Recent Posts

276

DC Gamer Club / Re: Assassin's Creed (PC version) contest

« Last post by Ampa on April 10, 2008, 06:33 PM »

Don't worry - There will be a full report as soon as I have my hands on the game, in particular focussing on the number of hours that I waste when I should be working!

277

DC Gamer Club / Re: Assassin's Creed (PC version) contest

« Last post by Ampa on April 10, 2008, 04:14 PM »

Floppy: Yes I have the hardware, though the requirements are quite ridiculous!

278

DC Gamer Club / Re: Assassin's Creed (PC version) contest

« Last post by Ampa on April 10, 2008, 07:18 AM »

Thank you f0dder

279

DC Gamer Club / Re: Assassin's Creed (PC version) contest

« Last post by Ampa on April 10, 2008, 06:47 AM »

OMG - I won!

Thanks Lanux I saw your post and entered on a whim, and today I find out that a copy of Assassin's Creed is winging its way through the post to me

Thank you Lanux - Thank you Bit-Tech - Thank you Ubi Soft - Thank you Mouser

Did I miss any one?

Ampa

280

General Software Discussion / Re: mp3 Audio OUTPUT volume normalizer? Any such thing?

« Last post by Ampa on April 07, 2008, 08:07 AM »

fodder: mp3gain writes both a track gain and album gain tag to the file. It does NOT change the audio in anyway.

target: mp3gain will not only reduce loud tracks, but also boost quiet tracks.

281

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: FillCD equivalent

« Last post by Ampa on April 07, 2008, 08:00 AM »

Yay! This looks promising.

As you indicate it seems pretty intuitive... I think I can see how the program flow works just from the one screenshot.

Good news about drag and drop - that is always a good feature to have.

If you need some feedback from a beta, Id be very happy to give it.

Ampa

282

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: FillCD equivalent

« Last post by Ampa on April 06, 2008, 05:57 PM »

cbbibleboy: That is great news Looking forward to seeing your results.

283

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: I launched my own site! Welcome wise fellows!!

« Last post by Ampa on April 04, 2008, 12:30 PM »

Anatolie: Looks like a good start to me... is this your first complete website?

The good bits...

• Good to see that you've used CSS for the rollovers rather than Javascript.
  
• Does the job of promoting your product nicely.
  
• I like the favicon
  
• Works well in IE6, IE7, FF2 and Opera.

Could be better...

• You've not added meta tag for keywords on the subpages.
  
• The page is written as HTML but the DOCTYPE declares the page as xHTML Strict - this causes lots (32) errors when I try to validate the site.
  
• Your LI list items are not enclosed in a UL unordered list block.
  
• Try to avoid using <p align="right"> - instead use CSS.

Good job so far - get the DOCTYPE sorted and fix the small HTML issues and it will be spot on!

284

Developer's Corner / Re: How to divide an image into random sized parts?

« Last post by Ampa on April 04, 2008, 07:08 AM »

How about the alternative aproach...

Code: Text [Select]

1. Begin with a single Slice (this will be the whole image)
2. Repeat until you have enough slices {
3.   Randomly choose a slice (check that it is not already too small to further divide)
4.   Randomly choos an orientation (vertical or horizontal)
5.   Divide the Slice it into two parts (this need not be two even parts)
6. }

This will always ensure you have rectangles.

285

Living Room / Re: Your happiness right now

« Last post by Ampa on April 04, 2008, 06:59 AM »

I am suffering 'end of project blues' today.

Have been working on a website for the past month... it should have taken a week, but various complications have caused the project to drag on and on. I finally gave my client a deadline and the work is now complete.

Surely a reason to be happy? You'd think so; instead I find myself lost, lacking in motivation to do anything more than drip around the house or crawl back to bed.

Ho hum.

Ampa

286

Developer's Corner / Re: Javascript regular expression to grab filename from URI

« Last post by Ampa on April 02, 2008, 07:39 PM »

mwb1100: thanks for the tip about decodeURI().

I realise that the %20s are usually there for a good reason, but the filename that I extract is not being passed to the browser, it needs to be read by the user, so in this instance spaces are friendlier

287

Developer's Corner / Re: Javascript regular expression to grab filename from URI

« Last post by Ampa on April 02, 2008, 06:54 PM »

Thanks Marc, I shall try these out 

288

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommendation please: web wireframe "sketcher"

« Last post by Ampa on April 02, 2008, 01:34 PM »

But how about Xara Xtreme? You would only require the standard version @ $89.

Although it is overly powerful for what you need, but I whole heartedly reccommend it because of the ease of use. It is far simpler than any other vector / layout package that I have used, but can produce amaizing results. I use it all the time for websites, posters, forms and 90% of my desktop publishing.

Take a look at some of their demo videos.

289

Developer's Corner / Re: Javascript regular expression to grab filename from URI

« Last post by Ampa on April 02, 2008, 01:12 PM »

Here is how I am doing it without using a regex...

Code: Javascript [Select]

1. var splitArray = this.preLoader.src.replace(/\%20/g, ' ').split('/');
2. var IMGTitle = splitArray[splitArray.length-1];
3. IMGTitle = IMGTitle.substring(3, IMGTitle.length-4);

A bit long winded perhaps?
1) Replace the %20s with spaces.
2) Split the string at the /s and select the last one.
3) Grab the middle of the string.

Would regex be better?

290

Developer's Corner / Javascript regular expression to grab filename from URI

« Last post by Ampa on April 02, 2008, 12:43 PM »

I am very new to regular expressions and am struggling with something that I am sure is really pretty straight forward.

I have a string from which I need to return the just the filename, without the extension, or the path, or the serial number (xx = two digits at the start of the filename)

Code: Text [Select]

1. http://website/subdir/xx title of the image.jpg
2. http://aboutfaceuk.com/gallery/01%20a%20very%20big%20dog.jpg

The top example illustrates the general form of the input text, and the bottom is a real example from the site. The results should be...

Code: Text [Select]

1. title of the image
2. a very big dog

Other factors...

In theory there may or may not be a subdir.
The %20 should be replaced with spaces (not entirely sure why they are %20s in the first place, but they are!)
The regex flavour is Javascript.

Help appreciated!

Thanks Ampa

291

General Software Discussion / Re: mp3 Audio OUTPUT volume normalizer? Any such thing?

« Last post by Ampa on March 27, 2008, 06:23 AM »

Changing the actual audio level of the individual files is BAD as this will entail re-encoding them MP3s, causing further loss of quality - plus it is slow.

Replaygain is the best solution, but this will entail scanning all the files and adding a replaygain tag. MP3Gain is the freeware app to use in this situation.

xmPlay is not only tiny with superb sound quality, but supports both track and album replaygain. It also has Auto-amp...

This causes the amplification level to be automatically reduced whenever clipping occurs. With fade-in enabled, it will fade-in new tracks until they clip, then it'll behave the same as normal. Dynamic mode continues to increase and decrease the amplification level throughout playback.

-the xmPlay help file...

292

Living Room / Re: From the maker of Samorost... Questionaut!

« Last post by Ampa on March 26, 2008, 01:37 PM »

That is fun and rather beautiful.

293

General Software Discussion / Re: Calculate number of CD/DVD needed to burn files

« Last post by Ampa on March 25, 2008, 06:35 PM »

A bit of cross pollenation never hurts... See this DC thread for simillar.

294

Living Room / Re: I hate this game...

« Last post by Ampa on March 21, 2008, 09:40 AM »

So how far have you persevered?

I have seen but failed question 28 (which used both my skips).

Update: Q38 (again using all my skips).

295

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: FillCD equivalent

« Last post by Ampa on March 19, 2008, 10:25 AM »

@nosh: the biggest annoyance with FillCD is that it will only compile 3 CDs worth of stuff per run, until registered. It is a small thing I suppose, but means that I can't leave it to crunch through a whole hard-disk unattended.

296

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: FillCD equivalent

« Last post by Ampa on March 18, 2008, 06:30 PM »

cbbibleboy: Great! I look forward to anything you can come up with in this field.

I think Mouser's suggestion is a good one, would certainly make the transition to burning app smooth.

297

General Software Discussion / Re: FTP - How do I duplicate / copy remote folder?

« Last post by Ampa on March 14, 2008, 08:50 PM »

Update...

AceFTP is now annoying me, it continues to pop-up a reminder that I am using the free version (not the Pro version), even though I visited the site, and registered as a user of the free version (not the Pro version), and declined the offer to buy the Pro version (cos I want the free version!).

It also has an in-application advert, permanently reminding me that there is a Pro version... just in case I hadn't got the message by now!

Subversion... OK so maybe I do need to take the plunge and play with the big boys. I asked the Dreamhost super-happy-svn-installing robot to make me a subversion install, which it did (happily). I installed TortoiseSVN on my home machine. I even created an empty SVN repository...

...but now I am stuck (couldn't import my files successfully), lost and faced with a 126 page help file full of long words that I don't really understand.

Anyone have a nice basic guide / tutorial that will get me up and running?

298

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: FillCD equivalent

« Last post by Ampa on March 14, 2008, 01:45 PM »

I have a folder, containing many of subfolders, all of  which need burning to CDs. It is not important which folders end up on which CDs, so I would like some software to figure the best collection of folders for each CD to minimize the total number of CDs used.

There is an existing application FillCD which does exactly this!

BUT - the program is shareware, and appears to have been abandoned in late 2005. I have scoured the web for information...

• The original homepage fillcd.com is gone.
  
• The newer homepage fillcd.net has said "Sorry! The FillCD site is currently in transition. Please check back later." for months.
  
• Some of the subpages of fillcd.net work - but the downloads bring up errors.
  
• Registration is via email, but all contact email addresses are for the old domain, and bounce.
  
• Emails to the new domain disappear into the inner workings of the inter-web-mega-carriageway never to be seen again.
  
• Various posts in alt.windows.freeware over the last 12 months have not turned up any trace of the author.
  

I am aware of Burn to the Brim but this has more than its fair share of problems.

Perhaps someone can develop an alternative?

The requirements...

1) Accept a list of files and/or folders.
2) Mix and match these (keeping folders and subfolders together) to best fit the desired medium (eg 700MB CD).
3) Produce a list of files to burn to CD or possibly move the files/folders into a subfolder (eg BurnThis #1).
4) Repeat until all files/folders allocated.

Thoughts?

Ampa

299

Developer's Corner / Re: Change Wacom properties with hotkeys ?

« Last post by Ampa on March 11, 2008, 11:09 AM »

Same problem (most commonly I want to change which of my two screens the pen uses).

Same solution (akh script automates the clicks)

Same frustration (it isn't very good)

Same question (anyone got a better solution?)

300

Developer's Corner / Re: Javascript remote rollover - works in IE7 but not IE6

« Last post by Ampa on March 09, 2008, 11:42 AM »

Solved: was nothing to do with the rollover, but rather a limitation of the transparent png hack for IE6 (it can't do position offsets).