LarryMade

If it has a good view of some civilization I bet there are some point to point wireless internet providers in the area.

Looks like the path to code/data obscurity to me, why not have properly labeled fields for all the elements and save yourself the headache of remembering the fancy trick you implemented years ago.

For me I got into computers in the around 1980 in high school...

So starting out pirated programs, and type-in stuff from magazines. Many programs were in BASIC so a lot of peeking and poking about in the code and memory to see what you could do with the computer and programs. Lot of reading and hand-written/mind work between times with hands-on access to school computers.

Once I got my own computer VIC-20, i got lots of mags and books (especially the programmers reference guide) more time to experiment and try out hand-converted assembly routines in my programs.

Commodore 64, man the pirated disks were everywhere... also was the beginning of copy protected disks - and then to push back the protected software copier and cracked programs... lots more books and magazines to learn (the magazines were getting more technical then like the Transactor magazine, a true Commodore programming mag... ahhh), as well as copied text files from BBSs becoming more prevalent (see textfiles.com for a sample of independent information people exchanged)

Once I got my modem I called around a lot, got some files but the discussion forums were also an attraction, though the audience was limited to usually folks within the general area of the BBS. Soon I became a sysop and worked on my board as well as called others. Lots of hacking on the boards to personalize them, add modifications, do new functions like inter-BBS message networks, etc.

BBSs came in different varieties, besides operating system/computer (mine were on the Commodore 64) there were boards with lots of on-bbs games, some with pirated software, others did message boards (mine was more a message board), some tried to do porn and stuff for profit, never got into that so don't know much of that aspect. Hackers at that era besides cracking started doing demos and intros for cracked games, its surprising how much of a show you can put on with a few K of ram on a 1 mghz computer.

Internet creeped into neighborhoods and BBS callership dried up - except for the more dedicated sysops and their boards (mine lasted till around 2004, mainly due to Hard disk failure without a backup. :-/

I think it was better in a way for development as absence or less accessibility makes the heart grow fonder and gave us time to plan things out between whatever computer opportunity you were deprived of. Also a lot of the technologies we use now were in their infancy in the day, so some of us old geezer grock why computers/software do this or that because we saw it when it originally came on the scene.

Today you have such more higher level languages, and supercomputers compared to the old times, the complex is pretty much a cakewalk to the general programming public now. So much accessibility and inter-connetedness too.

Back then it was mainly a nerds only club, your mom wouldn't even get into the same room with the computer. Now the general public is here, which means you got lots of noobs and wannabes all over the place.

Now also has a lot more distractions, not just games and facebook, but also the avalanche of hardware/ programming/ etc. technologies that are being pushed out at us every day. I guess the big challenge for folks today is where to get started and what paths to choose.

Well from my perspective, you are either doing a better job or they are idiots when it comes to marketing.

My first thought is putting a page on your site about how the competition is scared, address the false claims they make and maybe note that it is a sign of desperation on their part to employ such tactics. Have fun with it - never sink to their level, and then ignore them and get back to doing what it is that makes them nervous.

I recently was looking at computer events from 1983, at that time Apple sold it's 1 millionth apple ][ (released in 1977) and Commodore sold it's 1 millionth VIC-20 (this was a year after the c64 so it hadn't overtook the market just yet). So it took apple five years to sell a million of various apple ][s and ][pluses, and only two for Commodore to sell a million VIC-20s.

Later Commodore got the Guiness honor of producing the most of a single model computer with the Commodore 64, no solid number but its above 12 million up to 17 million.

An interesting read is Brian Bagnall's book Commodore: A Company on the Edge, which has many accounts from Commodore's staff. One interesting tidbit, is Apples marketing at the time though they were third in sales (behind Radio Shack and Commodore) their ads touted "We are Number One!" of course there probably wasn't a mention of what they were number one of...

What Apple got for a time was a foothold on the Business market with VisiCalc, and also Apple Works (this is not the Mac GUI program Appleworks). They also got a solid foothold in the education market. Educational software was a very lucrative market for many companies during the 80s and early 90s.

Was in SF for a month library, besides lots of places to plug in and work uninterrupted, the main branch has a huge selection of computer books.

How about at least a setup where authors have the first 24 hours from creation to easily delete their book, that will give lookie-loos like me a chance to cleanup after toying with the site.

I should also comment about the concept, I think its great! The big pluses are quick access to read and to create which simple, and folks could use it to make their own books.

As a comparison, I use Dokuwiki for my site, which is similar but a lot more prep to setup and get into (it's not a SAAS). I think if you take a quick look at it, it might give you some ideas for format concepts: http://portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=larry:projects...

Print out one page to see how the layout differs from the screen.

Another thing - How do I delete a book I created?

I don't like the font or spacing or something... something about the proportions kinda makes it hard to read comfortably (I'm on a mid rez LCD display)... Also might help having the border/background being a different color (hmmm, maybe a fabric book cover or endpaper texture? )

Option for author to "theme" thier book with 5 or so different layout themes so one would be fictional, another might be non-fiction (using some sans serif font), etc. Of course the reader can override if desired.

The book title at the top gets lost in the content.

The top menu symbols show up on the printout - might want to have the print version have a light BookVoid header showing... with the book title.

Maybe an option to border embedded graphics, that wake turbulence pic doesn't seem to rest well in the page... (can you caption it too? or have text wrapping options?)

When you go to settings the book content graphics disappear.

The navigation symbols are interesting but I would think trying to be a bit more conventional symbols (+/- magnifying glass, graphic of gate-fold, etc) would be worth a shot.

BookVoid? Sounds like limbo from books... Maybe instead of a word that reminds me of emptiness or clearing out, look for something growing or spreading... maybe look for Book[Word] combos relating to say garden, spring, sharing, inspiration,creativity?

Quashing Innovation or merely sending C&D Notices to people scraping their data. There's a difference there.

I'm sure if the author made his own real estate listing site (with it's own database/management/etc.and integrated maps on it) it would not have been an issue.

Bookmarked - I don't do facebook or twitter though, so no content from me... Wheres tumblr integration?

Back in my BBS days, I ran a continuing story board. Something funny where one could knock off a few paragraphs and have fun writing it. Playing in that medium probably helped me more than most. It wasn't just me writing, so sometimes it was a challenge to twist the plot against others to something I wanted. It taught me a lot of phrasing, typing, and general grammar.

Today blogging is good, you just need to get into writing more than posting funny pictures. :-D

I've been pretty happy with Dokuwiki with a CMS template (DokuCMS). Used Dokuwiki in internal and external (with DokuCMS) sites. The editing is text based but not hard at all to grasp (I tell staff just copy the text from an already made page to use as the new page.

The DokuCMS template is pretty well laid out so it can be modified to suit. Also the DokuCMS navigation menu is just another wiki page, so s/he can edit that via the wiki editor as well so adding sections/pages are no problem.

http://www.dokuwiki.org/dokuwiki

http://www.dokuwiki.org/template:dokucms

- Quanta IDE very web developer friendly - nor or less died with KDE 3.5 - Kooka scanner tool (which incorporated OCR, there is a quite a lack of Linux OCR apps.)

At my last work I was just finishing rewriting a database to get out of OS9.

Another person I help is in the newspaper business and does his layout with PageMaker on OS9, Iv'e been trying to get him over to InDesign but Adobe left behind a lot of the keyboard shortcuts he relies upon and its been a unsuccessful venture so far... As each year goes by its getting harder to find compatible hardware and currently the internet needs to be done on OSX... Would do it in classic mode on OSX but some of Adobe's rendering routines don't particularly like OS9. Talking with him about it many other papers still use OS9, mainly because like the OP said - "it just works" and I can understand their dilemma, when we have tried transitioning things, stuff doesn't "just work" anymore.

Depending on what you do your mileage may vary.

What I was doing didn't fit in with what the then current frameworks offered - so I made my own... and that's how all those frameworks got their start as well.

My suggestion is to look at the various framework features and see which one best suits your needs.

This one is actually pretty good, slashdot has it moments... Both of these are good for general programming news bits not specific to particular languages.

8-bit/Microsoft BASIC - many a programmer today can draw their roots back to BASIC. It was the languages that made significant inroads to elementary-high school programming education as well as self-taught programming education.

Microcode - the process of developing a specific series of transistors to become a microprocessor.. The core of the magic. Especially how one can start up a microprocessor from pushing an on switch - that's the definition of sublime to me

One that has a lot of programming and hackerish humor is the Wizard's Bane series by Rick cook. Fantasy realm mixing programming and magic quite well.

I myself would say so if I can write effective code in it (beyond hello world) and understand the syntax. Many of the languages are too deep to know all the libraries, but you have enough skills with it and with a language guide or google to get it to do what you want.

10 "read my blog now! ";:goto 10

Don't look so critically at others code - everyone has their own style to programming, you can do much the same stuff with complex code as with simple, functional or object oriented. Glean what you can/want from it now and don't fret over the rest, come back to it later as you improve.

If you have issues with your own code, work them out. One thing that helped me deal at my code was to work on my formatting and readability. Breaking up long lines consistent indenting, better variable, field and and function naming etc.

Third, use some concept you 'own' to work on. As in a project of some sort, a concept you understand forwards and backwards... maybe a baseball card database, or an event calendar - maybe you nailed it years ago in language X, do the same now in language Y. This is so you aren't fighting with deciding on what you want, you just need to discover in the language how to get there or how to improve upon what you know, also it will give you a quicker success in the new language which is good for the ego too.

I think also the more experienced (older) we get the more frustrated we get when things just don't just work the first time, so we need to fight that frustration a bit more.

Well most of the issue I have with Linux is graphics compatibility, that being said, I'd recommend any with an nVidia GPU over one with an ATI one. With that you will certainly have a much better experience.

Keyboards are pretty flimsy nowadays (literally - with flexible circuit sheets, etc.), and depending on the type might take a bit of work to tear down to clean the parts, and my be a toss up on usability. That said, Google is your friend, search for "keyboard cleaning" with the model of your laptop you will probably get a hit or three on some tips for disassembly and cleaning, etc.

Before you do that, have you checked to see if there's a good price on a replacement keyboard? - I've found some on Amazon as low as $15 for Dell laptops and such, eBay is good too but you need to look at the seller's track record and such to make sure things are jake.

Was I the only one that had to look up what PL stands for?

I had to strip of the www for it to work, need to fix your url or your webserver settings.

I like the animation, good points to get my interest. the background was odd, throwing stuff in the air in an empty field? think about that. How about something like a lightbulb over your ipad or something saying doccaster "sharing" or something - with a bunch of lightbulbs over disperse folks in a crowded room?

So you have to have your potential clients load up some app in order to access. Then it is limited by time and range... I guess that is a good thing if it is paid conference materials that you want stricter control over distribution...

So I take it you would have to create some sort of flyer or brochure on how potential clients can setup and sign into doccaster in order for them to access your stuff then? (cue the cute animation of people grabbing your flyer and throwing it in the trashcan) Will it work on my Linux laptop? or my Blackberry? etc. requiring an app will be limiting.

Document presentation/management is a great thing, but I think you have put in a few stumbling blocks to "gotta have it" adoption. I think you would get better results with a web portal where accounts are accessed like www.doccaster.com/mybizdocs which presents a graphical brochure rack to click and choose documents. Distributors could put that address on a card with friendly easy to read type "the Iludium Q35 Space Modulator: www.doccaster.com/q35info" five words and an address (maybe a graphic of it on the back of the card) just enough not to loose the attention of an ADHD executive.

But then again, you don't have the geographic control... but would you via a laptop either?

My thought is we are built for our world, you try tinker with the natural processes bad stuff will likely result. We know a lot about how we function, but we don't really get the big picture of how everything here on earth works with us and we with it.

I did this with my logo a while back, going through bunches of fonts... that being said the font selection here is kinda sparse...

Second might be a good one to have a column view of the word(s) in the different faces where you could do a side-by-side comparison and select candidates to look at in larger detail.