Recent Posts

2576

Living Room / I have a very hard announcement to make

« Last post by app103 on October 12, 2010, 09:52 PM »

This is probably one of the hardest and most heart breaking decisions I have ever had to make, and it is not one made in haste. I have been struggling with this for a long time.

I started coding in 2003 with the intention of teaching myself a skill that would lead to a steady income large enough to live off of. Seven years have passed and I still have not accomplished this. I do not have the skills necessary to earn a living coding for someone else (aka a "real" job) nor the skills necessary to run my own software company producing shareware that people would actually be willing to buy. I am not anywhere near close to it.

It has been a difficult road for me, full of obstacles I wouldn't have had if I had started out when I was much younger, had the money for a proper education, etc. etc. etc. But I persisted, because I felt it was a dream worth pursuing, one that represented a whole lot more than I care to explain here in public.

Now, looking at where I am and how long it took to get here, I can tell you that I still won't be where I wanted to be today, in another seven years time. This has become futile and I need to stop wasting my time and start focusing my energies on something more likely to give tangible results...an income I can live on without moving to a 3rd world country. And my time is running out. My deadline is May, my daughter's 25th birthday, to have an income that will allow her to leave home and have a life of her own, without fear that her parents are going to end up homeless if she does. I need to set her free.

I don't know if or when I will be able to finish and release my NANY project, and it is likely to be the last thing I release, if I do. If by some miracle I do complete it, I will most likely release it as open source, with the intention of walking away from it.

Yes, I will be walking away from the rest of my projects, as well. As of today, they are officially abandonware.

My life has been more tears than smile lately, and I need to change that. I do not want to be burdened with supporting old poorly written software while I am trying to figure out what to do with my life.

Coding used to be fun but it's not any more. The last year or so I have found it very hard to work on anything. I am sorry, but when the sight of my IDE makes me cry, it's time to stop.

Thank you to all of you that have supported me along the way, with donations, encouraging words, help when I got stuck, etc. It was very much appreciated. You helped make a lot of great things possible for me...you changed my life in ways I can't even begin to count.

Maybe some day, once I have figured out what to do with myself I can come back to it strictly as a hobby. Then I won't be putting so much pressure on myself to accomplish so much...and maybe then I can enjoy it again.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go cry myself to sleep.

2577

Living Room / Re: Firefox Stability Issues

« Last post by app103 on October 12, 2010, 02:25 PM »

I have heard something about Mozilla using an SQL database that fills up over time and causes issues like this. Don’t know if that is real or bs though.

-J-Mac (October 11, 2010, 10:20 PM)

CCleaner can optionally compact the SQL databases of Firefox if you let it.  Don't know if that will help you.
 (see attachment in previous post)

-4wd (October 11, 2010, 10:41 PM)

That can't be the problem as this machine is pretty new. Like 2 months old or so.

Thanks for the recommendation though. I'll keep it in my renegade mind.

-Renegade (October 11, 2010, 10:50 PM)

If you are using the Google Toolbar with it's cute little start page of linked thumbnails to your most visited sites, your database is going to get pretty big rather quickly, and this WILL cause stability problems. It only took a few weeks for my places.sqlite database to grow to over a gig in size. It stores a thumbnail of every page you visit in there, not just the ones you see on the start page.

I am actually having less problems with Firefox lately. It seems much more stable than it did a year ago, back when it was freezing up on me about every 5 minutes...even starting in a frozen state...and refusing to close, causing me to have to kill it so I could open it again without the "firefox is already running" message.

2578

Living Room / Re: How much soda (pop) do you drink?

« Last post by app103 on October 10, 2010, 07:57 AM »

I used to drink an insane amount of diet soda (around 3 liters a day) but currently drink an average of less than a glass per month.

I have a hatred of liquid sugar, so I never drink the stuff with the HFC added...only diet. Regular sodas make me feel like I am growing hair on my teeth. (yuck!)

From what I understand, New York originally wanted a whole lot more than a ban on sodas for this...they wanted to ban anything containing any type of sugar or HFC (and sugar itself), including breakfast cereals, cookies, instant oatmeal, candy, snack cakes, pancake syrup, cake & muffin mixes, jellies & jams, etc...with plans on broadening it to included things with added fats and salt, in the future. If they had their way, there wouldn't be anything left for people to buy and food stamps would be a complete joke.

And while a ban from buying this stuff with food stamps will stop people from using food stamps to buy it, it won't stop people from buying it. Instead they will have to use their cash allowance they receive from the government to do it, money that would have been used to buy clothes for their kids, toilet paper, laundry detergent, etc.

They can't really stop buying it since the majority of the small juice box drinks approved for children to take to school in their lunch boxes are on the ban list. The remaining ones are insanely expensive. Each family needs to purchase 20 juice boxes per school aged child, per month, unless the school has cooking facilities and a free lunch program they are eligible for (some small schools in rural areas don't). Sold in packs of 3, that is about $10.50 per child, per month. If they use their food stamps to get the approved juices, it's about twice that. Considering the program only allows a max of about $75 per family member, per month, that's a pretty big chunk to force poor people to pay.

And the free lunch program isn't better than sending your kid to school with a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, a piece of fruit, and a HFC loaded juice drink (fortified with vitamin C), since the federal govt allows schools to do stupid stuff like call packets of relish and ketchup nutritious vegetables and substitute a few corn chips in place of bread.

2579

Developer's Corner / Re: The Inversion of the Open Source - Big Corporation Divide?

« Last post by app103 on October 10, 2010, 12:14 AM »

I get the same forbidden page from that link on two different computers, three browsers and wget.

-jaden (October 08, 2010, 07:21 PM)

Same here from South America, no "love" from lulu (a common short for girls named Luana over here).

-Shades (October 08, 2010, 08:02 PM)

OK, I have sent a message to the author through the lulu internal messaging system, explaining the problem. Hopefully he will get back to me, and the issue will be fixed.

2580

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: A Map of where Baby Cody Visits?

« Last post by app103 on October 08, 2010, 06:27 PM »

I sent him to Josh, and he arrived safely. Josh has since returned to the US with baby Cody, and has been holding him for ransom or something.

2581

Developer's Corner / Re: The Inversion of the Open Source - Big Corporation Divide?

« Last post by app103 on October 08, 2010, 06:24 PM »

Did Bob have a change of heart?  The download link goes to http://www.lulu.com/forbidden.php

-jaden (October 08, 2010, 04:31 PM)

There is a tiny icon with a green arrow, that when clicked will give you the pdf version of the book, here on his profile page: http://stores.lulu.com/machine

2582

Developer's Corner / Re: The Inversion of the Open Source - Big Corporation Divide?

« Last post by app103 on October 08, 2010, 11:19 AM »

Bob Young, one of the co-founders of RedHat and founder of LuLu.com (a site that allows anyone to self-publish a book) wrote a very short book you might want to add to your reading collection, for this topic.

Giving It Away (and he is giving away the digital version for free)

2583

Living Room / Re: New image format for the web

« Last post by app103 on October 04, 2010, 07:52 AM »

I think the success/failure of it rests entirely in 2 sources:

-Renegade (October 04, 2010, 07:41 AM)

Make that 3 sources:

3. Support in average consumer grade cameras. People take photos with their phones these days, then upload the photos directly to their blog, facebook, etc. Unless the phone's camera (or the software running on the web service they upload them to) is going to automatically convert it for them, most people likely won't bother going out of their way to figure out how, and will post whatever their camera produces by default.

2584

Living Room / Re: Some Google Blogger questions

« Last post by app103 on September 29, 2010, 10:14 AM »

If you are uploading your images to Blogger when you make your posts, there really is no other way to do it then how 40hz suggested...with a site ripper.

There are alternative ways to publish the images in posts, though. Windows Live Writer can be configured to upload any images you insert to your own FTP space that you have on some server, rather than uploading them to Picassa Web (what is used when you upload to Blogger).

If you wanted to export the posts to XML to import to another blog or blogging platform like Wordpress, the original links to the images on your own server would still work.

Something like this is good for 2 reasons:

1. You won't have to worry about hitting the file storage limits on Picasa Web, as long as you continue to have ample space on your web host to keep storing images.
2. It puts you in full control of backing up your stuff.

Something like this is bad for a few reasons:

1. You will probably always have to pay for the storage for even just a few images and you'll need a domain name if you want the image URLs used in posts to match, even if you change web hosts.
2. Not every web host is going to allow the hot linking of images that is needed to make this work.
3. You will need to make sure that your web host will provide you with enough monthly bandwidth to support the traffic your blog gets (and will get, in case of being slash-dotted, Stumbled, Dugg, or just mentioned in a high profile blog)
4. It puts you in full control of backing up your stuff, and if you don't and something happens, you are going to wish you left them all on Picasa Web.
5. Blogger doesn't support MediaRSS thumbnails for images not uploaded through the web based Blogger post editor. Only one gallery on Picassa Web is supported and you can only upload images to that galley through their post editor. Not even Windows Live Writer can access that gallery for uploading. (this can be an issue if links to your blog are shared on Digg and some other social media sites. Either the wrong image will be displayed, or no image at all.)

2585

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by app103 on September 27, 2010, 11:35 PM »

app103 - a microwave oven can do the same.

I am surprised at all the trepidation over some tiny little refrigerator magnets! Come on folks! Refrigerator magnets!! I would hazard a guess - out on a limb here - that many more people are killed in auto accidents than by their refrigerator magnets, but I'll wager that no one gives driving their cars that much cautious forethought!!  

Thanks!

Jim

-J-Mac (September 27, 2010, 12:39 PM)

Magnets can kill.

A 6-year-old boy died after undergoing an MRI exam at a New York-area hospital when the machine's powerful magnetic field jerked a metal oxygen tank across the room, crushing the child's head.

Magnets can kill.

Doctors at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry saved the life of a three-year-old boy after he swallowed several magnets which burst his appendix when they clamped around it — the first known case of its kind.

Magnets can kill.

The facts: Since 2005, there has been one death and 86 injuries from magnets and 8 million magnetic toys have been recalled.
The problem: Today’s magnets can be very small and very powerful—so much so that when a child swallows two or more magnets or a magnet and another metal object, the items can attract through intestinal walls and get trapped in place. This can twist or pinch the intestines causing holes, blockages, infection and even death.
The solution: Watch carefully for loose magnets that may fall out of various toys and keep magnets away from children younger than six. Check any magnet toys to see if they’ve been recalled and, if so, stop using such toys immediately.

MAGNETS CAN KILL!

When you get to the bottom of the page, there is no shortage of links to more stories showing just how dangerous common everyday magnets are.

It doesn't matter if they are tiny magnets in a child's toy or the giant powerful magnets used in MRI machines, or any size in between. ALL magnets have the potential to kill, and that potential increases with the power of the magnet. The kind of magnets we have been talking about in this thread are not common fridge magnets. Your common fridge magnet doesn't have 890 lbs of pull force, but there is one that does on the page I linked to in my first reply in this thread. 

2586

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by app103 on September 27, 2010, 06:22 AM »

From that page you posted:

CAUTION:

The magnet featured in this advertisement is not a toy and must be handled with extreme caution. The improper handling and/or use of this magnet can result in irrevocable damage to property as well as serious physical damage. While the magnetic field generated by a rare earth magnet is rather shallow, it should not be placed directly on top of computer equipment or equipment subject to detriment by magnetic interference.Because this magnet is attracted to metal at a force equivalent to 350 lbs, it is absolutely imperative that the user never position his/her fingers and/or other appendages in between the magnet and a metal surface. This magnet's attraction to metal is so intense that fingers would be literally severed if inadvertently caught beneath the magnet.

By all means, never stand beneath the magnet when it is carrying a load as a sudden shift in weight could result in the load disengaging from the magnet and falling to the ground. The magnet should never be used to suspend any metal object above a person or object of value.

-Renegade (September 27, 2010, 12:02 AM)

And from the warning page I posted:

• The strong magnetic fields of neodymium magnets can damage items such as television, computer monitors, credit cards, bank cards, computers, diskettes and other data carriers, video tapes, mechanical watches, hearing aids, loud speakers and VCRs. Pace-makers may be damaged or switch to "Test Mode" in the presence of a strong magnetic force, if a pace-maker is in use, keep a minimum of 3 feet distance.
• You should avoid having constant contact with magnets of any size and keep a distance of at least 3 feet to large magnets.

There was even more warnings, but those 2 items really stood out to me. Powerful magnets can kill people, without them even touching them.

2587

Living Room / Re: When you knock at my door...

« Last post by app103 on September 26, 2010, 02:08 AM »

Tell her it's just another "cool" fad the companies use to make the bill higher each month.

-CodeTRUCKER (September 26, 2010, 12:15 AM)

Oh, I don't have to tell her that. She's a smart girl, and frugal like her mom. I raised her well. 

2588

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by app103 on September 26, 2010, 12:21 AM »

Yes!  I had forgotten about those "old" speakers, but I thought anything in the last twenty years used some other kind of fancy "quasi-electro-magnet"  Do they still use real magnets in speakers nowadays?

-CodeTRUCKER (September 26, 2010, 12:18 AM)

I don't know. I haven't had any busted speakers large enough to be worth taking apart to find out, in about 25 years.

2589

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by app103 on September 26, 2010, 12:10 AM »

If all else fails, rip open a broken/unusable hard drive and use the magnets within. Those are everlasting strong.

-Shades (September 25, 2010, 10:32 PM)

There's a creative alternative!

-CodeTRUCKER (September 25, 2010, 11:53 PM)

And speaker magnets are one of my old favorites. An old pair of large speakers that don't work any more will give you 2 of them. Be sure to pull them out before you toss the speakers in the trash.

2590

Living Room / Re: When you knock at my door...

« Last post by app103 on September 26, 2010, 12:06 AM »

I have not experienced these, myself, but I asked my daughter if she has and she said has a few friends with them.

And she says, more than anything else, they are confusing to the caller, who is expecting to hear the normal "phone is ringing" sound and instead is hit with this music. It makes one wonder if something is wrong. Why isn't it ringing like it is supposed to do? 

2591

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by app103 on September 25, 2010, 03:58 PM »

You might also want to read their safety warnings page: http://www.magnet4le..._info1.php?page_id=1

2592

Living Room / Re: Looking for Refrigerator Magnets that work

« Last post by app103 on September 25, 2010, 03:41 PM »

These would work quite well. Buy them by the pull force you need and be careful not to get yourself one that's too strong that you can't get it off your fridge. 

2593

General Software Discussion / Re: My Windows Desktop is a shambles...

« Last post by app103 on September 24, 2010, 03:39 PM »

The individual icons in your quick launch is spectacular though.  You are on XP? That's amazing.

-MilesAhead (September 24, 2010, 01:00 PM)

This is something that has been possible to do, since at least Win98. I don't have any screenshots of my taskbar from that OS, but I do have an old one from my 2nd pc from about 2002, which ran WinME:



The more things change, the more they stay the same. I still keep drive icons at the top and games at the bottom. Even the positions of some of the icons haven't changed. Paintshop Pro and Animation Shop are still the first 2 shortcuts on the Art row.

I have a curiosity about your taskbar.  I suspect by the way it appears, it is set on the right of your screen probably using the Auto-hide property.

-CodeTRUCKER (September 24, 2010, 01:59 PM)

Yes. Since it is fully extended, there would be no other way to do it without losing half the available desktop space.

I know it is a matter of personal taste, but given the scrollbars are on the right, I was curious how you decided on the right side?  Does it give you any advantage or was it just the whim of the day?

-CodeTRUCKER (September 24, 2010, 01:59 PM)

It was the whim of my father and by his explanation, he felt it was more mentally ergonomic to have the start button on the right side, if you were right handed.

At one point, I even toyed with 2 massive toolbars, one on each side. 

2594

Living Room / Re: Hilarious video, for those old enough to appreciate it.

« Last post by app103 on September 23, 2010, 11:56 PM »

I can't see the video on that link, but if it is the "Blond typist goes back to work after many years" one that I sent to my blond daughter a while back, she thought it was very sexist and didn't take kindly to it at all.
 

-IainB (September 23, 2010, 11:05 PM)

I am a blonde and fully appreciated it and played it over and over and laughed till it hurt...and then sent it to everyone I know that would appreciate it. 

2595

General Software Discussion / Re: My Windows Desktop is a shambles...

« Last post by app103 on September 23, 2010, 05:34 PM »

@app, that's wild! Do you have some way to force categories per line or do you just have everything memorized?

-MilesAhead (September 23, 2010, 11:29 AM)

If you create a folder of shortcuts, Windows allows you to open that on your taskbar as a toolbar. That's what I have done, and the shortcuts are very well organized.

app, how do you remember what all the icons are for?  I prefer names, or icon+name.  Maybe, being an artist, you're particularly visually-oriented, rather than text-oriented?

-rjbull (September 23, 2010, 02:31 PM)

Do you recognize what running apps are all the icons sitting in your tray? What happens if you don't remember all the app names? Can you remember what some of them do, rather than their names? Do some of them always appear in the same position and you know it more by location than by name?

It's just like that for me, except more rows, which didn't happen overnight. No, I don't know what they are all called, but where they are gives me a hint as to purpose, and position on a row has some meaning, too. And I can always hover over an icon if I forget. Some of them, my hand knows more than my brain does.

If your very first Windows based PC was set up this way when you go it, with no desktop icons, and you were forced to use it this way, you'd get used to it and it would seem natural. Three generations of my family have their taskbar like this...my dad started it, then passed it on to myself and my daughter when he gave us one of his old computers (our first computer).

Even though I am used to it and it all makes sense to me, it's not all fun and games. I have a dual boot machine with Ubuntu and I do not feel comfortable in Linux because I haven't been able to find a way to duplicate this functionality in that OS. Whenever I want to do something, my hand instinctively goes for that big toolbar on the right, to the region where what I want to do belongs...and there is nothing there and no way to put it there...and I get frustrated and feel so lost. 

2596

General Software Discussion / Re: My Windows Desktop is a shambles...

« Last post by app103 on September 23, 2010, 02:13 AM »

Now you are beginning to understand my taskbar madness! 

-app103 (September 22, 2010, 08:05 PM)

Madness... what madness?

-CodeTRUCKER (September 22, 2010, 11:40 PM)

 

2597

N.A.N.Y. 2009 / Re: NANY 2009 Release: Trout (audio player)

« Last post by app103 on September 22, 2010, 08:47 PM »

Discovered a bug:

When a file name contains a comma, Trout is unable to open Explorer to the file location.

On a file name like "Bjørn Lynne - Revive - 02 - Bridge to the Universe, part 1.mp3" you get an Explorer error stating that "The path 'part 1.mp3' does not exist or is not a directory."

2598

General Software Discussion / Re: My Windows Desktop is a shambles...

« Last post by app103 on September 22, 2010, 08:05 PM »

Now you are beginning to understand my taskbar madness! 

2599

Living Room / Re: prevent my kids from downloading files from the Internet

« Last post by app103 on September 22, 2010, 01:37 PM »

If you are running XP or Vista, you could use Windows SteadyState (freeware). It's as close as you are going to get to a free version of DeepFreeze. It was intended for protecting computers in schools, libraries, internet cafes, and anywhere else where a heavy duty solution is required.

Once installed and properly configured, all you have to do is reboot to get rid of any changes anyone makes to the system...meaning all the malware and toolbars acquired during a session will just disappear. No more worrying from you.

But you better grab a copy soon, because Microsoft is discontinuing access to download it at the end of this year.

So, grab all 3 of these files and make a good backup of them:

• setup
• FAQ
• handbook

2600

Living Room / Re: Awesome photos

« Last post by app103 on September 21, 2010, 08:52 AM »

Interesting.

This is kind of off topic, but I couldn't help but notice...

Count how many fat people are in there. Here's the total.

Now, the next time you are in a public place with 20 or more people, count. Compare.

-Renegade (September 20, 2010, 02:52 AM)

Got to remember something...these photos were mostly rural farm folk and the poor...during the depression. There wasn't much of any food for a lot of people. My dad grew up in that era and told me why he hates oatmeal to this very day was because he had to eat it for breakfast lunch & dinner for weeks on end, because it was all his mother could afford. Kind of hard to get fat under those conditions.