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6076

General Software Discussion / Re: Any recommendations for mp3 streaming/playing module for a website?

« Last post by superboyac on March 24, 2006, 05:19 PM »

Also think about using formats that windows media player can play by default so that people don't have to have a mp3 player (i'm not sure that wmp can read .m3u )

Also check out kplaylist, it may be of some interest to you.

-MDupreejr (March 24, 2006, 04:23 PM)

kplaylist looks cool, but I think I'm most comfortable with the simplistic m3u method.  One thing to note is that I don't have much web space (free isp service), so it's not like I can keep several mp3's on the server.  I will probably keep just the one song for that month, and then replace it with the next song.

Last time I checked, wmp can definitely play m3u.  I'm sorry, but if your computer can't play an mp3 file, I would say you're not in the norm. 

Here's how the website will work, I will post the song that the musicians will analyze.  People will go to the site, listen/download the song, and post their comments in another discussion forum (not my own, it already exists).  Then, I will take all the comments and put it together in a template I have set up, and post it on my website.  Each round will be archived on the site somehow in case people want to see past results.  As far as the results, I'd like to keep them as simply formatted as possible.  If it were up to me, they'd all be simple text files, but I know that would turn some people off, so I would probably have it limited to normal rtf formatting.  I was thinking about pdf's, but pdf's always feel too bulky for me.

If anyone has some useful advice/comments, I'd appreciate it.  Especially for the template and archiving part.

6077

General Software Discussion / Re: Any recommendations for mp3 streaming/playing module for a website?

« Last post by superboyac on March 24, 2006, 04:19 PM »

On second thought, I think I may just use the .m3u method and let people use their own player to open up the file.  I think that's how I would prefer it if I wer the user, because I'd have total control of the playback, and it keeps things simple. 

6078

General Software Discussion / Re: Any recommendations for mp3 streaming/playing module for a website?

« Last post by superboyac on March 24, 2006, 10:48 AM »

This is something I came across a long time ago and saved.

Also, the Wimpy Player comes recommened for a more powerful and professional solution.

-Veign (March 24, 2006, 10:44 AM)

Nice, Veign!  That Wimpy looks like it might be just the thing.  I'll start experimenting with it this weekend.

6079

General Software Discussion / Re: Any recommendations for mp3 streaming/playing module for a website?

« Last post by superboyac on March 24, 2006, 10:44 AM »

Since that is a rather special question you might not get many answers from DC members. In that case I suggest you try Google, then the Winamp forum, then maybe one or two forums of (smaller) radio stations that are using what you want.

Good luck!

-brotherS (March 24, 2006, 10:17 AM)

Really?  I did a search last night for this question, but I couldn't word the search good enough to get any helpful results.  I thought DC would be a perfect place to ask this.  I like the way people think in here.  Let's see if anyone responds, then I'll check out some of the other forums.

6080

General Software Discussion / Any recommendations for mp3 streaming/playing module for a website?

« Last post by superboyac on March 24, 2006, 10:06 AM »

I know nothing about website designing/programming, but I'm good enough with computers to put together a simple website with the proper no-brainer tools like Dreamworks (I don't know if this is still a good software, I used Dreamworks to make a couple of webpages 5 years ago!).  And I can also tweak a little bit of code if necessary, but nothing major.

I'm looking to make a webpage that simply has a bunch of text on it and also a place for the user to play an mp3.  I don't want them to be able to download the mp3, just play it off the webpage, kind of like you see on those annoying myspace sites.  Is there some module or program that people recommend for this?  I'd like the user to have pretty good control on the mp3 file, as in they should be able to play/stop, rewind/ff either with dragging the scrollbar AND with buttons, and I'd also like them to be able to see the time remaining/played on the display.  In other words, I don't want just a simple play and stop button.

That being said, from a user standpoint, what do people prefer?  Do people prefer to play the music directly from the website, or do people like to click on a song and have it open up in their own computer's default player?  I don't really care if people download the song, so I can make it ultra easy and just link the mp3 file, but I wanted to be just a little more sophisticated!

By the way, this is for a monthly music contest, where people listen to a song and discuss the details of the tune.

6081

Living Room / Re: hard drive resurrection [I'm desperate!]

« Last post by superboyac on March 23, 2006, 10:09 AM »

I can't stomach to do the freezer or the mineral oil thing.  I'd rather just save the drive until I had enough money to have it professionally done.  And I don't think that's really the problem, because the drive does spin when I put the new pcb in it.

The pcb I got are exactly the same, I think.  That's part of the reason why I got it.  but I'll take a closer look to see if every little chip is in exactly the same place.  I'm hoping it's just a jumper issue, but I'm just dreaming, because I've double checked that like a zillion times.

6082

Living Room / Re: hard drive resurrection [I'm desperate!]

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 11:52 PM »

Well, I'm pretty sure the problem I have is the circuit board on the drive, it must have got fried somehow.  The reason why I'm convinced of that is because when I put the new circuit board on the broken drive, the drive spins right up, no problem.  But the problem then is that the computer doesn't recognize the drive.  That being said, I don't think there's a physical motor problem, so I shouldn't have to resort to the whole freezing thing.

I can't use Spinrite, because the drive won't be detected.

I tried changing the jumpers from master to slave to cable select, but nothing works, and I tried going into the BIOS and it doesn't see the drive in there either.  I also tried putting it on a completely different IDE cable by disconnecting my dvd and cd drive, but the computer still can't detect it.

Is it that big a deal that the hard drive's part number is different, even though it's the exact same model hard drive with the same year and other information printed on the drive?

6083

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 11:09 PM »

Just installed Evernote.  First impression... Eye candy, mouse centric. thumb down

I don't see where to change the basic color scheme quickly, I'll check the manual.

Shows promise... we'll see

Rover, I'll be totally honest (at the risk of offending EverMike!), the first time I tried Evernote, I too had the same reaction.  For the most part, I hate bubbly, shiny interfaces like Evernote kind of has, with it's blue rounded edges and the "option" to overlay the usual Windows border around it.  I like things to be simple, functional, and rectangular (ie Keynote).

That being said, if you can get over that, Evernote is quite powerful and amazing, if not unique.  It's perfect for what Rover just mentioned about putting clips of information in it and just forgetting about it.  It's search and filter methods are, I think, the best you can find so far out there.

As a minimalist suggestion to Evermike, I'd say to get rid of that trapezoidal blue border around the program and just have the normal windows border, and use the space at the top for some more toolbar buttons.  I would strongly suggest to put on that main toolbar all the buttons that are available in the "full mode".  By the way, I still don't see why there even has to be a "full mode".

Part of the reason why I'm against bubbly interfaces and non-rectangular interfaces is because the computer monitor itself is rectangular.  So as far as keeping a clean desktop, docking, and all that other postitioning stuff, it's much easier to do with rectangular programs.  Being creative with that aspect of the gui really adds nothing to the program.  One of the main reasons of how I discovered donationcoder was when I finally got sick of the Konfabulator program and realized that there are programmers out there who write tiny little programs (coding snacks!) to take care of all your little Windows issues.  Konfabulator widgets are totally annoying with their Mac look and bubbly, useless features on them.

6084

Living Room / hard drive resurrection [I'm desperate!]

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 07:24 PM »

Hi everyone, this is a problem I have had for over a year now.  Last year, my 80GB IBM deskstar (aka Deathstar) drive stopped spinning.  I had all mp3's on that drive and a lot of them are fairly rare, and I'll never get them back.  I was devastated.

There were no clonking noises or anything, the hard drive just stopped spinning.  A week before, while the computer was on, the hard stopped spinning, but once I rebooted it was ok.  I should have taken it as a warning and transferred my files, but I was lazy and stupid so I didn't.

I've looked at data recovery services and they are all expensive.  I'm trying to keep the cost under $200 if possible.  I've already spend $75 buying an identical hard drive.  I switched the circuit board under the drive with the new one, and I plugged it in.  The hard drive spins, but the computer will not recognize that the drive exists.  So, now I don't know what to do.  When switching the boards, someone told me that not only do I have to make sure that the two drives are the exact same model, but the part number and factory number, etc., have to be the same also.  Well, I know that the model number and all that is the same, but there is one part number that is different.  So maybe that's the problem.

If anyone has other suggestions on what I can do, please let me know.  Would it be possible to somehow open the drive and transfer the heads to the working drive, or is that way too risky for an amateur like me to do?  Is there any way to get the old drive with the switched circuit board to be recognized on the computer?

Thanks.  Help!

6085

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 03:26 PM »

nevf, that article you posted last week has really got me thinking about what the solution to organizing notes really is.  I thought tags and categories were the solution, but now I see that they each have distinct advantages and disadvantages.  There must be a way that is the BEST solution, but what is it?  And I think that the solution has to be more than just simply offering both options, that is, both tree heirarchies and tags.  I'm thinking that there's some way to come up with a new system that is better than both of them.  But I can't say what that is at this point.

6086

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 01:58 PM »

I don't think this discussion can be complete without mentioning the venerable but incredibly expensive Info Select from Micro Logic (miclog.com), which I believe pioneered this category. IS began under DOS as Tornado Notes, and has evolved into a very useful but somewhat bloated program. I've stuck with it for two reasons: I have so much information stored in it (used it continously since ~1985), and some features are so intuitive (type N for new note, G for get, i.e., search).

This category is different from most in that switching among programs isn't just a matter of installing a new one; importing data usefully is often impossible.

Other programs to try include TreePad (various flavors including free) and GemX's TexNotes/TexNotes Pro and do-Organizer (full-fledged PIM with notes).

Actually, we have discussed InfoSelect here.  I think most of us have ruled it out of the discussion because we're trying to limit this topic to just note-taking utilities.  As you mentioned, IS has become bloated to include several other features.  More importantly, I think IS is just too expensive to be taken seriously here among the other programs.  Even if it were the best program to use in this case (which it isn't), it is so expensive that most people still wouldn't use it.  And as nevf mentioned, there isn't even a trial version of the program for people to get familiar with.

Treepad is a program that hasn't been discussed here yet.  I've tried Treepad out once, and I also tried out GemX's TexNotes.  both of these are very similar programs.  They are highly polished and they do a lot of things, besides notetaking.  I don't think either of them offer the power for notetaking and information capturing that the top 3 programs I mentioned earlier offer.  Specifically, they both operate on the traditional tree-heirarchy, which is nothing special.  But they do have a lot of features.  I might give the two programs another test run just to refresh my memory.

6087

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 10:54 AM »

Black Hole Organizer has had RTF for ages, and seems to have a good deal of "mind share."  It looks more like a database for text scraps than an outliner.

I'd like to try this out, but they have no trial version.  And to be honest, it doesn't look like it offers anything special.  But that's an empty statement because you really have to just get your hands on these things to know for sure.

6088

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 20, 2006, 10:52 AM »

OK!  I guess this is not the end of the thread!  I said that because I thought that all of the noteworthy programs out there had been mentioned already and the features they had or wished they had had been discussed.  I felt that a lot of things were being repeated, and also that the discussion was tending to veer off-topic (partly due to the fact that most of the relevant information had already been discussed).

But it looks like there's much more to talk about here, so let's continue.  I was going to do a short little summary of the things we've discussed, in a sort of mini-review, but maybe I'll hold off on that.  Besides, I'm working on another review right now, so there's still a lot of time for the next review.

6089

Living Room / Re: Keeping track of software license/serial keys

« Last post by superboyac on March 19, 2006, 12:55 AM »

Well, for me, this goes back to my long thread for the brainstorming of notetaking applications:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2362.0

I keep all my licenses in my notetaking program, and I like to have it password protected, of course.  That's why I like the programs that offer some sort of encryption or password protection for the notes.  But I don't do it in excel or something totally simple like that.  And I also don't like most of those pieces of software that are specifically designed for password storage or license storage and stuff.  TO me, these pieces of information all belong in one general information collection application.

6090

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 18, 2006, 05:51 PM »

nevf, thanks for the explanation for the 15 to 32-bit conversion.  I guess we just have to wait and see if anything will happend to Zoot.

And regarding that article about information organization, wow, that is a lot of food for thought.  The author has really good points.  I'm left wondering what is the best way to collect and organize information.  I don't know, there's seems to be no real solution.  As for Surfulater, it's true you can clone articles into multiple locations in the heirarchy.  But then again, Surfulater's heirarchies are more "virtual" than the hard heirarchies the author is talking about.

Another thing that scares me about replacing heirarchies with some other more advanced, virtual organization, is what happens when you have a huge amount of notes?  In a heirarchy, you know that if the note isn't in the tree somewhere, then it doesn't exist.  But in these tag or clone systems where one note can be in multiple places, how do you go about finding a particular note when you're not even sure if you saved the note or not, and you're also not sure what category or keyword you want to search for?  This is the problem I had with Evernote.  When my notes became larger, sometimes, I wasn't sure if the note I was thinking of was even saved in Evernote, so i did a search on the keywords that I thought would be in the note, but nothing showed up.  But I was still not convinced that I hadn't saved the note, so i went and browsed each note one by one just to make sure.  See?  That's the probalem with the virtual system...you're not sure where a certain note is, and in cases where there are a lot of them, you might not even remember if you actually saved a note, or if you just think you saved a not, but you're not sure.

6091

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 18, 2006, 03:24 PM »

I wouldn't mind doing a little mini-review of this after I finish the addressbook one.

6092

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 18, 2006, 03:07 AM »

kfitting, I strongly agree that when a program (like Keynote) goes to the next version, that it should never really reduce the number of features.  Always add more, but never reduce.  Because, like you said, people get familiar with the way a program works (for whatever reason) and taking that away can be extremely frustrating.  If new features conflict with older features, the best thing to do is make it an option for the user.

nevf, yeah, it looks like InfoSelect is dead (for many reasons).  Zoot also "seems" to be dead, but there is still talk about it moving to the 32-bit version sometime soon.  I still strongly believe that once Zoot can use the typical rtf stuff (outlines, bullets, changing fonts, font sizes, colored text, etc) it will immediately become a strong competitor in the notetaking market.  I'm desperately trying to make it work now, but I'm having such a hard time moving all of my notes (which have a lot of rtf stuff in it) into Zoot.  I don't understand why it takes so many years to convert a program into 32-bit, but I'm not a programmer.

Rover, you bring up some good points about UI.  I'll bet we can start another long thread on just that topic!  Go for it.


We've been discussing these notetaking software for a while now, and this thread has become quite lengthy.  If I may do so, I'd like to point out the 3 softwares that I feel have the most promise for the future.  I know I've repeated this many times already but here they are:
--Surfulater
--EverNote
--Zoot

Fortunately, the developers of Surfulater and EverNote have actively participated in this discussion (which I thank them for), and we know that these are young programs that are still being actively developed and promise to add a lot of new, desired features.  Zoot has been around longer, but unfortunately, has also stagnated recently with users wanting many more modern features.  But I add it to the list because its raw power is unparalleled so far.

Also, there are tons of other note-taking softwares out there that, while they are good, I have decided to not include them in the top tier because they only offer the traditional tree-heirarchy system.  I think that it's very important that we break out of that, as the three softwares above are doing.  Also, that makes this analysis much easier because there are tons of programs out there that do offer this tree-heirarchy like Keynote, Mybase (which, if you read the beginning of this thread, I was very big on), MyInfo, NeoMem, and just about every other PIM available.  The tree-heirarchy just won't cut it once you amass a large number of notes.

I really have nothing more to say about this topic.  I will keep discussing it if I think of something or responding to other people's thoughts, but I'm pretty sure I've said what I wanted to say.  In the meantime, I will eagerly watch and analyze the development of the above 3 programs, and hopefully I will one day be comfortable enough to be ready to transfer all of my notes to and be committed to it.

6093

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 18, 2006, 02:26 AM »

Hi All,

There is one program which I have noticed has not been mentioned yet and that is Compendium. This was produced by the Open University here in the UK and it is very unusual but very good. I would highly recommend it. You can grab a copy here: http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/ and view their excellent video tutorials here: http://www.compendiu...ing/videos/index.htm There are also version for Windows, Mac and Linux. The best thing is it is completely FREE!

Regards

Othalian

-Othalian (March 17, 2006, 01:27 PM)

Hi Othalian!  Welcome to DC.
Compendium seems interesting, however, it doesn't fit into this topic.  Compendium is more of a program like the popular Mind Manager.  We're trying to limit this discussion to simple notetaking software.  Or else, this thread can quickly go off-topic, due to the various related information management softwares available.

6094

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2006, 05:53 PM »

Kevin, I just tried out MyInfo, and I have to say, I'm somewhat dissappointed.  It's pretty nice and polished and has a lot of the basic features, but it is still just a plain tree heirarchy.  Actually, it reminds me a lot of Mybase, and for that reason, I would just use Mybase instead, because I feel it's a little more powerful.  The tags are nice, but they're not tags in the sophisticated sense we have been talking about here, as in Evernote.

And to answer Jimdoria, I kind of ruled InfoSelect out of this discussion because it does much more than just collect information.  Infoselect falls more into the category of UltraRecall, Ecco, and other do-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink programs.  And with the enormous price tag, I think it just doesn't fit practically into what we're talking about here.

6095

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2006, 05:00 PM »

Nice find, kfitting!  I'm going to take a look at that.  Where do these programs show up from, out of nowhere?!  I'm interested in it's tree structure, which -seems- to be a bit more than the tradional tree-heirarchy.  You mentioned tags, and the website mentions "cloning" notes, so I'm hoping it is possible for a single note to appear in various places, as in Surfulater, Evernote, and Zoot.  More on this later!

6096

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 16, 2006, 01:03 PM »

I don't know, after 3 pages of this discussion, I've become convinced that the typical tree-heirarchy system is definitely NOT the way to go.  That's not to say that there isn't something that looks like a tree anywhere in the program, but the underlying foundation of the program needs to be freed from that restriction.  Look at the programs I've mentioned recently:  Surfulater, Zoot, and EverNote.  All three of these have done away with the traditional tree-heirarchy system.  However, in all three, there still is a tree in its organization somewhere (whether they're called labels or categories or whatever).  The main point is that even though it LOOKS like a tree, doesn't mean it's restricted to that format.  The tree is restrictive because one note can only go in one location.  In all three of those programs, a note can located in several places, depending on how it is categorized.

So, when I say let's forget about the trees, it could still be done in a way that is transparent to the end user, if they still want to use the traditional format.  Those 3 programs prove that this is already being done.  We are trying to add funcionality without taking any away.  Like kfitting said in his PS, it's fine as long as the user is "blissfully unaware"!  I like that!

6097

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2006, 06:46 PM »

I'd like to ask the exact same question, but replace Ecco Pro with Zoot or Keynote first. I was really surprised at mouser's comment on Zoot!

Well, yes, the interface is totally old-fahsioned, but the functionality is still there.  I'd be interested in your analysis of Zoot, nevf.  I think it will help everyone here understand it from your point of you, that is, the point of view of a programmer who also develops similar software.

I can't think of an alternative to Zoot as far as notetaking, if you limit yourself to simple text, which in my case, is not a big deal, because I barely do any web capturing or anything besides text.  Zoot is excellent because of it's sophistication in organizing text, with the automatic assigning and everything.  I mean, really, what's the alternative for something like that?  I can only think of Evernote, and while it is more polished and has better options for outlining amd web capture, it's organization doesn't have the sophistication of Zoot...I mean, nowhere near it.  But, unfortunately, Zoot is totally old-fashioned, and that's a huge minus against it right now, but I think I'm willing to ignore that because of its underlying funcionality.  Like I said, what's my alternative?

So again, we're left with a handful of software that have some overlapping features, and some unique features in each one.  Zoot is great, if only it was 32-bit and was more modern.  Surfulater is great, but not quite ready for notetaking, nor does it have the organizational power of Zoot or something similar.  Evernote is great, but is limited in it's organizational power, although it is closer to Zoot than Surfulater right now.

As of now, I'm leaning towards Zoot, because I'm primarily text-based, and I can deal with it's shortcomings.  But I really, really wish it had some of the features Surfulater and Evernote has.

6098

Official Announcements / Re: Contest - Make a new Banner for Website

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2006, 01:24 PM »

Actually i was thinking of a new slogan for the site: "A Place for Lovers of Software" or something like that.

  I don't know, man!  Lovers?  That's funny.  Sounds like some kind of fetish.  How about this:
"For Those Who Get Hard For Software".

(I hope that doesn't violate dc policy!)

6099

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2006, 12:57 PM »

Another interesting software I got from the eccorefugee link above, it's called InfoHandler:
http://www.mdesoft.com/eng.htm

I don't necessarily agree with his (eccorefugee) reviews, but I think he may be approaching this topic from different perspective.  I think he's focusing more on an Ecco-like solution, where a lot of different functions are covered.  I'm more interested in notetaking and just plain information collection and organization.

6100

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by superboyac on March 15, 2006, 11:14 AM »

By the way, can someone please explain what the big deal about Ecco Pro is?  I understand that it was an awesome program back in the day, but is it still all that awesome even with our modern expectations?

I've tried it many times, and I'm always left wondering what's so great about it.  Yeah, it's outlining is nice, but the whole thing is so old fashioned, I can't get over it.

-superboyac (March 15, 2006, 10:40 AM)

Here lies one of the big problems in UI programming.  Ecco Pro is an example of Functionality over Form.  The foks who still use and swear by Ecco don't want or need eye candy; they want to get a job done.  More than that, Ecco works in a way that they relate to very well.  It makes sense to them.  (You can substitue any old Loved app here.  Word Perfect is a good example).

A lot of bad software starts with the phrase, "Wouldn't it be cool if..."
A lot of really great software starts the same way.  The tricky bit is that the great software also has a good answer to "Why would that be cool?"

So, what are your "modern expectations?"  That it do something really well and solve your problem or that it look like puffed candy and have more features than you'll ever use?  Or something in between?   

-Rover (March 15, 2006, 10:56 AM)

I hear you.  No, I am totally against the "cool" UI stuff.  I hate the bubbly, shiny look lots of softwares go for now trying to emulate the Mac style.  I'm more of a simple, functional, minimalist UI guy.

Actually, I'm looking at Ecco right now, and I see what makes it so nice, despite it's old-fashioned look.  It's kind of the same reason why I liked Pegasus so much before I switched to the bat.  Even though the look is old and unconventional, it is highly functional, highly customizable, and powerful.  However, I think I will rule Ecco out of this discussion because this thread is simply for notetaking and Ecco does so much more than just that, and it's notetaking features are not up to par with the other strictly notetaking programs we are considering right now.  This is the same reason why i would also rule out a program like InfoSelect, it just does too much.

You know, it might be interesting for notetaking programs to incorporate Ecco's style of outlining.  Most of the programs now just offer the typical bullet or numbering system that seems to come default with Windows.  If, instead, they used a collapsable, more interactive outliner like in Ecco, I think a lot of users would appreciate that.