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37426

Coding Snack Guidelines / When writing code means you've failed.. READ IN

« Last post by mouser on April 29, 2005, 04:02 AM »

In a recent post on his Coding Horror blog (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/), Jeff Atwood describes well the idea that so much of what gets coded these days has already been written previously by others, and exists in a cleaner better form.  The problem is finding it, modifying it, and learning how to use it.

Please make an effort to try to find existing programs that do what you are asking for before you post an Idea request; this section is not meant to be a coding excercise, so if the program already exists (as freeware), then there is little point having someone here re-implement it.

And we could probably use help from readers in locating existing programs that do what a requester is asking for.  so if someone posts a request and you can find an existing program that does what they are asking for, please post a follow up.

37427

Best Text Editor / Re: Heard back from IDM - no discount

« Last post by mouser on April 29, 2005, 03:53 AM »

zaine,

your points are well taken.
i've modified my initial post to try to be more neutral, based on your reaction to it and the reaction of some of other people i trust; i had a slightly negative impression from my discussions with IDM via email but that probably doesn't have a place here, especially given that many people have expressed satisfaction in their interactions with IDM.

37428

Best Text Editor / Heard back from IDM - no discount

« Last post by mouser on April 28, 2005, 08:01 PM »

Just an fyi -

Despite an initial conversation with IDM (the maker of UltraEdit) that sounded like a discount might be in the offering, i'm sorry to announce that a discount will not be available.

I recontacted them today to follow up on a conversation last week and was told that they don't really have the technical ability to offer such discounts at this time, which strikes me as kind of bizarre given my experience with other companies, but there you have it (I was also told that they are very busy and might be some kind of something worked out sometime in the future, for what that's worth).

If price is a real issue for you, the review lists some great freeware alternatives; if you like one of the other text editors, don't hesistate to email the author and ask them nicely if they might be willing to give you a discount.  You'd be surprised at how many companies will give you a discount if you ask nicely (it helps if you have a reason for asking).

If they give you a discount you might ask them if they want to make the discount publicly announced here on this forum for anyone who finds ultraedit priced too high.

37429

Unfinished Requests / Re: Coding for system tray icon hide application.

« Last post by mouser on April 28, 2005, 12:37 PM »

there are also some tools that let you run another program as a system service, which may be able to hide the icon, though im not sure.

this is probably a very hard tool to just write in a few hours, and i suspect that programs to do this (hide, block from exit, and/or password protect) already exist.

37430

Coding Snack Guidelines / What kinds of programs can be coded in a few hours? READ IN

« Last post by mouser on April 28, 2005, 12:25 PM »

This question is going to be hard to answer, and i suspect that many non-programmers will have a hard time figuring out what would be a reasonable request.

Let me try to give some thoughts, and anyone else can jump in and offer their 2 cents.

A commandline tool without a graphical user interface, is always going to be much faster to code, plus they are more easily coded in any language and easier to make cross platform compatible.

Certain programming languages are more suitable than others for very rapid development.  So-called RAD tools like delphi, visual basic are going to be well suited for coding GUI apps very rapidly.  Scripting languages like perl and python are also good candidates for rapidly coding powerful small programs (though less suitable for gui stuff).  Such tools can make it possible to code programs that need to do things like connect to the web, using libraries and components.

A major issue that will affect whether a request can be coded quickly will be the extent to which the programmer already has some partial code that does some part of the request.

In short, the best approach is to think small, and expect that the coder may have to make some compromises and refine your suggestions to narrow the scope of the program to something that is achievable in a short timeframe.

37431

Living Room / Re: New smilies

« Last post by mouser on April 28, 2005, 06:56 AM »

hahaahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaha

37432

Living Room / Re: "new post" icons

« Last post by mouser on April 28, 2005, 06:35 AM »

one thing i just discovered which helps:

on the top left, right next to your avatar at top, you can click a link for "Show unread posts since last visit".

37433

Living Room / New smilies

« Last post by mouser on April 28, 2005, 06:13 AM »

When you make a new post you should now see a new [more] link next to the smiley icons, which will open a page wiith a bunch more images, for those who like such things.
if anyone wants some icons/smileys/images added to that page just email them to me.

Keep in mind this is a giant page of images, so if you are on dialup, you probably dont want to click it.

37434

Finished Programs / Re: Coding for volume setting application

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 09:42 PM »

i know this could be done by using a commandline volume setting tool and creating two shortcuts, each executed when the different person logs in, so this probably is not something to be coded as an app, but rather someone who knows how to do this and knows a good commandline volume setter (i know these exist) could maybe post a howto..

37435

Coding Snack Guidelines / READ THIS FIRST: Welcome to Coding Snacks - Instructions

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 07:32 PM »

Welcome to the new Coding Snacks section of the forum!

The idea of this section is for users to try to come up with ideas for very simple programs that can be coded in a few hours, and have these ideas implemented by coders.  Ideas can be silly, useless, whatever, as long as they are interesting in some way and won't take more than a few hours to code.

You may post ideas at any time, and coders may implement these ideas at any time, but we will be devoting a few days at the end of each month to Coding Snack Days where we will draw attention to and really focus on submissions.


So, if you have an idea for a tiny app, please post it on its own thread, where others can help you clarify and refine it and determine whether it can be coded in a short amount of time, and if not, how it could be modified, and start your thread Subject with IDEA:
Please be specific, list urls to similar programs that already exist and how what you want is different.

Note: this is not a competition to see what programmer can do the best job of coding a request!  Rather, the aim is to implement lots of fun, silly, quick ideas for programs.  So I encourage coders to work on requests that no other coder is working on, rather than have 10 coders implementing duplicate things.  There are no special requirements for coders - any visitor to the forum who has some programming experience is welcome to join in.


See subsequent posts for more information on submitting finished programs.

And remember, post each idea on its own thread.

37436

General Review Discussion / Re: What categories should we review next?

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 09:03 AM »

martin,

i very much like this idea, if we can find a guest reviewer to do it.
i'd like to do an occasionally series on
  best photoshop plugins
  best delphi/c++ builder components
  best vc components

best .net components would be nice too
but we'll need to find someone who really knows the subject to write the review since im not qualified.

37437

Living Room / irc channel #donationcoder has been open for a month

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 06:14 AM »

we have an irc channel #donationcoder on efnet that has been open for a while now,
in case anyone has missed this.. very quiet at the moment; im in there constantly.

if anyone is interested in chatting over irc and needs a tutorial, maybe someone can post a good link.

37438

Living Room / "new post" icons

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 04:42 AM »

the board software we use here (www.simplemachines.org), behaves kind of strange with regarding to indicating new posts in a section;
after you visit a section, even if you dont read the new messages, the icon changes on the forum header so that it no longer looks like there are new posts.  anyone else besides me notice this? i think we will write a mod to the forum to fix this.

37439

ProcessTamer / Re: ForegroundLockTimeout Value

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 04:29 AM »

the current version no longer messes with this registry key at all.
and it includes two .reg keys and a little readme for those who want to learn about it and try either setting for other purposes:

"Earlier versions of Process Tamer set the registry value
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\ForegroundLockTimeout to 0
As described by the Microsoft bulletin for more information:
   http://support.micro...oft.com/?kbid=886217
In order to fix a problem where popup windows would lose foreground focus.

Because ProcessTamer now uses baloons to report information, it no longer
 sets this value, and you will find in this directory two registry files,
 which when double clicked will let you set this registry value to wither
 the default value of 200000 or the value described in the windows tweak
 and employed by the original ProcessTamer, 0.

Most people won't care about this or notice any difference, but we are
 providing them for the sake of completeness."

37440

Living Room / Re: BACK FROM THE 10th CIRCLE OF HELL WITH FULLY RESTORED FORUM/BLOGS

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 04:21 AM »

this new server is seeming quite sluggish, and we're still experiencing a few dns glitches..
i'm setting up another server mirror so no worries, everything will be at top speed soon.

37441

UrlSnooper / downloading from cspan

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 04:11 AM »

i use project url snooper with streambox vcr to record shows from cspan every day.
if anyone needs help doing it just let me know; great way to watch hearings.

37442

ProcessTamer / Re: A little request

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 04:08 AM »

you know you've given me an idea for a different kind of program..
it would tie in with your comments and some of the other comments in discussions we've had here on the important of common sense in security.

i wonder if it might be useful to have a program that could be configured with lots of rules and user-defined guidelines,
whose purpose was to really just watch the use of the computer and interject messages and operations when it sees certain conditions.

for example,
you could tell it that if >x # of explorer windows came up it would pop up a message explaining why this was bad,etc.

or you could set it so that when use opened some p2p program
it would pop up a message you wrote explaining to your kids or whoever, certain things to watch out for.

if they open instant messenger, it might remind them about dertain behavior.

so basically
it would be a program that people would install on a computer that other people use that would let them make like "help messages" that would come up when other users launched certain programs.

it could also be set to shut down programs that you dont want people using, etc., but programs that do this already exist; the main focus of this program would be in providing advice to users when they do certain things on the computer.

opinions? useful or not?

37443

Living Room / Re: BACK FROM THE 10th CIRCLE OF HELL WITH FULLY RESTORED FORUM/BLOGS

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 02:27 AM »

thanks everyone for being so patient!
i'm so relieved we didn't lose any posts or members.

37444

Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 02:22 AM »

there are a few that do it.

i have one called "tray wizard"
you get to choose exactly which system tray icons to hide inside its icon.
very useful for clearing up clutter and showing only those you want.

but of course they arent "hidden" hidden you can still find them inside the tray wizard icon; maybe you meant to reallly hide them.

i think kerio (unless you are talking about the old nice v2.15) has a way to password protect settings that should prvent you from being able to shut it down without know the password).

37445

General Software Discussion / Re: software i love

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 01:53 AM »

cdwave looks interesting.
there is also lprecorder (http://www.cfbsoftwa...order/lprecorder.htm).

37446

ProcessTamer / Re: A little request

« Last post by mouser on April 27, 2005, 01:52 AM »

strange request..
i guess i could add something like this.. i have a few things to add before that though..
but i will put it on to do list as i was thinking of adding a set of "advanced rules" and maybe i can support things like this, or other unusual rules.  if you can share the kind of application you were thinking of using this for it might help, if you feel like it.

37447

Living Room / Re: BACK FROM THE 10th CIRCLE OF HELL WITH FULLY RESTORED FORUM/BLOGS

« Last post by mouser on April 26, 2005, 07:20 PM »

hell yeah it is.

i'll definitely tell you guys about this episode tomorrow though because there are some intersting aspects to it.

37448

Living Room / BACK FROM THE 10th CIRCLE OF HELL WITH FULLY RESTORED FORUM/BLOGS

« Last post by mouser on April 26, 2005, 07:08 PM »

well...
it's been a painful 15 hours.. but i think we are just about back to where we were 24 hours ago, without any loss of data.
the server we were hosted on had a drive replaced without notice, and accounts were replaced with data that was over a week old.  it looked reallllly touch and go for a while, but we're now back to where we were with no loss of posts.

lesson #1 -> don't just back up the mysql forum databases once per week - i will setup a daily cron job to do it from now on.

lesson #2 -> i'll save it for my blog on friday... or for a further post after i get some sleep.

37449

Best Text Editor / Re: UltraEdit 11 - Best text editor?

« Last post by mouser on April 26, 2005, 01:49 AM »

that sounds like it would be a great web page; if you want some web space for it let me know, or else post a link to it here when you finish.

i was so impressed with pspad when i tried it.

but you must agree that the word wrap feature is so bad that i will not use pspad.

37450

General Review Discussion / Re: Years on awards?

« Last post by mouser on April 25, 2005, 09:40 PM »

hehehe.

yeah, the thing is, year isnt ideal, since its not really a natural way of specifying the lifespan of the review, but it seems like there could be a serious problem if a year later we award best XXXX to some new program, and 2 companies now have the indentical award for identical category...

the alternative would be like

put an edition number on it.

like

Best In Class
Phase 1

vs.
Best In Class
Phase 2

to indicate that phase 2 is a more recent award than phase 1.