Recent Posts

1126

Living Room / Re: TV Controls (rant)

« Last post by Target on July 07, 2010, 12:31 AM »

Just one more thing to be grateful for IMHO. I'd like it even more if they could whittle it down to 10 minutes per episode.

-40hz (July 06, 2010, 09:37 PM)

that shouldn't present any difficulties

now if they could just work some content in there somewhere...

1127

Living Room / Re: TV Controls (rant)

« Last post by Target on July 05, 2010, 06:01 PM »

I suspect the interlacing part has to do with the amount and complexity of the controller manipulations needed to operate the set.

 

1128

Living Room / Re: TV Controls (rant)

« Last post by Target on July 05, 2010, 05:28 PM »

that's called progress....

1129

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 11:34 PM »

come on sunshine, that's snow solution

1130

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 09:08 PM »

Easy, go back and demistify it.

-cranioscopical (July 01, 2010, 08:51 PM)

strangely, that didn't help...

1131

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Buzz Folders - Open/Save Dialog Box Extender ( + Free Version )

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 07:39 PM »

You're right about that!

OK! XP and Office 2003.

It may take some time obviously but I'll see what I can do. 

-DanJak (July 01, 2010, 07:29 PM)

no drama, many thanks!!

1132

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Buzz Folders - Open/Save Dialog Box Extender ( + Free Version )

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 07:04 PM »

So far I've tested it and have it working with Office 2010 on XP and Office 2008 on Vista. I can't guarantee it will work with other versions of MS Office. Unfortunately Microsoft Office presents a whole series of challenges. I'm sure you don't want to know about the behind the scenes struggle, you just want a program that works for you, so the more information you give me the better. Then I can resolve any compatibility issues as best I can.

Which version of Office are you using? And what OS?

-DanJak (July 01, 2010, 06:31 PM)

currently working with XP, and office 2003...

FWIW, i understand this issue is common to other app's of this ilk, so it's clearly not an easy nut to crack  

1133

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Buzz Folders - Open/Save Dialog Box Extender ( + Free Version )

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 05:49 PM »

danjak

tried this yesterday (briefly) and while it looked alright it doesn't seem to work with Office dialog boxes???

is this right, or am I missing something here?

1134

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 05:44 PM »

Yet again you've stolen my thunder. Now this grimy raincoat is useless to me, I'm steamed!

-cranioscopical (July 01, 2010, 12:30 PM)

it wasn't a question of weather, but when.

now how do we bring this thread back to the front and stop it deteriorating into a local depression?

1135

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on July 01, 2010, 12:26 AM »

Far be it from me to rain on your parade, I'm just lightning the content a little.

-cranioscopical (June 30, 2010, 11:26 PM)

you can do as much lightning as you like, but whatever you do, no flashing!!

1136

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 10:36 PM »

See, here I try to give you a little helpful advice and you just try to haze me!

-cranioscopical (June 30, 2010, 10:14 PM)

now you're just clouding the issue

no doubt this precipitates a storm of similar activities

1137

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 08:58 PM »

I would mist trust mister fogey... 

Very nice photos indeed.

-PhilB66 (June 30, 2010, 08:53 PM)

thanks (fyi, mister fogey is in danger of being vapourised)

1138

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 08:41 PM »

Nice pictures!

(It is a mist take to brag.)

-cranioscopical (June 30, 2010, 08:19 PM)

sorry, i fog ot

1139

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 07:58 PM »

Wow that's beautiful! I love the low fog beneath the sunrise.

-Deozaan (June 30, 2010, 07:48 PM)

hence the brag (thanks, BTW) - mornings are the best time of the day IMO, but who want's to get out of bed that early this time of year?

1140

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 07:45 PM »

bump!

here's some pic's my wife took from our front verandah of the sunrise a couple of days ago (this is really just a brag 'cos I thought they turned out really good)

1141

Living Room / Re: could two numeric keypads work at the same time

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 05:32 PM »

i guess i lost my enthusiasm to do a full review of the ms sidewinder x6 after i found it to be less than perfect.

-nudone (June 30, 2010, 04:26 AM)

no need, you've just covered all the necessary ground.

It's disappointing that they couldn't come up with a better implementation of the macroing software, especially as there are already many examples that do work well (I've done a little more research and it appears this is a common complaint for this hardware - it also appears that some of the keys may not work if the software isn't installed)

I wondered about the numpad placement as it seemed like it was really intended for lefties, and you're experience confirms it (that said there's nothing to stop someone retraining themselves to use it that way, though it may mean they'll never be able use a 'normal' keyboard again...)

I'll be interested in you're continuing adventures with this - it seems like less may be more here

thanks for the update!!

1142

Living Room / Re: warmouse

« Last post by Target on June 30, 2010, 12:16 AM »

you're most welcome

personally i'm a bit unsure about it, I mean I like the idea, but I'm not sure how usable it actually is

my first thought was that it wasn't far off doing away with the keyboard   

the other thing here is when combined with the available keyboard application/key/action combinations who's going to be able to remember even half of the hotkeys you can (will?) set up?

1143

Living Room / Re: could two numeric keypads work at the same time

« Last post by Target on June 29, 2010, 08:20 PM »

i think i ought to do a full review about it, Chris.

i'm finding lots of little features about it that make it stand out from other keyboards.

<snipped>

it will take me a while to realise what is the best way (for me) to use all of these features. so after that i'll aim to do a write-up.

-nudone (May 11, 2010, 09:27 AM)

hey nudone, any progress on this (4 weeks on how is it holding up?)

1144

Living Room / warmouse

« Last post by Target on June 29, 2010, 05:55 PM »

saw this on slashdot this morning and figured some here may be interested (nudone)

An anonymous reader writes "The much-anticipated, much-mocked 18-button joystick mouse from WarMouse is now shipping. The press release features an impressive set of user quotes from game designer Chris Taylor, new SFWA president John Scalzi, and a doctor who runs a medical software company. Crazy or not, it's obviously more than just a gaming mouse."

full press release here

looking at this thing I couldn't help but wonder if, in the midst of some frantic gaming, a user wouldn't end up with the same result you got on an old manual typewriter when you mashed a bunch of keys at the same time

1145

General Software Discussion / Re: multilink over a photo taken by us

« Last post by Target on June 27, 2010, 08:35 PM »

create your table - the example only uses text (no hyperlinks)



insert your image



format the image - you can get here from the context menu (FORMAT PICTURE...), or from the menu bar (FORMAT | PICTURE)



note the layout is BEHIND the text

the finished item - I have changed the font colour to white so you can see the text.  You can do this on a per cell (per character even) basis if you want, or you could use a 'transparent' colour so you only see the mouse overs.



Tables are both a blessing and a curse - they offer you a lot of flexibility, however they can be fiendishly painful to set up if your using them to put text in particular places

1146

General Software Discussion / Re: Do user forums sometimes stop software from improving?

« Last post by Target on June 25, 2010, 12:55 AM »

true, the only thing preventing the development process is the developer, but users can and do hinder the process by not providing feedback (ask any developer)

Well, this is a reverse issue in my opinion.

There's a difference between too much feedback overload and too little.

Too much and it's on the developer to filter it out.

Too little and it's on the developer to make it easier to generate feedbacks.

Just two different animals in my opinion.

-Paul Keith (June 25, 2010, 12:26 AM)

not necessarily different animals, but certainly different sides of the same coin

Like I said, 99% of users will probably never contact the developers of an app no matter how easy they make it to contact them (there's another thread on this somewhere on the forum)

As an example, I provide support to my workgroup with automation (basically some screenscraping scripts and a bunch Excel macro's/templates).  The inspiration/motivation for these all came out of my head (ie nil input form the group), and a significant portion of the development was done in my own time. 

5 years on and I can probably still count the amount of feedback comments I've received on 1 hand (that excludes comments like 'this is good...').  I know that there have been issue's, but I've only ever found out about them by accident. 

Now i work with these people everyday.  They can email me.  They can pick up the phone and call me.  Some of them can even walk over and tap me on the shoulder.

But they don't, they complain amongst themselves and continue to put up with a bug that I could (and would) fix.

The really irritating things is that they routinely call me and ask questions that they would have known the answer to if only they'd read the copious destructions I supply with each tool

I won't go so far as to say this happens everywhere, but I suspect that it's indicative of a common behaviour

Finally, this is another different issue which deals with the conversational structure limits of forums as per my post here.

(Ok, I admit that thread doesn't have anything to do with this topic but I just want to get more people to reply to that.)

-Paul Keith (June 25, 2010, 12:26 AM)

hehe, and i quote 'Too little and it's on the developer to make it easier to generate feedbacks.'

1147

General Software Discussion / Re: Do user forums sometimes stop software from improving?

« Last post by Target on June 24, 2010, 11:25 PM »

true, the only thing preventing the development process is the developer, but users can and do hinder the process by not providing feedback (ask any developer)

the thing about forums is that a work around may be posted in response to 1 request, but it may be read and implemented by hundreds (or thousands).  

Now the developers are aware that there is an issue, but as far as they can see, it's only affected 1 or 2 users so the incentive to act on it is much lower than it would be if all 1000 affected users contacted them about the issue.

The majority of users will probably also fall into the category of, well, users (and I'll put myself into that category in a lot of cases).  That is to say they will use the app, but they won't necessarily be terribly well educated about it, and this means that a significant proportion of posts will be about stuff that is already in the fine manual or adds nothing to the app (hey, when can I start skinning?, will you be implementing sound effects?, etc).

if nothing else this can make (high volume?) forums onerous to monitor (needles in the haystack...)

That's not to say that intelligent users don't make useful suggestions, but the fact is that people can and do use you're applications, but they almost never talk to you about it (if there's a bug, they'll tell all their friends what pos it is, and if it works well, they'll just use it and not say anything to anyone)

1148

General Software Discussion / Re: Do user forums sometimes stop software from improving?

« Last post by Target on June 24, 2010, 05:46 PM »

the thing I noticed about this is the idea that users posted about a problem in a forum (stay with me on this)

nothing wrong with this, it is the right thing to do, but if there is a problem - and the fact that somebody has come up with a workaround indicates there is - shouldn't they be communicating with the developers?

It's an obvious assumption that the developers will monitor a forum, or even that they will be responsible for it, but at the end of the day that is still an assumption (there are thousands of forums run by fans/user groups that have nothing to do with the developers).

If you want advice on how to do something, then a forum is probably the right place for your post, but if you want/need something fixed/changed, go directly to the developers.  You may not get an immediate response (ie fix), but at least the developers will have some idea of the scope of the issue (does it affect 1 user, or 100) and probably how to resolve it. 

This is called feedback and is an important part of the development cycle

This seems obvious in retrospect, but strangely few people seem to do it (though I often see people here doing it)

1149

General Software Discussion / Re: multilink over a photo taken by us

« Last post by Target on June 24, 2010, 05:29 PM »

if you're doing it in word there is no requirement to chop up the image, simply send it to the rear, ie behind the table

you can resize it to fit using the handles

1150

General Software Discussion / Re: What's a good wardrobe management software?

« Last post by Target on June 24, 2010, 05:26 PM »

GF "Versions" are not cross-compatible except in very rare instances* where they may grant access to each other's history file, or otherwise begin sharing data.

-40hz (June 24, 2010, 03:20 PM)

this generally only occurs between versions, ie version 2 may access version 1 (users are rarely granted this level of privilege)

At best this is likely to result in choppy performance, and at worst lockout and/or revocation of privileges.

This should not be cause for alarm on the part of the "Owner"/Administrator however, since he usually won't be allowed to live long enough to worry about it.

-40hz (June 24, 2010, 03:20 PM)

hmmm, in my limited experience, the 'owner/administrator' is rarely the him side of the system....