Recent Posts

3851

Developer's Corner / Re: Problem with Browser object in C#

« Last post by app103 on July 19, 2008, 06:15 AM »

Not sure how you are transferring the files to another pc, but try this:

• Right click the .exe file in Explorer and select properties.
• See if there is a button that says "Unblock" right below the Advanced button on the General tab.
• If there is, click it and then click Apply and then OK.
• Try your file again and see if it works.

If that doesn't work, make sure there isn't a "#" character in the file's path. If there is, change it.

3852

General Software Discussion / Re: you tube downloader for a non techie

« Last post by app103 on July 19, 2008, 06:02 AM »

1. Copy the youtube page url to clipboard.
2. Go to keepvid.com with any browser of your choice and paste the youtube url in the box and click the button.
3. Right click the link they give you and save the target to your hard drive, renaming it and including a .flv extension.
4. Use Media Player Classic to play them on your PC.

3853

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by app103 on July 16, 2008, 08:00 AM »

I do think though that we are going to have to start a new thread entitled "How to clean up your work space in 10 easy steps"..

-mouser (July 16, 2008, 05:58 AM)

I could tell you how in 2 steps:

1. purchase a rubbermaid storage bin
2. put all the crap in the bin

Now, if/when you can't find something, check the bin.

As time goes on, the stuff you need most and have used recently, will be near the top, and all the old useless stuff will sink to the bottom.

For fun, clean out the bin, to the bottom, every 10 years. It will be like opening up a time capsule. 

3854

Living Room / Re: Gizmo's Tech Support Alert Newsletter Merges with Windows Secrets

« Last post by app103 on July 15, 2008, 06:04 PM »

I'll just stick with DC's newsletter...best one of all. Never a disapppointment. 

(mouser...please promise you will never merge it with WS)

Actually - that has given me an idea - why don't we all send a LangaList newsletter from the past to WS as content for the new newsletter ???? At least there would be something worth reading then even if it is only of historic interest 

-Carol Haynes (July 15, 2008, 12:06 PM)

Great idea! (I would have given a link to what was supposed to be the old premium archives, but langalist.com and those archives are gone. Only the free version archives still exist)

3855

Living Room / Re: Gizmo's Tech Support Alert Newsletter Merges with Windows Secrets

« Last post by app103 on July 15, 2008, 11:15 AM »

From my earliest days of internet access, back when all I had was email and no web (it just wasn't working properly) I was subscribed to 2 newsletters. They were the only emails I ever got that wasn't from friends or family and wasn't spam from my ISP. They were Langalist and New Order.

But I was not a paid subscriber of Langalist. There was something about the idea of paying for newsletters that had a strong possibility that they could turn out to be a disappointment and not worth the money I plunked down, that prevented me from paying for any email newsletters. With a print magazine or newspaper, if it turned out not to be worth the price, I at least still had the paper which could be chopped up by my daughter and turned into some weird art project, used to line a bird cage, or the cat's litterbox. Not the case with email, though.

When Fred Langa merged his newsletter with WS, I changed my mind. Just to get more Langa in my newsletters, I went against my frugal sensibilities and became a paid subscriber. Instead, I had my original suspicions confirmed.

Thanks to WS, I will probably never take a chance on subscribing to a paid email newsletter again, no matter how tempting, for as long as I live.

The whole experience left me feeling rather swindled and foolish. 

For a small annual fee you can redirect your copy of Windows Secrets to me and I'll be disappointed on your behalf.

-cranioscopical (July 15, 2008, 06:53 AM)

But will you be twice as disappointed if I send you my paid version? Or is that an extra charge?

3856

Site/Forum Features / Re: Privacy Page for DonationCoder.com Posted -- Suggestions Wanted

« Last post by app103 on July 13, 2008, 04:38 AM »

Looks good now...if I think of anything else, I'll let you know.

3857

Site/Forum Features / Re: Privacy Page for DonationCoder.com Posted -- Suggestions Wanted

« Last post by app103 on July 13, 2008, 03:18 AM »

That page is fine for a brief intro to a privacy policy, but it is lacking in some areas.

You do collect more than email addresses,for example

• member kits, and some prizes like cody mugs require a name & shipping address (explain what you do with that info and how long it is kept)
• software giveaways (winner may have his email address & name revealed to a 3rd party in order to get the license for the software they won)
• visitors will have their IP in your server logs (explain what you do with that data)
• you offer paypal as an option for donating to the site (should have link to paypal's privacy policy)
• other donating options (link to each 3rd party privacy policy)
• you have google analytics installed on the site that collects data (explain what you do with that data, that google has access to it, and should include link to google's privacy policy)
• cookies on the forum (should state purpose, how to get rid of them, how to avoid them, and what happens if you don't accept them)

You should also explain how a visitor can view, correct, and/or have removed, any personal information you may have about them.

Plus the usual part about if the US government or a court of law demands the info, and you are legally required to supply it, they will get it.

That's just off the top of my head, for starters.

3858

Living Room / Re: Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

« Last post by app103 on July 09, 2008, 02:55 PM »

This might be a good tool for some testing for backwards compatibility:

http://www.delorie.com/web/wpbcv.html

3859

Living Room / Re: Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

« Last post by app103 on July 09, 2008, 06:32 AM »

Seriously, if I wanted it to look the same in every browser, I would pretend it was 1994, use very simple HTML, simple design, jpg/gif....and no animations, since pIE 3.0 doesn't support animated gif's beyond showing the first frame as a static image. 

3860

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by app103 on July 09, 2008, 12:38 AM »

when i say clean i mean clean of all unwanted particles large than a grain of sand.

-mouser (July 08, 2008, 11:59 PM)

In a room as small as yours, I can see where that would be important, but in rooms as large as mine, there is a strange echo without the clutter, that I find difficult to deal with.

3861

Living Room / Re: Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

« Last post by app103 on July 09, 2008, 12:17 AM »

png is fine, as long as it doesn't contain any transparent areas. IE6 has no problems displaying ones that are 100% opaque, and if you go for that option instead of .jpg, you can get a smaller file size with much better quality. And smaller file sizes make faster loading pages.

3862

Living Room / Re: Is More Memory Better? - a bit-tech.net article

« Last post by app103 on July 09, 2008, 12:09 AM »

I'd kill to be able to double my RAM to 128MB right this minute, so in some cases, more is definitely better. 

3863

Post New Requests Here / Re: bigger screen area than monitor size - with quick scroll features

« Last post by app103 on July 09, 2008, 12:02 AM »

I found a blog post today that is worth mentioning...about an application called 360desktop.

Have you ever wished you could have a huge monitor but aren’t willing to fork over the cash to get it just yet? Well, 360desktop may have provided the perfect alternative for you. Basically 360desktop gives you almost unlimited desktop space on your computer by extending the size of the desktop itself via a scrolling panoramic view. Thus now you can have an almost unlimited number of multiple windows open and you are no longer simply limited to the size of your monitor to do so.

3864

Living Room / Re: Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

« Last post by app103 on July 08, 2008, 08:08 PM »

Oh, and the person that designed that page forgot something vital that leads to a really horrible effect when viewed by some people...not all browsers on all OS's support transparency in PNG, such as IE 6 on a 9x system. He should have used a .gif. 

3865

Living Room / Re: Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

« Last post by app103 on July 08, 2008, 07:53 PM »

By every browser, that would include browsers on mobile devices, as well.

Since that page uses CSS, it would not look the same on my pocket pc, which has pIE 3.0 as its browser, and doesn't support CSS. 

The background would be white, the text much smaller and located in the upper left, and no image anywhere on the page.

Now would someone want a page to look exactly the same when viewed on the tiny screen of a mobile device? Probably not. As a matter of fact, the mobile version should have less graphics and a few more options than the regular version.

Some of my blogs, for example, when viewed in a mobile browser, presents a link at the top of the page to give the option of skipping the content and going to the sidebar, and the entire site is a single column, with the sidebar content at the bottom.

With more people using web enabled mobile devices than ever before, it is becoming more important to remember those visitors when designing your site.

A site should look similar enough in every browser to be recognizable as the same website though. Imagine coming here in IE and seeing a nice blue themed forum and a bird mascot, and in Firefox seeing green and a snail. Your first impression after seeing it in IE first would be "I think I am on the wrong site".

But I believe it is ok to have those slight subtle differences in appearance that so many web designers lose sleep over, as long as the basic look is similar enough to retain the identity of the site. Your visitors won't mind that the bottom border is missing on long pages when viewed in IE but not in Firefox, and your loved ones would appreciate the extra time to spend with you that you would have wasted on something so silly. (now, if the footer and its content is missing, that's another story)

3866

Delphi and C++ Builder / Re: Something you should know about C++ Builder

« Last post by app103 on July 06, 2008, 10:29 AM »

You can get both Turbo Delphi Explorer and Turbo C++ Explorer (same as C++ Builder) for free. 

The only real issue with the free versions is that you can not install 3rd party components into your IDE. You can still use them, just can't have them on the toolbar to drag & drop to a form. All the standard VCL is still there though.

3867

Living Room / Re: Woot.com Bag of Crap post

« Last post by app103 on July 05, 2008, 02:44 AM »

I was going to start a blog called Packrat Palace and post all my crap when I was dejunking my house and give the items away to the first person to cover the cost of shipping...but alas...

I had to toss it all out instead. Didn't have time to go through with my plans before the state building inspectors showed up for their once every 2 years safety inspection of the building I live in. 

I would love to see more crap posts like this. It was fun reading and seeing what you got.

3868

Living Room / Re: Comic Strip Generator (and March Caption Contest Announcement!)

« Last post by app103 on July 03, 2008, 11:07 PM »

Oh wow! It looks great! I was so afraid it wouldn't look so good because of the size of the original image was small.

And I get to see the face that goes with the name, too. 

3869

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a special RSS reader

« Last post by app103 on July 03, 2008, 08:44 AM »

app103, I thought you were using Win95? 

-rjbull (July 03, 2008, 03:41 AM)

I am not using Newzie on this pc, but it is on my other one, even though that one is dead at the moment. That's an XP pc that can handle almost anything you can throw at it, when it's running.

It won't be down forever nor will I be on this old hunk of WinME junk forever.

BTW, I do have access to a desktop through RDP on a friend's machine running 2008 server, with admin privs, but I use that only for working...not fun (but it's fun work  ).

I could install Newzie on there if I really wanted to (my friend wouldn't mind), but I choose not to. I would only consider it if it somehow made me more productive at getting work done, which it wouldn't. 

3870

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a special RSS reader

« Last post by app103 on July 02, 2008, 11:08 AM »

I don't care if Newzie is dead...I'll keep using it till I am on some version of Windows it won't work with (at least the next 10 years or till something better comes along).

I love it that much. 

3871

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Middle click without using scrollwheel button

« Last post by app103 on July 02, 2008, 06:19 AM »

Nevermind about this coding snack. I discovered I really don't need it, after all.

Shift+left click wasn't what I wanted since it opened the tab in the foreground but...

Ctrl+left click opens it in the background, like I wanted, like a middle click would do.

Not being a keyboard freak, I really don't know this stuff. I thought ctrl+left click was for over-riding the popup blocker when a link wants to open in a new window and the popup blocker wants to prevent it from opening at all. 

Oh well...at least 2 of us learned something in the process: I learned about what ctrl+left click really does, rjbull and found his "missing" middle mouse button. 

3872

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Middle click without using scrollwheel button

« Last post by app103 on July 02, 2008, 05:06 AM »

Doesn't seem to work at all here. No effect, good, bad, or otherwise.

The mouse hook monitors mouse clicks for the purpose of activating mouse hotkeys and facilitating hotstrings. It is not supported under Windows 95/98/Me because those operating systems require a different type of hook that must reside in a DLL file.

-ahk help file

That's why I didn't do this myself in Delphi. I haven't had that much luck coding keyboard/mouse hooks because I can't seem to wrap my head around the whole .dll thing to make it work.

^{Edit: Typonese to English translation} 

3873

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Middle click without using scrollwheel button

« Last post by app103 on July 02, 2008, 04:21 AM »

I run PowerPro, and don't know if this is PowerPro-specific.  Under PowerPro, shift-left-click works as if it were middle-click.  That's what I've been doing for ages.

In fact, I've just this minute realised that the scrollwheel doubles as the apparently missing middle mouse button...   

-rjbull (July 02, 2008, 04:05 AM)

Shift-left click does almost the same thing as middle clicking, but in my browser that opens a link in a new tab, in the foreground rather than in the background like middle clicking would do.

And I really don't want to run a super-duper-multi-purpose tool to do this, as I have a slow CPU and very little RAM on this pc.

By the way, I couldn't reach that site with the link you provided, but this one did work: http://powerpro.webeddie.com/

3874

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Middle click without using scrollwheel button

« Last post by app103 on July 02, 2008, 04:08 AM »

ooooh...I like the double right click idea. 

3875

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: Middle click without using scrollwheel button

« Last post by app103 on July 02, 2008, 03:38 AM »

I have a problem with my computer and I don't know if it is my mouse, the P/S2 extension cord for it, or something else, nor do I care to test and replace the defective part, since it just isn't worth investing any money into this 11 year old 9x PC.

The scrollwheel isn't working properly. No matter what direction you scroll, it just jumps to bottom of page. Middle clicking does same thing, bottom of a page.

I can get around most of it with the keyboard, using that for scrolling instead of the wheel, but middle clicking isn't possible and that is the problem.

I am tired of right clicking, waiting for a menu to pop up (it's sooo slow), and selecting the option that does what a middle click would do.

Is there anything that could make a double click do what a middle click would normally do? If not, can someone make something that does?

It would also be good if I can activate/deactivate the utility with a hotkey or option on a tray menu so it won't conflict with anything that would require me to use a double click for a different purpose, such as a game.

Please, no .NET stuff, as this is a very old slow 9x machine with very little RAM.