Recent Posts

7976

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Text Expander software for Windows

« Last post by 40hz on March 18, 2011, 09:10 AM »

But users are already confused by our three editions (Easy, Standard, Pro) and we would like to avoid adding complexity in this area.

-BartelsMedia (March 18, 2011, 08:40 AM)

Suggest you talk to your sales department then. 

Offering different 'editions' (i.e. feature sets) is a "pay to play" price tier strategy. Different 'editions' exist for marketing reasons more than anything else. 

If they didn't you could just create one edition, and turn on various 'extended' feature sets using a basic/intermediate/advanced switch.

If your customers are confused, there's a simple solution - stop confusing them.

Just come out and say you have versions of your program that pack additional capabilities and which are available at additional purchase cost. Don't be coy with "more powerful" and "professional version" blather. Just spell it out: additional features are available (to those who may need them) at additional cost.

I think most customers (or at least the type you want) would appreciate the candor. 

7977

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite ZIP/RAR application?

« Last post by 40hz on March 18, 2011, 08:43 AM »

For all the other WinRAR customers, who have purchased a regular license (even if the purchase has been made in 2005 or 2003 for example), we still offer free upgrades and updates. There are no indications that this policy will change in the near future.

-WinRAR

Clear enough!

-Darwin (March 14, 2011, 10:38 AM)

...let's just hope they stick with that for a long time

-f0dder (March 14, 2011, 01:53 PM)

One would hope.

I spoke with an attorney recently about all these 'policy' changes where software developers are backing out of their former 'lifetime' license agreements by either changing the product's name, or simply announcing (with a suitable amount of handwringing) that they've decided to no longer honor their previous terms.

He said if the software user was legally bound by the terms of the license at the time of installation, such an after the fact policy change to the license terms could be construed as a breach of contract and could also risk running afoul of antifraud statutes. At least in the USA.

He also said the business justifications that are offered for backing out of "lifetime free upgrades" agreement have no legal relevance. If you enter into a contract, you are bound by what both parties agreed to, even if your situation changes down the road.

The only way out of that is to either offer a new set of terms BOTH parties agree to - or refund the buyer's original purchase price.

Moral: stand by your word or have your checkbook ready. And think twice about what you offer. 

7978

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Text Expander software for Windows

« Last post by 40hz on March 18, 2011, 08:19 AM »

Perhaps, we could request the user to solve a short RegEx quizz before the feature can be enabled. Somehow like skill-checking captcha.

I think that's a clever and very innovative approach.

I also think the average corporate user would feel highly insulted should they fail to pass it. They're a competitive bunch and have a tendency to look over their shoulders a lot.

I think it would be smarter and more politically expedient to either offer two separate versions or offer regex as an installable (and removable) option. Ideally with its own installer to cut down on the number of 'casual' installs.

Just my 2¢ 

7979

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by 40hz on March 17, 2011, 03:59 PM »

@SB- Latexit looks promising. EPS vector format is what we used for our formula "artwork."

@Edvard- very cool find. Thanks for sharing!

7980

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [freeware]:WikeNotes for you to manage your notes with ease

« Last post by 40hz on March 17, 2011, 09:32 AM »

@40hz: i don't think the author has a website currently. the author dropped by the chat-room a few days back asking if he could release the software here at DoCo and we sort of pointed him to this board. the setup file was initially hosted at mediafire, so we suggested he attach it in this thread. i've downloaded and scanned the installer although i've yet to install it.

some info i gleaned from the author while at the chatroom: the program is QT-based and the data are saved in sqlite. i believe the author will be around soon to fill in the gaps.

-lanux128 (March 17, 2011, 08:35 AM)

Well if somebody at DC vouched for it that's more than good enough for me.  

But I was just making a general suggestion to him. It wasn't meant to be taken as criticism. Most software directory sites won't list or review your program if you don't have a website. And many don't allow direct links to file downloads for obvious reasons.

Still, maybe he'd be interested in joining up and hosting here? It would be nice to have another developer decide  to enter the DC fold.

 

7981

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by 40hz on March 17, 2011, 09:08 AM »

Actually, 40, had I not suggested mathtype to my partner, he was going to do it just as you said: creating the vector art directly in the program (Indesign, not Illustrator, although he was doing it there also).
Your way is logical, and also just cool.  I actually wouldn't mind doing it (I'm very particular about how to present math solutions properly).  But in our case, it's clearly not a good use of time and resources.  You're more like my partner in this stuff, he enjoys the personal touch in all of this. 

-superboyac (March 16, 2011, 11:45 PM)

You give us too much credit. It was neither cool nor intended to provide a personal touch. 

Not being all that knowledgeable about engineering or math software, it was the only bloody way we could get acceptable quality within the time and budget constraints we'd been given. Basically we used what we had and knew best - and went from there.   

Turned out it worked very well - and proved to be remarkably efficient down the road since all the formulas could be dropped in like tiles afterwards. Definitely not the optimal or most elegant strategy for how to get a project like that manual done. But it was a workable method. And sometimes, 'workable' is as good as it gets.

Like the chief engineer for the Data General Eclipse 'Eagle' computer said: Not everything worth doing is worth doing well. Sometimes you have to learn to accept the constraints you're given.  We built the machine we thought we could get away with building. But that's just the way things work here so it's really not all that important. What's really important is that you get your machine out the door.


 

7982

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: [freeware]:WikeNotes for you to manage your notes with ease

« Last post by 40hz on March 17, 2011, 07:26 AM »

Welcome to DonationCoder!

Looks like an interesting and potentially useful addition to a notetaker's toolkit. 

Suggestion: provide a link to your web page too? Many of us are leery of links that point directly to an executable download without first knowing a little bit more about who is providing it. 

(Sad times we live in that we have to be so cautious.)

7983

Living Room / Re: Dumbed Down Language Observation

« Last post by 40hz on March 17, 2011, 07:14 AM »

I think "You're not the boss of me." is saying something subtly different than "You're not my boss."

Saying you won't be "bossed around" by someone isn't the same as saying someone isn't your boss, which only infers you won't allow that person to "boss" you around. The second sentence requires more interpretation. (Hint: first you have to recall the functions of being a boss...) The first requires little or none.

"You're not my boss is also less specific and context dependent. There's a big difference between saying "You are not my boss." and "YOU are not MY boss."; whereas ""You are not the boss of me." is pretty unambiguous in any context.

So I think there may be some justification for "the boss of me" construct.

Now if we could just get adults to stop saying "My bad!" 

7984

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by 40hz on March 16, 2011, 09:59 PM »

40hz, something very much like that occurred to me in considering this issue.

-JavaJones (March 16, 2011, 09:50 PM)

Doesn't surprise me. It's a fairly logical way to do it once you think about it. I make no claim for originality.

If we knew more about the original project requirements here I think it would help determine the best approach though.

- Oshyan

I think Aram mentioned what he was doing in a previous thread. He's creating study review guides to help people prepare for a professional licensing exam.

 

7985

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: JetDrive Defragmentation Suite

« Last post by 40hz on March 16, 2011, 09:50 PM »

The scary thing was I had 35 per cent free space, and the XP built-in defragmenter still wouldn't defrag the files.

-johnk (March 15, 2011, 06:47 PM)

Just out of curiosity, do you know which file had 20K worth of fragments. Some sort of database? Or was it your pagefile or MFT?

Reason I ask is because I've never had anything to remotely with that monster of yours. And I handle servers and multi-user environments where some files get clobbered and frag up pretty badly in the course of a work week.

Always something new for me to learn about.

  

7986

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by 40hz on March 16, 2011, 09:41 PM »

At the risk of provoking a burst of laughter, the way my company used to handle mathematical formulas was to use a high-end math symbol Postscript font and create all the formulas using Adobe Illustrator. We selected a drawing app in order to get extremely fine control over symbol placement, scaling, and positioning.

My former business partner was a typography expert that didn't believe in automating certain things when it came to characters or symbols. His approach was to treat mathematical formulas as pictures rather than as text since they would never change once they were created.

After a formula was created, it was saved as a (scalable vector format) illustration so that it could be dropped in and re-sized as and where needed. This was a major up-front pain to do. But once the formula "art" was created (and proofed/approved) it was very easy to catalog for future reuse.

We did a 1200-page technical manual for a Fortune 10 company where we built a library of about 200 formulas. This came in handy down the road when we were contracted to produce some additional manuals.

Having a library of the requisite formulas allowed us to hold down our costs and shorten our delivery times such that we beat out several larger competitors for future editions of this manual. We had a major advantage because we didn't have to redo - or proof - hundreds of  formulas we didn't actually understand. And because the formulas were art - there was no danger of a typo error creeping in once we had done the initial proofing.

Maybe not the most elegant or 'techy' way to do it. But our approach worked quite well, both for the initial project and its revisions.

 

7987

General Software Discussion / Re: Lyx is the answer

« Last post by 40hz on March 16, 2011, 11:08 AM »

For presentation, a professional DTP app like InDesign or Quark Xpress is probably your best bet.

The trick to getting good work flow is to exercise discipline when you're creating content. That means when you're creating content -  stick to creating the content. Think plaint text file here.

Do all your editorial proofing and spellchecking here. Content should be as clean and correct as humanly possible before you even think of styles and fonts. Repeat after me: proof and approve all content text before you make it look pretty.

All stylization and formatting should be done in DTP and strictly controlled by style TAGs.

Once you set up your master document and style sheets, it's a relatively simple matter to "pour" your text into it and do the text formatting. And because everything is controlled by the style tags and master doc settings, any change to a style format becomes global.  

Adobe also has nice integration between it's other apps. So you'll gain productivity and workflow advantages using InDesign with the rest of Adobe's 'creative' suite.

 I'm more familiar with Quark because when I started learning DP, it was clearly superior to PageMaker or Interleaf. But if I were starting today, I'd definitely go with InDesign.

LyX is pretty cool. I like it. But IMO it often creates more work for you than it saves. And you need to make a commitment to rethink how you do things to get full benefit from it. The other big issue is staffing & support. If you're doing books as a business, you're going to eventually need to start hiring (or subcontracting) if it's successful. I think it's much easier to find InDesign freelancers than it is to find TeX experts - unless you live near a university with a big UNIX department.

Just my 2¢

7988

General Software Discussion / Re: The best RSS reader?

« Last post by 40hz on March 16, 2011, 10:39 AM »

I must have tried them all at one time or another. But (for now at least) I've given up on stand-alone readers. Between the licensing games, features I didn't want, and miscellaneous interface oddities I finally settled on doing all my feed reading in Firefix using the Sage extension. For anything I want to save for later perusal I use ReadItLater which is synced to my PCs so I can get to my stuff from anywhere. I'll also download and archive the 'keepers' using Canaware Netnotes.

Since I'm usually working on a backlog of about 100+ articles, I'm never short on something to read -  even if I can't get a web connection. 

I'd love it if could find an all-in-one app to replace what I'm currently using however.

So i'm looking forward to seeing what other folks are using and like.

7989

Living Room / Re: USB Madness With Cooked-Off Ports

« Last post by 40hz on March 15, 2011, 06:06 PM »

I turned it loose in shotgun mode (because it matched the mood I was in)....

-Stoic Joker (March 15, 2011, 07:43 AM)

How does that line up with:

Warning:
So use it with care and only if you know what you are doing!

 

-4wd (March 15, 2011, 05:37 PM)

I think the name explains it all.  

7990

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: JetDrive Defragmentation Suite

« Last post by 40hz on March 15, 2011, 01:57 PM »

It turns out the hard disk was badly fragmented -- the 10 most fragmented files averaging more than 20,000 fragments each! In fact it was so bad that XP's built-in defragmenter wouldn't work. I tried it a couple of times, and it just played with the files but didn't fix them. Just kept reporting that I still needed to defragment my disk!

I turned to JKDefrag, and it did the job. It took 12 hours, but it worked. So yes, in my experience, an occasional defrag is probably a good idea and yes, if your disk is in a bad way, trying a specialist program like JKDefrag is worth a shot.

-johnk (March 14, 2011, 07:16 PM)

Scary! 

I'm guessing that this drive partition was pretty full, with something like less than 10% freespace available?

Running tight on filespace contributes to heavy fragmentation. And if you're running with a dynamic swapfile ...whoops!...make that pagefile setting, lack of contiguous disk space can also cause stability problems for the OS itself.
 

7991

Living Room / Re: Interesting calming essay about nuclear power plan situation in Japan

« Last post by 40hz on March 15, 2011, 01:03 PM »

If I understand correctly, 10% ethanol mix is mandated by federal law (in the US) during the winter driving season. Something like between November through March?

Interestingly, the price always jumps up right about the time it switches over too. So much for consumer savings. 

P.S. CT is running about $3.89/gal for regular octane gas. Diesel just topped $4.00/gal

7992

Living Room / Re: USB Madness With Cooked-Off Ports

« Last post by 40hz on March 15, 2011, 08:44 AM »

+1 w/StoicJoker.

Had a client machine with a similar problem that had defied any rational analysis by a human. Did a "go for broke" in shotgun mode.  Worked like a charm. And with no bad surprises or collateral damage.

This one earns a permanent place in my tech kit.  

7993

Living Room / Re: Interesting calming essay about nuclear power plan situation in Japan

« Last post by 40hz on March 14, 2011, 04:45 PM »

To hear the way some people have been talking (on the news and on the web) I get the feeling a certain group of people are highly disappointed that a global nuclear catastrophe hasn't occurred yet.

 

@Mouser - thx for the link. The article was a very good introduction to the science and engineering behind what's going on in with that plant in Japan right now.

7994

General Software Discussion / Re: How to choose the best Linux distro for laptops

« Last post by 40hz on March 14, 2011, 04:32 PM »

I've used PCLinuxOS in the past and had generally favorable experiences with it. Very user friendly community behind it.

If you're feeling adventurous, my current fav for laptop use is CrunchBang Linux. It's based on the Debian repositories and  uses Openbox as it's primary window manager.

Fluid, fast, darkly themed, and sometimes just a little too leading edge (in places) for its own good.  

If you're a fan of Conky you'll feel right at home.



Not to say it has to stay dark...



Dynamite distro, although it may not be the best choice for your first foray into Linux on a laptop. But we're a fairly knowledgeable and clever crew here - so then again, maybe it might.

There's a live CD available which makes it easy to try out without making a commitment.

Good review (older version) here.

The latest release is reviewed here.

 

7995

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: JetDrive Defragmentation Suite

« Last post by 40hz on March 14, 2011, 01:03 PM »

FWIW I've been quite happy with various versions of JKDefrag/MyDefrag by Joeren Kessel.

I'm not super big on PC drive defragging since my experience leads me to suspect many of the claims for the ongoing need to defrag, and the benefits to be gained by doing so, don't seem to hold up in the real world. I suppose it does no harm, and may help in some cases. But for most users, an occasional reorg with something like  myDefrag should be more than sufficient.

7996

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Text Expander software for Windows

« Last post by 40hz on March 14, 2011, 11:03 AM »

^@timns- that would be for your "entertaining hobby" you have so much "enthusiasm" for and which deserves to be applauded?   

7997

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Text Expander software for Windows

« Last post by 40hz on March 13, 2011, 08:50 PM »

I appreciate your enthusiam to hunt bugs as an entertaining hobby but right now I have things to do and no time for fiddling.

-Mattphoes (March 13, 2011, 06:40 PM)

?????  

7998

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2009 / Re: Looking for Suggestions for Name of New Blog that Will be Abandoned

« Last post by 40hz on March 13, 2011, 08:37 PM »

Finally, priviledge. If mouser creates a blog for me, then what's to say someone else wouldn't want mouser to create a blog for them too? I'm not saying they'll outright request it but it opens up the question as to why everyone else can't have a blog and it could impact the community in a subtle unforeseen manner.

-Paul Keith (March 13, 2011, 08:00 PM)

I'm guessing that if anyone else asked nicely, Mouser would give them their own blog too.

7999

General Software Discussion / Re: SUPER © updated, download from Major Geeks

« Last post by 40hz on March 13, 2011, 08:11 PM »

SUPER © 2011 Build 47

http://majorgeeks.com/Super_d5117.html
or
http://www.filehippo.com/download_super/

Edited:
My installer wanted to install a third party program named Registry Reviver. It seems you may need to click "Do NOT install..." even though "install" appears to be unmarked.

WARNING:
You may not want to get build 47 anyway! The installer was unable to download "something", and I was forced to abort installation. So now I have no SUPER © at all!
 

-Curt (March 13, 2011, 12:48 PM)

Part of the issue you encountered is may be caused by a piece of software called Open Candy.

There's an ongoing discussion about Open Candy in this DoCo thread.

There's a good amount of debate surrounding this software. OC's creators insist it should not be classified as adware - so long as you very narrowly define what constitutes adware - like they do. Microsoft disagrees. MSE is currently flagging OC as potentially harmful adware, and has so far refused to change this classification despite protests from OC and some developers who are now including it with their software.

Despite assurances form OC's authors, and a public relations effort from OC (and the people who are incorporating it into their installers) many end-users are complaining about it. And the explanations and justifications from OC aren't doing much to make it more acceptable to them.

Gizmo's website (www.techsupportalert.com) is having discussions about how best to handle any software shipping with Open Candy as part of the installation package. And a sitewide policy regarding the listing and review of such software is currently in the draft/discussion phase. Right now, it doesn't look too good for software that includes it.

Be interesting to see how this eventually plays out.

8000

General Software Discussion / Re: SUPER © updated, download from Major Geeks

« Last post by 40hz on March 13, 2011, 07:41 PM »

@Curt - FWIW, the Filehippo website maintains an archive of the most current along with numerous previous releases of Super. Link here.