Recent Posts

7426

General Software Discussion / Re: When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2011, 06:19 PM »

Yeah really! In our day having a separate key labeled ALT was considered posh. 

7427

General Software Discussion / Re: When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2011, 09:50 AM »

^Hmmm...actually, now it's starting to sound more like a CMS - but with a hardcopy output option.  

Sounds pretty cool now that I'm thinking about it. Kinda like that wikibooks thing Wikipedia has.  

@SB -  sorry. A wiki won't do what you're looking to do publishing wise. At least not any wiki package I'm aware of. 

7428

General Software Discussion / Re: When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2011, 09:44 AM »

^If you combine text, styles, XML, and a database haven't you just created another wiki?

7429

General Software Discussion / Re: When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2011, 09:42 AM »

I liked WordPerfect too. It had a powerful feature where you could look at, and directly edit, the text strings and and tags in what was almost a debugger window. It was great for fixing things and doing stuff beyond what the primitive wysiwyg of the time would allow... 

7430

Living Room / Re: A New Twist in Wikipedia?

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2011, 08:51 AM »

Who knows what they're thinking with this experiment ?

-mahesh2k (June 21, 2011, 08:06 AM)

I suspect they're hoping to substitute the voting booth for responsibility as Hesse so nicely phrased it.

I've personally never had a great deal of belief in "the wisdom of crowds." Because while it may be true that different people have different opinions and standards, it's equally true that not every opinion or standard deserves, or should be given, equal weight. To do otherwise is to surrender to the lure of "magical thinking" and all the potential for harm that goes with it.

7431

General Software Discussion / Re: When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

« Last post by 40hz on June 21, 2011, 06:44 AM »

I did try using the 2008 version to do a sample layout of a chapter of a book (!) - double-column, lots of illustrations. I did run  into a few bugs with the combination of full-page-width illustrations with the double-column text - but, in fairness, no office word processing program is really designed for that.

-tomos (June 21, 2011, 06:16 AM)

It amazes me the amount of calls I've received from clients that ran into very serious problems (as in permanently garbled documents) trying to use a wordprocessor (especially MS Word) as a desktop publishing app.


What do you mean it's damaged and do I want to
try to recover it? It's 600 pages and took 3 months!

I know Microsoft says you can because Word has "desktop publishing features" built into it. But IMO it's a prescription for disaster with WP apps. At least from what I've had happen to me. And also from what I've seen happen to people who are far more expert in Word than I'll ever want (or need) to be.

If you need to do serious page layout, do yourself a favor - get a DP app. It doesn't need to be something as heavy duty as Quark or InDesign. But even an inexpensive SOHO type desktop publishing program is a safer bet. Especially once you decide to start using columns or footnotes.
 

7432

Living Room / Re: Foxtrot on Apple Comics

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 06:50 PM »

Yes. I do.

7433

General Software Discussion / Re: When your word processor begins openly mocking you, it's time to call it a day

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 06:33 PM »

Word 2010 doesn't openly mock me. It ridicules my entire existence - and insults my family to boot!

I thought Office 2003 was a very good release. Especially from a support perspective since they finally seemed to get Outlook fixed to the point where you didn't need to worry about it blowing up on you every three weeks.

I liked 2007 a lot less.

I can't stand 2010.

So I gave up. Now I use Softmaker Office and I'm perfectly happy with it. Especially now that it's multiplatform and comes in a piquant penguin flavor. I like it enough that it's replaced Libre as my 'go to' NIX wordprocessor.

Got the 2008 version for free. Liked it so much I bought the 2010 version, which was offered at very generous discount. (And I bought it despite the fact I already have a license for 10 copies of Office 2010)

------------
Note: freebie 2008 version still available here.

7434

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone here using TMUX over GNU Screen?

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 04:06 PM »

Well...I'm sure you could modify (and somebody probably already has) the keybindings. But why bother? If it's that big an improvement, you're probably better off using the defaults. Especially if you don't have the luxury of working exclusively on your own boxes.

That's the real reason I stopped using Dvorak keyboards a long time ago despite the fact I greatly preferred them. Once I left home it was a major pain. After a while it was just easier to use what everybody else was using for something as basic as a keyboard.

If TMUX really is that great, I'll probably switch and sit down to learn yet another set of quirks.  

7435

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 01:05 PM »

Try initiating the transfer from the receiving side.

-40hz (June 20, 2011, 08:58 AM)

For some reason that didn't occur to me, good idea!

-daddydave (June 20, 2011, 12:29 PM)

Thx. I figured you were probably on your way over to hit it with a baseball bat anyway.  

7436

Living Room / Re: A rant on religiousness about OSes

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 12:48 PM »

One reason I've stuck with Xfce as my Desktop of choice.
It just keeps getting nicer without overhauling the whole gestalt.
Menus, icons, launchers, etc. all right where you want them, doing what they're told.

-Edvard (June 19, 2011, 01:56 PM)

+1 w/Edvard. I'm pretty much sold on Xfce for most distros - or Openbox if I'm running CrunchBang Linux.

at the moment as a minimalist desktop person - as someone who wants an interface that gets out of the way, not in the way - I much prefer the experience I get on the gnu/linux desktop with "old" wms than I do the up-to-date gnome/unity/kde stuff OR windows 7. They all suck, as per rule #1  

I'd like a simple linux desktop/wm but with all my windows apps and tools... and am looking at alternative shells on windows to see if i can simplify it (I used to use Object Desktop suite for that on windows but they have pretty much given up on all the non eye candy tools and features so I have to find a new way to get a clean, keyboard driven interface with right click menu and no clutter...)

-iphigenie (June 19, 2011, 11:36 AM)

I think if you shut off the Conky monitor (and didn't use the #! logo "wallpaper" on the desktop) you'd have something very close to what iphigenie is talking about.  

Here's the default desktop for Crunchbang:



Since the image below strongly resembles what most of my Linux sessions look like, minimal (as in sans GUI) works fine for me about 70% of the time!



 

7437

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone here using TMUX over GNU Screen?

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 09:52 AM »

Are the keybindings mostly the same as they are for screen?  

Cancel that. Stopped being lazy and went and looked it up.  . (They're not BTW)

7438

Living Room / Re: BitTorent sued yet again - this time for patent infringement

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 09:27 AM »

Most of the illustrations in the patent are hand drawn even...

FYI - they are because it's required under law, and the USPO has very strict rules and legal requirements for those illustrations. As a result, there's a well-established ("vintage") style and look for them that you don't deviate from if you want your patent to be considered. It's a specialty art form and there are service bureaus that do that and nothing else.  Google "patent illustration" if you're interested.
 

-40hz (June 20, 2011, 08:39 AM)

I fail to understand the point behind that. It's simple enough to create fake "hand drawn" illustrations. Oh well... Who am I to question the logic of the US Patent Office...

Thanks for the FYI though. I didn't know that.

-Renegade (June 20, 2011, 08:43 AM)

It's not the hand-drawn so much.  It's just the rules and conventions for how they're supposed to present information that really does make them more an issue of 'art' than graphic design. So I guess its just easier to let somebody draw it. Also harder to say it was directly lifted from something else if you forget about things like scanners and tracing paper. (Or artists like my older sister who can do a hand copy of anything and make it look just like the original. The forgery guild lost a great prospect when she went into legitimate graphic design and communications.)

Plus it's what's expected - so I'm sure a comfortable inertia has a lot to do with why it's still done this way. The only reason the USPO dropped the requirement for submitting a physical scale model of the invention with its patent application was because they ran out of storage space for them - not because they didn't think it was a good idea to require them.  

7439

Living Room / Re: BitTorent sued yet again - this time for patent infringement

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 09:18 AM »

^Understood.
You take the high keening scream.  I'll do the "low hopeless wail" and we can perform duets. 

7440

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 08:58 AM »

Your destination computer shouldn't be going to sleep if a transfer is in progress unless something is wrong with it's power management feature or the transfer hangs on the transmit side and the receiving machine goes to sleep because the transfer has stopped.

Try initiating the transfer from the receiving side. Since TB will be running, that should be enough to keep it awake when you 'pull' rather than 'push'  your file over the network. If it times out because the sending pc got hung, you know it's not the receiving machine.

What I suspect might be happening is there's just too much data being sent without any transfer management in place other than a simple Ethernet/consumer-grade router setup. You might be flooding out the network just doing a drag&drop. One lost or bad packet and your transfer will come to a screeching halt without something like FTP or Terrabyte riding honcho.

You could mess with low-level network settings (i.e. framesize, timeouts, buffers, etc.) to fix it. But it's hardly worth it, and often breaks other things in the process unless you really know what you're doing. So give TB or another file copy utility a try rather than do that.

7441

Living Room / Re: BitTorent sued yet again - this time for patent infringement

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 08:39 AM »

Most of the illustrations in the patent are hand drawn even...

FYI - they are because it's required under law, and the USPO has very strict rules and legal requirements for those illustrations. As a result, there's a well-established ("vintage") style and look for them that you don't deviate from if you want your patent to be considered. It's a specialty art form and there are service bureaus that do that and nothing else.  Google "patent illustration" if you're interested.
 

7442

Living Room / BitTorent sued yet again - this time for patent infringement

« Last post by 40hz on June 20, 2011, 07:38 AM »

Right when you think the legal system couldn't get any stupider, along comes this article from the good folks over at ONews.com :

Right, well, this is new. We know of countless copyright lawsuits being thrown about regarding BitTorrent - but what about a patent lawsuit? A company which, for now, has all the airs of a classic patent troll, has sued BitTorrent, Inc. and uTorrent, claiming the BitTorrent protocol violates some vague software patent. No connection to the mafia RIAA/MPAA/etc. has been found yet, but I won't be surprised.
The company in question is Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network, a San-Francisco based... Uh, yeah, we don't really know what they do yet. All we know is that they own a patent titled 'Media file distribution with adaptive transmission protocols', and was granted in 2007. While that's way after the introduction of the BitTorrent protocol (2001), the patent was filed in 2009. The company is seeking damages and all that jazz.

Upon looking at the patent, it describes a system that doesn't look like the BitTorrent protocol at all. The patent describes a system built around files stored on a central server, completely ignoring the many-to-many clients aspect that makes BitTorrent so immensely useful.

Link to full article here.

It just doesn't get any dumber than this.  

7443

Living Room / Re: A New Twist in Wikipedia?

« Last post by 40hz on June 19, 2011, 12:03 PM »

Haven't seen it.

But I think it's going to be a real boon to all the crank organizations (lifers, neocons, Apple fanboys, etc.) since it will let them organize slams against anything they disagree with instead of just writing endless e-mails that nobody by the Wikipedia staff used to have to see or deal with.

Isn't democracy a grand thing?

(But what is 'democracy' other than a form of government where rule by 400 craven idiots is considered to be vastly preferable to rule by one mad king...)

7444

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by 40hz on June 19, 2011, 09:28 AM »

@daddydave-You could always go with a NAS box -  or build your own low-power Atom or ARM based miniserver if all you wanted was to do file transfers and storage. Most of them run ~20 or less watts and don't need a fan. So it's not a big power bill just leaving them on 24x7.  

7445

Living Room / Re: SSD Drives - something to consider before taking the plunge

« Last post by 40hz on June 19, 2011, 06:13 AM »

you people are wasting your life posting!!!!

-mouser (June 18, 2011, 08:28 PM)

You heard it straight from the cat's mouth! I guess it's time for us all to give up DC. Just think of the hours you'd save every week!

-Deozaan (June 19, 2011, 03:49 AM)

Hmm... In light of that (considering the amount of posting I've done) maybe I'd better take a closer look at this DC involvement of mine. Especially since it comes from The Cat himself.  

7446

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by 40hz on June 19, 2011, 06:04 AM »

I tried Amahi back a few years ago and I was very impressed by it. And its developers haven't been sitting on their hands since then.

Nice thing about it is it only requires Fedora, so if you have a spare 32-bit box floating around, you're good to go. Which is convenient since all the new Windows servers have gone over to 64-bit architecture.  

7447

Living Room / Re: Encouraging Piracy - Piracy as a Tool for Promotion

« Last post by 40hz on June 19, 2011, 04:47 AM »

HE ENCOURAGES PIRACY OF HIS VIDEO!

-Renegade (June 18, 2011, 10:39 PM)

That doesn't come as much of a surprise. The producers of most political propaganda films (be they official or from "special interest" groups) are more interested in their polemic being seen than they are in making a buck from their audiences.

I also don't know how it works in the rest of the world, but in the USA there's enough "foundation money" available to fund almost any political message - as long as it doesn't get attributed back to whoever is paying for it. So saying "steal a copy" of any thing like this is usually a ploy. Because in most cases, it has been paid for by somebody already.

I think a far better example would be something like Fiona Apples's Extraordinary Machine album. There's conflicting stories about what happened. But the gist of it is Ms. Apple put together some music for her new release, and her record company decided to sit on it because it was 'too different' from the musical image they were promoting for her. When the release date went into limbo, several studio tracks were mysteriously "leaked' onto the internet. This in turn created a groundswell of interest and support, from not only her regular fanbase, but new listeners as well. And the rest is history. Extraordinary Machine was finally "officially" released and went on to sell over half a million copies.

Interestingly, the record industry only considers this a mild success because her previous (far more predictable IMO) album sold 2.7 million copies.

Guess the record industry has that "glass is half-empty" mindset.

7448

Living Room / Re: Do it yourself dropbox

« Last post by 40hz on June 18, 2011, 07:58 PM »

I kinda see something like Amahi as less overkill in that all the heavy lifting and configuration has been done for you. So from an enduser perspective it's easier to install and administer. The beauty of it is you only need to use the parts you want. And it's GUI based so you don't need to do all the 'science faire' stuff you'd need to do if you rolled your own.

Sometimes it's easier to go up a level in complexity in order to gain a quantum leap in day-to-day simplicity of operation. This is something I go through with my clients from time to time. Sometimes the simpler something is, the more complex it is to actually use. And vice versa.

Just my 2¢ anyway. 

7449

General Software Discussion / Re: FreewareGenius.com: The best freeware virtual PDF printer tools

« Last post by 40hz on June 18, 2011, 12:16 PM »

I had to laugh at a comment he uses a couple of times (cause it seems a bit meaningless):
"Interface a bit dull "

-tomos (June 18, 2011, 10:12 AM)

@tomos - thanks for saying that. It struck me as something really odd to expect from a virtual printer utility. Then I thought maybe it was just me until I read your comment. 

7450

General Software Discussion / Re: FreewareGenius.com: The best freeware virtual PDF printer tools

« Last post by 40hz on June 18, 2011, 07:33 AM »

(I either need to train myself not to use Quick Reply, or image attachment needs to be added to that feature. I'm sure it's the former.)

-daddydave (June 18, 2011, 07:24 AM)

@daddydave - Quick workaround: Compose text in quick reply. When done, hit the Preview button. Add any images in the edit window there.

That's what I usually do.