Recent Posts

10901

Living Room / Re: OISV - Organization of Independent Software Vendors

« Last post by Renegade on June 16, 2006, 02:48 AM »

There's an article about DonationCoder in the Marketing articles there.  Wonder who wrote that one?

I didn't have time to read the whole thing, but I think I'll end up printing it today and reading it later.

Cheers,

Ryan

10902

Living Room / Re: new alt.comp.freeware usenet thread with criticism of DonationCoder

« Last post by Renegade on May 19, 2006, 05:32 PM »

I've found that there are quite a few people that expect far too much from freeware. They seem to think that just because you offer them something for free with no strings attached that you then owe them a lot more. They generally don't understand that creating software takes time, effort, and skills. Compensation for effort never occurs to them.

There are a lot of people that are appreciative too though. You always get the good with the bad.

If people can't handle taking a couple minutes of their time or an occasional email in exchange for getting software for free, they shouldn't use it. There are commercial alternatives that they are able to purchase.

Personally, quite often I prefer commercial software as I can then expect support or bug fixes. Not for all things, but for some. Sometimes freeware fits the bill nicely. I bought a piece of software a couple months ago that goes for about $1,000. I could have bought another piece of similar software to do the same thing for about $600, but the company that I bought it from is well known and I simply get a certain peace of mind that I wouldn't get otherwise. Sometimes you need to shell out for that. I really don't have much sympathy for people that are too cheap to spend money when they should be spending money.

Of course I can't post in the Google groups as it's simply too difficult to not rant about this. When I offer something for free, I prefer that people appreciate it for what it is and not simply complain about it.

But I suppose no good deed goes unpunished... 

10903

Developer's Corner / Re: The Hunt for the Best CMS

« Last post by Renegade on May 19, 2006, 05:16 PM »

• 1) good clean organization for website admin to edit files by hand with custom html
• 2) but ability for other authors to write articles/long reviews with an easy onsite editor
• 3) ability for coders to be able to host their software nicely
• 4) tight integration with smf forum so people can leave comments on reviews, etc. through the forum and have it listed on the page
• 5) php would be preferred since most everything else on this site is powered by php
• 6) good search features.
• 7) looks clean and supports our sidebar theme.

-mouser (May 16, 2006, 04:15 AM)

DotNetNuke - Good, but won't be suitable without major porting work.

1) Yep - Very clean, but you never *need* to edit files, which is nice
2) You can create roles / groups
3) Yes
4) Nope You'd pretty much have to port the existing system to the DNN/ASP.NET way of doing things.
5) Nope - ASP.NET - and you'd need a Windows box for it
6) Excellent - Built in search works very well.
7) Very good - you can create templates

While DNN works very well, porting the existing user base would not be fun. There's just about nothing that you can't do with it as you've got the power of the .NET framework behind it, so you've got a full-fledged programming language to work with. On top of that, with com interop you can consume com servers. You can even program a custom module to pull in PHP content if you like.

However, in my experience PHP and MySQL really kind of suck on Windows. I've tried them, and honestly, while they may run big sites on Linux servers, they just plain do not cut it on Windows.

Anyways, just an irrevelant consideration...

10904

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you use RSS feeds?

« Last post by Renegade on May 05, 2006, 10:18 AM »

Right now I'm using RSS only for podcasts for my iPod. (Before anyone freaks - The iPod isn't that bad... it's iTunes that could use some help.)

I'm also using custom XML feeds for GDT, my MP3 player software for musicians. XML is just so amazing to work with. *.gdt song configuration files are all just XML.

I've seen a few people post about RSS readers, but can anyone recommend anything that's top notch? I really don't like to fiddle too much with software and prefer that things just work easily. Most often I don't even need that much power from a lot of software. So anything decent that will work and let me configure things nicely would be perfect.

Yes -  I'm being lazy - Just no time to fiddle. I prefer recommendations to start with as opposed to trying out 50 different things...

10905

General Software Discussion / Re: Guitar & Drum Trainer v3 released

« Last post by Renegade on May 05, 2006, 02:40 AM »

cool ryan, congrats!

only one problem.
sia.com = sattelite industry association 

-mouser (May 05, 2006, 02:01 AM)

Duh~! I do that so often. There SIC and SIAF, and the SIAF stuff is at SIC and this is making my head spin and as a result, sick... 

Anyways - fixed 

10906

Living Room / Re: digg rigging?

« Last post by Renegade on May 05, 2006, 01:52 AM »

I forget his name now, but the Digg guy was on TWiT and talked about this a bit. He said it was just a misunderstanding. He's got a lot of spammers to deal with, and a few things got through, but they're working on eliminating spammers more and more.

10907

Living Room / Re: Do you Suffer from Computer Anger Management - How do you handle it?

« Last post by Renegade on May 05, 2006, 01:39 AM »

One word,

Beer 

Works for me.
 

-Cpilot (May 03, 2006, 10:32 PM)

AMEN~!  Nothing like coding when you're half-lit to take the edge off of a nasty bug!

Unfortunately, this doesn't work at the day job, where I just f&^*ing curse like a madman under my breath and every once in a while let one rip out loud.

Being as people here are generally quite quiet with things like that, I'm sure most of my co-workers think I'm a bipolar, insane, and quite dangerous. Which is very far from the truth.

I have VERY little patience for computer problems. Things are just supposed to work right and I get really p!ssed when they don't. Sometimes I just go off and start coding my own solution so that things work right for those things where it won't take me too long.

10908

General Software Discussion / Guitar & Drum Trainer v3 released

« Last post by Renegade on May 05, 2006, 01:34 AM »

After months of work, I've finally released GDT v3.1  ~!

Guitar & Drum Trainer

If you're a musician, you may be interested in it. It's a specialized MP3 player where you can slow down, pitch shift, create loops, and generally do cool stuff that helps you learn new music.

The new version is rewritten from the ground up:

* 31 band EQ
* Full song wave form
* Zoom wave form
* Speed Trainer to gradually speed up music as you play
* Names for loops, EQ settings, and wave form color sets
* Custom colors for wave forms
* EQ visualizations
* Note detection on EQ visualizations (mouse over)

And a bunch of other stuff too of course. But those are a few highlights.

If you're voting in the Shareware Industry Awards, make sure to include GDT in your votes too 

 http://www.sic.org

There's still a lot on the TODO list, but it's coming along.

It requires a bit beefier computer (2 GHz & 512 RAM) but there are CPU controls to help out if you've got a slower box.

The last few months have been crazy busy getting it done, and I haven't even had much time to lurk around here, but hopefully things will cool down a bit.

Cheers,

Ryan

10909

Living Room / Re: Hope you don't mind me stealing a few words :)

« Last post by Renegade on March 12, 2006, 07:54 PM »

EditPlus has an unlimited trial period, so that's enough to sneak it in under the wire. We also host an INI syntax highlighting file EditPlus for translators for some programs (ALZip, ALSee, ALFTP).

UltraEdit was only mentioned because it won the review.

The other "mentionables" were from ASP members and just informational in case anyone wanted to look beyond the very limited list that I put up there.

I didn't see much point in putting more than a very few. I would like to have included EditPad. I know Jan and he's a nice guy. I just had limited space though. That and you can't undo past save points.

Personally, I prefer commercial software for myself most of the time. I'd rather just pay for it and get it done with. It's easier & in the long run it's often cheaper. Sometimes free is good too though. For recommendations though, I try to give good free ones first, then give commercial recommendations.

Cheers!

10910

Living Room / Re: Article: The Coming Search Advertising Crash

« Last post by Renegade on March 09, 2006, 10:53 PM »

Total bull. Search advertising is here to stay. Ask anyone who uses it. It works. What works, stays.

10911

Living Room / Re: Discussions about micropayments

« Last post by Renegade on March 09, 2006, 08:50 PM »

The micropayment market is far too lucrative for the payment processors for anything to get done.

There can only be bickering and fighting with nothing resolved other than 50 trillion micropayment systems in the end and a frustrated consumer. The closest thing out there is PayPal, and it will remain that way until the big guys move in for the kill.

At the moment it looks like Google is positioning itself to try it, but they've been screwing so many things up so badly lately that it's hard to say if they'll be able to get it right. They screwed the pooch with Google Video but did so well with GMail. What's up with that? If their Google Base (or whatever the heck it's called) turns out as bad as Google Video they'll just end up losing the market to someone like Microsoft.

But you never know. A good open standard would help, but would still leave open the question of "who processes the transactions" and "who holds the money"? Those are the questions that will kill micropayments no matter what.

10912

Living Room / Hope you don't mind me stealing a few words :)

« Last post by Renegade on March 09, 2006, 07:24 PM »

Hey Mouser,

Been busy and not much time to post, but anyways...

I ripped a few words from the text editor review here:

http://www.altools.net/Support/TranslatingALTools/FreeTextEditors/tabid/210/Default.aspx

In the mouse-over text link to the text editor review, and again here:

http://www.altools.net/Forums/tabid/86/forumid/7/postid/478/view/topic/Default.aspx

I just couldn't help it - I got a real kick out of that the first time I read it. 

I hope that's ok - credit is given.

Cheers,

Ryan

10913

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by Renegade on December 29, 2005, 06:21 PM »

Here are a few good discussions on the topic at WebWizGuide.

Extensions are one of the best things about Firefox. I like the webdev and mouse gestures best.

10914

Living Room / Re: Been asked a MILLION times...Internet explorer

« Last post by Renegade on December 29, 2005, 06:18 PM »

The first thing to do is to clean the computer from viruses and spyware/adware (may require a reinstall - do not reconnect for updates - download them & burn them to CD from a clean system first). Once you've done that, DO NOT let your mom run in an administrator account. Limit her to being a user. That will protect her from some things, like installing software. There's a reason why the *nix crowd always rants on about not running under root if you don't have to - it's not a good idea, but most Windows users run with admin priviledges. If she needs software installed, you should check it out for her. So, no more free smilies or screensavers or other crapware. A lot of popular freeware has crapware bundled with it because they aren't smart enough to figure out how to make money otherwise 

10915

Living Room / Re: Free Audio Books

« Last post by Renegade on December 26, 2005, 08:39 AM »

Well, the site design really sucks  , but it's a very cool idea  and it looks like they've got a lot of great content with a lot of it free. The paid options look pretty good too  - with all of them available for $120.00 on 6 DVDs, that's a killer deal.

I've got a GDT customer that's bought it 3x that might like that site (he's a music professor & doesn't need GDT, but really likes it for listening to audio books). I'm going to have to email him about it.

Cool tip mouser!

10916

Living Room / Re: Looks like linksysinfo.org got hacked.

« Last post by Renegade on December 26, 2005, 08:30 AM »

Looks normal now. Can you post a link to the screen shot?

10917

General Software Discussion / Re: Free DVD Menu authoring software, is there such a thing?

« Last post by Renegade on December 18, 2005, 08:04 AM »

you've convinced me Renegade, going to give DVD-Lab a spin today.

-nudone (December 18, 2005, 03:21 AM)

Let me know how you like it. I think you'll be impressed, especially if you've used any of the $600.00 boogerware DVD tools that really belong in the Recycle Bin...

Keep in mind that you need the right files - valid MPEG-2 video and valid audio files (wav or AC3).

10918

General Software Discussion / Re: Free DVD Menu authoring software, is there such a thing?

« Last post by Renegade on December 17, 2005, 08:36 PM »

The best thing that I've seen is DVD-Lab from Media Chance. It's not free, but for DVD authoring, it's VERY cheap. It also beats the heck out of most other tools that are anywhere near it's price range. You can easily go out and spend 3x or more (much more) on a DVD authoring tool and still not get anywhere near the same quality.

One of the major problems is that many DVD authoring tools encode the material for you, even if you've already got the right AC3 & MPEG-2 files. That just leads to quality degradation, which is just stupid. DVD-Lab follows a more professional approach and gives you more control. It's not for total beginners but it is easy to use.

The menu authoring in DVD-Lab is top notch as well.

Just so that you know... A professional level DVD authoring tool will run you $25,000 at the low end. (Or at least the last time I checked - they may have some down a bit - not too sure.)

If you're just looking to make some boogery "My Family Vacation" DVD, then DVD-Lab is overkill. But if you want to present things in a more professional manner, you can't go wrong with it.

Last time I used it (a while ago), it was a bit particular about things and really wanted proper files - but that may be fixed and you may be able to use MPEG-1 video (which you shouldn't be able to do...).

Anyways... Just throwing that out there for you.

Cheers

10919

General Software Discussion / Re: Keynote Closes...

« Last post by Renegade on December 12, 2005, 06:34 PM »

I've seen it happen a few times where software that I use & love gets retired. What Marek did there was classy though. I've had software that all of a sudden, when I go to buy an upgrade or something, it's just GONE. No word from the developer - he just drops off the face of the planet and nobody can find him.

Being upfront is always best. Another developer that I bought software from (and updates) had to stop development to get a job. It was one of my favorite pieces of software and I was quite saddened to see it happen. But he was honest and upfront. That takes character. It's hard to admit when things don't really go your way sometimes. (I speak from some VERY hard earned experience there...  )

Well, all the best to him in the future.

10920

General Software Discussion / Re: Protect Email Addresses on Web Sites

« Last post by Renegade on November 22, 2005, 05:39 PM »

Browsers interpret the different codes properly. Spambots don't. They could, but that would require them to interpret all javascripts, which would be to expensive for them and just not realistic. How much javascript is out there on the Internet? And how much of it would actually contain email addresses? It is like trying to find a camoflauged golf ball somewhere in the Sahara desert.

The first one will actually let a spambot get the wrong address   And thus waste their time instead of yours - hehehe

The second one is just there in case you can't use javascript.

The fourth one is by far the strongest.

10921

General Software Discussion / Protect Email Addresses on Web Sites

« Last post by Renegade on November 22, 2005, 09:41 AM »

Hi all,

I just released the Renegade Email Protector v2.0.

It is a very simple utility that lets you post email addresses safely on the web so that spambots can't harvest them. I've tested it with a bunch of spambots and none of them were able to gather an address from it.

You can download it here:

http://renegademinds.com/Default.aspx?tabid=68

There are 4 different algorithms with each one being stronger than the previous one. The 4th one is just nasty  (And yes - I'm planning a 5th really nasty mother-******.)

Now - It *is* theoretically possible for a spambot to get an address, but the amount of computing power makes it far from practical. (Spam is about numbers - not quality - I can explain further if needed.)

I'm not sure if anyone here needs it or wants it, but it's there for anyone that does.

And all for the amazingly low price of $0.00 USD. I don't know what that is in pounds, but I'm pretty sure it is 0 Euros

Cheers,

Ryan

10922

Activation/License/Language Help / Re: Translators Wanted

« Last post by Renegade on November 22, 2005, 09:26 AM »

I'll volunteer to do a program in Korean - well... it won't be 100% perfect, but I'm still darn good  I figure I can get at least 95%+

Although I'm an English speaker, I've actually corrected the original Korean in programs a few times, so I should be able to produce something decent.  I can proabably get a friend to help proof-read as well, which should be near picture perfect.

I can't guarantee a timeframe though. What should take a day could take me a month to get done. But at least it would be done...

10923

Best Music Service / Interesting review

« Last post by Renegade on October 31, 2005, 06:48 AM »

I'm slowly getting around to reading more

I think may favorite part was:

Additional things we did not like about Napster: Only available for United States residents - which is just stupid.

That kind of stuff is really annoying, and you know that the industry is behind it. And living outside of the US... err... rather being in the majority (that sounds better) I wish that they'd just get rid of that lame BS. It's not like it can actually stop me anyways. Getting around that kind of stuff is usually pretty simple. It's just, like you said, annoying... Annoying enough to stop me from giving them my money. Which just seems like a recurring theme on the Internet - people constantly putting up barriers for me to give them money. 2CO is a prime example of a good service that went bad. They've implemented a brilliant system that just doesn't work reliably. I'll avoid the rant... Anyways - that's just about raising barriers to receiving money. *sigh*

10924

Living Room / Using a Wiki for Collaborative Reviews

« Last post by Renegade on October 30, 2005, 09:03 AM »

A wiki might just be ideal for a couple other reasons.

Consider a category like audio editors. That is NOT something that 1 person could possible do a good job of for many reasons. I've used a lot of them out there and know most of them pretty well, but the scope is just massive. It's like trying to do anti-virus software or databases. They're just big topics that require a lot of research and time - LOTS of time.

With a wiki, the wiki-view could evolve over time with multiple contributors.

Back to audio editors... You've got everything from very basic things like Audacity to competent things like Gold Wave, to dedicated simple wave editors like Sound Forge, to 3D software like Maven3D, to industrial strength stuff like Pyramix, Pro Tools, and Saw Studio. Reviewing Pyramix requires a dedicated workstation. Pro Tools is hardware driven. Saw Studio can work in a networked environment to "outsource" CPU load kind of like you'd find in a Beowulf super-computer. Trying to tackle just one of those applications is a massive task in itself.

A wiki would allow multiple contributors.

Good idea Mouser!

Cheers,

Ryan

10925

Living Room / Re: StarWreck full movie spoof on star trek and babylon 9 (english subs)

« Last post by Renegade on October 29, 2005, 12:27 AM »

I read about it at TheRegister.co.uk and immediately downloaded it - lots of fun!

I was really impressed by the graphics -they did it all on a zero budget!

I forget whether it was that one or another free movie, but I downloaded a few at home and at the office - man... at home it was a bloody nightmare trying to get a video player to play the video I downloaded. I was swearing and cursing and installing all kinds of players. At work it was real easy because I've got the alpha version of ALShow which already includes all the codecs you need to watch videos.

I don't generally install much software at home other than the things I need, and I don't install software from work on my boxes at home until the software has been released. I can't wait until ALShow is finally available... Watching stuff at work is SOOO much easier. And I've already got a bunch of commercial DVD software and stuff... It shouldn't be that hard...