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Messages - ddan

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136
Applications / Re: eCS and bittorrent
« on: 2008.07.13, 03:05:52 »
Er, my previous may merely expand on RobertM's comment, and is maybe directed more to Saijin_Naib as to missing functionality, and my comment to him is: I can't bear to put up with the ton of CRAP that comes with XP in order to have a pretty GUI bittorrent client. I'm not saying NICE GUI apps aren't possible, but the market always drives to an excess of "features" that don't increase function. For an excellent PM-GUI app, look to PMView 2000, best viewer I've come across on any OS, even though has a few points that annoy me.

And, I don't believe there's any ARGUMENT here. Sorry if that comes over in my rants against Windows.

A point I should have made is that I understand fairly well why various decisions and strategies were made in Linux and OS/2, but Windows... is pretty literally a software Frankenstein's monster, except that after the mysterious split with IBM, Crimosoft became absolutely rabid about keeping anything connected with OS/2 out of their products, and it's evident in the implementation of bizarre alternate strategies.

137
Applications / Re: eCS and bittorrent
« on: 2008.07.13, 02:23:13 »
To jep: no, THE KEY is that ctorrent9 doesn't provide the convenience that I
want in the way that I want it. But the basic function is there. It's an
observable fact that Linux types (from which ctorrent was ported) are fond of
typing, so from their perspective, it's a FINE tool, and I agree. I also like
Dink's Z text mode MP3 player, but for some reason, he didn't implement
scheduled streaming and recording, so I wrote a front-end for it too (TIME4Z12
on Hobbes). I don't exactly regard being able to fairly easily customize the
system (OS/2 with REXX and ctorrent9) for my simple tastes as a drawback. It's
rather in line with what we were promised in the late '80s of amateurs
assembling programs from building blocks furnished by experts. REXX is the
glue that allows such assembling. As I've said elsewhere, REXX is OS/2's best
hidden feature.

To put it in perspective: all of XP doesn't provide the convenience that I
want in the way that I want it; items that I've taken for granted in OS/2
since 2.1GA (my first experience), real time-slice pre-emptive multitasking,
long file names, Installable File Systems including a High Performance File
System that broke the 2G FAT barrier, actual objects on the desktop not merely
shortcuts... It's only fast hardware that makes XP at all usable, because it's
actually HORRIBLE technically.

(Linux is MUCH better technically than Windows, but I'm never going to LIKE
its command line tools such as the vi editor the way I've liked many DOS
programs.)

OS/2 is an operating system for PERSONAL COMPUTERS, not an imitation of Unix
mixed with Apple's ideas and some daffy "original" innovations such as the
talking dog.


138
Applications / Re: eCS and bittorrent
« on: 2008.07.08, 05:18:19 »
Hmm. The above points up major differences in philosophy on which I muse now
and then. It's not just the ancient GUI / text debate, it's more of a "good
enough" versus "WAY more features than necessary, so many that basic function
is lost", and touches on every aspect of why I so greatly prefer OS/2. I'll
try to limit focus here to just ctorrent.

Volker Ehlert, along with I presume others, for their own probably essentially
geeky reasons, have given us a simple command-line tool that does everything
necessary to download a torrent. I'm grateful for it, as the application is
definitely above my level of interest to pursue, and probably above my
competence to even compile, let alone code. So Ctorrent9 is GOOD ENOUGH for
me, certainly so for the limited use I have for bittorrent.

But I'm NOT DISAPPOINTED with "good enough". I'm a utilitarian whose GOAL is
"good enough". Ctorrent9 does what it's supposed to without needing my
attention. That's GOOD program design.

As I've pointed out previously, the only problem using it is the NUISANCE of
starting torrents, either right after download or resuming after power-off. So
I wrote a little front end for ctorrent9 in REXX which helps with that.

All too often in the computer world, useless eye-candy is tacked on, along
with "features" that I never use. The philosophical divide occurs here: WHY
should -- HOW could -- this be "improved" with graphics when it does its one
function without problem, without annoying me?

My central problem with GUI the way Crimosoft does it is that it FREQUENTLY
demands my attention for some "problem" that I don't care about: a little box
pops up and demands a click when I have "unused icons"; a floppy format
finishes NORMALLY and up pops a dialog box demanding that I acknowledge it,
because to Crimosoft, successfully formatting a floppy IS a big deal --
anyway, the NAGGING is ENDLESS, even after turning off "balloon tips".

All of that just distracts me from the little bit of creativity that I have.
Sure, I have, and frequently still do, just PLAY with the computer as such,
but recent GUIs demand CONSTANT attention, something must always be flashing.
I don't want progress bars flashing while I'm concentrated on this text, for
instance, so I minimize or cover even the Ctorrent monitor window. If I want
to know the status of downloads, I just hit ctrl-esc, and they're in the
window list. The status lines in Ctorrent Monitor are almost incidental: I
used them for information while debugging, then prettied them up a bit.

Without flashing, the WPS, besides the rest of OS/2, just sits there, doing
what it's supposed to. It's BORING, and that was INTENDED. I'm GLAD that the
software engineers spent their time on fundamentals rather than frills. Last
weekend, I showed this system to a fellow who was thoroughly UN-impressed with
the same chunky icons of 1993 just sitting there. He doesn't understand that
OS/2 was written fresh from the ground up, drawing of course on previous
experience which avoided most of the problems while greatly innovating. He
doesn't understand that though OS/2 looks little different from Windows 3.1,
it's actually STILL more revolutionary than anything else Crimosoft wrote. It
was TOO revolutionary: Crimosoft greedily continued peddling a graphical shell
atop single-tasking DOS for at least SEVEN years after OS/2 2.1GA. Incredible.

IF OS/2 development had continued -- but that gets to my point: seems very few
people are able to live with "good enough". Crimosoft in particular keeps
adding eye candy without ANY increase of function. So we in the OS/2 world are
perhaps lucky that it HASN'T been "improved" except for necessary fixes.

Perhaps OS/2's BORING reliability was actually part of the reason it lost in
the "marketplace". With Windows, you always have the impression that it's
doing something complex and exciting, and because boring old reliability was
way down on their list of importance, you soon learn that you do indeed have
to watch it constantly, and even then can't avoid some pretty spectacular
crashes. OS/2 just can't match Windows for that "edge of the cliff" feeling.
-- I'm mostly serious. People LIKE to be scared: just consider how popular are
horror movies, role-playing games, and rollercoasters.

So... Guess I sum up for now by saying that I prefer BORING.

139
Applications / Re: eCS and bittorrent
« on: 2008.07.04, 23:55:05 »
Further improvement to Ctorrent Monitor now on Hobbes:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/CTORMON4.ZIP

Adds a little more convenience to finish with a torrent (though keeping the file on hand).
Reliability also appears to be improved. I've used the previous version without problem daily since last release, and I hope this version builds on that without introducing any bugs...

I'm now definitely finding this about as convenient as any GUI bittorrent client (while using FAR fewer resources). Volker Ehlert's ctorrent9.exe seems rock solid, not a single problem with it despite frequent starts and re-starts in my testing.

140
Hardware / Re: Thinkpad A20m shut itself down!!
« on: 2008.06.28, 04:20:48 »
Hello! Afraid what I've got is mostly snarking: that's why I don't allow Flash in any OS.

I can go to the website with OS/2 and FF1.5, get a mostly blank page except for a few links at the bottom. Spoofing it with User Agent of IE6 and XP didn't change anything except on one link that suggested I use Flash 8 or higher.

However, this address for a secondary page may help you get where you want to go:

http://www2.lorealusa.com/_en/_us/tools/sitemap/index.aspx

Good luck.

141
Mark,
My LANTRAN.LOG is nearly identical to yours posted, only three lines. Skip that.

But your network card is obviously not working, somehow.

Everyone installing any version of OS/2 should have a 3COM 3C90X card to put in at least temporarily in order to avoid exactly this situation with many unknowns, and to be able to get on the net to download the right driver and tools. Also have in hand a floppy with the following files: el90x.os2, el90xio2.nif. 3COM cards have ALWAYS worked for me on a variety of systems.

I'm usually upgrading when installing. After the system is up, I install some version of NetDrive, and via FTPServer, copy everything from the old system except the system files. A Firefox installation, complete with extensions, bookmarks, passwords, and preferences, comes across in a few seconds rather than an hour or so of re-installation.

142
Rexx / Re: Where did I get...
« on: 2008.06.26, 15:38:45 »
To Smedley: whoops. You do so many ports that I got confused. Thanks for your efforts.

My thanks Peter Weilbacher, then too. By the way, I'm pretty content with version 1.5 after trying FF2 and now FF3. The latter works fine, but the fonts are fairly horrible. In particular, the menu font is a small Courier yet fewer bookmark lines are shown, and I can't figure how to change it.

To jep: hmm, for downloaded files, I don't know of any other prefix possible.

Here's the bit of code I used to see what was there (though the page mentioned doc's apparently all known types):

/* test sysqueryealist() */

/* you need rexxutil.dll; it'll be loaded if any program used it previously */

d= directory()
parse arg fn
say 'Looking for:'d||'\'||fn /* just to check that assembled to a valid path... */

call SysQueryEAList d||'\'||fn, "list."

do i = 1 to list.0
say 'Attribute' i 'is' list.i
if SysGetEA(fn, list.i, "varn") = 0 then do
  say varn
end
end

143
Rexx / Where did I get...
« on: 2008.06.25, 17:54:54 »
Smedley's PmW-Fx 1.5 puts download info into file EA. This is a tool I developed just now when the need (or at least interest arose in testing EAs in general with REXX, as you can get this info by splitting the EA off with EAUTIL for a one time use).

Copy/paste all below. I named it WDIG.CMD.

/* Where Did I Get... uses info Smedley's PmW-FX puts into download's EA */
/* see orexx.inf for sysgetea() doc, but it's in the "plain" rexxutil */
/* also see http://home.claranet.de/xyzzy/rxxos2eas.htm for more info */

call rxfuncadd 'sysloadfuncs', 'rexxutiil', 'sysloadfuncs'
call sysloadfuncs

parse arg fn /* seems to get all of parameter even with spaces */
say 'Where did I get: "'fn'"?' /* this shows the command line parameter */

if sysgetea(fn, '.SUBJECT', "varn") = 0 then do
  vc= translate(varn) /* case-insensitive MAY be necessary sometimes, so */
  p= pos('HTTP:/', vc) /* a copy is made for these position tests... */
  if p = 0 then p= pos('FTP:/', vc) /* probably the only two possible */
  if p > 0 then do
    varn= substr(varn, p, length(varn) - p + 1) /* all after p */
    say 'From 'varn
  end
  else say 'Apparently from nowhere...'
end

144
Ah, networking... Always blind stabs in the dark. For DHCP you should manually add into SETUP.CMD:
dhcpstrt -i lan0
THEN don't go back into the GUI setup, unless you check and re-do the above.
My SETUP.CMD has "REM arp -f", and I believe you mean "route" not "rate".

However, a careful reading of your first post says "DSL direct connection", which I take to mean you don't have a router, and consequently, no DHCP server. From what I understand, an ordinary DSL box doesn't do DHCP on its own, so that's the place to start.

If you're SURE that the NIC driver is running (likely if no error message from it during boot-up), then from a browser type "http://192.168.1.1", and you should be able to get to -- well, I've never use DSL, but surely somewhere if there's a responding DHCP server.

I'd abandon your dim memory of what worked previously. In any case, my first post here was because of differences between CP2 and W4. CP2 is a bit more warped, ha.

By the way, for lengthy posts, I've taken to typing into a WP rather than risk the on-line editor here bailing out on me, but if it does, click back, then copy the text, login again, and paste the text.

145
Programming / Re: split text into words (database)
« on: 2008.06.17, 16:24:01 »
Ran into this when making a tool for checking my word usage and to make a dictionary. Below, if you can figure it out after the online editor mangled it somewhat, is the help screen of my (Turbo Pascal 5.5) program. Doesn't seem possible to exclude all symbols all the time - at least not in English - so I just provided command line switches for various types of text. And I think you missed listing the really annoying underline: "_", which programmers like to use in variable names. I didn't handle "@" but nowadays it should clearly be counted as part of a word if in middle of alphas as in web addresses. Good luck handling all the special cases...

   Exclude  : /a = apostrophes      /h = hyphens   <───[As part of word]──┐');
   Include  : /',apost,' = all apostrophes  /- = all hyphens  /u = underlines<,
   Output   : /f = word frequency   /#[-]nnn = truncate above/below frequency');
   Translate: /t = translate foreign characters into a-z');   
 - By default, leading or trailing apostrophes and hyphens are stripped;');
     others are included in word.  Exclude all with /a or /h switches.');
     Include lead/trail apostrophes or hyphens with /',apost,' or /- switches.');
 - Underlines are NOT included in word by default: add with /u switch.');
 - Translates foreign characters as below (ligatures are expanded to two):');
Ä Å â ä à å á ª Æ æ Ç ç  É é ê ë è ƒ ï î ì í £ ô ö ò Ö ó º Ñ ñ × Ü ü û ù ú ÿ');
          a       │ae       c  │    e    │f│   i   │l│     o     │ n │p│    u    │ y ');
 - ß used for German s-set is translated to one "s"; not entirely satisfactory.');
 - Output is all lowercase, 7-bit ASCII, one word per line (plus #, with /f).');

146
Applications / Re: eCS and bittorrent
« on: 2008.06.15, 17:43:49 »
Incremental update to CTORMON2.ZIP now on Hobbes. Has improved reliability and faster keyboard response, besides a little cosmetic. May be some version confusion because MIturbide mentioned it in News by that name, though it's changed enough to be bumped up to 3, its internal number. Look in Hobbes \incoming directory, or check that date is 06\15.

Regardless, it makes ctorrent9 much pleasant, particularly for re-starting torrents.

147
Applications / Re: eCS and bittorrent
« on: 2008.06.12, 23:09:32 »
To RobertM and others using ctorrent9.exe:

I've got working REXX code that automates torrent start-up and semi-automates adding a new torrent. Big too large for attachments here, so is at:
http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/incoming/CTORMON2.ZIP

Add all the bells and whistles you wish. I'll get back with an update after further use.

148
Rexx / Re: APMT test program grabs frame in KMP
« on: 2008.06.11, 04:07:31 »
Hello RobertM. Afraid that you've too lightly skimmed my posts, which is understandable.

It's not KMP which is exiting without notice. It's the above REXX code, run from command line (or icon, to save trouble re-typing into a VIO that's just going to disappear).

Anyone can duplicate it (I don't ask that you do, but it's somewhat amazing to see...) after installing APMT and KMP, copy and paste the frame grabber code into a .cmd file, run  KMP, pause, it, then from command prompt run the .cmd. It'll grab the frame without any effect on KMP, but then poof! The VIO is gone.

The second code segment doesn't require KMP, and is more for the use I want: to programatically maximize a VIO after a "mode 90, 30" in the REXX code. Same vanishing.

After running these, some apparently harmless garbaging occurs around the mouse cursor, so APMT may not be entirely usable...

149
Rexx / Re: Google translation
« on: 2008.06.09, 23:33:29 »
Believe I've got it now: the text to be translated is given on the command line from the 3rd word, not in either temporary file. Couldn't understand why you were deleting BOTH files without any obvious use. Needed to look up exactly that, anyway.

Thanks. I may even get round to trying this.

150
Rexx / Re: Google translation
« on: 2008.06.09, 15:41:31 »
Hello jep,

First, must say that I always enjoy your REXX code, even when not immediately used. I think REXX is the way to put program building blocks together as we were promised back in the early 90's. As I'm experimenting with elsewhere, it's just amazing to be able to control complex programs and the WPS from a little bit of text.

This looks interesting, but I'm just not seeing where "in.tmp" comes from. Does this already
exist, you have it hard-coded for testing?

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