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Messages - oblivion [ switch to compact view ]

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176
General Software Discussion / Re: Sagelight Image Editor
« on: September 30, 2013, 01:59 AM »
I get more impressed with Sagelight the more I use it. The HDR tools -- which effectively allow you to simulate HDR effects from a single Jpeg -- are quietly impressive, a definite +1 on the noise reduction tools, the Bokeh thing can also produce stunning results and it can use Photoshop-compatible plugins. What's not to like?

I've only recently discovered a workflow that's my current new toy: the undo brush, used in reverse. For instance, increase the saturation of the entire image to a level that you envisage for just (say) a flower, use the undo brush, use the feature within it to fill the entire workspace with the image state before you increased the saturation, then use the brush to remove the undo from the flower: effect, a supersaturated flower against a normal background.

Most "serious" image editors make you think in layers and Sagelight is different: it took me a long time to understand how to work with it and get the sort of results I could see (from the examples on the website) were possible, compared to the other image editors I use. There are still things I wouldn't use it for, but I've reached the point where I won't do ANYTHING with a photo before I've taken it through Sagelight at least once.

I also have no affiliation with the software or its author beyond the normal loyalty you might expect of any happy user. :)

177
Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!
« on: September 09, 2013, 10:25 AM »
No,you have a recent copy. When I get home I will send you the very most recent file, just to be sure...
I really must write more clearly. :)

The copy I'm reading and found a couple of misplaced apostrophes in is the one Amazon delivered to my Kindle. The copy YOU sent me either doesn't respond well to me searching for "it's" or has already been corrected.

178
Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!
« on: September 09, 2013, 09:17 AM »
Thanks, oblivion. Please let me know the chapter and phrase in which they occur. I'll track them down and correct the manuscript, then update the ebook on the various sales channels.
I thought "easy" and then failed to find them in the document on my netbook. But I'm reading the Amazon ebook (my Kindle's more portable than the netbook!) and it occurs to me that might be an older revision...

Sorry -- I may be casting unwarranted nasturtiums ;)

179
Living Room / Re: Sci-fi novel now available from DC member kyrathaba!
« on: September 09, 2013, 08:40 AM »
I spent some time on CreateSpace (and with OpenLibre) and successfully produced a print version of the book with page numbers centered as footer at the bottom of each page.
...I've found a couple of misplaced apostrophes, that I haven't made a note of because I assumed it was beyond further edits... they've both been "it's" where "its" should be. Should I make better notes? ;)

180
Living Room / Re: Kiss Encryption Goodbye... :*
« on: September 06, 2013, 03:07 PM »
apparently GCHQ have a similar project (though given the UK don't seem to be able to set up any government IT systems that aren't obsolete before they get them working I am not losing any sleep).

That's mostly because most of the operational requirements are written by people who (a) are basically naive about what computer systems are capable of, and (b) are desperate to believe any line of BS that a salesman trots out. We'd write them ourselves, I suspect, if it weren't for the fact that real terms investment in the public sector keeps getting p*ssed up the wall by the same people responsible for (a) and (b) above.

Consider: the (UK) NHS National Programme for IT pumped several billion into a series of projects that were defined in terms of what was on the relevant wish lists at the time, not in terms of what was technically achievable. At least one of the systems procured under it went live before agreement about the dataset it was intended to manage and distribute was even agreed. It still works like it's broken and its data -- which should be the freshest, most up-to-date available -- is often inaccurate and sometimes dangerously so.

The UK paid a small fortune for systems that were not fit for purpose, in many cases never went live but somehow the suppliers got paid anyway. That's what we get for putting bloody old Etonians and Arts graduates in charge of Complicated Things. [/rant]

Still, the upside of the money wasted on NPfIT is probably that it couldn't be given to GCHQ instead. ;)

181
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: September 06, 2013, 10:24 AM »
Hmm. I'm not sure what is the cause. Is there any way you can give me an MP3 that has the problem so I can do some testing?

Yes -- please let me know as soon as you have it so I can take it down again! (NB this is now an encrypted zipfile -- I'll PM the password to you as the content is commercial.)

problem file

182
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: September 06, 2013, 04:32 AM »
Great! Let me know how it works for you!  :Thmbsup:
It's been okay, but I've just had something very odd happen...

It MIGHT be because the title tag of the last imported track was formatted as "artist name" + "forward slash" + "title" -- I claim no responsibility for that, it was as whatever online CDDB archive delivered for that CD when I ripped it -- but the upshot is that while the program still seems to be responsive (I've just dragged the file column wider to display the full filename and that worked fine) the Artist and Album columns for that track are displaying garbage and I can't delete that entry, I can't start a new playlist and try again, in fact none of the buttons respond to a keypress (beyond the tiny visual feedback indicating that they've been pressed). I can't even close the program.

Screenshot - 06_09_2013 , 10_20_52.png

I'll forcibly close it and see if I can pin down an exact trigger (assuming the behaviour's repeatable!) and let you know anything I discover...

[later]

Okay, I'm still getting garbage in the artist and album columns, but I'm wrong about what's causing it -- editing the tags in Opus to remove the slashes hasn't helped. All the tracks on the album exhibited something similar... However, the program's working as expected apart from that, now -- I can't replicate the bit where it went mostly unresponsive.

I'll have to drop the file into a tag editor that can show me more detail of the tag info to see if there's something corrupt I can't currently see.

[later still]

I did that, and couldn't see an obvious problem. The tags were v3.2 and looked as you'd expect.

So I rewrote them all anyway: inserted "various" into the album artist tag, cut the artist name out of each title and pasted it -- minus the <space><slash><space> -- into the artist field. Finally renamed the files themselves to <trackname><space><dash><space><trackname>.

If I were the patient sort, I'd have changed one thing at a time until it worked properly. I'm not the patient sort. Sorry. It works as expected now, anyway. Oh, except that I'm getting "various" for the artist, so presumably either you're using the content of the album artist field or the tag editor I used has it backwards. No biggie.

Strikes me that it's most likely that whatever created the tags in the first place (I have no idea but it would probably have been CDex or fre:ac/BonkEnc as it was in 2010 and that's about when I started using things other than CDex) stuffed something up and me rewriting the tags has unstuffed them. Unless it was something to do with the slashes.

[yet later still]

I think it's something to do with fre:ac. That's what I use for MP3 ripping and conversion pretty much all the time now and I've just seen similar behaviour from a track I ripped only a couple of weeks ago. Phooey -- I LIKE fre:ac.


No, it's not that consistent. The more I play, the less I can get an idea of what the problem is. :(

Any ideas about what might be going on? I should think the problems aren't worse than cosmetic -- I still haven't replicated the crash and it's only the (entirely non-controversial) filename that's being written out, after all -- but if the tags, as written by fre:ac, aren't behaving properly I should probably think about ways to identify and then clean up the problem...

183
I thought this was great, so I'm posting it:
 (see attachment in previous post)
That is wonderful :)

The current phrase describing people who care about this stuff appears to be "grammar nazi." The negative connotations for the phrase are clear: this is fanatical geekery and normal people need not care. The above is a beautiful example of just why the textual representation of grammatical niceties is rather more than just the icing on the cake, however!

Back on topic: my mic arrived today. It's an old-fashioned-looking thing I can arrange and angle reasonably easily. It's not studio quality but is a little better than the tiny condenser microphones built into most of the kit most people use. I don't have a studio to work in but a brief experiment "testing, testing, 1,2,3" with a radio playing in the background didn't leave much evidence of background noise in playback. I'm sure I won't achieve perfection but will do my best to be "good enough" :)

Enough already. I still have to finish reading the book. :)

184
Oblivion, care to chime in? (We've been PMing...)
Sorry, I thought I had notify switched on for this thread and ... well, I have now :)

I'm offering to do the audio but I'm not especially experienced in this stuff, so any and all advice will be helpful! (But first, I have to finish reading the book -- which yes, I'm thoroughly enjoying and will review on Amazon when I've finished -- and wait for my shiny new microphone to arrive!)

185
I’d be interested to know if your preference for PowerDesk is just about familiarity, or if it genuinely has acquired functionality or something ergonomic that gives it an edge over the other (increasingly extensive!) non-Microsoft competition.

Familiarity has a lot to do with it and have also tried XYplorer but found it still can't match Powerdesk's View>File Panes function and Drivebar toolbar.
-Midnight Rambler (August 19, 2013, 10:30 AM)
XYPlorer is much better at being pushed around into configurations that suit what you're doing at any given time but it's a lot less user-friendly out of the box. And, rather like Opus, it has a LOT of power and configurability that's available but not easy to get to grips with -- particularly early on -- and I'm still far from comfortable with the scripting language of either. However, it has tabs that are extremely configurable (and can have different settings from each other) and although I'm not sure everyone gets it straight away, there's a tree mode that effectively displays just the places you go. The drivebar was one of the things I missed when I ditched PD but Opus has one just like it and both Opus and XYPlorer have a drives dropdown that's just as functional in lots less precious realestate.

There was a time, with Opus, when the paradigm shift just happened, and I knew I'd got something I could work with. XYPlorer is taking longer to reach that point but I think I'm within sight of the time when the clouds will just suddenly part.

I think, remembering back, when I first used Opus I tried hard to make it look and feel like PowerDesk, because that's what I was used to. My favourites list still has echoes of what it was when I used PD. XYplorer can't easily be made to look and feel like PD -- it has an economy to it that means a lot of things you think you need aren't instantly available (and sometimes turn out to be just eye-candy), but I can easily see that the transition from PD to XY would be difficult and even frustrating.

Reading this back, I suspect you're going to think that I'm trying to convince you to change. I'm not, really -- just reminiscing about the transitions I went through, as much as anything. I DO think that if you decide to jump ship you'll do better with Opus than XY -- because it's less of a culture change -- but I'd also suggest you go here and reconfigure it along the lines suggested before going too far, just because (a) it worked for me, and (b) a lot of ex-PowerDesk users seem to love the approach taken. :)

186
General Software Discussion / Re: Replacing the Control Panel
« on: August 21, 2013, 12:48 PM »
Just to make sure we're on the same page, how did you try launching it in Vista?

From a cmd.exe prompt.

It asked for elevated privileges nicely (via a UAC prompt), opened the Windows Features window, put "Please wait..." in the rectangular area below the descriptive bit of text at the top, and I did as it suggested.

I'm doing it now, in fact. Waiting, that is.

Ooh. I was too impatient this morning. It's populated the window with the stuff I'd expected to see.  :Thmbsup:

You can also try launching it with the following command line:
%windir%\System32\OptionalFeatures.exe
Yes, that works too.

Okay, so for what it's worth, it works in Vista. The "it takes ages to populate the dialog" thing might just be because this machine's a few years old -- and, of course, it's running Vista :)

187
General Software Discussion / Re: Replacing the Control Panel
« on: August 21, 2013, 10:32 AM »
I am not sure what should happened when I run explorer.exe shell:::{67718415-c450-4f3c-bf8a-b487642dc39b} but I used DOPUS as my explorer replacement and it opens my Desktop (I am running Windows XP SP 3).
In Vista, it opened the add/remove windows features applet and then sat for ages trying to populate it. I gave up waiting, so I don't know if it would have got there eventually. I can confirm that it doesn't work right in XP -- I have a suspicion that this may only work correctly in at least Vista and possibly Win7.

188
There's always another way to skin any given cat. :)
Now that you mention it... I get pretty bent out of shape about this... As is really bloody pissed.
Easy, tiger. :)
ALPass does what 99.999% of people need/want.
I thought, here’s one I haven’t heard of, let alone tried. Oo. Roboform plus support and maybe even some integrity. Mm. Lots of yummy features. Excellent.

Then I saw the last line of text on the page.
ALPass requires Internet Explorer. It does not currently support Firefox, Opera, or other alternative web browsers.

Really? Even now?

Is there an emoticon for “disappointed”?  :o

If you lose your ALPass master password, you're hosed. Completely hosed. Toast. Dead. Screwed.

I know people get worried about the cloud, but the same is supposed to be true of Lastpass. Lastpass have Firefox and Chrome versions, I even managed -- after a fashion, and before I finally abandoned it -- to use the published workarounds for Opera. They even have an Android variant -- although that’s outside the things that are available for free, and it wasn’t quite as functional as I’d like.

Keepass (I seem to recall) has a linux variant. For that matter, although we’re all wary of the company behind the product after lots of us (yes, me included) had our lifetime licenses summarily revoked, Roboform’s security and functionality was years ahead of everyone else.

If these products delivered what people wanted, everyone would have them already. Something. Any-bloody-thing. No, what people want is not to have to think about it, and to be able to use PASSWORD123 on every website, banking service, data repository and fire alarm they ever meet or, better yet, nothing at all, and still to be able to complain, loudly and bitterly, that they’ve been let down by IT when their security is breached by some script kiddie with nothing better to do for ten minutes.

THAT is what most people want. Clear text is just madness.

I think, if I’m honest, most people want to feel secure without having to take many actions to ensure their own security. I KNOW I take password security more seriously than almost every normal (ie non-techie, non-geek) person I’ve ever met, and even I have a few frequently-used passwords stored in a CHS database. But there are people (no names, no pack drill) I know who COMPLAIN when their (carefully chosen and configured) DNS service stops them from routing a url via one of the snoopiest websites known to man because it means they can’t always click on a link in an email to a “bargain” new shiny thing.

There IS an overkill issue. Throw enough computer power at any stored, encrypted password and it’ll -- eventually -- be hacked. We tell people this and then that they have to use passwords they’ll struggle to remember and the last bit -- there’s a thing they can use to remember their passwords for them -- doesn’t make them feel that there’s a solution to the problem, it makes them feel like they’re handing over even more control to the technology brigade. And we wonder why people write their passwords down?

189
This isn't really that new, people have been asking for a Master Password feature, (ala Firefox), in Chrome since about 15 minutes after it obtained the ability to store passwords.

Google's response has always been the same: not interested.
So don't let it store passwords at all, and do something with lastpass / roboform / password gorilla / keepass / whatever instead. Or, hell, run your browser from a Truecrypt container.

There's always another way to skin any given cat. :)

190
Still, can't imagine computing without that Powerdesk explorer GUI.
-Midnight Rambler (August 13, 2013, 11:52 AM)
PowerDesk was my first proper Explorer replacement; can't remember what version, but it was before VCom. Ontrack, wasn't it? Anyway, I too really liked it.

Then they (Vcom, that is) broke something and professed absolutely no willingness to mend it again. (It was something important to me but clearly not to them -- might have been .dbf viewing, might have been the synch tool, I can't remember now.) To say their support leaves something to be desired is about the most generous a statement I can imagine.

I played with a variety of desperately inadequate alternatives for a while. Then (cue sound of heavenly choir) I found Directory Opus.

Then, more recently, I found XYPlorer. (I like it quite a bit more than Opus for portable use, although the learning curve is perhaps a bit steeper, and I’d had it for quite a while before I started discovering its true power.)

Both of those two are so much better than Windows Explorer it'd make your head spin. And I don't even remember why I was so impressed with PowerDesk anymore, back in the day.

I’m completely aware that YMMV applies here in spades :) but I’d be interested to know if your preference for PowerDesk is just about familiarity, or if it genuinely has acquired functionality or something ergonomic that gives it an edge over the other (increasingly extensive!) non-Microsoft competition.

(And it’s okay if it seems stupid but marvellously great -- like, I think the ability to double-click on the desktop to open an Opus lister is a tiny bit brilliant, for instance!)

191
General Software Discussion / Re: Replacing the Control Panel
« on: August 19, 2013, 02:08 AM »
What are some simple command lines that would be good to have handy to have available on a basic system menu?
Have read all this with a combination of amused fascination and horror. You, sir, are a brave man. :)

Is chkdsk <driveletter> /f worth including?

Something I'd find useful -- a way to get at some of the control panel stuff when the logged-in user is restricted but I have an admin password I can run stuff as.

In these situations, I generally do runas /user:<whatever> cmd.exe and then try to remember which of the .cpls do what (control.exe whatever.cpl) since they're almost completely impossible to identify function from name. (If you don't already know, you'll never guess what main.cpl is for!) So something along the lines of what you're doing I could run from a stick and that I could fire an admin account at without having to log the user off -- now that'd be really useful :)

192
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: August 06, 2013, 04:56 PM »
I have the update available. You can now open .m3u8 files though it will not know the artist or album since there is no direct location for the files.

http://cl.ly/422W24212u3e
Brilliant -- thanks!

Too busy myself to do much testing for the next day or so, but I'm sure it'll be fine -- many thanks again!

193
Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post
« on: August 06, 2013, 08:14 AM »
Aw, shucks  :-[

194
Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post
« on: August 06, 2013, 06:05 AM »
oblivion/Tim @ 300:
Thanks  :-[ I seem to be doing my best to fail to notice all my own milestones :)

And of course Ath, not only numerically, makes my contributions fade into the background :)

195
Hi Oblivion!
Try using a coma (","), it should work.

Aha. I was experimenting with semicolons. Thanks!

196
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: August 06, 2013, 05:24 AM »
I can make it auto-refresh the drive list, but removing the drive letter from one and not the other when selected might not be so easy. I may just have to show a warning if both are set to the same letter. I'll see what I can do and should have something tomorrow.
OK, thanks!

I might be stretching things a little here but do you think the possibility of editing an existing playlist might be do-able? It's probably too much to sanity-check it (ie is it referring to files that actually exist, given that it'd be necessary to go backwards from replacements to drive letters before checking the files' existence) but the ability to reorder, reshuffle, delete lines or add new files would be a useful enhancement...

I completely get that I'm pushing the envelope from what I originally asked for. You know how it is, once you get something that works, the feeping creatures start looking round the corners at you :)

197
I found this little gem yesterday and have found a couple of issues.

The "which windows..." entry in the options allows newlines but doesn't interpret them as separators, with the effect that the ini can get populated with entries that can't be interpreted. It's not clear what the separator should be, either.

Trivial: on the "rules" tab, "Height" is misspelled.

198
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: August 05, 2013, 04:12 PM »
Also, the app doesn't appear to process Unicode paths but I'm uncertain if that's important to Tim or not.
Not right now, anyway :) I daresay there will come a time when it does matter, but it's certainly not important to me now.

199
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: August 05, 2013, 04:09 PM »
I have updated to include dropping of folders (including sub-folders) and fixed the crashing bug.

http://cl.ly/083C1i3u2i0k

Thanks! That's pretty awesome :)

A couple of things, though: there should probably be some logic that prevents the same drive letter being mapped twice, to different things. (Maybe the available list of drives in the second box should exclude the current selection in the first box, and vice versa? Does that get painfully self-referential?) Also -- and this is probably unnecessary but I noticed it while testing -- the program clearly only makes a list of available drive letters at startup and any more that become available while the program's running don't get picked up.

In general, though: marvellous! Thanks! This will make an irritating job SO much easier!

200
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: M3U8 playlists
« on: August 05, 2013, 09:34 AM »
Ok. I'm on it... Here is a screen shot so far. :-)
That looks stunning already :)

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