Recent Posts

10176

Living Room / Re: The Longest Joke in the World

« Last post by Renegade on February 18, 2008, 03:43 AM »

That was a good story, and much more worth it that the punch line.

10177

Living Room / Re: KITT returns!

« Last post by Renegade on February 16, 2008, 10:33 AM »

So... When do we get a new AirWolf?

I believe Firefox was an airplane from a Clint Eastwood movie too...

10178

Living Room / Re: Would anyone want a free DonationCoder.com bumper sticker?

« Last post by Renegade on February 16, 2008, 05:22 AM »

I don't think I can remember ever seeing a single bumper sticker here. I don't even know if they are illegal. There were laws before about how many colors a car or vehicle could have. Not sure if they're still on the books...

10179

Living Room / Re: about to switch to a Widescreen LCD.

« Last post by Renegade on February 16, 2008, 05:21 AM »

I have a 22" or 24" (I forget which now) at home and I find that things are often stretched a bit. It's not a bother though. In some instances, it's actually quite nice (text is good like this -- easier to read).

However, I was lazy and didn't do my research as well as I could have. The one I have (Zeus5000) sometimes blurs a tad for some resolutions and font sizes. I could have spent another $200 or so and gotten a better one.  Still, it's better than either of the monitors I use at the office.

My CRT is on my Linux box now. CRTs are superior, but unless you really need to work with color (like a designer), I don't see any reason that an LCD won't satisfy you.

Another thing --- I gained a LOT of desk space. Now my mess is spread out even more!

10180

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by Renegade on February 13, 2008, 12:45 AM »

...

I am not much of an impulse shopper for anything...not even food. My husband loves sending me to do the shopping, because I stick to the carefully planned list. It saves him a lot of money.

On the other side of the coin, I'll never ask him to pick up milk on the way home from work because it will be the most expensive milk in the world and come with 10 bags of free groceries. 

-app103 (February 12, 2008, 07:13 PM)

Your husband and I would get along very well! I am incapable of spending less than $200 at the grocery store. Doesn't matter if I only need to buy 1 case of something or not -- too many other things in there that I ***NEEEEEEDDDDD*** badly! Ooooo! Shiny new fluffy soft body pillow! Need one of those for sure! Ooooo! Looks like a case of rootbeer! Must buy! (Find out that it's actually cream soda when I get back home...) Oh! Cases of Snapple! Got to grab one of those! Ah - a 6-pack of that super soft kleenex! (Nevermind that I still have 2 boxes left at home...)

It's a disaster.

I nearly bought a 6-bottle case of Rum along with the cream soda that I thought was root beer. What would I do with that? (It was about $25 --- very cheap. Some new import from the Philippines.)

Shiny software... Shiny groceries... Sigh!

Grocery shopping is one of my favorite things to do! I love it! Especially when I get out of the country. There's nothing like foreign grocery stores for a good time! SE Asia just ROCKS for grocery stores! There's always a ton of amazing fresh fruit and it's dirt cheap.

Ok --- I'm so very far off topic...

10181

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3 beta 3 expected today

« Last post by Renegade on February 11, 2008, 06:24 PM »

How is application load speed compared to FF2? That's one of my main gripes with FF...

-f0dder (February 11, 2008, 06:20 PM)

You mean your gripe wasn't that 1 instance of Firefox opened to "about:blank" could eventually soak up a half GB of RAM?

10182

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by Renegade on February 11, 2008, 09:58 AM »

This just in from the registration email I got from that software...

You can be sure that you get free technical support lifetime.

That just makes me feel that it was definitely worth the purchase no matter what (even if I only use it once or twice). Some developers have a great attitude like that, others don't. I like supporting the ones with the good attitude.

However, I have had impulse purchases go bad... Thankfully this one is looking very good!

10183

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by Renegade on February 11, 2008, 09:47 AM »

Arrrgggghhh!! The US dollar! I'm not happy about it's position right now. You got that one bang on there Zane!

I'm looking at buying a software license that's around 10,000 Euro. Ouch. I've got all my "software" money in USD. That hurts! Heck. The Canadian $ is worth more! (Depending on the day...) But still! The CAN vs. the USD? Huh?

For a lot of personal stuff I just go for free or cheap. I don't need anything else quite often. (For many things I can program it myself! And have fun doing it! ) When it comes to the business side though... I'd rather just shell out a few bucks and be done with it. But that US dollar thing does make things much different.

10184

General Software Discussion / Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by Renegade on February 11, 2008, 08:30 AM »

I just saw this SQL Server Comparison Tool when checking in at my .NET Preacher site, when I saw an ad there for it... 80% off! $20! WTF? Ok. I'm in. Bought sight unseen. (No time to test it as there are only a few hours left, and for $20?)

I suppose that I can't resist a really good deal. (If you work with MS SQL Server, you'd know that something like that is very useful to have in your toolbox when you need it.)

Anyways, anyone a sucker for a deal?

10185

Living Room / Re: How can a RAM module suddenly go *%$!?!#<!!

« Last post by Renegade on February 10, 2008, 11:00 PM »

Kind of related, for hard disks -- if you've got serious problems and need to backup, don't turn off the computer. Spinning back up may destroy disks at some point.

As for my boxes, one's getting replaced, and I still have yet to look at the other one seriously. Probably a bad connection there. Not sure yet though.

The hellish thing -- as I'm sure you've discovered -- is FINDING what the real problem is. Once you've got that, the rest is trivial.

10186

Developer's Corner / Re: Comments That Make You Smile :)

« Last post by Renegade on February 10, 2008, 10:18 PM »

Code: C# [Select]

1. // I need to try this bit sober some time.

HAHAHAHA~!

Been there! I coded a web app 1 time where I was doing massive damage control. The guy that was supposed to do it totally dropped the ball.

2 months work and:

20% of code done
0% worked

 

Needless to say I was more than simply angry...

I sat at home waking up in the morning then starting to code... Round 10pm I'd start drinking until I finished at around 2~4am. I got a LOT of the app done half blitzed. Strangely enough, I had no problems with bugs. (I coded very conservatively to save time.)

Beer -- One of the great fuels of the Internet!

10187

Developer's Corner / Re: Source code colors: Contrast / Readability / Ergonomics

« Last post by Renegade on February 10, 2008, 10:09 PM »

Haven't had time to try these out, but here are some VS schemes:

http://www.winterdom...BColor%2BScheme.aspx

http://jheidt.com/ar...io-color-scheme.aspx

http://www.stefandid...-schemes-and-themes/

I'll need to give these a spin real soon.

(Thanks for providing the motivation in this thread!)

10188

General Software Discussion / Re: Concatenating MP3s

« Last post by Renegade on February 10, 2008, 09:53 PM »

The problem is that something like 20% of a frame's data can be in the n-1 frame (or n+1 frame -- I forget), so there's no really good way to do this. Yes, it can be done, but it's just much easier to decode, concat, then reencode it. You get a quality loss, but if it's an audio book, it's probably not that important.

This is an issue that I'll be looking at later this year to see if it makes sense to actually implement. So far I've only looked at it very very briefly.

I don't know of any programs that I can recommend that do this. (You can check Blaze though -- Chris puts a good amount of attention to detail, so I'd bet that he's done it right, but you'd need to check for yourself to see if Blaze even does it.)

10189

Living Room / Re: How can a RAM module suddenly go *%$!?!#<!!

« Last post by Renegade on February 10, 2008, 09:48 PM »

Oh man... I feel your pain... 

This happens, and usually at the worst times... (I'm facing 2 catastrophic situations like this now...)

10190

General Software Discussion / Re: The definition of "bloat" - RE: Software

« Last post by Renegade on February 08, 2008, 03:08 AM »

PowerBASIC - #BLOAT metastatement

DOH! 

-Mark0 (February 07, 2008, 12:43 PM)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha~!

That was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO funny! And so true!

Ok - starting from scratch...

WHERE DOES BLOAT COME FROM?

1) Refusal to give up support for old operating systems/software/hardware
2) Marketing department pushing for new features because the competition has them
3) Speed to market pressures and choice of development tools

Those are the 2 biggest that I can think of.

Why is application X so much larger? #1 (Windows 98)

Why does Nero have an audio editor and all that stuff? #2 (e.g. Blaze Audio, Windows Media Player, etc.)

Why do all of my applications require a minimum disk footprint of 24MB? #3 (.NET is about 23MB or so)   (.NET Rocks!)

Often the best thing to do is to just abandon old things and move forward, or to spin off new functionality as a new product or add-in.

However, at the end of the day, software is NOT technology driven... It's market driven. Each of the 3 things above is a consequence or direct result of market pressures on developers to fill needs. You need to keep your costs down, so often it's just easier to build in new things into an existing application. Launching a new product can be very dangerous. etc. etc. etc.

10191

Living Room / Re: Latest DC demo poll: When were you born?

« Last post by Renegade on February 08, 2008, 02:51 AM »

Wow! We got a lot of old fogies here!

10192

General Software Discussion / Re: How many of you use encryption?

« Last post by Renegade on February 06, 2008, 08:59 AM »

f0dder: why wouldn't you use it for the main workstation?

-jgpaiva (February 06, 2008, 08:40 AM)

Simply because I'm not sure whether I have a reason to do so, and I would have to evaluate performance and stability first. Which includes waiting some months before going "live" on my system, to see if any horror stories pop up. Not that I expect any, but my data is preciousssss to me.

-f0dder (February 06, 2008, 08:46 AM)

Very valid objection.

Encryption just isn't worth the pain right now unless you have some very valuable data. And in that case, it's worth paying for a commercial solution that has weight behind it.

How many people here really need to encrypt their drives? I don't have any kiddie porn...

10193

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a compression (algorithm) "Best Practices" sheet

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 05:35 PM »

Forgot some links:

http://cs.fit.edu/~m...ney/compression/#paq

Look here for ratios:

http://www.maximumco...ion.com/data/hlp.php

(Note - I'm not too pleased at how ALZip ranks there, but keep in mind that the purpose of ALZ isn't maximum compression -- it's from when there was a 4GB limit and aims to overcome that limit - there's no theoretical limit to the size, only disk space limits.)

10194

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a compression (algorithm) "Best Practices" sheet

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 05:27 PM »

Maximum Compression is an excellent site. However, it's focus is on literally that, and not on efficiency. There's a huge difference. Search for "Calgary Corpus" -- good compression benchmark test. There is another one that I'm forgetting at the moment too.

If you're looking for the smallest size, check out the PAQ8i or similar PAQ compression tools. However, keep in mind that PAQ compression at maximum is SLOW! The gains generally aren't worth it.

A few good compression algorithms with high efficiency: RAR, PPMd, ACE, BZip2. They vary, but all achieve good efficiency. (They don't beat PAQ for maximum compression though.)

No - not touting ALZ compression as it's geared towards massive archives, and not high compression ratios. It uses DEFLATE/ZIP compression, which while good, aren't the best for high compression ratios.

I don't care how long it takes but I do want it to be absolutely as small as I can get it.

Try PAQ on maximum compression then try to say that again.

10195

Living Room / Re: Microsoft bids $44.6-billion for Yahoo!

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 05:14 PM »

I'll just remind readers of this post:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=6962.0

-mouser (February 01, 2008, 08:18 AM)

But shouldn't it be $997?

As for the Yahoo thing, I'm hoping that it creates some competition for Google and brings down the price of CPC ads. Getting a $5 minimum bid for "super ultra obscure keyword that nobody is bidding on" is just silly.

10196

General Software Discussion / Re: Save the Cookies!

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 09:45 AM »

Oh - I forgot... Cookies are good for 1 thing in particular! Creating jobs for computer security hacks that hype fake computer threats!

10197

General Software Discussion / Re: Save the Cookies!

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 09:44 AM »

Christ, stop worrying about cookies already!

-f0dder (February 05, 2008, 09:27 AM)

Agreed. They just don't matter. Cookies are as harmful as, well... They're just not that bad. They can't hurt you. In 99.99999% of cases, you really really really really want them as they make your life easier without you even knowing.

10198

Living Room / Re: Best forums for....

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 09:37 AM »

That's what I really care about: how they deal with "noobs".

I wouldn't stop there.

In a lot of places you'll still get flamed for posing a problem that isn't trivial to you, but is trivial to someone else. Even if you're a long time poster.

I can't count the number of posts that I read that I find completely trivial. But so what? We all have different lives and are coming from different places. There is never a need for me to flaunt some knowledge that I have and demean someone at the same time. That's just being cruel and petty. (Or insecure if you like.)

I've posted things that others find trivial. When I do it here, there are no flames for it. Try that somewhere else... Not so forgiving...

What makes DC different is that the people that post here know that and treat people like people.

You can't read DC and not see that. We've got a good lot of people here that know that they're talking to other PEOPLE!

I can name forums where flames happen regularly. In the forums that I run at ALTools, I've only seen flames 1x for someone that was completely out of line and totally offensive. (profanity, curses, racism, gets worse from there)

Doesn't happen here.

10199

Living Room / Re: Me & my crazy optical mouse

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 08:01 AM »

So...

Have you decided on the hammer yet?

10200

General Software Discussion / Re: What Are Your Views On BUGS?

« Last post by Renegade on February 05, 2008, 07:59 AM »

As I try to write more and more complicated applications myself I have become a lot more tolerant of bugs in other peoples software. And this especially true when the bug seems random because I am learning myself just how hard those types are to track down.

-Eóin (February 05, 2008, 07:05 AM)

Amen.

I've got bugs that aren't *MY* bugs, but they affect my software. There's a serious bug that is in an audio driver that affects me. Not good. It's rare, so I won't fix it. (Sometimes you have to sacrifice.)

I've also got other bugs that are totally my own fault. They'll get fixed.

Another class I find are "environment" bugs (I use the term very loosely there). These can range from simple to find to impossible to locate. I recently was able to reproduce a bug, but I can't precisely define the real problem. Not fun. I'll have to hack around some BS to fix it most likely, which I don't like. I prefer to have straight forward, simple and easy code that is clear.