Recent Posts

8901

Living Room / Re: Designers discuss the new Yahoo Logo: "Logo, Bullshit and Co., Inc."

« Last post by mouser on September 07, 2013, 07:46 AM »

Thanks for the link to the irreverence essay -- i've added it to the list.

8902

Living Room / Designers discuss the new Yahoo Logo: "Logo, Bullshit and Co., Inc."

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 11:27 PM »

There have been some really nice discussions from a few designers on how the new Yahoo logo was created by the ceo in a weekend on a whim, and her deluded description of the design process.  It's a good example of power going to people's heads and a general lack of respect for skills and experience.

Anybody can make a logo.. All it needs is a little time, a computer, someone that knows how to use Illustrator, and taste, maybe. Everybody has taste, right? So let’s do it! So thought Yahoo’s CEO Marissa Mayer, and she went and did it. How did it turn out?

http://ia.net/blog/logo-bullshit-co-inc/

Other must reads on the topic:

• Yahoo's Logo Reveals the Worst Aspects of the Engineering Mindset - http://glog.glennf.c...-engineering-mindset
• Of Irreverence and Irrelevance: A Yahoo! Redesign - https://medium.com/i...-shapes/cba88884743c

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Screenshot Captor / Re: problem resizing caption box / object

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 10:35 PM »

Please note that the caption IS a text memo box -- it is a text box which is automatically placed in a certain position, and canvas automatically expanded to give a place for it.  After that though, it's a standard text memo box.

8904

Living Room / Re: The fun of installing custom router firmware (tomato, dd-wrt) - an introduction

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 09:26 PM »

Oh that's cool, i didn't even realize a router could be used as a repeater!

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Screenshot Captor / Re: Poor man's 'gallery view' in Screenshot Capture

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 07:07 PM »

I'm wondering if i add this if it should be basically an entirely independent new window that can be displayed.

The advantages of that would be:

• Better for users with multiple monitors, as it could be maximized on a separate monitor.
• Less complicated user-interface design work on my part.

Disadvantages:

• More annoying for single monitor users.
• Less intuitive.

8906

Living Room / Making a new page of "DonationCoder's Favorite Web Sites" - suggestions?

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 07:03 PM »

We used to have a page that we tried to keep updated, recommending some of the best sites on the web in different categories, and we used to give out awards to our "favorite" sites. I think it's time we brought back some version of that.

Note that I put "our" in quotes because I don't have in mind a really systematic way to choose these.  Thought I'd start with some that I think are kindred spirits to DC and go from there.  I'd be happy to hear recommendations, either posted on this thread or by email ([email protected]).


The new page of favorites is now online and you can view it: HERE.


Now I'd like to invite some suggestions for sites to include. What I'm looking for sites that are active (i.e. new content weekly), and deserve some recognition, and that you would include on a list of favorite websites to visit regularly. The first sites that come immediately to mind are ones like: TechSupportAlert, Ghacks, dottech, freewaregenius, etc.

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Screenshot Captor / Re: Poor man's 'gallery view' in Screenshot Capture

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 04:37 PM »

What might be useful for the search bar would be the ability to search subfolders and display appropriate images all in the same view but that's asking rather a lot.

yes, i was thinking this myself.  this is something a gallery view could be made to do.

8908

Living Room / Re: I'm ready to join the HTPC (home theater pc) revolution - what to get?

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 04:18 PM »

Well it would save me 50% on upgrade cost..

8909

Living Room / Re: I'm ready to join the HTPC (home theater pc) revolution - what to get?

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 03:54 PM »

Then I got frustrated with jriver and went to xbmc.

Then transfer to me your unused jriver license key!

8910

Living Room / Re: The fun of installing custom router firmware (tomato, dd-wrt) - an introduction

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 03:52 PM »

So i broke down and got myself a new router (ASUS Dual-Band Wireless-N 600 Router RT-N56U).

The main motivation was to fix the issue with my laptop losing it's connection, and to improve wireless connection strength at far corners of my house.

So I'm using stock firmware on this for now; i *MIGHT* put tomato on this router, i might not.

And the laptop losing connection i will have to report on later.
The wireless strength in the kitchen is a little better but not hugely -- that's a disapointment but maybe due to me not getting a router model with external antennas and me not experimenting with positioning the router (anyone know what kind of difference this kind of thing makes?)

However, I got a huge surprise after connecting the new router, which is that my internet download speed almost doubled, from 35MBPs to 57MBPs(!).  I had assumed that the older netgear 54GL router would not have had a problem getting this kind of bandwidth so it never occurred to me that it could be the bottleneck.  Very cool surprise.

If you're using an old router and not getting the bandwidth that your ISP says you should get, you might want to consider upgrading router..


Special thanks to dc member Swkire for help with router issues and advice in choosing a router.

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Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor Early Beta Release: v4.6.4 Beta - Sep 11, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 03:43 PM »

I think i'll have the ObjectMode text context-specific to the tool you select -- that will let me add specific help on each drawing object tool!
That ought to help people using objects a little.

EDIT: DONE

8912

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor Early Beta Release: v4.6.4 Beta - Sep 11, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 03:27 PM »

Should be enabled by default.

Help -> About should show version 4.6.2.
if not, download again.

8913

Screenshot Captor / Re: Poor man's 'gallery view' in Screenshot Capture

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 03:02 PM »

I'm interested - but I'm not sure what you mean there.

what i mean is a kind of Gallery mode that you could switch in and out of, which would basically just show a full page of thumbnails in a grid, for quick browsing, searching, deleting, etc.

8914

Screenshot Captor / Re: SUGGESTION: Maximum Screen Size

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 02:58 PM »

I've been cursing those scrollbars for years now

ugh that's horrible!!!

i guess i need some kind of quick tips thing, or some kind of video tutorial on things that are most useful.

8915

Screenshot Captor / Re: Poor man's 'gallery view' in Screenshot Capture

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 02:04 PM »

Very cool, I'll bet very few people realize they can configure the thumbnail panel to show multiple columns.

I wonder if having a dedicated thumbnail viewing mode might also be useful..

8916

Screenshot Captor / Re: After each capturing main window is appears despite "stay minimized" is chosen

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 12:37 PM »

It works here (win xp) but probably not be worth diving too deep into this for now, i think i probably should rework this behavior so SC truly does not change its z-order at all.  But hopefully the more serious problem found by Barvetal, where red box capture mode would even wake up SC from being minimized in tray, is now fixed.

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Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor Early Beta Release: v4.6.4 Beta - Sep 11, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 12:12 PM »

Another useful new feature is that in the search bar, you can start your search with ~ to exclude screenshots that match a pattern.  This can be useful for example, if most of your screenshots are named with the default "Screenshot - " and you want to show only files that are named differently, etc.

8918

Screenshot Captor / Re: Screenshot Captor Early Beta Release: v4.6.4 Beta - Sep 11, 2013

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 12:10 PM »

New beta uploaded, with a couple of noteworthy improvements.

One should help new users work in object mode.  When you switch to object mode to add an object, the bottom panel which normally shows filename and memo now looks like this:



Note that experts can disable this from Object Drawing options tab if they wish.


The point of this is to solve the problem where new users click on the arrow toolbar button or something similar, and then find themselves in object editing mode with no idea how to get out of it.

What do you think of this? Any suggestions for additional/modified text to display there for beginners?  Should I color it differently so it will really stand out?

8919

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 11:44 AM »

*LOVE* it.

8920

Screenshot Captor / Re: After each capturing main window is appears despite "stay minimized" is chosen

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 10:35 AM »

Can you clarify to me the situation and how you are triggering capture, etc.

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Screenshot Captor / Re: After each capturing main window is appears despite "stay minimized" is chosen

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 09:07 AM »

SC window open in the background.
I take screenshot and SC window jumps to foreground (the screenshot is fine)

I should have said that i'm still working on perfecting this and haven't got it perfect.  what should happen now though is if there was another program that was focused and in front of SC, then SC should appear behind it after the capture in that case, though it will jump in front of others.

8922

Screenshot Captor / Re: problem resizing caption box / object

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 02:20 AM »

I can see the frustration of using the caption feature -- it's not really easy to resize the caption box once it is created, due to the nature of it -- it's basically creating a text box and resizing the canvas as a one time thing, not doing it dynamically as you adjust the caption.  I'll consider something more dynamic, though it wouldn't be trivial to implement so don't hold your breath.  It's possible that a specialty "modify caption size" menu item would be more feasible (though admittedly not ideal).

8923

Screenshot Captor / Re: problem resizing caption box / object

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 02:17 AM »

Thanks Tomos - I see now the expand canvas ONLY works if you select an object 1st, then click expand canvas.
But what you show is "resizing", not expand canvas.  Resizing most objects works OK for me.

this is me being inconsistent in naming things.  the tool that tomos showed, labeled resize canvas, is EXPANDING the canvas.

You'll also find a new "Quick Expand Canvas" on the main edit menu.

Cathie when you say:

I see now the expand canvas ONLY works if you select an object 1st, then click expand canvas.

that sounds like you are talking about the menu item under the Object menu labeled "Expand canvas to fit objects" which is a function used specifically when your objects are outside the bounds of the images.

8924

Screenshot Captor / Re: problem resizing caption box / object

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 02:14 AM »

NOTE that sometimes it has a red 'O' overlaid on the arrow, sometimes not (I'm not sure what the difference is).

it gets the 'O' as soon as you add any objects in the screenshot that can be edited.  that is, it alerts you when there are objects present on the file you are viewing.  it's a reminder to help remind you to press it to edit them.

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Living Room / Re: I'm ready to join the HTPC (home theater pc) revolution - what to get?

« Last post by mouser on September 06, 2013, 02:12 AM »

I checked out xbmc and jriver and both look really nice.

I prefer the way Jriver has a theatre more and a more traditional mode, and in general i think i like jriver better for standard stuff (movies, audio), BUT xbmc seems to be packed to the brim with addons and fun stuff that can be added.. so it's a very tough choice.