Recent Posts

9401

Developer's Corner / Re: Programmers Challenged, Gauntlet Thrown

« Last post by wraith808 on March 03, 2010, 06:22 PM »

But... it's too late.   We were supposed to start on the 1st...

9402

Living Room / Re: Online RPG Players.

« Last post by wraith808 on March 03, 2010, 12:55 PM »

I've played too many of them at one time or another, but I have a lifetime subscription to Lord of the Rings Online (Silverlode server) and Champions Online.  I putter around in EQ2 (Everfrost and Befallen Servers) from time to time, and I've been playing Star Trek Online.

9403

General Software Discussion / Re: Mint.com vs Wesabe.com vs buxfer.com

« Last post by wraith808 on March 03, 2010, 12:53 PM »

I use quicken because I've been handling financial business with them for a while now.  I'd probably trust an offering from fidelity also.  But I have a real problem with trusting new companies- even if they aren't fly by night companies.

9404

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Serial Dealers - a new discount software site

« Last post by wraith808 on March 02, 2010, 10:16 AM »

I wonder why they closed.  It seemed like a good deal- sort of like tanga, woot, etc- in that they purchase in bulk and sell for less.

9405

ASP.NET / Re: Simple form using visual web developer

« Last post by wraith808 on March 02, 2010, 08:38 AM »

http://www.sitepoint.com/books/aspnet3/ - $44.95
http://www.sitepoint...om/books/aspnetant1/ - $39.99

Those are the only two asp.net books I saw for sale on the site.  HTH

9406

Living Room / Re: Stephen's Weekly Tech News - Edition 3

« Last post by wraith808 on March 01, 2010, 11:30 AM »

You put that together on a smartphone?!?  All the more impressive!

9407

General Software Discussion / Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2010, 01:19 AM »

I'm not sure.  Actually, I'm not even sure how extensive the changes are- I looked at the site and the descriptions, and they seemed like a good direction, even in the licensing.  And the price was a lot better this time and I'm a software addict so...

But I'll take a look at it and post my findings here as soon as I get a chance.  Unfortunately, it probably won't be today as it's my wife's birthday.

9408

General Software Discussion / Re: Tabbles on BDJ on Wednesday

« Last post by wraith808 on February 27, 2010, 12:33 AM »

No problem!  I actually purchased it on Bits this time- it seems to have improved a lot from comments from the users, and changed paradigms a bit.  I'll update the review with my new findings as soon as I get a chance.

9409

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 26, 2010, 10:00 PM »

VS always installs butt load of stuff on my computer, I can almost call it bloatware.

-kartal (February 26, 2010, 04:25 PM)

It's a pretty big and fully-featured IDE - wouldn't call it bloatware, though. Don't install functionality you don't need

-f0dder (February 26, 2010, 05:49 PM)

Custom install is your friend

9410

General Software Discussion / Re: Stupid phrases like "Free trial!"

« Last post by wraith808 on February 26, 2010, 01:00 PM »

It really happens.  My wife picked up malware that did that at myspace.  I was thankfully able to get rid of it with a combination of system restore and the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

-wraith808 (February 26, 2010, 12:20 PM)

... and kept the wife, I assume :-)

-PhilB66 (February 26, 2010, 12:44 PM)

Of course

9411

General Software Discussion / Re: Stupid phrases like "Free trial!"

« Last post by wraith808 on February 26, 2010, 12:20 PM »

It really happens.  My wife picked up malware that did that at myspace.  I was thankfully able to get rid of it with a combination of system restore and the free version of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

9412

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I pay to go from 3.0 to 3.1?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 26, 2010, 11:11 AM »

I think a lot of people are hung up on version numbers also- version numbers are more subjective than they appear.  Put the idea of license type and version in a pot and stir, and you are bound to get a mess.  So in the end, I think that Ath has it right:

The real question ofcourse is: Do the improvements warrant the upgrade-price?

-Ath (February 26, 2010, 11:00 AM)

9413

Living Room / Re: Pirate vs. Paying Customer illustrated

« Last post by wraith808 on February 25, 2010, 07:20 PM »

<snip />
...but don't fsck your legitimate customers.

-f0dder (February 25, 2010, 05:29 PM)

QFE!

9414

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I pay to go from 3.0 to 3.1?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 25, 2010, 04:57 PM »

^ Totally agreed.  It seems with the sheer number of license types these days, the real meaning of a subscription based license falls by the wayside.

9415

Developer's Corner / Re: The programmer as (starving) artist

« Last post by wraith808 on February 25, 2010, 03:03 PM »

Truthfully, it's better not to compete.  Run your business on its own merits rather than trying to compete with the larger chain.  As long as you don't have to go *above* retail, and keep your expectations of your business potential in check and base your long term business plan on that, you have a chance to succeed even in a market with overlarge competitors.  I've seen it work before, and I've seen companies get screwed by trying to compete outside of their weight.

9416

Living Room / Re: Pirate vs. Paying Customer illustrated

« Last post by wraith808 on February 25, 2010, 03:00 PM »

The best illustration of this was the UK release of Charlie Wilson's War - there was a 10 minute film about UNICEF before the menu appeared (along with all the other crap mentioned above). Not only was the film unskippable but you couldn't fast forward it or even stop it (apart from ejecting the disk) - plus if you press title menu it played again before the menu!!! This was so irritating the only solution was to look for a ripped copy so that you can actually watch the film you bought without having to cook a four course meal, eat it, spend the eveing in the local pub getting pissed just to avoid the crap. Maybe the DVD designer was just saying get a life - in which case he is probably correct.

-Carol Haynes (February 25, 2010, 01:48 PM)

I had the same problem recently with a release of some film- I finally got around to trying to watch it, and wanted to watch the end of the movie because I had already seen it and only had a few minutes before I went to bed.  30 minutes later I *still* hadn't managed to get to the movie. 

9417

Living Room / Re: Pirate vs. Paying Customer illustrated

« Last post by wraith808 on February 25, 2010, 02:57 PM »

Not so funny when you see your applications pirated.

-mrainey (February 25, 2010, 09:53 AM)

But if you watch out for your paying customer and keep him happy, and ignore the non-paying customer, you can be almost guaranteed that you are minimalizing the amount of sales that you are losing.

A really good example for me is the gaming DRM market.  TAGES, SecurROM, and now UbiSoft's newest DRM scheme has lost them at least a few customers- I know friends who have always bought games that have either pirated or just not bought the games because of their heavy-handed approach.  I hated even the lock to DVD stuff that was a replica of the lock to CD days, and it affected my buying.  That's a direct relevance to their bottom line.  I'd argue that DRM has made piracy *more* of a problem instead of less.  By their inconvenience, they have brought awareness of piracy to the forefront- and awareness that people don't have to put up with the DRM if they just d/l a bittorrent client or limewire.  If they had been satisfied with a minimal DRM scheme that's not an annoyance, but just made it so that the normal user would have to go out and get technical knowledge to have to bypass it, I would almost guarantee that they would have *less* problems now- not more.  But the genie's out of the bottle, and heavy-handed tactics aren't going to put it back in.

There have been some killer games out that have had equally killer DRM schemes and though I've wanted them, the DRM has kept me away.  That *never* happened in the old days- which tells you that at least in my case (though I'm sure there are other examples of it) their DRM-heavy approach is leading them in the wrong direction fiscally.

9418

Developer's Corner / Re: The programmer as (starving) artist

« Last post by wraith808 on February 24, 2010, 10:18 AM »

Personally, I think that any product, successful or otherwise, is a unique combination of the sum of its parts.  In some cases, that equation is more heavily driven by the technology end, others by the business end, and others by the maintenance and support.  I don't see that any simple equation will work for every situation.  I think that's the basic reason that understandable frustration builds up on all sides of the equation- the symptoms of the problem being lack of understanding/appreciation of the function of the other elements since they are all so subjective to the situation, and most people in one 'silo' don't really want to know about the other parts of the business.  At least, that's what I've seen, and know that I'm guilty of.

9419

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 23, 2010, 08:41 AM »

There is an additional problem with older versions: After the sale to Embarcadero, they pulled all the updates to the older version off the site, and now even registered users can no longer get copies of the updates and bug fixes for them. This took effect August 2009 and affects BDS 2006 and all versions of Delphi v7 and older.

And you can no longer register those versions, too. So there would be no way you could use it unless you had already previously registered it.

I think Embarcadero is trying to force developers to upgrade to a non-Borland release in order to make some money on the whole deal.

-app103 (February 22, 2010, 11:54 PM)

Are you serious?  That's just totally crazy!  Actually, before D8, you could use your copy indefinitely without registering- that online registration stuff only went live with D8.  

And people wonder why consumers grumble about heavy handed DRM...

I wonder if you contacted them and complained would they let you activate it...?

And the funny thing about this is I was considering buying the Embarcadero release even though I don't use Delphi much- just because it looked like a good environment, and I go back to Delphi every once in a while.  Now?  I don't think so.  When I get my new computer and try to install BDS 2006, I guess I'll see...

9420

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 22, 2010, 11:42 PM »

Was Delphi 5 the last to produce VCL stand-alone .exe?

-MilesAhead (February 22, 2010, 10:58 PM)

No, all versions produce VCL stand-alone .exes other than Delphi 8 (which was .net only)

9421

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 22, 2010, 09:44 PM »

It's funny.  After reading this thread I started looking around.  You would think you'd be able to pick up like a used Delphi Pro or something cheap. I didn't notice anything like that though.

-MilesAhead (February 22, 2010, 04:55 PM)

Actually, older version of delphi sell for *more* strangely enough.  I have no idea why that is.

9422

Living Room / Re: Google does no evil; kills reMail

« Last post by wraith808 on February 22, 2010, 08:22 AM »

Users should only worry if whatever feature/product is bought with the desire to shut it down - in one way or another. Who owns who questions belong to the market place where bigger fish eats smaller fish.

-Bamse (February 21, 2010, 11:56 PM)

And hasn't reMail been shut down?

Nothing inherently wrong with being bought up, nor buying up smaller companies - but it sucks when doing so kills off projects.

-f0dder (February 22, 2010, 12:41 AM)

If you are buying for talent (which is what this was said to be), then don't you want that talent working on your projects?  Maybe they're looking at integrating the technology into their own products.  What's wrong with this?

9423

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 21, 2010, 07:40 PM »

I am not sure if it has the same issues in Windows, but my word of advice is if you decide to use it (at least in Ubuntu) don't go more than a few minutes without saving your work. It likes to spontaneously combust. One second it's on your screen, then next, poof it's gone, and so is whatever you were working on.

-app103 (February 21, 2010, 06:13 PM)

It doesn't have this problem on windows, or I wouldn't have even given it the reserved recommendation that I did.  It's just, as app said, crude.

9424

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 21, 2010, 05:18 PM »

Pascal-Lazarus
Pascal is an old friend to me that was my main reason for bringing it up.

-kartal (February 21, 2010, 04:33 PM)

Don't get me wrong- Lazarus is impressive.  It's just not as good as native Delphi, just like SharpDevelop is not as good as Visual Studio (of course these are my own opinions).  If you want to go the pascal way, Lazarus is a good way to go.

9425

General Software Discussion / Re: Free Pascal - Lazarus?

« Last post by wraith808 on February 21, 2010, 12:59 PM »

wraith808

 Thanks for the suggestion but I am not seeing any free version there. They  are trial versions?

I have used Pascal as well but that was 18 years ago It was Turbo Pascal 5.5

-kartal (February 20, 2010, 10:33 PM)

Wow... I hadn't downloaded turbo delphi in a while- I didn't realize that embarcadero had discontinued them.  Sorry about that, should have actually checked the links.

In what way is Lazarus painful?

-Edvard (February 21, 2010, 10:04 AM)

It's just a lot slower than delphi, and the ide is a lot less polished.  Sometimes, events that I have linked up inexplicably lose their connection, and the database bit is definitely difficult to get going.