Recent Posts

426

General Software Discussion / Re: FileHamster - auto incremental file monitor/backup as you work - and free!

« Last post by nontroppo on March 16, 2007, 03:22 PM »

Just a heads up; FH has had an update that fixed the few annoying issues it had and added a cool scripting plugin.

This is one of the most *useful* and elegant utilities I've come across in ages. Personal versioning is so important to so many people if they understood the benefits...

427

General Software Discussion / Re: Super Flexible File Synchronizer Pro says Zaine

« Last post by nontroppo on March 16, 2007, 03:18 PM »

hm, send the devs your bug feedback; it works flawlessly for me...

what i really want however is rdiff-backup natively for windows (incremental backup with restore per delta) - anyone know of a package out there?

and thanks for that dreamhost howto - finally something to do with all that space!!!

428

General Software Discussion / Re: Super Flexible File Synchronizer Pro says Zaine

« Last post by nontroppo on March 16, 2007, 11:45 AM »

Deltacopy is a reliable free rsync app for windows, and can do local as well as remote sync:

http://www.aboutmyip...MyXApp/DeltaCopy.jsp

429

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.50 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - February 20, 2007

« Last post by nontroppo on February 20, 2007, 07:07 PM »

mouser:  great work!!! :beer:

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General Software Discussion / Re: FileHamster - auto incremental file monitor/backup as you work - and free!

« Last post by nontroppo on February 18, 2007, 03:06 PM »

FileHamster is absolutely excellent   

I don't want to go to the trouble of setting up a CVS, but do want automatic versioning without changing file names manually. FileHamster fits the bill.

The configuration options are great, allowing timed versioning (so you can accumulate 10 minutes worth of multiple saves in one so not having too many tiny version changes), and the settings cascade for excellent control.

Thank you mogware!!! 

431

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.45 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - February 6, 2007

« Last post by nontroppo on February 08, 2007, 12:15 PM »

mouser: the clipboard functions are cool and extremely useful!  As discussed in another thread, it would be neat if you could backup the previous clipboard content and replace it after launch?

432

Find And Run Robot / Re: CPU Freezes

« Last post by nontroppo on February 05, 2007, 11:32 AM »

I use alt+space (the annoying alt+space bug where FARR fails to gain focus is still there btw). Standard UK keyboard. I normally use function keys to launch things, though sometimes do press number keys.

Note most of the CPU use (I have 2 CPUs so 33% is actually 66% of one CPU) is red - meaning it is kernel rather than user activity IIRC (if that helps).

433

Find And Run Robot / Re: CPU Freezes

« Last post by nontroppo on February 05, 2007, 09:57 AM »

It seems to happen after I've launched something. I don't notice it until I need to bring it back up and it doesn't respond but the last thing launched OK, so my assumption is it is after launch.

My inactivated memory setting is "stay in mem - recommended". Is there any way I can debug the process when it is frozen like that (I know I can in OS X but maybe there is a way in Windows)?

434

Find And Run Robot / CPU Freezes

« Last post by nontroppo on February 05, 2007, 06:40 AM »

I've been getting occasional freezes of FARR on my work machine. FARR's CPU use goes up and it fails to respond to the trigger key. I have to kill the process. Version is V2.00.41 - I can't determine exactly what causes it yet:

435

Find And Run Robot / New Launcher (for OS X) - Valet

« Last post by nontroppo on February 02, 2007, 01:15 PM »

Here is another application launcher (for OS X), differentiated by using a full-screen visual overlay, and voice command activation! The other neat thing is it launches Windows applications that reside on a virtual machine!

http://94-west.com/Valet/Valet.html

It also learns from the applications you launch outside of it what apps you use.

436

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on February 02, 2007, 06:36 AM »

Well... I've watched, read, learned and I liked what I saw. I've downloaded, played and am less enthusiastic. First, holding down THE KEY THAT SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS while typing a command is a royal pain in the rear, though I would probably get used to it (my left pinky is actually SORE).

-Darwin (February 01, 2007, 07:35 PM)

think of it as a digit workout!

Now, this business about typing a natural language-esque command IS compelling BUT ... I understand that this makes Enso much more simple to use, from the perspective that one does not need to remember hundreds of word commands, but I find it very awkward.

-Darwin (February 01, 2007, 07:35 PM)

It should be flexible enought to allow both, my issues with it are that it forces us to use natural language and there is no fast completion. You have to keep writing and/or use the arrow keys to get to the command you want. FARR lets us use F-keys to get to the 4th in the list instantly and execute it. Quicksilver uses tab-navigation and further auto-completion. Enso forces us to noodle on the keyboard for longer. BUT I agree that natural language is a good option to have if one could tweak the way of using it...

Finally, resource use is rather excessive. My prediction about Enso having only THE KEY THAT SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS to monitor resulting in reduced memory usage was wrong, very wrong. Out of the box and before I had even used it, it was at just under 50 MB RAM consumption (32 MB VM) which is where both AW and DA are after a lot of usage.

-Darwin (February 01, 2007, 07:35 PM)

Blame the Mozilla framework (and Python) which it uses! There is a price to be paid - but the benefit will be portability to other platforms, and plugins will be easy to write...

437

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on February 01, 2007, 02:54 PM »

Darwin: 

I recommend that you do spend a little time and watch their trailer and screencast demos to see where they are coming from. Thay are actually doing stuff that is different to Quicksilver in the sense that selections are a more central part of their core functionality - Quicksilver does have a clipboard plugin however.

In their main trailer - they hint at what the future holds and it seems pretty impressive, plugin expandability to work to modify any selected graphics etc.

mouser: Yes, FARR 3 'Verbs' should get their own thread! I don't think modifier keywords can do what needs to be done effectively IMO.

438

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on February 01, 2007, 01:27 PM »

Hm, I never have to write ALL CAPS for long, and actually, holding shift with my pinky does that without wasting time when forgetting CAPS LOCK is triggered, writing stuff then having to change it.

A single key is a really neat idea IMO (though they should allow users more options). I can hold CAPS LOCK with my pinky and hammer away really fast - no need to hit enter just lift the pinky!!! The problem is not the trigger key - the problem is that the launcher heuristics just plain suck. It has failed to index many of my programs so is useless - and has bugs just about everywhere on my machine. I would actually like an option for FARR (and quicksilver) that could trigger using this method. Mouser?

BUT lets not get distracted by trigger keys - what enso (in theory) and quicksilver offer that is really wonderful is a unified interface to do stuff using a subject -> verb -> object concept - it is what we have struggled with in discussions here about doing stuff with the subject in FARR. I find a file, and want to mail it to someone. Or move it somewhere. Or open it in something other than the dafault app, or append some text to it, or copy its content to the clipboard, or...

What I really want for FARR 3 (apart from faster searching), is this. It is the philosophy that a lancher can step beyond the subject. Currently in FARR we have to pull the mouse over and right-click to open an OS context menu which only has limited options.

439

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on January 31, 2007, 11:09 AM »

could you not:

1) Save existing clipboard
2) Copy selection -> do work on it
3) Return original contents if nothing else intervenes.

440

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on January 31, 2007, 11:03 AM »

According to the propoganda (reality is it is broke on my system), text selections are avalable for commands, so:

[selection]5+2[/selection] -> '[CAPS] Ca'

Will send the selected text to the calculator - results returned via paste from clipboard. '[CAPS] De' will define the text in the dictionary. Selecting files then: '[CAPS] open with app' will open the selected file in the chosen application. etc.

One neat one: '[CAPS] learn as' will take your selected file/URL and give it a tag, then you can [CAPS] open tag to open that file.

Basically you can do work on selections made in windows.

441

Find And Run Robot / Re: What New Major Feature is Most Important for you in Find and Run Robot?

« Last post by nontroppo on January 31, 2007, 10:56 AM »

I want both!

Mouser, remember the idea of a memory cache too (simply store search results in RAM), that gets the speed of a cache with the simplicity of what FARR does now...

442

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on January 31, 2007, 10:52 AM »

I do have to admit, that the Enso interface - at least according to the propoganda, um, screencast, is very impressive...

CapsLock takes some getting used to, though i'm happy it finally serves a purpose...

The interface is very slick - a lovely modern serif font with two colours really simplifies the interaction. The use of text selection as a universal interface is really simple - something FARR would benefit from. The idea of actions sits at the heart of the app.

Downsides: incomplete indexing of start menu. having to manually type out everything except for arrow key selection. text selection bugs make e.g. "upper case" command fail.

Enso does have task control that I've wanted FARR to have for a while, though it doesn't work on my system yet!...

443

Find And Run Robot / Re: Humanized Enzo

« Last post by nontroppo on January 30, 2007, 07:31 PM »

Lifehacker article on enso: http://lifehacker.co...r-windows-232582.php

Will FARR 3 be the killer quicksilver app on windows? It is indeed interesting why nothing has grown in the windows space as quicksilver has. I suspect OS X and its XCode frameworks are simply more integrated overall (along with universal applescript interfaces for many apps), and thus coding the many actions for launchable items comes together. The windows API simply doesn't make this easy.

444

General Software Discussion / Re: disk/filesystem benchmarking

« Last post by nontroppo on January 08, 2007, 10:49 AM »

Have you tried DiskBench?

http://nodesoft.com/...skBench/Default.aspx

445

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.07 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - December 23, 2006

« Last post by nontroppo on December 24, 2006, 03:29 PM »

mouser: sounds good to me, though it woud be nice if we could choose the values for increment and decrement.

It seems that it adds 2 on each load for me though, I go from e.g. 761 to 763 on relaunch (making sure I am not showing the history on start which has the old value not current value).

Best icon in my opinion (ah, the joys of aesthetic relativism...) is nudone's white F key for the default. It fits into most colour schemes and signifies exactly what FARR does...

446

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.07 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - December 23, 2006

« Last post by nontroppo on December 24, 2006, 01:50 PM »

mouser: great work indeed! It seems much faster, but I've just moved to a new Macbook, and Windows itself runs at Warp 11 even when virtualized.

Could you explain the modified history heuristics in a bit more detail?

As an aside, here is FARR running under OSX

447

Find And Run Robot / Re: Fantastic app - idea for faster searching

« Last post by nontroppo on December 17, 2006, 09:56 AM »

OK, interesting point - do you know how to tell if I/O is to disk or not? I'd always assumed it was the difference between read / write / other (being cache hits etc) but I'm not sure.

448

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR Progress Report..

« Last post by nontroppo on December 17, 2006, 09:53 AM »

 

449

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR Task Control - What features do you want?

« Last post by nontroppo on December 17, 2006, 09:44 AM »

Still want it: YES!  

minimal operations:

• Bring to front / restore
• Minimize
• Close (be nice)
• Kill (no mercy!)

Being able to exclude processes (custom rules as for searches) may be useful too.

Also, why not allow the same interface, searching for "pro" shows me process explorer and procexp.exe

To advance that, being smart FARR could know they were the same (the .lnk would have the same target EXE name) then provide a unified menu to open another instance or control an existing one transparently!

450

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR 1.13.01 launches SLOWER than 1.09.05

« Last post by nontroppo on December 17, 2006, 09:38 AM »

To test if there is some difference in resource usage, I highly recommend Process monitor by SysInternals - you can compare the registry / process/ file demands when you start both to compare them "objectively". I haven't measured the differences and would be interested, though I do not find the latest version of FARR slower for me.

Oh, an make sure your settings are identical - if you have slightly different search paths that could substantially cange your performance...