Messages

826

General Software Discussion / Re: Office suite for my mom?

« on: December 31, 2007, 03:18 PM »

Why not go with something like Zoho:
http://www.zoho.com/

-Veign (December 31, 2007, 03:16 PM)

I don't know anything about it. Can you contrast it with the others that I mentioned? (I can't get to their web page from here; our evil proxy server blocks the site)

827

General Software Discussion / Office suite for my mom?

« on: December 31, 2007, 03:12 PM »

I know the question of "software that my mom can use" is cliche, but it's actually what I need to find. My mom just got a new computer for Christmas, and was disappointed not to find any software on it (I think she's lucky to have avoided all the crap on a typical new computer  )

Anyway, I need to set her up with an office suite. Here are the options that I see:

• Microsoft Office - just costs too much for her, not a feasible candidate
• Corel WordPerfect Office Ver. X3 - I happen to have a couple of NFR copies of this
• Open Office
• Star Office - I think largely the same thing as OO but with addons, so probably preferable
• IBM Lotus Symphony
• Softmaker/Ashampoo - http://www.softmaker...m/english/ofw_en.htm

She needs this both for her presentation (a minister, meaning she'll be writing sermons and maybe making small presentations to groups), as well as her studies (for a Doctor of Divinity, needing to write grad-student quality papers, do presentations for class, including some light charting). She's not a very sophisticated computer user at all; for anything but the most basic operations, she'll find the answer (usually by calling me*), and write down the sequence of menu options so she can do it again later.

(* calling me won't work on anything since MS Office, which I've already eliminated, so ease of use is probably a pretty important factor)

Would anyone like to offer opinions as to which choices would be better or worse?

Edit: add Softmaker to list

828

Living Room / Re: Technology Myths

« on: December 31, 2007, 09:54 AM »

I think Sun's lawsuit was pretty hypocritical, since Java has had JNI for ages. What exactly did Microsoft do wrong, apart from having a JVM that was perhaps three times faster than Sun's own?

-f0dder (December 31, 2007, 09:40 AM)

MS's native interface was different from the "official" Java interface. And if you're going to be non-portable, you'd better do it in a compatible way! ...or something...

with dotNET and similar, the class libraries are a much bigger part of the language than the language itself

-f0dder (December 31, 2007, 09:40 AM)

There's certainly a kernel of truth to this. When interviewing for C# developers I've been satisfied with VB.Net experience instead. However, this is becoming less true these days; C# is definitely following the high-tech cutting-edge path, with VB.Net trying the demographics of the original VB. And you won't find me doing C++ development in .Net; I've had enough C++ headaches in my life, thank you.

Dunno if borland/inprise/codegear/whatever java IDE is nice, last I checked it was written in java and was sluggish as hell.

-f0dder (December 31, 2007, 09:40 AM)

Is there a bug in the forum software? This chunk above popped up when I did clicked the Quote link, but I don't see it in your actual message!? 

Edit: it's showing up now. But really, this last paragraph wasn't initially output with your message. Did you go back to add it later?

829

Living Room / Re: Technology Myths

« on: December 31, 2007, 09:23 AM »

I though Visual J++ was discontinued and the last version of it was back from Visual Studio 6?

-f0dder (December 31, 2007, 09:04 AM)

Yes, that is correct. That was the result of the big lawsuit where Sun sued Microsoft because they didn't like MS's "perversion" of Java to give it better access to the Windows API.

However, there is still "J#" on the .Net platform. I'm not sure how MS gets past the Java zealot lawsuits here; maybe they just never claim to be Java, they just happen to be compatible?

Anyway, although I haven't used J#, I'm pretty sure that as a .Net language it will enjoy the same visual programming interface that C# or VB.Net get.

Doesn't Borland (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) have a pretty nice Java IDE as well?

830

General Software Discussion / Re: Prioritizing blog reading

« on: December 31, 2007, 08:17 AM »

Thanks for the suggestions. Of these two:

• Snarfware - this looks like a pretty cool application, but I can't see anywhere on their web site that claims to prioritize articles.
• AideRSS - this looks interesting. Rather than using a Bayesian algorithm based on my own ratings, it looks like it's making suggestions based on popularity amongst all of its users. I have some reservation about this because it probably assumes implicitly that my own particular breed of insanity can be matched by any broad popularity contest.

So I think that AideRSS isn't exactly what I'm looking for, but definitely worth keeping on my short list.

831

Find And Run Robot / Re: [bug report] 'Switch from Large to Small Icons on Dirlist' display problem

« on: December 28, 2007, 02:53 PM »

You mean here?

-katykaty (December 28, 2007, 02:50 PM)

Yup, that's the one.

Nope, the max entries option doesn't make a difference - even if the number of results are well below the max entries figure the last one still gets clipped off.

-katykaty (December 28, 2007, 02:50 PM)

Yes, the last one gets clipped. But if you want to see 9, then just specify 10. You'll get to see the 9 you wanted (plus a sliver).

832

Find And Run Robot / Re: [bug report] 'Switch from Large to Small Icons on Dirlist' display problem

« on: December 28, 2007, 02:40 PM »

This sounds the same as the bug I reported several days ago. If so, font choice (or style) has no effect, neither does the skin. The same thing happens in all cases. Also, increasing "Result Height" has no effect -- the items get farther apart, but it doesn't bring the clipped bottom one into view.

For now, the workaround is to increment "max entries to display in normal results list" to one more than you really want to see 

833

Living Room / Re: Power and Ports - The Ever Diminishing Resources in My Office!

« on: December 28, 2007, 01:18 PM »

I guess I could install a PCI card - I just need to get some more detailed specs for the mobo so I know exactly where to power it from.

-J-Mac (December 28, 2007, 11:00 AM)

The bus carries the power for most PCI cards (except some really power-hungry video cards, afaik), so you don't need to worry about that. I had to add an additional card myself, with both USB and firewire for video. Just plug it into the slot and go.

3D sound: adding "texturing" and doppler (and other) effects, 3D aural positioning, etc.

-f0dder (December 28, 2007, 06:21 AM)

This is a pet peeve of mine. There is nothing "3D" about this. There's isn't even anything 3D about 5.1 surround sound on your entertainment center. The whole 3D sound thing is a marketing gimmick.

Think about it: what does 3D mean? It's short for "3 dimensional", i.e., having three dimensions. These dimensions are commonly referred to as width, depth, and height.

Now, what dimensions does your 3D sound card, or your entertainment center offer? It has stereo sound, that is, left-right, which corresponds to the width dimension. It has surround, i.e., front-back, corresponding to depth. But nowhere, not out of your fancy DVD player and amplifier, nor out of your EAX processor, will you find any indication of height. This is just fine with me, but I resent that marketing is so clearly false in what's being promised.

Returning from my brief thread hijacking -- I do appreciate the need for power transformer boxes in order to reduce desktop clutter and keep the device itself cooler. However, I really hate those "wall wart" boxes that have the plugs built-in, occupying three outlets by overlapping one one each side. It would work out better if, like most laptop computers, there were cords coming out both sides of the transformer.

Not all USB hubs need to be powered. It depends on what you plan to plug into them. Something like a flash drive takes little enough power that it can run off what was supplied by the host. However, some devices take so much power that some cheap USB ports can't supply them adequately (e.g., my Dell Axim PDA draws as much as 1.2A when the USB spec only requires that it be given 0.5A, which is a real crime).

834

General Software Discussion / Prioritizing blog reading

« on: December 28, 2007, 08:26 AM »

I just finished my couple-of-times-per-year pruning of my blog reading list. You can only read so much, so you’ve got to trim the fat.

I’m fishing for recommendations for a new RSS reader. There is one critical feature that I’ve been unable to find in any reader other than the one I’m using, but its developer has been MIA for 1.5 years, and the world has been evolving and bugs haven’t been fixed.

I have yet to find any other browser besides wTicker that features prioritization of articles, in this case by Bayesian filtering. Its “river of news” is sorted according to what it expects I’ll be most interested in, and it only shows me articles that score at least 70%.  With this, I can subscribe to more blogs that might have interesting content, and only get that content put in front of me when it jives with my reading habits.

I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a replacement reader for some time. Many RSS readers claim that they’re smart in showing you important posts, but really offer nothing more sophisticated than scanning for watch words that you’ve manually entered, or setting whole channels to be "high-priority" (e.g., Newzie). There's one app under development that had been mentioned here some time back, Particls, at www.particls.com, whose raison d’etre is smart filtering, but it doesn’t offer a normal reader interface, just a ticker-sort of thing.

So I submit to you:

• This seems such an obvious feature, why isn't anyone else doing this?
• How do you "optimize" your blog reading time?
• Is there anything out there that meets my needs?

835

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: free to get EverNote Portable: 48 hours, 27-28 Dec

« on: December 27, 2007, 12:06 PM »

It may be worth noting that the full EverNote application is available for $20 during their holiday promo (versus $50). The portable version is missing some features, I believe the synchronization and the image/handwriting indexing.

Holiday promo page here: http://www.evernote....oads/holidaysale.php

836

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Is there a main page for plugin downloads?

« on: December 21, 2007, 11:47 AM »

Or, if you install DCUpdater (https://www.donation...r/Updater/index.html), you can both find and download them from there, and keep the software up-to-date automatically.

837

Developer's Corner / Re: .Net Questions

« on: December 21, 2007, 10:07 AM »

And .NET Framework is not included at all in Windows XP SP2.

-Lashiec (December 21, 2007, 09:58 AM)

I stand corrected. It was not part of the service pack itself; however, if you have the SP2 disc, it is included:

Nope - it doesn't get installed. It's one of the options under "Perform Additional Tasks" on the autorun window.

I think it only gets installed by default on the Media Center edition of XP (not sure about Tablet).
http://weblogs.asp.n...04/08/25/220445.aspx

Moving forward, it is being put onto the newer OSes:

The .NET Framework is included with Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista
http://en.wikipedia..../wiki/.NET_Framework

838

General Software Discussion / Re: How many of you use encryption?

« on: December 21, 2007, 09:42 AM »

There is very little stored data that I bother to encrypt; most of it is "safe enough" sitting in my computer in a locked house, needing a password to log in. Anything that's really private goes into TrueCrypt, which seems to me to be better thought-out than others (e.g., it's plausible deniability features).

For just a couple of files on my PocketPC, I use CryptoStorage (http://www.sinantech.com/products.htm), which is the same kind of volume container thing. The software is great, their customer support is non-existent, as far as I can see.

I would use encryption on my email just on general principles, but the network effect hobbles this -- very few people actually have the software to do this, or even to understand what's going on.

Don't forget that the other side of encryption's coin is digital signatures. I have used this many times in communicating with clients. I don't care if they can't verify the signature themselves; the fact that it's there at all would allow me to prove the accuracy of my story in court (should the need ever arise; it never has).

839

Developer's Corner / Re: .Net Questions

« on: December 21, 2007, 09:26 AM »

Today software industry is geared towards distributed and cross platform application

-arunpawar (December 21, 2007, 04:11 AM)

I strongly disagree with this statement. It sounds like you've been drinking the Linux-zealot kool-aid again. Very little commercial software development is actually cross platform, especially any "relevant" software; Adobe's products are about all I can think of.

But in any case, there are actually 3rd party version of .Net (Mono and DotGNU come to mind) that allow most fully-managed .Net applications to run on a variety of platforms.

Why Microsoft is giving away their IDE's as Free?

-arunpawar (December 21, 2007, 04:11 AM)

Microsoft has always catered to developers, or at least tried to (they haven't always been successful, e.g., the TestDriven.Net fiasco); I imagine you can find a video of Steve Ballmer's "Developers" explosion on YouTube. A million years ago their developer products were cheap and easy to license; now that there are decent freeware alternatives, Microsoft continues to lower the bar to entry into Windows development.

Their philosophy is that people use Windows to run applications; the more applications there are, of higher quality, the more likely people are to stick with Windows. So they do everything they can to encourage developers to build Windows apps.

This runtime environment looks like copy of Java's Runtime environement,is it so?

-arunpawar (December 21, 2007, 04:11 AM)

No, it's not a copy, but it can't be denied that Java was a significant influence on it. It's hardly surprising that they'd be similar, since most of their goals were similar.

So if we create simple utility like todo lists or thesaurus program then even we have to force our users to download the runtime environment on there system?

-arunpawar (December 21, 2007, 04:11 AM)

MS is trying to ensure that .Net runtime is installed on user's computers. It's included with XPsp2, and it's a recommended install from Windows Update. It should turn out to be a similar situation to the VB runtime, or MSVCRT. The one notable difference, of course, is that including the runtime in your VB app was trivial; doing so in a .Net app is a big deal because of the size of the thing, as well as the difficulty of installing it.

Please let me know what you think? I've these questions as i'm doing job search as programmer,i need to know where some future stands for programming language before taking decision as programmer to choose a perticular language

-arunpawar (December 21, 2007, 04:11 AM)

I wouldn't worry too much about the specific language, but do worry about the language family. When I'm hiring a C# developer, I don't care too much if most of your experience is Java. They are both OO languages syntactically deriving from C, with GC memory management; much of the way you think about programming is the same in both languages.

840

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.107.04 beta - Sep 23, 2012

« on: December 20, 2007, 12:24 PM »

@CWuestefeld: Could you check whether this problems also appears with other skins or only with slenderFARR?

-rbeeger (December 20, 2007, 12:17 PM)

Yes, this is happening in all skins. I changed my font settings from bold to regular, but that does not seem to affect the behavior at all.

841

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR Release v2.107.04 beta - Sep 23, 2012

« on: December 19, 2007, 01:40 PM »

Problem report:
The dropdown windows listing the matches consistently comes up several pixels too short.
[ Invalid Attachment ]

I have normal font size specified in my display settings.

842

Living Room / Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

« on: December 18, 2007, 10:03 AM »

Incredibly fascinating yet vaguely scary science headline:

Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)

It has been 50 years since scientists first created DNA in a test tube, stitching ordinary chemical ingredients together to make life's most extraordinary molecule.

Until recently, however, even the most sophisticated laboratories could make only small snippets of DNA -- an extra gene or two to be inserted into corn plants, for example, to help the plants ward off insects or tolerate drought.

Now researchers are poised to cross a dramatic barrier: the creation of life forms driven by completely artificial DNA. Scientists in Maryland have already built the world's first entirely handcrafted chromosome -- a large looping strand of DNA made from scratch in a laboratory, containing all the instructions a microbe needs to live and reproduce.

To read more: http://www.washingto...AR2007121601900.html

843

Find And Run Robot / Re: Web searches and history suggestions

« on: December 14, 2007, 09:18 PM »

I just checked my home machine (which, as I mentioned, was installed from the same installer). This machine running XPsp2 does have the myaliases.alias file.

One concludes that it's either that I broke something and forgot having done it, or there's something amiss in handling the 64-bit OS "Program Files (x86)" directory.

844

Find And Run Robot / Re: Web searches and history suggestions

« on: December 14, 2007, 09:20 AM »

This is on Windows Server 2003 64-bit. I did not check my home machine to see if the same thing happened (it's XP, but installed from the exact same installer).

Don't forget the possibility that I accidentally broke this myself, immediately after setting up, while poking around figuring stuff out. I don't recall doing so, but then I'm getting old...

845

Living Room / Re: Greetings from Costa Rica

« on: December 14, 2007, 09:12 AM »

Where are you in Costa Rica? My wife and I spent a week there back in '04, so you might remember us 

We spent 3 days at the base of the Arenal volcano. But it rained the whole time, and we never got to even see the peak through the clouds. Adding insult, our plane had arrived late; if we'd been in time, we would have seen the nice eruption that afternoon (before the clouds came in).

The rest of the time we spent on a beach on the Pacific Coast (I forget the name of the town).

846

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Aliases for tracking packages

« on: December 14, 2007, 09:02 AM »

It's Christmas time, and that means tracking package deliveries!

To simplify this, here's my donation to FARR: a small set of aliases to launch the page showing your package tracking information from major shipping companies (obviously you need your shipping number for this).

Aliases supported:

• usps (US Postal Service)
• fedex
• ups
• UPS tracking number - if you just enter a UPS tracking number starting with "1Z", that alone will trigger UPS tracking

The .alias file is attached.

Merry Christmas!




NOTE: Download the latest version of this alias pack with icons here:
https://www.donation...drun/addons/Shipment Tracking.zip

847

Find And Run Robot / Re: Web searches and history suggestions

« on: December 14, 2007, 08:51 AM »

you should definitely have already had myaliases.alias in the MyCustom\ subdirectory

-mouser (December 14, 2007, 08:45 AM)

Nope, I had no such file. The directory did exist, but it was empty.

848

Find And Run Robot / Re: Web searches and history suggestions

« on: December 14, 2007, 08:38 AM »

you can easily add new searches to your "myaliases.alias" file

-mouser (December 13, 2007, 02:41 PM)

Well, not so easily, although I did manage after some fiddling. The sticking point -- and the reason that I didn't see the possibility right away -- is that I don't have a "myaliases.alias" file (so I copied one of the provided ones, and removed the aliases from it).

Is this a bug in the installer?

849

Find And Run Robot / Web searches and history suggestions

« on: December 13, 2007, 02:28 PM »

I've got a couple of suggestions to offer.

1. History with plugin usage. As far as I can see, the only stuff retained in the history (or at least displayed in the list when the search text is empty) is programs I've launched. It doesn't seem to remember, for example, the search that I just did: "define milliard". When I entered this, I chose AskOxford, so I would have expected that to appear in my history list.

2. Web searches. You've got a bunch of web searches built in, like IMDB, wikipedia, and all the dictionary sites. Is there a way I can define my own? I can think of a bunch I'd like to see (thomas.loc.gov, Microsoft knowledgebase, maybe the MSDN docs or SQL Server books online).

3. Hide on lost focus. As a recent Launchy convert, I keep expecting FARR to go away if I select another window. Could there be an option telling it to hide itself if it loses focus?

3 suggestions? Does 3 count as "a couple"? 

850

Living Room / Re: "B_R_E_A_K___O_N_E_-_N_I_N_E_!"... Calling all Truckers!

« on: December 12, 2007, 10:23 AM »

I once drove a rig.

It was back in college, when I worked at the Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream factory (sometime when I'm not hijacking someone else's thread, I'll tell the story of the time I was buried knee-deep in pistachio ice cream). One of the jobs I held there was loading the outgoing trucks. We needed to get a now-full trailer out of the way to make room for the next one to fill. Which gets me to the time I drove an 18-wheeler.

The boss asked another worker to move the truck. I asked if I can come along. When we got to the truck, I asked the other guy if I could try moving it, and he said OK. He showed me how the shifter works, and off we went, clear over to the other side of the parking lot. I drove that truck a good hundred yards, but I don't think I ever got out of 1st gear, or turned the steering wheel at all.

BTW, what's the right terminology: rig, truck, 18-wheeler, etc.?