The other day Wesner asked: “Shareware Profitable?” He goes on to talk a bit about shareware and how it’s changed over the years. I posted a comment or two on this topic on his site, but it’s been percolating in my head for a little while and after posting a new version of SharpMT last night, I know why it’s been nagging me.
Continue reading Shareware: Dead or Alive?
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SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 – Official Release
After a rather fast beta cycle, SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 have been released. This time out, for the desktop I’ve included proxy support; for the mobile version, I’ve added proxy support, better form rendering for landscape mode, and a couple of tweaks to be compliant for a Microsoft Certification attempt. The landscape mode is a tricky business so please report any anomalies; I’ve tested it on hardware and emulations, and don’t expect any trouble.
Download SharpMT 2.3: EXE | MSI | FAQ
Download Pocket SharpMT 2.3: ZIP | ARM | FAQ
Continue reading SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 – Official Release
Letterbox
Remember the fuss about Letterbox format and how people went on and on, saying that they’d never get used to it? Ask anyone that’s under the age of forty if they even notice anymore, now that it’s been around for a while. I had on a movie on cable for the last 57 minutes and just realized that it was being shown in letterbox. I mean I know I have a head cold right now, but I’m not that out of it…
It Was Only A Matter of Time…
MSN Entertainment: After her “firing,” the 30-year-old [Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth] claimed former contestant Ereka Vetrini had called her the “n-word.” Vetrini has vigorously denied the allegation, as have executive producers Mark Burnett and Trump.
Umm… right… (keep reading)
Continue reading It Was Only A Matter of Time…
Who Said History Repeats Itself?
CNN: Tennessee County Want to Ban Gays: “The county that was the site of the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. Rhea County is one of the most conservative counties in Tennessee. It holds an annual festival commemorating the 1925 trial at which John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution.”
What are the odds of the same county being able to make a monumentally boneheaded ruling – and be proud of it – with over 75 years between the cases? Whoever said history repeats itself was quite correct. Either that or these boys were dipping into their Jack Daniels a bit too heavily before a meetin’.
SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 – Beta 2
Looking for a fast turn around on this beta run, both because there’s really only one new feature and because I changed a couple of things in a hope to get Pocket SharpMT certified for free (but it’s a limited time offer). This latest version offers nothing remarkable: just a couple of bug fixes and a few changes on the Pocket side.
Continue reading SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 – Beta 2
Blogging the World Over
While a lot of companies are censoring their employees about company matters and warning them to keep their mouths closed – or at least ordering them not to Blog about things – Microsoft has swung in the other direction. They’ve got a number different technical sites running all over the place with “inside views” of technology just breaking to the scene but they’ve got two newer sites that haven’t seen anywhere else, at least in Blog format. They are Technical Careers @ Microsoft and Marketing @ Microsoft – want some insight into who they’re looking to hire to work out in Redmond? Go check them out, right now.
SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 – Beta 1
Only one thing added for this release, but it’s been requested: proxy support, for both the desktop and pocket version of SharpMT.
Download SharpMT 2.3 Beta 1: EXE | MSI
Read: SharpMT FAQ
Download Pocket SharpMT 2.3 Beta 1: ZIP | ARM
Read: Pocket SharpMT FAQ
Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3
Continue reading SharpMT and Pocket SharpMT 2.3 – Beta 1
Jetta: Follow Up
Thought I’d post a follow up review to my 2003 Jetta GLI. As I previous posted, I was having a number of issues with my Jetta, and while those remain mostly unresolved, I still find the performance on this car to be amazing. I also believe that the difference in quality between my ’01 Passat and ’03 Jetta to be based on the percentage of each car being built in German. The Passat is 90% German-built; the Jetta is 40% German and 50% Mexican, and I think this makes all of the difference in the overall package, but that’s just my own thoughts.
Continue reading Jetta: Follow Up
Car Theft Should be a Capital Crime
Car thief? Second offense? Send him to the chair.
Continue reading Car Theft Should be a Capital Crime
Will Code For Food?
I read an article the other day about how a company up in Massachusetts is trying to prevent programming jobs from being outsourced to India. Obviously, this made me read the entire article, as it impacts me directly. Or well indirectly. OK, let’s be honest here: anything that stops Apu from getting what could be my job is important to me.
Continue reading Will Code For Food?
Blogus Interruptus
Fuckin’ IBM. You order a part on Sunday with two day shipping. They warn that the part might take up to 72 hours to ship, so at the very latest, I’m thinking Friday before I get my replacement WiFi card if I order two day shipping, so I did. And when I checked it on Monday: it shipped that day. The tracking number is posted shortly there after: UPS, FedEx, DHL, and USPS have no record of it, but by all accounts, it should be here for Wednesday. I back up my data Wednesday morning and prep the machine (pull the battery, remove the HD, keyboard and lower bezel) and wait. At home. All day.
Continue reading Blogus Interruptus
SharpMT and SharpKeys: New Install Type
I discovered the other day that Visual Studio.NET 2003 comes with project wizards to help build installation packages for your applications: you can create MSI packages right from the IDE. I’ve made two new installs to handle SharpKeys 1.1 and SharpMT 2.2; it looks like the SharpKeys install is about 600KB smaller and SharpMT is about 500KB smaller. Hey, whatever makes for faster downloads, right? Read on for some specifics with this…
Continue reading SharpMT and SharpKeys: New Install Type
SharpKeys 1.1 – Official Release
SharpKeys is a Registry hack that is used to make certain keys on a keyboard act like other keys. For example, if you accidentally hit Caps Lock often, you could use this utility to map Caps Lock to a Shift key or even turn it off completely. The official release includes support for up to 104 mappings, an extensive list of available keys, and a “Type Key” option to help when managing mappings. As it relies on internal support within Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003, you must be running one of these OS’s for this Registry hack to work.
Continue reading SharpKeys 1.1 – Official Release
E-Stamp?
There has been a lot of talk lately in tech publications about the possibility of selling electronic “stamps” to be used for sending email. To that I say, “Are you fuckin’ high?” At a penny an email, that would mean that I would get charged $10-$50 a month, for a service that I already have and use for free; better yet, it’s a service that I should be entitled to, technologically speaking. The worst argument I’ve heard for this is “it will stop Spam” – bullshit. I get snail-mailboxes full of junk mail, at 37 cents a pop, or whatever the bulk rate is. I used to get tons of calls from telemarketers and they have to pay for the long distance charges. Did that stop them from calling me? No. It took a state level law to stop the calls. This is whole thing is simply a plan to line someone’s
pockets – probably government – and it disgusts me.
Oh and if you want to stop Spam? Go after the Spammers. Pass a real law – unlike CAN-SPAM, reads as “[You] Can Spam [Us]” – and don’t fuck the end user simply because they use an email account. It’s just disgusting.