put in a merge option so that you can have a list of "things" instead of a list of tasks, and a user specified template is used to convert those things to tasks. I'm still thinking about the syntax.

Screenshots
See under the Using the Application section.

Usage
Installation
For now: Unzip the .exe and the .chm file to the same folder. Make sure that subfolder is not a subdirectory of %ProgramFiles% or %ProgramFiles(x86)% in case it needs an .ini file at some point in its evolution. Although by that time, hopefully I have an installer.

Using the Application

Please excuse for now the fact that the screenshots reflect the old name LaserTask.

TaskDaddy has both a graphical user interface (GUI) and a command line interface. If you launch TaskDaddy by double clicking on the executable file or a simple shortcut, you will get the GUI interface.



By pressing Enter, you instruct TaskDaddy to create an Outlook task called "Call cellphone company" in the @Calls category, with "call from landline" in the body of the task.

You can also use a similar syntax on the command line. It is recommended to put the task description in double quotation marks, unless the actual task contains double quotation marks:

taskdaddy "@@Calls Call cellphone company :call from land line #1/1/2010"

Here I have added a due date of 1/1/2010 using the # character. TaskDaddy should respect the shortdate syntax of your region.

Another way to use the command line interface is by adding the task syntax to a Windows shortcut target.



From the command line, you can also use a kind of file input interface. Suppose you have a file with a list of tasks in it:

@@Errand Pick up birthday cake
@@Errand Pick up balloon kit
@@Home Blow up balloons


If the list of tasks is saved in a file called tasklist.txt, the syntax

taskdaddy -f tasklist.txt


can be used to add all three tasks at once.

Of course, all the command line options can be used in Windows shortcuts as well, as shown below.



To pause or prompt before creating a task, use the -p command line option. This forces TaskDaddy to use the GUI interface. (Note GUI mode will happen automatically if you just double click the TaskDaddy.exe or a simple "drag and drop" shortcut, no -p switch is necessary.)This can also be used in combination with -f option which specifies an input file, so that you are prompted for each task in the file.

Any command line arguments which are not options are combined into a single task. In practice, this means you can usually either use double quote characters or not, so that for example:

taskdaddy "@@Home Recycle the bottles #6/2 :in the garage" /p

is the same as

taskdaddy @@Home Recycle the bottles #6/2 :in the garage /p


Options may begin with either the - character or the / character, so -p and /p are equivalent.

Uninstallation
Delete the .exe and .chm file from the folder created during installation. If nothing else is in the folder, you may delete the folder.

Known Issues

• TaskDaddy currently does not accept spaces in categories.
  

Original Pledge Post

I've been working on something like this and this but written in AutoIt3.

It will be a fairly trivial program to create Outlook tasks, with a few more features. Handy for launching from Farr, Launchy, and the like. Or even from shortcuts, lol.

Certainly by Jan 1, 2011, hopefully sooner.

I have a help file for it, and a semi working version, but I am completely rewriting the command line argument parsing part of it and I may have to change the syntax. If I do, it's better until I wait for that part of it to be done before posting it.

75

Find And Run Robot / Can I have an alias like +T without the + being treated specially?

« on: May 05, 2010, 07:39 AM »

The title says it all. In FARR, can I have an alias like +t without the + being treated specially? Or in other words, if I want to type +t in the FARR search, and have it act as if I typed +t +alias.

If no, that's cool, for now I am just curious whether it's possible.