International Association of Certified Home Inspectors

Russel Ray · #**151** 4/30/08, 7:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmaricic

Yeah here they only have one per mile. When I was in San Francisco a few months ago I saw they had up to 3 per block (about 1/4 mile).

Margarita drive-throughs? I'm moving. Gotta go pack!

Dominic J. Maricic · #**152** 4/30/08, 7:26 AM

Lol. No, meant the Starbucks. Sorry to dissapoint.

relliott · #**153** 4/30/08, 9:44 AM

Like the debate as I am trying to decide, though my brother just called and reminded me it may be time to replace the 92 aerostar before spending $2,000 on a computer.

Far as Starbucks goes, I am amazed that I would need to drive almost 20 minutes to find one.

We have 100 Dunkin Donuts though.I still have $$$ left on my Christmass gift of a Starbucks card because of it.

I like smiley's because when I first joined this Mad house , I never used them and my natural sarcasim was alway's being mis-interpreted.

Rick Maday · #**154** 4/30/08, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmaricic

(and I'm a person who will control a mouse in his left and right hand to work on 2 computers at once).

That must be the reason for the quick responses! Can you type on each one also?!

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Dominic J. Maricic · #**155** 4/30/08, 1:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rmaday

That must be the reason for the quick responses! Can you type on each one also?!

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Yes, but I rarely too, gets too confusing

Jeff Knight · #**156** 4/30/08, 2:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by relliott

After reading the above ,I wonder how you guys feel about this baby I found today.

http://www.oqo.com/

Robert,
The problem isn't really the 5" screen or the slow processing speed. The problem lies in the OS. Windows XP and Vista were not designed to run effectively on a 5" screen and that type of slow processor...which creates the problems of trying to select items on screen like checkboxes and picking items in a menu very challenging and software being slow because it is running on top of the bloated OS. IMHO

Jeff Knight
Knights Software Solutions, Inc.
www.knightssoftware.com
"Leading handheld home inspection software for the past 10 years."

Dominic J. Maricic · #**157** 4/30/08, 4:35 PM

How is a 1.6ghz machine with up to 120 gig hard drive and a gig of ram slow? Russ Spriggs and plenty of other guys are running on 1ghz machines just fine. The screen size might be another issue. You really got to check it out yourself and let us know what you think. 5" is borderline. Guys really seem to like the 7" on the Q1.

XP started out on machines with 256 megs of ram and 350-500mhz.

Russel Ray · #**158** 4/30/08, 9:23 PM

Hey, Dominic.

I'm having a lot of fun with CoffeeCup, and I only had a sip of coffee once, somewhere around the age of 11. That was enough to last me a life time. How something that smells so good can taste so nasty....

What is a good standard width for a web page that will show up well in all browsers? CoffeeCup has a default of 740W x 600H.

Also, I think I remember from the Toronto convention a program that can show one what one's web site will look like in all the various browsers. Do you know what it is? Or what do you use?

I've spent maybe four hours playing around with CoffeeCup and the results are over at http://www.mywiseoldgrandmother.com. By the time I'm finished playing around, I should be good for doing something useful. LOL

Dominic J. Maricic · #**159** 4/30/08, 9:43 PM

800x600 is the smallest monitor size. You can always go longer pages but if you go wider it needs to be able to shrink down if the user has a smaller screen.

Check out http://browsershots.org/ to see your site in all different browsers.

Russel Ray · #**160** 4/30/08, 9:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmaricic

800x600 is the smallest monitor size. You can always go longer pages but if you go wider it needs to be able to shrink down if the user has a smaller screen.

Check out http://browsershots.org/ to see your site in all different browsers.

Thank you, Sir.

relliott · #**161** 4/30/08, 10:39 PM

Too much for me .
I will stick with WYSIWYG.
Jeff....Dom beat me to the punch as my Toshiba is 1.6

Jeff Knight · #**162** 5/1/08, 4:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmaricic

How is a 1.6ghz machine with up to 120 gig hard drive and a gig of ram slow? Russ Spriggs and plenty of other guys are running on 1ghz machines just fine. The screen size might be another issue. You really got to check it out yourself and let us know what you think. 5" is borderline. Guys really seem to like the 7" on the Q1.

XP started out on machines with 256 megs of ram and 350-500mhz.

Dom,
I agree on the processing speed...I was really quoting Mr. Kelly on the slow processing speed...I got pulled in. There really is no such thing nowadays as a slow processor these days. How fast do you really need a processor to be to be able to create a text document or collect data and add pictures ? But I stick to my feelings on the screen size and the XP or Vista OS running on that sized screen.

Jeff

Dominic J. Maricic · #**163** 5/1/08, 4:18 AM

Hey Jeff,

I agree, unless someone's doing some high end gaming late at night when their wifes in bed (cough cough).

I've seen the 7 inch screens, so I feel okay commenting on those. I'll withhold an opinion on the 4.5" screen until I can see it in my hands! Have you found a place that's willing to send demo machines to you for testing? Vista, ugh. I can't see it really running efficiently on anything less than 2 gigs of ram, so I can see an issue there. Although I'm sure they turn off Aero which would greatly reduce the video card and memory requirements.

Dominic

Russel Ray · #**164** 5/1/08, 6:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Knight

There really is no such thing nowadays as a slow processor these days. How fast do you really need a processor to be to be able to create a text document or collect data and add pictures?

I'll jump in here since I've been using PC's (in their various iterations and names) since the Apple Lisa hit the market in the late 1970s.

I remember when I made the jump from one floppy drive to two floppy drives and then to a 20MB hard drive. Man I was the talk of the town. People from all around were stopping by to see the new screaming machine that cost me $10,000. I was in hog heaven, and I don't even know what hog heaven is, but the name never made me want to go there. I never thought I'd be able to fill up a 20MB hard drive with my 6.6MHz (or was it 6.6 Hz?

) fast computer. Then someone came along and wrote a new piece of software that ate up memory and hard drive space. Then someone else came along and wrote an upgrade that ate up memory and hard drive space. Before long, I was out of memory and out of hard drive space, and all I was doing was creating text documents, collecting data, and adding pictures.

Now each time I want to try out a new program (CoffeeCup is the latest), it eats up RAM and MBs of hard disk space, and the 1.41 GHz computer that used to open a 20-page Word document in 1 microsecond now takes 10 seconds to open that exact same document. It's not what we're doing on the computer, it's what the computer is doing on the computer. Bloated programs that eat up memory and hard drive space, and put themselves in memory each time one boots the computer, are the problem. As long as every software company firmly believes that its program must be in memory in order to be immediately accessible, none of the programs will be immediately accessible because there are too many programs immediately accessible.

Alas, what to do? Ta-da! Start over again! And each time we start over again, we get a faster computer with more memory and a larger hard drive, because that's all they make. So what do we do? That's right. We do, indeed, start over again by downloading and installing all the software that we had on the old computer. The only difference is that we never upgraded the old software. Well, now we have to because they don't make or support the old versions. And yet the new versions eat up twice as much memory and three times as much hard drive space. So we're right back where we started from, even though all we're doing is looking for fast ways to create a text document or collect data and add pictures. It's a never-ending cycle, and I don't know whether that's good or bad. Back in my computer geek days, I was the first one in the city to have the latest and the greatest. At one point, I determined that I really didn't need to upgrade to the latest software just because they changed the print command from Ctrl + F12 to Ctrl + P. A very nice change, but not one worth $249.

The great supermajority of Huwomankind has a propensity to learn new things (like how to modify a dark picture so that it's brighter), but learning new things comes at a price, that price often being new software that we install using the manufacturer's "recommended" installation, which, of course, is the one that takes up 60 GB of hard drive, scatters 20 icons all over the desktop, and puts the whole bloated program in memory so that it will be immediately accessible. Ah, I've learned that I don't usually agree with the manufacturer's recommended installations anymore.

I think that's why I'm really liking CoffeeCup. The program comes in bits and pieces and one only buys what one needs. I think other software vendors could learn from that company. So far, I haven't had to buy anything because one can test-drive every little bit before one buys it. It runs extremely fast and is the easiest program I've ever learned, and that includes all those programs that just create text documents, collect data, or add pictures.