Recent Posts

3176

Living Room / Happy Programmer Day! 1111 1111

« Last post by app103 on September 13, 2009, 01:45 AM »

Q: When is Programmer Day?
A: Programmer Day is the 256th day of every year, September 13th or the 12th on leap years.

Q:Why the 256th Day of the year?
A: A byte can have 256 possible values, bytes are very important to programmers. Not because they are required for programs to work, but because the payroll system and Krispy Kreme doughnut cash registers require them.

Q: How is Programmer Day celebrated?
A: Anyway you want! Here are some suggestions:

• Speak in code (or pseudocode) all day - Thanks to Sam Pospischil!
• Decorate a tree with zeros and ones to make a binary tree
• Make Happy Programmer Day cards using ASCII art
• Have a contest for the best binary pun / programming joke

Q: Your logo has 1111 1111 that's 255, not 256, right?
A: While 1111 1111 = 255 as a direct conversion, it's the 256th value so it is correct. January 1st is 0000 0000 so if you celebrate Programmer Day on the 255th day you're guilty of an off by one error.

http://programmerday.info

3177

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Windows Image Editor than can pull image from command line url?

« Last post by app103 on September 13, 2009, 12:42 AM »

I don't know of any desktop one that can do that but SUMO Paint can (pretty cool online image editor too)

You don't need an account. Just load it and use it, download your finished image when you are done. Account is only needed to store your images on their server.

3178

Developer's Corner / Make your javascript a Windows .exe

« Last post by app103 on September 13, 2009, 12:29 AM »

These days an average web developer needs to have a broad matrix of skills in order to do his/her job. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, XML, some server side language, some linux skills, some apache, some database skills, standards, accessibility, SEO, the list goes on. Parts of the list are also multiplied by (or raised to the power of?) the number of browsers you want to support. Crazy, isn't it? We're such optimists trying to make stuff work in such an environment.

There's gotta be an easier way to write code that does something meaningful! Yes, there is, it's called JavaScript. You learn JavaScript, you learn it well, and you don't need to learn anything else. Isn't that cool? JavaScript is, practically, everywhere. Learn JavaScript and you can:

    * create rich and powerful web applications (the kind that runs inside the browser)
    * write server-side code such as ASP scripts or for example code that is run using Rhino (A JavaScript engine written in Java)
    * create rich media applications (Flash, Flex) using ActionScript which is based on ECMAScript, which is JavaScript
    * write scripts that automate administrative tasks on your Windows desktop, using Windows Scripting Host
    * write extensions/plugins for a plethora of desktop application such as Firefox or Dreamweaver
    * create web applications that store information off-line on user's desktop, using Google Gears
    * create Yahoo!, or Mac, or dunno-what-type-of widgets
    * create Windows apps (those that end in .exe) and libraries (.dll)

I'm sure the list above is not even complete.

OK, it's a joke that with one programming skill only you'll be employed for life, but it's a fun thought anyway. Off to the main topic of the post.

JScript

This is Microsoft's version of JavaScript (yep, the thing that annoys us *sometimes* in IE) and can also be used to create server side pages (ASP, ASP.NET) or desktop applications. Apparently JScript is now called JScript.NET and can be compiled to create .exe files. Let's see how.

http://www.phpied.co...cript-a-windows-exe/

3179

Developer's Corner / Javascript Framework Matrix

« Last post by app103 on September 12, 2009, 10:38 AM »

The Javascript Framework Matrix shall give you an overview of popular JavaScript frameworks and their functions. There are various examples for the frameworks and every snippet contains links to the official documentation. The choice of a framework depends on many factors and can't be made of this document only. The matrix shall solely demonstrate the different API styles and functionalities of the JavaScript libraries.

http://matthiasschue...framework-matrix/en/

3180

Living Room / Re: Companies paying people to say good things about their products on forums

« Last post by app103 on September 11, 2009, 07:28 PM »

A communications manager at DeLonghi caught writing 5-star reviews for high-end DeLonghi products on Amazon.com. DeLonghi's official statement admits it and defends it. The company thinks there is nothing wrong with it.

http://blogs.wsj.com...n-fake-amazon-raves/

3181

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your preferred font?

« Last post by app103 on September 05, 2009, 12:38 PM »

As a non-expert on fonts, I always get a headache when switching fonts but everytime I was put in a position where I just want to rip everything apart, I always settled on Arial as lame as that probably is for font enthusiasts.

-Paul Keith (September 05, 2009, 12:01 PM)

I have received my share of criticism for my love of Arial. I tend to change the font to Arial in anything and everything that lets me change the default font. (The only exception would be in my IDE, where I use Dina.)

I just find that Arial is a very comfortable font to look at for long periods of time. Other fonts tend to make my eyes tired, rather quickly.

When creating something where I want a bit of a fancier more script-like font (graphics), I tend to choose either Adorable or Harrington more than any other.



I don't really print much so I can't really say what my preference would be for that.

3182

General Software Discussion / Re: Alphasort Program

« Last post by app103 on September 04, 2009, 12:17 PM »

I sent them a copy of the app and a link to this thread.

Glad to hear they straightened it out.

Thanks for letting me know.

3183

General Software Discussion / Re: What are the lists of software that can be converted to income?

« Last post by app103 on September 02, 2009, 07:55 PM »

Well, you asked about software that could be converted to income. I just gave an example of some that requires very little computer skills. I thought it would help answer your question.

3184

General Software Discussion / Re: What are the lists of software that can be converted to income?

« Last post by app103 on September 02, 2009, 06:52 PM »

There is an image on this page that shows what it does, which essentially is nothing more than make pretty pictures that serve the egos of vain people who shell out tons of money buying this crap in frames.

They give you the personal info, you enter it in the software, print out the image, frame it and they pay a lot more than the paper, ink, and frame is worth.

And this is what the mall & flea market stands look like:

3185

General Software Discussion / Re: What are the lists of software that can be converted to income?

« Last post by app103 on September 02, 2009, 03:49 PM »

Have you ever gone to the mall and seen those stands that sell framed images of your last name and some heritage information?

A lot are made with this: http://www.kksoft.com/ (they sell a ton of different applications for making that kind of stuff)

Some also sell custom framed award certificates (sometimes for world's greatest mom or dad, around the appropriate holidays).

Those are often made with this: http://www.baudville...s/productlisting/1/0

And some sell stuff related to your birthday, like a "newspaper" with various things related to the date & era in which you were born, made with this: http://www.symphonic...e.com/symsoft/ba.htm

And wedding anniversary stuff made with this: http://www.symphonic.../anniversarybios.asp

None of this stuff takes much knowledge or skill to use, and most don't require the best pc. In fact, the older slower Win9x PC's have more software options. So if you have an old hunk of junk computer with a printer, can afford the rental for a mall or flea market stand (flea markets are much cheaper, but limit you to only working weekends), can afford the investment for the paper and frames, and grab the trial versions (not sure if they watermark images) you might be able to make the money to buy the software to keep running your business.

I have a friend that does this stuff. She isn't all that computer savvy. She has a small compact Win98 PC with worse specs than my snail, a 15" CRT monitor, and a printer she bought for about $20. The whole setup takes up slightly more space than my sewing machine.

She loads it into the back seat of her car, along with a box of frames and a few packs of paper, every weekend, traveling from flea market to flea market (costs her about $30/day for table space rental). Occasionally she rents a mall stand and works 7 days a week around Christmas time, if she can get one. (mall stand rental is about $2000/month + 10% of her profits)

She also designs take-out menus for restaurants (she prints 1 for them, and they take it to a printer to have it mass produced). And she does business cards for exotic dancers, laminated with glitter. And she does fliers for a few churches and local businesses.

Everything is with easy to learn software that can run on her hunk of junk.

3186

General Software Discussion / Re: Alphasort Program

« Last post by app103 on August 31, 2009, 01:15 PM »

Thank you for letting me know about this issue. 

3187

General Software Discussion / Re: Alphasort Program

« Last post by app103 on August 31, 2009, 01:02 PM »

Your antivirus is throwing off a false positive. You don't have a trojan in that file. Nothing attached itself to it. No matter what A-Squared is telling you about that file, it's wrong. Nothing corrupted your copy of the program.

Does A-Squared have anything within the application for uploading "infected" files to them to be checked and verified? If it does, please submit the file to them so they can fix the problem in their software.

I just uploaded my copy to Virus Total and let them scan it. It is throwing off some false positives in 3 different products: a-squared, eSafe, and Prevx.

My guess was because I had packed the file with UPX to make it smaller, but after unpacking it and uploading it again, there are still 2 different products (out of 43 different antivirus applications) that are still calling it malware, one of them being A-Squared and the other Ikarus. (weird)

If you would like to take a look at the report, you can view it here:

original packed file: http://www.virustota...48df84402-1243743604

unpacked file: http://www.virustota...9e6040246-1251740543

You can also upload the copy you have here and check it with all 43 different antivirus applications, yourself: http://www.virustotal.com

3188

General Software Discussion / Re: Alphasort Program

« Last post by app103 on August 31, 2009, 12:20 PM »

That would be one of my applications. And I assure you there is no trojan in it. (I am not skilled enough to write a trojan even if I wanted to  )

What you are seeing is a false positive.

Alphasort does not change any settings on your system or in any other applications, does not save any data to your registry, does not connect to the internet, can not phone home for any reason.

All it is, is a list box and entries are sorted by toggling the sort property off/on whenever you load a list or add anything to an existing list.

It's very simply designed and does nothing more than what you have seen it do.

3189

General Software Discussion / Re: Alphasort Program

« Last post by app103 on August 31, 2009, 12:03 PM »

Exactly what Alphasort program are you referring to? Could you provide more information to identify it? Perhaps a link?

3190

Living Room / Re: Help? Learning how to drive...

« Last post by app103 on August 30, 2009, 07:14 PM »

You want a challenge? Drive to Springfield, VA and try the mixing bowl at rush hour. You will hit every conceivable obstacle you can imagine. Also, try NJ. You will not be allowed to make a left turn and as such your driving adventure will vary from anywhere else in the world.

-Josh (August 22, 2009, 03:43 PM)

 

There is a reason why you can't make left turns in a lot of parts of NJ. We are the most densely populated state in the country, and we have the highest insurance rates. By eliminating left turns in some areas, we eliminated a lot of accidents. (left turns are more dangerous than right turns)

Nobody should drive like this, but keep in mind there are a lot of people that do.

Yes, it is supposed to be a joke, but sadly, it is based on truth. Ask Josh, he has driven here before. I never learned to drive because the thought of being on the same road with them terrifies me. I even have issues with crossing the streets around here. It's scary.

Be aware that NJ drivers don't stay in NJ. They travel to other states, seeking less crowded conditions. If they all stayed here, NJ would be a 3 story parking lot. So you will eventually come across one or more of them. Drive as if everyone on the road is originally from NJ and you should be ok.

3191

Living Room / Re: DC-IRLDD Champaign, IL - Aug 29, 2009

« Last post by app103 on August 30, 2009, 01:19 PM »

gothic got to put in some of his infinite-scoville hot sauce in his bowl (he had fed ex deliver it to my house -- shows you how desperate he was for it -- it was packed heavily enough to protect nuclear waste).  to taste it i put a drop of it on a toothpic, then washed off the toothpic, then dragged the toothpic lightly across a wet piece of lettuce, then folded the lettuce up and chewed it, and it still burned my mouth.

-mouser (August 30, 2009, 12:24 PM)

Where can I get this stuff?! 

3192

Developer's Corner / Re: Coding Practices Question: Curly brackets on a new line for else statement?

« Last post by app103 on August 28, 2009, 12:18 AM »

Personally, I prefer this style, because if you have multiple nested statements, it's a lot clearer to me what goes with what, if your indenting lines them up like this:

Code: ActionScript [Select]

1. if (statement)
2.   {
3.     // multiple lines of code here
4.   }
5. else
6.   {
7.     // multiple lines of code here
8.   }

3193

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA small script to set a timer to startup jkdefrag.exe when computer idle for

« Last post by app103 on August 27, 2009, 01:42 AM »

That's interesting.  If I could suggest one feature, maybe a time of day span window when the task can fire?  Like, be able to set it to only fire on idle if between 2 AM and 4 AM type of thing?

-MilesAhead (August 26, 2009, 05:08 PM)

I think this application is best kept as-is, in order not to frustrate myself or others.

IdleStart is very simply designed. It doesn't store any settings to the registry or to any type of config file. Everything is passed as a command line parameter. This way, one single copy of IdleStart can be used simultaneously for multiple applications with different parameters for each one.

If I save the times to run to the registry or a config file, it would either lose the ability for multiple instances to run with different configurations, or become a complicated mess requiring me to code the whole thing over from scratch and plan it much differently.

And I think adding more command line parameters might make it more confusing for users to use, with more potential for it not to do what they expected, no matter how good my instructions are.

3194

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA small script to set a timer to startup jkdefrag.exe when computer idle for

« Last post by app103 on August 26, 2009, 04:10 PM »

Unless you can measure the disk access there's no way to be sure your scheduled task won't kick off right in the middle of a DVD burn or a defrag by another defragger the user started manually(like if they forgot the scheduled task was there or are not the user who put it there and just decided to defrag.)

-MilesAhead (August 26, 2009, 12:24 PM)

That's why IdleStart has an option on the tray menu to disable it without closing it. If I were burning something or defragging manually, I'd disable it till it was finished and then turn it back on.

3195

Living Room / Re: Windows, Nuclear power, Viruses and Tech help

« Last post by app103 on August 26, 2009, 09:46 AM »

Possibly its from Australia, I can picture that sort of sitation here.....

-Fred Nerd (August 26, 2009, 04:25 AM)

I was thinking Springfield.

3196

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA small script to set a timer to startup jkdefrag.exe when computer idle for

« Last post by app103 on August 26, 2009, 03:33 AM »

You could use my IdleStart application. It will launch whatever you configure it to, after the length of idle time you configure passes. So it sort of acts like a screensaver, but for opening files and launching applications. (there is no actual screensaver involved)

I was more thinking of idle away time.  You know...if you haven't moved the mouse for ten minutes, fire up the defragger.  Chances are you're away from the desk and don't really care about CPU or disk usage at that point.

-skwire (August 25, 2009, 06:24 AM)

That is exactly what my IdleStart application does.

-app103 (August 25, 2009, 06:31 AM)

What defines "idle" ??
If it also includes disk usage then I'd be very interested.

-MilesAhead (August 25, 2009, 02:10 PM)

User idle time, as defined by how long it has been since a human* has interacted with the pc, either by use of the keyboard or mouse.



_{In theory it would be a human, but of course it could also be a cat, dog, space alien, earthquake, asteroid hitting desk, or some other force that causes the mouse to move or keys to be pressed on the keyboard.}

3197

Living Room / Re: top secret: tech support cheat sheet (xkcd)

« Last post by app103 on August 25, 2009, 10:53 PM »

Found a reference to the flow chart today: http://friendfeed.co...new-mac-did-software

 

3198

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Small HTML color swatch

« Last post by app103 on August 25, 2009, 08:07 PM »

One of my favorites...ColorCop

It packs a whole lot into a tiny little window.

• Stays always on top.
• Displays RGB for current color on the left.
• Displays recently used colors on the right.
• Can pick up colors from anything on your screen with a dropper.
• Contains a magnifier to zoom in for more accurate color picking.
• Can display HTML hex for color as well as for popular programming languages such as Delphi, VB, Visual C++, etc.
• Can be configured to autocopy hex to clipboard.
• Can be configured to omit # symbol and/or use UPPERCASE.
• Use standard Windows color picker to create custom colors. (you can also save custom colors there)

3199

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA small script to set a timer to startup jkdefrag.exe when computer idle for

« Last post by app103 on August 25, 2009, 06:31 AM »

You could use my IdleStart application. It will launch whatever you configure it to, after the length of idle time you configure passes. So it sort of acts like a screensaver, but for opening files and launching applications. (there is no actual screensaver involved)

I was more thinking of idle away time.  You know...if you haven't moved the mouse for ten minutes, fire up the defragger.  Chances are you're away from the desk and don't really care about CPU or disk usage at that point.

-skwire (August 25, 2009, 06:24 AM)

That is exactly what my IdleStart application does.

3200

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA : delete files with a mouse

« Last post by app103 on August 22, 2009, 02:24 PM »

In Explorer, go to View> Toolbars> Customize


Select "Delete" in the left side and click the button to add it to the right side. Then use the up/down buttons on the right side to position it where you want it, and you'll have a Delete button on there like I do.



Once you have that, you just select the files you want to delete and just click the button.

You can also add others like cut, copy, paste, undo, refresh, etc.