Recent Posts

26

Living Room / Re: Show us the View Outside Your Window

« Last post by dspelley on April 04, 2013, 09:05 AM »

I have to lean out my patio door, but here it is.  Supposed to be 91°F here today

27

Living Room / Re: Beautifu Pictures From Herschel

« Last post by dspelley on April 03, 2013, 11:45 AM »

Another great spot is Phil Plait's "Bad Astronomy" blog.  http://www.slate.com...s/bad_astronomy.html. Great pictures (not only astronomy) with very good layman's descriptions of what's going on in the universe.

He was recently speaking at what I think is Mouser's stomping grounds - http://www.slate.com...tesla_coils_and.html

28

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by dspelley on March 28, 2013, 08:27 PM »

Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt  

Re-reading this again. When I was first in college in the late 60's, I read all of his poems and novels.

The Affectionate Light Bulb

I have a 75 watt, glare free, long life
Harmony House light bulb in my toilet.
I have been living in the same apartment
for over two years now
and that bulb just keeps burning away.
I believe that it is fond of me.

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into A Bar  

Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes

Emotivism (in the spirit of the season)

A man wrote a letter to the IRS saying, "I have been unable to sleep knowing that I have cheated on my income tax. I have understated my taxable income and have enclosed a check for $150. If I still can't sleep, I will send the rest."

29

Living Room / Re: Philosophy

« Last post by dspelley on March 25, 2013, 12:16 AM »

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

   - Ogden Nash

30

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by dspelley on March 23, 2013, 11:23 PM »

Kill-A-Watt


Plug this gadget into a wall outlet and then plug your appliance or other gadget into it. Measures how much energy (kWh) your appliance has used since the kWh reading was reset.  Will also measure voltage, current, frequency, etc.  This is the simplest model (costs about $20) , but they have others that will calculate your electric costs if you enter your electric rate (cents/kWh for example).

I'm trying to see how much "Vampire" electric load my house has with TVs, VCR/DVRs, computers, modems, programmable thermostat, etc., all drawing a little bit of current 24 hrs a day.

I was telling my kids the other day - when I was growing up in the 50s, our house had a gas stove, refrigerator, and water heater. We didn't have a TV or tablets or cell phones to charge, and there were no digital displays glowing all night. We had wind-up clocks, except for a wall clock in our kitchen. On a cool summer evening, when the house was shut down for the night, that kitchen clock might have been the only thing in the house drawing any electricity. Big difference today!

31

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by dspelley on March 23, 2013, 10:37 PM »

Baby boomer born near the ocean in Rhode Island, but living in the Arizona desert since 1975. Spent a few years serving on a US Navy submarine (WWII vintage) in the late '60s and early '70s before returning to college on the GI Bill to get a degree in Chemical Engineering.

Used to do some programming years ago for my own use (BASIC, FORTRAN, SAS, Pascal, Assembler), but didn't have the time to keep up with the rapid changes in the field.

Today I manage an R&D program for a fairly large energy company. Use a lot of standard software, test a lot of more specialized modeling and design software, but still like to download and play with a lot of other stuff.

32

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite movies?

« Last post by dspelley on March 23, 2013, 10:21 PM »

Wonder Boys

Das Boot

October Sky

Stalag 17

North by Northwest

This is Spinal Tap

33

Living Room / Re: CyberNetNews - Still alive?

« Last post by dspelley on February 13, 2013, 05:57 PM »

Looks like the site has been dormant now for 2 months  .  Too bad - I frequently found good news, application recommendations, etc. when visiting their site.

34

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« Last post by dspelley on February 04, 2013, 06:07 PM »

I think wraith808 must be right about the downloaded data being in some other partition.  I've looked through the Nook folder structure in Explorer (with hidden files and folders displayed) and can only find a "Books" folder containing my sideloaded ePub files - no WiFi-downloaded files. The other folders contain .jpg files of the book covers, or annotation files.

The B&N website will put the WiFi-downloaded files into an online library. From there I can download them to a folder on my PC, and then import them into the Calibre library. In Calibre, the library will mark those files that are also on the reader, but since it can't see all of the books on the reader it doesn't mark all of them.

I've also tried using Adobe Digital Editions, and even the Nook desktop reader software. Neither of them show the WiFi-downloaded files.

Thanks to all for your ideas and suggestions!

35

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« Last post by dspelley on February 04, 2013, 03:21 PM »

Thanks for the input.  I'll have to dig around more in the Nook file system when I get home. But as I recall when I last looked, I found a folder that has all of the ePub files that I transferred to the Nook using my USB cable, but none of the files that were downloaded directly to the Nook using the built-in WiFi.  I looked in the other folders, but don't remember seeing any other files that looked like ebook files. 

When asking about this on the Calibre User Forum I also got this reply. 

No. The nook does not make any files downloaded from B&N visible via the USB connection.

I'm not exactly sure what is meant by "Visible" in this context. Are they hidden (in the sense of a file attribute being set)? Are they in a location Cailbre (or Windows Explorer) cannot access? Are they in some other format?

When I connect my Nook via the USB cable, two new icons appear on the Calibre menu bar. One is an icon for my Nook, the other is an icon for an SD card that is in my Nook.

If I click on the SD card icon, I see the ePub files that are stored there. If I click on the Nook icon, I see the books that I transferred there via USB cable, but I do not see any books that were downloaded via WiFi.

Sorry - didn't mean to make this into a Cailbre/Nook "how to" forum.

36

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Calibre - e-Book (Personal Library/Document) Management - Mini-Review

« Last post by dspelley on February 04, 2013, 07:46 AM »

A couple of months ago I won a Nook Simple Touch as a door prize at an event where I work. I downloaded a few books from Barnes & Noble using the Nook's built-in WiFi. Using a USB cable, I also copied some other ePUB files I obtained from other sources - Project Gutenberg, etc.

After installing Calibre and connecting my Nook, I find that Calbre sees the books I copied using the USB cable, but does not see any books downloaded over the WiFi. I posted a question about this on the Calibre User Forum and received a reply saying that it's true that the Nook "hides" these files from being displayed or managed. When I asked why B&N would do that, the reply I got was, "Think like a salesman, not like a customer."

Do other eBook readers "hide" files depending on how they were acquired? Any idea why these books would be hidden? Is it a DRM issue? (several of the files downloaded over WiFi were free)

37

Living Room / Re: CyberNetNews - Still alive?

« Last post by dspelley on January 04, 2013, 03:54 PM »

Guess I shouldn't have said "died."    Just noted that the site has not been updated for several weeks, and the last entry on the Twitter feed was December 11. Hope they are just on holiday.

38

Living Room / CyberNetNews - Still alive?

« Last post by dspelley on January 04, 2013, 07:53 AM »

Visiting CyberNetNews has been a part of my morning routine for quite a while, but it appears the site went static a couple of weeks ago, and I don't see any links in their "Sponsors" section. Has the site died? 

39

General Software Discussion / Re: FORTRAN - All your problems will be solved.

« Last post by dspelley on May 14, 2012, 09:10 PM »

When going through engineering school back in the mid-70's I bought boxes and boxes of 80-column IBM punch cards for batch processing at the university computing center. Wrote FORTRAN programs by hand on tablets of paper with the 80-column layout, then transcribed those onto cards using one of the punch machines that stood in rows at the center - one line of code per card (although I think you could put a "C" in a particular column on the card to indicate it was a continuation of the expression on the previous card). Had to make sure you numbered the cards, because boxes of cards invariably got dumped on the floor and it made it easier to put things back in order.

In our process control lab we had a DEC PDP-11. I/O was on a teletype device with a long continuous roll of paper. Programs were stored on a hole-punched paper strip - like ticker-tape.

Boy, those were the days.  Punch cards, punched tape, K&E slide rules and $400 HP-35 calculators!

40

General Software Discussion / Re: Screenshot Captor "best in class" on FreewareGenius

« Last post by dspelley on April 14, 2012, 03:40 PM »

FreewareGenius has updated their review of Mouser's Screenshot Captor with these nice words:

I am quite happy about this development, but also grateful that the developer took the time to address an issue that I raised in my original review of this program; I quote “I want you to know I really took [the review] to heart and it was the primary reason i just finished 8 hours of coding to add that feature:. So, thanks go to Mouser of DonationCoder for all his hard work (and also for a very good implementation).

Just another reason why Mouser and the whole DonationCoder community seems so highly regarded.  Congratulations! 

41

General Software Discussion / Re: Rightnote, commercial alternative to abandonware Keynote

« Last post by dspelley on April 11, 2012, 10:35 PM »

Bought RightNote on BitsDuJour in mid-February and like it pretty well. I had hoped to use it to collect and organize web info at my workplace, but it won't work behind our proxy server . The developer says it's something he can work on.

42

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a "virtual scanner' software in one pass, outputting in PDF.

« Last post by dspelley on February 24, 2012, 07:54 PM »

Realized I misunderstood what was needed! 

43

General Software Discussion / Re: A unified solution for note taking and task management

« Last post by dspelley on September 29, 2011, 03:50 PM »

Found this the other day - Mind On Track - and it looks pretty interesting. Combination of a to-do/task manager and a mind map. 

Program is currently free, but has an expiration date of January 1, 2013 (found under "Edit - Preferences - MindOnTrack - License")

Wonder what happens then?

44

General Software Discussion / Re: Grid Layout software? Does it exist?

« Last post by dspelley on September 28, 2011, 08:21 PM »

Here's a list at Specky Boy from about a year and a half ago.  Looks like most of them are online apps, but Denim is a desktop app and looks interesting.

45

General Software Discussion / CyberNet News shout out to skwire

« Last post by dspelley on September 28, 2011, 09:04 AM »

This morning, CyberNet News has a shout out to DC's "skwire" for his Text 2 Folders app.

46

General Software Discussion / Re: File system monitoring utilities?

« Last post by dspelley on August 16, 2011, 08:18 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.

47

General Software Discussion / Retracing DonationCoder's footsteps

« Last post by dspelley on August 16, 2011, 12:48 AM »

I am, for the most part, what you might call a lurker on this forum. I'm not a developer, but enjoy looking for, testing, and playing with software of all types. When I enter this forum I just about always scan Page #1 and maybe click back to Page #2.  Tonight I decided to go all the way back to Page 146 and to an entry by Mouser on May 13, 2005. 

Wow! From there it was like taking a walk through a really cool museum. Discussions about the new Thunderbird email client; Mouser posting an entry about a new tool/toy called Google Earth; GrafxShop; konfabulator, thinbasic; Qumana; and on and on.

Found a link to a French language software blog that my version of Chromium now easily translates - led me to a file manager I'm going to try called  Multi Commander.

It's pretty amazing how things have changed in just 6 years!  Try taking a stroll down the DonationCoder memory lane sometime.

48

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Hall of Fame

« Last post by dspelley on August 12, 2011, 12:13 PM »

In the days when I had my IBM PC-XT with it's 10MB hard-drive:

Norton Utilities (circa 1982)

Later:

Ecco Pro

49

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a good no-frills podcatcher

« Last post by dspelley on December 15, 2010, 01:49 PM »

Here's a list of clients - but I haven't looked at any of them.  Podcasting News

Looks like Wikipedia has a similar (maybe the same) list.

50

General Software Discussion / Re: What HTML5 can do -- cool site

« Last post by dspelley on September 22, 2010, 09:27 PM »

Here's another interesting demo - Canvas Pinball 

From the site description:

This demo is a simple pinball game that uses several HTML5 technologies along with the Box2D physics engine. It uses HTML5 Canvas element for drawing, and @font-face and WOFF for font embedding.