Messages

1

Living Room / Re: Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better

« on: March 03, 2015, 02:57 AM »

Ha Ha...try reading The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton in a real book....it is about 850 pages and weighs about 200 lbs....and when you are about a third or quarter of the way through and your wrist bone finally snaps....then try finding your page again while repeating this mantra, "These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better"

If a story is any good it will transcend the medium. If you cannot get beyond the medium you are not a reader!

2

Living Room / Re: wireless networking and wifi printer help

« on: March 03, 2015, 02:51 AM »

We recently bought a Brother wireless printer in the hope that we could print from any of several laptops and other devices we have.

Ha! Nice idea but!

The Windows laptops consistently lose the connection to the printer (can't find printer) and the only solution is to remove the printer then go through the set-up instructions again.

Then I bought a Macbook Pro and bugger me if it doesn't find the printer immediately and do something in the background for a few seconds then start printing. Never bloody fails!

To me it made it clear that it is a Windows issue. If a Mac can get it right every time why can't Windows?

3

Living Room / Re: 2014-2015: Best tablet specs for ebook reading

« on: March 03, 2015, 02:16 AM »

Well I have to take exception to your statement that e-ink is dead!

It is not dead and is not even unwell, not even a headache. I think maybe you confuse the sheer number of tablets around now with the number of e-ink devices? Besides that, e-ink devices do one thing really well and that is provide a light weight platform for reading books.

Tablets by comparison can read books but also do everything that any laptop can do (pretty much) so from a design and usability perspective e-ink devices focus 100% of their design and usability on reading books compared to a tablet where book reading is maybe 5% of their design and usability.

Ask anyone who reads regularly on devices how comfortable it is to read on an iPad or similar? They are heavy when compared to a Kindle or Kobo (I have an iPad, a Kindle and a Kobo so I know what I am talking about). Tablet screens produce glare when compared to said e-ink devices and are not good for the eyes when used at the distance most people read at.

I could go on but I think I have made my point. Ask on any of the book reading forums like Goodreads or Booklikes about which devices are preferred and I do not think you will find that tablets outrank Kindles?

4

Post New Requests Here / Re: Efficiently view set of .htm files, one after another

« on: May 20, 2014, 06:04 AM »

Maybe a side track but you know that an epub file is just a load of .htm files zipped up?


If you replace the .epub with .zip then double click on it you will see what I mean.

5

General Software Discussion / Re: software recommendations - photo/graphics editors

« on: December 10, 2013, 02:55 AM »

Fotor is well worth a look, it does sophisticated things really easily, perfect for someone who knows what they want but don't want to get bogged down in menus.

http://www.fotor.com/windows/index.html

Also available on other platforms.

I use this in conjunction with PSP X2 which behaves itself on my Win7 machine, probably because it is a portable version :-)

6

Living Room / Re: Off-brand li-ion camera batteries - personal experiences/recommendations, please

« on: August 28, 2013, 05:28 PM »

I bought some off-brand batteries for my Sony point n shoot and they do not last as long as the original Sony battery. I had the same experience with a Canon point n shoot too with off-brand batteries. I have never had a good experience with them

I can extend this to AA NiMH rechargeable batteries that purport to be 2300 mAh but are probably just 1500mAh labelled for the higher capacity and are simply a rip-off.

I've recently bought a Sony Nex-6 and am told that they will not accept anything other than genuine Sony batteries. I have ordered a cheap off-brand battery to see if this is true. I'm hoping as the real thing is $NZ100+

7

Living Room / Re: digitising slides

« on: July 09, 2013, 05:05 PM »

I am part way through this process for the third time! I am 63 and have spen the biggest chunk of my life involved with photography. Before digital it was all film based so I have quite a large collection of mainly negatives and but some slides.

I said for the third time so I will detail the roads I went down and didn't pan out. I am not including flatbed scanners because when you are faced with literally thousands of negatives they are just not practical because the amount of remedial work is too much.

Dedicated Scanner.
Some years back I bought a dedicated negative slide scanner, it was a Pacific Image model and worked well. It produced high resolution images and the colour fidelity was pretty good. So why did I stop using it? Here are the 2 things that this whole process revolves around.
1. Scan time: this one took around 1 minute per scan.
2. Post scan remedial work (scratches, dust marks etc). The software (Silverfast) had a steep learning curve and even then left much to be done manually.
Conclusion: It was taking too long and there still too much manual intervention required.

5MP Cheap Flash Scanner
The scan time was mere seconds but the results were less than good most of the time. There was no post scan software supplied so that just left a lot of manual intervention.
Conclusion: Simply not practical for a thousand negs

20MP Flash Scanner
I waited a few years after the cheap flash scanner but never gave up the quest. When I saw the 20MP Wolverine on Amazon I took a punt and bought one. When comparing the results for the same negs with the cheaper 5MP scanner the results were obviously so much better on the 20MP model.

Software
I also came across AKVIS retoucher which really solved the post scan problem. It removes scratches and dust with minimal effort and really works. Simple, no steep learning curve and acceptable results.

Conclusion: These 2 together are a practical solution for what I am attempting.

Unless you are a professional photographer (in which case you would stump up $8000+ for a top notch scanner) what you really need is some process that is do-able for the number of slides/negs that you have. In my case of a thousand or so negs there are a handful that are really precious to me. For those really special ones you can send them to a lab to get scanned. You obviously would not be able to afford that for the bulk but it is horses for courses.

Finally. In looking over my the photos I have taken in my life so far I was really shocked to discover that there have been really important people in my life that I have either no photos or only one or two bad quality snaps. Record your friends and lovers while you can!

8

Living Room / Re: In Car Gadgets & Doodads

« on: March 26, 2013, 10:07 PM »

Cash!

We had a few large earthquakes here a year or so back and they knocked out the comm lines so no electronic payments were possible.

Ever left home without your wallet?

You do have a spare door/ignition key wired to the underside of your car?

When you escape naked from the bad guys and get to your car you can get in drive away and stop at the drive-thru for a burger :-)

9

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: iPad 3 and me

« on: July 15, 2012, 03:11 AM »

As it's my first I have nothing to compare it to except my Dell laptop. I am already in the habit of shutting apps down (2 clicks on the home button), to save battery. I have been using it for around 3-4 hours and it still shows 75%. Prior to this I'd be cooking my balls by now :-)

10

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: iPad 3 and me

« on: July 15, 2012, 01:46 AM »

I think some of this is historical. In the bad old days you had to understand something of how Windows worked, or to be more correct didn't work, in order to have a computer that you could actually use. People found ways round the limitations and wrote programs to add missing functionality. For all of that, Microsoft never actively prevented anyone from doing that because the shortcomings in Windows was the result of corporate stupidity.

By contrast Apple's shortcomings appear to be calculated corporate policy.

11

Mini-Reviews by Members / iPad 3 and me

« on: July 15, 2012, 12:45 AM »

I came to this by way of a gift. I could have bought yet another camera or another watch that I wouldn't wear but I took the plunge and went for the ipad 3 with a smart cover and the wireless keyboard.

My computing background has been with windows since forever as both a user, fixer and programmer. I'd be less than honest if I said that I hadn't always viewed Apple products as best suited to the mindless and inept. Sorry but that's honesty for you :-)

I have always been a tinkerer and as we all know, with earlier versions of windows you had to tinker to get it to work the way you wanted. By with XP, and later Win7, I freely admit that tinkering became something to do for its own sake. I will also add that there are now more useful apps around than ever in the past. Like Dropbox, Phrase Express and Notepad++ to name but a few.

About 18 months ago I bought an iPod and was extremely disappointed that it didn't work straight out the box, in fact it took a few hours on the internet to find out that iTunes didn't like Win7 64 bit. Anyway, long story short, iTunes was a nightmare to use, the device was not "user friendly", so I sold in pretty quick. Bad experience all round.

So I came to the iPad with mixed feelings and tried not to let my previous experience with Apple pre-determine the outcome.

My initial experience of unpacking it was interesting, instead of the huge pile of polystyrene, plastic bags, cable ties, cardboard, CDs/DVDs, leaflets in various language that are left over after unwrapping a new laptop, the iPad was both simple, elegant and enviro friendly. Turning it on and within minutes it is working, simple, elegant and easy.

But then I tried to load some of my photos on to it. And there the problems started. I once again discovered that iTunes it still the biggest deterrent for a Windows person when confronting an Apple device. It is buggy, badly designed, bloated, etc etc. I did eventually manage to get a folder synced to the iPad but when I sync'd another the previous ones disappeared. Like a fool I was expecting the ease of copying stuff to non-Apple devices. Bad right there.

I ended up frustrated and cursing and revisiting the 1984 Apple Superbowl ad and marveling at the irony of it, for if ever there was a "Big Brother" approach to anything in this life it is Apple's view of their customers. "We know best and you will do things the way we want you to do them". I could go on.

But I persevered and soon realised that I had brought to this the expectation that the iPad was a laptop substitute. It isn't, end of story. So I had to shift my pre-conception around to accepting this device for what it was. So what was it? It was an iPad, duh!

So my frustration abounded around how locked down it is, no USB, SD or other open ports. Nada. I then found Dropbox and a text editor that would open and save files in Dropbox folders. I freely admit that the frustrations were greater than any perceived benefit at this point in my journey to the Apple World of the Brainless. But then....we had a 5 year old come to stay with us and we bought "The Wonky Donkey" a kids book for iPad. Wow, we laughed and sang and painted with our fingers and when you poked the donkey he farted!

This was my first realisation of just how good this was. There was no loading CDs or DVDs or waiting for it to load, you just click the icon and away you go. It invites participation in a way that no Windows program had ever done, at least for me, and apart from porn LOL.

I am now at the end of my second week and am starting to explore the many apps that are available. I am writing this with an app called "ia Writer" and apart from the fact that it wants to correct my spelling to US English instead of UK English, even though I have set the keyboard to UK English, it is bloody good.

I have come to appreciate one thing above all else, stuff just works here. You click and it works, it all seems to work the same way too. When it comes to usability this thing beats the rest hands down. I can appreciate why this is locked down, even though I resent it. 

I did consider getting an Android tablet instead of the iPad but in some ways I think Android is worse. It is owned by Google and I don't trust them. On my smart phone I have seen the move to the next version of Android completely change the Contacts app to the point that it was almost unrecognisable as a Contacts app. It was that kind of arrogance that deterred me from an Android device, And sure Apple are just the same but they seems to go for consistency instead of novelty. I admit that this may seem unfair.

So what are my conclusions, if any? Well not having made the entire journey to the Apple World of the Brainless I still have some views of my own. On the iPad I can do most of what I previously did on my laptop. I can do it easier and for longer, the 10+ hour battery life is really good. I cannot do any programming and editing photos is unbelievably difficult and time consuming compared to my laptop. I think that Apple claims that you can multi-task on the iPad but either I haven't found the equivalent of CRTL + TAB or that is just more bollocks.

Would I recommend anyone getting one? Yes, with no hesitation. I have a Kindle and it cannot be beaten when it comes to reading books, sure, you can do that on a laptop or iPad but you really wouldn't want to if you have a Kindle. Likewise the iPad, it becomes a device in its own right with its own uses and limitations. It has a place in the stable. It is beautiful, elegant and every windows person should see what this is about. Am I giving up my laptop? no way, am I buying a Macbook, no way, am I getting an iPhone, no way. Do I appreciate the Apple consistency across devices, I sure do.

12

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Readerware 3 Book Cataloging software

« on: July 14, 2012, 11:13 PM »

I can also add that if you really want to get technical with this application the author is more than willing to help you get it to do what you want. I got some help with an SQL query to tweak something. What surpised me was that the author was not only willing to help but the application actually had the facility to do it. Top marks there!

13

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Readerware 3 Book Cataloging software

« on: April 04, 2012, 03:52 AM »

Very good and detailed review 

My book/ebook collection is still small that it only needs simple management. I will recommend anyone with similar need like yours to this thread.

-erikts (April 04, 2012, 03:22 AM)

Thank You for the feedback, with so many ebooks being given away for free it is incredibly easy to collect a lot in a short time. Some of the free science fiction is very good indeed.

Have a look at the Rifters trilogy by Peter Watts, it is not only brilliant but three books to get your teeth into and free as in speech or beer:
http://www.rifters.com/

14

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Template for users wishing to write a mini-review

« on: April 03, 2012, 11:20 PM »

why is there HTML in the user interface??

what are you thinking of? why isn't this a WYSIWYG interface?

wot, just because we are programmers we are unable to write in the usual manner?

15

Mini-Reviews by Members / Readerware 3 Book Cataloging software

« on: April 03, 2012, 11:11 PM »

Basic Info

App Name	Readerware 3 Books
App URL	http://www.readerware.com/index.php
App Version Reviewed	3
Test System Specs	Win 7 64 Bit
Supported OSes	Available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android
Support Methods	email
Upgrade Policy	All 3.x upgrades are free to Readerware 3.0 users
Trial Version Available?	Without a registration key the program will expire in 30 days. You will have access to all versions of all Readerware products during the evaluation period, including Palm support and client/server mode. There is one functional limitation in the unregistered versions: exports are limited to 25 items.
Pricing Scheme	see below
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	This is an independent review of Readerware Books. There is no relationship between myself and the author of this program apart from gratitude on my part

Pricing from above:
Each product line comes in four editions:

Standard Edition - This is the base product for a single user with auto-catalog, reports, loan tracker, integrated backup & restore, import/export and more. It includes all Readerware features except for mobile device synchronization, external database access and client/server support. Available for download delivery or on CD. If in doubt, this is what you need. US$40

Mobile Edition - This is Readerware for your desktop and supported mobile device. It includes everything in standard edition and adds the ability to take your databases with on on an Android or Palm OS device. US$50

Client/Server Edition - This version adds support for multiple users and external databases. It includes all the features of standard and mobile editions. The Readerware server allows multiple clients to access and update the Readerware database. External database access allows you to use other databases like MySQL etc. This version supports up to five concurrent users. US$90

Client/Server Enterprise Edition - Readerware Client/Server Edition with no user limit. US$500

You can purchase individual products or order a bundle of all three, books, music & video, for substantial savings.

Intro:
This software to catalog both ebooks and "real" books.

(I give up try to work out to get an inline image here so here's the link to screenshot:)
screenshot

I am both a programmer and an avid reader. I like things that are functional and do what they are supposed to do. I prefer core functionality to bells and whistles and I like to buy software where I feel the money is going to something/someone worthwhile. I will not buy software (or hardware) on spec, I like to know what I am buying before parting with the cash. Probably just like you :-)

I have a Kindle and a large collection of ebooks that runs to several thousands. The problem I have been trying to resolve was how to catalog them.

I do use Calibre to load them on to and off the Kindle but Calibre just doesn't handle thousands in a way that makes it easy to see what you have and where it is. I found Calibre slow and cumbersome when dealing with thousands of books. Also Calibre stores each book/author as a folder so you can end up with a library of several thousands of folders without really trying. I keep my Calibre library on a USB stick and above a certain number of books it takes a long time just to open and close. Don't get me wrong, I like Calibre and have donated towards both Calibre and one of the plugins. It does what it does very well but it is not good at everything.

I was obviously looking at a dedicated database type program. My feature wish list was:

• Ability to import/export listings
• Internet lookup to fill in details and get covers etc.
• Good user interface
• Ongoing support

I trawled the web to find all the software available and was incredibly disappointed at the lack of programs that are both current and yet work reasonably well. I am using Windows 7 64 bit so whatever I tried had to run on that platform. I found a lot of old book database programs that look like they were designed in 1984 and were obviously neither current nor useable.

I was looking for (hopefully) freeware/open source but after a week of searching was willing to try anything. I found a couple of suitable candidates but neither of them were supported and the internet lookup did not work at all. As you know Amazon changed the way their systems were accessed and a lot of software stopped working after that changeover.

After exhausting all the freeware/open source options I then turned to the commercially available software. One in particular had a downloadable trial version but it was so crippled as to be completely useless. The internet lookup was disabled in the trial version and yet that was claimed to be a major feature! Software authors please note, if you want users to buy your program, give them a time limited fully functional copy to try.

I finally came across Readerware which offers cataloging software for Books, Music and Video (Note:3 separate programs)

First off, I could import my existing collection from a CSV file. it took me a few minutes to work out what the options were for matching my columns with the database table columns but once I understood them I was away and imported my collection in no time at all. There was no limit on the number of books I could import so I got all 8,600 entries into the database in a few minutes.

It offers various ways of viewing the collection and I prefer the Tree View that shows all the categories (genres) as an expandable list. When clicking on a genre I see a view of book covers where I can resize the icons to suit myself and I can also sort by author or title or rating within that view. (see picture)

Some of my collection had genres and some didn't so I used the Internet update to fill in the blanks. The Internet update allows you to specify which fields get updated and if you want to only update empty fields or force an overwrite. You can specify that on a field by field basis. You also have the choice of places to update from, like Amazon, Barnes and Noble etc. One thing I liked was that the list included lots of non-US places too. As someone who doesn't live in the US I am often frustrated by software that seems oblivious to the rest of the world.

Several times I have emailed for support and received a reply by return (allowing for time zones). The support is both fast and comprehensive and occasionally includes advice to learn Python so as to maximise what you can do with this program! The online help is both comprehensive and well written with examples of the more obscure functionality. How many times have I been stumped by help that merely gives a description of the functionality but not how to use it or even where to find it when using the program! The inbuilt utility that searches Amazon & Co for details is regularly updated as those sites change their internal methods.

You can manually edit all the details of a book as well as using the Internet update. If you have an ebook as a file you can put in its location and a single click will launch the book. The program covers all the basics and then offers lots of advanced functionality should you choose to explore it.

One of the neatest features is the ability to use an external database rather that the inbuilt one. The choices are MYSQL and MS Access which means that you can then manipulate the data in ways that program does not natively allow and/or make the data available elsewhere. In fact this idea of extensibility occurs in lots of places because the author has chosen to give the user as many options as possible instead of locking the user into the program in a "like it or lump it" kind of way. I am impressed by the mindset that produces programs like this.

There are includes options to back and restore your database (I tried both options and they work very well). You can have multiple databases so you can split your book collection into multiple databases by exporting say a single category then importing that into a new database. I'd say realistically that it took me about 5 days of usage before I became familiar with the interface and functionality of this program but given how many things it can do I'd say that was not unreasonable.

I'd say you be more likely to reach the limits of what you want to do before you reach the limits of the program. And even then the author encourages you to submit feature and enhancement requests.

I paid $US 40 for a license and personally it has been money well spent.

Online Help here: http://readerware.com/help/rwhs.html

Home page here:

16

Site/Forum Features / Re: new forum feature coded - ability to inline link attachments!

« on: April 03, 2012, 11:09 PM »

this is a badly implemented feature, I have just spent 15 frustrating minutes trying to work out how to get an inline image in a review. Shame on you, it should be easy and encourage people to use not obfuscated and difficult. Try Bogger or any other web user interface to see how it should be done. Bah

17

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« on: February 15, 2012, 03:30 AM »

I've been using Calibre since I bought a Kindle and quite frankly for what it does there is not much better available. However there are a couple of things that it doesn't do too well. I am talking about 95% brilliant and 5% could be better to give you some idea of scale of my comments.

Libraries
It doesn't manage large libraries at all well, I'm talking about 1000+ books (I'm on i7 with 8GB) and I am not sure it was ever intended to cope with libraries that big in the first place. I think the storage needs to be ported to a proper database structure instead of the folder method that's being used now.

Kindle Collections
Kindle Collections is an extension for Calibre and I find it can be hit and miss at times. I use it to organise my collections but when I restart the Kindle it is seldom the way I organised it.

Small change in return for what it does do well like manage metadata, covers and the downloading of news is worth it just for that alone. I have made donations for both Calibre and Kindle Collections and I would urge anyone using it regularly to the same.

Kindlean
I have just purchased Kindlean which does nothing but manage Kindle collections and it is beautiful, functional and efficient.

Alfa Ebooks Manager
I've been looking at this for managing my library. It is the best I have seen so far. The free version really doesn't do much but point out what the paid version would do. The full version is not cheap ($40) but if it did what it says it does it is probably worth it. The only problem I have struck is that on one of my laptops (both Win7 64Bit) it throws .Net errors when it tries to start then fails completely. Spending that much money on a product that won't even start makes me nervous even though the other laptop runs it perfectly.

To sum up I think I need three applications because I haven't found one application that does everything well.

• Calibre to manage what goes from my library to my Kindle
• Kindlean to manage the collections on the Kindle
• An Ebook Library manager as yet undecided.

Thanks for the article on Calibre :-)

18

General Software Discussion / Re: Make a music mix for burning on audio disc - software?

« on: December 20, 2011, 09:35 PM »

try here:

https://www.donation...g/MixTape/index.html

19

Living Room / Re: Which is more important: the gadget, or the software and apps that runs it?

« on: June 13, 2011, 06:56 AM »

For a few years I ran a photographic gallery and had to put up with gadget geeks going an about how good the Nikon (insert your number here) was compared to the whatever. In extreme cases I would walk them to the walls and point to a photo and ask "what camera was this image taken with". They would then shut the fuck up.

It's about what you do with it or what it does to the world.

Guns are a good example, it is the gun? or the bullet? or what happens when you point it at your head and pull the trigger?

20

Living Room / Re: Force USB Drives to use Drive Letter X

« on: June 13, 2011, 06:44 AM »

I've used USBDLM for a few years and it is foolproof. Config is not for the novice but once you have it it always works. Experience, it can save you hours! Peace

21

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« on: June 13, 2011, 05:59 AM »

I've had a kindle for a long while now and I have bought maybe 2 books from Amazon. I use Calibre to convert from other formats like pdf. epub, rtf, text etc etc to mobi then load them on the Kindle when I want them. If you haven't seen Calibre then you must! It is first class software and free, but welcomes contributions. It also has Plug-ins that make managing the Kindle a breeze.

I agree with everything said about DRM but it is important to distinguish between the device and the format.

I am a reader so anything that makes that easier is really welcome. I live in NZ so the range of books here is restricted and limited. Amazon removed all those limitations. Furthermore, in our recent series of earthquakes (2 major ones today!) we lost most of our good bookshops and most of our public libraries on Feb 22. The Kindle didn't stop though. I can read newspapers from pretty much anywhere in the world when I cannot even buy a newspaper from another country here.

I imagine all of that was not covered in the original article as just about all of such articles are very US-centric where as the device is global. I often imagine what Kindles are doing for other parts of the world. I've seen them being read in Mandarin.

Anyone can publish on the Kindle and there are heaps of sites that promote just that. The Kindle is doing for books what the ipod did for music.

In case anyone wonders I am not in the employ of Amazon but when I come across things that can and are changing the way the world works then I applaud it.

One last thing about books. I agree with most things said previously about real, books but consider this. I can buy a book then pass it on and it gets passed on etc etc with as many as let's say 100 readers. What does the author get for that? She/he certainly doesn't get 100 payments. If there is an upside to DRM it is that authors will get better paid for their work. As a reader I say that's bloody good, it means that good authors will get rewarded more.

From the place that shakes and shakes with endless quakes...peace from Christchurch NZ

22

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a single timeline task planning tool

« on: June 13, 2011, 05:29 AM »

Task Coach

I've used this for a number of years, simple, portable and free

http://www.taskcoach.org/

23

Living Room / Re: What's your approach to this help desk procedure issue?

« on: May 05, 2011, 11:49 PM »

I built our help desk system from scratch based on know what we as a company wanted. I've worked there for almost 10 years so I have a fair idea. A user can phone our help desk or they can send an email. We usually find that they email if it is not urgent and phone when it is. From the phone calls most of them are classed as "completed on first contact" in other words the techie solved the problem on the phone.

Creating calls from emails works well and we us it extensively from our automated overnight processes. When they go wrong they send a coded email to the help desk to the email and that gets turned into an assignment that is automatically assigned to the right person. We have done this by implementing a system of "filters" that recognises pre-determined phrases in the emails. It works incredibly well and saves us hours of techie time by sparing them from trying to find out who to assign it to. By the way we are geographically dispersed.

As for access, only IT staff can create the calls but anyone can see them, the system is entirely open and we have nothing to hide. We want visibility about how long things take to fix and what are the things that consume the most time. For example we changed our email anti-spam system just on the basis of how many calls we had about blocked emails.

We did consider a web portal so users can click on options to either arrive at a solution themselves or at least create a meaningful call on the first go. In the end we found that that wasn't a problem that needed solving.

We use this system for everything that is IT related even assigning calls to external companies that we contract various services from.

If I was doing this exercise again I'd do it the same way as we get no complaints about the system itself. By allowing users to see their own calls they can see the progress themselves. My advice to anyone else would be to make it as open as possible and to not miss out on what you can achieve by automating the email process to create calls automatically.

Good Luck

24

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Text Expander software for Windows

« on: March 29, 2011, 11:58 PM »

I'm a coder and my typing is pathetic to be honest....I use Phrase Express for simple typing corrections like chnage to change and I have many inbuily typing defects all of which get corrected on the fly as I type badly. Brilliant.

But where it exceeds all the others that I tried is that I can type in "slabentry" without the quotes and have all this code automagically appear:

Dim session As New NotesSession
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
Dim view As NotesView
Set view = db.getView("XXXXXXXX")
view.AutoUpdate = False
Dim vc As NotesViewEntryCollection
Set vc = view.AllEntries
Dim entry As NotesViewEntry
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Set entry = vc.GetFirstEntry()
While not entry is nothing
Set doc = entry.Document
<some code here please>
Set entry = vc.GetNextEntry(entry)
Wend

and this just one of many bits of pre-configured keywords I have put in.....it makes the boilerplate bits of coding immediate without annoying typos and errors.

When first installed it can seem a bit overdone and daunting but you can delete out all the crap stuff that is in there by default.

Highly recommended. BTW I've not been nagged about commercial use.

25

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Auspex - a Windows Productivity App

« on: September 19, 2010, 02:59 AM »

Hi Tim, this looks like a marvelous piece of work, I appreciate the effort you have gone to. As a programmer, I often find that the best solutions come from our own frustrations rather than our fantasies

I have 2 things to add to this thread:

1. Can it deal with Non-US spelling? as a non-US person I find that all kinds of programs and websites want to correct my (already correct) spelling to American English (including this one!)

2. Have you considered including the same functionality thats been around for years on mobiles and is called predictive text or T9. I'm surprised that the great MS haven't ever included this is in Word and to be honest I have never seen it in any word processing or text editor program. Why is that? It can't be hard can it?