Topics

176

LaunchBar Commander / LBC+FARR = Metro UI alternative

« on: November 07, 2011, 04:45 PM »

I know mouser has talked about merging FARR and LBC in the past years.  After seeing a demonstration of Windows 8 Metro UI, I'm absolutely convinced it is nothing more than a fancy launcher.  I love the concept of grid layouts for organizing your screen's content, I've mentioned it before for websites.  It's a really great way to make a touch interface.

If FARR and LBC could be merged together, it would really offer everything all these companies are struggling with as far as touch interfaces.  Apple has it pretty good, with how smooth theirs is.  The proprietary overlays on the Android devices are consistently sluggish and not very elegant.  People are making a HUGE deal about metro UI, which is puzzling to me because I don't see it being any more important or "big" of an idea than LBC.  Imagine if the front page of all the tech magazines were freaking out about LBC, or FARR, or Truelaunchbar...that's what it feels like to me.  It's really not that big of a deal to me.

Anyway, right now LBC can organize all the toolbar contents using a tree hierarchy and the several toolbar display options.  All that would need to be added is a grid layout management area somehow, and it would be everything Metro UI is trying to be.  if you wanted to get really fancy, you can make widgets or plugins (like in FARR) to do interesting things inside each tile, like show an animated gif, or a video, or some live text/graphics.

177

Living Room / Alternative or "creative" data plans discussion

« on: November 07, 2011, 12:42 PM »

Hi all, I'm back from a  very interesting vacation where I had a chance to think about a lot of things.  One of the topics I'm trying to wrap my mind around is cell phone data plans.  I have successfully avoided needing one up to this point.  However, I am now considering it.  My problem is that I absoutely hate committing to monthly bills and I hate even more the idea of having to sign a contract for this stuff.  I hate cell phone companies and everything associated with them as much as anything.

So what do we do about data plans?  I have a cell phone, tablets (android, Ipad), and laptops that can all potentially make use of data services.  If I just innocently get the default plans for these devices, the charges will be enormous.  I don't like the idea of paying a set rate per month for these things.  I want to pay for them as I use them.  Pre-paid plans, perhaps?  I know T-Mobile offers these.

The problem with the cell phone companies is that they want to lock you in to their expensive plans that I don't really need and are needlessly complicated and confusing, with all sorts of restrictions, etc.  Yes, I'm going to tether stuff.  I'm also going to jailbreak things, buy unlocked phones, root devices, etc.  I just need access to data services, plain and simple.

What is the company or plan that is most cooperative with this sort of thinking?  From my preliminary research, it doesn't seem like any of the big boys like this sort of thing and will make it difficult.  Which is fine, if it's difficult, I'll figure it out.  But if it's impossible, I don't want to commit to any of them.  I'm also not going to pay $150 a month for any of this nonsense.

So, what are the alternatives out there?  Anyone have any "creative" solutions?  Or is the only option to bend over and just accept it?

178

Living Room / I don't understand relative volume on a PC at all.

« on: October 24, 2011, 09:26 PM »

I've been confused by this my whole life.  I have a computer, very nice parts all around including the sound card.  Now, I play music (mp3s) in my mp3 player (foobar, winamp, etc.).  I can crank the volume all the way to max, and it's not terribly loud.  It's loud and all, but let me finish.  I go on the internet and watch a youtube video...all my computer settings are the same, mind you...and the youtube volume is at about 10% or less.  And it's as loud as the loudest song on my computer.  Furthermore, I have the Windows 7 application-specific volume control for Firefox limiting web volume to about 30% or less.  So that loud youtube sound is actually 10% of an already limited by 30%.  And anything on the web is orders of magnitude louder than whatever the equivalent sound would be on stuff playing on my computer.

I don't get this.  I'm not saying the mp3's should be louder or the web stuff should be quieter.  I just don't understand where all of this stuff is being controlled.  I would often like for my music to be louder than it is.  If I see the volume setting in my tray for Windows set almost to max (80%) that makes me want the music to be VERY loud.  I don't want max volume settings on my computer to listen to things at a comfortable volume.  Ideally, I'd like the normal volume on the master mixer to be betweeen 20-50%.  This is so that if I want it really loud, I can do that without having to crank the physical knobs on my speakers and stuff.

My question is, the web stuff is so loud relatively speaking, and it sounds fine.  That is, it doesn't seem like the computer's hardware is struggling to play that stuff.  So why can't I somehow adjust the overall volume of the mp3's and other applications to be a little more than whatever this default is?  I almost want a preamp or something.

I didn't even mention, this is all being enhanced by an SRS sound enhancing thing.  Without that, the volume would be probably half of what it is.

It seems like the web can easily play things very loud, no problem, even on 5%.  But with my other applications, to get things loud, I have to crank everything almost to max.  And what's even more confusing: I record music and things, and when I mix it, I have to usually crank things a TON just to kind of hear it.  Then, when I export it to the final format like mp3, it ends up being super loud, so I have to go back and adjust it.  I'm telling you, I have no idea where and how volume is controlled.  Playback of a recording is very quiet...and as soon as it's exported to an mp3, it's crazy loud.  How does that make sense?

179

Living Room / A rant against the SmartPhone ecosystem.

« on: October 17, 2011, 09:59 AM »

This is a comment in some blog I was just reading.  I thought it was a good description of why people like us don't really prefer to use these phone gadgets:

This is a "how" begging for a "why".The downside of hacks like this will always be the hardware.

Today's "smart"phones and "tablets" almost exclusively look to ARM platforms which derive their significance from the world of embedded computing.  The fact of the matter is that the natural setting for this hardware, and indeed where it flourishes, is vertical integration.  With vertical systems:
* You're not SUPPOSED to be able to update your operating system or software when and how you want to.
* You're not SUPPOSED to be able to upgrade your operating system or software when and how you want to.
* You're not SUPPOSED to be able to install the operating system or software of your choosing when and how you want to.

It is intended to be a curated experience through the vendor, or the whole, delicate ecosystem breaks.  The vendor has integrated your device as part of a larger ecosystem (and "ecosystem" doesn't refer to the stupid collection of crAPPS that you can download through a crAPP Store).  It is setup this way for the convenience of your vendor, and in actual vertically integrated systems this makes a lot of sense.  For example, I don't think anybody wins if some UPS courier decides to "hack" her digital signature tablet or handheld code scanner to put a different operating system of different software on it.  Those devices are just a small part of the overall ecosystem of package tracking and delivery for the company, and the courier's devices are just one of many. 

For some reason, people think that their “tablets" are personal computers because they’re theirs.  That’s a nice application of grammar.  They are “personal” computers.  However, they are not “Personal Computers" because they’re built on hardware and with software and operating systems that REQUIRE vendor and operator intervention for them to achieve and maintain their perpetual usefulness.

In reality, hardware intended for vertical integrations is, has been, and always will be a pretty lousy fit for consumers.  Whereas it makes a lot of sense for UPS to demand that devices are EOL'd and replaced on their command (cause you can’t work efficiently if you have to inter-operate and support multiple generations and species of devices), it's pretty dumb for vendors to be able to do that consumers, which is essentially what happens when the newest software won't be brought to your "outdated" hardware.  So, a hack likes this will work as long as it works, and then it simply won't work anymore.

If it's really important for you to be able to run Ubuntu, you might want to either buy a supported device or pressure hardware vendors to open up their drivers.  As is, this hack doesn't really solve any problems, it just makes it easier for the problems to persist without anybody really caring.

If NOBODY bought hardware that was ONLY supported by proprietary drivers then NOBODY would try to sell them.  It’s hard to blame companies for wanting to install such leverage points against consumers when consumers are dumb enough to fall for it, and I’ve made a lot of money thanks to that exploitation of your stupidity.  Still, I’d be a poor man living amongst the wise than a rich man living amongst idiots.  I’m not sure if money can buy happiness, but it certainly doesn’t quell frustrations over absolute, reckless, uncaring ignorance.

180

Living Room / Sansa Clip Zip: Wow!

« on: October 12, 2011, 10:07 AM »

IN preparation for my next vacation, I purchased the Sansa Clip Zip.  Not because I didn't already have 3 or 4 mp3 players, just because.  It's really quite cool!!  I'm no mp3 player expert, but I have followed it closely over the years simply because I'm all about music.  I'll break down what makes this thing so freaking cool.  If you've ever had a Sansa Clip of any model, I'm probably preaching to the choir:
1) Super cheap.  I got the 8GB model for $70, and the 4 GB model is $50.
2) Well, what if you want more memory?  It has a microSD slot for more memory.  Isn't that amazing?!
3) Not only that, but it's not a pain to use the card slot like other players.  Very simple menu choice.
4) TINY!  It's about the size of that tiny ipod rectangle model.  Obviously the build quality is much cheaper, but who cares at this price.
5) GREAT sound quality.  Even ignoring the price, it has great sound quality.  Easily better than 90% of the players out there, including Apple.
6) No proprietary cables, just regular USB with the tiny microUSB slot on the player.
7) Firmware updates are fast and reliable.
Sansa asks for feature requests...and then implements them in future firmware!  Who else does that?!
9) Don't like the stock interface software?  You can Rockbox it!  Rockbox is a custom firmware for these players.  It's not ready for this latest clip zip model, but the other clips have it and people love it.

There you go.  Very easily the best bang for the buck player out right now.  I would be shocked if there was another even close.

181

Clipboard Help+Spell / grid selection visual is a little awkward?

« on: October 11, 2011, 10:24 AM »

One of the things that is just a tad weird about CHS is the grid selection style.  To me, it seems like the opposite of what I expect, like looking at a negative photograph.

When you click on a "cell" the color of the selected cell doesn't change at all (which is counter intuitive).  Instead the whole row highlights, except for the clicked cell.  I like the whole row highlighting, but it would feel better if the selected cell was highlighted some way also, perhaps a light yellow background just to distinguish it from the non selected cells.

Or better yet, let the users choose the colors for all that stuff.  What do you say?

182

General Software Discussion / MilesAhead: How do we use Quick AVI Creator?

« on: October 10, 2011, 10:55 PM »

Miles, i know you have experience with this and it would be valuable for me and others to understand this.  How do we use Quick AVI Creator?  The goal is to take the videos I've made using MakeMKV and reduce them to a file size that would be playable on the oldest of machines (so around the "pirate" size of 700MB - 1.5GB normally).

I need it to go from mkv to avi because I don't want to have to rip my dvd's again, as I've already done that with Makemkv.  This program "sounds" like it's perfect, but I just get confusing errors and windows that pop up that I have no idea what to do with.  There are no guides, no help, no wiki, nothing.  As usual with video editing tools.

So please, this would be a huge thing.  Makemkv was already a blessing in its one click solution to ripping dvd's.  This would be the next, final step for me.  WIth these two tools, I can do pretty much everything I need.  Thanks.

(I would have PM'd but I figure this is of general interest to people)

183

General Software Discussion / The confusion about the term "lifetime license"

« on: October 07, 2011, 04:16 PM »

This lifetime license issue keeps coming up occasionally for our favorite software.  The most recent one I ran into is from DOpus.  Read this:

When you buy Directory Opus you get a lifetime licence to use the current major version (e.g. 'Directory Opus 10'). All updates released for the same major version are yours for free and you can keep using them forever.
...
So, buying Opus gives you a lifetime licence and (typically) a lot of free updates over a long period of time, but it does not entitle you to free updates forever.

The same has been raised for Roboform, Ad Muncher (just off the top of my head).  Anyway, when you read that, the TONE of the text and the conversation sounds like there is a confusion between what people understand to be a lifetime license vs. a lifetime of updates AND upgrades, all versions no matter what.  Basically, you pay one time for a software and you get everything that company makes from that point on until the end of one of your lives.

To me, this is not that confusing, nor is it the point of any issues or disagreements arising due to this.  However, lots of highly charged arguments and debates usually follow when this issue comes up.  It usually happens when a developer realizes that a lifetime of upgrades is an impossible business strategy and has to change the policy, then people start complaining (justifiably) that the developer can't just change the policy like that since that's the whole point of the term lifetime!!

So let me carefully point out the psychology behind it all, which nobody ever seems to mention.  Instead, the debates circle around the definitions of the terms, and they completely avoid the heart of the matter.

The problem is this:
The developers pretend (i.e. play dumb) that what they meant by using the term "lifetime" in whatever context is limited to some sort of restrictions.  But there's no real good way around it, not even with all the legal jargon and cleverly constructed arguments.  The reason why is because the whole concept is contained in the definition of the word "lifetime".  You can't wiggle out of that word...lifetime is lifetime, no matter how you slice or dice it.  The only end to lifetime is death.

So the developers usually resort to the tactic of saying lifetime only meant the lifetime of the currently numbered majored version (the lifetime of v9.x is distinct from the lifetime of v10.x)  Of course, users will want lifetime to mean any version (vX.X).  But nobody says that.  They just go back and forth about the definitions.

Also, the developers will NEVER admit that they have to change their policy due to finances.  They also won't admit that, yes, they are breaking a promise (if they did indeed offer lifetime licenses before).  So if you don't admit those two things, any explanation they give to their customers is a clever little tap dance around the issue while still trying to be "nice" and polite.

The absolute funniest part is when they start bragging about the fact that they offer lifetime upgrades for the current version.  Like DOpus' explanation (I'm not picking on them, by the way, I love DOpus):

All updates released for the same major version are yours for free and you can keep using them forever

They say it as if when the customer hears this, the customer will react like:
"Oh My GOD!!  No way!!  That is sooo awesome!  I get to use the software that I bought forever?!  Holy crap!  What a great, unqique thing!"

And I'm always wondering, what the freak is the big freaking deal??  Who gives a flying sink?  Who in the world would buy a software where the currently installed version would stop working after any given amount of time??  That doesn't make any sense?!  There is no software like that!  And if there was, it's an insane person who would buy it, unless they had to for some reason.  So this is not a feature worth bragging about, or even mentioning as a freaking feature!  It's like bragging that a windows software has the 3 buttons in the upper-right corner for close/minimize/maximize.  It's not even worth mentioning.

So when it is mentioned, it is either a deliberate attempt to distract the customer in the argument, OR the developer is clueless.  And most developers are not clueless, and it's an intentional clever tactic.

I don't know why I just went off on that.  I've seen the exact same thing develop about 3-4 times now, so I was festering a little bit.  Again, I'm not taking sides here.  The customer's complaint is justified, and so is the developer's need to change a ridiculous policy like lifetime anything.  Just listening to the debate is interesting because they go on forever and nobody ever nails the heart of the matter.

184

Living Room / work bathroom story

« on: October 06, 2011, 01:05 PM »

Check this out:
The floor of the building I work on is full of engineers, mostly male by about a 90:10 ratio.  So the men's bathrooms are very busy.  Furthermore, we don't have a kitchenette or anything like that, so a lot of people use the bathroom to do various activities such as:  washing dishes, brushing teeth, gargling, shaving, the whole nine yards.  The urinals (three of them) are uncomfortably close together (literally an inch between the edges with no partitions) so the middle one is never used since you can't even really spread your legs to should width, which is the default urinal position.  Also, being engineers, who are "different" sort of folk, the bathroom environment is disgusting.  Awful sounds, awful smells, and the worst part is that it's always packed.  To make matters worse, the janitor cleans the bathroom (or does some work in there) multiple times a day, which I find weird because it's just weird to run into the janitor in the bathroom more than once a day, and multiple times a week.  And if you're already in there taking a shit, he might just come in anyway slothering the mop around and banging on the doors and slapping the toilet paper canisters.

As a result, I found the bathroom on the floor below to be much more pleasant.  No engineers, and a lot of women.  So the bathroom hardly ever has anyone in there, and it's always clean.  So I've been doing this for a while.

Well, today I go down and there's a note pasted on the inside wall so people who take a dump can read the passive-aggressive whatever.  Apparently, it bothers some men that there are people from other floors using their bathroom.  The not demanded that I eat more bran, or something like that.  It also asked me to make my shit smell better, which i would love to know how to do.  Finally, something not very coherent about taking webcam pictures and posting it somewhere, which is a joke of course, but a pretty passive aggressive one.

So now I'm bothering people with my bathroom habits.  Never expected that one.

185

Living Room / Steve Jobs is dead.

« on: October 05, 2011, 07:10 PM »

Pretty big news, no?  What a figure.

186

Living Room / What's the red thing in the NASA logo?

« on: September 22, 2011, 09:54 AM »

187

Developer's Corner / Any wordpress coders here available for hire?

« on: September 12, 2011, 04:44 PM »

Our business is going to need someone who is familiar with wordpress coding.  We need to pay someone who can make a custom plugin to allow some cool layout options for the website content.  It needs to be a plugin and not a one-time website design because we are programmatically challenged, and need to tweak things and add content using some kind of GUI from the admin control panel.

I would be interested in anyone here, or even if you know of someone.  I am currently writing my design requirements and will sent it to anyone interested.  Thank you.
Design requirements (last modified 9-20-2011)

(click on the thumbnail to enlarge the image, or download it to zoom in on the details if necessary.  A pdf is attached as well.)

188

Living Room / I found a home theater configuration expert!

« on: August 31, 2011, 12:51 PM »

http://blog.insanege...d-bd-collection.html

I love this guy's blog.  I just found it, and he seems to have written in great detail all the things I've been trying to do lately.  And his tastes seem to be right in line with mine.  First, his primary goal is to store all his media onto hard drives, which will be multiple terabytes.  He has over-engineered it, like I would, and he's running a Windows server with the NAS for storage.  He uses MakeMKV for the video ripping (as I would), and he stores his catalogs using the collectorz software (which i also use).  He even talks about how to setup XBMC and Boxee for the home theater.  it's a great article for anyone going through this.

I love how he is doing this from a home user, home theater perspective.  It's difficult for me to understand all this stuff because all the information out there is about businesses and their requirements, and all the technical jargon associated with it.  It's hard to understand how that translates to a home user.  So this guy is really great with that.

189

Living Room / WinXP: monitor USB port disconnects when computer is locked

« on: August 15, 2011, 04:49 PM »

At my work computer, when I lock my Windows XP, sometimes the USB disconnects that I have plugged into the side port of the display.  This is really bad, and it completely f--ks everything up.  Plus it is intermittent and annoying.  It doesn't do it every time, but like 1/5 times.  I've researched this thoroughly on the web and have found no good answers.  Yes, I have disabled power management for all the usb ports on the computer, so that's not it (it's the most common suggestion on the web).  Any thoughts?

190

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Announcing our new company: Complex Imaginary

« on: August 11, 2011, 11:20 AM »

Hi everyone,
I've been working on this company the past year:
http://www.compleximaginary.com/

We provide practice tests for the Professional Engineering licensing exam.  We also have free tutorial videos that people are really liking.  Our video channel is here:
http://www.youtube.c...ser/ComplexImaginary

I'd like to ask a favor if you don't mind.  We're trying to move our way up the google rankings so people are aware of us (it's a very small market).  So if you can just click around our website and our links, we'd really appreciate it.

This all started in 2005 when I wrote some critical articles about the exam:
http://aram.dcmember...ring-pe-exam-part-1/
http://aram.dcmember...rnia-pe-exam-part-2/
http://aram.dcmember...rnia-pe-exam-part-3/
http://aram.dcmember...rnia-pe-exam-part-4/

Those articles appear at the top of google searches for certain words, and I'd like for the book website to be there also.  But it took time for those articles to get there.

Anyway, I thought I'd announce this here amongst my DC friends.  Any comments, criticisms, compliments are appreciated.  Thanks!

191

Living Room / Your favorite quotes: 2011 edition

« on: August 08, 2011, 11:29 AM »

I'm liking quotes more and more, and explanations less and less.  Post away everyone...the more profound the better!

"…we can distinguish the arts from the sciences. Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the language of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music. Art, on the other hand, begins with the world we construct, not the world we see. It starts with the imagination, and then works toward ordinary experience: that is, it tries to make itself as convincing and recognizable as it can. You can see why we tend to think of the sciences as intellectual and the arts as emotional: one starts with the world as it is, the other with the world we want to have. Up to a point it is true that science gives an intellectual view of reality, and that the arts try to make the emotions as precise and disciplined as sciences do the intellect. But of course it’s nonsense to think of the scientist as a cold unemotional reasoned and the artist as somebody who’s in a perpetual emotional tizzy. You can’t distinguish the arts from the sciences by the mental processes the people in them use: they both operate on a mixture of hunch and common sense. A highly developed science and a highly developed art are very close together, psychologically and otherwise.

Still, the fact that they start from opposite ends, even if they do meet in the middle, makes for one important difference between them. Science learns more and more about the world as it goes on: it evolves and improves. A physicist today knows more physics than Newton did, even if he’s not so great a scientist. But literature begins with the possible model of experience, and what it produces is the literary model we call the classic. Literature doesn’t evolve or improve or progress. We may have dramatists in the future who will write plays as good as King Lear, though they’ll be very different ones, but drama as a whole will never get better than King Lear. King Lear is it, as far as drama is concerned; so is Oedipus Rex, written two thousand years earlier than that, and both will be models of dramatic writing as long as the human race endures. Social conditions may improve: most of us would rather live in the nineteenth-century United States than in the thirteenth-century Italy, and for most of us Whitman’s celebration of democracy makes a lot more sense than Dante’s Inferno. But it doesn’t follow that Whitman is a better poet than Dante: literature won’t line up with that kind of improvement."
--Northrope Frye

192

General Software Discussion / File system monitoring utilities?

« on: August 04, 2011, 11:53 AM »

Does anyone have any recommendations for a file system monitoring software?
I'd like to have a cool program that logs all changes made to files on a  computer (maybe not all).  Like if something was deleted, renamed, etc. it would keep track of it.  Is such a thing available?

193

Living Room / How to deal with syncing multiple versions of a file from multiple sources?

« on: July 28, 2011, 11:40 AM »

Problem:
Let's say you have a central server which has your files and documents.  This is at home.  Now, you also have flash drives and other external storage stuff.  While you were away from home, you worked on one of your files, and now you want to update the central server with that file.  But you don't want to replace or delete anything because someone else may have modified the central server file also while you were gone.  So how can the server always hold the latest file, but also safeguard against deletions or accidental updating.

At first, I would just say to compare timestamps and use the latest one.  but there could be the situation where the file in question was modified separately by two different users.  So the timestamp wouldn't necessarily really be sufficient.  Also, I'm not looking to somehow merge the data from two sources back into one file, that's too complicated for my needs.  All I want to do is make sure nothing gets deleted or overwritten. 

So I'm trying to figure out the logic of how to have the current file be the latest version, but also not overwrite or delete anything and have the alternate or backup versions stored somewhere else just in case.  I'm planning on doing this mainly with a program like Super Flexible File Synchronizer, since it has lots of options for monitoring folders, versioning, and moving things around like this.

I'm curious about your thoughts on this.  It's essentially a low-level solution to the multi-user, live collaboration problem.  But since there isn't any live collaboration (multiple people editing a file at once), it's more of a  synchronizing problem.  I'm also trying to avoid services like dropbox and such.  These transfers and connections will be direct: either directly connecting to the folders through the network, or sticking in a usb drive.

194

General Software Discussion / What special character do you use to have a file sorted at the top?

« on: July 28, 2011, 10:34 AM »

I've always wondered what the true experts use to sort files/folders to appear at the top of your explorer?  What I've done in the past is stuff like this (for folders usually):
-=TopFolder=-

or

{TopFolder}

But is there something more standard?  I've seen people do it with underscores or a prefix like "00_" and so on.  I'm sure there's no right answer, I'm just curious for alternatives.

195

Living Room / What are good sunglasses (brands)?

« on: July 19, 2011, 01:23 PM »

I don't know much about sunglasses.  I bought about a $100 RayBan last year, which was the most expensive sunglasses I've ever purchased.  I liked it, but I was disappointed in several build quality aspects.  The ear pieces were very cheap and started breaking apart quickly.  So what are some good sunglasses?  I don't care about name brand, but I do want it to be built well and look pretty good.  Are there any brands known for being built well?  Like, what is the German car of sunglasses?  And I don't want it to be too crazy expensive.  Thanks!

196

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Grid-based-layout Information Manager

« on: July 18, 2011, 12:19 PM »

*This is not TreeSheets even though it sounds very similar*

OK, I've harped on this in the past, but I think a really neat and potentially very practical information manager would be a grid-based layout type manager.  The key feature here is the ability to use rectangular cells (like Excel) and be able to merge/split them to your heart's content so that you can create any layout imaginable.  The only restriction would be curvy shapes...that won't be possible.  Everything will be rectangular: vertical and horizontal divisions only.

Within each cell, you can put some text.  The power is in the flexibility of the layout.  below is an example of what I'm thinking (made in excel):


This would make for a very powerful information organizer, if you really think about it.  I actually think if TreeSheets added this capability to it, it would be just about perfect.  Treesheets has mastered the hierarchical end of information management, and the rest of the application is nice, fast, responsive, etc.  But it can't do this type of layout stuff.  For Treesheet users, think of every "section" shown in my example above as an area to build a treesheets style hierarchy, and you'll notice how powerful it can be.  In fact, later when i have more time, I'll stick in some fake images of treesheets style hierarchies in the example above, and you'll see how cool it can be.

197

Living Room / anonplus: new, uncensored social network coming soon?

« on: July 18, 2011, 09:42 AM »

I just read this article:
http://www.telegraph...gle-alternative.html

An uncensored social network?  I wouldn't mind at all.  The only problem I really see is that most people will probably not want to use a "hackers" tool instead of facebook or google+.  It's not like your mom is going to switch from facebook to anonplus.

But...I like the idea very much.  Sort of the Linux of social networks.  No advertising, no crazy layouts or anything.  We'll see, I'll be interested.  I hate facebook not because I feel "too cool" for it but I find the interface really really annoying.  It's just too much.  I haven't tried google+, but google's app never really hit a home run with me.  They are always pretty good and of top quality, just never makes me too excited.  I like gmail the best, of course, but even that, I don't get the boner everyone else gets with it.  I have a feeling that my mind just doesn't work the way google models things, even though it seems to resonate very well with a lot of people.

Ah...I probably won't use any of these things, come to think about it.  I never have.  I went through the same thing with every new communication technology.  I use it a lot in the beginning, then it quickly dies.

198

General Software Discussion / InfoQube & TreeSheets: Information managers of the future

« on: July 14, 2011, 12:50 PM »

As many of you know, my obsession with information managers has been going on for many years now.  Lately, the two that I have the most high hopes for are InfoQube and TreeSheets.  Infoqube has the potential to be the most "workhorse" type of PIM.  If done right, it should be able to destroy UltraRecall, Zoot, OneNote, AskSam...its potential is very impressive.  Then there's TreeSheets which has impressed me on another level.  It's not the workhorse that IQ is or other serious information managers, but it's take on information management is by far the most intriguing of any I've seen.

That's it.  Just thought I'd share that.

199

General Software Discussion / Virtual cd/dvd drive software (2011)

« on: July 13, 2011, 03:03 PM »

Every couple of years or so, it comes time for me to look into getting a different virtual cd/dvd software.  I used to always use Daemon tools lite, but at some point, it gave me problems.  Sometimes because of it's intrusive installation process, rebooting and all that.  it feels like it's installing in a more complicated way than necessary.  Then, it couldn't read certain images (this is years ago, to be fair).  So I moved to PowerISO's virtual drives, which I was happy with.  But that isn't free, so I eventually needed another one.  So I got Elby's Virtual Clone Drive.  I've been using it for a couple of weeks, and I find it not very stable.  It will often sort of disconnect the loaded image, even though it still shows it as mounted.  Then I remount it or reboot, and it works fine again.  but it's annoying.

Now, I'm going to try this free WinCDEmu, which may or may not be good.  If all these don't work, I'll go back to Daemon or PowerISO.

200

General Software Discussion / Grid Layout software? Does it exist?

« on: July 11, 2011, 11:55 AM »

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone knows about grid layout software?  Not specifically for the purposes of website design or anything web related, just a general layout tool.  Meaning, I'm looking for a windows standalone program.  It's something that Excel can do, but I wanted to know if there's something designed specifically for this.

Grid layout, as I imagine it, would allow me to create a layout governed by merging and splitting cells.  It's a really cool way to lay things out, and it's sort of how my mind naturally works.  I know Excel can do this, but it's not truly meant for it.  Thoughts?