On Sep 18, 2012, at 1:33 PM, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:03:13 -0700
> "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> 
>> On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 08:36:26AM -0700, Sean Kelly wrote:
>>> On Sep 18, 2012, at 12:48 AM, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>>>> The most common failure I've had are the power supplies, they're still as bad today as in the 80's.
>>> 
>>> There are good power supplies, they just don't come in pre-built computers because they're expensive.  I think the same could be said of products from any era.
>> 
>> Yeah, I've learned the hard way not to trust pre-assembled PCs.  They may have one or two good components listed in the ad just to hook you, but usually many other parts (that people don't usually pay attention to) are crap. PSUs are one of them. Nowadays I only ever buy parts, and assemble my own PCs. Things tend to last much longer this way.
> 
> I think the last time I bought a fully pre-assembled desktop, it was a a 486. I got into the habit of building from parts just because that was the easiest way to get *exactly* what I wanted (Yea, I'm a control freak). And it's not difficult to do either, it's not like building a car from parts (Although my large hands/fingers are admittedly a liability when digging around a PC's internals).

I've never owned a pre-assembled PC.  Back when I built my first in 1989 it was because I couldn't afford to buy from Compaq or whoever was around at the time.  After that, it was more because I'd upgrade a component at a time.  I've considered going to a custom builder recently, but there's still a decent premium on top of the system price.  Back in the day, the difficulty was in knowing how to plug everything together, configure IRQs, etc, because nothing was polarized or color-coded, and at best you'd get a page or two of reference material regarding jumpers in Korean.  These days it's more in selecting components that are verified to be compatible.  Actually putting the machine together is fairly trivial.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:50:18 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:

> Actually, it's a little too effective: It's impossible to reach down
> into my pocket and adjust the volume because it plain refuses to *let*
> me adjust the volume without taking it out, pushing "Lock" or "Home",
> sliding the touch-slider, and *then* using the damn volume buttons -
> which *still* don't even do what I want most of the time.

If you want to adjust the ringer volume, yes.  If you want to adjust the volume of something that is currently playing (like a song), it works without having to unlock.

I find the silent switch more useful, I don't often change ringer volumes.

> And there's
> a ton of other issues I have had with the devices, like poor accuracy
> (because my fingers aren't <=1mm in diameter and the damn thing won't
> even register touches from anything that's actually more accurate).

There are styli for capacitive screens, they aren't that great, but better than a finger.  But no place to store them on the phone.  I think Samsumg has a stylus-based capacitive screen phone called the Galaxy note.

But I have not had much of a problem with accuracy.  In certain cases when I'm browsing the web, I have to zoom in to accurately tap a link.  However, my touch screens that I had with my palm Treo, and Windows Mobile 6 phones both sucked at accuracy.  I spent so much time "calibrating" them, and even then, I couldn't click on anything near the edges.

My Windows Mobile phone I completely gave up on using the touch screen at all, I got very good at using the keyboard shortcuts.  The only thing I ever used the stylus for was playing solitaire, and even then, I had trained myself to offset my tap locations based on what part of the screen I was on.  I literally knew exactly where to tap if I wanted to move whatever card to another pile -- and it wasn't uniform!

-Steve

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:42:59 -0400
"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:50:18 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:
> 
> > Actually, it's a little too effective: It's impossible to reach down into my pocket and adjust the volume because it plain refuses to *let* me adjust the volume without taking it out, pushing "Lock" or "Home", sliding the touch-slider, and *then* using the damn volume buttons - which *still* don't even do what I want most of the time.
> 
> If you want to adjust the ringer volume, yes.  If you want to adjust the volume of something that is currently playing (like a song), it works without having to unlock.
> 
> I find the silent switch more useful, I don't often change ringer volumes.
> 

What I *really* want is a master volume control. But there is none. At all. And there is no "app for that". For example:

- When I go into a library, I *expect* to have *no sound*, period. And
  this is what Apple apparently expects you to do: Pull it out, press
  "home" or "lock", slide the slider, double-press "home", swipe the
  bottom row to the right, adjust that volume with the touchscreen
  control, and switch the "ringer/vibrate-only" switch to
  "vibrate-only". And guess what? Even that *still* doesn't disable all
  sound. And that's even if you ignore the fact that vibrate isn't
  actually silent. I don't even take the fucking thing into libraries,
  I just leave the damn thing in the car. Fuck it. It's not worth it.

- I'm haplessly attempting to peck something out on the miniature
  non-tactile chicklet-keyboard (which only *sometimes* goes into
  landscape mode) and notice it's too loud. So I have to go find
  something that plays sound, ideally music, play it, *then* adjust the
  fucking volume (otherwise it adjusts the ringer volume instead), then
  stop the music or whatever it was, then go back to whatever it was
  that I was doing and *hope* that I like the new volume setting
  because if not, I have to do it all over again.

- Luckily, I don't use it to play music (I have a *real* portable music
  player for that, with a sensible amount of storage). Because if I
  did, then changing the ringer volume would work like this: Stop the
  music, change the ringer volume, resume the music. Seriously? Talk
  about pointless coupling.

And then there's the fun times when the stupid thing *thinks* audio is playing so it won't let you adjust the ringer volume even though no audio is playing.

Of course, I constantly need to change the ringer volume because, being mobile, it's constantly either too quiet or too loud.

What a complete, moronic, absolute steaming turd of a device. I'd HAPPILY put up with accidental volume changes just to go back to a master volume POT (and even those can be made in a way to drastically minimize accidental volume changes).

And that's *just* volume issues alone. God, I *HATE* the fucking thing. Any time I use it, I just want to hurl the damn thing into the nearest concrete wall as hard as I can. But I can't, because it's not even mine, it's a loaner, and I unfortunately need it for development/testing (or at least *will* need it for such once we pay Apple their Developer Ransom).

> > And there's
> > a ton of other issues I have had with the devices, like poor
> > accuracy (because my fingers aren't <=1mm in diameter and the damn
> > thing won't even register touches from anything that's actually
> > more accurate).
> 
> There are styli for capacitive screens, they aren't that great, but better than a finger.  But no place to store them on the phone.  I think Samsumg has a stylus-based capacitive screen phone called the Galaxy note.
> 

Right. Basically capacitive stylus is a hack solution. And the thing is too, I already *have* no less than *ten* styli built right into my fingers. But they're incompatible. And so is my knuckle (mostly), which is annoying when my fingers are messy.

> But I have not had much of a problem with accuracy.  In certain cases when I'm browsing the web, I have to zoom in to accurately tap a link. However, my touch screens that I had with my palm Treo, and Windows Mobile 6 phones both sucked at accuracy.  I spent so much time "calibrating" them, and even then, I couldn't click on anything near the edges.
> 

I never had any accuracy problems with my Visor Deluxe or my Zire 71. Granted, they still *could* have been more accurate than they were (even though I never actually found it problematic), but the capacitive devices are far *less* accurate just because of the whole "finger" thing. Most people just don't notice the inaccuracy because they're using something (big beefy finger) that, unlike a stylus, they intuitively/subconciously expect to be inaccurate.

> My Windows Mobile phone I completely gave up on using the touch screen at all, I got very good at using the keyboard shortcuts.  The only thing I ever used the stylus for was playing solitaire, and even then, I had trained myself to offset my tap locations based on what part of the screen I was on.  I literally knew exactly where to tap if I wanted to move whatever card to another pile -- and it wasn't uniform!
> 

Hmm, yea, I've never actually used any of the WinCE PDAs. I wouldn't know about them.

On 9/18/12, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
> There's nothing, nothing remotely as good as Breaking Bad.

You're just saying that 'cos your name rhymes with the lead character's name. :p

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:10:03 -0700
Sean Kelly <sean@invisibleduck.org> wrote:

> On Sep 18, 2012, at 1:09 PM, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 9/18/2012 2:08 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > 
> > My car stereo takes a USB stick. I specifically picked that model for that reason. CDs in the car suck.
> 
> Mine does bluetooth, so I don't even have to take my phone out of my pocket to listen to music.

My dad's car has bluetooth connected up to his phone. Every time he starts his car and turns the radio on, about half a minute later the radio cuts completely out and there's an entirely useless voice saying "Device Connected" (or something like that, I forget the exact words). Then it switches his radio back on.

I can always tell when he's calling me with it, too, because I can't make out a single word he says (and then he compensates by talking louder which just makes it worse).

Meh, it's like there's no such thing as good design anymore.

Actually, music over bluetooth? Wouldn't even an FM transmitter be better quality? (Well, unless you have one of those newer antennas that can't be retracted.) Bluetooth has *really* bad bandwidth.

> CDs are terrible and DVDs are worse.
> Most of the kids movies we have at home don't even play any more,
> even though the underside for most isn't terribly scratched.

That's why circumventing copy-protection is fucking awesome: Grab "DVD Decryptor", insert disc, press a button, insert blank disc, press a button, and you have something you can actually let the kids have, *and* it's region-free and has all the PUO bullshit removed. (Well, and then there's DVD Shrink if you need to get a DVD9 down to a DVD5 - and the quality is actually surprisingly good.)

Fuck the DMCA.

On 9/18/2012 2:30 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> I loved MV in the 80's. It was on netflix, so I started watching it.
>> It was *horrible*! Awful. Cringeworthy.
>>
>
> I've heard that the third and fourth seasons went downhill. I saw the
> whole first season just about a year ago and loved it.

Uh, I watched the pilot. The whole "I gotta beat up my partner to near death in order for us to become buddies" thing.


>> There's nothing, nothing remotely as good as Breaking Bad.
> Not familiar with it.

You're lucky. The pleasure is all in front of you!

On 9/18/2012 3:40 PM, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
> On 9/18/12, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>> There's nothing, nothing remotely as good as Breaking Bad.
>
> You're just saying that 'cos your name rhymes with the lead character's name. :p
>

Walter Bright, Walter White, middle aged, buzz cut, nerdly, ...


hmmm.....

On Sep 18, 2012, at 3:50 PM, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:10:03 -0700
> Sean Kelly <sean@invisibleduck.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Sep 18, 2012, at 1:09 PM, Walter Bright <newshound2@digitalmars.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 9/18/2012 2:08 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>>> 
>>> My car stereo takes a USB stick. I specifically picked that model for that reason. CDs in the car suck.
>> 
>> Mine does bluetooth, so I don't even have to take my phone out of my pocket to listen to music.
> 
> My dad's car has bluetooth connected up to his phone. Every time he starts his car and turns the radio on, about half a minute later the radio cuts completely out and there's an entirely useless voice saying "Device Connected" (or something like that, I forget the exact words). Then it switches his radio back on.
> 
> I can always tell when he's calling me with it, too, because I can't make out a single word he says (and then he compensates by talking louder which just makes it worse).
> 
> Meh, it's like there's no such thing as good design anymore.
> 
> Actually, music over bluetooth? Wouldn't even an FM transmitter be better quality? (Well, unless you have one of those newer antennas that can't be retracted.) Bluetooth has *really* bad bandwidth.

Bluetooth 3.0 HR does something like 25 Mbit/s. The trick is finding a car stereo that supports the high bitrate for audio. I agree with you about the phone support, but it's because the mic is shoddy rather than anything about Bluetooth. I don't use the phone setup in my car very often for that reason.  With noise reduction turned on I just sound like I'm under water, and with it off it's just noisy in general. My car doesn't offer a very quiet ride though, to be fair.

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 18:32:41 -0400, Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:42:59 -0400
> "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:50:18 -0400, Nick Sabalausky
>> <SeeWebsiteToContactMe@semitwist.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Actually, it's a little too effective: It's impossible to reach down
>> > into my pocket and adjust the volume because it plain refuses to
>> > *let* me adjust the volume without taking it out, pushing "Lock" or
>> > "Home", sliding the touch-slider, and *then* using the damn volume
>> > buttons - which *still* don't even do what I want most of the time.
>>
>> If you want to adjust the ringer volume, yes.  If you want to adjust
>> the volume of something that is currently playing (like a song), it
>> works without having to unlock.
>>
>> I find the silent switch more useful, I don't often change ringer
>> volumes.
>>
>
> What I *really* want is a master volume control. But there is none. At
> all. And there is no "app for that". For example:
>
> - When I go into a library, I *expect* to have *no sound*, period. And
>   this is what Apple apparently expects you to do: Pull it out, press
>   "home" or "lock", slide the slider, double-press "home", swipe the
>   bottom row to the right, adjust that volume with the touchscreen
>   control, and switch the "ringer/vibrate-only" switch to
>   "vibrate-only". And guess what? Even that *still* doesn't disable all
>   sound. And that's even if you ignore the fact that vibrate isn't
>   actually silent. I don't even take the fucking thing into libraries,
>   I just leave the damn thing in the car. Fuck it. It's not worth it.

You can configure silent mode to not vibrate.  Then it has the odd effect (if you have vibrate enabled for full-ring mode) of vibrating when you turn it *off* silent.

I tried doing that for a while, but I found myself forgetting to revert the switch, and I would miss updates/calls/emails all day without realizing it!

A good improvement (to any phone really) would be to have it configure your audio settings according to wifi SSID.  That is, if you're connected to "MyLocalLibraryWifi", then set the thing to full silent.  My Windows Mobile phone had a cool feature where it would detect when you were supposed to be in a meeting (according to your calendar) and set itself on silent/vibrate.

> - I'm haplessly attempting to peck something out on the miniature
>   non-tactile chicklet-keyboard (which only *sometimes* goes into
>   landscape mode) and notice it's too loud. So I have to go find
>   something that plays sound, ideally music, play it, *then* adjust the
>   fucking volume (otherwise it adjusts the ringer volume instead), then
>   stop the music or whatever it was, then go back to whatever it was
>   that I was doing and *hope* that I like the new volume setting
>   because if not, I have to do it all over again.

The keyboard click sound (which you can disable BTW, settings->sounds->keyboard clicks) obeys the ringer volume.  But ringer volume cannot be lowered to "off", so you can't get rid of the volume.  Unless you put the phone in silent mode, and then you will hear no clicks.  I find silent mode pretty much makes everything silent.  Apps do not have to obey that setting, but most of them do (all the games I've played do).

I don't know what your exact situation is, or the app you are having difficulty with, but I just tested safari, and it definitely obeys the ringer volume.  It really sounds like you just should be using the silent switch.

> - Luckily, I don't use it to play music (I have a *real* portable music
>   player for that, with a sensible amount of storage). Because if I
>   did, then changing the ringer volume would work like this: Stop the
>   music, change the ringer volume, resume the music. Seriously? Talk
>   about pointless coupling.

Coincidentally, I wanted to do this today.  You can change the ringer volume without manually stopping music by going into settings.  But it annoyingly stopped playing music temporarily to demonstrate the new ringer volume.  Once I exited settings, it automatically resumed playing music.

Meh, what are you going to do?  Complain I guess :)

> And then there's the fun times when the stupid thing *thinks* audio is
> playing so it won't let you adjust the ringer volume even though no
> audio is playing.
>
> Of course, I constantly need to change the ringer volume because, being
> mobile, it's constantly either too quiet or too loud.

Well, I guess you fidget more about ringer volume than I do.  I usually like the ringer to be on 100%, because I frequently leave it on my desk or somewhere other than my pocket.  When I want it to be quiet, it goes into silent mode.

> And that's *just* volume issues alone. God, I *HATE* the fucking thing.
> Any time I use it, I just want to hurl the damn thing into the nearest
> concrete wall as hard as I can. But I can't, because it's not even
> mine, it's a loaner, and I unfortunately need it for
> development/testing (or at least *will* need it for such once we pay
> Apple their Developer Ransom).

Hehe, yeah, that sucks.  But it's definitely worth it if you are going to do *any* development, even if you aren't publishing.

Just wait until you try to install your app on your phone for the first time -- I have a feeling you will hate that too :)

>> > And there's
>> > a ton of other issues I have had with the devices, like poor
>> > accuracy (because my fingers aren't <=1mm in diameter and the damn
>> > thing won't even register touches from anything that's actually
>> > more accurate).
>>
>> There are styli for capacitive screens, they aren't that great, but
>> better than a finger.  But no place to store them on the phone.  I
>> think Samsumg has a stylus-based capacitive screen phone called the
>> Galaxy note.
>>
>
> Right. Basically capacitive stylus is a hack solution. And the thing is
> too, I already *have* no less than *ten* styli built right into my
> fingers. But they're incompatible. And so is my knuckle (mostly), which
> is annoying when my fingers are messy.

Again, given my experience with the fragility of the non-capacitive touch screen phones I've had, and the lack of accuracy of them, I'd take capacitive *any day*.

My mom is a different story.  I talked her into getting an iPhone and she has a difficult time because of her longer nails.

I recommend getting this app to practice typing better:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/taptyping-typing-trainer-suite/id364237969?mt=8

My typing has improved dramatically with some of the techniques they recommend.

>> But I have not had much of a problem with accuracy.  In certain cases
>> when I'm browsing the web, I have to zoom in to accurately tap a
>> link. However, my touch screens that I had with my palm Treo, and
>> Windows Mobile 6 phones both sucked at accuracy.  I spent so much
>> time "calibrating" them, and even then, I couldn't click on anything
>> near the edges.
>>
>
> I never had any accuracy problems with my Visor Deluxe or my Zire 71.
> Granted, they still *could* have been more accurate than they were
> (even though I never actually found it problematic), but the capacitive
> devices are far *less* accurate just because of the whole "finger"
> thing. Most people just don't notice the inaccuracy because they're
> using something (big beefy finger) that, unlike a stylus, they
> intuitively/subconciously expect to be inaccurate.

Also, the UI is designed around that limitation.  For instance, typing on the keyboard pops up a temporary copy of the key so you can see what you are pressing.

>> My Windows Mobile phone I completely gave up on using the touch
>> screen at all, I got very good at using the keyboard shortcuts.  The
>> only thing I ever used the stylus for was playing solitaire, and even
>> then, I had trained myself to offset my tap locations based on what
>> part of the screen I was on.  I literally knew exactly where to tap
>> if I wanted to move whatever card to another pile -- and it wasn't
>> uniform!
>>
>
> Hmm, yea, I've never actually used any of the WinCE PDAs. I wouldn't
> know about them.
>

It was the same screen as my palm.  Same technology anyway.

I love how my iPhone will never scratch or deteriorate.  I remember a friend whose palm treo was so bad, he had to put so much force on the screen to get anything to happen that his hands would literally shake.

-Steve

On Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:46:35 -0400
"Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> You can configure silent mode to not vibrate.  Then it has the odd effect (if you have vibrate enabled for full-ring mode) of vibrating when you turn it *off* silent.
> 
> I tried doing that for a while, but I found myself forgetting to revert the switch, and I would miss updates/calls/emails all day without realizing it!
> 

Thanks for the tip!

> A good improvement (to any phone really) would be to have it configure your audio settings according to wifi SSID.  That is, if you're connected to "MyLocalLibraryWifi", then set the thing to full silent.  My Windows Mobile phone had a cool feature where it would detect when you were supposed to be in a meeting (according to your calendar) and set itself on silent/vibrate.
> 

Now those are some clever ideas.

> The keyboard click sound (which you can disable BTW, settings->sounds->keyboard clicks) obeys the ringer volume.

Ehh? How unintuitive.

> But
> ringer volume cannot be lowered to "off", so you can't get rid of the
> volume. Unless you put the phone in silent mode, and then you will
> hear no clicks.  I find silent mode pretty much makes everything
> silent.  Apps do not have to obey that setting, but most of them do
> (all the games I've played do).
> 
> I don't know what your exact situation is, or the app you are having difficulty with, but I just tested safari, and it definitely obeys the ringer volume.  It really sounds like you just should be using the silent switch.
> 

I think the main problem is that the volume rules are just far too convoluted. They took something trivial and hacked it up beyond recognition, and all in the supposed name of "simplicity", go figure.

> 
> Well, I guess you fidget more about ringer volume than I do.  I usually like the ringer to be on 100%, because I frequently leave it on my desk or somewhere other than my pocket.  When I want it to be quiet, it goes into silent mode.
> 

Well, I *would* fidget with it a lot, but frankly no matter what I do it's always playing something either too loud or two quiet, and I've got better things to do than mess with a screwy interface every time I walk into a different environment. So really it just encourages me to avoid even using it or even bringing the thing anywhere unless I really need it. A stiff, recessed master volume dial that I could reach into my pocket to adjust would pretty much solve the issue, but I guess that just isn't "high tech" enough. Make it holographic so you can't even feel it at all, *then* Apple would probably toss it in. :/

> > And that's *just* volume issues alone. God, I *HATE* the fucking thing. Any time I use it, I just want to hurl the damn thing into the nearest concrete wall as hard as I can. But I can't, because it's not even mine, it's a loaner, and I unfortunately need it for development/testing (or at least *will* need it for such once we pay Apple their Developer Ransom).
> 
> Hehe, yeah, that sucks.  But it's definitely worth it if you are going to do *any* development, even if you aren't publishing.
> 

If it were my own personal device, I'd just jailbreak it and be done
with it. (And then pay the ransom to publish, of course, because what
else can you do? Create your own device and compete with Apple under
capitalism? Nope, Google tried that idea of "competition" and look what
happened:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/technology/jury-reaches-decision-in-apple-samsung-patent-trial.html?_r=1&ref=technology> )

> Just wait until you try to install your app on your phone for the first time -- I have a feeling you will hate that too :)
> 

I've done it on the Android already - could be better could be worse. Marmalade's deployment tool is really dodgy when installing to a device, but using Google's ADB directly is pretty reliable, and so is installing from a URL via the device's browser.

I'm definitely not looking forward to dealing with iTunes though. I've already used it for syncing the phone, and it's just a big mess. I don't even bother trying to sync it anymore (PalmOS syncing OTOH, was flawless). When the time comes, I'll probably grab copies of "Phone to PC" and/or "Phone Disk" <http://www.macroplant.com/downloads.php>. The demos of those seem to work much better than iTunes, plus they don't treat me like a brain-damaged monkey.

> 
> I love how my iPhone will never scratch or deteriorate.

Instead, it'll just get prematurely discontinued ;)

But I dunno, I've heard that the iPhones are so brittle that you practically look at them the wrong way and they break. (I wouldn't know - I've got a super heavy-duty case on mine. The device is far too expensive to replace if anything happened to it. Damn thing costs twice as much as my laptop. For a stupid little phone. Go figure.)