Recent Posts

901

Living Room / Re: What is a good desktop stapler?

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 06, 2011, 02:02 PM »

I'm trying not to be a Milton...

-superboyac (January 06, 2011, 01:10 PM)

Not even trying, but still doing such a great job!  

Don't worry, there will be plenty of cake to go around and no salt for your margarita.

902

Developer's Corner / Re: How to program for all 3 platforms at once

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 06, 2011, 01:57 AM »

QT allows licensing as LGPL, which is fine for commercial development.

Does LGPL allows developers to restrict source-code distribution ? Sorry, i'm not much aware of it's legal sides.

-mahesh2k (January 06, 2011, 01:21 AM)

LGPL allows you to release your program without having to distribute *your* source code.  However, you have to provide the source code for the LGPL bits (ie., the Qt library).  You also have to enable/allow people to modify, rebuild and relink the LGPL bits into the program.  Practically speaking, this means that you have to link to the LGPL stuff dynamically (using a DLL on Windows, or a shared library on Linux).  That way, end users could rebuild Qt and replace the DLL if they're so inclined.

903

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: bitsdujour Every-Day Deals

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 05, 2011, 04:37 PM »

Just so people are sure to check it out on their own - Curt's image is not the complete list (I think you have to be a logged-on, registered user with BDJ to get the list).  Most or all of these items have been on BDJ before (with a larger discount), so it's a decent bet that if you've followed BDJ for any period of time and would be interested in one or more of them, you probably already made the purchase.

But if there's a deal you missed before, you might be able to pick up some part of the bargain on this 'everyday' list.  It's certainly worth a look through (though I think BDJ could have made it easier to browse; after a couple of "Load more..." clicks you end up with a giant mass of images that are difficult to distinguish from each other and keep your place in).

904

Living Room / Re: Holy Pirates~! =p

« Last post by mwb1100 on January 02, 2011, 09:12 PM »

Well, with a name like "AVAST", they shouldn't be surprised if pirates are attracted to that software.

    Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
    A-pirating we go
    And if we're parted by a shot
    We're sure to meet below!

    Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
    The flag o'skull and bones
    A merry hour, a hempen rope
    And 'hey' for Davy Jones!"

905

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: $50 off purchase of Sapien products (PrimalScript, etc.)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 31, 2010, 02:59 AM »

Last version I have is 2007 - I could have sworn that I couldn't get it to help debug in-browser scripts (it might have been 3.1 that I tried it with though - a pretty long time in any case).

Ah - maybe that's the misunderstanding - I was talking about debugging in-browser rather than editing support for browser scripts. I should have been more clear.  But I'd certainly be happy to hear that I'm wrong about that as well.

906

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: $50 off purchase of Sapien products (PrimalScript, etc.)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 31, 2010, 01:03 AM »

Just wanted to jump in and say that PrimalScript DOES support Javascript in HTML/ASP pages.

-AlexRiedel (December 31, 2010, 12:59 AM)

Sorry about the misinformation - is that new with PrimalScript 2009?

907

Found Deals and Discounts / PrimalScript on sale for $99 - December 31, 2010 only

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 30, 2010, 12:58 PM »

PrimalScript 2009 on sale (for 24 hours on December 31, 2010) for $99:

  - http://blog.sapien.c...or-primalforms-2009/

I think that at $99 it's still pretty expensive for causal editing, but if you're writing VBScript or PowerShell scripts, or even JavaScript (for running on the desktop only - PrimalScript doesn't support in-browser scripting) it's probably well worth the hundred bucks.  I don't do much desktop scripting anymore, but when I did do some, PrimalScript was the only tool I found that made developing and debugging those scripts bearable.

I believe that the purchase of a PrimalScript 2009 license during this sale will entitle you to a free upgrade to PrimalScript 2011 when it comes out.

PrimalForms 2009 is also on sale for $99, but I know nothing about that product.

908

Living Room / Re: USB hubs - does anything like this exist?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 29, 2010, 01:32 AM »

I'm not entirely sure that this device will do what you want, but I think you might want to look at Belkin's OmniView SOHO KVM with Audio, USB and VGA:

  - http://www.belkin.co...ss?Product_Id=160623

The Switch's built-in 2-port USB device hub lets you connect two additional shared peripherals, eliminating the need to disconnect and reconnect these devices when switching between computers.

Now clearly 2 ports isn't 7 or 10, but I'm thinking that if you got a 7 or 10 port hub (I know there are 7 port hubs, but do they make 10 port hubs?) and plugged your junk (no, not that junk) into that, then daisy-chained the hub to one of the switched USB ports on the KVM it might just work.

It might take a while for all the devices to get recognized as being plugged in when you switch (and I think you'll hear a lot of bing, bloops, and bonks from Windows as it detects the devices), but I don't see why it couldn't work.  As far as I know, the KVM just makes the USB switch process appear as an unplug from the computer you're switching away from and a plug-in on the computer you're switching to.

909

Living Room / Re: Is there a more efficient way to update ftp text files?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 27, 2010, 04:56 PM »

You might want to check out Stylizer (http://www.skybound.ca/) which lets you work with and preview CSS changes in wysiwyg fashion (using browser engines integrated into the program), then saves them using FTP.

There's a mini-review thread here: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=24805.0

910

Living Room / Re: complete 180 on mouse preference - what's the best cheap mouse?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 24, 2010, 01:44 PM »

Yes, I think I can. Two is definitely the minimum though.

-nudone (December 24, 2010, 11:35 AM)

Don't forget that the scroll wheel acts as the third button (if clumsily).

911

Living Room / Re: OpenBSD: Only two remote holes [...] - the rest come from inside?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 22, 2010, 04:00 PM »

Even if backdoors never made it into the code, I agree with Mouser that if the FBI actually did attempt to get backdoors in place, that's a big deal in itself.

There should be some investigation of whether that allegation is true, though I have no idea how you'd go about doing that.  I imagine it would be hard to get anyone with authority and resources interested in pursuing an investigation.  So you'd be left with asking the accused, with no way to compel any response (much less an honest one).

I'm not even sure if the alleged FBI behavior is illegal - I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't. Even if legal, it would still be outrageous, in my opinion.

912

Living Room / Re: USB Daisy-Chaining gone hog wild

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 21, 2010, 11:49 PM »

I have a bit of a beef with this hogwash - the original article wasn't makin' bacon. 

No bull:

Marudai Food Co., Ltd. of meat used was beef ribs.
?????? With a taste.

-http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF8&langpair=ja%7cen&u=http://xe.bz/aho/24/&rurl=www.google.com&usg=ALkJrhiD-OjtS167l-n_BmNs3vWijlDufw

913

Living Room / Re: A curiousity: Intel's 'Core' processors ...

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 19, 2010, 11:35 PM »

The i7 is a quad-core processor with 'hyper threading' technology.  Each core can run 2 threads concurrently (with some limitations).  so some tools show the processor as having 8 processors, even though 4 of those processors are 'virtual', provided by the hyper-threading.

As I understand it, hyper-threading basically provides 2 sets of registers and an instruction decoding pipeline for each thread. However, there's only a single execution unit that the two 'hyper-threads' must share. One thread can use the execution unit when the other is waiting for a memory fetch, for example.

(and you can get an (8) to show up by checking the "Don't use smileys" box at the bottom of the edit window - just above the "Attach" field).

914

General Software Discussion / Re: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 19, 2010, 07:04 PM »

Does anyone have experience with 'Clipperz' (http://www.clipperz.com/)?

It's an online password storage system like LastPass (at least to some degree - since I haven't use either for more than 5 minutes, there are probably some significant differences).

I like the idea of being able to get to my stuff from anywhere over the Internet, but I'm a little concerned about trusting my stuff to an online entity (even if the vendor is on the up-and-up and is trying to do everything right, if they become a target of criminals, who knows what little mistake can cause the exposure of my data?) Anyway, Clipperz has some attraction to me in that it's open source, so I can take their PHP files and drop it on any hosting service and have my own private setup for this. 

From my brief look, it appears to use client-side JavaScript crypto to encrypt your data, and embeds the encrypted database into the page when you log on.  This also lets Clipperz have a feature where it'll produce an HTML file with the encrypted database and the JavaScript that can decrypt it (after the master password is provided) so you can have a read-only copy locally (or on a USB stick).  With this, if you don't want this data on the Internet at all, you wouldn't necessarily need to even have the PHP webserver accessible on the big Internet - you'd just need a copy accessible on your local home network (I'm not sure if the Clipperz PHP files will run on a Windows webserver, or if it needs/prefers Linux).

I have no idea how well it manages auto logon to websites, but I'm not particularly interested in that - copy-n-paste of credentials will work well enough for me.

It's probably not quite as easy as I might be thinking, but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience (or even no-experience, but opinions) with this stuff.

915

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone have experience with Acronis Online Backup?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 15, 2010, 12:51 AM »

Thanks for the info.  I'll definitely need to think about how the initial upload will go. A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation (about 1.5 Mbit/second raw uplink bandwidth divided by 15 or so) indicates I might expect about 1GB of data uploaded per day (I wonder if I'm even close).  I may have to just sign up for a month (a $5 trial, if you will) and see how well/bad things work.

916

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Indie Bundle (pay what you want sale)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 14, 2010, 08:08 PM »

if the current trend continues, it can basically only be used to say 'Windows users something something'.

-rgdot (December 14, 2010, 07:19 PM)

Ah, I see.

917

DC Gamer Club / Re: Humble Indie Bundle (pay what you want sale)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 14, 2010, 06:41 PM »

I am not a gamer so forgive me if this common. (Publicly) keeping track of average purchase is one thing but average purchase per platform is hilarious and not necessarily in a good way...

-rgdot (December 14, 2010, 06:17 PM)

I'm not a gamer either - but I don't necessarily understand what would be "not necessarily in a good way" about it.  It's mildly interesting, but I don't see it as being important in either a good or bad way.

I would be (again, mildly) interested to see the statistics on how the payments were divided up (ie., how much was designated to charity vs. the game developers and Humble Pie).  But that's not charted as far as I can tell.

918

Living Room / Re: Can we compare file transfer protocols?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 14, 2010, 06:05 PM »

SFTP is just FTP with an SSL layer, so it still sucks just as much as FTP

-f0dder (December 12, 2010, 08:42 AM)

SFTP is not FTP over SSL (that's FTPS).  Confusingly, SFTP is unrelated to FTP (except that it's a file transfer protocol). One advantage it has over FTP is that it uses a single data connection for transfers. there's no need for it to setup and tear down a connection for each file transferred.

919

General Software Discussion / Anyone have experience with Acronis Online Backup?

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 14, 2010, 04:14 PM »

I've just found out about an offering by Acronis that looks quite interesting:

    http://www.acronis.c...ducts/online-backup/

for $50 per year you get 250GB of online backup storage for up to 5 computers in your household.  If this turns out to work reliably, I think it might be the 'off-site' backup offering I've been waiting for.

I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with it that they're willing to share. 

It should be noted that I'm not interested in image backup - I just want irreplaceable documents, picture, music etc. to be backed up.

920

General Software Discussion / Re: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for 99 cents

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 07, 2010, 12:34 AM »

I really, really hope that someone drops a tactical nuke on Redmond - collateral damage be damned!

-4wd (December 06, 2010, 11:51 PM)

Ouch!  Can you hold off until I get my bomb shelter ready?

921

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by mwb1100 on December 07, 2010, 12:18 AM »

I want to buy a copy, but I would like to put it off as long as possible

-cthorpe (December 06, 2010, 06:22 PM)

heh... this is how I operate, too.  Sometimes I miss out on stuff, though.

But, I manage to get by.

922

General Software Discussion / Re: x64 DVD Decrypter Needed

« Last post by mwb1100 on November 30, 2010, 07:20 PM »

I haven't used this, so you'll need to verify if it'll do what you want, but it seems like this tool might be an option:

http://www.dvdfab.com/hd-decrypter.htm

923

General Software Discussion / Re: Return of the Son of the best *free* Windows Text Editor

« Last post by mwb1100 on November 18, 2010, 10:02 AM »

Like, I don't get what's so great about using Ctrl-<letter> instead of the arrow keys to navigate through a document

-superboyac (November 18, 2010, 09:18 AM)

The idea is that you don't have to move a hand away from the main keyboard to navigate (similar to the argument vi users make).

924

Living Room / Re: Nice Keyboard, However...

« Last post by mwb1100 on November 06, 2010, 11:55 PM »

If its not a clicky one, anyone know of any good ones that are?

-Stephen66515 (November 06, 2010, 10:20 PM)

Jeff Atwood  did a recent blog article about keyboards.  You might be interested in reading his suggestions and the many suggestions that I imagine are in the comments:

  - http://www.codinghor...e-keyboard-cult.html

925

Developer's Corner / Re: Diff before commit

« Last post by mwb1100 on November 04, 2010, 11:44 AM »

For me, diff-before-commit is in the same category as test every change before commit.  When I decide not to do it - usually because the change was so small, that there's *no way* it could cause a problem (like fixing a spelling mistake in a comment) - invariably some dumb-ass thing breaks the build or causes a crasher bug.

And diff-before-commit is really a pretty quick and easy sanity check (it's not like I review every changed line - it's more of a quick verification that I'm checking in what I'm expecting to check in, and not checking in stuff I shouldn't be).