Recent Posts

5876

General Software Discussion / Re: Any ideas for an entry-level "how to use a mouse" tutorial?

« Last post by mouser on July 05, 2015, 10:15 AM »

ps. I have a copy of Kid Pix 4 Deluxe that I never used; if you are in the USA message me your address and i'll send it to you.

5877

General Software Discussion / Re: Any ideas for an entry-level "how to use a mouse" tutorial?

« Last post by mouser on July 05, 2015, 10:13 AM »

When i was looking for a painting program for a very young niece, I was thoroughly impressed by "Kid Pix" (Kid Pix Deluxe 4th edition is what i tried).
It's kind of a super deluxe fancy painting and color-by-numbers tool with animation, sounds, etc.  Really really great stuff.

You can pick it up for $10 on amazon now.
http://www.amazon.co...Deluxe/dp/B0006N99K8



There are some other similar highly rated things on amazon as well, Crayola Art Studio, Kid Pix 3d.

The only thing you'll have to be wary of is whether these will run on Windows 7+ as they are older apps.

5878

Living Room / Re: Laptop tray - for your lap [Recommendations?]

« Last post by mouser on July 04, 2015, 07:47 PM »

App needs to start a blog with all her crazy life hacks.

5879

Developer's Corner / Re: Apply changes in Registry immediately

« Last post by mouser on July 04, 2015, 02:02 PM »

It's a shame but I don't believe there is truly a way to make the system readjust to some registry changes without a reboot.

5880

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR hangs when %SPECIALSYS_DOCS% included in search folders

« Last post by mouser on July 04, 2015, 08:04 AM »

See here for info: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=40658.0

The bug was that FARR normally is smart enough not to try to resolve network paths -- but a recent change resulted in it trying to resolve some, and this was frequently happening in the list of recently launched system files (which is what those %SPECIALSYS_DOCS% are).  Even if you don't have network mapped drives, it seems that some shortcuts (like the link to Steam) use a \\ network path.  This was causing the hang.

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Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR hangs when %SPECIALSYS_DOCS% included in search folders

« Last post by mouser on July 03, 2015, 06:10 PM »

Can you guys try this beta:

• https://www.donation...AndRunRobotSetup.exe
• or https://www.donation...RunRobotPortable.zip

And let me know if it solves your issue?

5882

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR hangs when %SPECIALSYS_DOCS% included in search folders

« Last post by mouser on July 03, 2015, 08:07 AM »

i may have a fix -- something lanux found.
i'll upload beta today to try.

5883

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on July 02, 2015, 11:12 PM »

Summarizing some lessons learned from the recent project:

• Hiding nail holes -- i did this completely wrong.  i did it the way i've done it when painting: sink nail holes; fill with wood putty; sand; then paint/stain.  completely wrong way for staining.  even "stainable" wood putty does NOT take stain well. proper way when staining is to just stain over the sunken nail holes.  THEN fill with COLOR-MATCHED rubberized filler pencil.
• Drawers -- definitely doable; in future i would leave myself a bit more gap room.  good news is that this false front method is really forgiving -- even more so when you drill the pull holes slightly large, which gives you yet another way to adjust to fronts.
• I should have bought a mini table saw.  especially for the drawer fronts, the accuracy from a hand held circular saw is not good enough, makes life much harder.
• Don't oversand the veneer plywood -- i started to sand through some areas on the top, and it did cause some areas of blotching and some small areas of ripouts and rough areas.  i read about avoiding this but it's easy to have it sneak up on you.  i got dangerously close to a problem,
• Wipe-on poly is a pain the ass in how long it takes; i don't know that i would use it again for such a large piece, but it definitely helped avoid runs and brush strokes.  it was a good idea to use brush on poly on the areas other than top and face.
• I wish i could see how it would look with a much lighter color.  i think it would have resulted in a much nicer looking piece of wood furniture in terms of being able to see the grain and details; might not have fit in as well in my apt.
• A huge amount of money and time was spent testing stains and just doing a million little details.  I do this all the time, it's not a good cost-benefit tradeoff.  Next time i think i would just rush through the project.  might not be quite as good but would take 1/4 the time and 1/4 the cost.

5884

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR in other languages?

« Last post by mouser on July 02, 2015, 06:55 PM »

that's an odd request, scmaybee -- can you tell me a little bit more about what you'd like to do?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on July 02, 2015, 05:33 PM »

Thanks for the compliments!

I did this mostly for the experience -- and i think i'd have a hard time advising someone to do the same -- in most cases you'd be better off buying something already made --  save yourself the hassle.
The one benefit of making it yourself is getting the dimensions and areas exactly how you want them..

For example in my case:

• It's hard to see but that small area above the drawers hold the center speaker and some plugs and wireless switch, hidden behind a custom-built little inset speaker grill i made that pops out with a spring.
• Behind the books on the left is space for a rather substantial 8"x14"x4" battery backup UPS power supply that everything plugs into (cut out in the back).
• Where the stereo rack is, the back is cut out for access, and the cabinet is 16" deep, just deep enough for my htpc.

5886

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on July 02, 2015, 02:09 PM »

Some final photos.  It's hard to take a photo that doesn't look REALLY dark and shadowy.  In real life, although it is dark, it doesn't look quite so shadowy, and looks more like normal dark wood furniture.
I think it looks a lot better in real life than it does in the photos.

Overall I'm very happy with the new media center, though I'm not sure I would do it all over again given the time and money it took (because of my inexperience).









Finally now I can get back to DC work!

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General Software Discussion / Re: how to take a very long screenshot

« Last post by mouser on July 02, 2015, 12:05 AM »

As others have said, my Screenshot Captor has several ways to capture any kind of scrolling window, including a powerful manual mode that will work in any scenario.
So if you failed to get it to work you might want to experiment a bit more and then ask for help in the Screenshot Captor section.

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Screenshot Captor / Re: File naming template

« Last post by mouser on July 01, 2015, 12:48 PM »

Ok so it seems the problem is with it failing to save that value on system shutdown -- I will fix.

5889

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on July 01, 2015, 12:45 PM »

I'm finally finished with the finishing. Finally.
Not fun.  I would think twice about using wipe-on poly for big things in the future -- just takes too long to build up.

I went with satin as the final coat and am happy with that decision (somewhat ironic since my initial idea was to buff to a mirror gloss).

I'll post new photos soon.

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Find And Run Robot / Re: IE says FARR "Signature invalid" [?]

« Last post by mouser on July 01, 2015, 05:07 AM »

That's infuriating.
The file is fine, the digital signature is fine, it's just internet explorer being stupid (probably what it's unhappy about is the use of sha1 in the digital signing key, which is being gradually phased out by browsers; they are supposed to report something like "the signature is valid but should be updated soon").
Just choose to keep the file when IE asks you, or use a different browser.

Hopefully they will fix this, until then just ignore it.
In the future I will have to experiment with changing the digital signature algorithm to see if there is something that can be fixed to appease the monsters.

5891

Post New Requests Here / Re: Idea For A Reddit Reader

« Last post by mouser on June 30, 2015, 05:12 PM »

This is intriguing.. But are there existing Reddit reading clients out there already? That would be the first thing to look into.  I'm curious to know the answer.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Software with this feature

« Last post by mouser on June 30, 2015, 02:11 PM »

Tomos, I already moved it here

5893

Living Room / MOVED: Some Thoughts on Sony's DPT-S1 (Digital Paper System)

« Last post by mouser on June 30, 2015, 05:15 AM »

This topic has been moved to Mini-Reviews by Members.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=41178.0

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Screenshot Captor / Re: (Beginner) Where is "Blend mode "Multiple"??

« Last post by mouser on June 29, 2015, 09:00 PM »

Thanks for pointing out that text, i will fix it to "Multiply".

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Living Room / Re: The conflict of interest that is Google

« Last post by mouser on June 29, 2015, 08:09 PM »

Another article on google leveraging search to self-promote:

• http://search.slashd...tive-search-behavior
• http://www.slideshar....net/lutherlowe/wu-l

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Living Room / Re: Be prepared against ransomware viruses..

« Last post by mouser on June 28, 2015, 06:24 PM »

Unknown.  However, while they are relatively pc-savvy, they have been, until now, very cavalier about security.

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Living Room / Re: Be prepared against ransomware viruses..

« Last post by mouser on June 28, 2015, 03:31 PM »

I think the honeypot concept mouser is talking about involves more of a "mousetrap" aspect; an application places a special file or fake network connection that looks (to a ransomware program) like something it would want to access and modify, but is in fact actively monitored by said 'honeypot' application such that when the file or network is accessed, the process doing the access is immediately targeted and shut down.

exactly.

5898

Site/Forum Features / Re: Hardware mini-Reviews Section?

« Last post by mouser on June 28, 2015, 12:25 PM »

Of course, instead of a new section, the current mini-reviews section's scope could simply be expanded to include hardware (?)

i'd prefer this solution -- too many sections as it is!

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Some Thoughts on Sony's DPT-S1 (Digital Paper System)

« Last post by mouser on June 28, 2015, 05:33 AM »

Thanks for posting! For those who aren't familiar, this is a large format e-reader that is appealing for those of us who have been looking for a digital replacement for reading full-sized (i.e. academic) pdfs and ebooks:
http://store.sony.co...-catid-digital-paper

Doesn't appear to be any auto-cropping of whitespace

that's too bad -- i've found it's a useful feature when space is limited on a mobile device.

Didn't expect to use the stylus to create notes, but much to my surprise I've come to use it

nice.  so will it remember notes you write in the margins while reading pdf files?

5900

General Software Discussion / Re: Software for planning wood bookcases/cabinets/tables etc?

« Last post by mouser on June 27, 2015, 06:25 PM »

Are you using gloss for the build-up coats?

yep -- i've read it's best to use gloss for all but final coat.

wow, aryq's a real woodworker!! nice!