Messages

51

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 - Pledge: PerceptualDiff GUI

« on: December 27, 2011, 11:53 PM »

Hi steeladept,

no reason for you to apologise. As i said, it was very welcome to see if there are any concerns about "in-box-packaging", as i'm a not a license expert at all. And using my "private think tank" (a.k.a. DonationCoder Community), is always fun.

Now its my turn to say sorry, that i didn't get your point.

Well, as i wrote i'm in contact with Hector, and if he wants i'd gladly hand him over the package to host it additionally, or link to it, whatever he prefers, but i will put up my (small) page anyway. I own a server where i can host my things and do this for all my projects all the time.

I release this as a free program without restrictions or nags, wether you donate or not, But i release only a pre-compiled binary and won't release it as open source though. Not because i don't want to change my mind in any way about the "free" in this project, but i want to avoid to document all the needed dependencies and compile instructions and whatnot, and most of all: My programming style is too awkward to show it to publid. And without the open source i don't think sourceforge makes any sense, isn't it?

Thanks again for taking your time to read and respond. Never thought ANYONE would ever look at it a single second.

Greetings
JoTo

52

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 - Pledge: PerceptualDiff GUI

« on: December 27, 2011, 12:15 AM »

Hi DoCos,

firstly let me thank you for the kind words.

Secondly, the package (not yet downloadable because i'm in the process of packaging and setting up a webpage for it right now) is self-conatined. So nothing else is needed to download. Just the GUI package and you are set.

Thirdly: I neither compiled against anything directly nor have i changed/added anything in the Perceptual Diff utility code. The 3rd party stuff is just included as separate precompiled binary exe and dll files, unchanged as i got them from the authors homepage in the package. So you can still use the Perceptual Diff utility standalone without my GUI and or unpackage again and get back the original package (well to be honest, i stripped the source code files and some compiling instruction textfiles from my distribution package).

And MOST IMPORTANT! Of course i contacted the author Hector Yee before i have included his exe file in my package, informed him what i've done and about the NANY event and offered him to send him a pre-release version to have a look at it. And Hector responded to me with the following words (copied from his eMail):

I'm pretty sure you can distribute it as there are debian  and ubuntu packages with it already, so not a problem. Plus I give you permission to distribute it as well just in case. Thanks for doing this!

And of course i give appropriate credits for Hectors utility and the GPL freeimage.dll that Hector uses in the about dialog of my GUI. I also will inform Hector again, if the page for my GUI is up, so he can link to it, if he wants, on his utility page. I'd appreciate this too, as this would give my GUI more prominence and maybe help more users to use it.

I think with all that i have done all i can do to "Give the king what the king deserves" and i'm on the legal and morally bright side of life, isn't it?

Thanks for pointing that out and give me the chance to clarify and get more safety in not doing something wrong because some guys shared their thoughts about the legality. Any more concerns that you think i should consider?

Greetings
JoTo

53

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / NANY 2012 - RELEASE: PerceptualDiff GUI

« on: December 26, 2011, 01:31 PM »

NANY 2012 Entry Information

Application Name	PerceptualDiff GUI
Version	1.0
Short Description	Batch compare two branches of image files in a human visible (perceptual - not binary) way. Move and Rename files depending on match results
Supported OSes	Windows XP/Vista/7
Setup File	http://www.jotosoft.de/perdiffgui
System Requirements	Nothing special. Its a portable app!
Author Info	Most regular DoCos know me. And others i won't chase away with any picture of me
Description	Inspired by a request from DC member Tat1990, who dug up a nice utility named Perceptual Diff, which compares two images in a perceptual (respecting human vision) way for differences, the idea to this app was born. Tat1990 complained, that the Perceptual Diff utility is a hard to handle CLI application and lacks the capability to compare a whole branch (subtree) of images against another branch of images in batch mode. Also she was in need to move the images from branch1 (i.e. some new images you want to add to your collection) to branch2 (i.e. a "library" or your collection) under the subdir of the image of branch2 (your collection) that best match the actual image of branch1 (the new images to add), keeping all the original subdirs of the branch1 image. Furthermore she wanted to rename the image from branch1 following the best match image filename of branch2. To help her out here, i wrote the PerceptualDiff GUI (Perceptual Diff Graphic User Interface) app, that firstly gives the possibility to nicely and easily handle all the parameters of the Perceptual Diff CLI utility with TextControls, SpinControls and Sliders. Secondly it adds move, rename and batch capability of an unlimited amount of image files processed unnattendedly. And lastly you get a nice logfile for the archives with all actions that PerceptualDiff GUI did or would have done. Moving and Renaming are not mandantory, so you can also just get a report of which images match best with which other. And as this is a portable app that is self contained and don't need any installation you can use it everywhere just right out of the box. After that i realized, that this maybe useful for others too and developed the quick and dirty thing up to a usable and showable application. And with the upcoming NANY event, that was my chance to join the game. And here it is. A word about the Perceptual Diff utility. My app is just a convinient frontend to the Perceptual Diff utility of Hector Yee (http://pdiff.sourceforge.net). This utility uses a special comparing method that is not simply a binary byte-by-byte comparison. Rather this utility respects some rules of human vision and therefore compares the two images like a human would look at these pictures and decide if they are similar or totally different. The threshold for what is considered similar is adjustable. PerceptualDiff GUI always finds the BEST PERCEPTUAL MATCH of the images, depending on the given threshhold and based on the results returned by Hectors Perceptual Diff utility, comparing every picture from branch1 with every picture on branch2.
Features	Perceptual comparison. Not binary comparison Unlimited amount of images to compare to each other. Whole directory trees (with subdirectories) can be processed Unattended batch mode Move and Rename actions can be enabled or disabled. So just do a comparison to get a report which image best match with which one without changing your data or let PDiff GUI take actions to move and rename files for you to the bestmatch locations (keeping the necessary parts of the original path) File move and rename actions take care about filename collisions and rename/move with numbering where necessary Easy setup of the CLI parameters of the Perceptual Diff utility with GUI controls Save and load settings for reusing the same settings over and over again Downsampling of the images to speed up the comparison process Detailed logfile with all actions and results that can be saved for later use or for the archives Portable application Multilanguage (Englisch and German translations available for now - If anyone wants to do another language, please contact me)
Screenshots
Installation	No installation needed. It's a portable app. Just unpack and run the exe file.
Using the application	Mostly self explanatory. For more information about Perceptual Diff utility, please see the above mentioned Homepage of Hector Yee.
Uninstalling	To uninstall, just delete the program folder again.
Known Issues	None YET!

Suggestions are welcome. Hope this program is useful to anyone else than Tat1990.

Happy perceptual comparing
JoTo

54

General Software Discussion / Re: handy security tool

« on: December 21, 2011, 06:28 AM »

For me, on WinXP-32, after a first and quick test, it worked fine. Found all processes and showed me all dlls under the hood. *Shrug* Cannot speak for Win7-x64 right now...that test comes next.

For me, at least, i'll keep this tool in my collection. And i only see the advertisement for Taskmanager when i click on the link in the bottom left corner of the main window. Not very intrusive IMO.

Greetings
JoTo

55

General Software Discussion / Re: handy security tool

« on: December 21, 2011, 04:29 AM »

Thanks for pointing that out.

I always searched for such a tool. I'll give it a try and see what it can dig out for me If it at least fiddles out 50% of all these svchost processes for me and tell me whats under the hood, i'd consider it a very useful tool.

Greetings
JoTo

56

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: P-FANCI: Petition For A New Cody Image! POST HERE!!

« on: December 01, 2011, 03:49 AM »

Please join the chant (to the well known melody the us marines sing when they march - at least they do it in the movies all the time...but who am i to tell if its true...Josh, call on duty to make the forefront singer!):

What we want to Nudone do?
A cody image that is new!
What we do when Nudone do?
We all cheer for him Woohoo!

(To be continued endlessly until Nudone did it again!)



+<insert my weight in pounds here> from me for a new cody image

<begging>PLEASE!</begging>

Greetings
JoTo

57

Living Room / Re: NEW Cody wallpapers for Halloween

« on: November 04, 2011, 08:54 AM »

Hi Nudone,

what a pity about the christmas codies

And the Island one is great. It even fit my addicition (I'm member in a maritime club), so i would be glad to use this, as it would be perfect. Just too bright

Nevermind, it was just an idea *SNIFF*

Thank you anyway
Greetings
JoTo

58

DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for October 31, 2011 - "Frightening Feathers"

« on: November 04, 2011, 05:17 AM »

And again i lost half of a day because i neither could resist, nor i can't stop reading this newsletter.

I'm still hoping for an empty or totally uninteresting newsletter in the future so i can satisfy my boss when doing my work instead of reading.

Thank you again for this hours of pure pleasure.

Greetings
JoTo

59

Living Room / Re: NEW Cody wallpapers for Halloween

« on: November 04, 2011, 05:10 AM »

WOW, Nudone did it again!

I'm so cody addicted!

2 Questions though

1. What happened to wtfcody.com? I just get a "This domain is parked" with GoDaddy ads

2. Are there any CCWs out there (Cody Christmas Wallpapers) I'd be glad to have one for the season. But it should have a very dark (black or deep blue) background and overall brightness. So an image with Cody in snow i cannot use for my visual impairness.

That reminds me, i must search for a season-less cody wallpaper i can use everyday in between seasons as well. But also with a dark overall brightness or i can't use it.

Thanks a lot Nudone for your great work again and for inventing this cute little pet for me (errrm for us i mean)

Greetings
JoTo

60

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Voxatron Debut

« on: November 04, 2011, 04:31 AM »

I bought it just for the "Blocks that matter" game.

Isaac is a nice one too, but i'm not so much in action rich games. So even the "leading" app in this bundle "Voxatron" is not really for me.

But who cares. I got a really addictive game (Blocks that matter) and i supported the HumbleBundle Idea.

So thats a win-win situation.

Greetings
JoTo

61

Screenshot Captor / Re: Improving Region Select Capture Mode

« on: November 04, 2011, 04:20 AM »

Hey Mouse-maaan,

Thats great! I LOVE the new guideline crosshair.

I am one of the "i only want to grab a region guys" and i always started up to grab the minimal bound box, starting e.g. at top left point and drag the area until i notice that at the more right area there is a content that raises higher than the left top point. Starting again to grab new.  

Now with the new full screen guidelines that won't happen again.

WOOHOO from me for this!

Greetings
JoTo

62

Developer's Corner / Re: Auto generate 'spinner' code for your website

« on: November 03, 2011, 06:58 AM »

Boomarked!

Thanks a lot!

Greetings
JoTo

63

Living Room / Re: Another Nail in the Coffin for Free Speech

« on: October 18, 2011, 04:49 AM »

Well, I'm not astonished at all.

In germany the term "Ga-Ga" has also the meaning of being an idiot, insane, crazy, lunatic, retarded anyway. Like we germans say "Er oder Sie ist Ga-Ga!" (He or She is Ga-Ga - replace the Ga-Ga with your most preferred word from my above mentioned list).

I knew already for a longer time that this useless carbon unit (i avoid calling her a human being intentionally), that others call her a singer or worse an artist (EEEEEEK!) is DEFINITIFELY GA-GA! Look at her outfits, performances and last but not least horrible music (if you insist to call it music).

So i think, YES she have the right to insist in this name and all derivations. Because she is "THE GENUINE GA-GA" in the german meaning.</ironic>

What concerns me much more is, that there are so many dumb kids around that like her and her <vomit>music</vomit>.

Poor poor world.

I feel fear for our human future and our world
JoTo

PS:
To be serious, i hate when this copyright topics happens. Remember that someone tried to "patent" the word Webspace to get money from everyone that uses that word in any context? Thanks god that patent was refused by an intelligent person. And the freeware author of FTP-Explorer (an ftp client) that got sued to not use the word "Explorer" for his app? WTF! Where will all this end? I think i should patent the word "the" for me and become a billionare from all the license fees i'll get. And jugdes that decide this way have either NO IDEA what they are doing or are GA-GA too. Well in both cased, they should be removed from their job. Just my 2ct. *ShakingMyHead* Tsk Tsk Tsk!

64

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: RealWorld Paint 2011.1 finally complete

« on: October 10, 2011, 04:49 AM »

Hi Vlastimil,

NICE!!!

My problem with Photoshop is the visual impaired unfriendly GUI. That problem is not with RWP, great. Well some seeing problem i have with RWP, but most can be workarounded by waiting for the tooltip and whatever. So whenever i need to manipulate a PSD, i gladly fire up RWP now.

I also love the easy way to install plugins (as easy as installing a FireFox plugin) and the really nice done tutorial videos.

Another big plus is the portability. RWP will have its reserved space from now on on my "Utility-Allways-in-my-pocket-Thumbrdrive".

Thanks for the generous offer to give it out as free/donationware. Some bucks (Donationcredits) are on the way.

Greetings
JoTo

65

DonationCoder.com Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for September 24, 2011 - "Fighting for Feathers"

« on: September 26, 2011, 10:07 AM »

OK mouser and stephen,

Now i'm mad on you both.

You made me lose a whole day with this AWESOME INTERESTING WELLDONE CAN'T STOP READING Newsletter.

Thank you very much for the enjoying hours.

Greetings
JoTo

66

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea: Program to update a MySQL database with data obtained from other programs

« on: September 26, 2011, 07:31 AM »

@Tat1990:
No, but i had some more background from our chat.

*Sigh* I wish i would be better in SQL and have some time.

Greetings
JoTo

67

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea: Program to update a MySQL database with data obtained from other programs

« on: September 26, 2011, 07:28 AM »

@StoicJoker:
Nice idea...that would render the plugin stuff obsolete and can be solved with SQL only knowledge, keeping the automatic execution in realtime.

Greetings
JoTo

68

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea: Program to update a MySQL database with data obtained from other programs

« on: September 26, 2011, 06:29 AM »

Hi Renegade,

what Tatjana wants is that:

- She uses a MediaManager program that stores the data in a SQL database
- But she wants more information (like a CRC checksum and whatnot) that the media manager won't provide itself additionally in the database
- The MediaManager can handle such additional fields as "custom fields" (read and display them) if they are present in the database
- She wants to use some other external programs to collect the data (e.g. look for the bit depth in the image file, crc checksum, blah blah) and store them in the media manager database to the related record so that this information is available on the next run in the media manager

So she needs a script/app that reads from the SQL database the path to the image file. Then runs several external programs (or offer the functionality itself) to look into the image file for the bit depth and whatnot and calculate a crc checksum. Then the script/app should add these additional information to the actual record in the SQL database as additional custom fields to make these information available in the media manager.

This process should work mostly automatically and/or in the background whenever the media manager stores a new record. The media manager, as Tatjana said to me, has a plugin SDK to hook that script/app into the media manager. If that is not possible, maybe a "run once a day" or "run after media manager session ends" independent script/app will do the trick too? Tatjana, will this be acceptable too?

She is NOT looking for a full blown SQL Manager app where you can create and execute SQL queries and/or manage a database manually.

This is how i understood Tatjanas request. Oh, and may i remind, that we are in the coding snack section? So the people here asking for help are mostly not capable to program the request themselves, or they wouldn't have asked here. She is searching for one, that maybe is willing to help her program that script/app.

I'm not a SQL guru, so i think its a bit over my head. Otherwise i'd be glad to try that challenge.

Greetings
JoTo

PS:
Tatjana, just name the "enemy" There is nothing wrong in naming even commercial products here, as long as you don't advertise when you are related to the application. And even this can be done in the "Announcing my software" section of the forum.

69

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea: Program to update a MySQL database with data obtained from other programs

« on: September 26, 2011, 02:41 AM »

Welcome Tatjana,

i see you followed my advice on the irc channel to post your wish here.

I hope, someone will grab the task for you. *FingersCrossed*

Greetings
JoTo

PS:
Hope to chat you in the channel again. Bye!

70

Developer's Corner / Re: Nice PDF Tutorial - Inside PDF

« on: August 26, 2011, 02:26 AM »

Nice find Ewe,

Thanks for sharing!

Greetings
JoTo

71

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: The Humble Indie Bundle #3

« on: July 27, 2011, 02:37 AM »

Hi,

even if i'm not a hardcore gamer at all i grabbed that.

A) because some of the games are very different and i like them (e.g. the gear game )
B) because i love such generous offers (pay what you think its worth) and want to motivate others to see that this concept will work and maybe get a lot more of such offers in the future.

Thanks for the notice!

Greetings
JoTo

72

Developer's Corner / Windows 8 - DirectUI, WinRT, .NET and c++ - Two worlds meet again

« on: June 27, 2011, 01:59 AM »

Hi DCs,

today i stumbled upon this very interesting article (and the informationw was new to me as well). So i'd thought i'll share for those that aren't up-to-date windows gurus (as i am not too).

In short:

First it is a nice (and even for lamers like me very understandable) wrap up of the history of
WinAPI, .NET and development under windows.

Secondly it gives some insight about the reasons under the hood for all the rumour around Windows-Development in the last decade and some internals how and why MS did what they did.

Thirdly it gives some interesting news from "slipped out" code snippets and informations from MS about the new APIs in Windows 8 named DirectUI and WinRT that should bring the UI Design under Windows to a "modern way of layout" using vector based approach (formerly WPF - Windows Presentation Foundation). It also brings all the rumour that Windows 8 will ONLY use HTML5 and Javascript as the main developer platform to an end.

Early this month, Microsoft dropped something of a bombshell on Windows developers: the new Windows 8 touch-friendly immersive style would use a developer platform not based on .NET, which Microsoft has been championing for the past decade. Instead, it would use HTML5 and JavaScript. Since then, the company has refrained from making any further comment on the issue. In particular, the question that has many Windows developers particularly concerned—how can I make use of my existing skills and experience when developing these new applications?—remains unanswered; the company plans to reveal nothing until its BUILD conference in September.

But the situation probably won't be as grim as many developers fear. Early milestone builds of Windows 8 have leaked onto the Internet, and considerable effort has been put into figuring out how they work. Though officially tight-lipped, snippets of information have escaped Redmond's walls. So far, it appears that Windows 8 development doesn't just look not bad—there are signs that it will actually resolve many long-standing annoyances with writing Windows software. If Microsoft can pull off everything it's hoping to achieve with the platform, Windows 8 will be as important and radical a release as Windows Longhorn was going to be.

Windows 8 will ship with a pair of runtimes; a new .NET runtime (currently version stamped 4.5), and a native code C++ runtime (technically, COM, or a derivative thereof), named WinRT. There will be a new native user interface library, DirectUI, that builds on top of the native Direct2D and DirectWrite APIs that were introduced with Windows 7. A new version of Silverlight, apparently codenamed Jupiter, will run on top of DirectUI. WinRT and DirectUI will both be directly accessible from .NET through built-in wrappers.

WinRT provides a clean and modern API for many of the things that Win32 does presently. It will be, in many ways, a new, modern Win32. The API is designed to be easy to use from "modern" C++ (in contrast to the 25 year old, heavily C-biased design of Win32); it will also map cleanly onto .NET concepts. In Windows 8, it's unlikely that WinRT will cover everything Win32 can do—Win32 is just so expansive that modernizing it is an enormous undertaking—but I'm told that this is the ultimate, long-term objective. And WinRT is becoming more and more extensive with each new build that leaks from Redmond.

In long terms:

Read yourself at: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2011/06/windows-8-for-software-developers-the-longhorn-dream-reborn.ars

Hope the (a bit lengthy) article is as interesting to read for you as it was for me.

Greetings
JoTo

PS:
A funny remark i read in a comment about this article in a mailing list was:
"I never believed that HTML5 and JS will be the ONLY developer platform for Windows 8. I don't think the next version of Microsoft-Office will be written in Javascript!"

73

Developer's Corner / Re: Can someone recommend a good and i18n screen keyboard?

« on: June 15, 2011, 03:50 AM »

Hi Renegade,

thank you very much for your suggestions.

I'll look at all your given links.

Greetings
JoTo

74

Developer's Corner / Re: Can someone recommend a good and i18n screen keyboard?

« on: June 15, 2011, 01:27 AM »

Hi Buddies,

@Renegade:
No, no tablet (yet). Normal Laptop/Desktop PCs with full sized Touchscreens. And yes, its a mix of Kioskmode and normal operation, as our app runs in Fullscreen mode, but let other applications (e.g. the x-ray scanner GUIs and so on) pop up if needed.

Used OSes are XP/Vista/7.

What is Win98-Avenue? I may Google for it. But the name won't let me jump in ecstasy when i read Win98  . But i'll search for it. Thank you.

If you can tap anyone of your environment and extract any useful information for this topic, i'd gladly appreciate your effort.

@Ath: Yes, Win7 built in screen keyboard came to mind too. But as you said, a bit inflexible. If we can't find our prince, we have to kiss that frog of course. But as this is not a thing we need tomorrow (but next week ) i can wait a bit longer if another one maybe comes up with another suggestion. Thank you anyway very much.

Any more suggestions? I'm still in "search and collect mode"

TIA again!
Greetings
JoTo

75

Developer's Corner / Can someone recommend a good and i18n screen keyboard?

« on: June 14, 2011, 06:27 AM »

Dear DC fellas,

i'm in need of a good on-screen keyboard under windows to use with touchscreens. It could be a standalone app and/or (preferable) a SDK, LIB or class library for c++ and MSVC.

Freeware, Shareware, Donationware, Commercialware, WhatDoIKnowWare is all acceptable. But it should at least fit the following needs:

• Royality free (Commercial purchase is OK, but then it should be freely distributable to any amount of customers without additional fees)
• Must support UTF-8 and all i18n charsets and keyboard layouts or at least should be customizable to do so. That means beside the "normal" standards like QWERTY/QWERTZ, iso-8859-1, iso-8859-2 and such even more exotic charsets and keyboard layouts like simplified chinese, russian, hebrew, vietnamese, ... should be supported.
• Customization is very welcome so we can e.g. hide unused buttons we don't need and will only distract the user.
• Design customization to match our app design would be nice, but isn't a no-go if it can't be done.
• Stable, reliable and precise functionality for use in a medical environment (doctors office, hospital, ...)
• If its a standalone app, some way of communication must be possible (show/hide, maybe redirect input to our app, whatever).

Anyone has already any experience with such kind of software and can recommend a product or a list of maybe interesting candidates?

Any hint appreciated to sort out the gazillions of this kind apps out there.

Thankyou in advance very much for your assistance.

Greetings
JoTo