Messages

2876

Living Room / Re: TyperA - test your typing skills

« on: January 30, 2006, 03:24 PM »

Your score: 193 keys per minute ~ 38 words per minute
Language/mode: classic-en
Ranking: Not bad!
Comparison: 67% of registered TyperA users using this language have typed a better result; 33% have a lower or equal result.

Ah... but,

Mistakes:

(LOTS of backspaces)

I have a neurosis that prevents me from allowing mis... mis-sp... misspelling
Seriously, for some weird reason, typos stick out like sore thumbs to me and my worst habit is to "Preview" my forum posts until my eyes go all sandy...

2877

General Software Discussion / Re: AutoIt3 versus AutoHotKey

« on: January 30, 2006, 02:24 PM »

I used AI3 for a while, and thought it was great. Basic-like syntax hit a soft spot with me, and I could do useful things without doing bat-file gymnastics. Then I saw Skrommel doing all these nifty things with AHK in the Coding Snacks and decided to check it out. Classic case of "use what works for you":
 I needed some (well, more than a few...) scripts to do loops in folders for counting, deleting temp files, processing graphics, etc., and found that making loops that worked like I wanted with AI3 was quite difficult. I had to ask in the forum how to do it and got an answer fairly quickly. However, it ended up being rather complex and the syntax not exactly how it was described in the help file. I had to keep that around as a code scrap for recycling in other scripts. Then I found out that AHK does loops MUCH easier and with more functionality, so I switched. I am pretty sure there are more advanced things that can be done in AI3, but it just isn't what I needed. YMMV.

2878

General Software Discussion / Re: Badware

« on: January 30, 2006, 11:23 AM »

 
A long time ago, I considered working for a local startup software company. No programming skills needed, the ad said. I went to the place and took their aptitude test. They said I was smart enough but didn't have the level of programming skills needed. Here's the weird part; they offered programming classes for free with the promise that they would hire me at 8 bucks an hour when I graduated. The hours were funny, so I didn't bite and besides, the pay wasn't what I needed at the time. Anyways, about 3 months later I found their first software product, Stop-Sign Antivirus. I decided to download it and try it out. BIG MISTAKE. 3 download screens later, it installed more spyware and "phone home" trolls than I could count. I didn't even get around to scanning for viruses with it, it was so bad. A quick search on Google today shows Lavasoft (makers of Ad-Aware) had it rated as a level 7 spyware that was eventually downgraded to a level 3. I don't know about any of you, but Level 1 is too high!

2879

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: January 30, 2006, 11:07 AM »

Still off-topic but relevant to the current disco: Fungustabs

Okay, we all know what a tab is, right? So what fungusTabs does is place a tab on the outside of each main, or top-level window. You may then group the tabs together to form tab sets. What a tab set does is present all of its windows in a familiar bar of tabs, one tab for each window in that tab set group. In addition, only the tab set's active window is shown; all of its non-active windows are moved off of the desktop. What you end up with is a desktop with fewer windows displayed but with ready access to them all.

I'm trying it right now...

2880

General Software Discussion / Re: Most under-rated media player?

« on: January 30, 2006, 10:51 AM »

I didn't say it was great. It barely has a playlist. I just have a special place in my heart for the small and straightforward with a little nerdiness thrown in. That being the fact that Fmod proper is actually a drop-in sound engine for adding (according to the adver... um... documentation) killer sound support to your own apps/games/whatever and they just wrote an example GUI for it. I don't know what it is, those kind of things turn my crank every time... Like finding a treasure chest on a desert island and it's full of tinfoil origami animals.
I'll check out VU Player.

2881

Living Room / Re: Coding Horror blog has become must reading for programmers

« on: January 27, 2006, 01:22 PM »

ching, ching:
http://www.pingmag.jp/2005/12/09/the-website-development-process/
 (that's the sound of two cents dropping in this thread)
Does that programmer resemble anyone here?

2882

General Software Discussion / Re: Badware

« on: January 26, 2006, 05:45 PM »

Now what would really be cool is if they listed some of these vile parasites like they do sex offenders.

2883

General Software Discussion / Most under-rated media player?

« on: January 26, 2006, 05:41 PM »

Okay, ignore the BIG SHINY BUTTONS and Self-Aggrandizement at FMod.org and go to Downloads, scroll down to FMod 3.75, download and unzip. Now, take fmod.dll from \api and FMod.exe from \samples\fmod and put them in the same directory. Open FMod.exe.
A very clean smallish media player that supports a whole bunch of formats without too many bells and whistles. Oh, and there's a bunch of stuff in there for the coder types to make their own player, or use the FMod sound engine for whatever. Just thought I'd mention it as this seemed to work on all my ragtag second-hand systems that had real problems throwing up WMP.

2884

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux - Freeware or Shareware?

« on: January 26, 2006, 05:06 PM »

Also try Linux.org's Linux 101 online tutorial.

2885

General Software Discussion / Re: PowerPro

« on: January 26, 2006, 04:42 PM »

Well... I use PowerPro at work, so generally, I have to have a dang good reason for doing what I need to do with PP for it to be at all productive (and a few extra minutes shaved off my lunch hour) I use it mostly as a customizable launcher bar because desktop icons and quicklaunch were not cutting it. I also have some buttons for doing system thingummys through PP because it's MUCH faster. I don't use the virtual windows function because other VWM apps are better at it IMHO. I also run Litestep when I'm in the mood, so you might say I like to run the Giant Ant robot...

2886

Living Room / Re: Simply to much nagging here

« on: January 26, 2006, 04:02 PM »

  Ya think Joey Parrish's warmongering penguin will get donates? -  http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/

2887

General Software Discussion / Re: PowerPro

« on: January 26, 2006, 12:34 PM »

Great site, very informative. Maybe I'll post a flash...
I've noticed (and I'm sure you have too...) that most folks either love it or hate it or don't care. My best analogy of most folks opinion about PowerPro goes something like this:

Some folks have a digital watch so they can see what time it is.
Some folks have an analog watch so they can figure out what time it is.
Some folks like to take apart the watch to see how it works and could care less what time it is.
Some folks like to run the robot that sets the time, pushes the alarm button, adjusts the wrist strap, sets it back or forward for daylight savings time....

THOSE are the folks who use PowerPro.

2888

Living Room / Electronic Paper is here...

« on: January 24, 2006, 12:47 PM »

Check it out.
http://products.sel.sony.com/pa/PRS/reader_features.html
and about Sony and the whole DRM thing, read here:
http://www.gizmodo.c...ny-reader-146864.php

Personally, I think this stuff will hit big-time when it will be an input medium as well. Write a note and it comes out formatted text in the font most resembling your handwriting, draw a picture and throw it up as your site's favicon, take margin notes in the books you're reading with the capability to turn them on or off or share them with friends. The possibilities would open up with a tactile interface medium. I've always thought tablet pc's would be great if you could use your hands instead of a mouse or pen. Just use your fingers to 'stretch' a window, or tap (double-tap? right-tap?) on screen elements instead of clicking them. Because of the nature of the business I am employed in, I can envision a day when architects will have a table-top sized sheet of this stuff jacked in to their AutoCad workstation, upload final drawings or revisions to the builders on-site who can then project them on a wall or floor. I will essentially be out of a job, (paper and all that) but I hope to be living/doing something completely different by then.

2889

General Software Discussion / Re: does anyone of you believe in defragmentation programs?

« on: January 23, 2006, 01:23 PM »

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Here at work, I am chained to a NT4 workstation that I use to scan and print large architectural drawings and let me tell you, that drive gets frag.ment.ed. If you remember, NT4 did not come with a defragger, so I need one. I heartily second the motion on Contig, fast and effective, and it stays out of my way. For that reason, I don't like Power Defragmenter. After it's done, it pops back up... in my way. There's no option to run and exit. So for further convenience, I use an AutoHotKey script to automate it. Here's an example from my script:

[Select]

RunWait,[Path]\contig.exe -s [drive letter]:\*.*
ExitApp

To script it yourself, just replace [Path] with wherever your contig folder is and [drive letter] with, well, guess.
And you can also add lines for as many drive letters as you have, like so:

[Select]

RunWait,E:\Progra~1\sysinternals\contig\contig.exe -s C:\*.*
RunWait,E:\Progra~1\sysinternals\contig\contig.exe -s D:\*.*
RunWait,E:\Progra~1\sysinternals\contig\contig.exe -s E:\*.*
RunWait,E:\Progra~1\sysinternals\contig\contig.exe -s Z:\*.*
ExitApp

but it seemed like only files that were fragmented tended to benefit from Disk Defragmenter.

can someone spell "Duh"?

2890

General Software Discussion / Re: Virtual Slide Rules

« on: January 23, 2006, 12:41 PM »

Yeah if they combined that with a force-feedback mouse (is there such a thing?) and some nice wood-slidey noises (*sschhhhhk*) itwould be almost perfect. I don't have a slide rule anymore, but I did pick up a nice hardbound K+E slide rule manual at a second-hand shop that was thicker than the one for my programmable graphing calculator...

2891

General Software Discussion / Virtual Slide Rules

« on: January 20, 2006, 02:48 PM »

W00T!! and you thought Graphcalc was cool! (it is, but... slide rules... )
http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/

2892

Living Room / Re: caffeine free week - who wants to join me?

« on: January 20, 2006, 11:41 AM »

As long as we're on the subject...
http://www.rense.com/general52/msg.htm
Or, order the book:
https://www.spofamerica.com/

BTW- grain of salt not included.

2893

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« on: January 19, 2006, 07:37 PM »

@Carol:

Shame I can't remember where I saw the article.

I don't know the article, (maybe this one?) but the set of "rules" that such things fall under is called Fitts' Law
More about it here:http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5724/g1/
Also, there is a Linux distro called SymphonyOS that tries to incorporate Fitts's Law as fully as possible into their GUI. I've tried it, and it works as advertised, but the distro as a whole seems unfinished. I tried cloning those ideas more or less with my current Litestep setup and it works well.
@jgpaiva: Powerpro. Configuration isn't very intuitive even though it's a tabbed GUI, but it will do any of a million things and one of those is close an app from right-clicking the title bar.

2894

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« on: January 18, 2006, 06:59 PM »

Well, Ok, I'll give you that one.

2895

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« on: January 18, 2006, 06:31 PM »

Mouser: I am also a fan of right-clicks. I had no idea they existed until two years into Win95. You woulda thought I found a map to the Holy Grail that pointed to my basement. Ditto on the mousewheel. I wish there were a trackball that had 'em.

@f0dder

GUI: cocoa/nextstep

Aha! please forgive; I had forgotten Apple's acquisition of NeXT.

@jgpaiva: My answer was perhaps a little too short. Please forgive, that's the only thing that popped in my head as that's the only thing besides Kernel Panic that has locked up or killed my system anytime I was on Linux or BSD. From what other people have said, whatever it is that does happen is not at all helpful. (as if BSOD was...)

Ooh, hey, take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_panic
MacOSX Dark Screen Of Death?

2896

Living Room / Re: caffeine free week - who wants to join me?

« on: January 18, 2006, 05:53 PM »

it's american, it's not supposed to make sense.

Darn straight!!
:guns fire:

I only go caffeine free when forced by location or circumstance. Without it, I get a headache that would bring down an elephant. Some folks say that's why I should quit. BAH!

2897

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« on: January 18, 2006, 05:31 PM »

I've never even touched a mac and so I have no idea how they handle a segfault, or any errors as far as that goes...
And AFAIK,
Unix came from Bell labs and IBM. The same guys who wrote it are now doing Plan 9.
BSD was Berkely College's version of Unix and is still today considered properly in the Unix family.
Linux was derived from/inspired by Minix, a Unix clone written by one of Linus Torvald's professors.
GNU was Richard Stallman's clone of the Unix system that ran on a Unix kernel.
It was the mating of the last two that produced the infamous OS we all call Linux.

For those interested:
The Unix Family Tree

And what about HyperCard?
:duck & run:

2898

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« on: January 18, 2006, 05:19 PM »

does anyone know if there is something similar to BSOD on OSX?

Yep, Segmentation Fault: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmentation_fault

:shiver:

2899

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« on: January 18, 2006, 04:55 PM »

all Apple did was to add a skin to Linux.

*ahem*... You meant um, BSD...*ahem*
AKA Darwin

-edit- oops, f0dder beat me to it.

Don't know about the NextStep stuff, I thought Cocoa did all the window management and all...

The funniest thing I've ever heard said about MacOSX: (from our own superboyac)

I hate the bubbly Mac crap, where everything is from happy bubble-yum land, with their shiny aerodynamic look as if it's going to be faster because there's less wind resistance.

AFAIK the Unix BSD file structure is preserved, just the interface has it's own space there.

2900

General Software Discussion / Re: SPAMPAL replacement

« on: January 18, 2006, 11:07 AM »

Anti-Spam tools reviewed quite in-depth here:
http://spamotomy.com/tools.php
I read the review on the spam filter I use, K9,and it was surprisingly dismal. However, this review is from 2003 and K9 now has User-Specified Black/White lists (although this is manual, not automatic, which would be REALLY nice..) and DNS Blacklisting. While I agree that it should have some sort of function to automatically maintain black/white lists, I don't think all the features are necessary, such as Challenge/Response filtering (annoying, and in a few cases has got folks mistakenly listed at Spamcop), Vendor-Specified white/black lists (what if I WANT to buy \/!@gr@?) and Digital Signatures (which rolls out the carpet for Trusted Delivery, another M$-defined "standard")
Yet another 2 cents.
wow, if all the 2 centses being given here were real, you wouldn't need google ads!