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13551

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 07:53 PM »

IainB, try to open up the CHS options and go to the new Stats tab, and see if you can reproduce the problem and watch how, if at all, the stats change when it fails to copy anything.  Let me know what you discover.

13552

Living Room / Re: Congratz to the US Military Forces!

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 07:00 PM »

It's a very interesting hypothesis, but I dont think the probabilities sum in this case -- I think the probability calculation covers ALL replies as a single entity -- i.e. the usefulness probability score covers your entire contribution to the thread.

So by posting twice you decrease the likelyhood that ANY of your contributions on the thread are going to be helpful.

Good you clarified that though -- otherwise yes i think we might see some infinite posters

13553

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 06:56 PM »

Let's wait till its implemented, but i think there will be a new tab dedicated to it in options with hopefully enough help to make it understandable.

13554

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 05:01 PM »

There are 3 or 4 pieces to the puzzle:

• Capturing MULTIPLE formats of data for each clip; this could include text, image, ole, richtext, customdata, etc.
• Figuring out best interface to let people browse the multiple kinds of data associated with each clip.
• Deciding how to store this data (some in external files like image files, but some like richtext might be best stored in the database).
• Letting users customize which capture formats saved for different apps.

I'm trying to start with the stuff that is most likely to be useful to the most people -- namely adding image support.

As for customizing per app, i'll probably solve this simply by allowing user to specify a list of applicatons like:

[Select]

Photoshop.exe|ole,richtext:ignore
Notepad.exe|*:ignore
*|text,image:save

That would say to ignore ole and richtext format clipdata from photoshop;
Ignore everything from notepad;
Otherwise by default capture text and image data (both)

13555

Living Room / Re: Congratz to the US Military Forces!

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 04:44 PM »

I have come up with a new heuristic to help people tell whether they should post another reply in an opinion thread, here it is:

The probability of making a useful contribution to an opinion thread ~= 1 / (NumberOfRepliesYouPost^3) (graph).

• So your FIRST post has a 100% probability of having a useful impact.
• By the time you make your 3rd post, you are down to a 4% probability.
• By your 5th post you are below 1% probability.

So maybe we would all do well (and i include myself!) to consider whether after the 2nd or third reply we should consider that we've made our case, and should leave the thread for new posters?

13556

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 01:15 PM »

ps. prepare for a change of the way i record image clips that will make you lose all your existing image clips.
I apologize for that but i'm trying to get the database in a good state for expanding to handle not just image but other external file and other data.

13557

Mouser's Zone / Re: Virus question

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 01:13 PM »

Thanks for the report -- those heuristic antivirus alarms are almost entirely worthless and serve no other purpose than the panic people and make them think something is wrong when it isn't -- first thing i do when installing an antivirus is turn off the heuristic options.

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Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 01:03 PM »

New beta up with options in "Capture Options" tab to favor text over images or vice versa -- tomos can you see if that cures your Illustrator problem with no bad side effects?

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Living Room / Re: Congratz to the US Military Forces!

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 01:01 PM »

You're really going for that clown badge, aren't you?

no more clown badges until 2012, so don't work yourself up over it!

13560

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 12:58 PM »

Some apps place 3 or more different formats of data on the clipboard for each copy event -- for example a vector image, a bitmap data image, some proprietary data, and some text.

In the ideal case, which CHS will eventually get to, CHS will be able to (perhaps overidable on a per-application basis) to capture Multiple formats of clipboard data for each copy event detected.  This data could get pretty huge so it might be important to let people filter out which data to ignore from each app. But then it gets a bit hairy.

And then on pasting, it would paste all the different formats back.

Right now CHS only copies 1 chosen format of clipboard data for each copy event, either text or bitmap.  And the new version will let you decide which it should prefer if BOTH are found (previous version always defaulted to image data if it is available).

Eventually I will try to make chs support the allformats mode, though that it messy.

13561

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 04, 2011, 09:29 AM »

even if I'm editing text and copy it, it gets saved/displayed as a thumbnail
I mean, if I copy text I can paste it directly, but if I then copy something else, the previous clip is useless - it's thumbnail image gets pasted.

What must be happening here is that Illustrator is copying both text and image date to clipboard, and CHS is favoring the image data over the text.  I'll make it favor text over image data, and then if need be i'll have to add some way for you to specify preferences on a per application basis.

13562

General Software Discussion / Question for those of you who use windows-based HTPC PCs with your tv

« Last post by mouser on May 03, 2011, 10:15 PM »

I have a question or two for those who use or have researched the use of HTPC (Home theater PCs), connected to their computer for watching tv and other media.

I'm interested in creating a fancy wall-mounted touch screen computer monitor/all-in-one, mostly as a kind of art display.

I don't intend to watch tv or play too much music on it; my main intention is for it to have a set of configurable "apps" that i can easily switch between, and that i can code new "apps" for.

And i want a nice user interface with giant buttons suitable for touch screen, that would be suitable for a guest to use without any advance instruction.

So basically what i'm considering is:

• Create my own minimal user-interface system where i can add new "apps" like plugins, where an app is really just a full screen application that the main supervisor program knows how to start and stop when i click on the next "app".
• Find an existing HTPC media hub software with some nice eye candy, and figure out if i can add my own custom apps to it in a way that makes it idiot-proof for guests to walk up and select a new "app" to run.

So what I want to know is if anyone has any HTPC software they can recommend that would be suitable for configuring custom apps and providing a very minimalistic user interface to choose them?

To give a really simple example, I'm thinking about something like this:

• I want to be able to configure 5 websites, 2 screensavers, and a couple of my own full screen visual animation programs; all of these plugin "apps" run full screen.
• The interface I have in mind would simply allow you to cycle through each different full screen "app" with a swipe, or click somewhere to be shown a grid of large buttons one for each "app" and click to run.

Does what I'm looking for make sense?  Ie a very super simple "launcher" designed to let me custom configure and add a set of "apps" to put on a touch screen monitor to be set up so that guests can use it with no instruction and it would be idiot proof.

I just am debating whether i should code my own or start with an existing HTPC software.

13563

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 03, 2011, 02:38 PM »

New beta version is up -- new "stats" page in options, attempt to fix weird issue with capturing from web page causing multiple copy operations, added option to move clip to top on paste.

Note: Sorry for this, but updaters should edit their "Quick Paste" group (right click on it and choose edit), and change the custom sort from "Ordering,CreationDateTime" to "Ordering,ModificationDateTime".

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Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR window shrinks over time

« Last post by mouser on May 03, 2011, 04:31 AM »

Ok i will work on it.

13565

Living Room / Re: should I ragequit?

« Last post by mouser on May 02, 2011, 09:41 PM »

New Rule:

After you've been on dc for 6 months and/or made 6 posts.. You may not leave..  Ever.

13566

Living Room / Re: amount of RAM in a netbook

« Last post by mouser on May 02, 2011, 06:04 PM »

i was looking at netbooks recently and one reason that windows 7 starter seems very appealing for a netbook is that one of the things it does not have is the aero glass effects, which is good because for a netbook it's not worth taking the speed hit that comes with that.  so i think windows 7 starter is a good match for a netbook for a novice.

13567

Living Room / Re: amount of RAM in a netbook

« Last post by mouser on May 02, 2011, 05:46 PM »

i suspect 2gb would make a noticeable difference in performance when doing non-trivial stuff.

13568

Living Room / Re: Congratz to the US Military Forces!

« Last post by mouser on May 02, 2011, 12:40 PM »

We as a species would do well to get back to straighter talk..

Agreed.

It's hard enough to balance the ethics of all this without having to wade through the miles of bullshit that gets fed to us.

You don't have to watch too many documentaries about Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch to know not to take at face value when you are told that some women and children were shot because they were being used as human shields, or to know that Bin Laden was not going to be captured alive, or to know that the military didn't bury Bin Laden at sea in order to "respect his religion".

That's not to say at all that killing him wasn't the right thing to do -- on balance my personal opinion was that it was.  It's just that i'd be a lot more at peace with it if we also stopped lying to ourselves, stopped torturing people (while pretending we don't), and stopped pretending that america was attacked because "they hate our freedoms".

I just think this world would be a much better place if we didn't willingly drown ourselves in so much propaganda and false history.

13569

Living Room / Re: should I ragequit?

« Last post by mouser on May 02, 2011, 10:25 AM »

The other thing that is very important to point out is the contribution *you* make to a group by holding and voicing opinions that are contrary to others.  Does any of us really want a forum here where we all agree with each other on everything?

If a group as a whole starts advancing core positions that you find morally unacceptable, and you conclude that your mere presence in the group by those that disagree is lending weight to this objectionable opinion, then resigning in protest can be an important action to take.  But it's also true that if everyone left a group every time there was a heavy disagreement about something, then every group would rapidly evolve into a collection of single-minded obnoxious bullies.  Sometimes being a voice of dissent within a family/group is an important thing.

13570

Living Room / Re: should I ragequit?

« Last post by mouser on May 02, 2011, 10:13 AM »

Can I take this opportunity to address a larger issue?

A site like ours is large enough that there are going to be very diverse opinions on all sorts of things.. Like attending a large family gathering it can at times be scary to discover some of the opinions that your relatives hold.

We are all our own people here -- and being part of DC, much like being part of a large family, does not mean you agree with every thread or every position that moderators take.

If you can manage it, I think the healthy psychological approach is the same one that should be applied when dealing with family -- try hard not to feel too embarrassed to be seen with them in public, and remind yourself that everyone around you understands that you are your own person.

One of the challenges to a family and to a site like ours, is figuring out a way for us all to coexist and enjoy each other's company -- while at the same time acknowledging that sometimes we are are going to disagree strongly about something.

In general my advice in such cases is just say to yourself "what a bunch of idiots" and ignore the thread until it's gone.

13571

Living Room / Re: Congratz to the US Military Forces!

« Last post by mouser on May 01, 2011, 11:00 PM »

Will be very interesting to read about the details of the operation in the coming weeks/months/years.

13572

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 01, 2011, 09:11 PM »

I put up a new version trying to fix some extraneous duplicate-clip sounds, but i'm noticing the presence of a bug when copying url from active browser windows, trying to identify and fix.
I'm hoping maybe if i fix it i will also be able to eliminate the slight delay when capturing browser urls with clips.

13573

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: V2 Beta of Clipboard Help+Spell With Support for Images

« Last post by mouser on May 01, 2011, 04:19 PM »

New beta up with more sound options (see here for screenshot/discussion).

13574

Clipboard Help+Spell / CHS New Sound Options

« Last post by mouser on May 01, 2011, 04:18 PM »

New sound options added because Cranioscopical insisted on it.

13575

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR window shrinks over time

« Last post by mouser on May 01, 2011, 02:01 PM »

If you let it shrink all the way to 0 it will open a black hole on your desktop and a thousand real life LOLCats will pour out and be your friends for life.