Recent Posts

25676

Official Announcements / Re: FreeThesaurus.net - new official DC web service, is now up and running!

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 06:38 PM »

Fantastic stuff. 

25677

Living Room / Re: question on compression and storage: help me be less stupid

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 02:48 PM »

Data Compression is a truly beautiful subject, and there are tons and tons of fascinating algorithms employed.

Since you're interested in it, i encourage you to visit some of the links at the bottom of that wiki page and surf for a nice good tutorial on it.  It's going to be hard for someone to post a reply as comprehensive as you probably need to learn what you want.

ps.
does everyone already know that jibz and I made a little (and little used) open source compression toolkit called octane?

25678

General Software Discussion / Re: Realtime Screencasting Software

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 11:25 AM »

There are actually a lot of programs for this (and some built-in features in windows xp and later).
But you won't find them listed under "realtime screencasting".

What jgp sited is one class of programs to look at, although those tend to be specific PROGRAMS that you use with others.  Rather than generically sharing control or display of a PC (regardless of what software is running on it).

For that, you might want to look at remote pc control type programs.  Here's one thread on them:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=3576.0

Most of the ones i know about those are for 1 user controlling a pc at a time.. What you want is more interesting, which is multiple users watching and controlling a pc.  I look forward to hearing what others find, but at least that thread will give you some sites to look at.

25679

General Software Discussion / Re: Stay Away From Microsoft VISTA

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 08:07 AM »

I think some of the comments about backward compatibility warrant a further comment from me.

There are always very difficult choices to be made when balancing backward compatibility with new features.  I think MS makes a reasonable choice to preserve backward compatibility.  Yes it does make things messier.  Apple is more willing to throw out stuff when they write new APIs, maybe that's just because they have a smaller developer pool which is more willing to be told: your code won't run on the new stuff, rewrite it.

However, the virtual store stuff that microsoft implemented for vista is to my mind, exactly the wrong approach for this kind of thing.  In fact i think it's a textbook case of how NOT to handle backward compatibility.

The idea that they are quietly behind the scenes creating mirror copies of files and tricking programs (and users!) into think they are working with one copy of a file (or registry key) when they are really working with another, is so clearly a bad idea that they should have fired they guy who dared to suggest it.  Don't even give him the end of the day to clear out his office.

The proper solution would have been simpler, clearer, safer, and better for everyone.  When a program is attempting to access files it's not allowed to in one of these privileged directories -- prompt the user, explain the problem, and let them switch the program to run in "compatibility mode" where it IS allowed to access these directories like it could in WinXP, etc.  If they want to run it in compatibility mode, fine.  If not, don't run it.  If you then wanted to let them switch into some insane virtual store more, with a huge warning, you could even do that (though if you ask me i wouldn't provide such an option).

25680

Living Room / Re: Not Just Free Games

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 07:48 AM »

Very nice.. If they can keep it up with a new game every day it'll definitely be worth regular reading.

25681

Mouser's Zone / Re: Hanselman likes DC :)

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 07:39 AM »

WOOT!!!!!! 

25682

Screenshot Captor / Re: Post your Programs where Scrolling Window Capture Fails

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 05:01 AM »

Or a semi automatic mode, where the user has to scroll between each screenshot and your programm connects all those screenshots automatically?

we must be thinking alike, that idea just occured to me as well..
there are 3 hard parts about scrolling window capture:
1) determining the overlap between pages
2) determining when to stop scrolling and finish the capture.
3) sending the scroll commands to the window (page down or line down).

often all 3 of these issues can be done automatically, and scrolling window capture works.

sometimes 1 of these issues proves too hard for sc and it fails.

but a semi-automated process where the user is responsible for doing the page down commands and knowing when to stop, could be the perfect compromise with hard cases.

25683

Screenshot Captor / Re: Post your Programs where Scrolling Window Capture Fails

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 03:05 AM »

I remember this problem from testing ultraedit, it has to do with an unusual scrollbar or client window space.  i will try to take another look at it and see what can be done to fix it.

25684

General Software Discussion / Re: screen capture software that uploads to free image host

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2007, 02:15 AM »

there are right-click context menu tools for various uploader services.
if you use screenshot captor to capture images, you should be able to right click on any screenshot and upload from the thumbnail panel in screenshot captor.

25685

The Form Letter Machine / Re: To save or not to save upon quitting; discarding temporary mods

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 10:56 PM »

Let me add my way just because it's easier for now -- and then you let me know if that solves it enough,

There's been some talk of re-organizing the form letter machine user interface in a more dramatic way, which i think is probably needed, and i think we should revisit these issues then.

25686

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: OnScreen Display for Mute Status

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 08:34 PM »

isv is sort of the hot term for small software developers, it stands for "Independent Software Vendor".
you'll hear the term a lot in reference to "Micro-ISV":

(see: http://www.amazon.co...-Walsh/dp/1590596013)

25687

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: OnScreen Display for Mute Status

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 08:29 PM »

im very very happy to create web space for dc members with freeware and/or donationware.
something like http://NAME.dcmembers.com or http://NAME.dcisv.com
message me for help. 

25688

General Software Discussion / Re: Settings backup software?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 06:17 PM »

some backup tools have this feature, using plugins so they can add new programs.
for example Genie Backup Manager has a page of plugins: http://www.genie-sof...ting/ScriptSrch.aspx



In fact they look like they have a TON of settings-backup "plugins", which is another reason Genie is such a good tool for backing up this kind of stuff, imho.

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Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: OnScreen Display for Mute Status

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 06:11 PM »

lanux i think it's time to make a web page for your utils!

25690

General Software Discussion / Re: ati/nvidia and portrait monitor setup:nvidia does not let you assign shortcu

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 05:27 PM »

I'm guessing there has to be a way to do this programmatically (maybe registry change).. And i don't mean programmatically launch the control panel and simulate pushing all the buttons, i mean there must be a simple way to throw the driver into portrait mode.

25691

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.140 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - Aug 15, 2007

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 05:24 PM »

omg look at that screenshot --
ok thanks for that looks like i need to fix that bug ASAP.

i'll look back at the ms office document issue - i remember having to add special code for that and i suspect that a recent change i made must have bypassed this special code.

25692

Developer's Corner / Re: Sun Releases Darkstar Under GPL v2

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 05:22 PM »

Very cool.. That could be great news for some developers.

25693

The Form Letter Machine / Re: To save or not to save upon quitting; discarding temporary mods

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 05:07 PM »

Ok i see the problem here, and the issue is a bit deeper and more complicated..

When you change a tree in any way from the tree-configuring screen, TFLM knows this, and when you try to quit it will prompt you to save your changes, abandon them, or cancel the quit.

When you change a tree node text item from the main screen (which is what i think you are doing given the text you quoted), it assumes this is something you just want to change temporarily.  i.e. it *assumes* that by changing it here and not in tree configuration screen that you do *not* want to save it, that's why it doesn't prompt you.

I can see why some users would prefer it this way and some would prefer to be able to make changes that will get saved here.

One way to solve the problem is add an option about whether changes made on main screen should be treated as changes to the tree that presumably should be saved (and thus user will be prompted if they try to change tree or exit without saving them).

This would match up well with adding an option to do the same thing with changes to variables, which I was also asked about the same thing.

25694

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 04:58 PM »

I like PECompact a lot, but i've recently stopped compacting my programs after a very painful episode.
During a marathon of bugfixing for "Find and Run Robot" I noticed that every so often the program was crashing on exit.  It was rare but i spent days trying to track down the problem with no luck.  Eventually i set up a little stress test that would run FARR, do some stuff, then exit it, hundreds of times in a row.  Eventually I tried comparing a version compacted with uncompacted and sure enough it was only happening on the compacted one.  So I decided for now to stop compacting the programs.

Now I should say that PECompact has a ton of options, and it's author is a brilliant guy so I wouldn't be at all surprised if what we are dealing with here isn't a failure to adjust some setting which is only causing trouble for FARR because it does so much dynamic dll loading and unloading of plugins.  I've just got so much on my plate currently that i thought i'd skip the compacting for a while to eliminate one possible source of problems.

25695

Find And Run Robot / Re: Public release in august ?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 04:43 PM »

This is the first program i've ever done such a drawn out non-public release for.. and i guess i'm just finding it hard to let go.. i feel like i need to get the new web page up with some video screencasts, etc.

25696

Screenshot Captor / Re: Missing information in the screenshot

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 04:41 PM »

What operating system do you use?

25697

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone Using OmniPage and PaperPort?

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 05:07 AM »

Great work OCRman -- and please let us know when the review is complete.

25698

General Software Discussion / Re: Help Authoring Gem

« Last post by mouser on September 05, 2007, 04:55 AM »

I just played with it briefly and it looks like an incredible tool.
It's not going to replace Help+Manual for me, but that's an expensive tool and this is completely free, which is hard to believe.

My only problem was it was erroring for me when trying to produce PDF files.  If they can get the PDF file generation to work and work well, this is going to be the must have free/low-cost help maker.  Outstanding 

25699

General Software Discussion / Re: Mr Uptime - a Firefox add-on

« Last post by mouser on September 04, 2007, 07:22 PM »

cool idea 

25700

DcUpdater / Re: For developers who want to add DcUpdater check to their apps: dcuhelper.exe

« Last post by mouser on September 04, 2007, 07:00 PM »

I wanted to describe one thing i will be adding very soon to the dcuhelper.exe utility.

Right now, when your program launches it to check for updates, it finds the dcupdater tool installed on the user's computer and invokes it.

If the main dcupdater tool is not installed, then dcuhelper will tell the user about it, and open the dcupdater web page for them so they can install it if they want.

I'm going to change this slightly so that if the dcupdater tool is not found, it will display a message explaining this to the user and offer them 3 choices:
1. Open the dcupdater web page to learn more about the updater and download it.
2. Open the program's own web page (the program they asked to check for updates for) so they can manually look for an update.
3. Cancel and do nothing.

In this way, even users who do not want to use the updater can be redirected to the program website to check for updates manually.