Recent Posts

23351

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launch "ALL" items shortcut not working

« Last post by mouser on May 18, 2008, 09:27 AM »

i'll look into it.. my memory is i might have changed the shortcut to launch all but i can't remember.

23352

General Software Discussion / Re: Website Watcher - Administrator Privilege?...

« Last post by mouser on May 18, 2008, 09:25 AM »

don't all installers need admin rights to create stuff in the Program Files directory? it's just that vista automatically elevates installer programs silently.

unless we are talking about a portable version, which really shouldn't need an installer at all.

23353

General Software Discussion / Re: Mind-Mapping Software

« Last post by mouser on May 18, 2008, 09:24 AM »

vic is that your website? very cool if so!

23354

Find And Run Robot / Re: Report Columns Feature Request

« Last post by mouser on May 17, 2008, 03:17 PM »

Interesting ideas and they make some sense.
Let me get this next release out the door with all these plugin api enhancements and bug fixes and then we can return to this issue.

23355

Developer's Corner / Re: Forking in Open Source Projects - Debate

« Last post by mouser on May 17, 2008, 03:03 PM »

Just to clarify my position: I don't believe that forks are always bad -- I can think of cases where a coder or subgroup wants some substantial stuff added that everyone agrees should not be part of the original project, and almost everyone agrees that it would be more fruitful for it to fork off into two projects with separate aims.

So I'm not against forking per se, I just feel like the potential of forking to dilute the pool of coders working on the project is high.  And that there is a substantial risk of major headaches for maintainers and users if someone decides to fork a project for their own selfish reasons and decides it's in their self interest to promote their fork and compete with the original active project for resources and attention.  I understand this is an unlikely/worst case, but then again so is the prospect of the original maintainer refusing to incorporate reasonable code.

That's why i was considering a license which gives the current maintainer of an active project some control over when and hot to allow forks.  However, I do recognize that in terms of a free software philosophy, this is problematic because it means closing the safety valve that is always available otherwise with forking.  So I'm not sure what the best solution is..

23356

UrlSnooper / YouTube Tutorial on UrlSnooper and Live TV Streaming with VLC Media Player

« Last post by mouser on May 17, 2008, 02:58 AM »

People often get confused about how to use UrlSnooper.  Here's a good video tutorial introduction to its use that I found on YouTube:



http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=rsoBpo92-50

23357

Living Room / Re: Pirating abandoned content?

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 11:12 PM »

 


edit: someone messaged me asking if the smilie meant that i really got upset about the posts teasing me.  it takes a lot more than that to offend me, i was just playing along with the funny joke.

23358

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 08:37 PM »

cathodera and wreckedcarzz you should probably have individual support discussions in private messages.

23359

General Software Discussion / Re: Need system registry software.

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 08:33 PM »

Did you follow up with ParetoLogic?

Yes, and I posted their reply here:
https://www.donation....msg112931#msg112931

23360

Living Room / Re: Registry hack needed: Full date in the tray clock

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 08:19 PM »

I tried and liked 1st clock as well, and mentioned it in my thread here:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=11562.0

It was the only other tray clock i found which supported winx64 until i found the free and great t-clock.

23361

Developer's Corner / Re: Forking in Open Source Projects - Debate

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 08:16 PM »

Nice find Deozaan, that gets a little closer to my interests.

23362

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Post your FARR v2 Plugin Idea Requests Here - Plugin Writers Read In

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 07:57 PM »

How about a plugin to work with "Remember the Milk":
http://www.remembert...lk.com/services/api/

It's a web service that lets you set up reminders to yourself that will be emailed or sms'd to you, etc.

Similar: http://iwantsandy.com/

23363

Developer's Corner / Re: Forking in Open Source Projects - Debate

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 07:22 PM »

Out of curiosity, does anyone know of any licenses that forbid forking and or distribution, but make the software sourcecode available for individual modification/examination?

23364

Developer's Corner / Re: Forking in Open Source Projects - Debate

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 07:21 PM »

you're right, i suppose the restrictions i was/am considering are not compliant with the Open Source Initiative definition.

23365

Living Room / Re: Online Game: Kingdom of Loathing

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 06:17 PM »

very clever and funny 

23366

Developer's Corner / Re: Forking in Open Source Projects - Debate

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 05:56 PM »

Well my life experience has led me to be skeptical about *totally* decentralized community projects.  I think that most of the time you need some kind of loose hierarchy, someone responsible for making ultimate decisions, or riding heard, or just making sure deadlines are met and quality control is reasonable, etc.

I'm also an extremely non-competitive person, and i hate the idea of different groups working on the same project but at cross-purposes and on incompatible solutions.  I understand the motivation for forking off a project, but in practice it seems to me like an absolute last resort -- much better that the people find a way to come together and team up and pool their efforts.  To me forking seems like an admission of failure and discord, and promises to split apart teams and developers.

Maybe if you have an abundance of developers and want to take the product in two completely different directions it would make a little more sense, but it just breaks my heart a little to think of the loss of productivity that would have been gained if the teams could have worked together on a common project.

The other issue i have has to do with giving due credit and control to the founders of a project.  The original issue of forking came up when i was telling gothi[c] about an idea i was playing around with about me doing more open source software for DC, and thinking about ways that could be done while still encouraging (or at least not discouraging donations).  One issue that troubles me with open source is that idea that someone could spent 10 years on a project, pour their heart into it, and then have some greedy person come by and add a new logo to it and fork off a new project and try to capture the user base with marketing money, etc.

So i was thinking about the possibility of an open source license that gave more control to the original coder(s). Like letting anyone modify the code for their own personal use, but giving the original coder(s) final say whether a given fork was allowed, final say about whether other distribution methods were allowed, etc., and various other things that would just in general give the author more control over the *public* evolution of the software.

23367

Living Room / Re: Pirating abandoned content?

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 05:43 PM »

Some people for whatever reason collect, & they will collect & collect until they can't any longer. Not as much going on now-a-days, but it happens. No rhyme, reason, or ethics aside from feeling that since it isn't used, just collected, no harm done.

Many people just cannot afford - period. Morals, ethics, none of that makes much difference - is more a luxury of those who have the good luck to spare the time debating it. They are not themselves harming anyone if they read a pirated book, or run a pirated/cracked version of Windows - they can not buy it - there is no choice. Trying to tell them that they do not deserve even such minimal benefit from technology, when they hardly stole supper off anyone's plate, is both insulting and irrelevant.

i tend to agree with you there, at least in my gut i do.

23368

Living Room / Re: Pirating abandoned content?

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 05:38 PM »

iphigenie's points remind me of a very important long term theoretical issue:
even if piracy does not in any way hurt the company whose product is being pirated -- it may end up subtlety damaging the free/open source community, by decreasing the demand and support for free/open source alternatives.

it could even turn out that a certain amount of piracy would be tolerated specifically because it prevents the demand for free/open source alternatives from reaching a critical mass.  that's a scary though.

23369

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 04:23 PM »

 

23370

Living Room / Re: PIN-code

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 03:45 PM »

It's scientifically proven/accepted that humans remember a sequence of somewhere between 7-10 "things"

Actually it's 7 plus or minus 2.

23371

BrowserTraySwitch / Re: Firefox 3 + IE6

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 03:43 PM »

it's insane how many different ways there are to mess with the default browser. it's ridiculous.
ok what i need you to do for me is install a registry snapshot-compare tool, and compare your registry when IE is default vs when FF3 is default -- that will tell me which registry entries are changed and i can add support in browsertrayswitch to make those changes.

23372

General Software Discussion / Re: Need system registry software.

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 03:41 PM »

let's wait and see if they are ridiculous enough to try it even with us talking about it -- it may shed light about whether its a bot script doing it or a real person.

23373

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Google Translation Plugin

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 03:40 PM »

yes, that's been suggested, and i will add code to do that.  it's already done partly like that now, but not completely for all plugins.

23374

Living Room / Re: What video player plays audio clearly when video is sped up?

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 02:37 PM »

great question.

23375

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: New FARR Plugin: FCalc

« Last post by mouser on May 16, 2008, 02:34 PM »

you can do this already, and quite easily, using aliases and the dosearch special alias action.
you just need to make an alias that matches on mathematical expressions with the result "dosearch fc $$1"
i think actually joto did something like this already, maybe he will post.

ps.
i have already built a slightly improved version of FC with some new features -- it will be released when i release the new FARR version soon.