Recent Posts

276

General Software Discussion / Re: Trackpad Blocker - Stop accidental trackpad "touches"

« Last post by worstje on March 14, 2011, 06:39 PM »

Functionality like this can be gold, and it can be total utter crap. Especially if like JavaJones says it can't be turned off completely.

Some laptop touchpads just have very crappy placement compared to the keyboard, whereas other laptops have perfect positioning where it is never an issue. Some touchpads are sensitive to these sorts of large area contacts and/or light touches, whereas others really take a bit more effort to register your fingers. Some support only one finger at a time (getting rarer nowadays), others can recognize multiple fingers.

Combine that with the sort of work you engage in (lots of keyboard shortcuts, simple typing of documents, lots of mouse mucking, etc) to find out that this sort of tool depends on both user and laptop. Trade one of the two for another model and the tool may not be needed any longer.

Thanks for linking this; it is really useful and a typical thing I wish I would have had 3 years ago. At least now I know of this sort of tool so if I need it, I can find it!

277

Find And Run Robot / Re: Plugins not working after moving/reinstalling on Windows 7

« Last post by worstje on March 14, 2011, 08:35 AM »

Try installing in a location outside Program Files. Windows Vista and up do some file juggling to make things safer, but it causes problems for programs that want to store stuff in their installation directory.

278

Living Room / Re: Which cartoon character do you most relate to (and why)?

« Last post by worstje on March 13, 2011, 02:32 PM »

Either Luffy or Chopper from the manga One Piece. Why? Because dancing around with chopsticks in your nose is unrivaled in epicness.

279

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: A Custom Page for Inno Setup showing DoCo info and donation benefits

« Last post by worstje on March 12, 2011, 07:56 PM »

That will happen. At a minimum, it will get labeled as "ADWARE" by some people. It doesn't matter how innocent it is. But, you can't please everyone.

-Renegade (March 12, 2011, 07:52 PM)

By that logic, all installers are Adware. They tend to have visible text things saying 'made with NSIS' or 'made with WISE', etc. And usually on every single screen, or on the final page. But yeah, whiners complain. It's a law of nature at this point I think.

280

Living Room / Re: More thoughts on micro vs macro donations and the turning point for donationware

« Last post by worstje on March 12, 2011, 07:49 PM »

The price for software will always be compared to the most commonly paid price amongst peers. I can call something a $100 tool all I want, but if I give away tons of licenses on GAOTD, sell it for $30 on BDJ on a semi-monthly basis, have a referral program giving similar discounts... well, people won't think of it as a $100 tool at all.

Why? Reviews and other publicity will all be about those early adopter people who got a then seemingly good prize. Then you check and the prize has tripled. So your user ends up having to wait to get the perceived value, because people do not like to pay more than others for the same product. Just think of all those gamers who whine like no tomorrow if a month after they buy a game the same game can be bought for $10 less.

Also it pays to remember that the internet is a very grown up place now. Search engines make finding reviews easy peasy. There are tons of software directory sites too, and I pretty much expect them to have graphs with the cost over a time period as well. Any price-fu you figure out will bite you in the arse at some point, I reckon.

281

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: A Custom Page for Inno Setup showing DoCo info and donation benefits

« Last post by worstje on March 12, 2011, 06:49 PM »

Well, we obviously all have very different ideas about this, which is good.

As my angle was for JottiQ, I am really uncomfortable with any sort of 'donate to me specifically' text as it just does not fit the spirit with which I have worked on the program and the support I have had from Jotti. Of course, I do understand that for most programs, that is not really an issue, so I'll leave my exact opinion about that up in the air until I see what the text and such turn out as.

More strongly though, I am unhappy with the idea of adding 'This Is DonationWare' at the top. And I am referring to that specific sentence. Why? It implies people are required to donate, but that is not true. It would be a free (as in gratis) program for all, with the ability to make a small donation as thanks. The word donationware just gives me the chills: I get the mental image of some extortionist picking you up, turning you around, shaking you till they see how much money falls out, and then thanking you for your donation.

In general, I feel we need to avoid the wheres-the-catch stigma that people get the moment they see a non-standard page in a wizard. Images tend to make me think in terms of extra toolbars. 'Donationware' as misrepresentation of a free tool. Big documents of text imply a secondary EULA or whatever. Does all that even make sense? (I'm tired.)

Perhaps it is best to have several varieties worked out through means of compiler switches or whatnot? Some varieties I had in mind are: 1) introducing 'the concept of donating for software' alone, 2) specifically focus on DonationCoder, 3) some other mix of choice.

282

Living Room / Re: The March 2011 6th Anniversary Fundraiser Has Begun! Cheer for Victory Thread

« Last post by worstje on March 12, 2011, 08:09 AM »

17 bucks now... (or well, I suppose that would make it exactly 9,000. I'm sure there's some cents the display does not show though.)

283

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Release: JottiQ

« Last post by worstje on March 12, 2011, 06:16 AM »

Right. I'm with you so far, and I actually looked into that stuff already. But if there's standard facilities to authenticating proxies, there should probably be some sort of Windows-wide data repository for that stuff I can (ab)use? If a system has a proxy configured it would be silly to make a user configure it separately for JottiQ.

Too many settings are a bad thing by my book, so if I can avoid any sort of data entry that is JottiQ specific that would make me happy.

284

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Release: JottiQ

« Last post by worstje on March 11, 2011, 10:55 AM »

I am hesitant to use a separate screen as it would very likely mean I'd have to get down into proxy nitty gritty. If at all possible, I want to use existing (builtin) Windows settings as that is how users would probably expect it to work.

Apologies for not getting around to coding that test build I promised. I just haven't gotten around to it, but it is most definitely on my list of things to do.

285

Developer's Corner / Re: Automatic Updater

« Last post by worstje on March 10, 2011, 08:56 PM »

I think both sides could temper the flames a bit and tone down the sarcasm and hostility. If I may be so free to mediate as a neutral, thus far uninvolved party...

PhilB66, you might in the future want to add a bit of argumentation to your post. Posting about different products and claiming their sort is horrible without explanation sort of fuels the trolls of the internet. Those other products have their threads already, so it is nice for this particular topic to stay near its roots. Also bold red megasize text comes across to me with as much emphasis as simply bolded text, save that I do not take the contents as seriously.

Renegade, your point would have come across just fine without the jab towards PhilB66 regarding past hostilities. Or without the centennial pastes of the same sentence. Or with the quoting of the big bold red stuff.

Now I demand you two go kiss and make up.


Regarding the actual topic on wyupdate... its webpage looks nice, but since the file specification page is actually quite empty I cannot form an opinion about its technical suitability and usability from a programmers perspective. Does anyone have experience with it so far, or can enlighten me a bit about the details? I am curious how it compares to dcuhelper/dcupdater and such. (I am a bit of a sucker for free as in BSD free. )

Hot damn, this is so offtopic but I cannot help myself... 300 posts!

286

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: A Custom Page for Inno Setup showing DoCo info and donation benefits

« Last post by worstje on March 10, 2011, 03:25 PM »

I want to note that the text/purpose I had in mind was aimed more-so at introducing other DoCo applications and the concept of DonationWare than out-right begging for donations on behalf of DoCo or myself. I've got no real interest in those things, and I tend to feel that people everywhere have been ('properly') immunitized to those (Paypal) Donate! things by now.

My guess is that a lot of applications do not end up in the hands of the end-user through DonationCoder. Thus, a simple page with extra information in an installer would be a nice sort of publicity campaign. An explicit This page is informational only, and no extra 'bundled' software will be installed. message might be useful to add at the bottom, just in case people go into ADSPYCRAPWARE mode the moment they see something that does not involve the name of the application itself.

287

Living Room / Re: Fox Sends DMCA Takedown To Google To Remove Link To DMCA Takedown Sent By Fox

« Last post by worstje on March 10, 2011, 12:36 PM »

Careful, now mouser is going to receive a DMCA for linking to an article discussing multiple Fox DMCA notices that in part involve other DMCA notices. We'll need a second fundraiser if that happens just to deal with the lawsuits, and then we'll end up receiving another notice and/or lawsuit for 'making money' based on their property.

Gotta love lawyers. Even if I am proven to be wrong, I am going to be damn close to the truth either way.

288

Site/Forum Features / Re: Revisiting the idea of simplifying the DC big app license key stuff

« Last post by worstje on March 10, 2011, 07:31 AM »

I am personally against dcuhelper holding all sorts of license key stuff. Why? Because not all applications lend themselves to the same sort of licensing scheme, or even want to bother with it.

JottiQ is my obvious example. It is not a tool I want to use any sort of license keys on. Why? For one, it is not a tool the user wants to spend time in - it is supposed to work with a minimum of the users attention being taken. Unlike updates, license key prompts are not something the user benefits from. Monthly renewable keys, etc.. they don't fit in my eyes. Compare that to tools like FARR, SSC, CH+S and GridMove, and they are actively being used by users who do more than simply 'start' the application with a single click. Second, the majority of the tool is actually not mine as it runs on Jotti's servers. Any sort of licensing would give off a totally wrong idea.

Updates and licensing are not remotely the same thing. Don't contaminate a good product with bloat.

Sorry for the messiness of this post; I am tired and having a bit of trouble expressing my thoughts on the subject.

289

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by worstje on March 10, 2011, 07:22 AM »

I guess there might be a privacy element involved with such caching if the extra information involved remains even after the last instance of the data was removed from Dropbox servers. But seriously, practically, what is the privacy leak in this case? The most devious usecase I can think of is some corporation querying dropbox for all possible files they own to see if it was ever uploaded... and even then it does not reveal who has the file. Hell, technically said corporation would probably be liable for stuff like reverse engineering the Dropbox protocols and whatnot, so it would legally be unusable information.

I use the almost exact same technique for JottiQ. Jotti's malware scan has an internal database of files it has already scanned, which allows me to avoid uploading a file a second time.

So, in a nutshell: I am willing to share some file with the service (Jotti / Dropbox), so I would be sharing the private information I worry about with the service to begin with. Thus the service obtains no private information it wouldn't have without such an optimization.

That make sense?

290

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Release: Color Warlock

« Last post by worstje on March 10, 2011, 06:08 AM »

hamradio, have a look at this StackOverflow question - it might shed some light on your clipboard issue.

291

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Release: JottiQ

« Last post by worstje on March 09, 2011, 01:32 PM »

You mention something of a popup and such. Is it some builtin Internet Explorer thing, or does it show for all browsers? Could you share a screenshot?

I think the solution I have in mind code-wise does not support popping up any dialogs, so it might not fix your issue and I've had to look at something else.

292

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: sWeather (tray-based weather app)

« Last post by worstje on March 09, 2011, 06:20 AM »

You can get rid of one of them in the settings dialog. (I don't remember which one that is though.) The other always sticks around to my knowledge.

293

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Release: JottiQ

« Last post by worstje on March 09, 2011, 04:54 AM »

Sweet. Thanks for the link, app103! I used to keep a close eye on articles for a while, but since Gothi[c] went a-magicking with awstats I've not really been able to keep an eye on fresh referers.

With regards to the proxy thing - I'll bring out a test build later today that hopefully solves your problem, sujay85. I lack the environment to properly test all of this (authenticated) proxy stuff, so I hope we'll have a few willing testers for whom 1.0.3 does not work properly.

294

Skwire Empire / Re: Release: sWeather (tray-based weather app)

« Last post by worstje on March 08, 2011, 04:54 AM »

I got it to crash by adding my location and removing the standard location which was selected. After that, the Location menu showed both places checked, and by clicking around a bit on them I eventually got it to crash without managing to have it show the forecast for my location. On the other hand, all worked fine after the reboot, except for my location getting cut off on the main window which looks ugly.

295

Post New Requests Here / Re: Flexible Fictional Timeline organisation tool

« Last post by worstje on March 07, 2011, 11:30 PM »

MasterPlan has a calendaring function that you may be able to leverage: http://www.habituali...ence.net/masterplan/

-skwire (March 07, 2011, 12:16 PM)

I've had a brief 10-minute look at that, and at first sight it does look rather promising. However, the Calendar stuff really seems a by-product of which the functionality comes close to what I want, but it still lacks flexibility. Likewise, I can't see how to set up different timelines for different characters/countries/etc and show them side-by-side for example. With that program, it is assumed everyone is at the same places so you can't say which people are at what event, but obviously I need that.

Not what you're seeking I knos, but conceivably could be useful in a pinch.
ESB DateCalc

-cranioscopical (March 07, 2011, 12:34 PM)

Yup, definitely not what I need. Thanks for the pointer tho.

296

Post New Requests Here / Flexible Fictional Timeline organisation tool

« Last post by worstje on March 07, 2011, 10:08 AM »

Ok, this is probably not a snack but closer to a five-course meal. Never the less, I am requesting it, although I am open for recommendations regarding existing software. I have looked at a bunch of stuff, but have thus far been unable to find something that can do the things I want, or if they can come close to it, do so in a way that makes it usable for me. (Also, I think I muttered about this subject in the past somewhere on these forums, but I can't find it nor can I be bummed to search for hours...)

I have been wanting to write some story for ages. I've got snippets etc lying around, and they are not the problem. I've got a personal wiki set up too, so that is not a problem either. But neither a text writing tool (like LSB XE) nor said wiki can solve my most majestic problem: custom calendars.

With a story set in a sort of medieval / oriental setting, it is natural that time is not set up as scientific as we have it with the Gregorian calendar. It tends to be measured in terms of years since an emperor started reigning for example. And similarly, some calendars may end up in simultaneous use in different countries or whatnot. Since my story is meant to cover several centuries (if you do something, do it big from the start ) I need proper flexibility to deal with this sort of data. I have tried expressing things in a single (master) calendar, but that just hampers me way too much.

So, a small list of my wants/needs:

• custom calendars, which can be defined into smaller fictional units. For example (making this up on the spot), one calendar might have years that consist out of 6 'peries', which consists out of 9 months, which consist out of five 'turnings', which are in turn seperated in concepts like weeks, days, hours and minutes. This one is extra convoluted to make a point - there may be more or less units than our simple year/month/week/day/hour/minute/second system.
• different calendars need to be expressable in terms of other calendars, for example by equating one unit from one calendar to another (number of) unit(s) from another calendar, and giving a defined anchor date from which all else could be equated. For example, for season-based calendars, one might equate four seasons to be a year, and the anchor date for one as starting at the beginning of winter, and the other starting at summer. Silly example, but it gets the point across.
• different timelines can be constructed, with events expressed in one or multiple calendars.
• timelines of choice can be displayed next to eachother allowing the writer to plan out events
• events can be put on multiple timelines
• some metadata per 'event' might be nice (to denote location, type of the event (traveling, key plot, etc), etc), but this is not required

As a programmer, I could probably write this myself. But I suck at GUI stuff, and the problem with a tool like this for me is that _if_ I ended up writing it, I'd never get to use it. I'd waste all my time on improving it, adding stuff etc... and I actually want to get to work on this story I keep putting off because I cannot manage it to my own satisfaction.

So, any suggestions for good tools, or anyone who feels like writing it... please do. You'd help me out big time, and I have DocoCredits lying around for the person that gives me the golden goose of timelining (coding snack or existing software; it does not matter.)

297

General Software Discussion / Re: Popping Downloads - iframe or meta refresh?

« Last post by worstje on March 04, 2011, 01:00 AM »

No matter what method you use, it might get blocked. Some browsers block automatic refreshes, others block javascripts, and there are others that hate on iframes for varying reasons (security, ad-blocking).

If a browser and/or security tool blocks some function, it is because the user has it installed and very likely wants it blocked like that. So please, do not try to undermine the users wishes by finding a way around it.

So, in my eyes, the best method imo is to use an ordinary meta refresh (it is meant for this purpose!) combined with the usual 'if it does not download in a moment, use this link' thing.

298

Living Room / Re: Soundwave 2011 in Melbourne

« Last post by worstje on March 03, 2011, 06:01 PM »

How about you get me the ticket, and the plane ticket I need to get over to Melbourne, and I'll go with you?

299

Site/Forum Features / Re: Cannot change DC avatar to new uploaded picture.

« Last post by worstje on March 01, 2011, 09:13 PM »

I think I ran into a similar issue which someone then pointed out so I could actually pick my hat as my icon. Make sure it has a good extension and isn't huge in either size or dimensions.

300

Living Room / Re: Should I add ads to my website?

« Last post by worstje on February 28, 2011, 05:17 PM »

I'd say it depends on where they want the ad to go and the way it looks. It shouldn't have random sound effects, animation is way too annoying already, etc. But yeah, freedom factories sound good.