#247874 - 03/02/2005 15:21
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 29/08/2000
Posts: 14496
Loc: Canada
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Quote:
you don't get stuck using (bad) "free" software.
Exactly. With OpenSource software, you're not stuck to a proprietary file format, nor to a continuous revenue stream of updates from the vendor just to stay "compatible".
But hey.. spend yer monies how ya pleases to!
Cheers
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#247875 - 03/02/2005 20:24
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Names. If it takes me longer to find an implement a temporary solution than it does to do all the mangling in Excel, then it's not a viable option. I haven't been able to find anything that will do the job yet.
I will agree that vi is powerful, but for something to be KING it has to offer more than a text editing engine. The UI tacked onto the Mac OS X version (or any platform for that matter) would have to be evaluated.
My requirements are modest, but most editors fail here or there. TextPad is the only thing I've found so far that has not limited anything I've wanted to do.
Bruno
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#247876 - 03/02/2005 20:58
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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How are you importing this data into Excel? Without knowing what problem you're trying to solve, I don't know how to solve it. Honestly, I don't use a database that way much, so I'm probably not the right guy to ask, but I've seen a lot of DBAs use some apparently powerful front-end tools. Personally, I never use any of the vi GUIs. Waste of time and space. (Except for under Windows, which has virtually no text-mode interface.) You're not editing pictures, you're editing text. TextPad is the nicest thing I ever found for Windows (beyond vi), but it doesn't do much more than allow you to edit text. There don't seem to be any advanced features that aid in editing text, only a nice UI. Quote:
for [a text editor] to be KING it has to offer more than a text editing engine
Oh. It sounds like you'd be more of an emacs man. I'm pretty sure it comes with a kitchen sink in addition to its email client, news reader, lisp interpreter, and autofellator.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#247877 - 03/02/2005 22:13
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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What I meant is that you can stuff the same basic engine into a lot of different packages and they'll not all be of the same quality. Without a GUI I would never be able to remember but a few of the hundreds of features/functions that are possible from a menu system. it would also be a lot harder to construct complex queries, replaces, macros, etc. and manage them (saved favorites, etc.)
Some people have a need for SFTP, I don't. Functions of other programs (news client, email, etc.) is fluff. If I hated a GUI that much I'd use a terminal for everything. But then I'd likely not use a computer for very much at all any more. Likewise, all you need is a canvas and a pencil (or paints if you prefer) to gget down with artwork. The GUI should allways be an asset, not a hinderance. And in TextPad it is definitely an asset.
Bruno
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#247878 - 03/02/2005 22:21
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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It's not importing into Excel that's of benefit. it can be easily placed into a database. it's all about the editing. I have about 80000 rows and 6-10 columns. The first column indicates where the data came from (let's say 6 different IDs there), then we have a BRAND column, a MODEL column, category column and then a few columns of other stats like Part No, Equiv Part No. etc.. I need to sort by one or more columns to put the rows into different grouped blocks to weed out duplicates on select columns and copy/merge data from select cells. A lot of entries are missing information. I'm using these groupings to be able to fill in some of the missing info. Such as category after sorting by model - where I can then highlight a range of rows and change the category contents for just those items.
This is super easy to do with a spreadsheet. With a database lacking a spreadsheet-like interface, it would require custom queries be created and then custom code for the different merging functions and more work for fills, etc. I don't know how to link up Excel to a DB back end right now. In the end this data will be used as part of a much bigger DB with a lot more info and things will be linked in many more complex ways than simply by row and manual sorting. But we're not there yet and need to process this data to get some other work done.
Bruno
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#247879 - 03/02/2005 23:19
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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old hand
Registered: 15/02/2002
Posts: 1049
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The whole point of 4th generation languages is to do things like this. You can do much of it in Excel, but that's like fixing your car with a crescent wrench. What you're describing is "select where" functionality. Nothing beats SQL for this, and it is one of the simplest of tasks that you can do with it. You can do some very, very complicated data manipulation with just a few lines of SQL. I'm no SQL expert, but problems like these are why it was invented.
FWIW,
Jim
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#247880 - 04/02/2005 01:15
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/03/2000
Posts: 12341
Loc: Sterling, VA
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My 2 cents:
I don't think large Excell files are good. I ran into one person at work who couldn't do a mail merge with Word because the table she was trying to use had over 3100 rows and columns out to BT. Guess what, it doesn't work!
But I do agree with Bruno that I have yet to find something to replace MS Office (sadly). Openoffice isn't exactly a joy to use. Abiword isn't too bad, but also not great.
_________________________
Matt
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#247881 - 04/02/2005 05:39
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Well, for that kind of manual data editing and cleaning-up (as in "I don't know what I have to change untill I see it") spreadsheet is pretty handy. However, a decent database front end is much better. Here you can still do manual changes, but for anything involving more that a row or two you write an SQL one-liner instead. I usually end up using combination of SQL and 'visual inspection' to find inconsistencies, but mostly SQL to fix them. (The tasks were similar to yours, albait in different 'domain' - once is was food safety lab parameters (kind of sample, lab, what is measured, method, instrument, limits, units etc), the other parameters defining retail banking products). That was not fun 
Edited by bonzi (04/02/2005 05:59)
_________________________
Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
MkII #080000376, 18GB green
MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue
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#247883 - 04/02/2005 13:55
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
If I hated a GUI that much I'd use a terminal for everything.
Hmm. I resemble that remark.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#247884 - 04/02/2005 13:56
Re: Apple
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Quote:
GUI and text version of vim differ mostly in more readable syntax highlighting
Not if you have a 256-color xterm.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#247885 - 04/02/2005 14:35
Re: Apple
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 24/01/2002
Posts: 3937
Loc: Providence, RI
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It wasn't until the other night that I noticed the ambient light sensor was dimming my display in some cases. Very weird.
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#247886 - 04/02/2005 14:56
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
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Quote:
Not if you have a 256-color xterm.
Hm, true, Cygwin's bash is just an ordinary DOS prompt, meaning at most ANSI, meaning 16 colors...
_________________________
Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Q#5196
MkII #080000376, 18GB green
MkIIa #040103247, 60GB blue
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#247887 - 04/02/2005 15:54
Re: Apple
[Re: bonzi]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Maybe you could use PuTTY to ssh to localhost....
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#247888 - 04/02/2005 16:52
Re: Apple
[Re: _hardcore_]
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member
Registered: 22/09/2000
Posts: 195
Loc: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Hi all..
First post from my powerbook g4 - just wanted to let you know!..
//Kaare
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#247889 - 04/02/2005 20:03
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 12/02/2002
Posts: 2298
Loc: Berkeley, California
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Bruno, I suppose you're the person to ask about this - is there any possibilty of splitting the dual-link dvi and convincing it to drive two seperate external monitors? I saw some chatter about this on some message boards, but figure it isn't possible or Apple would be marketing it as a feature.
Matthew
(Who's waiting for his student developer status to be confirmed so his 15" SD w/ 128vram can be ordered)
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#247890 - 04/02/2005 20:48
Re: Apple
[Re: _hardcore_]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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Do you have a squeaky spacebar?  Bruno
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#247891 - 04/02/2005 20:56
Re: Apple
[Re: matthew_k]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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It's impossible to use the dual link DVI connector to drive two independent displays. It's only attached internally to a single display controller, that's point number one. Dual link DVI also works by sending odd pixels to one link and even to the other, so even if any type of "splitter" were made it would be rather useless. Because, it's only a single display. Back to point number one. 
If someone wants multiple displays on their Powerbook, they should seek out the company DigitalTigers ( http://www.digitaltigers.com ). Tell them I sent you and that I should really get a little kickback for the sales referral. (I'm serious).
Bruno
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#247892 - 05/02/2005 02:16
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Hey. You don't happen to know a product that'll do NTSC- or HDTV-out from a laptop, do you? I'd like to be able to play AVIs on my TV, but I don't really feel like having a dedicated computer for it.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#247893 - 05/02/2005 04:25
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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All Mac notebooks have TV output, NTSC and PAL. And all recent ones support HDTV resolutions/modes over DVI. If you don't have a Mac notebook and yours doesn't have TV output capability, then you'll have to find something that takes VGA signal and converts to NTSC. They exist, but I don't know any brand/product information. It's possible to have TV-out capability wired up through a DVI or VGA port if there's no dedicated SVIDEO/Composite ports. You'd have to check the documentation for your machine to know. Then you'd use an adapter from the notebook vendor. Our latest Mac cards have analog TV lines wired to their DVI ports for instance. I just finished watching Equilibrium on my PowerBook connected to my TV. Bruno
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#247894 - 05/02/2005 07:19
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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member
Registered: 22/09/2000
Posts: 195
Loc: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Quote:
Do you have a squeaky spacebar?
Bruno
Eh? You'll have to explain it to me (English is not my native language!)
//Kaare
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#247895 - 05/02/2005 15:05
Re: Apple
[Re: _hardcore_]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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My Spacebar made a noise whenever I'd press it on the right side. it was very annoying. Through much (much) typing over the past four months it seems to have gone away. It's been reported by other people with their Powerbooks as well, so I thought I'd ask.
Bruno
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#247896 - 05/02/2005 16:59
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31600
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
You don't happen to know a product that'll do NTSC- or HDTV-out from a laptop, do you?
Also keep in mind that if your HDTV happens to have a five-wire RGBHV input (like mine), then all you need is the proper cable. An RGBHV input is usually five ganged RCA plugs color-coded red, green, blue, white, and yellow.
The RGBHV input on an HDTV is just the same a VGA output. All you need is to get what's called a "breakout cable", which converts the VGA D-sub connector into five RCA connectors.
I built one of these breakout cables myself with Radio Shack parts, but they can be bought at places like bettercables.com .
On my PC, I have to run the PowerStrip utility to tweak the scan frequencies slightly so that it all looks right on the TV. I don't know how much control a Mac will give you over the scan frequencies, you could research that.
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#247897 - 05/02/2005 17:42
Re: Apple
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/06/1999
Posts: 7868
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Display Config X gives similar control on a Mac.
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#247898 - 05/02/2005 20:12
Re: Apple
[Re: hybrid8]
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member
Registered: 22/09/2000
Posts: 195
Loc: Copenhagen, Denmark
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Quote:
My Spacebar made a noise whenever I'd press it on the right side. it was very annoying. Through much (much) typing over the past four months it seems to have gone away. It's been reported by other people with their Powerbooks as well, so I thought I'd ask.
Bruno
Ahh, that simple.. Nope - sofar nothing's wrong with the powerbook. I have som difficulties connecting to my groupwise server, but hopefully i'll be able to work out a solution.. I'm blazed away with the clearness of the fonts.. Reading a large document, or a web page is SO much quicker on a mac than on a win pc - simply because the fonts are much much more reableable and friendly to the eyes..
//Kaare
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#247900 - 07/02/2005 15:16
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
It seems like there ought to be a simple Firewire or USB2 or PCMCIA adapter that would be a display for the PC on which I could full-screen a video player application. I just can't come up with any reason why no one makes something like this, but no one seems to.
Bus bandwidth. Updating an 800x600, 32bpp display 25 times a second is 48Mbytes/s -- too much for Firewire or USB2, and probably too much for PCMCIA. PCI and USB are still much faster.
Peter
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#247901 - 07/02/2005 15:35
Re: Apple
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Your idea is demonstrably untrue based on the fact that people have been doing realtime Firewire NTSC video input for years, and that's certainly FW400. I'll admit that it's near the threshhold, but not there.
NTSC is 720x540, tops, but if we're talking about setting it up as a Windows display, let's assume the worst since it's not going to wander back and forth. The framerate is 29.97fps. Assuming 32bpp, that comes to a little under 356Mbps, which is well less than Firewire's 400Mbps.
PAL maxes out its resolutions at 768x576 and has a framerate of 25fps. Again assuming 32bpp, that's 337.5Mbps.
Both of those numbers are also under USB2's max bandwidth of 480Mbps, though I wouldn't be surprised if USB2's overhead put them just over. Still, if you reduce that 32bpp to 24, you get 267Mbps and 253Mbps, which are both well under both limits.
I'll admit that (1080i) HDTV resolutions would be too great, even for FireWire800, at a little under 1.2Gbps, best case. 720p resolutions could probably fit in FireWire800, though.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk
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#247902 - 07/02/2005 15:54
Re: Apple
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4180
Loc: Cambridge, England
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Quote:
Your idea is demonstrably untrue based on the fact that people have been doing realtime Firewire NTSC video input for years, and that's certainly FW400.
Uncompressed?
Peter
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#247903 - 07/02/2005 16:38
Re: Apple
[Re: peter]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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Hmm. Good question. Perhaps not. I was specifically thinking of extracting video from real-time non-digital sources (usually VHS VCRs), but there is a box that sits in between that could be doing DV compression. Still, if it is, a box to do DV decompression would be fine by me.
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Bitt Faulk
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However, I still find myself using a GUI version of vim (mostly launched by an one-letter alias from bash, but also from explorer context menu) more often that not. Then again, GUI and text version of vim differ mostly in more readable syntax highlighting and a few usefull menus...
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