Messages

876

Living Room / Flash Games: GrowCube Series

« on: March 31, 2006, 09:34 AM »

There are a series of "GrowCubes" by the same author -- if you haven't played them, explaining is difficult.  But the general idea is, you start with a cube (not always a "cube" per se, depending on version) and proceed to click on one of several items.  Depending on the order they're clicked, different growth combos will happen on the cube you started with.  Clicking them in the proper order (difficult and time consuming to deduce!) will get you the final product -- until then, you just get different combos and watch it grow.

It's absurd, addictive and immensely challenging.  Oh, and fun.

GrowCube v 3
GrowCube

He has a bunch of other really . . . interesting stuff.  The GrowCubes are my favorite though.

877

Living Room / Re: website: stuff on my cat

« on: March 31, 2006, 08:50 AM »

My cat wears his costume year around.  He's an earie looking black cat with gold eyes and a tiny tuft of grey on his chest.  He looks like something straight out of egyptian lore.

878

Living Room / Re: Why Phishing Works

« on: March 31, 2006, 08:48 AM »

People need to learn that there's no amount of software that can protect you -- icons, alerts, widgets in browsers try -- but at the end of the day, the only thing standing between you and "Oh shit" are a few little things I like to call "awareness", "reasoning" and "scrutiny".

879

General Software Discussion / Re: remember 'broadpage' browser - here's 'tablane'

« on: March 31, 2006, 08:46 AM »

Yes, it is is absolutely possible in V8.5 and the latest V9 technical previews.

-nontroppo (March 31, 2006, 05:04 AM)

Beat me to it

I love all these browsers new innovations that have existed in Opera for over a decade.  I'm reminded of an entry in a MSIE developer's blog, where he was gushing about their innovative new tab feature -- I guess he'd never used Opera, Firefox, or any non-IE browser this side of 1894.

-- About broadpage, is it a shell that utilizes the IE browsing engine or is it mozilla/gecko based?

880

General Software Discussion / Re: New Color Picker / Color Selector application released

« on: March 31, 2006, 07:29 AM »

Downloaded it a few days ago, couldn't figure out how to access the new features . . . I guess uninstalling and re-installing might work better than reparing   The color scheme component is really cool -- a similar implementation for custom palettes would be great.

One little nitpick -- the top of the "Color Scheme" text is visible in the window though the color scheme widget is collapsed.

881

Living Room / Re: Zelda and the Collecting of Pills

« on: March 31, 2006, 07:19 AM »

I'm still crushing on LoZ -- that and Samus Aran.  Opening that gold box, pulling out the gold cartridge and unfolding the map for the first time . . . ahhh

882

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use rss feeds?

« on: March 30, 2006, 09:12 PM »

I love and hate RSS.  I love that I can keep up with all my favorite sites within a single application, but hate it when I get too many I'm interested in and watch hours disappear reading.  I'm more disciplined, now, maintaining a relatively small opml.

883

Living Room / Re: AAAaaaa!!!!! Very long post... LOST! NO!

« on: March 30, 2006, 11:48 AM »

Did you empty your trash too, or do you not use it?

884

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« on: March 30, 2006, 10:09 AM »

Congrats to all the winners, especially Deozaan who I know had wonderful things to say about subliminal flash

885

General Software Discussion / Re: EyeOS - A Web Based Desktop System

« on: March 29, 2006, 10:13 PM »

I love web based apps -- universal data access is -so- cool.  The irony is that I seldom leave the house

This looks pretty cool, I'll have to take it for a test drive.  Have you played with it much?

886

General Software Discussion / Re: SuperFast Shutdown

« on: March 29, 2006, 10:07 PM »

Scandisk doesn't -always- occurr after a crash/improper shutdown.  I think it only happens when it shuts down when something is writing--perhaps that isn't precisely the case, but I know that ScanDisk isn't always triggered when the system goes down abruptly.  Either way, I'm wary of anything that shuts down quickly.  I have a number of apps that save their data when shutting down, skipping that would potentially cause me to lose data.

I don't shutdown/reboot frequently enough to warrant such an application anyway.

887

Living Room / Re: pretend you are in the matrix

« on: March 29, 2006, 09:21 PM »

Definitely interesting.  It would be nice if, like in the old days, text was translated to . . . text.  ASCII art for windows and widgets is what I expected, I thought the text in this box would be literal. It's . . . not. Glad esc closes it

888

Living Room / Re: How to stretch a Hummer

« on: March 29, 2006, 09:18 PM »

Was is a nice ride?  I 've heard that hummers are not know for their luxary

-Rover (March 29, 2006, 07:46 PM)

Actual hummers are purely utilitarian and anything but comfortable/accomodating.  I was, however, under the impression that the civilian counterparts made up for their decreased armor in form of comfort and consumer-friendly featrues.

889

General Software Discussion / Re: SuperFast Shutdown

« on: March 29, 2006, 09:13 PM »

From that warning, it makes me think it's about the same thing as unplugging your computer--or hitting the powerbutton when powerbuttons were power cutoff rather than windows>shutdown

890

Living Room / Re: website: stuff on my cat

« on: March 29, 2006, 07:27 PM »

My cat is spoiled rotten.  By spoiled, I mean he gets to sleep on a huge bed and isn't subjected to playing dress up.

891

Living Room / Re: website: stuff on my cat

« on: March 29, 2006, 07:00 PM »

It's right up mouser's alley, he does after all search for cats in hats on google image search.

892

Living Room / Zelda and the Collecting of Pills

« on: March 29, 2006, 06:59 PM »

It's PacMan with a Legend of Zelda twist, featuring the music and graphics of SNES Zelda: A Link to the Past.

893

Best E-mail Client / Re: [The Bat!] How to change displayed email address?

« on: March 29, 2006, 11:04 AM »

OK Bat lovers, what am I missing if Thunderbird works for me?  I'm OK w/ the bird, but it has a few nits.

-Rover (March 28, 2006, 11:55 PM)

Thunderbird is a -good- mail client, especially for the price.  Think of it as a screwdriver you got free for a store promotional or something.  The Bat! is a power drill.  It does everything Thunderbird (or anything else) can do +++.

Does the Bat have junk mail filters?  Can it check all my 5 email accounts with one click?

TB doesn't have a built in junk mail filter, it has support for plugins.  That said, there are a few alternative plugins available as well.  I'm presently testing out a 12$ shareware spam filter, antispamservant, to see how it stacks up.  Thus far, I'm very impressed with its bayesian implementation.

As for checking all your accounts with one click, yes.  F2, by default -- though all keyboard shortcuts are configurable.

Some highlight features -- scheduler. You can have TB automatically back itself up, send messages at a certain date (It sends birthday wishes to my family, so I can forget with a clear conscience).  Templates -- TB has the most powerful template system available.  The advanced template editing has a bit of a learning curve, though.

Eh, I can't list all the features.  The real great thing is, if you can imagine it there's a good chance TB can do it -- whether it's specifying different signatures/from address/templates/bcc's etc. on a per user, per list or per folder basis or just inserting a random quote in your sig, TB does it.

As for dealing with your multiple accounts, it has great virtual folder support -- so you could filter messages from all your accounts into virtual folders sorting mail by topic rather than account -- if you had a use for such a thing.

The drawback is documentation . . . rather, lack thereof.  The documentation is terrible.

894

Living Room / Re: Eets

« on: March 29, 2006, 10:56 AM »

yeah i have to admit i got up the whales, which was starting to get interesting but still in walkthrough mode. i was impressed with the spirit of it but i just didn't stay motivated.  maybe i'll give it another try in a bit.

-mouser (March 29, 2006, 06:05 AM)

It may help that I'm in the middle of my nightly drinking binges when I play it.  It's particular fun with a hint of blurring.

895

Living Room / Re: Eets

« on: March 29, 2006, 05:55 AM »

How long did you play? I really didn't start getting into it until the last few minutes of the demo -- when things started getting notably more difficult to figure out.

896

Living Room / Eets

« on: March 28, 2006, 10:44 PM »

Eets is a brand new game for the PC that plays something like lemmings but with the zany personality and graphic style of Worms.  It's a real delight to play.  Adding icing to the cake, it comes with a robust level editor so you can create your own levels to share online with friends or via their online community. A time limited ( 1 hour ) demo is available for download, it's worth checking out.  I have to warn you, though, after spending that hour with Eets, you'll probably be strongly considering the 20 dollar price tag . . . I am.

897

Best E-mail Client / Re: [The Bat!] How to change displayed email address?

« on: March 28, 2006, 10:35 PM »

I can assure you the from address can be changed, it's probably under your account's settings or else, perhaps if there's a 'profile' section there -- I've never used it.  As for different from addresses for different folders/recipients, I doubt it -- but anything is possible.

898

General Software Discussion / Re: Why subscription-models for software suck

« on: March 28, 2006, 10:33 PM »

Yeah, but I think the real big issue isn't business -- it's the fact that to those small developers, the products are more than products.  They're works of art, of a sort -- something that they fell connected to.  Its quality is a direct reflection of them.

899

Living Room / Re: Need advice from a web designer on feed aggregators

« on: March 28, 2006, 09:36 PM »

I'm not sure what you're asking, so . . . feel free to elaborate

How do you define success?  As far as profitability is concerned, it takes a lot of work and social networking to make a website sufficiently profitable.  However, if you define success (as I do) as creating something that works sufficiently enough to please a handful of people who appreciate it, then you should have no trouble.  Generating dynamic content from syndicated feeds is a relative breeze and the result is an informative, fresh website -- as opposed to a flat, stagnating cob-web haven.

That said, if you're going to be writing the system to handle this yourself you should decide before you start whether you want to control the feeds exclusively or if you want to make it possible for users to customize their own accounts -- as adding customization after completing a singular implementation would surely be a big hastle, taking as much time as the original project.  Also keep caching in mind -- for the sake of your own machine, sure, but more importantly the websites you'll be drawing the feeds from.  It'll speed things up drastically as well as prevent over-drawing from the blogs/news you're getting your data from.

A side note, where procastination is concerned, you're not doing too bad.  I have a friend who nabbed a domain name/hosting something like 5 years ago or more -- with every intent of doing something with it.  To this day, it's just used for e-mail.

900

Living Room / Re: Living for 41 hours in Wal-Mart

« on: March 28, 2006, 09:29 PM »

Exactly... that Japanese guy that stayed for 48 hours in that 24/7 restaurant (never got to the check-out where he SHOULD have paid) before thrown out was more funny

-brotherS (March 28, 2006, 08:39 PM)

I hadn't heard about that -- that's great.  He was given a free meal because he overstayed his welcome.  Note to self . . .