And a heads up! I added a link to the links section here on the Solarum site, and it made me want to drop a note up here to remind folk about that particular section. The links section is where I post links to various and sundry things that appear to be useful or humorous to folk in one way or another. So, you might want to check it out because you never know what you might find, like today where I just posted a link to a the great game Baseball Mogul version 6 since it has been released for free by the company that makes it. Come back often and check that links section out, lots of goodies in there.
Author Archives: Laz
Your Shader Model And You
As technology moves ever onward, getting more and more complex, it becomes more and more important to know what you have and what it can do. In this case I am talking about graphics cards and figuring out what Shader Model it supports. I am seeing more and more games that have not only memory and processor requirements listed, but also things like what Shader Model and DirectX version your hardware supports.
I ran into this recently and although the DirectX version is easy enough to find out, the Shader Model was a bit tougher. So, after working through the problem and gathering some information from around the ‘net, I have put together some instructions and a handy reference chart for you that should make figuring this out a bit easier. Continue reading
Stat
Let me give you all an update, I am behind in starting the new year off with a bang, but hey I figure better late than never. Life keeps trying to get in the way, but I am determined to get some more good stuff posted here and keep the flow of information moving along. So, hang in there and check back soon because I have lots of new stuff coming, especially with all of the new technology hitting the streets!
Must Have Firefox Extensions Updated!
I have been keeping a list of Firefox extensions that I feel are must have items. This is by no means meant to imply that these are the only ones to have, but for me they form at the very least the core of what makes Firefox stand up and dance for me. I do update it now and then with additions or removals, status updates, whatever. I just updated the list with a replacement for one extension that went away, so check it out!
Quick fix for Notepad++ and the dreaded “Error in CreateProcess (740)” problem!
At least this worked really well for me, and a few other folk that tried it. I don’t know if this is a Windows 7 thing since it seems that most folks experiencing this problem were running Win7, but not everyone. Either way, I culled this from bits and pieces of other suggested solutions I found and thought I would share it. You never know, it might help someone else like it helped me, and that’s what this site is all about, eh?
OK, on with the goodness! Quick summary, I had Notepad++ (one badass text editor for Windows if you don’t already know about it) installed on my main machine, the Mothership running Windows 7. I had a context menu entry so that I could write click on darn near anything and have the option to “Edit with Notepadd++”. This has been a real handy option living in my context menu for years, and when it started flaking out I wasn’t happy about it. At first I figured it was just Windoze being Windoh’s and it would be OK after the next time I rebooted. However, as time went on, after the next reboot or two, it was still messed up.
Messed up how you ask? Well, I could open the program with the standard shortcut, no problem. Once open I could open files, no problem. I could drag and drop files and Notepad++ would open them fine. It was only when I tried to fire up Notepad++ with a file argument after the executable’s path (like the context menu) that I would get the following error message:
Error in CreateProcess (740): Is this command correct?
“C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe”
“D:\path\to\the\file_I_was\opening.txt”
That was it, no joy after that. Nothing. Nada. Irritating. Well, to make a longer story shorter, I did some research and found that it came down to two problems. Maybe only one, but I think it really had to do with both. These were/are:
- Windows 7 (and maybe Windows in general, regardless of the version) doesn’t like the “++” in the path. The theory goes that Windows doesn’t have a publicly reported problem, like by Microsoft, but nonetheless it sometimes just lets special characters get on its bad side, and starts throwing some errors.
- Windows 7 (and maybe Windows in general, regardless of the version) does not like the Notepad++ option during setup that says don’t use %AppData% for storing config settings. This allows you to override Windows default behavior and store your config data in the program directory like in the old days. Well, Windows 7 especially (maybe others) really hates this, and will fight with you over it.
So, what was the fix? The fix should be pretty obvious after reading the two items above, but I’ll lay it out for you anyway, cause that’s what I do!
- First, uninstall Notepad++, make sure to completely remove it.
- Next, re-install Notepad++, you might as well snag the latest version from their site (http://notepad-plus-plus.org/) while you are at it.
- During the re-install, make sure you change the installation path so as to remove the “++” from the install directory. As a suggestion, I used “C:\Program Files\NotepadPP\”, substituting a capital P for each +.
- Also, as you are installing, make sure you do not check the option that says to not use %AppData%, go ahead and let the installer put the config files where it wants.
- Now, once the install is done, test it out. For me, this fixed my problems, Notepad++ runs faster and smoother than ever before, which is a great thing.
I sure hope this helps you fix the problems you are having with Notepad++ and opening files from a context menu. If not, drop a comment and share some details, maybe we can get folk to chime in and help you out! Enjoy 🙂
Awesome Source Code Library
(Click to enlarge)
OK, boys and girls, I have a really cool treat for you. For a long time now I have been looking for the right application to use as a source code library. I say application because I have been trying to be open minded about what to use. I have tried Wiki’s (which actually aren’t too bad), note taking programs, and a great many other tools, including a couple that were specifically written to be source code libraries … but in the end fell quite short of my expectations. Also, when I say source code library, I am not and have not been looking for tons of canned code to take advantage of, that’s the problem I have now, 20+ years in IT and I already have tons of code, I just need a way to store it, sort it, search it, export it, back it up, and anything else I can think of! I’d like to note too that in addition to all of the other features I may list here, this tool does a superb job at syntax highlighting as well.
Let me digress for a moment to mention a site called Donation Coder (www.donationcoder.com), these guys are great! Lots of free software from some really talented developers. There are some apps there that beat their commercial competition by a country mile, hands down. That’s one reason why I like to hang out there, in the forums for example, these guys write software because they enjoy writing software. Therefore they create some wicked cool stuff.
How does this pertain to the issue at hand? Well, it was in the forums there that I ran across a thread where people were talking about their own search for a source code library much like my own search. I found one post among others recommending different things that mentioned a free tool called “Developer’s Tips & Tricks (DTT)” from Freesoftland. I had never heard of this group before, but I liked what I had seen posted in the Donation Coder forums, plus I really liked what I saw when reading up on their DTT tool.