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5376

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 30, 2010, 01:31 PM »

Hm... So you would consider a car to be working - Even if it did not have an engine - Just because you could toss one in it?

This car would viably be considered "working" by whom exactly?

-Stoic Joker (April 30, 2010, 01:06 PM)

Not an equitable comparison.

-wraith808 (April 30, 2010, 01:09 PM)

Sure it is, we're talking about an item which is the sum of it's parts ... All it's parts ... Not just most of them, or the obvious ones that are easy to see.

We're talking software and hardware... and an engine is definitely hardware.

Parts is parts - Sure you can "run" a computer without an operating system...but you can't do shit with it. I'll simplify - Take one of the latest greatest hottest computers on the market today, flatten the OS so the drive is bare, hop in a time machine and go back to 1975 ... and see what its worth there. (the term plug nickel comes to mind...)

It's more like does a car run without the software installed.  It might not run correctly and be usable, but for sure it does run.

...You mean like the software in the ECU - No it don't, there's nothing there to translate for the myriad of sensors.

And by those definitions is *still* not appreciably devalued for the lack as it can be replaced easily enough.

Once again, by whom?

5377

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 30, 2010, 01:06 PM »

Hm... So you would consider a car to be working - Even if it did not have an engine - Just because you could toss one in it?

This car would viably be considered "working" by whom exactly?

5378

N.A.N.Y. 2010 / Re: NANY 2010 Release: Page Countster

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 30, 2010, 12:17 PM »

Oh Crap!

Thanks for the heads up - Domain should be back online shortly.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 30, 2010, 07:59 AM »

OTOH, after (presumably) some digging around it was thought taking to Gizmodo. They paid $5000. $5000 is more than $100. Except they were really paying for their expectation of a big scoop and not the phone itself since they expected to return that to owner after checking what it actually was and publishing.

-Dormouse (April 30, 2010, 07:45 AM)

Hence having better in-roads/contacts with "the owner", they simply (as proxy) paid a "finders fee" to the fellow to show their appreciation ... while assisting in return it to the "rightful" (and a few lefts for good measure) owner.

So...:
 1. Apple (is) stays evil
 2. Nobody goes to jail
 3. The Fuzz looks a bit foolish

...Everybodys happy - I like it!

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Living Room / Re: People are really (really, really) stupid

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 28, 2010, 05:05 PM »

And the beat goes on:
http://www.betanews....y-piggies/1272486094
Some very interesting statistics in that Betanews article.

-JavaJones (April 28, 2010, 04:25 PM)

The human race is doomed.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 28, 2010, 11:36 AM »

Whether he tried to return it or not is really academic - Outside of the 1872 blue-law they dredged up - Which ws predicated on there being less then 50 in the whole town...

[Reality Check]
History/Discovery/TLC (one of them) had a special about the volume of stuff lost/left on airplanes. One on the Items they sited was the iPhone ... There are 17,000 of them lost per day at various airports. Most of them go unclaimed, and are sold off (at Airline outlet stores) with the rest of the items that are left in Lost-&-Found for over a period of time.

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Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 28, 2010, 06:33 AM »

ROFLMAO - You obviously hate Apple much better than I do

It was AFTER Gizmodo returned the phone that the police ransacked Jason's house.

-Renegade (April 28, 2010, 06:04 AM)

Very interesting - I did not know that part.

Apple is despicable. They are a petty, vindictive, sinister, secretive, closed, greedy, back-stabbing, disgraceful and evil company.

...I just though this needed repeating (hehe).

5383

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 28, 2010, 05:37 AM »

Every Law Enforcement Agency on the planet for starters.

Cash is a great incentive for getting people to part with thing, be they "stolen" property (a.k.a. evedence...) or information. And despite its infinitely more portable nature ... Information is indeed a big issue, especially when it goes "missing".

Remember, the phone itself was nothing more that $10 worth of crap anyone could buy at Radio Shack - The information contained in form they were assembled into is where the real value was held.

5384

Living Room / Re: Apple instigates Police Raid over lost/stolen iPhone 4G

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 27, 2010, 05:35 PM »

It's way to (pathetically) easy to saddle up the moral high ground and vilify the engineer for having the phone at a bar, when the only really relevant point is (shit happens) the phone got lost. How (badly) who handled it afterward...on the other hand...Seems to be where the story goes sideways.

Stevie has spent way to much time playing the grand illustrious god of Apple World to really pay attention (or care) how the rest of the world normally works. 50 years ago, when the auto industry was king (of the tech pile) the same game was being played.

Fans craving more new info about what was to be next.
Tech mags jockied and fought for any glimmer under loose tarps.
Companies fought to keep their secrets...albeit only so hard.

 ...because they understood to keep the fans frothing, you have to give them something, every now and then.

Nobody got arrested - for crying out loud.

Today still the auto makers run new prototype cars in the same desert, and the same crowd of journalists are still pulling the same stunts (peaking under tarps & checking for unlocked trailer doors) trying to get a "Hot Story" pick of what might be.

And that's just the way the game is played for the rest of the known universe out here in the real world...

...But Apple is "Special" - Not in my book (unless you want to toss in the short bus...).

Apple had a screw up (IT HAPPENS) They should have just quickly & quietly spun it off into silence - but no! It just had to be viewed as an affront to his lordship ruler of all and be dealt with as an example maker to strike fear into anyone insolent enough to question the power and glory of the one true god Steve Jobs.

All I can say is they should have a really hard time getting press coverage for a damn thing from here out.

5385

Site/Forum Features / Re: Discussion: How can we Improve DonationCoder?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 23, 2010, 03:35 PM »

@IainB: At last, the solution. I'm all four that!

-cranioscopical (April 23, 2010, 01:42 PM)

I'm a bit baffeled by the tatical 180 between this and Iainb's first post ... But, Yeah lets get this last Idea pushed through as quick as possible. Gia would be a good place to start.

5386

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 19, 2010, 10:40 AM »

One of the reasons that bit.ly is in such widespread use is

-wraith808 (April 19, 2010, 10:13 AM)

People are lazy, and deluded into thinking security is the other guys problem. Regardless of how chronically incredibly dangerous this practice is ~OMG~ it's Fun! - Because the whole point of the internet is FaceBook, marketing & vanity...

Yes, I'm a bit cranky today. 

5387

Living Room / Re: Bit.ly is Harmful to Your Reputation

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 19, 2010, 10:06 AM »

Problem seems to me to be mostly with the automation - because they're not automatically checking to see if the link is long enough to need shortening. (i.e. running www.wdc.com through bit.ly helps who?)

if(strlen(link) < Screen_Width_of_Typical_Cell_Phone) {
  Skip_it;
}

5388

Site/Forum Features / Re: NANY 2011 :: A New Concept -- Have your say!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 18, 2010, 10:27 AM »

Well I was trying to respond to 40hz ... but I don't type fast enough.

Along those lines (but just to the side), I also thing that the documentation requirement would (most likely) spin the whole thing off into the weeds. Let me just toss a few thing out in that direction:

1. A fully "packaged" application is (headed to being) more about marketing than coding. If you have something with that much work into it ... You'll be needing to rationalize not selling it (so the kids can eat), before deciding to giving it away.

2. A truly exceptional application is one that fills it's intended purpose in a complete, elegant, and user friendly way - Not the one that comes in a fancy box (e.g. turd polish).

On a side note: I'm currently looking into doing the documentation for TC2010; which is a program I've been using for over 10 years - and am currently writing (you just can't get any more familiar with a program than that) - But if anything sinks the project, it will be that.

NANY (near as I can tell) Is a programming contest. Which says to me, that it's all about the code. I've long maintained the if something is truly done (written/designed) well...It doesn't need to be explained.

One of my favorite programs is SoftGears wWhoIS, it's a CLI program, with no documentation (that I've seen) ... and it doesn't need any either - it's usage is self explanatory - and I'd be lost without it.

One of DC's primary features is the Coding Snacks section. Where any Joe-off-the-street can gain access to a real live programmer, and ask if idea X is viable. Sometimes it's a clever enough niche to be made real, and sometimes it's and opportunity to educate the requester about an existing feature or application. Neither is bad.

NANY seems to work off the same vein, except it is driven by something kicking around in the head of the entrant. Holidays offer lots of downtime that isn't necessarily always filled with bustling, frolicking & family activities. If an idea can be slapped together in a presentable fashion, that will convey it intended purpose well ... It then has the potential to develop into (or inspire) something wonderful at a later date. Just because some entrants are better (more skilled) or faster than others (I'm slow as hell) doesn't mean their ideas will always pan out. The people that never fail, are frequently the ones that never really try either (failing is a good thing).

One of the things that took me (being more of a nuts-&-bolts guy) a while to grasp is that DC has a bit of an academic slant - e.g. The point of a discussion is to discuss the point, drawing a conclusion is optional. That's part of it's charm, and something that should not change.

5389

Living Room / Re: Apple Attacks Adobe

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 18, 2010, 09:25 AM »

i don't know.. that open letter is not so much about apple opening up its products/APIs/etc., it seems more about people wanting press access.

-mouser (April 18, 2010, 08:40 AM)

I think it's being presented as an Iceberg tip.

5390

General Software Discussion / Re: Oops, I won a Adobe Flash Builder by mistake!

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 16, 2010, 11:39 AM »

Adobe Acrobat has an Unregister option that is designed to allow moving license X to Machine Y. Acrobat puts the option in either the help or tools menu iirc.

5391

Living Room / Re: stackoverflow-like site for DC. Would it work? Now free

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 16, 2010, 11:31 AM »

I think the model works fantastically for what they use it for, for focused question+answers by experts.  But we are much more conversational here, so i'm not sure it would be a good match.. and i don't know how you could combine them.

-mouser (April 15, 2010, 03:10 PM)

I think the "combine them" is the holy grail part...

It's been widely discussed here that having one medium (forum) is not necessarily the best fit for all the different things that DC do. Some of the question and answer posts would definitely fit better where a subsequent viewer can jump to the best answer... or read them all if they want.

What's the best xxx get out of date so quickly sometimes.

But if it's not possible to combine, then maybe it's best to live with the restrictions to maintain our conversational tone?

-Perry Mowbray (April 15, 2010, 06:35 PM)

Why not do something like Experts-Exchange.com? Question is asked->discussion ensues->answer is found - and then marked (boldly) as Accepted Answer. That post also gets a different title bar color so it's easy to scroll to if you just need a quick answer.

That's not a bad mix of the two.

5392

Living Room / Re: Yea, I won't be getting an iPad anytime soon

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 15, 2010, 05:46 PM »

iPad's printing functionality:



SCNR

-Tuxman (April 15, 2010, 02:37 PM)

Okay, That's funny.     

5393

General Software Discussion / Re: Vpn folders, file operations and speed

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 15, 2010, 05:26 AM »

Normally I hook up to Windows systems. And to manage those I use the MS RDP protocol, it is faster and more stable than whatever edition from VNC offers. Whatever I have to do locally on those machines is done with their standard explorer...again speed and stability.

-Shades (April 14, 2010, 07:36 PM)

I'll 2nd that.

I hadn't thought of FTP for file transfers, but (I like it) it makes sense - Explorer over VPN is crap (too much overhead).

5394

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 14, 2010, 05:40 AM »

Edit:[/b] I forgot to ask -- I found this Global Atom Viewer but it appears to be a Japanese application.  It seems to be handy when doing RegisterHotKey-related things.  Do you know of anything similar in English?

-ewemoa (April 14, 2010, 12:40 AM)

Don't believe I've ever seen anything like that one. But an English version might make a good Coding Snack.


On the Windows key links, I don't believe I've been to that page specifically, but the gist of what I skimmed looks to be inline with everything else I'd been reading at the time. I'll have to try and give it a complete read later to see what kind of how to create a UI that doesn't suck tips I can glean.

5395

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 13, 2010, 09:40 PM »

Tangential note...

The Windows keys do not work reliably because they're a reserved System Key.

-Stoic Joker (April 07, 2010, 05:40 PM)

I was just reading about RegisterHotKey:

-ewemoa (April 13, 2010, 08:55 PM)

Yepper... That was the page that got me to thinking...

The F12 key is reserved for use by the debugger at all times, so it should not be registered as a hot key. Even when you are not debugging an application, F12 is reserved in case a kernel-mode debugger or a just-in-time debugger is resident.

I noticed that the latest T-Clock 2010 doesn't allow F12 to be registered

BTW, do you know of a good list of reserved keys?  What I've found so far is:

  http://www.aquariuss...indows-shortcuts.asp

(Pardon the side track - But I just remembered something - There is a program Listed here on the board called ActiveHotKeys that was a total Life Saver when I was working on the configurable hotkeys part. It was the only reason I found out that I was registering the keys properly, but with the wrong information (which is why nothing had worked in testing (for 2 days)). So... I just wanted to throw in a quick pitch for it.

Anyhow, I never did find a truly complete list of (default) Windows HotKeys (but I love collecting them), which is why I started putting together a database of them - which I then never had time to finish. It's a bit plain (ok it's ugly) but works:

Stoic Joker's HotKey db


Oh, and if you have any suggestions on/for the Time Sync "feature" (mess) I'm still futzing with it.

5396

Find And Run Robot / Re: Shortcut to launch with admin privileges?

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 13, 2010, 07:45 PM »

Well... While I was beating the web bushes for a bit more elegant solution to the SetSystemTime debacle (hehe) I ran across this tutorial series that looks to be right about what you're after (Replete with Code Samples):

Asking the User for Credentials

5397

Living Room / Re: two-monitors ergonomics

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 12, 2010, 05:45 AM »

I've got 2 monitors that sit side by side both angled slightly inward. I sit directly facing the the center point where they meet, with the taskbar on the left so the notification area is always in my field of view. Only time I have to move my head is to glance down at the keyboard - because I still can't type... *shrug*

I do however generally take my glasses off while computing, because the progressive lenses have a "viewing Channel" that requires you to move your head to avoid bluring/distortion. I may eventually need to get a pair of regular (non-progressive or bifocal) glasses for the comp but for now my mid range vision still works fine with the 1280 x 1024 resolution on the 2 17" 4:3 monitors I have.

5398

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 11, 2010, 02:43 PM »

ROFL ... Now you know where I was at when the question first arose ... By default Windows XP, Vista, & 7 all auto sync with time.windows.com every 7 days - which was (a large) part of the justification for dropping the feature to begin with.

But I too have a thing about time ... So I continued to entertain the possibilitys... And Kazubon wrote the time sync code back in 95. Hence with a (slightly major) revamp of the socket handling code it wasn't really difficult to put back in - Where & how were the tricky parts. That and If I make it available to anyone, it has to be available for everyone, including the folks who are running (my all time favorite OS) Windows 2000. So... (hehe) ...Here we are.

The feature isn't at all finished, as I still have to add an auto-prompt for preferred NTP server if none is configured, and I'm just hoping to glean some input on what else (if anything) to add to it, to make it as user friendly as possible - without compromising security.

5399

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

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 11, 2010, 01:58 PM »

LOL ... You weren't the first (or the only one) to inquire about it.

The sticking point is that setting the time in Windows (Vista/7/etc.) requires administrative rights and/or a UAC prompt acceptance (All roads lead to the SetSystemTime(&NewTime) function). So regardless of what I do with the code, I either have to require the program be run with administrative rights, or saddle the user with UAC prompts ... Which will result in the program being run with administrative rights. That, of course would violate one of the core design requirements that I set forth back in 06 (come to think of it, it was more like 03 when I started the project).

Fortunately, I like a challenge. So I cooked up this little scheme which allows the time to be quickly sync'ed from an administrative command prompt - which I'm guessing most of us tend to frequently run and/or keep handy. It's kind of a Power User Easter Egg if you will...

The primary question, at this point, is whether or not this scheme fits your definition of an acceptably convenient solution to (time Sync) problem X?? ...If it does, I'll continue flushing it out with a UI for server & logging configuration etc..

5400

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: logout when monitor turns on

« Last post by Stoic Joker on April 11, 2010, 10:56 AM »

(Forcing a logoff) Sounds like a great way to lose data - Why not just use Win + L to lock the session when leaving the computer?