Recent Posts

3201

Living Room / Re: Gadget WEEKENDS

« Last post by mouser on October 05, 2017, 02:01 PM »

Did I already post about this?

I have a rechargeable battery pack I keep in my car that can power/charge mobile phone and also jump start the car.

There are a ton of them on amazon, here's the one I have:


https://www.amazon.c...p/product/B01D42TYFC

3202

Living Room / Re: Disabling autoplaying videos in Chrome goes viral

« Last post by mouser on October 05, 2017, 12:57 PM »

I wonder if its because we have moved from a regular/repeat-customer environment, where sites cared about cultivating a loyal user base, to a search-engine/stream-of-new-users environment, where there is no such thing as a regular/loyal reader, and so you don't have to care about how much you annoy any given visitor.

3203

Developer's Corner / Long thought-provoking essay on programming

« Last post by mouser on October 05, 2017, 12:20 PM »

Long thought-provoking essay on programming

Victor wanted something more immediate. “If you have a process in time,” he said, referring to Mario’s path through the level, “and you want to see changes immediately, you have to map time to space.” He hit a button that showed not just where Mario was right now, but where he would be at every moment in the future: a curve of shadow Marios stretching off into the far distance. What’s more, this projected path was reactive: When Victor changed the game’s parameters, now controlled by a quick drag of the mouse, the path’s shape changed. It was like having a god’s-eye view of the game. The whole problem had been reduced to playing with different parameters, as if adjusting levels on a stereo receiver, until you got Mario to thread the needle. With the right interface, it was almost as if you weren’t working with code at all; you were manipulating the game’s behavior directly.

When the audience first saw this in action, they literally gasped.

https://www.theatlan...ld-from-code/540393/

3204

Living Room / Re: Looking for smartphone

« Last post by mouser on October 04, 2017, 10:27 PM »

Having a few spare, charged batteries available when I travel is a real plus.  I can go longer without having the phone tethered to a wall socket.

Actually for that it would seem to be far easier, cheaper, and more flexible to simply buy one of the many large-capacity usb battery pack chargers.
These can charge any device that charges over usb (all mobile phones made in the last decade it seems), many times over.

I have one of these devices, and it can charge/power a phone, tablet, etc. as well as jump start a car, be used as a flashlight, etc.

3205

Screenshot Captor / Re: Making screenshot of Screenshot Captor menu

« Last post by mouser on October 04, 2017, 12:06 PM »

It's easy for people who donate to forget to visit the link to upgrade their forum account, so it's possible that they donated and forgot to update their forum account.

Regardless -- arnal, tell us what you are having trouble with and perhaps we can assist.

3206

Screenshot Captor / Re: Making screenshot of Screenshot Captor menu

« Last post by mouser on October 04, 2017, 10:17 AM »

If you (or anyone) ever regrets donating, just contact us and we will refund your donation!

3207

Living Room / Re: More good web comics you've discovered

« Last post by mouser on October 03, 2017, 12:42 PM »

Great web comic just mentioned on waxy.org:

https://www.incredibledoom.com/issue01

3208

Living Room / Re: Share your photos! Travel shots, photoblogs, etc.

« Last post by mouser on October 02, 2017, 02:31 PM »

Well done.

3209

Living Room / Re: Use for Screen Captor

« Last post by mouser on October 02, 2017, 11:25 AM »

Welcome, cpajoker    Thanks for sharing.
I opened up the feed and I see an eagle right now tending to his nest! Cool!

3210

Living Room / Re: Malpais de la Rasca (Where is contro ?)

« Last post by mouser on October 02, 2017, 10:11 AM »

Do we have a photo thread this topic could be merged into?

3211

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Timestamp Clamper - for hammering file/folder timestamps into a reasonable range

« Last post by mouser on October 02, 2017, 07:05 AM »

Sweet! 
ps. this qualifies as a NANY release (https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=44276.0)

3212

Living Room / Re: Malpais de la Rasca (Where is contro ?)

« Last post by mouser on October 01, 2017, 02:27 PM »

Beautiful!

3213

Living Room / Re: Micro Reviews of Board Games From a Non-Competetive Perspective

« Last post by mouser on October 01, 2017, 07:15 AM »

It's been a while since I posted to this thread -- I'll try to do better.

Today's mini-review of a board game is for a card game called "Fabled Fruit":
https://boardgamegee.../203427/fabled-fruit


I've played this game with my serious board gamer friends, my 12 year old niece, and my mom, and they all loved it.

It plays from 2-5 and all player counts are good.  The basic rules are quite simple, you lay out 6 piles of cards and on each turn a player choose which card to visit, either performing the unique special action specified on the card, or paying the "cost" on the card in with different kinds of fruit mini-cards and claiming it.  First player to claim a certain number of cards wins.

What makes the game quite unique and special, is that the game comes with 70+ different cards, and as you play the game over the course of multiple sessions/days/weeks/month, old cards are removed from play and new ones are revealed.  So the game is introducing new elements each time you play it, but the rules only change a tiny bit each time.  It's wonderfully entertaining to adjust your gameplay to the new changes that come each time you play it.

Highly highly recommended for all variety of gaming personalities.

3214

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: exclude coping specific xls

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2017, 05:04 PM »

That's a pretty flexible exclusion system!

3215

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: exclude coping specific xls

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2017, 04:28 PM »

It wouldn't be hard for me to add title to exclusion functionality; i'll put it on my todo list and try to have it in next version.

3216

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: exclude coping specific xls

« Last post by mouser on September 29, 2017, 02:54 PM »

I have concluded after a few days of trying, that it is impossible to exclude a specific spreadsheet.

Yes... Although it's conceivable I could add a function to ignore certain window TITLES in a future version -- is the sheet name shown on the window titlebar when you switch to that sheet?

3217

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2017, 07:42 PM »

No worries, we're sticking with smf, just like you're sticking with the cello! 

3218

Developer's Corner / Re: Your First Programming Language vs Now

« Last post by mouser on September 28, 2017, 09:25 AM »

Hi hwtan!!! Long time no see.  How have you been?

3219

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: NANY 2012 Pledge & Release: Image Grid

« Last post by mouser on September 27, 2017, 04:35 PM »

Just used ImageGrid again today -- great program 

3220

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 27, 2017, 03:13 PM »

Keep the suggestions coming!

3221

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 27, 2017, 03:09 PM »

Hey Carol!
Yeah, that's not a bad idea..

Though I think I have a pretty good solution in place with some custom extensions I've written (I've enjoyed writing joomla extensions).
With my approach the page content of parent pages is dynamically generated from the menu structure, to yield parent pages that look like those shown here.
Perhaps the nicest thing about this approach is that if pages are added and moved around, those parent pages are automatically always up to date.

3222

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 26, 2017, 01:49 PM »

What isn't too obvious in the menu, is that you can click on every level in the menu and get to see the page from that point on, allowing to navigate deeper down if desired... Removing that huge menu structure is going to take away that confusion I guess

Yes, exactly.  That is one of the main motivations for removing the deep structure -- otherwise it is not at all clear that those intermediate items in the menu are actual (important) pages.
Removing the deep structure in the navigation bar will eliminate that problem and people will need to progress through the pages to reach a deep page.

3223

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 26, 2017, 01:30 PM »

The menu used does seem a bit sluggish in some places.

I'll look into it..

One thing that I'm fairly sure will change before the real site goes live is that those deep menus will change to only be 1 level deep.
Having the super deep menus in the navigation bar is fun to be able to see the entire site structure, but I think it may be a bit overwhelming.

So for example there won't be this:


And instead the navigation bar will just show the 1st level children of the "Software" section, and from there you will navigate the page content to get to specific programs.

3224

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 26, 2017, 01:20 PM »

Rather than run google ads, I made a custom "internal advert" module which can show in the sidebar some different things at random..  You'll see it in action in the screenshots above.

It can show a random "testimonial" quote (like our current site does on some pages), except now it's easy for people to submit new quotes, and it has custom avatar pictures.  But it can also show some random blurbs we can create that mention either one of our software programs with a screenshot, or a blurb and screenshot recommending one of the many websites we are fond of (techsupport alert, ghacks, etc.), or a random DC member website, etc.

3225

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Official CMS Migration Progress Thread - September 2017

« Last post by mouser on September 26, 2017, 01:16 PM »

Top-level section pages now have a uniform look -- it's not cutting edge but it's clean and easy to maintain and is dynamically generated so if we move stuff around it requires no editing.

Some examples: