Recent Posts

18176

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: idea: FARR plugin school / tutorial / wiki

« Last post by mouser on October 01, 2009, 10:00 AM »

Ah: Did that happen without me realizing?

yes.

18177

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: idea: FARR plugin school / tutorial / wiki

« Last post by mouser on October 01, 2009, 09:32 AM »

no -- i need to promote you to the Editor group before you can edit pages.  phitsc you have been promoted.

18178

Living Room / Re: RobotWar and the Army of Clones

« Last post by mouser on October 01, 2009, 01:14 AM »

well i wasn't objecting to the concept in general, just thought it was outside the scope of that project. 

18179

Coding Snacks / Re: Combining 2 or more DC codes to work together

« Last post by mouser on October 01, 2009, 12:38 AM »

That's very clever actually.
[My Toshiba laptop has something like this included in a proprietary utility -- and there may be other free tools designed specifically for this].

I wonder if it's worth combining the two utilities into one, and including some more options that could do things like change the wallpaper color to help identify the current mode.

18180

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: idea: FARR plugin school / tutorial / wiki

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 09:14 PM »

where are all you wiki lovers!!!
come help us fill in the farr plugins/aliases table please -- especially those of you who have written alias packs and plugins!

18181

Living Room / Re: RobotWar and the Army of Clones

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 07:57 PM »

I am really feeling an itch to get into coding little robots for a pretend war game.. does someone on DC feel like coding us an online game?
i don't mean a direct clone of RobotWar.. but something unique that involves writing robot programs and having them fight it out.

18182

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 05:07 PM »

rather than take bets -- it might be more helpful for all to say that in one year you will make a post about OpenCandy -- either praising them if they stayed true to their promise, or against them if they turned rogue.

18183

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is OpenCandy?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 05:06 PM »

nice to hear it 

18184

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody with Ampa... and time to move on.

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 04:04 PM »

hahahahahaah great great great stuff.  

18185

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 01:27 PM »

i think another important psychological motivation for having all this on a laptop that i can quickly turn on and off, is similar to the motivation in having a small desk somewhere in your house where you go sit and pay bills -- which many people have.

i'm just thinking that it can serve to separate the activity mentally, so that when it's time to go pay bills i physically go over to the secure laptop, do that, close it and get back to regular work.  there may be a psychological advantage to making the two activities physically separate.

18186

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 01:24 PM »

I actually do the exact opposit; I maintain a secure network (domain), no one touches my primary machine, and anything questionable I need to do is done on a throw-away VM that I always keep running (usually minimized).

this is a reasonable idea too -- and i considered it.  but while i am paranoid about what software i install on my main pc, i still do a ton of web browsing from my main pc, so it seems to me that is where i fear the unknown risk factor comes in.  so unless i'm prepared to do all web browsing from a virtual pc and not my main OS, i need the sensitive stuff to be elsewhere.

18187

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Discover new places with Plarker

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 01:13 PM »

Very cool -- I love the idea.
I think we should be the first to add Plarker fields to the user profiles on the DC forum.

18188

Developer's Corner / essay on artists asking for support: why i am not afraid to take your money

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 12:03 PM »

Very interesting essay and relevant to donationware ideas..

i was writing a press release and in it disclosed how much money i made from the recent london webcast (about 10k). i gave a copy of the text to jason to proofread over a cup of tea (that’s what rock stars do for each other nowadays instead of leaving lines of blow on the backs of bathroom toilets). he suggested taking the money part out. he gently advised; he’s heard people gossiping about me and my shameless revelations about my webcast/twitter income etc.

right around the same time i got an email from beth, regarding the future of my webcasting.. she suggested we do something totally free and not ask people for any money.. she’s been picking up on heat from people that the ask-the-fans-for-money thing has gotten out of control.

artists used to rely on middlemen to collect their money on their behalf, thereby rendering themselves innocent of cash-handling in the public eye. artists will now be coming straight to you (yes YOU, you who want their music, their films, their books) for their paychecks. please welcome them. please help them. please do not make them feel badly about asking you directly for money. dead serious: this is the way shit is going to work from now on and it will work best if we all embrace it and don’t fight it.

http://blog.amandapa...your-money-by-amanda

from http://www.boingboing.net/

18189

Screenshot Captor / Re: Request : "ESC" key to abort all screenshot capturing

« Last post by mouser on September 30, 2009, 11:55 AM »

agreed -- i'll put this higher on my todo list.

18190

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2009, 10:03 PM »

that is cool.

18191

Living Room / Flash Tower Defense Game of the Week: When Penguins Attack TD

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2009, 07:37 PM »

Here's a fun, well animated, tricky tower defense game, with the ability to impede enemy movement.  Definitely worth a try.

http://www.freeworld...penguinsattacktd.htm

from http://flash.plasticthinking.org/

18192

Find And Run Robot / Re: Fast Keystroke Freezes Up FARR

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2009, 07:18 PM »

ok ill tell you what, it seems like it's happening enough that it would be useful for me to send you a debug version to try and send me info when it happens again.

18193

Find And Run Robot / Re: Fast Keystroke Freezes Up FARR

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2009, 05:54 PM »

if you let it take some time does it wake up?
it sounds like it might be this same issue of drives being asleep?

18194

Finished Programs / Re: SuperClick

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2009, 12:14 PM »

hey i can see how that would be useful 

18195

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2009, 12:06 PM »

Thanks for all the great suggestions -- I hoped this thread would be useful to others as well who might be considering a similar idea.

Let me help rule out some of the possible suggestions based on my experiences.

While I love the idea of swappable/switchable hard drives and use them for my external usb backup storage, I don't think this is a viable option for what I want here -- nor is a bootable cd/usb.

The reason is simple -- I don't want to have to turn off my main pc that I am working on -- and I have to be able to quickly turn on this other pc (whether virtual or real).

The virtual machine approach is still very much in consideration -- as it offers a good combination of secure isolation, and quick resume/sleep.  It also allows very quick backup/restore.

18196

General Software Discussion / Re: Godin: the end of dumb software

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2009, 07:06 PM »

Godin lists several examples of "dumb" software in his post.

I divide this list of examples into two categories:

• Category 1 contains things he thinks the software should do differently which would suit him (and maybe everyone) better -- like presenting a certain list in chronological order.  These are not really controversial requests, simply things that may be less or more difficult to implement.
• Category 2 contains things he wants the software to *INTUIT* based on his use of the program -- and these are what i think of when i hear people complaining that programs should be "smarter".  They are also the things I was arguing against doing (like "guessing" whether an appointment time is likely to be am/pm without the user having to specify.

18197

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2009, 04:41 PM »

well what i was thinking in general is, if you have a laptop that you essentially never reboot -- ie you always close to standby and wake from standby (for quick access), then essentially any hard drive encryption that is unlocked at boot time is going to be mostly useless if your laptop is stolen and they dont reboot it, but merely resume from standby.

18198

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: hamNotes (A FARR2 Plugin by hamradio)

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2009, 12:19 PM »

i like that it's simple plain text -- keep hamnotes minimalistic, for simple and fast stuff -- leave the formatted text for the serious standalone note taking tools.

18199

General Software Discussion / Re: For those who write articles on CMS, a question.

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2009, 12:16 PM »

afraid not.. though i think it's really time for me to write a follow up to my 1yr report article about DonationCoder ( which i link to every chance i get, since i'm the only one who will ).

18200

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a sound effects generator

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2009, 12:00 PM »

i seem to remember a dc coder making a sound effect tool.. but i can't remember at the moment where..