Recent Posts

526

Living Room / Re: You might want to skip the whole Blu-Ray generation

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 17, 2008, 07:50 PM »

SSD/flash media seems to be the new way to backup small amounts of data (unless you fork out the cash for one of those humongous flash drives). I use an external USB hard drive for most of my stuff, with a complete set of setup files ready on command for those "60 minute" reformats.

527

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Chrome - What Will It Take

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 14, 2008, 10:52 PM »

I uninstalled Chrome the other day and rebooted. Then when I noticed that Google Update was still running, I looked around for it. I found about 6 copies of Google Update in temp files and in a pagefile (or something related to the pagefile) not to mention Program Files and somewhere else.

Google Update also was never in my Add/Remove Programs list, so I had to search and destroy manually.

-Deozaan (September 14, 2008, 10:08 PM)

Strange, I downloaded the first beta, ran it and uninstalled it without a hitch. Odd (un)install process, though.

528

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 14, 2008, 08:02 PM »

@Texaslady: I sent you a PM with some instructions. Let me know how it works out.


Back to programs:
FloorIt 1.0 is going to be released Friday. I am checking for updated utilities now (the ones that FloorIt uses) so that everything is as up to date as possible.

GoOS is going to have some updates here in the next month, possibly a public beta. Not sure at this time though, depends on the time I have to devote on it.

-Brandon

529

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 13, 2008, 01:35 AM »

The browser is holding its own, still no real solution to the RAM issue, so it is an addition to the "list".

Back to SnapSuite: I am finishing off the 2009 version, and it looks mighty professional IMO. I am bug testing a small addition to PlayMe right now, and it looks great. All code is being looked over, all control naming conventions confirmed. From a coding standpoint, I believe it is solid. From a UI standpoint, it could use some work, but it is such an immense fix to SS 2008's *****y UI that I don't see it as a problem - it isn't bad, just somewhat abnormal at first.

At this point, with the exception of SmartBrowse 2.4 (the final version it appears, Mini is taking over as a much better alternative), if I can't fix a problem within a few minutes, I am chucking the feature. The Notes 2.1 typing speed monitor has been the first to get the boot - it worked great, but made a strange conflict (see here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=14669.0).

If you used SnapSuite 2008, and you have NOT used the 2009 alpha versions, this is a huge change - but 100% for the better. The only thing that 2008 has that 2009 lacks is screen capture functionality.

I want to finish this up and get the final alpha (3) out to everyone to make sure it meets approval. GoOS is currently moving slowly (ironic: "Go" moving slowly), but it will be the next major project I do. I have a desktop selection tool in the works that has a nice simple UI just like XP's.

Summary: SnapSuite 2009 looks better, the code is solid, and the few things that don't work are being thrown out.

530

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 12, 2008, 01:40 AM »

I sent out betas to friends for testing on normal usage (as well as abnormal) earlier this evening (my time). No bugs found that were related to MiniBrowse (one IE bug that I can't do anything about, and one weird bug that looks like it came from an older .NET version, but it sure isn't a MB problem...).

So far so good. No progress on the RAM problem yet, but I did read that part of that is overhead from .NET... nonetheless, I plan to do whatever I can to un-bloat MB.

Made some major tab control changes, works much better than before (similar to Firefox, but the first tab is un-closeable, like IE7). I have a LONG list of things I would like to add, but I would say 80% of them will never make it past the TXT file they are in; this is due to lack of knowledge and desire to complete them.

Anyways... stable: yes. Ready: not quite. PM me if your curious about it and want a copy, but it isn't anything to write home about (unless you like minimalistic software, like me). I was going to upload a video of it working, but I couldn't get my video capture software to cooperate with me. I'll try again in a day or so.

531

General Software Discussion / Re: Send some info of your PC!

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 11, 2008, 09:00 PM »

From my profile (updated specs), my primary PC:

eMachines T3612 Desktop PC (it started as this)
Antec Ninehundred Gamer Case
Intel Celeron D 360 @ 3.73GHz w/ 2MB L2 cache (overclocked, air)
2GB Samsung DDR2 4300 RAM @ 287MHz (overclocked, air)
Unknown Intel LGA 775 motherboard - FSB @ 144MHz (overclocked, air)
Seagate 7,200RPM 120 GB hard drive (SATA)
Western Digital 7,200 RPM 40GB "Dump Drive" (IDE master)
Western Digital 7,200 RPM 20GB "Home of Ubuntu" (IDE slave)
ATi Radeon HD2600 Pro 256MB DDR2 PCIe @ 800MHz core (overclocked, air)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Gamer Edition w/ 64MB X-RAM (PCI)
Cyber Acoustics headset (unknown model)
Happauge TV tuner card w/FM tuner (PCI)
HP vp17 17" 5:4 (1280x1024) LCD monitor w/ built in speakers (connected to motherboard sound for Ubuntu)
Sony DVD/CD/Lightscribe RW drive (SATA)
Dynex 23-in-one 3.5" front panel card reader
Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard (blue)
Logitech G9 Wired Gaming mouse (blue LEDs)
Antec Blue LCD rear case fan (150mm)
Antec Blue LCD front case fan (150mm)
Antec Black "Big Boy" top case fan (200mm)
EPSON Stylus CX9400Fax all-in-one printer
Total of 6 USB 2.0 ports (5 work, investigating the 6th)
Unknown make/model, 700W PSU (I found it on sale a year ago for $75 - for 700W! Who cares who makes it??!?! )

OS info:
All this runs on Windows Vista Home Premium w/ SP1 (Build 6001), and over 70% of my Seagate hard drive (C:\) is now games.
Most of this runs on Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04) w/ all updates, and over 50% of the drive used. (Most, because my X-Fi won't work, along with my TV tuner card )

I program about 1/4 of my applications now, ranging from my browser to a startup manager (runs at startup, and lets me pick what I want to run RIGHT THEN for that session). Can't get much more personalized than that!

EDIT: And a friend lent me his Logitech DRIVING FORCE Pro about a month ago... hasn't returned to get it... I guess you could call that "mine" (he told me he never uses it anyways...).

532

Developer's Corner / Re: Best way to sync programming projects?

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 11, 2008, 12:08 AM »

I see this one lately on Slashdot:
"Give a man a fire and he is warm for a day, put him on fire and he is warm his whole life."

 

-Shades (September 11, 2008, 12:06 AM)

For the rest of his life, that is

533

Developer's Corner / Re: Best way to sync programming projects?

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 11, 2008, 12:02 AM »

I copy and paste my projects before I run them anymore (run as in run the VS IDE) so I have "<appname> - Copy (#)" in my Projects folder, then I move those into my 1GB (and counting) backups ZIP file on the server PC as SyncToy 2 does it's thing...

TBH, I just don't get how to setup the advanced stuff - I read and it seems so simple, and then I try to follow it and dialogs are different, options are missing, and I end up fscking it all up. I'm just not ready to jump into it I guess (knowledge wise).

Oh well - webmaster is next year, and we might touch on databases and data management near the end of this semester in Windows Programming (Visual Basic), so I might be able to make my own little app that does it for me, in a way that I understand.

"Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for life." I can't even find the stream!

534

Circle Dock / Re: Help? Circle Dock not launching properly

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 10, 2008, 11:55 PM »

I will try changing the file execution code a bit for Alpha 8 to see if it will help you guys (Using System.Diagnostics.Process.Start instead of ShellExecuteEX). Strange.

-VideoInPicture (September 09, 2008, 10:36 PM)

Wouldn't it be easier to drop the System.Diagnostics part? It does the same thing...

535

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [CODY PORN] - Cody Cellphone theme for SE 128x160

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 10, 2008, 11:33 PM »

omg! this will finally make mouser get a mobile phone.

-lanux128 (September 09, 2008, 07:12 AM)

Mouser doesn't have a mobile phone? 
How can he survive?

-jgpaiva (September 09, 2008, 04:59 PM)

I am the *only* kid in my high school w/o a cell phone. You see other people with them and your like... how can you be on it SO FREAKING MUCH.

And then I turn on my laptop.

536

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / MiniBrowse RAM Overload: Not ready for beta testing yet...

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 10, 2008, 10:19 PM »

MiniBrowse uses a large *UM pops up* amount of RAM: 2 tabs *UM pops up* open after 15 minutes *UM pops up* of browsing, and 50MB is used. *UM pops up*

I would say something doesn't *UM pops up* smell right. Time to code...

(UM is referring to Veign's Usage Monitor, and it popped up that many times (5) while typing this because MiniBrowse is now using 52MB (50 was the alert limit). It helps immensely (I'm forgetful))


I was actually hoping to upload a working EXE with this post, being all happy about this working so well... but I don't think that 50MB for 2 tabs is really appropriate. (Comparison: FF 3.0.1 with several addons, at the main DC Forum page (not logged in), and the Start Page, is only about 39.5MB).

537

General Software Discussion / Re: Forum 2.0 Suggestion

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 10, 2008, 10:09 PM »

Another suggestion, probably easy to implement but a big usability step. Whenever a thread is split into several pages, the page navigation requires accurately clicking these smallish numbers:
 (see attachment in previous post)
It would be easier to have Previous / Next page links to the left (or on either side of) the page numbers. Mostly because it's so much easier to click a word than a one- or two-digit number; also because when following a thread I don't really care which page I'm looking at, my intent is simply to move forward.

Initially at DC I thought these links would do the job:
 (see attachment in previous post)
But they move between threads instead. Are they used often? (I.e., how often do people go to whatever thread is next, without seeing the title first?) In any case, it might be useful to rename them to "Previous thread" and "Next thread", to make their funvtion more obvious.

marek

-tranglos (September 10, 2008, 03:52 PM)

Ditto on every point. A clearer/faster page navigation system would be nice.

538

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 10, 2008, 07:51 PM »

Cool! IMO I am more worried about efficiency and CPU usage, but that will definitely come in handy. Thanks Veign!

(I found another bug, might be the reason for the high RAM usage, it wasn't closing tabs properly. Fixed now.)

Oh, and before I forget, I might end up renaming the browser ("Africa" for some reason sprung to my mind today while brainstorming ), but here is an idea for a splash screen (to go with the theme I have so far):

539

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / MiniBrowse updated info & image

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 09, 2008, 01:27 AM »

Alright, MiniBrowse is making major progress - I am one awesome debugger! (I was seriously going from bug to bug fixing everything I found, 6 in total)

Buglist:

Spoiler

[FIXED]Error occurs when a tab is opened a while second new tab is loading a page. 
[FIXED]When tab is closed with no remaining tabs an error message shown, disable this.
[FIXED]When closing a tab, the first tab in the list is selected.
[FIXED]When the last tab is closed, the first is selected.
[FIXED]When first tab is closed, none are selected.
[FIXED]Home page not accessible if navigation has not taken place (due to webbrowser not being
created).

Tabs are now fully functional, with no (known) bugs! I am going to ask my friend to "do whatever possible to break it" tomorrow at lunch, and I'll see what he makes of it (when you let a teenager (ex: me, but I can't because I made it, and it's better to have someone "outside of the box") go insane with a piece of experimental computer software, you find REALLY wierd bugs ). There are only a couple basic functionality items missing, and it is far from perfect, but it works great, and it doesn't take a whole screen's worth of space*.

(*MiniBrowse is my first program to be NON 800x600 compatible - the address bar had to be long to not look awkward, and therefore MiniBrowse runs, by default, in 900x600. Sorry!)

I attatched an image, not much new, but it shows the new size (I increased it a bit for myself). Control+T and Control+W hotkeys have worked since my first post about MB, just FYI. I plan on making as many standard shortcuts as possible. A Preferences window is also in the works.

(TBH, I am proud that I got this tabs thing down, and now I can apply it to various other things, if needed, later on - it is really cool once you get it working)

-Brandon

EDIT: Take note that the RAM usage there in the image is running with the Visual Studio IDE, and (hopefully!) does not reflect the actual RAM usage. CPU usage is reasonably precise though.

EDIT 2: Example of "REALLY wierd bugs": "I like clicked this button like 5 million times and it like... started freaking out, so I hit the Close button like a ton of times, and then it showed this error." (That actually helped me fix a problem with the tabs on Friday.)

540

Living Room / Re: "Waiver of Liability"... suggestions?

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:54 PM »

Check http://www.myworktools.com for one. They often have just what you're looking for. They're usually a few dollars, but provide you with some excellent templates that you can customize.

-Renegade (September 08, 2008, 10:50 PM)

Will do

541

DC Gamer Club / Re: Steam, and the gift of game...

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:50 PM »

Just the fact that it is something else to be installed, rather than the individual game. Personal opinion is what it comes down to, but I would much rather have the "full game" than rely on something else to hold it. What if Steam had some type of error, and I couldn't play anything? Madness ensues...

It's like lots of little boxes vs one big box. Big box falls over, everything breaks. Little box falls over, the rest are fine.

Just my opinion on how I do things.

542

Living Room / Re: "Waiver of Liability"... suggestions?

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:46 PM »

Dunno, I can always get my dad to sign it off with me, not sure. Might have to go talk to someone who can "officially" craft something up. We have a family attorney that does stuff for us (specifically, for my sister) quite a bit...

And I don't jump into anything I don't think I can handle - I don't have the slightest clue how to fix a car engine, but IMO I can fix almost any computer problem that gets thrown at me with relative ease. Dunno... I'll have to figure something out how I can't fix everything (shotgun bullets through the motherboard, as I read somewhere on the internet a year or so ago, for example).

Thanks for the advice, guys

543

Developer's Corner / Re: Best way to sync programming projects?

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:37 PM »

OOOO, new version. Thanks for the info! *Downloads away*

(FYI, for anyone curious, I found SyncToy (v1) to fit my needs quite well - it only does 2 folders, not 3, but I just sync one PC, then the other, and I'm good to go. It takes a while 10 seconds, and it makes my life WAY easier than before!)

544

Developer's Corner / Re: A plugin based information bar in Windows

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:34 PM »

Any news? I don't want to be a pain, just love testing new stuff
EDIT: I'm too stupid to see the page 2...

545

General Software Discussion / Re: Desktops V1.0 - a virtual desktop manager from Sysinternals

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:32 PM »

Sounded cool at first, but I got discouraged due to others experiences. I am still looking for something like this myself for Windows (currently using Vista/XP Desktop Manager, I think that's the name...). I don't want to boot to Ubuntu just to have my 256 desktops (I normally use 25, but Ubuntu supports up to 256, and I tried it out of curiosity - interesting, but you can't see anything on an individual desktop ).

-wreckedcarzz (August 26, 2008, 07:39 PM)

How do you set your virtual desktops to not eat the panel?

-Paul Keith (September 03, 2008, 06:10 AM)

"Eat the panel"? The desktop manager stays the same size, just looks like a ton of pixels. I use Compiz to navigate through it. Good fun when you have a teacher looking over your shoulder wondering where that Firefox window of YouTube went...

546

DC Gamer Club / Re: [FIXED TOPIC] TrackMania Nations Forever - Free, fun, and totally awesome!

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 10:20 PM »

The MediaTracker is the replay tool used to make those cool videos before races, effects during races, and videos after races. It is more commonly used in the paid versions of Trackmania, but still very cool.

547

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: SnapSuite program family/Free online computer help

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 08, 2008, 02:17 AM »

Thanks tom

548

DC Gamer Club / Re: Steam, and the gift of game...

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 06, 2008, 01:43 AM »

<rant & complaining>

I just don't like the fact that I need yet another program to do yet another task. I go through my list of programs every couple days looking for anything I can get rid of. It sounds weird, but when your strapped for hard drive space (C:\ has 12.2GB free as of right now) and you have to go to extremes to get to where your at now (free space wise), you really don't want something else that will have to have it's download caches cleaned and the friend's list files and whatnot.

I have Xfire; Xfire launches the games I have, and lets me chat while I pwn (or be pwned, but the latter is much less in comparison to the former). To me, all I want is a friends list and a game launcher and Xfire handles that exactly as I want. Personal preference, but it just works with me.

And then you have those STEAM-ONLY games... whats up with that? I can't get a copy for my offline computers? What if you don't have internet or something, but you want this game, but only STEAM has it (no stores). It is like a monopoly on games. I had to *get* a copy of a game from a non-steam *source* just the other day for this reason- my laptop is offline 1/2 the time (school, on the go, etc).

The TB drive is here. I own a 111GB drive. 70GB is games already, Vista takes ~15GB equaling about 85GB. Add on Visual Studio, a slew of Adobe apps, all my hardware drivers, my 6 GB of family photos, all the usual programs, and you run short way before you think you will. I have to turn off System Restore, Hibernation, and even my SWAP FILE in order to keep enough space (I have hit below a GB free on C: before). It's like cramming 5 20 pound computers into 1 50 pound capacity box. You do the math.

</rant & complaining>

549

Developer's Corner / Re: Help! Visual Basic is stealing my objects and giving me errors!

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 06, 2008, 01:23 AM »

It is all in the same .vb file

I didn't copy ANY code from the designer.vb files - I never tinker with them, don't care what is in them, let Visual Studio handle that.

I did LOOK in the designer.vb file and I believe it does have that entry, but I did not put it there...

I'm confused as to how it seemingly randomly happens too...

550

Living Room / Re: "Waiver of Liability"... suggestions?

« Last post by wreckedcarzz on September 06, 2008, 01:16 AM »

I would think it would sound better as:

1) While all due care is taken to ensure the integrity of your data, etc, etc.

Signed & authorized by:____________________ on ___/___/20__

You're limiting yourself to services performed in this millenia, think the bigger picture.....maybe they'll come up with a cure for death 

-4wd (September 06, 2008, 12:23 AM)

Might make it more basic, not sure. I don't think I'll live to see 2100, but that would only make me 108...

You could also have the layman's version:

Whilst all due care is taken on work performed, sh*t happens!

-4wd (September 06, 2008, 12:23 AM)

  So true