Messages

1

DC Gamer Club / Re: EA giving away Dead Space for free (offer expires May 9, 2014)

« on: March 29, 2014, 05:32 PM »

Thank you so much!!!

2

Developer's Corner / Re: Lost My Faith - Need New Religion - Need LAMP Help...

« on: February 16, 2012, 11:24 PM »

Let me toss in my 2cp worth here 

Fedora is what Red Hat uses as their "bleeding edge" testing ground, so it's not near as stable as Red Hat Enterprise, and has a much shorter release time frame.  As others have said, don't use it for a server OS.

CentOS is Red Hat Enterprise repackaged to be free, so if you like Red Hat, that's the way to go.

Personally, I like Debian, so I'll put in a nod for that.  Debian is what powers many other distro's out there including Ubuntu.  I have been using Debian on my servers and it's not only rock solid, but updates and any security fixes are taken care of right away, and they have a long release cycle so you don't have to worry about OS upgrades all the time, and you get support for what you are running for a long time.

As for CMS's, if you like DotNetNuke, the check out PostNuke on the *nix side.  Both are based on PHPNuke which started out a looong time ago, it's just that with these others, you get the features without all the bugs and security holes! 

As for hosting options, I'd like to mention ServerBeach.  I know you have mentioned going the VPS route, but with ServerBeach you can lease a dedicated server for under a hundred bucks a month.  That's for a low powered server, but one that gets the job done depending on just what you want to do with it, and how many sites you want to host.  If you catch a special, you can get some even better deals too.  I have been a customer there for eight or nine years now and have had literally perfect service with this company.  They started off as part of Rackspace, but got spunoff and sold to Peer1.  All in all they are a great company to deal with, with good prices and great support.  The servers they lease are "un-managed", which means it's a do it yourself gig, but for me, that's just what I wanted. 

If you need any help, or have any questions, don't hesitate to send me a private message or reply here, and I'll be glad to help in any way I can.

Hope this helps, thanks!

Laz

3

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

« on: January 12, 2011, 10:05 PM »

In the beginning, I actually liked MySpace.  I remember hearing about it from friends and fellow musicians as a place to hang a shingle, post some stuff and maybe get some good feedback and exposure.  Not to mention being able to make contact with already famous artists and heroes alike (which I have been able to do, and was wonderful).  However, MySpace got way too big, bloated, insecure and downright dangerous to a lot of folk that didn't know enough to defend against the basics.  By the time it had been taken over by the kiddies as mentioned above, I had lost all interest in what it had become versus what it started out as.

What was the guys name that started it?  The one that was everyone's first friend by default?  Tom I think it was.  If I remember correctly, he wrote the original site and later sold it to ol' Rupert for (from the article) $580 million!  He made out like a bandit as far as I am concerned! 

It might be interesting to see what it morphs into next ...

4

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« on: December 07, 2009, 01:59 PM »

First off, Firefly is always first, no exceptions. 

As for non-canceled shows:

NCIS - Another nod for this one as it's already been mentioned.
Lie To Me - This one is turning out to be great.
White Collar - I have been enjoying this one as well.
Burn Notice - This one is just plain awesome!

I like the IT Crowd too, but it's a whole different genre/show from Lost or the above.

5

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a difference tool

« on: November 07, 2009, 01:54 AM »

Another nod for Beyond Compare.  I have been using it for years and it just gets better and better (it's updated often).  Version 3 lets you compare text, text files, binary comparisons, folders, hex, mp3 files, pictures and more.  Plus it can sync folders that you compare and merge text.  It has become a tool that I would be hard pressed to live without.  You can open the app and type or paste text into one side and then the other to compare text that way without creating files first.  It does a great job of highlighting the diffs too.

Just my 2cp worth. 

6

Living Room / Re: RobotWar and the Army of Clones

« on: October 12, 2009, 08:55 PM »

I think a nice little web game could be made from this idea/concept.  Maybe I'll tinker with it some if people are interested, I have already been working on some web based games, maybe I can modify what I have already written.   Hmmm   

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General Software Discussion / Re: Organize desktop icons and more...

« on: October 04, 2009, 01:17 AM »

I thought I would chime in here.  I would like to find a nice tool for organizing desktop icons as well.  Something like fences would be great.  As far as fences goes, I like (the idea of) fences, but every time I install it and try to use it, I get tons of explorer crashes ... so many so fast I can't use it at all.  I have tried it several times over the past year or so as they have come out with new versions, but I get the same thing every time.  Seems to be a great app, I have friends that love it, but it doesn't like me or something I am running.

8

Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for September 27th, 2009 - Codename "Slackers in September"

« on: September 28, 2009, 12:34 PM »

Great newsletter, I got lots of info from all of the links.  Thanks for the hard work! 

9

General Software Discussion / Re: Godin: the end of dumb software

« on: September 28, 2009, 12:11 PM »

What about folks, like me, that work nights and do, indeed, have meetings at 2am?  Food for thought, anyway.   

-skwire (September 13, 2009, 09:42 AM)

What about a simple option that at least lets you specify what you would like the default to be, AM or PM?  It's not "smart" but gets the job done for all parties.  Just a thought ... 

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General Software Discussion / Re: Choice of application installer?

« on: September 07, 2009, 03:39 PM »

I agree that the standalone unzip and run approach is best, unfortunately, when working with VB you are pretty much out of luck for standalone apps unless there is some trick I am missing.  If I had my way I'd make all of my apps standalone.

Thanks for the feedback everyone 

11

General Software Discussion / Choice of application installer?

« on: September 07, 2009, 12:11 AM »

Hi all, I am curious as to what everyone's opinion is regarding installation builders for the apps that you create.  I have done some searching through these forums and found a few ideas, but I thought I would directly ask what any/every one's pick is.  What is it that you use when you are ready to package that great application for the masses?  I'll start with my own experiences:

I work mostly with VB6 for Windows apps, so these are geared towards that.

• Naturally I have used the package and deploy wizard in VB6, but it seems to have some issues, plus it isn't very customizable.
• Purchased Installshield Express 11 a few years back and it worked pretty well, though it was a bit of a pain to work with.  Looked at upgrading to the latest version and it's along the lines of $599 which is a little steep for one guy that does this for fun in his spare time.
• Have used the Visual Studio Installer that came out in the .NET VS releases and it shows promise, but still I think it would be nice to have something more rebust and customizable.
• Am now trying the free version of Advanced Installer, and even though $249 for pro is a bit more than I'd like to pay, it looks like it is one heckuva install builder that can do darn near anything you want to with it.

That's where I am at now, anyone else want to put in their 2cp worth?

Thanks   

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

« on: September 06, 2009, 04:01 PM »

OK, I must be old, not only do I know that tune, I used to play it in a band I was in a few years ago.  It's a good tune all the way around 

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

« on: August 29, 2009, 09:07 PM »

has to be released to the public for the first time around jan 1.
so it CAN be something you've worked on for a long time up until then, as long as it hasn't been available to the public previously.

in the spirit of NANY, it should be something youve worked on at least a little bit recently.. so just grabbing something you wrote 10 years ago and not even updating it a little for NANY would be pushing the terms of the celebration.

-mouser (August 29, 2009, 03:39 PM)

Cool.  I wouldn't just grab something from 10 years ago LOL (yikes!)  But I have a couple of ideas and wasn't sure if I could get one of them cranked out in 30 days.

Thanks!

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

« on: August 29, 2009, 02:19 PM »

Cool, NANY sounds like a fun thing to participate in!  One question, I want to make sure I get it right, does the app have to be developed between (for example) Dec 1 - Dec 31?  or just released by Jan 1?

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

« on: August 27, 2009, 04:30 PM »

Greetings all, I am Laz.  I live in the US, in the SouthWest part of Virginia.  I am a CTO for my day job, where I worked my way up from a UNIX and Storage sysadmin. I have been working with computers and related stuff for over 20 years and I love it all.

As for software development, I am a self taught programmer and scripter.  People tell me I am sick in the head because I code for fun.  I can spend a day working on a code project and have a ball.  Primarily, I am a Visual Basic guy for Windows software, but I have dabbled with lots of other languages too, including some C++ when I worked on Half-Life mods a while back.  I also do loads of web development and love PHP for that, plus lots of PERL and Bash/shell for UNIX/Linux scripting.  I enjoy working with databases as well, and use MySQL, MS SQL and SQLite quite a bit.

I like what I see here at DC, and I am very happy to be a member here.  I have been writing and giving away little apps and utilities for years, and I love what everyone is doing here.  I look forward to getting to know folks here and tinkering on some good software!

Thanks