Topic: My Software

[MEJHarrison]

For the past 2-3 months, our servers keeping dieing in the middle of the night or early morning for no particular reason.

Check for:
Massive CPU-load (if log-files still exist).
If servers die in "the middle of the night or early morning" my first suspect would be the backup-software (Some systems react really bitchy when backup-software tries to access system-relevant processes without having created a shadow-copy first).
If scheduled malware-scans are performed, check in how far the shutdown corresponds with the schedule (Malware-scans inducing a shutdown usually indicate a security-breach).

All good ideas.  All ideas that have already been tried.  We're health insurance.  So we don't get a lot of activity in the evenings and during the night.  It happens of course as the Emergency Room still needs to check eligibility and such.  But the load is probably < 1% of our daytime traffic.

We've checked the times against our backup procedures, anti-virus, batch processing, database load, etc.  We have the vendor working with us and they can't figure it out.  There are other clients suffering the same problems and they can't figure it out.  Basically, we bought crappy software.  It happens.  What's inexcusable is that over the next 12 years, we stayed with them.  For years I've been saying we need to dump it and build it ourselves.  We've already replaced about 90% of their out-of-the-box functionality with our own code just so we could get the performance where we need it to be.  It wouldn't be that hard.  But no one listens to me. 

[GSyren]

To whom it may concern (possibly the last announcement regarding GsyLaunch):

Version 1.3 is now available. I had fixed things and added everything that I felt was needed:

• Possibility to specify a startup folder.
• Dropping a shortcut into GsyLaunch now picks up startup folder, arguments and description.
• Possibility to minimize to system tray.
• Possibility to specify that GsyLaunch should start at windows startup.
• Backup of registry settings
• Prevent multiple instances of GsyLaunch.
• Check for new version.

Also fixed a bug that caused tabs to change places when tabs were wrapped into multiple rows.
Download page is here. Documentation is here.
Any comments appreciated.

[MEJHarrison]

Thanks for making your tools available!

[GSyren]

No problem, Mark,

I develop things for my own use and entertainment. And since I am retired (I hate to call myself an old age pensioner) I also do it in order to exercise my brain. I may be a bit more forgetful than I used to be, but I like to think that I still have my wits.

I like to share my work with my fellow inmates in the DVD Collectors Asylum.  I don't ask for any monetary recompensation, because quite frankly while I'm not rich I'm well off enough to not have to worry about money. And selling your stuff puts a whole different level of responsibility on it.

I like to think that you, I, and most people who develop freeware, take pride in our work and do our best to fix any bugs that turn up. But it's good to know that if something really difficult pops up we can just say "sorry - I can't fix that".

That said, some kind of feedback is always pleasant. A pat on the back is nice, but it's even better when someone takes the time to offer constructive criticism; "how about adding this", "why not do it this way instead", "how about making a ...". Even if it's something you don't want or can do, it's always nice to hear someone elses ideas.

Well, time to relax my brain with some DVD watching. Don't want to over-exercise it... 

[Kathy]

I think it's great that you have the understanding and ability to develop and share software.

As for me, I have bookmarked this thread because I'm sure it's terrific. One of these days I'll get my 6 year old nephew to explain what your software does and how to use it. 

[GSyren]

I think it's great that you have the understanding and ability to develop and share software.

As for me, I have bookmarked this thread because I'm sure it's terrific. One of these days I'll get my 6 year old nephew to explain what your software does and how to use it. 

Uh please don't! I have a sinking feeling that I may find myself in the pilot for a new TV show: "Are You Smarter That a First Grader?" - and lose. Kids today ate scary smart!
 

[GSyren]

A new program has been added; GsyClock.

This is a small desktop clock. You can set the font, foreground color and background color. You can set it to be always on top, and to start automaically on Windows startup. You can also set a tooltip to display date information in the format of your choice.

More info on my download page.

[GSyren]

Well, I guess one should never say never...

I was wrong about 1.3.0 being that last announcement for GsyLaunch. I found an irritation bug that could accidentally move a button to the first position of a tab, and while I was tinkering with GsyLaunch anyway, I added a possibility to prevent double runs on exe files (i e start more than one session).

[GSyren]

FYI several of my programs have been updated.

[GSyren]

Do you ever feel the need to edit bulletin board code (such as we use here) offline? When I write my reviews, I prefer to do it offline, and I also edit BBC code for use as templates in one of my programs. In order to facilitate this I have written a simple code editor that looks like this:



I tried to make it just a little bit more helpful (in my opinion) than the online editor. While it doesn't have all tags, it inserts the ones it has a bit smarter (again, in my opinion). Unlike the online editor, it doesn't leave text selected. If you use a tag that requires an argument it will position the cursor after the equal sign, like so (I'm omitting the opening bracket in order to have the code shown ok):

font=|]sample text[/font]

(the | represents the cursor)

If you have text selected before applying a tag, the tag will of course wrap the text, but the cursor will be placed after the end tag. If, on the other hand, you use a tag without having text selected, the cursor will be place between the tags.

Since this program is pretty specific for this forum (the rsb tag used for movie ratings) I haven't mentioned it on my web page. However, if anyone here is interested in trying it, it can be downloaded from here.

If you like the button design, I can confess that I nicked it from a telephone switchboard program that I wrote a few years ago. My old boss would probably have hit the roof if I had told him how many dozens of hours was spent perfecting that design, including mouseover and button down behavior, and button symbols (not just text as here).

[DJ Doena]

You could do two things to enhance your program.

1)
Output the configuration of your standard buttons in a config file.

This way if I wanted to have DVDCO img tag, I could edit it to

Code: [Select]

[img]{content}[/img] and if I wanted Invelos img tag, I'd go with

Code: [Select]

[img src="{content}" /]
2)
Also, you could add a custom tag feature in two variants (basically the same as this php website does):

Code: [Select]

[tag]{content}[/tag]
and

Code: [Select]

[tag={param}]{content}[/tag]

[GSyren]

Thanks Karsten,

I will certainly give that some consideration.

[DJ Doena]

Thanks Karsten,

I will certainly give that some consideration.

With a config file you could even go as far as "Load for type-x-of-board" and have one pre-defined for standard BB code (which is basically every board but Invelos) and Invelos.

[GSyren]

I have now added BbcEdit 2.2.4 to my software. It's configurable like Karsten suggested.
See the description here.