Topics

151

Developer's Corner / Make your javascript a Windows .exe

« on: September 13, 2009, 12:29 AM »

These days an average web developer needs to have a broad matrix of skills in order to do his/her job. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, XML, some server side language, some linux skills, some apache, some database skills, standards, accessibility, SEO, the list goes on. Parts of the list are also multiplied by (or raised to the power of?) the number of browsers you want to support. Crazy, isn't it? We're such optimists trying to make stuff work in such an environment.

There's gotta be an easier way to write code that does something meaningful! Yes, there is, it's called JavaScript. You learn JavaScript, you learn it well, and you don't need to learn anything else. Isn't that cool? JavaScript is, practically, everywhere. Learn JavaScript and you can:

    * create rich and powerful web applications (the kind that runs inside the browser)
    * write server-side code such as ASP scripts or for example code that is run using Rhino (A JavaScript engine written in Java)
    * create rich media applications (Flash, Flex) using ActionScript which is based on ECMAScript, which is JavaScript
    * write scripts that automate administrative tasks on your Windows desktop, using Windows Scripting Host
    * write extensions/plugins for a plethora of desktop application such as Firefox or Dreamweaver
    * create web applications that store information off-line on user's desktop, using Google Gears
    * create Yahoo!, or Mac, or dunno-what-type-of widgets
    * create Windows apps (those that end in .exe) and libraries (.dll)

I'm sure the list above is not even complete.

OK, it's a joke that with one programming skill only you'll be employed for life, but it's a fun thought anyway. Off to the main topic of the post.

JScript

This is Microsoft's version of JavaScript (yep, the thing that annoys us *sometimes* in IE) and can also be used to create server side pages (ASP, ASP.NET) or desktop applications. Apparently JScript is now called JScript.NET and can be compiled to create .exe files. Let's see how.

http://www.phpied.co...cript-a-windows-exe/

152

Developer's Corner / Javascript Framework Matrix

« on: September 12, 2009, 10:38 AM »

The Javascript Framework Matrix shall give you an overview of popular JavaScript frameworks and their functions. There are various examples for the frameworks and every snippet contains links to the official documentation. The choice of a framework depends on many factors and can't be made of this document only. The matrix shall solely demonstrate the different API styles and functionalities of the JavaScript libraries.

http://matthiasschue...framework-matrix/en/

153

Living Room / Are Gamers More Evolutionarily Advanced?

« on: August 18, 2009, 03:20 PM »

A new study suggests there is a correlation between video gamers, depression, and being overweight. According to the CDC, the average American gamer has a higher body mass index than his peers, and also tends to be more reliant on the Internet. Female respondents to the 500-person study, which was carried out in the Seattle-Tacoma area, had a higher correlation of depression than their peers.

Outlets like PC World and TG Daily have reported the news with appropriate caution, careful not to insinuate that correlation means causation. But the suggestion seems to be that there are only two factors at play--lifestyle and level of health--and that one of them has to be altering the other. Either fat, depressive people like gaming, or gaming makes people fat or depressed. But what if the real culprit is brain chemistry?

According to an article in Slate, part of so-called Internet "addiction" is rooted in an ancient brain mechanism that rewards discovery. Human beings, it seems, are engineered to reward themselves with shots of dopamine when they find something new, and the Internet has become a kind of dopamine drip--sites like Reddit and Digg, and the chance for new emails and texts, open up the possibility for endless "discovery" highs.

http://www.fastcompa...lutionarily-advanced

154

Living Room / All Wordy and Junk: A brand new multi-author blog

« on: August 16, 2009, 10:47 PM »

Let's face it, anyone that has ever tried to maintain a blog all by themselves knows, blogging is tough. Having to come up with something to write about on a regular basis isn't the easiest task. Not to mention all the other things that go along with blogging, such as promoting it and stuff. This is why so many writers just give up and abandon their blogs.

All Wordy and Junk was an idea conceived on Friendfeed. A group decided to band together to make a single multi-author blog. Figuring that the more writers you have, the less pressure you have to come up with something to write, lets the authors relax and take their time, putting forth their best work by only writing when they feel compelled to do so. With up to 100 authors (that is the max it will have) there will always be someone writing something to keep it fresh and alive.

'All Wordy And Junk' is the home for some bloggers who aren't that great at keeping up a blog on their own. We figured we'd band together and rely on everyone else to keep the content flowing when we had writer's block. Other than that, there is no theme here. Posts and topics will be random, because that's the way we like it.

I have had conversations and discussions with  lot of the authors of this blog on Friendfeed and they are an interesting bunch with a lot to share. I have a feeling this may become one of my favorite blogs to read.

http://allwordyandjunk.blogspot.com/

^{Edit: added link to Friendfeed discussion where the idea was born.}

155

Living Room / When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom

« on: August 04, 2009, 04:40 PM »

College leaders usually brag about their tech-filled "smart" classrooms, but a dean at Southern Methodist University is proudly removing computers from lecture halls. José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, has challenged his colleagues to "teach naked"—by which he means, sans machines.

More than any thing else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they're going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.

He's not the only one raising questions about PowerPoint, which on many campuses is the state of the art in classroom teaching. A study published in the April issue of British Educational Research Journal found that 59 percent of students in a new survey reported that at least half of their lectures were boring, and that PowerPoint was one of the dullest methods they saw. The survey consisted of 211 students at a university in England and was conducted by researchers at the University of Central Lancashire.

Students in the survey gave low marks not just to PowerPoint, but also to all kinds of computer-assisted classroom activities, even interactive exercises in computer labs. "The least boring teaching methods were found to be seminars, practical sessions, and group discussions," said the report. In other words, tech-free classrooms were the most engaging.

http://chronicle.com...Effort-Strips/47398/

156

Screenshot Captor / Issue with Autoscroll and taskbar

« on: July 26, 2009, 07:51 AM »

When trying to use autoscroll, it seems to want to activate my hidden taskbar, causing capture of only the left side of the page and a whole lot of black on the right, where my taskbar is.

Is there any way to avoid this issue with SC making my hidden taskbar unhide itself during capture?

157

Living Room / RobotWar and the Army of Clones

« on: July 19, 2009, 02:42 AM »

Back in 1981 Silas Warner created a game for MUSE Software which would go on to spawn an entire army of clones. Silas is probably better know as the author of the legendary Castle Wolfenstein. However it was RobotWar which went on to inspire a whole new genre.

Silas developed RobotWar for the PLATO computer system and later ported it to the Apple II for release by MUSE. The game is set at a time in the distant future when war has been declared hazardous to human health. Wars still rage, but the combatants are robots programmed to battle to the death.

This is a game for coders, as you will be programming your robots in your choice of language, such as C, Pascal, assembly or Java. The article has a few links to various versions.

http://retrocode.blo...-army-of-clones.html

158

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Study Finds Working At Work Improves Productivity

« on: June 27, 2009, 10:05 AM »

Amusing but true, here is a great productivity tip from the Onion:

According to a groundbreaking new study by the Department of Labor, working—the physical act of engaging in a productive job-related activity—may greatly increase the amount of work accomplished during the workday, especially when compared with the more common practices of wasting time and not working.

"Our findings are astounding: By simply sitting down and doing work, employees can dramatically increase their output of goods and services," said Deputy Undersecretary of Labor Charlotte Ponticelli, who authored the report. "In fact, 'working' may revolutionize the way people work."

 

http://www.theonion....inds_working_at_work

from Friendfeed

159

LaunchBar Commander / Bug: Taskbar button showing

« on: June 10, 2009, 11:55 PM »

Your latest update is causing the taskbar button to show and no way to remove it.

160

Living Room / ScreenCastle: One-click screencasting right from your browser

« on: June 09, 2009, 08:54 PM »

ScreenCastle is a free service that allows you to record screencasts directly from your browser. Just click the big red button and start recording. When you are finished, they give you a number of URL's and codes to embed the video or thumbnails into your website, blog & forum posts, links for email, etc.

Yes, that's right, they even host it for you, for free.

All you need to get started is a Java enabled browser and something you want to make a screencast of.

http://screencastle.com/

And for developers, there is an API.

161

Living Room / Lovely Charts: Free Online Diagramming Software

« on: June 09, 2009, 07:37 PM »

Diagrams are great, because they are a very simple and extremely efficient way to intelligibly represent even the most complex ideas.
But drawing diagrams can also be very complicated, simply because most diagramming software require you to draw.
Lovely Charts' motto is "You think, we draw!"

Diagrams are made to communicate. Every single symbol available in Lovely Charts has been crafted with love, to enable you to create great looking diagrams that will impress, convince and seduce - even if you don't have the slightest design skill.

With Lovely Charts' extremely simple and intuitive drag'n drop drawing mechanism, you'll be able to focus on what really matters. You won't have to draw boxes or arrows, and you won't have to worry about what symbol to use.

http://www.lovelycharts.com/

162

Living Room / A small tweak to DC forum for Firefox & K-meleon users (enhances visited links)

« on: June 01, 2009, 12:40 AM »

I like the look of the forum, and its colors but sometimes the lack of contrast between visited/unvisited links makes the visited links not obvious enough for me.

So I created a tweak to userContent.css that can be used in both Firefox and k-Meleon to change the visited link color from a lighter shade of blue, to purple. This doesn't affect all visited links on the site because that really looked bad. It just affects some of them...the ones I feel are the most important to have more contrast on.

Installing it is relatively simple.

Firefox:

In your Firefox profile folder is a userContent.css file (might not be there if you never set it up before, but there is an example file with a slightly different name)

Path to file:

on Win2k/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\(your name)\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random looking chars].default\chrome\userContent.css
on Vista/Win7: C:\Users\(your name)\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\[random looking chars].default\chrome\userContent.css

• Open the file in Notepad (or create the file if it doesn't exist) and paste in the code, save, and restart your browser.

K-Meleon:

• Go to the Edit menu in K-Meleon, and under Configuration, select User-Defined Stylesheet. This will open a file named userContent.css in Notepad.
• In the userContent.css file, go all the way to the bottom and locate the line that tells you not to edit anything below it.
• Paste in the code right above that line and save the file.
• Restart your browser.

The code:

Spoiler

Code: CSS [Select]

1. /* BEGIN DonationCoder tweaks */
2. @-moz-document domain("donationcoder.com") {
3.         a:visited{
4.                 color: #aa00aa !important; /* make this one the color you want */
5.         }
6.         #topnavbar a:visited {
7.                 color:#6495ED !important;
8.         }
9.         .maintab_active_back a:visited {
10.                 color:white !important;
11.         }
12.         .maintab_back a:visited{
13.                 color:white !important;
14.         }
15.         .catbg a:visited{
16.                 color:blue !important;
17.         }
18.         .nav a:visited {
19.                 color:#1E5164 !important;
20.         }
21.         .windowbgdc2 a:visited{
22.                 color:#2E6FCC !important;
23.         }
24.         .mirrortab_back a:visited{
25.                 color:white !important;
26.         }
27.         .mirrortab_active_back a:visited{
28.                 color:white !important;
29.         }
30.         .titlebg a:visited{
31.                 color:black !important;
32.         }
33.         #topbannerSubtitle a:visited{
34.                 color:#d90000 !important;
35.         }
36. }
37.  /* END DonationCoder tweaks */

Screenshot of what it does:

Before:


After:

163

Living Room / Where's Cody? (Where's Waldo, Twitter Style)

« on: May 28, 2009, 05:54 PM »

Martin has been messing around with the Twitter API and created a fun little game where you must find a person's Twitter profile picture in a sea of faces.

There are 10 levels in total, and the images become smaller and more abundant with each level.

Just for fun, see if you can find Cody in all 10 levels. (Cody image is coming from @donationcoder, which you can now follow on Twitter)

http://wally.tweetdo.../?name=donationcoder

164

General Software Discussion / Wakoopa's First "The State of Apps" Report

« on: May 26, 2009, 01:22 PM »

Since its inception, wakoopa has logged over 525 million hours of software usage data from 75,000 members and 200,000 applications.

Wakoopa users, have also shared more than 3 million application recommendations to date.

The site has released their first report on usage trends in desktop software and web applications, covering the first quarter of 2009. Since wakoopa users are considered early technology adopters by nature, this data is being regarded as an important marker for future trends.

And with the recent release of their Linux tracker, things should be even more interesting, in future reports.

http://blog.wakoopa....ate-of-apps-q1-2009/

Additional info & insight into their report:

TechCrunch
Giga Om
VentureBeat
PRWeb

165

General Software Discussion / Complaint & Compliment: 3M Post-it Digital Notes vs ConceptWorld Notezilla

« on: May 24, 2009, 06:55 AM »

I just sent this email to ConceptWorld that I think will explain the whole situation:


Subject: My compliments to you for NoteZilla

I am both a developer and a blogger.

While I was in the midst of planning a series of in-depth articles, based on a list of lesser known applications that I love and feel need more attention, I had an unfortunate experience.

Actually, unfortunate is too mild of a word to describe it. Here is what happened:

I have been a long time, loyal, faithful, dedicated user of 3M's Post-it Software Notes, which I purchased some time around 2001. My whole life is organized in it and without it I feel like I have no brain and can't function.

Loving every feature in it, I felt it should be included in my list and had planned on writing an in-depth article about it. To do that, I was going to have to upgrade to the latest version in order to become familiar with any newer features and provide up to date screenshots.

But they don't offer a free or reduced price upgrade to users of the previous version I happened to have installed. And that's OK, they have that right, and I was fully prepared to pay for the application again, at the full price. I felt it was worth it, even though I would lose a few features that they had eliminated.

So, I downloaded the installer and proceeded to install it. It wouldn't allow a side-by-side install, with the previous version on the machine, nor would it allow an upgrade, even with the idea of rolling me back to an unregistered status. It required that I uninstall the older version before installing the newer one.

I made a manual backup of my database of notes & memoboards, and proceeded with the uninstall process. It was a good thing I made that backup, because there was no option to keep my database and the uninstaller just went ahead and deleted it along with the program files.

And to make matters worse, once I had installed the new version, I found that the old database was incompatible with it and there was no way to import the notes and memoboards. Basically, I was screwed, unless I uninstalled the newer version and reinstalled the old one, and copied my backup files to it (which I did).

In order to get my old notes and memoboards into the new version, I was going to have to copy them manually, one at a time, into a text file, and then recopy them into the new version, after going through the whole uninstall/reinstall process again.

I was sitting here, quite angry with 3M...no longer the loyal dedicated user I once was, not willing to write my nice article about their application, and so disgusted at what I had to go through that I started looking for a replacement.

NoteZilla comes as close to what I am used to using as I can possibly find. I have been taking it for a spin for the last few hours, manually copying all my notes & memoboards over to it, resetting all my alarms, etc. This is a lot of work for me and as I copy each note I am hating 3M more and more.

I like what I see in NoteZilla, especially the ability to export my database (even the choice of non-proprietary formats you have provided) and I have just purchased it.

There was a reason why I mentioned that I am a developer at the beginning of this email. I am a donationware developer and member of donationcoder.com. I have been a very active member there almost since the beginning. It was because of their forum that I discovered your product and read the praises of those that use it, praises given by those I respect and know have great taste in software. Everything they said was true. I also saw how actively interested in your users that you are, and how willing you are to provide support for your product.I like that very much.

I used your generous 30% discount to purchase NoteZilla, which brought it down to the same price it would have cost me to buy the latest version of 3M's software. I feel so much better giving you my money, than them.

I think in time, as I grow accustomed to the different interface, I may love your product more than I have ever loved theirs and not even miss it. It has a lot going for it.

Thank you for your kindness for providing that discount to donationcoder.com members. And thank you for all your time, effort, and hard work that you put into your application. It is very much appreciated.

166

General Software Discussion / PC Game Trek: A really nice game review blog

« on: May 20, 2009, 10:23 AM »

I just discovered a really nice PC game review blog that I just had to share.

Most of the reviews are for box games, it seems.

They are very nicely written, complete with screenshots. They make me wish I were a gamer.

http://www.pcgametrek.com

167

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / My assignment: The ToDo List of Doom

« on: May 17, 2009, 10:13 PM »

I have this list on my desktop, one of many todo lists I have. Nothing on it has a defined due date or set priority.

The problem is that once something goes on the list, it never seems to get done. It's more like a "don't do" list than a todo list.

My goal is to change that and clear everything off it by actually doing it.

The first thing I did was transfer the items to my Yahoo Notepad widget and remove the todo list widget from my desktop. (I feel better already!)

My next step will be to break down these items into smaller tasks in Post-it boards, and schedule them into my day (one at a time)..a sort of "do this now" approach, with an option to actually do it now, delay it for defined number of minutes (up to 1 hour), or dismiss it till tomorrow. If I manage to complete a task, I'll schedule another to take its place.

The reason why I am going to use the scheduled post-it note approach is because it pretty much works for me with small "do it now" types of tasks.

The way I see it, no matter what option I choose to use when the alarm rings for a task, instead of it being in a big list hidden behind a bunch of open windows and completely ignored all day every day, only seen when I reboot to a clean desktop (which I am rarely actually conscious of seeing the list), the items will be broken down into actionable tasks and brought to my conscious attention every day until they get done.

The list has lost a number of tasks during the transfer from the ToDo List widget to the notepad widget, mainly things that were on there so long that they don't matter any more and aren't even worth considering doing. I also removed the items that are so vague that I can't even begin to think about doing them in the near future, and are better off on my ideas list.

That leaves me with 9 tasks, 8 of which are very doable, and 1 which I may resist doing till death.

Let's see how many of the 8 I can get done, first, then I'll worry about the last one.

One thing you won't hear this year is the state of my home and how much I hate housework. I seem to have that under control now, with the tea approach.

168

LaunchBar Commander / Feature request: a real Start button?

« on: May 11, 2009, 06:08 AM »

A friend of mine recently asked me if it was possible to code a button for a deskbar that did nothing but mimic/duplicate the start button that is on the Windows taskbar. He wants it to show exactly what he sees when clicking his start button and include all the custom stuff he has added. (this is not program shortcuts added to the top, but non-default commands added to the bottom.) He also wants it to have the run, log off & shut down stuff...basically everything he has on the real one currently.

What he ultimately wants to do is remove the start button from the Windows taskbar, and have only the system tray and running application buttons showing on it.

Then he wants another toolbar to hold his start button and quicklaunch. He also wants to set a custom icon & text label for the start button. (amusing guy he is, he wants a red X and "Stop")

LBC could do exactly what he wants, provided it had an option to include a real start button.

169

LaunchBar Commander / Text Alignment Suggestion

« on: May 11, 2009, 05:42 AM »

Currently, if I have LBC set to show captions to the right of the icons, it centers the text, which I find quite annoying. It would be nice if one could set it to align the text left/right/center instead of only centered.

I had to add spaces to the ends of all the captions to push it over to the left and the alignment still isn't perfect, and it's really bugging me. 

170

Developer's Corner / Sorting Algorithm Animations

« on: May 02, 2009, 08:17 AM »

These pages show 8 different sorting algorithms on 4 different initial conditions. These visualizations are intended to:

    * Show how each algorithm operates.
    * Show that there is no best sorting algorithm.
    * Show the advantages and disadvantages of each algorithm.
    * Show that worse-case asymptotic behavior is not the deciding factor in choosing an algorithm.
    * Show that the initial condition (input order and key distribution) affects performance as much as the algorithm choice.

http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/

171

Living Room / Tweenbots: A Social Experiment with Human-dependent Robots

« on: April 12, 2009, 11:56 AM »

If you saw a little lost robot rolling down the street, would you help it reach its destination?

Kacie Kinzer wondered that, and built little robots to set loose in New Your City, to find out.

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

http://www.tweenbots.com/

172

Living Room / Peculiar Firefox .gif issue

« on: March 27, 2009, 12:09 PM »

If I download or save images with a .png or .jpg file extension, and then in Firefox's download manager right click and select Open, they open in the system default application for viewing those file types. In other words, it works correctly.

But if the file extension is .gif, rather than using the system default application, it opens the .gif file in IE. If I select Open Folder and then open the .gif file from Explorer, it opens in the correct application, so I don't think it's a Windows issue with default program for that file type.

The issue is only with opening .gif files from Firefox's download manager, no other image types are affected.

Does anyone know why it is doing this, and even better, how to fix it?

173

Living Room / DJ Jam and The Printer - Remixed

« on: March 17, 2009, 08:56 AM »

This is a really great video. Who knew printers could be this musical...or scary.

http://www.geeksares...the-printer-remixed/

174

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Xchat script for tircd (Twitter)

« on: March 08, 2009, 09:21 PM »

I am running tircd (an ircd proxy for the twitter API) so I can use xchat as my twitter client.

tircd allows me to group people that I follow, by creating a new channel (just /join), and then just /invite who I want in it.

It also allows me to perform searches by /join #whatever followed by /topic [searchterm]
or /join #hashtag  followed by /topic #hashtag #hashtag

I need an xchat script that will automate all of this for me and

• autojoin a specified list of channels on my tircd
• change the topics on those channels (each will be different)
• invite a specified list of users to some of those channels.

Something like this:

/join #example1
/topic example1

/join #example2
/topic #example2 #example2

/join #example3
/invite person1 person2 person3

This has to work only with the tircd and not interfere with any real irc networks & channels I may also be connected to.

This can be in either perl or ruby, because my python plugin doesn't work with the version of python that I have installed on my machine. (it's for 2.4 and I have 2.6) And I am not sure why I can't get tcl to work.

I also need another script that will automatically convert any & all links I post on just the tircd channels to tinyurl links. I do not want to have to use a /tinyurl command. It must work on links that appear anywhere in a message I post. It also must not affect any other channels on any other network. I don't want to automatically send tinyurl links everywhere, just to twitter.

I don't know the first thing about xchat scripting, nor do I know perl or ruby...otherwise I would try to do this myself.

175

Site/Forum Features / Follow DonationCoder on Twitter and Friendfeed

« on: February 15, 2009, 02:37 PM »

You can now follow DonationCoder on both Twitter and Friendfeed and receive notifications of all new topics on the forum blog.

http://twitter.com/donationcoder

http://friendfeed.com/donationcoder

Edit: Too much spam and posts of limited interest were slipping through to FF & Twitter, so it was changed to just the blog only.