Recent Posts

301

Developer's Corner / Re: My experience with developing a freemium browser add-on

« Last post by steeladept on October 06, 2010, 07:32 PM »

Hmmm...Another tough question.  What I find interesting here is looking at it from the consumer standpoint, I want my software to work and once I buy it, I don't want to have to buy it over and over and over again.  More so when each "update" is nothing more than a featurepack that I am not interested in and/or a fixpack that should have been fixed when I bought it.  That said, it does take time and effort for a developer to do these things and they do need to live.  I guess what I am saying is I would like to see a scenario where software is reasonably priced for both parties, of high enough quality that critical fixes are rare or non-existant (and when they come they are free), and feature-packs are just that - if you charge extra, it should be an add-on pack that is charged - the core software should stay more or less the same.  Now this gets a little more tricky when new OS's are supported or people are looking to change the hardware and keep the same software.  Should a charge be made for these developments outside the programmer's control?  Probably, but deciding when it should and shouldn't charge can be a tricky and slippery slope.  What about fixes for OS service packs?  Remember XP SP2?  The service pack broke a LOT of people's installs, but not installing SP2 left you very vunerable to the security exploits it was to fix.  Is this within the developers control making it a free update (because they could and should have developed more securely)?  Or is this an OS update outside the developer's control making a charge feasible and understandable?  This is why it isn't cut and dry, even with my idea, but that seems like the fairest way if we can just determine as a whole which situation fits which result.  Of course it was like that once and now we are here.

Enough rambling, I guess I don't have anything of substance to add to this discussion after all.

302

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge - Backup Verification Utility

« Last post by steeladept on September 17, 2010, 04:00 PM »

I vote for BView (or should that be BVU?) 

303

Living Room / Re: Tipping - Why does this appear to be a "requirement"?

« Last post by steeladept on September 17, 2010, 11:01 AM »

Wraith - You stated it exactly.  I waited my way through College.  It sucks - no way around it.  But if you are good (and I was based on others at the restaurant I worked at) you can make a LOT more than the "wages".  Indeed, the wages never even covered the taxes they were required to withhold.  Josh, you are adamently against tipping as a part of your salary believing you are paying for the service as part of the food costs.  However restaraunts don't see it that way.  They pay the minimum the government enforces on them to keep an employee and views the server as (priarily) a contract worker who makes as much as they can on their own work independent of the company.  They are not so much contract workers as much as commission workers.  Would you rather the restaurants (industry-wide) increase their costs about 300% to cover the costs, then pay the commission behind the scenes?  That is essentially what it would cost to cover the average server (for me, it would have been about a 600% increase unless I took a dramatic cut in pay).  Perhaps you are suggesting they cut the server's pay instead to be more in line with a fast food joint?  Then that is what you would end up getting.  Oh, and was already stated, don't forget the pay of those who the server must pay out of their tips - the bartender, the busboy, occasionally the cooks, etc....  Their pays get cut too.  Actually, looking at it from that perspective, the costs may have to go up more than 300% to cover - again, this only applies to US costs.

As for Europe, if someone takes a general idea of experiences from others and shows a specific example that showcases it, that doesn't mean it isn't common.  I can tell you from the years I spent around Europe, that the service, in general, is much more lax.  Perhaps some take their job seriously and do a good job for pride's sake, but that is very much the exception and not the norm.  From my experiences, France was the worst and Germany was the best, but that may be because most of the places I frequented in Germany were bars that the owner was also the server.  When it is your establishment, it tends to instill pride just to keep it open....Fine dining restaurants where the owners were not literally on top of the service staff just left you wondering if you would get your food at all and in what condition, not when.

304

Living Room / Re: The Story of Stuff - Cosmetics, Bottled Water...

« Last post by steeladept on September 17, 2010, 09:44 AM »

I love this and Renegade pointed out my thoughts perfectly!  I tried composting once, got a desist letter from the township because it was bothering the neighbors.  Couldn't have been that bad, I didn't even notice a smell myself.  There are ways to correct it if you recognize an odor but they didn't care.  They instead want me to buy recycling bags for $5 each so they can pick it up and compost it to sell back to me.  And, of course, they charge me for the pickup as well!  Something like $100/week additional to do it the way they wanted me to instead of free the way I wanted to.  Screw them.

Ever since then, I gave up on anything not expressly regulated by law for me to do in this regard.  Each time I try, I get punished for it.

305

Living Room / Re: Looking for suggestions on writing styles that tell a good story.

« Last post by steeladept on July 22, 2010, 11:37 AM »

I guess I am really confused now.  You want to find a writing style that fills content for a blog?    At least that is what I am interpreting - but I think I am way off here.

Let me try to infer your meaning instead of what I understood - please let me know if I am on the right track.  

• You are looking for inspirational writing styles to use for a blog.  You want sites, in particular, that point to the technical skills required to meet that specific style and pointers to keep people interested and drawing a larger audience.
• Conversely, you are not looking for opinion or technical style teaching in general.  You are looking for something very specific to meeting your goals.
• Lastly, you are looking for a style that keeps a focus on your writings - a theme if you will - to help keep you focused on the intent of the blog.

I guess my question is I am still very vague on what help you are looking for; but I get the feeling it isn't something you can get by looking around, rather it is from within.  I hope, for your sake, I am wrong on this last comment; but if not, I don't see how 40Hz isn't answering the question - unless, of course, it is completely misunderstood.  Either way, it may help this post go a long way if you try to clarify what help you are looking for as at least some of us obviously don't grasp what you are looking for.

On a side note, one thing I can tell - you seem exhausted and defeated from this search.  I often find the best way around this is to walk away from it for a while - a year is often what it takes me - and then come back when the fire is back.  I know you aren't looking for advise like this, but it is something to consider.

306

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: NetLaunch

« Last post by steeladept on July 22, 2010, 09:30 AM »

Cool.  I will check it out and try making a screencast of my trial if that is okay with you (since I am trying to learn how to screencast for the NANY project in general anyway  ).  I will send you a copy of the screencast if it is sucessful.  Don't expect it right away, though.  I have a lot of work on my plate right now and will be out of town on business for two weeks - so it probably will be at least a month before I have anything to show.

BTW:  I will keep up with the updates as best I can, I just won't necessarily have anything to show for it before then.

307

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 :: Calling All Volunteers and Entrants wanting a hand

« Last post by steeladept on July 20, 2010, 02:19 PM »

Wow.  Somehow I missed this thread.  I am more than willing to alpha/beta test any software people are looking for testers for.  If I can figure out how, I would even be willing to screencast it as I learned the ins and outs of the software.  At least that is one way this non-coder can help....

308

Living Room / Re: Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

« Last post by steeladept on July 20, 2010, 09:04 AM »

And the tools... ugh. msysgit is one big crapball. libexec/git-core has 110 git-*.exe of around 964KB each. Haven't the developers heard of static linking? Or NTFS hardlinks? (just about all of the files are identical, and those that aren't probably should have been) - at the very least, they could've made a 4kb-or-less executable that simply launch git.exe with argv[0] replaced... it also seems superfluous that it always installs perl5, tcl, vim et cetera instead of being able to use already installed locations, if present. Even after hardlinking the identical files (which saved me ~90MB iirc), my git install folder is ~120MB on disk. Contrast that with 7.5MB for subversion.

Then there's TortoiseGit... which does seem to work OK, but it requires the use of msysgit - and it does show that it depends on commandline tools and stdout piping, rather than a proper "libgit". Status progress isn't updated smoothly, and things seem a bit flaky here and there.

IMHO it's pretty darn arrogant of Linus (and whoever maintain git now) to not really consider Windows at all, but requiring posix emulation crapola. Since the git cmdline tools don't deal with GUI and probably don't require advanced OS features, how hard would it be to encapsulate os-specific details? Pretty typical, anyway... "portable" usually means "to posix systems" only - and often you're lucky if portable doesn't just mean "to (most) linux distributions".

-f0dder (February 03, 2010, 06:01 AM)

You imply that these are not particularly difficult issues to work around as long as you know what you are doing.  Is this something you could fairly easily repackage into a "WinGit" package that would make it more friendly?  Just asking, because it sounds like something that would be well received and a fairly simple branch off the main project (if someone were willing).

309

Living Room / Re: Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git

« Last post by steeladept on July 20, 2010, 08:59 AM »

Not doubting that Linus is an intelligent guy, I'm asking myself if it is also because of this attitude that he became so successful, or if instead he developed this attitude because of his immense success.

-phitsc (July 20, 2010, 06:44 AM)

Interesting question and one that could just as easily be posed for Steve Jobs.  Is there a link?  Inquiring minds want to know.   

310

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: XYplorer Big Summer Art Madness! - Lifetime License on 50%

« Last post by steeladept on July 20, 2010, 08:41 AM »

I find it strange that SO MANY people insist on integrated zip support, yet XY doesn't have it.  Personally, I find that as a feature, since I prefer using my choice of archive tool(s) for opening, archiving, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I understand people wanting to view the contents of an archive natively, I just don't use it that way - it would make me want to do file operations on it.

Now plugging in my choice of applications to handle this - that is a useful option.  And in XY, that is called scripting (though depending on how fancy you want to get, it may not be trivial to do).  So for me, this is a good thing.  

311

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: XYplorer Big Summer Art Madness! - Lifetime License on 50%

« Last post by steeladept on July 19, 2010, 12:57 PM »

Yeah, I didn't either until I read Curt's clue a third time.  Then I followed his link and got my answer...<for those of you like me, who don't figure it out the first time.>

I saw this special on the site already, but when I saw the drop down as Curt listed, I said to myself "who the heck are ____?" (fill in the blank for several of them, including the answer).

312

Living Room / Re: Lists of Forums with help on home contractor problems (roof, heating, etc.)

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 01:56 PM »

Ah, that IS something new.

313

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Tidy Favorites Online

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 01:40 PM »

 I don't want to respond negatively, so please don't take it that way. However, I don't really see the big difference between this and Delicious, Diigo, etc. other than it doesn't have the option to share socially. Since I don't use them socially anyway (though I guess my links are aggregated - whatever), I see this as effectively the same.  Of course I am moving further and further away from using bookmarks at all, but that is another issue.  Perhaps this has been addressed in the video, but since that is locked from me, I can't see it.  Can you please explain how you differentiate your product? 

One thing that I could see your service offering that would be superior to the others is automated link checking to verify good links.  I haven't used my Delicious account in a couple years, and only access my Diigo rarely, so they may offer this now as well; but when I did use them, I can tell you this was the biggest pain point with online options.

314

Living Room / Re: Lists of Forums with help on home contractor problems (roof, heating, etc.)

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 01:24 PM »

There are already a couple free sites out there.  They use reviews from customers (unfortunately due to the way it is done, they are mostly bad reviews, but not all).  As we have discussed in other places, some of these are subject to "loading" either by the company or a truly disgruntled customer, but they give you a starting point.  The two I have run across (not particularly fond of either btw) are Service Magic and Angel-something or other (can't find it now to link but it may be a local service for Pittsburgh, PA).  Service Magic is heavily advertised and very intrusive.  They tend to send spam to you about potential upcoming projects and vendors they push for them, even if you don't say you have anything.  I can tell you, though, that there are A LOT of sites like what you propose, but none that really have taken off because it is so fractured, and with so many specialties, so many vendors, and so many people with different ideas of what makes a vendor good, that it may prove impossible.  Just a few thoughts.

NOTE:  During this writeup I have also found out they (Service Magic) are in litigation for false advertising.  They state that they vet vendors before listing whereas they do not, they list any vendor willing to pay them according to the suit- so you may want to steer clear there.  I don't know either way personally.

Second Note:  I removed the link in case there are issues with Service Magic.  If you want to go there, a simple Google search will bring them up.

315

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for Business Process Modeling?

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 01:08 PM »

Nice catch bmm. 

316

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 11:38 AM »

Me too - 87 Harley Davidson FLHTP

Funny how 50mpg and 0 to 60 in 3sec go together so nicely on a bike isn't it...

Here in Florida it's not a question of if it'll rain it's what time of day it will rain. Local weather forcasts are usually next to useless as the clown on TV prattles on for so long about trivia you miss the actual forcast.

While I too have the AccuWeather gadget, (and frequently ride anyway depending on my call schedule) I have an appreciation for things that will give me a simple straight answer...So I'll be playing with 40Hz's link for quite some time.

-Stoic Joker (July 16, 2010, 10:58 AM)

Nice on all points.  Though I am curious to see how you can play with that site for quite some time.  There is only one configuration point (the zip) and an answer.   

LOL: I know what you mean, it just struck me as funny the way you worded it.

317

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Zonal OCR Image

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 11:35 AM »

I know from my experience there are a few that have this capability, but I have yet to find any that are even somewhat accurate.  They all seem to have difficulty defining the zone accurately in particular.  Some of the best were recommended to me here at DC, but even then they were not good enough for my usage.  YMMV.  The best one that was suggested to me is:  Abby FineReader.

318

General Software Discussion / Re: weather.com

« Last post by steeladept on July 16, 2010, 10:07 AM »

Personally I am partial to Accuweather.com.  I like that they have the forecast by hour instead of day, so I will know if I can ride my motorcycle to work without having a wet butt when I get out of work (even if it isn't raining when I go to work and when I leave work!) 

319

Living Room / Re: Has anyone ever used their LCD television as their main monitor ?

« Last post by steeladept on July 14, 2010, 01:37 PM »

I have been running my 42" lcd tv as my main monitor for about 8mths now and love it.

-siacono (July 14, 2010, 12:13 PM)

How do you do that without being 10 feet away from your desk? Do you have a wireless keyboard and mouse so you can sit on your couch and do your computer stuff?

-Deozaan (July 14, 2010, 12:34 PM)

I am guessing not, it was just a typo.  It is really a resolution of 19000x10800

Seriously though, that is something I would like to see.  Pictures by chance?

320

Site/Forum Features / Re: Idea: DC Cody Tshirts customized for an interest area

« Last post by steeladept on July 14, 2010, 01:31 PM »

Personally, I am with Nudone.  The oriental style was what I always thought of, not the communist bloc style...

321

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Open Menu

« Last post by steeladept on July 14, 2010, 12:51 PM »

I think it is perfect.  I wouldn't want the logo any more busy than that either. 

322

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea - Return *new* lines from a text file (w/ example)

« Last post by steeladept on July 13, 2010, 02:32 PM »

What about something simple like this:

1) Read backward through log file looking for EOF (whatever delimiter you define as the end of file)
2) Display out lines after last EOF.
3) Write new EOF at end.

Note that this should not be the standard EOF but rather some special symbol (string?) that won't ever be written in normal log files.  Maybe something in a foreign language with alternating case or something.  Whatever it is, make it its own line entry written by the parser to designate the end of the last file and read only from there forward.

Just my logic, coding it could be much worse.

323

Living Room / Re: App Culture vs. Free Culture

« Last post by steeladept on July 13, 2010, 12:56 PM »

I want to clarify one little thing - In the case of APPLE'S app store, I agree whole-heartedly.  As a business model, though, I find nothing wrong with it or the way it charges.  What get's me is there IS a thriving app store (Cydia) competing with Apple that Apple is allowed to get away with locking out by locking down their iCrap to prevent access. Then people have to learn how to jailbreak it and then they no longer can get updates.  This is protectionism if I ever saw it, yet no one in the Justice department will follow-through on ANY of the allegations.  Meanwhile, throw a stick Microsoft or Google's way, and you get a thousand lawsuits stating they threw it

324

General Software Discussion / Re: ALL cloud applications should offer downloadable installs.

« Last post by steeladept on July 13, 2010, 11:45 AM »

I think the question you have to ask yourself before spending time trusting your data and workflow to such online sites is:  how easy will it be for me to get my data out of this service and import it into another if i want to leave.  if the answer is not easy, then avoid it.  the ideal case is a hosted service that also offers the option to install their open source software on your own or a community run server if you need to at some point.

-mouser (July 13, 2010, 11:38 AM)

Agreed.  The ideal way, in my opinion are the services that provide the infrastructure and a VMware container (it is so ubiquitous as to be a standard, not unlike MS Office formats).  Then you can load your own server (or buy it already set up off them) and work from there.  If you want to leave, take the entire VM and go to another provider.  Of course I don't know of too many of those and most of them are very expensive, catering to enterprises that insist (rightly so) to maintain complete control of the server.

Getting back to the Original Post, however, from the way I read it, the problem is not so much in maintaining a server in the cloud, as much as a service.  And here it gets MUCH more sticky.

325

General Software Discussion / Re: ALL cloud applications should offer downloadable installs.

« Last post by steeladept on July 13, 2010, 11:42 AM »

Isn't there an opportunity for a company to offer a lot of speed and storage for consumer-friendly affordable rates?

-superboyac (July 13, 2010, 09:54 AM)

Yes and no.  Don't forget, beyond the storage, there are redundancy and connectivity issues whose costs must be covered.  While the costs for this gets spread among the customers, there is still a significant cost premium for the components required to do this at a reasonably effective capacity for an enterprise that would implement the service.  Your 1TB drive has no where near the speed or reliability that their drives have and in the volume the provider would need, your failure rates with those consumer-grade drives would be cost prohibitive.