Recent Posts

18101

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Hotkey commnads via icons

« Last post by mouser on October 14, 2009, 11:03 AM »

Isn't it easier to press win+s compared to moving your mouse to the toolbar and clicking on a button?

it might be faster to do that -- but if you read his post he basically says he has lots hotkeys and would prefer a visual representation of icons to click instead of having to remember which keys to hit to do what, which makes sense to me.

although i could add support to LBC to send hotkey stuff, i think Perry's suggestion is the best -- download AutoHotkey and write very simple scripts in that, which will allow you to trigger hotkeys but also do all kinds of other stuff easily.

18102

General Software Discussion / Re: 10/GUI

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 11:52 PM »

So for me this concept video is trying to solve a problem I don't have

i think that mostly sums up my feeling as well.

18103

Living Room / Re: NEW Cody wallpapers for Halloween

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 09:24 PM »

i would live to see a really intricate big design for a tshirt for this years nany -- something that people would be dying to wear.

18104

Living Room / Re: NEW Cody wallpapers for Halloween

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 08:39 PM »

cant we use the ones from before -- there's no point making new ones.. let's save nudone's skills for when we really need a new image, like the upcoming NANY event.

18105

General Software Discussion / Re: Something I don't get about Search Engines...

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 07:27 PM »

i'm just thrilled that Paul wrote a short post, and i can understand it as well!

i don't really know the answer, but if i had to guess.. i would indeed guess that it was mostly about advertising dollars and the money behind the efforts that governs how well they scale and can be kept up to date.

18106

General Software Discussion / Re: 10/GUI

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 12:15 PM »

Here's the website for the psp one: http://www.jjs.at/software/pspdisp.html

it has a more updated video which is extremely impressive.

18107

General Software Discussion / Re: 10/GUI

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 12:08 PM »

wow.. that's pretty cool.

18108

General Software Discussion / Re: 10/GUI

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 11:30 AM »

very good point Mark0!
let's take it one step further -- what about using a portable tablet pc as a second monitor as a custom-overlayed graphic touchpad.
that's actually a VERY good idea.

18109

General Software Discussion / Re: 10/GUI

« Last post by mouser on October 13, 2009, 11:18 AM »

i think most of the stuff in the 2nd half of the 10gui video is a step backward -- at least the software part.

i think 40hz's old startrek picture does point the way to the future -- customized input pads tailored to the application you are working on.

so many of these new futuristic desktop managers try to come up with ways one can live inside a desktop of multiple windows -- zoom around, pan and scroll, flip through, 3d navigate, etc.   but isn't the truth that this kind of navigation is all completely counter productive.  as soon as you have more than a few windows, that are designed to be run fullscreen, open at a time, you dont ever want to be "navigating" around these in some active way that requires animations and movement.  at that point you've basically lost the game.

i think it would be more productive to have a kind of predictable input layout map like the above, which showed a map of common applications, with the ones *currently running* lit up like on a display panel, with a press to activate full screen.  any time you have to do some animation (such as dragging and panning) to see what it running, you've lost the game in my opinion.

another thing to think about, at least from my experience, is that multiple monitors solves this issue with switching between running applications -- far better to have 4 monitors for 4 full screen applications.  if you find yourself running more than 4 or 5 fullscreen big applications at a time, you're already in trouble.

18110

Living Room / Re: RobotWar and the Army of Clones

« Last post by mouser on October 12, 2009, 09:26 PM »

 

18111

Find And Run Robot / Re: Calc missing?

« Last post by mouser on October 12, 2009, 12:09 PM »

it's been replaced by 2 more powerful plugins:

• fcalc - https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=8769.0 - more minimalistic
• jscalc in czb pack - https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=17153.0 - html display based, supports customizable functions

18112

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: AMPL [updated to version 0.6.1]

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 11:01 PM »

i think you hit the nail on the head about everything..

new files work great -- created a new script using macro recorder, worked like a wonderful charm. 

the new RECORD main option works amazingly.. creates a new macro script without even having to go into advanced stuff!

if one invokes the macro recorded from normal AMPL script it still requires manuall copy and paste right? might be nice to fix that too.

one problem i had was that when i tried to edit my recorded macro, the changes didnt seem to be saved.  i clicked save to file, SEEMED to save, but the changes never go into the file.  if i run it or edit it my changed version is reverted to original recording.

18113

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: AMPL [updated to version 0.6.1]

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 10:45 PM »

no need to apologize -- i'm happy to help test.
when one clicks on a menu item and it sets the text, i think you may want a space at the end, so if setting "amn" in search box you really want "amn " so that the other results are excluded because of regular expression match..  FARR normally may remove the extra space -- if so use \s instead of a space at the end.

18114

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: AMPL [updated to version 0.6.1]

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 07:05 PM »

i dont think it saved my ahk directory when i initially specified it.. in options it had G:\
maybe that was the cause of the problems.. trying to set it in options now and trying again.. nope.

18115

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: AMPL [updated to version 0.6.1]

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 07:04 PM »

when i try to "record" nothing happened.. first time i tried i think it opened up the recorder script itself which i didn't understand.

18116

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: AMPL [updated to version 0.6.1]

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 07:02 PM »

one error i get when trying to make a new script is:
---------------------------
ScriptEditor.ahk
---------------------------
#Include file "E:\MyDocs\Programming\CodeGear\FindAndRunRobot\Plugins\AMPL\ScriptEditor\includes\Plugins.ahk" cannot be opened.

18117

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: FARR Plugin: AMPL [updated to version 0.6.1]

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 05:58 PM »

im getting confused by the latest version.. having a bit of a hard time figuring out what to do.

18118

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 05:15 PM »

This url doesn't really contain much substance but it is related to everyone's many post here: [url=http://holykaw.alltop.com/bad-reviews-boost-business-sales]Bad Reviews Boost Business Sales

-Paul Keith (October 11, 2009, 03:58 PM)

I strongly suspect that this statement is very misleading.  A more accurate way of phrasing it is probably that: Having a majority of good reviews and a policy that makes clear they are an honest collection of reviews that discuss pros and cons is good for sales.

Having mostly bad reviews seems almost certain to doom sales.

18119

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 41-09

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 05:12 PM »

#5 would be wonderful if it holds up -- it seems grossly unfair to me that you can't sell software 2nd hand the way you can anything else you buy outright.

18120

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

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 11:03 AM »

I hope you guys appreciate how much work I put into sneaking these typos in my posts just so you'll have some material to work with.

18121

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by mouser on October 11, 2009, 12:49 AM »

Interesting link mouser. Could you clarify what the difference is between information cascade and say...social conformity?

i think the key difference would be that the concept of an information cascade seems to focus on the idea that the groups preferences and choices affect the information that others are exposed to, which can create a kind of feedback loop.  as an example imagine a voting site where the top rated movies are pushed to the top of the list of recommended movies, where they tend to accrue more watchers, and then more voters, etc., and essentially get stuck in a positive feedback loop and never leave the top position.  It's not that anyone is conforming to the crowd, consciously or subconsciously, it's that the system kind of gets stuck in a very small region of the possible space of choices.

keep in mind this is not my research area at all so i'm just relaying my casual understanding of the idea -- others can correct me.


people have leveled serious criticisms of sites like digg on the grounds that they are highly influenced in a counter-productive way by information cascades.

18122

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

« Last post by mouser on October 10, 2009, 10:21 PM »

do we need a theme this year? having a theme hasnt really worked out in the paste, but it's worth asking again.

18123

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by mouser on October 10, 2009, 09:38 PM »

but when 100 people, who may be anonymous, repeatedly say negative things about a product it is more likely it's true.

Tons of research backs up the phenomena you are describing very strongly -- the more you hear something asserted, the more you are likely to believe it.

And i think something needs to be said about this, and this gets back to the reputation issue raised by others.

One of the reasons why companies and politicians pour money into making sure the same sound bites and assertions are fed into your ears over and over and over is to exploit the brain's tendency to believe something when it is repeated often enough.

I think one of the dangers of the increasing ubiquity of cloud/social networking sites and crown opinions, is the potential for companies to exploit this kind of thing in producing under-the-radar campaigns against competitors and to promote their own products.

Even absent these kinds of paid campaigns, there is a whole field of research on what DC member alex3f calls "information cascades" where you get a kind of arbitrary snowball effect of crowd opinions that can lead to some very misleading group preferences.

18124

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by mouser on October 10, 2009, 08:56 PM »

getting back to the original question..

just some quick thoughts:

I can see why someone running a business or website with a forum could be concerned about abusively critical posts; I think one has to remember that the majority of people reading posts on a forum are not long term readers who will take the time to read everything and educate themselves, so there is the very real fear that some new person will find such posts (especially through a search) and make a very negative snap judgement.  And of course this issue becomes much more real if you have someone with a grudge determined to exploit these facts and trying to harm your reputation.

However, the idea of removing normal honest negative criticism is essentially declaring that the forum is not a place for open discussion of benefits and weaknesses.  It is declaring that if people want honest balanced discussion of your product or ideas, they will have to go elsewhere.  And it puts on notice anyone who might otherwise be a long term participant, that this forum is *not* a place where they can express dissenting views freely.

Now such a forum may still serve a useful purpose -- such as to provide tech or sales support.  It's just not going to be a very interesting community forum, and shouldn't be presented as such.

Life is much more interesting if you let people speak their mind and disagree with you, and let a forum be a place of record to share different views.  It's true that sometimes the cost for this is a bit of occasional vitriol and something that could scare off a random drive-by reader, but that's life.  And rather than see such threads as things to be deleted and hidden, it seems to me far better to treat them as opportunities to reassert the value of open discourse.

18125

General Software Discussion / Re: On free speech in forums

« Last post by mouser on October 10, 2009, 08:43 PM »

It is one thing to realize a fault in human character (a lot of people won't behave fairly if they don't have to, but have something to gain). It is a completely different thing however to espouse and promote unfair behavior as the basis on which to build your life or your business.

well said.