Recent Posts

5201

Living Room / Re: Should Apple recall the iPhone4? Or should the user "Hold the phone the right"?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 14, 2010, 10:52 AM »

The design is an intentional discrimination against left-handed people - -  We should sue!

5202

General Software Discussion / Re: PC Monitoring - Need Help

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 14, 2010, 10:47 AM »

Given the fast and loose nature of the english language... Just because you view/read/hear a conversation doesn't mean you'll have a clue as to it actual context. I proved this back when I was 16 and my dad tried sneaking a tape recorder on the home phone line. It did him no good - I knew it was there - My friends knew the meanings he missed.

Being a parent, I agree with 40Hz on all levels. You can't know what your child is up to, without knowing your child. Electronic boundries (/keepers) only setup the rules for when/where the games begin after trust is lost.

I've had much the same conversation with clients on several occasions. Some went for the monitoring applications after, some did not. Ultimately, it seldom took long for the kid to get around it.

5203

Living Room / Re: App Culture vs. Free Culture

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 09, 2010, 12:19 PM »

This is one of those topics I try to stay out of, due to my tendency to reflexively attack any/everything Apple. However...

I would like to make note that I whole heartedly agree with Renegade, Mouser, & App103's last posts as they outline a clear and pragmatic picture of what is (and is about to) go horribly wrong if this "Business Model" starts to catch on.

5204

Living Room / Re: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 06, 2010, 06:34 PM »

wait, wait, wait...

Nobody said to register a quirky domain name with them. (that would be really stupid)

I was suggesting in case of the kind of temporary emergency that is being suggested in this thread, if the standard 13 root servers were shut down, use the alternative ones to CONNECT. They have a copy of every record the standard ones have and they will help you reach all the .com, .net, .org, .edu, etc. until the standard root servers come back online. (ok, it's not perfect, but it's better than nothing at all, don't you think?)

-app103 (July 04, 2010, 06:26 PM)

That's not really a safe assumption. DNS is hierarchical, the SOA (Start Of Authority) roots are only going to have full zone data for the TLD's they are authoritative for. While they may have Stub Zones for other TLDs these (stub) zones only contain (NS) records for the SOA for that zone. If the TLD SOA from that NS record is offline ... Your request goes poof!

Remember however that it's not just the DNS servers. It's the backbone routers as well.

If you have no packet routes, it doesn't much matter what you're pointing to.

-40hz (July 06, 2010, 05:01 PM)

Quite true.

5205

Living Room / Re: iTunes accounts used to hack Apple Appstore

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 06, 2010, 06:16 PM »

There's not much worse than Apple fanboys. But sometimes I think Renegade goes a leeeetle over the top.

-JavaJones (July 06, 2010, 02:15 PM)

Perhapps, but he does it with such style - Ya just gotta love it.

5206

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (beta - download)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 05, 2010, 09:23 AM »

Being that I had a vacation I decided to actually be on vacation (from everything) and left the computer alone for a while.

Hello all

Just recently found T-Clock after years of using Dale Nurden's program.   
I'm glad to see this effort going on as I had always hoped there would be enhancements made. 
I use the functionality every day at both home and work.

-MKappy (July 02, 2010, 01:27 PM)

I'm glad to hear you've found it to be useful.

I'd like to offer some enhancement ideas that may or may not have already been suggested.

1 Allow what is displayed when the mouse hovers over the date/time in the system tray to be user selectable. 
What I personally would select for example is to display the current months calendar. 
This allows you to quickly see the month without using up one of your mouse click options

So popup calendar on mouse-over - The system global mouse-over timeout may cause performance issues (annoying response lagg) with/for that - But I'll look into it as it does sound rather handy.

2  Add right click capability to match the left click.
   Note: Middle button on Win 7 Pro brings up "document flip"  so we really only have 2 copies not 4 available.

My motivation for this is to give us at least one if not two additional copy strings.

Example use case:
--- Left Single Click - copy the current date time as a Prefix - e.g. yyyy-mm-dd_
--- Left Double Click - copy the current date time as a Suffix - e.g. _yyyy-mm-dd_hh"hrs"_mm"mins"
--- Right Single Click - copy in a user defined string - e.g.  an email address,   [email protected]
--- Right Double Click - copy in a user defined string - e.g.  an email address,   [email protected]

I'm not sure if the context menu popup will share well with the single right click event, but yes I am  pondering alternatives for the now basically useless middle button/wheel click events.

3 Auto Rename file for file drag and drop?

This might be possible now but it's beyond my knowledge of how one would set this up.

The idea here would be to rename a dropped file to have a predefined user date/time string appended as a prefix or suffix before the file extension.
This might be the same as the single click option for example or perhaps yet another string specifically for this purpose.
For example:
   Original file name:   Draft_ideas.doc
   Suffix Drag drop results in:   Draft_ideas_2010-07-02_02hrs_07mins.doc
   Prefix Drag drop results in:   2010-07-02_Draft_ideas.doc

That certainly sounds worth looking into.

4  Drag and drop the clock ?

I've got no idea if this is even remotely possible....
   What if you click down on the date/time in the system tray and drag and drop it?
   Could this be made to paste a string?

I hope to one day get modern coding skills back up to date and join you all as contributing developers.

   Thanks again for your efforts

   Mark

I'm not sure we really need that many roads-to-Rome ... But, I may explore that later.

5207

Living Room / Re: Apple/ATT sued over iPhone 4 Antenna issues

« Last post by Stoic Joker on July 02, 2010, 09:41 PM »

So you need a way to occupy your time while (desperately) searching for reception? ...We've got an app for that...

5208

Living Room / Re: Diagnosis: Email Apnea?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 27, 2010, 09:49 AM »

And here I thought it was just the dry technical content that was putting me to sleep.

But seriously, it does make sense as sitting for long periods can be bad for circulation. Sitting badly (I've seen some really crappy office furniture) causing a host of other maladies is a logical assumption.

The Yoga breathing does work quite well, as I've used it for years usually to (avoid strangling someone)cope with stress in situations where I couldn't smoke.

5209

Living Room / Windows splash screens from 1.01 to 7

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 27, 2010, 09:39 AM »

Ran across this in a newsletter and thought some folks may find it interesting:

Dinosaur Sightings: Windows splash screens from 1.01 to 7

5210

General Software Discussion / Re: Thinstall MS Word 2003 only 17.6 MB?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 26, 2010, 08:21 AM »

Many on the sites/links in that Google search made MSE very cranky. Not enough to warrant a full scan, but I'll not be exploring them further.

5211

Living Room / iSkysoft FLV Converter for Windows - free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 25, 2010, 01:38 PM »

I'm not entirely sure if this is any good or not I just ran across it at another forum.
Free license for iSkysoft FLV Converter for Windows
Some sort of promo running for 3 month.

5212

Living Room / Re: Obama not a fan of Adam West Batman, prefers Twitter instead

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 25, 2010, 09:22 AM »

Great, so now it literally will be some twit that blows-up the planet.

5213

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: HDMI Cables: $0.60

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 23, 2010, 01:32 PM »

Not to mention that HDMI is relatively new Uber sharp/clear A/V technology so people are prepped to get bent over anytime they go to buy something for it. Here's an example of two identical items:

   iPhone compatible patch cord $12.00
   1/8" stereo patch cable $2.00

 ...Why? Because one has an Apple Logo on it. e.g. Prices tend to follow what the market will bare

5214

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (beta - download)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 21, 2010, 05:58 PM »

Okay, Did a compile with MSVS2010 or the modified code - which promptly failed the positioning test quite consistently.

So, I did a compile of the original (un "fixed") code - and all of the positioning test passed (for me)

Now, the $10,000 question is: Will it work for Sagji?!?



Sagji, all of the known universe now holds it's breath awaiting your reply...

 

5215

General Software Discussion / Re: This Mac devotee is moving to Linux

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 21, 2010, 03:41 PM »

If a printer uses a straight PCL driver, and it is either a direct IP or parallel connection (USB is its own kettel of pain) then any brand PCL driver will work. PCL is PCL, find something with the same basic (drawers & duplexing) layout and it'll most likely work just fine regardless of brand.

5216

Living Room / Re: (Old) Creativity is not Design - Taking the Andy Rutledge Test

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 21, 2010, 10:00 AM »

Design is often a natural talent for creative people, and can be taught for those it isn't, but how do you teach creativity?

-steeladept (June 21, 2010, 09:00 AM)

Good point, but I think Andy is rather narrowly (razor edge) defining the whole designing vs. creating to the realm of advertisements. Specifically ones that are packed full of every (dirty) pop psychology trick known to mankind (but right or wrong, that is advertising).

I get the impression its his version of the 3 F's rule (Form Follows Function) e.g. if it doesn't work, being pretty is irrelevant.

5217

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (beta - download)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 20, 2010, 01:34 PM »

Well, best I can tell at this point is that my nemesis is apparently the Win7 DWM. I say this because its influence is only felt at DPI settings that are above 150. Anything below that reverts (via default system behavior) to XP's scaling behavior.

Hence the issue becomes a pissing contest between the application and the DWM as to where and how things get scaled/located...especially if the application is not marked as DPI aware in some fashion. Therein lying the tricky part.

Options for marking an application as DPI aware are either using a function call (that isn't recognized by MSVS2005), or using an entry in the manifest (that isn't recognized by MSVS2005). Which brings one (or at least me) to the conclusion that this ain't gonna get solved with MSVS2005 - Which of course I am and have been using.

So...(best I can tell) it's backup the project and upgrade the compiler time. I grabbed a copy of MSVS 2010 pro yesterday, and am currently pondering what if any install options there are e.g. will they play nice together, or do I have to commit to an upgrade.

5218

Living Room / Re: FCC Moves to Regulate Internet

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 20, 2010, 11:29 AM »

However, under this approach, the FCC claims it will exercise “forbearance,” a regulatory doctrine whereby the government promises not use its regulatory authority in most cases.

-Cpilot (June 20, 2010, 11:12 AM)

Well, there goes the neighborhood - The internet will completely turn to shit in 5... 4... 3... 2...

5219

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (beta - download)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 18, 2010, 04:07 PM »

Okay, in the interest of clarity I skipped the vitalization and ran the test on my physical hardware. So with 2 17" monitors running 1280 x 1024 resolution I ran the DPI test with Logoff and reboot between each change to see if/how it would (Mis?)behave.

120DPI (125%) it positioned itself just fine after log off/on - Also positioned just fine after reboot.

144DPI (150%) it positioned itself just fine after log off/on - Also positioned just fine after reboot.

192DPI (200%) it positioned itself just fine after log off/on - After reboot it positioned itself below the taskbar.

   I would however like to note that at those (1280x1024 192DPI) settings nothing else on the screen looked right either. Text, Icons, Wallpaper all were blurry, and the Icons were so large that four of them could barely fit in a row. e.g. settings were outside the rational limits of the hardware.

5220

T-Clock / Re: T-Clock 2010 (beta - download)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 18, 2010, 12:30 PM »

I have Win 7 x64 installed, I downloaded the version at the top of the thread, the x64 version , changed Windows to use hideous 144dpi, and T-Clock looks fine to me whether Windows XP scaling is checked or unchecked (was prompted to log off each time). Is there something I should look for?

-daddydave (June 16, 2010, 01:06 PM)

Yes - I get the same untill I reboot.

-sagji (June 18, 2010, 10:58 AM)

Um... When I change the DPI setting it only asks to logoff and then back on to enable the change (which I do). But are you saying that after a reboot the behavior changes again? Or are you just rebooting instead of logging off/on to be sure it takes? IIRC my results don't change either way as I had to reboot the VPC a few times during the tests for other reasons - and - I just can not get the thing to fail.

I did try toggling Use XP DPI scaling in the program's shortcut, but it had no effect. Now as to which one can effectivly override the other goes ... I've not a clue.

-Stoic Joker (June 16, 2010, 12:22 PM)

Strange I don't get that setting - the closes I have is "Disable display scaling on high DPI systems" in the settings section of Compatibility tab, and everything in that section is disabled.

-sagji (June 18, 2010, 10:58 AM)

Crap, you're right - I misquoted the dialog.

On a Side Note: everything on the compatability tab here on my office machine is disabled also.

Damn Strange it are...

5221

General Software Discussion / Re: any free (or cheap) utilities to export outlook pst files to HTML or XML?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 18, 2010, 07:51 AM »

Why not just drag the emails out of outlook into a folder. They will be created there as .msg files, which can then be imported into a different less restrictive copy of outlook and done with as one pleases...

5222

Living Room / Re: The proper word is “dependent,” not addicted.

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 17, 2010, 07:29 PM »

I've seen people with Crack-Berries ... They're weak.

5223

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DAEMON Tools Pro Standard at GAOTD (June 17, 2010)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 17, 2010, 07:22 PM »

Much as I'd feared, thanks.

5224

Living Room / Re: 20 years later, the movie "Total Recall" still kicks butt

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 17, 2010, 07:09 PM »

A person either loves 50's sci-fi and horror movies or they don't. There's no middle ground.

EDIT: This was in reference to some not liking that movie posters & movies of the time didn't always sync up or may not be as fast-paced as modern films.

-Innuendo (June 16, 2010, 10:37 PM)

Ya know... I'm not entirely sold on the modern (faster-est paced) movies are better to be frank. The 50's flicks, while a tad corny, did rely on a suspenseful-ly told story and the viewers imagination to (best) fill in parts that would today just be gushing gore. Because nobody knows what really scares us better than we do (kick in imagination->done).

Moving forward the story telling craft became (much) less important as movies went from thrill-a-minute, to action packed, to violent, to really violent, to ultra violent, to hyper violent to who the hell knows what's next. It's gotten to the point where there is so much going on so fast that one spend half the movie pondering wtf just happened. Why?

In the 50's when a scene was shot "at night", the picture would (more often than not) just have a grayish background (that we all understood to mean it's night time), and the rest of the "action" was easy to perceive including the stick the rubber monster was mounted on. Now we have scenes the cost millions to create, but are so dark that the screen is literally completely pitch black with only a few points on reflected moving light, and nobody could possibly have a clue what happened. Half these "High-Tech" million dollar scenes could easily be recreated with a cheap camera, a rubber monkey, and the minimal light that leaks under a closed closet door for under $10.

So if you're looking for a superspy, rockstar, scientist, brain surgeon, astronaut, racecar driver ... look no further than the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonsi - It is by far the stupidest movie I ever totally loved (I still whistle the rather catchy theme music from time to time).

5225

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DAEMON Tools Pro Standard at GAOTD (June 17, 2010)

« Last post by Stoic Joker on June 17, 2010, 06:26 PM »

One thing I've always found troubling about this type of offer is that you have X time perion to download, install, and activate. So if one was to need to reinstall said application (say...) 6 months from now, they're hosed? Or can/will/does the key work again after the fact?