Recent Posts

10276

Living Room / Re: Which Software Personality Would Sing These Lyrics?

« Last post by Renegade on January 12, 2008, 10:20 AM »

Richard Stallman, obviously: "Theres no price to pay just follow me".

-f0dder (January 12, 2008, 06:52 AM)

Hahahahaha~!

Somebody got the joke there!    (Very sharp of you f0dder!)

And sooooo well put!

But who voted for mouser? 

10277

Living Room / Re: Wanted: Electronic/Searchable Holy Books

« Last post by Renegade on January 12, 2008, 07:28 AM »

I just took a look at the links submitted by Knot4Prophet and on the htmlbible.com page is listed a few MS Access public domain databases for 3 different bible translations, for download. It's provided for anyone that wants to write their own software.

It's a place to start.

-app103 (January 12, 2008, 12:38 AM)

I checked out the Access DB. Very nice. Effectively, PK by book #, book name, chapter and verse. (Yes - messy, but it works.) That would be very good for searching. If you can get others like it, it wouldn't be too hard to get them into a decent database (MSDE, MS SQL Server, VistaDB, PostGreSQL, etc.) and work with them from there.

There are no annotations, but if you found something with them, it could be added in another table (or the same one even).

Honestly, that's a very good starting point, and if I were to write some Bible software (I've thought about it before very seriously), I'd probably start there. It's better than many other resources that I've seen. (And I've looked before.)

10278

Living Room / Which Software Personality Would Sing These Lyrics?

« Last post by Renegade on January 11, 2008, 07:04 PM »

Ok - just for fun, which major software personality could you imagine singing these lyrics? 

Now I have you deep inside my everlasting grasp
The seven bloody gates of Hell
Is where you'll live your last

Warriors from Hell's domain
Will bring you to your death
The flames of Hades burning strong
Your soul shall never rest

The gates of Hell lie waiting as you see
Theres no price to pay just follow me
I can take your lost soul from the grave
Jesus knows your soul can not be saved

(From Slayer's "Hell Awaits")

I've put up probably the top best know personalities along with some extreme dichotomies.

10279

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« Last post by Renegade on January 11, 2008, 06:33 PM »

What I'd like to see is for music to start coming out in truly high-quality formats like 48KHz or 96KHz and 32-bit depth or at least better recording/mastering. I've got a lot of music that the quality just isn't the greatest to start with. Great music, but the original recording & mastering is less than ideal. Makes is so that there's not much of a difference between 128 and 256kbps MP3s.

10280

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« Last post by Renegade on January 11, 2008, 05:11 PM »

I'm bored

So I converted the FLAC files to WAV, and "Made in Japan" takes exactly 774.5 MB. Compressed with ZIP, we take that down to 700.7 MB, and RAR brings it further down, to 506.5 MB.

It's not recommended to play the resulting RAR file

-Lashiec (January 11, 2008, 12:35 PM)

Funny that you should mention that... ALSong actually plays ZIP, RAR and ALZ compressed music.

RAR is most certainly a much better compression algorithm than deflate or gzip, but you'd end up with about 300MB or so if you'd used FLAC. As always in IT, the answer is "it depends."

10281

Living Room / Re: Mommy, why is there a server in the house?

« Last post by Renegade on January 11, 2008, 04:39 PM »

I had a look at the site --- hilarious!

"Do you think your family would need a Windows Home Server if, say... You were a better mother?"

"Did you install it, because you don't strike me as particularly smart."

Hahahaha~!

The videos are very fun.

10282

Developer's Corner / Re: Article Convinces Me To Move To vi(m)

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 11:29 PM »

Hmmm... You guys have me curious... I'll give that article a read with an open mind... Despite remembering how over-joyed I was when I left vi years ago... We'll see...

10283

Living Room / Re: What should I do with my audio CDs?

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 08:19 PM »

SOMETHING ELSE:

Use cutters to take chunks out of the edges, then use them as ninja stars to kill RIAA lawyers. 

Or you could rip them to FLAC, OGG, WMA, WAV and store them all on DVD to save space. Or get a Bluray burner and use that -- even better! But whatever - lossless audio is the way to go.

10284

Living Room / Re: Wanted: Electronic/Searchable Holy Books

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 05:46 PM »

I am grateful for all of the web links. I will be compiling them into a list. However, I want to reemphasize my original post in this thread. My main search if for software that I can use to compare, contrast, etc. the various books. I have been able to locate many of these holy texts online in the past, but it is difficult to study them in the manner I desire, and hence my request for a particular type of software application.

-tinjaw (January 09, 2008, 09:13 PM)

A while back I looked through the various offerings to see if there was anything available that I could use decently to write software for exactly that purpose. However, I didn't find anything that was easily consumable. I'm speaking purely about the actual books themselves. (Some kind of markup would be needed.)

I think you may end up either going with some of the available software, or just use some of the text search/comparison software available.

10285

Living Room / Re: Beware Domain Searching at Network Solutions!

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 05:22 PM »

Hey guys, check out DailyChanges.com:

ReservedDomainName.com (the domain Network Solutions is using to "reserve" these domains) has gained over 50,000 domains just today. I don't think Renegade was the only one with the script idea. I tried to click the list but it crashed Firefox.
...

-Deozaan (January 10, 2008, 03:10 PM)

After the top 30 or so, the numbers drop dramatically.

There are very good reasons why land speculation has been outlawed in various places/times. It does nothing to add any value while any "added value" is purely artificial. Even the National Socialists understood this... ICANN should really get it's act in gear.

I almost universally a pro-market laissez faire kinda guy. But it seem clear that NS is acting unethically.

-CWuestefeld (January 10, 2008, 03:20 PM)

Yep. I'm certainly in the liberal camp for a lot of things, but that doesn't mean that just because you *can* do something, you *should*. Some things are simply, well, however you want to put it --- they're not "playing nice".

...
I think there's a conflict of interest inherent in the way the business works today. And NS has a responsibility when acting as the salesperson for domains to act in good faith for their customer. Letting their other businesses take precedence over this is definitely bad ethics.

And Network Solutions is the biggest issuer of SSL certs -- they are the ones certifying who else can be trusted 

-CWuestefeld (January 10, 2008, 03:20 PM)

Makes a good argument for strong state control of some industries, or strong regulation by the state... Not that I'm in favor of that, but if people can't behave themselves properly, then it's time for the state to step in.

10286

Living Room / Re: Beware Domain Searching at Network Solutions!

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 02:59 PM »

They are just random text. I didn't have time to do any dictionary stuff, so I put the entire source there.

As for DOS, well... yeah... kinda... 

But isn't that exactly what NS is doing to customers? The are denying people the possibility of using the services of other registrars... Neither is a very nice thing to do.

10287

Living Room / Re: Beware Domain Searching at Network Solutions!

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 02:21 AM »

The executable is buried deep in there. Some instructions on where to find it would be useful for people who might have a hard time finding it.

-Deozaan (January 10, 2008, 02:17 AM)

It's in here:

ExtendedWebBrowser2_Src\ExtendedWebBrowser2\bin\Release

Filename: ExtendedWebBrowser2.exe

Enjoy!

10288

Living Room / Re: Beware Domain Searching at Network Solutions!

« Last post by Renegade on January 10, 2008, 01:43 AM »

Ok - attached is a hacked up browser that once you navigate in it to http://www.networksolutions.com/ will start looking for domains. Source code and all is in there, so go to the bin/Release and run the EXE. .NET 2.0 C# -- notes are in there where sources are from, etc. etc.

Probably some bugs, but should be good to go. If anyone wants to add to it, go nuts!

Cheers!

10289

Living Room / Re: Beware Domain Searching at Network Solutions!

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2008, 06:14 PM »

Sigh... Why do some people feel it necessary to be complete pricks in the way they run their businesses?

Here's my proposal...

I'll write a nice little mini web browser / tool that will do nothing but silently sit in the tray and run random automated queries to Network Solutions so that you can protect random domain names from evil Front Runners!

I need 2 things from people though:

1) Some kind of anonymous surfing proxy to hide IP addresses -- please let me know of a free one (not necessary, but would be useful)
2) Enough interest/people that want to be pricks back at NS (why bother if nobody wants to reserve domain names)

This would have numerous benefits for everyone involved.

1) It would ensure that random domain names are protected from evil Front Runners
2) It would protect innocent idiots with too much money from purchasing random domains at reasonable prices, and force them to pay more for awesome domains like "www.sudfhaiovbeivbdsivbaifquwfc3dg48wfdefl.com" or "www.randomwordsconcatenatedtogether.com"
3) This would be a super cash winfall for Network Solutions as people rush to snap up fantastic value-added $35.00 domains.
4) With a random word concat feature, it would ensure that everyone once in a while, a legitimate domain would be denied to someone who would otherwise succumb to the evil wiles of technology -- we're saving souls here you know...
5) You'd get to reserve thousands of domain names for yourself!
6) You'd protect domain names from being purchased and possibly being used! (Some domains are used for bad things --- you can help stop this!)
7) You'd protect the domain names from terrorists!
Network Solutions would be helping fight the war on terror!
9) You'd be creating jobs and fighting child hunger!
10) Eventually, this would lead to a cure for cancer...

Ok - I'm starting to stretch things a bit at the end there... So, anyone want to start saving the world?



Edit: Looks like they're not doing it anymore from a quick test... Not sure... I'll still do it if anyone's interested though...

10290

Living Room / Re: iPod Touch - any opinions?

« Last post by Renegade on January 09, 2008, 09:07 AM »

I think LG has a good alternative for the iPhone. Check them out.

10291

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder powered by logo's

« Last post by Renegade on January 07, 2008, 01:43 AM »

...what's a standard size for such a button?

-PhilB66 (January 07, 2008, 12:02 AM)

I think you're looking for this.

10292

Living Room / Re: The Rule of 3 Drives: How to Build your Next PC

« Last post by Renegade on January 06, 2008, 11:13 PM »

Interesting... Learn something everyday.

10293

Living Room / Re: The Rule of 3 Drives: How to Build your Next PC

« Last post by Renegade on January 06, 2008, 05:36 PM »

Does the current SSD technology use the same tech as typical flash drives?

Hard drives will basically last "forever" as the physical media (platters) are not damaged by writes, but flash drives are damaged by writes and the media itself slowly degrades.

So I'm not sure that SSD are a great idea for reliable storage. (???)

Does anyone know the underlying technolgy enough to comment further on that here?

10294

General Software Discussion / Re: Synching your TODO list - how do you go about it?

« Last post by Renegade on January 06, 2008, 03:48 PM »

I was going to write one, but there are so many out there that I just figured, "why?"

Here's a good one at the Code Project: AbstractSpoon TODO List

AbstractSpoon is here.

Does desktop and PDA along with source control.

10295

Developer's Corner / Re: Want to develop the greatest alarm clock software of all time.

« Last post by Renegade on January 06, 2008, 03:29 PM »

I've been using software alarm clocks since 1997 or so.

Waker 98 - Was very good.
Music Match Jukebox - Was good, but I got sick of their update BS and dumped it. Not user friendly.
Citrus Alarm Clock - Works ok, but could use some work. Not very user friendly. I'm using this one right now.

What I'd like to see is just a plain, ordinary, good, simple user interface that lets me set alarms quickly, easily, and in a highly visual manner.

This is yet again one of those tiny niche areas that doesn't really have a great application in it. I've thought about writing one myself because I need one, but it always gets pushed far down the priority list as I can make do with what I have. If someone were to fill the space here, I'd love it.

My guess is that a scrolling list of set alarms with checkboxes to enable/disable them along with a solid UI to set/edit alarms would be great. For some good specs., have a look at the Windows Task Scheduler. It really does a very good job of allowing a huge amount of flexibility for times. Not a great UI, but it is exhaustive.

10296

Living Room / Re: World Question Center 2008: "WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?"

« Last post by Renegade on January 05, 2008, 03:51 AM »

Agreed here (for the most part): Email is Hell

On science and testability: One - Two -- Was Popper wrong? A very interesting question indeed.

I like this one: There are no moral facts. Moral sentences have no truth-values.

On Artificial Intelligence: Nope. For those with an interest, Roger Penrose wrote "The Emperor's New Mind" in 1988 arguing against AI. BRILLIANT book and a wonderful read. Highly recommended for anyone that wants to read something with few punches pulled.

There's a lot of interesting reading there from people that have put some real thought into these things. Thanks for the link!

10297

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« Last post by Renegade on January 04, 2008, 11:42 PM »

What's a preview and would it have prevented me (and others) from stumbling into Renegade's "Dark Dungeon?" (just teasing ).  Seriously, my concept of a "Preview" is essentially an abbreviated (size or duration) of the real deal.  I don't get how that would help?  I must be missing something.

-CodeTRUCKER (January 04, 2008, 11:18 PM)

It lets you see the URL before you go there without loading the page or displaying any images. You need to determine whether or not to proceed based on the URL, which is useless in some contexts, but useful in others. In this case the domain name itself is descriptive enough to let you know whether or not you want to continue to the site.

It's basically to give people confidence in that they are continuing to a trusted site, and not a malicious site since the nature of the tinyurl obfuscates the link.

Click the link and you'll see a tinyurl page with the domain name and a link asking you if you want to proceed to the "Dark Dungeon".

10298

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« Last post by Renegade on January 04, 2008, 11:09 PM »

@Renegade

A preview before the tinyurl link should sort this out (e.g http://preview.tinyurl.com/p7a2v). See http://tinyurl.com/preview.php for details.

-PhilB66 (January 04, 2008, 10:48 PM)

Good point. Done.

10299

Living Room / Re: What is appropriate content for DonationCoder?

« Last post by Renegade on January 04, 2008, 09:29 PM »

slightly off topic, and to avoid hijacking this thread...

-tinjaw (January 04, 2008, 09:18 PM)

Not really so off-topic.

Porn drives technology online. Gaming drives hardware technology (video cards especially). There are other factors of course that drive IT developments (server requirements filter down into desktops too), but the point for this thread is that porn is a very real factor in our daily lives with how it drives the market forwards.

Porn was the deciding factor in the Beta vs. VHS war...

10300

Living Room / Re: Happy Birthday to App103

« Last post by Renegade on January 04, 2008, 09:09 PM »

Nice pics, Ralf! Is that Audrey's new cat? The cake looks Korean, though!

-Darwin (January 03, 2008, 07:09 PM)

Hey! You sayin' we're all fruitcakes over here?

Happy B-day app103!