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15351

Living Room / Re: build/upgrade or buy/build a new one?

« Last post by mouser on October 20, 2010, 04:01 AM »

I'm not sure what Bamse is saying but i think i agree with him 

That is to say -- often i think it makes more sense to not spend too much money on upgrading, and instead simply plan to retire an old computer or use it for secondary stuff, and buy a new one when the old one gets too out of date.

So, you may want to strongly consider how much longer it will be before you will get a new PC, and not spend so much on upgrading the old one if it's not going to be too long until that.  Some people prefer to keep upgrading and stick to a working PC for a long time.  Some people don't ever upgrade anything, they simply buy a new PC when the old one becomes obsolete. You have to ask yourself which one are you -- and not pour money into the old machine if you plan to buy a new one soon.

Which is why i would really focus on the things you can do that are the most cost effective and easy upgrades, and I think the memory is surely at the very top of this list.

15352

General Software Discussion / Re: How to quickly autonumber text lists?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 05:19 PM »

A bit above skwire posted:

Zero-padding is fine.  Numbers and roman numerals are fine.  Letters...no.

I thought you might all appreciate this conversation from the chat channel, to give you a fly-on-the-wall view of how real software development takes place and how software evolves:

<mouser> all joking aside
<mouser> it seems pointless to not support letters
<mouser> change "System" from radio box
<mouser> to drop down
<mouser> and provide
<Skwire> No letters.
<mouser> Decimal, Roman, Uppercase, Lowercase
<mouser> you know you will
<mouser> why resist?
<mouser> :)
<mouser> you know and i know
<mouser> you are going to end up eating your words
<mouser> and adding letters
<mouser> so why are you doing this to yourself
<Skwire> No.
<mouser> i can see wanting
<mouser> a)
<mouser> b)
<mouser> c)
<mouser> i would want that feature
<mouser> if i used it
<Skwire> Yeah...but when it gets over 26?
<mouser> its just like 2 lines of code
<mouser> either dont worry about it
<mouser> or do
<Skwire> There are a million different formats after that.
<mouser> aa, ab
<mouser> thats no excuse for not choosing one
<Skwire> a.a a.b
<mouser> that would solve 99% of cases
<mouser> 99% of time it would only be used for lists < 26
<Skwire> I don't mind going up to 26.
<mouser> ahahhaahah
<mouser> AND SO IT BEGINS
<Skwire> Up to 26 is fine.
<mouser> hahahahahaahahahahah
<mouser> ahahahahahahahahaahha
<mouser> ahahahaahahahahahahahahaha
<mouser> ahahahahahaa
<Skwire> That's my only reason for not doing it.
<Skwire> And has been.
<mouser> just go to 26
<mouser> thats the 99% case
<mouser> and the only thing that matters
<mouser> no one in their right mind
<mouser> would use letters
<mouser> if they have > 26
<Skwire> Four options in the dropdown: Decimal, Roman, Letters (uppercase), Letters (lowercase)
<mouser> excellent :)
<mouser> good decision
<Skwire> Happy?
<Skwire> Focker.
<mouser> rofl
<mouser> i wont bother to tell yo that soon you will change the code to make it do aa, ab
<Skwire> No, I won't.
<mouser> ill let you at least save your sanity for a brief period
<mouser> hey let me paste you something from the old days
<mouser> it will bring back some memories
<mouser> <Skwire> No letters.
<mouser> <mouser> Decimal, Roman, Uppercase, Lowercase
<mouser> <mouser> you know you will
<mouser> <mouser> why resist?
<mouser> <mouser> :)
<mouser> <mouser> you know and i know
<mouser> <mouser> you are going to end up eating your words
<mouser> <mouser> and adding letters
<mouser> <mouser> so why are you doing this to yourself
<mouser> <Skwire> No.
<mouser> lol
<mouser> hahahahahhahahaah
<Skwire> FU!
<mouser> ah the good old days
<mouser> of 5 minutes ago
<mouser> when you were so sure of life
<mouser> so young, naive, and headstrong
<mouser> cast yourself back in time to your youth
<mouser> and remember that moment
<mouser> 5 minutes ago
<Skwire>  .,!,.(^_^).,!,.

15353

Living Room / Re: build/upgrade or buy/build a new one?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 01:47 PM »

i would go with two 2gb ram sticks; my experience with ram has been that it can be a little touchy (sometimes needing to be reseated, sometimes acting up), so the fewer ram sticks the better in my view.  i would also leave overclocking for a future time after you have a very stable pc and you are interested in the "fun" of experimental overclocking and the possibility of instability.

15354

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: Auto-push/pull clipboarder?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 11:38 AM »

i like these ideas.. let me try to chew on them and boil them down to a proposed first basic version to add to CHS and make sure i've captured the important bits.

15355

Living Room / Tom Vassel Begins his YouTube Series: Top 100 Board Games of all Time

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 11:23 AM »

Tom Vassel of the Dice Tower Begins his YouTube Series: Top 100 Board Games of all Time

Fans of board games have probably watched Tom Vassel's great board game review videos.  He's done best-of-the year roundups before, but this video series discussing his Top 100 Board games of all Time is bound to be great.

15356

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: DBISAM errors with Clipboard Help+Spell on Windows 7 System

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 10:43 AM »

are you encountering the errors or are you just concerned about the possibility?

15357

Developer's Corner / Re: The Inversion of the Open Source - Big Corporation Divide?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 10:42 AM »

Before we get carried away, let me clarify something.

Richard Stallman is a serious and ethical person who does not want to see corporate dominance of software.  He is one of the good guys, and a champion of the little guy.  His intentions are all good.

The point I'm trying to make is that he is first and foremost concerned with promoting the concept that source code should be open and free to modify and share and distribute.  He is much less concerned with the repercussions and consequences of the corporate takeover of Open Source, or about the problems that occur if culturally no one is willing to pay to fund open source / free software.

That is the gap I am trying to address -- the fact that being pro Open Source is *NOT* enough to bring us to a better place, and that if we aren't just as passionate about direct grass roots funding of open source and free software authors and musicians and artists, we may find ourselves in a more commercialized, convoluted, and exploited place than we started out.

15358

Living Room / Re: build/upgrade or buy/build a new one?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 08:44 AM »

i dont know that an ssd is right for what ails Jammo.

personally here's what i would do if i were Jammo:
1) immediately upgrade to at least 4gb -- that is probably the fastest, easiest, cheapest way to improve performance significantly.
2) get a new fast hard drive (10k or at least 7k), and swap out your old one and put in the new one, and install a clean OS from scratch, and see how fast it feels.

15359

Google Boomerang / Re: Google Translator Boomerang - Latest Version Info - v1.06.01 - Feb 16, 2009

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2010, 12:29 AM »

New version uploaded, should be fixed. Let me know.

15360

Living Room / Re: Postcard to our past selves.

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2010, 09:15 PM »

Using only a postcard i dont think i could even finish with advice for my elementary school period... 

15361

Find And Run Robot / Re: how to specify searching only in two specific folders?

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2010, 04:05 PM »

glad to hear it 

15362

Google Boomerang / Re: Google Translator Boomerang - Latest Version Info - v1.06.01 - Feb 16, 2009

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2010, 01:35 PM »

i get that now too -- it seems google has changed their translation page again.. ill try to put out a new version today; thanks for bringing this to my attention, it happens every year or two.

15363

DcUpdater / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - DcUpdater - 1.28.01 - Oct 8, 2010

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2010, 01:34 PM »

you dont have a bad version, just me being a bit sloppy with version numbers.  however i think if you re-install the new update it should say you have version 1.28.01 and stop offering an update (even though you really have 1.28.02).  it shouldnt say you have 1.26.01 if you get new version.

15364

Screenshot Captor / Re: Highlighting rectangle

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2010, 09:41 AM »

yes it is possible, and yes i will implement it.. it's high on my todo list but i can't say exactly when.

15365

Developer's Corner / Re: The Inversion of the Open Source - Big Corporation Divide?

« Last post by mouser on October 17, 2010, 12:36 PM »

From reading Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman, i'm starting to get a better feel for the different philosophies behind some of the driving forces of the Open Source movement, and i'm starting to see where i don't fit in, and why.

This is a caricature but i think it captures key points:

Eric Raymond^w: Open Source is a much more efficient and financially profitable way to develop great software.  Large companies can make more money from Open Source software and it leads to better software; since most programmers and companies don't try to sell their software and are hired to produce internal software, most programmers will not be affected jobwise.  The small minority of people who create software in hopes of selling it are out of luck and cannot survive in such a model.

Richard Stallman^w: All software should be Open Source (stallman actually prefers the term "free software", a subset of Open Source), where it can be modified and distributed as users see fit.  This gives the most freedom to the users of the software.  This may make it impossible for software authors to make a living creating software, while helping middlemen and large corporations to make big profits by providing distribution, consulting, marketing, and support.  This is ok because it's not important whether programmers can make money creating software, only that software users have the freedom to modify and share code.  People should donate to support Open Source projects, but it isn't that important -- if programmers can no longer make a living from creating software that is ok -- they can always get consulting jobs if they need money.

I'm still trying to nail down my own personal philosophy about this stuff, but i think it's something like this:

• As a community, the best solution in terms of maximizing happiness, satisfaction, freedom, and security, occurs when we have the freedom to modify the programs we use and when we can pay what we want for them, *AND* when we support the programmers who create such software, financially and in other ways -- such that these programmers and artists can devote themselves to the creation of content for their users, instead of try to find indirect, convoluted, and compromised ways to get their work funded by corporations with ulterior motives.
• The key is that it is the mutual compact, in terms of users directly supporting/financing the programmers/artists, which is essential in my mind, in creating a sustainable healthy system that leads to the maximum benefit for all; the more direct the relationship the more beneficial the resulting system.
• Simply advocating an Open Source future is *not* sufficient to get us to such an ecosystem.  Indeed it seems that the market forces embracing Open Source are incentivized to explicitly avoid such an ecosystem, and our cultural biases are antagonistic to this concept of voluntarily donating to support software (music, art, etc.)  if it is free/opensource.  A much more serious cultural shift is required within the Open Source and Artistic communicty is needed if we want to see such an ecosystem thrive.

15366

Living Room / Re: Request: Facebook Sharing

« Last post by mouser on October 17, 2010, 07:28 AM »

Thanks for the SimpleMachines Forum mod links Stephen.. There is also: http://custom.simple...s/index.php?mod=2111
Now i think the thing to do is decide which mod to use.

15367

Screenshot Captor / Re: MiniCap uniquenum sequence starts from two

« Last post by mouser on October 17, 2010, 06:35 AM »

yep, will do.  i'll try to get a new version of minicap out today.

15368

Screenshot Captor / Re: MiniCap uniquenum sequence starts from two

« Last post by mouser on October 17, 2010, 05:41 AM »

i shall fix.

15369

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: A Dark and Deadly Path - v1.05.01 - December 31st, 2006

« Last post by mouser on October 17, 2010, 05:34 AM »

I have been contacted one or two times since releasing A Dark and Deadly Path in 2006 by people who were thinking of using it, but i've never seen anyone make a game using it.

That makes me a bit sad; re-reading the author's guide now, it really seems like it could be a fun system and it's a shame it's never actually been used even once in 4 years to make a game.

If it ever got some real use it would make sense to add features and port it to Flash for online play, etc.  Are there really no site-impaired people who might be interested in this?  

15370

Find And Run Robot / Re: how to specify searching only in two specific folders?

« Last post by mouser on October 16, 2010, 10:36 AM »

you have to add the word "blank" to your Keyword modifier list (without quotes) for a search folder if you want it to be searched by default.
So if you want the m drive entry to be searched by default AND when you type +m then for keyword modifiers specify:
m blank

15371

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on October 16, 2010, 09:20 AM »

it is surprising how much pleasure one gets out of walking past something that you've built

15372

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on October 16, 2010, 08:55 AM »

I spent yesterday building and adding these upper doors to a hallway built-in:

15373

Living Room / Re: Request: Facebook Sharing

« Last post by mouser on October 16, 2010, 06:21 AM »

i think we used to have a button for this.. seems like it would be worth an experiment adding it back, at least for a short time -- something really low key and not at all in your face.

15374

Living Room / Re: Tech News - Its back, with bonus features!

« Last post by mouser on October 16, 2010, 06:13 AM »

Great to have it back!  -- but i'm not sure the video is appropriate for a general audience tech news post (i removed it).

15375

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Feature Request: Right click menu support for folders item

« Last post by mouser on October 15, 2010, 11:08 PM »

this is a good idea; i shall try to add it.