Recent Posts

3451

General Software Discussion / Re: Twist app - "My Company Tried Slack For Two Years. This Is Why We Quit."

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2017, 12:07 PM »

That's an interesting post -- thanks for sharing.

I have been very impressed with Slack as a tool for active group discussions, but I can definitely see their points.  And I like the idea of an app for calmer more organized communication/coordination   

3452

General Software Discussion / Re: I'm so fed up with (software or hardware) KM / KVM switches working so badly

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2017, 09:35 AM »

I've recently had some good luck with a high-end kvm purchased cheap on ebay. It was this model, which supports usb switched wireless keyboard/mouse:
https://www.iogear.com/product/GCS1794/

3453

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launching URL files stored in the Windows file system

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2017, 09:21 AM »

 

3454

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launching URL files stored in the Windows file system

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2017, 08:55 AM »

I can't remember specifically but I normally check for lines starting with // to indicate comments. if it doesn't work let me know and i'll add it.

3455

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launching URL files stored in the Windows file system

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2017, 08:45 AM »

wraith -- I was going to reply to your issue but I couldn't think of anything useful.. what did your problem turn out to be?

3456

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launching URL files stored in the Windows file system

« Last post by mouser on July 14, 2017, 07:22 AM »

Oh, and I also had to change the trigger from 'nn' to 'uu' as the former is found in a fair number of English words, which meant that searching for something like 'kennel' using other aliases would trigger it.

That is best solved by changing the regex from nn(.*) to ^nn(.*) so that it only matches if the nn is at the START of the string.

3457

Screenshot Captor / Re: Major Delay when hit Print Scrn button to grab selection... icon in taskbar red

« Last post by mouser on July 13, 2017, 08:27 AM »

I'm not sure exactly the cause but try this to see if it fixes:
GO to the "Window Capturing 1" tab and UNCHECK the option "Try to capture Aero Glass transparency"
(you might also try unchecking the option "Try to detect.. " on the "Window Capturing 2" tab but that's probably irrelevant.

3458

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

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2017, 11:48 PM »

If anyone has noticed that I haven't been super active on the forum for the last month or so it's because I have been working my ass off on the new DC cms and cleaning up old code.. It's really starting to come together -- can't wait to show it off..

3459

N.A.N.Y. 2017 / Re: NANY 2017: Calculor - A Live, Handy, Dandy, Inline Calculator

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2017, 03:15 PM »

3460

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2017, 09:39 AM »

Welcome robert -- please don't use text formatting to make your messages bold or colored -- it hurts our eyes!

3461

Find And Run Robot / Re: Launching URL files stored in the Windows file system

« Last post by mouser on July 12, 2017, 09:28 AM »

Try putting $$1 in the the alias configuration dialog where it says "Result Filter for RegEx".

3462

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: An Idea: Providing some small funding for a yearly (or 6 month) regular coder

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2017, 05:28 PM »

Everyone will offer their comments on a public thread listing the new apps, and then a select group of long time dc members and those who have contributed to the fund will conduct some kind of vote.  I expect it will be largely just a matter how how many apps were released by each person.. with minor tweaking for giant apps counting as two units, or small apps counting for half a unit.  I expect it will be very non-controversial, but if there is some disagreement we can write a little script to do the voting and weighting. 

As I said, let's start with the simplest approach and if it turns out something more complicated is needed we'll code a solution

3463

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: An Idea: Providing some small funding for a yearly (or 6 month) regular coder

« Last post by mouser on July 11, 2017, 04:44 PM »

We could run a giveaway if there were special items to give away, but otherwise I think maybe we keep it simple by making a public list of all new software released on DC in the last year, let people make any comments they want (an informal version of what wraith says above), and then have the dc mods and those funding the money consider those comments make a group decision on how to divide up that years funding.

3464

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2017, 08:19 AM »

and I got rid of a lot of dross I'd accumulated over the years.

That is definitely a thing..  It can be extremely beneficial to occasionally start from scratch and install the programs you use on a new clean OS, etc.  But I'd hate to be forced into that and not have the ability to go retrieve the settings or documents from something I forgot wasn't being backed up.  I stand by my position that full drive images are so easy to do these days, and backup drive space so abundant, that it is foolish not to make occasional full image backups.

at the time you couldn't restore to a different sized partition (not sure if it's still the same).

a modern drive imaging tool like Macrium is happy to restore onto partitions and drives of different sizes, and you can always resize later.

3465

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2017, 07:23 AM »

Is cloud storage safe to use?

-techidave (July 09, 2017, 09:44 AM)

Is storing your files on other people's computers safe to use?

-Tuxman (July 10, 2017, 05:46 AM)

We live in a universe where one is constantly weighing risks and choosing the best imperfect solution.
No action is risk free.
The online backup tools use encryption to store your files on their computers; they encryption is performed locally and the online service does not have your encryption key, so neither they nor anyone else but you should be able to decryption the contents they store.
You have to balance the risk of something going wrong with that encryption scheme against the risk associated with being burgled, caught in a fire, having a hard drive crash, getting hit by ransomware, etc.  Pick your poison.

3466

Screenshot Captor / Re: Bad Folder Loop

« Last post by mouser on July 10, 2017, 05:01 AM »

Interesting.. That's definitely a bug.  I guess the problem it was having was that it couldn't save and it's current directory had disappeared.. I should be able to reproduce it.  The question is why it didn't fall back to it's default screenshot directory the way it's supposed to..

3467

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 09:28 PM »

The most important thing is to back up your data...

But the pain and hassle and stress that you can avoid by having a full drive image backup is immense.

If you have a recent full drive image and you encounter a complete hd crash or infection, you can be back up and running within 15 minutes of buying a new hard drive.

Without it you are looking at days of reinstalling windows and your apps and then dealing with discovering all the settings and files you forgot to back up.

I think drive images are an essential part of saving your sanity when things go wrong.

3468

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 08:11 PM »

I also use crashplan, btw.

3469

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 11:55 AM »

Another thing I would suggest if you are worried about virus/ransomware corruption -- make sure you do not leave your external hard drive connected all the time.. otherwise it could get corrupted by whatever infects your main machine.  Better to connect it only while performing the backup.

3470

Living Room / Re: external hard drive backups

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 10:20 AM »

I am a fan of Macrium Reflect (free) for backing up complete drive images to an external drive, which is what I would recommend.

Cloud backup -- I have come to love it; there are several thread on the forum about it.

If you get a virus on your desktop, the infected versions of files WILL be backed up to the cloud.  What saves you in this case is that the cloud services VERSION the files -- so you will have in your cloud backup both the previous good version of each file as well as any infected file.  Not only is this great for restoring corrupted files but will help you identify exactly which files got infected.

3471

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: 'Alt Gr' key plus 'c' key opens CH&S main window

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 03:44 AM »

You can change the hotkey settings that trigger CHS on the Hotkeys tab.. See if changing that helps.

3472

Finished Programs / Re: FINISHED: Play a sound when a color appears on screen

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 03:39 AM »

3473

Finished Programs / Re: FINISHED: Play a sound when a color appears on screen

« Last post by mouser on July 09, 2017, 03:33 AM »

I remember a similar request and app as well.

3474

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2017, 06:12 PM »

Skrommel is running rampant on the forum!! Someone catch this golden goose!

3475

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: An Idea: Providing some small funding for a yearly (or 6 month) regular coder

« Last post by mouser on July 08, 2017, 12:12 PM »

I've been ruminating on this idea and I think that I've come to a conclusion that there is an easier, smarter, fairer, and overall better way to do this, and that is to do the following:

At the end of each year (or every 6 months) , we will round up the money dedicated to this purpose (aiming for $1k per year; possibly getting some from our fundraiser or other pledges), and then divide it between the coders who have created Coding Snacks and NANY programs in the previous year (I am exempting myself from being eligible).

There may be some minor weighting of contributions in different ways, but the objective will simply be to divide up the funds each year based on the efforts put in my coders in creating software on the dc forum.

I think this approach is the cleanest, simplest, fairest system and it has the real benefit of showing thanks from DC funders to those who are making this site better.