Recent Posts

1026

Living Room / Re: USB hubs - does anything like this exist?

« Last post by Target on December 29, 2010, 05:01 PM »

It sounds like you want to be able to share USB devices between computers.

-4wd (December 29, 2010, 03:49 AM)

that's exactly what i want to do, but seems like this is a niche market

I don't need (or want) to switch monitors, so a KVM would be a bit over the top (wasted)

there are switches (the first 2 options) that share a single device with multiple PC's, but you still need to daisy chain with a hub (or hubs) if you have multiple devices to share

The lindy link is a possible candidate, but only 4 ports

it seems no one has really made what seems like a logical step to me and built a device with penty of ports that does both

as an aside it occurred to me (about 10 minutes after I posted, DUH!) that someone, somewhere must have already done this so I went looking for a DIY version.  There are a number of references of multiple port hubs being constructed by gutting a bunch of cheap hubs and mounting them all in a single case (basically daisy chaining), and it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to extend this concept to add a switch and 2 inputs...

3 unpowered and 1 powered (with a suitable power supply) would give me 12 ports...hmmm 

1027

Living Room / USB hubs - does anything like this exist?

« Last post by Target on December 29, 2010, 12:03 AM »

sorry about the stupid title, but this seems like a logical piece of hardware but I don't seem to be able to find anything like it

I routinely work remotely using a laptop, however laptops generally don't have anywhere near enough USB ports for all the bit's and pieces I use so I use a hub (OK so far).  Trouble with this setup is that it gets pretty untidy

what I want to be able to do is plug in my keyboard, mouse, printer, USB key, RNA token, phone (modem), and external drive and switch them between the laptop and home PC so I'm wondering if there is a hub (7 ports minimum, preferably 10) that works like a KVM switch, ie where I can switch between 2 different inputs (the laptop or my own PC).

To complicate things further, I use a 2.5" 500G external drive that requires a reasonable power supply (it uses 2 ports on the docking station) so ideally the hub needs to be able to provide sufficient power to run the drive...

this seems like a reasonable piece of hardware (and I'm sure I'm not the only one that's had this experience), but I've googled for this several times and come up dry.  I suppose I'd be prepared to pay a reasonable amount for something that is well regarded (I have tried numerous no-name hubs and there is almost always one or two ports that don't work reliably)

Anyone got any idea's?
 

1028

General Software Discussion / Re: search and replace in excel file

« Last post by Target on December 28, 2010, 11:03 PM »

the following should work - note that it will delete the entire row, not just the range containing the data

[Select]

Sub xxx()
Dim rowno As Integer
rowno = 2

Do
    If Cells(rowno, 3) = 150 Then Cells(rowno, 4).Value = Cells(rowno, 4).Value + 70   
    If Cells(rowno, 3).Value = 0 Then Cells(rowno, 3).Value = 150

    If Cells(rowno, 3) = 45 and cells(rowno,5) = 47 Then Rows(rowno).Delete Else rowno = rowno + 1

Loop Until Cells(rowno, 3) = ""End Sub

1029

General Software Discussion / Re: search and replace in excel file

« Last post by Target on December 28, 2010, 09:49 PM »

if I understood what you were trying to do then the macro code might looks something like this (I've taken the same approach as andy, ie no testing)

[Select]

Sub xxx()
Dim rowno As Integer
rowno = 2

Do
    If Cells(rowno, 3) = 150 Then Cells(rowno, 4).Value = Cells(rowno, 4).Value + 70
    If Cells(rowno, 3).Value = 0 Then Cells(rowno, 3).Value = 150
    rowno = rowno + 1
Loop Until Cells(rowno, 3) = ""

End Sub

if you have a substantial number of records this might take a while

1030

Living Room / Re: Need a New Mouse

« Last post by Target on December 22, 2010, 12:32 AM »

I just noticed today that on the bottom of the mouse, my Logitech "Performance M950" is the "Performance MX". Why? Why change the packaging but not change the label on the product? Just seems odd...

Anyways, I like the mouse. It's good. It makes me funny. :D

-Renegade (December 22, 2010, 12:21 AM)

makes it harder for consumers to compare prices and perhaps buy elsewhere cheaper...

gotta love the marketing business...

1031

Living Room / Re: USB Daisy-Chaining gone haywire

« Last post by Target on December 21, 2010, 11:35 PM »

I think this thread's in decline…

yeah, I'm bacon you guys to stop!

-AndyM (December 21, 2010, 08:30 PM)

Okay, I'm cured.

-cranioscopical (December 21, 2010, 09:58 PM)

SNORT!!

-Target (December 21, 2010, 10:40 PM)

Thank goodness we have you to do the grunt work!

-cranioscopical (December 21, 2010, 11:23 PM)

To err is human; to forgive, porcine

1032

Living Room / Re: USB Daisy-Chaining gone haywire

« Last post by Target on December 21, 2010, 10:40 PM »

I think this thread's in decline…

yeah, I'm bacon you guys to stop!

-AndyM (December 21, 2010, 08:30 PM)

Okay, I'm cured.

-cranioscopical (December 21, 2010, 09:58 PM)

SNORT!!

1033

Living Room / Re: USB Daisy-Chaining gone haywire

« Last post by Target on December 21, 2010, 12:16 AM »

That you comment here is very poor sign!

-cranioscopical (December 20, 2010, 11:22 PM)

strange as it might seem you're not the first one to make that observation

Is that some kind of a rind up?

All in all, I think it's time for you to trotter long.

and who made you lard of the manor?

1034

Living Room / Re: USB Daisy-Chaining gone haywire

« Last post by Target on December 20, 2010, 08:23 PM »

seems like everyones getting their nose into this trough (and the conversations just crackling!!)

1035

Living Room / Re: Need a New Mouse

« Last post by Target on December 20, 2010, 06:58 PM »

True... It used to be a set of a few PDFs... I don't know what it is about Australia, but a LOT of companies think a web site means putting up a PDF catalog.

-Renegade (December 20, 2010, 05:58 PM)

and very bad PDF's at that.

1036

Living Room / Re: Need a New Mouse

« Last post by Target on December 20, 2010, 04:40 PM »

But seriously -- MSY's site is messed up as in Katrina meets Fatman meets the elephantman meets ebola meets leprosy.

-Renegade (December 20, 2010, 02:09 AM)

yeah, it's gotta be one of the worst I've ever run across, though it is better than it was...

1037

Living Room / Re: USB Daisy-Chaining gone haywire

« Last post by Target on December 20, 2010, 04:33 PM »

Some acts are rash and some are rasher.

-cranioscopical (December 20, 2010, 08:46 AM)

sounds like a porky...

1038

Living Room / Re: Need a New Mouse

« Last post by Target on December 20, 2010, 12:14 AM »

U-Mart in Melbourne is a bit closer and you can pick up thereby saving on their rather exorbitant postage costs.

-4wd (December 20, 2010, 12:07 AM)

that's a good solution - I knew they had several outlets in brisbane and surrounds, but not about the interstate version (it didn't even occur to me to look )

1039

Living Room / Re: Need a New Mouse

« Last post by Target on December 19, 2010, 11:37 PM »

U-Mart in Brisbane has the MX518 for $40, though you'd have to add postage - according to their website shipping is $20 for up to 20Kg which seems a bit expensive

I have no idea how much the postage might be (depends how big the box is...), but if you get stuck they're just down road from our office

1040

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Target on December 19, 2010, 05:24 PM »

When I originally made this post I expected the apple fans to be crawling out of the woodwork to promote the favourite product, especially as Apple had been getting quite a caning in the forums

But what surprised me was that they didn't make an appearance (nary a one...)

I suppose that given the nature of the DC community this might have been a foregone conclusion though clearly one I hadn't anticipated.

And I'm still yet to be sold on an ipod (though of late it seems others have fallen to the sirens song...)

1041

Finished Programs / Re: Idea : Time Calculator that accepts a column paste of mm:ss

« Last post by Target on December 15, 2010, 09:22 PM »

@cranioscopical

I cleared the clipboard, then copied.  No matter what I get the error.

edit:
I don't know if it matters, but I'm running Chromium. I think it has issues with the cache.  I tried downloading a file from my site and kept getting the old version until I cleared the cache.  Weird.

But even so, I often highlight the address bar and then launch Selector to open the page with another browser.  Selector messes with the clipboard, saving current, then copying selected, then putting contents back, so it would just be havoc.

Target's utility looks cool though.  Good for someone with a different usage habits.

-MilesAhead (December 09, 2010, 11:54 AM)

I meant to ask this the other day, but forgot...

is there a particular reason why you need to copy and sum the track times? 

reason I ask is that AllMusic lists the total run time in the summary section (although to be fair there was a 10 second discrepancy in my test page)

1042

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Movie Mode

« Last post by Target on December 09, 2010, 11:21 PM »

could any of the offending apps suffer data loss on being closed?

1043

Finished Programs / Re: Idea : Time Calculator that accepts a column paste of mm:ss

« Last post by Target on December 09, 2010, 04:47 PM »

Of course, it would be better if the numbers were right justified but I suppose Target is doing his best

-cranioscopical (December 09, 2010, 09:49 AM)

such as it is...

Good for someone with a different usage habits

-MilesAhead (December 09, 2010, 11:54 AM)

seemed like an easier approach than copying and pasting the records individually (which is what i thought you were doing)

it was a first cut - I originally considered monitoring the browser window, but there were too many variables for the amount of time I had spare (FYI I modified the monitored URL string to include allmusic.com which should exclude urls for other sites)

glad to hear that it does work for someone though...

1044

Finished Programs / Re: Idea : Time Calculator that accepts a column paste of mm:ss

« Last post by Target on December 09, 2010, 01:03 AM »

All I get is "there was an error and the file was not downloaded".

I appreciate the effort. In this instance it feels like the block copy from the page is a better approach.  At least for me, since I have AutoCopy. Just drag the mouse and let go, then paste in skwire's app. To get the url in the clipboard I have to highlight then control-c.  Plus I do too much url copy/paste to leave it resident.  My Selector program launches stuff with selected text so I tend to use that a lot.

Don't know why it didn't download. I tried copying the url to the clipboard 3 or 4 times.

-MilesAhead (December 09, 2010, 12:37 AM)

not a problem, thanks for trying (I'll have a bit more of a game with it anyway and see if I can work out what the issue is)

1045

Finished Programs / Re: Idea : Time Calculator that accepts a column paste of mm:ss

« Last post by Target on December 08, 2010, 11:51 PM »

no guarantee's, but try this AHK script

[Select]

#singleinstance
#persistent

loop
{
    if clipboard contains http://www.allmusic.com
        gosub, parse
}
Return

Parse:
mins:=
Secs:=
tmp:=
tracks:=
TCnt:=0

urldownloadtofile, %clipboard%, c:\temp\temp.html

if errorlevel
{
    msgbox, there was an error and the file was not downloaded
    clipboard:=
    return
}
    
loop, read, c:\temp\temp.html
{
    if a_index > 200
    {
        if a_loopreadline contains listen now
        {
            filereadline, tmp, c:\temp\temp.html, a_index+5
            stringtrimleft, tmp, tmp, 49
            stringtrimright, tmp, tmp, 5
            stringsplit, tmp_, tmp, :
          
            if tmp_2
            {
                mins+= tmp_1
                secs+= tmp_2
            }
            else
                secs+= tmp_1
            
            tmp_1:=
            tmp_2:=
            
            if Tracks
                tracks.= "`n"
            TCnt+=1
            tracks.= "Track " . tcnt . " - " . tmp
        }
    }
    if a_loopreadline contains <!-- End Tracks Table -->
    {
        mins+= floor(secs/60)
        secs:= mod(secs,60)
        clipboard:= mins . ":" . secs
        msgbox, %tracks%`n`nTotal - %mins%:%secs%
        Break
    }    
}

return

First up I'm behind a corporate firewall so I can't test it properly at the moment but it is working fine with local copies

run the script, then when you're on the relevant page, copy the URL.  The script should retrieve the url from the clipboard, download and parse the file, do the math, then copy the result to the clipboard and popup a messagebox with the results (note that the script stays resident and only kicks in when there's a URL in the clipboard)

At the moment it's only set up for AllMusic.com, but I assume it could be extended to cover other sites

EDIT: amended the URL filter to limit the response to allmusic.com only

1046

Living Room / Re: I figured something out about Apple's device restrictions: file management.

« Last post by Target on December 08, 2010, 09:22 PM »

We shall see.  As I said previously, my prediction is the opposite.  We can look to this thread to see who was right!
I don't see how Apple will be able to grow at the rate they are currently growing at without making some concessions.  I think if they become MORE restrictive, as you say, they will fail AND there's no way the userbase grows at this rate.

-superboyac (December 08, 2010, 08:43 PM)

could well be, after all, what do I know - having said that, I'm sure that the exact same predictions were being made years ago, and they've succeeded against all expectations, with a product range that looks spiffy, but offers limited functionality (huh, that sounds a bit like my resume...)

 

1047

Living Room / Re: I figured something out about Apple's device restrictions: file management.

« Last post by Target on December 08, 2010, 06:27 PM »

Actually I suspect you might be coming at it from the wrong angle - Apple don't lock access so we can't do the things we think we should be able to, rather I suspect they do it because they think their way of doing things is the best (understandable) and because if they didn't they'd have a hard time explaining/justifying their logic (we already know that the iArmy are happy to put up with whatever apple serves them in order to be able to carry the cool badge that apparently comes with their devices).

These 'functions' are also fundamental to their existing OS, so changing these behaviours would no doubt have far reaching implications.

Seems to me unlikely that they are likely to make those changes, or to relax their control - a more likely scenario is a more restrictive environment to try and protect their 'products'

1048

Finished Programs / Re: Idea : Time Calculator that accepts a column paste of mm:ss

« Last post by Target on December 08, 2010, 04:45 PM »

do you use any other sites besides allmusic?

1049

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Target on December 01, 2010, 10:54 PM »

While wandering around DX looking for more pointless stuff to buy, (actually I've been slowly replacing the MR16 halogens with LED versions), I stumbled upon this if you're still in the market for a PMP.

-4wd (December 01, 2010, 10:03 PM)

yes I'm still n the market (thanks for thinking of me)

not so sure about this item though, it seems somewhat bulkier than I would prefer, and the general consensus seemed to be that the battery life was lousy (I note also that it appears to come with a US charging adaptor which may be another issue)

on top of that I don't do paypal...   

many thanks

1050

Living Room / Re: Five Reasons Why People Hate Apple

« Last post by Target on November 30, 2010, 04:26 PM »

how about this one from slashdot this morning -  the last line amused me no end, and I particularly liked the idea that a second run of the figurines was termed 'an update'

Apple Sues Steve Jobs Figurine Maker Over Likeness
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday November 30, @09:34AM
from the false-idols-before-me dept.
 eldavojohn writes
"Techdirt brings word that China-based MIC Gadget, the maker of a four inch 'SJ figurine,' is being sued by Apple to stop making the product. The fairly well detailed figurine went for $80 and the manufacturer offered updates as it quickly sold out of the first 300 and was subsequently sued before starting a second batch. The glasses, the black turtle neck, the salt and pepper beard, the blue jeans and the new balance sneakers — that is Steve Jobs' look and you don't even have to consider the smug look or the iPhone 4 in his hand while standing in a classic press event spotlight pose. So far, this notice for copyright infringement only exists for the 'SJ figurine' (no mention of Apple or Jobs in the store listing) but it appears other companies are allowing MIC Gadget some leeway with trademarks or perhaps they just haven't noticed yet. Could it be that Apple is just concerned that their followers are purchasing lead-painted false idols?"