Topics

76

Living Room / poor? Pay up!

« on: May 21, 2009, 12:50 PM »

Great article at the washintong post: Poor? Pay up!.
In fact, one cannot afford to be poor!

77

General Software Discussion / RapidEE (Rapid Environment Editor) — 64 bit alternative?

« on: May 06, 2009, 06:31 PM »

Anyone knows of a RapidEE (Rapid Environment Editor) — 64 bit alternative?

Thanks

78

General Software Discussion / installers that assume admin privs: what to do with them?

« on: April 30, 2009, 09:23 PM »

I wanted to install emacsW32 but it seems that the installer leaves all files under admin's ownership.

I could change the ownership, but still, when launching it, it tries to write to admin's home (and of course, gets permission denied). My guess is that somewhere in the registry something is assuming that the user who installs is the user who will use it (almighty-user-mode, the standard up to XP on most cases).

I cannot be 100% sure that it's the installer. But even if it's not, the general question arises,... what to do with programs that still use almighty-user-mode?

79

Living Room / how to improve DC's usability: the stackOverflow model

« on: April 30, 2009, 08:50 AM »

stackOverflow.com

http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=NWHfY_lvKIQ

• Voting to push the best answer to the top and not having to read a monster thread
• Tagging
• Ignore tags: if I don't want to read about php, I put it in my ignore list
• markdown instead of bbedit (syntax highlighting for code)
• You can edit other's answers if they are incomplete (like a wiki)
• There's a points system for reputation that seems to be addictive
• Badges, Karma
• You can earn Karma not only answering questions, but asking interesting ones that get voted up
• You can burn your Karma, and this prevents you from doing some answers
• You can merge different answers into one comprehensive one, and this would give you Karma. No obsessions about ownership (nice property of wikis)
• etc

If you have used it, you probably agree that it's highly usable compared to any forum software, mailing list, group, or wiki.
DC has the advantage that there's actual money changing hands, not only Karma. I wonder how much mileage one could get out of it. The regulars know each other's reputation, but not newcomers.
DC could simply display the DC credits each member has earned as a 'badge' of how useful he is on the community.

Also, having tags would help listing the expertise we have here (which is considerable, but not obvious).

So here's the idea: let's get something more like stackOverflow than a forum.
What do you think?

I could start a poll with features that are most important for you guys.

Is this something you'd like to see?

80

General Software Discussion / filebox on win-64 systems. Working?

« on: April 28, 2009, 12:24 PM »

I was wondering if people here use filebox on win-64 systems. How is it working for you?
The feature I like the most is "click-switch file box folder feature." It switches to a folder in the 'open' menu by clicking on say that folder on TC. Killer feature, should come with the OS.
On windows server 2008 64-bit and TC 7.04 that feature doesn't work. Any luck for you?

81

General Software Discussion / managing file permissions under windows (madness?)

« on: April 25, 2009, 06:34 AM »

I have to admit I ran XP with admin privs all the time. So I never had to worry about permissions.
However, I want to now separate admin and non-admin user.

It's proven to be a real pain, moreso compared to how unix-like OSs do it.
Pain points:

• Explorer (or TC) do not list file permissions. (!), at least that I could find. What's wrong with listing say -rwx------ like in unix? I really need a fast and visual way of looking at permissions. Quesion: do you know any software that displays permissions graphically?
• Changing permissions recursively sucks. You have to use cacls.exe, which is very limited. THere's setACL.exe, but it is also really ugly compared to chmod and chown. Question: how do you do this? Any tools? Having to right-click > properties > security is very long, and it's not recursive (!)
• Changing permissions is extremely slow. In unix, it rarely takes seconds, even for a huge tree. In windows, it's been minutes already for a not-so-big tree! Any reason for this madness?
• You are allowed to do crazy things like erradicate the administrators group. You read that right: you can make it so some user has full permissions on a file, but the admins don't. I have no idea how I managed to do this feat... and I fixed it now. But I'm really curious about what purpose this may fulfill

Not to mention that every action that requires admin privs will prompt for a passwd. So, in a normal day, you can easily type the admin passwd about seven billion orders of magnitude more than on unix.

All in alll... (quoting the penguins in "Madagascar" after arriving to antartica with a stolen transatlantic ship).
"Well... this sucks".

It makes me think I'm missing the proper tools.

It also makes me thing that when mom and pop have to deal with this, they will go crazy.
Is this the end of civilization as we know it?

82

Living Room / ZDNET: Have we arrived in the post-Windows era?

« on: April 20, 2009, 03:28 PM »

As some commentators have suggested, there may be a bunch of IT departments that adopt Windows 7, but if they do it will be out of annoyance and necessity (if Microsoft finally phases out Windows XP) and not out of the desire to benefit from any new advances in Windows 7. There are none.

It didn’t used to be this way. Installing a new operating system used to be like getting a whole new computer. Installing Windows 95 over Windows 3.1? That was a huge improvement. Installing Windows 2000 on top of Windows 95? That was a big leap forward. There were reasons to upgrade back then, for example:

    * Windows 95 - Greatly simplified interface; much more friendly to the average user
    * Windows 98 - Improved multimedia capabilities and built-in Internet functionality
    * Windows 2000 - Industrial-strength Windows NT code base, but in a much more polished package
    * Windows XP - Unified the Win9x and WinNT/2K code bases; allowed businesses to standardize on one OS
    * Windows Vista - ?
    * Windows 7 - ?

Part of what’s going here is that the computer operating system has achieved a level of maturity and efficiency. You could even say that work on the OS has reached a point of diminishing returns. How much more efficiency can we wring out of it? What other major innovations are waiting out there?

ZDnet on why windows 7 may not matter anymore.

83

General Software Discussion / alternatives to firstDefense ISR

« on: April 10, 2009, 02:37 AM »

I own two licenses for firstDefense ISR.
Since I have moved to windows server 2008, they are not valid anymore; they ask for >$300 for a license.
I emailed support to see if I can upgrade. They didn't even bother answering.

Is there anything out there that does the same job, and doesn't cost a fortune for windows server?
Any alternative to take snapshots of your working install?

Thanks

84

Living Room / hoovering mouse over FF is not as smooth as on other apps. A win-64 thing?

« on: April 05, 2009, 09:03 AM »

I have just installed windows server 2008 64-bit, and I quite like it.
However, hoovering mouse over FF is not as smooth as on other apps. A win-64 thing?
This is a portable FF that I got from my X 32-bit days.

Can anybody replicate this? To start looking, I wonder if that happens on server 2008 only, or in other 64-bit windows.

Thanks!

85

General Software Discussion / logitech mouse drivers are pure evil

« on: April 04, 2009, 10:02 AM »

I cannot run my IBM ultranav keyboard together with my MX revolution mouse because of drivers conflict.
I posted in logitech forums to no avail.

I didn't know who to blame. This however, makes me think logitech is the culprit:
http://www.adobe.com...d=2&postId=12826

How can your drivers affect an IDE?

86

General Software Discussion / On developer's block, and calling it quits. Being a programmer is hard

« on: March 20, 2009, 05:33 PM »

Hi guys,

I just wanted to bring to your attention a thread that got me thinking.
Vitaly, the developer of spider player, a player that sounds surprisingly good (nobody knows why; it uses BASS and 32-bit processing, which you can find in others that don't sound as good) has decided to switch careers, partly frustrated with how difficult programming is:

thread

I have to admit that programming is hard. I'm right now chasing a bug that has driven me crazy for 3 weeks straight. I have written a 30-page-long paper with results I was suspecting were wrong. Now (IF I catch the bug!) I'll have to rewrite most of it.

There are many ways in which programming can be NOT fun. I wonder if we realize this.

Again, a 'thank you' to Vitaly and to all programmers around the world that make our lives more pleasant with their software.

87

Found Deals and Discounts / resolver one, python spreadsheet (no sheet limits) 60% off today only

« on: March 17, 2009, 09:39 AM »

http://www.resolversystems.com/download/

Evaluating now.

88

General Software Discussion / criminalize boring: a catalog of cool

« on: February 21, 2009, 04:51 AM »

http://criminalizeboring.tumblr.com/

89

General Software Discussion / What's your mouse of choice?

« on: February 20, 2009, 12:15 PM »

Mine is the logitech MX revolution.
Once you try the scrollwheel, you cannot go back to any other mouse. It has no clicks, you can roll it in a 'free' way.

The big disadvantage: no middle click.

Do you know any mouse that has this 'free rolling' wheel while still having middle click?

90

General Software Discussion / Any easy way to see how much each Firefox addon weights you down?

« on: February 14, 2009, 08:18 PM »

Is there any easy way to see how much each Firefox addon weights you down?
I have 14 by now, this is getting ridiculous. And what bothers me most is that hitting 'back' is no longer instantaneous.

91

General Software Discussion / nifty trick to address more memory under win 32-bit

« on: February 07, 2009, 06:29 PM »

Acording to Microsoft:

The /3GB switch allocates 3 GB of virtual address space to an application that uses IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header. This switch allows applications to address 1 GB of
additional virtual address space above 2 GB.

This tiny switch /3GB can do wonders.

The catch: the application must use IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header.

From nettakeaway.

92

General Software Discussion / How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?

« on: February 03, 2009, 02:03 PM »

How much trouble is a 64-bit OS right now?
In my experience (Ubuntu): a lot. You are on your own compiling stuff, in the best case. Or you just don't have some niceties, like flash.
On the other hand, I do need to address 8Gb of memory (or more) so I have to live with it.

I'm considering moving to win 64-bit if there things are more solid.

Anyone with day-to-day experiences? Which flavor of windows would work best on 64-bit?
Should I wait for Win 7 or even use the beta?
How difficult would it be to pimp out Vista 64 so it's not as annoying, and is it worth it at all?

Thanks
PS: I'd also would like to hear from the OSX crowd

93

General Software Discussion / pasting together FF and Thunderbird

« on: February 02, 2009, 03:33 PM »

Is there any way of pasting together FF and Thunderbird?
I want:

• press a shortcut in FF, ctrl M, and open a 'compose message' window in TB
• 'send this page to' in right click
• hide to tray, retrieve from tray for both TB and FF
• ...and all other niceties that you get with Seamonkey

I don't discard that this could be done with global shortcuts in ahk or some combo of plugins... but I'm asking just in case anyone here uses those two and have found a similar solution

Thanks

94

Living Room / should intel concentrate on HD access instead of pumping up CPU Ghz?``

« on: February 01, 2009, 07:32 AM »

Interesting read at joel's

95

Living Room / puzzled by applications that pop up on the taskbar but do not produce a window

« on: January 24, 2009, 01:52 PM »

Sorry, but I'm having one of those days in which you don't even know where to start troubleshooting... I', puzzled by applications that pop up on the taskbar but do not produce a window. This has started recently. I wonder if it's just some nVidia drivers update, or the fact that I'm using an external monitor with weird resolution (Samsung SyncMaster 2345BW, 2048x1152), or what, but things like skype and my beloved rapid environment editor cannot produce a window. They are in the taskbar, but no window to be found.

Any idea how to troubleshoot this? How to even google it?
Thanks!

96

General Software Discussion / Incredibly funny parody of Linux first experiences :)

« on: January 21, 2009, 12:02 PM »

Incredibly funny parody of Linux first experiences

97

General Software Discussion / Awesome article re: organization and notetaking

« on: January 20, 2009, 09:16 AM »

http://chandlerproje...icationPaperOutline2

This must be some classic. I wonder how I have missed it.
If you use a notetaker, have read the long notetaking thread, etc you owe it to yourself to read this one.

98

General Software Discussion / windows 7 beta available for free Jan 9 (!)

« on: January 08, 2009, 10:31 AM »

Here is the announcement.
Will you try it?
I was toying with the idea of installing Server 2008. The fact that this beta will be installed by many people seems like it could improve the final product faster than the standard way of not releasing it free as a beta.

99

Living Room / twitter updates from a desktop application with a global shortcut. Possible?

« on: December 24, 2008, 09:16 AM »

I'm looking for to do twitter updates from a desktop application with a global shortcut. If possible, I'd like to update facebook and linkedIn as well. Global shortcut indispensable. Do you know of any?

Thanks

100

Living Room / 'fit to witdth' feature in opera: any way to replicate it on Firefox?

« on: December 09, 2008, 05:13 PM »

I love the 'fit to witdth' feature in opera: Is there any way to replicate it on Firefox? That, and assignable shortcuts (the extension that gave that superpower to FF died with the upgrade to 3.0) prevent me to use FF seriously.

When I hit a site that doesn't work on Opera (with google, you are bound to; the new gmail displays wrong in Opera, and today I couldn't even log into google groups), I open FF... to close it again when I'm done because of the lack of those features.

Any ideas on how to get these working? Thanks