Recent Posts

5926

General Software Discussion / Re: how to create graphics like these?

« Last post by Deozaan on December 13, 2010, 06:22 AM »

You're thinking about it too much. (or perhaps not enough)

They're just cylinders created in some 3D modeling program with a glossy/reflective texture applied to them. Any amateur could probably get the cylinders and pie chart created in 5-10 minutes with some software such as 3D Studio Max.

5927

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: For non-programmers: Editpad is the best text editor (for now!)

« Last post by Deozaan on December 12, 2010, 06:59 AM »

By the way, a friend of mine who introduced/converted me to EditPad probably 10 years ago recently told me he absolutely loves Sublime Text and now uses that for everything.

It's kind of expensive at $60 but the "trial version" has no time limit; it just pops up a nag window every now and again when you save a file.

With my new 25.5" 1920x1200 widescreen monitor, I'm really liking the double panes (it can have up to 4):

5928

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by Deozaan on December 12, 2010, 06:37 AM »

Sorry, IainB, I was unclear because I didn't mention that that cute image I saw was not on Ars Technica, but rather on http://www.splitbrain.org/.

Like you, I still don't feel any sympathy for Ars.

5929

Living Room / Re: and now the next question is about chat!

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 07:03 PM »

Well, I'd say if you aren't a big fan of any kind of chat (especially IM) then you probably wouldn't care much for DC Chat.

The IRC channel is kind of like a real-time version of the Living Room section of the forums. Sometimes it's quiet for hours and hours and hours. Other times it's really busy with people talking about whatever. Sometimes people ask programming questions.

But it's a lot like the forums. Intelligent people in one location having (mostly) polite discussion on various topics.

Come on in, say hi, but don't be offended if nobody is around to say hi back. A lot of people just leave the client running all the time whether they're at the PC or not. Others just lurk and never say anything. You can come in and lurk and see what it's all about for yourself if you'd like. Though, usually weekends are a bit quieter in the channel because some weirdos have real lives and do things on the weekend.

5930

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 06:54 PM »

I just came across these ads that sound like something you'd find in spam or a pornographic website:



But it was from this page 30 years of BAD pictures. I guess I don't blame Google for thinking "BAD pictures" would be pornographic, but it's actually a family friendly video about a guy who took photos for National Geographic and his initials are B.A.D.

But wow, don't those ads sound like something you'd see in xxx spam?

"1 ridiculously huge [????] a day."
"Watch as this woman is mercilessly [????] to her limits!"

5931

Living Room / Re: (MMORPG) King of Kings 3, taking gaming to a new level!

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 06:21 PM »

Downloaded it, installed it, launched it.

It doesn't work. It keeps doing the following loop:

1. Error message saying it can't download WorldList.xml, followed by another message telling me to try again.
2. Repeat step 1.
3. Error message saying it can't connect to the update server due to a connection error.
3.5 Error message saying brightness settings have changed and asks if I want to reset them to previous value (this stopped showing up in the loop when I finally clicked yes).
4. Displays the launcher, with a button that says "Update" which I click.
5. It downloads a bunch of files and the "Update" button changes to "Start The Game" which I then click.
6. Launcher screen disappears and we start the loop over at step 1.

Probably the best MMO ever because it doesn't allow you to play it.

Oh, and it launches Internet Explorer instead of my default browser. I hate it so much.

EDIT: I got it to work by running it as an administrator.

5932

Living Room / Re: Help! I can't access my website.

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 06:09 PM »

No, not that I'm aware of. I did change hosts back in... September? But everything was working fine for a couple of months and then suddenly I started having these problems.

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.

5933

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 06:05 PM »

This is an old thread being revived here, but I just thought I'd mention that I had very little sympathy for Ars Technica and other sites who begged and pleaded and tried to guilt-trip us into not blocking the ads on their site.

But I just saw this today on SplitBrain.org:



And I thought, "Heh heh, that's kind of funny/cute." And then, "Gosh. Now I feel kind of bad for blocking the ads on this site."

EDIT: Added site where I saw that funny/cute adblock graphic.

5934

Living Room / Re: Help! I can't access my website.

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 06:00 PM »

Have you tried specifying different DNS servers on your net connection?

eg. Google DNS - 8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4

Does it resolve if you ping deozaan.com from the CLI?

-4wd (December 11, 2010, 05:52 PM)

It does not resolve deozaan.com from cmd.

I just changed my network adapter settings to use OpenDNS and now I can access my site and my host's sites (and resolve in the CLI). This is a good workaround, so thanks for that. However I'd still like to resolve the underlying issue if possible. Though I'm not sure if that's something I have the power to do. It might be a routing issue or DNS issue with my ISP.

5935

Living Room / Re: Need Help Finding a Domain Name

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 05:51 PM »

StayAWhileAndListenTo.me
ThingsImAnnoyed.by (or variants)
ThingsThatAnnoy.me (or variants)

5936

Living Room / Re: Help! I can't access my website.

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 05:45 PM »

Now that you mention it, I can't access my host's website(s) either. But they're up, supposedly.

http://isitup.org/nickthewebsiteguy.com
http://isitup.org/nickhost.net

5937

Living Room / Help! I can't access my website.

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 05:09 PM »

For about a month now, being able to connect to my website has been iffy. But supposedly it's just me.

deozaan.com is working
It took 318 ms for a 302 response with an ip of 174.120.97.61.

-http://isitup.org/deozaan.com

It's just you. http://deozaan.com is up.

-http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/deozaan.com

I can ping the IP address so it sounds to me like a DNS issue. I know it's not the PC because every computer on my network cannot access my website. I think I plugged the modem directly into my netbook and I still couldn't access the site, so I'm pretty sure it's not my router, either.

Every other website works fine. Just my own is broken. And I can tell pretty easily when it's not working because the pictures in my signature are loaded from my site, and they've appeared broken to me for most of the past month.

I called my ISP about it about 3 weeks ago and they said it was a problem on their end and that they would escalate the issue to engineers and fix it. After a couple days it started working again. Then a few days later it broke again. Then it started working again. Then broke again. Last night it was working again, and now it's broken once again.

My question is, would my ISP really have trouble with just my website? What could be causing these DNS issues where everything works except just my website. Is it just a coincidence? Or is it more likely that I'm the only one to notice because I'm the only one who visits my website?

I'm just getting sick of it because even though I don't use/need my (http) website much, I do need access to things like my cPanel to manage e-mail addresses and things. Any suggestions?

5938

Living Room / Re: I just gotta vent

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 04:35 PM »

On XP, it's not enabled by default and right-clicking will only popup the edit menu - you still need to select Paste from it.

On 7 it's enabled by default - well put it this way, I don't specifically recall enabling it but hey, I could be wrong - 10 months is a long time

Correction: It's the same in Win7, not enabled by default and just opens a popup menu - at least it is in my base W7Ultimate VM.

-4wd (December 11, 2010, 03:40 PM)

Ah, I may have misunderstood. So with Quick Edit enabled, right-clicking pastes instantly? I guess that is pretty quick.

So yeah, without it enabled, right-clicking the cmd window brings up a context menu that allows you to select Paste (among other things).

5939

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Bitcoin

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 04:32 PM »

I was also really surprised to see how many people were participating and willing to, as others have said, use their computer cycles to "do no useful work". It did/does seem like a bit of a waste in some sense.

-JavaJones (December 11, 2010, 12:48 PM)

Well, sure, if you could turn a profit by loaning out my CPU cycles when my computer is idle, who wouldn't want to sign up for that? So if you think BitCoin is going to take off in the future, might as well get in early and "generate" all the "cash" you can.

Deozaan: that was my initial reaction when I realized it wasn't a distributed cracking ploy - at first it seems like a completely and utterly useless project.

-f0dder (December 11, 2010, 06:35 AM)

Thanks for your response, f0dder. You make some really good points, but I still don't see any value in the BitCoin system.

As I understand, the US Dollar has value because even though it's not based on the gold standard anymore, you can still trade it for gold.

If the USA used BitCoin all these years and someone came into these forums and said "Hey! I've got a great idea for a new currency! Paper money called the Dollar!" and submitted a PDF about the merits of a paper money system based on the current Dollar system then I'd probably be just as incredulous and say it has no value and it won't catch on and make some reference to Monopoly money. But because nations and companies and states and millions of people all agree to use the dollar as a form of trade, that also makes it valuable because it is useful.

5940

Living Room / Re: I just gotta vent

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 03:27 PM »

Turn on Quick Edit Mode under Properties->Options then you only need to right-click in the window to paste.  To copy text, left-click drag-select, (ie. highlight), then right-click.

The almost absolute first thing I do on a new install

-4wd (December 11, 2010, 02:46 PM)

That's not enabled by default? I've never enabled that and I can right-click the window to paste.

Not sure about highlight and right-click to copy, though.

...

Okay, I just tested: You can right-click the window to paste by default, but you have to enable Quick Edit to copy text as you described.

5941

DC Gamer Club / Re: Minecraft - An Incredible Indie Game

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 02:41 PM »

Minecraft will be entering Beta phase on December 20th, at which point the price will increase to 15 Euros (from 10). If you've been interested all this time but still haven't purchased, now is the time!

Oh, and this is important:

We will also change the license to remove the line that promises all future versions of the game for free. Please note that this change only affects people who buy the game after December 20, so if you got the game for during alpha, you will still get all future updates for free, despite this change. A promise is a promise.
Buying the game during beta will include all updates up until release, of course, and bug patches will be free.

-http://notch.tumblr.com/post/2175441966/minecraft-beta-december-20-2010

So it's really important to buy now if you think you'd be interested, otherwise you may have to pay for expansions.

Notch clarified on Twitter:

Anyway, buying during beta = get everything up to and including release version for free. Expansions might cost.

-http://twitter.com/notch/status/13682437074718720

5942

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Bitcoin

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 06:06 AM »

I don't get it. You're giving people virtual currency for sharing their CPU cycles in a distributed computing network that does nothing useful but generate more coins (and is that really useful?)? Why would anyone use this currency for anything? It doesn't have any intrinsic value.

Why should people use their CPU to generate a fake currency that has no value when they could at least do something like Folding@Home to look for cures for cancer or something similar?

5943

Living Room / Re: Need Help Finding a Domain Name

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 05:53 AM »

ThisIsNotUseful.info
StuffThatBothers.me

5944

Living Room / Re: Need Help Finding a Domain Name

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 05:42 AM »

dontlistento.me

5945

Living Room / Re: (MMORPG) King of Kings 3, taking gaming to a new level!

« Last post by Deozaan on December 11, 2010, 02:53 AM »

What's so awesome about it? What if you like WoW but you don't like the PvP part of it?

MMOs still aren't doing it right, IMO.

5946

What's the Best? / Re: text encryption app/script?

« Last post by Deozaan on December 10, 2010, 01:26 PM »

fSekrit would be awesome for this, except you normally can't attach EXE files in e-mail these days.

Though you could share a folder in DropBox or something similar to get the file to someone else.

Or there are ways of encrypting e-mail, but AFAIK that's relatively complicated and everybody needs to set up their client for encryption to be able to receive your e-mails at that point. I may be wrong about this since I don't know much about it.

5947

Living Room / Re: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

« Last post by Deozaan on December 10, 2010, 01:29 AM »

Yeah, I see your viewpoint as well. I'm not saying it should be this way, but let's face it, if people really cared about anything other than the taste (e.g. nutrition or looks), there's no way anybody would eat fast food.

Although I suppose the fact that the food is "fast" and (relatively) "cheap" are also contributing factors to continued patronage. There probably aren't many people who prefer the taste of fast food over a meal in a nice restaurant. But nice restaurants take (relatively) large sums of time and money to frequent.

5948

Living Room / Re: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

« Last post by Deozaan on December 10, 2010, 01:14 AM »

Right. So if there's an item on the menu that you don't like the taste of, you're not going to order it very often, if at all. Unless you're ordering something for the first time to see if you like it you're probably either going to order something you like or you won't order anything at all.

So if you order something you like, and it tastes good, do you really care what it looks like? Probably to some degree, but not so much as long as it's good.

If you order something you normally like but this time it tastes gross, that's when you're more likely to complain.

5949

Living Room / Re: Fast Food: Ads vs. Reality

« Last post by Deozaan on December 10, 2010, 01:03 AM »

That's because generally, they taste good. And that's all that really matters.

5950

Living Room / Re: DDOS Ethics

« Last post by Deozaan on December 09, 2010, 01:39 PM »

I think I agree with everything you just said, CWuestefeld. Very well said.