Recent Posts

1626

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 27, 2007, 04:05 PM »

Computers "listen" better ;>

-kyrathaba (January 26, 2007, 10:01 PM)

That's the whole problem with them! They do exactly what you tell them to, instead of what you want them to do.

"I know that is what I typed, but that isn't what I meant. If computers are so smart it should have know that!!! Grrrrrrrrrr!!"

1627

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Cody Mug for NANY Participants

« Last post by tinjaw on January 27, 2007, 03:58 PM »

I too want to know about the reclining. I have chronic back problems. It went out again yesterday. I am sitting in my office chair looking at my special back chair ( a cloth version of this chair ) while hunched over and hurting. I have thought several times about creating such a setup with something like this.

 

1628

Best Archive Tool / Re: 7Zip - best archiver tool

« Last post by tinjaw on January 27, 2007, 10:37 AM »

Lifehacker recently suggested ALZip as a prettier replacement for 7-zip.

And my choice for best free archiver is ZipGenius.

1629

General Software Discussion / Re: 1.3 GB deleted, but not deleted, so where are they?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 27, 2007, 10:28 AM »

Not sure if you checked, or if this even applies to your particular issue, but don't forget about the recycle bin. When you "delete" files, many times you are just moving them to the recycle bin. You therefore won't see an increase in free disc space. You need to either empty the recycle bin or do a "real delete" of the file in the first place. To do a "real delete", skipping the recycle bin, hold down the shift key when clicking on the delete menu items.

1630

Find And Run Robot / Humanized Enzo

« Last post by tinjaw on January 26, 2007, 05:48 AM »

I must confess, this may have already been mentioned already, I didn't check. I watched a short video on Enzo here and thought that it might be worth looking at further to see if there is anything that can be incorporated into FARR.

1631

General Software Discussion / Re: Pegasus Mail to become DonationWare?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 25, 2007, 05:27 AM »

Hmm, I wonder if mouser should approach David and see if he wishes to work with DonationCoder.com to help promote the idea of donationware? What do you folks think? 

1632

General Software Discussion / Re: Direct Folders 3.2, Anyone Have This Version?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 25, 2007, 05:24 AM »

Wow, I was completely off. I didn't realize that was what you were talking about. I haven't used any version other than the latest. I probably would have not noticed anyway because I just click on the drop down and use that treeview instead of (in my personal taste) wasting all that screen real estate on the left. But the whole reason we run programs like Direct Folders is to tweak things the way we like them. Then to have those tweaks changed without notice is a bit unsettling. I can't remember. Do they have a forum or a contact form on their web site?

1633

General Software Discussion / Re: IMAP Account

« Last post by tinjaw on January 25, 2007, 05:16 AM »

Just FYI, I too have some domains hosted at 1 and 1, an I am pleased with their service.

1634

Official Announcements / UPDATE: Winner of Veign's Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite Announced

« Last post by tinjaw on January 24, 2007, 05:49 PM »

I arrived home today to find my belated X-mas present on my front porch. 

[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]
[attachimg=#2][/attachimg]
[attachimg=#3][/attachimg]
[attachimg=#4][/attachimg]

I keep everybody informed as I use it. I'm so busy these days though, that my first chance probably won't be until this weekend. I am hoping to install Vista on to my notebook. It will be the first time I've ever seen Vista! I never played with any of the preview versions.

1635

General Software Discussion / Re: IMAP Account

« Last post by tinjaw on January 24, 2007, 12:40 PM »

It is not free, but IMNSHO it is well worth it. I have had an email account at Tuffmail for almost a year now and I am very very pleased with the service. The customer service is top notch and all of their services work as advertised. I don't know if it will get you a discount or not, but it wouldn't hurt to email them and tell them that you were referred by one of their existing happy customers. My email address is [email protected].

1636

General Software Discussion / Re: common router firewall outbound settings?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 23, 2007, 11:19 AM »

I know absolutely nothing about System Safety Monitor, but for today only it is free on Giveaway of the Day. It might be worth looking into.

System Safety Monitor (SSM) is a Host Based Intrusion Prevention System which will protect your system from all known and unknown malware, rootkits and “zero-day” attacks.

SSM proactively keeps track of all running programs’ behavior and blocks malicious or suspicious actions.

Learning mode will help you to easily configure the required security rules.

New user friendly GUI design.

Compatible with most of well known security software.

1637

Living Room / Re: How do you spend your time on the computer?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 23, 2007, 11:09 AM »

Wow. This is very difficult for me to answer. The reason being that there isn't enough hard drive space on the DonationCoder.com web server to handle it.  I live and breath computers. I am not exaggerating when I say that I spend 90% or more of my waking hours interacting with a computer an an average day. I have been a computer hobbyist since age 13 and at 39 I have been in the software profession for over 11 years. I live alone spend my off hours in front of the computer. And no, I don't think it's pathetic.

I love computer games. My tastes are wargames and strategy games. I like playing them as well as developing them. I develop software of all kinds from batch/shell scripts to multi-tiered MVC applications. I watch movies and listen to music on my computer. I read books on my computer. I shop online and chat with my friends via IRC and instant messengers. If it there is something I want or need to do and it can be done on the computer, I will probably do it on the computer.

1638

Accessibility Game Contest / Re: --> Results of the Accessibility Game Programming Contest Are Now Posted !!!

« Last post by tinjaw on January 23, 2007, 08:12 AM »

Congratulations to all the winners!

I want to thank DonationCoder.com for organizing and hosting the contest. If it wasn't for this contest I probably would have never attempted such a project, especially in such a short period of time. I found the whole experience very rewarding.

I'd also like to thank Michelle Hinn and the IGDA's Game Accessibility SIG. I learned a great deal about accessible games during this contest. Designing an accessible game is both challenging and extremely rewarding.  Designing Asteroids of Orion to be an accessible game has probably made the game as a whole better than if designed without accessibility in mind. I will be taking Michelle up on the offer to take Asteroids of Orion, and any of my future projects, to a higher level with the help of IGDA's Game Accessibility SIG.

Thank you to the sponsors. I can attest that having such wonderful prizes was a large motivating factor in my participation. I am very pleased with my winnings and plan to make many exciting games with them in the future. The first of which is to be Asteroids of Orion 2!

And to the all the folks on DonationCoder.com forums and #DonationCoder on IRC, I want to thank you for your encouragement and feedback while I worked on the game. It made AoO a better game than it would have been without your contributions.

I also want to thank Garage Games for making Torque Game Builder available through the trial edition. I had never touched TGB before the contest and I had never worked on a 2D game so most of the concepts were foreign to me. However, TGB is so well made that I was able to go from zero to prize winning entry in only three weeks. I was also able to develop the game quickly due to the help of Torsion from Sickhead Games. The added benefits of developing in a IDE with debugging probably made me three or four times more productive that I would have been with TGB alone.

Asteroids of Orion benefited greatly from the excellent artwork of Charles Oines and fellow Donation Coder Hamradio.

And a great big thank you to James Sterrett. When I became aware of the game contest there was only three weeks to the deadline. I had no idea what to build, but knew I could build something if I had a game concept that I could use. I sent out an email to James and he came back with the whole concept of AoO in less than 24 hours. Without James' contribution AoO would have never been made.

Thank you all and I look forward to the next contest. [hint hint]

1639

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Cody Mug for NANY Participants

« Last post by tinjaw on January 22, 2007, 01:40 PM »

He looks like the artist formally known as JPEG. 

1640

General Software Discussion / Re: Direct Folders 3.2, Anyone Have This Version?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 21, 2007, 08:13 PM »

you can change what you view and how you view it. Maybe I am not understanding your desire.

[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

1641

General Software Discussion / Re: common router firewall outbound settings?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 21, 2007, 07:02 PM »

It is the thing that should be covered in a longer article and not a reply posting, but I'll summarize now and can maybe do a follow up piece later.

Firewalls no longer serve the purpose they once did. The used to be useful because:
 1) They blocked sockets connecting from the outside in to your computer. - This used to be a problem because software developers didn't plan for computers being exposed to hostile network traffic. Now days, they have mostly taken this into consideration and no longer open they door unless they are expecting somebody. So firewalls no longer need to stop them from reaching the door.
 2) They blocked malicious software from getting from the inside out. - Malicious software developers assumed that you would let anybody leave that wanted to. So they would freely connect to other computers and do bad things. (see 1 above) So firewalls started blocking things from getting out unless you let them. But then these malicious software developers countered by searching you computers to find out how you get out to surf the net and download your email, and they now pretend to be those types of software and so firewalls let them out.

So firewalls don't really do much these days except allow you to easily illuminate some of the malicious traffic.

If you want to make this easier to handle, set up a SOCKS 5 proxy, put everything you do through it and only let the proxy speak directly to the Net. Then all you need to do is configure the firewall to let only traffic from the proxy out, and only let in the traffic that they proxy has requested.

And that is about it for firewalls. However, these days, firewalls are only a small part of the picture. You need to have a strong HIPS running on each host. And that is the subject best left for another post.

1642

SMF Forum Mods / Re: Ignore User mod

« Last post by tinjaw on January 21, 2007, 06:14 PM »

Hey gri!
      My offer stands.
                If you find the mod
I will give you the donation

p.s. Is Rudolf your alter ego or arch enemy?

1643

Official Announcements / Re: What changes would you like to see on DonationCoder.com in 2007?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 21, 2007, 05:26 PM »

I'd like to see an SMF mod that provide me with an option in my profile to block every posting made by gri and every posting that is a reply to a posting by gri.

*** This is not a joke or a troll ***

I am seriously losing my patience with all of this and I am already visiting DC's forums less often and am starting to think about implementing some filters and not reading the random posts that often unveiled some interesting gem I wouldn't have seen otherwise. This would also mean visiting the forums indirectly via web watcher or some equivalent instead of directly, as I do now.

SO, if there exists a MOD for SMF that allows members to block all posting of chosen member(s), please install it on DC.com.

* update * I will make a donation to anybody who can find such a mod and provide the info to mouser to install it.

1644

Developer's Corner / SQLite Administrator

« Last post by tinjaw on January 21, 2007, 01:06 AM »

I've been working with SQLite the past few days and I needed a GUI administrative tool. Most of them turned out to be US$60-$600. I did find this free gem among them.

SQLite Administrator

SQLite Administrator is a powerful tool if you easily want to create, design or administrate SQLite database files. The SQL code editor helps you to quickly write sql queries with features such as code completion and highlighting. Both major versions of SQLite database files are supported by SQLite Administrator.
Features:

    * Create / Modify / Delete Tables by Wizard
    * Create / Modify / Delete Indices by Wizard
    * Create / Modify / Delete Views by Wizard
    * Create / Modify / Delete Triggers by Wizard
    * SQL Code Completion that supports table aliases
    * SQL Code Highlighting
    * SQL Error Locating
    * Import Data from CSV Files
    * Export Data ( XLS / CSV / HTML / XML )
    * Store User Queries into Database
    * Search for User Queries
    * Store Images into Blob Fields ( JPG / BMP )
    * Show SQL of each Database Item
    * Migrate SQLite2 Databases to SQLite3
    * Try to keep Indices and Triggers after modifying a Table

Supported Languages:

    * German
    * English
    * French - [by Stephane Wierzbicki]
    * Portugues (BR) - [by mamede]
    * Spanish - [by Jenaro Centeno Gómez]
    * Dutch - [by Johan Samyn]
    * Simplified Chinese - [by Zuo Weiming]
    * Russian - [by Ormada]
    * Polish - [by Piotr Drozdowski]
    * Italian - [by Paolo Paniga]
    * Hungarian - [by Zsolt]
    * Norwegian - [by Glenn O Larsen]
    * Turkish - [by Ismail Ata KURT]
    * Czech - [by Robert Hroch]

Supported Operating Systems:

    * Windows 2000
    * Windows XP
    * Windows Vista

[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

1645

General Software Discussion / Re: Direct Folders 3.2, Anyone Have This Version?

« Last post by tinjaw on January 20, 2007, 05:22 PM »

With version 3.21, the author has arbitrarily decided for us that we want the tree view shown in explorer every time a window is opened from the menu.

-Nighted (December 21, 2006, 09:11 AM)

Are you aware that you can bring up the Direct Folders Configuration window and go to the Applications tab and change the setting on a per application basis? I think all he need to do is allow you do set a default for apps as they are added.

1646

General Software Discussion / Re: Request for Suggestions: Web-based (PHP) Help Desk / FAQ / Feedback Scripts

« Last post by tinjaw on January 20, 2007, 11:23 AM »

If I had more time I would travel down Google's rabbit hole on this topic. But, alas, I do not have the time. 

1647

Developer's Corner / Microsoft Log Parser 2.2

« Last post by tinjaw on January 19, 2007, 12:08 PM »

I rolled upon this today and tucked it away for a rainy day. It looks like it could be an easy way to add some powerful log creation and parsing capabilities to Windows apps.

Log parser is a powerful, versatile tool that provides universal query access to text-based data such as log files, XML files and CSV files, as well as key data sources on the Windows® operating system such as the Event Log, the Registry, the file system, and Active Directory®.  You tell Log Parser what information you need and how you want it processed. The results of your query can be custom-formatted in text based output, or they can be persisted to more specialty targets like SQL, SYSLOG, or a chart.  Most software is designed to accomplish a limited number of specific tasks. Log Parser is different... the number of ways it can be used is limited only by the needs and imagination of the user.  The world is your database with Log Parser.

The Unofficial Log Parser Support Site
[attachimg=#1][/attachimg]

1648

Developer's Corner / Re: Need Inno Setup Advice

« Last post by tinjaw on January 18, 2007, 08:43 PM »

I don't have Inno installed, nor have I ever used it, but let me make some guesses.

[Select]

Root: HKCR; Subkey: ".crf"; ValueType: string; ValueName: ""; ValueData: "crocuscontactsresfile"; Flags: uninsdeletevalue

since you use "crocuscontactsresfile", my guess is that the Subkey in the next one should be the same, "crocuscontactsresfile".

[Select]

Root: HKCR; Subkey: "Crocus Contacts Resource File"; ValueType: string; ValueName: ""; ValueData: "Crocus Contacts Resource File"; Flags: uninsdeletekey

1649

N.A.N.Y. Challenge 2007 / Re: Cody Mug for NANY Participants

« Last post by tinjaw on January 18, 2007, 01:00 PM »

I think he's talking about the one behind you at work.  Nice!

-Veign (January 18, 2007, 12:34 PM)

That's a double yeppers affirmative! 

1650

Developer's Corner / Re: XNA Magic

« Last post by tinjaw on January 18, 2007, 12:22 PM »

Unfortunately it is a mater of economics. There is very little money to be made selling Mac or Linux games. Now, that isn't, in and of itself, a reason to make your game engine Windows only. But, if there are features that you can add to make the game engine better that would require different codebases for different platforms, then you only do it for Windows because you probably can't get your money back on the Mac or Linux codebase. Cross-platform engines are nice, but they often result in less than optimal performance on every one of those platforms. So, open source will probably be the primary source of cross-platform game engines for the foreseeable future.