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1351

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 28, 2010, 04:08 PM »

Of course the various high-end HTML-ish design systems could be used but, as you said, they're a lot more flexible, and as I've noted a couple times in this thread, for my particular needs flexibility is a *minus*. I *don't* want to mix and match anything from anywhere. We have a very clear, precise need that I'm trying to meet. That the output could then be flexiblty adapted is a bonus, and one for which others might be then more inspired to use any product selection resulting from this discussion. But again for my specific purposes the more limited the better (to a point).

I want the actual language and output to be flexible, but not the tool it's constructed in. For me HTML/CSS is perfect in that regard because I can make a limited tool to create it with WYSWIYG (and WYSIWYG is very important for my users on this project incidentally), and then adjust things to my heart's content globally later with the CSS.

So yeah, I think this is a good approach. But I'm still surprised nobody has made a presentation-oriented tool that is based on HTML/CSS since it'd be so easy to do. I'm not even surprised so much from a "hey, this is a good idea" standpoint as from a "hey, it'd be super easy to make a 'presentation' program with HTML/CSS and cash-in on the biz market. Let's do it!" standpoint. You know what I mean? But maybe it only makes sense to me...

- Oshyan

1352

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by JavaJones on April 28, 2010, 03:06 PM »

Interesting story, but it seems rather different to me. Not to mention I think if the city/owner decided to press charges, it still could have gotten nasty. There seems to be no mention of them being "protected", simply that there wasn't any legal implication, which may be because of nobody pressing charges.

Anyway you may well be right, my interpretation may be incorrect, but without actually looking at the statutes in question (particularly the one for California), as opposed to looking at past examples which may have other circumstances, I don't think we can say for certain.

- Oshyan

1353

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 28, 2010, 02:14 PM »

I'm with you cyberdiva, but then I'm fairly used to forum systems and how they work. I think the idea(s) here are to perhaps try to help new users get used to things. But personally I still feel the tag cloud, facebook integration, like/dislike, etc. approach is not necessarily the way to go for DC.

I honestly feel like we may be overthinking things. An improved, more dynamic home page, with a method of culling out active/interesting/useful topics from the forums, along with a way to catalog and update more concrete info like a wiki, would go a long way IMO. No need to change the fundamental functioning of the forums, which otherwise seem to work quite well for what they do.

- Oshyan

1354

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 28, 2010, 01:54 PM »

Yep, all good points 40hz. I think the idea of an HTML/XHTML and CSS-driven presentation system makes a helluvalot of sense in fact, and I'm surprised it doesn't exist yet. So, wait, *does it*? Anyone?

The simple fact of being able to maintain a common stylesheet separately and make instant global changes is reason enough for me.

- Oshyan

1355

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by JavaJones on April 28, 2010, 01:44 PM »

My understanding was that he "tried to give it back to Apple" by calling tech support or something. If tech support responded to "Hey, I have this next gen iPhone thingy. Do you want it?" with "I'm sorry sir, I don't know what you're on about, please stop binge drinking and taking drugs, go lie down for a while, then call us back when you have your head in order." then I wouldn't be surprised, nor would I necessarily blame them. Knowing support departments, there really aren't many easy/quick routes to escalate that sort of thing; just getting them to take you seriously would be a job in itself. That being said I'm not saying it's tech support's fault, I'm saying this guy could have done a better job of trying to return it. Or he could have, I don't know, called/facebooked/whatever the guy whose phone he had, because apparently all the guy's personal info was still on it before it got remotely erased by Apple.

And yes it does matter whether he tried to return it because that's his legal responsibility. If he is unable to return it to the rightful owner he should turn it over to the police and let them sort it out. That's my understanding of the legal requirement in this case. If he fails to do those things, he is essentially dealing with "stolen" property, and that's the argument I understand is being made against Gizmodo, that the search and seizure wasn't disallowed by journalistic protection laws because it was related to a felony investigation (theft) rather than a simple "give us your source" shakedown. Think about it, if "journalistic immunity" granted you the right to do whatever you wanted with stolen property and then just give it back when the owner asks for it with no consequences, I'm sure every Joe Random thief would have a blog to make them "journalists".

- Oshyan

1356

General Software Discussion / Re: What free multi-user CMS best matches this description?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 28, 2010, 01:37 PM »

Renegade, my thoughts exactly. All non-gallery options require customization. There is a Gallery2 integration system for WordPress though. Maybe a combo of Wordpress, Gallery 2, and integration/multi-blogger mods/options.

- Oshyan

1357

General Software Discussion / Re: What free multi-user CMS best matches this description?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 27, 2010, 01:50 PM »

Gallery2/3 can do "everyone uploads to a single gallery" and there are ways to get it to do photoblog-type things. Maybe there is a better "out of the box" solution, I just figured since the majority of your desired functionality centers around photos, that it would make sense to look at photo-oriented solutions. ZenGallery is another one I like, though it's probably not robust or flexible enough for your needs (though it does have blog-like options).

- Oshyan

1358

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 27, 2010, 01:26 PM »

That is priceless!

- Oshyan

1359

General Software Discussion / Re: What free multi-user CMS best matches this description?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 27, 2010, 12:29 PM »

It sounds like those needs are pretty photo-centric, so I would think a multi-user gallery solution like Gallery2/3 or Coppermine would probably be best. You could get the same/similar functionality with a more general purpose CMS and some modules/plugins, but it would be overkill by the sound of it.

- Oshyan

1360

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 10:41 PM »

I don't see why you can't limit your design parameters and support based on the official, supported options, software, settings, etc. but still have an "advanced" and *unsupported* mode. I doubt Apple is providing support on Windows even though they offer Bootcamp. Maybe they support Bootcamp itself, but to a limited degree. Doesn't seem much different in this hypothetical situation. "Sure, you can unlock your phone and install random apps on it, but we can't support them. Sorry." No big deal. I doubt most average consumers who are enjoying the iPhone now would even know or care about it, and meanwhile pretty much everyone moaning about the iPhone lock-in would be a lot more interested in buying one. I know I probably would have one already.

- Oshyan

1361

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 10:37 PM »

Points taken. I was more just getting at the fact that the site purpose has broadened considerably. Which is a good thing.

Really I think there aren't many significant problems here. It's a *great* community. A better way to store and organize commonly agreed upon bits of information would be good (e.g. wiki), but I also agree it would be hard to maintain.

As for the reviews, I think those will simply have to come with the inspiration of the writer(s), and my feeling as to why there haven't been any lately is no one is inspired or has the time. But when someone gets a serious bee in their bonnet about it, there's nothing stopping a mega review from happening, and I'd reckon the door is wide open here on publishing it. I think it will stay limited this way until and unless a system is developed to spread the load, if that's truly possible.

- Oshyan

1362

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 10:30 PM »

Holy crap, and I thought I had it bad! That's really... sad. But an interesting read. Thanks mouser.
 
- Oshyan

1363

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 07:04 PM »

I'm not so sure that your 2nd requirement, "you can't do that without... severely limiting consumer options." is actually true. I agree that controlling the hardware and software is very important, to a critical point. But imagine if Apple simply had an advanced option in the iTunes settings, even a commandline option, "disable system controls" or "advanced mode" - essentially an official and Apple-endorsed (but *not* "supported") "jailbreak". Thus allowing you to install whatever apps you want, etc., only Apple doesn't provide you support (but does honor warranty on hardware), and features are not guaranteed to work as advertised. For advanced users only, but at least it could be there and not be voiding warranty. Not to mention allowing alternative app stores, etc. but only if you've turned on the advanced mode feature. And of course not restricting devs to what environment they develop in.

You know why Apple doesn't do this? It's little or nothing to do with the "user experience". It's because probably 50+% of iPhone users would probably enable it, because that's what people actually want, given the choice. And yes, they probably would still complain to Apple about issues that are then not their problem to resolve. But guess what, Apple is used to telling customers that what they're trying to do isn't supported.

- Oshyan

1364

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows vs. Mac: I'm starting to change.

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 04:44 PM »

The iPhone is a good experience for the lay person, no doubt. iPad probably too, aside from the little technical foibles that are cropping up already, and probably just indicative of a 1st gen device. That being said, I have 2 friends who recently bought iPhones and are having terrible troubles with AT&T's network and/or iPhone's 3G/call reception (note: both these people had AT&T before, with different phones, and had less/no problems).

As for Android vs. iPhone, there are a couple things here. First, your sister probably bought an iPhone because Apple's marketing appealed to her. Android itself doesn't have any unified marketing, but the most marketed Android phone to date, particularly on its "Androidness", was the Verizon Droid, and the marketing spin there is pretty aggressive, techno-centric, and decidedly not oriented toward the lay person, or women, or anyone who isn't a "bare knuckled bucket of does". So Apple's marketing is definitely successful, but also oriented in a direction that a major competitor hasn't really exploited yet.

Second, Android as a platform is less unified than iPhone, plain and simple. This is one of the potential downsides of Android for the average user. For the tech geek it's a boon because it means you have options, and lots of 'em. But the average person just wants simple. To is iPhone is "lock-in", to them it's "simplicity", which is great.

What I want to point out though is that I think the advantages of iPhone as a platform and as a device could largely or even entirely be achieved *without* Apple being total a-holes (see latest developer clauses and consider the implications for devs trying to make a living). I'm a bit disappointed in how Android is panning out now as far as there being far too many devices already (unnecessarily), each with small variations that make them subtly different and potentially incompatible with each other. But it's early days yet, and I have hopes that the platform will solidify and unify a bit more, maintaining the open nature and ability for customization, without betraying the fundamentally shared platform benefits and the possibility for a shared ecosystem that it can bring. The last thing I want to see is phone makers not upgrading Android OS because they haven't had time to update their custom UIs...

In the end though, Android may not be there to serve the same needs iPhone is. Hopefully they'll figure out a way to balance these issues better than Apple has, but I fear they're erring on the opposite side of some of them by being too flexible and "open". There needs to be a bit more platform standards enforcement on Google's part IMO.

- Oshyan

1365

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 03:35 PM »

Excellent, the more people who are interested, the more motivation there is to do it. I'll definitely keep you updated, probably through this thread until/unless it starts to justify its own app discussion.

- Oshyan

1366

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 03:16 PM »

Miles (and others previously), great point about the word "Donation" and the name of the site.

I'll be honest, I've always been a bit dubious about that name too. For one thing the site isn't necessarily (in practice) that much "about" (or affected by?) the whole donation model, though it is well implemented here in the forums and hopefully used with good frequency. But in some sense you could think of it as just a part of the system here, not necessarily the *point* of it. Just like other forums may have a "Karma" system or similar, but they're not called "Karmatown". That may not be a fair analogy though as the intention *here* may actually be that the donation model does take more of a front-seat than other similar systems on other sites. That being said, it's a question whether A: that approach is actually most beneficial to promotion of donationware as a concept, and B: whether it's still relevant as a core aspect of where the site has evolved to.

The reason I haven't been more vocal about all this before though is my understanding is mouser founded the site with this model in mind, and with the intention of promoting it and trying to make it successful. So some promotion of that approach is perhaps implicit in the "mission", even if unstated. But as I alluded to above, the idea of direct promotion of the donationware model, particularly through naming, may not actually be as beneficial to the concept as we might like. In fact, often times *not* calling attention to a controversial concept, and simply demonstrating its efficacy, will have better results. So that would be exemplified here by e.g. renaming the site to "SoftwareSnacks.com", and having donationware as just part of the encouraged model, with the same systems we have now, just not trying to *focus* on the donation aspect (as indeed for all practical purposes we already do not, but the name perhaps betrays that reality). Then people would come to the site, use the software, go through the same processes, and if they found the software good, and the process for registering and using it is not onerous, they might automatically have their perspective on a "donation" model changed, at least a bit. It's purely by positive demonstration of the model, rather than outright advertisement of it.

I realize the idea of changing the name of the site is huge and has large repercussions, but I have to be honest, it's something that has always bugged me a bit (and not because I don't support the donationware concept!), and I think it *does* affect the initial impression for many users.

At the same time I don't think a name change necessarily addresses many of the other concerns here. It's really just *another* concern that needs consideration I think. It's not going to make content easier to find or more relevant or organized or anything.

- Oshyan

1367

Living Room / Re: For when your PC next plays up...

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 01:06 PM »

Hehe, put a smile on my face. Thanks!

- Oshyan

1368

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 12:57 PM »

You're right Curt, that was a fantastic math presentation! And it showed me how cool Prezi is at the same time (that's for the recommendation markan!). However, it's a real shame about their terms of service, as that means I simply can't use it for my job. I might use it for my own purposes though. I'll definitely tinker with it and see what the actual presentation building process is like...

Superboy (or what should I call you? ), I appreciate the out of the box thinking. PDFs do have some merits. Unfortunately I think the "design enforcement" part of the equation is seriously lacking with any PDF editor, including Bluebeam (though I don't have particular experience with it). As you mentioned the ability to centrally modify the styles for a group of presentation is also lacking.

It occurs to me once again that HTML and CSS are *built* for this, and it only makes sense to try to leverage that. The idea of being able to modify a CSS style and instantly change the picture border color or background of every presentation in our 80+ class curriculum almost makes me giddy! Especially as I am currently looking forward to the prospect of doing them all myself *manually* (along with a bunch of other style changes that CSS would make trivial).

While I don't need yet another project to take on, the fact that there are a number of existing, open source HTML and CSS editors out there that might serve as a basis for the kind of tool I have in mind is rather encouraging. I might just tackle it at some point. If and when I do, you guys will be the first testers, of course.

- Oshyan

1369

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 26, 2010, 12:43 PM »

The blog and newsletter definitely have similar fundamental value to the wiki idea, it's just that a wiki would be more persistent and, over time, more a catalog of specifically determined information and resource listings than a "of the moment" info an topics of interest listing. As such I think it would be a more useful general resource for the lay person who is not at all involved in the community.

I'm still not certain there would be enough interest in actively updating it by members though. Making it as easy as possible to move info from forum to wiki would probably be key.

- Oshyan

1370

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini Review of SugarSync and DropBox

« Last post by JavaJones on April 25, 2010, 07:58 PM »

Quick feedback and changes. That's a good sign! 

- Oshyan

1371

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Twigatelle

« Last post by JavaJones on April 25, 2010, 04:09 PM »

Yeah, I just did 1-17 last night. 17 is a really tough level because of the moving "mass"! Actually, going through all the levels to get to the latest ones is what I usually do, and maybe others just use the level selector, which could explain why I seem to get more frustrated with the current progression system than others. It took me quite a while and many level redo's, especially the "Donation Coder" level! But still I keep coming back to it and playing, so I must like it a lot.

- Oshyan

1372

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 25, 2010, 03:30 AM »

That may be true, but it's kind of ironic since as I recall the DC search function was specially written by a DC member to be an improvement on the default SMF search (and then published as a module for the SMF community). I wonder what further improvements could be made. Maybe some smarter auto-sorting, rather than the default "relevancy" (or making "relevancy" more intelligent).

- Oshyan

1373

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Twigatelle

« Last post by JavaJones on April 24, 2010, 09:07 PM »

Btw, level 17 rules.

- Oshyan

1374

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 24, 2010, 09:05 PM »

I'm thinking it might be fairly easily do-able with a customized HTML editor like Komposer or one of the other open source options:
http://en.wikipedia....ison_of_HTML_editors
Then just put it in a Javascript-driven page transition fader. Run all the styling off a central CSS file. Hmm...

- Oshyan

1375

General Software Discussion / Re: Powerpoint sucks - what to use instead?

« Last post by JavaJones on April 24, 2010, 07:07 PM »

ProShow is interesting, but the problem is I don't need to have *more* flexibility, I need less. Nor would it probably be very welcome to have to learn a totally new UI, heh. While I *am* looking for an alternative, which potentially implies a different interface, ProShow is really a fairly different approach, which would be more jarring than I would like.

What I basically need is to define a fairly rigid format and make people stick to it when designing. Powerpoint has some ability to do this, but in practice it doesn't work nearly as well as I'd like.

- Oshyan