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Messages - parkint [ switch to compact view ]

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76
Living Room / Re: designer for business cards needed, LIMITED TIME
« on: March 14, 2010, 07:53 AM »
My son is a computer artist and, although he has a full-time job, he is always looking for freelance work.
I have pointed him to this post (in an email message).

Today, Sunday, he and his fiancee will be visiting us for dinner.  I will also talk with him then.

77
The program is called TwistedBrush

TwistedBusiness Practice, eh?

78
Living Room / Re: This Car Runs on Code
« on: March 09, 2010, 09:03 PM »
The F-22 is an absolutely AWESOME piece of technology.
Unfortunately, it has proven to be too expensive to build.  So the program will be shutdown.   :(

79
Living Room / Re: Will you miss newspapers when they're gone?
« on: March 09, 2010, 09:01 PM »
A friend just sent me this TODAY and I think it is quite appropriate for this thread.
{Please forgive me if you disagree}

If you are 30, or older, you might think this is hilarious!               
                                                                           
 When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious       
 diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with
 walking twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill...           
 Barefoot... BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda                                 
                                                                           
 And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in   
 hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how     
 hard I had it and how easy they've got it!                                 
                                                                                                                                             
 But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look   
 around and notice the youth of today.  You've got it so easy!  I mean,     
 compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!                       
 And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don't know how good you've   
 got it!                                                                   
                                                                           
 I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to     
 know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves,
 in the card catalog!!                                                     
                                                                           
 There was no email!!  We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a 
 pen!   Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in   
 the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there!  Stamps were 10   
 cents!                                                                     
                                                                           
 Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter
 of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to whip my     
 ass! Nowhere was safe!                                                     
                                                                           
 There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, 
 you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!         
                                                                           
 Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ     
 would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no   
 CD players! We had tape decks in our car..  We'd play our favorite tape   
 and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone         
 rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?       
                                                                           
 We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and
 somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!                   
                                                                           
 There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you 
 just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of
 touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!!  Think of the horror... not being
 in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right.     
 Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.                       
                                                                           
 And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no
 idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your   
 bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!! 
 You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!                       
                                                                           
 We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with             
 high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We had the Atari 2600!  With games like     
 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!   
 You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple   
 levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever!  And you could never
 win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster   
 until you died!  Just like LIFE!                                           
                                                                           
 You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!   
 You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your
 ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!!  Oh,   
 no, what's the world coming to?!?!                                         
                                                                           
 There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on       
 Saturday Morning.  Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK   
 for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-finks!                               
                                                                           
 And we didn't have microwaves.  If we wanted to heat something up, we had 
 to use the stove!  Imagine that!                                           
                                                                           
                                                                           
 And our parents told us to stay outside and play... all day long.  Oh, no,
 no electronics to soothe and comfort.  And if you came back inside... you 
 were doing chores!                                                         
                                                                           
                                                                           
 And car seats - oh, please!  Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung
 on.  If you were luckily, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the
 last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the         
 dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first   
 place!                                                                     
                                                                           
                                                                           
 See!  That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it   
 too easy. You're spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn't have lasted five       
 minutes back in 1980 or any time before!                                   
                                                                           
 Regards,                                                                   
 The Over 30 Crowd                                                         

80
but: "Think China - Think 'Red' Flag" when it comes to this sort of thing.

I always appreciate a good pun!
Thank you

81
Living Room / Re: People are really (really, really) stupid
« on: February 21, 2010, 02:06 PM »
After repeated warnings, a woman in SA 'chose' to respond to the Absa Bank Phishing scam email! She was on TV bemoaning her account being wiped out -  :huh: when will they learn!

I saw a great bumper sticker:  "God must love stupid people.  He made so many of them!"

82
Living Room / Re: People are really (really, really) stupid
« on: February 19, 2010, 07:34 PM »
I must agree that "people are generally stupid".
That's why SPAM and so many obviously ridiculous SCAMS continue to be effective.

Sadly, besides being 'dumb' many people are 'greedy'.  So they WANT TO BELIEVE that a Nigerian Prince sought them out.
I have won the lottery in the UK so many times {although I NEVER play any lottery} but just could not bring myself to respond to the "Official" email address like [email protected]

83
Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?
« on: February 19, 2010, 11:03 AM »
I have been challenged, by my wife, to read every one of the books in my massive collection (just over 150) of Isaac Asimov literature.

I am [re]reading Robot Visions.

Among my favorites are:
  • Nightfall
  • The Centennial Man
  • I, Robot
  • The End of Eternity
  • Both his autobiographies
AsimovCollection.jpg

84
Living Room / Re: Be careful with your credit cards!
« on: February 15, 2010, 10:29 AM »
I usually use PayPal for that reason. The problem here was that the discount subscription was only available by post. I could have sent a cheque from the UK but I wasn't sure if/how much the bank would charge when it was cashed in a US account.

I figured that a company the size of Scientific American would at least be honest - I was obviously mistaken.
A great (new) feature of PayPal that I enjoy is the ability to generate one-time use credit card numbers.
I have watched this work in a few situations where the vendor 'pre-authorizes' an amount before processing the charge.
PayPal denies the additional charges.  I love the idea of a credit card number that can be used only once.
As long as the numbers don't run out (like GUIDs).

85
General Software Discussion / Re: Mass checksum checker
« on: February 14, 2010, 06:55 AM »
As you know,  I am also a big fan of Git.
When you gain a little proficiency with it, this is a great resource to the power of Git.

86
Wow.  This app is really gaining some attention!
I was taken aback, though, by the comment "Whilst in Hibernation it barely draws".  'Barely draws' what?
Is he implying there is little power consumption during hibernation?
That is incorrect.  The machine is OFF!

87
Living Room / Re: Nearly caught by spam.. [or 'Saved by Thunderbird']
« on: February 13, 2010, 08:52 AM »
By the same token, whenever I receive a phone call from "your bank" or "the phone company" I simply ask for the person's name or department and tell them I will hang up now and call the published phone number for that company - asking for them.

I recommend a simply solution to Fight Phishing.

A funny story is an argument I had over the phone once - someone from "my bank" called and I wanted me to verify my identity.  I immediately challenged them by asking for my account number.  She could not provide it.  I asked for the last four digits of my social security number.  She said, "I do not have that information in front of me".
So, I asked, how can you confirm my identity over the phone when you don't have any of my personal information?
I think she was about to cry (apparently a college kid just hired by some fly-by-nigh company to make these phone calls and collect information).

88
After playing with WAVE for a few months I was a bit under-whlemed, too, by BUZZ.
But, it appears to be in its infant stage and provides all the 'services' of Twitter/Facebook/etc (albeit those services are arguably useless) in one convenient place.
I am reminded of the 80s when, in corporate IT, you heard "No one ever got fired for choosing IBM".  Google seems to be the one to follow.  It is remarkable that Google can provide a service (without any hype) and steal attention from the other, more established, services in a few days.  Even Microsoft in its hay-day couldn't do that!

I am on-the-fence about BUZZ.  And I am disappointed that all my efforts to learn how to write apps for WAVE may be wasted if BUZZ does not provide the same capability.   But having everything in my GMail account - which provides THE BEST spam prevention, bar none - is quite convenient.
The trend to push everything into 'the cloud' is one I favor.  A single, very light, interface to all my data makes my computing truly portable.

89
Living Room / Re: How can we *share* Donationcoder.com better in 2010?
« on: February 13, 2010, 08:38 AM »
In the current environment of the "social Internet", we all tend to 'promote' (e.g. discuss, blog about, IM, share links) the things we find interesting and exciting.
I agree with the sentiment that DC is unique, interesting, fun and exciting.
So, I propose that all who feel strongly about improving the exposure and image of DC simply commit to blog/tweet/blip/buzz about it on a regular basis.

The recent 'press' that apps like CircleDock & BootSnooze has gotten is surely a great boon for DC.

90

I also agree that having some merchandise available at a reasonable cost would be a good alternative source of revenue, while keeping some special merchandise set aside for special gifts and such.

I agree.
Try CafePress and create some desirable 'logowear' items.  We all love coffee mugs and clever T shirts, don't we?

{I have an official DailyWTF mug and stickers from Google.  I am such a geek!}

91
Developer's Corner / Re: Regex help, please?
« on: February 09, 2010, 06:18 PM »
The free Expresso is my tool of choice.  :D
I just downloaded it, based on your recommendation here.  Thanks.

92
Developer's Corner / Roaming among the Dinosaurs
« on: February 09, 2010, 12:17 PM »
I am having trouble and hope one of my new-found friends (here on DC) can help.
In unmanaged C++ code, inside a simple DLL (for use with a proprietary interface), I need to access a COM port and read the data stream.
I can handle all the 'interpolation' of the data, but am having a real struggle getting access to the COM port; which, by the way is actually 'virtual' from a Bluetooth device.
Is there anyone out there with experience in this realm who is willing to help me?
I have scoured the Web for samples but none work as expected.

Inside this construct, I need to connect and read from a COM port:


BOOL WINAPI DllMain(HINSTANCE hinstDLL,DWORD
               fdwReason,LPVOID
               lpvReserved){
                  switch (fdwReason)
                  {
                  case DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH:
                     /* Init Code here */
                     /* If there is something you need to do before the functions in this
                     * Library can be used, perform it here and return a true (or false if it fails) */
                     MessageBox ( NULL, L"Process Attach", L"DXExternal DLL", MB_OK);
                     break;
                  case DLL_THREAD_ATTACH:
                     /* Thread-specific init code here */
                     MessageBox ( NULL, L"Thread Attach", L"DXExternal DLL", MB_OK);
                     break;
                  case DLL_THREAD_DETACH:
                     /* Thread-specific cleanup code here.
                     */
                     MessageBox ( NULL, L"Thread Detach", L"DXExternal DLL", MB_OK);
                     break;
                  case DLL_PROCESS_DETACH:
                     /* Cleanup code here */
                     /* This is called as the DLL is being unloaded (most likely when your
                     * application is shutting down. */
                     MessageBox ( NULL, L"Process Detach", L"DXExternal DLL", MB_OK);
                     return false;
                     break;
                  }
                  /* The return value is used for successful DLL_PROCESS_ATTACH */
                  return true;
}

Thanks, in advance.

93
OUTSTANDING work!

94
Finished Programs / DONE: C.S.B.A.G.
« on: February 05, 2010, 03:26 PM »
This is an application I wrote many years ago.  As a new member on DC I wanted to share this.
It is an 'old idea' that is now new again.

The Customizable Slithering Button Application Generator is a useless little application you can use to pull a harmless prank on your friends.
It is small, light, fast, requires NO EXTERNAL LIBRARIES.

It is not clear exactly where/how to post something like this.

95
Cool.  Let's come up with a name for this and I'll package it up as a regular Skwire Empire application.
Off To Sleep?
-cranioscopical (January 31, 2010, 02:31 PM)
I really like that name!!
Or, perhaps, "Off to Snooze"

96

In any case, without true statistical studies (hard(er) numbers), everything becomes pure subjective speculation.

And 53% of all statistics are simply made up on the spot!

97
I think you need to clarify your idea a bit.
You can already right-click a page (in IE) and choose "Create Shortcut" to save a link on your desktop.

98
THAT IS BRILLIANT!!!
I love it.  I think I might even pay money for such a thing.

99
Living Room / Re: Astronaut sends first tweet from space!
« on: January 29, 2010, 01:16 PM »
What a waste of Billions and Billions of dollars!

Oh, I forgot, they are NOT REALLY in space; just on a soundstage in Houston.

100
Call us with your password and we will enter if for you with our Virtual Administrator Keyboard.

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