Recent Posts

3276

Living Room / Hold on!! Superboy badge?!

« Last post by superboyac on November 15, 2010, 09:17 AM »

So I was casually reading the forums here, as I normally do in my mornings before coffee.  What do I see?  Look:

Now, my first thought was, "What?!  How come I don't get to have a superboy badge!?  That's my whole thing!"
So, I clicked on it to see what it takes to get a superboy badge.  Well, here's what I found:

Sadly, this badge represents the kind of person I have become.  Cantankerous, unreasonable, and the nitwit of the nitpickers.  Skwire is well-deserving of such an award (he does write kick-ass coding snacks).

I'm sorry guys, I'm working on being a more pleasant person.  I just can't help but be very specific when I ask for software.  It's largely for my own selfish reasons, but it's also because I have tremendous respect for the programmers.  I don't want to ask for something vague and create unnecessary work for others.  I always think that by being very specific, it's less work for the programmer.  They don't have to spend time trying to interpret a vague request, they can immediately understand whether or not they can do something.

Anyway, that was funny.  I got a kick out of it!

3277

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by superboyac on November 15, 2010, 08:55 AM »

Miles, I finished that FAVC dvd i was making, and it was great.  That's super easy and nice.  I love it.  I'm going to stick with that unless there's something obviously better.  I hate to get all Apple on people here, but FAVC "just works".  You pick your video files, edit the titles if you choose, and press the button.  Seriously.

Miles is all over those forums, I keep seeing your avatar.  Good stuff, thanks for all the help.

3278

Living Room / Re: How to understand all the Intel chip types?

« Last post by superboyac on November 15, 2010, 08:50 AM »

JavaJones dropping some epics lately!
Thanks, that's a good way to think about it.  I'll be using that.

3279

General Software Discussion / Re: Yet another application tapping into the "cloud" market.

« Last post by superboyac on November 14, 2010, 02:02 PM »

I agree Oshyan.  It was more of a call to suspicion thread.  Yes, as long as they keep the desktop versions intact, everything will be great.  Sure, why not add a way to sync online?  I just have this fear that all these programs are going to go all cloud as soon as they get the chance...

3280

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by superboyac on November 14, 2010, 01:06 PM »

I actually started with Notepad Pro as my first "different" notepad, years ago.  It was good, but after seeing all the other ones available, it doesn't really stand out.  I also tried Crimson for a while, which was also good, but there were some weird things about it that I don't remember right now, and it was kind of slow.

3281

General Software Discussion / Re: Download managers: Get your fingers out of my browser!!

« Last post by superboyac on November 14, 2010, 01:04 PM »

Ah!  Flashgot!  I forgot about that.  Finally, a use for it that makes sense.  I always thought Flashgot was a weird program.  Everything it does, it seems like a download manager, but it explicitely states that it's not.  So you install it anyway.  Then, you use it along with your download manager, let's say IDM.  But IDM works fine without flashgot, and IDM has all the same options as flashgot.  So what is flashgot really doing?  That's the situation I ran into a couple of times, so I decided I really don't need flashgot.

But having multiple download managers now make flashgot useful.  Maybe I'll give it a shot now.  I just was never clear on flashgot's exact purpose.

3282

General Software Discussion / Re: What is best program to create a DVD from any video file?

« Last post by superboyac on November 13, 2010, 07:55 PM »

Miles, thanks for the FAVC suggestion.  I'm using it right now.  I hope it works well.  It's one of the very few programs out there that offered a SIMPLE solution to creating a DVD from regular video files.  Man.  Why do all of them have to be so complicated?  I tried several that were wizard-like, simple solutions, but they were all buggy, slow, or couldn't handle some file or other.  FAVC is working well so far (I'm in the middle of crating my first disc).

Are there any other nice, simple solutions out there?  Here are my simple requirements:
1) Can handle conversion of multiple files at once (i.e. batch)
2) Drag/drop or similarly simple file choosing
3) Creates a menu background based on a simple image file I can easily replace
4) Simple options to choose thumbnail image, titles
5) Simple options as to whether I want a menu or not
6) Don't make me figure out a bunch of stuff about codecs, filters, technobabble
7) DON'T have audio/video syncing issues

3283

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011: List Numberer

« Last post by superboyac on November 13, 2010, 07:51 PM »

This is a great program.  I use it nearly every day.  Thank skwire.

3284

General Software Discussion / Any fluent Russians here? (Light Alloy related)

« Last post by superboyac on November 13, 2010, 12:50 PM »

I still insist that Light Alloy is one of the best video players out there.  It's my favorite at least.  I'm glad to know that it is still being pretty actively developed, but only for the Russian community.  The only way I can follow is to google-translate the forums and do my best with the weird sentences that are converted.  I wouldn't mind if someone who actually spoke russian could just give me the basic jist of what was going on.  Here's the most recent version thread:
http://www.light-all...lloy_v4_5_build_519/

Anyway, like I said it's still being developed at a decent pace.  The program is well designed, I only have a couple of nitpicks.  Interestingly enough, I think the developer is considering adding all the codecs internally to the program (like VLC, KMP) so you don't have to search for missing codecs.  But he is weighing that against bloating the program and such.  In my opinion, I say package everything inside.  If it's just a matter of the install file going from 10mb to 30mb, who really gives a shit?  It's not like everyone doesn't have plenty of space and bandwidth to cover that these days.

3285

General Software Discussion / Re: Best PORTABLE video player?

« Last post by superboyac on November 13, 2010, 12:10 PM »

My verdict:
Daum Potplayer is good, I have no doubt it will probably be great.  But as of right now, it's still in beta-licious mode.  There are some weird things that need to be fixed.  Problems with skins.  Not very good english support, there's a lot of korean stuff all over the place.  Anyway, i'll hold off on that.  It's faster than KMPlayer, but kmplayer works better right now.  Also, I wish he would let go of adding a bunch of options to the context menus and just put most of them in the preferences dialog.  He goes a little overboard with that.

3286

General Software Discussion / Re: Download managers: Get your fingers out of my browser!!

« Last post by superboyac on November 13, 2010, 11:47 AM »

Here's a situation not easily resolved:
I want to install 3 different download managers.  But I need to be able to completely (COMPLETELY) disable the other two before using the third.  Is that even possible?  Not from what I've seen.  You'd have to uninstall to really do that.  Comments?

3287

General Software Discussion / Re: Best PORTABLE video player?

« Last post by superboyac on November 12, 2010, 05:36 PM »

Oo!!  If Potplayer can go portable, that's the one!  Thanks, I will do that.

3288

General Software Discussion / Re: Download managers: Get your fingers out of my browser!!

« Last post by superboyac on November 12, 2010, 04:13 PM »

Yeah, IDM is my favorite of the bunch.  But it's hell turning it off for good without uninstalling it.

I've tried FDM several times, and I still don't know how to set it up to ONLY download when I do the cnrl-click.  But you don't have to bother explaining it, I'm not using it currently.  I'm just complaining that's all.  I'm guessing I'm going to do a lot of posting in this sub-forum from here on out.  Just complaints.

3289

General Software Discussion / Best PORTABLE video player?

« Last post by superboyac on November 12, 2010, 11:17 AM »

I know there are several discussions here about video player software, I'm guilty of multiple ones.  So this one is specifically for PORTABLE video players.  Which ones do you guys like or prefer?  I'd love to hear.

From what I've seen, there aren't that many of them.  A lot of the good ones are actually hacks of non-portable applications.  Like, KMPlayer can be downloaded on the web as a hacked portable, but it wasn't specially designed for it.  So I'm more interested in the ones that are designed for it.

SMPlayer is portable, but it's kind of a quirky program, I don't like it that much.  VLC I don't like at all.  I don't Daum Potplayer is offered in a portable version.

I'd love a program like MediaMonkey to be portable.  There are instructions for it here.  But I'm just not a fan of needing "instructions" to set up a portable application.  I'd prefer it just "do it".  One of the challenges of such an application is keeping track of the media files.  At the very least, I'd like the manager to be able to tell if the files it is playing back is on the SAME drive as the portable application.  If that's the case, the program should be able to keep track of the files using a RELATIVE drive path.  So, if I set the application up on one computer, and then move to another (with all the files and program on the same flash drive), everything should work fine even if the other computers assign the flash drive a different letter.  It seems to me that most of these programs just record the actual letter of the drives.  So, I'm glad that the application works as a portable, but I'd like it to go the extra step and keep track of the files that are on the portable drive.

3290

General Software Discussion / Download managers: Get your fingers out of my browser!!

« Last post by superboyac on November 12, 2010, 10:53 AM »

I like download managers in general.  Most of them are pretty decent and I have no problem with them for the most part.  The only issue I have is that they make it VERY hard to control.  You all know what I mean.  Occasionally, you want the download manager to NOT get involved in a particular download.  Most of the ones I've tried make this a painful process.  First, most of them have a hotkey combo to bypass the download manager...but it doesn't always work.  I've felt they hardly ever work.  but that may be just me.  Fine.  Secondly, you may say "fuck it" and just exit/close the entire download manager application.  I don't mean minimize to tray...I mean really close it.  BUT...even when you do this, it always gets reincarnated as soon as you click a program to download.  Then you search through the options to try to turn that feature off, but it will not be clear which option controls that.  Then, after fiddling around for a while, you realize that it's not downloading anything at all now!

I just need a simple bypass option sometimes.  And for pete's sake, when I turn the program off...STAY OFF.  They all get reanimated like some bad zombie movie.  One of the few genres of programs that tend to do that universally.

3291

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by superboyac on November 10, 2010, 04:59 PM »

HippoEDIT's nice.  I'm just waiting for it to have some kind of macros, and ones I can cope with; don't want to have to learn a whole programming language.

I used to use it at work - back when I had a job - for saving text from the Web.  I always wanted to save as plain text.  If the clip was unicode, when I went to save it, HippoEDIT would ask me whether I wanted it converted to plain text.  Very convenient.

-rjbull (November 10, 2010, 04:17 PM)

Yeah, it definitely needs work.  But I like the way it's been developed so far.  My favorite editor up to this point is Editpad Pro.  2nd favorite is EmEditor.  3rd is Ultraedit.  4th is Notepad++.  Each one has a specialty for me.  Emeditor is the fastest.  Editpad is the best overall.  Ultraedit can do the most.  Notepad++ is the best of the free ones.

3292

General Software Discussion / Re: Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?

« Last post by superboyac on November 09, 2010, 09:37 PM »

I'm following the discussion here, but unfortunately I'm not going to be able to explore any of these suggestions possibly until January or later.  I have a Gigabyte motherboard, and I know I had to do some things with AHCI in the past, although I don't know what all that means.  It had to do with the number of hard drives I have connected to my computer.  I have 3 hard drives inside my tower, connected by SATA to the motherboard.  I also have my SATA dvd drive connected to the motherboard, although it's on the special colored connector, which is somehow different than the other connecters.  This is because I added two external hard drives using the eSATA connection later for backup purposes, so the computer was having a hard time recognizing everything.  So now I have 5 drives plus a dvd drive connected to my motherboard.  I remember mouser saying something like once you get past 4 or 5, weird things start happening.

So, when I added the esata drives, i had to do something with all that AHCI stuff.  Maybe I have to go back to default for the installation of Win7 to work.  I hate this stuff.

This is also why I eventually want to build my own server at my house.  I want to store all my stuff on several large hard drives, all with redundant backups.  I can see approaching 10 drives by the end of 2011.  I don't want any of my media on disc or anything outside anymore.  And I'll have it connected to my media pc, another project for 2011.

3293

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by superboyac on November 09, 2010, 02:26 PM »

I would encourage all to buy the $15 hippoedit sale today.  It's one of those little developers that seems to do things the right way.  And I normally will buy anything remotely interesting under $20 because i feel that is a very good price for most utilities we use.  I find it to be a good balance between the extremes of freeware and $50+ shareware.  Anything above $20 makes me think twice, and anything below I'm willing to give a shot.

3294

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: XYplorer Lifetime License 51% discount on BitsDuJour on Monday 8 Nov 2010

« Last post by superboyac on November 08, 2010, 08:25 PM »

i like xyplorer a lot, as well as the programmer.  I have only minor nitpick, which I've mentioned in their forum at length...Don needs to do something about the way the labels in the tabs appear.  It makes it so much less usable for me that way.  Those tabs are used so much that if it is left the way they are, I don't see how it can't be frustrating.  It's the kind of little frustration you would experience every few seconds, which turns into a big thing and eventually, you would just go to Dopus or whatever.  See my thread here:
http://www.xyplorer....c.php?f=5&t=5183

3295

General Software Discussion / Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?

« Last post by superboyac on November 08, 2010, 08:14 PM »

I've never had problems before when trying to install an operating system.  Usually, when boot stuff tries to load, they do fine (for me) because they don't first have to get into my operating system which may be very complicated due to the way i use it.  With OS installs, there shouldn't be many problems because you're starting from scratch.  Anyway, here's my situation:
I created a partition on my main system drive.  I wanted to first install Windows 7 on it and play around with it before installing for real on my system drive (i.e formatting and starting from scratch).  But I can't even start the install process.  When I stick the windows7 cd in, it boots from it.  It gets all the way through the "loading files" bit, but freezes consistently at the screen when the colorful stuff first appear.  All you see is that fancy blue background and the mouse pointer, and nothing else.  Then I get a BSOD.  I don't understand.  It's a 64 bit OS, but my computer should be capable of 64 bit.  See my computer specs here:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=16186.0

What's more confusing is that I've been running windows 7 virtually on my current xp setup for a while now, and it's been fine...or not really.  I mean, I'm able to install it on vmware fine, but it runs really slow and has a lot of hangups which I've just attributed to not setting things up or the fact that I'm running 64 bit virtually on a 32 bit os installation.  I don't know.  Maybe it has something to do with all that.

Anyway, I'm ready to go to Windows 7, but this is bothering.  I'm worried that something about my system may not be good with Windows 7, which I would hate because it's a relatively new and expensive system.  I was also wondering if maybe I should try installing on a freshly formatted hard drive.  But before I do that, I want to know why this is not working.  I have a spare hard drive, but until I check the contents and stick it in my tower, etc., is a little more work than I wanted to do right now.

Any thoughts?

3296

General Software Discussion / Re: Format Factory TOTAL-BULL installation of Ask.com (warning: cursing inside)

« Last post by superboyac on November 08, 2010, 08:50 AM »

You know, you guys are right.  I've never liked software that tries to do too much.  I always figured video conversion was just one "thing".  But to separate it out to different converters for different formats is probably the better way for me.

3297

Living Room / ESPN not allowed to show more than 30 second highlights.

« Last post by superboyac on November 07, 2010, 04:33 PM »

I've often wondered lately why ESPN rushes through the highlights so fast.  Not surprisingly, I get irritated because I'd like to soak in some of these highlights but they go through them so fast, you get no real sense of what actually happened.  So, knowing what I know, I was convinced that this MUST be a licensing thing where they are simplay not allowed to show more than a set number of seconds of highlights from each game.  So I launched tranglos' eStopwatch and started timing them.  yup.  They are all exactly 30 seconds long.  I tried looking up on google an article or information indicating that the NFL/NBA only allows 30 second highlights, but i couldn't find anything.  But I'm 99% sure that this is true.  Anyway, now you know.  Nothing terribly interesting, i suppose.

The interesting part to me is once again, they restrict this stuff to the point where the end user starts feeling a little bit shafted, whether they realize it or not.  All of this inquiry started from the fact that I've been watching the highlights lately and wondering why they go so fast from one major highlight to the next.  I mean, geez, let me enjoy that game winning touchdown for a few seconds!  Man.  Must we suck the enjoyment out of everything??

Oh yeah...and they wonder why people would download torrents of the games.  Is it to do something horrible and criminal with it?  No!  Just to enjoy a fucking touchdown pass from your favorite player or team, and be able to relish it.  Play it back.  Soak it in.  Hear the audience roar.  Watch the players celebrate.  Watch your rival sulk away.  i mean, cmon.  We have all this technology, and instead of being able to enjoy things like this, we are restricting it so much, we might as well NOT have it.

3298

General Software Discussion / Re: Format Factory TOTAL-BULL installation of Ask.com (warning: cursing inside)

« Last post by superboyac on November 04, 2010, 09:53 PM »

Yeah, I actually don't really know of any good shareware converters.  it seems to be a genre where all the good stuff is freeware.  Any recommendations?  Other than full video suites, like Premiere or Vegas?  I don't need a discount, if it's good I'll get it right now!

3299

General Software Discussion / Re: Format Factory TOTAL-BULL installation of Ask.com (warning: cursing inside)

« Last post by superboyac on November 04, 2010, 09:06 PM »

Yeah, i used Super primarily before Format Factory, you can even read about it in the thread somewhere here.  But Super has it's own quirks, mainly it's horrendous website and almost as horrendous interface.  But it sure can do everything.

3300

General Software Discussion / Re: EditPad Pro 7-BETA

« Last post by superboyac on November 04, 2010, 09:05 AM »

I love EditPad Pro as well. I have a lifetime license for UltraEdit but I much, much prefer EditPad Pro - so much so that I recently uninstalled edit-32, despite the lifetime license. I can't quite put my finger on why I prefer EditPad Pro... I suppose that if pressed I'd point to the GUI, though.

-Darwin (October 13, 2010, 06:56 PM)

I dabble with all the different editors just for fun.  I think EditPad is also becoming my preferred editor.  It all comes together very nicely.  It's clear that the author has that great feel for flexibility, simplicity, aesthetics, etc.  I used to be big on Emeditor, which is still good, but I just liked that it was fast more than anything else.  Ultraedit is very good, but a little big and klunky.  I use Notepad++ primarily, since it's free and is pretty darn good.  But if I were to pay for one, I think I would get Editpad.  i just like it more and more and more.