Topics

951

Living Room / Need Some Design Help...

« on: October 01, 2007, 10:30 AM »

My side projects are starting to get a bit too expensive, so I'm looking for a volunteer to help me out with some design for a fun little project...

Inspired by a recent thread here, Nighted gave me an idea for a fun little toy. I've redone it a little bit and spun it off at an otherwise silly and dead side project that I've totally neglected, but it's very fitting...

http://www.fucksatan...abid/55/Default.aspx

My design skills are close to zero, and I really need some kind of help there. The site is running DotNetNuke so it would need to be a DNN skin. I could do the coding if anyone could help out with the design. Given the nature of the site, it's offensive to some people, but I'd be more than willing to put a "Design by YOU" link in it. Not great payment, but it's just a for fun type thing.

Anyways, if anyone has decent graphic design skills and can help out, I'd appreciate it. The only real requirement is that the design be 'good enough' and certainly better than what's there now.

952

Living Room / Bored to death and amusing myself with stupid program :)

« on: September 26, 2007, 08:55 PM »

This is just a silly/bizarre/Satanic story about how I can waste some time.

BACKGROUND

I use EditPlus as my primary editor, but the last time I reinstalled the OS for this computer, I figured I didn't want to enter my license. Instead, I'd let the trial expire and then take a screen shot when it had finally gotten to day 666 of the 30 day trial period, and then enter my license.

SOOOOO...

Ok - so I get in to the office after the long holiday (5 days)...

Check my email... DAMN! Outlook didn't download a single message over the holiday! Now I've got thousands of emails to download and it's going to take Outlook/Exchange HOURS to download them! (I'm extremely pissed at this point.)

So, I switch to the English computer (with EditPlus). AAARRRGGGHHH! Adobe Acrobat Reader screwed up and stopped Windows from shutting down last Friday. Oh well... Reset the machine... Boot up again...

Finally booted. Time to fire up things. I quickly click the EditPlus and the ALSong shortcuts in the QuickLaunch bar...

Hmmm... I'm on day 632 of my 30 day trial for EditPlus. I wonder when I need to take that screen shot... The day is getting closer now.

Well, since I'm screwed until Outlook starts responding, I've got time to figure things out the proper way! BUILD A MINI UTILITY TO CALCULATE DATES!

After all, it's much more fun to fire up Visual Studio.

In any event... the utility takes like 2 lines of code... But that's not the point... The point is I use the little utility to find out when day 666 is and...

953

General Software Discussion / Cracked while installing Linux :)

« on: September 23, 2007, 10:12 AM »

OK - I finally bought a new box to install Linux on. Went for Suse Enterprise Desktop...

In any event, I'm burning the CDs for the new box on my Windows machine and the software I'm using isn't working... Keeps dying. Strange... Worked for the past 4 CDs...

Well, I reboot - same thing - install new version - same thing - fire up Windows Explorer... It chokes.

Pull out blank CD - it's got a 3cm crack from the middle.

Put in new CD. Everyone's happy...

Still installing Suse though... And very much looking forward to giving it a spin.

I decided to go with Suse (cost $50 for the license - whatever) because Novell sponsors the Mono project, and that's what I'm most interested in.

954

General Software Discussion / MS Forced Update

« on: September 18, 2007, 10:23 AM »

Microsoft Update recently forced an update even if you explicitly did not want them.

The update was for "Microsoft Update" software to ensure forward compatibility.

Now, I'm sure this will tick off a few people, but I don't really care about it. Sure, they could totally abuse their power and disable things or do bad things, but they didn't, and I don't believe they will. I'm not worried.

Any thoughts on the topic? Is it a bad precedent for MS?

955

General Software Discussion / Interview with Nick Longo - What do you want to hear about?

« on: September 17, 2007, 09:35 AM »

Hello All,

I've scheduled an interview with Nick Longo for the .NET Preacher Show. You might know him as the former CEO of CoffeeCup software. He recently sold CC to Hans Top - the fellow behind a little piece of software that you might just have heard of, WinZip.

Anyways, Nick is fairly well known and is pretty open, so I'm taking questions and topics from people on what you'd like to hear about. (He used to be quite active in the ASP newsgroups helping people out.)

Please keep in mind that it's a mISV centered show and so questions and topics need to reflect that. I've started to aggregate some of what people are interested in in the .NET Preacher forums here.

You can post here where I'll be checking back or post in the DNP forums at the link above.

So, here's your chance to pick the brain of one of the more successful guys in the software industry!

956

General Software Discussion / Looking for Open Source... So...

« on: September 16, 2007, 05:33 AM »

Of course I want to know what platform the software runs on. However, far too often you need to download the code (sometimes through CSV or some other hellish interface) to find out what it's written in and if you can use it.

Now I'm trying to figure out why this is. Why would you post OS software, but neglect to mention what the language and platform is?

Either that or I'm completely blind. Has anyone else run into this? 

Then again, there are projects that wear the platform and language on their sleeve much like they are just trying to evangelize the platform/language.

Any middle ground? 

957

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / ALPass v2.74 Released

« on: August 27, 2007, 02:55 AM »

ALPass v2.74 is now available at www.altools.net.

ALPass is an Internet Explorer enhancement to securely store logins and passwords, and to automatically log you into web sites.

The top improvements in ALPass v2.74 include:

1) Fully Windows Vista compatible (x86 and x64)
2) Can now be directly installed to removeable storage, e.g. USB Drive, digital camera, iPod, portable media players, etc.
3) Full support for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7 64-bit not supported)
4) Security update
5) Language updates - Now in English, Greek, Hungarian, Japanese (Available through Ahnlab), Korean, and Polish

For more information, please visit the ALPass home page.

Regards,

Ryan - Your ALTools Guy here at DonationCoder.com



Version History Since Last Public Release:


### ALPass 2.74 ###

1. Added: Greek translation
2. Fixed: ALPass did not properly handle importing malformed ALPass database files (*.APW)
3. Fixed: Security issues related to #2 above
4. Fixed: In rare circumstances, creating a new folder in ALPass and entering illegal characters could cause a system crash


### ALPass 2.73 (Limited Release - Invitation Only) ###

1. Fixed: On some sites ALPass would incorrectly enter the login information from a previous site
2. Fixed: In some ALPass site folders sites would become shuffled out of order
3. Fixed: Languages were not properly displayed on Windows Vista
4. Fixed: Could not connect to "ALPass Online" with Kaspersky Antivirus 6.0 running. (***NOTE: ALPass Online is only available in the Korean edition of ALPass.)


### ALPass 2.72 (Limited Release - Invitation Only) ###

1. Added: ALPass can now be installed directly to removable storage devices
2. Added: Support for Internet Explorer 7
3. Added: Full support for Windows Vista


### ALPass 2.71 (Limited Release - Invitation Only) ###

1. Added: Windows Vista support
2. Fixed: Starting multiple instances of Internet Explorer at once from ALPass caused ALPass to misbehave
3. Fixed: Starting multiple tabs in Internet Explorer v7 at once caused ALPass to misbehave
4. Fixed: When uploading sites to ALPass online, manually set site keywords were not properly uploaded (Korean version only)
5. Fixed: When uploading folders to ALPass Online, collapsed folders were expanded (Korean version only)
6. Fixed: When an ID and password weren't entered for a site in ALPass, ALPass mistakenly autofilled the ID and login with nothing then submitted the form.

958

General Software Discussion / Organizing Reviews

« on: August 18, 2007, 01:02 AM »

I'm splitting this from a previous topic...

You know I'd love to see a more organized process on this forum where a small group of people could agree to do an organized, exhaustive, frenetic testing of programs and try to come up with some consensus of best tools for a task.

In other words, it would be nice if we could take a thread like this and have a few people just go out and try every help file maker they can find and winnow down the list of top candidates.  Not only would that be helpful but we could then go and try to get some discounts on these, as well as provide some guidance to the non-top authors on how they could improve their programs.

-mouser (August 18, 2007, 12:19 AM)

Just one consideration...

I'd like to throw in "not-testing"... For these kinds of things there are people that use the software in real-world production and can contribute that real-world experience.

One of the problems I find with a lot of reviews is that they are little more than "feature lists" with no real commentary on how the application truly performs in real life.

I simply don't have the time to go out and download, install, then test a bunch of software, but I can certainly contribute for those applications where I really know them very well from real world experience.

I say "real world experience" because there's a VERY big difference between running a simple test for 5 minutes, and using an application on a daily basis.

Of course feature lists are important, but adding in something about the performance would take a review from being a "review" to being "authoritative".

Ok - That's all. Let the ideas start flying on how to get this organized... Perhaps we should start with a list of goals. I'll go first:

GOALS:

1) Make the reviews authoritative and reliable for readers
2) Exhaustive reviews of individual pieces of software
3) Exhaustive comparisons between pieces of software
4) Relatively easy to contribute to the process in a structured way, perhaps "templated" - this would require a metadata type structure
5) Not sure... Please continue...

Cheers!

959

General Software Discussion / PC Hate

« on: August 16, 2007, 07:05 PM »

Check out this PC hater.

That's a lot of time & effort to spread PC hate... The worst part is that the videos are pretty clunky and this guy is a 'video pro'.

Ah well... I guess everyone needs a hobby.

960

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Dot Net Preacher Show - Interview with Grant Frisken from Infralution

« on: August 13, 2007, 09:22 AM »

This week's .NET Preacher sermon is an interview with Grant Frisken from Infralution.

Infralution produces .NET components for developers and has some great solutions to some tough problems.

Also in the interview we talk about Infralution's new Globalizer.NET solution for software localizaton.

Enjoy~!

961

Developer's Corner / Threadpools and Delegates in .NET

« on: August 05, 2007, 11:24 AM »

I've got a new show available with a sample application on threading and delegates.

I hope it's useful for some people.

The code is commented extensively, so it should help there.

962

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / God Hate Penguins, But He Love Threading and Delegates!

« on: August 05, 2007, 11:21 AM »

There's a new .NET Preacher Show available now.

This time we focus on threadpools and delegates. And a bit on how God Hates Penguins!

963

General Software Discussion / WYFCA?

« on: August 05, 2007, 09:34 AM »

What's Your Favorite Computer Acronym?

While I do like things like WTF and RTFM, I think I really like NTFH - Not That F***ing Hard.

So, what's your fav?

964

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / ESTsoft Releases ALZip v7.0 Beta with New Speed Extractor Options

« on: July 31, 2007, 03:25 AM »

It's here, it's improved, and it's faster than ever ~ ALZip v7.0.
The new ALZip v7.0 beta from ESTsoft brings extraction speed to new levels with the ALZip Speed Extractor, along with handy innovative improvements like overwriting features for updating projects and file sets as well as restoring backups.

Seoul, Korea – July 31, 2007 – ESTsoft Corp. today announced the release of ALZip v7.0 beta, the full featured zip archiving utility for Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista, with new features for faster extracting, updating, and restoring backups.

The new Speed Extractor functionality in ALZip gives users one-click extraction, making ALZip the fastest way to extract files from archives. A second Speed Extractor option gives users a clean and simple menu, free from clutter that gradually creeps into Windows Explorer right-click context menus.

Further improving on archive extraction, new overwriting features let users freshen projects/file sets with just the newest files from an archive. Those looking to restore projects/file sets to a previously known good state can now overwrite files on disk with only the older, good files from their backup archives.

Well known for its cute "Egghead" characters, ALZip follows up with a robust set of functionality including support for extracting 36 archive formats and creating 8. Commenting on the Eggheads, a CNET editor wrote, "They show that aesthetics are still important, even in freeware."

v7.0 boasts other improvements such as full Windows Vista support including x64 editions and better compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007 file formats, as well as routine bug fixes.

ALZip is available in 25 languages and is now also available at ESTsoft's new ALTools Japanese web site at www.altools.jp.

Free for home users, commercial users can purchase licenses on the honor system for between $20 for a single license and $3 per seat for volume orders. Current licensees can upgrade for free. Free downloads are available at www.altools.net.

About ALTools

Named "AL" after the Korean word for "egg", ALTools are free PC utilities and multimedia programs that include ALShow, a DVD and movie player; ALSong, an MP3 live music lyrics player; ALSee, a picture viewer and photo editor; ALFTP, an FTP client/server; and ALPass, a secure web login and password manager.

About ESTsoft

ESTsoft is a leading Korean application developer located in Seoul. Other ESTsoft products include InternetDISK, a web storage solution, and CABAL Online, an MMORPG.


Contact:
Ryan Smyth
ESTsoft Research & Development Center
Bongcheon Dong, Kwanak Gu
Seoul, South Korea
151-836

Tel: +82-2-881-2352
Web: www.altools.net

965

General Software Discussion / Web 2.0 Poll

« on: July 27, 2007, 11:31 AM »

I'm vehemently in the "Web 2.0 is BS" camp. But I'm curious at to what others here think (and more importantly... DO).

I post in forums and do some work in a browser like posting into the Bug Tracker, etc. But other than that, I really NEED the power of a client program. For me, the whole Web 2.0 thing is total BS. I think fast and work fast. A browser just can't keep up enough for me to take it seriously.

But I'd like to hear how others feel on the topic and how they work. I'm not your average user, so what works for me isn't going to be what works for everyone else.

966

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / The Dot Net Preacher Show

« on: July 21, 2007, 08:28 AM »

A new podcast on .NET     :

The Dot Net Preacher is about preaching the good word of .NET to the uneducated heathen masses and bringing them into the light of .NET to save their souls from the mortal dangers of PHP, J2EE, Ruby, Python and other false idols.

Let the religious wars begin! 

Ok, well, it's a bit different than exactly that... But about .NET all the same.

The Dot Net Preacher Show

RSS Feed (iTunes)

967

General Software Discussion / Freeware Data Modeler

« on: May 25, 2007, 01:19 AM »

Toad Data Modeler

Found a nifty free data modeler for ERDs.



Anyways - for anyone that needs something for ERDs...

968

General Software Discussion / Fun Quiz

« on: April 01, 2007, 10:40 PM »

I think you'll all like this quiz:

Gullibility Test

You post your score, then I'll post mine!

969

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Cuter Than Ever, ALZip v6.7 Freeware Zip Program Supports Windows Vista

« on: January 23, 2007, 11:33 PM »

Well known for its cute egg characters, the new ALZip adds Windows Vista support and new, cuter egg icons custom designed for the visually rich Vista interface. ALZip is a full-featured zip program supporting 36 formats.

Seoul, South Korea, January 24rd, 2007 -- ESTsoft proudly announces ALZip v6.7, the all-inclusive zip archive program for Windows 98 through Windows Vista Ultimate and 64 bit editions.

Best known for its cute egg characters and strong support for 36 archive formats, the ALZip upgrade for Windows Vista includes a new set of Vista style cuter-than-ever ALZip egg icons. Taking full advantage of all Vista has to offer, the new glassy icons display up to Vista's massive 256x256 maximum while also displaying beautifully on Windows XP and lower.

Click to Zoom

While improving its user-friendly ease-of-use, this ALZip upgrade also includes increased support for CD images and 7z files. Stronger command line functionality with command switches for power users and IT pros has also been added due to popular demand.

ALZip is a full-featured zip program designed for maximum ease with features such as auto-repair for damaged archives and zip password retrieval.

Thanks to many generous users, ALTools support 54 languages with ALZip supporting 24, and more languages becoming available all the time.

ALZip is available for free at www.altools.net and users can register for free at the web site to receive free support through the online forums. Commercial users are asked to support further development by purchasing commercial licenses, but may evaluate the software for as long as they desire. There are no time limits or restrictions.

The ALTools family of free PC utilities also includes ALZip, ALShow, a movie player, ALSong, an MP3 live lyrics player, ALSee, a picture viewer, ALFTP, an FTP program, and ALPass, a web login manager. Additionally, ALGIF and ALMap are also available in Korean.

About ESTsoft

ESTsoft is a leading Korean application, game and solutions developer located in Seoul. ALTools are user-friendly PC utilities for Windows and all are available for free for home users.


Contact:

Ryan Smyth
ALTools Evangelist
ESTsoft Corp.
4th Floor, Jeil Building, 1626-3
Seocho Dong, Seocho Gu
Seoul, South Korea
137-878

+82-2-583-4620 (ext. 118)
http://www.altools.net/

970

General Software Discussion / Game Narration :)

« on: January 12, 2007, 10:03 AM »

I no longer hate you mouser. A little 'glitch' I found in one of the games I was wasting time on made it all worth while!

During some pre-mission briefing, the narrator tries to pronounce "Phuket". Noble attempt, but it comes out as "F**k-it". Just classic!

The wonders of trying to pronounce a foreign language!

Misson 3: http://uploads.ungro...3_turret_defense.swf

On a related note... Here are some great place names.

For those that don't know, Phuket (Foo-ket) is a popular tourist destination in Thailand.

971

General Software Discussion / Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 issues?

« on: January 07, 2007, 04:36 PM »

Is anyone having problems with TB 1.5.0.9?

1.5.0.8 was pretty smooth (1 pain with malformed headers), but .9 seems to require an abnormal number of restarts (like 1~2x per day sometimes).

I'm getting address book errors, spell checking errors (every word is underlined red), can't display folders, etc. etc. etc.

I checked for previous versions at the Mozilla site, but didn't see any available.

Anyways, just curious.

972

Found Deals and Discounts / Give Aways

« on: December 14, 2006, 03:16 PM »

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

They have a free piece of software each day. Not freeware - but commercial software for free.

973

General Software Discussion / Double Standards

« on: December 13, 2006, 10:27 AM »

Zaine posted about MS and Open Source, and this is a related issue. From the same annual report:

We are subject to government litigation and regulatory activity that affects how we design and market our products.     

As a leading global software maker we receive scrutiny from government agencies under U.S. and foreign competition laws. Some jurisdictions also provide private rights of action for competitors or consumers based on alleged anti-competitive conduct.

This doesn't apply to other companies and it's a double standard.

The whole "monopoly" thing just doesn't wash for me. There are (and ALWAYS have been) many different operating systems available. If anyone is to blame, then blame IBM and HP for making their OSes insanely expensive so that nobody could ever afford them.

MS has a reasonably priced OS and other products that are constantly under unfair attack.

If anyone else were to develop "monopolistic" software, would they receive the same treatment? Doubtfully.

As an experiment, try developing some software for left-handed hispanic parapalegic lesbians living in Atlanta to keep track of their iguana collections. Then price it at $10,000 and make sure that it's proprietary closed source and that you've used a lot of anti-piracy measures and copy protection along with a file format that is impossible to reverse engineer. Make the license very strict as well. You'll have a monopoly, but nothing would ever happen.

i.e. Scale matters.

Maybe I'm just grumpy today, but I'm just sick of the "let's beat up MS" thing. They've done more good for computing than any other company.

This is the exact same issue as the entire music thing. The RIAA just isn't intelligent to figure it out though.

e.g License your music for ALL devices, the iPod, the Zune, or whatever. But just get whatever they want figured out.

The issue is when you're big and you want to license your product. Ummm... Hasn't this all been done a trillion times?

These issues aren't that hard to figure out. They might involve some thought and a little bit of work, but they are very, very far from difficult.

At the moment I'm negotiating some patent licensing and it's all just pure Hell trying to get anywhere. Again - similar issues. I wish they'd just get their ducks in line...

974

Developer's Corner / Decent Outlook/Office Programming Resources?

« on: November 20, 2006, 05:13 PM »

Hello all,

I'm just so eternally frustrated with Outlook... It's eroding my sanity in large chunks. (Worse than iTunes.)   

So, I've pretty much decided to take up Office and Outlook programming so that I can hammer Outlook into something faster and more useable for myself.

If anyone does any Office/Outlook programming, would you care to point me to some of the better resources. This is one of those things that I just don't care to learn much about - I just want to get things done ASAP - so any good resources that you've found useful will be greatly appreciated.

I'll of course check out the MSDN Magazine site and the Code Project first as those two generally seem to be some of the best places to look at sample code.

Thanks in advance,

Ryan

975

General Software Discussion / Site Maps for Everyone :)

« on: November 19, 2006, 09:29 PM »

Looks like the big boys have gotten their act together to agree on something that's good for us.

Sitemap.org




Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are on board.