Recent Posts

8076

Living Room / Re: Operation Facebook (will you rejoice?)

« Last post by wraith808 on August 10, 2011, 01:41 PM »

Have you ever known a politician to tell the truth?

-Renegade (August 10, 2011, 01:33 PM)

Actually.. I have.  Not overly successful politicians, but yes.

8077

General Software Discussion / Re: Free ASP.NET CMS

« Last post by wraith808 on August 10, 2011, 01:40 PM »

But... The hit limit... Not good.

-Renegade (August 10, 2011, 12:45 PM)

What hit limit?  I only saw a limit on the number of pages and members, unless I'm missing something?

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General Software Discussion / Re: Free ASP.NET CMS

« Last post by wraith808 on August 10, 2011, 12:36 PM »

The limitations don't seem like much for a personal site, and for free, it's only a matter of support.  If its easier to deploy than DNN, than that's a win.  I'd not seen Umbraco before- thanks for the link!

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General Software Discussion / Free ASP.NET CMS

« Last post by wraith808 on August 10, 2011, 08:07 AM »

I just found out about this through a set of components that I'm evaluating.

http://www.kentico.com/

Kentico CMS for ASP.NET as a Content Management System (duh) written in ASP.NET (duh again).

They have a free edition that has the following limitations:

You can use Kentico CMS Free Edition for commercial and personal projects. There’s no hidden fee!
 
Whether you build a personal blog, corporate site or a small on-line store, you can use the Free Edition for unlimited time on your live server!
 
The free edition has the following limits:
 
1 global administrator user account per installation
1 editor per web site
1000 documents/pages per web site
100 site members per web site
you are required to put the Powered by Kentico CMS logo or a visible link "Powered by Kentico CMS for ASP.NET" pointing to http://www.kentico.com in the footer of all pages managed by Kentico CMS
the support is available only through forums without any guarantee (e-mail and phone support is only available for the users of the paid editions and for evaluators)

I didn't know if anyone would be interested, but it looks pretty slick.

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Living Room / Re: In search of ... a lost note app

« Last post by wraith808 on August 09, 2011, 09:38 PM »

What's the extension of the data file?  That might help to locate the program.

PS: Why didn't you lock the room, or barring that your computers?  Doesn't excuse his actions (or the parents' who are more at fault IMO), but it would have prevented it...

8081

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ... opinions/reviews of IDEs & Editors for Web code

« Last post by wraith808 on August 09, 2011, 10:47 AM »

PhpDesigner - works fine with PHP and other web dev tasks.

-mahesh2k (August 09, 2011, 12:53 AM)

Is it activation based?  i.e. do you have to activate it over the internet?

One suggestions I saw elsewhere was to try one of the JetBrains solutions: http://www.jetbrains.com/index.html

Either WebStorm or PhpStorm. They were recommended as faster alternatives to the more popular IDEs. None of the JetBrains stuff is free but they do seem quite nice.

-nudone (August 09, 2011, 03:39 AM)

Does anyone know what the difference in features is in WebStorm vs PhPStorm?  I couldn't readily tell from the site.

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General Software Discussion / Re: FlatPress blogging platform: flat text file stored, open source, freeware

« Last post by wraith808 on August 09, 2011, 10:06 AM »

Thanks wraith!  That does look like what I'm needing.  I'm only wanting a select few pages to be passworded.  Can I set up PMWiki in a subdirectory and just password-protect access to web-pages in that directory only?

I'll read more about PMWiki tonight.  Right now, I've got to leave for work.

Thanks for the info!

-kyrathaba (August 09, 2011, 07:51 AM)

You'll want to look at the topic on Passwords.  What I'd do is set up a WikiGroup, then password protect that.

8083

General Software Discussion / Re: FlatPress blogging platform: flat text file stored, open source, freeware

« Last post by wraith808 on August 09, 2011, 07:40 AM »

That's why I use PMWiki for my site.  You can password protect parts and leave other parts open, and it's easier to add to, and isn't date driven.  I'd suggest if you're going to use it as an information store, you should look at some sort of wiki.  I've just found that I like PMWiki the best, because of it's extensibility, the ease of the wiki language and adding pages, and the fact that it uses flat files like FlatPress.

8084

Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 08, 2011, 07:09 PM »

Parallel conversation on G+ brought up an interesting podcast link

http://castroller.co...%20Duke%20University

From what I understood of the study from the podcast, the researcher has concluded that DRM is removed, then (a) many pirates will buy rather than pirate, and (b) the price of the non-digital formats will reduce in price, and (c) the decline in the sale of non-digital formats will subsequently reverse, and they will sell more of the non-digital formats.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Outlining software recommendations?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 08, 2011, 06:10 PM »

I'm interested.  I just don't pay full price for these kind of things.  A couple others that I've used before are LeaderTask and Achieve Planner, though if this one has a way to automatically fill out time from activities, I'm even more interested.

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Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 08, 2011, 12:27 PM »

Agreed +1

And one of the comments from that post:

cracked versions of the constant drm and closed off games alike tend ot actualy be better in the performance seciton compared to drm filled games!! wtf arghh!

This is truly the WTF moment about the DRM. 

8087

Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 07, 2011, 04:52 PM »

Sad thing is if you're a gamer, you're likely going to end up with the requirement to be online to game (or at least *have* an Internet connection for activation) whether you're on Steam or not. See recent Ubisoft games for example...

-JavaJones (August 07, 2011, 03:59 PM)

There was enough of an outcry against this practice that they backed away from it.  That's the key thing- if it hurts the bottom line, they won't do it.  That's the only thing that they learn from.  And a large enough bloc has to have the willingness to do so.

8088

Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2011, 03:03 PM »

So is it just me, or do other people have as big a hangup about gaming over the web (and generally consider the whole thing a mistake) as I do?

-40hz (August 05, 2011, 12:31 PM)

I enjoy gaming over the web because I don't have visitors very often and I don't have multiple computers to play the games I want to play.

I do not (usually) enjoy gaming over the web with strangers, especially competitively. I prefer cooperation or at least I prefer to know some/most of the people I'm playing with, even if I don't know them "IRL" but just as online friends/acquaintances.

-Deozaan (August 06, 2011, 02:33 PM)

This.  Though even though I don't game with strangers, I don't begrudge anyone that does, nor think that its a mistake.

8089

Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2011, 12:59 PM »

^ Ummm... have you tried this recently?  All you have to do is restart, and it will ask you to go to offline mode.  They fixed that a long time ago.

-wraith808 (August 06, 2011, 09:52 AM)

Tried it yesterday lol, It refused point blank to go into offline mode, which means I cant even play Supreme Commander 2 in offline mode

-Stephen66515 (August 06, 2011, 10:45 AM)

Did you quit steam then restart?  That's when it asks you if you want to go into offline mode?  You can't just start the game, you have to restart steam in my experience.

8090

Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 06, 2011, 09:52 AM »

^ Ummm... have you tried this recently?  All you have to do is restart, and it will ask you to go to offline mode.  They fixed that a long time ago.

8091

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2011, 01:19 PM »

First you never tried, and now you can't.

-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 01:14 PM)

I could, and it would probably be more effective... once.  And I'm sure if you had an iPad, it would be your flyswatter.

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Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2011, 01:10 PM »

One thing I can't understand with Steam is that after buying locally, on a physical medium, Steam still jumps in and prevents play… for days. I must be missing something — probably a brain.

Anyone care to enlighten me?

-cranioscopical (August 05, 2011, 10:35 AM)

I have no idea of what you refer to.  I've never been prevented from playing anything for any amount of time, let alone days.  Well, I was in the beginning of Steam.  But now with offline mode, unless it's a game that requires online connectivity, no.

8093

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2011, 01:05 PM »

I guess I'm a heretic, because I've always been a reader, and I don't miss anything about physical books.

-wraith808 (August 05, 2011, 07:24 AM)

Yeah? ...Try swatting a fly with your iPad and get back to me on that.

 

-Stoic Joker (August 05, 2011, 12:04 PM)

I never swatted flies with my physical books - I think you're the heretic! 

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Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2011, 08:53 AM »

Want to download a purchase from iTunes? Ooops... Sorry. Please buy that again. (Wasn't happy when I went back to download a purchase and found that out.)

-Renegade (August 05, 2011, 07:43 AM)

Apparently they finally figured out that this was a bad idea; you can download old purchase now, and retroactively.

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Living Room / Re: Steam: Savior or Slayer of PC Gaming?

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2011, 07:29 AM »

To paraphrase a quote from the article for my own purposes:

{I} want a simpler, more unified experience. The verdict is in: {I} like using Steam. Why? Cause it's easy, it's lightweight, and it can work on multiple platforms. PC is an incredibly broad term, with just about everyone owning and operating a personal computing device of some sort.

Also, I like not having physical media, and being able to get the game again whenever I want.

8096

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« Last post by wraith808 on August 05, 2011, 07:24 AM »

There truly is nothing comparable to holding a real book in your hands. It feels like the essence of the book is lost when it is read on a kindle. I appreciate the benefits, but I think there is some sort of enjoyment factor which isn't quite there when it isn't the real thing...

-CodeBoy (August 05, 2011, 03:04 AM)

I guess I'm a heretic, because I've always been a reader, and I don't miss anything about physical books.  Other than reference books, which I've tried to use in digital form, but it's hard, everything else is a better experience.  Of course, I felt the same way about hardbacks vs softbacks, so...

8097

General Software Discussion / Re: Software Hall of Fame

« Last post by wraith808 on August 04, 2011, 02:53 PM »

Delphi - Borland had a real contender until they started trying to compete with Microsoft instead of tending their own business.

NSFW Commentary

Spoiler

They got into a pissing contest with someone with a much larger bladder- didn't end well as they were left embarrasingly holding their d*ck.  Who me bitter?

Castle Wolfenstein - first step in a new generation of shooters.

Everquest - it's called evercrack for a reason.  Showed that MMOs were not just a viable revenue stream, but had the potential of being a money machine (or a money pit, as people later learned).

Steam - pretty recent, but Valve had a dream of digital games.  And though it's not fully realized yet, when it is, Valve will be known as one of the pioneers in this field.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Realtime backups

« Last post by wraith808 on August 04, 2011, 01:55 PM »

AJC Active Backup.  I set it up for my wife, and it's saved her several times with her schoolwork!  I purchased the standard edition on Bits du Jour for less, but it's only $29 normally.  Apparently Super Flexible File Synchronizer does something similar, and I've seen folks on DC rave over it, but I've never used it.

8099

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by wraith808 on August 04, 2011, 01:51 PM »

Geek Humor!

A virus walks into a bar, and the bartender says we don't serve viruses in this bar.  The virus replaces the bartender, and says now we do.

An infectious disease walks into a bar, and the bartender says we don't serve infectious diseases in this bar.  The infectious disease replies, well, you're not a very good host.

Two bacteria walk into a bar, and the bartender says we don't serve bacteria in this bar.  The bacteria replies but we work here!  We're staph!

... getting geekier...

A room temperature superconductor walks into a bar.  The bartender replies we don't serve any superconductors in this bar.  The room temperature super conductor leaves without putting up any resistance.

... and geekier...

An infrared photon walks into a bar and asks, is it hot in here, or is it just me?

... deeper down the geek hole...

A neutrino walks into a bar, and the bartender says we don't serve neutrinos in this bar, and the neutrino replies, hey, I was just passing through...

... one last level of geek factor...

Schroedinger's cat walks into a bar... and doesn't!

And a bonus geek joke!

√-1 2^3 ∑ π

Spoiler

(I ate sum pie)

8100

Living Room / Re: Why ebooks are bad for you

« Last post by wraith808 on August 04, 2011, 10:19 AM »

I just finished my 20th eBook of 2011, and started on #21: Marion Zimmer Bradley's "The Door Through Space" (got it free from Project Gutenberg).

-kyrathaba (August 03, 2011, 02:54 PM)

I don't even want to *count* how many I've read this year.  It seems to be accelerating.  I went to a book fair about a month ago, and purchased several hard copies, but haven't even started them yet.  But in the same time frame, I finished 13 digital books.  It's just more convenient, no matter the philosophical or future possible disadvantages of DRM.