News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

tetsuo13

We're using Sandcastle Help File Builder (SHFB) with great success for generating HTML help files.

https://github.com/EWSoftware/SHFB

Re:A virtual pet that helps you raise your TDD practice. on Monday April 11, 2011 @03:23PM (#2433966)

  If you test run fails twice, TDGotchi is upset.
I believe that should be "If your test run fails twice, TDGotchi is upset."
Re:Joe Lieberman Emulates Chinese Dictators on Friday December 03, 2010 @12:40PM (#1966735)
I also can't recommend the documentary enough. The Internet Archive has it available for download/streaming, however:

http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

Re:Amazon selling remaining Kindle 2 stock for $89 on Black Friday on Wednesday November 24, 2010 @03:18PM (#1938416)
Funny that the third and forth octets of the IP address shown in the Kindle screen shots are obstructed given that the IP begins with 192.168.
Re:Git Pusshuten (プッシュ天ー) - Git deployment on Monday November 22, 2010 @09:50PM (#1932323)
Are there dashes in Japanese? I suppose the interpunct character (・) best represents the idea.

The ー character is typically used with hiragana and katakana to elongate the previous character's tailing sound: リー for the name Lee (rii), メートル for meter (meetoru), as examples.

The ー character is not used after kanji because their sound cannot be elongated.

Re:Ask HN: What are you reading right now? on Wednesday November 03, 2010 @01:46PM (#1865670)
1984 by George Orwell
Re:Unusual and amusing English words on Monday May 17, 2010 @02:04PM (#1355018)
Unrelated: What is the point in publishing an interesting list such as this and then restricting my ability to highlight so I can copy and paste? (Chrome 4.1 on Windows)
Re:Linux Game Publishing introduces DRM - Ubi take note on Monday March 08, 2010 @09:03PM (#1177243)
It's too late for that. DRM was invented as a result of rampant piracy. You should be blaming the pirates rather than the company using it.

People were sharing programs long before p2p became popular. Only difference in recent years to accessibility to the copying mechanisms. Blame it on the Internet taking off and creating a world where bits are no longer a scarcity, where purchasing a physical media containing those bits is becoming legacy. With the Internet making it easy for anyone to copy anything suddenly those that made those physical copies weren't needed as much. Certainly their value has been questioned.

DRM became widespread as a way for the content distributors to maintain their status quo without having to change their business model in any way.

Re:PHP Simple HTML DOM Parser on Friday December 11, 2009 @05:10PM (#990629)
SimpleXML will choke on invalid HTML/XML while this library claims to support it.
I'm reminded of the reference book "Writing CGI Applications with Perl." In the introduction the author warned that there will be several purposeful mistakes in every chapter as an exercise to the reader to find and correct. Using this technique in a reference manual was bad enough but it made things even more difficult given that there was no key.

I got rid of the book. Tough to learn from a book that lies.

Re:The geek threat [xkcd meets The Economist] on Tuesday October 27, 2009 @01:59PM (#905923)
It leads the reader to believe batteries are more dangerous than the water. While that might be true, it leaves out the reasoning behind 3-1-1. The batteries may be more dangerous than a bottle of water, but they are not more dangerous than a water bottle filled with liquid explosives.

How about:

Batteries may be more dangerous than a stick, but they aren't more dangerous than a man poking you with that stick.

Batteries may be more dangerous than a kitten, but they aren't more dangerous than a kitten who is about to jump with claws ready on your face.

Re:Nook, Barnes & Noble eBook Reader Announced on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @03:32PM (#893135)
This reminds me a lot of the video game console market, where newcomers compete with: the existing consoles with the established customer base, library of games and even second or third generation consoles that have the initial quirks ruled out.

B&N will have to compete with the Kindle and even Sony's readers to an extent. The biggest question is always what will B&N bring to the table that is different enough or better than its competitors to woo customers over? It seems a lot like just another iPod and iTunes clone.

Re:Nook, Barnes & Noble eBook Reader Announced on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @03:27PM (#893124)
And how long until the B&N bookstore will be able to match the number of ebooks offered at Amazon? Until then B&N will lose customers to the company with an already established library.
Re:How Not to invent the next-gen CAPTCHA on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @03:25PM (#893119)
The browser can be scripted to mimic human behavior -- clicks, keyboard entry, mouse movements, etc. How do you determine that a human is behind the browser?
At the risk of being downvoted out of existence, perhaps I should clarify.

I'm definitely not advocating his actions in the least, just saying that there are other companies that may not be doing well on the market and would be interested in someone who can take risks. More than anything this entire endeavor has been a warning to us that we haven't seen the last of this sort of behavior -- whether or not from McBride remains to be seen, but there are others who will also take these sorts of risks.

The action that McBride took resulted ultimately in what could be seen as a failed strategy, but the fact that he went out on a limb in attempting to revitalize his company speaks wonders. There are a lot of companies that would value a CEO who can take risks.
Re:Digitizing speech on a piano on Thursday October 08, 2009 @09:33PM (#870404)
It's fascinating to listen to but I wonder about extending it to other languages. Does American English lend itself well to this sort of thing or are other languages and accents reproducible. I imagine that languages with much harsher stops like German or Russian would be more difficult and those that are easily broken down, like Japanese, would be even easier than English.
Re:Use an Old Linux Computer to Put your Baby to Sleep on Thursday October 08, 2009 @10:37AM (#869048)
That was a lesson from The Daily WTF:

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/ITAPPMONROBOT.aspx

Re:Judge rules against Autodesk in eBay software case on Tuesday October 06, 2009 @05:00PM (#865244)
... when you know something keeps a good chuck of it's value, you feel more confident buying it new.

How much of that applies to computer software though? It's the whole physical versus intellectual property all over again. A physical property, like a luxury car, will wear in time, whereas the intellectual property, like software, will remain exact. The resale value in software is further diminished every time the publisher releases a newer version.

So how much thought of resale value do you keep in mind when making a software purchase really? It's more of an investment towards producing something else than reselling.

Re:Things Every Programmer Should Know on Thursday October 01, 2009 @11:31AM (#855102)
Re:Google Delivers New Java-like Language: Noop on Thursday September 17, 2009 @09:34PM (#829429)
Re:What are you reading? on Tuesday September 01, 2009 @09:21AM (#797953)
* Dynamics of Software Development

* Wireless Communications & Networks

* Time Management for System Administrators

Re:140 Characters? Just Post A Picture On DailyBooth (YC S09) on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @05:02PM (#771456)
Direct link to site without the TechCrunch article: http://dailybooth.com/

In Chrome, the front page has many broken images, the live map page is blank other than a caption at the bottom-left, and viewing the site's blog via the link at the bottom produces an error about an invalid user.

Re:TomTom For iPhone Spells An End To Standalone GPS on Monday August 17, 2009 @04:42PM (#769054)
Sensationalism. Why would you want to tie up your iPhone for the duration of the car trip? What happens when you receive a phone call or text message and you're about to switch roads or take an exist?

I'm still waiting on the TomTom HOME application being ported to Linux and Mac (it's Java).

Re:The Movie Studios Have A Great Idea To Ramp Up Piracy. on Friday August 14, 2009 @05:12PM (#763854)
This paragraph summed it all up:

If the studios are allowing some places like Blockbuster stores to rent movies on day one, but limit Netflix from doing the same, how many of the millions of Netflix users are going to drive to a Blockbuster store to get that movie? Some certainly will, but a lot will also turn to the web and simply download the movie. And some who have never done that before will learn how to get around such a ridiculous restriction.

Not sure if it's a scheme to grant Blockbuster exclusive rights to DVD rentals for the first 30 days but it sure seems that way.

In the war on "piracy" it always seems that the studios make things increasingly more difficult for their customers and driving them toward other means. It seems they won't be happy until no one can have their product but must pay for it anyway.

Perhaps use white when viewing the video is playing normally on the site and go back to black when viewing in full screen mode.
Re:Best Online To-Do Lists on Thursday July 02, 2009 @11:18AM (#684519)
http://pat.io

It's simple yet still aesthetically pleasing.