Recent Posts

501

Living Room / Re: Am I the only one who finds the new Apps-based world boring?

« Last post by daddydave on September 29, 2010, 07:13 AM »

I am sure you know this but Apple did not invent the word app. (why do you think they are called Apple? Surely you don't believe the story about it being someone's favorite fruit. It's because you can run apps on their computers.) People have been calling applications that run on personal computers apps at least since the 1980's and probably earlier. It sounds like your beef is more with the cloud and with the app store. There are plenty of apps for the Palm (both classic and WebOS) and PocketPC platform that don't require going through an app store and that don't store your data anywhere other than on your device and on your computer. Unfortunately I want the same things you want and it doesn't seem to be the way of the future.

OK, I am done editing now.

Click to open off-topic rant

I don't know why Phrase Express hates Chrome so much. Something got rid of my two paragraphs of carefully drafted text, this happens a lot when filling in any kind of form in Chrome

502

Living Room / Google Reader kills support for sites without RSS feeds

« Last post by daddydave on September 25, 2010, 05:37 PM »

Google turns off the track changes feature on September 30. This was the short-lived Google Reader feature that let you add web sites that didn't have RSS feeds and it would autogenerate one that had any new content.

It was handy while it lasted.

Like the official blog says, you can use Page2RSS  as an alternative.

503

Living Room / PIM functions on a Smartphone when no signal or web? Impossible?

« Last post by daddydave on September 25, 2010, 12:36 PM »

One of the reasons I prefer classic PDAs to smartphones is that it seems nonsensical to spend $700 a year for a data plan just for the privilege of entering my own data. On top of that, for the rss feeds and web sites I track, I feel like a daily sync to the PDA using something like Plucker or iSilo is plenty timely enough. (iSilo in particular is available on a wide range of PDA platforms, even the newer ones like Android and iPhone.) However I am constantly looking for information that will give me confidence that I can use a modern smartphone without a data plan, since I often see smartphones on ebay for a low price because it only works with a wireless carrier with a not-so-great reputation. And I have been without a PDA for a while, I have had two digitizers gone bad (Palm Tungsten T3 and Dell Axim), and I am incompetent at replacing them. This leads me to believe the newer devices must have more reliable digitizers, which makes sense.

I remember when Palm's new Web OS was coming out, there was an emphasis on not making it a door stop when you didn't have a signal. What I am curious about is if anyone has had any success in using a modern smartphone without a data plan, be it Android, iPhone, WebOS, or whatever else is out there. I am primarily interested in PIM functions: tasks, notes, calendar, contacts, not so much email and obviously that is not going to work anyway without a data connection.

504

Living Room / Re: Hilarious video, for those old enough to appreciate it.

« Last post by daddydave on September 25, 2010, 10:08 AM »

for those old enough to appreciate it.

Another way to say that is "old enough to know a meaning for carriage return which isn't byte oriented."

505

Developer's Corner / API or Lists of human language ways to express dates in Outlook

« Last post by daddydave on September 25, 2010, 10:02 AM »

If I press Enter in Outlook below, yesterday will be a perfectly acceptable due date and it will converted to yesterday's date.


I can also specify something like Friday and it will figure out I mean the upcoming Friday.

What I am looking for is either a complete list documenting all ways to specify dates in Outlook in plain English (or plain Urdu depending on your regional settings, although kal means both yesterday and tomorrow in Urdu, so I guess that wouldn't work) or an Outlook API to convert those plain language dates to real dates so that I can use them in programs outside of Outlook. Anyone know of anything like that out there?

506

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / How do you use Categories in your task or calendar management?

« Last post by daddydave on September 25, 2010, 09:52 AM »

Since I don't see a "Getting Organized" section for 2010, and people are still posting in this section, I have to assume "of 2009" no longer applies. So here is my "getting organized" question.

This is a question for people who use tasks in any task managment software. Or, if you like, appointments or calendar items in any calendar software. Do you use categories (or tags) for your tasks and calendar items? If so, how do you use them? I am especially interested in non-GTD uses for categories, although use of categories by GTD users for purposes other than GTD contexts or GTD projects would also be interesting. This question is for any task or calendar management you use, RTM, Outlook, Toodledo, or what have you.

507

General Software Discussion / Re: My Windows Desktop is a shambles...

« Last post by daddydave on September 23, 2010, 04:41 PM »

Code, you have got to give Fences a try. I just started using it and it is a nice fit for Windows 7, it's like one of those "programs that Microsoft forgot". There is a freeware version (which I am using) and a paid version.

(Note: I tried to find the OS requirements from the web site but failed.)

I recommend setting it so that it shows a translucent color background in each fence (forgot what the setting is called), otherwise it is hard to see where the edges are so that you can resize them. Plus it looks nicer.

I'm tempted to get the paid version, too, because it can automatically put files with specific extensions into a fence.

508

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Pre Release

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 11:23 AM »

jpijper:
My first stop when looking for Outlook tools is always Slipstick, specifically the add-ins page. I think you should give Sue a link to it, if she posts it there, I think more people will know about it. I plan on doing the same for TaskDaddy a little later. Notice there are lot of links in the Tasks section, but when you check them out, you see a lot of them are out of date. And I would suggest letting people know you can use it from the command line as well as FARR.

I can picture Lifehacker or the How To Geek doing a post on it as well.

509

Living Room / Re: Recommend an alarm clock mp3 features.

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 09:55 AM »

I almost posted this EXACT same thing.. you would think it would be easy to find a simple alarm clock with a $5 mp3 player chip grafted into it. But what they're selling is alarm clocks with a stupid port for an iPod, which look ridiculous jutting out from an alarm clock and which is rubbish. For the price of an iPod, it should have an alarm built in as well.

510

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Pre Release

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 09:39 AM »

Hi DaddyDave,

I just discovered TaskDaddy and wanted to point you to the QuickOutlookTask utility I wrote a couple of years back. Then I saw in one of your comments that you already found it  .

I'm going to check out TaskDaddy and let you know what I think. Always interesting to see how the same idea gets implemented by a completely different person

Keep up the   good work!
Jan Roelof

-jpijper (September 22, 2010, 07:11 AM)

Welcome back! And I look forward to your brutally honest feedback! I find it very ironic that I never thought to look within DonationCoder to find something similar, though I Googled like crazy to find something like TaskDaddy, couldn't really find something that hadn't either gone commercial, was missing key features like categories, or pointed to a dead link.

511

Living Room / Re: prevent my kids from downloading files from the Internet

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 09:21 AM »

Easy to say when not a parent perhaps

-Bamse (September 22, 2010, 09:06 AM)

Ya think?

Before I was a parent, if had any inkling of what an ass I sounded like trying to impose my parenting theories on people who were parents in the real world, I would have kept my little bobblehead mouth shut.

But yeah, there is no way to realize that until you are an actual parent.

That said, I actually AGREE with you, but occasionally you gotta be the mean daddy or the mean mommy if things are not working.

ahhh..sorry if this comes off as offensive. This is normally the type of thread I like to hit ignore on before I say something I'll regret.   (and I think I'll do so now, and I will check back in about a month.) And this is not directed at you personally. I have real life people in mind.

512

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Pre Release

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 08:45 AM »

Yes, and I ran it. I doubt I will integrate it into my existing code. My current code is like a desk, it is messy but I know where everything is. Plus lately every new line of code I add introduces a new bug. Plus, it is a section of code that I have investing a lot of testing and bug fixes in, I am not ready to begin that cycle again.

-daddydave (September 22, 2010, 05:54 AM)

Ofcoure, that logic.
But I made it to implement my idea of logic of subject and body.
I thought it would made it easier to explain how exactly I had it in mind.

-DeVamp (September 22, 2010, 08:11 AM)

Oh, I see.   Actually you explained very clearly the first time and reminded me of how I need to avoid polluting the task spec with too many special characters, so I thank you for that.

513

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

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 07:28 AM »

Notice that some should be quick to implement and others may take years. For this poll, don't worry about that. That's my problem, not yours*. It is a fact that most of the work on TaskDaddy is done in 15 minute spurts while the kids are asleep or at school. But if a feature is going to take a while to implement, that may be all the more reason to get started on it, despite the fact that may put it out of scope for NANY which has to be complete by 1/1/2011.

*Technically it could be yours if you really want that feature.

514

Unfinished Requests / Re: Sort my picture with only 4 buttons

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 07:01 AM »

Just to clarify.

2. Does this mean when you press the button, it moves it to something like C:\Pics\Archives
3. Does this mean when you press the button, it moves it to something like C:\Pics\Interesting
4. Does this mean when you press the button, it prompts you for a directory and moves it there?

515

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Pre Release

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 05:54 AM »

Daddydave,

Did you get my PM with the link?

-DeVamp (September 22, 2010, 04:30 AM)

Yes, and I ran it. I doubt I will integrate it into my existing code. My current code is like a desk, it is messy but I know where everything is. Plus lately every new line of code I add introduces a new bug. Plus, it is a section of code that I have investing a lot of testing and bug fixes in, I am not ready to begin that cycle again.

516

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Pre Release

« Last post by daddydave on September 22, 2010, 04:25 AM »

EDITED for clarity a few times

@Stuff New stuff 2 #01/11/2010 @the stuff : hupla

DeVamp: You say you find it strange that the delimiter : does not appear in the output. I disagree. To me it is strange that you would expect the delimiter to appear in the output. It is strange to expect the colon at the beginning of a word to sometimes act as a delimiter and sometimes not.

Perhaps the real problem is twofold:

(1) Problem 1: That the colon was chosen to be a special character. Say for example, I had chosen semicolon to signal the task body instead of colon. Then you would be able to say

@Stuff New stuff 2 #01/11/2010 @the ;stuff : hupla

or, with task body deduction, you could still leave the semicolon out.

@Stuff New stuff 2 #01/11/2010 @the stuff : hupla

The problem is, if I had used a semicolon, it is just as likely that someone out there is using the semicolon the way you are using the colon. And someone is using the ~ character. So the way out of this seems to be to allow the user to specify their own delimiter somehow.

This is an inherent problem with using special characters. Compare for example Quick Outlook Task which uses extensive command line switches instead of special characters. Honestly, in spite of the fact that jpijper is a DonatonCoder member (long absent it seems unfortunately), I never knew this program existed before I started creating TaskDaddy. Note that he advertises it as a "FARR alias" but can be used from the command line without far as well. The problem of special characters will only get worse as features are added to TaskDaddy over time.

(2) Problem 2: Maybe task body deduction itself is a bad decision I made. I don't recall any other program that parses that way.

Maybe I should have simply required the colon to introduce the task body:

@Stuff New stuff 2 #01/11/2010 @the :stuff : hupla

For this to work, I think I would still have to require all subsequent trigger characters to be ignored, which means I would still have a problem with initial colon meaning trigger sometimes and included as regular text sometimes.

517

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Missing Features?

« Last post by daddydave on September 21, 2010, 03:47 PM »

I wonder if it is too early for a poll of what the most important missing feature of TaskDaddy...

- support recurring tasks
- support more built-in task fields
- support custom task fields
- support merging a command line with tasks from a file, e.g., taskdaddy "@@Errand Buy _ from Wal-mart" /f groceries.txt
- support for Lightning addon for Thunderbird
- a companion program CalendarDaddy
- a pop-up notification confirming the task has been added to Outlook
- ability to customize reminder time
- ability to mark a task as complete
- support user friendly dates such as #tomorrow or #+3 (for three days from now)
- support spaces in categories
- user specifiable special characters to prevent conflicts

518

Living Room / Re: Avoid Twitter Until Further Notice:

« Last post by daddydave on September 21, 2010, 02:54 PM »

That seems very odd to me..bits of end user javascript have been allowed to pass through twitter unaltered all this time?

519

Living Room / Re: Does anyone actually use the Scroll Lock key?

« Last post by daddydave on September 21, 2010, 01:43 PM »

And all these years I thought its purpose was to prevent the screen/window/application from scrolling.

-Deozaan (September 21, 2010, 12:59 PM)

No that's the Pause key. Go to a cmd window and type dir %tmp% and try it. Ctrl-S does the same thing. Leveraging my DOS 2 skills is the reason I will never be a Mac user. Usually I say that seriously, in this case, not so much because I don't actually use that anymore. I just do something like

dir %tmp%>deletme.txt
deleteme.txt

and it pops up in Notepad. Redirection of course is also a leveraged DOS 2 skill. (yeah I know they stole it from CP/M and Unix)

520

Living Room / Re: Does anyone actually use the Scroll Lock key?

« Last post by daddydave on September 21, 2010, 07:23 AM »

In Excel, the scroll lock makes the arrow keys  scroll the spreadsheet without changing the current cell.

EDITED: No I guess it really is arrow keys only

521

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: VeggieWorld(?) - Children's Game

« Last post by daddydave on September 20, 2010, 04:56 PM »

What about veggies running (or slinking) away from each other, or giving each other hugs and high fives? You might can come up with a few cool animations.

522

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: VeggieWorld(?) - Children's Game

« Last post by daddydave on September 20, 2010, 04:53 PM »

It is a delicate (but not un-doable) subject

-CodeTRUCKER (September 20, 2010, 04:50 PM)

Exactly what I was trying to say. You don't want the kids at the dinner table looking at their plate of broccoli and saying "Youuuu stinkkk!" to the chagrin of their parents.

This is hard, I'm not very creative at this kind of thing either.

523

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: Response to Question: Can shareware be released in the NANY event?

« Last post by daddydave on September 20, 2010, 04:50 PM »

I also have no strong opinions one way or the other, but I would ask the forum what they think about having both a free version for NANY and a shareware "pro" version as well.

524

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: VeggieWorld(?) - Children's Game

« Last post by daddydave on September 20, 2010, 04:38 PM »

Do you really need hundreds of these?

I'm just concerned that these 8 year olds will start spouting veggie epithets at the dinner table and committing veggie hate crimes.

- Signed
- A concerned Daddy

EDIT: Also, the kids games I've seen just use a handful of stock phrases. I tend to think repetition is part of what makes it fun for them, and I'm not sure they would appreciate all the effort going into avoiding it, as an adult would.

By the way, this would be educational for some adults as well, those of us without "green thumbs".

525

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Teaser: TaskDaddy Pre Release

« Last post by daddydave on September 20, 2010, 03:05 PM »

Any command line arguments which are not options are combined into a single task. In practice, this means you can usually either use double quote characters or not, so that for example:

taskdaddy "@@Home Recycle the bottles #6/2 :in the garage" /p
is the same as

taskdaddy @@Home Recycle the bottles #6/2 :in the garage /p

There's a story for behind this, that only geeks will care about

TaskDaddy doesn't actually see the quotes, it doesn't have much choice other than to see everything in quotes as a single parameter because that is the way it comes in. Originally I tried to parse the command line as a string ($CmdLineRaw) instead of the $CmdLine array, which did allow me to see the quotes but that made the code very error prone and also caused different behavior in the interpreted and compiled versions. By using the array, I am also able to use the _OptParse module to standardize other (non-task) command line processing. Anything that is not processed by switch parsing is left over and parsed by me. Getting identical behavior with and without the quotes was kind of a relief. I wanted to allow the quotes but not require them.

Needless to say (I think), command line switches should not be inside the quotes, as the example shows.