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34851

Living Room / Re: MIRROR MIRROR REDUNDANT REDUNDANT

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 09:46 AM »

when i was learning programming there was no internet
this new crop of languages like php and perl have excellent online resources.
the php manual pages are some of the best for any language and you can often get excellent help from them: http://www.php.net/

there are also TONS of 3rd party little php script sites, many with free scripts, and they are a great way to start.

i can't really recommend a book, which is unlike me since i tend to like having a good solid reference book.
maybe someone else can suggest one for us?

in general i find php coding quite enjoyable, from a c++ programmer's perspective; much more intuitive syntax than perl for me.

though all web based coding can be very frustrating because its harder to useful get error information sometimes.
but i'll take php coding over working with website css any day.

34852

Living Room / Re: Windows XP - system process - high CPU use - any ideas?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 09:41 AM »

there's a good nod32 forum at wilder's:

http://www.wildersse...orumdisplay.php?f=15

i think its a very good idea to uninstall it and see if problem dissapears, if so then you can decide what to do next.
i like nod32 and worked around this behavior by disabling the heuristics modes which i find unnesc. and adding exclusiong to the file scanning of the files it hated.

im trying to remember how i figured out which files it was stuck on, maybe either the program called filemon or else maybe through nod32 window itself (you can open it and have it show currently scanning file).

as i remember there were 2 distinct cases that freaked out nod32 on my machine:
1) was a set of html files of all things, so when i started this app that used them, nod32 would slow system to a crawl.
2) a shell extension dll, which triggered when i right clicked on a file.

both were solved by exclusing the file/folder in nod32 exclusion optoins.

34853

Living Room / MIRROR MIRROR REDUNDANT REDUNDANT

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 09:32 AM »

as i'm upgrading the web server, one thing i've learned that i want to pass on, that i'm reminded of each time i do something like this:

the safest path to doing major changes and experiments, whether to a website, or an operating system, etc.,
is to make a mirror first of your current setup, and do the first upgrade on the mirror.

in the case of the website this means setting up a copy of the website on an isolated space, re configuring it as current setup, and doing experiments there.  i am about to experiment on some php and mysql settings now and this is a safe way to do that too.

in the case of computer, i use a hard drive rack (see our backup review for some tips), and true image to let me clone the hard drive, and then work on the clone until i know everything is ok (you could just use an external drive to image the main drive and roll it back if you have troubles, but the racks and duplicate hard drives let me experiment without having to roll back).

there is also another MAJOR advantage of the idea of creating clones and experimenting on the close, which is that you really learn how to go through the steps of recreating your system, which can be super useful.

this is the same benefit you get from installing a new clean operating system every once and a while, it gives you a chance to go through the steps and avoid the mistakes and make sure you really do remember how to configure everything the way you like it.  its better than waiting until you have a catastrophe and then trying to remember how on earth you ever configured everything.

34854

Living Room / Re: Windows XP - system process - high CPU use - any ideas?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 09:26 AM »

process tamer tends not to show processes it can't tame (system process).

its probably a system driver of some sort causing this.

problems like these which are hard to predict when they will occur can be hard to diagnose.  i'm looking forward to seeing if anyone has better advice.  one thing to check is system event log to see if there is anything there, and if you can narrow down when it occurs, try temporarily disabling some services from the system services dialog which is easy and safe to do (safe in the sense that a reboot will fix any issues), and see if that kills it.

here's an example of something i found was causing me the kind of phenomena you are describing:
NOD32 antivirys freaking out over some files.  it would just silently hang for minutes, without warning and without and easy way to see in process manager which driver was causing it (bad windows design! bad bill gates!).

disabling NOD32 didn't solve it either, had to unload it from memory until i found the offending files and mark them as to be ignored.

so i def recommend trying to shut down services until you can find the culprit, and let us know what you find.

and if someone knows a better way to find what system drivers eat up the cpu i'd love to know.

34855

General Software Discussion / Re: Business-like "thank you" message - hee hee!

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 09:17 AM »

heheheheh 

i love it when people appreciate those pages.

34856

Screenshot Captor / Re: suggestion: improve zoom with mousewheel

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 08:52 AM »

ps.

i like when stefan's avatar changes to the image of giant cat  - too bad we don't have real cats so big.

34857

Screenshot Captor / Re: suggestion: improve zoom with mousewheel

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 08:49 AM »

ah thanks for reminding me stefan!!!
yes you are right - and i remember getting stuck there too - i was thinking to add code so if you scrool zoomwheel it should automatically uncheck that.

34858

Screenshot Captor / Re: suggestion: improve zoom with mousewheel

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 07:48 AM »

mouse wheel zoom is supported!
just make sure you are clicked inside main image window
(maybe i will try to add "hottracking" to it so you dont have to be clicked into the window to use).

different color for when % not 100 i can do that.

i could move it up BUT i think there is some advantage to having it on the right, it gives you a nice big area to click on to quickly adjust zoom, and it helps to bring attention to that zoom area which many people seem to not even notice.

34859

Official Announcements / Re: Working to improve speed of the forum/site

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 02:48 AM »

well, the forum is growing and combined with all the downloads, it definitely puts a real strain on the server.
the current company we have PowerVps is extremely reliable, and not super expensive (though not cheap).
reliability and good support is something that i think is important for us.

right now we are on whats called shared virtual hosting - basically it means we have complete control over the software running on the machine, BUT we are sharing a machine with one or more other sites.

it *appears* at first glance that our speed problems are not bandwidth related (even though we do a ton of bandwidth) but are more releated to overwhelming the cpu.

there are some php and database and server optimization we can do to improve performance, and i'm working on those now.

after that we can consider changing hosts and/or moving to a dedicated hosting account.

the shared hosting we pay for now is about $50 a month, which is a big chunk of the monthly donations, and a good dedicated hosting plan would be somewhere like $100 a month, which would be a huge chunk of the donations.

however, if that's what we need to do to get the site really speedy and smooth, then it seems to me that's what we have to do - there's no point having a nice forum if its a pain to use..

34860

General Software Discussion / Re: Discovering software (sites)

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 02:38 AM »

a reminder that we have a Links page where we list some of what we consider the top software recommendation sites.. https://www.donation...com/Links/index.html

i'll collect what we think are the best from this thread and update that list.

34861

General Software Discussion / Re: Discovering software (sites)

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 02:33 AM »

nice post - always helpful to see concise lists of what people consider their favorite apps.

i didn't know about and quite like the aumha list and edbott pages in your list.
and the hanselman page is great.

ive turned off drfilefinder (drff) myself, though its a nicely clean site.

34862

Find And Run Robot / Re: GFX glitch/bug?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 02:28 AM »

this kind of thing tends to happen with people with large fonts enabled in windows (120dpi i think)
but i dont think you have your set that way, do you?  i'll check into it, and fix.

btw aliases are one of the most powerful useful feature of F+R,
i will be making a demo movie and releasing some built in aliases in the next week or so with the next F+R update and i think it will help people see their value - so stay tuned!

34863

Find And Run Robot / Re: Update Notifications?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 12:18 AM »

very good ideas shangnyun, and also i think it's a great idea to have a formal way of announcing the releases for each program as you say.
and the idea of having 2 locked announcement threads, one for latest beta, and one for latest official release, seems like a good idea to me.

btw, every program on our site, on its web page, has a link to it's complete Online Help, and the bottom of that page is a complete version history as well as list of related applications.  just something to keep in mind, though i agree with you that a nice locked thread describing version history is more accesible (but i might truncate it, so for example only show history of last year or so).

the other thing i hope to add soon is an optional program unpdate checker for our software, for people who like to have new versions automatically detected and downloaded, but that's for later.

34864

Find And Run Robot / Re: Update Notifications?

« Last post by mouser on October 19, 2005, 12:07 AM »

yep - every single one of our programs is designed so that you can just install latest version on top of previous. 
if the program is currently running in the tray, exit it first (it will complain and remind you to do so if you forget).

34865

Official Announcements / Working to improve speed of the forum/site - UPDATED 10/26/05 - READ IN

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:33 PM »

I can see that the server is slowing down quite a bit sometimes, making reading the forum a bit annoying when it does so.
After a week of server software coding, i'm now going to work on optimizing the site speed.
It may be that we have to move to a full dedicated hosting plan to get good speed, which would double our hosting costs every month but whatever we have to do we'll do to make it a nice fast experience, just give us a little bit of time to see what we can do.

34866

Find And Run Robot / Re: Update Notifications?

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:07 PM »

very good point, and we need to standardize how we do all this.  let's quickly comes to a consnesus on how to handle it and stick with it.

here's the situation so far:

The "DOWNLOADS" button in the forum brings you to our "Latest Releases" page which has all of the programs on the site, versioned and dated, and sorted by last public release date within each category, which should make it easy to identify what's new.

But this page does not always list the latest cutting edge beta version.  we could change this by adding a column showing the latest beta version that people could download.  the only problem we might have with that is that some sites like BetaNews automatically pick up on beta releases and announce them, which is great except when you are releasing a new beta every night as we sometimes do when we get in a coding frenzy, and then you start to annoy people..

Regardless of whether the latest betas are shown on that page, there is value to having them announced on the forum in an official way.
Probably the cleanest solution was suggested earlier, and again by you, which is that each program, in its own forum section, have a thread dedicated to the latest release, kind of like a "version history" thread.  subscribing to that thread would get you the notifications about updated that you want.  This makes sense to me and i suggest we adopt it officially starting to day.

34867

Screenshot Captor / Re: Some problems

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 04:49 PM »

May it as it be ... SC is a GREAT piece of software. Let's start bughunting :-)

sounds good to me.

1) remember save copy as folder: ok i will add it, no problem.
2) save copy as should not save ".objects" file - i actually thought of this before, ok i will add an option for this, no problem.
3) the difference in text appearance might be due to some antialiasing only enabled during save - could you send me the image+objects file of an example picture where you can see this effect and i can more easily try to find a good fix?
4) i am in the process of replacing the thumbnail browser component, which will result in a faster and more stable interaction with thumbnails and files - the current thumbnail browser is very flakey and has been acting up with issues like you have pointed out sometimes with clicking on an image and it not loading.
5) as far as reverting to old version when you take a new screenshot - it should not do that, it should have first asked you whether to save or abandon your changes to current file.  but its a bit confusing when you tell it to capture a screenshot and you hear a sound and then it asks you what to do with old file - i think the better solution is, if you have been editing an image and try to take a new screenshot it won't take the new screenshot yet but will FIRST ask you to save or discard current changes (unless you have autosave turned on).

my committment on this site is, anyone who takes the time to find bugs and post about them, and help explain them, i will match that with my efforts to fix them.  ill try to get these fixed in the next week - just have to give me a couple days since ive been working last 8 days upgrading the site software and writing scritpts, etc. with little sleep

34868

Living Room / Re: CDs... :(

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 02:33 PM »

have you tried "exact audio copy" program discussed on this forum to recover them?

i guess if there are holes in them, nothings gonna do much good

well you can just look at them and relive some memories.

34869

Screenshot Captor / Re: 4U: Mousers "step" clip arts

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:53 AM »

great! 

34870

Screenshot Captor / Re: 4U: Mousers "step" clip arts

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:42 AM »

ah yes i see

where are the circles though?

a request:
in future can you make the images much bigger, maybe twice or three times as big?
because we can always shrink them on screen and they look good, but if they have to be enlarged the small images start to look funny.

34871

Living Room / Re: StumbleUpon

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:32 AM »

stumbleupon is definitely a really fun idea.

34872

Screenshot Captor / Re: 4U: Mousers "step" clip arts

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:31 AM »

the circles and rounded rectangles with numbers are really fantastic.
the others are nice ( but text still too close to border!    )

i can't wait to include these and use them myself.
please send when via email you are ready stefan, so i can include them in next version 

34873

Official Announcements / New custom programming font available for download at DonationCoder.com: Dina

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 11:15 AM »

If you are a programmer, you owe it to yourself to check out the new custom Dina font that Jibz has made and been kind enough to donate to DonationCoder.com for us to host:

https://www.donation...ther/Dina/index.html


It's a really elegant 8pt font that has great readability for coding.  I have been using it for a little over a day now and i am totally in love with it  

If you want to read more about what motivated Jibz to work on this you can check out his blog column from earlier this week:
https://www.donation.../fontastic.html#more

34874

Living Room / Web Blog Usability

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 10:57 AM »

Web Blog Usability  http://www.useit.com...lertbox/weblogs.html

from a nice blog on user interface design: http://www.useit.com/

34875

Living Room / Polyphasic sleep?

« Last post by mouser on October 18, 2005, 10:18 AM »

http://www.hackaday....ry/1234000573063569/

Polyphasic sleep is a method for increasing the amount of time you spend awake during the day. By sleeping only twenty to thirty minutes every four hours you can stay awake longer.

[linked from http://www.cynical-c.com/]