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96
General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for random map generator.
« on: January 12, 2009, 09:33 AM »
This might be a little wide of what you're after, but you might want to look at Terragen which is a photorealistic landscape generator. You can use the program to generate random "terrains" then modify them, combine them, etc.

Even if you never use the photorealistic rendering options, it could be a nice creativity booster.

97
Yes, we've used it. But it's very difficult to use quickly in real time and the audio is not good at all.

Ok, well I've got to chime in here.

As for "difficult to use quickly in real time" I can see where this comes from - maybe - but seems like an inflated claim. In OneNote, there's a button to display the recording toolbar, which has the usual play-pause-stop-record buttons. Two clicks to start recording (one, if you had the foresight to turn on the audio recording toolbar before you started notetaking) doesn't seem to me to be "difficult to use." There's no keyboard shortcut, though, which is a bit annoying. Switching between notes while recording can also confuse things. But for the most likely scenario - recording on a single page while you take notes - OneNote's audio recording is perfectly usable.

OneNote's audio quality is skewed out of the box to produce small file sizes, so the quality is limited, though OK for spoken audio around a conference table or with a clip-on mic. However you can tweak the audio quality to be as high as you want. Bumping up the recording parameters gives much better quality audio, albeit with a slightly larger file size. You also get to choose the codec that will be used to encode the audio. It defaults to the Windows Media Voice codec, again assuming spoken word recording. But you can use the regular WMA codec for better quality.

Microphone quality is a much bigger factor in quality of audio anyway. No program is going to work magic with the crappy audio you'll probably get from a laptop's built-in mic. For recording something like a lecture, an inexpensive external mic would be a better investment.

When you play back the audio, the app will highlight the text you typed as the recording was made, which is neat to watch, and possibly even helpful. There's even an add-in that lets you tweak this timing if it somehow gets unsynced, or if you're extremely picky and have lots of free time.

My biggest gripe with OneNote's audio is that there's no audio meter in the program, so it's not easy to see what level you are recording at. If your mic is set to low or too high, or your external mic is not completely plugged in, causing you to record either buzzing or the sound of your own typing via the built-in mic, you can't really tell this while you are recording. (And yes, I 've had all of these happen.  :-[ )

For things like lectures or meetings where you've only got one chance to capture the audio, this is a major oversight.  Since OneNote just uses the system audio settings, you could theoretically run a separate app or widget to display audio levels during recording. I've been looking for such a thing for a long time though, and it doesn't seem to exist. The recording level gauge built into Windows is too klunky and hard to access to be of much use.

98
Living Room / Re: Swoopo - A New Take on Online Auctions, or a Scam?
« on: November 03, 2008, 09:32 AM »
Just looking at the middle item in the screenshot tells me this is a scam.

Bidding on cash? That's just absurd. Why would you bid on cash? Why would anyone auction off cash? All by itself, this item shows this site up as a come-on for suckers.

This reminds me of those games you find on the midway at carnivals and places like Coney Island. The fabulous prizes are prominently displayed to whet your appetite, but getting hold of them is never as simple (or cheap) as it seems.

(And what's with the "100% off" banner? Are they saying this cash used to be worth $80,000? Or that you can win it by bidding $0.00? Neither makes any sense.)

99
I've used Synergy, Win2VNC and also purchased MaxiVista. I'll have to try this out and see how it compares.

2stepsback, I'm wondering where you are looking for KVM switches, though, that you find them too expensive. You can get a decent one for 2 boxen in the $30 range, or even less, especially on ebay. Software is nice, but for just switching two PCs between 1 kb/mouse, it's hard to beat hardware.
  • Transitions are nearly instant.
  • There's no performance compromise. Sending video over ethernet almost always requires some kind of trade-off - color reduction, lag time, etc. Plus whatever it's doing to your network bandwidth.
  • There are no glitches/crashes/incompatibilities to worry about
  • You can always control either machine - even at boot time before the OS loads, which I sometimes find to be critical.
I bought a little 2 PC KVM with a USB port for around $20 if I remember correctly, and it's turned out to be one of the most useful pieces of kit I own.

100
Living Room / Re: My computer is older than YOUR computer!
« on: October 15, 2008, 11:24 AM »
BASIC on the Atari 2600 was a great way to prepare for modern computing. Spend hours tweaking an underpowered program using a fiddly interface, then lose all your work when you turn off the power.  Just like when Windows crashes today! :D

They designed a real programming system for the 2600 once that would have turned it into a bona fide home PC. It plugged into the cartridge slot and added a chicklet-style keyboard as well as BASIC. It never saw the light of day, though. Perhaps they feared it would pirate Atari 400 sales.

I too have a 130XE in the attic, but haven't plugged it in in years. I'm hoping the floppy still works and that the disks are still readable so that my college ouevre will not be lost to history.

The oldest working/still useful PC I have is a Gateway Handbook 486. It's a notebook PC slightly larger than a paperback book, with one of the best small-size keyboards ever invented. (Oh, you thought the eee book was a new idea?  ;) ) I've actually got 2 of them - one runs Win 95 and the other runs DOS/GEOS. If only the dead batteries weren't so expensive to replace, I'd probably still be using these.

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