Recent Posts

551

Living Room / Cody Clothes

« Last post by Rover on February 12, 2006, 04:38 PM »

I see Cody is sporting some new duds for the season of love. 

Tell the truth mouser, do you have a concrete goose that you dress up? 

552

Developer's Corner / Re: Best Programming Music

« Last post by Rover on February 11, 2006, 09:38 PM »

The big list has some nice stuff... your missing a few tho:

Steely Dan
Pink Floyd
InXS
Dire Straights
Peter Frampton ( just the good album)

Some singles by:
B-52's
Lipps Inc. -- Who can live without Funkytown?  No one! 
Ted Nugent

 

553

Developer's Corner / Re: indent wars..

« Last post by Rover on February 10, 2006, 07:09 PM »

Everyone read _Code Complete_ by MS Press?  It discusses indent techniques plus standards for loops and if/then structures.  I read it in the early 90's, and it's still around.

554

Developer's Corner / Re: Source code colors: Contrast / Readability / Ergonomics

« Last post by Rover on February 10, 2006, 12:11 AM »

I remember back in the days of Turbo Pascal, the default scheme was yellow on blue and I really got used to it. 

-jroad (February 10, 2006, 12:00 AM)

2 quick notes:
1. I changed the color scheme in TP to Green on black.
2. I LOVED Turbo Pascal 

555

Living Room / Just installed new hardware... ahhh

« Last post by Rover on February 10, 2006, 12:08 AM »

Way back in 1996, I bought a refurb 21" monitor for around $900.  I was looking at it all day, so I figured I'd save my eyes.  Around 2000, I found a better 21" monitor for $350 and bought it.  They both still work.  All of this to explain that I have had 1600x1200 resolution for a long time. 

Recently, in order to save desk space, I switched to dual 17" LCD's running @ 1280x1024 each.  I must say it has sucked every minute.  Although I should have more real estate available, I can't seem to use it effectivly.  I'm not sure if it's the divider in the middle or the lack of desktop height; 1200 vs 1024.  What ever the reason, I didn't like it.

A couple of days ago, I was feeling weak and bought a new 21" LCD.  It arrived today and I just installed it.  I really don't know what the big deal is, but I feel so-o-o much better now.

For those of you who think I'm just bragging...  I've been in the computer biz for 20+ years.  I'm allowed to have some nice toys and I'm allowed to share my happiness with my friends at DC.

If you are considering a dual screen setup, allow me to suggest that you try 1600x1200 first.  If I had $$ to burn, I donate some more to DC and buy a nice 2048x1536 monitor before I'd add a 2'nd 21". 

 

556

Developer's Corner / Best Programming Beer

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2006, 11:18 PM »

I recently started enjoying Sam Adams Black Lager.   It's a nice dark beer with a creamy foam and clean finish.  It will probably be my programming beer of choice for a while. 

Anyone else have a favorite?   

557

Developer's Corner / Re: Source code colors: Contrast / Readability / Ergonomics

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2006, 11:10 PM »

I agree.  I think the black on white was originally designed to mimic paper and make us all more comfortable with PC's.  Plus Mainframes and Terminals used Green on Black, so we *must* look different from them.

Personally, anytime I'm using an editor, terminal or anything for very long, I look to change it to ....
Green on Black.  Looks best, easiest to see and doggon.. I like it. 

I used to work with a guy who always used Yellow on Blue... yuck! 

558

General Software Discussion / Re: JPSoft Take Command/4NT

« Last post by Rover on February 09, 2006, 05:08 PM »

OGroeger - interesting thoughts.  I like and use bash on my linux systems, but just didn't consider it for Windoze.  I guess I like the all-in-one feel from Take Command.  I've looked at cygwin before and it just seems like overkill. 

Thanks for the links, I'll check 'em out. 

559

General Software Discussion / JPSoft Take Command/4NT

« Last post by Rover on February 08, 2006, 11:21 PM »

Hey Mouser,

Any luck getting a DC Discount from JPSoft?  I just visited their site and am fairly interested in Take Command.

For the uninitiated reading this... here's the link:
http://www.jpsoft.com/

While the Windows graphical interface is useful for simple tasks, the command line is often the best tool for system management, scripting, and other similar needs. 4NT and Take Command replace the crude utilities provided with Windows, giving you the most flexible and powerful command line available anywhere. Each of our products is a comprehensive command line tool designed to make the C:\> prompt truly productive, easy to use, and far more powerful. Each offer similar benefits -- major productivity enhancements to standard commands like COPY and DIR, over 100 new commands, improved command line editing, and thousands of other features for work at the command prompt. In addition, they are powerful batch file programming tools, providing extensions such as DO loops, error and exception handling, block-structured logic, a powerful integrated batch debugger, third-party plugins, and over 300 built-in variables and functions.  4NT and Take Command offer similar capabilities and features. They only differ based on whether they are a Console Mode or a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application.

  (pasted from CH&S)

560

General Software Discussion / Re: Process Explorer Upgraded to V10

« Last post by Rover on February 08, 2006, 10:05 AM »

Process Explorer is a great tool.   

Notice that the list of features are only What's New! 

Among it's many other features, Prcoess Explorer lets you Google a process to find out what its up to.  If you ever wonder what's going on in your system, Process Explorer is a great tool to find out.

561

General Software Discussion / Re: Gmail Adds New Chats Feature

« Last post by Rover on February 07, 2006, 10:11 PM »

Just in case anyone needs a Gmail invite, I have 100 or so.  Drop a note here and I can send it to you.

Another Public Service....

562

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR version 2 - discuss the best way to handle 'actions'

« Last post by Rover on February 05, 2006, 12:23 AM »

@mouser:  This might be another discussion, but I'll start it here; you may already be doing/thinking this.

Does it make sense to extract the User Interface and Presentation from the core functions of the FARR code?  eg.  do you really care how the user asks to you execute the find_files function part of your code so long as you return an array or list of files?

It's sort of like skinning the whole UI.  The logic of FARR would become a glorified API and you could have a couple of UI's that access it: a keyboard based or a mouse based or whatever.

I'm just thinking out loud here... it's certainly not a fully baked solution.  I'm not sure it makes sense in this case since I haven't seen your code.  I can see some issues either way.

Thoughts?

563

Living Room / Is this offesive?

« Last post by Rover on February 04, 2006, 05:51 PM »

I'm just going to include a link to this picture as you might not want to see it.  My concern is that it is inside a free flash games that to me is aimed at kids.  The game is squirrel squasher (squash?) and it seems to serve no purpose other than exposing kids to soft porn.

The picture is of an animae girl, posing with her underwear showing and pulling on/off her stockings.

Am I just being too easily offender or is this just wrong?

here is a link to the pick if you care to see it.

http://www.ez-as.net/why.jpg

564

Living Room / Re: a grid of cool animal flash games

« Last post by Rover on February 02, 2006, 11:09 PM »

The ball on the springy string is cool.... I thought I was really something w/ 47,000 points.   Lowest on top 10 was 151,000..... 

565

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor in latest CPU magazine!

« Last post by Rover on February 02, 2006, 10:35 PM »

actually i'm liking that magazine too, i'm trying to see if they might be interested in syndicating our reviews in print.

-mouser (February 02, 2006, 09:25 PM)

I've picked it up a few times when sitting in an airport.  (don't do that much anymore.)  It's actually pretty cool. 

One issue had an article about future laptops; the cover showed a 15Ghz system w/ 16G of RAM, 3 fold-out screens, plus a boatload of HD space, 802.11plural-Z wireless, etc.  The had a nice preview of PCI-X a couple of years ago too.

Overall I'd say     

566

Living Room / Re: a grid of cool animal flash games

« Last post by Rover on February 02, 2006, 06:51 PM »

He mouser... great fun... I scored in the top 10

567

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR version 2 - discuss the best way to handle 'actions'

« Last post by Rover on February 02, 2006, 04:34 PM »

@mouser
Regarding the 2nd stage of action...

Would it be easier/good to have the default action attached to [Enter] and 2nd or optional actions tied to ... [tab], [ctrl-enter]?

Maybe you're beyond this line of thought now...

568

Post New Requests Here / Re: label files to store them by type & find them by label

« Last post by Rover on February 01, 2006, 06:54 PM »

Re-read the request and had a thought.  PC Tools used to do something like this in one of their Windows versions... if I remember correctly.  It had a text file stuffed away somewhere and related filesystem files to descriptions in the text file.  You could only see them when using their file manager of course.

If you could hook into the properties tab on a file, you might be able to do something similar.  You would need to find the NTFS file id for each file to prevent screwups when files move.  XML integration would be cool for creating attributes.  Author, version, category, key words, summary, etc.

Hmm.....

569

Post New Requests Here / Re: label files to store them by type & find them by label

« Last post by Rover on January 31, 2006, 06:40 PM »

I think there was some talk about something like this in association with a Database Oriented Filesystem.  I haven't looked into it for a couple of years. 

Personally, I was pretty excited about the possibility of finding something like this at the file system level.   I think the trend now is to do it at the web level.

If you look at Google desktop, MS Sharepoint services and Novell Ifolders (plus virtual office), that's sort of the grown up version of all of these apps.  The cool think about doing it on the web is that the OS becomes irrelevant.


Good lick in your quest.

570

Living Room / Re: TyperA - test your typing skills

« Last post by Rover on January 30, 2006, 11:13 PM »

Your score: 214 keys per minute ~ 42 words per minute
Language/mode: en
Ranking: Not bad!
Comparison: 62% of registered TyperA users using this language have typed a better result; 38% have a lower or equal result.

So I stink at typing random words.  I tend to get ahead of the system.  If I know what I will be typing I can think ahead a word or two and increase my overall speed.  Plus, yes, I like to correct my mistakes.

I never was really good in typing class 

571

Living Room / Re: Opniyama - another insane japanese flash thingie

« Last post by Rover on January 30, 2006, 11:03 PM »

OK, that was a little weird...   I found out how to "fly" around, but man that map is weird...

572

Unfinished Requests / Re: IDEA: Text Editor just for text (stay with me)

« Last post by Rover on January 30, 2006, 10:53 PM »

Anyone remember PC Techniques Magazine?  Jeff Duntemann wrote a nice article about the need for software like this.  He did in fictional story style that was pretty cool.

Anyway, the story cliff notes like this (I just verbized a proper noun):

Just Enough Software releases JES Word Editor 1.0.  It has just enough features to be really useful to most people.  It can't do everything MS Word does, but it's really fast and easy.  Eventually, JES releases some other smallish applications and has a nice steady cult following.  They make money and have happy customers. The end.

I've been waiting since the mid 90's for software like that..

I currently use Edit Pad Lite for most of my text document needs.  It has tabs, looks nice, has kewl features and it small + free.  www.editpadlite.com for details.

573

General Software Discussion / Re: Programs That Don't Do Anything..

« Last post by Rover on January 28, 2006, 10:23 PM »

Reminds me of the Vegitales song -- "We are the pirates who don't do anything . . ." They ought to modify it and use it as a theme song.

(My son is my excuse for knowing vegitales songs 

-allen (January 28, 2006, 12:57 PM)

Veggitales rock.  We used to watch them w/ our kid... I ened up downloading a lot of the songs as MP3s.  Larry Boy is one of my fav's

574

Living Room / Re: Trapped in a room flash games...

« Last post by Rover on January 28, 2006, 01:18 AM »

 
Just killed some serious brain cells playing the space games.... oy!

575

Living Room / Re: Trapped in a room flash games...

« Last post by Rover on January 27, 2006, 09:37 PM »

   wasted 30 minutes of my life... couldn't get past level 1 on the PC.