Recent Posts

976

General Software Discussion / Re: webcam as mouse?

« Last post by Nod5 on June 04, 2008, 04:32 PM »

Wow vitalyb! Cam-Trax looks amazing! I'm almost buying a webcam on the fly I hope it gets released really soon.

From their webpage blog ( http://www.camspace.com/blog/ ):

We have decided to release only free versions of the product. We will never charge users for the software.
We are currently getting ready to release a BETA version for Windows. We can’t talk about a specific time period, but soon. Very soon.
A version for Mac is on our to-do list. Linux is as well.
We are currently a small garage operation and are overwhelmed by the attention and excitement our video created. We promise to grow to the challenge as soon as possible and make good on our plans.

977

Find And Run Robot / Re: Instant infos via aliases?

« Last post by Nod5 on June 02, 2008, 07:36 AM »

I think it makes sense to start with a very basic textfile search capability first and then expand it if and when demand occurs.
Two rather non-complex systems could be:

1. comma separated data. Example:

tag1 data1 data2 data3
tag2 data4 data5 data6

2. blank line separated data. Example:

tag1
data1
data2
data3

tag2
data4
data5
data6


When the user inputs "info tag1" FARR would output "data1 data2 data3" (or "data1 \n data2 \n data3")

Mousers example ("info phone hospital") in comparison adds one level of complexity. But how often is that needed? I suspect that it for much lookup usage is enough to output all the info related to a "first level tag" i.e. "info hospital" would display adress, phone number, email etc in FARR. Two drawbacks with the more complex example is that the user must memorize all the second level categorizes and must create all his/her new data in a very well formed and consistent way. I definitely prefer something less complex and less (human) memory hungry.

978

Finished Programs / Re: tv_out: a shortcut for quickly turning extended desktop on/off

« Last post by Nod5 on May 29, 2008, 06:44 PM »

I've always kept the secondary monitor in the default position so I wasn't aware that tv_out was forcing it to be positioned to the right, but you're right, it does. It's by no means a planned feature. I'll check if there's some nice way to solve this by tweaking the AHK function I'm using.

979

Find And Run Robot / Re: LifeHacker launcher application voting and FARR Name

« Last post by Nod5 on May 21, 2008, 02:40 PM »

As for the name issue that vitalyb brought up, I think shortening is the way to go: FindRun. Easy to pronounce, easy to remember, and it doesn't lose much meaning from the current name, because I'm not really sure what functionality in FARR is supposed to be the "robot" part.

Another alternative would be some animal-ish name like Firefox, Thunderbird, RSSowl... The hard task is to find a nice, catchy sounding and vacant animal.

980

Find And Run Robot / Re: LifeHacker launcher application voting and FARR Name

« Last post by Nod5 on May 21, 2008, 10:48 AM »

[...] we need more sites for informed comparative reviews rather than popularity polls.

-mouser (May 21, 2008, 08:36 AM)

Agreed!

Just to be clear, the "Best Application Launchers?" post on Lifehacker is a part of their ongoing Hive Five series. It's a two step (two posts) thing:
1. a call for contenders asks users to vote for any app in some category in the comments
http://lifehacker.co...call-for-contenders/
2. the Lifehacker team picks the top five (vote count is a strong, or perhaps even the only, factor here) and posts a poll.
http://lifehacker.com/tag/hive-five/

So as things are still at stage 1, let's hope that FARR makes it to the top five!

Also, an idea on how to factor experience with multiple programs into polls: ask users to vote FOR their favourite program from a limited list AND at the same time ask them to vote AGAINST one or more of the other listed programs but only if they have tried it and found it less good than their favourite. Use the negative votes to discount the positive votes in some way.

981

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: ZohoDB - Online Free Relational Database

« Last post by Nod5 on May 20, 2008, 06:13 PM »

Nice minireview AEngineer!
Google spreadsheets can be used as a primitive database for google maps (or something like that). It's very easy to set up through this wizard:
http://gmaps-samples...rd/makecustommap.htm

982

Finished Programs / Re: tv_out: a shortcut for quickly turning extended desktop on/off

« Last post by Nod5 on May 13, 2008, 06:48 PM »

Hi relequestual, sorry for the late reply - I saw your post just now. Thanks for the heads up and for contacting them. 

To anyone reading this that might be hesitant about using tv_out: All apps made in autohotkey ( autohotkey.com ) seem to run the risk of ending up as false positives in some anti-spyware tool somewhere. See the autohotkey forums for numerous examples. There's not much I can do about that. I can only emphasize that there is no spyware at all in tv_out. The tv_out .zip file contains the source so anyone who is hesitant can check the source and compile their own version if they want to.

983

General Software Discussion / Re: Super lite PIM? Address book?

« Last post by Nod5 on May 10, 2008, 07:21 AM »

Sabot, one thing you can do already with FARR: for each piece of information, create an empty textfile and put the information in the filename.

Example:
Smith, John , imaginary street 45 , Town , State , phone=12345 mobile=123456789 smith @domain.com.txt

Put all such files in some folder and set FARR to only search that folder. If the information is in the right format then a script could be made that autogenerates one such .txt file for each piece of information


Mouser, I just thought of a way to read textfiles in the FARR results window (not open them externally in notepad et al):

1. make a javascript plugin that when given a filepath as parameter parses that file and displays it in the results window

example: "plugin_name C:\folder\file.txt "

2. setup a custom hotkey that puts "plugin_name NNN" in the editbox, where NNN is the path of the selected match

To use it, we would:
1. do a regular search for a filename, like "file.txt"
2. select the target file in the results list (not needed if first match)
3. press the hotkey (shift+enter is an good candidate for hotkey)

I think we have the plugin tools already but do we have the path of the currently selected match as a variable for a FARR hotkey to use?

Also, such a hotkey wouldn't need to be global as the current FARR hotkeys are

edit: the Virtual Launch Strings "showfile" could also do this, right? So no js plugin is needed. The steps would be: hotkey is called, puts "SomeAlias SomeSelectedFilePath" in editbox, SomeAlias is set to do "showfile SomeSelectedFilePath", which displays the contents of the file in the results box. If only the hotkey could read and send the selected file's path.

984

Living Room / Re: Flash Game of the Week: Armed with Wings - Beautiful Atmosphere

« Last post by Nod5 on May 07, 2008, 04:08 PM »

Good find mouser! The Armed with Wings graphics are beautiful in their minimal way. I'm always amazed how great and diverse the in browser games are becoming. I hope we'll see more in browser multiplayer games though. For example, plain race games like http://en.wikipedia..../wiki/Super_Off_Road seem very doable from a technical point of view. Can anyone recommend any such good in browser multiplayer games? Games that don't require some unusual browser add-ons I should add. And sorry if I took this thread astray, but hey I'm still on the online games theme at least :-)

985

General Software Discussion / Re: Your fav' audio CD burner?

« Last post by Nod5 on May 07, 2008, 11:22 AM »

Hi Curt, I would also suggest InfraRecorder http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/ . It's the only burning tool that I've used on windows for some time now. It's small, quick, clean and up to date. There is also a portable version:
http://portableapps....frarecorder_portable

If you really want to go back to Nero you can download Nero Lite http://updatepack.nl/ and use your licence key on that. It is significantly smaller. It seems to exist in a legal grey zone but has been around for quite some time so I guess Nero doesn't mind that much.

986

General Software Discussion / Re: What's a good memorization software?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 25, 2008, 06:10 AM »

I haven't tried any of these programs but I have Mnemosyne and Anki on my "to try" list. And one more that hasn't been mentioned yet: Opencards , http://www.opencards.info/

987

General Software Discussion / Re: Just got a 2nd screen. Recomended software for dual screens?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 20, 2008, 03:25 PM »

"Customize Your Dual Monitor Wallpaper with DisplayFusion"
http://lifehacker.co...layfusion-298111.php

Wallpapers that work well with DisplayFusion: http://www.mandolux.com/ (click archive)

"Make the Most of Your Dual Monitors"
http://lifehacker.co...-monitors-317479.php

988

General Software Discussion / Re: batch create image contact sheet from videofiles?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 19, 2008, 04:57 PM »

I see your point. Other things being equal I also prefer solutions that don't use GUI controls and require keyboard monopoly during the processing. I'm not so sure if it's worth the double work in this case though. I mean, MPC creates each contact sheet pretty quickly. An hour long video only takes 15-20 seconds. So 50 such videos can be processed in around 15 minutes. That's just a coffee break. While some might need to process many, many more files, I suspect that would be a one time thing in most cases (i.e. to process all videos in their archive). For a one time batch a wait of an hour or two is probably acceptable to most. And once the archive is processed to then wait for 15 minutes every month or two while processing new files is no biggie either I'd suspect (that's roughly the pace at which I record stuff with my DVB-T TV card at least). Or maybe this is just the lazy part of me rationalizing

989

Finished Programs / Re: tv_out: a shortcut for quickly turning extended desktop on/off

« Last post by Nod5 on April 19, 2008, 09:17 AM »

Jim, I had forgotten to include the .icl in the last tv_out.zip. I reuploaded a complete .zip just now.

990

Finished Programs / ExtDesk: control the primary desktop from the extended desktop

« Last post by Nod5 on April 19, 2008, 09:09 AM »

ExtDesk   v080419
ExtDesk helps you control the primary desktop from the extended desktop.
ExtDesk has a button for opening the desktop folder and a screen that tracks the mouse for easy navigation on the primary desktop.


more info and download here: http://nod5.dcmembers.com/extdesk.html

This is another small program that I made because I needed it myself (the Use Case is loosely inspired by real events ) This first version has mostly been testdriven on a single system so all feedback on how this works on your systems is very much appreciated. 

991

General Software Discussion / Re: batch create image contact sheet from videofiles?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 19, 2008, 04:08 AM »

Cool! I had no idea MPC had that. But while a lot of controls are available, the "save thumbnails" actions doesn't seem to be one of them:

Another reason against switching the script to the web interface is that all users would have to activate/deactivate the web server before using VideoContactSheet.

Does MPC Home Cinema have more controls?

992

General Software Discussion / Re: batch create image contact sheet from videofiles?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 18, 2008, 06:54 PM »

4wd: When I made the first version of the script I searched for alternative ways to control MPC but did not find any. After that I just stuck to the keyboard input method since it worked. But if there's a better way then I'll give it a try.  I'm not sure what you mean by "HTML control" though. I can't find anything that seem to describe that: http://www.google.co...mp;start=10&sa=N . Can you point me to some relevant page?

993

Finished Programs / Re: tv_out: a shortcut for quickly turning extended desktop on/off

« Last post by Nod5 on April 18, 2008, 05:15 AM »

lanux: I've done this with a script that navigates the GUI for some time but have since then been on the lookout for some cleaner way. And now a working function was posted to the autohotkey forum. I only had to intersect that into my previous code and voila. The autohotkey forum is a great place BTW - it has code snippets for doing almost anything.

Deozaan: Glad that it works. Good call about it running immediately after setup. I updated tv_out accordingly:
v080418: running tv_out.exe directly (=setup) does not toggle extended desktop on/off, only desktop shortcut does that (thanks Deozaan)
http://nod5.dcmembers.com/tv_out.html
EDIT: 
080419: fixed a small variable error from 080418

994

General Software Discussion / Re: Idea: File note

« Last post by Nod5 on April 17, 2008, 03:26 PM »

Now I understand. Good suggestion!
v080418: filenotes can now also be created for folders
http://nod5.dcmembers.com/filenoter.html

995

Finished Programs / tv_out: a shortcut for quickly turning extended desktop on/off

« Last post by Nod5 on April 17, 2008, 02:54 PM »

tv_out creates a shortcut for quickly turning extended desktop on/off.
the shortcut icon changes to reflects the on/off state of the extended desktop.
download from this page: http://nod5.dcmembers.com/tv_out.html


I have tested tv_out on several different systems without any problems. Post some feedback if you encounter a bug.

996

General Software Discussion / Re: Idea: File note

« Last post by Nod5 on April 17, 2008, 11:07 AM »

Again, glad you guys like it!

Kartal, what do you mean with folder support? An option to create all note files in one specified folder and not the same folder as the file the note file concerns? 

997

General Software Discussion / Re: Idea: File note

« Last post by Nod5 on April 16, 2008, 04:55 PM »

Hi, I'm glad you like it!  I did a quick update:
v080417: added ini option to choose file extension for notes (default: txt)
Let me know if you find any bugs while using it.

EDIT: I should add that I'm sticking to .txt extensions for my own notes and instead use the .ini to set a custom tag in the non extension part of the filename. By using the tag "--note" it is easy to search for all and only note files later on even if they have a .txt extension. An advantage with that is that the files works straight away by double clicking on most computers whereas files with custom extensions often needs a setup procedure at least once per computer.

998

General Software Discussion / Re: Idea: File note

« Last post by Nod5 on April 16, 2008, 11:35 AM »

I've now written a better description for FileNoter and placed it on a separate page: http://nod5.dcmembers.com/filenoter.html
I also did some very minor changes:
small code cleanup + commenting
now support two datestamp formats: YYMMDD (=new) & YYMMDD-HHMM

999

General Software Discussion / Re: batch create image contact sheet from videofiles?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 10, 2008, 01:21 PM »

nixx_nl,
I'm glad that you like the program! 

Yes, VideoContactSheet by default only processes mpg,mpeg,avi,wmv,mkv files. I will keep some such default restriction since without it VideoContactSheet could send MPC a file that MPC can't handle. The entire batch would then be interrupted and that could be a problem for some users.

But I will consider expanding the list of default accepted files after doing some more testing.

I have now also added an extra .ini setting lets you override default to process all other file types. So if you want that then just do this: Download v080410 , goto settings, click save, open the created .ini file, set "xallextensions = 1", save the .ini file, restart VideoContactSheet. All dropped files regardless of file type should then be passed to MPC for CS making. Check that the files work in MPC first.

When I have time I will also clean up and publish the .ahk source so that others can customize the program to suit their needs.

1000

Find And Run Robot / Re: custom alias to search specific folder AND its subfolder files?

« Last post by Nod5 on April 09, 2008, 03:12 PM »

Excellent! Thanks.