Messages

51

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Ethervane Echo

« on: March 01, 2012, 08:57 PM »

And a second question... can i make the "quick views" tabs, bigger? I find many settings and change it, but i don't find that

-sakiskom (March 01, 2012, 08:45 PM)

No, I'm afraid not. The tabs size automatically to fit the labels. I could set them to a fixed width, but then they may be too short if a view has a longer name.

52

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Ethervane Echo

« on: March 01, 2012, 06:17 PM »

Sorry, I think I posted in the wrong place before so this is a double post but hopefully now where it should be...?

I run an application called 'Stickies' which is a very well known , very popular desktop sticky / notes application. However whereas Ditto will paste directly into a desktop 'sticky' note, EE will not - other than using a 'manual' Ctrl-V. Any thoughts on that?

-JeremyWW (March 01, 2012, 03:58 PM)

(a) Can you give me the link for this application? I'd have to run it to see what happens. There are several reasons pasting might not work.

(b) When you paste in Stickies, does it work with Ctrl+V and Shift+Insert? Or only one of these key combinations?

(c) Try: Tools -> Preferences -> Pasting clips -> PasteMethod. By default this is set to Ctrl+V. Try changing it to Shift+Insert and see if it helps. (Although this might affect other applications).

The ability to close the main window to the system tray using the X. Seems that isn't possible with EE and I've closed it completely by accident a few times this evening.

This was added in one of the recent versions: Tools -> Preferences -> Display -> MinimizeOnCloseButton -> set it to True. However, remember that Echo will minimize whenever you click outside of it (or switch to another application). In practice, there is almost never any need to minimize Echo manually, it will minimize itself if you allow it.

And ummm...images. I understand why they're not covered by EE but, for example, my daughter uses this extensively in her college work copying multiple image 'snippets' from the web to put into her assignment documents. Would it not be possible / acceptable to include the functionality in EE even if it's turned off by default?

I'm sorry, but no. There's Ditto and other clipboard extenders that handle images. I wrote Echo specifically for text. It is not a feature I could just add, it was a basic design decision.

Oh....and I can't get the English UK spell checking to work. EE can't find the dictionary...

(a) Are you using the standard or portable version? (Or have you changed from one to the other?)

(b) Does Echo display any other dictionaries (US English, for example)? Or are no dictionaries available at all?

(c) Click Tools -> Database information, and scroll down to the bottom. Near the end of the list you'll see "Spelling dictionary folders". There should be one or two directories listed there. Check if these directories exist and if they contain the dictionaries. If not, you can download and install the dictionaries separately on the Echo download page.

53

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Ethervane Echo

« on: March 01, 2012, 02:20 PM »

Thanks, joiwind! :-)

54

General Software Discussion / Re: Solid, command-line file encryption tool?

« on: February 27, 2012, 11:37 AM »

Thanks, everyone! Will try out the suggestions.

55

General Software Discussion / Re: Solid, command-line file encryption tool?

« on: February 25, 2012, 03:22 PM »

What it does not have is a switch to compress each file into a separate archive.

-tranglos (February 25, 2012, 12:23 PM)

You could do some smart batch scripting for that if needed?

-Ath (February 25, 2012, 03:06 PM)

Certainly. It's just much simpler to use a single command with a switch and a filemask than a shell FOR loop :-)

56

General Software Discussion / Re: Solid, command-line file encryption tool?

« on: February 25, 2012, 12:23 PM »

Perhaps 7zip? It has a command line interface and meets your other requirements too I believe

-Eóin (February 25, 2012, 12:14 PM)

Not only that, but it can encrypt headers in the compressed file, so unlike in zip files, you can't see the filenames inside the archive without decrypting. I like it, so thanks for confirming my so-far favorable impression.

What it does not have is a switch to compress each file into a separate archive. I need that to minimize the amount of data to upload, since my outgoing bandwidth sucks. Still, the best candidate I've seen so far. I wonder if the authors are susceptible to bugging for new features :-)

57

General Software Discussion / Solid, command-line file encryption tool?

« on: February 25, 2012, 11:56 AM »

Tangentially related to mouser's ongoing search for an online backup solution. I'm trying the plain old ftp way, and for that I need an encryption utility with these features:

• Command-line operation (GUI is ok but optional; this will run from a batch file)
• Has to work with individual files; bonus points for storing multiple files in a single archive, but this is optional
• No asymmetric (public key) cryptography, so no gnupg. I want to decrypt with just the passphrase and not worry about losing the private key or having it with me at all times.
• Must use a known-good cipher with a reasonable key size. I don't care if three-letter agencies can crack it, but it has to be reasonably secure and use a well-known, solid encryption algorithm. No trade-secret, teenage wonder or homebrew solutions.
• Preferably a mature project, not something that just appeared last week.
• Must either be open source or come from a vendor I can trust. A small, independent vendor is preferable to a big corp, which will sacrifice security for profit and politics every time. (PGP is now owned by Symantec, yech!) Think TrueCrypt quality.
• Commercial apps OK, as long as they satisfy all of the above.

I think that's it. Haven't looked at crypto apps in a long time, so I've no idea what's out there now.

58

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« on: February 24, 2012, 04:08 AM »

I think that was rather well put

-Jibz (February 24, 2012, 01:18 AM)

And I agree, but there are limits to where these arguments apply. Not everything is speech (hence free), and not everything is protected.

I lived through the early Spam Wars, it was issue #1 or very close to it for a long time. Just to give an example, you can't put your slogan (commercial or not) on the wall of my house without my permission. That's not speech, it's trespass. (And I even believe it is sometimes justified, as when the speech is politically motivated graffiti in an environment where you have no other venue to publish your speech. But never when it is simply commercial.) You can't hit me in the head and say you're only expressing your views, either. This is only to illustrate that the mere invocation of free speech does not always apply, and believe me, it's been tried and done to death.

If a doctor recommends a therapy to you as the best, while in fact he's only recommending it because he gets the nicest kickback for doing so, that's not free speech either. You can't advertise sugar as a cure for cancer. Etc.

In the case of "sponsored blog posts", the deception is similar. I'm not really interested in how legal or illegal that might be wherever you or I live. It is unethical to the max and it makes the world significantly worse for all of us. A healthy dose of hate for these guys is entirely warranted.

59

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« on: February 23, 2012, 04:53 PM »

Yes, the internet of full of low quality content, be it sponsored blog posts, fake product reviews or link farms disguised as resource directories. They fill a niche in the internet ecosystem. Something has to fill it.

-vlastimil (February 23, 2012, 04:48 PM)

That's a mellow way of looking at it :-) You are right, life is too short. OTOH, yelling and screaming can be quite healthy too :-)

60

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« on: February 23, 2012, 03:57 PM »

Oh, one more thing.

You can't blame someone from maximizing their income in this tough economy

-Innuendo (February 23, 2012, 03:00 PM)

Please tell me you are trolling me! This is exactly what spammers used to say. The original spammers, back in the day. "Can't blame us for trying to make a living, we're entrepreneurs just like you!" They were laughed out of court on many occasions, but more importantly, of course I can blame them  for their grossly unethical business model. All analogies are brittle and all that, but this is very much like running a garbage disposal company where you take people's money and dump their garbage in a local river. Customers are happy (garbage gone cheaply), you are happy (money coming in), and everybody suffers.

Come on, I can't believe you were serious there.

61

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« on: February 23, 2012, 03:51 PM »

Why the !@#$% is it so easy to be evil?

-tranglos (February 23, 2012, 02:00 PM)

I refer you to two quotes:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

"Power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages."

-wraith808 (February 23, 2012, 03:15 PM)

I buy the argument about law doing more harm than good in this case - but only partly. Commercial speech is not free speech. You can't sell me tap water in an opaque bottle and say it's premium whiskey. That's not free speech.

Other than that, I agree. I've been known to quote the Voltaire to exhaustion :-)

62

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« on: February 23, 2012, 03:46 PM »

So give them to me!

-TaoPhoenix (February 23, 2012, 03:26 PM)

Thanks, Tao, I will keep that in mind! I'm not into playing games like this myself, but I'd be happy to watch from the sidelines.

(No link at hand, but there was a story once about how someone actually got money from a Nigerian scammer. They essentially turned the tables: when the "Nigerians" started asking for money, their intended victim said yeah, sure, but I need (a token amount of US dollars) first to trust you're acting in good faith or some such. Maybe they did the PayPal thing - send me 2 USD from your account so that I know you exist. That was fun, but in the end doesn't change the fact that the Nigerian scam is still running high.)

63

Living Room / Re: Another internet lowlife

« on: February 23, 2012, 03:39 PM »

I don't see anything wrong with that email. You can't blame someone from maximizing their income in this tough economy and the email was at least polite and respectful.

If you had encountered a true 'turd' you wouldn't have received an email from them at all & instead they'd have a bot responding to every one of your blog posts with a thinly veiled sales pitch for their products.

I hate unsolicited advertising in my email as much as the next guy, but in this situation I think they took the high road.

-Innuendo (February 23, 2012, 03:00 PM)

I don't mind the spam (so much). I mind their business model. A "sponsored blog post" is a pack of bs thrown on unsuspecting readers.(*) If their business model is working - let's imagine that it is - that implies there are who knows how many "sponsored posts" out there, everywhere. This is not about unsolicited advertising. This is about advertising that tries to sneak in into your head without you seeing it for what it is. Exactly the kind of thing that would get anyone kicked out of DC before they could click Submit.

(*) I know, I know... And Eóin is right too. But there have to be places like here where you can leave your cynicism at the door, otherwise why bother? These people are stomping out what soul and integrity is left out there.

No, this does not surprise me, nor was I born this morning. I still hate it, because it kills the single most important thing we have as people: the ability to trust another one of us. And I know what I'm talking about - in all studies, my country consistently ranks near the very bottom in "social trust" or "interpersonal trust" indicators.

We don't trust our neighbors, our shopkeepers, our police, our doctors, our local and central governments, our bureaucrats (and they've all done plenty to deserve it). We don't trust our laws, and the only thing we barely (barely!) trust is the institutions of the European Union, because we don't believe they are quite as corrupt as we think ours are.

The point is, living in a place like this can be really distressing and sad. And fatal if your life or well-being ever happens to depend on a stranger throwing you this one little lifeline, like maybe give you a ride or call for an ambulance. This total absence of trust is the longest lasting, most destructive legacy of (what passed for) communism, and all the earlier turbulence of history.

When I read about how the people of Iceland got together, kicked out their government, kicked out the banksters and sat down and wrote their own new constitution from scratch, I thin of them as angels from a fairy tale. That takes trust in the folks around you.

Innuendo: do you trust the reviews you read on DC? If you do, does that have any value to you? I do, and it does. The people who take it away from me by deception deserve worse then calling them a bad name.

/rant!

64

Living Room / Another internet lowlife

« on: February 23, 2012, 02:00 PM »

My new site has been up only a couple of weeks now. I've just received the following turd. (Names and addresses blanked out, because these people need to be not known.) It goes like this, emphasis mine:

Hello,

My name is ______ and I recently stumbled across your blog tranglos.com. I work for a company, __________ Inc., that connects bloggers with advertising partners. I currently have clients that are interested in sponsoring a few posts. This helps them with brand awareness and is a great opportunity for you to make some money from your blog.
Check out __________.org for more information and testimonials. Please feel free to contact me directly if you are interested in a partnership or have any questions at _____@______________.org. There is no need to submit the form on our site, as contacting me directly will lead to a quicker response.
If you are interested, contact me at this email address to begin the process.

Oh, and the subject of the email was "I love  tranglos.com!" With a double space before the domain name, a tell-tale sign this is a machine-generated script.

I told them what I think of them and where they can stick their brand awareness, but this stuff really makes me mad as hell. They are destroying whatever is left of any credibility on the net. Why the !@#$% is it so easy to be evil?
 

65

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PDFZilla free for 20 days - Ends 14 March 2012

« on: February 23, 2012, 11:16 AM »

@tranglos, maybe you got the portable version, but I've used the installer version Can only find the uninstaller exe and an ini file that doesn't hold any license related data, being dated on the install-date.

-Ath (February 23, 2012, 05:02 AM)

I did use an installer, but the one I used tried to put the files in c:\PDFzilla, so maybe I did get a portable version. Out of curiosity, see if you have a file under there whose timestamp matches the time you registered it.

One way or another the app does need to be run as admin in order for the registration to be successful. If it isn't, it won't tell you - in fact, it will still thank you for registering.

66

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Take Command (jpsoftware) $50

« on: February 23, 2012, 10:43 AM »

sorry.. i tryed to search some reviews.

i cant find any comment thread here. anybody could give me the way? (i used the search, but no luck)

-flamerz (February 23, 2012, 07:44 AM)

There may not be one on DC, but try Google. The product has a long history. Originally called 4Dos, it was a replacement for the command.com interpreter back when Windows didn't yet exist (or wasn't that big anyway). Later it was renamed for 4nt, a 32-bit version, but still just a command-line window, with plenty of enhancements, of course.

The current version (renamed again to Take Command) still has the console window, but the main product is a GUI where you can fire up multiple consoles. It's pricey even with the BdJ discount, but there is a free edition, with slightly fewer enhancements and features.

Wikipedia has a short writeup on the features and history.

You can also ask questions in the BdJ thread running at the moment. The developers are responding there.

67

General Software Discussion / Re: uTorrent alternatives?

« on: February 23, 2012, 04:53 AM »

(a) keep an older version of uTorrent around, from the time when it was still really good. That's what I do :-)

(b) qTorrent?

68

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PDFZilla free for 20 days - Ends 14 March 2012

« on: February 23, 2012, 04:46 AM »

It's much more likely that it stores the registration in the HKLM hive of the registry, where, for most locations, Admin access is required to be able to write.

-Ath (February 23, 2012, 03:20 AM)

Likely - yes, true - no :-) When I activated it I had the installation folder open in TC and noticed in the corner of my eye that a file was updated there at that very moment. Seeing as most other apps handle registration without needing admin rights, I wonder if it's worth the additional support work this must bring in.

69

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote PRO 50% off

« on: February 22, 2012, 09:43 PM »

But, it occurs to me to ask: do you have a well-defined idea of what your ideal would look like, if it isn't RightNote?  

-rjbull (February 20, 2012, 03:22 PM)

I wish I had an answer to that! It's something you could write a book on (and collectively, we have probably done that twice over on DC!), but I'd rather just have the right idea and implement it in Delphi :-)

I don't have a good answer to your question, but I have a few loose thoughts. One panel, not two (or three). OK, you'll always want something on the side, such as a place to store attachments, but make it optional. Having only one panel simplifies so many things in the UI! As soon as you have two panels, you must decide what the TAB key does: does it navigate panels, or does it insert a tab? So you've just discovered an unsolvable problem (at least until keyboards get a proper, dedicated navigation key like I postulated some time ago). And there's plenty more where that came from.

Next, when I wrote KeyNote, my emphasis was clearly on the content of notes. The tree was just there to help organize them. The tree was great for so many things, but it too has limitations - like one item can have only one parent. And while you can overcome that, especially with a database-backed design, it'll always be with you, while a flat, tagged list makes that problem go away just like that.

Further, I've noticed that the tree is becoming more important to me than the notes. I want to do more with the tree - keep more data there, edit it more fluently. I'm influenced by Workflowy here, although in the end I'm not using it any more, because the in-browser UI is taking its toll. It's good for typing, but when I later needed to edit, heavily rearrange the tree, export and print, I was fighting it every step of the way. But a Workflowy clone on the desktop could do wonders for me.  (Another good example of a more powerful tree is MLO, but I want multi-line items and at least basic in-text formatting.)

I remember when I first saw Evernote I thought it was very innovative, a new way of organizing loose notes. I am sure it's not the end of the road, and someone will come up with an even more ingenious design - but I worry it will be on the web, where all the ingenuity is gagged and hampered by all the inconveniences and all the dangers of living inside a browser and in the cloud.

As for the good old tree, I want it infinitely malleable. The manually imposed hierarchy is fine, but also let me be free from that. Let me show the tree as a filtered flat list. Or let the tree arrange itself automatically according to rules, e.g. group items by date (years at the top level, then months, then maybe days, whatever). Group by tags, by content, by all kinds of properties and metadata.

And little things. I have KeyNote, Evernote, a few others along the way, and I did register Right Note Pro today after all, because I like it more and more. but when I need to jot down just a phone number of just a URL, where do I put it? It's too small to deserve a branch of its own in KeyNote, but if I put it in a note together with other stuff it gets lost in there, and pretty soon I have a single note with years' worth of tiny little bits like that. Soon I have no idea what that URL was for.

I have a big catch-all note like that in KeyNote. Not just numbers and URLs, but some useful command-line switches for TotalCommander, the serial number of my WD drive in case I need it replaced, symbol of the battery model I need for my video camera, an address for a local animal shelter, someone's birthday... and wait, wasn't I suppose to organize stuff?

I don't know what to do with bits like that. Evernote, maybe, but a subscription is not for me, and somehow I just can't make that jump. I like what OneNote does, where you can start typing anywhere and your little note gets its own colored frame. It looks great and makes a great impression, but these little frames will get messy too after a while. Oh, and often I want to know exactly when I added a little scrap like that. Is this the serial number for my new drive or the old one? I could tell if I knew when I entered it. (Yep, Evernote would know.)

I guess it all boils down to how hard it is to organize dis-organized stuff, and we accumulate so much of it it's not even funny! I always know very quickly what annoys me in a piece of software, but in this case I have to leave the solution to someone else. My ideas there extended as far as KeyNote 2.0, now fully realized and much expanded upon in RightNote - but I my imagination can't see any further, I'm afraid.
 

70

Living Room / Re: Today is Your Last Chance to Remove your Search History from Google's New Policy

« on: February 22, 2012, 05:55 PM »

Nice, thanks!

Though browsing my old search history (almost 18k entries) was a bit like looking at old family albums. Recalling the stuff I was doing or thinking of doing at the time, all the thoughts that came to naught, and a few that didn't. Could even be useful. I'd like a feature like that. On my own da*n system.

71

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Ethervane Echo

« on: February 22, 2012, 01:19 PM »

The taskbar icon does NOT disappear for me even when the app is minimized. I have the setting set to True for "HideToTray".

-mentallo (February 22, 2012, 01:14 PM)

What version of Windows? 32 or 64 bit?

Can anyone else confirm it, please? It works for me on Win7 32-bit. It can't see why Windows would not respect ShowWindow() with sw_Hide parameter.

72

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PDFZilla free for 20 days - Ends 14 March 2012

« on: February 22, 2012, 10:14 AM »

"How to activate on Win7/Vista...."

Does this mean it phones home to activate?

-Innuendo (February 22, 2012, 09:57 AM)

Admin rights are not required to phone home :-)

Rather, it stores the registration info in the folder where it is installed. Since that typically means under Program Files, it needs admin rights to write there. Though by default the setup wants to install files in c:\PdfZilla, actually.

Not a good design, really. Very few apps that I've seen require elevation to be registered. This kind of data should be stored under common data folder for all users, no elevation needed.

73

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Ethervane Echo

« on: February 22, 2012, 06:54 AM »

Is there a way to remove the Taskbar icon?

-mentallo (February 21, 2012, 10:30 PM)

No, not entirely. The taskbar icon disappear when Echo minimizes to the tray:
Tools -> Preferences -> Display -> HideoTray (set to True).

But when Echo is restored, the taskbar icon will appear.

74

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Take Command (jpsoftware) $50

« on: February 21, 2012, 03:46 PM »

Oh my, this comes about 5 years too late :-) but I think I'll bite. Always was on my software wish list, always too costly. But just the other day I was looking for some command-line tools to help me automate builds of Echo and other apps, so command line is certainly not dead to me.

I hope they still include the console version, not just the gui?

75

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Ethervane Echo

« on: February 21, 2012, 07:17 AM »

you can't click direct on an item when ethervane echo has not the focus:
The first click gives the focus back and selects the first item then the 2nd click is the item I need.
Maybe you can give the focus back immediately on the item I click (the item I want to copy or paste).
It gives also a problem pasting clips. p.e. when an external application has the focus and I want to clip an item from Ethervane Echo and I double click p.e. the 4th item, the 1st item will be pasted.

-robbero (February 21, 2012, 01:51 AM)

I can't confirm this. Does this happen with the same configuration settings as you describe below?

I noted something strange.
When FinalWindowAction is set to waRestore
When "Stay on top" is disabled and
When minimizeondeactivate is set to true,
Ethervane Echo restores itself after clipping and immediately hide again.

That's because minimizeondeactivate is set to true. I'm sorry, it cannot work both ways at the same time. With that configuration, you are telling Echo to restore itself after pasting but also to minimize when it is not active. And, after pasting it is not active, as it shouldn't be, because you are working in some other application (the one into which you pasted a clip). The settings to stay on top and to restore after pasting only make sense when minimizeondeactivate is false.

When FinalWindowAction is set to waRestore
When "Stay on top" is enabled and
When minimizeondeactivate is set to true,
after pasting a clip (double click on item) and then copying a text in an external application ethervane echo doesn't clip the item.

Actually, the clip is captured, it just doesn't appear in the list. (Check it by switching to another view and back.) Echo just doesn't refresh the view, because it thinks it does not have to, because minimizeondeactivate is set to true :-)