Messages

51

Living Room / Re: What's your experience with 3rd party color inkjet ink replacement?

« on: September 09, 2011, 09:37 PM »

Cool.  What I find amazing to me, though, is how often even the cheapest printers will last if properly maintained.  More often than not, the only reason I ditched a printer was because it was old, not supported, and had no drivers for the newer OS's.  Everything else writes to a minimum generic driver, why can't printers?

52

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: MacUpdate Bundle 90% Discount

« on: September 09, 2011, 07:29 PM »

IF I had a Mac, I would use every one of those to some degree or another.  Definitely worth it for anyone with a Mac and not those software titles (or equivalents in many cases).  Me, I am happy on my Window/Linux machines.  Now I just have to get my primary machine up and running again.

53

General Software Discussion / Re: custom reminder

« on: September 09, 2011, 07:05 PM »

What do you use now to track this info?  If, for example, you use Outlook you might want to see if anyone makes any calendar add-ons that allow you to do day+x or day-x appointments/reminders.  Don't know if that exists, as I don't use Outlook right now, but I know they have something similar in Lotus Notes that we use at work, so I can't imagine it doesn't exist.  Of course it doesn't mean it will be easy to find either...

Thunderbird/Lightning doesn't have anything to do this that I know of, but I do know that is extensible, so maybe that is another option.  You can even ask the Lightning developer(s) to see if they might be able to point you in the right direction.

54

General Software Discussion / Re: Building Windows 8: I need longer arms!

« on: September 09, 2011, 06:05 PM »

I too have high hopes and truly hope rgdot is right - that is will just be window dressing that can be turned off.  Microsoft has a habit of trying to force things on users lately (just like Apple), pushing their vision of Touch everywhere.  I do see Touch as an important thing - no argument there - but it doesn't have to be enabled everywhere.  And where it isn't enabled, it shouldn't force me to give up real estate to finger-sized icons forcing me to go to multiple screens, which in turn more or less force touch interface.  It actually relegates the mouse/keyboard to a secondary input device rather than primary.

Don't get me wrong, like I said before, I generally like Microsoft products and I hope this is just them showing off what is new rather than showing what it is.  I just don't hold out high hopes for that.  The ribbon interface was proof that they are willing to trash user preference (again like Apple).  As for Windows H8; remember XP, the most loved version of Windows to date started as the "bad" OS where Windows 98 ruled the desktop and Windows 2000 ruled the server room.  Both of those were considered the best OS of their time, and XP was the "down" one (OK, there was ME on the desktop side, but nothing after 2000).  Also, Vista was SO MUCH a disaster - that sting is still raw in Microsoft's mind.  I think 8 will be generally good for it's target market (Tablets).  I am just concerned they will try to shoehorn it onto other platforms beyond it's target...aka Desktop/Laptop.

55

Living Room / Re: 10 Steps To Make A Sale

« on: September 08, 2011, 11:50 PM »

If you say your going to find something out for them...and they really want to know the answer...why not just find out?  Seems perfectly logical to me!

-Stephen66515 (September 08, 2011, 09:12 PM)

Amen.  I never really considered myself a very good salesman, though I did my time in that gig, and when I told someone I would find something out, I ALWAYS followed up.  The reason was I was curious to know the answer in case the question ever came up again.  After that, contacting them again was the easy part.  That is why I have always assumed if they don't follow-up with me, they really don't care about my business.  

The problem is getting worse, too.  This year alone I can point to two specific circumstances where I kept getting the "I will call you xxxx" and never get the call.  These are not little commissions either.  In one case, the guy said he is always so busy he sometimes forgets; so at least that one was understandable - once.  However, in both cases I have ALWAYS had to initiate the call.  Unfortunately both were under contract, so I couldn't JUST backout.  One was for a roof repair and the other is to sell the same house.  The roof repair was an insurance claim that was very slow to respond and even slower to call back.  The insurance claim named them the contractor, however, and it was more difficult to try to change that then to just deal with the issue.  Hey, they spec'd the job, if there was more damage because they didn't bother to call/fix it, then they get to eat the additional costs.  The realtor will NOT be getting his commission though!  He may have the best record for sales in the area, but I just got foreclosed on (it was a rental since it couldn't sell anyway - no real loss, other than a few years worth of payments).  Moreover, his record will definitely show a blemish if anyone bothers to contact me about it.  Then again, no one really looks at that either...these companies never really make them public, and the salesmen definitely won't!

56

Developer's Corner / Re: Looking for Browser Add-in/Plug-in/Extension Plaforms - Advice?

« on: September 08, 2011, 11:28 PM »

I want to say there are some things for out-of-browser apps that are essentially what you are looking for, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head.  There are out of browser apps that I have seen, but from a developer side....Off to Google....

And the verdict is....

That's where I heard about it!  Silverlight.  That was it's whole point - to be Flash + Adobe AIR but better.  Well in Microsoft's eyes, anyway.  Though I do believe there were some independent confirmations that it was technically better, both in richness and performance.  Unfortunately it looks like they *MAY* be abandoning it by and large.  Still, it may give you another direction to continue your search...

57

General Software Discussion / Re: Building Windows 8: I need longer arms!

« on: September 08, 2011, 11:24 PM »

I am trying really hard to reserve judgement, but really, how bad do they want to follow Apple when they try to turn everything into an iProduct?  Touch everything?!?  I don't get it.  The one thing I do note, however, that makes me think it is likely to either be a big fail or a me too, is that they are STILL trying to make a single platform for all uses.  That is why Apple won the tablet market they were trying for yeaarrrssss prior to generate.  Apple IOS may be a pared down version of OSX, but it is still NOT OSX.  It is it's own platform.  If Microsoft will let go of the "One platform to rule them all!" attitude, they *might* be able to start making headway again.  Heck, they dumped it for the XBox and look how successful that turned out.  Maybe not clear and away winner, but certainly a worthy rival to the Playstation and generally considered better than the Wii.  And based on an OS that was made for an MP3 player!  The only thing I see coming from this if it stays as we see on the first looks is they will alienate their base without having the user-base to tackle Apple's biggest stronghold - the mobile phone/tablet market.

If you own stock in Microsoft, watch this OS VERY carefully.  It will either be a dud that will propel Microsoft onto the ash-heap of history, or keep them viable for the next release.  Either way, it doesn't have what it takes (yet anyway) to propel it the way XP & 7 have.  At best it will be to 7 what XP was to Windows 2000.  

P.S.  I really do like most Microsoft products, so I really hope I am wrong here.  It really is too early to tell, but that is my gut instinct from what they have shown so far.

58

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« on: September 08, 2011, 06:31 PM »

Hi superboy, have u checked the pricing on 2TB SAS drives? I think that's one important step before you commit to buying that big box.

-lotusrootstarch (September 08, 2011, 05:33 PM)

Agreed, but one good point of this route is it IS backward compatible with SATA.  I don't know how WELL it is compatible, but they will work with drives at least.

I will absolutely not consider USB as the connection, nor will I consider firewire.  I like esata very much.  I'm hoping there's a better way with some kind of card that plugs into a PCI bus or something.

-superboyac (September 08, 2011, 11:51 AM)

I don't *think* anyone ever suggested USB or firewire.  I wouldn't consider anything less than esata, I know I wouldn't suggest it unless it were *MAYBE* USB3.0, and not even likely then.  As for DAS, I believe you are right in that being something very close to what you want.  I believe most DAS solutions provide a proprietary card that connects their solution to the machine making it essentially appear as another internal drive controller.  However, I have never really researched them or even know much about them so I can't guarantee that statement.  Also, I don't know that any of them allow you to build your own out of your own box such as that. 

If you really want to roll your own SAN, there is a way to do it.  It will take a lot of time to get setup but you can do it in any form you desire.  You may even be able to build a DAS on it, I don't know.  It is using OpenFiler - a sourceforge project IIRC.  Don't know how responsive it would be compared to one you can just buy, but it is always an option if you really want to become a storage expert 

On the other hand, a really nice (if somewhat expensive and otherwise potentially limited option) would be buying something like a Drobo.  They have pretty much everything from a basic 2 disk NAS up to a 24 disk rack mount SAN.  Many have multiple setup options.  I think it is probably the easiest, most elegant storage solution for SMB's in general, but that elegance doesn't come cheap, and may not be the most efficient system (performance-wise) out there.

59

Living Room / Re: Six Levels of Apple Fandom

« on: September 08, 2011, 06:07 PM »

but I'll probably attempt setting up a PIRATED OS X in vmware with a PIRATED XCODE (yeah, fsck you, crApple!) and see if I can do a little development fun.

-f0dder (September 08, 2011, 05:13 PM)

I've been wanting to do this for a while, but didn't have a machine to run it on.  My most recent machine just decided to go *POP* and now I got to buy a new MB, which means a new processor, which means, awe he double hockey-sticks, it means a new PC.     Putting it off for now though, need cash first, and have an old laptop that will work for now.

60

Living Room / Re: 10 Steps To Make A Sale

« on: September 08, 2011, 05:32 PM »

A few keys are missing in my opinion.  First, in steps 3, 5, & 7; you really need to consider how SLOW you may be going too.  I can't tell you how many times I was ready to buy something and had to wait until the seller got around to actually LETTING me buy.  It is/was unbelieveable.  And to vlastimil, this is even MORE important.  I have gone to one investment site more than once looking to buy an advisory to find out it is Stanberry & Associates.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I am not waiting for 45 minutes for them to drone on in their video to buy their advisory.  They spend no less than 45 minutes telling me teasers that never say anything other than other people think it is great.  Well awesome, but since you won't let me in without listening to your 45 minutes of drivel then I will never know!  (I actually let it run once while I went into another room to watch TV so I found out it was about that long!)

Secondly, in Step 6, the last bit of advice is great, but follow through!  You wouldn't believe (well actually you probably would) how many times the salesman says he will get back to me on that and doesn't.  First, they often want to close before they get back to you (a big no-no if you ask me) and second, they don't follow through.  I know I had a rep do that to me from AT&T when I bought my iPhone.  Fine, I went back to the store, found the rep and asked the rep next to them.  I then proceeded to buy it from the person who answered the question.  If you can't bother with me, I won't bother with you, ever again!

61

General Software Discussion / Re: insightful post on gui design, and why it can be faster than the command line

« on: September 08, 2011, 10:07 AM »

Great points, and I don't disagree.  Truly, in my experience, ANY GUI is just a CLI wrapper anyway.  There is no such thing as an interface doing something, it is just buttons, sliders, etc, that pass commands and/or arguments to a CLI interpreter to do the work anyway.  At least that is the perspective I was coming from.  That doesn't make GUI scriptable or schedulable (necessarily) but it does make it easier to use.  CLI is ALWAYS scriptable or schedulable, at least to a certain extent, whereas GUI programs need to provide object/method documentation before they can be scripted or scheduled.  While this *should* be trivial (if time consuming), few GUI programs actually go that far, and it is unfortunate.

I hope it was obvious, but the productivity gains I spoke of in the previous post only referred to interactive programs.  If you are doing repetative work, a script and scheduler make you orders of magnitude more productive, if for no other reason than you don't ever have to do that again unless/until the script breaks/fails.

62

General Software Discussion / Re: insightful post on gui design, and why it can be faster than the command line

« on: September 07, 2011, 09:16 PM »

I would bet you are right Oshyan.  I find a well defined and built GUI MUCH more productive than the command line, but due to unimplemented features for whatever reason, the command line tends to be more flexible/powerful.  This combination gives it it's only productivity boost over GUI in my opinion and that assumes you know all the commands, switches, etc.

If I were to guess based on my experience and totally partial testing , I would say the GUI would win hands down as long as it is properly designed with all the same commands, switches, etc AND implemented with any/all common input methods available.  That means keyboard shortcuts as well as mouse interactions, and maybe even lightpen and/or touchscreen depending on the application and it's intended target platform(s).  It really is hard to compete with a button push using a mouse vs. a 25 character string....

63

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor: Improved Arrows

« on: September 07, 2011, 07:10 PM »

Oh, yeah!

64

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« on: September 07, 2011, 07:08 PM »

A few things to consider when going for an ESXi server configuration for purposes beyond file storage, esp. in the multimedia area:...

-lotusrootstarch (September 04, 2011, 07:58 PM)

WRT ESXi, I only meant it for whatever "server" machine was actually used and only for this machine that is already created.  My suggestion would be to start with a VM in Workstation, for example, to get it all working virtually first.  That said, I did know about a lot of these things, so I will address a few of them, but it is good to point them out.

1. Performance - Yes, it can be hit or miss, but unless you are KILLING the machine, in a home environment these shouldn't be an issue.  I can't imagine throttling a single VM for ANY resources as it wouldn't make any sense.

2. Hardware limits - True, but again, in this particular environment it wouldn't need to be anything more.  If it turned out it did, there are other routes to go (Like V2P).

3. Graphic Card Acceleration - True.  I forgot that may end up playing a big part of any Multimedia setup.  This could be a deal breaker for permanent setup, but you can alway V2P back once everything is setup.

4. USB Pass-through et. al. - I am not sure why you would think this to be the route to take with ANY server.  It was already mentioned that the right way to handle this would be to pull/push the data from the server to do intensive multimedia manipulation on his regular machine.  This takes the USB and Blu-Ray issues out of the picture.

The lab environment doesn't give any indication of many things, but it does help to determine what he would want to look at for actual hardware.  If it works out to be a multibox setup, you can figure out how to do so.  If it were just to determine what software is needed, again it works.  Even network issues can be found this way, though that can be (read usually is) difficult to determine and I am not sure if it carries over outside of the paid versions of ESXi.  I only pointed out a great way to create a proof of concept, and if it works well in the PoC, then you can move it wholesale to another machine as is.  If not, you have options, including a V2P if performance is the only issue and you are inclined to believe that it is due to the virtualization.  It is really just a cheap way to figure out what's what.

Steeladept!!! Come up here and take a bow!

Before you buy anything I'd definitely give virtual a try to get a better handle on how to implement this project. No need to worry about hardware right away. They'll build plenty more by the time you're ready to buy something.

Who knows? It might even end up staying in a virtual environment if it works for you.

-40hz (September 04, 2011, 12:28 PM)

Thanks.  That last line is the point I was making about the ESXi.  It isn't the only option, but if it works well, it is definitely the way to go.

65

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« on: September 03, 2011, 10:36 PM »

Nice quote SB, but you really will want to look into that kind of stuff before you start really looking at a server.  Really, from what I have read in these 6 pages, SJ and 40 are trying to lead you back to where you should really be looking and that is a heavy-duty workstation class machine (and really even that is way overkill).  Looking at a good i7 based workstation with commercial grade SATA hard drives (maybe even Solid State hard drives if speed is critical) should work faster and better for what you are looking for.  Then, if the space isn't there, you can look at a NAS for storing completed projects (say fully ripped, indexed, and re-encoded video for example) to make it available to the machine again if/when needed with the side benefit that other machines on the network can access it too.  A side benefit of that route is you have much more flexibility in case choices and design considerations for it's location (instead of dealing with the jet engine running next to the TV you are watching the movie on, if that were appropriate - e.g. you don't have the whole house wired CAT6).

I just got my first server with the express purpose of configuring it and giving to our church.  It is a really nice HP DL380 G3 that I got for free, so I can't complain.  I really have no need for it personally though, and the fans running in the same room as my computer equipment makes the room noisy and even hotter - in other words even less desirable to be there in the first place.  I like overkill just as much as anyone, but really, servers are really good at one thing and that is what they do.  If you have big plans to do lots of things - that is what desktops/workstations are really good at.  You may just want to rethink how you are attacking the problem you are trying to solve.

In fact - do this.  You already have a really beefy machine, right?  Use VMware and build your servers as virtual servers.  Build bunches of them if you want, they are only software, so you can create and destroy VM's as often as needed.  Create specialized ones and general purpose ones.  Create machines that work with alternative solutions. Once you have everything working the way you want using test files and test data (you can add data storage later to do the same thing over and over again) sit back and see how it was done.  Determine the relative performance of each option. Did it require certain server software?  Did it require multiple machines that specialized in specific tasks?  Was it flaky and temperamental?  If the answers here are generally yes, then a server may well be the way to go.  But if you want simple elegance and set and forget features, you will likely find better, more refined answers on a workstation where everything runs in one box with a single client OS (or a consumer grade Home Server if you prefer).  Regardless of which answer you come up with though, the beauty of setting it all up in a hypervisor is you can then roll it up and drop the entire system pre-set onto the new box and be running in minutes using something like ESXi on the new box instead of windows.

66

Living Room / Re: Should I Get A Divorce?

« on: September 03, 2011, 09:59 PM »

Our Father, which art in in the kernel,
Hallowed be thy OS.
Thy browser come.
Thy will be done in office suites,
As it is in development toolchains.
Give us this RAM our daily memory.
And restore us our crashed disks,
As we AV cure them that try to infect us.
And lead us not into iTunes,
But deliver us from DRM.
For thine is the browser,
The OS, and the cloud,

For ever and ever.

Amen.

-Renegade (September 03, 2011, 06:13 PM)

One iPad
      - $699.99

One machine that will actually let you activate it
      - $2,394.67

All the artzy crap to fit in with the iPad crowd
      - $568.94

One new prayer from your techie friends
      - Priceless

There's some things money can't buy, for everything else there's Mastercard

 

Sorry, too lazy to add the pictures, and imagination is worth it's weight in gold anyway.

67

Living Room / Re: Ooh! I just successfully installed Virtualbox, and I'm hooked!

« on: September 03, 2011, 09:37 PM »

VBox is great.  I have been using it off and on for over 3 years now, and various VMware products for about 3 years prior to that.  I am a BIG Virtualization fan.  There are issues with it - don't get me wrong - but they are fairly small, compared to the advantages, and fairly rare for the common person to even find. I can't wait until they perfect the client-side, type I hypervisor - but that will likely have to come from Microsoft itself - or maybe from Linux somewhere.  Citrix XenClient is so almost there!

What is the difference you ask?  XenClient and other type I hypervisors install INSTEAD of the OS prior to installing your OS so you can essentially duel-boot into one or more OS's at the same time.  This is different from VirtualBox/VMware Player/etc. in that these get installed IN the OS and require at least 2 OS's running at the same time.  Big deal, you might say, but it is really nice to have near native performance (typically > 90% of native with some reports north of 98% of native speed) on a machine running 4 or more OS's at the same time.  You just can't do that with a type II hypervisor such as VirtualBox (though they do give it a good shot).  If you are ever building a server you may want to give something like ESXi a try.  It is a good type I hypervisor that will blow your socks off.  It doesn't support a lot of different hardware - especially video cards - which is why it is really relegated to the server room though.  There is a lot more to it too, but the unsupported hardware is the biggest reason to not try it on just any system.

68

Living Room / Re: Building a home server. Please help, DC!

« on: September 02, 2011, 03:35 AM »

Hm... (Let me scamper a bit further out on the limb...)

MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) as I understand it is the earliest statistically likely point for a given device to fail.

Now (operating completely without a net...), the odds of a coin landing heads up are 50/50. Which is to say that statistically there is a 50% chance of it coming up heads (I do believe it's safe to interchange them in that fashion ...Yes?).

The fun starts when you look at the odds of a coin coming up heads if it's flipped (oh lets say...) 3 times ... Because it is still 50/50 due to each flip being a separate event with 2 possible outcomes.

So I have a bit of trouble getting my head around the idea that the MTBF of 3 devices, is lower than the MTBF of 1 device. When they all individually have the same odds (statistically 0 until age X) of failure at any one given point in time.

-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 09:17 PM)

Only a month behind on this particular post but whateva....

Just thought I would try to explain where you went wrong here...You are right in your example, any given time, there is a 50/50 chance of it coming up heads.  The idea of MTBF is not that it will come up heads any one time, but rather what is the chance of it coming up tails any one of the 3 times.  It isn't how likely it is SOMETHING is going to fail at any given time, it is the likelyhood of ANYTHING NOT failing at a given time.  Another example may make it clearer:  It isn't the chance of the coin coming up heads or tails any 1 time, but rather the chance it will come up heads EVERY time.  MTBF is the average number of flips that will statistically guarantee heads comes up every time.  With a coin it is 50/50 (as is any even distribution), but with something designed NOT to fail, it has a lifespan that can be used as a reference to statistically determine how long the product should last before it fails.

Note that statistically means you are still 50/50 on your one device/component/whatever but that all devices/components/whatever will average out to that number.  When you see an MTBF of 5 years, that doesn't mean it will last 5 years, what it means is the average life of any given sample of that product will work out to about 5 years.  YMMV.  The real value is determining between manufacturers and/or product lines.  An MTBF of 3 years for one device and 5 years for the other means you are likely to have the 5 year one significantly longer.

69

General Software Discussion / Re: Flexible List (data) Management - ListPro and the Alternatives

« on: September 02, 2011, 02:24 AM »

I know you are looking for ListPro + perfect printing, but I don't think anything will work *Exactly* the same with the same ease of use.  That said, have you looked at OneNote?  EverNote?  ListPro looks to me superficially at least, to be very much like these programs.  Maybe not as full featured as they are, but definitely equally flexible.  I don't have much experience with EverNote, but I know OneNote allows a lot of these things as simple as a Notebook.  Since it is often compared with EverNote, I am guessing it is similar (and EverNote has Android support for those looking for that).  Another route a coworker goes is using a personal Wiki.  I never could get into that workflow, but it might work for you.  Just other routes to consider.

70

General Software Discussion / Re: Flexible List (data) Management - ListPro and the Alternatives

« on: August 29, 2011, 11:23 PM »

Understood.  I always cringe whenever I hear of people using Excel because more often than not it is the wrong tool for the job.  Still, Microsoft has heard from a lot of people and expanded it to fit those roles regardless of being right or wrong.  Because MS has done it, others emulated it and now it is there in all the clones, regardless of fitness of use.  The one thing I can say about Excel in it's current form though, right or wrong, it is extreamely flexible.

IQ may well fit the job as well.  In fact what I read and hear about it tells me it likely will work fine for this type of project.  I just have no experience with it and no desire to find a need for the solution (usually a bad sign anyway, unless you really want to learn the product for some reason).  I wish you luck on finding what you are looking for.

71

Living Room / Re: Centurylink is on CracK

« on: August 29, 2011, 11:17 PM »

Hmmm....That is the first bad thing I have heard about Virgin Mobile.  When my contract comes up with AT&T, I was debating between VM and VW (Verizon).  Verizon, I know what I am getting, but Virgin Mobile I have heard a lot of good things about and they use a CDMA network (leased from Verizon I think, but I don't know that).  I always had horrible luck with Sprint, but I keep being told they have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years since I had to deal with them, so they are another possibility - though very slight.

72

Living Room / Re: Goodnight Irene

« on: August 29, 2011, 08:03 PM »

I disagree for the simple fact that earnings could be increased through tactful negotiations with the PUC.  "It costs us x more to put everything underground, plus, it will increase our maintenance costs by y per month".   Meanwhile, that 'y' would not be seen as an actual accrued cost for MANY years during which earnings would appear to blossom.  Then, when it DID hit, they would go back to the PUC to ask for another increase due to the increased costs of maintenance.  By then, the greater earnings would be seen as normal for that company and they could make the case at that point that they shouldn't be punished for increased costs incurred.  Like it or not, this is frequently how companies like this increase their earnings on their "regulated" industry status.  The only other way is to absorb other companies, and that is a costly (and typically unprofitable) venture.

True costs, however, that are not allowed to be passed on to the customer, though, do cut into earnings, and underground is ALWAYS far more expensive for the electrical industry.  It is also far more dangerous, believe it or not due to confined spaces, poison gas, oxygen deficiencies, and many other hazards completely unrelated to electricity.  In fact, it is not uncommon for an electrician to don something akin to a scuba suit just to do their job underground.  These costs can not be passed on readily because they are considered one time equipment costs.  This cuts into earnings while not being accounted for in the payments.

So I guess indirectly we are saying the same thing, just looking at two different sides, but I still stand by costs as being the driving factor as that can not be regulated while earnings are limited by the maximum charges the PUC allows.

73

Living Room / Re: Centurylink is on CracK

« on: August 29, 2011, 07:49 PM »

Well said complement to exactly what I was pointing out in my first post here.  The "brain-dead" are not necessarily as brain-dead as they seem, it is just "I have to follow this script or I loose my job.  I don't care who you are, you are not worth my job as horrible as it is, because I still need to put food on my table."  Most with any talent usually do move rather quickly to other positions leaving the talentless or new hires behind, making it even worse for the end user.  But since companies do see it as a cost-center, and an expensive and profit draining one at that, they will never improve it until/unless people become willing to pay the additional expense for better service.  Indeed, HP for one, has a special group for paid tech support completely independent of the standard tech support.  You pay an additional fee and they give you the equivalent of a bypass level 1 & go directly to level 2 phone number.  I am sure there are others out there, but who, besides fairly large or grossly profitable companies can afford that?

74

General Software Discussion / Re: Flexible List (data) Management - ListPro and the Alternatives

« on: August 29, 2011, 07:20 PM »

Upon reading this, my first thought is "Why not Excel?" (or other spreadsheet program).  It sounds like you want the 'smartness' of a database, with the flexibility of a spreadsheet, and perhaps, some codability.  That describes Excel exactly.  I sit here complaining at work all the time about people constantly using Excel for a database's job, but it is, in fact, a lightweight, flexible database itself.  Moreover, many PIM's/Task Management/List Management programs can import/export Excel file format; or at least csv, which can then be used for/from Excel.

Since printing is so critical a consideration, consider that Excel prints almost everywhere without issue.  Want just a few fields?  Use the hide row/column function then print.  What about field size?  You can adjust them on the fly.  Multiple pages with column header?  No problem.  Print option to repeat top x rows.  Tabs are in there as well.  In other words, I think this is really what you want, now you just need to learn to use it completely if you don't already know how.

From my experiences, I would say there is only 1 drawback to Excel in your situation.  Price.  It isn't cheap if you have to buy it, though there is the Office 365 option that *MAY* fit your needs and is far cheaper.  It is far less capable, but may work for you.  If you consider a cloud-based solution such as this, however, I suggest starting with something such as Zoho or one of the other offers.  Office 365 includes Excel functionality, but it is the new kid on the block comparatively and may not be as feature rich even compared to the competition.

75

Living Room / Re: Goodnight Irene

« on: August 29, 2011, 06:10 PM »

Don't get me wrong, I believe underground is THE way to go for mostly aesthetic reasons; but the original post was why are they still above ground.  And the reason is cost.