Recent Posts

1251

Developer's Corner / Re: CSS Tweaker for helping to clean up CSS files

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 08:58 PM »

I just ran a "test" again, this time with a different css though. It seemed to have improved and optimized the stylesheet as far as possible. However the css I provided seems to have been quite optimized already.

for reference: This "test" was run on version 0.4 of the css tweaker.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on this.

1252

Developer's Corner / Re: Best Programming Beer

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 08:38 PM »

As much as I enjoy a good cool pils, I don't drink any alcohol when I am coding. I tend to enjoy the beer too much, and that collides with my need to concentrate

1253

Developer's Corner / Re: the übergenerator for htaccess

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 08:18 PM »

holy moly!

very impressive indeed; too bad I no longer use apache

1254

Developer's Corner / Re: Speech Recognition for Programmers - Tell it what to do

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 08:17 PM »

still no updates here 

1255

Developer's Corner / Re: Python vs. Ruby -- what's your take?

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 08:14 PM »

it might be a little too late now, but...

Actually it should be possible to install several versions of python parallel. (can someone turn that into proper ingleesh please?). I know it is possible on debian and its derivatives.

1256

Developer's Corner / Re: Blog Post: If Tech Companies Made Sudoku - food for thought!

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 08:11 PM »

That's a very interesting blog there. If I find the time between administrating my own site and reading groklaw, I will give it a read as well.

1257

General Software Discussion / Re: How does he do that?

« Last post by housetier on May 18, 2006, 07:45 PM »

if by "seems to work" you mean "click to see" opens a new window showing a video where some person makes faces and goofs around, then it works under linux as well.

if you don't understand the above sentence, try this one: it works under linux ;-)

1258

Developer's Corner / Re: VoiceCode - still a way to go

« Last post by housetier on April 28, 2006, 03:51 AM »

Well I did try to install it, but on the installation manual I saw it needed a software called "Naturally Speaking"; just by the name I could tell it wouldn't be available for linux... The .zip archive of VoiceCode that I downloaded contained a bunch of .exe and one .msi file: hardly, what I call open source.

So it seems I'll be out of the game for a while...

Some things are too nice to be true.

1259

Developer's Corner / Speech Recognition for Programmers - Tell it what to do

« Last post by housetier on April 28, 2006, 03:21 AM »

Quick! Where is it?

You can download it right hurr.

Uhm... and what is it?

Voice Code is an Open Source initiative (...) to develop tools for programming by voice.

So in essence you speak and it writes code!

OK, What's the catch?

I only very recently saw it on slashdot, followed the link to the original article and from there to the voicecode site. I have *not tested* the software, I haven't even downloaded it yet.

Also there are some limitations to the supported programming languages. But this is open source software, I am sure it will catch up very quickly.

kthx, next!

I will try this nice piece of software and see how well it does for me. I find the idea very intriguing.

What are your thoughts? Have you had experience with voice recognition software in general? I 'd like to hear about it...

1260

Developer's Corner / Re: Python vs. Ruby -- what's your take?

« Last post by housetier on April 27, 2006, 09:16 AM »

make it a poll and I'll vote for python...

But actually you should try both to some extent, and then decide which one suits you better. *I* would go with python as far as possible. But let's not forget that the Ruby folks have had some neat ideas in the past.

I expressedly do not want to "diss" any language, but I just like python best!

1261

Living Room / Re: Donation based MP3 Music

« Last post by housetier on April 27, 2006, 02:30 AM »

At magnatune you can listen to *every* song, even whole albums before you buy it. But you don't have to buy anything at all. They think, if you like the artist's music you will buy the album and, since about 50% of the revenue go directly to the artist, support him/her.

I found some very good tunes there; and a recent checked confirmed that all kinds of genres are served. It's not really DonationMusic.com or DonationArt.com but you get the mp3 for free without any restrictions whatsoever and if you like you can buy stuff. People are even encouraged to spread the mp3s.

Since I am not always sure what genre other people like, I rather spread the URL.

There are more labels like this one. One, specialized in drum'n'bass, is Exegene. I am convinced when you look around you will find a lot of good free music for just about any genre. Like there at least two internet radio stations for every genre you can dream of, even whale songs!

1262

Living Room / blogs are good kthxbye (just not for everyone)

« Last post by housetier on April 21, 2006, 02:08 AM »

I like blogs, I blog more or less frequently.

However, I would not use a blog thingy on donationcoder as I have my own. But I wouldn't mind dc syndicating my blog; I kinda like the idea of building up networks this way, although I have yet to grasp the concept of trackback urls. These syndicated blogs are quite nice, for example I read planet.debian.org where a lot of debian folks (and ubuntu too it seems) post: they post to their own blog services and planet just aggregates them in one big blog which I read. Comments are to be left at the original site... ok this is getting off track

Blogs have been hyped a lot lately and thus didn't live up to the marketing buzz. Blogs are not for everyone, but I know I would blog much more if I would receive more feedback. To me it's a neat way of interaction: asynchronous like email, easy to use like email, interactive like a forum, public like any website.

1263

Developer's Corner / Re: Thoughts about OOP programming

« Last post by housetier on April 13, 2006, 01:58 AM »

I don't have a firm concept of OOP myself, but for me it's a natural way of programming. I mean OOP is nothing more than programming principles. That is, certain principles can help keeping a large project (= mucho code) in check.

The moment these principles turn into ritual, OOP becomes a religion; writing code is ever so complex and challenging that rituals seem like *the* solution, but they just distract from the real problem.

I don't think classes and inheritance are the holy grail of OOP; some principles can be expressed like that, but there are more principles than just encapsulation and code reuse. Point being, there have been many too simplistic, even religious, statements about OOP and now the normal programmer is confused: OOP turned into a buzzword. But in fact it can help keeping things organized by expressedly showing *how* to manifest certain principles in code...

I use classes for encapsulation, but I don't have to put every function inside a class. Inheritance I use to take care of "special cases". I don't think I know many aspects of OOP (and I am not sure I use them correctly), but I do know my productivity increased dramatically after I first learned of OOP. I don't care about runtime behavior because I think the compilers these days do a very good job optimizing the resulting code.

When I think "OOP" I don't think "class hierarchies & inheritance" but "neat objects doin' their thang" 

1264

Living Room / There is more!

« Last post by housetier on April 07, 2006, 02:31 PM »

by means of my rss reader I stumbled upon a debian package which contains a game called "untangle". This game looks very much like the aforementioned game from the video.

Ubuntu, which is based on and contributes to Debian, also features this package; although it will only be in the next release of ubuntu ("dapper drake"; June 20, 2006).

People flying the preview releases should try it out and tell me how good it is. I would try myself if I didn't have breezy.

Don't forget to look into your desktop mirrors frequently to spot the approaching boss on time!

1265

Living Room / remember that cool video with the even cooler game?

« Last post by housetier on April 06, 2006, 03:43 PM »

Say what now?

You know, the cool movie here, where the scientist shows what I want to have for my birthday.

So... what game?

In that movie, said scientist plays several games. And now you can play it too!!!

But I don't get the game; what am I supposed to do?

Yes, like most games, this one is challenging too...

1266

Living Room / get naked! like totally

« Last post by housetier on April 05, 2006, 06:49 PM »

How?

The procedures are explained here.


But I feel so vulnerable when naked!

It's no problem when everybody does it, so tell your mother, your sister, and your sister's friends! And let's get naked like totally like now!

  

1267

Living Room / Re: Unprotected Wireless Lans?

« Last post by housetier on April 05, 2006, 12:03 AM »

so you say, so I heard. But I also heard Windows was a good operating system...

I think in a few years it will be easier to set up wireless networks, even on the spot; and also to do so securely. The time is not now, however.

1268

Developer's Corner / Re: Do you use a good office chair when programming?

« Last post by housetier on April 04, 2006, 11:13 PM »

I wish I had this chair, or a similar one. You can bounce up and down and uhm oscillate in all directions. So you actually don't sit still but move constantly. This relaxes some muscles while others are being used; it's like a workout while sitting!

I was allowed to test-sit one of these once for two hours and it was very comfortable. The chair I tested also had armrests and a backrest. The swinging and bouncing makes sure you do not overwork any muscles like you do when sitting still. These types of chairs are very expensive, but then again: how much are people willing to give to reduce pain?

I strongly recommend this chair, although it will take some time getting used to and it might be exhausting during the first few days of the workout... But maybe you should ask your whatever-therapist for a recommendation as well.

1269

General Software Discussion / Re: enhanced simple php gallery

« Last post by housetier on April 04, 2006, 10:52 PM »

At my screenshot "site" I use QDig, which was recommended by someone in the dc irc channel. It seems to work okay; if it seems slow: that's my poor upstream bandwidth and not the script.

Whenever I want to show a screenshot, I press window+s (mod4 or hyper on unix-like systems) which will execute a script. The script waits 5 seconds, then takes a screenshot and stores it in the directory from which qdig is being served. The delay is needed so I can open context menus and other gui widgets that are somewhat reluctant to pass through keyboard events they can't handle themselves.

1270

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

« Last post by housetier on April 04, 2006, 10:42 PM »

Oh yes I use RSS feeds. All the time.

As a matter of fact, all all the news (well, their headlines) I read come rom several RSS-feeds. As an opensource zealot I use opensource software. After trying several programs and browser plugins and taskbar applet I settled for Liferea, the Liux feed reader. It worked very nicely so far, I don't think I'll change soon. I like it because it seems to use very few system resources.

1271

Living Room / Re: How long will it take you to adopt Windows Vista as your OS?

« Last post by housetier on April 04, 2006, 10:36 PM »

I will NEVER buy it!

I might have to use it (at work for example) but I will go to great lengths to avoid that.

1272

Living Room / Re: Unprotected Wireless Lans?

« Last post by housetier on April 04, 2006, 10:33 PM »

My friend and I don't have any wireless equipment in our apartment. When we moved in we discussed how we were going to set up our LAN. Since he was using copper-bound ethernet at work and just had rolled a major upgrade of that network's capacity, we went for good ole cable as well. So far is has paid off very well: our network is fast, reliable and superquick to extend when friends come over with their laptops.

Yes, sometimes it were nice to have wireless access, if only for making it easier to "relocate" our computers. However we don't regard this is as a tradeoff since we value security much higher than comfort and we both know so much more about ethernet than about wireless.

To make a boring story short: unless wireless networks can easily be secured (and I mean secured, not just pretended protection) I will not consider it when setting up networks.

1273

Site/Forum Features / Re: IRC Chat - plus new web-based java interface from forum

« Last post by housetier on April 04, 2006, 10:17 PM »

Behold! The Zealot Speaketh unto Thee
So it's about time I mentioned XChat. This multiplatform irc client is free (yes even the windows version is free!), and supports many scripting languages: last time I counted it was seven but it seems guile has been added, so that makes eight supported scripting languages! Mirc-Scripts are not supported at all, but you can choose from perl, python, javascript, tcl, ruby, lisp, guile, and C.

IM
Now, if you want to "do instant messaging" as well, there is bitlbee which works with every irc client. It functions as a gateway between irc and IM. Bitlbee has been working reliably for over four years here.

-ism
If you want a little minimalism I believe xchat+bitlbee make a very good combination: bitlbee has no gui at all; xchat's interface can be reduced to the bare chat necessities. I have attached an example screenshot of how it could look.

On the other hand, if you prefer all sorts of gui widgets and stuff, xchat can do that as well; I don't have a screenshot as proof though...

1274

Living Room / website: stuff on my cat

« Last post by housetier on March 29, 2006, 06:56 PM »

Where is it?

The website "Stuff on my Cat" can be found here: www.stuffonmycat.com.

What is it?

People put stuff on their cats and take pictures. Other people can comment on posted pictures.

How cruel! You gotta respect those poor creatures!

Believe me, if the cats didn't like it they would clawexplain it to you. These hairy fellas are properly fed and have the patience and grandeur to endure the fun at their expense; "slightly annoyed" maybe...

I still don't find it funny!

Such is the course of the world, and there is nothing we can do about that.

1275

Developer's Corner / Re: CSS Tweaker for helping to clean up CSS files

« Last post by housetier on March 23, 2006, 02:28 PM »

I thought it did combine!

I tested it with the marvinclassic style sheet of my site and after breaking that one line up into several lines, it seemed more consise. Might be my imagination or wishful thinking...

I hope the css tweaker will be further improved.