Messages

1

Living Room / Re: The new CMS is now LIVE! - Please report any bugs/issues here.

« on: January 16, 2018, 04:51 PM »

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's fixed 

-Stephen66515 (January 16, 2018, 04:32 PM)

Confirmed here, working now 

Another one: the Paypal button at top right also 404s. I think it's because it points to https://www.donationcoder.com/Donate instead of https://www.donationcoder.com/donate (lowercase)

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Living Room / Re: The new CMS is now LIVE! - Please report any bugs/issues here.

« on: January 16, 2018, 04:27 PM »

Congrats mouser and everyone, looking good!

One bug I found: clicking the "DonationCoder.com" image header on the top left of forum pages gives a 404

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Vegas Pro Edit 14 $20 on Humble

« on: December 14, 2017, 01:48 PM »

I've never tried Vegas, but IMO if you're looking for a solid video editor, try HitFilm Express. https://hitfilm.com/express
Completely free, clean interface, and in my experience it has been fast and rock-solid. I've run the gauntlet of video editors, from consumer-level packages like Pinnacle Studio or Cyberlink PowerDirector to Adobe Premiere. HitFilm does the job for me and does it well.

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Living Room / Re: Its hard in this world not to be cynical but you can try

« on: December 14, 2017, 01:07 PM »

Wow, kudos to the creator of this idea (and the Amazon delivery people...), beautiful gesture.

Homelessness is such a tough subject...on the one hand, handouts generally precipitate the problem. Making it easier to live on the streets = less reason to get a job and life back together.
On the other hand, being homeless probably makes it nearly impossible to get a normal job. So many of them may not even be mentally fit for a job.

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Living Room / Re: Just tried using a 4k monitor in my setup, did not like it

« on: December 11, 2017, 01:48 PM »

Good to know, as I've been considering going 4K...maybe I'll first try 1440p.

For something like gaming though, I'd assume 4K works well? Most modern games are not so text-dependent, so I'd think the text size problem would not be an issue

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General Software Discussion / Re: Lastpass down

« on: November 24, 2017, 04:07 PM »

This is not something I have catered for -- how can one cater for this, securely?

-tomos (November 24, 2017, 03:46 PM)

I don't use LastPass. Does this mean you can't now login to any websites that you have used LastPass passwords for? It needs to contact their servers each time to retrieve your password?

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: VMware Workstation 14 Pro 40% off today

« on: November 20, 2017, 03:13 PM »

Cool. I've used VirtualBox in the past, but VMware seems to be the industry standard, and this looks like a great deal. Just wondering if it's worth the investment for me...

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Found Deals and Discounts / Re: VMware Workstation 14 Pro 40% off today

« on: November 20, 2017, 02:54 PM »

one of my favorite apps -- thank you for posting this.

-mouser (November 20, 2017, 02:53 PM)

What do you use it for mouser?

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Living Room / Re: Looking for smartphone

« on: November 16, 2017, 09:28 AM »

I'll totally get a OnePlus 5T as soon as possible. They officially support custom ROMs. 

-Tuxman (November 16, 2017, 09:20 AM)

Are OnePlus phones CDMA-compatible? I'm on Verizon

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General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 10 Announced

« on: November 16, 2017, 08:34 AM »

I've been very wary of Windows updates ever since the spring Creators Update bricked my Windows installation. Data was all fine but could not get it to boot.

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Living Room / Re: Looking for smartphone

« on: November 16, 2017, 08:29 AM »

I'm also looking for a new android phone. Is there any suggestion, I will use for working only, but it needs to run fast, quality camera, call for long hours. My budget is 300 dollar  . But I don't really Samsung pretty much.

-DidierAubin87 (November 16, 2017, 03:45 AM)

I've had the Moto X Pure/Style for close to two years, it's a pretty solid device. And since it's a few years old you can probably get it for cheaper.

Just a few days ago I took the plunge into the world of custom ROMs and installed LineageOS. Much faster and more responsive, thus far. Not saying I recommend it for everyone but if you do get it you have that option.

12

Finished Programs / Re: FINISHED: Reopen file after Wifi reconnects

« on: November 15, 2017, 02:19 PM »

I guess we'll need to have a little more insight into the type of information, and where it originates, stored in the Excel sheet, to help you further. (With a +1 to shades' reply )

-Ath (November 15, 2017, 01:25 AM)

Ok, here's the more detailed rundown:

The purpose of this is for people working in our production environment to easily be able to see which products/orders have been approved and released for them to begin work on.
The Source file is located on our fileserver. It is an Excel file containing a table with 5 columns: Date of approval; Product#; Product Name; Initials of who approved; Time of approval.

On the production floor, I set up a wall-mounted screen with an Intel Compute Stick. This has a locally stored Excel file, ("Dashboard"), which contains only a query to the table in the Source file. The query is set up to refresh every minute. This seemed to be the best way, using Excel, to have a near-realtime view of what was being approved, without having the "Locked for editing" message and without relying on a "cloud", internet-based solution e.g. Google Sheets. There is a mouse mounted to the wall next to the screen, so workers can scroll up and down the spreadsheet to see what has been approved.

The closest analogy I've come up with for this is an airport Departures/Arrival screen: Data gets updated by someone, and the screen shows the changes as they happen.
I used Excel because A) we have it installed already and B) People are familiar with it. It seemed like it would be the easiest way to do this at the time. I'd be happy to hear the alternatives!


Let me know if more detail is needed.

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Finished Programs / Re: FINISHED: Reopen file after Wifi reconnects

« on: November 14, 2017, 11:14 PM »

Hi Shades. You're making many good points.
I also initially thought this was a power saving feature but have been unable to nail that down or prevent it from happening. I do have a batch file running on the dashboard computer that just continuously pings the fileserver, as you suggest. But that didn't stop the error from happening. I also changed all power settings to Always On/Maximum Performance, and have an AHK script that just moves the mouse back and forth periodically, to prevent it from sleeping...still no dice.

I'm sure there are better ways to do this, as you say. All too often, MS Office programs are used in ways never intended. (Excel as a word processor, anyone? I see it all the time where I work...)

Just to clarify, the source file is regularly updated by someone else on a different machine. The dashboard setup, with a query to the source file, is to avoid "Locked for editing by..." messages.
If there's a more painless way to do this, I'm all ears! My know-how is quite limited in regards to database/HTML, but I'm pretty computer-proficient in general and a fast learner. 

skwire's suggestion of PTFB looks like it will do the trick. But I still am definitely open to any suggestions on how to set this up better!

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Finished Programs / FINISHED: Reopen file after Wifi reconnects

« on: November 14, 2017, 09:07 PM »

Hi, first post here.
My situation is a bit complex so please bear with me, any suggestions to help flesh out what I need are appreciated.

I have an always-on computer "dashboard" that displays a log through Excel. There is a "Source" Excel file located on a network drive, and a "Dashboard" Excel file located locally on this computer. The Dashboard file has a data connection/query to the Source file, set to refresh every minute. So if someone adds something to the Source file, it gets updated on the Dashboard in near-realtime.

Here's the problem: The dashboard computer is connected to the network via Wifi, and for whatever reason it sometimes disconnects for a short time. When this happens and the Excel file tries to refresh, it pops up with this error box, because the source file is not available. Even if the Wifi reconnects, Excel apparently "pauses" and will not refresh until I dismiss the error box:



Here's two possible ways I thought of that perhaps can workaround this issue:

• A program that detects when the Source file is no longer available, and once it becomes available again, closes and reopens the local Dashboard file
• A standalone Excel query/file viewer program that will not grind to halt if the Source file is unavailable, but will just silently and patiently wait for the file to become available again

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!