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2901

General Software Discussion / Virtual Slide Rules

« Last post by Edvard on January 20, 2006, 02:48 PM »

W00T!! and you thought Graphcalc was cool! (it is, but... slide rules... )
http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/

2902

Living Room / Re: caffeine free week - who wants to join me?

« Last post by Edvard on January 20, 2006, 11:41 AM »

As long as we're on the subject...
http://www.rense.com/general52/msg.htm
Or, order the book:
https://www.spofamerica.com/

BTW- grain of salt not included.

2903

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on January 19, 2006, 07:37 PM »

@Carol:

Shame I can't remember where I saw the article.

I don't know the article, (maybe this one?) but the set of "rules" that such things fall under is called Fitts' Law
More about it here:http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5724/g1/
Also, there is a Linux distro called SymphonyOS that tries to incorporate Fitts's Law as fully as possible into their GUI. I've tried it, and it works as advertised, but the distro as a whole seems unfinished. I tried cloning those ideas more or less with my current Litestep setup and it works well.
@jgpaiva: Powerpro. Configuration isn't very intuitive even though it's a tabbed GUI, but it will do any of a million things and one of those is close an app from right-clicking the title bar.

2904

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 06:59 PM »

Well, Ok, I'll give you that one.

2905

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 06:31 PM »

Mouser: I am also a fan of right-clicks. I had no idea they existed until two years into Win95. You woulda thought I found a map to the Holy Grail that pointed to my basement. Ditto on the mousewheel. I wish there were a trackball that had 'em.

@f0dder

GUI: cocoa/nextstep

Aha! please forgive; I had forgotten Apple's acquisition of NeXT.

@jgpaiva: My answer was perhaps a little too short. Please forgive, that's the only thing that popped in my head as that's the only thing besides Kernel Panic that has locked up or killed my system anytime I was on Linux or BSD. From what other people have said, whatever it is that does happen is not at all helpful. (as if BSOD was...)

Ooh, hey, take a look at this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_panic
MacOSX Dark Screen Of Death?

2906

Living Room / Re: caffeine free week - who wants to join me?

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 05:53 PM »

it's american, it's not supposed to make sense.

Darn straight!!
:guns fire:

I only go caffeine free when forced by location or circumstance. Without it, I get a headache that would bring down an elephant. Some folks say that's why I should quit. BAH!

2907

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 05:31 PM »

I've never even touched a mac and so I have no idea how they handle a segfault, or any errors as far as that goes...
And AFAIK,
Unix came from Bell labs and IBM. The same guys who wrote it are now doing Plan 9.
BSD was Berkely College's version of Unix and is still today considered properly in the Unix family.
Linux was derived from/inspired by Minix, a Unix clone written by one of Linus Torvald's professors.
GNU was Richard Stallman's clone of the Unix system that ran on a Unix kernel.
It was the mating of the last two that produced the infamous OS we all call Linux.

For those interested:
The Unix Family Tree

And what about HyperCard?
:duck & run:

2908

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 05:19 PM »

does anyone know if there is something similar to BSOD on OSX?

Yep, Segmentation Fault: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmentation_fault

:shiver:

2909

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 04:55 PM »

all Apple did was to add a skin to Linux.

*ahem*... You meant um, BSD...*ahem*
AKA Darwin

-edit- oops, f0dder beat me to it.

Don't know about the NextStep stuff, I thought Cocoa did all the window management and all...

The funniest thing I've ever heard said about MacOSX: (from our own superboyac)

I hate the bubbly Mac crap, where everything is from happy bubble-yum land, with their shiny aerodynamic look as if it's going to be faster because there's less wind resistance.

AFAIK the Unix BSD file structure is preserved, just the interface has it's own space there.

2910

General Software Discussion / Re: SPAMPAL replacement

« Last post by Edvard on January 18, 2006, 11:07 AM »

Anti-Spam tools reviewed quite in-depth here:
http://spamotomy.com/tools.php
I read the review on the spam filter I use, K9,and it was surprisingly dismal. However, this review is from 2003 and K9 now has User-Specified Black/White lists (although this is manual, not automatic, which would be REALLY nice..) and DNS Blacklisting. While I agree that it should have some sort of function to automatically maintain black/white lists, I don't think all the features are necessary, such as Challenge/Response filtering (annoying, and in a few cases has got folks mistakenly listed at Spamcop), Vendor-Specified white/black lists (what if I WANT to buy \/!@gr@?) and Digital Signatures (which rolls out the carpet for Trusted Delivery, another M$-defined "standard")
Yet another 2 cents.
wow, if all the 2 centses being given here were real, you wouldn't need google ads! 

2911

General Software Discussion / Re: SPAMPAL replacement

« Last post by Edvard on January 13, 2006, 06:58 PM »

I use K9. Works good, very configurable, light and stable. And I love this error message...

2912

ContextMenu Commander / Re: ContextMenu Commander

« Last post by Edvard on January 13, 2006, 11:30 AM »

I use Context Edit and it does everything I've ever wanted to do to my context menu. Remove unwanted entries, add new filetypes and special functions for certain filetypes, etc. I can't remember where I got it, apparently pcmag wants money for it.

2913

General Software Discussion / Re: Best.Interface.Ever

« Last post by Edvard on January 13, 2006, 11:01 AM »

Oops-Sentinel beat me to it, I knew there was a topic for this, I just couldn't find it.
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=830.0

2914

General Software Discussion / Best.Interface.Ever

« Last post by Edvard on January 12, 2006, 02:52 PM »

OK, in keeping with the spirit of the "adjective.noun.ever" how about kudos to software that is actually encouraging and intuitive?
We could all learn from the mistakes in "Worst.interface.ever" but what about the white hats? What are the common elements that make an app easy and intuitive, yet powerful at the same time. I'm sure many of them have been covered at flow|state but I want to know what you guys think.
Here's one that won't make it to flow|state, but is an example of UI genius nonetheless and analysis may prove fruitful:
The perfect example of process control.

2915

Living Room / Re: submerge your pc in veggie oil - cool and quiet

« Last post by Edvard on January 12, 2006, 12:06 PM »

Actually not a bad idea if implemented properly. Hams (Amateur shortwave radio operators) have done this kind of thing for years with antenna 'dummy' loads. What they do is sink the load coil in a large can of oil with an inner sleeve. As the coil heats up, oil rises up the inner sleeve and pours to the perimeter where it is radiatively cooled (good idea to have fins on that bucket...) and the oil sinks to the bottom where it is drawn back up the inner sleeve. If you could do that to the CPU...
Actually someone who commented on the Slashdot article I think is correct; The noise comes mostly from the interference of the airflow coming off the fan blade at an angle and smacking the heat sink fins. This is the same sort of thing that makes flutes go. Back the fan off the heat sink a little with a length of PVC or something ought to make it a little quieter if that's the case.

2916

Living Room / Re: What the US will look like *after* the neo great depression

« Last post by Edvard on January 12, 2006, 10:55 AM »

No need Carol, we just might deserve it, conservative as I am to say that... Actually, it wouldn't take a depression, just for the countries we owe money to renege on the debts. Then it wouldn't be Mexico and Canada, it would be China

And for the record, My wife used to work in the shipping rack.. er.. business and yes she heard the Chinese delegate say "...when we take over America..."

2917

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« Last post by Edvard on January 09, 2006, 05:26 PM »

@thomthowolf: Just FYI- PowerPro does all those things. If you don't mind an app launcher that does about a half-billion other things, as well as being as easy to fully configure as a cold fish, it's pretty cool.

 Personally, I am hoping for a launcher that will do what I am asking PP to do, but without the zillion other things. PowerPro Lite, if you will.

2918

General Software Discussion / Re: Icon collector for ICL files

« Last post by Edvard on January 09, 2006, 03:26 PM »

Nope, but I betcha Resource Hacker can. You'd have to start with a dummy .dll though... would just creating a file with .dll in the name do it? Hmmm...

2919

General Software Discussion / Re: Assembly coding

« Last post by Edvard on January 09, 2006, 03:21 PM »

Agree to the delphi code... ick. Also agree that it is the programmer themself who determines the quality of the final product. As I mentioned before, I used to program the daylights out of Apple ][e's back in the day. I wrote some AWFUL-looking apps that worked pretty well, (a word processor that was about half the size and speed of the one our computer teacher made us use...) and some very clean coded (after the computer programming teacher got after me) things that either didn't work or were useless. I noticed my programs got a lot cleaner after I figured out the "gosub" command
Glad you like the analogy. As for the ability of such individuals to also clean up the sawdust, slag and coal ash, well, you know...

2920

General Software Discussion / Re: Assembly coding

« Last post by Edvard on January 09, 2006, 01:35 PM »

Like cutting down a tree with a kitchen knife.

No, more like growing the tree to withing 1/16 of optimal diameter (measured weekly), mining the ore to smelt to iron, carving a mold for a wide-blade axe head, melting the iron in a coal-fired blast furnace (coal pilfered from train wreck site in desert), pouring the mold, sharpening the axe with medium grit to a knife-edge and heating to proper temper, quenching in oil (of course), sharpening again with extra-fine to a razor-edge, taking the axe to the tree and stripping off one branch about 2" diameter, tamping the axe head onto the branch, taking a modest swing and...

chopping the sucker off at ground level with one whack.

That's assembly programming. You're right. It doesn't take genius. Just a bull-headed unwillingness to settle for a $12.99 fiberglass-handle job from Wal-Mart...

There's a hacking pun in here somewhere, I just know it...

2921

General Software Discussion / Re: Icon collector for ICL files

« Last post by Edvard on January 09, 2006, 11:01 AM »

Have you tried Iconshop?

2922

General Software Discussion / Re: software i love

« Last post by Edvard on January 09, 2006, 10:33 AM »

For those of you who still use paper as their "second brain" (bah, we don' need no steenking hierarchal note-taking apps ) may I suggest D*I*Y Planner. Printable pages for your planner (some for Moleskine and Filofax available Here) or just interesting pieces of paper to write stuff on. I am personally quite happy with PocketMod, but I see others here who would be interested.

2923

General Software Discussion / Re: I bought IBasic Pro,but i don't know how to program,need a jump off point.

« Last post by Edvard on January 06, 2006, 01:48 PM »

Have you checked the IBasic Forums? Read The Fine Manual? Did your installation come with code examples, snippets, etc.? With any language, Start out with the simple "Hello World" app that every manual teaches you to do, and go from there. In the cases of Download Managers and email checkers, you not only have to learn how to make the app perform functions depending on what buttons you click, keys you push, etc. but you also need to learn the language of internet protocols, email server authentications and header requests, etc. Back in the day, you could even check your mail with telnet if you knew this (don't ask me how, I did it once when my ISP's tech was troubleshooting our email system...) I'm not an IBasic user, so I'm sorry I don't have any really helpful answers, but there it is.

2924

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« Last post by Edvard on January 06, 2006, 01:24 PM »

I run PowerPro as a launch bar. Since PP does a gajillion other things I don't use/want/need a lighter launch thingie that is similarly configurable would be great. Some things mentioned that PowerPro can do that a replacement would ideally do:
Sit in system tray and popup a menu.
Hide at an edge and show (bar, menu, whatever) when edge is hit.
Use multiple methods for launching- shortcut buttons, menus, hotkeys, ?...
Group shortcuts or menu items visually by selectable criteria: category, type, alphabetical, whatever.

I have my PowerPro bar set up much like the launch panel from  XFCE( a linux window manager app ) where there are icons which represent my most-used app in that category and are activated by a left-click. Right-click on the same icon gets me a menu of other apps in that category. For example, my Firefox button of course opens Firefox when I click it. A right-click pops up a menu of the category "internet" that includes IE, Filezilla, Opera, and may also include Instant Message and IRC apps, Upload links, etc.

Two cents and all that.

2925

General Software Discussion / Re: software i love

« Last post by Edvard on January 06, 2006, 11:30 AM »

Use it all the time; address/phone books, to-do lists, shopping lists, project planners, I could go on... Even made some custom pages for it. Tricky, but I figured it out. Works on Linux too. Many times I even find myself needing to take notes on a piece of paper and I end up folding it like a PocketMod Sure beats the living daylights out of writing phone numbers on the back of a Safeway receipt...