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2401

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Super Flexible File Synchronizer Mini-Review

« Last post by superboyac on August 18, 2011, 11:02 AM »

With version 5.49/a I had a problem with the "Background Scheduler" on two different machines (XP & Win7). It didnt start with windows/login as it should. There has been updates since which may have resolved this, but apparently the best thing to do (for those not in the know) is to install the "Service Scheduler".
Details here
http://superflexible.com/docup.htm

-tomos (August 18, 2011, 10:25 AM)

Interesting.  I know in the older versions, there was some complicated setup of the service installation vs background running, etc.  In the newer version, it seemed to be simplified to a start/stop button in the application that worked much better than before, and the installer stopped asking the user if they wanted to install the service.  I've had no problems with it since, but if I wanted to have the service running in a more dedicated manner, I'd use the service.  I like being able to easily start stop it right now with the button.

2402

General Software Discussion / Re: File system monitoring utilities?

« Last post by superboyac on August 18, 2011, 10:58 AM »

Without having checked, I wonder if any of the products above are using this Windows auditing feature, and then formatting, etc.

-Steven Avery (August 17, 2011, 10:47 AM)

I was thinking the same thing.  Good to hear from you!

2403

General Software Discussion / Re: Video player: What's the quickest (fastest/lightest)?

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 05:27 PM »

I did take a look at it briefly in the past. But as I mentioned, will have to revisit. The consideration changes given it's totally free now, too. Although I still loves me some KM, heh.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (August 16, 2011, 04:45 PM)

Ah, that's right.  I remember reading that.

Yes, let me mention some of the changes I've noticed in the latest 4.6 beta.  The new gray skin is much better than the previous ones.  It's more polished and nicer to look at.  I think you and I have the same ultimate question: "What would make me choose Light Alloy over KMP?"  I don't have a good answer to that since I can't really find too many faults with KMP, hardly any.  One of the reasons why I like Light Alloy is because it's being very actively developed, and I like the types of improvements they are making.  So it feels more personal to me.  Geez...I think I'm taking my software a little too seriously...

2404

General Software Discussion / Re: Implement features that are known to be loved in other programs, on your own

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 04:19 PM »

You know...it's not always a matter of GUI controls or elegance.  Sometimes, a user will suggest an idea, method or some functionality that, to the human brain, is done without a second thought.  However, translating said idea to code is futile.  I've sometimes thought to myself, "Humans are subjective, code is not."

I hope that made some sense...

-skwire (August 16, 2011, 03:51 PM)

Yeah, I agree with that.  i keep wanting to define everything in life with precision, but it can't be done, and to try after a certain point is just an exercise in frustration.

2405

General Software Discussion / Re: Implement features that are known to be loved in other programs, on your own

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 02:37 PM »

What I've found over the years is that most non-programmer folks have zero idea how easy or hard an idea is to implement.  In fact, there have been lots of times where I have had requests from non-programmer types that they think is super easy (in their head) and, in reality, would be nigh impossible to do programmatically.

-skwire (August 16, 2011, 12:12 PM)

That's me!  Recently, I wanted to understand this better, so I explored how people program in Visual Studio and RAd studio, and I can understand better what the developers have to deal with.  It truly is a headache to add buttons and menu things that work just right, especially when it's not a simple on/off feature.  A simple feature request can be a nightmare to implement, and I saw that to make it really pretty or elegant, or to remove some responsiveness issues sometimes means that you have to redo a lot of things from scratch.  Especially when a lot of the components have come in from premade controls and stuff.

So I have a better and more sympathetic understanding now, thankfully.  Hopefully, I'm not behaving as intolerantly as before with my feature requests!

2406

General Software Discussion / Re: Video player: What's the quickest (fastest/lightest)?

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 02:31 PM »

Great to see the dev post here. Thanks for stopping by Kinjal! Your English is fine.

I will have to take another look at LightAlloy.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (August 16, 2011, 02:18 PM)

I would actually love to hear your thoughts on it.

2407

Living Room / Re: The Foreclosure Scam

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 09:55 AM »

I know somebody currently wallowing in the foreclosure quagmire.

Problem they're running into is they can't get their current mortgage holder to negotiate revised terms. That's because the note is held by (one of an growing number of) foreclosure consortiums who have no intention or interest in negotiating. In my friend's case, it's a group of private individuals (about 20) who have gotten together to "get in on the golden opportunities in real-estate foreclosures."

One of their members is an attorney who has demonstrated a talent for twisting existing laws around to force a default so they can foreclose.

These investors are not interested in getting a mortgage paid back. They want to make quick cash on a turnaround. So all they want is the property itself.

In the case of my friends, they're probably gonna lose their house.

But not because they can't pay the original mortgage. They can. The temporary cash flow problem which got them into this mess has since been fixed.

It's because the note holder has taken them to court and is now refusing to accept any payments pending the court's ruling on their request for immediate foreclosure, because...wait for it..my friends haven't been paying anything on their mortgage!

I'm not sure how or why such a logical absurdity is tolerated by law. But somehow, they can actually make this BS argument stick under certain circumstances. In this case it has something to do with the structure of the group holding the note. All group members have to agree to any renegotiated terms. They get around being accused of refusing to negotiate "in good faith" by sitting down to go through the motions of 'negotiating' a provisional agreement. But once the borrower signs this agreement for their part, one member of the investment group refuses to accept the new terms. At which point the investment group claims "negotiations have irreparably broken down" and move for foreclosure.

According to my friend's attorney, she's seen this same 'play' run on several other mortgage holders. And each time, one or two (and never the same) members of the investment group refuses to accept the renegotiated terms. Next they refuse to accept any payments until they have a signed agreement in place. (They also give the borrower 'off the record' assurances not to worry since they're sure they can work something out with the holdout member.) Then they wait a few months for the note to reach default. After which they move to foreclose for non-payment of the original mortgage - which is still in effect because a new agreement was never reached. Cute!

It makes for a lovely choreographed performance. And supposedly, it's all perfectly legal.

My friend's attorney told them this particular 'investment' group has this legal gambit down to a science. Unless they get a sympathetic judge when it comes final decree time, my friends are screwed royally. (And this investment group has been fairly adept at getting their filings heard before judges who tend to be unsympathetic towards borrowers.)

This is American Justice at work folks! Lovely, huh? 

-40hz (April 23, 2011, 03:54 PM)

This is not uncommon in any financial transactions going on now.  A couple of things are happening:
1) The reason why these policies and procedures don't make any sense is because the people don't want it to make sense.  Think of it this way: they have the needle and they know they have the needle, so what they do is throw a bunch of hay around the needle.  So the rest of the people have to find the needle in the haystack.  But the financial experts already know where the needle is, and they use this advantage to make the others run around in circles while they use the needle to make endless amounts of money.

We're all just running around the haystack.  And I'm starting to feel like, "let them have it".  I don't want to be involved.

2408

General Software Discussion / Re: Video player: What's the quickest (fastest/lightest)?

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 09:05 AM »

Fantastic!!
I didn't realize it was freeware now.  It's probably my favorite player now.  Light Alloy and KMP are my two most used players.  Here's what I like about Light Alloy:
As I've said many times, it's the most responsive and quickest of the players I've tried.  That's subjective, but it you use it a few times, you'll notice it.
The developers have been VERY active lately.  Really making a lot of nice improvements and continuously fine tuning every little thing.  I had an error the other night, which automatically generated an error email, and by the next morning the developer had emailed me with the solution and the bug would be fixed in the next build.  Amazing customer support, free or paid.
The program comes in three flavors:
--player only (uses system codecs)
--complete player (uses internal codecs, like kmp)
--portable player (also uses internal codecs, obviously)

One of my favorite software.  Whoever introduced it to me here...thanks!

2409

General Software Discussion / Re: Any fluent Russians here? (Light Alloy related)

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 08:59 AM »

>Any fluent Russians here?
Me, for example.

>I'm glad to know that it is still being pretty actively developed, but only for the Russian community. 
Well, actually it's not. In our forums, http://www.light-all...y.ru/forum/index.php, you can see 'Choose your language' dropdown, so you can easily change forum display language, and post any you want in 'English support forum' thread. I actually allow to post even in sections of forum where mostly people speak in russian, but it's just because no one seems to post in English section of forum, so I don't create new english sections(for bugs, suggestions, icons, plugins, skins and so on).

And, about bug tracker. We don't use hostedredmine anymore, now we swtiched to sourceforge bugtracker - http://sourceforge.n...projects/lightalloy/ (click on Tickets there)

Sorry for my bad English

-Kinjal (August 15, 2011, 08:36 PM)

Thanks kinjal!  I'd like to thank kinjal for participating here on DC.

2410

Living Room / Re: WinXP: monitor USB port disconnects when computer is locked

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 08:57 AM »

How is the monitor reacting to the system going into low-power/standby state? My system with DisplayPort connected monitors, switches screen-resolution (to 800x600 from 1920x1200) when the monitor is turned off, with Windows in a Locked state. Didn't test with USB devices yet, but it could be that a stand-by state of the monitors disconnects the USB ports also (the off-state certainly does).
Try connecting your USB devices directly (or using a USB-hub if you need extra ports) to the system, and see if that improves the matter.

-Ath (August 16, 2011, 03:17 AM)

Yeah, I think I'm going to do that.  I'll get a small usb hum and just put it on my desk.  This monitor port has been unstable for 2 years.

2411

General Software Discussion / Re: File system monitoring utilities?

« Last post by superboyac on August 16, 2011, 08:55 AM »

I saw a link to this French language blog (Libellules) last night while perusing some old DonationCoder posts from 2005 (my Chromium browser seems to do a good job of translating it).  The blog seems to be very active and had this program Disk Pulse featured a couple of weeks ago.

There's a free version, but you may need to get the $25 Pro version to do everything you want.  I have not used it.

-dspelley (August 16, 2011, 08:18 AM)

Very nice find!  That's the winner right there.  I don't think we need to look any further.

2412

Living Room / Re: WinXP: monitor USB port disconnects when computer is locked

« Last post by superboyac on August 15, 2011, 05:50 PM »

No, it's an HP.  But you may be right, it may be a mechanical problem.  I don't think so, though, because I have two monitors and I've tried plugging into both of them, and all the 4 ports available.  It's programmatic I think.  Something is happening when the computer locks.  Or maybe it's the screensaver, I don't know.  But I've turned off all those power management features.  I did it for the usb ports and I also did it for the screensaver/power management settings.  So I don't know of any other things to try.

The weird thing is that the computer still knows that something is in the port, it just stops reading it after it disconnects.  If I just pull it out and replug it in, it's fine (minus all the errors on the screen from all the live programs getting interrupted).

2413

General Software Discussion / Re: Implement features that are known to be loved in other programs, on your own

« Last post by superboyac on August 15, 2011, 05:38 PM »

100% agree.  I always have to be sensitive to developers when I make my strongly opinionated nitpicks about these "little" things.  But these little things really make or break a program for me.

The issue at hand is this: programmers don't relate very well to end users.  Programmers want maximum flexibility and power regardless of the amount of effort it takes.  That usually means command line.  End users hate command line stuff, so they want buttons and kiddie things like that.  So they ask for a button, the developer responds by saying "it can already do that, just type '/echo $%button-that_you_want?><321'" and is going to be annoyed by any follow up questions regarding the issue.  So that minor issue will be ignored, and the developer will proceed to program in a whole host of additional features that will only be accessed through command line code.

And I will also say this, even out of ignorance since I'm not really a programmer.  Discalimer!!!  This is not intended for any real people who might read this; this is purely FICTIONAL!!!!

OK, a lot of fictitious programmers have no desire to put in the work for stupid little things that just make the program better.  And part of the reason why is because polisihing and fine-tuning things is really really really hard.  What is that saying about 90% of the work does the last 10% or whatever it is.??  Anyway, developers make these great programs but stop before they really fine tune and pretty things up.  The video freeware tools are a perfect example of this.  Just one command line thing after another, and eventually someone makes a gui (that just calls a command window) that makes it a tad easier.  And I've tried my hand at programming a couple of times, and the gui stuff is very hard and tedious, that's why a lot of developers don't want to focus on it.  It's a lot of effort for seemingly minimal reward if you're in the mindset that you can spend the same amount of time programming in additional functionality.  to make a nice icon from scratch is boring and not worth it to them.  Neither is it worth figuring how to make a drop-down or some dialog that covers the options in a particular feature in an elegant, graphical way.  They don't care that much.

So then this philosophical battle emerges about what is good enough?  Programmers will argue that command line or just a tad more than that is all people need.  Guys like me will argue that the gui really is tremendously important, and we don't want to spend our time learning commands, no matter how easy the commands are.  Give us a button!!!

Some programmers that I feel have an excellent balance and elegance in their programs:
mouser (very good with balancing tons of features while still keeping the main GUI elegant)
the Editpad guy
bluebeam people
Directory Opus (yes)
Xyplorer
Spacemonger (brilliant)
skwire (amazing customer service speed also)
The Zentimo/USBSR people
Light Alloy

There's more...I didn't mean to leave anyone here off whose software I use and love.

2414

Living Room / WinXP: monitor USB port disconnects when computer is locked

« Last post by superboyac on August 15, 2011, 04:49 PM »

At my work computer, when I lock my Windows XP, sometimes the USB disconnects that I have plugged into the side port of the display.  This is really bad, and it completely f--ks everything up.  Plus it is intermittent and annoying.  It doesn't do it every time, but like 1/5 times.  I've researched this thoroughly on the web and have found no good answers.  Yes, I have disabled power management for all the usb ports on the computer, so that's not it (it's the most common suggestion on the web).  Any thoughts?

2415

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Announcing our new company: Complex Imaginary

« Last post by superboyac on August 12, 2011, 03:52 PM »

Congratulations.  I echo what 40hz said.

-mouser (August 12, 2011, 12:41 PM)

Thank you, I appreciate it.  Honestly, I owe DC and you a lot for just getting it going because you gave me webspace to post those articles, and without that, I'm not sure if the idea or the momentum for the rest of it would have taken place.

2416

General Software Discussion / Re: File system monitoring utilities?

« Last post by superboyac on August 12, 2011, 03:51 PM »

superboyac,

Did you get an acceptable solution for this?

Watch 4 Folder looks like it will do your monitoring, but I'm not sure it will make a new log file each day.  If I read the doc right, it puts everything into a single log.

-rjbull (August 12, 2011, 03:44 PM)

i haven't tried it yet.  It looks like the best one that I've seen so far, though.  I like the way it's setup.  The log file issue isn't that critical; if the rest of it works as nicely as it seems to be, then it might be the one.  I can setup other utilities to automatically save the log file every day or whatever.  And furthermore, I can set up a file indexer to make the log file searchable in an easy way also.  So if it can monitor effectively, the other stuff doesn't necessarily have to be integrated in the program itself.  In this case, something like Archivarius and SFFS can take care of the additional functions.

2417

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Announcing our new company: Complex Imaginary

« Last post by superboyac on August 11, 2011, 03:33 PM »

Tried to link to your site from my blogroll, but because you have a feed and it is messed up somehow, Blogger is messing up the link and pointing it here:

http://www.compleximaginary.com/feed/

-app103 (August 11, 2011, 03:30 PM)

Hmm.  I have no idea how to fix that.  I'll look into it.  Thanks.

2418

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Announcing our new company: Complex Imaginary

« Last post by superboyac on August 11, 2011, 01:10 PM »

Thanks 40!  And thanks so much for the advice along the way.

Hopefully, this will open the door to some more interesting projects that I'd like to work on.  But for now, I gotta get this techie stuff going because that's what sells.  I've learned sooooooo much this past year. 

2419

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Announcing our new company: Complex Imaginary

« Last post by superboyac on August 11, 2011, 11:20 AM »

Hi everyone,
I've been working on this company the past year:
http://www.compleximaginary.com/

We provide practice tests for the Professional Engineering licensing exam.  We also have free tutorial videos that people are really liking.  Our video channel is here:
http://www.youtube.c...ser/ComplexImaginary

I'd like to ask a favor if you don't mind.  We're trying to move our way up the google rankings so people are aware of us (it's a very small market).  So if you can just click around our website and our links, we'd really appreciate it.

This all started in 2005 when I wrote some critical articles about the exam:
http://aram.dcmember...ring-pe-exam-part-1/
http://aram.dcmember...rnia-pe-exam-part-2/
http://aram.dcmember...rnia-pe-exam-part-3/
http://aram.dcmember...rnia-pe-exam-part-4/

Those articles appear at the top of google searches for certain words, and I'd like for the book website to be there also.  But it took time for those articles to get there.

Anyway, I thought I'd announce this here amongst my DC friends.  Any comments, criticisms, compliments are appreciated.  Thanks!

2420

Living Room / Re: Your favorite quotes: 2011 edition

« Last post by superboyac on August 08, 2011, 02:29 PM »

Sweet!  I totally remember that from a long time ago!  Yeah, I'm definitely using that since I'm collecting quotes now.

2421

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a Wordpress video player that can be themed/styled in a custom way.

« Last post by superboyac on August 08, 2011, 12:57 PM »

Boy, none of these options are all that great.  And we are soon going to start hosting our own videos.  What is a good player that can play hosted videos and has good UI styling abilities?

2422

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Hall of Fame

« Last post by superboyac on August 08, 2011, 11:47 AM »

I'll tell you the one that got me all into software:
Pegasus Mail
Hardly ever mentioned as still one of the best email clients around, and free!  I remember very vividly how I got into software:
I had just moved into a studio apartment in my 2nd year at Berkeley.  Whoever lived there before me used to get those enormous Computer Shopper magazines delivered.  You remember those?  They were like an inch thick, made of newspaper, and full of articles, ads, tech geek info.  There was an email client shootout, and Pegasus got the highest ranking.  So I decided to try it out, and I've been trying shit out ever since.

2423

Living Room / Re: Your favorite quotes: 2011 edition

« Last post by superboyac on August 08, 2011, 11:32 AM »

Quoting Oscar Wilde is akin to cheating...nevertheless:

A bore is one who deprives us of our solitude without providing companionship.

2424

Living Room / Your favorite quotes: 2011 edition

« Last post by superboyac on August 08, 2011, 11:29 AM »

I'm liking quotes more and more, and explanations less and less.  Post away everyone...the more profound the better!

"…we can distinguish the arts from the sciences. Science begins with the world we have to live in, accepting its data and trying to explain its laws. From there, it moves toward the imagination: it becomes a mental construct, a model of a possible way of interpreting experience. The further it goes in this direction, the more it tends to speak the language of mathematics, which is really one of the languages of the imagination, along with literature and music. Art, on the other hand, begins with the world we construct, not the world we see. It starts with the imagination, and then works toward ordinary experience: that is, it tries to make itself as convincing and recognizable as it can. You can see why we tend to think of the sciences as intellectual and the arts as emotional: one starts with the world as it is, the other with the world we want to have. Up to a point it is true that science gives an intellectual view of reality, and that the arts try to make the emotions as precise and disciplined as sciences do the intellect. But of course it’s nonsense to think of the scientist as a cold unemotional reasoned and the artist as somebody who’s in a perpetual emotional tizzy. You can’t distinguish the arts from the sciences by the mental processes the people in them use: they both operate on a mixture of hunch and common sense. A highly developed science and a highly developed art are very close together, psychologically and otherwise.

Still, the fact that they start from opposite ends, even if they do meet in the middle, makes for one important difference between them. Science learns more and more about the world as it goes on: it evolves and improves. A physicist today knows more physics than Newton did, even if he’s not so great a scientist. But literature begins with the possible model of experience, and what it produces is the literary model we call the classic. Literature doesn’t evolve or improve or progress. We may have dramatists in the future who will write plays as good as King Lear, though they’ll be very different ones, but drama as a whole will never get better than King Lear. King Lear is it, as far as drama is concerned; so is Oedipus Rex, written two thousand years earlier than that, and both will be models of dramatic writing as long as the human race endures. Social conditions may improve: most of us would rather live in the nineteenth-century United States than in the thirteenth-century Italy, and for most of us Whitman’s celebration of democracy makes a lot more sense than Dante’s Inferno. But it doesn’t follow that Whitman is a better poet than Dante: literature won’t line up with that kind of improvement."
--Northrope Frye

2425

Developer's Corner / Re: Lost Programming Skills

« Last post by superboyac on August 08, 2011, 11:22 AM »

It's interesting to hear you talk, 40.  I'm entering that age where I'm not a rookie anymore, but I'm also not considered an expert, yet I feel like an expert.  And it's not like when you're a teenager and you think you know everything.  It's different than that.  It's like I know I don't know anything or very much at all, yet I'm very confident I can get through a problem when I need to.  Before, I'd have this urge to know more and more about everything JUST IN CASE I needed it.  Now, I'm just here and I'll activate the mind when it's necessary.  The rest of the time (non-work related time), my mind is churning about things that are useless in work: art, music, some philosophy.  So I've been slowly drifting out of that eagerly acquiring any and all knowledge into this phase where I can feel myself becoming less in tune with current happenings, but oddly more confident and patient about it.  I'm seeing the patterns between the present and the past more clearly.  I don't feel that things have gotten better or anything, I just think they have changed.  You can say things have gotten more complicated, but I wouldn't necessarily say better (as a whole, not in parts).  Technology obviously has gotten "better" but that's the job of technology.  Technology doesn't get worse...or else it wouldn't be called "technology".  It would be called retro or something.

What's my point?  I don't know.  Simplify, i guess.

But it's not because I'm super-brilliant or incredibly well trained. My secret weapon (if I have one) is very low-level and basic understanding of how computers and networks actually do what they do. With that framework in place, everything else is a matter of filling in details as and where needed. And extrapolating from that to identify solutions for new situations. Because on a certain level, all technical problems are the same.

That's how I think also.  That is my preferred weapon.  There are those that I admire that are the other way: that is, they have lots of detailed knowledge about a lot of things.  I used to strive for that, but it leads to stress inevitably.