Messages

126

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Magmahost.com | cPanel 11 + Fantastico! w/ 99.9% Uptime [24/7 Support] | Only $1

« on: September 23, 2010, 06:36 AM »

Maybe it's unfair to get into other hosters (?) in this thread, so I'll pm you. I will say though that it's a fair bit more expensive than Magma, but I need the reliability.

127

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Magmahost.com | cPanel 11 + Fantastico! w/ 99.9% Uptime [24/7 Support] | Only $1

« on: September 20, 2010, 05:10 PM »

I used to be with magmahost until about 2 weeks ago.
Cancelled all accounts after my 3 support tickets went unanswered for 2 weeks. Even up to now, there has been no emailed response to me. I had assumed they died.
One support ticket was high urgency because my sites were unavailable but were needed by my students to access daily lesson notes.
I should add, this was the third time service was interrupted for periods greater than 24 hours and my students were getting rightfully annoyed.

128

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Open Menu

« on: September 14, 2010, 07:39 PM »

Open menu got a review at makeuseof.com/ today. And the Open menu site looks great!

129

Living Room / Re: GDT on Bits du Jour for 50% off

« on: September 05, 2010, 05:54 AM »

Tony, I sent a PM, but not sure if it sent ok or not. I've been using IE8 lately, and noticed some oddities...

-Renegade (September 05, 2010, 04:33 AM)

got your 2nd thanks Ryan...great!

130

Living Room / Re: GDT on Bits du Jour for 50% off

« on: September 04, 2010, 10:24 PM »

Same here...I had even requested email notification for the day the deal was on offer, knowing I'd be fairly busy and be likely to forget. No notification for THAT deal every arrived.
So much for that idea .

131

Developer's Corner / Re: Java and braces ... how do you keep track of them?

« on: August 20, 2010, 05:16 AM »

thanks for these useful ideas... that's great.

132

Developer's Corner / Re: Java and braces ... how do you keep track of them?

« on: August 19, 2010, 05:14 PM »

The problem I've been having is that it doesnt do me much good to see one red brace when I need to do a lot of scrolling to see its match.
So I'm thinking it's the folding which is the key to being able then to see the matches, either with careful indentation else the brace highlighting

133

Developer's Corner / Re: Java and braces ... how do you keep track of them?

« on: August 18, 2010, 05:07 AM »

thanks for both suggestions... I've been less than fastidious about the amount of indenting, so thats a wake up call.
And yes, the text editor I'm using has folding - stupid not to use it.
Thanks for both suggestions.

134

Developer's Corner / Java and braces ... how do you keep track of them?

« on: August 17, 2010, 07:22 PM »

 As a beginner in java programming, one of my biggest hassles seems to be trying to keep track of pairs of braces, especially now I've gone past classes of 1 screenful of code.
I'm using Geany (Linux, text editor) - I'm aware of IDEs, but my main point is just techniques/suggestions from experienced coders to save me having to wait to see compile errors which indicate I've stuffed up the braces yet again
thanks
tony

135

Living Room / Re: When life rains down lemons...

« on: June 27, 2010, 04:02 AM »

I remember reading of a US submarine skipper not so long back being court martialled for hitting some undersea "protuberance...despite following the approved US Navy maps.
If I recall correctly, he had a duty to follow said maps/routing, but also to know if the US Navy approved maps were wrong and miss any extant discepancies.
 My impression is that US Navy commanderts are held to a super-human standard of accountability

136

General Software Discussion / Re: MojoPac

« on: May 17, 2010, 09:15 PM »

I used to use it at school a while back and it worked fine.
(didn't use it for games, but did use it for stuff like graphics programs, office suites et al)

137

Living Room / Re: Do you collect anything?

« on: May 02, 2010, 03:15 AM »

I think you're going off on a tangent here. While I've derived a great degree of pleasure from the terms you've used (inversely proportional to their relevance), I wish you'd integrated your remarks with the topic better. Perhaps we should form a group to moderate these posts and regain our focus. Y coordinate, you ask? For consistency.

138

General Software Discussion / Re: Question - Does anyone know of such a program? - Data organizer

« on: May 01, 2010, 06:55 PM »

Would a (messy) solution to palm syncing be to run a virtualized o/s (eg using sun virtualbox) that works with palm syncing and set up a shared folder with the host o/s?

139

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« on: April 30, 2010, 12:44 AM »

If you do visit the link I gave and then want to view the example pages, use opera to do so if you have it (the 4th example does work by the way)
 

140

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« on: April 29, 2010, 08:12 AM »

I guess I was trying to point towards an attempt from some time back to develop ideas similar to some of those proposed here, in case a read of the site I pointed to stimulated ideas from someone with some programming talent. It wasn't intended to be a "look, here's the final solution to your problem" post.

141

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« on: April 29, 2010, 05:34 AM »

I'll have another go - have a look at http://philburns.com/quickshow.html to see if it's relevant to the discussion.

142

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« on: April 26, 2010, 05:31 AM »

An interesting relic from the past - way back in Opera 5.x times, they had a thing called "Operashow", aimed at using html markup and css to do presentations with Opera.
It might have been relevant to you, apart from the Opera lockin, but I think the idea was subsequently abandoned. Shame.
 Maybe someone with the knowhow could write a quasi html editor, which uses stylesheets, dhtml etc to produce slides for a browser.

143

Java / Re: Beginner's dumb question ...

« on: April 23, 2010, 08:15 AM »

Sorry, 1 more question...
public int compareTo(Product other) works well if Ive created 2 objects, say wrench and sprocket ... I just use someinteger = wrench.compareTo(sprocket)
BUT.. what if I asked the user to input the names of 2 products into strings item1 and item2 for example. (so item1 = "wrench" and item2 = "sprocket")

Now someinteger = item1.compareTo(item2) won't work because item1 is a string, not an object, as is item2. So I need to get java to actually use the object whose name is the string in item1 and same for the item2
Can be done?

144

Java / Re: Beginner's dumb question ...

« on: April 22, 2010, 05:17 PM »

Hope that helps? Yes, a lot thanks, and thanks for taking the time.
I think my understanding is tenuous, at best, but I know enough to follow what you say needs to be done
tony

145

Java / Beginner's dumb question ...

« on: April 22, 2010, 08:30 AM »

I have defined a class called Products (attached file)
The class has a method getNumInStock() to return the numbers in stock for any Product object I've created
I have made 2 objects called sprocket and wrench and can set the numbers of each in stock using a driver program.

My problem:
Add a method to the Product class called compareTo which takes a parameter specifying
another product- and returns an integer satisfying the following conditions:
0     if this product has the same number of items in stock as the other product
< 0   if this product has fewer items in stock than the other product
> 0   if this course has more items in stock than the other product

Fine, except from inside this new method, I can't retrieve the numbers in stock of objects. My effort at doing so is in line 41 of the attached file.
If any knowledgeable person is masochistic enough, or altruistic enough to explain how to do this, I would be really greatful.
thanks
tony
 

146

Living Room / Re: Where are my math wizards? Need help with algebraic set puzzle algorithm thing

« on: April 08, 2010, 05:26 AM »

I guess you're saying to try an algorithm like this:
row 1: start counting from 1st element in row  ie 1 2 3
row 2: keep counting , but this time start from second element in row and then cycle back to 1st element ie 6 4 5
row 3: keep counting , but this time start from third element in row and then cycle back to 1st element ie 8 9 7

That gives constant totals for each column... but what about randomness for each player for the game?
I guess you could
a. interchange columns randomly
b. add and subtract random amounts from random selections in a column -
       the add would need to take the element to >x.y,
       the subtract could take the balancing element to negative
       then add a constant to all elements in the matrix to eliminate negatives
c. find minimum element in the matrix and reduce this, and all other elements by whats needed to get the min value to 1.
After making a nice cup of tea, voila, an apparently random matrix meeting requirements. Maybe.

147

General Software Discussion / Re: JDK install problem in sun virtualbox ubuntu image - PROBLEM SOLVED

« on: March 26, 2010, 03:36 AM »

its the TAB key! I thought I had tried it, obviously not!

148

General Software Discussion / JDK install problem in sun virtualbox ubuntu image - PROBLEM SOLVED

« on: March 25, 2010, 11:58 PM »

When I try to install the sun jdk in ubuntu 9, it seems I get the jre package to be installed first / as well.

The files download, but then I get a licence agreement displayed, seemingly in the terminal window.

But there is no option to accept the agreement.
I've tried pressing return, the space bar, clicking on the [OK] within the agreement. Nothing has any effect -
except closing the terminal window, which then stops the installation.

There MUST be a simple thing I'm not doing or doing wrong. Plz help!
[attach=#1][/attach]

149

Living Room / Re: Help needed from USA to buy a book. - CLOSED

« on: March 24, 2010, 03:55 PM »

Sorry for the delay in closing this thread - I had a major personal disaster last night.
Thank you so much to all the generous people who offered help.
That really is the spirit of Donationcoders to me and I see it time and time again.
At a really low point in my life, it's meant even more.
tony

150

Living Room / Help needed from USA to buy a book. - CLOSED

« on: March 23, 2010, 11:46 PM »

A plea for help...
One of my ex-students (a migrant, no family support) is doing 1st year uni and needs a java text book
(Big Java, 3rd edition by Horstmann).
Cheapest in australia (new) is $137
I see I can get a near new copy from an amazon seller for about $US17, plus postage, which shud come to a LOT less than $137.
BUT the seller only ships to the USA.
Is there a kind DC member from the USA who would be prepared to take delivery of the book if I buy it, then re-ship to australia, after I'd "paypalled" them shipping costs?
Please PM me if anyone would.
Thanks,
Tony