Recent Posts

651

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: How could I set PMs in my DC Inbox to auto- forward to my email address?

« Last post by daddydave on June 27, 2010, 11:01 AM »

Fwiw, mine is set to Always (that seems to be the DC default for Personal Message options) and I get the full text of the PM in my email. I see it worked for you now, cool. I'm glad I went there because I noticed the "Save a copy of each Personal Message in my outbox by default" option, which I just checked.

652

Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we add tags to forum?

« Last post by daddydave on June 26, 2010, 09:37 PM »

In addition to wasted time for the searching user (esp, newcomers), it seems like it would wasted time for the admin as well.

Minimal losses in usability and time are still losses

653

Living Room / Re: Very Loosely Based on a True Story

« Last post by daddydave on June 26, 2010, 08:44 PM »

One of my movie pet peeves is people who don't understand the difference between a movie based on a true story and a movie being a true story. And if you think about it, all fiction is based on a true story, otherwise the audience wouldn't be able to relate to it.

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Site/Forum Features / Re: Should we add tags to forum?

« Last post by daddydave on June 26, 2010, 06:10 PM »

I agree with superboyac, it would only seem to be useful for cases where the tags are not actually in the text of the posts, which to my mind, is almost never. I also have been in forums that allowed tags and it seemed like too much hassle to use the feature.

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N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« Last post by daddydave on June 26, 2010, 04:43 PM »

The icon, well, I may well need to ask for help eventually, I may try to whip something up in IcoFX which I really like, even though I don't have any artistic talent. I'll let you know how that goes, LOL.

In other news, I decided to use TaskDaddy as a light bug tracker, so I created a shortcut called Bug.lnk, which I launch from Launchy, which is a shortcut to

[Select]

TaskDaddy.exe /p "@TD "

This brings up the TaskDaddy GUI with the bug category TD already there. Notice the extra space after the TD within the quotes which puts the cursor ahead a space so I can immediately type the task.  So this is kind of a way to use TaskDaddy shortcuts as templates for similar tasks you want to put in Outlook, because I could have also included part of the task with in the quotes like this: "@@Errand Go shopping for " so you can create a shopping task just by launching the shortcut, typing in the name of what you want, and pressing enter.

By the way, the only difference between @Category and @@Category  is whether your preference is for the category to be "Category" or "@Category". The GTD folks (with whom I have no affiliation) tend to suggest the @ symbol to make the put GTD categories ahead alphabetically and to help identify them as GTD categories. I have read David Allen's Getting Things Done book but am struggling to implement it. Mr. Allen is keen on writing every task down, and breaking down TODO's into many small next actions. Although I don't describe TaskDaddy as a GTD tool, it often seems to me that non-GTDers don't use tasks at all, or at least use them very sparingly.

Anyway it's a huge relief to have an executable posted now, I think I will take a break for at least a week and then work on the automated tester some more.

656

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« Last post by daddydave on June 26, 2010, 04:28 PM »

Updated Post #1 with a very minor release, Segoe UI font is no longer required, so on Outlook 2003 on Windows XP, the UI should default to Tahoma font.

I removed the old release because I wanted to establish a naming convention for the zip files, in the future I will probably keep old releases in the post in case the new one breaks something.

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N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« Last post by daddydave on June 25, 2010, 10:34 AM »

Updated Post #1 with download link. Screenshots broke (I think because I initially used the url tag instead of the attachurl tag) and fixed again. Thanks to Perry for assistance.

So if you were trying to follow and the screenshots didn't make sense, try it again now before I break them again!

658

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« Last post by daddydave on June 25, 2010, 05:02 AM »

The pre-pre-pre-alpha release of TaskDaddy uses the Segoe UI font which is bundled with Office 2007, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. You may have some problems if you don't have any of those installed. Will fix to check if the font is installed and use Tahoma if not.

EDIT: An easy fix.

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. GUISetFont(9, 400, 0, "Segoe UI")

to

Code: AutoIt [Select]

1. GUISetFont(9, 400, 0, "")

to make it use the "OS default GUI font"

(The fix is in the June 26 release)

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N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« Last post by daddydave on June 24, 2010, 11:48 AM »

is there an official TaskDaddy icon yet? if not, maybe one of the NANY volunteers would volunteer to make one.

-mouser (June 24, 2010, 11:43 AM)

Not yet - at this point I'm looking for general ideas on what the icon should look like.

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N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy Pre-Pre-Pre-Alpha Release!

« Last post by daddydave on June 24, 2010, 11:32 AM »

Despite popular demand, I have attached what I am calling a pre-pre-pre-alpha release of TaskDaddy. If there is any interest in testing this, please let me know of any glaring bugs or anything that is unclear so I can fix it. I have only tested it with Outlook 2007 on Windows 7 x64.

To get started, grab the TaskDaddy.zip file from the first post in the thread. Extract it to somewhere that is not a subfolder of any variant of "Program Files" This is a requirement for now because any logging I do is done in the same folder as the executable. Logging is currently commmented out, though. TaskDaddy is copyrighted but source code is provided, similar to the way a book is copyrighted but you still have access to all the words. I will go into detail later. The source code is not great but if you want to look through it or compile it yourself with AutoIt3, it is attached to the first post as well (TaskDaddySource.zip).

For some ideas of what to do with it:

• Just double click on the TaskDaddy.exe file, it will automatically go to GUI mode if there are no command line options. This is kind of the "normal" mode. Press F1 for help.
• See the extract from the help file in the first post (some of the information is more up-to-date than the helpfile, in particular the -p switch which prompts for confirmation and lets you change it before creating it.)
• Read the helpfile (let me know of any helpfile bugs or things that are unclear).
• If you are a FARR or Launchy user, try adding tasks to Outlook using the command line options provided.
• Try creating Windows shortcuts that use the command line options of taskdaddy, including the -p option
• Note that TaskDaddy will close after it creates a task or all the tasks in a file. It is believed (and this belief may change) that the target audience would be launching it from something like FARR or Launchy and would just relaunch it as needed.

All feedback is welcome.

661

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy (Now with teaser helpfile and screenshots!)

« Last post by daddydave on June 24, 2010, 07:15 AM »

I feel pretty good about the automated tests, so I'm doing some manual tests to see if I broke anything in the process of breaking out core functions needed by the tester to a separate file. Which I did. And when I fixed it then put all the error checking back in, I'm getting COM errors for everything now even though, again, all the tasks are getting created just fine. (EDITED: FIXED - it was a logic error of mine, as usual)  But one of my manual tests went pretty well:

[Select]

taskdaddy -f unitasks.txt

where unitasks.txt is a Unicode (UCS2 Big Endian) file.

The result (btw if any of the non-English ligatures are garbled, it was probably the same in the Firefox on Windows source, copied from Wikipedia.)




EDIT: I just resaved the file as UCS2 Little Endian and that works too. Still hating those COM errors (EDITED: which now seem to be fixed). Debating whether I should turn off that error check again so I can put an alpha release out.

662

Living Room / Re: How do you sort an XML file?

« Last post by daddydave on June 23, 2010, 11:49 AM »

Thanks Veign, that looks useful and reminded me of a powershell script I ran across when searching for ways to configure Intellitype (which also uses an xml file).

663

Living Room / How do you sort an XML file?

« Last post by daddydave on June 23, 2010, 11:17 AM »

You have an XML file containing data. You have a frequent need to sort this XML file by various text elements within the XML file: last update time, name, category, image resolution, for example. How do you do it? (You can use a command line program or a GUI, or maybe there's some way to do this in Excel?)

664

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by daddydave on June 23, 2010, 09:28 AM »

ah good. more to check out. thanks, daddydave.

-nudone (June 23, 2010, 09:06 AM)

Pace yourself! Everyone has their own set of must-haves..yours may vary. Although I did attempt to separate the collections between ones I felt are generally useful for all, and ones that are useful for me in particular. I'll try to update it in a few days. (and Bookburro may have some issues lately and may fall off my must-haves, consider the BookInfoLine greasemonkey script or http://gettextbooks.com as an alternative).

665

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by daddydave on June 23, 2010, 08:42 AM »

All this talk about add-ons reminds me I haven't updated this in a while.

For what it's worth, I found the Add-on Collector addon pretty useless and don't recommend it. Even with it, you still have to install the add-ons one by one (I expected to be an online version of FEBE/CLEO which it is not). Only tried it when it first came out, though.

666

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy (Now with teaser helpfile and screenshots!)

« Last post by daddydave on June 22, 2010, 03:39 PM »

I wanted to be able to stress-test the core functions of TaskDaddy, and thus TaskDaddyTester was born. It creates tasks and then tries to find them in Outlook, logging lots of data along the way. Then I can visually inspect the tasks in Outlook if needed and then delete tasks manually.

The tester itself is not bug free, but works well enough that it is doing its job and finding anomalies, and giving me some confidence that I will posting a release soon. After reviewing errors in the log, I then have to figure out whether the anomaly can be attributed to TaskDaddy core functions, the TaskDaddyTester, some issue that would only occur in the tester but not TaskDaddy itself, or even Outlook itself.

Regarding the latter, because I am pumping tasks into Outlook as fast as I can, I am seeing Outlook messages I haven't seen before:

667

Find And Run Robot / Re: What hotkey(s) do *you* use to trigger FARR?

« Last post by daddydave on June 22, 2010, 09:15 AM »

alt+space for me - easier to reach! 

-CleverCat (June 22, 2010, 02:02 AM)

Launchy uses this by default. I always change it because I use Alt-Space a lot within cmd windows (as in Alt-Space, E, P).

668

Find And Run Robot / Re: What hotkey(s) do *you* use to trigger FARR?

« Last post by daddydave on June 22, 2010, 09:10 AM »

I'll still looking for the universal "delete all incompatible add-ons" button, but..

I have a TapTap shortcut of RightCtrl RightCtrl, to match my Launchy shortcut of LeftCtrl LeftCtrl

It looks like this in my TapTap.ini file (I also have Alt-F13 as my Launchy shortcut - not sure how you would enter Alt-F13 otherwise)

[Select]

  keymap DLC : A+F13
  keymap DRC : pause

669

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by daddydave on June 22, 2010, 07:40 AM »

The Firefox crew doesn't want people using Nightly Tester Tools anymore & wants people to move to the more powerful Addon Compatibility Tester (I think that's what it's called).

-Innuendo (June 22, 2010, 07:30 AM)

Interesting, I'll check it out!

670

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Foldable Disposable Notepad

« Last post by daddydave on June 22, 2010, 07:30 AM »

It probably helps if we all install WriteMonkey. I think I did a long time ago, didn't see the value of it then so I uninstalled it.

671

General Software Discussion / Re: is there an ultimate file extension manager (to work with windows 7, at least).

« Last post by daddydave on June 22, 2010, 07:12 AM »

one thing i've found very disappointing - the lack of hotkey extensions. i've found one so far - and that wasn't really an extension - i didn't even bother with it as people were moaning about it not working with the latest FF. (i suppose i should have tried it anyway).

am i missing something i wonder - how can FF have every extension under the sun and yet there appears to be no support for custom hotkeys. i could use AutoHotKey, and i will, but there ought to be hundreds of hotkey plugins for FF.

-nudone (June 22, 2010, 06:26 AM)

@nudone:

keyconfig is what you want, and it works perfectly in the latest version of Firefox despite the dire warnings in the comments for that extension. I installed it recently so I could get hotkeys (see my post here) for DownThemAll.

First get Nightly Tester Tools or any other extension that lets you install Firefox extensions that don't pass the version check. (For keyconfig itself, it doesn't matter, but for the functions for keyconfig extension--which is highly recommended--it does.)

It is recommended you also install functions for keyconfig extension, this gives you a GUI for keyconfig. Follow these instructions to the letter, including clicking on the oversized link to the keyconfig post on mozillaZine. On the mozillaZine page, the download link is the first word of the first post.  This will install keyconfig. Then install functions for keyconfig, go back to the instructions and follow them exactly.

Read the "How to use the configuration tool" section of the instructions very carefully. When you get the "UNSAFE" warning box, click Allow but DO NOT CHECK THE BOX. I read the instructions and I still clicked the box and had to follow the instructions to undo.

672

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: Search Packer (probably)

« Last post by daddydave on June 21, 2010, 02:49 PM »

This sounds like on-the-fly metasearch and seems pretty useful. 

673

General Software Discussion / Re: This Mac devotee is moving to Linux

« Last post by daddydave on June 21, 2010, 01:39 PM »

I'm used to ditzing around getting wifi to work. This time out, I needed no drivers or firmware hacks. I booted to my desktop and was politely informed that WAPs were in range to connect to. (I almost fainted!)

Give the live CD a try. You may find some joy with that yet.  

-40hz (June 21, 2010, 01:25 PM)

Good to hear. And may I  assume WPA works out of the box, too?

Lack of wireless/WPA support for random wi-fi cards was always a barrier for me last few rounds with Linux. Although nowadays I use powerline networking, which appears as ethernet, so it wouldn't matter.

674

General Software Discussion / Re: InfoHesiveEP from 2BrightSparks now free

« Last post by daddydave on June 21, 2010, 08:22 AM »

Thanks, I have to check this out. I am currently using KEL CHM creator to create organize my first helpfiles which is fine, but it is hardwired to use Notepad as an editor, so I'm thinking this has to be an improvement.  

675

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY 2011 Pledge: TaskDaddy (Now with teaser helpfile and screenshots!)

« Last post by daddydave on June 20, 2010, 06:01 PM »

Something that came up in writing a tester program for TaskDaddy.

It turns out there is something very special about the date 1/1/4501. A task item with no due date does not have an empty due date property, it has that date.