Recent Posts

476

Living Room / Re: Windows Mobile device in $100-150 range on ebay..suggestions?

« Last post by daddydave on October 13, 2010, 09:38 PM »

Maybe not the HTC Diamond....2.8" with VGA resolution
a big step down from the X51v...3.7" with VGA resolution

477

Living Room / Windows Mobile device in $100-150 range on ebay..suggestions?

« Last post by daddydave on October 13, 2010, 03:18 PM »

It's time to think about replacing my Dell Axim X51V, the second PDA which I had to retire due to a bad digitizer.

I am checking ebay, the best thing I am finding is an HTC Diamond. I consistently am seeing the Sprint version selling for around $100, or $150 with a charging dock. I think people hate Sprint so much it brings the price downl.  I don't intend to use it as a phone. I have a Net10 phone for voice ($100 every 180 days and more talking minutes than I need.) and there is no data that is so urgent to me that it justifies paying $60/month for a data plan. A daily sync gives me more data than I can possibly read or play, and I am usually not that far from a PC anyway. And I like the feature set of the HTC Diamond, and I plan to sync over USB or the charging dock if that's possible.

Since I don't plan on using the phone, is there another "Windows Mobile device in $100-150 range on ebay" anyone would care to recommend, with or without a phone built in?

By the way, I have had horrible luck with the digitizers going bad on both the PDAs I have had, Tungsten T3 and Dell Axim X51v, any hints at picking something where the digitizer may last longer are welcome, I wasn't very good at replacing the digitizer in my T3 and don't want to try again with my Axim (which also seems to have some power issues).

GPS doesn't matter so much, but I am assuming I could use it for something even without a data plan (maybe a pedometer?) - correct me if I am wrong.

478

Living Room / Re: I have a very hard announcement to make

« Last post by daddydave on October 13, 2010, 07:45 AM »

Do what ever you need to do, I can only echo what others have said regarding your value to this community and that you should be confident in whatever decisions you make.

It has been a difficult road for me, full of obstacles I wouldn't have had if I had started out when I was much younger, had the money for a proper education, etc. etc. etc.

Possibly, but I graduated from college with honors in Computer Information Systems with full intention of getting my pick of programming jobs, but after college I wasn't the sort people wanted to hire apparently, and it has taken me a couple decades to come to terms with the fact I will always be a hobbyist programmer at best. And no one is real life is supportive of this hobby when I have tried to code things on my own, so I have a file of things I have abandoned, maybe I will get to them when I retire at 80, if my mind is still good. It's really hard to abandon this hobby, though. I've abandoned it several times.

479

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 13, 2010, 05:02 AM »

One thing to bear in mind is that I am used to is interacting with my data with several different apps. I registered both Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion (tried not to use both at the same time but they both had their annoyances so I switched back and forth). In addition I used NewTray and liked to try out various freeware addons to display tasks on the today screen, many of which were aware of not only the native tasks but of Pocket Informant and Agenda Fusion. I think if I went with Apple, that ecosystem doesn't seem to exist I would be locked into one app and wouldn't be able to work around its annoyances. I don't have a lot of incentive to go with Apple anyway, I would not be able to write an app for it for example unless I purchase an Apple computer. So for the time being I will stick with Windows Mobile, although I strongly considered Palm Pre and Android.

480

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome: Time for a Second Chance?

« Last post by daddydave on October 13, 2010, 04:36 AM »

I'm giving Chrome a third or fourth or fifth chance, largely because the latest Firefox beta broke all my search addons, and also because the Firefox folks seem intent on baking in features only useful to a handful of users, such as Personas and Tab Cheetos (or whatever they renamed it to).

However the search addons situation in Chrome is at least as bad actually, you always have to add the searches separately to the addon, there must not be an API to access the existing search engines in Chrome.

481

General Software Discussion / Re: Rename text file based on contents

« Last post by daddydave on October 11, 2010, 04:52 PM »

Not at this time...Pfrank does it but working through the rename steps, there seems to be more to it than meets the eye..

and ideally whatever renames it should probably be creating the wiki links and filtering out illegal characters in both the filename and in the wiki link so we are sure they are created by the same rules and therefore match..

And I think I am going in another direction now, but thanks for the offer.

482

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 11, 2010, 11:35 AM »

LeaderTask (free on GOTD today) seems to have what you are looking for. Tasks, notes, calendar & contacts. Syncs with Outlook and Gmail.

And free; today at least.

-Dormouse (October 11, 2010, 10:38 AM)

Nice find, I'll check it out.

483

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 11, 2010, 07:33 AM »

If you can wait about 10 more hours, I will set a reminder to check it out when I get home from work to verify that you can, indeed sync Notes and Tasks as well.  I will check in then as well with that info

-steeladept (October 11, 2010, 07:05 AM)

I appreciate that, and there is no urgency at all. While you are at it, if it does sync tasks, can you make sure it doesn't just dump them in the calendar, a "solution" I've seen in other places. I had the impression there were no native tasks on the Apple products to sync to, I will be happy if I am wrong.

484

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 10, 2010, 05:39 PM »

What I went from Palm OS to Windows Mobile, I was using Outlook for my PIM functions (an infinitely better experience than Palm Desktop) and all I had to do to migrate my PIM functions was do a sync from Outlook again. But if I bought a Palm Pre, I would not have that experience, because Palm pre memos are not backwards compatible with the old memos, nor do they sync with Outlook. Sad. I was a registered user of MemoLeaf, too, which built on existing Memos functionality. I miss that program, there is really no equivalent on Windows Mobile, there are only things which copy your notes to a different folder altogether which seems unnecessary. Not sure what my next platform will be.

485

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 10, 2010, 05:26 PM »

I had pretty much decided that, in the case of notes, this is a hard enough problem to solve without the constraint of it having of be a Thunderbird addon, so I broadened the search to all note taking programs for Windows plus any PDA OS (hence that thread) and not necessary things tied to Thunderbird: Keynote NF, Tomboy for Windows, Cherry Tree (because you can never have too many versions of GTK for Windows installed), and wikidpad. Unfortunately, almost no thought was put into import of existing notes with most of these (Wikipad comes close with its Multipage text format, but it does not seem to recognize non CamelCase wiki words, nor is it able to prompt for manual import to correct import errors). And once I solve that problem, I have another problem to solve, finding a PDA version of it. BladeWiki is the only one I've found with a reasonable import (there is not an import function, but it uses plain text files which are straightforward to manipulate). And there is a PDA version for Windows Mobile by the same author, which I have used before my Dell Axim went bye. So Bladewiki is scoring 2, everything else is scoring 0. Even so, I found myself in need of a renaming utility to match the note names with the file names (the filenames it recognizes will have %20 instead of space for example), it works well but I have a 10 step naming rule so far and I'm not done yet! Plus I would still have to filter out illegal characters in both filenames and wiki words which were the Outlook note names. I have decided I have spent enough time on this nonsense.

I should point out Keynote NF did just fine at importing my notes as separate tabs once I split them with Chopping List. But I wanted to import it into tree based notes, it's a pain to navigate through 100's of tabs. I still may use Keynote NF for other things, though.

Overall, though, I would gain absolutely nothing by moving exising notes out of Outlook format, I just wanted to see if it is possible without too much pain. I think that question has been sufficiently answered.

I don't see a version of Omnifocus for Windows btw.

486

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 10, 2010, 03:51 PM »

To be honest with you, i don't have Outlook, nor am i planning on forking out the bucks for it, nor for it's affiliated service in order to sync with my iPod Touch.

At least with Google i can configure my iPod to sync contacts and one main calendar... for free!

-dantheman (October 10, 2010, 11:57 AM)

I don't blame you.  If it weren't for the fact that I get the entire professional suite for $10 through Microsoft's Home Use Program I wouldn't either.  But there is a free alternative.  Microsoft Mail (via their Live Essentials) is the updated version of Outlook Express.  I don't know if the Touch will sync with it or not, but I think it does.  Now if you are looking to avoid Microsoft products, then I can't help you other than to suggest going Linux where there are a lot of similar programs.  And use an Android system while you are at it, though that tethers you to GMail closer than the iPod tethers you to Apple  

-steeladept (October 10, 2010, 12:55 PM)

Good old HUP..

And correct me if I am wrong, but neither Microsoft Mail nor iPod touch has any native tasks support, correct? I don't care about syncing mail. What I care about is tasks, notes, calendar items, and contacts, pretty much in that order.

487

General Software Discussion / Re: Format NTFS from DOS!

« Last post by daddydave on October 09, 2010, 10:22 PM »

Windows PXE

-daddydave (October 02, 2010, 10:51 AM)

Oops, I meant Windows PE (I changed the URL to something more user friendly)

488

General Software Discussion / Rename text file based on contents

« Last post by daddydave on October 09, 2010, 05:06 PM »

I have about 100 files I would like to rename based on the contents of the first line. For example, if I have a file File_23.txt and the first line is HG.ColorCodes.UndergroundCables, then I want the file to be renamed HG.ColorCodes.UndergroundCables.txt. When I Google this, what I find are ways to do this from a batch file, or from awk, or from VBScript. I can do that myself, but because of all the competition between file renamers, I would think there would be a way to do it from a GUI somehow. I am not seeing it in BRU or RenameMaster, though. BRU can read from a text file but you have to hardcode the new name for each file in that text file, so that is not what I want. Maybe there is something I missed?

EDIT: A cursory glance at the web site suggests Pfrank may be able to do it, I will let you know,

489

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 08, 2010, 10:16 PM »

Quicknote
https://addons.mozil...hunderbird/addon/46/

-dantheman (October 08, 2010, 05:26 PM)

That's an odd one. As far as I can tell, you are only allowed to have 4 notes!

490

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.88.01 - Oct 8, 2010

« Last post by daddydave on October 08, 2010, 10:10 PM »

v2.88.01 - October 8, 2010
.
.
.
[MinorFeature] Trying to get SC to handle network paths (start with //) better for screenshot and moveto directories

I haven't tried this feature, but don't network paths (I am assuming UNC paths) start with \\ rather than //?

491

Living Room / Re: Why do support people never answer questions?

« Last post by daddydave on October 08, 2010, 12:31 PM »

I had actually marked this thread as ignore because I am a support person myself and wanted to spare the world of my kneejerk reaction.

So after some time I un-ignored it and it looks likes the thread did just fine without me. And I agree with mwb1100, most of the people I support would consider a one word answer of "No" rather rude. Support people are trained to try and "cushion" things a bit and provide a workaround. Of course sometimes the workaround will be considered useless by the end user, but sometimes not. Some people would take that workaround and run with it, trying to figure out a way to automate it with some kind of script.

492

General Software Discussion / Re: Migrating Outlook Notes into another note taking program?

« Last post by daddydave on October 07, 2010, 10:52 AM »

Well, it seems that...

If you create a .note files according to the Tomboy XML spec, and drop them in the folder with the other .note files, Tomboy pretends not to notice, at least not with the Windows version. So that was a nice waste of time. May look at it later.

493

General Software Discussion / Re: Migrating Outlook Notes into another note taking program?

« Last post by daddydave on October 07, 2010, 09:48 AM »

Turns out that

",,"3","Normal","Normal"

is a pretty good delimiter for my particular Outlook notes exported to a CSV file, when using skwire's Chopping List after renaming the CSV to TXT. I just need to fiddle with the resulting files and make them into XML sandwiches (probably from a batch file when I get around to it). I'll let you know how it goes.

494

General Software Discussion / Migrating Outlook Notes into another note taking program?

« Last post by daddydave on October 06, 2010, 11:04 AM »

Has anyone had any positive experiences in exporting Outlook Notes so that it could be imported by any other note taking software (other than OneNote)?
I find the Outlook built-in export to CSV a little squirrelly (I've never seen CSV files with multiline records in any other program). Specifically I tried importing these CSV files into ThunderNote as is recommended but it appears that doesn't work no matter what I try. And it looks like I could import Tomboy for Windows notes if I wrote some custom code to split and XML-ify the .csv export into .note files, but it seems like a lot of hassle.

And if that weren't impossible enough, ideally I would want to be able to edit the notes from a PDA as well. This may affect the choice of my next PDA OS.

OneNote actually seems to be the best bet since they have a PDA version that doesn't require an always-on internet connectivity, I didn't really care for the desktop version (2007, haven't tried 2010 yet).

Mainly (today) I care about simple text based notes.

495

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 05, 2010, 11:12 AM »

Exported my Outlook notes to a CSV file and importing them into ThunderNotes as we speak, sure is taking a while, I didn't think I had that many notes.

UPDATE: OK, I guess it doesn't work. Nice thought though.

496

General Software Discussion / Re: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub - questions

« Last post by daddydave on October 05, 2010, 11:10 AM »

Spicebird attempts to do this. Development has been rather spasmodic but appears to be continuing.

-Dormouse (October 05, 2010, 11:05 AM)

Doesn't seem to do tasks and notes, though.

EDITED: On second thought, if it has calendar by way of the Lightning add-on, it should have tasks, too.

497

General Software Discussion / iPod Touch, PIM, and Outlook (WAS: Thunderbird as a PIM Hub)

« Last post by daddydave on October 05, 2010, 10:24 AM »

I have been experimenting in slow motion with Thunderbird, to see if it is possible for me to use it for what I use Outlook for, as a hub for the Four Pillars of PIM: tasks, notes, calendar items, and contacts.

1. How do I stop the Mail Account Setup prompt from appearing every time I launch Thunderbird or go to Address Book? I use Gmail for personal mail.


EDITED: I put it my Gmail address and it was very smart about pulling up IMAP and SMTP server from a database, which is impressive but I don't really want to access my Gmail locally at this time.

EDITED 2: Discovered by accident that if I go ahead and set up a mail account and remove the account, it stops nagging me but for some reason I can only remove the IMAP server not the SMTP server.

2. Lightning seems to be the canonical add-on for tasks and calendar, contacts are built in, is there a notes add-on someone could recommend?

(EDIT 3: So far, it looks like ThunderNote)

3. Is there a good way to sync tasks, notes, calendar items, and contacts in Thunderbird with a PDA (any OS)?  I see BirdieSync but it only seems to sync 1 to 3 of these, depending on OS.

BirdieSync™ allows synchronization of your Windows Mobile device (contacts, events, tasks and mails) or your iPhone (contacts) with Thunderbird™ with Lightning extension installed and Sunbird™ on your PC.

498

General Software Discussion / Re: Format NTFS from DOS!

« Last post by daddydave on October 02, 2010, 10:51 AM »

Not sure why I didn't think of this before but..

Although there is no version of DOS that supports NTFS partitions in any form, Microsoft has something called Windows PXE (think of it as Windows Lite) you can use to create a boot CD, and run some version of Disk Manager from that. It is a little bit of pain to roll your own, but I've used a premade PXE boot CD image I've found on the internet, the name and my Google skills escape me at the moment.

499

General Software Discussion / Re: Format NTFS from DOS!

« Last post by daddydave on October 01, 2010, 05:16 PM »

Avira NTFS4DOS Personal 1.9 and Active@ NTFS Reader

-hulkbuster (October 01, 2010, 03:50 PM)

Isn't this a third party solution? A first-party solution would have to be from Microsoft, correct?

500

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 TaskDaddy Missing/Future Features Poll

« Last post by daddydave on September 29, 2010, 04:30 PM »

Thanks for the voting so far. Anyone else want to weigh in?