May 16, 2001

Started a small rush job early in the morning 🙂 Somebody at work wanted a way to print HTML documents from the command-line and though I searched the right-click context menu settings for HTML printing on one of machines, all I found was that they were doing it via DDE through MS Word :p I didn’t think to check on my other machine and so searched the web and found a shareware program which did the job but that got me thinking and I wanted to see if I could do it quickly in Delphi …

Two hours later, I had an app which worked on my machine but in the meantime I’d also discovered that there was a simpler way to do it via Rundll32.exe and the MSHTML.DLL file :p But that was on my Win2k machine and that particular command wouldn’t work on my other machine which had NT 4.0 workstation on it. Then I tried my app on the NT 4.0 workstation and it wouldn’t work! Ugh … I hate different versions of Windows and IE and Dlls and what not :p Oh well ….

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 11:37 am  |  No Comments

May 15, 2001

I had originally put up the Mozilla lite distro because I had thought it would be easier for people to download a fairly lightweight install of Mozill instead of the huge full download just to use Mozilla with Scope. But I’ve heard more and more stories about how the Mozill lite distro actually ended up confusing people and so I’ve decided to remove the link from the side-bar. Another reason for this particular decision is the fact that the Mozilla lite distro is based on Mozilla 0.8 and since Mozilla 0.9 is now out, there is the potential for conflicts between different version numbers.

In fact, I heard from a user who couldn’t get Scope to work with Mozilla 0.9 and I’m not sure whether anything has changed in the 0.9 release as far as the Mozilla ActiveX control is concerned and so will have to look into it. Yes, that means I’ll be doing some Scope related work – or at least some code checking in the near future 🙂

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 2:14 pm  |  No Comments

Just heard from jugg that the link on the Tripod site doesn’t work for the BlogCS download … Not really a surprise since I constantly have this problem :p I guess I should put up a permanent disclaimer and ask people to always go to the RazorSystems mirror <g> The Nortiq mirror is not updated yet due to the IP caching problems I have at work – that’ll be updated over the weekend …

He also did some instant beta testing of BlogCS and found a couple of major problems as well as a lot of things which weren’t really intuitive … I’ll fix some of them later and provide better documentation to alleviate some (this is after all a very early beta <g>) but I have fixed the greatest problems and have uploaded a new executable but the version number hasn’t changed …

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 9:45 am  |  No Comments

May 14, 2001

Well kiddies it’s the time you’ve all been waiting for … well, I know that nobody’s been waiting for this that much except for a couple of individuals but it still sounds better :p Anyway, Blog CS is finally done and is ready for testing. I haven’t played with it much except to make sure that basic functionality is there since I mainly use stand-alone Blog for day-to-day stuff … But from what I’ve seen on my machine it seems to work fine.

The final distribution didn’t turn out to be too hefty since it is only about .5 MB over the stand-alone version 🙂 There is a BlogCS.txt file included in the distro which should explain most of the stuff though the usage section hasn’t been modified to reflect the changes in BlogCS <vbg> So download it, have fun and let me know of all bugs and stuff!

Incidentally, sinesolis did another one of his great looking Powered by Blog buttons so you know what to do if you do use Blog on a regular basis – hmm, I guess I’d better clarify anyway <g> Download the button and link to my site, that’s what :p I’d like to hear from anybody who uses Blog on a regular basis at all anyway … Here’s sinesolis’s latest and greatest 🙂 :

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 3:41 pm  |  No Comments

May 13, 2001

Continued my work on the MIDAS version of Blog and it actually went pretty fast. Initially I’d been a bit hesitant to work on MIDAS because there wasn’t much direct information that I could get my teeth into but once I took a couple of the Delphi demos apart, I understood how it worked. By afternoon, I had most of the code working like a charm … and then I hit a snag :p

The problem was that I couldn’t get any changes or new entries that I made, saved. I kept on trying different approaches till I finally did what I should have done in the first place – checked the web. I found out the cause of the problem almost immediately – I hadn’t set a certain property correcly … duh 🙂 Now that I had the basic stuff working, I decided to take a break and do other stuff like cooking and watching this movie on the Sci-Fi channel about aliens in Roswell (no I’m not talking about “Roswell” – that’s on WB and on Mondays :p).

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 11:34 am  |  No Comments

May 12, 2001

Wasn’t really in the mood to code since I am still feeling sleep-deprived <vbg> So did everything except code most of the day – I went out and bought some more DVD’s to add to my collection, really got into “Unicorn Point” which is the fifth book in the Apprentice-Adept series and watched a couple of movies on DVD. I loved one of the early John Woo movies from his Hong Kong period – the one where he introduced Chow Yun Fat 🙂 I love those blood-drenched action flicks :p

Finally got around to working on some code and found out why I was putting off working on Blog :p The MidWare code was being really difficult and it had looked as if I was within sight of completing the initial work on Blog CS (I have decided to call this vesion Blog CS for Client-Server <g>). I couldn’t get a simple login dialog working fine with the existing MidWare framework :p I finally gave up in disgust and decided to recode everything in MIDAS and by the time I went to bed, I had quite a bit of the MIDAS stuff in place …

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 11:26 am  |  No Comments

May 11, 2001

I received another Powered by Blog button from sinesolis today – geez, that guy’s indefatigable 🙂 And he promises to do some more buttons – thanks for all the hard work sinesolis! Here’s his latest creation:

On a completely unrelated note, has anybody else heard about/been following the game surrounding the upcoming Spielberg movie AI? It seems to be a total multimedia experience like what they did to promote The Blair Witch Project but at a much deeper and more all-encompassing level. It had all started with the trailer for AI and then had gone on to include phone calls, faxes, e-mails, dozens of websites and much much more! I really like how the story is turning out in the game since it is pretty engrossing – plus, I guess I have this habit of half-believing what’s on websites and so the whole story in a sense seems very real 🙂 Anyway, if you haven’t heard about and would like to see the story unfold, the best place to start is The Guide Be warned though, The Guide is actually a guide to what has happened so far and reads a lot like a story – if you want to actually play the game, The Guide might spoil your fun because it is sort of like a walkthrough ….

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 9:01 am  |  No Comments

May 10, 2001

Sinesolis had made a great looking Powered by Blog button for me that he sent to me yesterday. Unfortunately, due to the vagaries of e-mail systems, I did not receive the button he sent me the last time but he sent it again and I finally got it. I really like it and if anybody out there is currently using Blog to update their site, I’d appreciate if you displayed this button on your site with a link to mine 🙂 Here’s the button (I’ll put up a permanent link by and by …)

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 1:01 pm  |  No Comments

I’ve received a couple of responses with regards to my rant yesterday … and no, none of them were negative :p But I must iterate again that it was not meant as an attack on any of the users who are anxious about further development on Scope or anybody in particular for any reason 🙂 It was simply a statement of the frustration that I feel sometimes that I am not really making a difference with the stuff that I code, I guess – and of course, also an explanation of why (or how) I devote time to a specific project …

But enough of that 🙂 There’s quite a few other things that I wanted to mention that I didn’t get to because I went on and on with my rant yesterday :p One thing is that I’ve received quite a few e-mails about the fact that people can’t always access the downloads from the Tripod site. This seems to be an issue with Tripod and all I can suggest is that you use one of the mirror sites … But that brings up a little problem with one of the mirror sites <vbg> I seem to be having some sort of an IP caching issue with the Nortiq mirror site since I am behind a firewall at work. The site that I see both through my browser and FTP is different at work as opposed to home … So I have stopped trying to update the Nortiq mirror for the time being and so that leaves you with only one mirror site but that should hopefully be enough 🙂

On the coding front, I actually went back to my MidWare based code for the client-server model for Blog and was able to fix most of the problems! Guess a little time away from code can sometimes help <g> So I am currently planning on completing the version, give it to my uber-beta tester Jugg <g> and see what comes up … Since the client-server version is a bit bulkier than I had originally anticipated and since it involves running two different executables, I am actually thinking of retaining the single-user version separately for people who want to run Blog on one machine and don’t want to maintain a shared journal/site. This might end up in a bit of mess since I will have to maintain two sets of code for essentially the same program but it might be worth it …

The Screen Savers say that they are going to have a new segment called Download of the Day which would feature free programs. Now if any of you is so inclined <vbg> you can e-mail them to let them know about Scope (or for that matter Blog – if you use it …) 🙂 So why aren’t I doing it myself? Mostly because I wouldn’t have the enthusiasm you would have and I don’t feel like blowing my own horn :p

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 9:43 am  |  No Comments

May 9, 2001

I got a note from a user yesterday who was worried that I might not be developing Scope any further 🙂 I guess that was natural since I haven’t talked about Scope in a long time and all I do is write about Blog development … but have no fear, I will get back to Scope as soon as I finish my current work on Blog.

The fact of the matter is that I mainly code for myself unless I get some push to work on a project. I had completed the basic features that I wanted from Scope and while I do get a lot of e-mails from users telling me how great Scope is and how much they like it, I also get a lot of e-mails from people who don’t even bother to say thank you but simply want this or that feature or even worse <g>, launch into a tirade because a particular feature doesn’t work.

While I understand the fact that I have a responsibility to provide working software, I’m also doing this in my spare time when I could be doing something else that I enjoy or working on a different project because the software does what *I* wanted it to do :p So what am I saying? Am I asking you to cough up some dough? Of course not!!! I have always loved the concept of having (and providing) free software but I do like to see some reciprocation …

And reciprocation is something that sadly seems to be missing more and more for free software and free efforts 🙁 I’m not saying that reciprocation is totatlly missing because I’ve had a person donate a hard disk to me when I used to work on LiteStep and Sinesolis did those graphics for Scope on his own time and then there KuhnDog and Lyon who donated space for mirror servers as well as John who’s been helping me a lot with Delphi stuff but a lot of the time people are just content to take and not give something back …

All of my software from Scope onwards has been released as CareWare. I was hoping that that would encourage people to join the GroupHug Mailing List and perhaps help others by way of simply being there to listen to somebody else’s troubles and offering advice. I even had this grand dream that so many people would join that they would even be able to discuss a problem somebody in there area had and so be able to help somebody out offline. But what do I know? Do you know how many people have joined the mailing list since Scope was released? Barely a handful – probably five at most!

I know I’m not the only person facing this issue. Chris Pirillo of LockerGnome fame issued the Libera Manifesto which was aimed at the same problem. Then there’s my friend Rootrider over at ShellFront who has been talking about the Libera Manifesto quite a bit himself – probably because he’s had to face the issue too. He wanted to organize a ShellCon so that alternate shell developers and users could get together – did anybody offer to help him organize it? Not as far as I know!

I guess I’m on a regular old rant :p And this by no means is aimed at the person who asked me whether Scope development is over or those people who send me feature requests for Scope 🙂 I love receiving feature requests because that tells me that people are using my software. I’m simply trying to explain the slowness of coding and why I’m not always working on a particular project – it’s because I just don’t feel motivated … So I work on what *I* feel like working on – it’s as simple as that 🙂

Tags:
Posted by Fahim at 9:25 am  |  No Comments

« Previous PageNext Page »