Recent Posts

226

General Software Discussion / Re: Tuesday's online debate: Windows Right vs. Windows Wrong

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 01:16 PM »

Does Ed Bott use his computer for anything other than browsing the net. No one that uses Windows "seriously" is going to say Windows 8 is the right direction - not unless Windows 8 is released with the ability to completely disable "Metro". What utter rubbish.

227

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 12:37 PM »

Normally, I wouldn't have thought much about it, but I've a MS Sidewinder keyboard and this has illuminated keys - red being the only choice (though there are orange ones on the macro keys).

So, as the MIMO is placed at the top of the keyboard, it would be nice to have a similar "red" theme for the buttons. It's a minor thing but I think will just make the desk look a bit nicer.

Here's what I meant (though, I think you understand now by the sounds of it).


All red borders.


Mainly red borders with a single button different.

228

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 10:47 AM »

Oh right. Just thought it would be something to do with autoit. If it's not possible/simple then I'll just create a series of buttons that use graphic files instead.

Changing the background colour is a bit too much really, the 1px width border lines are minimal enough to be noticeable without being too distracting.

229

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 08:10 AM »

When using the default buttons (without any icons or bitmaps) I have a thin, 1 pixel width, blue border around each button. They are always blue.

I just wondered if it was possible to change the blue to another colour, preferably from within WinButtonsEdit. Doing it globally for all buttons would be good but it would nicer if individual buttons could have this blue border changed too.

In other words, currently, the default WinButton button border colour appears to be blue. I'd like to make it red. And then have a few specific buttons with their own individual border colour, i.e. not the global default colour.

So, I'm not referring to the overall background colour, just each individual button's border.

230

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 07:05 AM »

Ath, is it possible to change the colour of the button borders?

Maybe just as a global thing or, if possible, global AND individual buttons.

231

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 05:30 AM »

Just to confuse matters, or maybe even clarify them, I've just rebooted and the MIMO was recognised correctly during startup. This appears to be because I've disconnected an external USB hard drive - which I can leave unplugged until I really need it.

Ath, as for the speed of boot process it, takes quite a while on my machine so I've not noticed if the driver has slowed things down or not. It seems about the same, i.e. it hasn't become dramatically slower.

232

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 03:28 AM »

Just thought I'd mention that using the latest drivers for the MIMO make no difference to my boot problems. The touchscreen is recognised after the driver is first installed and the machine rebooted but rebooting after that and the screen pretends it isn't connected. Which means I have to boot up without the screen attached - then plug it in.

Not too inconvenient I admit but I'll add this problem to the list of why touchscreens are still completely useless for wide appeal.

233

Living Room / Re: Samsung hard drives - don't buy them unless you like subliminal mental torture

« Last post by nudone on September 20, 2011, 02:41 AM »

Oh yes, the saga continues... but I'll keep it brief.

I've just put an (oldish) 250 gig Samsung hard drive into another computer as a secondary (backup) drive. And now there's the very same horrible humming noise coming from the tower.

I haven't time to reposition the drive(s) at the moment. So, I shall just have to live with the hard drive curse someone has obviously put upon me. Thank you very much whoever you are, I'm sure I deserve it (in your sick and twisted mind).

234

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Fast boot time ? Check this out...

« Last post by nudone on September 19, 2011, 11:56 AM »

Just imagine the number of "apps" that are going to be created just to make Windows H8 look and function like a proper Windows 7 desktop with start menu. There's an instant market there just waiting...

235

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Fast boot time ? Check this out...

« Last post by nudone on September 18, 2011, 05:14 PM »

So far then, living up to the Windows H8 moniker perfectly.

236

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA ~ Show List of Shortcuts overlaid on Desktop

« Last post by nudone on September 16, 2011, 05:06 AM »

There's a free desktop note program that can associate specific notes to an application, as can notezilla, I think I may have used another free one too...

...the problem is I'm away from my work computer for a few more days and can't remember what they are called.

The associated note could also hide itself when the app was minimised, so it behaved like an extension of the main app; cleverly only being visible when you really wanted it. Several apps could be linked to a single note too.

But, having seen the number of reminders tomos wants to have visible, it looks like a note wouldn't be appropriate. Something more suitable for easy scrolling perhaps? Which sounds like Cheat Sheeter again.

Edit:
I think this is the one I used, can't test it here as I'm on an iPad.

http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/

237

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA ~ Show List of Shortcuts overlaid on Desktop

« Last post by nudone on September 15, 2011, 04:55 PM »

Cheat sheeter, oh yes; definitely worth a nany revival.

238

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA ~ Show List of Shortcuts overlaid on Desktop

« Last post by nudone on September 15, 2011, 04:45 PM »

At the risk of being a bore, what you have in those screen grabs could easily be done with free desktop post-it note type programs - that's what they are made for.

E.g. Frameless transparent rectangles can easily be done with atnotes.

239

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA ~ Show List of Shortcuts overlaid on Desktop

« Last post by nudone on September 15, 2011, 02:17 PM »

This won't be of great help but your request is very similar to an old problem we were discussing on DC. Mouser even started to put a solution together and now I can't remember what it was called - maybe it would be overkill anyway.

A similar solution I've tried myself is to use one of the desktop post-it note like programs. There are ones that will do transparency, always on-top, and also "stick" to a specific window or program. With all those features you can then create shortcut reminders (in a note) that will only appear when the related program is running. Or just have the note visible on the desktop at all times. (This applies to several notes too, of course.)

Mouser's Desktopcoral could also help probably. That could clear space at the side of the screen.

240

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 15, 2011, 11:05 AM »

I'll be honest and admit I didn't try the latest drivers; I'll try them when I get back.

Is anyone using the mimo with win7 64 bit? Just wondering if that's going to be a problem when I move from 32 bit.

241

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 14, 2011, 02:17 PM »

Oh dear. Hopefully just a "typical" driver issue. I have faith you'll get it to work, just not in the straightforward way we'd all expect. (Like I mentioned before, I have to connect the mimo after everything else has finished loading in - but I'm sure this wasn't the case with the mymo - that just worked, but the software wasn't so good; which might not matter anyway now that Ath has modified things since.)

242

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 8 Fast boot time ? Check this out...

« Last post by nudone on September 13, 2011, 10:01 AM »

Carol put it in context. They can make it boot instantly but if it's still going take another five minutes for the background tasks to load in, then so what.

The primary reason I've soiled myself with this iPad is because it's instant on AND instant wi-fi connected. Windows needs something similar, just the essentials on and ready instantly - the non essential stuff loading in whilst you've already opened your browser and getting on with stuff.

Maybe that's what win8 does?

243

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: On Screen Button That Sends Keyboard Commands

« Last post by nudone on September 11, 2011, 12:48 PM »

Marvellous.

One main feature I've been meaning to request is a button "state" toggle, i.e. when you hit a button it then changes appearance, which means it could change background and/or text colour OR the button image file.

As an example: I use the buttons to toggle "modes" or program states in Photoshop like "snap to grid", but I can quickly forget whether I've enabled that mode or not - so a visual cue of the related button being red, for enabled, and black for disabled would be very useful.

Maybe this kind of feature would lead to more confusion, though, as the button wouldn't reflect any program (Photoshop) state changes that were performed via menu commands or keyboard shortcuts.

244

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Pledge & Early Beta: Paste Text Like

« Last post by nudone on September 11, 2011, 04:58 AM »

Sounds like a great idea if it's going to be more friendly for the average user.

One suggestion, if it's even possible, would be to have a preview of how the text will be formatted before it is pasted. In other words, to make it even more intuitive to use.

245

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 09, 2011, 03:20 PM »

Excellent. I'm glad it's working as there were plenty of reasons to think it might not.

Looking forward to see what you come up with. I'm feeling jealous already.

246

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 09, 2011, 01:12 PM »

I've run out of time and hardly had chance to have a proper go at getting WinButtons and the MIMO setup correctly.

I'm now away for 9 days so I'm hoping that by the time I get back Ath will have found every problem there is and resolved them all too

Good luck with it all...

247

General Software Discussion / Re: Building Windows 8: I need longer arms!

« Last post by nudone on September 09, 2011, 10:05 AM »

call it Windows H8.

-Stoic Joker (September 09, 2011, 06:41 AM)

Heheheheh, perfect.

248

Living Room / Re: It's alive, it's alive!!! mwahaha! - WinButtons and 7" touchscreen works

« Last post by nudone on September 09, 2011, 03:47 AM »

Just another "tip" for anyone considering getting a MIMO (or similar).

The problem I mentioned before about the touchscreen not being recognised and having to disconnect and reconnect it several times appear to be related to the boot process.

Maybe there's just too much going on my machine on startup, too many monitors trying to work themselves out or something, who knows.

Anyway, the solution is to leave the touchscreen disconnected until everything else has finished loading in. I would assume this kind of problem won't manifest itself on the vast majority of setups.

249

General Software Discussion / Re: Building Windows 8: I need longer arms!

« Last post by nudone on September 09, 2011, 02:47 AM »

Okay, I've watched the video now and think it looks good, but only from a tablet perspective, makes the iPad look absolute crap in comparison. So, I guess, Microsoft is saying they believe in tablets in a big way and after seeing their new gui I can see why.

But yeah, for a pc and mouse/keyboard, completely pointless - other than to look impressive to mom and pa when they go to the store to buy a new machine.

(My parents still can't use a mouse properly.)

250

General Software Discussion / Re: Building Windows 8: I need longer arms!

« Last post by nudone on September 09, 2011, 02:35 AM »

Isn't windows 8 the mandatory rubbish o/s that microsoft have to release after each decent o/s?

I think we can all safely ignore 8 and just wait for 9 to come along, though, by then, it will be named windows solo or something in an attempt to distance the numbered name 8.

In fact why don't we just call it Windows "Hate" right now as everyone is going to despise it.