Topics

26

General Software Discussion / wanted: simple, stable bittorrent client for windows

« on: October 25, 2009, 03:29 PM »

I often download large files, like iso images, via FTP that are also available via bittorrent. Things like linux distros and such. I have an virtual machine with Windows XP that runs for the sole purpose of doing things like downloading large files, uploading large files, compressing archives, synchronizing directories, etc. I would like to add a simple and stable bittorrent client to it so it can also grab (and share) stuff in the background.

I've heard of µTorrent, but hear that it "cheats" (which I don't want to do) and the original BitTorrent, but I hear that it has commercial crapware embedded (if it does, I don't want it) and Vuze/Azuerus, but I don't want to install Java just for that.

I don't do much torrenting, so nothing elaborate and feature rich is required (but is not a reason to not use it if it's good).

Whatall to youall suggest?

27

Living Room / Unauthorized Contest: Who's been the most helpful in the last 3 months?

« on: October 24, 2009, 02:14 PM »

I want to try out Rypple.com. It is a way to get anonymous feedback. In order to motivate you folks to help me experiment, I am holding a contest. Please respond to my question on Rypple with who you feel has been the most helpful (defined any way you want to define it) Donation Coder member in the past 3 months or so.

I will collect feedback until November 15 - National Philanthropy Day and then donate $10 Donation Credits to the member with the most votes. The only "rule" in this unofficial unauthorized unbelievable contest is that you can't vote for me or mouser.  

Thank you for your help.

28

General Software Discussion / Putting All My (Legally Obtained) Music Online

« on: October 24, 2009, 08:35 AM »

I've decided that I want to put all of my music files online. I am aware of humyo.com and MediaFire but have no experience with them. Has anybody used these services for long enough to have an opinion? What other similar services are there?

I am looking for a online jukebox that I can access anywhere.

29

General Software Discussion / Wanted: Freeware (commercial use allowed) Anti-Virus Tool For Small LAN

« on: October 23, 2009, 09:43 AM »

I have created a small LAN of a half-dozen computer here at work whose purpose is to allow access to the un-filtered Internet. (Our standard issue government computers can't reach some sites our jobs require.)

I have already set up a Ubuntu 9.04 server to act as a NAT/gateway/firewall box, but I want to be able to install anti-virus software on each of the boxes, but...

I want to have a central way to manage all of the boxes so that individual boxes don't need to be attended to. I am thinking of something like the commercial products from Norton/Symantec for commercial LANs.

Anybody have an ideas where I might find something like this?

30

General Software Discussion / Anybody Here Use SeaMonkey (2.0)?

« on: October 23, 2009, 08:52 AM »

I see that RC2 of SeaMonkey is now out. I haven't used SeaMonkey in the past; instead using Firefox and Thunderbird side-by-side.

I am interested in using SeaMonkey for the added convenience of an integrated solution, but am afraid that I will not be able to use all of the wonderful Firefox extensions that I have come to depend on.

What has been your experience with SeaMonkey and it's ability to use Firefox extensions? Has anybody that has used the Firefox-Thunderbird combo also used SeaMonkey? How do they compare?

31

General Software Discussion / Cloudberry S3 Explorer and Bucket Explorer

« on: October 22, 2009, 09:26 PM »

I am looking to get a GUI tool for working with Amazon S3. I have found CloudBerry S3 Explorer and Bucket Explorer. They seem to be the best options out there for Windows. Cloudberry has a Freeware version that I am using now. It may be all I need. But if I need more functionality either of the two commercial products look appealing.

Anybody have any experience with either of them they wish to share?

32

General Software Discussion / Wanted: SysAdmin-focused Account Information Keeper

« on: October 11, 2009, 11:54 AM »

I have RoboForm for keeping my web-based login usernames and passwords organized. What I am looking for is something focused for system administrators.

I have things configured in various programs. For example, I have FileZilla configured with my account info. Same with PuTTY, X-Win32, Super Flexible File Synchronizer, and others. But every time I add a new software tool to my toolbox I need to create those accounts and I need a canonical source for my connection information. Or, even when using an existing tool, I need to add new sites/connections/accounts as I use them for the first time in that tool.

Right now I save them as Safenotes in RoboForm and maybe I just need to figure out a better way to organize the information.

What do you SysAdmin- SuperUser-types use?

33

General Software Discussion / Wanted: Web Banner Maker (Between MS Word and Gimp-Inkscape)

« on: October 09, 2009, 06:01 PM »

My girlfriend designs web banners in MS Word and then doesn't understand why she can't output them in the sizes and formats that the webmasters want. She doesn't understand that you can't just start with a letter-sized document and draw a box (that isn't measured in pixels, but inches and isn't the right height to width ratio, etc.) and start designing away. I always have to end up reverse engineering it and redesigning it in Gimp or Inkscape or Paint.NET.

I am wondering if there is some software out there that is specifically focused on building web banners in the standard sizes and formats, and has an easy-to-use GUI. I do a web search and a million show up, but most just look like overpriced copies of Microsoft Paint and cost $50+ USD.

What I am looking for is something that doesn't have all the bells and whistles of a Photoshop/Gimp program (as those aren't needed for simple web banner design) but has things like built-in web banner sizes, measurements in pixels, text tools with things like drop-shadow, clipart tools, grid positioning system, alignment tools, defaults to transparent backgrounds, etc. The things you would use to build banners without worrying about fancy photo\image manipulation.

I am willing to pay money for something that hits the sweet spot. The less time I need to spend learning how to use it and reteach it to her, the better. The more is uses the same paradigms as Microsoft Office products, the better.

Thanks for your help in this. You folks always seem to find just what I need.

34

Living Room / How do I rotate a movie 90 degrees?

« on: October 07, 2009, 07:27 AM »

I have a digital camera that takes videos as well. I turned the camera from landscape to portrait to take a movie and now I want to rotate the movie so it replays right-side up instead of sideways. I've never paid attention enough to the various programs I have seen to know if any of them do this. Does anybody know of such a feature?

35

Find And Run Robot / FARR Theme Gallery

« on: July 31, 2009, 11:20 AM »

I was procrastinating looking to change my FARR theme today and was wondering if anybody created a FARR Theme Gallery where I can see browse all of the themes available.

36

Living Room / Looking for personal contact at DreamHost

« on: July 01, 2009, 09:47 PM »

I have a very serious matter that I cannot discuss further in public except to say that if I just call or email DreamHost support I am unlikely to get this manner resolved in a sufficiently timely manner or have the matter treated with the importance that it deserves. I am asking a favor of this community. If you personally know somebody that works at DreamHost and you feel comfortable asking them to contact me directly, I would be extremely grateful. Thank you for your time.

37

Developer's Corner / An interesting twist on documentation

« on: June 18, 2009, 03:38 PM »

I just read an interesting article at Dr. Dobb's about a project that is trying to make better documentation by observing what searches developers make and then add pointers to help them along.

38

General Software Discussion / Let's Fork The Thread! Linux Notetaking Thread!

« on: June 18, 2009, 10:38 AM »

Fork

I now find myself in uncharted territory. I need to find an uberapp to keep my notes in while working on Linux boxen. I shall begin my quest with a Google search.

In the mean time, please talk amongst yourselves.

39

General Software Discussion / What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« on: June 12, 2009, 02:28 PM »

I am well aware that there are dozens of websites (and books) that list Windows registry hacks/tweaks/etc. Most of us are well capable of googling to get a list of them. What I am interested in is your personal experience with any of these sites (books). When you want to make a change to your system via a registry change, for example set your web browser's home page, what source do you look to?

40

General Software Discussion / When does it just become too much trouble

« on: June 12, 2009, 02:19 PM »

I am vacillating between two extremes. (That seems to be a common occurrence with me. ) On the one extreme is configuring everything, on an "as needed" basis via GUIs and scripting everything via registry keys and the like.

What the heck am I talking about? Let me explain via an example.

Setting the home page of Internet Explorer. Should I do it via nLite? The IE GUI? Via some "Tweak" utility? Via some script, be that AutoIT, AHK, or native .BAT?

What about the Command Prompt window? I like to change the font and set the scroll buffer to 9999 lines among other things. Ir *feels* like I do this a dozen times a week for one reason or another.

What I am thinking about doing is taking an idea from *NIX of having configuration files in your home directory and combining it with version control and some synchronization software.

The workflow would work something like this:

• Don't make any changes to a system except via some scripted means.
• Put the script(s) into my "home" directory.
• Put those under version control
• Set up the appropriate synchronization software to push those scripts up to the cloud
• Have a "bootstrap" script that I put on all new computers that pulls the scripts down from the cloud and runs them to configure the computer I am on.

My guess is that I will do most of this via registry changes made via AutoIT.

Is this going overboard? But I do work on dozens of machines weekly. Many of which are virtual machine I create and throw away often.

The whole reason is that I think about home much time I would save not having to make changes manually as well as how much more productive I would be if everything was the same way on each machine I use making things more muscle memory than having to think about things.

This alludes to much of the research done about multi-tasking and getting distracted by the littlest of things.

I hate going to a virtual computer and not finding a file and wondering if this is one of the machines that hasn't been changed from the default so that it shows hidden files and folders. It would be nice to know that every computer, even a newly built one, has that open changed from the default.

Maybe I just need to trick out my nLite install and just make every new machine from a cloned image. I don't know.  

[Follow Up]
I went through my bookmarks and found Tweakomatic. This may be a good base to work off of.

41

Developer's Corner / Which Eclipse?

« on: June 07, 2009, 04:12 PM »

My Pydev extensions annual subscription is up for renewal this month. I decided to check out Wing IDE and NetBeans to see what I was missing. I haven't looked at NetBeans yet, but I just did spend some time with Wing IDE. I went though the tutorial. Although I liked what I see, I don't see any reason to switch to it from Eclipse + Pydev. I hopefully have time to check out NetBeans soon.

However, it did make me remember that there are now these pre-packaged and tested versions of Eclipse; like MyEclpse and Yoxos. From my limited understanding these are "value-added" versions of Eclipse. Have any of you folks toyed with them? Did any of you decide to use a subscription version of Eclipse over the free version?

42

Found Deals and Discounts / For Developers - Today - 12MAY09 - Visual Build Pro v. 7 60% OFF

« on: May 12, 2009, 08:51 AM »

I just purchased Visual Build Pro v. 7 (1-computer license), sight unseen. I have wanted FinalBuilder for years, but can't afford it. Visual Build has always looks comparable, but also priced too high for my pocketbook. With the discount, Visual Build is only $119. I purchased a copy just now and expect it will be worth the cost.

I have Ultra Recall from Kinook already and like it, so I suspect this will be of comparable quality.

http://www.bitsdujou...ftware/visual-build/

43

General Software Discussion / I'm Steaming About Steam

« on: April 09, 2009, 06:12 PM »

I'm to angry to post anything more right now. I'd probably get a law suite thrown at me.

I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo angry with the @#%(#@$%&ers at Steam. I have been going back and forth with them for FOUR days, and they still have not addressed my issue. I asked a specific question and gave very specific replies and they have me off on some wild goose chase.

Just venting some steam now.

Has anybody had experience with Steam support? Good or Bad?

44

General Software Discussion / Looking for: Stability - System - Stress Test to run in Windows

« on: March 28, 2009, 09:59 PM »

I put in a piece of USB hardware in my computer today that started a chain reaction of things that caused by system to be unstable. This got me thinking that I would like to find a program that will test the stability of my *operating system*.

Not a mobo burn-in tester, but the equivilent for an existing running Windows system. I would like to find out what isn't working right and why in terms of the operating system and the various drivers I am using.

I am NOT looking for something that does a "tune-up" by degragging the HDD, checking the registry, deleting temp files etc.

The types of things I would like to see reported that it might find would be things like my HDD not reading and writing as fast as it should based on the hardware in the system and a list of the drivers involved in the R/W process and suggestions as to where the bottleneck might lie. It might help me by automatically taking various third-party hardware and virtual drivers out of the loop one at a time to track down the bottleneck.

Is there anybody out there that knows of a test suite like this? I guess I also don't want some $1000 suite that a full-time system builder would use in their business, as that would not be something I could afford as a "home user". But I would be willing to pay $50 for a program and would ideally pay $50 to $100 per year if it was updated at least monthly to keep up with the latest changes in the OS, hardware drivers, software drivers, etc.

If somebody makes a good enough find to result in me making a purchase, I will provide a donation credit bounty to the finder.

45

Developer's Corner / What JavaScript libraries should I look at? Prototype?

« on: March 22, 2009, 04:09 PM »

I am going to be doing some website stuff and was wondering what is state of the art is in JavaScript libraries.

I just now learned that there is a conflict between overLIB and Lightbox 2.

My guesses are Prototype and Mootools. I also need to learn JQuery.

What do you folks recommend I take the time to learn?

46

Developer's Corner / Gotta Share

« on: March 11, 2009, 01:43 PM »

I am attending a conference via Second World. It is a Defense department related conference on game technologies, to include virtual worlds. There is a person, Tami, physically at the location where the meatspace portion of the conference is taking place in Orlando Florida. The speaker was talking about Qwaq.com. They use croquet and python. I typed in the chat window on SL, "Can we get Tami to yell, "Python Rocks!". All of a sudden, on the audio stream I hear "Python Rocks!" from the conference audience and the speaker starts to laugh and tell an anecdote about how much they love python and their clients often say, "Cool, now I have a way to convince my boss to learn python."

It was totally cool that she actually yelled "Python Rocks!" 

47

Living Room / NIN Coming to Kansas City

« on: March 09, 2009, 11:14 AM »

Presales tickets to NIN official website members tonight at 5 p.m.

I'm asking for the following night off from work right now.

What?!?!?!?

You don't think this is important news for DC folks!?!?!?

You obviously don't understand how important NIN is to the software industry. They are probably one of the most potent productivity drugs known to programmers around the world.

48

General Software Discussion / Lazyweb: Your recommendation for a FOSS trouble ticket system, please.

« on: February 23, 2009, 02:45 PM »

I would like to implement a web-based trouble ticket system here at my workplace. It will be to provide a means of requesting, tracking, and providing technical support to our "customers" who use a variety of simulations.

Ideally it will be easy to use so we will actually use it. 

Trouble ticket systems often seem to die an quick death from neglect as it takes too long to input stuff into the system.

An integrated knowledge base would be a plus.

49

Living Room / Should I switch from Dreamhost?

« on: February 22, 2009, 11:04 AM »

My two year contract with Dreamhost is coming to an end this April. I have been happy with them and don't plan on leaving, but I figured I would ask you folks if you have come across any full service hosting companies that compete with Dreamhost for price, features, and customer service before I sign up for another two years.

50

Drag&Drop Robot / BUG: Config file path missing slash

« on: February 13, 2009, 09:46 PM »

Drag&Drop Robot Version v1.11.02

The default config files are listed, but they are improperly pathed. I cannot load or delete them because of the missing slash after the 'ConfigFiles' directory.