Recent Posts

301

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: N.A.N.Y. 2012 Brainstorming, Suggestions

« Last post by justice on July 12, 2011, 05:08 AM »

I've got a great NANY idea for someone with a lot of time on their hands. Go download Future Pinball and create a DonationCoder pinball machine. Donationware: http://www.futurepinball.com/ how cool is that. You can download loads of pinball tables for free and they load up in the editor ready for adjustment and you can script it etc. If you're not on XP you need to run it in Win XP compatibility mode, but set the graphics to maximum in the preferences and it looks really good. Even if you just want to play pinball I can recommend this and download a few tables there is a browser within the program.

I'd assume you need both scripting skills, and create your own graphics (you might be able to get loads of pinball sounds from exisitng tables or freesound?) but the image of playing a Cody Pinball table fills my eyes with tears.

302

Living Room / Re: Own your identity

« Last post by justice on July 12, 2011, 03:46 AM »

I would add to this, own your content. If you write interesting stuff on forums, also add it to a blog or something that's running on your domain.

303

General Software Discussion / Re: Grid Layout software? Does it exist?

« Last post by justice on July 12, 2011, 03:44 AM »

any software that does tables? html editors, word etc?

304

Living Room / Own your identity

« Last post by justice on July 12, 2011, 03:40 AM »

Nail. Head.

But all of these proprietary networks that want to own and hold in your content are reversing much of the web’s progress in some other areas, such as the durability and quality of online identity.

If you care about your online presence, you must own it. I do, and that’s why my email address has always been at my own domain, not the domain of any employer or webmail service.

from http://www.marco.org...11/own-your-identity

305

DcUpdater / Minor glitch

« Last post by justice on July 11, 2011, 08:25 AM »

When you check for updates for a specific program "only show updates for X", it doesn't just show X, then when you uncheck and recheck the checkbox, it only shows the product X. 

Screencast:
http://screencast.com/t/5JkZctBT

306

General Software Discussion / Re: IRC Quote Pong ASCII Cookie problem

« Last post by justice on July 11, 2011, 06:58 AM »

They're working on it:
https://bugzilla.ins.../show_bug.cgi?id=917

307

General Software Discussion / IRC Quote Pong ASCII Cookie problem

« Last post by justice on July 11, 2011, 06:04 AM »

I'm using Instabird for IRC but I'm having a bit of a problem. When logging on to certain servers I get the following message:

11:59:31 - irc.umich.edu: (notice) To complete your connection to this server, type "/QUOTE PONG :cookie", where cookie is the following ascii.

But the Ascii text is not displayed. I've learned it's PING/PONG cookie anti-spoof protection, but I don't know how that helps me. Maybe an expert IRCer can check out Instabird and help me out?  Perhaps there is an addon / workaround for it but I'm not sure what to search for.

Cheers

308

Living Room / Re: 64 Bit OS - When to Switch ?

« Last post by justice on July 08, 2011, 04:29 AM »

@vlastimil I disagree that this is a actual issue affecting many end users.

309

Living Room / Re: 64 Bit OS - When to Switch ?

« Last post by justice on July 08, 2011, 02:56 AM »

If you run Windows 7 then there is no reason not to run 64bit. If you run Vista this is most likely the same, if you want to stick to XP then I'm not going to help .

310

DcUpdater / Re: DcuHelper.exe v1.09 (7/2/11) - Update checking for your apps (dcupdater compat)

« Last post by justice on July 07, 2011, 01:15 PM »

This also sort of addresses a related idea I have. As some information in the .dcupdate might change after some people have downloaded it, I think some options would benefit to either move to the versionxml or to manage the .dcupdate file centrally and download it on update,

I'm thinking of the following elements - they would work better under the control of the developer:
VersionFileRemote, WebPage, UpdateFile

What you think? just an idea

311

DcUpdater / Re: DcuHelper.exe v1.09 (7/2/11) - Update checking for your apps (dcupdater compat)

« Last post by justice on July 07, 2011, 01:12 PM »

When you have DcuHelper without DcUpdater installed (ie the majority of non DC people) and there is an update available, DcuHelper is now showing my complete XML file under the whatsnew - is that intended - maybe it's checking the extension again to see if its an xml file?

Also, it then gives you the option to download dcupdate (great) or visit the products website. This is not so great as product updates in this case are not available from my website Would you consider adding a line to .dcupdate or versioninfo.xml to address this?

I can think of 3 options, if you wish to address the issue:
* dcupdate option DcuHelperUpdateUrl  that specifies either UpdateFile or WebPage as its value to choose from (as both the WebPage and the UpdateFile are already in the file) OR
* a dcupdate or versionxml option that specifies DcuHelperUpdateUrl that points to an http address or a website thats get loaded in the browser.
* use the webpage element as a url that can contain either html/binaries

Both these options allow people to specify either a webpage or a direct link.

312

Living Room / Re: Reminder Bear - Single Use Bookmarks

« Last post by justice on July 07, 2011, 03:50 AM »

Well I use both Instapaper for reading articles later and Pinboard has a read later bookmarks section (which I use mainly for videos) - both of which work best when you have decided you have time to spare.

Where Reminder Bear and Changedetection.com come in is to remind you to check out something (have you considered buying these fancy headphones on amazon but wanted to wait a few days to see if you still wanted it then) or as soon as things have changed in case of changedetection.

I have used Reminder Bear to check back for answers on certain Stack Exchabge sites I don't visit otherwise and also on forums that I wanted to follow a discussion but not become a member. So if you don't mind using another tool there's definately a niche for people.

Hope this clarifies things

313

Developer's Corner / Re: [Solved] SQL Query is Kicking my Ass.

« Last post by justice on July 06, 2011, 08:42 AM »

 

314

Developer's Corner / Re: SQL Query is Kicking my Ass.

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 06:35 PM »

Now I'm not an expert, but it seems because you need the last date from a bunch of non zero pagecounts, but you also need values from a bunch of zero pagecounts, that you have to do a subselect to get the max date and other information from the zero pagecounts data and then reuse that in your main query.

So if that means you're back in the "nested select" performance problem then perhaps it's worth restructuring the data if possible, or wait for someone with better knowledge to help you out Google for subselect alternatives

315

Developer's Corner / Re: The Yii PHP Framework

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 08:03 AM »

Hey mouser if you define the database in Yii, that makes it possible to version control your database schema right? Can you define database migrations with it like rake on RoR? Is it right you need commandline access to start a project?

316

Living Room / Re: We need some good tech news sites - Where are they?

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 06:52 AM »

Hacker News

317

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Twitter client?

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 06:21 AM »

Is this still up to date? I am trying Seesmic Desktop 2 at the moment, follow me www.twitter.com/pacifika

318

Found Deals and Discounts / [Expired] 15% discount on Avira AntiVirus

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 05:37 AM »

I got an email today about Avira antivirus as an existing customer - maybe this is interesting to some of you. If you are thinking of buying it and want 15% discount, send me your email and I will be able to "recommend a friend". (If you buy it then I get 90 days extension on my license). I run it on all my pcs at the moment.

For: In my view it's one of the more resource inextensive antivirus programs, it comes out consistently in the top end of antivirus tests for the several years. Inexpensive. Does its job.
Against: It is a bit hyperactive on "generic trojan" hits, although on the false positives tests it scores midtable, I rather have an antivirus that triggers more rather than not enough. Rather not have to run any antivirus

Anyways, let me know. More info here.

319

Living Room / Reminder Bear - Single Use Bookmarks

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 04:52 AM »

I love this webservice.  You know you sometimes want to revisit a page in a while to see what's changed or if something has been added to a discussion? Maybe you're waiting for a beta to open or you have posted to a forum that doesn't have topic notification (or it is a regular website). Simply click the reminder bear bookmark and customize when you want to get an email reminding you off the page. It's like a disposable bookmark, and lets you get on with more important things. I find it very liberating, try it out yourself.

Reminder Bear is a service that lets you create single-use bookmarks. Save a page with the bookmarklet, and Reminder Bear will email it to you a week later.

Or you can easily customize your reminder time using the overlay panel.

from HackerNews

320

General Software Discussion / Sticking to TODO software

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 04:34 AM »

I was thinking about Todo programs and why I can never really stick to them - I have tried nearly everything from ActionLists for iPhone (great software) to writing my own JustToDoIt but I cannot get it to become part of my daily workflow.

In addition I noticed that it can be hard to start working on bigger projects, things that take longer than a day to complete. IMHO larger projects need to be broken down into smaller pieces. It's hard to wrap your head around a two-week project with no obvious starting point.

So why is there no TODO app that only lets you work on tasks that you can finish within the allocated workday? If you have 8 hours left on your project but only 3 hours in the day, you need to break down the 8 hour project into something you can finish. Finishing tasks is what keeps you motivated right?

321

Developer's Corner / Re: The Yii PHP Framework

« Last post by justice on July 05, 2011, 04:24 AM »

Sometimes what you need is a framework that makes it quicker to get to that point where you have a custom solution. I couldn't imagine starting a new PHP project from scratch without frameworks (CodeIgniter in my case)

322

Developer's Corner / Re: SQL Query is Kicking my Ass.

« Last post by justice on July 04, 2011, 10:25 AM »

It's very hard to help you without seeing an example database, but I think the problem is between line 5-7.
If you look at the
documentation on group by / having you see Having is used as a where on groups.

I'm still not really sure what you want because the query you are posting is not the same as your description of the query in the starting post.
Your query is trying to search for a Client that is Active where the billing date from pc1 historyical information is identical to the last billing date from some other place (pc2), then grouping by printer and timestamp. It doesn't make sense.

Also to me it's not clear how Pc2 is related to pc1 in english? Without being clear how you want the query in english noone can translate that to SQL. hope that helps

323

Developer's Corner / Re: SQL Query is Kicking my Ass.

« Last post by justice on July 04, 2011, 09:30 AM »

(you could try <1 in case the default value for TotalPP columns empty instead of 0)

What's wrong with something like:
SELECT Max(TimeStamp) As LastBillableDate,Index,SerialNo,ModelName, ClientID FROM <TableName> WHERE TotalPP=0.

* Split the problem up into small problems you can get working, don't try it all at once.
* Microsoft Reporting Services (if you can get your hands on it) is a great tool for making reports and it can connect to MySQL databases too, this might make it easier to create reports.

324

General Software Discussion / Re: Google+

« Last post by justice on June 30, 2011, 08:09 AM »

Google+ is kind of an odd name for this product though. It makes it sound like it's an improved version of Google (the search engine).

-JavaJones (June 30, 2011, 04:00 AM)

That's because it will be. Once it knows your interests it can search information and present it to you without you leaving the site.
Related reading: http://www.wired.com...-google-plus-social/

325

Living Room / Re: nearby lightning skrike kills neighbours computers (and mine)

« Last post by justice on June 30, 2011, 05:22 AM »

Out of the box thinking (and a bit silly), but if you have a laptop then when it's not charging you'd be safe Might be cheaper and more used than a UPS.