Messages

276

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« on: April 25, 2010, 02:44 AM »

I think search is definitely broken. There's a lot of hidden knowledge that will remain hidden if DC continues like this. Tagging may be a solution, but more advanced filtering (e.g. highlights some user's post) may be even better.

One spot that DC seems to have is the 'go to' place for 'what's the best?'.
Most ppl here are software fanatics, who write long reviews or post new cool findings. The findability of these things is low now. What DC needs is not more content, but better organized one.

277

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 24, 2010, 09:47 AM »

So, I've been looking at osqa. Thy seem to be cracking features at a good pace and they face the same issues with moderation and voting. The good thing is that they are not 100% clone, and since one can modify the code, one can have any variation on the voting etc (e.g., do away with badgets).

This type of site can definitely used for normal conversation or even announcement/blogging *example*

They seem to have the backing of http://dzone.com/. One of the most active users is Rick Ross, so I think the project will have a bright future. They released an (easier) install guide. I'll try to install it next...

278

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 22, 2010, 09:33 AM »

another one, this time with actionable steps, and from MIT..

279

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 20, 2010, 02:50 PM »

Points for everything.
Sounded relevant

280

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« on: April 20, 2010, 02:49 PM »

If Twitter was smart they'd implement their own URL shortening service that did two things:

1. If viewed in the browser, it would abbreviate the URL (or not, depending on each user's settings) much like DonationCoder's forums do automatically with long URLs.

2. If sent via text message/SMS to an actual phone, it would send the shortened URL (if the full URL is longer than the shortened one, of course).

-Deozaan (April 20, 2010, 12:58 PM)

They are going to implement their own

281

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Super Flexible File Synchronizer Mini-Review

« on: April 19, 2010, 08:50 AM »

I'm a SFFS fan. Since I'm on linux now, I had to find an alternative.
The best backup tool I found by far is storebackup. And yes, it beats SFFS for me.

No gui, though.

282

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« on: April 19, 2010, 03:59 AM »

I contacted them too, and got an equally non-caring answer:

Understand the concern, but our policy has been the same. The interstitial page is currently under review.
- Hide quoted text -

On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 4:03 PM <my email> wrote:
cranialsoup.blogspot.com/2010/04/bitly-is-harmful-to-your-reputation.html
this is simply unacceptable.

Will tell everybody I know.

Best,

when I tried to tweet about it, it said 'twitter may be experiencing problems'. Funny because any other tweet of mine not containing the url to the post didn't have any issues. I wonder if (this is a big accusation, so remember that this is only hypothetical) twitter was in bed with bit.ly and blocking the spread of news that harm bit.ly. It'd have major consequences. Worth keeping in mind.

283

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 19, 2010, 03:46 AM »

could the first few steps of presenting the same information in different ways be done using a tag system?

e.g. a forum thread that has been around for a month or two and is primarily a set of answers to the original post is tagged as "q&a" by one of the mods - who would also be able to tag specific replies as "nonessential" to the question and answer discussion. (perhaps even a colour system could be used to indicate non important replies - like a reply having a grey background). all this gets automatically duplicated in the Q&A section of the site.

or is this too obvious? or is it too much work anyway?

i suppose this is assuming there wouldn't be a Q&A area where people could post new questions - only read old ones from the forum.

-nudone (April 18, 2010, 11:43 AM)

I'd not like a system where admins prune and delete threads at will. I've had that in the past and it doesn't feel right. We had the discussion here. It was some autocomplete program. The admins were here defending the position that 'deleting is good because it makes other stuff more findable'. I just don't buy it. Plus, it shows that you don't get the point of the internet : 'everyone can say anything about any topic'.

284

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 18, 2010, 04:09 PM »

today I needed to find a total commander clone for linux I liked. It was on DC. I even installed it, but didn't remember the name. After 15 min of searches, I gave up. There's way too much info on filemanagers, and I didn't find it. I think we do need to improve organization. there's where a SO-like thing would help the most.

btw, it was double commander.

285

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 16, 2010, 11:02 AM »

I can imagine many phpbb and NM forums may be having this same conversation right now...

Finding the right answer in a forum takes effort. Try it on ubuntuforums, where threads hit 100 pages often... This is where I think SO model wins.

I guess the only way to test this is to actually try it.
I'll dedicate 1hr each to shapado and osqa, and report back.
But even if everything was running and ready... what do we do? Stop using the forum for a week and post only on the other SO thing? Then reconvene here and discuss the experience?

286

Living Room / stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« on: April 15, 2010, 06:13 AM »

We discussed before whether a stackoverflow-like site would work for DC. To summarize the thread, it seemed that (1) some people were against any score of any kind and (2) it's not clear what makes SO work, and how to import it to DC without killing the 'around the water cooler' conversation. But mostly everyone agreed that there's something working there that beats forum software.

Would it work here? Well, now is the best time to try since they just made SO's software free (and hosted to boot! I know that mouser pays quite a lot for the servers that run this forum)

Basically, they make it free (but with some hoops). This is good news  in that they see the model extending to other communities. For a contrarian vision see most comments here:
http://news.ycombina....com/item?id=1263083

Note that if we wanted a self-hosted solution, there are FOSS clones out there, see http://shapado.com/

What do you think?

287

Living Room / now we have nettops... but portable monitors?

« on: April 13, 2010, 01:14 PM »

http://www.kdsusa.com/KS-19mws.asp

not really portable, at 4.5 Kilo....
I wonder why we cannot get a good laptop monitor, say 1920 x 1200 17", on a stand that is portable and that doesn't weight a ton. Definitely more ergonomic than a laptop...

Any sightings?
EDIT: http://www.techchee....ortable-usb-monitor/ pretty good...

288

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Office 2010 discount

« on: April 12, 2010, 03:18 PM »

hmm horrible kernelling still present .
Still, the presentation tool beats OO.

289

Living Room / Re: two-monitors ergonomics

« on: April 12, 2010, 06:35 AM »

Thanks stoic Joker, I'm trying that.
@mouser: wow, 4 monitors...

290

Living Room / Re: two-monitors ergonomics

« on: April 12, 2010, 01:21 AM »

hmm. I don't understand.
So for these settings to work, you must do most of your work on the main monitor, and only use the sides (barely) with peripheral vision. Otherwise, your neck would be always twisted, which I don't think is a good thing.

291

Living Room / Re: building reputation: great o'reilly book and blog

« on: April 11, 2010, 01:23 PM »

...um sorry, come again?

-Paul Keith (April 11, 2010, 10:27 AM)

So...
examples of MY heuristics (i. e. shortcut, tricks, rules of thumb):

• Do the want to sell me something? Do they have an agenda of any kind?
• Do they have more ads than actual text?
• Is the design good? Do they look like they invested time and money?
• Is the url short and meaningful?
• Do I know something about the author that is impressive?
• Is the author talking about the thing he's an expert on, or something completely different?
• Is there any evidence? Or is it just opinion? (big one!)
• Is what he's saying logical, consistent?

292

Living Room / building reputation: great o'reilly book and blog

« on: April 11, 2010, 08:58 AM »

The book:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596159801

The blog:
http://buildingreputation.com/



Some quotes:

Karma is a reputation score for a user in a community, it may be comprised of many components, such as:

• How long has this person been a member of the community?
• What types of activities has she engaged in?
• How well has she performed at them?
• What do other people think about this person?

Having access to a person's reputation might help you make better informed judgments. Judgements like…

• Can I trust this person?
• Should I transact with this person?
• Is it worth my time to listen to this person?

It's gotten to a point in which most of what I do online depends on my bullshit detectors.
The interesting thing is that even highly educated people fall for dubious advice online. Basically noone check sources online. This can only lead to impoverished decision making.

What are your heuristics for detecting bullshit?

293

Living Room / two-monitors ergonomics

« on: April 11, 2010, 05:29 AM »

I know people here (mouser) rave about two-monitors.
I just started using them, and I think I have a problem with ergonomics.
My neck is getting a workout.
Side-to-side is too wide. one-on-top-of-another, too high...
Anyone has a solution? Websites about ergonomics on this?

294

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Office 2010 discount

« on: April 09, 2010, 04:22 PM »

A pity that the linux version has horrible font kernelling. It makes any other virtues disappear. That was on a beta, maybe they have improved it...

295

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: NightMode (switch display colors for ones suitable for working in the dark

« on: March 30, 2010, 04:30 PM »

In linux (gnome) this is easy to do for the entire OS. Most apps respect it. Problem is webpages, they are usually white...

296

Living Room / Re: How the big boys win the race for most popular website and rake in the dough

« on: March 29, 2010, 04:31 AM »

@mouser: it's even worse when what they build is made by the users. Example, metadata. They do the footwork, get paid nothing, and at the of the day their work is repackaged and sold to them again.

297

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: NightMode (switch display colors for ones suitable for working in the dark

« on: March 28, 2010, 07:16 AM »

flux is a killer tool. doesn't do exactly what you want, but it helps. whites will be less painful to look at.

298

Living Room / Re: Which is better windows mobile or android os or iphone os?

« on: March 21, 2010, 08:00 AM »

FWIW Microsoft is apparently planning on going down the same road as Apple by only allowing you to install apps through their online store, citing "network security concerns" as the reason why.

that really sucks. Stallman's 'right to read' is becoming a reality.

I have a nexus one, I'm I'm happy with it. But I got it from google, I would not have paid ~600 eur that it will cost here. In fact, I have no need for it, and I may sell it...

299

General Software Discussion / Re: simple software to facilitate reading screen full of text ...

« on: March 21, 2010, 06:05 AM »

activ'aid does this too. it's ahk.

300

General Software Discussion / Re: Which Linux For Non-Techie Windows Users?

« on: March 11, 2010, 05:15 AM »

Which buggy software? The apps within KDE 4.4 are a rock. I presume you mean apps used under Wine or Crossover Office? Or perhaps just some sloppy ports. For example, I consider Picasa a very sloppy port though many swear by it (I don't know why). I won't challenge your laptop statement since drivers are still not shared openly from the hardware companies.

tbird 3
openoffice
skype
anything from sourceforge that looks like a weekend project