Recent Posts

2451

General Software Discussion / PDF Cooker wanted... Let me explain

« Last post by Edvard on July 24, 2007, 06:33 PM »

OK, here's the situation.

I work at a small shop where a great deal of what we do is printing house plans on a large copy machine.
Typically, I get HPGL2 plot files, PDF's, TIF's, etc. that I then print for submittal to contractors, permit officials, etc.

Here's the sticky: Sometimes I get PDF's that are created with AutoCAD or something that preserves all the vector info and layering, which crashes my print system if there is too much to interpret. When I try to print with Adobe reader, it pops up a dialog that says "Flattening - " with a progress bar.

These are the only files that give me trouble, and I wonder if there is:
1- some sort of software (preferably freeware) or
2- a ghostscript process method
to "pre-flatten" these stupid things before they bog my machine.
Any suggestions?

2452

General Software Discussion / Re: a honest review from someone who went full-time mac and came back to windows

« Last post by Edvard on July 23, 2007, 02:36 PM »

Allen:
My sentiments exactly.
Which is why I don't jump into such contests and why I shake my head everytime Linux hits the newsblogs and the diehard (on both sides) get out their pistols and the potshot duel begins...

I liked BeOs too, about 2 years late though.
I signed the petition for Palm to release the source and the whole bit.
Have you looked into the 'resurrection' of BeOs... HaikuOS?

2453

General Software Discussion / Re: Encrypt single file?

« Last post by Edvard on July 18, 2007, 06:04 PM »

One more: OpenSSL
Here's a Windows port: http://www.slproweb....ts/Win32OpenSSL.html
and usage: http://www.openssl.o...g/docs/apps/enc.html

The enc function allows encryption with either keys or password, with the -salt option it won't make the same key from the same password.

Looks like you can encrypt with Base 64, Blowfish, CAST, DESX, IDEA, RC2, 4 and 5 in many different modes.

Nice.

2454

General Software Discussion / Re: Encrypt single file?

« Last post by Edvard on July 18, 2007, 04:45 PM »

Well, Windows 2000 on up has a handy little utility called cipher.exe.
If you like open source, there's Animesh Srivastava's Crypt.

That's all I have...

2455

Living Room / Flash Game of the day - Get The Glass

« Last post by Edvard on July 18, 2007, 11:32 AM »

A promo for the same guys behind the Got Milk? campaign. Sort of a Flash/Myst/claymation/boardgame-interspersed-with-mini-skill-games sorta thing.
HIGHLY time-wasting and beautifully rendered...

The Adachi family. A family run amok. A family struggling to overcome a staggering predicament:
Life without milk.

http://www.gettheglass.com

from Admit-One.net but it's also on JayIsGames

2456

General Software Discussion / Re: MoveOver - Windows to Linux migration tool

« Last post by Edvard on July 17, 2007, 11:25 AM »

IIRC, the C programming language was founded on the idea of being able to write recyclable code that would run on whatever hardware you had a compiler for (unlike Assembly, which would only run on the hardware it was written on), which was the foundational philosophy of Unix.

One thing I love about Linux is that any file is an executable, you just have to set the bit.

2457

General Software Discussion / Re: Good Folder Printer

« Last post by Edvard on July 17, 2007, 11:21 AM »

There is a file manager that makes pretty directory printouts- I can't remember if it was FreeCommander or A43 or some other one, but it works well...

On the other hand, I have updated my own directory listing code:
1- download a2ps and stick it in your PATH somewhere.
2- download the PrintFile32 utility. It's a standalone "throw a postscript file at my printer" utility. Quite useful, really.
3- here's my batch code:

[Select]

@echo off
TITLE Preparing File Tree...
tree %1| a2ps - -1B -X ibm-cp437 -o %temp%\tree.ps
start c:\program files\printfile32\prfile32.exe /q %temp%\tree.ps
exit

Stick a shortcut in your "Send To..." folder, or hack your registry to have it pop up when you right-click a folder.

2458

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Guy Tries Ubuntu

« Last post by Edvard on July 16, 2007, 06:23 PM »

But it's APPROPRIATE for a Windows guy to try Ubuntu. It just goes to show how far Linux has come. (Did anyone notice how he's constantly comparing things to his Vista Icon?)

I do agree however, that some other distros might provide better reads...
Like say, a Windows guy testing SLACKWARE...
*evil laughter*

2459

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the best LINUX software?

« Last post by Edvard on July 16, 2007, 11:24 AM »

If you're able to get into a Ubuntu start menu (live CD, friend's Ubuntu box, whatever...) find the Add/Remove application.
It's kind of like the Synaptic package manager, but with a different focus. It gives you star ratings based on Ubuntu's Popularity Contest database. You can quickly find the most popular (not always the best, but certainly most preferred...) software in each category and try it out.

2460

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Guy Tries Ubuntu

« Last post by Edvard on July 16, 2007, 11:16 AM »

They do not have the bells and whistles of the MS products, but they are free. Free is a huge bell and whistle all on its own. Hell, it’s a brass band playing on the Fourth of July.

OMGROFLMAO!!
 

2461

General Software Discussion / Re: MoveOver - Windows to Linux migration tool

« Last post by Edvard on July 13, 2007, 01:57 PM »

Yes, you would expect that to be the case, but from their Features page:

The following features are supported by both MoveOver Version 3.0.0 and MoveOver Version 4.0.0:

Migration Features
Outlook® Express
   - Email Account & Configurations
   - Emails & Email Folders
Outlook® 2000, XP & 2003
   - Email Account & Configurations
   - Emails & Email Folders
   - Contacts
   - Calendar
   - Tasks
   - Notes
Internet Preferences
   - Bookmarks
   - Cookies
Look & Feel
   Wallpaper
   Fonts
Documents/ Files/ Folders
   - All file types
   - Folders & Files
   - Documents
   - Databases
   - Spreadsheets
   - Photos
   - Movies
   - Music
   - Graphics

So, basically it looks like it moves settings from cross-platform apps, tries to translate between incompatibles (eek!), and copies the contents of your "My [Documents, Pictures, etc...]" folders.
The "file types" setting bothers me as well. The way Linux and Windows handle file types is VASTLY different (it goes beyond lack of a registry...), so I would be curious as to how they handle that one.

2462

General Software Discussion / MoveOver - Windows to Linux migration tool

« Last post by Edvard on July 13, 2007, 11:10 AM »

For those who have been watching Zaine's experiences with switching to Linux and would like to follow suit, here is a tool to help.
I haven't tested it personally (already been running Linux too long), but it's apparently fully compatible with Sun's Java desktop and Novell's Suse distro.
There's a freeware version (it says for Fedora Core 2 only, but I bet you could hack the zip to fit your own distro... ) and a work-in-progress open source version

MoveOver is a user-friendly, wizard-driven migration tool that migrates your Windows environment to your new Linux Desktop in just 2 simple steps.

http://www.resolvo.c...s/moveover/index.htm

from ShellCity

2463

General Software Discussion / Re: Making the Switch-05: Ten Great Ideas of GNU/Linux

« Last post by Edvard on July 12, 2007, 04:37 PM »

Python would be very close, but is more complex than what is needed for simple tasks like AHK does, although Kommander is looking mighty close...

The thing is, there are so many tools available in Linux for getting things done, you almost don't need a scripting/automation tool. AHK's major win point is you can use it go get things done that Windows doesn't let you do by default.

You want a hotkey manager? take your pick, every desktop environment has them, and there are more.
You want pretty interactive dialogs for your scripts? Try Zenity.

You want file management? Gnome has Nautilus, KDE has Konqueror and Krusader, XFCE has Thunar, the rest of us have the old standby Midnight Commander, XFE, TKDesk, and a million other lesser derivatives.

*whew*

I'll stop there...

2464

General Software Discussion / Re: Perl scripting using Vista's speach recognition! Awesome!

« Last post by Edvard on July 12, 2007, 03:47 PM »

gjehle:

what i could imagine seeing tho would be macro-based voice recognition, which would need a special support packages for each programming language.
one would define standard blocks (for loops, class templates, switch-case, if-then-else, or more abstract templates) and name them eg. "new for-loop from 0 to 20" and it'll spit out "for(int i=0; i<20; ++i) { }"

Since you're running Linux, there is cdecl

Cdecl (and c++decl) is a program for encoding and decoding C (or C++) type declarations.
...
Cdecl reads the named files for statements in the language described below. A transformation is made from that language to C (C++) or pseudo-English.
...
To declare an array of pointers to functions that are like malloc(3), do

    declare fptab as array of pointer to function returning pointer to char

The result of this command is

     char *(*fptab[])()

...and it gets more complex from there, but if a bridge could be made from voice recognition to a similar pseudo-translator, we might get somewhere. And of course, Ruby would probably work just fine as it is.

2465

General Software Discussion / Re: free batch conversion ps to pdf?

« Last post by Edvard on July 06, 2007, 11:41 AM »

OK
After you download and install Ghostscript 8.54 into C:\Program Files
AND copy your PS files into C:\temp\ps
AND they are all letter size
AND you don't mind that the pdf's will all be named [yourfilename].ps.pdf
Do this:

[Select]

for %i in (c:\temp\ps) do C:\progra~1\gs\gs8.54\bin\gswin32c -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sPAPERSIZE=letter -sOutputFile=%i.pdf  -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -c .setpdfwrite -f %i

OK?

2466

Living Room / Re: Thank you for this site and the people here.

« Last post by Edvard on June 21, 2007, 03:38 PM »

Sorry to hear, Jeff.

Please forgive me for not having more to say...
I'm sure your name will be in the prayers of those of us who offer them.

Condolences,
-Edvard

2467

General Software Discussion / Re: List of Vector Illustration Alternatives

« Last post by Edvard on June 20, 2007, 10:34 AM »

Nighted: Try the 'export' function.
It's in the command-line options to export png:

[Select]

inkscape --export-png=file.png file.svg

and looky here:
http://linuxplanet.c...et/tutorials/5757/5/
and I know of fistfuls of Linux icon artists who use inkscape daily to make their png icons.
Don't give up on the 'scape, bro...

2468

General Software Discussion / Re: Making the Switch-04: The "User Guide" as life raft, more n00b problems

« Last post by Edvard on June 18, 2007, 07:36 PM »

Zaine: Maybe it is easier to imagine taking a disk labeled '/dev/somedisk' and plugging it into a directory labeled '/mnt/somefolder'. That's the dirty basics of what you are doing. You can't just access the disk as it is, it has to have a place to sit so it can interact with you.
In windows it would be something like IDE (or SATA) plug-in #1 "mounted" at C:/

If you're up for more reading, go here: http://www.tldp.org/guides.html

That first book "Introduction to Linux" is a good one. Read the chapter on filesystem management and the 'mount' command.

Darwin: The same goes for you, but check out the "GNU/Linux Command Line Tools Summary" and "BASH Guide for Beginners". There are a lot of tricky things going on in that little black box that whips the pants off cmd.exe.

Also check out Linux 101 at Linux.org: http://www.linux.org/lessons

For further brain melting, check out why the device filesystem underwent radical change between kernel 2.4 and 2.6:
http://www.kroah.com...-Hartman-OLS2003.pdf
I like the idea of a dynamic /dev directory that lists only those devices detected, but all of a sudden all my hard drives are detected and mounted as scsi devices (for example, my shared drive, formerly /dev/hdb1 is now /dev/sdb1) ????

Tonurics: thanks for the tip on mounting a disk by UUID. An update breaking my mountpoint is exactly what happened. I fixed it in /etc/fstab as I described above, but I've been worrying about what will happen next time.

2469

General Software Discussion / Re: Making the switch-02: Which Linux distro to choose?

« Last post by Edvard on June 18, 2007, 07:18 PM »

Renegade: When a Linux folk says "non-free" he doesn't mean that if you use it you're stealing, it means it is not available in source code so you are "free" to do as you see fit with it.

...and here comes the obligatory link to Wikipedia's entry for Free Software

2470

Living Room / Re: What do you do with your old PCs?

« Last post by Edvard on June 05, 2007, 05:59 PM »

i either stack them or install linux

Dude, do both...

Beowulf.org is a collection of resources for the expanding universe of users and designers of Beowulf class cluster computers. These enterprise systems are built on commodity hardware deploying Linux OS and open source software.

http://www.beowulf.org/

That's what I would do with the 5+ PII's stacked up in my workshop if I had enough parts to go 'round...

2471

Living Room / Re: This "keyboard" looks so cool for customization freaks

« Last post by Edvard on May 30, 2007, 02:01 PM »

this is vaporware, but surely we'll have stuff like this in the near future:

http://www.artlebede...m/portfolio/optimus/

Not according to this: http://community.liv...s_project/30285.html
Apparently the first 200 will ship out Dec. 1st.
Sold out in 12 hours after it hit Slashdot.

The next 400 go in January...

2472

General Software Discussion / Re: Things I can do in Linux that I can't do on Windows

« Last post by Edvard on May 30, 2007, 11:17 AM »

He should come take a look at my windows boxes...they loaded with free software...of all kinds.

Umm... not to be too nit-picky, I don't think that's exactly what he meant.
It's one of those points us Linux users like to make that is endlessly annoying to everyone else.
[mumble]...free as in beer...free as in libre...[/mumble] ...you know the drill.

I would love to change, but Photoshop keeps me on Windows.  You can't compare PS to Gimp.

Which is a point made before. Gimp has similar functionalities and purpose goals, but the two are not the same.
Folks who use Gimp and use it well probably have no need for Photoshop, and vice-versa.

2473

ContextMenu Commander / Re: ContextMenu Commander

« Last post by Edvard on May 25, 2007, 06:39 PM »

Help!

Mouser I hope this is coming out soon, as my installation of ContextEdit is suddenly borked...
I start it up and it disappears into the background, using 98% cpu.

ContextEdit did 98% of everything I ever wanted to do with my context menu, and now...
The 2% it didn't do was:
1- Add sub-trees and separators to the context menu
2- Re-order items in the context menu
(can CMC do these?)
Otherwise, I used it to add extension classes, Autohotkey functions, filetype-specific actions, etc.

As the lolcats would say... "It can has be betatest teim now pleez?"

(oh, and will it run on NT4?)

2474

General Software Discussion / PopFly

« Last post by Edvard on May 25, 2007, 05:18 PM »

Anybody tried PopFly yet?
Looks kinda neat...

Q:What is Popfly?

A:Popfly is the fun, easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, Web pages, and applications. Popfly consists of two parts:
     1:Popfly Creator is a set of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups.
     2:Popfly Space is an online community of creators where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

http://www.popfly.com/

from ShellCity

2475

Living Room / Re: Define passive-aggressive

« Last post by Edvard on May 23, 2007, 06:00 PM »

A perfect example would be the old Bill Cosby story about his wife asking him to make the kids breakfast. ...

Good one, app. Fine example

Mouser:

most of these aren't really "passive aggressive" which is bound to confuse anyone who is interested in learning what that phrase means.

Well, considering that a great many native speakers barely have a grasp of the english language, I wouldn't really worry about anybody getting confused by a humourous website. The same people learned the word "ironic" from a Alanis Morrisette song...

Darwin:

I truly believe that in this case the medium IS the message...