G’Day and welcome to Stuff the Box!
Here you will read about opinions of tech news, opinions on bass guitar gear, personal tid-bits and whatever else I feel like writing (complaining/ranting) about.
Feel free to comment to your hearts content…I only ask that you keep it civil and in good taste.
N.B. No trolls! Comments are moderated and trolling comments will be denied and the trolls will be condemned to a place worse than Hell!
You have been warned…
Well, here it is, my second application!!!
PromoteNTA is little command line utility that can be used to “promote” a Notification Tray application state.
If you have the Windows (XP/7/8) Notification Tray (the one in the bottom right corner) configured with default settings, it will hide any application that isn’t active; i.e. telling (notifying) you about something. There are two other states an application can be promoted to, always hide or always show. Windows doesn’t provide a way to programatically “promote” the state of an application tray but instead only allows a user to set this using the User Interface.
PromoteNTA is a way for software developers or system admins to centrally promote an application state for any/all user/s.
If you are interested in finding out more, click through here to get access to the utility and the developer resource!
What the hell is Coffee Buzz I hear you say? What’s with the extra punarific cheesiness?
Well the truth is that I am now a Software Developer!!! Coffee Buzz is my first full application! :D
Coffee Buzz is a little Notification Tray application that can be used to prevent your computer from going to sleep. When Coffee Buzz kicks in and gives your computer a buzz, the screensaver and sleep modes will be [temporarily] disabled so that you can work without fear of your machine going to screensaver while watching a movie or showing an important presentation in the board room or at Uni.
The premise behind Coffee Buzz is that not everyone can turn off there screensaver or disable sleep mode due to restrictions on a work or Uni computer, and not everyone either knows how to or can be bothered turning these settings off by themselves. On top of that, the screensaver and sleep modes are very important; they increase the life of your monitors and allow you to reduce your environmental footprint.
Coffee Buzz uses built in components of the Operating System to “pause” the timers that are used to activate the screensaver or sleep mode. Coffee Buzz does not “hack” your computer by sending a ghost like keyboard key or move your mouse the 1/1000th of millimetre. No. Coffee Buzz uses complete native code of the Operating System; the same code that other parts of the Operating System uses!
Pretty cool huh :D
Only while Coffee Buzz is giving the computer a Buzz!
The icon that shows in the Notification Tray, when activated, will look like a full cup of coffee. When you declare Buzzed Out!, it means that you want Coffee Buzz to return to the normal behaviour that it had before you ran Coffee Buzz.
There are also options to only give the computer a temporary Buzz!
Only want the screensaver to not activate or go to sleep for 30 minutes; no problem!
If you quit Coffee Buzz while it is giving your computer a Buzz!, it will return the computer to normal behaviour as well and will not leave it with the timers paused.
No. Coffee Buzz has been designed to be completely functional by any user of any computer. It will also run when the computer starts and you are logged in if you like.
If you are asking if I allow it, well I do.
If you are asking if using Coffee Buzz at work will get you in trouble, maybe.
Most work places have what is called an Acceptable Use Policy (names may vary, but the purpose is the same) which you would have had to sign when commencing employment. Often these policy state that circumnavigating the screensaver and sleep modes is prohibited. It is up to you to determine if your workplace has one of these policies and whether you are comfortable in using Coffee Buzz should it mean that you could get in trouble. I take zero (0) responsibility if you get in trouble with your employer/IT department.
In saying this, Coffee Buzz does not install anything. It does not do anything that would make an Anti-Virus system panic. It does not contact the internet in any way.
So if you do use this application, the likely hood that you would get caught is VERY minimal.
Right here:
No way!!! Coffee Buzz is completely free to download, use and share. I just ask that you do not sell it in any way.
No. Just enjoy it :)
My Dad asked if there was a way that he could prevent his screensaver from kicking in at work. His work has a timeout of 10 minutes, and if you needed to go to a book shelf to reference something and come back, the computer would be locked. His work computers are also locked down and he cannot change the screensaver.
So after looking around for a solution for him, I decided to create one!
Coffee Buzz is designed for Microsoft Windows. It has been tested and designed for Windows XP (all versions), Windows 7 (all versions) and Windows 8.
If you are wanting an application like this for Mac OS X, I recommend you check out Caffeine by Lighthead [website | Mac App Store]. They have a great little app that was actually what inspired me to create this one (that and the fact that all Windows alternatives used mouse and keyboard hacks :/)
Just drop me a line! I cannot guarantee that I will respond straight away, as this is a hobby and I have a very busy work and home life, but I will respond. I am proud of what I create and I want it to work for you.
Click here to download the program. It will download as a zip file, which you can open and copy the program to USB stick or external hard drive. Just double click it on your computer and it will run.
If you already have Coffee Buzz but want to be sure that you have the latest version, please check out the change log/release notes.
Enjoy!
In the top-left corner of every iOS device there is a space for service providers to proudly showcase their branding. Pop a sim into your iDevice and once connected, you'll notice the name of your service provider appear between your reception bars and network type (•, 3G, LTE, wifi). Once you've gotten past the informative value of such branding, the novelty wears off rather quickly.
A gentle breeze blows;
a tumbleweed rolls and bumps,
bumps and rolls;
past a small box,
empty and silent …
Well … I really haven’t been blogging much like I thought/hoped I would :-(
Work has been amazingly flat chat! We have had so much going on in our little team of engineers/designers.
We recently had a [kinda] spur of the moment project kick-in in February with a … very unique individual as our Project Manager. He was a very different personality, and saying that I clashed with him is possibly the biggest understatement that could be made. In the first week he stole my computer chair. Yeah, that’s right, my FK computer chair. His reason? The chair he got wasn’t comfortable enough and because I’m young, my back can handle it …
WRONG! Continue reading
Last week I posted about my initial experience with AppleScript and how much of a turd I found it.
Well, it’s been a week now…and I have learned heaps!!!
I have also completely changed my opinion about the language…
My biggest problem was that I was trying to do things that aren’t common, and my terminology was wrong.
So, in this post I want to correct a few statements that were made and offer some [hopefully] valuable User Defined Handlers (UDH) for others to use. Continue reading
I am an Apple fan.
I love Mac’s
and iPhones
and iPads
and iEtc’s
but, I am professionally a Windows technician.
I am a qualified network engineer and software administrator. My experience has primarily been around Windows hardware, OS and software.
I program and script in KiXtart as my main language of choice, and can also code in VBScript, AHK, AutoIt and bat.
I have experience in HTML, JavaScript and XML.
So as an Apple only man at home (I do have a Windows VM for some things…sadly) I thought its about time I learnt to code in the Mac world.
I attempted to write in AppleScript this last weekend…and put simply, it’s a turd!1
Seriously, a turd! Continue reading
