Messages

51

DC Member Programs and Projects / Re: Wanted: better desktop icon grouping system

« on: May 14, 2012, 02:36 AM »

My solution to this has been Stardock's Fences. Neat little app worth looking up

52

General Software Discussion / Re: Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

« on: May 14, 2012, 02:35 AM »

It's slowly coming to the time of year where I make another attempt of switching to linux or BSD as a main desktop/laptop OS (except for games)
Last year went further than ever but still faltered on finding apps I could deal with - for image management, music, but also for diagrams. And now Access based Actinic. Still, maybe this year they work on Crossover?

By the way my combo on TaoPhoenix's grid ended up Slackware-fluxbox

53

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Botanicula Debut

« on: April 28, 2012, 05:00 PM »

I think the difference is that this occurred on launch day. People who pre-ordered had a reasonable assumption that anybody who bought the game on launch day would pay the same price.

If I buy something for $20 but then don't play and six month later it's on sale for $5 then that's my fault and to be expected. But if I pre-order a product for $20 and found out that others who didn't pre-order got it (or could get it) for $0.01 with MORE goodies than my $20 pre-order, on launch day, I'd definitely be upset.

-Deozaan (April 26, 2012, 09:42 PM)

Anyone who'd do a 0.01c thing is a creep! making people make a loss on the transactions.

And you still now get a lot more in the bundle than in the gog preorder, since the art and soundtrack are also in. And I agree it was crummy of the devs to do that, i suspect gog.com might not do preorders of new indie stuff again in a hurry.

Pricewise though it does happen quite regularly when you preorder - not to the bundle extreme like this but it does happen that another site does a better deal at or before launch than the one you paid. Or within the week. On indie stuff, Steam is often behind, launching a week or two later, but for less.

That's why I never preorder anything mainstream or indie unless I want to specifically support the site or the dev - then even if it happens that Steam launches it 2 weeks later at 50% of the price, I dont feel cheated. Which is what I thought I was doing with the botanicula thing. Well those devs won't get my money again even if they do the best game ever.

On the other hand I've got quite a few games (20+) I did preorder or buy from the dev at higher price because I wanted to support them. No regrets even if, in some cases, the game in the end didnt tick with me - or if it ends up in a bundle... I just preordered Age of Decadence and Xenonauts recently (and kickstarter for 2 other games too)... And I will preorder soldak's next game Drox Operative as soon as it is orderable, just because, I will also preorder mega-mainstream Guild Wars 2 because GW gave me so much as a game.. and if there's ever a Dominions 4 or a Creeper World 4 etc.

54

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Rarma Radio (Raimersoft) - Mini-Review

« on: April 26, 2012, 12:25 PM »

While we're on internet radio players, anyone knows one that can scrobble what the radio played (if the stream contains the information). It would make it so easy to find tracks later again

55

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Botanicula Debut

« on: April 26, 2012, 12:22 PM »

Although I am not sure why people were so outraged, it happens to me all the time that a bundle comes out that offers a game cheaper than I bought it, and before I have played it. Especially on games I preordered out of curiosity or a desire to support the devs, without thinking of when they will come out and whether I'll have time to play.

I feel silly but I feel it is a normal thing that happens

56

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Botanicula Debut

« on: April 22, 2012, 02:14 PM »

it was a pretty mean trick they played on gog.com there, to be honest... dont undercut the people who support you early, at least not without some notice...

57

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« on: April 04, 2012, 03:34 AM »

So, how much did that PC cost you, if you don't mind me asking.

-MilesOhToole (April 03, 2012, 01:48 PM)

AMD Bulldozer FX-8120 8 Core 3.10GHz - Asus M5A78L-M USB3 HDMI Motherboard - 8GB DDR3 RAM Bundle cost £222 + VAT and delivery at Amazon.co.uk

-Antonimo (April 04, 2012, 01:32 AM)

not bad. Time perhaps to upgrade another machine...

58

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone on DC do Actinic (UK)?

« on: April 04, 2012, 03:19 AM »

Thanks Surf4wine - we sure must have a lot in common so we ought to connect - pm me your details

Been doing ecommerce sine 1996 and hope i never have to write one from scratch, i bet you feel the same.
Magento would be my choice too, have been involved in many projects with it across Europe, including part of building Magento Go... 

But with this experience I know how much time, attention and energy is needed when replatforming. Getting all the details done right. Dealing with the PSP changes. Emails, prices, reports, PCI... Will do it, but right now many other things need my time and attention more.

59

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« on: March 31, 2012, 08:08 AM »

considering they all end up having the same resolution, i tend to find 24" less "crisp" than smaller screens

never quite understood how they managed to make everyone focus on screen size rather than resolution, but here's t hoping that the ipad3 reverse that trend.

You could find 15" and 17" screens that did 1920x1600 10 years ago, you cant find a 21" near that resolution nowadays (even adjusted for 16:9/16:10)... let alone the equivalent in detail per inch...

60

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« on: March 31, 2012, 04:27 AM »

my opera had no problem
maybe the print link will work better? http://www.globalcom...95&Sku=A466-2214

-iphigenie (March 31, 2012, 03:22 AM)

Still not working (ends in some 404 page, according to the name in the final link), maybe because I'm not in the US of A?

edit: Even when opening www.globalcomputer.com I get that page...

-Ath (March 31, 2012, 04:19 AM)

very weird, works here from the UK. maybe something is happening at your ISP

61

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« on: March 31, 2012, 03:22 AM »

I'm also thinking about this monitor, mainly due to it's 2ms response, size, price and the reviews are pretty good.  Thoughts?

-MilesOhToole (March 30, 2012, 09:21 PM)

Some of my browsers (FF, Chrome, Opera) think that link is a loop, so they won't open it (too_many_redirects), got another link?

-Ath (March 31, 2012, 02:52 AM)

my opera had no problem
maybe the print link will work better? http://www.globalcom...95&Sku=A466-2214

I have an old high end Asus which still holds its own, but have seen very mixed reviews of the more budget ones. Of course with reviews its hard to know what is worth hearing or not, especially on monitors. So much depends on what one is used to. For example a screen that looks duller next to another monitor might still be wonderful when it is the main monitor, as having perhaps better color or because you play at night

We since went with a bargain Philips monitor which so far has been a beauty, although color rendition took some tweaking. I might look at this one at the same price http://www.globalcom...39228&CatId=2775

62

Living Room / Re: I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

« on: March 31, 2012, 03:15 AM »

You're not far from what I built last autumn - and I am still very pleased with it

Didnt see if you needed a case or not. I can hugely recommend the Antec SOLO case as having most of the nice thermal and silence bits of the high end Antec cases at a much lower price, and it looks clean and simple. Have 3 of them for many years now (2007), still superb.

Can recommend the Scythe Shuriken as a cooler - not as huge as many and nicely quiet.

Here's my spec:

I went for the asrock Z68 as value for money, but the GA is extremely nice.

Didnt pay much attention to the memory. Reasonable brand 2x4gb. Never noticed all that much effect between different RAM chips and configurations, but then I tend not to overclock as I like to keep my temp low and my computer quiet (I might underclock). I mean, you notice different numbers on benchmarks, but I don't notice much difference in real playing, so I don't bother.

I did shell out on a small Intel SSD for the core OS - installing most of the games and data on a normal drive on the side. It does make a huge difference and I wish I could do this everywhere.

Very happy with the HIS IceQ cards. Used to get Asus and Sapphire when they made fanless cards, but they aren't doing much of that anymore (I think powercolor still are, but cant find them in the UK). The IceQ is less noisy than most. I have the AGP HD 4670 IceQ in another computer, so I stuck to them (got to thank a company for still making stuff for an old AGP machine, eh?)


Antec Solo Case
Asrock Z68 Pro3 http://www.asrock.co...p;cat=Specifications
Intel Core i5 2500k
8GB Ram (Corsair I think)
Intel 320 80GB ssd drive SATA II
WD Caviar Black 2Tb SATA III
scythe shuriken low profile
PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750 (old one I had around)
HIS HD 6870 IceQ X Turbo

63

General Software Discussion / Re: Poor Planning for Services from Companies - HTC, Apple, MS, etc.

« on: March 31, 2012, 01:08 AM »

That's why I use third party services that are set up as standalone OR my own hosted stuff.

PS: For sync I am using memotoo/funambol - supports every device, but only data - funambol being open source I could host my own, but for now the 12 euros/year memotoo option seems easier

64

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Social Media Program do you use? (e.g. Tweetdeck)

« on: March 21, 2012, 05:42 PM »

I have been using the twitter default interface but with the latest redesign I have a problem.
I'd organised a lot of people in lists, and it used to be very easy to browse one list after another straight from the main twitter page. Now it is hidden and time consuming and I either need a list friendly client, or to move all the people in the lists onto my main friends/follow list.

Anyone know a client that is good for lists?

65

Living Room / Re: A change I've seen in the forum

« on: March 17, 2012, 12:05 AM »

Having managed an SMF forum for a group of people that got very comfortable with each other and where this was a common issue, I can confirm that SMF has beautiful split/merge options so it might be possible to spin off new topics from the part that goes on a diagonal, hence keeping the original topic available for continuation.It's tricky if done too late, but it an can work quite well. But it's *work*

As someone who often comes to a topic a day or two late and wants to add my contribution, I often feel a bit odd when I read the topic, find that what I have to say is still relevant, but that on page 2 the topic veered off. I never know whether to post or not when it happens, dont want to be a party pooper derailing the derailment. So sometimes I do post, sometimes I don't

66

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone on DC do Actinic (UK)?

« on: March 16, 2012, 03:35 PM »

I hope this helps a little anyway. If you need more, the Actinic design training course is very good.

-brucet (March 15, 2012, 05:11 AM)

Thanks - going to take me a while to process this list

67

Living Room / Re: The world of fantasy art loses another great this week

« on: March 16, 2012, 03:21 PM »

I'll second that - as a french speaker reared - like we all are - on "bande dessinee" - this was sad news indeed. Worlds of beauty and wonder he made...

68

General Software Discussion / Re: Why 24-bit/192kHz music files make no sense - and may be bad for you!

« on: March 10, 2012, 08:37 AM »

That sort of tedium would be makework akin to sharpening a mountain of pencils.       

-IainB (March 09, 2012, 05:13 AM)

(see attachment in previous post)
@iphigenie - If you do in fact decide you absolutely must re-encode 500 CDs, I can give you the name of an excellent psychologist I know. She specializes in the treatment of OCD.
 

-40hz (March 09, 2012, 08:55 AM)

LOL

I know a pair of kids who love sharpening pencils and would happily go around and do dozens and dozens, perhaps I can convince them they want to swap CDs every 5 minutes for 3 days... Nah.

THe problem with digital files is that they need to be managed - tagged, arranged, backed up, and, well, played. Else they are just waste of space. I waste far too much time managing my media as it is. (I see the attraction of Spotify -if it had the diversity and had international tunes, not just one market, that is- as you just don't manage anything anymore...)

Re-encoding would be a slow, on the side thing - some kind of have-a-box-of-CDs-around and swap CD now and then while the program encodes.

Another issue here which brings us back to software features: I am not aware that any piece of software allows you to say "re-encode this cd" (i.e. encode this CD and save the files over this CD's older files, keeping the tags). Re-inheriting all the badly tagged crap from CDDB, and re-inheriting the waste-of-space songs I deleted from many, and having 100% duplicates... just not worth it.

69

General Software Discussion / Re: Why 24-bit/192kHz music files make no sense - and may be bad for you!

« on: March 09, 2012, 03:51 AM »

one think I am picking up from this is that I probably should re-encode all my CDs - that it is likely that the ogg encoder I used in 2000 could have been of lower quality than the one I could use now (although it was not the one in ffmpeg). And I have much better processing power now so it should be less painful.

Who am I kidding, this would take months - there's between 300 and 500 CDs in that basement, if not more :S

70

General Software Discussion / Re: Linus Torvalds on OpenSUSE

« on: March 04, 2012, 01:58 PM »

It is a very nice distro, has been my partner R's distro of choice since 97 or so (mine being slackware with occasional detours). I am sure there are ways to configure it so you dont have to give your daughter the root password for printing, but it is possible that by default the groups are not set up for it.

He's allowed to have a rant, because it'd be easy to fix on the opensuse team's part. And he's right, these things should not be in the same security class as proper system changes, because they are surface, cosmetic changes.

And now they will fix this methinks...

71

Living Room / Re: Amazon pulls thousands of e-books... and the SFWA strikes back

« on: March 04, 2012, 06:39 AM »

That's a good thing if it brings more publishers and authors to put their books in more channels than Amazon.

I don't/won't have a Kindle (or an iphone etc.) because of the central control of what is/can be put on my device (and DRM) so it can be pretty limiting at times because so many things are on amazon/kindle and nowhere else. Hopefully publishers will realise it is not safe for them to be at the mercy of just one retailer... and I'll have more choice

Not that I manage to read all that find within my limits anyway... but hey...

72

Living Room / Re: Scroogle R.I.P.

« on: March 03, 2012, 10:36 AM »

how is a DOS attack and the lack of a viable business model Google's fault exactly? I'm no google fan by far but they are not running a charity and cannot be expected to.

73

Official Announcements / Re: I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012

« on: March 02, 2012, 05:21 PM »

And here I was planning how to target google ads so they would appear here, to sell my wine.
All in vain... although I hadnt figured it out yet

-iphigenie (March 02, 2012, 04:28 PM)

No no no my friend, you're doing it wrong!

You're a member, right? And you want to sell something, right? And the only people who will see this post/page are ... visitors here, right? The name of the site is *Donation*(Coder), aka we're already doing "once my happiness threshold is reached we'll donate", so they've already got a payment structure set up, which is usually the hardest part. (And it's good ol' Mouser, not OhDearGawd Paypal!) So post a nice spicy/funny/creative/twilight zone/Stephen King ad and ... ASK us to buy it! See all those other threads - why does Google need to be involved?

Mouser, the model I am describing is the one the chess servers use. You'd just open a similar account to the existing (Coder/Wine Merchant) accounts already here.

Whee, innovation is fun!

-TaoPhoenix (March 02, 2012, 04:40 PM)

It was more in the spirit of experimentation - how site specific can you do google ads if you really try?

As for selling wines, it's so geographically specific it makes less sense here. You're all spending your spare cash on software anyway :p

Just kidding

74

Official Announcements / Re: I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012

« on: March 02, 2012, 04:28 PM »

And here I was planning how to target google ads so they would appear here, to sell my wine.
All in vain... although I hadnt figured it out yet

75

General Software Discussion / Re: Linus Torvalds on OpenSUSE

« on: March 02, 2012, 11:09 AM »

Seriously? ....  guy who wrote the kernel posted that?
I have to disagree with him. Password for every critical system change is nice security feature, otherwise you always have windows. I guess he's infected with one-button apple logic. 

-mahesh2k (March 01, 2012, 04:31 PM)

Well the point then is: adding a printer or joining a hotel wifi, or switching timezone when travelling should not be considered a critical system change, and then we're all in agreement