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976
DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Search separation ... from all to topics?
« Last post by barney on March 07, 2011, 09:03 PM »
Thanks.

It'd be difficult to feel much dumber than I do at the moment.

Always used the search bar at the top of the page(s), never actually went to the search page  :-[.
977
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on March 07, 2011, 08:55 PM »
the lack of progress over 6 years, posting maintenance as something new (new as in refreshingly or innovatively new, as defined by most normal people) during a publicly advertised fundraiser event such as this, then as I said I have no issues with you and am not bound to answer any of your questions
-lotusrootstarch (March 07, 2011, 08:18 PM)

Lack of progress?  Only by your rather inadequate definitions.  Progress has been defined, although it has not seemed to meet your somewhat sketchy standards.

As defined by most normal people?  Methinks you assume a great deal with that one.  Scratch most any person on the planet and you can get a new definition of most normal people, usually based upon the biases and likes of the scratchee.

Not bound to answer any of your questions?  No, you are not.  Nor have you.  You've re-purposed a few, ignored most, given generic, nonspecific answers to most that you bothered to acknowledge.

You are, sir or madam, an accomplished rabble-rouser.  That may be a satisfying thing to you, but does little to accomplish any constructive end here - or elsewhere, I suppose.  While a negative contribution is still a contribution, 'tis rare that it provides any positive result.
978
DC Website Help and Extras / Search separation ... from all to topics?
« Last post by barney on March 07, 2011, 08:28 PM »
Quite possibly I've missed this, but is there a way to limit searches just to topic titles? 

There are times when I don't necessarily want to see every occurrence of a term, just a list of topics containing the search term in the topic title.
979
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on March 07, 2011, 10:51 AM »
@nosh, @PhilB66, @Ath,
You've all been moved to the questionable conversation list  :P :P :P.
Why, because we are (hetro) males that like the looks of these fine young-ladies? :'(
Nope.

'Cause you're judging by appearance  :-*, not content  :P.
'Sides, while you are hetero males, I seem to recall a few distaff (Wonder how that word evolved  :tellme:?) members, and they might not look with pleasure 'pon such a redesign - unless, maybe, you included a hunk of the day, as well  :P.

Now regarding banning users.. We have to ban several users per day for trying to spam the forum -- usually by sticking advertising links in their profiles that no one ever sees -- so there is plenty of banning that happens, but never for anything other than advertisement spamming.

Total agreement  :up:.  Even extreme language or attitude(s) are seldom a valid cause for such an action, although I've been in forae that were pretty casual about using the process  :Wizard: .  As an enforcement, it is well nigh useless - too easy to rejoin with a different alias/email address.  And if a reputation for banning is acquired, some folk will avoid joining just for that reason.

Oh, yeah ... if we divest ourselves of all the critics, how will we know what to consider when re-evaluating design & function  :huh:.
980
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on March 07, 2011, 08:53 AM »
I'm not all that certain that I'd enjoy converse with someone attracted only by appearance

I would.  8)
@nosh, @PhilB66, @Ath,
You've all been moved to the questionable conversation list  :P :P :P.
981
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on March 06, 2011, 11:18 PM »
Oh dear, oh dear!

Someone seems to be trying very hard to be tiresome. Let's not squabble. There are enough of us here to decide whether and how changes will be made, and no one voice is likely to prevail, no matter how shrill.
-cranioscopical (March 06, 2011, 09:55 PM)

That brings to mind an old proverb, don't know the origin, " Who speaks with the loudest voice has least to say."

This whole series is reminiscent of the advent of Web 2.0.  Suddenly everyone was eager to update their sites to the new standard.  However, a number of high-traffic sites didn't jump on that bandwagon, and there was no significant diminution of traffic as a result  :P.  By that same token, appearance-wise, most forae haven't changed much, but they're still active.  If we enjoy a site, we return, regardless the appearance.  Frankly, I'm not all that certain that I'd enjoy converse with someone attracted only by appearance - anyone that interested in ephemerals prolly wouldn't have an outlook that would be attractive to me  :D.  The important part of any site is the meat of it, the content contained therein.

There's been comment about the home page, but I'd never seen it until this thread.  I came in through a side door, either CHS or Mobysaurus or Form Letter Machine.  Since then, I've come in through RSS feeds.  So I'm not all that certain the home page is a significant issue.  Update, sure, if it pleases, but check the logs, see how many use it, whether its worth the effort  :).

My attitude is that if you want to make changes, I'll contribute as best as I can.  However, I tend to work within the limits of a thing rather than complain of missing functionality.  (I'm a lousy beta tester  :o.)  So does a third of the rest of the world - more on that another time, perhaps - so change for the sake of change is well nigh antithetical.

If operational change is needed, make it; if change is cosmetic, think about it.  But do consider the workforce, particularly in regard to cosmetic change which is oft more onerous than functional change.

(If this is somewhat incoherent  :-\, that's because I'm somewhat inebriated  :D ... but not enough to dis-enable rationality (I thimk!)  :P.)
982
General Software Discussion / A way to use DC products on Android?
« Last post by barney on March 05, 2011, 09:15 PM »
Well, prolly not the compiled Windows stuff  :), but maybe some of the AutoIt/AutoHotKey stuff?

Just bought a NookColor (Barnes & Noble ebook reader), and saw instructions from Tech Republic to convert to full-blown tablet.  Haven't found a lot of stuff for Android, yet, though.

What got me thinking was Ath's WinButtons for the March Fundraiser:  looked to be handy on the Nook's touch screen when not reading books.  However, my Google-fu is letting me down tonight - just cannot seem to adjust to this new discipline  ;D - so I thought I'd ask if anyone knows of an equivalent to at least those two (2) languages.

Most of the AutoIt/AutoHotKey thingies I've seen here include source, so [presumably/hopefully] all that would be needed would be versions or equivalents of those for Android - I hope? - but nothing to accomplish such a translation has yet evinced itself  :(.  I'm a bit trepidatious about attempting such a translation, but so far I'm saved by lack of opportunity  :D.  Not certain which is more frustrating  :-\  :P.
983
Living Room / Re: Unsubscribe to 404
« Last post by barney on March 05, 2011, 06:44 PM »
Hm-m-m ...

Several system crashes ago, I had a Telnet script - I didn't create it  ;D - that allowed me to create new email addresses.  Could not something like that be done, but for forwarder creation?  

I seem to recall from corporate days that Telnet could be pretty powerful if you knew how to utilize it.  I know several of our near-genius IT/Admin personnel did a lot with it on the DEC VAXes, although the same scripts could not be used on other, non-VAX servers, w/o significant modification.

'Twouldn't be full auto, of course, and I may well be understanding the wrong thing(s)  :D.

Edit:  the script worked on Plesk control panels, not on the mail server, per se.
984
Living Room / Re: Unsubscribe to 404
« Last post by barney on March 05, 2011, 11:39 AM »
But having it automatic so that you can simply enter the email address without creating it and have the server automatically accept it for you. Or have a quick utility to give you the email address that the server would automatically recognize. It could be done very easily with symmetric encryption and GUIDs or unique codes.

That utility sounds like a Coding Snack  ;D.  Might be a bit complex, though.  The main hosting control panels of which I'm aware are cPanel and Plesk, but a number of hosting companies roll their own.  Still, I'd think that the aggregate genius that is DC could come up with something workable  :P.

Would have made an interesting project for the current fund raiser, had it been broached in time  :-*.
985
General Software Discussion / Re: Any XML gui tools out there?
« Last post by barney on March 04, 2011, 11:36 PM »
Tried FOA - similar need to superboyac's - but it opens only its own XML files or those created by WH2FO.

The FO stuff might work, but there's no time to learn a new scripting (?) language  :huh:.

Still searching ...  :(.

986
Living Room / Re: Unsubscribe to 404
« Last post by barney on March 04, 2011, 10:26 PM »
 ;D I've got over 350 email forwarders on one domain.  When I start getting spam on one of 'em, I redirect the forwarder.  Most of the spam I see is on unique email addresses I've used to sign up for different Web sites - prolly not intentionally released by the site(s) in question, as a sniffer parked on server traffic could do the job - but the standard response is, "You leased, loaned, or leaked this address:  it is now closed."  It's amazing how little spam I receive any more  :huh:  :P.

Not a cure for everyone.  Some don't have domains, others that do won't take the time - ten (10) to twenty (20) seconds - to create an alias, e.g., {websitenamelist|ownernamelist}.domain.tld, because, "It takes too long."  But the only spam I cannot cure  is to my primary address, so a scant half minute doesn't seem to me to be to much to spend to create a traceable alias, and I get a great deal of satisfaction redirecting those aliases  :P :P.
987
Hey,

Quick update.  Got a message from my HD recovery friend.  It seems there was a flutter in the drive motor  :huh:, and that was what was causing all the errors.  I'll take his word for it, this is his field of expertise ... but ... flutter  :huh:?  Sounds just a step or two down from the old Iomega ZIP drive click of death  :P.
988
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on March 01, 2011, 06:23 PM »
Oh, one (1) other thing.

I think I've seen the DC main page three (3) times since I've been here.  Mostly I, like many others I know, respond to RSS feeds, because I just don't have time to browse, even the sites that interest me.  An RSS feed, on the other hand, takes me directly to the posts of interest to me, but allows me to filter the posts that, while probably very interesting, don't have some bearing on where I'm going at the time.

Perhaps I'm missing a lot with that course, but it seems to have worked so far.  So, if you do make significant changes in the areas mentioned, RSS 'em  :P :P.
989
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on March 01, 2011, 06:09 PM »
About phitsc's post ...

Interesting concepts ... and the first real specifics that have been mentioned, methinks  :-\.  Generalities of the, "You should do better," nature don't really admit of much discussion.  When the what could be better is specified, then there are grounds for discourse.  To date, save for your comments, I haven't seen any  :o.

But, then, I am significantly myopic  :D.

I'm also very late to reply, sorry  :-[.
990
BTW,

Thanks everyone for responding  :-*.  Seems some things just can't be fixed :(.
991
OK, folk,

Either already tried or subsequently tried all the above except for the Nuke and the Easus CDs  :).  Easus running from a separate disk on same machine, so don't think the CD would make any difference, and by the time I got to Nuke, too frustrated  :D.

Diskpart locked up on clean - no error message, just sat there for two (2) hours, all my patience could take.

The disk has been the primary drive in this box for couple of years, so sector size shouldn't be a problem.

I tried to manually delete stuff after diskpart locked up, that's why I mentioned the non-deletable directories.

Yes, I did remember to rewire so that the boot disk is disk 0.  But everything seemed to point to having an MBR on the now disk 1, and stuff was choking on it ... not something I remember having encountered in the past, but I suppose that could be reasonable.

However.

Have a friend that dismantles HDs and recovers data onto CD/DVD disks for a living.  Called him.  He's pretty certain it's a problem with the drive, but wants to look at it, so I yanked the damned thing and shipped it to him.  Ordered a new 1T drive, same designation, WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B1 ... well, OK, not identical, but same class of disk.  Sorry for the furor, but 'twould seem this was another hardware glitch disguised as software bobbles.
992
Site/Forum Features / Re: Shortcomings of DC and How to Improve
« Last post by barney on February 28, 2011, 05:34 PM »
@lotusrootstarch
I've only been involved with DC for two (2), maybe three (3) years, so I could be off on this, but I really don't see your complaint(s).  I've been involved with the Internet before there was a Web, spent many years on Compuserve and other, local, bulletin boards ... 'nother words, "I've been around."

As I understand, DC started off as a support area for mouser's output.  But it has grown significantly, and attracted some of the most helpful folk I've run across on the Web.  I don't think much about how attractive a Web site is, I care about how effective it is.

I've never looked at the [full-blown] revue aspect, but I've found the mini-reviews to be of inestimable value.  Those reviews have introduced me to software I'd likely never have found on my own, but some of that software fulfilled a need I had then or shortly thereafter.  Both a time savings and an introduction to newer and better ways of doing my job were accomplished thereby.  I'd say that was a site enhancement.

I've not contributed much in the way of help - I don't qualify for that function in light of the folk who are here! - but I have asked for help.  I've never been denied.  Of the questions I've asked here, I've never failed to receive an answer.  Not always immediately helpful, but I did get a response.  And for all except two (2) questions, I've received answers that either directly resolved my issue or pointed me toward an answer I couldn't see earlier.  I'd say that was a site enhancement.

(Oh, on the two (2) questions unresolved here ... the responses led me to consider hardware issues that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.  Those questions were about software, but the issue was hardware, and the answers - directly or indirectly - pointed me in that direction, caused me to check something that otherwise would have gone unchecked, possibly unnoticed until it was fatal, catastrophic failure.)

On software, other than the mini-reviews, I've been introduced to beneficial software that, again, I'd never have found by myself (Curt comes to mind, but there've been several others.).  I'd say that was a site enhancement.

Back when Tek-Tips was a new thing, I was a member.  I contributed fairly heavily, doing my best to answer questions from others.  But I left Tek-Tips and never looked back when some of the others started posting elitist, arrogant answers to honest questions from members not as experienced as themselves.  I have never encountered that elitism or arrogance at DC.  Don't know that that is a site enhancement, but it's been a welcome relief from most of the forae I've attended.

So, by and large, I just cannot see the complaint about the site not being updated.  It's updated daily with some of the most helpful people you're likely to find, it has expanded significantly from its original founding, and it's one of the most helpful friendly sites my experience has encountered.

One last thing ... there's a lot of "the big I" in this post.  That's because I'm describing personal experience and opinion, neither of which should be attributed to other members.
993
Folk,

This is embarrassing.  I'm trying to format a 1T [internal] HD.  Easus Partition Manager pukes, DOS-level pukes (from CMD line), Kubuntu/Ubuntu both puke  :-[.

And they don't tell me why  :huh:.  

'Twasn't that many years agone that I could do a low-level format, but seems that ability has evaporated with time.  I remember RLL, MLM, maybe several others whose abbreviations no longer occur to me.  But I simply cannot format this one particular drive.  It once hosted WinXP, Win7, a couple of Linux distros.  But now I cannot format/clear it from any OS I have available.

HELP!?!P

BTW, just in case, I'm not trying to format it from an OS mounted upon it - it's been erased of all content, although I couldn't get rid of some of the Windows dirs.

(Modified for notifications  :-[.)
994
No one but the charity and none are the answers for the smart alecs out there.

Guess I'm a dumb alec.  You kinda, sorta left out the warm fuzzy and the self-satisfaction and the [possibly misplaced] sense of worth  :P :P :P.

All of which could be applicable to this topic - trick is knowing how to trigger it  :-\.
995
I don't think this is a good idea, especially for people who have lots of DC apps and are already a donor.
Quick clarification -- I meant to say that such messages would not be shown to donors who have put in a license key.
What you mean is that donors get automatic update check (with no nags), whereas the "free users" need to manually update (and get a "please donate" message when they do?)? That actually doesn't sound half-bad :)

I'm curious about the overhead.  Would this be done from within the app, or would it be email/display from DC?  If the former, seems that would put additional load requirements on the developers; if the latter, I might not have read that email, or not have been on DC for a while, thus be unaware of an update to resolve a current glitch.

The idea is great, but the implementation could be dicey  :P.

One (1) thing you might do is establish a page visible after login listing most recent upgrades for each member.  As long as they got the app/key through DC, you'd know which upgrades to post.  Or it could be just a blanket list of upgrades, with a request to non-donors to donate if they download?

The more this is discussed, the more complex it seems  :huh:.
996
Or even 10¢.  Agree with that but... perhaps can't access a mechanism by which to pay that 10¢?
-cranioscopical (February 22, 2011, 05:59 PM)

Dunno the ins and outs of it, but there was a recent announcement that PayPal was accepting micro payments ... would that be of use?  Of course, that would assume that the payer had mundane things such as a bank account, payment card(s), and the like.  (I can remember being a kid and sending in Postal Service stamps in an envelope as payment  :P.)
997
... help the coders on the site ...
That's easy enough to initiate - set up a commercial section, visible from the top level.  Then those that wish can establish IDs, mention strengths, reference previous accomplishments.

Yeah, there'd be more to it than that, but just implementing such would help to overcome the inertia of inaction.  Doesn't have to be perfect, refinements can be implemented as traffic increases.  A skeletal implementation could be fleshed out in a progressive fashion.

You could put up a topic for the coders to announce themselves, another topic to let consumers specify requirements, perhaps subtopics for each reflecting specific disciplines.  As a consumer, I could browse the coder information, post requirements in a general area or in a specific discipline area.

That is a functional model in current use by sites that serve a middleman function to connect consumer and producer.  You should have no trouble adding it here.  

A number of years agone, I was involved with a sailing site.  It had a forum for various boaters/sailors, even topics for certain boats, e.g. a J-boat section for racing sailors.  It also had a boat-wanted and a boat-for-sail section, as well as a kind of want-ad section - sailors looking for jobs, owners looking for captains/crew, and the like.  The site failed after three (3) or four (4) years, because the owner had no concept of marketing/advertising, just relied upon search engine traffic.  That just wasn't enough to make the site viable.  However the boat sale aspect and the captain/crew job part worked very well.  So, the site was functional, but the business model was poorly planned/executed, if planned at all.

There are aspects there that you could apply to DC without markedly affecting the rest of the site.  With a bit of wise marketing - no, that's not the horrible word/concept many think it to be - and some word-of-mouth, it could quickly become viable, whether monetized or not.

Just a couple of thoughts based upon past direct experience.
998
... and the fear of risking their financial information with some site they don't know about ...

That could be relatively easily resolved by offering several payment options, including PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon (I think), and there are others.  That way, their info is not given to the site, but to a major name - which is presumed to be more trustworthy than a mere site  :P.
(Reason for offering multiple options is to allow for some folk not liking a particular option - I know a bunch who are anti-PayPal.)

I haven't been there for a while, so don't really know what payment options are available.
999
OK, take superboyac's concept and apply it not to the software, but to the effort by the programmer(s).  'Nother words, a payment for effort, not necessarily for results.  Conditions would have to be set, of course, but this could be a splinter of the main DC focus that might benefit both the author and the requester.

Yeah, there are wrinkles that would have to be worked out, but as a concept it ain't bad.  I've been to eCoder, et. al., more than once in order to get some bit accomplished that
  • I wasn't qualified to do
  • I didn't have time to do
at the request of my then manager when I was in the corporate world.

Set up as a separate forum grouping, that just might be viable.
1000
Living Room / Re: The Plot Thickens...
« Last post by barney on February 21, 2011, 11:27 PM »
Hm-m-m-m ... interesting.  Obtuse, but interesting  :huh:.  Oh, well, 2011 is young yet ... they're bound to get at least one (1) better paper in the remainder of the year.  :P
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