Messages

801

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Click/scroll in Inactive Windows

« on: April 02, 2009, 10:46 AM »

Now i just need a program that lets me click in inactive windows, so my active window doesnt get disturbed

-moreleech (March 31, 2009, 06:36 PM)

If I understand correctly what you mean, this is a contradiction in terms. A clicked window will receive focus - it's one of the most basic rules of Windows user interface. Conversely, a window that has no focus does not accept input (clicking, typing) - Windows does not send mouse or keyboard messages to an inactive window. And only one window can have focus and receive input at any given time.

Programs like KatMouse work by "manually" sending appropriate scroll messages to a window underneath the mouse. I guess a similar program could send clicks too, but sending a click would activate the window.

While it's also possible to send keyboard messages (though trickier and not all key combinations can be sent reliably), I'm not sure if inactive windows process keyboard messages, and you could not use the physical keyboard to do so, because your physical keypresses would go to the currently active window.

802

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« on: April 01, 2009, 04:47 PM »

I've just imported a test database and Linkman was able to import "Bookmarks Toolbar" as a folder, including all content. Is there a possibility you could send your FF3 bookmark file

-Outertech Support (April 01, 2009, 03:37 PM)

Done, thanks a lot!

803

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« on: April 01, 2009, 03:00 PM »

I've just downloaded and installed Linkman 7.80. On importing Firefox 3 bookmarks it seems that Linkman does not import the bookmarks stored in FF3 under "Bookmarks Toolbar" (this is what used to be called "Personal toolbar Folder" in earlier versions of Firefox, a branch separate from the "Bookmarks Menu" in FF).

I'm afraid this is a showstopper for me, since *all* my important bookmarks go into folders under that section, so that FF displays them directly under the address bar, and I can manipulate them without using the weak manager built into Firefox. Right now I have 19 folders under "Bookmarks Toolbar", each with twenty-plus bookmarks - Linkman's import function seems to have ignored that. Is this behavior by design?

804

General Software Discussion / Re: When was your last BSOD? I'm betting it was a long time ago

« on: March 31, 2009, 04:31 PM »

When was your last BSOD?

-zridling (March 31, 2009, 03:29 PM)

I wouldn't remember when I last saw it, if it weren't for one program which causes it unnervingly often - True Crypt. Every so often when browsing files on an encrypted volume (a regular file, not a partition) I do get the BSOD with a message indicating a fault in fastfat.sys. Creating a new encrypted volume and moving files to it doesn't seem to have helped. Thankfully, the files on the volume are unaffected.

Other than that, I guess the last BSOD I saw on XP was from some FPS game, years ago. XP is good to me.

805

General Software Discussion / Re: Website design recommendations for a small business site?

« on: March 30, 2009, 05:20 PM »

It seems that in Xara Web Designer you can modify the templates in pretty much whatever way you want.

-Carol Haynes (March 30, 2009, 04:49 PM)

The templates can be modified, yes - but I doubt *I* could modify them, if you can see the difference

I can certainly spoil a good design, but not improve on it. If it sounds lame, that's because it is lame, what can I say! If I needed an image changed, I don't know how to do so, because I don't know the first thing about editing images. How do you go from a blank rectangle mouse-drawn in Paint to a shaded 3D button that blends into the background but still looks clickable? I've no idea.

But it gets worse, because I am mentally unable to even *imagine* what I want, or what would look good. I can tell a good design from a bad one, like I can tell a good piece of music from a bad one, but I can't make either. There's probably a medical term for this regrettable peculiarity, and I sure hope it isn't called laziness, but there it is. Some people apparently can't spell regardless of effort and me, I can't draw things, or even imagine what would look right when drawn.

806

General Software Discussion / Re: Website design recommendations for a small business site?

« on: March 30, 2009, 04:41 PM »

How about Xara web designer? http://www.xara.com

-Carol Haynes (March 30, 2009, 03:30 PM)

Thanks for the suggestion, Carol. Xara Web Designer does look spiffy! I'm not sure if I want to go that way though, because all I'd be able to do would be to use the built-in templates. I like perhaps two of the templates on Xara's showcase page, but not as much as I like my selections from 4templates.

I already have a few web design tools (albeit they're more in the traditional HomeSite style), and I'm afraid I'd end up spending countless hours (which I don't really have) and still not come up with anything vaguely professional looking. When it comes to visual design, I could just as easily buy a trumpet and hope to start playing good music by next week!

I feel what I really need instead is to buy a single design plus a customization service. I'm about ready to buy from 4templates, except that you can't really know how well the templates are built until you buy - you can't even tell if they are fluid or fixed-size, or if the section links are made of text (easy to manipulate) or if they are graphics (which I could not modify). I'm prepared to spend more than 4templates are asking, as long as I can have the designs customized a little, and as long as I can be fairly secure I'm getting the right thing. I guess this is the hardest part of all

807

General Software Discussion / Re: Website design recommendations for a small business site?

« on: March 30, 2009, 02:57 PM »

(Bumping the thread)

808

General Software Discussion / Re: Website design recommendations for a small business site?

« on: March 29, 2009, 04:44 PM »

Have you looked at Open Source Web Design as an option?

-rgdot (March 29, 2009, 04:37 PM)

No, but I will now, thanks!

809

General Software Discussion / Website design recommendations for a small business site?

« on: March 29, 2009, 04:26 PM »

I need to set up a small, simple website for my wife's one-person company. It would be mostly static except for a way to switch languages (the site will be bi- or trilingual), with a cookie to store the user's language preference, and perhaps a search mechanism. I know I could use any of the free content management engines, but they're far too complex on the one hand, and on the other hand they don't solve my major issue: the graphical design of the site. I am completely unable to imagine and design anything graphical, so this is what I need to buy.



So I went looking for templates and found a few suitable ones on 4templates.com (just as a reference, I particularly like this one, this one and this one). I like their general look, but before purchase you can only see small-size screenshots, so I don't know what they really look like in the browser, or if they are fluid vs. fixed-width designs, how they react to font scaling, or if the main section headings can be added / removed easily, etc. I would also need them customized in some small ways. The designers have a contact form and say they do customization, but they haven't responded to my questions sent twice over two weeks, so either they're not interested or their comment form is overrun with spam.

Anyway, I don't know where else to look, or even how much I should expect to pay for customizing templates like these. I don't even know if they are particularly good templates The ones at 4templates.com are priced between $20 and $30, which is certainly low - but do other designers offer any significantly better (design-wise and usability-wise) termplates for more? Has anyone used such services and would like to share their experience?

I wanted this as a birthday present for my wife, which is April 9th, so it's already a little late for that - but other than that this isn't particularly urgent, so I'd rather spend more time and choose well. Professional website designers, please feel free to respond, but please reveal your interest in keeping with DC policies, and please also understand this will not be a particularly high-yield account

810

Site/Forum Features / Re: March 2009 Survey Discussion

« on: March 29, 2009, 03:50 PM »

Mouser,

I've just filled out the survey - and typically for my slow-thinking self, I've come up with a couple of ideas I should have suggested only after I had submitted the survey. So here goes...

1. I'd like a section of the forum dedicated to programs that should be written (but life is too short and I can't write them all ). I know about Coding Snacks, but I feel that section is meant for small requests that can reasonably be satisfied by one coder in a short span of time. What I have in mind here is a section dedicated to ideas that are either too complex or too vague for Coding Snacks; more of a brainstorming section to discuss software we'd like to see someday (preferably tomorrow!). I have a number of ideas like this, some relatively simple, others not so. Some of them I've tried and abandoned; others I wouldn't even know where to start. Still others are merely improvements to existing software. This could be nothing but a pie-in-the-sky, "Dream software" forum - but then again it could be a worthwhile repository of ideas for coders looking for inspiration.

2. Somewhat related to the above, perhaps a subsection of that, would be a place to post / discuss specific improvement ideass for specific pieces of software that's popular on DC - say, Total Commander, DOpus, UltraEdit, EditPad Pro, etc., there are of course many other DC favorites. Such threads often occur spontaneously, but there could be a place dedicated to them, where the makers of those applications could look, should they be interested, and respond. The section could be organized by software title or by domain (file managers, editors, etc). Perhaps this would be enforcing too much formality into a live, evolving forum, but I know I'd read a section like this all the time.

As an example: I know UltraEdit is very popular with many DC posters, and there are good reasons for that. Meanwhile, I find so much wrong with it, it's not even funny. If I wrote a review, it would be scathing negativity So I won't write a review - but I would use a section like the one I've just described to vent, constructively. Again, this could be useful to the developers of the titles in question, but also to all developers really, as a handy reference to what users like or dislike in popular software.

3. I mentioned in the survey that one of the major, major strong points here are the software reviews (and the discussions that follow). DC reviews are extremely informative, but what's even more important, they are reliable, because they are not sponsored in any way, and are written by those who actively use the software, rather than by paid reviewers afer 15 minutes of checking out a new package. There's plenty of other good stuff here, but I would love DC as much as I do if there were nothing here except for the reviews. So how about expanding this to hardware? Anything computer-related might still be within the scope of the site. Of course I'd love it to go even firther, into popular consumer electronics, though that might be stretching the DC concept - you be the judge. I just want to stress how important the reviews are to me, and that it might be worthwhile to expand on that virtue.

Besides that, DC is of course perfection incarnate!  

ed: grammar

811

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your mouse of choice?

« on: March 05, 2009, 03:55 PM »

Personally I use the mouse a *lot* for graphics/vid, but more often than not just for a short amount of time... with my right hand constantly going from keyboard to mouse or tablet or cup of coffee/tea

-mikiem (March 05, 2009, 03:21 PM)

Now that you mention it, I've realized I have developed a habit of holding mugs in my left hand, even though I'm right-handed. Never even noticed this before. Homo keyboardicus!

812

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your mouse of choice?

« on: February 20, 2009, 05:34 PM »

Mine is the logitech MX revolution.
Once you try the scrollwheel, you cannot go back to any other mouse. It has no clicks, you can roll it in a 'free' way.

-urlwolf (February 20, 2009, 12:15 PM)

Same here. I love the MX Revolution - for the main scrollwheel, the shape and feel, and for the thumbwheel. Although for the main wheel I still use the click mode, can't get used to the free scrolling.

After a year or so, my MX has developed a problem though: every so often (like, once a minute during heavy mousing) a single left click generates a doubleclick instead. The mechanical contact thingie is wearing out, I suppose. This is hugely aggravating: click a delete button on a toolbar and a program performs two deletes instead of just one. Click the top-right (x) to exit an app, and exit two.

So I've been looking for a replacement, and it looks like the only candidate is another MX. I can no longer live without the thumbwheel! The two thumb buttons are also quite comfortable - I have them set up as zoom in and out. In any other mouse I've tried any additional buttons are positioned wrong somehow, out of comfortable reach - either too close to the middle of the mouse body, or too close to the front edge.

For my wife I recently got a Logitech VX Nano Cordless - looks like a mini version of the MX, sans the thumbwheel. She says it's the best mouse she's ever used. (Mouser note: this one uses AAA batterries, no recharging.)

813

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: January 10, 2009, 05:42 PM »

Well this thing does not fit any simple definition but let me give you little insight

-kartal (January 10, 2009, 04:00 PM)

Thanks, kartal, that's very informative! I'll go watch the videos next.

I can see why the pen needs the dot paper, but it just might break the deal for me, since I'm in Poland, so shipping time and price are a concern. The pen is sold by amazon.com, but, strangely, not by amazon.co.uk, so it looks like they're not targeting the European market. It's hard to find anything about shipping on their all-Flash site, so I'll need to email their sales dept first.

814

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: January 10, 2009, 01:55 PM »

I just bought livescribe Pulse pen for notetaking and recording. I think it is an amazing tool for note taking.

-kartal (January 10, 2009, 01:36 PM)

This thing?
http://www.livescrib.../smartpen/index.html

It looks awesome, but what does it do? How do hand writing *and* recording work both at the same time? I don't need one personally, but I'm trying to figure out if it would be suitable for my wife, as she's taking lots of longhand notes at meetings, etc.

(Do you have to use it with the microdot paper they sell? How does the functionality degrade with regular writing pads?)

815

Coding Snacks / Re: Global Hotkey Management

« on: January 01, 2009, 05:10 PM »

Would it be possible as a programmer to "try a given hotkey" and see which programs/ processes "respond" to it? Something like FileMon but more like KeyMon?

-SleepingWolf (January 01, 2009, 05:05 PM)

I don't think this is possible. When a program tries to register a hotkey, Windows may return an error code meaning that the hotkey is already in use. But AFAIK there is no API function to check which process has registered any given hotkey.

816

Living Room / Re: Gift-giving season cometh. What computer hardware/peripheral would you like?

« on: December 19, 2008, 03:22 PM »

...or a bigger desk for the puter, with enough room to fit a third monitor... I'd buy the monitor myself, thank you, but I can't be bothered to hand over hard cash for a stupid desk!

817

Living Room / Re: Gift-giving season cometh. What computer hardware/peripheral would you like?

« on: December 19, 2008, 03:19 PM »

UPS. The one thing I've been pushing down my shopping list forever. Especially after I read about formatting the batteries, tons of related problems people post about, and realized I didn't understand a thing about it. But if it were a gift, I'd just start using it...

818

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Intro

« on: December 15, 2008, 12:46 PM »

Tried in wxperl (since i can do perl in my sleep, or close) but realised that there is pretty much no way to package things properly for distribution.

-iphigenie (December 15, 2008, 05:56 AM)

I admit I know nothing about what packaging a perl distribution would entail, but would it be useful to see how another project does it? You may be familiar with PopFile, probably the first spam filter to use Bayes classification. It's multiplatform, runs fine on Windows, and is written in Perl (although they use the browser for an interface rather than any widget set). You'll find the complete source code from getpopfile.org, which would perhaps illustrate packaging perl for Windows.

819

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 TEASER: SQLite Scrub

« on: December 13, 2008, 09:32 PM »

(deleted, screenshot is now in the top post)

820

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« on: December 12, 2008, 03:05 PM »

Can you give us a rule to help determine what, in an arbitrary piece of software, constitutes an upgrade versus an update?

Is an update nothing more than a bug fix?

-CWuestefeld (December 12, 2008, 02:48 PM)

The terms are fuzzy, but in general yes, an update is more or less a bugfix release, or a minor version change - from 1.1 to 1.2. Upgrade is a major version change - so from 1.1 to 2.0. A service pack for Windows is a free update, but Vista is a paid upgrade to XP. Apple uses the terms in the same way, but their explanation is a ittle more involved.

That said, it will often be an arbitrary decision what to call a release. If you've fixed 10 bugs and added one new feature, you can still call it an upgrade and charge for it, though it will make a lot of people unhappy - especially that some of them may have reported the bugs to you in the first place and have had to work around them for a year or more (CodeGear!). Or do what TuneUp Utilities do: never release free updates at all, put out one new version each year named after the year of publication plus one, change some UI colors and shapes of buttons and call it a major upgrade.

*That* said, I have no idea what technology change is involved in moving from DBD to HD DVD, so I have no opinion there at all

821

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« on: December 12, 2008, 08:49 AM »

Total Commander still has a lifetime license, albeit with something along the lines of "in the future we might change this policy" in there. When asked about it (a year or two ago), mr. Ghisler (TC developer) said that there were no plans to change since they're already making enough money as it is.

-TucknDar (December 12, 2008, 05:40 AM)

Not only that, but I recall someone on the TC forum who wanted to buy additional TC licenses for their other computers, and was told by Mr Ghisler to just use the licenses they already had, and donate to charity instead. (This should not be construed as official Total Commander license policy, I'm only reporting my memory of a post to that effect!) I hope Mr Ghisler is rolling in money as he totally deserves or has otherwise achieved lifetime nirvana. Not only a coding master, but a wonderful person, too.

822

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: EditPad Pro discounted at Bits du Jour on December 18

« on: December 11, 2008, 03:20 PM »

Should I?

-TucknDar (December 11, 2008, 02:23 PM)

Do give it a try. It has a few very nice aspects, and then some that take getting a little used to. Very simple but also annoying example: pressing ctrl+delete on a word deletes the word (like in most Windows editors) but - unlike most editors - does not delete the space following the word. It trips me every time.

EditPad Pro has what's probably the most powerful search facility among the popular editors, including filtering of the matching lines, and  its regex highlighting is a cherry on top... As long as you get used to the non-modal task pane at the bottom. I feel it slows me down.

Very nice and well-implemented syntax highlighting and code folding. By comparison, EmEditor has more powerful definition for highlighting. For example, EmEditor is the only editor I know where I can highlight only the angle brackets in html / xml tags. On the other hand, EmEditor's code folding is rather weak.

Alas, no scripting. Macros - yes, but stored in lengthy INI files, totally impractical for manual tweaking. This is where EmEditor really wins over EditPad Pro.

My support story: For the requirements of one of my clients, an earlier version of EditPad Pro didn't handle UTF8 files cleanly enough. It had an option to always add the byte order mark or never to add it, which meant that depending on this setting it would either drop the BOM from files that had it, or would add the BOM to files that did not. For this particular client such a change breaks their build. I asked the author of EditPad Pro to fix it, they did and sent me a nice email about it. So now, as far as I am concerned, EditPad Pro handles UTF8 and -16 as cleanly as EmEditor.

EmEditor seems a little faster overall when loading and editing large files (double-digit MB sizes), but in my experience EmEditor has been getting worse in this respect since version 7, even though the author claims otherwise. I know that editing some large xml files with long lines has at times been s...l...o...w for me in EmEditor, while EditPad Pro exhibits no hiccups there.

I use both EditPad Pro and EmEditor, depending on my mood and what I'm doing. My advice: if you need (or would like to play with) virtually unlimited scripting, or if you enjoy having mind-bogglingly extensive control over the look and behavior of the editor depending on file type, go for EmEditor. If scripting isn't a concern, then EditPad Pro is also a very polished and convenient, with some extreme serching power and good configurability.

823

Living Room / Re: Email etiquette How to Decline Fowards/Junk?

« on: December 10, 2008, 02:58 PM »

I've always had trouble formulating such messages without sounding like I'm preaching from a high horse. If you're rude, you're rude - but if you make it polite, it sounds condescending. Most of the time I just clench my teethn and delete those things.

However, when I am asked for my email address at a brick and mortar store which "values my custom" (ha! what crock), I always write "spam@[mydomain].com. It's an actual mailbox that delivers, since I also use it for various casual online subscriptions. I used to just refuse to give them anything, but now I use this address. Is this rude?

824

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 TEASER: SQLite Scrub

« on: December 10, 2008, 11:59 AM »

It isn't, because you don't have to store the complete string. If your CC number is 12345678, you can configure it as "delete any string that ends with 78" or "delete any string that contains 456". This is much safer.

-tranglos (December 10, 2008, 08:14 AM)

This could end up deleting a lot of other data, though.

-f0dder (December 10, 2008, 11:07 AM)

True. I admit I haven't been too concerned about this, because all the form data in Firefox, or the clips in Ditto, are not really critical pieces of information, they're just a convenience. One way to limit the potential for destruction is to have multiple conditions (where clauses) for each item to delete, e.g. text must begin with foo and end with bar. This is already implemented. At the same time, I was thinking of removing this feature and allowing only one condition per deletion rule, since it would simplify the UI greatly.

What about "delete strings that have this SHA-512 hash" for really sensitive information?

-f0dder (December 10, 2008, 11:07 AM)

Great idea, thanks! It would slow down the operation somewhat, since the program would have to traverse whole tables, without using indexes (the same would apply to regexps) - but then such tables tend not to be very large. This feature probably won't make the initial release, but it's definitely a to-do.

825

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 TEASER: SQLite Scrub

« on: December 10, 2008, 09:39 AM »

Good idea but a GUI and some kind of rulemanagement would add to it imho.

-justice (December 10, 2008, 09:11 AM)

Absolutely, that's why I listed it under planned features. I can't decide on what I want it to look like, while being as simple as possible.

The program has a built-in knowledge of the layout of a particular database, so it comes with several "presets", such as "Firefox - Form history" or "Firefox - Cookies". This makes configuring it simpler, since you don't need to manually specify tables and fields; SS already knows what field to match against.

However, for each such preset you can have many rules (many patterns to delete), and for each pattern you can have many conditions (i.e.  delete records that match this condition AND match that condition...). In GUI terms, this becomes a hierarchy of collections. Very easy to express in xml, but somewhat unwieldy in a GUI.

I originally started by designing a GUI, but what I got was stacks upon stacks of dialog boxes: pick preset, create a rule, then within each rule create one or more conditions, then create another rule... So I scratched that for the moment and wrote the engine itself, driven by xml config files. At least this way I already have a semi-working app, and the GUI can come in later when I have a better grip on it.