Messages

101

Living Room / Re: Microsoft's New Surface Tablet Hybrid

« on: June 20, 2012, 08:31 AM »

That would be a very bad situation for independent software developers. If there were only closed gardens, my guess is that small players would only invest into very small projects - there will be more news readers, FaceBook poke sending apps, farting apps, notes taking apps, kamasutra advice apps, angry birds clones, farmville clones, etc. The realm of more serious applications like 3D Studio, Firefox, Photoshop, Office, or IDEs would be in the hands of the few large players, most likely the owners of the respective gardens.

Fortunately we are not in that situation yet. Microsoft has been very good at eliminating competition that ruled a market segment in the past, but I doubt they will succeed this time. Just as they were unable to take search from Google by copying it, they may not be able to take tablets from Apple by copying their approach.

They have revealed 2 strong weapons - Surface hardware and the WinRT API (HTML+Javasript, XAML and Direct X for GUI  , access rights management, partial compatibility with Win32). The closed Windows Store is a big minus though.

102

Living Room / Re: Microsoft's New Surface Tablet Hybrid

« on: June 20, 2012, 07:56 AM »

The hardware looks decent enough, the weakest part IMO is the battery. The Pro version with i5 processor and just 42WH battery is not going to last very long. 1-2 hours under load? How many times may the battery be recharged? Microsoft also did not mention GPS, accelerometer or Bluetooth... They also did not reveal whether the Pro version has active or passive cooling. If there is a fan, then count me out as a buyer - that is going to be the first thing to fail.

The non-Pro version with ARM processor and Windows RT is a nice piece of hardware too, but why should anyone develop an app for it? Android and iOS are already ruling the non-Windows market segment and Windows RT is not Windows. Currently, it looks like Microsoft wants to control the WinRT apps like Apple does. That makes the non-Pro version unattractive despite the nice hardware.

I mean, sure, if someone has developed a simple app that took a week to make, then it is no big deal to make an WinRT version in addition to iOS and Android ones. But if we are talking about larger apps that took a year or more of work, then I would think twice before porting them to a platform, where the owner can decide to ban that app.

103

General Software Discussion / Re: image editing tools

« on: June 04, 2012, 03:26 AM »

Thanks for the mention, mouser 

Kalos, I presume, these are 3 independent tasks. If your final goal is to something more complex that involves the 3 mentioned steps, people may be able to give you a more suitable advice. So:

1) People usually use a Clone or a Healing Brush tools for these tasks. The first one copies pixels from one place to another place (blending the edges) and it is suitable for removal of larger objects from photos. The second one is a specialized version of Clone that takes the surrounding of the replaced are into account - it work pretty well if the replaced area is small and the surroundings are simple. Photoshop even has a spot healing brush that does not require you to specify the source of the copied pixels. You'll find at least one the first tool in many free editors (including mine). Gimp also has a healing brush (I am unsure how good it is), so if you want all a free tool with all the options, grab Gimp for this task.

2) In raster editor? I have a lasso and polygon drawing tools in my editor that should work very well. In Gimp, you'll probably have to first select an area with lasso selection and then fill it with the bucket tool.

3) There are again multiple choices. Maybe a simple Posterize filter (found again for example in Gimp) will be enough for you (though I do not usually like these posterized photographs). If you are looking for something better (for example http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=6KcCYHqLAB8 ), you may need a vector editor like Inkscape. (I am working on allowing this kind of things in my editors, but it is not ready yet.)

104

General Software Discussion / Re: Disk write cache (Windows XP)

« on: May 28, 2012, 08:38 AM »

Agree with 4wd. Even with write caching enabled, the data should be physically on the disk within few seconds. The problem you are describing is likely related to something else, maybe the application they are using.

105

General Software Discussion / Re: Disk write cache (Windows XP)

« on: May 27, 2012, 10:52 AM »

I fear the answer to your question is no. You either wait for the write operation to finish and then you are sure that the data really is on the disk or you let the system write the data a few moments later and have a better performance.

Getting a fast SSD would help 

106

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Aero (transparent window borders, etc.) is dead.. Good riddance

« on: May 22, 2012, 10:43 AM »

I am not an Aero hater, but I still liked the WinXP's Luna style better. What I do not get is why Microsoft removed it from Vista/7. Would it be so bad if those accustomed to the XP look would be allowed to use it in newer Windows?

It sounds silly to me that Microsoft build a whole sub-system that can handle various UI styles and then only allowed people to choose from 1 style. I know that there are hacks that allow people to use other styles, but why isn't there an official way or why does not Microsoft create at least 10 different styles?

107

General Software Discussion / Re: Kiss Your Browser Goodbye - Windows 8 to BAN Firefox and Chrome

« on: May 17, 2012, 12:00 PM »

Owning platforms in in Microsoft blood, it is their core business. Microsoft more or less owned the DOS platform and made a successful switch to Win32 in the nineties. When the computing power reached the threshold to make windowing OS possible, Microsoft was there with a decent product.

In 2002, Microsoft introduced .net and decided to push it very hard (I was attending a conference back then and it was obvious). They even used the Visual Studio.net name instead of Visual Studio 7 confusing many developers. It is my understanding that their goal was to make another switch, this time from Win32 to .net and then own the .net environment. But that did not happen, there is no obvious advantage of .net over win32 (and some people, including me, still consider Win32 a better choice due to compatibility).

And now, we are seeing another attempt to introduce a new API and replace Win32 with WinRT. If Android and iOS did not exist, Microsoft would have a good chance of succeeding and establishing WinRT as the next API. But they missed the right time. When the computing power and efficiency allowed feasible tablets, Microsoft was not there with the right product. Someone else was.

108

General Software Discussion / Re: Kiss Your Browser Goodbye - Windows 8 to BAN Firefox and Chrome

« on: May 17, 2012, 04:49 AM »

Yes, Microsoft's position is understandable, but I still do not think it is a smart move from them. At this moment, Win32 is still the biggest competitive advantage Microsoft's Windows has over any other OS. Microsoft is victim of its own success. Yes, Win32 is old, it is sometimes painful to use, but it gets the job done and there are countless developers knowing how to create Win32 applications.

Microsoft feels they are slipping behind, because the API of other OSes look so much more modern. They are desperately trying to create a new platform/API to replace Win32. The .net experiment did not succeed, it is now 10 years since it was introduced and there is still no .net-only OS for .net apps. Almost every larger .net desktop application is PInvoking something and would not work in a Win32-free environment...

And now, Microsoft gives the new API/platform another shot with WinRT. While I applaud them they do not want to force a garbage collector on everyone anymore, and WinRT may be a good API, I do not believe they have a good position and marketing power to push it through this way. Developers would have to learn a new API in order to be able to write applications for ARM Windows 8 tablets. If I want to learn a new API, why not make something for Android instead? The Windows brand is strong, but without Win32 backing it up, it may not be enough.

109

General Software Discussion / Re: Kiss Your Browser Goodbye - Windows 8 to BAN Firefox and Chrome

« on: May 16, 2012, 05:16 PM »

Win32 apps have never worked on ARM on any of the Microsoft mobile platforms.  I'm not sure why this non-issue is such an issue. ...

-wraith808 (May 16, 2012, 03:51 PM)

I am not saying it is an issue, I am just saying it is missed opportunity for Microsoft.

While Microsoft does not ban 3rd party web browsers on ARM devices, those browsers (unlike IE) would have to run in a WinRT sandbox. They'll be like 2nd class citizens compared to IE.

110

General Software Discussion / Re: Kiss Your Browser Goodbye - Windows 8 to BAN Firefox and Chrome

« on: May 16, 2012, 02:38 PM »

I think not allowing 3rd party Win32 apps (hence FF and other browsers) on ARM tablets is a very stupid move from Microsoft. If recompiled, native Win32 applications worked on an ARM tablet, that would be a big advantage. Without it, why choose a Win8 ARM tablet over Android or iPad? I see no reason at all.

111

General Software Discussion / Re: powerful undo

« on: May 15, 2012, 02:24 AM »

If you want to have control over files in a folder and be able to see previous revisions, differences and such things, maybe you are looking for some kind of source code management system like Mercurial, Git, SVN, etc.

112

Developer's Corner / Re: Plugins

« on: May 06, 2012, 05:13 AM »

If the application has an interface for plug-ins and the programmer has infinite time, then yes, they can create plug-ins for anything. In reality, the programmer needs something to guide them. Having documentation, API specification, or an example helps. Without them, it is like creating a key without knowing anything about a lock.

113

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerful Yet Light Weight Image Editor

« on: May 03, 2012, 01:17 PM »

I have checked out the editor mentioned by panzer (Chasys Draw IES) and it looks like a quite powerful tool and it does not use much system resources. It seems it used to be a commercial software in the past and now it is free. It may not be exactly easy to use, but that is more or less the rule with more powerful image editors.

Coincidentally, a new GIMP with single window interface was released today. From the screenshots, it looks like a definite improvement. Not sure if it can be considered light-weight though.

114

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerful Yet Light Weight Image Editor

« on: May 02, 2012, 12:44 PM »

Here is mine: http://www.rw-designer.com/image-editor

I'd like to believe it is relatively powerful and relatively light weight, but different people may have a different opinions. If I knew  what tasks you want to solve with an image editor, I would be able to tell you if it is suitable or if another editor would be a better choice.

Compared to Paint.net, it is much more powerful and you do not need .net framework installed and there is a portable edition available. That could count as a light-weight feature.

115

General Software Discussion / Re: Make icons in 'Show hidden icons' LARGE ?

« on: April 26, 2012, 04:36 AM »

Why? In the early Windows days (NT4 time), every icon on the used to be 16x16px. In Windows 7, the main application icons got bigger 32x32, but system tray icons stayed the same. These icons are for less important and less frequently used applications. (If you use a particular application via its system tray icon a lot, maybe you should re-configure it to behave like a normal application and not place its icon in the system tray. Then it would have the normal size in Win7.)

Back to the 24/20/16 sizes. The base size is still 16px and these other sizes are just multiplies of 16 in higher DPI modes: 16px*125% = 20px and 16px*150% = 24px. You cannot use 24x24 system tray icons in the normal 100% (96DPI) mode.

What Curt mentioned abode about the size of the system tray icons not changing after switching to 125% is actually not true. The tray icons got bigger - to 20x20px, but since everything else got bigger too, it is very hard to notice. A separate issue is that many authors do not optimize for higher DPI modes and only provide 16x16 icon. This icon is then scaled to 20x20px by windows and you'll notice some jaggies.

116

General Software Discussion / Re: Make icons in 'Show hidden icons' LARGE ?

« on: April 24, 2012, 03:37 AM »

One hint that may or may not be useful. You can change the resolution of the whole Windows and everything will get bigger - icons, fonts, window captions... Right-click on Desktop, click Personalize, then Display in the lower left corner and then select a scaling factor, 125% is pretty good on a FullHD display (I am using it myself) and 150% may be even better for you. There seems to be a glitch in Windows 7, some fonts are not scaled properly, but if you simply re-apply the Aero theme after switching the resolution, all will be fine.

117

General Software Discussion / Re: Lucid enables high-end gaming on low-end systems

« on: April 12, 2012, 07:38 AM »

After skimming through the article, it seems like they want to monitor frame rates and adjust the graphic options of the game on the fly. So, it can only work if the game is designed with low-end graphic chip in mind, interfaces with lucid's library and can quickly turn on and off the GPU-intensive features. I certainly would not call this "high-end" gaming or a "groundbreaking invention", but a "auto-configuration of graphic options for games" is not a newsworthy title.

It is neat though. No more fiddling with the graphic setting of a game. I am a big fan of a configuration-less applications 

118

Living Room / Re: Help With a Graphics Problem for Charity

« on: April 10, 2012, 06:54 AM »

As Renegade mentioned, the image contains alpha channel. Most printing tools simply ignore it and you get black color. There are numerous easy ways to fix this. Hard to tell, which one is the easiest. Let's try this: open the image, create a new layer, fill the layer with white color and then swap the positions of the layers (so that the new layer is below the original image). Then print.

Or, if you don't mind me mentioning my own (free) image editor again, it has a smart printing plug-in that handles transparent images properly. You can download it here: http://www.rw-designer.com/image-editor After installing or unzipping it, you need to get the print plug-in by clicking on "Install" on the "Print image" line on the "Plug-ins" tab of the "Online" page within the application. The restart the software, open your image and click on "Print" in the "File" menu, choose a printer and you should get what you want.

119

Living Room / Re: Google to Spy on Your Phone Calls Now...

« on: March 23, 2012, 08:13 AM »

Well, ignoring the privacy thing, the patent makes me angry. How can something like this be patentable? Isn't there supposed to be something non-obvious in a patent? More and more patents seem to be related to the "what to do" question instead of the "how to do it" question.

120

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 is just a Service/crapware pack for Windows 7

« on: March 22, 2012, 05:02 AM »

I did few tests and it indeed looks like Win7 with very few changes. The removal of Start menu is annoyance for a mouse/desktop users.

Microsoft desperately wants jump on the tablet OS train they missed by a couple of years. If anyone can enter an industry segment so late and succeed, it is Microsoft. They have pulled this trick off numerous times before. But with Google and Apple as competitors, who knows if they succeed this time.

The only thing I am curious about on Win8 is the ARM support. I'd like to re-compile and test my apps on ARM hardware...

121

Living Room / Re: Looking for image stitching software without processing image content

« on: March 20, 2012, 02:07 PM »

OK, this may not be a useful post, but...

If I understand the classic stitching applications correctly, they perform blending and distortion because they cannot map the pixels 1:1 (different perspective projections, different brightness and contrast on different photos). If you actually feed them "ideal" pictures where 1:1 mapping is possible, would they still distort the result? My naive guess would be that they won't.

122

General Software Discussion / Re: Program Files or Program Files (x86)?

« on: March 10, 2012, 02:33 AM »

I, for example, have decided not to publish 64-bit editions of some of my applications because it would be unreasonably difficult to maintain the compatibility with 32-bit Photoshop plug-ins (I would have to start a separate 32-bit process and load the 32-bit plug-ins there and then communicate between the main 64-bit process and the child 32-bit process - this would slow things down due to extra data transfers). Also, I use a tiny piece of generated code to speed up image bit-depth conversion that only works for 32-bit environment and the 64-bit edition uses the default slower path.

So, sometimes, the 64-bit editions are almost as good and almost as fast as 32-bit editions... I would stick with 32-bit editions unless the author of the software recommends you to use 64-bit editions or you are running into virtual memory problems.

123

Living Room / Re: Why I Pirate - An Open Letter to Content Creators

« on: March 09, 2012, 04:06 AM »

...content CREATORS have a RIGHT to charge whatever they want and to CONTROL the distribution of THEIR creations...

-db90h (March 09, 2012, 02:58 AM)

Disagree. And I am saying it as a content creator. My work in not sacred. I want to have a friendly and respectful relationship with people that "consume" my work.
* The piracy protection in my commercial software is a joke. Even computer newbies can circumvent it if they tried.
* The price tag on my commercial software is also a joke. Why did I pick that price? To not appear cheap. That is the only reason. If every consumer tracked (or just estimated) how much value did the software bring to him and paid me like 5% of that, I'll be perfectly happy. But this does not work, because people have been controlled by the content creators for so long and are conditioned to think in a weird (bash me, go ahead) way.

In short, the consumer is at least as important as the producer. They have to discuss their relationship and come to an agreement. Attempting to *control* something *generates* the piracy.

Donation-fueled software is the answer. It does not work yet. My freeware projects are bringing home less than 10% when compared to my commercial apps. It is because of the mindset of the people. There is only one software, not freeware and paidware. They will reunite again in the future. My belief is that the more people adapt the pirate mindset, the more will donate.

124

General Software Discussion / Re: Change the icon for a program

« on: March 09, 2012, 02:21 AM »

Every serious icon editor (including mine) can do this, but since you are asking for a free tool, get for example Resource Hacker from http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/ It is easy and simple. Backup your original file in case something goes wrong - the modification will probably break digital signature on the exe. That should not be a problem, but just in case...

125

General Software Discussion / Re: Program Files or Program Files (x86)?

« on: March 08, 2012, 11:26 AM »

... - and they cannot figure out how to work together!

-Curt (March 08, 2012, 10:16 AM)

Cooperation between 32-bit and 64-bit code is very tricky. It is not just about different folders, a 32-bit dll cannot be loaded and used by a 64-bit process (and a 64-bit dll cannot be used by a 32-bit process). If BID is integrated into Waterfox via a plug-in dll, you would need to get a 64-bit version of BID.

BTW why use a 64-bit version of FF? Do you expect FF would need more than 2GB of memory? If not, I would stick with standard FF and save myself these problems.