Recent Posts

1151

Developer's Corner / Command line argument processing

« Last post by Josh on April 10, 2010, 04:10 AM »

To all the coders out there, I come to you with this inquiry.

I have recently delved into the wonderful world of powershell 2.0 for the Windows platform. I absolutely love its power, simplicity and extendability. My question is this. After programming assignment #2 from the programming school here at DC, I have started to wonder how others process command line arguments.

My primary question is how do you do this? Do you hard code each parameter into a big "switch" statement and cycle through each argument or do you use a dedicated function that processes arguments? I am wondering if I should delve into coding a powershell function to process command line arguments automatically or make it on a per script basis.

What are your thoughts? How do you handle command-line args?

1152

Living Room / Re: Browser Forensics - All your surfing are belong to us

« Last post by Josh on April 04, 2010, 01:38 AM »

Or perhaps they don't need to spend the time customizing just to get something running that gets their point across. Perhaps you should be a little less nit-picky :-P

1153

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for an addon - Firefox

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 03:31 PM »

Yeah, I'd thought about that but I was trying to avoid DB :-/

1154

General Software Discussion / Looking for an addon - Firefox

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 03:03 PM »

To the all-wise, all-knowing community of donationcoder. I seek your assistance on the most importance of quests.

I seek an addon whose power is to synchronize firefox profiles amongst multiple systems. Yeay, I call out to ye. Who will answer my call?

1155

General Software Discussion / Re: Question - Does anyone know of such a program? - Data organizer

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 02:03 PM »

The only issue I have with AM-Notebook is that I don't think you can attach files to notes. Otherwise it would be good in my books. I have quite a few documents in various formats that need to be attachable and viewable. That is why I want files individually stored so I do not lose everything if a database corrupts.

1156

Living Room / Re: Deceitful Software Awards

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 11:54 AM »

NO! Shame on you for shaming me for not paying attention after shaming you for posting a redundant link! HAH!

1157

Living Room / Re: Deceitful Software Awards

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 09:11 AM »

Shame on mousey for not searching first!

1158

General Software Discussion / Re: Question - Does anyone know of such a program? - Data organizer

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 06:42 AM »

Does anyone know if it is possible to configure mybase to store each node/child/sibling as an individual file rather than in it's database format? This program is otherwise good to go but I would like to store each file in a hierarchical structure in the filesystem.

1159

General Software Discussion / Re: tree-style notes - TreeDBNotes - Keynote-NF - AllMyNotes Organizer and more

« Last post by Josh on April 03, 2010, 05:10 AM »

I am glad I found this thread. I am now checking out AM-Notebook. The primary feature that I see from criss's post above was that all files are stored independently on disk not requiring a database that can corrupt. Big plus!

1160

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Requests

« Last post by Josh on April 02, 2010, 05:33 PM »

When combined with WHQL certification, it benefits the end user by ensuring that the drivers meets a set of standards and won't crash a system due to poorly written code. It is designed to ensure you know where you are getting a driver from and that it is not some hacked driver. Yes, those programs might very well be decent and I use a couple of the, but they need to be signed and tested. This is not just to line Microsoft's pockets but to ensure the end users computer experience is a good one.

1161

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Requests

« Last post by Josh on April 02, 2010, 04:48 PM »

Don't require driver signing for 64bit versions!

-Eóin (April 02, 2010, 04:17 PM)

Why would you even say that? It helps keep things stable. By requiring driver signing you force developers to certify their drivers.

1162

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Requests

« Last post by Josh on April 02, 2010, 08:29 AM »

I also do not get sudden forced reboots in Windows 7. I get prompted to reboot but am in no way forced. Plus, a simple net stop "automatic updates" fixes that problem. I've actually gone for 3 weeks without rebooting after being prompted once.

1163

Living Room / Re: Important Information Regarding Changes To The Use of DonationCoder

« Last post by Josh on March 31, 2010, 09:10 PM »

Had Jesse posted it, it would have been more believable ;-)

1164

Coding Snacks / Re: What language is the best for a new programmer to start with?

« Last post by Josh on March 31, 2010, 06:23 AM »

After looking, I realized that most of my work does not involve GUI operation at all. As such, I have moved on to, what I consider, a very nice scripting language. This is Microsoft Powershell. It has given me some learning that transfers easily into .NET, which I can use with my free copy of Visual Studio 2008 (and soon 2010) pro from Microsoft.

This language has proven it's usefulness to me as a sys admin and network manager. I can script so many things and do so much that it is unreal. I get access to any system object with a WMI interface, can script it, access its methods and properties, and code it to my liking.

I am considering looking at Python since it seems to be "highly recommended", although Ehtyar recommends it so how good can it REALLY be ;-) <prod>Ehtyar</prod>

Thoughts on python and WHAT MAKES IT a good language to learn?

1165

Living Room / Re: Apple’s Market Cap Passes $210 Billion, Now Within $50 Billion of You-Know-Who

« Last post by Josh on March 29, 2010, 05:30 PM »

When you said within you-know-who, i thought you were going to say SCO ;-)

1166

General Software Discussion / Question - Does anyone know of such a program? - Data organizer

« Last post by Josh on March 29, 2010, 02:52 AM »

I open this question up to the mighty masses of donationcoder.com

I am looking to organize quite a bit of data. This data ranges in type from personal documents (birth certs, marriage certs, etc) to financial docs (loan docs, mortgage docs, utility account info docs, etc) to educational (transcripts, required tax income verification forms, etc).

The best way for me to describe the program in question is a CHM file creation tool which allows either embedding of, or even better direct viewing, documents, images, and various other file types. The program I am looking for would ideally operate in the following manner.

You start out by creating a "Book" of sorts. At the root is the title of this book, in my case - Josh, which can have subbooks which contain subbooks of various topics. Each subbook has an associated default "page" where you can put info about the contents, little notes, etc (Basically a miniature MS one-note style system).

Each book can then, as said above, be broken down into sub-books to further organize the varying types of data. After you get to a certain point, I want to be able to add pages to these books. The pages will be of varying types. I would like to be able to either embed documents directly into said pages (html or xml preferred) or, even better, insert a document, image or file as a page directly without need for the backing XML/HTML page, but still allowing for it if the type of document warrants it. Ideally, each page would allow for thumbnail generation to get a quick glimpse of the pages in each "book" without opening them all them completely. Of similar function, or perhaps a substitute, is just displaying the associated icon of the program used to open each document so you know it's type.

Internal viewing of most common document formats would be a must (doc, xls, ppt, pdf, various image formats, etc) so that an external application would not need to be open, but could be if the option were chosen to open each file in its associated external application.

I think I covered many of the high points, what do you think? Does such a beast exist?

1167

General Software Discussion / Re: Dell: No refunds for Linux users who reject Microsoft's OS EULA

« Last post by Josh on March 20, 2010, 07:26 AM »

What abuse is occurring here? The customer is attempting to get money back for something he was not charged for in the first place, unless he CHOSE to upgrade to a higher copy of windows (ala Win7 Pro/Ultimate). Dell is not selling very many desktops with Linux because the demand simply is not there. These linux distribution makers could work with dell to get it included on their systems, as they have the netbook/notebook sector, but they apparently aren't working hard enough. It should not be a hard sell given that Linux is free from the start thus negating the cost or "monopoly abuse" factor, it just appears that the consumer does not want/care for Linux. They want what they are used to.

Again, this gentleman seems intent on trying to get money back that he did not spend. He is NOT paying for Windows, he is paying for the hardware.

1168

General Software Discussion / Re: Dell: No refunds for Linux users who reject Microsoft's OS EULA

« Last post by Josh on March 20, 2010, 02:52 AM »

I'm also always amazed at the way certain groups try and twist stories like this. The same goes both ways. This was obviously a man who KNEW what he was doing prior to purchase, knowing full well that costs of the OS are built into the cost of the system. Had he wanted a system with no OS he could have gone elsewhere or chosen another model from Dell (They do sell linux machines last I checked).

Dell makes no money off the OS, they make it on the hardware and warranty services. I am not a Microsoft, or any company for that matter, apologist but in this case I see no wrong-doing on the part of MS or Dell. I see a man who knew about a battle he was attempting to start prior to entering the purchasing arena. MS nor Dell made enough money to warrant this fight and I feel this is a waste of customer service personnel's time and energy to try and explain that the costs of the OS are marginalized in the cost of the hardware and support packages. Sorry Zaine, but I feel this is simply an attempt at making one company look bad for all the wrong reasons. I will fault dell on customer service, or shody replacement parts at times, but this time the only party who did anything wrong was the man who knew what he was doing prior to the start.

1169

General Software Discussion / Re: Dell: No refunds for Linux users who reject Microsoft's OS EULA

« Last post by Josh on March 19, 2010, 12:21 PM »

I was referring to my wallet in this instance ;-) I've used that pun on her during our money quarrels before

Also, in regards to this whole topic, I do believe this user knew what he was doing before hand and CHOSE to start this battle before he purchased the system. That is just the impression I get from this whole thing.

1170

General Software Discussion / Re: Dell: No refunds for Linux users who reject Microsoft's OS EULA

« Last post by Josh on March 19, 2010, 11:59 AM »

And my wife always said size didn't matter....anyways.

I understand the thought process behind obtaining a refund for Windows if you decide not to agree to the license. However, that said, I believe this applies to the sale of the boxes product. When you buy a new system you are mostly paying for hardware, not software unless you upgrade to a higher tiered edition of a product, and as such the software costs are "absorbed", for lack of a better word, by the OEM. Microsoft sells OEM copies because it removes the burden of support from them and basically the manufacturer is purchasing the software with no means of support minus some sort of MSDN or Support agreement purchased independently.

Again, since most OEM companies purchase in bulk, they get a large discount and often times eat that cost. It is usually only when you upgrade to say Windows 7 Pro from Home Premium that an additional fee comes into play. Now, if you were to fight that one and say you didn't agree with the license you should be entitled to the difference between the inclusion price (0$) of Home Premium and the Professional version (typically 70-130$ depending).

Again, I really do not see this as a problem with Dell as they are large enough to where they can purchase these licenses en mass and minimize the costs of including Windows at very little to no cost to the consumer for their "default" edition.

1171

General Software Discussion / Re: Dell: No refunds for Linux users who reject Microsoft's OS EULA

« Last post by Josh on March 19, 2010, 10:43 AM »

I really fail to see why you would expect money back in this case. You are buying a system knowing that Windows 7 comes INCLUDED IN THE COST of the system. This is almost, to me, the same as asking for a refund on an ice cream cone that has sprinkles on it when you know full well that the sprinkles were part of the ice cream cone you ordered.

I think that Dell was right on the mark with this and fault them in no way.

1172

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Windows 7

« Last post by Josh on March 14, 2010, 12:10 PM »

And what is this site? I bet the good people at DC can dig deep into it and determine legitimacy.

1173

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Windows 7

« Last post by Josh on March 14, 2010, 07:30 AM »

I was thinking the same thing. Beware of people who claim they can "sell so low because we buy in bulk". If they are selling for a significantly lower amount than what your average online retailer will sell for I would always be wary and look up reviews at sites like resellerratings.com BEFORE buying.

1174

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Josh on March 13, 2010, 08:56 AM »

PDF, Videos (typically) and pictures are often times already compressed quite a bit so you will not gain very much. You can try winrar with the solid archive option (treats files as one large stream of data as opposed to individual files), that might get you better compression ratios but please note that it does take longer.

1175

What's the Best? / Re: best virual cd/dvd maker and image mounter?

« Last post by Josh on March 13, 2010, 08:32 AM »

Scsi-Pass-Through-Direct.