Messages

51

General Software Discussion / Re: wanted: nice and small screensaver

« on: July 20, 2007, 06:21 PM »

Unlikely that anyone else could be interested in something like this, but I've been looking for a while for a screensaver like the stock marquee one but that would pick a random text (the longer, the better) from a list that I can configure.

This could be useful for learning vocabulary, famous quotes, and other things.

Anyone ever noticed such a screensaver?
Everything I've seen is much more visually oriented (esp. animated images).

52

General Software Discussion / Re: Good Web 2.0 Forum?

« on: July 19, 2007, 08:08 PM »

Just discovered this Pagecast which lists a bunch of Web 2.0-oriented blogs.

-TomColvin (July 19, 2007, 03:47 PM)

This time it looks like the link is definitively missing.

BTW: As I already stated, there are some blogs geared towards Web 2.0. What seems to be missing is a forum.

53

General Software Discussion / Re: K-Meleon listed as one of top browsers...

« on: July 17, 2007, 03:17 AM »

I still use a slightly older version (1.02) of K-Meleon, and it's easily the most crash-prone of all my browsers on different platforms.

And while its bookmark handling is quite flexible in some ways (works with IE favorites, Firefox bookmarks and claims to work with Opera's hotlist, but ruined my hotlist file when I tried it), it's cumbersome in other respects (like adding new bookmarks).

From what I've seen in the past, the developer community seems to be very small and ever-changing. There have also been longer periods where it almost seemed abandoned.

54

General Software Discussion / Good Web 2.0 Forum?

« on: July 16, 2007, 09:24 PM »

I have a question that may sound a little strange inside this community, but I'd like to know it nonetheless:

Does any of you know a good forum that discusses Web 2.0 apps (like 37signals, Netvibes or Zoho)? I've been searching the web for what seems forever, but could only find some blogs (like ITRedux) or general web sites (like TechCrunch) that discuss Web 2.0 apps. What I'd like to find is a forum that is to Web 2.0 what www.emaildiscussions.com is to E-Mail services or this wonderful forum is to fine Windows desktop software.

Any suggestions?

Please note that I'm not suggesting discussing those apps here, since I think this forum should, in general, stay focused on being a great resouce for good Windows software.

Disclaimer: I know that Web 2.0 apps, in general, suck compared to their desktop counterparts. They're still slow, under-featured and might disappear any day. But they fill a niche when you need something location-independent and not to be installed on your desktop (like when you're working in a corporate environment where you have no other choice).

(Didn't know if this is suitable here or should go into "Living Room" or somewhere else, sorry.)

55

General Software Discussion / Re: Am I the only one who hates smooth scrolling?

« on: July 16, 2007, 08:56 PM »

lanux128, thanks, the link you gave made me realize for the first time what the real idea behind smooth scrolling seems to be. Funny thing is that I never noticed this effect, I only ever noticed the inability-to-stop-when-and-where-I-want-it effect (which is probably only a side effect, but a strong one).
Still don't like it, though.

56

General Software Discussion / Re: Am I the only one who hates smooth scrolling?

« on: July 16, 2007, 08:03 PM »

Sorry, I cannot explain smooth scrolling better than that: When you put a page in motion, it won't stop right after you stop scrolling, but keep scrolling for a while (like due to inertia). I can't find better English words for that.

Completely, totally brain-dead idea. Sucks big time. In every app.

Curt, I think what you describe is called auto-scrolling. I don't like it either, but other than with smooth scrolling, I can see some usefulness in it.

57

General Software Discussion / Re: RSS Reader?

« on: July 13, 2007, 07:06 PM »

laughinglizard, thanks a lot.

I will need some spare time to try all those (and how I can integrate them into my most-used browsers).

Meanwhile, I came across a site which seems to cover some of these scripts (among other stuff) as well:
http://www.makeuseof...e-reader-tools-tips/

58

Living Room / Re: Google in Sicko Storm - Welcome to democracy google style

« on: July 13, 2007, 06:40 PM »

Let me add something i think is important for this discussion:
Most of economic theory seems to be based on the presumption of a fairly rationale (in terms of their self interest) and informed public.

-mouser (July 13, 2007, 05:32 PM)

That's not necessarily correct. Only the most basic economic theories are based on such assumptions, and most economists are well aware that this is a crude way of modeling. There are a lot of economic theories that deal with informational asymetries (like the principal-agent theory), different risk aversions, non-rational choice and the like. But AFAICT (it's been quite a while since dealt with that stuff at university, and my curriculum only included parts of economics then) there is no unified theory to wrap all this into a big picture. The problem is, IMHO, that some people generalize the most primitive theories to help them pursue their agenda and their real (hidden) interests.

One of my biggest concerns about the world we live in is that the commercial marketplace has their hooks in every level of power in our society, and is set up to distributed advertising/propaganda/misleading information in an incredibly effective fashion, and leveraging every innate weakness of the human psyche.
In such a situation, it's my belief that the normal controls that a "free marketplace" might excercise are ineffective in practice.  You don't get the benefits of democracy if most of your population is not informed about the issues.

-mouser (July 13, 2007, 05:32 PM)

This point of view is pretty much mainstream in most parts of Europe (at least Western and Central Europe), and most people here agree that there has to be a strong "social" component in economy and society, and that effective controls have to be in place to regulate the "free marketplace". The problem is that there has been a lot of pressure lately from the U.S. (and globalization in general) to abandon all those social "hurdles". Life has become a lot tougher here over the last 10-20 years.
Wrt advertising, I'd like to say that I'm pretty fed up with all the aggressive advertising everywhere nowadays.

59

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: July 09, 2007, 06:26 PM »

Sorry I didn't put this precisely enough.
This is most likely a non-public beta and I'm not exactly sure who qualifies as a beta tester.
Please see the original announcement (May, 31) by Tom Davis on Yahoo groups:
http://tech.groups.y...tForum/message/11696
and this post from June, 21
http://tech.groups.y...tForum/message/11726
and the ongoing discussion.

60

General Software Discussion / Re: RSS Reader?

« on: July 09, 2007, 04:12 PM »

BlogBridge (Java, cross-platform) and Awasu (Windows) are desktop apps, although they have some sync capabilities over the web.
News Alloy, from what I've seen, seems to be on the brink of bankruptcy or at least a permanent shutdown (yet they claim to have found a "potential" new investor).

I'm probably about to settle for Google Reader. Strong points for Google Reader are (1) the "river of news" display and (2) that it works with every browser I've thrown at it so far (IE, Safari/Shiira/WebKit, Camino/K-Meleon/Gecko, even Opera). What could be improved: It would be nice if this Google (!) offering had search. And they could add some more Gmail-esque sorting and filtering/rules options (like starring or tagging by keywords).
I don't care too much for tags per se and the bunch of keyboard commands. Many people regard these as huge positives.

laughinglizard, could you please explain which scripts you use? Might be useful for others as well.

Another option I'm considering is buying into the NewsGator family with FeedDemon (Windows), NetNewsWire (Mac) and NewsGator Online for keeping everything in sync. But I really dislike their subscription model (seems you need a paid online account to activate any desktop component you "bought" from them) and NewsGator Online is s-l-o-w.

If it weren't for a usable online reader component, I would look into BlogBridge to keep several machines in sync. The desktop is free and they offer several plans to sync machines via the web, including a free one (limited to 300 feeds and 2 syncs/day, AFAIK). Never tried it, though.

I also tried GreatNews for their claimed ability to sync with Bloglines. But that seems to be one-way only. As a standalone app, GreatNews isn't too bad. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out how to enlarge the font for list view which looked tiny to me. Oh, and most desktop apps seem to work with IE as their internal browser. Don't like that.

61

General Software Discussion / Re: ONLINE RSS Reader?

« on: July 09, 2007, 03:14 PM »

Rojo has been down for a few days now.
So much for their reliability.

(BTW: Probably wasn't such a bright idea to start another RSS reader thread, and the other thread now also discusses some online readers.  Maybe further discussion should take place there.)

62

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: July 08, 2007, 08:24 PM »

There should be a beta of Zoot v. 5 (32 bit) coming these days, at last.

However, I did register for the beta testers list a while ago, but didn't get any notice up to now.

63

General Software Discussion / Re: ONLINE RSS Reader?

« on: July 05, 2007, 04:44 PM »

Rojo had been no. 4 on my list of readers to try, but I had kicked it off the list due to reliability issues I had been reading about.
Now I gave it a try but could see no real advantage over Google Reader (I don't care the least for the 'social stuff').
So Google Reader seems to be the way to go.

64

General Software Discussion / ONLINE RSS Reader?

« on: July 03, 2007, 05:01 PM »

I know there is a parallel thread about RSS readers, but this is about web-based solutions only, which have - until now - not really been covered in the other thread.

There are some decent alternatives for your desktop, but I'm still struggling to find a satisfying web-based solution.

I want something that
- gives me all posts in one overview (no need to go through different feeds or folders), one long list of headlines (absolutely required for my job) and
- uses a three-pane layout (preferably) and/or
- (at least) lets me see the major content when hovering the mouse over it.
- No clicking and no switching to a different view or window required to see at least the summmary of the message.
- It has to be possible to bulk discard posts to get them out of the view but easily keep selected messages by tagging, starring or clipping them.
- And it should be free and not plastered with ads all over the place.

I tried all the big three: Google Reader, Bloglines and NewsGator Online. None did what I wanted. I also had a look at Netvibes, Pageflakes and wanted to try Gobits, but couldn't register for the latter.
Google Reader comes close but doesn't give you the mouse-hovering summary and I couldn't figure out how to bulk discard the unwanted 95% of messages across all feeds while saving the few "good" ones.
Netvibes and Pageflakes separate each feed as a module and make you switch views to see the complete list, and that's still separated by feed. Pageflakes isn't bad, but has a strange list view and doesn't work on Safari or any other Webkit Mac browser.
For my personal needs/interests I'll probably go with Netvibes (or desktop apps for Win and Mac that both sync with Bloglines), but for work I need that "everything in one, easy to handle list" model.

I know there are other online readers out there, but I'd like to ask here before I do any more experimenting.

Any opinions?

(Edit: I came across this too late, but what I mean by "all posts in one overview" is what Dave Winer calls the "River of News": http://www.reallysim...tion.com/riverOfNews, i.e. a real aggregator.)

65

Word Processor Roundup / Re: TextMaker: Additions

« on: June 29, 2007, 04:34 PM »

I'd rather call it "dual-platform", and I wish they'd add a native Mac version to make it really multi-platform.

I tried to go the Win/Linux route, but after experimenting with Mandrake (pre-Mandriva), Slackware, Vector, Mepis (pre-Ubuntu), Ubuntu, Zenwalk, Xubuntu and some more obscure distros, I've pretty much given up on LInux after running into bugs, cryptic configuration and severe problem every time (although I'm still planning to set up a Xubuntu machine for my dad just for surfing and email). And the apps are even more immature and buggy than the distros, IMO. Look at Abiword, for example. For general use and if you have a halfway decent machine, a Linux box with a recent distro and KDE and OOo might be nice. But not on my machines.

If I still had a Linux and a Windows box, TextMaker would probably be the word processor of choice for me (OOo is too bloated and didn't feel right when I tried it quite a while ago). Right now, for €14, TextMaker could be fine just for Windows and thumbdrive as a stand-by solution. If the bibliographic features are of any value (very important for some projects of mine ATM, never tried those on my test drives with TM), it might even draw me back to Windows (not: Linux) completely.

66

Word Processor Roundup / TextMaker: Additions

« on: June 29, 2007, 12:00 PM »

I've been thinking about purchasing TextMaker for a while (and would have done so already if it were Win/Mac instead of Win/Linux), but now I probably will do it, as I found out two things:

- It can be installed as a portable version on your USB stick: http://www.softmaker...nglish/tipsof_en.htm
- It has ridiculously cheap academic/educational pricing (€14/$14 for students): http://www.softmaker...m/english/education/

67

Word Processor Roundup / Some Minor Errors

« on: June 29, 2007, 11:28 AM »

When I had a first look at it, I had already been wondering where Zaine would have found an offer of $35 for Papyrus.

Now I read it a second time and noticed that the passage 
"Affordable. At $35, this is a bargain for this word processor. 
Word count dialog is loaded with information, a boon to writers and editors."
can be found under both Atlantis (where the price probably belongs) and Papyrus. So it was probably an error due to copy/paste.

In addition, the words
"Full, working trial version. If you're going to try a new program — especially another word processor — it should be able to do everything it claims it can do without having to purchase it first. TextMaker loads everything for its 30-day trial."
can be found under both Textmaker and Atlantis, both times referring to TextMaker.

(Edit: There's also this under ThinkFree
"File. TextMaker is the most polished and refined of all the alternate word processors. Imagine taking the best and most-used features of Word 2003, vastly expanding its document creation power, and throwing in a healthy dose of perfectionism throughout the user interface. Forget your imagination and just check out TextMaker. I'm betting you'll love it because it will never slow you down.")

68

Living Room / Re: Visual history of Apple, 1976-2007

« on: June 27, 2007, 05:51 PM »

No, I think it was only some time in their "dark ages" of the Mid-90s when they lost their direction.
The cuteness factor of the "compact" Macs since the original Macintosh is not to be overlooked.

Actually, I still have a PowerMac 6500 of 1996/1997 vintage (the form factor that is shown on the poster as "1996 Power Macintosh") and while it sucks completely from a usabilty/extendability POV, I don't think the design was too bad way back then (please try to remember how PCs looked then!). The 90s' era Powerbooks weren't too bad, either.

But 1997/1998 was clearly the beginning of a new era of Apple design, that's true.

69

General Review Discussion / Re: Best Archive Manager Review: Suggestions

« on: June 26, 2007, 08:28 PM »

I'd like to add that the compression review I had mentioned under http://www.techarp.c...article.aspx?artno=4 has now been completed, and they also updated part 1, with findings that are significantly different from their former results. Go figure.

Anyway, that's probably not how a review of archivers should be done in the first place (only measuring compression and completely ignoring features, usability and the like). A more user-friendly perspective like Zaine had taken in the review here is clearly more reasonable.

And, yes, I have to confess that suggesting arj32 was probably a strange idea (but gzip is a different story).

I'm looking forward to the updated review, but Zaine probably deserves a rest after the huge word processor review he has done (great job!).

70

General Software Discussion / Re: Is the Windows start menu dead?

« on: June 20, 2007, 02:26 PM »

I happen to like the combination of the "classic" Windows 98/2000 start menu and a the quick launch bar dragged out of the task bar and running along the entire right side of my screen (used to be on the left side before, don't remember why I moved to the right).

The start menu gives me a complete overview of all the programs I have installed, while the quick launch bar gives me one-click (no subfolders) access to all the folders, programs, utilities and most important documents I use every day (in total, about 40 small icons, lined up in some useful groups). I rarely use the start menu, but once in a while I want to see the whole inventory I've got there. I tried FARR, but remembering the keyboard strokes (or names) was too tiresome for me. I do, however, use a very small handful of AutoHotkey keyboard shortcuts for some programs.

Before Win 98/2000, I used the (buggy) Office quick launch bar. With W2000, I sometimes had the problem of the (Windows, not Office) quick launch bar "stuck" inside the task bar (moveable, but not to be dragged out). The only thing that annoys me now is that it's not possible to "lock" the quick launch bar in the position at the edge of the screen (only works inside the task bar).

All the "improvements" since Win XP seem pointless to me. It would be sad to see the full start menu die. Everything that constantly changes the contents by "recently used"/"others (click here)" or the like does not really enhance usability IMHO.

71

Official Announcements / Re: Winners of the June 2007 Software Giveaway

« on: June 20, 2007, 10:16 AM »

Heja, I did win something!

What a pleasant surprise! Thanks to everyone involved for organizing this drawing (esp. cthorpe) and to the authors for their generosity!

 

72

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Addressbook Software Mini-Shootout

« on: April 14, 2007, 07:30 PM »

This thread is quite dated, but I wanted to add that I came across a German blog that has always been very critical of Plaxo and some months ago published a post about how Cardscan - without transparency for the users of the program - sends out phoney emails to people in your address book and uses spammers' methods like web bugs and the like. Just like Plaxo.

For anyone who can make use of German, the post is here: http://miedl.net/2006/11/24/plaxo-cardscan-und-co-die-virale-totalberwachung-findet-nachahmer-und-verbreiter/

The owner of the blog, Wolfgang Miedl, has always suspected Plaxo to use these methods to collect email addresses with the intention to sell them at some time in the future.
I had no possibility to check the validity of these warnings, but wanted to inform the fellow members nonetheless.

73

Word Processor Roundup / Papyrus Office

« on: February 10, 2007, 09:16 AM »

You should include Payprus Office (http://www.rom-logicware.com/) in the review.

The "Office" name is a bit of a misnomer, as it consists only of a word processor and a database.

This program has been around for a very long time (it originates from the Atari, and there is even still an Atari version). It's constantly updated (currently at v. 12.5 for Windows and Mac). It's not cheap ($99), but very stable with long documents, and it has a small but loyal user base, esp. in its native country of Germany.

Edit (premature posting): It's also portable (USB stick friendly), but no outline mode AFAICT.

74

Word Processor Roundup / Re: KISS

« on: February 10, 2007, 08:58 AM »

This somehow reminds me of another "alternative" word processor called "Yeah Write" (shareware) that uses a drawer metaphor instead of opening/saving and a tabbed interface to make things easier:
http://www.yeahwrite.com

OTOH, it adds stuff like an address book, fax and email interfaces, that's not an essential necessity.
Not sure if this program is developed anymore, or if they're only after some revenue from the annoying ads on their homepage.

75

Word Processor Roundup / Re: Outlining

« on: February 10, 2007, 08:45 AM »

I agree that outlining is very important, esp. if you write long, complex documents.

The best description of outliner features I know is from Ted Goranson's ATPM series (Mac-centric, but you'll get the idea):
http://www.atpm.com/9.10/atpo.shtml
http://www.atpm.com/9.11/atpo.shtml

Unfortunately, no power outliner I know supports footnotes, which immediately defeats its usability for academic papers. So you have to stick with what comes with a word processor like word (and doesn't support features like clonig, hoisting et al.).