Recent Posts

326

Living Room / recommendation wanted: which wireless network device, not usb?

« Last post by housetier on October 05, 2009, 02:22 AM »

For the "classroom" in my club I am looking for wireless network cards.

They should not be USB devices, as these tend to be borrowed but never returned. So they should go into, say, the PCI slot.

They must work with linux.

I need about a dozen of these. I already have a WLAN router thingie that supports this .n-draft, which people tell me is supposed to make things faster.

Which device can you recommend?

327

General Software Discussion / Re: HTML to XHTML conversion, what's most effective?

« Last post by housetier on October 02, 2009, 08:51 PM »

From the man page and "tidy -show-config" I would suggest trying these command-line options:

-asxhtml convert HTML to well formed XHTML
-output-encoding utf8

(Maybe the output-encoding option has to be written in a config file, I am not sure)

328

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody with Ampa... and time to move on.

« Last post by housetier on October 01, 2009, 10:15 PM »

Thanks for the story and the pictures

329

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Markdown windows executable

« Last post by housetier on September 30, 2009, 01:44 PM »

I wonder if there a such compilers for textile as well.

330

General Software Discussion / Re: Why doesn't Explorer have an interface for creating hard links?

« Last post by housetier on September 30, 2009, 03:12 AM »

While I didn't find an explanation for the lack of GUI exposure of the hard link feature, the post is still interesting.

But then he compares a feature of the file system to using a hex editor. In my view those are not comparable at all. The FS does not care what data it stores and how it is compiled (word processor, log file, hex editor...); a hex editor does not care where on the disk the data is stored or which FS is used.

331

General Software Discussion / Re: Short Attention Spans with regards to Technology - Does it really exist?

« Last post by housetier on September 29, 2009, 01:38 AM »

I don't have the means to actually measure the amount of time I give attention to something. But I am very good at hopping from task to task, from page to page, from irc to web and back.

On the other hand, I can concentrate for hours on something an be really productive (for example writing the minutes of our regular panel meetings).

Going back to the OP I think this focus on attention span is a marketing campaign to monetize users' clicks.

332

General Software Discussion / Re: Short Attention Spans with regards to Technology - Does it really exist?

« Last post by housetier on September 28, 2009, 09:21 PM »

I don't have any anti-virus software but still cannot focus on one webpage for more than 2 minutes.

333

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Close multiple instances of the same program (but not the others)

« Last post by housetier on September 28, 2009, 09:20 PM »

yes using "my way" there would only be one right-click and close. I am not exactly sure how to select those tasks in the taskbar: last time I really used windows was when Win2k came out...

334

General Software Discussion / Re: Short Attention Spans with regards to Technology - Does it really exist?

« Last post by housetier on September 28, 2009, 09:03 PM »

I didn't read your posts, but my point... oh did you see THAT?!?

335

Living Room / Re: How fast is your (favourite) web browser JavaScript?

« Last post by housetier on September 28, 2009, 05:49 PM »

The fractal thing made FF use a lot of CPU time but there was no animation. However, the plasma animation was very fluid and used a little less CPU time.

FF 3.5.3 on Linux

336

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Close multiple instances of the same program (but not the others)

« Last post by housetier on September 28, 2009, 05:24 PM »

afaik you can select those tasks in the taskbar with ctrl+leftclick. Then you can right-click on any of the selected tasks and choose "close".

337

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 39-09

« Last post by housetier on September 27, 2009, 02:24 PM »

Thank you very much for this collection!

You know, these weekly postings are an important news source for me: They are filtered, so there is not much crap, but they are filtered by someone with different interests, so there is always something fresh. 

338

Living Room / Re: Thinking about setting up a dedicated "secure PC" in my house.. Thoughts?

« Last post by housetier on September 27, 2009, 07:38 AM »

There is a dedicated linux distribution for home banking and similar sensitive tasks. Bankix is supposed to boot from CDROM and won't write to hard disks. The instructions are in German though...

339

General Software Discussion / Re: Godin: the end of dumb software

« Last post by housetier on September 15, 2009, 10:41 AM »

for linking all sorts of information but without having to use a RDMS, maybe Deepa Mehta might be interesting?

I have not used it myself.

340

Post New Requests Here / Re: Need Code For Non-Profit Organization

« Last post by housetier on September 13, 2009, 10:54 AM »

one could also use SQLite, it gives you a database backend without needing to run a database server. Firefox uses sqlite to store bookmarks, history and whatnot.

It might not be as fast as a so-called real database, but it also does not need to maintain yet more user accounts: the database is a simple file, which will be protected by the file system permissions.

Now, sqlite is not a preferred storage backend but some projects (drupal for example) have begun supporting sqlite. I do not know of a CMS that supports sqlite, but I am sure there are quite a few.

341

General Software Discussion / Re: Godin: the end of dumb software

« Last post by housetier on September 13, 2009, 10:36 AM »

I would like smarter software too: but not simply software that connects, aggregates and updates data, but software that connects, aggregates, updates, and keeps an eye on my privacy.

I don't think it's a web-software vs. desktop-software thing though.

342

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 37-09

« Last post by housetier on September 13, 2009, 07:58 AM »

#7, ah it's stargate, couldn't make that from "universe exclusive". I thought it was something scientific

343

Living Room / Re: Happy Programmer Day! 1111 1111

« Last post by housetier on September 13, 2009, 05:56 AM »

oh we should celebrate it on our space station! There are a bunch of programmers (other folk too of course).

Let's see how it plays out, who organizes everything...

344

General Software Discussion / Re: Will Win7 last as long as XP?

« Last post by housetier on September 12, 2009, 05:43 PM »

a) No
b) neither, it will last for 6 years
c) neither

345

General Software Discussion / Re: Google getting into micropayments

« Last post by housetier on September 12, 2009, 02:37 PM »

not to forget: make it FUN to send monetary values, jsut like we can send messages along with donation credits here on donationcoder.

346

General Software Discussion / Re: doing a web app is easier than a desktop app. Days are counted for Desktop apps?

« Last post by housetier on September 07, 2009, 08:47 AM »

dinosaurs WERE efficient once, other wise they would not have ruled this planet for so long.

re the OP: I do find web apps easier to program, so I prefer to code web apps. However, I do think there are a lot of applications for which a webinterface is not the right choice (calling the elevator for example). These two categories will exist in parallel for quite a while, maybe adding a third category: CLI programs.

Some applications might provide all sorts of interfaces to suit the users need. And this is what ultimately will determine the interfaces in use...

347

Living Room / Re: Zero Percent Contained - California fire time lapse video

« Last post by housetier on September 07, 2009, 06:35 AM »

I seem to recall news reports claiming this year's fire was cause by arson as well.

348

Living Room / Re: Zero Percent Contained - California fire time lapse video

« Last post by housetier on September 03, 2009, 08:23 PM »

this is really impressive! 

349

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody bids farewell to Yorkshire and a final day out to remember ...

« Last post by housetier on August 30, 2009, 01:08 PM »

This is a very sweet story, I love it.  

350

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Germany

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

It'd be very nice to have Baby Cody in December. gjehle will be in Berlin as well and can take awesome pictures while we three are at the next CCC hacker conference. Then he'll take him to Stuttgart and show him around. From there we can send him all over Germany until he wants to see more of .eu