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4926

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Hall of Fame

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 15, 2011, 09:42 PM »

For programming on Dos, Turbo Pascal 3, Turbo C++ Pro 1.01.  The C++ Pro package came with Tasm, which made things a tad simper than using masm. Also got to actually use the C++ stuff I had been reading about for some time.

I don't recall the name of these Dos utilities but I remember there was a utility(probably from PC Magazine) that let you steal some video memory(I had Hercules graphics card with 256 KB ram) when running in "text mode" and use it as expanded memory on my 8088 XT clone. Also had a Dos disk cache program that would use the fake expanded memory.  Made it like getting disk caching for free.  Also PC Tools provided a file manager and defragger.

On Windows I'd have to say Delphi was a big deal.  Even now if I want to do Gui I try to find some tool where I can just drag the buttons on. I enjoyed writing Delphi components.  It was cool when you got it all working and could drag onto the form from the toolbox and it all went as expected.

I'd say the one thing totally ignored in PC development was the 80386 Segment Descriptor Table.  IIRC you could actually set up a 48 bit address space on a 386 if the OS used them.  But the lazy bastards just set them all to 0s.  

4927

Developer's Corner / Re: Next step up from Autohotkey

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 15, 2011, 06:20 PM »

picking up some assembler doesn't hurt.

-MilesAhead (August 14, 2011, 06:58 PM)

As I understand it, PureBasic converts source code into assembler, which is then compiled by NASM.  I think that's part of the reason Horst Schaeffer uses it, as he has long experience as an assembler programmer.


This isn't a new idea.  Rowan Crowe's MoonRock compiler did the same for DOS, using a free version of Arrow Assembler.

-rjbull (August 15, 2011, 02:43 PM)

FreeBASIC was using gas assembler.  But I think now it's emitting C. I'm not positive though. If it isn't yet I believe it's on the ToDo list. In either case it does produce stand-alone exe for Win32.

My first programming language was GWBasic on Dos.  As was the rage at that time PC Magazine had a TSR written in assembler in just about every issue. I learned asm for 80x86 and later Vax.  It made it a bit easier when I took on other languages like C and C++ that I had an idea what went on under the covers. I bought one of the Borland packages that had Turbo Assembler along with the high level language.  Turn the Dos programming manual to Int 21H and you were right 90% of the time!

4928

Developer's Corner / Re: Next step up from Autohotkey

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 14, 2011, 06:58 PM »

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, picking up some assembler doesn't hurt.  Then you see what programming languages have in common under the covers.  Also helps when debugging compiled apps.

4929

General Software Discussion / Re: Selector 3.1.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 14, 2011, 05:18 PM »

Selector 3.1.0.0 Added a couple of helper hotkeys when default hotkey is in effect on startup.

When using default Shift-NumPadDiv hotkey, if the hotkeys
Control-NumPadDiv and Winkey-NumPadDiv are open, they
are used as helper hotkeys.  The PopUp Window will open with
Clipboard Text or Text Radio Button selected respectively.

This makes it less cumbersome to use the Input Line as a mini
command prompt.  As example you could type in:
www.favessoft.com or another URL to open the default browser
to that page. Note that if you change the main hotkey, these
helper hotkeys will be disabled until the program is loaded
with the .ini file hotkey option set to the default of
Shift-NumPadDiv.

Note that in the .ini file the option is broken down to modifier
and main hotkey.  it looks like this:

AppModKey=Shift
AppMainKey={NumPadDiv}

It's just a convenience to avoid having to manually change the Radio Button setting after the window pops up.  Selected Text is the most common case anyway.  But sometimes it's handy to type a command that ShellExecute can handle into the Input Line.  For instance a file name should be opened by file association if the complete path is typed in the Input Line. Or you could just type in notepad.exe etc..


edit: here's a tip. To get an actual command prompt, hit Winkey-NumPadDiv then type cmd in the input line and hit Enter.

4930

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend disk imaging software?

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 13, 2011, 09:22 PM »

I just downloaded Macrium Reflect 5.0 Trial. They claim both the Linux Boot CD and the WinPE boot disc have USB 3.0 support. That's what I've been waiting for. Unfortunately it's not a free upgrade.  To v. 5 standard from 4.2 standard is about 1/2 price.

The free version 5 when it finally comes out should have the Linux boot CD with USB 3.0 support. I guess it's a feature of the new Linux 3.x kernels.

I did a backup with the new 5.  Some changes to the v 4.2 Gui but nothing that forces you to read the help. I'm not going to test the boot CD yet. Maybe sometime this week. Restores should be a lot faster if I can read from my USB 3.0 docks at full speed. Plus that avoids the headache of copying image files to USB 2.0 drives or sticking the drive in a USB 2.0 dock.

http://www.macrium.c...pages/downloads.aspx

edit: still no joy.  The Linux boot CD does not recognize SIIG USB 3.0 card. I already have version 4.2 with WinPE where I can manually load the SIIG Windows driver. No reason to upgrade that I can see.

4931

General Software Discussion / Re: BD Rebuilder 0.38.09 Beta

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 13, 2011, 04:14 PM »

Changes

http://forum.doom9.o...=1519136#post1519136

See start of the thread the link points to for download links for it and ancillary programs.

4932

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA (Concept Follow through): Small program that Show/Hides Desktop Stuff +

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 12, 2011, 06:11 PM »

have a couple of friends that have been looking into this as a solution as well as AutoIT.
So far, apparently, not all of the required functionality can be carried by these programs�
So the Autohotkey and AutoIT concepts were abandoned some time ago.
I must defer to their findings as I am no programmer�

-sgtevmckay (August 12, 2011, 04:09 PM)

I'm a bit confused.  When you say MenuBar do you mean the Taskbar? If so and programs maximize leaving that space uncovered then the desktop work area is probably set the same as if the Taskbar was showing and locked.  You can try my utilty Adjust Work Area and set it to the screen resolution after hiding the Taskbar to see what happens.

http://www.favessoft.com/downloads.html

edit: btw, run awa.exe on the command line with no params and it will show the current work area numbers, left, top, right, bottom.

4933

Developer's Corner / Re: Next step up from Autohotkey

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 12, 2011, 03:40 PM »

The thing I don't understand about .NET is though (and I had the same trying to wrap my head around asp.net) How does anyone remember all the .net imports,� when to use them, and what libraries are required when you want to achieve certain functionality. Say you want to do x (run a command line program and capture its output or whatever trivial thing), how do you go about finding the required imports etc.. There's too many of them.

-justice (August 12, 2011, 04:06 AM)

It is massive. You just have to get skilled with the help search.  The example code has the Using statements to put at the top of the module. That's equivalent to #include in other languages. If you search how to do a particular thing in C# or whatever with a general search engine you can nearly always find a small example.

The nice thing about AHK, AutoIt3, and Python for Windows for that matter, is you can wrap the interpreter into the exe so that the user doesn't need it installed.  As far as they are concerned it's just a program exe file.  I think there are some people out there still averse to .NET.  Or at least don't like to add more versions than what are already loading with the OS.  Some people see .NET they will just bypass your utility.

4934

Developer's Corner / Re: Next step up from Autohotkey

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 11, 2011, 09:56 PM »

I don't want to set off a religious war.  AHK and AutoIt3 have the same roots.  I use both.

I find AHK superior in the area of Mouse Hotkeys.  Also you can use the library functions without listing a bunch of include files.

I find AutoIt3 has better scoping.  It's easier to create user libraries of general purpose routines to include in your scripts. Also AutoIt3 string handling is much simpler.  Just double quote strings as in most programming languages.

Often I will code the main app in AutoIt3 and have a helper exe to do the Mouse Hotkey handling in AHK.

For alternatives the big dividing line other than to Window or not to Window is COM support.  FreeBASIC is a free basic compiler that doesn't require run-times.  It produces very small stand-alone 32 bit Windows applications. But the COM support, well, you might as well say there isn't any.  It is easy to call WinAPI functions or other functions in DLLs though.

I guess I'm beating around the bush because there's no way to answer your question without knowing what you want to do.

Mouser is right that if you want platform interoperability then you are better off looking at languages such as Python, Perl, Java, Rexx flavors etc.. and for compiled languages C/C++.

If we are talking Windows only I would try AutoIt3 first. If you can do AHK the AutoIt3 code blocks are much easier to deal with.  There's no "expression mode" where things act one way and non expression mode where stuff acts another way. It's just blocks, functions, loops, select and switch like most procedural languages.  AutoIt3 has native support for objects.  It doesn't have associative arrays but you can get one on XP or later just by using Scripting.Dictionary.

I wrote some wrapper functions to make Scripting.Dictionary easy to use in my AutoIt3 programs.  The compare mode 1 is compare as strings with no case sensitivity as that's the most generally useful for me.

[Select]

;use Scripting.Dictionary object for simple associative arrays
Func _AssocArray()
Local $aArray = ObjCreate("Scripting.Dictionary")
If @error Then
Return SetError(1, 0, 0)
EndIf
$aArray.CompareMode = 1
Return $aArray
EndFunc   ;==>_AssocArray

Func _AssocArrayDestroy(ByRef $aArray)
If Not IsObj($aArray) Then
Return False
EndIf
$aArray.RemoveAll()
$aArray = 0
Return True
EndFunc   ;==>_AssocArrayDestroy

Here's one I use frequently to get the hex color code when indexing the color list by the name of the color:

[Select]

Func _ColorList()
Local $colorList = _AssocArray()
If @error Then
Return SetError(1, 0, 0)
EndIf
$colorList("AntiqueWhite") = 0xFAEBD7
$colorList("Black") = 0x000000
$colorList("Blue") = 0x0000FF
$colorList("Brown") = 0xA52A2A
$colorList("CadetBlue") = 0x5F9EA0
$colorList("Chocolate") = 0xD2691E
$colorList("Coral") = 0xFF7F50
$colorList("CornflowerBlue") = 0x6495ED
$colorList("DarkBlue") = 0x00008B
$colorList("DarkCyan") = 0x008B8B
$colorList("DodgerBlue") = 0x1E90FF
$colorList("ForestGreen") = 0x228B22
$colorList("Gold") = 0xFFD700
$colorList("Gray") = 0x808080
$colorList("Green") = 0x008000
$colorList("HotPink") = 0xFF69B4
$colorList("LightGreen") = 0x90EE90
$colorList("LightPink") = 0xFFB6C1
$colorList("LightSeaGreen") = 0x20B2AA
$colorList("Lime") = 0x00FF00
$colorList("Magenta") = 0xFF00FF
$colorList("Maroon") = 0xB03060
$colorList("MediumTurquoise") = 0x48D1CC
$colorList("MediumVioletRed") = 0xC71585
$colorList("MistyRose") = 0xFFE4E1
$colorList("Navy") = 0x000080
$colorList("Olive") = 0x808000
$colorList("Orchid") = 0xDA70D6
$colorList("PaleGreen") = 0x98FB98
$colorList("PaleVioletRed") = 0xDB7093
$colorList("Pink") = 0xFFC0CB
$colorList("Plum") = 0xDDA0DD
$colorList("Purple") = 0x800080
$colorList("Red") = 0xFF0000
$colorList("RoyalBlue") = 0x4169E1
$colorList("Sienna") = 0x00A0522D
$colorList("Silver") = 0xC0C0C0
$colorList("SkyBlue") = 0x87CEEB
$colorList("SteelBlue") = 0x004682B4
$colorList("Tan") = 0xD2B48C
$colorList("Teal") = 0x008080
$colorList("Violet") = 0xEE82EE
$colorList("Wheat") = 0xF5DEB3
$colorList("White") = 0xFFFFFF
$colorList("Yellow") = 0xFFFF00
Return $colorList
EndFunc   ;==>_ColorList

4935

Living Room / Re: Opera wand. Does it work well? Enough to abandon lastpass?

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 11, 2011, 05:25 PM »

I'll say this for Opera 11. It's a lot more usable after I put the classic skin on.  Now the only unreadable text is on the caption bar.  Those ultra glass skins squashed the browser window down to about 75% of what it should be just to have some clear stuff at the top. Yuck!! I mean, I like glass but I want to see some page!

My point with wand is they could easily encrypt the stuff instead of leaving it in clear text in a known location.  I don't think you're going to forget you name address and phone number.  So what's the harm if it's encrypted? Only thing I can think of is the coders are afraid of breaking working code.  Like they might never be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together.  Maybe the Wand guy passed away or something.

edit: btw I'm using the latest 11.50 right now.  I stayed with 8.51 for a long time as it became extremely light and fast as other browsers bulked up.  But it's tough to compete with how Chromium snaps off the disk.  Loads even when the HD is busy.

4936

General Software Discussion / Re: Transpose 2.1.4.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 11, 2011, 05:21 PM »

Transpose 2.1.4.0 Added BBCeditor to the "Editors Group" so that Control-t will transpose characters rather than create a table.

4937

General Software Discussion / Re: Chromium 14.0.832.0 Build 93800

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 11, 2011, 04:32 PM »

Is there a downloader for the new nightly builds?

I'm wondering if there has been any updates to the Chromium Nightly Updater.
http://dirhael.dcmembers.com/cnu/

-geff_chang (August 11, 2011, 04:39 AM)

I don't know. I look through the tree starting with the newest at the bottom for changelog.xml with the least amount of stuff in it.  If you just accept whatever is the newest you can get one with lots of outstanding issues.

Right now I'm running 15.0.847.0 from the win32 zip file.

4938

General Software Discussion / Re: Transpose 2.1.3.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 11, 2011, 01:07 AM »

Transpose 2.1.3.0 Added Opera 11 to the Editors Group so that Control-t will transpose characters instead of opening a new tab.  As usual, the source is included.

As an aside, I've changed to using AutoHotkey_L unicode for AHK scripts.  You may get a false positive. I just got some with the last Malwarebytes db update. It may take them awhile to realize it's AutoHotkey_L signature issue.

If anyone has any doubts about any of my scripted utilities they may use the Contact button on my site to request source code.  The main reason I don't include source with every program is to avoid repackaging and uploading every utility that uses an include file every time I make a modification.  There's no reason for it. It's just a signature clash and there are too many av programs to try to please out there. I wouldn't be doing anything else.

If an av flags one of my programs first thing to do is try a different av app. If you get several then request the source. I'll be happy to email it.

4939

Living Room / Re: Opera wand. Does it work well? Enough to abandon lastpass?

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 10, 2011, 09:04 PM »

Hmmmm, I've just installed LastPass in Opera 11 and it seems to work pretty well. Other than not being able to find the preferences dialog(pressing Control-F12 seems easiest) the other weirdy thing about Opera 11 is the out of the box setting to use zero disk cache!!  I was wondering why it was so slow!

4940

General Software Discussion / Re: Selector 3.0.1.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 09, 2011, 08:38 PM »

I added an error dialog if the Paste Button is used without any Item being selected in the ListBox.  I didn't bother to update the version number as that's the only change.

4941

General Software Discussion / Re: KeyDrive 2.5.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 09, 2011, 08:36 PM »

KeyDrive 2.5.0.0 The only change in 2.5.0.0 is it accepts an .ini PercentGap value of 0.  For example if you have already adjusted the work area to account for a taskbar gap by using Adjust Work Area or another utility, a setting of 0 is equivalent to using the current Work Area setting.  The max for PercentGap option is still 25.

4942

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Edit Text Anywhere with Your Favorite Editor [Freeware]

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 09, 2011, 06:39 PM »

It's not just crash proofing.� One of the great things about TEA is that you conveniently get your favourite editor to edit your posts with, so you can use macros, shorthands, whatever.

-rjbull (August 09, 2011, 03:39 PM)

That's a good point.� However, I tend not to use my text editor for most messages that I write with a browser.� Mostly what I write in Firefox are forum posts, responses to blogs, etc.� I don't tend to need macros, etc. for that.� I'm usually content with whatever input mechanism the forum or blog provides, which often includes things I can't do with my favorite text editor, UltraEdit, such as use colors, bold, etc.� So I guess what I'm saying is that for me, the Lazarus add-on provides the one thing I really need: backup in case my message goes poof.

-cyberdiva (August 09, 2011, 06:02 PM)

What keeps me from using a full fledged editor with spell check and yadda yadda is the word wrap.  If I put in carriage returns it's going to be messed up in the board post.  Better to use something designed for forum posting like BBCEditor. It's suprising how few(or maybe I just haven't sampled enough apps) free editors have spell check and easy to enable/disable word wrap, not to mention forum tags.

4943

Living Room / Re: Opera wand. Does it work well? Enough to abandon lastpass?

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 09, 2011, 06:34 PM »

A good reason to stay away from Wand is that it stores the form fill info in operaprefs.ini in the "Personal" section in clear text. Previous Opera versions had the same  section only the file was opera6.ini. It's been that way for quite awhile. It's not like it's a secret known only by a few.

-MilesAhead (August 08, 2011, 08:15 PM)

That section contains only info like name, address and phone number, and they don't get entered automatically into forms, so they aren't visible unless someone has access to your system outside of Opera. If that's the case, you have worse problems than having your name and address listed in plain text in an .ini file.

Opera's logins and passwords are stored encrypted in a file called Wand.dat in the Opera\Profile folder.

I personally dislike software that tries to automate things like logins without my active participation and prefer the way Wand works.

-xtabber (August 09, 2011, 06:25 PM)

I still think it's weak to have info in the clear in a known location.  They've been told about it for years and done nothing. It's one thing to randomly search a HD for info. It's another to know if Opera.exe is there then check these 2 .ini files for "only" name address and phone number. I know I don't want mine in clear text in a known spot.

4944

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: USB Safely Remove on GOTD

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 09, 2011, 03:40 AM »

I would get the 30 day trial to satisfy your curiosity.  I got version 4.51 on a giveaway awhile ago.  I used it for awhile, but especially with Windows7 it seemed like eye candy.  I could almost never get it to release my USB docking stations.  So I ended up doing what I do now.  Which is running SysInternals sync.exe to flush the disk buffers and turning off the docks. I don't have a problem.

I have HP PCs.  Maybe it works better with other makes, I dunno'.

http://safelyremove.com/download.htm

4945

General Software Discussion / FreeBASIC 0.24 Released

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 08, 2011, 11:02 PM »

http://www.freebasic...4ae0e818d0c380823264

If you'd like to try small stand-alone Win32 executables written in Basic then FreeBASIC may be a pleasant surprise.

If you prefer RAD form designer you can get Firefly free dialog designer. See this thread:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=27279.0

It doesn't require run-times.  The exe files are stand-alone executable 32 bit apps.  Can produce console or Gui apps.  The standard install comes with a bunch of include files(.bi files) for calling Win32 API functions in system DLLs, as well as other libraries.  If you like the Basic language it's just generally a fun software tool.

Probably the biggest shortcoming on the Windows platform is the dearth of COM support.  There's pretty much nothing built in.  There's a user-written ActiveX tool but it's not simple to use. If you must have something only available in COM then the trick is to code a DLL wrapper in a COM-friendly programming language, as calling functions in DLLs is pretty easy.

Also has versions for other platforms such as Linux.

4946

Living Room / Re: Opera wand. Does it work well? Enough to abandon lastpass?

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 08, 2011, 08:15 PM »

A good reason to stay away from Wand is that it stores the form fill info in operaprefs.ini in the "Personal" section in clear text. Previous Opera versions had the same  section only the file was opera6.ini. It's been that way for quite awhile. It's not like it's a secret known only by a few.

I'd go with a tool that at least does some encryption or obfuscation of the info.  With operaprefs.ini you just call ReadIniSection("Personal") and you've got it all in clear text!

4947

General Software Discussion / Re: Selector 3.0.1.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 08, 2011, 07:10 PM »

Selector 3.0.1.0 Removed Topmost attribute of popup window.  Instead I set it to show in Taskbar.  This allows it to show in Alt-Tab list and also avoids dialogs popping up underneath it.  Drag & drop onto the window is easier also.

4948

General Software Discussion / Re: Selector 3.0.0.0

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 08, 2011, 05:30 PM »

Selector 3.0.0.0 Added a Paste Button.  Depending on the setting of the Radio Button it will write selected, clipboard or text from the input line, to a temp file.  The selected application will be opened with the temp file as param.

This should come in handy for snapping up source code snippets from the web. Previously I used a dedicated hotkey app to take a snapshot of the source code.  But usually it wasn't running so I had to launch it.  Now I can just use Selector with any text editor.

It can also be used with Notepad since it doesn't use a paste macro but writes a temp file. You don't get the "xxx file does not exist do you wanna' make a new file?" dialog.

4949

Found Deals and Discounts / USB Safely Remove on GOTD

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 08, 2011, 03:32 PM »

http://www.giveawayo...m/usb-safely-remove/

In case anyone would like to give it a go.

4950

Developer's Corner / Re: Lost Programming Skills

« Last post by MilesAhead on August 07, 2011, 09:03 PM »

I didn't see the bit about cast iron. Only thing I can think of is that must've been the old method of creating firmware.  Instead of punching a rectangular hole in a card they used a punch press on an iron sheet.  Guess it made it more difficult for disgruntled employees to erase system code.