Recent Posts

3376

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone using Puran Utilities 1.0.2 ??

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 15, 2012, 09:48 AM »

Is that all freeware?
(couldnt find anything on the site about it, nor licensing terms)

-tomos (September 15, 2012, 09:25 AM)

Well, it's apparently FreeAsInBeer, because the right side of the home page says " Its Free! ". However it's also copyrighted on the bottom of the page, with all that implies.

3377

Developer's Corner / TreeDBNotes Pro Export and Search Engines

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 15, 2012, 07:14 AM »

Hmm. I just noticed something I hadn't thought of before: My notes program TreeDBNotes Pro has the ability to multi bundle all updated nodes to the tree and reprocess them as a fully linked site.

However, when a user enters "FreeVoteUSA" into a search engine, they get tons of results with the nodes... but none of them have the index! This quirk of the design might just sink the site (were I actually developing it seriously!) I could always paste back links at the bottom of the nodes, but by themselves they look kinda bare with no context.

Anyone have ideas? Something like Robots.txt NoIndex every node but the index? (If that works, how do I do that?)

3378

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 15, 2012, 03:46 AM »

On first reading of the subject line I was distressed. It seemed as if a new and rather unappealing fruit flavor was invented. Imagine my relief when it's only a Jobs-related thread!!

-MilesAhead (September 14, 2012, 05:38 PM)

"10 years ago, Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, and Steve Jobs were alive. Now there's no Hope, no Cash, and no Jobs"!

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Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 04:56 PM »

Go Go Thread Hijack! You are all sentenced to write puns until you pass out!   

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Living Room / Re: Creole Creamery

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 04:56 PM »

(Schrodinger's Indignation - am I really upset or not?)
What??? Mouser's Empire has failed to take over New Orleans?
Someone fix this at once!!

(Not sure what smiley art applies here.)

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Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 02:16 PM »

What would users of Cody OS say?

3382

General Software Discussion / Re: What went wrong with Linux on the Desktop

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 10:08 AM »

I am trying to re-get acquainted with latest linux (due to some ankyloses at work)

does that pain to install a single app still exists? compiling, getting dependencies, etc?

I hoped that it would become someday easy to install software in linux, like in winxp, but I saw so many people in the linux community that seemed they were excited with such long install procedures, so I gave up

-kalos (September 14, 2012, 10:00 AM)

I think it still is. I just saw some article the other day about (I think) some software update not being in "this edition of uBuntu." Some people like the whole "reinstall it all" thing, but as a long time Windows user, just gimme the app. : )

3383

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 09:15 AM »

Okay, here's a topic I'll Ask Twice even though it would Only Work Once. (Note 1)

I believe in all serious that in one election soon we'll get a viral Who-Will-You-Vote-For mechanism, and then the voters can Throw All The ******ers out. (Insert your favorite word there, extra stars if you need them!)

The problem with Anonymous is they're Chaotic Neutral, so they're just as likely to pull it with a Joke Candidate. However I'm interested in who we'd pick for real. So if you could get a Viral Wave (without statistical artifact problems, foreign hackers, etc.) who would you vote in as A, Joke Candidate and B, Real Candidate?

Note 1: It would work only once, because the Powers That Be can't have the little Sheeple actually thinking about their politics and working together now, can they? So we might beat them once, out of surprise because they don't think we can do it yet. (And we can't, for 2012.) But once we do succeed in doing it, they'll rush to pass laws to prevent it ever again.

Note 2: (Parody of news story) "Today, the nation got a shock, and one person is very, very confused. It appears we have Cody for President. 'Who is Cody' you are asking? It might be better to start with 'What is Cody?'. It appears that Cody is the fictional mascot of a software site, of species unknown, though one early guess puts him in the same family as the mallards. The creator of the software site, who has not yet given permission to be named in this story, is very, very confused. 'Why me? Why my site? Why my mascot?'

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has convened an emergency session to figure out what the legal implications are of the will of the people to being ruled by a fictional character. Disney has submitted an Amicus brief on the subject."

3384

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 09:10 AM »

Brand insanity aside, these phones are getting too f****** big! A PITA to lug around and easy to smash up!

For my next phone I'm seriously considering going for the smallest, lightest device available that lets me make and receive calls, that's it.
~hipster-nosh

-nosh (September 14, 2012, 03:35 AM)

Ya' know, you can get geek cred soon with a Dick Tracy style Watch phone! There are some early models out in Asia, and some proto-models floating around here in workshops. I really do think we're about one generation of tech out from making it happen. Sound quality might be a topic, but then I'm in an area with zero quality in my apartment anyway, so it couldn't get much worse for me on that front.

3385

Living Room / Re: What's the name of your car?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 14, 2012, 08:58 AM »

New angle: anyone actually name their cars something like "Joey" in that anthropomorphic sense we like to do to machines? Or is that a thing of the past?

"Joey" could be something like that poor ol' 1988 Ford Escort you had as a college kid. It didn't get much love from the Ford factory, it came third hand with 388,000 miles from a buddy for $50, but by golly it made it between your dorm and First Period class 4 miles each day. (It couldn't handle the 500 mile trip home, that was too much for poor Joey, but then that's what Parents are for.) So you put your band stickers on the back corner window, you put a new floor mat where your buddy had three too many drinks at a frat party, and you kept a stash of stray supplies in the glove compartment for when you were supposed to bring something like a protractor to Set Theory class for drawing Venn Diagrams.  Or something.

3386

General Software Discussion / Re: Roboform, crippling the export function and Bits Du Jour censorship

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 09:02 PM »

"There was a time when you didn't."

I think that's correct. I reviewed an item on Amazon years ago before I had worked out my web strategy of staying mostly below the radar while learning the ropes.

3387

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 05:59 PM »

Here's a dog who has watched his owner's grave for about 6 years.

http://news.yahoo.co...e-six-190556479.html

3388

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 05:52 PM »

@Tao - FWIW I sincerely hope you are right and I am completely wrong about this. My outlook has been pretty bleak when it come to where this technology is heading. And I much prefer the future your vision perceives.

No joke. I want to be dead wrong about all of this. I really do.

-40hz (September 13, 2012, 05:41 PM)

Awww. That's nice of you!

(Parody) Snack Idea! List the future-looking predictions you want to keep track of then wait until time has passed and then pull them back up! (Nah, save your coding skillz, that could just be in a text file, I'm just too disorganized.)

3389

General Software Discussion / Re: Roboform, crippling the export function and Bits Du Jour censorship

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 05:19 PM »

FWIW Amazon allows something similar. I posted a detailed and (in places) negative review of a popular tech book, which was later taken down at the request of the author. Had the same thing happen to my somewhat critical review of the book The 30$ Film School.

I gather this sort of thing happens more often than we'd expect.

-40hz (September 13, 2012, 04:49 PM)

I'm a bit gobsmacked about that - that's worthy of it's own thread imo...

-tomos (September 13, 2012, 05:16 PM)

It already has a thread - the one about the meaning of User reviews. If all the bad ones get taken down...

3390

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 05:18 PM »

Interesting points 40hz. That's about where I shall leave the topic - my predictions and guesses vs yours going a slightly different way. All that remains now is to just the clock run and wait for the live data to show up.

3391

Living Room / Re: Shit Apple Fanatics Say

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 04:04 PM »

Having problems with that weird erotic/sexual subtext you keep getting?

-40hz (September 13, 2012, 03:57 PM)

"My _______ felt right in my hand. _______ where my hands touched it until it was smooth. It is that type of connection between person and ______ that is seldom possible."

 

3392

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 03:57 PM »

P.S. Anyone know whatever evolved with Windows DRM, which was rumored to spy on your media usages and possibly report some of that back to MS?

3393

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 03:55 PM »

Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with Windows 8.

I'm amazed they managed to even get Vista/7 accepted in the marketplace, with the initial reactions that Aero and Ribbon got.

If anyone feels like having Linux take over the world, now would be a good time to make your move. Tell the world that they have alternatives to Microsoft and Apple.

-SeraphimLabs (September 13, 2012, 03:50 PM)

For those of us who held on and skipped Vista and went straight to 7, I for one shall report that 7 is just fine and all the techies who cared just turned off Aero in fifteen minutes (as soon as we figured out where they moved all the options to!) Same deal for the ribbon - I installed a plugin into Office that put all the old menus back, and went back to work. (However see elsewhere for my opinions how the game changes when you can *make your own ribbons!*)

This new time around will be a bit tougher, because of the conceptual change. However, from the my-machine-is-mine dept, I'll use it any way I see fit.

3394

Living Room / Re: Windows 8 Pro will now include option to downgrade to Windows 7

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 03:50 PM »

My rough instinct at this time might just be the Plugin approach. I'd presume Win8 would include modern updated support for *something* under the hood, so that support is usually nice to have on hand. This is sounding like a WasMetro-must-die situation, so by X time next year any of 3-5 companies should have a plugin-type widget that just yanks it into a corner and back comes Mr. Desktop.

3395

Living Room / Re: No Duty to Secure Wi-Fi from BitTorrent Pirates, Judge Rules

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 13, 2012, 10:53 AM »

Let's hope it holds up under appeal!

3396

Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 12, 2012, 01:26 PM »

Last time I looked into the abyss, it blinked.

-Stoic Joker (September 12, 2012, 01:25 PM)

That's 'cause it liked you!

3397

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SilverNote

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 12, 2012, 12:28 PM »

TaoPhoenix - it's nice to hear from someone who likes tree-style organization. I've experimented with it a bit, but just haven't been able to come up with something that feels worth the large chunk of screen real estate it takes-up... I'm curious if there's any particular way you would envision it appearing in SilverNote? (Also, thanks for pointing out the "My Documents" issue - that is now fixed.)

-adamc (September 12, 2012, 10:11 AM)

I did a survey of these kinds of apps a few months ago, and looked at about seven-ish. My individual winner was TreeDB Pro. Here's a snapshot of the user interface. I wouldn't call it a "Large amount of screen space" - the trick is that it's moveable, so you slide the panel back and forth (or just use short node names.)

But for me the Killer App was that you could export the entire tree into a web tree with automatic links (which almost made sense.) (My runner up entry TreePad could sorta do it, but it lost out both from aging code, and that it felt like the "encrypted links" were creating lock-in.)  Take a look at this "running notebook" of mine:

http://www.freevoteusa.com/

I can edit 100 notes to my heart's content, and "12 clicks later" re-upload the entire site globally. No more fiddling with single file names and hand-linking stuff.

So what we have here is a case of "how exhausting is it for a single dev to do all the stuff I like"? Although my memory is fading, TreePad had features I liked that aren't in this program, so it became like a Supreme Court 5-4 decision that made this program my "winner".

P.S. That Export was the "Killer App" feature from the Pro edition that won the entire contest, that's what I mean by Pro should be about Power Users, not just arbitrary limitations.

3398

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SilverNote

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 12, 2012, 12:26 PM »

40hz - There is an 80 notes per notebook limit with the free version and no limit with the premium version (and there's no limit on the number of notebooks with either version). The largest notebook that I routinely use has just over 2,000 notes (average about 2-3 pages each).

-adamc (September 12, 2012, 10:11 AM)

From my view, I feel that 80 notes per notebook is a little short, it starts to get into that range of feeling deliberately crippled to nudge the Pro version. I feel more that the Pro version should be about high end features that are qualitatively different. It might feel like a lot, but I'd even suggest 1000 notes per notebook. The reason is that if a user is going to get one of these notebook apps, he shouldn't get better results just jamming text files into a folder. (Which is how I feel about the 80 count limit.)

3399

Living Room / Re: Write until you pass out!?

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 12, 2012, 12:21 PM »

I guess that the purpose of that quote was somehow missed?  The abyss looks back at you means that when you begin to know somthing that is fundamentally different from yourself, you take a piece of it with you and it changes you and vice versa.  If you do the same sorts of thing as the person that you're calling a monster in order to punish them for being a monster, doesn't that make you the same sort of monster? 

-wraith808 (September 12, 2012, 11:36 AM)

I've seen the quote many times before, it's well known. But I purposely switched it up by making the Abyss "a Nice Force" rather than an "Evil Force". Heh - maybe I've OD'ed on comic strips this week, and went for a twist punchline. But there's truth in my note too - once you start getting thoughts like comparing sudoku grids to new age theory, you can't (easily) go back to just watching Da Bears football games and drinking beer.

3400

Living Room / Re: Internet freedoms restrained - SOPA/PIPA/OPEN/ACTA/CETA/PrECISE-related updates

« Last post by TaoPhoenix on September 12, 2012, 11:24 AM »

Meanwhile, back on track, they just affirmed the ridiculous charges in the Thomas copyright case.