Recent Posts

676

fSekrit / Re: Beta: fSekrit 1.3 beta thread

« Last post by allen on September 18, 2006, 07:08 AM »

Wow, after a long lull you're all about editing fsekrit -- makes me happy.

I agree that a save as read only function would be a good idea -- but to keep from being locked out of your files, you'd need an option to re-enable editing (password entry required).  This would probably be handy anyway.

These ideas are probably extending beyond the intended scope for fsekrit, but I'll throw it out here anyway--what about the ability to optionally set a secondary read-only password. Entering it would open the file in read only mode, so you could share the data with others at your discretion without giving them the ability to edit it.

Edit I spoke too soon, it's already been brought up

677

Living Room / Re: Secret Shopper Scams: How to tell real from fake offers?

« Last post by allen on September 16, 2006, 09:44 AM »

Hey is it just me, or isn't the easiest way to avoid falling victim to this to realize that no one is going to pay you tons of money to go shopping.

-mouser (September 16, 2006, 01:00 AM)

There -are- real secret shopper programs, but they're typically actual businesses--with buildings and local offices.  A borderless Internet based one would be a really idea if it worked -- perhaps hope that it's real is what causes people to jump into things without researching/thinking.

The fact that spam itself is a lucrative business is no small hint that there are a lot of really ignorant, even stupid, people out there.  Secret shopper scams at least attempt to appear legit.

678

Best E-mail Client / Re: The Bat! - annoying word wrap

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 11:13 PM »

Absolutely -- this mode was meant to be productive, not counter productive.  It protects your blocks of text from movement and unintentional overright, bt you can delete a block --- ctrl+delete.

679

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit 1.2 done!

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 09:54 PM »

Time to re-export/import then

680

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 04:34 PM »

BTW: I thinking about a cool way to integrate the Address Bar (AB) with the Bread Crumb (BC). AB-BC... sounds natural. They are so similar that they can take the same screenspace I think... just have to find a way how. AB is keyboard, BC is mouse... 2 worlds clashing...

-DonL (September 14, 2006, 03:34 PM)

I don't know the ramifications of it, but it would be really cool if the individual breadcrumbs within the location were clickable -- without preventing one from using the keyboard to move back and forth amongst the characters.  The trick would be having it all both clickable and selectable/editable by mouse and keyboard.  . . Which may not even be possible, but it sure does sound cool

681

fSekrit / Re: fSekrit 1.2 done!

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 01:58 PM »

Any changes since the last beta or do I not need to update?

682

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free, F.e.a.r. online combat multiplayer game

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 07:00 AM »

Dofus? XD

683

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AceText - text & clipboard manager (for coders, writers, etc.)

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 06:56 AM »

While AceText does have a feature called QuickPaste, it's more what the name implies -- it brings up acetext and hitting enter/double clicking on a clip immediately sends it back to the application, it's pretty quick.  But lacks the clip alteration of CHS's quickpaste.

Sorry for the confusion -- I have both acetext and CHS running -- the former as my primary clipboard extender/note keeping and the latter for its QuickPaste goodness.

684

Best E-mail Client / Re: The Bat! - annoying word wrap

« Last post by allen on September 14, 2006, 12:11 AM »

As for "hide" as mentioned in the help, I can only assume that by hide they mean to remove it from focus -- possibly by scrolling far enough in the document where it can't be seen -- but is still selected and manipulatable.  I don't know of anyway to, in literal English, hide a persistent selection.

The easiest way to explain it . . . would be this, I hope -- you're accustomed to non-persistent blocks. By blocks, I mean a "block" of select text.  In non-persistent blocks, moving the cursor unselects text. Entering a keystroke will overwrite the text (delete it) altogether.

With persistent blocks, however, this behavior changes -- the blocks of selected text literally persist.  When you move the cursor, the block of text will remain selected/highlighted unless you select/highlight another block of text.  Further more, keystrokes will apply normally where the cusor is, without interupting, unselecting or overwriting the selection.  Pressing ctrl+delete is the means, generally, for deleting a persistent block.

For me, personally, the benefits of persistent blocks are--
* moving the cursor to look around at other parts of the body of text will -not- cause your selection to be lost
* hitting a key will not accidentally delete the text
* Select now, use later.  Some times I know what I want to select, but am not sure what I want to do with it precisely -- and if I simply cut it to the clipboard, there's a good chance I'll forget about it
* In editors that support it (EditPadPro for example), you can select a block, move your cursor to a different location and duplicate or move that block of text to the cursor's location.  Normally this would require more steps -- copy/cut, find location, paste as opposed to simply hitting ctrl+d or ctrl+m to duplicate/move the block.

It's a somewhat subtle difference, but one I find myself unable to live without these days

Abridged, bottom-line version: Persistent selections are not unselected or overwritten by a keystroke like normal selections.  Instead, they remain until you move, delete or unselect them (by selecting something else).

685

Living Room / Re: Dana Hanna (Software Jedi) plans to write 30 programs in 30 days

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 10:03 PM »

I'll save credit for when it happens and I love the software. I suspect Skrom's throne is safe, he's the king of quickies.

686

Best E-mail Client / Re: The Bat! - annoying word wrap

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 06:00 PM »

A bit late to the punch, but you may be even happier to know that by going to preferences -> editor preferences, you can check the "auto-format" option.  By doing so, it will automatically reflow paragraphs in real time while editing so you don't have to manually reformat it with the shortcuts mentioned above.  In the same section of the preferences, you can disable the auto-indent as well.

MicroEd was always one of my favorite features of the bat -- but I'm a huge plain text junkie, love persistent blocks and the free roam cursor (being able to click anywhere, not just in valid white space).

687

Best E-mail Client / Re: I wish I could punch the idiots that made TheBat!

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 05:51 PM »

That really sucks, man -- and I'm really sorry to hear it happened.

That said, and with no offense intended, why are the developers more responsible for being prepared for an over-full disk on your machine than you?  One could argue they should prepare for every possible scenerio -- but, honestly, who can truly live up to that?  One could argue they should have considered the possibility of a filled hard drive -- but the same could be argued for you

Again, I don't mean any offense toward you -- but with years of experience with it under my belt, I believe TB! to be a solid e-mail client that goes well above and beyond other clients on the market in terms of features, usability and security.

Where security is concerned, if you're really paranoid you could (a) disable autopreview and (b) disable rich text (view as text only) -- would would eliminate virtually any possible threat that may be posed by simply clicking an e-mail.  But even with both those features enabled, you're not really in harms way.  Unlike many other clients, TB does -not- render using IE's engine, it uses its own built in html viewer which is quite simple/rudimentary and incapable of executing any sort of malicious code.  To inflict your system with a virus, you'd need not only open the message--you'd have to open the attachment and then override the standard popup warning TB issues any time you try to open an attachment rather than save it.

That out of the way, again I'm sorry this happened -- I can imagine the trauma of it, as I've lost considerable mail bases myself in the past.  Maybe with or without a hard drive scaper the messages can be restored somehow -- one can hope, anyway.

688

fSekrit / Re: Beta: fSekrit 1.2 needs bashing!

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 04:55 PM »

I certainly didn't/don't mean to promote embedded fonts, just settings -- if not via  gui, what if you simply made it possible to specify some settings in the text file itself, much the way wikis do.  Like if [font:courier] was line 1 of the file, use courier font.  Not real important, but an idea -- I just happen to loathe the registry

As for dina, which I myself use, I wouldn't mind an alternate download with it embedded so I could view the text in a familiar font even when away from home.  I certainly wouldn't want to bloat the primary fsekrit with an embedded font though. Its tiny-ness is one aspect of fsekrits beauty.

Other news--I've converted most of my fsekrit files to the current beta using import, have yet to run into any problems.

689

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 04:20 PM »

I've only been using the application for as long as this review has been posted, so I'm by no means an experienced user.  From what I can tell, however, neither the clickable breadcrumbs or auto remember of last folder (when going back) are available.  It does, however, remember the folder used between sessions.  Having the last folder used highlighted does sound like a really handy feature, though -- swing by the forum and suggest it, I wouldn't be surprised if it made the cut.

--In other news, I've just discovered a feature that has me jumping up and down.  I can perform search querries directly from the address bar in XYplorer, not having to switch to a search enter face.  For example, C:\?*.exe would show me only executables in c:\ or c:\?*.exe /r to find executables recursively under C.  Even regex support.  Most convenient for me, reluctant to touch my mouse.

690

Living Room / Re: Arachibutyrophobia

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 03:18 PM »

They have a complete list of phobias, clicking on different phobias shows you like pages with the names/conditions changed.  Some more absurd than others.

I have an idea about your friends novel little theory.  I think they're absolutely correct.

691

What's the Best? / Re: Newsreader programs

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 02:47 PM »

My needs for newsreading are pretty simple, I'm rather casual and not much for binaries -- so Opera's built in works well enough for me and is in a convenient location.

Historically, my top two clients have been Xnews and dialog -- both of which are powerful and highly configurable.  Dialogs openness to total keyboard accellerator mapping is essentially what pulled me away from Xnews.  I also was fond of its scoring and filtering system -- even used it as my main e-mail client for a while.  On the go, I find Pimmy to be a most convenient solution.

692

fSekrit / Re: Beta: fSekrit 1.2 needs bashing!

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 02:21 PM »

I'm curious about why it's stored in the registry and not somewhere in the exe when it's rebuilt/saved?  It's not the end of the world, but I love the idea of totally self contained

693

General Software Discussion / Re: Social bookmarking sites

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 06:07 AM »

So I can use applications written for del.icio.us on ma.gnolia?  That sounds cool.  I guess that means I'll be able to import ma.gnolia bookmarks to StumbleUpon.

-superticker (September 13, 2006, 01:20 AM)

That seems to be the general idea.  Talking in the same language as others.

... but using the ma.gnolia native api would give you access to more advanced, proprietary ma.gnolia features.

So what features would I be missing that ma.gnolia's proprietary API has?[/quote]
No two services are identical. Naturally anything ma.gnolia does that del.icio.us doesn't wouldn't be supported by a true del.icio.us api.  I don't know what goes on under the hood though, only what the drop in their blog.

One feature ... is the unique name ma.gnolia assigns to each and every bookmark.  Essentially, it's an automatically generated tinyurl ala tinyurl.com.

I'm trying to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing?

I don't see any downside to it -- everybook mark you have is one more step to easy sharing, or even share just the keyword with other ma.gnolia users for quick/painless url passing. (You can embed links in ma.gnolia's internal discussion areas using just the keyword, quite cool).  One more convenience -- what could be bad about it?

694

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AceText - text & clipboard manager (for coders, writers, etc.)

« Last post by allen on September 13, 2006, 06:01 AM »

It's a feature that allows you to preconfigure quickpaste items which, in essence, allows you to apply a text replacement/cleanup filter/query on text on the fly.   You can preconfigure and save them, then use them as simply as hitting ctrl alt q and selecting the one you want from a drop down.

695

General Software Discussion / Re: Social bookmarking sites

« Last post by allen on September 12, 2006, 11:20 PM »

I use the Diigo toolbar because it lets me post to many social bookmarking sites:

[ Invalid Attachment ]

(as you can see it now includes ma.gnolia too)

The point of having the same thing socially bookmarked all over the place? Well for once I get an extra backup copy of my bookmarks, and secondly certain pages or sites might get extra attention if I choose to make the bookmark public.

-housetier (September 12, 2006, 10:58 PM)

There's another firefox extension that does that, but I can't recall its name.  I like the idea of using several services equally (Total remedy to service lock-in) but, alas, it isn't an option for an Opera user at this juncture.

696

General Software Discussion / Re: Introducing a New Project: Forever Flash Games

« Last post by allen on September 12, 2006, 11:18 PM »

Laugh it up, buddy. Laugh it up.  You're on my list!

697

General Software Discussion / Re: Introducing a New Project: Forever Flash Games

« Last post by allen on September 12, 2006, 10:56 PM »

Infinite space looked -so- cool and had a great music track. I'm terribly disappointed.  I'm going to delete donationcoder.com now in retribution.

698

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you organize your email?

« Last post by allen on September 12, 2006, 08:39 PM »

I used to be a die hard, folder-based organizer.  Now I've adopted the general Gmail/M2(Opera) approach to archiving everything, applying labels only to important/frequent access stuff, and relying on search when I need to view something else.

It took me a while to get used to this approach -- going from controlled structure to a complete break from any sort of structure/organization.  The result is outstanding, however -- using search, I can locate messages much more quickly than clicking through a hierarchy of folders.

It's both an easier/lazier approach . . . and more effective.  Especially when dealing with hundreds of thousands of messages.

699

Living Room / Re: BowMaster, Cool Flash Game

« Last post by allen on September 12, 2006, 08:09 PM »

every flash game that gets posted should have a disclaimer pointing here: https://www.donation...ndex.php?board=196.0
 

-mouser (September 12, 2006, 11:37 AM)

It's true.  If nothing else, I can claim to be a kickass archer

700

Living Room / Re: Congrats to vrgrrl - Named One of Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women

« Last post by allen on September 12, 2006, 08:08 PM »

I wasn't really trying to rush anybody, just poking fun at the game division reference. I didn't know there was such a division, but am glad to know of its existence!