Recent Posts

1901

Official Announcements / Re: DC going offline to protest SOPA on Jan 18

« Last post by app103 on January 19, 2012, 03:05 PM »

That would be like opposing a war by signing up to join the military. Or showing your disapproval of McDonald's by having everybody buy a Big Mac with fries and a shake. It just doesn't make sense to me.

-Deozaan (January 17, 2012, 08:18 PM)

No, it's not like that at all.

It's like blacking out your website to display your opposition to a war.

It's like blacking out your website to display your disapproval of McDonalds.

It's a form of civil disobedience, a way to make your point and be heard, a way to make sure every visitor to your website is made aware of the issue.

Why do workers picket in front of a business when they go on strike? Isn't the act of not working good enough to make their point? Why carry signs and chant?

What tools does the internet offer as the most powerful way that a webmaster, blogger, or online community can use to protest and make others aware of their position on an issue? What is the equivalent to a picket line in the online world? What has the maximum impact, can't be overlooked like a banner across the top, can't be missed like a forum post, can't be deleted like an email, can't be ignored?

Yesterday, it was black picket signs that blocked visitors from accessing the content.

1902

General Software Discussion / Re: "Of course you know, this means WAR Gentlemen!" Microsoft makes its move.

« Last post by app103 on January 14, 2012, 10:04 AM »

Another step closer.

1903

Living Room / Re: Sorry, This Post Has Been Censored

« Last post by app103 on January 14, 2012, 02:41 AM »

For anyone looking for an easy way to blackout their blog for the day on the 18th, there are a couple of things available:

A plugin for Wordpress powered sites: http://wordpress.org...ugins/sopa-blackout/

A template made by me for Google Blogger powered sites: http://sopa-blackout...mplate.blogspot.com/
This template preserves your widgets and hides them, so you won't be able to see them even on the Layout page, but when you restore your original template, you will have them all back.

1904

Living Room / Re: I wish I'd had this when I was learning physics

« Last post by app103 on January 13, 2012, 12:37 PM »

I just noticed that there's an updated version of this textbook available.
Go to: MotionMountain

-IainB (January 13, 2012, 03:15 AM)

The captcha there is awful. I must have hit the button for a new captcha about 30 times before I got one that was readable or typable.

1905

Living Room / Re: Planning a major programming project - tips requested

« Last post by app103 on January 13, 2012, 11:44 AM »

Since most of my applications do have a GUI, I begin there, designing it in my head, imagining myself as the user and using the application mentally. When I feel comfortable with the mental image, I begin drawing it on paper, with notes as to what each control will do when activated and other text based notes about its unseen inner workings.

Then before I ever open my IDE, I give a full explanation of my idea to someone else that I consider an experienced coder. I highly recommend mouser's Idea Explosionifier, even if you want to keep things simple. It will help you to avoid coding yourself into a corner if you ever decide to add any of the plethora of additional features he will think up. Be careful though, it's easy to get caught up in the thought that you have to turn your project into the uncodable nightmare that will be produced by the Idea Explosionifier. You don't. You shouldn't. If you even consider trying, you'll just become overwhelmed and get discouraged and not even bother with the project. Just consider the future possibilities and make sure you leave room for adding them.

Then work on the GUI of your app only. Make a screenshot and run it through the Idea Explosionifier again. The results may be very different than before.

If this is going to be a large project, it's likely that the Idea Explosionifier will come up with about 10 years worth of ideas to keep your project alive. 

1906

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by app103 on January 10, 2012, 04:03 AM »

World Science Festival 2009: Notes & Neurons

Is our response to music hard-wired or culturally determined? Is the reaction to rhythm and melody universal or influenced by environment? Join host John Schaefer, scientist Daniel Levitin and musical artist Bobby McFerrin for live performances and cross cultural demonstrations to illustrate musics note-worthy interaction with the brain and our emotions.

Part 1

Full playlist here: http://www.youtube.c...t=PL5BD17DD8540C180B

1907

Living Room / Bipedal Cycling Robot Can Balance, Steer and Correct Itself

« Last post by app103 on January 09, 2012, 05:52 PM »

One very cool little robot!

Robot creator Masahiko Yamaguchi has demonstrated a robot which can balance, steer and correct itself while riding a fixed-gear bike.

"A feature of this robot is, it pedals the bike with its own feet, and keeps its balance just by using the handlebars. I think this is probably a world first."

"I'm interested in artificial intelligence, and in that context, I think intelligence and skills have equal value. So my purpose in creating this robot was to pursue intelligence from the skills side. While I was thinking of suitable topics, my local science museum demonstrated a cycling robot. So I decided to consider cycling as the skill, and build a bicycle robot."

http://www.diginfo.t.../11/11-0247-r-en.php

1908

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: GoogolBar

« Last post by app103 on January 08, 2012, 07:58 PM »

being rewritten or not, I am so pleased to see April writing again ♥♥

-Curt (January 08, 2012, 01:36 PM)

Yeah, I am back to it. Took enough time off and got my head a bit more together. I won't be making any more deskbars though. This is my last one. Too many issues with my base toolbar code that I can't resolve. (I am already working on my next project though.  )

1909

Developer's Corner / Re: Why would brand new software NOT work with Unicode? / Challenges

« Last post by app103 on January 07, 2012, 12:57 AM »

It could be the programming environment you're working in that has very poor unicode support (Delphi, C++ Builder, various scripting languages).

-f0dder (January 05, 2012, 09:30 AM)

Bingo!

* From what I have heard, Windows 98 is still relatively widespread in some countries and unicode support on W9x is problematic.

-vlastimil (January 05, 2012, 09:24 AM)

Bingo again!

A lot of my apps were written while stuck on an old WinME PC.

1910

General Software Discussion / Re: Getting crowdfunding for your project

« Last post by app103 on January 07, 2012, 12:11 AM »

The very talented violinist, Tracy Silverman, is using Kickstarter to fund his next album, rather than signing with a major label and letting them bankroll the project for him.

I wrote about it on my music blog. http://instrumentalu...racy-silvermans.html

Basically, he is asking everyone that is interested in buying his next album to do so in advance, and those funds will be used to produce the album. And if you are feeling really generous and want to throw in more, the more expensive perks would be a dream come true for a real diehard fan, including a violin lesson from him or even a private "house concert".

He has managed to raise about half of what he needs, but only has 17 more days to go to raise the other half.

I am really hoping he makes it. I'd pledge myself, but Kickstarter doesn't accept Paypal. 

1911

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Mugs, etc. -- All participants please read in

« Last post by app103 on January 06, 2012, 11:51 PM »

I still like Finalist best.

-mouser (January 06, 2012, 02:26 PM)

Doesn't finalist by definition imply a yet to be selected winner? It sounds unfinished.

-Stoic Joker (January 06, 2012, 02:45 PM)

Just like we know all good software projects are never finished. Sounds fitting. 

1912

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Release: Uncle Cody's Dice Game

« Last post by app103 on December 31, 2011, 11:33 PM »

Cool game...fun!

But isn't that supposed to be dalmation snakes?

1913

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a universal chat client to embed on a webpage?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 05:15 PM »

Found this one: Livefyre

Real time commenting, voting, ratings, nested replies, media inclusion, and moderation that can be accessible through online or mobile.

Login options are Facebook, Twitter, or Livefyre account.

And there is a free community version good for sites with under 2 million monthly views.

Judging from the comments here, they have a good responsive helpful support staff, too.

1914

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a universal chat client to embed on a webpage?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 05:00 PM »

Who pays for this??

-superboyac (December 29, 2011, 03:57 PM)

CNN, Time, FOX

1915

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a universal chat client to embed on a webpage?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 03:48 PM »

How about Disqus?

Visitors could log in with Disqus, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, OpenID, or just as a guest (with name/email)

It supports most blogging platforms and there is a js widget code for inserting on non-blog pages, which means it will work anywhere.

1916

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a universal chat client to embed on a webpage?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 03:11 PM »

That just displays a feed. What feed would you display in it?

1917

Living Room / Re: A call for cody images - post them here!

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 01:34 PM »

The Great Cody Python Time Machine Incident



I was messing around with some python scripts in Paintshop Pro, testing them out on an image of Cody, when suddenly he turned into an egg with multiple sets of legs. After cleaning up the extra legs, I was left with this.

1918

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a universal chat client to embed on a webpage?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 01:21 PM »

123FlashChat is a chat server that would run on your site, that people can log into with their existing social media accounts. The more people that are logged in, the more of your server's resources and bandwidth would be used.

The twitter option would be much lighter and wouldn't require running a chat server on your site.

Another option could be to embed a friendfeed post into your page. This would allow for real-time conversation right on your page for anyone with a friendfeed account. There wouldn't be a character limit on users for how long their comments could be, either. They could exceed well beyond Twitter's 140 limit. It's kind of like the best features of a chat room combined with the best features of a commenting system.

Here is an example of what it looks like when embedded into a page: http://kochlab.blogs...ding-speed-data.html

And it's pretty simple to do. You just make a short post on friendfeed and then click the share link on it. At the bottom of the popup box will be an embed code to paste into your page.

To make it look better than the example I linked to, don't include an image, just a simple text title for the post and link to the page it will be embedded on. The reason for including the link is because of the nature of friendfeed, where commenting tends to spread the content to a user's friends on the network, who may want to see what they are commenting on and join in on the conversation. (consider it free advertising)

I have also seen this used on a few sites for podcasts to allow live feedback from listeners at the time of the live broadcast, and then left up and open to be added to by those that download the archived version. The nice thing about it is that you get to keep the full history of the conversation embedded into your website and not just the last so many comments.

Twitter isn't very good if you want to keep all the related tweets. They kind of restrict it to the most recent ones, and I think once the tweets are more than a week old, they disappear.

1919

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Smilebox safe?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 12:17 PM »

Is this negative attitude justified?

-dantheman (December 29, 2011, 11:01 AM)

Yes, it is justified. All the negative stuff you have heard about Incredimail is true. Nasty, nasty stuff...a real slimeball company that will do anything for a buck.

And if Smilebox was recently acquired by them, no matter how nice Smilebox might be or might have been before, it's time to ditch it before they add their spyware to it.

I really don't know how good it was, but a quick Google search seems to indicate that it is "self-repairing" and can be difficult to get rid of, no uninstall options or the ones supplied do not work, and it changes your browser's start page to their site without asking permission.

1920

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a universal chat client to embed on a webpage?

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 11:45 AM »

Be careful with something like that. Look over your web hosts TOS and make sure it doesn't forbid running a chat server...many don't allow it.

1921

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 11:29 AM »

This Foundations find has renewed my interest in something from my childhood, which archive.org also has.

When I was a child, I remember sitting with my grandmother listening to CBS's Radio Mystery Theater.

1922

Programmer Libs / Re: Need a noun, a verb, a string array, and a const iterator

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 11:19 AM »

I did one of those a long time ago as one of my first projects in C. It also comes with some advice for new coders, related to creativity and applying what you are learning.

http://appsapps.info/stupidc.php

1923

General Software Discussion / Re: write app tutorial

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 11:12 AM »

I agree. Screenshot Captor is made for that kind of stuff and has some really great tools for adding arrows, text, and other elements to enhance software tutorials.

1924

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« Last post by app103 on December 29, 2011, 02:17 AM »

Speaking of sci/fi writers. I just watched another flick about Philip K. Dick. He was giving this speech in France at some Sci/Fi convention in the early 70's.  The woman who accompanied him is giving an interview about it in the documentary.  She talks about how she wanted to disappear because he was rambling this crazy stuff. But here's the funny part. He was talking about reality just being a computer program and if you get deja vu, it was because somebody changed a variable in the simulation. Everyone is wincing in discomfort at these ravings.  But I'm thinking, he thought of The Matrix 20 years before the Wachowski Brothers. Maybe they even saw the speech and got the idea from him? 

-MilesAhead (December 29, 2011, 12:55 AM)

It's just another angle on the "dollhouse god" concept, where reality is manipulated by some outside force or entity, as if it were nothing more than a child's toy to be played with.

1925

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« Last post by app103 on December 28, 2011, 11:12 PM »

... Firefly TV series .... What feedback do DCF SF fans have about the series?

-IainB (December 28, 2011, 04:13 PM)

It's excellent!  As is the movie Serenity, which wraps up the series.

-AndyM (December 28, 2011, 09:13 PM)

Oh, how I love me a good Space Western. 

Of course how we supposedly got from here to that still confuses me. Strange mix of progress and regression, in which the regression is never fully explained to my satisfaction. I can only reconcile it if I think of it as an alternate time-line in which progress followed a different more steam punk path instead of what it actually did in reality. Or I just try not to think about it too much.