Topics

201

Living Room / Can anyone show me proper Donald Knuth TeX samples?

« on: June 16, 2011, 04:31 PM »

In my search for the perfect math typography (for print), I learned that Donald Knuth is the master of it all.  He created the Computer Modern font, which is used in all those TeX programs the academics love.  I like it also, and I want to change all the math fonts in my books to the Computer Modern font.

So that's easy, I have the font installed.  Now, I'm looking for good examples of the typography details: spacing between elements, sub and superscript relative sizes, what should and shouldn't be italicized, etc.

Of course, finding examples is hard.  All anyone wants to do online is talk talk talk talk, describe...but nary a sample.  I don't care about any of that.  I literally just want to see samples of Donald Knuth approved spacing.  What I'd love to find is just a page full of images showing all sorts of math symbols, equations, matrices...just every example possible, and I can tweak my programs to mimic that typography.

Any help is appreciated.  40hz??  I'm betting you probably have something already in mind in your knowledge suppository. 

202

Living Room / Friends: Brace yourselves for another economic turn.

« on: June 15, 2011, 05:13 PM »

I'm probably being too paranoid, but I think another economic dip or badness is right around the corner.  I also think many of my favorite economists agree with this.  Stocks are not doing well for several weeks now, there have been a couple of odd buyouts lately (Skype), interest rates are still low, the president has been really vocal with the doomsday talk about the economy lately, Greece is about to go Iceland on the world, we're spending a lot of money fighting the wars, and adding to it with libya and all.  The Middle East continues to undergo rapid change and reformation.  On top of it all, there have been a lot of big natural disasters in recent years, all needing major recovery.  As a sidenote, California has not had a big quake for a loooooooong time, and I feel like it's right around the corner also, especially with all these massive tectonic movements in Japan, Indonesia.  I think we're on that same "plate".  I remember a researcher investing the quakes in CA when I was still in school, and he showed that a big one occurs pretty consistently every 12 years or so.  Well, it's been a while since Northridge (1994).  A quake right now in CA would be pretty bad.  The state is already financially strapped, all the government orgs are cutting everything...it would be really expensive and ill-timed.

Prices in general are going up, which is also not a good sign in these situations.  I don't know.  Of course, I realize I am normally just a paranoid person, but still.  I mean, I've been watching and thinking about all the hot topics: copyright, technologies, employment...it feels like we're just stuck.

So there.  I apologize for the gloomy talk, that's what I do! 

203

General Software Discussion / Youtube and their frustrating changes.

« on: May 24, 2011, 04:15 PM »

When youtube first came out, and for a couple of years after, it was truly amazing.  Any video you could think of was probably on there.  As time goes on, we're seeing the functionality of the site go down and the annoyances going up.  I'm not taking sides on the issue because I know there's a consumer perspective and a corporate perspective; and I am intellectually sympathetic to both (albeit, as a user, my bias is more towards the consumer.)  So I'm just venting...

As with anything in the web now, and seemingly in life, all progress is leading towards mediocrity and chaos.  Any little convenience and source of pleasure seems to eventually get squashed (whether or not the reasons are valid).  I used to love the youtube channel views, where there was a grid of ALL the user's videos and you can watch them one by one, or browse them very easily.  Last year they changed the layout to be more restrictive; just a scrolling sidebar of videos, with very limited space.  Even the video titles don't fit most of the time.  It went from being a very easy to navigate and browse layout, to a frustrating layout that seems more like Myspace.  The "Recent Activity" area is now significantly larger than the area for the user's videos.  Make sense?  of course not.  When we go on youtube, we are PRIMARILY there to watch videos, not for social whatever you call that facebook stuff.

So I ask myself, why?  These changes are largely ignored by most users, or they get frustrated and deal with it.  But to me, it poses an interesting question.  Why would they do that?  it has to do with business, there's no other reason.  The layouts were not changed on a whim, or accidentally.  Whoever was in charge of that wasn't just "trying something" to see if people liked it.  There are money reasons behind it.

So here's my crazy conspiracy theory.  Youtube is so big that they suck up a lot of bandwidth.  youtube accounts for a very large percentage of traffic for any ISP.  Most of the videos are copyright-illegal, of course.  This is youtube's fundamental problem: in a free for all video site, most of the content is going to be infringing on copyrights.  This is a problem.  of course, in the beginning, youtube ignored copyright issues or cleverly avoided them through some means.  This time allowed the site to get huge, primarily off of the back of infringing videos.  Once they got huge, their new problem was addressing the Big Boy Corporation issues.  The ISP's are angry that youtube benefits from all this traffic, yet the ISP front most of the cost.  The media companies are angry that youtube is benefitting off of their copyrighted material.

As youtube has to deal with these issues, the consumer experience will suffer, and it has tremendously.  We all know that youtube is not so easy or pleasant to use anymore.  i avoid it almost completely, whereas before I would regularly get sucked into a 2-3 hour vortex of watching videos (you know what I'm talking about!).  But now it takes FOREVER to load a video now.  I don't know if it's my ISP or youtube, but it makes watching videos so annoying that it's not even worth it.  next, copyright issues have taken their toll on youtube.  A lot of the really great content is not there anymore, or it's near impossible to find.  I know for a fact of large private collections of videos that are really amazing, but you can't search for them, so it's just not like it was before.

The quality of the videos are pretty poor also.  yet another measure to limit bandwidth.  All these things are tied to money: copyrights and bandwidth.  Entertainment industry & Communication industry vs. the consumers.  Those are the two biggest titans in the world today teaming up against the consumer.  There is no way for the consumer to win that battle in any way.

In the end, youtube is just not that fun to use anymore.  Just like google used to be awesome, and now it's like finding a needle in the haystack.  It seems to be the prevailing pattern in all of history: when things get too big, the irony kicks in and events just start sort of backfiring on each other.  Youtube got big because they offered centrally accessible videos to everyone in the world...conveneint and free.  This popularity made them the biggest thing in the world.  But it got too big.  Everyone wanted their share.  Pass the buck, take your cut.  By the way, that's how our global financial system works as well.

But for us consumers, we are left with a youtube that is now mediocre and chaotic.  And that's what happens when you get too big.  To satisfy more and more people, you have to make everything mediocre...pop, in essense.  The truly great things in life are great because they are close to the polar ends, and not towards the neutral middle.  The edges of the bell curve hold the great things in life...as well as the worst things.  But it has to be that way.  Things in the middle, they're just...ok.  It does the job.  it's not impressive, or particularly interesting.  It's just...meh.

204

Living Room / Man vs. Mississippi

« on: May 20, 2011, 10:27 AM »

This picture inspires me.  Whoever built this levee is one bad ass dude.  I can just hear him thinking, "Ok, flood.  bring it.  Show me what's what."


Reminds me of the Lieutenant Dan scene in Forrest Gump where he climbs the mast of the boat during the hurricane and is yelling at God.

205

Living Room / Superboyac's backup strategy revisited (revised for 2011)

« on: May 19, 2011, 12:57 PM »

I have discussed backup strategies here a lot, and here I go again.  Just to remind everyone, mouser wrote a detailed backup guide several years ago:
https://www.donation...ckUpGuide/index.html

and I wrote my own limited guide a little after that:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=7940.0

Now, I am going to write some more.  I'll eventually publish a cleaned up version of everything on my website once I figure everything out.  The stuff below are my ramblings based on several discussions I've had with individuals and even people here at DC.  I still have some questions and issues to sort out, but I think I have an overall handle on things now.
I want to drastically improve my current backup solution.  I have a double redundancy backup going on right now.  Meaning, I have a hard drive where I keep my personal files (no OS or installed programs, that's on another drive).  I mention that because all the files/folders are standalone, and can be moved anywhere without a problem (no drivers or OS required, they're just files).  Anyway, when I built this backup system, I used 1 TB drives.  So I have two backup 1TB drives backing up that data drives.  3 drives total, which equals double-redundancy.

Now the problem is that I'm running out of space.  When that happens, I clean out the less important stuff by burning it onto a DVD.  But this is a klunky way of doing things.  I would rather have everything on hard drives and backed up that way.  That means that I need to purchase additional hard drives.  However, I already have 5 drives on my desktop (internal+external).  Adding more at this point would be a little bit much.

That's why I'm building a server.  This issue along with my desire to put ALL my data on hard drives means I've stepped across the simple desktop boundary and into server territory.  The knee-jerk reaction at this point is to buy a NAS thing and be done with it.  But I like to do things my way, and I like to do things a little on the extreme side.  I realize that there are more simple and affordable solutions to this that are perfectly adequate.  But I'm going to do it the hard way and get a system that I like better.

First question that comes to mind: how many hard drives do I need?  Well, how much data do I have currently?  Right now, I have about 1 TB of data.  But I also have hundreds of burned DVD/CD that I eventually want to stick back onto hard drives.  Plus, I want to take my entire movie collection (home movies, DVD's, etc.) and put in on the hard drives.  The movies are huge (when uncompressed using makeMKV) so that will add significantly to my size requirement.  Altogether, taking future growth into account, I'm going to plan for backing up up to 4 TB of data.  Yes, I know it's a lot, but it makes sense, especially with all the movies.

The next question is the method of file backup.  The first "track" backup (mouser's term!) will be file synchronization.  I really prefer file syncing because it means I can use the files very easily, and I can just grab a hard drive and plug it into another computer and start using it without any extra steps.  Image backups, on the other hand, are more difficult to use because you have to extract the files, you need additional software, it's not easy to use with other computers.  That's why I love file syncing.

I have a double-redundancy philosophy with file syncing.  It would take a pretty rare circumstance to simultaneously wipe out data from three different hard drives.  Also, I very narrowly avoided losing my original data AND the backup data a few years ago when I was doing single-redundancy (long story).

At this point, the most pressing issue is that backing up 4TB of data with double-redundancy is a LOT.  Assuming I use 2TB drives for each set, I would need 2x3=6 hard drives (2TB each) to accomplish this.

The next track for a backup strategy is doing image backups.  While file syncing is great for portability and convenience as far as accessing individual files/folders, it is not that suitable for versioning and OS/programs backup.  I'm not that concerned about backing up the operating system or installed programs because you can always reinstall that stuff.  I'm way more concerned about my personal data.  What I desire from images that I don't get from file syncing is versioning.  Meaning, let's say I deleted or modified a file from last month, and only now am I realizing that I wish I had the original file back.  Versioning keeps track of all these changes and you can recover them from images.

Versioning, from what I've tried, can be done in two ways: using images, or using archived file sets (rar,zip).  I used to do it the archived file way.  I've tried the versioning support in SFFS which does versioning by appending dated suffixes to files.  It's not an elegant way of doing it.  I've also tried programs like Genie.  Programs like Genie and Backup4All can use archive formats to manage their versions.  If you need to recover an old file, it extracts it from a zip/rar file (unless you store them uncompressed).  But doing it this way is more like a hybrid between file syncing and images.  I didn't like it very much, and that's why I'm going back to images.

You might be asking why I'm so hesitant to use images.  As mentioned above, one of the reasons is that I don't really care about backing up my OS or programs, so I don't need something like images that retains all the interrelated files/drivers/OS system files.  If you haven't noticed, I REALLY like having portability with my files.  If it were up to me, everything would be portable: the OS, programs, everything.  So that's why I struggle with this part.

Anyway, so I've decided to use images for versioning because it's the best way right now.  Since versioning adds the variable of time to the pot, I have to be more thoughtful about the backup schedule.  With file-syncing, since I'm mirroring the files/folders, time is not an issue.  They are just copying files, and it doesn't really matter when it happens.  With versioning, I want the images to give me the ability to go back in time.

I've really struggled with the best way to set this schedule up the past year.  Then I saw Apple's Time Machine program.  I really liked it, so I'm going to model my imaging setup to mimic that.  So what does that mean?  Here's the explanation (from Wikipedia):
"Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month"
That's what I want to do.  I don't really know how to set up image programs to do this right now, but I'm pretty sure it can be done.  What I need to do is set up a 3-track imaging approach: one will do the hourly backups, the second will do daily backups, and the third will do the monthly backups.  My question is, do all these tracks need to be tied together somehow, or are they independent of each other?  I don't know right now.  Obviously, Apple's program is seamless.  I'd like to be able to do the same, but whether or not that's possible remains to be seen.

Once again, how many additional hard drives will I need for this imaging stuff?  Well, I'll be backing up the same 4TB of personal data, but I will also throw in the OS/programs.  I'm still going to consider it as 4TB total.  Once again, I'm going to do this with double-redundancy.  This means I will need an additional 4 drives (2TB each).

If you're keeping count, I now have 10 drives total.

Back to the server.  I need some kind of server rack to hold all these drives.  I'm not familiar with all the lingo yet (rack, enclosures, 2U, 4U, etc.) nor do I care.  I just need a box that houses the drives, the computer, etc.  I'll probably get some kind of mid-height (no more than 4') rack tower for all of this.  I need something like a Dell Poweredge unit to hold the drives.  Allowing for some future growth, I'd like it to hold 15-20 drives.  Then I need some kind of unit for the motherboard and all that.  Then some kind of rack monitor and keyboard, unless I choose to access it remotely.

This is when people normally start talking about RAID setups, and I just don't get it.  I don't think I need RAID.  There are many things I don't like about RAID.  Firstly, I don't need the speed.  Secondly, It would at least double the amount of drives I would need.  All those drives, if RAIDed, would need identical duplicates to do all that mirroring and building and such.  It just sounds like a big headache to me.  It's something I'm unfamiliar with, and uncomfortable with.  I've had issues in the past trying to deal with RAID related issues with motherboards, bios, hard drive configuration.  It's just a headache.  And I don't think it really offers much to my backup strategy.  If it were simple and affordable, I'd consider it.  But it's just a headache in every way.  I hate listening to people talk about all the different RAID flavors, it annoys the shit out of me.  I don't think most of them know what they are talking about.  I'm convinced of one thing: it's not a true backup strategy.  It's only a "kind of, sort of" backup strategy.  So unless someone can convince me otherwise, I'm just going to do this using independent hard drives and software.  No one has ever convinced me yet, and I've asked a lot of people.  Like I said, I think there are a lot of people out there who think they are RAID experts, but when I talk to them, it's clear that they don't know enough to answer my questions.

206

General Software Discussion / Automatic document creation. How?

« on: May 17, 2011, 05:05 PM »

My business creates practice tests.  Right now, it is all being done manually using Indesign.  It is VERY manual.  Text boxes are placed manually, graphics are imported and placed manually.  Labels and symbols are tweaked on an individual basis.  So I'm looking for a way to automate this entire process.  I feel like it should be possible because the structure of the pages is very consistent.  There are really just a few elements per problem:
--Question
--Answer Choices
--Supplemental diagrams/graphics
--Solution

That's it.  So I can very easily store all of this information in a database.  Then, I can somehow have the database randomize the order and selection of a test to generate.  Boom...one-click test generation!  So that's my vision.

But how do I go about doing this?  All of this desktop publishing and database utilities are so mired in their corporate jargon that it's impossible to really know what these programs do.  It's extremely annoying.  I can read for ages and ages, and I'm still left thinking, "Just tell me what the FUCK this program does!!"

So here are my ideas so far, please comment on them if you have any knowledge about it:
Indesign Server and Incopy
Supposedly this is supposed to do what I'm talking about.  But hell if I know from what I read.  Lots of useless jargon.  And not enough screenshots, or examples, or any kind of customer testimonial.  Everything out there is just marketing jargon.  So I have how this beast works.  What I'm really concerned about is how easy it is to use.  I'm not afraid of a little scripting and such, but I don't want to spend a year just to get to the point to be able to play around with the program's features.  I would love to talk to someone who has used these two programs.

MS Access
This is my oddball solution.  Access is a database program, of course.  And it can do reports.  So I'm thinking, why don't I stick all the elements I mentioned above in an access database, and use the reporting feature to generate the actual test layouts.  I don't see why this can't work.  The other reason why I like this is because I find Access relatively easy to use for a database/programming type of application.  The problem is that using it in this way is very 'weird" to people and if I ask them about it, they will just wonder why the hell I'm doing this instead of using Word or Indesign or something traditional like that.  But I don't understand why this can't work, and work well.

A hybrid of software and databases
I'll just lump all the other alternatives here which are unknown to me at this point.  I'm sure I can use a mixed bag of sql databases with some other type of reporting application (Crystal Reports?, Visual Studio stuff).  Or some kind of workflow involving Access, Excel, Word, etc.  I have no idea.

As with most software, I want to use the one that is easy.  I don't think what I'm doing is terribly complicated, but because I want control and I'm picky, I can see why it can get complex.  As much as possible, I want to stay away from hardcore programming and scripting.  I don't want to be spending a lot of time learning java, xml, .net, c#.  This is why the Access solution appeals to me.  It strikes a good balance between power and user interface elements.

207

Living Room / My beloved illustrated children's story about badgers (What was the name??)

« on: April 26, 2011, 08:45 PM »

Hi everyone, please help me remember the title/author/etc. of a book of badger stories I had when I was a kid.  I loved these stories and would read them regularly for years.  I don't remember anything.  Not the plot, not the author or title...nothing to really help.  All I can say is that I had this book in the 80's (probably late 80's).  The stories were heavily illustrated.  It's one of those illustrated books where the illustrations cover the entire page and the paragraphs are just layered over the images.

I did an initial search on google, and couldn't find it.  It's not the popular Wind in the Willows story.  The only way I'd recognize it is if I saw the illustrations.

One of the things that I remember was the elder badger.  There was an elder badger who wore spectacles, and he was a very kind, wise badger.  The stories were lovely and elegant.  In other words, they weren't hilarious or shocking or anything like that.  Very gentle, very loving stories.  I hope I can remember them.  Thanks!

208

General Software Discussion / What is the Windows Helvetica equivalent (original Helvetica from a Mac)

« on: March 23, 2011, 08:51 PM »

So, I'm trying to figure out what is the EXACT windows equivalent for Helvetica on Windows.  I have documents that have been created on a Mac, and now I want to use these documents in Windows without altering the font at all.  Now, most google searches will say that Arial is the equivalent of Helvetica on Windows.   But that's not my question.  I want to know what Helvetica font is the SAME as the default Helvetica font that comes standard on Mac computers.

Here's the issue.  If you want to use Helvetica on Windows, you have to get one of the fonts from Adobe or Linotype, or whatever.  But the names are not the same, and there are so many varieties, it's hard to tell which is the exact equivalent.  For macs, it's just called "Helvetica.dfont", and if you get the Helvetica font on Windows, you will have dozens of options, and none of them are simply "Helvetica".  And that's just the beginning.  Even if you pick the right font, there are the sub-family fonts with it, which is a ton also.

And these are Indesign documents, meticulously created, so I don't want any substituting happening.  yes, I know Arial is almost exactly the same as Helvetica, but I just want to have it seamless from Mac to Windows, and vice versa.  Besides, I prefer Helvetica over Arial, I'm very picky.

Any thoughts?

209

General Software Discussion / Lyx is the answer

« on: March 15, 2011, 03:48 PM »

I've been writing a lot the past year.  You guys might be familiar with my frustrations with Word and styles and all that.  Well, I think Lyx is the answer for me.  I haven't gotten my hands dirty with it yet, but I've been reading about it and it seems like it's exactly what I'm looking for.

The other reason why I'm just about convinced is because of the intro/tutorial that's included with the program.  It's very clear that they want to make writing and styling very easy.  Not like Word, and not like any other application I've seen.

I've been using Indesign for a side business involving equations and text and graphics.  Indesign is ok, but still a little too much fiddling around for me.  And like any of the big name software, there are a lot of features that are implemented in a weird way.  I'm going to give Lyx a try and I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it a lot.

Word sucks. Extremely unstable.  It's been two fucking decades and it still can't do bullets and numbering without making you nervous.  All the experts say avoid most of the interesting features because it corrupts the document.  And it does.  i remember ignoring that advice, and my documents got corrupted almost immediately.

And I love that Lyx can do math stuff.  Man, Indesign has some pretty annoying issues with math stuff.  You have to bring it in from something like Mathtype, and then it doesn't display nicely if it's a Mac, and it creates an extra step if you want to change anything.  You have to go back to mathtype, bring it back in, etc.  So it's nice to have it in one place.

I'm also going to be interested in automating document creation based on databases and such.  but that's in the future.

So Word is out.  Indesign is out, most likely.  I never was a fan of Quark.  I've had experience with Scientific Notation's Scientific Workplace package, but it's outdated now and not as nice as Lyx.  (This is all Latex stuff, for those of you wondering).  I was never a huge fan of Latex because of it's unix-like environment, but it has matured into nice applications like Lyx now.  And it's free.  Crazy.  I would actually prefer something like Lyx that I can pay for, so I can get support more easily if necessary.  But there doesn't seem to be an equivalent out there.  It's ok, Lyx sounds like it's just right.

I'm pretty excited about it, actually.

210

Find And Run Robot / How to exclude url link shortcuts?

« on: March 14, 2011, 09:38 AM »

How can I exclude those shortcuts that are only url's to websites?  I can't figure out a way that excludes them and not other kinds of shortcuts.

211

General Software Discussion / Any XML gui tools out there?

« on: March 02, 2011, 04:10 PM »

A lot of my favorite programs have the ability to export xml files.  These same programs also have very poor printing capabilities.  So, somehow, I need to be able to print GOOD-LOOKING tables from the information in these programs.  I tried dealing with Excel's xml capabilities, but they are very convoluted.  I need a way to take an EXISTING xml file, and quickly be able to print it in a nice looking report.  I don't want to manipulate it in Excel for 15 minutes every time I want to print something.  Is there anything like this?

What I'm looking for is something that will allow me to map the xml elements, as far as what I want shown and what I don't want shown.  I don't want everything shown, usually there's way too much data there.  So I need to be able to hide things. Then, I need to be able to format everything: headers, fonts, background color, etc.  Then, when I do all this once, i need to be able to save it, and every other time I use an export from teh same program, i want it to spit out the nice looking things I set up.

Anything?

212

General Software Discussion / SQL query newbie: Help me work through my first project?

« on: March 01, 2011, 10:13 AM »

Hi everyone, I've gotten my hands into programming now after not doing anything like this for maybe 10 years now.  I'm working with an Oracle database and I'm just starting to learn how to run SQL queries.  I've gotten the basics so far of the select, where functions.  But I'm trying to do a little more fancy things, and it's becoming difficult.  So I wouldn't mind getting coached throughout this thread.  Yeah?

First challenge:
I've been able to write a simple query using and/or statements.  Now, I want to group everything in a particular way to reflect the hierarchy that the database is representing.  So I need to somehow figure out how to group things according to the proper parents/children.  What I'm doing now is trying to figure out which columns control the hierarchy, because it's not clear, and I can't ask anyone here.

213

General Software Discussion / Program to beautify crappy exports from other applications?

« on: February 23, 2011, 09:52 AM »

Often times at work, I'm using a really great tool to help me do something.  Stuff like InfoQube, Mylife Organized, etc.  These programs have beautiful ways of presenting information on the screen.  However, when they export or print, it looks like shit.  And you usually have to take it over to Excel or Word, and do some manual massaging to get it to look halfway decent.  These programs are business type tools, and there's no way to print directly from the program (one-click) and take that paper to a meeting with "important" people because it looks so bad.

Is there a program that can take these exports from software (csv, tab-delimited text files, xml files, etc.) and create a preset rules for that kind of file, and then once the rules are made, you can have a one-click solution to beautiful reports.  Is there anything like that?

I'll give an example of the problem.  the first screenshot below is what the MLO screen looks like.  The second one is what it prints out (there's no way to change it).  How could I possibly take that to a meeting?



When that happens, it makes me really torn about wanting to use the program.  I NEED the program because it can do things no other program can do.  On the other hand, I can't share the data with anyone because they expect reports on paper.  So then I have to massage it in another application like Excel.  But it comes to a point where I say F-it, I'll just do the whole thing on Excel.  And then I stop using the program.  Then, developers wonder why they don't have more users.

214

Coding Snacks / IDEA: Plain text checklist manager

« on: February 22, 2011, 03:52 PM »

I just learned that the program TuduMo is not doing the plain text checklist thing the way it originally used to.  Here's what wraith said in the other thread:

In the old format, each todo was a line in the file.  Tags were @tags at the end of the line.  When a task was done, it was flagged with a - before the line.  The app interpreted all of this into its interface, but it was beautiful.  But now it's an example of what happens when someone decides to do too much with their original idea.

The beauty of it was that everything was just controlled by simple characters and symbols int he text file, and the program interpreted them in a  functional way that allowed you to use it as a dynamic checklist.  I was wondering if someone would be interested in a coding snack that revives this idea.  It doesn't sound too difficult if it is kept simple, but what do I know?

215

General Software Discussion / Software to share To-Do lists?

« on: February 22, 2011, 10:49 AM »

My coworker and I need to share a task list (To-do list).  Is there a nice, simple software that will allow us to do this?  Something that we install on both computers and share a file over the network?  Is there anything like that?

216

General Software Discussion / Looking for a Wordpress video player that can be themed/styled in a custom way.

« on: February 20, 2011, 03:46 PM »

I'm trying to make the video player in my wordpress sites to look more elegant.  I hate the look of the youtube player.  But I can't seem to find anything that let's you easily tweak the way it looks.  I tried the Projekktor WP plugin, and it was ALMOST perfect, but I can't seem to figure out how to customize the css of the player, and as a result, when I put the video inline with text, there's zero margin between the player and the text, so it looks cramped and ugly.  I tried for an hour, I couldn't do it.

But is there another way to do this, something easier?  I wouldn't mind paying for it either, as long as it's not a subscription.  I want to have nicer looking player, I want to be able to adjust the css of the player (I need to be able to align in right, left, center, and inline, and I need to be able to control padding/margins).  Is there anything like that?

217

Living Room / SEO funny businees I'm involved in. Thoughts?

« on: February 17, 2011, 10:26 PM »

People, check this out.  I felt compelled to write articles about the NBA, so I volunteered my services to some stranger to write articles for a new website.  I posted it in an announcement here.  Well, I don't know any of these guys, but I think they are involved in the SEO business.  Now, I have no problem with that.  I just like that they set up a website and I just have to write articles.  It helps me relax, it's an outlet.  I have a love/hate relationship with being a fan of professional sports.

Anyway, I've always sort of wondered about those bullshit websites out there that just have tons of odd articles that seem to be written by a human, but then sometimes not really.  Well, I was "investigating" the companies these strangers work for, and I found this description on one of their services offered pages:

2. Content Creation
As we’ve mentioned before, content is key to any search marketing campaign. Therefore, there are three content areas that we will target:

   1. On-Site Optimization. This includes visible content and source code. We will analyze your site code for errors that may prevent search engines from properly spidering your site. We will also analyze your site’s code-to-text ratio and other coding elements. Lastly, we will review and edit your visible content for optimal keyword density while maintaining sales effectiveness.

   2. Article Creation. We will produce one article for every keyword term we, together, choose to promote. Traditionally, this is between 200-400 articles. Each article is well written, informative, and engaging to ensure that they add value to your visitors’ experience in addition to winning great rankings.

      Most importantly, we add these pages slowly over several months to ensure your site grows organically. This is a key element Google and other search engines look for when ranking a website – that it is constantly updating and adding new information.

   3. Publicity. But we’re not talking about traditional PR here. We develop additional articles that pay particularly close attention to your target audience’s pressure points: the secrets they want to know, the tips they need to hear, the problems and solutions your company addresses.

      These articles will not be placed on your website, but will instead be promoted to hundreds of other websites in search of compelling articles on your particular subject. This achieves two objectives: 1) each article links back to your website, earning you one-way links from authoritative sites, and 2) the more independent websites that discuss your company or publish an article written by your company, the better your reputation will be. Your potential customers will find your company discussed on other websites, or see that other websites have endorsed you by publishing your article.

I hate that shit!!!  Yet here I am writing for them.  I still don't necessarily have a problem with it logically, it just feels funny.  Are they going to take my articles and make hundreds of articles out of them?

218

Living Room / Does anyone understand the differences in the Western Digital drives?

« on: February 17, 2011, 09:13 AM »

I'm having a hard time understanding the fundamental differences between the Western Digital hard drives.  It seems they have gone the way of Intel, making a lot of models and being super unclear what the differences are.  It's the same business model...confuse people enough, and they'll just buy whatever.  Anyway, can someone explain them if you know?
Here's what I know:
Caviar Green; these are the cheaper consumer drives.  They use less power, have slower performance (by how much, I don't know), and have 3-year warranties?

Caviar Black: these are the more enterprise grade drives?  This is what I usually buy, simply because I like the 5 year warranty.  They are supposed to perform better, and the use more power.  boo.  I like them, though.

Caviar Blue?
Velociraptor?  I have one, it's supposed to be fast.  My friend told me they're on the outs because of SSD, and he also said he did some tests and the Velociraptors were no faster than his regular 2 TB drives.

RE4?
RE3?

WD has a comparison chart:
http://www.wdc.com/e...internal/enterprise/

The problem with the chart is that it tells you the distinguishing features, but it doesn't help you figure out which drive you want.  If there are two drives described as:
"Fast, reliable and enterprise-ready."
"Best-in-class performance, unparalleled reliability."
How the hell am I supposed to make a choice?  Just because you put some words in a chart doesn't mean it helps people at all.  It's such corporate bullshit.  Oh, so one is reliable...and the other one has unparalleled reliability.  Super clear, thanks.

219

General Software Discussion / What's the best SQL software for writing queries?

« on: February 15, 2011, 11:23 AM »

I'm working with an SQL database for the first time, and I was wondering what you guys consider a good SQL software for writing queries?
The one's I've seen so far are:
SQL+ which comes with SQL installer; nothing special
SQL Developer; free from Oracle, the guys here seem to like it, it seems pretty handy to me
PL/SQL Developer; a commercial software similar to the one above, it might be better, I don't know

Any others?  Is there a lesser known one that does things more nicely or easily?  Remember, I'm looking for nifty shortcuts, like buttons, panes, cool autofill features, etc.  Stuff that makes life easier.  Any suggestions?

220

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / New site for NBA fans

« on: February 14, 2011, 09:26 PM »

Hi everyone, I'd just like to announce a new website for NBA fans.  I am contributing articles to the site, on behalf of Laker fans.  I hope to only keep a small Laker bias in the articles, while trying to remain fairly objective on most issues.  If you have followed the NBA at all, I hope my articles are interesting and fun, even if you disagree with it.  (I will intentionally try to provoke people anyway, so it's all in the name of fun).  I hope you like it!

http://nbaunderground.com/

221

General Software Discussion / Wanna try something weird? A little Outlook 2007 fun.

« on: February 09, 2011, 10:59 AM »

Ok, I bet you guys have never tried this:
Click somewhere inside the header field for Outlook 2007 (I don't know if the other versions do it).  Then Ctrl-scroll with the mouse wheel (like you would zoom on a webpage).  Isn't that odd?


Ok that's it.

222

General Software Discussion / Why is my computer hiccuping every few seconds?

« on: February 08, 2011, 07:45 PM »

I had this problem once before, and the culprit was Spy Sweeper, which I uninstalled and never looked back.  Now, with my new Winows 7 installation, I'm getting the hiccuping regularly every few seconds again.  Everything stops for a millisecond, and the goes on.  I notice it most clearly when I am scrolling down a webpage, and the scrolling pauses a little bit.  How can I identify the problem?

I tried using Process Explorer, but I can't figure out how to use it to help me here.  This is the only visual from there that shows my problem:

223

Living Room / On websites: why do sans-serif fonts sometimes look great, sometimes not?

« on: February 01, 2011, 01:01 PM »

I've dabbling with tweaking my website look.  I like tranglos' site very much, see here:
http://ethervane.com/

Anyway, that's besides the point.  What I don't really understand is how come the sans-serif fonts sometimes look good in browsers, and sometimes they don't?  There's something weird there.  I normally tend to prefer the sans-serif fonts like helvetica, arial, calibri, verdana...but when it goes on the website, something happens that I don't always understand.

So if you look at my site right now, you'll notice that the normal text has a jagged look about it:


How can I get those characters to be more smooth?  More of a "cleartype" look?  Another thing I've noticed is this thing:

Why does that happen?  I think those sites are intended to look good on macs, and not pc's.

What I would really like the font to look like is more of what we see with the fonts on Word (or any word processor):


Actually, that doesn't look as good as I expected.  Maybe it's this XP computer I have at work.  I think these all looked better at home on my Windows 7 computer. 

The end goal of all this: what is the best sans-serif font(s) for me to use for a website?  but I don't want to turn this into another best fonts discussion.  i want to address the specific questions above.

224

Site/Forum Features / BADGE IDEA: special badges for helpful individuals

« on: January 31, 2011, 03:53 PM »

Mouser, I think I have a pretty cool badge idea.  A lot of people come here asking questions and searching for answers.  Often times, one of our very knowledgeable members gives a great solution to the problem in question.  I think these people need a special badge for doing that.  Now, i've been following the NANY badge discussion, and I have a couple of ideas:

1) I like the concept of the badge counting the number of entries (or "helps" in this case).  So it would be really cool if there was a count on the badge for the number of times someone has provided a good solution for the individual asking.

2) The badge could be very simple.  Like just a bright background color with a number inside.

COuld something like this be possible?  i think it would be pretty fun.  it can mimic what the DC credits were supposed to do, which is acknowledge those users who have helped each other.

Good?
kind of like the superboy badge, but more general...

225

LaunchBar Commander / Shutdown Windows toolbar ( SuperboyAC special for DC!)

« on: January 31, 2011, 11:11 AM »

Hi guys, since I'm not a programmer but always secretly wished I was, I'm going to offer something here that nobody will care about, but I think is cool.  It's a shutdown toolbar for Windows.  It will work the same as the program Quick Shutdown, except it will just be a toolbar built with LBC.  I'll put some nice buttons and icons for it also.  Why am I doing this?  No real reason, it's just stress relief for me since I'm working hard lately.

First thing I need to figure out are all the shutdown command line parameters.  I'm going to do it for Windows 7 first.  Then I might do it for XP if it's different.

PS You can find my review of Quick Shutdown here:
http://aram.dcmember...ware/quick-shutdown/