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Hi mousie,

well, my experience shows me that an electronic device has the following lifetime failure curve: Either its DOA (death on arrival) or it will break after the first few days/weeks of use. If that period is passed, the electronic device works reliable as long as no external desasters (shock, overvoltage) takes place. This period will last very long and mostly i exchange the whole pc before that electronic device will brake.

Normal HDDs (not SSDs) are a bit of another story, as they contain, beside the electronic, mechanical parts (spinning plates, hopping heads). That means that the electronic part of a hdd follows the lifecycle i mentioned above, while the mechanic parts suffer more and more and wear out from steady use.

So it looks in the first place a good idea to exhcange HDDs regularly before fail. But this inherits another danger to run into an electronic failure of a new HDD and you still don't have the guarantee, that the mechanic parts of the new HDD will work as expected. And this counterparts the idea of pre-emptive exchange of HDDs.

IMO from my 25 years experience in IT business (handling also technical problems - incl. hardware failures - of customers on the support line), it makes no sense to exchange in advance. Keep good backups and use a raid system (what we do with our customers) which enables you to nearly hot-plug-exchange a failed HDD within only minutes of outage of the system without any data loss. Then run the HDDs until they brake again. That saves money and resources too.

Of course, if any symptoms arise (bad blocks etc.) even if the HDD is still working fine (except that infrequent little glitches), that is a sure sign to exchange the HDD IMMEDIATELY!

Just my 2ct.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi all,

wow, a wonderful helper for daily work. Purchased it immediate after tested it for 10 minutes.

The author is very kind and responsive (also by eMail and with odd wishes like mine ). And his license behaviour is very free.

GREAT APP! Worth every penny. Please guys think about a donation. I want that this piece of software will go on with development for a long time.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi there,

+1 from me for AutoIt. You can get your hands on windows and controls of every standard GUI app. You can modify it or send messages to interact. You can simulate keypresses and mouseclicks. You can also use ever WINAPI function or 3rd party DLL functions too.

AHK can do the same too.

Why i prefer AutoIt? Because AutoIt is a "real programming language" and not a syntax mess like AHK. Sorry, AHK lovers. But maintainability of AHK scripts are a real pain with that cryptic syntax, while AutoIt looks more like a standard programming language.

Where AHK shows its strength is, when it comes to do really geeky things. I saw a few things done in AHK i was not able to reproduce very easily (without using WinAPI or whatever) in AutoIt. But still i prefer readabilty and easy syntax over geekiness.

Just my 2ct.
JoTo

Hi Ampa,

i have not digged deeper in this, but it seems JWPlayer 5.9+ should have this feature.

See this closed ticket on the developer bugtracker of LongTailVideos JWPlayer.

http://developer.longtailvideo.com/trac/ticket/1183

It may or may not help you in this problem, but maybe worth a look because the ticket is closed with "FIXED" status?

Greetings
JoTo

Hi db90h,

sorry i don't get your point.

A donation is at your free will, with no obligation at all. Neither for you, nor for the recipient of the donation. It's not a contract like in a business where you order, pay in advance and get what you ordered. So i don't see a right to have a look in the books or command what the donations have to be used for. EXCEPT if there is a special donation event (like the one we did in the past for collecting donations to give it to the AHK author and such - THAT donations are entrusted for a specific purpose and should only be used for the announced purpose of course).

Also, i see it more, that donations are for the PAST. For the hint i got from a member, for the work a member did, for an app i got from a member, for the work a member did. Notice past tense here! Of course a donation is an invest in the future too (motivation to go into a certain direction or whatnot), but there is still no way to force something by donations.

I agree of course, that if there are certain points where a good hint can help to save money (e.g. the server costs - suggesting a cheaper solution) is always welcome and should be followed if appropriate. But i think mouser would be the last person that refuses to follow a good advice, if all aspects fit our needs. But keep in mind: Price is not the whole picture. I just want to throw in speed, bandwidth, reliability, space and features, that are a few facts that matter too for a server; beside the price. A good tradeoff must be found here. And last but not least...a switch means work, and maybe a lot of work...so that should be counted in too. Mouser works voluntarily for DC and so he have to make the work in his free time. Nobody should and can't force him to do anything. He is our buddy and not our staff or servant!

Also, have you already noticed, that all donations made to DC are added to the members account as Credits (minus the money transfer fees of course)? And that the donating member can distribute that credits at his own will among other members, which, on the other side, are allowed to get the money paid out again? I don't know how often this happens and, to be honest, i'm not interested to know it either, but you have to subtract these sums from the assumed "income" of DC too.

Of course you could always decide to not donate anymore. That is the only way you can influence the way the money is spent and where the site will go. If the majority of the members agree with you, the mass will "force" mouser either to follow or fold DC. But that's again HIS decision, not ours.

Nevertheless, i'm very satisfied how DC is and what mouser do. I trust in him and i'm confident that he is a honest guy that stands behind the "donation" idea that is the tenor of DonationCoder site. And if i look back in the past, i still got more out of DC than i donated. Not all countable in money, but also in good ideas, time savings and last but not least in a whole bunch of hours of fun in good company. How would you account the fun factor in money? I can't!

And to prevent any sceptical repiles in advance:
Of course i get now $1000 from mouser out of the precious donations pot for saying and writing this post. I hope all members find this usage of the money very appropriate.

(And i hope too all readers have noticed that this last paragraph was pure joking and deep cynism!)

Just my 2ct. DC forever! WOOHOO!
Greetings
JoTo

Mousiiiiiiieeeee,

wow, awesome and informative videos. Love the new features of SC. Also the "capture all childs automagically" feature is very helpful for us when we are writing our manuals and documentations.

WOOHOO!
JoTo

It's every time awesome if 2 (or more) DoCo's meet in RL. I am glad you enjoyed your meeting.

I am just unsure if i wanted to have asian food, when i'd visit the USA. I may prefer more "american specialities" instead. But every child should get the balloon in the color it wishes, shouldn't it?

Nota Bene: I LOVE asian food. So THAT's not the point, eh! And "plenty of it", as App said, sounds very good to me. *LOL*

The great thing but also the sad side of DonationCoder is, that all my long time fellow DoCos are spread world wide and so far away to have a regular RLDD. I think "beaming" from StarTrek needs to be invented ASAP to make this possible.

Looking forward for more shared reports of DoCo-RLDDs. Thank you App.

WOOOHOOO!
JoTo

Hi Cranoscopical,

yes i thought about wearing my short cheerleader skirt and waving with my Pon-Pons while the image was taken, but i haven't had my cheerleader outfit right handy. And it would have been much more awkward too, because that photo was taken in my office by a teammate. Imagine the face impressions of our staff. EEEEK!

Beside this, a jump of me, with my weight, would have started an earthquake at Ehtyars, LRS, Lanux and Ewemoas home (opposite side of the globe). We would have lost 4 important and regular DoCo IRC channel members. That risk i was not willing to take.

Can now please someone else post another image so we can switch the discussion from my image to his/her one? TYIA!

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Ath,

Hahahahahaha, good idea! Will do that next time.

No, its me in real.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi DoCo's,

WOOOHOOO! My mousepads arrived yesterday in Germany. Thanks also to the sponsors.

Here is my proof of ownership.

[attachthumb=1]
(The proud N.A.N.Y. 2012 participant with his rare and special mousepad.
HINT: Ignore the ugly person but notice the nice pad! *LOL*)

CU at N.A.N.Y. 2013 (and until then on forum and in IRC channel)

Greetings
JoTo

Thanks to Kyrabatha for his great work. And mouser too, of course. Also thanks going to the Screencast makers and all the visitors that are reading, using and enjoying our NANY apps. Last but not least a big hooray to all the co-programdevelopers that made the NANY 2012 a success again.

Now let's looking forward to NANY 2013!

Greetings
JoTo

PS:
And the most important question is: WHERE IS MY MUG, and what picture would be on it?
<eagerly waiting> Hehehehehe!

Hi steeladept,

no reason for you to apologise. As i said, it was very welcome to see if there are any concerns about "in-box-packaging", as i'm a not a license expert at all. And using my "private think tank" (a.k.a. DonationCoder Community), is always fun.

Now its my turn to say sorry, that i didn't get your point.

Well, as i wrote i'm in contact with Hector, and if he wants i'd gladly hand him over the package to host it additionally, or link to it, whatever he prefers, but i will put up my (small) page anyway. I own a server where i can host my things and do this for all my projects all the time.

I release this as a free program without restrictions or nags, wether you donate or not, But i release only a pre-compiled binary and won't release it as open source though. Not because i don't want to change my mind in any way about the "free" in this project, but i want to avoid to document all the needed dependencies and compile instructions and whatnot, and most of all: My programming style is too awkward to show it to publid. And without the open source i don't think sourceforge makes any sense, isn't it?

Thanks again for taking your time to read and respond. Never thought ANYONE would ever look at it a single second.

Greetings
JoTo

Hi DoCos,

firstly let me thank you for the kind words.

Secondly, the package (not yet downloadable because i'm in the process of packaging and setting up a webpage for it right now) is self-conatined. So nothing else is needed to download. Just the GUI package and you are set.

Thirdly: I neither compiled against anything directly nor have i changed/added anything in the Perceptual Diff utility code. The 3rd party stuff is just included as separate precompiled binary exe and dll files, unchanged as i got them from the authors homepage in the package. So you can still use the Perceptual Diff utility standalone without my GUI and or unpackage again and get back the original package (well to be honest, i stripped the source code files and some compiling instruction textfiles from my distribution package).

And MOST IMPORTANT! Of course i contacted the author Hector Yee before i have included his exe file in my package, informed him what i've done and about the NANY event and offered him to send him a pre-release version to have a look at it. And Hector responded to me with the following words (copied from his eMail):

I'm pretty sure you can distribute it as there are debian  and ubuntu packages with it already, so not a problem. Plus I give you permission to distribute it as well just in case. Thanks for doing this!

And of course i give appropriate credits for Hectors utility and the GPL freeimage.dll that Hector uses in the about dialog of my GUI. I also will inform Hector again, if the page for my GUI is up, so he can link to it, if he wants, on his utility page. I'd appreciate this too, as this would give my GUI more prominence and maybe help more users to use it.

I think with all that i have done all i can do to "Give the king what the king deserves" and i'm on the legal and morally bright side of life, isn't it?

Thanks for pointing that out and give me the chance to clarify and get more safety in not doing something wrong because some guys shared their thoughts about the legality. Any more concerns that you think i should consider?

Greetings
JoTo

[NANY 2012 Entry Information]

NANY 2012 Entry Information

Application Name	PerceptualDiff GUI
Version	1.0
Short Description	Batch compare two branches of image files in a human visible (perceptual - not binary) way. Move and Rename files depending on match results
Supported OSes	Windows XP/Vista/7
Setup File	http://www.jotosoft.de/perdiffgui
System Requirements	Nothing special. Its a portable app!
Author Info	Most regular DoCos know me. And others i won't chase away with any picture of me
Description	Inspired by a request from DC member Tat1990, who dug up a nice utility named Perceptual Diff, which compares two images in a perceptual (respecting human vision) way for differences, the idea to this app was born. Tat1990 complained, that the Perceptual Diff utility is a hard to handle CLI application and lacks the capability to compare a whole branch (subtree) of images against another branch of images in batch mode. Also she was in need to move the images from branch1 (i.e. some new images you want to add to your collection) to branch2 (i.e. a "library" or your collection) under the subdir of the image of branch2 (your collection) that best match the actual image of branch1 (the new images to add), keeping all the original subdirs of the branch1 image. Furthermore she wanted to rename the image from branch1 following the best match image filename of branch2. To help her out here, i wrote the PerceptualDiff GUI (Perceptual Diff Graphic User Interface) app, that firstly gives the possibility to nicely and easily handle all the parameters of the Perceptual Diff CLI utility with TextControls, SpinControls and Sliders. Secondly it adds move, rename and batch capability of an unlimited amount of image files processed unnattendedly. And lastly you get a nice logfile for the archives with all actions that PerceptualDiff GUI did or would have done. Moving and Renaming are not mandantory, so you can also just get a report of which images match best with which other. And as this is a portable app that is self contained and don't need any installation you can use it everywhere just right out of the box. After that i realized, that this maybe useful for others too and developed the quick and dirty thing up to a usable and showable application. And with the upcoming NANY event, that was my chance to join the game. And here it is. A word about the Perceptual Diff utility. My app is just a convinient frontend to the Perceptual Diff utility of Hector Yee (http://pdiff.sourceforge.net). This utility uses a special comparing method that is not simply a binary byte-by-byte comparison. Rather this utility respects some rules of human vision and therefore compares the two images like a human would look at these pictures and decide if they are similar or totally different. The threshold for what is considered similar is adjustable. PerceptualDiff GUI always finds the BEST PERCEPTUAL MATCH of the images, depending on the given threshhold and based on the results returned by Hectors Perceptual Diff utility, comparing every picture from branch1 with every picture on branch2.
Features	Perceptual comparison. Not binary comparison Unlimited amount of images to compare to each other. Whole directory trees (with subdirectories) can be processed Unattended batch mode Move and Rename actions can be enabled or disabled. So just do a comparison to get a report which image best match with which one without changing your data or let PDiff GUI take actions to move and rename files for you to the bestmatch locations (keeping the necessary parts of the original path) File move and rename actions take care about filename collisions and rename/move with numbering where necessary Easy setup of the CLI parameters of the Perceptual Diff utility with GUI controls Save and load settings for reusing the same settings over and over again Downsampling of the images to speed up the comparison process Detailed logfile with all actions and results that can be saved for later use or for the archives Portable application Multilanguage (Englisch and German translations available for now - If anyone wants to do another language, please contact me)
Screenshots	[attachthumb=1]
Installation	No installation needed. It's a portable app. Just unpack and run the exe file.
Using the application	Mostly self explanatory. For more information about Perceptual Diff utility, please see the above mentioned Homepage of Hector Yee.
Uninstalling	To uninstall, just delete the program folder again.
Known Issues	None YET!

Suggestions are welcome. Hope this program is useful to anyone else than Tat1990.

Happy perceptual comparing
JoTo

For me, on WinXP-32, after a first and quick test, it worked fine. Found all processes and showed me all dlls under the hood. *Shrug* Cannot speak for Win7-x64 right now...that test comes next.

For me, at least, i'll keep this tool in my collection. And i only see the advertisement for Taskmanager when i click on the link in the bottom left corner of the main window. Not very intrusive IMO.

Greetings
JoTo

Thanks for pointing that out.

I always searched for such a tool. I'll give it a try and see what it can dig out for me If it at least fiddles out 50% of all these svchost processes for me and tell me whats under the hood, i'd consider it a very useful tool.

Greetings
JoTo

Please join the chant (to the well known melody the us marines sing when they march - at least they do it in the movies all the time...but who am i to tell if its true...Josh, call on duty to make the forefront singer!):

What we want to Nudone do?
A cody image that is new!
What we do when Nudone do?
We all cheer for him Woohoo!

(To be continued endlessly until Nudone did it again!)



+<insert my weight in pounds here> from me for a new cody image

<begging>PLEASE!</begging>

Greetings
JoTo

Hi Nudone,

what a pity about the christmas codies

And the Island one is great. It even fit my addicition (I'm member in a maritime club), so i would be glad to use this, as it would be perfect. Just too bright

Nevermind, it was just an idea *SNIFF*

Thank you anyway
Greetings
JoTo

And again i lost half of a day because i neither could resist, nor i can't stop reading this newsletter.

I'm still hoping for an empty or totally uninteresting newsletter in the future so i can satisfy my boss when doing my work instead of reading.

Thank you again for this hours of pure pleasure.

Greetings
JoTo

WOW, Nudone did it again!

I'm so cody addicted!

2 Questions though

1. What happened to wtfcody.com? I just get a "This domain is parked" with GoDaddy ads

2. Are there any CCWs out there (Cody Christmas Wallpapers) I'd be glad to have one for the season. But it should have a very dark (black or deep blue) background and overall brightness. So an image with Cody in snow i cannot use for my visual impairness.

That reminds me, i must search for a season-less cody wallpaper i can use everyday in between seasons as well. But also with a dark overall brightness or i can't use it.

Thanks a lot Nudone for your great work again and for inventing this cute little pet for me (errrm for us i mean)

Greetings
JoTo

I bought it just for the "Blocks that matter" game.

Isaac is a nice one too, but i'm not so much in action rich games. So even the "leading" app in this bundle "Voxatron" is not really for me.

But who cares. I got a really addictive game (Blocks that matter) and i supported the HumbleBundle Idea.

So thats a win-win situation.

Greetings
JoTo

Hey Mouse-maaan,

Thats great! I LOVE the new guideline crosshair.

I am one of the "i only want to grab a region guys" and i always started up to grab the minimal bound box, starting e.g. at top left point and drag the area until i notice that at the more right area there is a content that raises higher than the left top point. Starting again to grab new.  

Now with the new full screen guidelines that won't happen again.

WOOHOO from me for this!

Greetings
JoTo

Boomarked!

Thanks a lot!

Greetings
JoTo

Well, I'm not astonished at all.

In germany the term "Ga-Ga" has also the meaning of being an idiot, insane, crazy, lunatic, retarded anyway. Like we germans say "Er oder Sie ist Ga-Ga!" (He or She is Ga-Ga - replace the Ga-Ga with your most preferred word from my above mentioned list).

I knew already for a longer time that this useless carbon unit (i avoid calling her a human being intentionally), that others call her a singer or worse an artist (EEEEEEK!) is DEFINITIFELY GA-GA! Look at her outfits, performances and last but not least horrible music (if you insist to call it music).

So i think, YES she have the right to insist in this name and all derivations. Because she is "THE GENUINE GA-GA" in the german meaning.</ironic>

What concerns me much more is, that there are so many dumb kids around that like her and her <vomit>music</vomit>.

Poor poor world.

I feel fear for our human future and our world
JoTo

PS:
To be serious, i hate when this copyright topics happens. Remember that someone tried to "patent" the word Webspace to get money from everyone that uses that word in any context? Thanks god that patent was refused by an intelligent person. And the freeware author of FTP-Explorer (an ftp client) that got sued to not use the word "Explorer" for his app? WTF! Where will all this end? I think i should patent the word "the" for me and become a billionare from all the license fees i'll get. And jugdes that decide this way have either NO IDEA what they are doing or are GA-GA too. Well in both cased, they should be removed from their job. Just my 2ct. *ShakingMyHead* Tsk Tsk Tsk!

Hi Vlastimil,

NICE!!!

My problem with Photoshop is the visual impaired unfriendly GUI. That problem is not with RWP, great. Well some seeing problem i have with RWP, but most can be workarounded by waiting for the tooltip and whatever. So whenever i need to manipulate a PSD, i gladly fire up RWP now.

I also love the easy way to install plugins (as easy as installing a FireFox plugin) and the really nice done tutorial videos.

Another big plus is the portability. RWP will have its reserved space from now on on my "Utility-Allways-in-my-pocket-Thumbrdrive".

Thanks for the generous offer to give it out as free/donationware. Some bucks (Donationcredits) are on the way.

Greetings
JoTo