Recent Posts

551

Find And Run Robot / Re: Happy B-Day FARR

« Last post by Nod5 on March 19, 2012, 05:23 PM »

Cheers for FARR! 

552

Find And Run Robot / dolaunch, dosearch and search folder combination alias trouble

« Last post by Nod5 on December 16, 2011, 01:33 PM »

Minor issue. I often use FARR to pass searches to Everything through an alias like this:

^(.*)\s\s$
Everything Search: $$1 | dolaunch C:\Program Files\Everything\Everything.exe -search "$$1"

That most often works great. But sometimes I start a FARR search using another alias with a search folders parameter, like so:

^(?:te|tes|test) (.*)
test $$1 | dosearch +test_modifier $$1

When I first type "test NNNNN" the second alias runs. If I then double tab space ("test NNNNN  ") the first alias runs. But FARR doesn't pass "test NNNNN" to Everything. It passes "+test_modifier NNNNN". Can I tweak the aliases to in such a case pass the exact phrase in the inputbox?

553

General Software Discussion / Re: Win7 -- to x64 or not to x64, that is the question

« Last post by Nod5 on December 16, 2011, 02:21 AM »

A HP laserjet 1000, connected to a single computer. I've searched but found no Win7 x64 driver only workarounds using a 2nd networked computer. Anyway, no-thrills laser printers are very inexpensive nowadays so I'll get a new one when the toner runs dry.

554

General Software Discussion / Re: Win7 -- to x64 or not to x64, that is the question

« Last post by Nod5 on December 15, 2011, 02:28 PM »

Thanks all, I ran the suggested windows upgrade adviser tool and things are looking much better than expected. Most detected devices are reported compatible one way or the other. A laser printer is the biggest problem device so far. But the toner is running low so I might just get a new one. My transition fears are dwindling thanks to the feedback and  "never look back, never look back" chants here.

555

Find And Run Robot / Re: suggestion/Wish minimal gui

« Last post by Nod5 on December 15, 2011, 12:58 PM »

For further minimalism check out the slenderFARR skin and this autohotkey script: https://www.donation....msg172845#msg172845

556

General Software Discussion / Re: Win7 -- to x64 or not to x64, that is the question

« Last post by Nod5 on December 14, 2011, 06:21 PM »

rgdot: Good point. Though I don't notice much slowdowns at present on XP when using multiple programs. Hard to say though when I have so little Win7 experience.

cranioscopical: Thanks. I'm only wavering on x64 vs x86 versions of Win7. Shift to Win7 I will either way. Getting a SSD is part of the explanation here. I've read some who advice against moving/mirroring an existing XP install from a regular HDD to a SSD (the claimed problems were related to TRIM ). So if I need to do a clear install, and also will upgrade some hardware, I might as well make the move now.

f0dder:   Concise advice!

hpearce: The internal PC components (the ones I'm not replacing) will be ok I think. But some peripheral hardware devices will be trickier.

edit: my plan was to get an OEM copy of Win7 which are either 32bit or 64bit. But when reading up I now see that the retail versions don't only allow reinstalling/moving the license between computers. They also allow switching from 32bit to 64bit (and back if you want) and both versions are on the DVD. http://superuser.com...ows-7-32bit-to-64bit
So, I might get that, test 64bit and still have a fallback if too much hardware won't work.

557

General Software Discussion / Win7 -- to x64 or not to x64, that is the question

« Last post by Nod5 on December 14, 2011, 03:07 PM »

I will finally move from XP to Windows 7. But I have some pretty old hardware devices e.g. external soundcard, tv card, remote control hardware and other stuff. I've read that finding Win7 x64 (64bit) drivers for old hardware may be tricky or in some cases impossible.

So why should I go for x64 Win7 and not just stick to Win7 32bit?  

I feel that x64 is a better choice, clinging to x86 feels kind of backwards. But I'd like some solid arguments to back that up.

The big practical advantage I've read about is that x64 permits more than 4GB of RAM. But three things seem to diminish that advantage.
1. On Win XP 32bit the RAM above 3.25 GB can be utilized as a ramdisk. That likely works on Win7 32bit too (right?). So extra RAM can be used as diskspace and isn't just wasted.
2. I don't use any applications with extreme RAM-needs. At least I don't think so. What applications would benefit noticeably from 4+ GB of RAM?
3. With less system RAM the OS might use the pagefile more often. Pagefile access on a regular HDD can slow things down. But I'll use a SSD for the new install. That makes pagefile access a non-issue (or?).

Feedback on 1-3 is very welcome. I'd also like to hear other good reasons for choosing 64bit that I've likely omitted.

558

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« Last post by Nod5 on December 07, 2011, 11:51 AM »

YvonZh: Have you tried the Everything plugin for FARR? See here:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=18724.0

I myself very often use this alias to quickly pass a search from FARR to Everything
https://www.donation....msg213412#msg213412

You might also like: AHK script for replacing the current folder search in Explorer (CTRL+F) with Everything
https://www.donation....msg150661#msg150661

559

Find And Run Robot / Re: Display FARR Near Pointer

« Last post by Nod5 on December 07, 2011, 11:28 AM »

nice  

Tip: Autohotkey's variable A_ProgramFiles makes the default script compatible with different localized paths for the program files folder.

[Select]

FarrFullPath = %A_ProgramFiles%\FindAndRunRobot\FindAndRunRobot.exe

edit: I made a mistake in the code above (had both qoutes and %'s), fixed now.

560

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extension "Download Statusbar" Now Adware - Maybe Malware

« Last post by Nod5 on October 31, 2011, 01:21 PM »

I'm very late to this thread. I've used Download Statusbar for years and haven't noticed anything unusual lately. No update information about it going adware, no nothing. I have version 0.9.10 right now. I also have a stylish script that makes downloadstatusbar more minimal. See screenshot. Maybe that blocks the problem? (Seems unlikely though.) I can't find any information about adware/sponsorship stuff in  "about" or "options" for the add-on. Maybe the bad version was removed and the original coder gained control back?

561

General Software Discussion / Re: cloud processing for end users - when? already?

« Last post by Nod5 on October 13, 2011, 02:23 AM »

40hz: I hadn't read about the Mirror Worlds book before. Putting it on my to read list.

Renegade: The number of consumers might be small. But it is not as if a completely new service is needed. Services that already caters to business could aim for end users too with some modification. The one I found above, zencoder.com , actually seems open to individual customers even though they're clearly geared towards companies (see the list of customer cases on their site). They have have a pay-as-you-go option: $0.05 per minute of output video which would mean $3 for a one hour video. AFAICT all needed is to set up a FTP on the home computer for input/output and use Curl or something similar to create an encoding job. They even have a free test account (you get a few seconds of video back only) so I'll test it out when I have more time. The AWS alternative is also open to individuals I think.

562

General Software Discussion / Re: cloud processing for end users - when? already?

« Last post by Nod5 on October 10, 2011, 04:51 PM »

I'm not so sure about those legal worries given that we live in a world where ISPs, commercial proxies, AWS and P2P projects like TOR and a lot of file sharing software persists despite the fact that some of their users do unlawful things through those services. I'm not sure why a "processing service provider" in the cloud should be on shakier ground than an ISP is.

Anyway, let's put legalities aside. I was more intrigued by the basic tech idea and why we don't have it built into applications and operating systems already (it would make sense in Linux desktop OSes I'd think, sharing CPU cycles with the community).

To focus on a perhaps better example imagine a thousand people all with highspeed bandwidth. Each of them now and then dabble in CPU intensive 3D rendering. When they do rendering their CPU is maxed out but it still takes many hours. Then their CPU and bandwidth idles a lot until weeks later when they need the CPU for rendering again. Here it would make sense for them to band together in a P2P processing system. Each user donates spare CPU cycles and in return can use a lot of CPU power for short bursts of time.

563

General Software Discussion / Re: cloud processing for end users - when? already?

« Last post by Nod5 on October 10, 2011, 02:49 PM »

Ok, now for the third post I actually did some googling. I found these:

http://aws.amazon.co...8&jiveRedirect=1  
"Mitch Garnaat boosts his massively scalable Monster Muck video conversion service" using Amazon AWS to transcode video already in 2008.

http://ask.metafilte...-video-Lots-of-video
which mentions among other things this service
http://zencoder.com/

All of the above look to be aimed at corporations rather than end users.

564

General Software Discussion / Re: cloud processing for end users - when? already?

« Last post by Nod5 on October 10, 2011, 02:18 PM »

That's what computing originally was. Then we got personal computers.

-Deozaan (October 09, 2011, 08:26 PM)

I like that way of mainframing things!  

Renegade: Video transcoding was only one example. I can see many other uses: image manipulation, 3D rendering tasks, complex OCR tasks for a lot of documents, and so on. Basically, any task where
 (upload time + download time + cloud processing time) < local processing time

Bandwidth might be an issue but shouldn't be exaggerated, even for the case of video transcoding. A fairly large number of people have had 100Mbit connections at home for some time. Very far from all of course. But many enough for this kind of service to take off I'd think.

Cloud transcoding might pose some legal (copyright) problems. But I'm not too sure about that. Couldn't a generic cloud processing service claim to be a mere infrastructure? Recording digital TV broadcast with a TV card is legal where I live and so is transcoding those recordings on my PC for personal use. And a system could perhaps be built so that the local computer only uploads obfuscated calculation tasks to the cloud. Then the cloud processing service can sincerely say that they can't know or control what the processing is for.

Anyway, if legal risk explain why no company tries it then a P2P version of the same idea could still be possible.

We already have P2P file sharing and P2P proxies (TOR). I've also seen attempts at P2P cloud storage (though I can't mention a specific example). So why not P2P processing?

We actually already have a large P2P processing system at work in folding@home . But there users only donate their CPU cycles for science.

We also already have many examples of limited cloud processing for end users already. Webapps that let us upload a file for malware check, sites that convert pdfs to other formats, and so on. But those are limited in doing only very specific tasks that the user can't modify much.

565

General Software Discussion / cloud processing for end users - when? already?

« Last post by Nod5 on October 09, 2011, 02:30 PM »

Background: Most of the time I have low CPU needs. But sometimes I need more CPU power. For example when I record TV programs with my DVB-T card converting the recorded .mpeg to a smaller .mkv with handbrake takes a lot of time (several hours). I could buy better hardware. I bet many others are in a similar situation: they normally have low CPU needs but occasionally need more. We could all buy better hardware. But I also bet that many of us often have a lot of spare bandwidth.

Idea: here cloud processing would make a lot of sense! Programs like Handbrake could have an option to upload segments of the input file to a cloud of powerful CPUs who process it quickly and send data back. That could make economic sense. Instead of each of us buying an expensive new CPU that is seldom fully used we'd pay a small metered amount for cloud processing only when we need it. That would also save time as the user can rent a lot of CPU power for short periods of time.

All this leads me to some questions:
1. don't you all want this too?  
2. are there already any programs for end users that have cloud processing like sketched above built in?
3. are there already any fairly easy and fairly inexpensive manual ways for users to temporarily set up something like cloud processing? For example, to at a low cost rent a box with ubuntu and popular CPU intensive programs like Handbrake installed and with a lot of CPU power? I'd use VPN to upload a file, quickly process it on the cloud box, then download the output and then terminate the cloud box.
4. if there's nothing like that for end users today are there any such projects on the horizon? I think some generic cloud processing service would be most useful. A standardized module of some sort that different applications could implement. The user would then only need one single cloud processing account and would only need to log in to it and allow the specific application to use up some of the "cloud processing credits" the user has previously payed for.

566

General Software Discussion / Re: Fairware: an interesting experiment in getting paid for Open Source

« Last post by Nod5 on September 11, 2011, 10:31 AM »

Very interesting discussion this!  

Regarding donations and laziness, are there any cases of software that accept donations via SMS payments? That is very quick and could bring donations from user groups that don't have access to credit cards. A big problem would be how to collect donations internationally. I've only seen national SMS donation services that you can sign up for (they take a cut out of the donations). Does anyone know if there is such a service that is global?

The contribution level is not great yet, and maybe it never will because I suspect that not that many people need to do what PdfMasher does.

-hsoft (September 11, 2011, 06:24 AM)

I think PdfMasher could find a very large userbase in the academic world. Reading of journal article pdf's on screen is very, very common. PdfMasher is the first application to offer a somewhat feasible way to convert articles for reading on Kindle, Nook and other small screen readers and tablets. For example, Calibre's built in coversion tools are not at all useful in comparison. PdfMasher still takes more manual and more complex steps than most academic users are able/willing to go through I suspect. But if it would have some smart automatic detections of headers and footnotes then I suspect a lot of users would come rushing. Anyway, I don't want to off-topic this thread into very PdfMasher specific topics so I'll stop here.

567

Find And Run Robot / Re: Some shortcut keys don't work anymore.

« Last post by Nod5 on July 01, 2011, 03:55 PM »

Consider adding this old request to the list:
Ctrl+Enter - launch selected (or first result if inputbox has focus) and stay open.
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=11791.0

568

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« Last post by Nod5 on June 22, 2011, 06:47 PM »

I see the integration point. The setup I have is not so new user friendly. It is more a use I've gradually morphed into while under the influence of the power of FARR  

Maybe a relevant question here then is: to what degree can such integration be combined with the type of separability that I try to describe as an advantage. Could FARR add ways to easily toggle between two such very distinct modes of search, and still make the experience more integrated than popping up an external window?

569

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR and Indexing Option - Feedback Requested

« Last post by Nod5 on June 22, 2011, 06:21 PM »

Hi mouser and all. Some thoughts from my usage pattern's point of view. Background: I don't use FARR and Everything wholly separately and I don't use the Everything plugin for searches inside FARR. I use FARR to launch Everything windows with the search phrase intact via an alias pattern at the end of the string in FARR: Typing "ball  " (two end spaces) pops up the Everything window with a search for "ball". Setup details for that:

regular expression pattern box:
^(.*)\s\s$
Results box:
Everything Search: $$1 | dolaunch C:\Program files\Everything\Everything.exe -search "$$1"

(There's some discussion in this old thread: https://www.donation....msg213412#msg213412 )

What I like about that combination: one hotkey and one inputbox to start all searches, you can modify your goal during the process and you can make use of the different advantages of the FARR window (minimalism, large font) and the Everything window (columns, lines, complex multi file handling, like copy, execute, move and delete), depending on what choice you ended up in. I find that use more intuitive, faster and less distractive.

To explain that more I need to describe how I use FARR in three basic ways:

1. launching applications and very frequently launched files. For this use I know exactly what item I'm aiming for and I know that FARR will handle it instantly. I have a set of aliases with the "dolaunch" option for even higher speed. For example typing "ff" instantly launches Firefox. The same goes for FARR plugins and aliases that do more complex things, like using google for currency translations.

2. searching for some not so commonly used file. Such files tend to be in larger folders with a lot of images or music files in my case. FARR can then take a relatively long time searching, so I type any fragments of the filename that immediately pop into my mind and then (if the file hasn't unexpectedly shown up already) doubletab space to instantly show the search results in Everything. For example "submarine mp3  " search Everything for the Beatles track "Yellow Submarine"

3. Searches that lie somewhere between the two, where I'm not in advance clear on which of the two tools will be the quickest and where the exact search goal might get more clear while I type. When testing the alternative with two hotkeys (one for FARR, one for Everything) I sometimes found my self launching Everything and immediately realized that the search really was better suited for FARR. And vice versa. Closing one and opening the other is easy and quick but there is still something subtly disruptive about it. There's a sense that a mistake was made at a step in the process. In contrast, with my preferred use I know that I can't go wrong by popping up FARR. So there's never any hesitation or sense of mistake. The very brief time it takes to enter a phrase in the FARR inputbox is often enough for my search goal to become more focused. By the end of the string I often know if Everything will be faster and, if so, doubletap space. If in doubt then I let FARR run the search for a second more. If no match then I pass it to Everything.

Example: I want to play "yellow submarine" on guitar and first load FARR with the intention to find a txt file with guitar chords for that song. I know that I keep those files in a folder with few other files and early in the FARR search cycle so it will be displayed instantly. I start typing "submar chords". But while typing the next thought strikes: I want to simultaneously view a tutorial video with a guitarist playing the song that I have. That file is in a folder with a lot more files and will be found much quicker by Everything. So I doubletap space for an Everything search on "submar chords" which then includes both "yellow submarine chords.txt" and "yellow submarine chords youtube.mp4" in its results. The nice thing is that all my typing has been made use of. So it doesn't feel like a mistake plus a new attempt. It has the feeling of one smooth flow of actions.

I've set the FARR gui to be minimal. So searches where I'm beforehand unsure if FARR will instantly find the target but where FARR does find it are also minimally obtrusive: I get a small number of results, often with the one I want at top, in a large font in a minimal, semitransparent window. In contrast, bringing up the Everything window will lines, columns menus and buttons is more visually obtrusive. I also have FARR in a fixed position so the eyes "know" where to look even before the window pops up. In contrast, I resize and move around (maximize, restore) Everything windows a lot so have no sense of where they will show up.

I prefer this combo use to using the Everything plugin for searches within FARR because I pretty often need Everything to further filter many results by clicking to change column sort etc. in ways I find the FARR window too limited to work with (I admit I haven't tested FARR's capabilities on that front in a while, since I try to its interface minimal i.e. no columns). I also sometimes have use for an Everything window open side by side with a FARR search (e.g. dragging files from FARR to copy to some folders listed by Everything.

So to end a long post: I'm not sure if and how indexing built into FARR would be of help to me and so have no clear suggestion to give for now. I'm curious what other users will request though and also very curious to hear if others share the types of search experiences I've tried to describe here.

570

General Software Discussion / Re: Not bad article on The Sins of Ubuntu

« Last post by Nod5 on June 10, 2011, 01:17 PM »

Aw, you quoted me before I had time to fix the typos 

571

General Software Discussion / Re: Not bad article on The Sins of Ubuntu

« Last post by Nod5 on June 10, 2011, 01:12 PM »

Interesting read! In the final section the author gives us a master explanation of the various problems described earlier:

"One underlying explanation ties all this together. Canonical embraces the same philosophy of product development as Microsoft. The emphasis is on introducing new features. "

I also have the impression that Ubuntu quickly adds new features, and break some old ones, in ways that can confuse users who had just gotten to grips with the old. Fosdick seems to think that the root cause is a design philosophy choice made by Canonical. But couldn't there be a deeper explanations? Maybe coders contributing to Ubuntu tend to be more motivated to work on new, cutting edge features rather than perfecting old and tried applications and solutions? Such coders themselves of course have expert knowledge on how the system works and can more easily adapt to even abrupt changes and new features.

572

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: howto+script for android phone as 5 action programmable PC remote

« Last post by Nod5 on March 10, 2011, 12:08 PM »

I have now also discovered that premotedroid can show screen captures of the PC screen. So if you use it to control an audio player you can move the mouse on the phone to see the playlist window. Very useful!

ath: nice program, WinButtons! I don't think you need my autohotkey script to control WinButtons from premotedroid though. Moving the mouse to the WinButton GUI and then just clicking the buttons should be enough. But it could be smart to write an autohotkey script that locks the mouse within the screen coordinates of the WinButtons window and keeps that window active. That way, you would always have it centered in premotedroid. It would be like having the WinButtons GUI right on the phone, if the GUI is small enough to fit the phone screen.

573

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: howto+script for android phone as 5 action programmable PC remote

« Last post by Nod5 on March 10, 2011, 04:32 AM »

Thanks. I thought up a possible extension too: the premotedroid app on the phone has three mouse buttons and a scroll area. The rest of the screen acts as a mouse touchpad. So mouse gesture actions could also be added. That's more complex but there is mouse gesture code on the autohotkey forums to adapt. If anyone goes for that, feel free to share the solution here.

574

Finished Programs / DONE: howto+script for android phone as 5 action programmable PC remote

« Last post by Nod5 on March 09, 2011, 06:01 PM »

Hi. I wasn't sure where to post this; it is mostly a howto but includes a small autohotkey script.

A process for using an android phone as a remote control for five autohotkey actions of your choice. I exemplify with remote control of the audio player Xmplay. But the autohotkey commands can be changed to whatever you want to do.

1. install premotedroid on android phone
https://market.andro...e.remotedroid.client
2. install premote server on computer http://code.google.com/p/premotedroid

3. in premotedroid on phone, set up new wifi connection (enter your wifi details)

4. in xmplay > options > shortcuts, create some unusual keyboard combination shortcuts for 5 actions. For example:

(make the shortcuts global)
ctrl+alt+shift+y  -- current track - play pause
ctrl+alt+shift+u  -- change track - prev
ctrl+alt+shift+i  -- change track - next
ctrl+alt+shift+o  -- DSP - vol up
ctrl+alt+shift+p  -- DSP - vol down

5. install the scripting language autohotkey
http://www.autohotkey.com/

6. save the below code as premote.ahk (if you added other shortcuts keys in xmplay then first edit the sendinput code; see http://www.autohotke...cs/commands/Send.htm ). The script, when running, "reroutes" all mouse clicks/scrolls to instead send the xmplay shortcuts keyboard combinations.

[Select]

LBUTTON:: sendinput !^+y ;PAUSE
MBUTTON:: sendinput !^+u ;PREV
RBUTTON:: sendinput !^+i ;NEXT
WheelDown:: sendinput !^+o ;VOL DOWN
WheelUp:: sendinput !^+p ;VOL UP
^escape:: exitapp ;control esc to exit

7. run xmplay, turn on wifi, run premotedroid server, run premote.ahk (doubleclick).

Now you can control xmplay with the mouse buttons + scrollbar in the premotedroid app on your phone (scrollbar = right edge of of the screen in premotedroid).

note: to exit script and restore standard mouse button functionality on the computer do ctrl+escape on the computer keyboard. Or ctrl+rightclick the scripts trayicon and ctrl+leftclick "exit".

edit:
For control of Xmplay you can skip step 4 (hotkey setup) by switching to the code below in step 6:

[Select]

LBUTTON:: PostMessage 0x41a, 80, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;PAUSE
MBUTTON:: PostMessage 0x41a, 129, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;PREV
RBUTTON:: PostMessage 0x41a, 128, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;NEXT
WheelDown:: PostMessage 0x41a, 513, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;VOL DOWN
WheelUp:: PostMessage 0x41a, 512, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;VOL UP
^escape::exitapp ;control esc to exit
LBUTTON & WheelUp:: PostMessage 0x41a, 82, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;longpress lbutton then scroll up to fast forward in track
LBUTTON & WheelDown:: PostMessage 0x41a, 83, 0,, ahk_class XMPLAY-MAIN ;longpress lbutton then scroll down to rewind in track

575

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Bvckup

« Last post by Nod5 on October 15, 2010, 01:04 PM »

Impressive features! I'm using SyncBack but the deltacopy feature sounds useful so I'll test switching to this.

I only have one questions: how do you pronounce the name?  "bvackup"? "bee-vee-cup"?