Messages

51

Python / wxFormBuilder

« on: July 15, 2009, 03:41 PM »

The wonderful, open-source wxFormBuilder (used for building wxWidgets forms) has a new beta containing Python code generation. 

Seems pretty stable at the moment 

Makes building GUIs using wxPython a breeze!

52

General Software Discussion / Re: bookTome the book organiser

« on: July 14, 2009, 02:28 AM »

There's also the fantastic LibraryThing, which has an online bookshelf and all of the book-related social-interaction you'd ever need.

53

Developer's Corner / Re: What (programming) languages are represented?

« on: June 25, 2009, 01:29 PM »

Just to add a slightly ocbscure scripting language, I spent a couple of years writing IBM JCL.

It was the ultimate in copy and paste languages as you had to find someone in a beard wearing sandals if you needed anything new 

Now I dabble with Python and C#.

54

Developer's Corner / Re: Accessor methods vs public variables

« on: June 13, 2009, 05:12 PM »

Heck, you should even use accessor methods in the class methods as well... for simple stuff it doesn't really matter, but for more complex code it allows you to introduce caching instead of re-computation etc.

-f0dder (June 13, 2009, 08:51 AM)

Can you explain what you mean by this? 

55

Developer's Corner / Re: Accessor methods vs public variables

« on: June 13, 2009, 05:08 AM »

Don't worry, what happens in Donationcoder stays in Donationcoder 

Thanks for the answers 

56

Developer's Corner / Re: Accessor methods vs public variables

« on: June 13, 2009, 04:55 AM »

Ok, so you never use public attributes in classes unless speed is absolutely vital?

57

Developer's Corner / Accessor methods vs public variables

« on: June 13, 2009, 04:44 AM »

How do you decide on whether an attribute of a class is public or has an accessor method?

For example, a Cody class could be written in two ways (I'm not including variables that you create / modify with get / set methods):

Code: C# [Select]

1. class Cody {
2.         public string colour = white;
3.         public int age = 10;
4. }

Code: C# [Select]

1. class Cody {
2.         private string colour = white;
3.         private int age = 10;
4.  
5.         public void setColour(string colourIn) {
6.                 this.colour = colourIn;
7.         }
8.  
9.         public string getColour() {
10.                 return this.colour;
11.         }
12.  
13.         public void setAge(int ageIn) {
14.                 this.age = ageIn;
15.         }
16.  
17.         public int getAge() {
18.                 return this.age;
19.         }
20. }

Do you just create accessor methods (is that the correct term?) for those attributes that are likely to be complex or may need transformation, or do you create them for everything and leave nothing public?

58

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 04, 2009, 12:43 PM »

Thanks Innuendo.

Unfortunately, I'm locked into using the router provided by the ISP (it has a username and password embedded into the firmware).  Not such a bad thing, as the router is fine (some kind of Netgear).

Currently, I'm running with:

(1) Avira free (been using this for a long time)
(2) The router's firewall
(3) AppGuard (on trial and quiet as a mouse so far)
(4) Spyware Terminator (weekly scan)
(5) Firefox with Adblock and NoScript

Seems to be running extremely quietly at the moment and (from what I've read) looks to provide decent coverage.

59

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 03, 2009, 01:14 PM »

When you're dealing with Avira one thing that you will have to get used to is false positives. Every release I have tried to date has way too many false positives for my liking.

-Innuendo (June 03, 2009, 12:58 PM)

I've been using the free version for a couple of years and have got a few too.  Saying that though, Prevx Edge sprang up a false positive the first time it ran (believing that TortoiseSVN was a virus).

It's difficult with Antiviruses (Anti-virii?).  I keep wondering whether to move to NOD32 or KAV, but I then consider that I've got a virus in years, so I haven't yet got around to trying.  I used to use Online Armor alongside Avira, but the pop-ups did my head in.  I'm just not sure whether the extra feeling of safety is worth constantly being bothered by pop-ups.

There's so much choice out there that it seems so difficult to put a decent set of products together (vipre, defensewall, returnil, online armor, prevx just to name a few).  Unless you're prepared to spend half of your life investigating the options, I can't see how you'd be able to get an acceptable coverage (although, I guess that's why products like KIS and ESET smart security are popular). 

60

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 03, 2009, 12:34 PM »

So, I guess that you can get away with a fairly low-cost setup:

(1) A good anti-virus
(2) A hardware router
(3) Firefox with Adblock and Noscript
(4) A bit of "safe surfing" (i.e. not clicking on that "download Smileys!" link)

Avira security suite looks interesting, but I'd want to turn-off the firewall due to the annoyance factor.  Does it really offer a lot more than the free anti-virus?  Reading the Avira comparison chart, it seems that the suite includes "enhanced antispyware" and "antibot".  Unfortunately, it doesn't really explain what extra protection these functions really give you.

61

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 02, 2009, 02:47 PM »

Has anyone had any experience with Prevx Edge?

I'm currently running just Avira Free and sat behind a hardware firewall (via a router), but I'm a little confused about exactly what Prevx does.  From reading the webpage, it seems to be an anti-malware app, but does it also act like a HIPS?

The post on Wilders about it is 173 pages long, so it seems to be popular!

62

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 01, 2009, 01:12 PM »

Sorry to dredge up an old post, but I'd be interested in finding out what everyone decided upon in the end.

63

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows editors - do they have to be so bad?

« on: May 25, 2009, 06:09 AM »

Whilst I agree that EmEditor is progressing really well, the whole plug-in system *really* irks me.  The main reason is the lack of stacking of windows and the fact the a side panel has to be open for that plug-in to be active.

For example, to have code folding active, you need to have the outline side panel active, which just takes up valuable screen space.

Or, if you want the symbol list, you also need to have the project side panel on screen.  As these cannot be stacked, that means side panels on both the left and right-hand sides of the screen.

To have code folding and the symbol list available, you need the project side-panel on the left, the symbol list on the right and the outlining panel on the bottom.  That's a lot of monitor space on a laptop.

Or, am I missing something?

Edit: I agree with the responsiveness of the author of EmEditor.  I suggested fullscreen last year and it has now been added.  It also seems that the stacking of windows is on the list of planned developments - "Ability to make plug-in custom bars "dockable" or displayed in tabs."

64

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: My assignment: The ToDo List of Doom

« on: May 19, 2009, 02:29 AM »

The application I am using, I have had for years and I really like it. It works well for me for what I have used it for thus far. I am just going to try using it to complete the bigger stuff now.

-app103 (May 18, 2009, 08:05 PM)

Is the application in the picture one of your own?

65

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: My assignment: The ToDo List of Doom

« on: May 18, 2009, 01:53 PM »

Great post - I'm also intrigued by the tea idea, as the little-and-often approach seems to work.

Being able to dismiss the item sounds like it would be good for when more important tasks appear.  Perhaps it would be good to have a retry limit theat does something else, rather than raise an alarm, when you meet it - maybe it flashes up in red every 5 minutes (with some kind of penalty to stop it - maybe entering a long string like one of DCs applications whose name I can't remember).  Hmm...a NANY perhaps?

66

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Something I want to try this Year.. Daily After-action Reports

« on: May 17, 2009, 12:10 PM »

I guess it's the same kind of thing.  The difference is that you're looking for accountability to yourself.

The issue with all of these kind of things is that you have a bad day and you suddenly fall-off the documentation.  I've tried so many different systems and fallen-off of them over time...every time a new one comes out (GTD, Mark Forster's Do It Tomorrow and Autofocus etc.), I'm proclaiming that they're the bees-knees and I've fallen-off a week later (just like text editors, where I've loved them for a week and then unceremoniously dumped them).

When I wrote up my PhD years ago I could go for days without even looking at it, but these kinds of contracts with yourself could come in useful.

Out of all the tips I've seen, one thing has stood out.  It's based on Mark Forster's Do It Tomorrow.  Basically, write a list of actions each evening that creates a contract with yourself for the next day.  The idea is that you work on each and every todo on the list, even if you only do 5 minutes on each one (you can set a timer) and then cross it off and enter it on to the next day's list.  Sometimes that will last 5 minutes, but often you'll spend an hour doing the todo, as the hard part is often getting started.

67

DC Gamer Club / Game endings (no spoilers)

« on: May 17, 2009, 11:52 AM »

Ok, so you slave away playing a game for countless days, destroying your social life and turning pale through a lack of sun.  And then you complete it, but your sense of achievement is destroyed by the most pathetic, pitiful ending ever.  Think Monkey Island 2, where you woke up and it was all a dream (sorry, that was a spoiler, but the game is ancient).

Anyway, how about a DC list of games that are worth playing for their great ending.

Your starter-for-ten: Portal (one of the funniest endings ever)

68

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Something I want to try this Year.. Daily After-action Reports

« on: May 17, 2009, 11:37 AM »

I do a very similar thing at work on a weekly basis.

Although I work within a team, the majority of my work is fairly autonomous and I'm left alone to do whatever I need to do (I'm a functional analyst within a software development team).  As a result, I can often go for several days without needing to talk to my boss about work.

All I have is a very loose template that I use inside an email, based around RAID (risks, actions, issues and dependencies):

Project name

• Progress this week
• Risks that have arisen during the week and what needs to be done to mitigate them
• Issues split into two - ones that I'm progressing and those that need escalating or need work requests for other teams
• Work that I've passed on to developers and any responses that they have come back with
• Actions that I need to take over the next week or in the future
• Actions that I'm waiting for other people to complete

This works really well for a number of reasons:

• Allows me to review everything I've done
• Acts as a motivator, as the report is effectively a contract describing the work I need to do
• Allows other people to go to one place to see the actions, issues and risks of a certain project
• Is an effective way of preparing for six-monthly appraisals

During the week, I keep a mammoth, fairly free-format todo.txt file that helps me to remember everything:

***************
DD/MM/YYYY
[] Todo
() Waiting for
[x ] Todo completed
* Information
** Related information
* M: MEETING NAME (Participants)
** meeting text
** meeting text
* M: ---
* D: DOCUMENT REVIEW (document name)
** document details
* D: ---
* P: MULTI-ACTION TODO NAME
** [] Todo that needs doing
** [na] Todo that cannot be done until another todo is completed
* P: ---
****************

Each day, I review all my notes from the previous day, from the day a week before, one month ago, three months ago and 6 months ago.  This helps me to review my actions to add to the report and also allows me to review any important information.

The system does have a few issues though:

• If I have no motivation to do them, todos can hang around for ages
• It takes time to review each day
• Complex notes can take ages to type
• This type of system means that everything has to go into the todo.txt, otherwise I can never trust it
• Things go out-of-date and where a decision has been made and then changed, it's difficult to work out what's correct.  This could be fixed by tags and the search function, but consistently tagging is hard as I can never remember the tags that I've used

69

Developer's Corner / Re: useful snippets?

« on: May 10, 2009, 02:06 PM »

There are the individual forums in each language, but nothing specifically for these kinds of snippets.

Seems like another reason for a Donationcoder wiki 

70

General Software Discussion / Re: How to setup wireless streaming movies through house?

« on: May 04, 2009, 10:33 AM »

My setup is a Windows Home Server box (although I was fine when I used my laptop and TVersity) linked by cable to the free router from my ISP - a rebadged Netgear DG834GT (when I was using the laptop with TVersity, this was a wireless connection to the router).  I then have an XBox 360 connected via cable to the same router.

A couple of things:

1. Is the router uPNP compatible?
2. Definitely try TVersity and leave Windows Media Player sharing on the host machine alone (my Xbox didn't pick it up half the time).  You should be able to see the TVersity stream from Windows Media Player on the receiving computer.

When I was connecting wirelessly, I rarely had problems with bandwidth.  The only problems were when the laptop had something CPU-intensive running on it and TVersity was trying to transcode at the same time.

71

General Software Discussion / Re: Program At This Site????

« on: May 02, 2009, 12:23 PM »

There's also Horst Schaeffer's free PopSel and QSel that do the same kind of thing.

72

General Software Discussion / Re: A bit of Microsoft loving

« on: May 02, 2009, 11:43 AM »

I'm definitely not saying that proprietary software beats open source, just that Microsoft is heading in the right direction.  In the example I just gave, there was no configuration necessary, it all fitted together and was configured through usable GUIs.

In terms of the Ubuntu server issues, it all seemed to be down to Samba.  In a world without Google, the whole Samba setup would be nigh on impossible for a novice user.  With WHS, you open the graphical console and it's all there (although I'll admit that I bought the server with WHS pre-installed).

In terms of stability, I can't remember having a BSOD since Windows 98.  XP, Vista and now Windows 7 have been rock-solid.  WHS is the same.

And, I agree with you that Ubuntu is coming-on leaps-and-bounds, but its software installation still has a long way to come.  Synaptic works well, but there are still too many programs that need to be manually installed (I know that ./configure, make and make install isn't difficult, but a modest user would baulk at needing to do this).

One thing that I think Microsoft has done really well recently is their communication with users.  You just have to look at their WHS blog and their Windows 7 blog to see that they're trying to adapt to a more open and listening culture.  I'm not saying that they're perfect, just that they're getting better.

Although, like Vista, the 57 different versions of Windows 7 is not such a great thing...

73

General Software Discussion / A bit of Microsoft loving

« on: May 02, 2009, 08:24 AM »

Before I start, I will say that I am in no-way affiliated with Microsoft.

I'm currently using a self-built desktop (old AMD64) running Windows 7 RC (takes some getting used to, but is a great step in the right direction), a low-end Dell laptop running Vista Business (never had any problems with it at all) and a Tranquil home server running Windows Home Server.  The desktop and laptop back-up their important files to the server via Microsoft's Synctoy (Windows Home Server offers the ability for the computers to completely back themselves up, but I'd rather just re-install Windows from scratch and copy the important files back).  Files that I want easy access to are managed by Dropbox and off-site backups are performed using Jungledisk on each machine, backing-up to Amazon S3.

Switch-on either the desktop or laptop and they automatically login to the home server.  Jungledisk runs once an hour and does off-site backups.  Dropbox does its syncing without asking.  Synctoy runs once a day to backup files to the server.  Each time I switch on my Xbox 360 to watch a video, the home server serves the files without complaint.

It all just works.

I've tried to love Ubuntu and even went so far as to install Ubuntu desktop, syncing with Ubuntu server (serving the xbox via Twonky server), but it was all so fiddly and Ubuntu server would occasionally throw its toys out of the pram and fail to share its folders with the rest of the setup.  After a while, there's only so much tinkering I can take before I just want the bloomin' thing to work.

So, I never thought I'd say this, but are Microsoft actually getting it right?

74

DC Gamer Club / [Already Gone] Another copy of Half-Life 2 available as a gift

« on: April 27, 2009, 03:57 PM »

This is rapidly becoming a forum for giving away HL2 gifts 

I have a spare copy of HL2 available as a result of having bought it and then having bought The Orange Box.

Again, first PM will get the gift of gaming.

tinjaw is now a HL2 owner.

75

DC Gamer Club / Re: $10 Orange Box on Steam

« on: April 25, 2009, 06:47 AM »

I guess I'll just have to be patient 

I'm surprised that they don't use a P2P system instead - the application could still connect to Steam's licensing servers to verify the license.