Recent Posts

51

Developer's Corner / Re: What's your *favorite* programming language and *why* ?

« Last post by PPLandry on January 27, 2010, 04:20 PM »

Plus it can generate truly portable apps, something C# and VB.Net cannot do

-PPLandry (January 27, 2010, 02:27 PM)

For all intents and purposes, .NET apps are portable as long as you are at a certain iteration of .NET on the machine- which depending on what you're using, it will be.  I'd rather deal with the OS having the framework installed rather than the "DLL Hell" I had to endure with VB6 (shudders).  And the idiosyncracies of the language... the only thing I dislike more is Crystal Reports (double shudders).

-wraith808 (January 27, 2010, 02:41 PM)

The odds of have the correct version of .Net on a random machine (Internet café, at the office, etc) are quite small. Plus, if you're not 100% sure of being able to run your app, it is pointless. I want 100% probability that when I want to run it, it will run. And a portable application (COM+manifest) will run on ALL XP and up machines, completely isolated from other DLLs (so no DLL hell).

52

Living Room / Re: Simple app/method to store contacts & create invoices for same?

« Last post by PPLandry on January 27, 2010, 02:34 PM »

If you set it up for him, I'm sure he'll be able to use IQ. I've got customers with very little computer knowledge using IQ on a daily basis.

You set up the fields, grids, forms and HTML templates for printing. If he's already got data (e.g. in Excel), you can do the import. 1 hour basic training and he's good to go and enter/edit data

53

Developer's Corner / Re: What's your *favorite* programming language and *why* ?

« Last post by PPLandry on January 27, 2010, 02:27 PM »

VB6. It just works and you can solve problems quickly without worrying about all the little details (of C++)

Plus it can generate truly portable apps, something C# and VB.Net cannot do

54

General Software Discussion / Re: Saving web pages

« Last post by PPLandry on January 06, 2010, 09:16 AM »

If you use IE, saving as MHT will grab the whole page and save everything (text, images, css, js). If you use FF, scrapbook will work very well. It DOES save files locally, on your hard drive.

You may also want to use one of the web archive to see if you can find the page again:
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

55

General Software Discussion / Re: Drupal is f*cked

« Last post by PPLandry on December 03, 2009, 01:27 PM »

today i'm back to loathing drupal.. there is a lot good about it but there is so much bad, sometimes its unbearable.

-mouser (December 03, 2009, 11:28 AM)

Such as ? ...

56

Living Room / Re: Anybody else playing with Wave?

« Last post by PPLandry on November 29, 2009, 08:26 PM »

Wavers can put their Address in a wiki I created for this purpose. Details here:
https://www.donation....msg185971#msg185971

57

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by PPLandry on November 26, 2009, 11:50 AM »

Could we make a list somewhere of who is already on it (and the corresponding email if they want connecting) and who might still want one?

-iphigenie (November 26, 2009, 08:57 AM)

I've created this WikiSpace for this purpose:
http://dcwaves.wikispaces.com/

Welcome to a Wiki for DonationCoders interested in Google Wave!

Getting Started

    * Interested in Google Wave, but don't haven't yet been invited? Click here to put you on a list. We're a generous crowd, so it should be long before someone invites you!
    * Just got a GW account and wondering "Now what?" Checkout this page (in construction) about tips and tricks
    * Don't have anyone to Wave with? A list of "volonteers" can be found here

58

Living Room / Re: I'll donate $20 to Donation Coder if DC member PMs me a valid Google Wave invite

« Last post by PPLandry on November 26, 2009, 08:57 AM »

I would love to have more wave users in my network so i can actually test its potential for collaboration, support, training and more.
I'm superiphi at gmail (note: dont need an invite, just contacts to add)

-iphigenie (November 26, 2009, 08:45 AM)

My GW address is infoqube. Most interested too to Wave !

59

Living Room / Re: Apple Declares Smoking Near Apple Computers Voids Warranty

« Last post by PPLandry on November 24, 2009, 02:29 PM »

I've never smoked, but as far as I know, tobacco is legal and as such, I see no reason for refusing to honor a warranty.

Apple can easily supply an extra-ventilated environment which would be safe for workers repairing "contaminated" computers. After all workers in the chemical industry work with much more hazardous substances than tobacco tar everyday. You just need the proper environment.

60

Living Room / Re: I'll donate $20 to Donation Coder if DC member PMs me a valid Google Wave invite

« Last post by PPLandry on November 19, 2009, 09:53 PM »

You're welcome !

61

Living Room / Re: Portable computer

« Last post by PPLandry on November 13, 2009, 05:38 PM »

Both come with 2Mb of memory and a 320Gb HD.

-zridling (November 13, 2009, 03:19 PM)

Wow, they sure pack the OS in these days.  How much is left for running your apps?

-4wd (November 13, 2009, 05:27 PM)

I do all my dev. work on my 6 year-old Acer with 750MB of RAM... on XP SP2. It is much faster than a newer one with 4GB and Vista...

62

Living Room / Re: Portable computer

« Last post by PPLandry on November 13, 2009, 02:38 PM »

The Acer Timeline series is really nice. Thin, and 8hr battery. Here in Canada, I've seen it for $599

63

Living Room / Re: What's your favorite LOL joke?

« Last post by PPLandry on November 03, 2009, 11:15 AM »

How about this one:


The Cowboy Boots (Anyone who has ever dressed a child will love this)

Did you hear about the Texas teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his cowboy boots? He asked for help and she could see why. Even with her pulling and him pushing, the little boots still didn't want to go on. By the time they got the second boot on, she had worked up a sweat.

She almost cried when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet." She looked, and sure enough, they were. It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as, together, they worked to get the boots back on, this time on the right feet. He then announced, "These aren't my boots."

She bit her tongue, rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?", like she wanted to. Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off his little feet.

No sooner had they gotten the boots off when he said, "They're my brother's boots. My Mom made me wear 'em."

Now she didn't know if she should laugh or cry. But she mustered up what grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again.

Helping him into his coat, she asked, "Now, where are your mittens?"

Spoiler

He said, "I stuffed 'em in the toes of my boots."

She will be eligible for parole in three years.

64

Living Room / Re: What's your favorite LOL joke?

« Last post by PPLandry on November 02, 2009, 07:52 PM »

I had a huge laugh when I got this one:


A blonde teenager, wanting to earn some extra money for the summer, decided to hire herself out as a 'handy-woman' and started canvassing a nearby well-to-do neighborhood.

She went to the front door of the first house, and asked the owner if he had any odd jobs for her to do.

'Well, I guess I could use somebody to paint my porch,' he said, ''How much will you charge me?'

Delighted, the girl quickly responded, 'How about $50?'

The man agreed and told her that the paint brushes and everything she would need was in the garage.

The man's wife, hearing the conversation said to her husband, 'Does she realize that our porch goes ALL the way around the house?'

He responded, 'That's a bit cynical, isn't it?'

The wife replied, 'You're right. I guess I'm starting to believe all those dumb blonde jokes we've been getting by e-mail lately.'

Later that day, the blonde came to the door to collect her money.

'You're finished already?' the startled husband asked.

'Yes' the blonde replied 'and I even had paint left over, so I gave it two coats.'

Impressed, the man reached into his pocket for the $50.00 and handed it to her along with a ten dollar tip.

Spoiler

'And by the way, ' the blonde added, 'it's not a Porch, it's a Lexus.

65

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by PPLandry on October 21, 2009, 08:19 AM »

For recreational reading, I just finished Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind.

-40hz (October 17, 2009, 07:37 AM)

+1 for Zafon's book. Great suspense in beautiful Barcelona!

Currently reading Michel Folco trilogy: http://fr.wikipedia..../Un_loup_est_un_loup

66

General Software Discussion / Re: For those who write articles on CMS, a question.

« Last post by PPLandry on September 28, 2009, 01:19 PM »

I wrote this a while back, regarding the IQ community web site, which has all 3 types: blogs, forum, wiki-style books:

http://www.sqlnotes..../index.php?q=node/96

There are currently 3 types of posts: Blogs, Forum and Book Page.
 
Some of you may have noticed the similarities between these 3 types:

    * There is a first post (rich text editor - HTML type), which can be tagged, files attached
    * On which users can comment. Comments are  organized in hierarchy (flat view is possible too)
    * All three types are shown on the New Posts page.

Of course, there would not need to be 3 types if they didn't have some differences:
 
Blogs:

    * Post belong to 1 user. Only he (and admins) can edit.
    * All user blog posts can be viewed, in a blog-like reversed chronological list, on the user page (my blogs are shown here)
    * When viewing blogs, a collapsable section appears in the left sidebar. (bug:No title). It shows useful links (my blogs, add new blog, Top bloggers, blogs grouped by year / month, etc)

Forums:

    * Belongs to 1 user. Only he (and admins) can edit.
    * Post are organized in section and sub-sections
    * The forum page provides a nice UI

Book pages:

    * All users can edit
    * Can be organized in hierarchy (book, section, sub-section)
    * Table of contents are automatically generated
    * Printer-friendly version will print the current page and all sub-pages

So, one can see that the same concept is applied slightly differently to give a great knowledge-base environment

67

General Software Discussion / Re: What software will do this? Simple data-mining, finding associations etc.

« Last post by PPLandry on July 23, 2009, 06:34 PM »

Excel's pivot table will do that for you (Office 2000 and up)

The Excel data would look like this:
Person    |  City
John Doe |  Paris
John Doe |  London
Mary       |  London

etc.

InfoQube would do it too:

• John Doe
  
  • Paris
  • London

• Mary
  
  • London

And then use the build-in pivot table

68

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by PPLandry on July 20, 2009, 10:12 PM »

Unfortunately not. We're given a regular account and a test account. The test account seems limited. Public waves are not visible, only private ones.

First impressions:
1- When too many people participate in a wave, it becomes very difficult to follow.
2- Anybody can edit what you wrote, which is not what I expected
3- Hard to see what's new in a wave
4- bug: Marking a wave as read does not always stick
5- live-refresh is generally working well for the content pane, but intermittent for the wave list pane
6- Drag-drop images does not work (FF 3.0 and in Chrome)
7- When editing, the cancel button is not enabled
8- No flat view. I generally like threaded views, but a flat option helps in some situations

69

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by PPLandry on July 20, 2009, 06:37 PM »

IIRC, I registered on the day it was launched, back in may.

70

Living Room / Re: Google demonstrates new communication platform "WAVE": mail, chat , wiki, ..

« Last post by PPLandry on July 20, 2009, 11:49 AM »

I just got my Google Wave account... anybody want to wave with me ? (ha! ha!)

Sandbox Wave account name: [email protected]

71

General Software Discussion / Re: TheBrain / Personal Brain

« Last post by PPLandry on July 14, 2009, 02:01 PM »

That forum isn't strictly about outliners (...)

-SKesselman (July 14, 2009, 12:00 AM)

And ouliners and mindmaps share a common point: the need to represent 1-to-many and many-to-many relationships, in a flexible, visual way.

72

General Software Discussion / Re: TheBrain / Personal Brain

« Last post by PPLandry on July 12, 2009, 12:09 PM »

It has been extensively discussed over at outlinersoftware.com:

http://www.outliners...m/search/index/brain

73

Developer's Corner / Re: Using ActiveX controls and DLLs directly from memory buffer (C#)

« Last post by PPLandry on July 06, 2009, 02:54 PM »

Best way I've found is using a manifest file

Many references but you can try this one: http://msdn.microsof...zzbcs3x5(VS.80).aspx

My app works (portable mode) on the most secure and locked down PC (and I use a large number of ActiveX and DLLs)

74

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by PPLandry on June 30, 2009, 05:50 PM »

My favorite tweak is to change the keyboard layout mapping to be just... perfect  

ref: http://www.microsoft...ive/w2kscan-map.mspx

75

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a chm reader

« Last post by PPLandry on June 29, 2009, 10:18 PM »

Well my main problem is reading chm files that are on network., MS chm reader is giving me the crap and not opening them properly. I tried to follow online solutions but none fixed it, maybe because I am on 64bit.

-kartal (May 04, 2009, 07:41 PM)

Have you tried CHM Register: http://www.vizacc.co...howthread.php?t=2556
Download it here: http://www.vizacc.com/downloads.aspx

It registers your CHM files on a network so MS CHM reader reads it OK