Messages

1

Living Room / Re: OhLife - A new way to journal

« on: September 17, 2010, 09:05 AM »

I've been using OhLife for around two months now, just wanted to add my $.02

Things I would change? 

1 -- The time the email is sent out.  8pm doesn't work for me, so I've taken the "shortcut" and changed my timezone so that I get the email around 6.15pm my time.  I wish we could set our own times.

2 -- When I reply, by default my email is set to leave in the text of the email I'm replying to.  OhLife doesn't take that into account, if I fail to delete the text, it shows up in the post I make.  I'm thinking it wouldn't be too hard to code for that possibility.

Other than those caveats, I really do like the concept and prompting, and ease-of-use.  As others have said, there's no way I'd put stuff that I wanted to remain private on there ... for that matter, I wouldn't put anything private *anywhere* on the internet unless strongly encrypted, and even then I'd have second (and third) thoughts about doing it.

2

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

« on: March 09, 2010, 08:41 AM »

Sadly, my Linux installs are a wayside, still a play thing for me.

A majority of the time I spend in front of my personal machine is spent in Adobe Lightroom, "developing" photos.  Since that software is only available for OSX or Windows, I am stuck until Adobe deigns to make a version that I could run on Linux.

Sure, there are substitutes out there in Linux-land that will do what Lightroom does... but let's face it, I'm not getting any younger or more willing to learn different stuff.  None of the substitutes do things the way I expect them to, and Lightroom is simply an excellent photo cataloging/development tool.  I do not intend to give it up.

I've tried to run it under Wine; in fact, one or two of the older versions of Lightroom will in fact run under Wine ... the problem being, they're older versions, and also don't do what I've grown to expect from Lightroom.

Anyone else a fan of Adobe products such as Photoshop or Lightroom?  We really need to push them to develop software that will run on Linux.

3

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« on: July 28, 2009, 02:07 PM »

Here's an example of one of our pets:

http://images27.fotk...53/5D_02_0566-vi.jpg

We only have ten rats right now (down from a high number of 26).  My wife is the "freak" of the family, but I guess I'm not far behind ... she rescues unwanted rats, but almost never re-homes them, so our home is host to many cages.

You can see more at http://www.fotki.com/dwbrant/pets .

4

Living Room / Re: Meme time! Five Things People Don't Know About Me

« on: February 17, 2009, 11:23 AM »

Wow, thanks to all for the compliments.  I appreciate it, that's something you can't hear enough of.

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Living Room / Re: Meme time! Five Things People Don't Know About Me

« on: February 16, 2009, 08:32 AM »

 I do have a few accounts where you can see photos, but must caution you that you're likely to wade through a bunch of stuff you don't wanna see in order to see anything worthwhile...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dwbrant/

and for a more organized, but older, view:

http://public.fotki.com/dwbrant/  (I recommend the Landscapes and Infrared folders).

6

Living Room / Re: Meme time! Five Things People Don't Know About Me

« on: February 16, 2009, 07:45 AM »

1)  I have "cluster" headaches, in addition to the occasional migraine.
2)  I code Rexx programs and mainframe automation.  I can't really code in any other language.
3)  I love to photograph.
4)  I used up 9 years of my life jumping out of airplanes and bossing them around for the USAF.
5)  Although I have "grown up", I still occasionally listen to Steve Taylor, Sweet Comfort Band, and The 77s.

7

Living Room / Re: Things your kids will never know - old school tech!

« on: November 05, 2008, 11:30 AM »

Really? I've heard of Object Rexx, but I couldn't find any reference to it in conjunction with Red October. When I saw it circa 1992, the IDE certainly needed work, but it was a good start. What was remarkable about the platform was that the code was inherently client-server (that was the height of technology at the time, before n-tier architectures). But as I recall, everyone viewed the project as dead. I guess after I left it must have been resurrected.

-CWuestefeld (November 05, 2008, 10:07 AM)

The ObjectRexx IDE was released but I have never seen it updated.  I last used it in 2001 but never found it especially useful .. and yeah, I remember it being client-server.  I think it's "dead again".

There is Open Object Rexx which is the result of Object Rexx being released to the general public, but I don't think there is an IDE for it.  Too bad.

8

Living Room / Re: Things your kids will never know - old school tech!

« on: November 05, 2008, 08:57 AM »

I wonder if anyone else here remembers the ITT SPE (International Telephone and Telegraph Stored Program Element)?

It was a specialized computer designed in the mid-50's and built in the early 1960s, used to facilitate communications between the USAF Headquarters, Strategic Air Command and the numerous missile bases throughout the United States.  It had 64k of core memory -- when the thing was decommissioned in 1989, I got to see the core memory; little iron circles -- "cores" -- with a copper wire running through them.  The command console itself was around 14 feet long, and there was no such thing as a "keyboard" -- we used PBIs (Push Button Indicators) to enter commands in octal, then pressed a button labeled "GO" at the end of the row of PBIs to make the machine process the command.  There was a very large, loud line printer which kept an audit log of commands entered.

It used reel tape drives which were so tall that we had to stand on stepladders to mount a tape.

It used rows and rows of drum storage; this was a predecessor to disk drives -- magnetic storage where the magnetic surface was on a drum which rotated around, and the heads moved up and down over the rotating surface.

It used patch panels, much like old-style telephone switchboards, to translate between actual hardware and "logical" hardware.

It filled a room that was easily twice the size of a US football field.

And man it was loud.

Ironically, when it was decommissioned in 1989, the system that took its job over was an IBM series-1 customized and called "SACDIN" ... which was itself created in 1977.

I will have to post a few photos I have of the console when I have the chance to dig them up.

9

Living Room / Re: Things your kids will never know - old school tech!

« on: November 05, 2008, 08:35 AM »

OK - since this is DonationCoder, how about ridiculously obsolete computer languages that you spent time learning but will never use again? For me:

• Assemblers: Z80, 6502, IBM 370, PDP-11
• APL (here and here)
• SNOBOL
• TIF (not graphics but a DB platform for IBM mainframes, kinda analogous to Access. I can't even find a web page for it)
• FORTRAN
• Rexx - scripting language for IBM mainframes and OS/2. Pretty cool, actually, anticipating some of the features of today's dynamic languages. Here, here, and here. Internally, IBM had a visual tool for building client-server apps in Rexx, internally called "Red October" iirc, that could have been a VB-killer, but they never released it -- letting it die just like OS/2

-CWuestefeld (October 22, 2008, 10:12 AM)

Ouch!  I use ReXX daily in my mainframe automation job (OPS/MVS).  If I wasn't so lazy, I would use it on the PC too. 

And IBM did release "Red October", AKA Object Rexx.  The IDE is ok for an IDE made in 1998.

10

Living Room / Re: How do you spend your time on the computer?

« on: January 14, 2007, 04:06 AM »

When I'm not at work, I am busy processing photographs using Adobe Lightroom ( http://labs.adobe.co...hnologies/lightroom/ ).

11

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« on: January 14, 2007, 03:50 AM »

I am mid-40's, live in Minneapolis, MN, USA, and like to spend spare time taking photographs.  I was in USAF from 1980-1992.

I work for a very large global outsourcing company, and no, I am not proud of that fact.  I am actually waiting to have my job "outsourced" to Argentina or Brazil in the next few months.

Dave