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Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

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Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#801

Post by mcv »

freehunter wrote: post #795
froindt wrote: post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does Sid Meier's Railroads compare to Railroad Tycoon? Growing up I played Railroad Tycoon II and Monopoly Tycoon a lot, which actually gave pretty good lessons in business. Issuing bonds at 7% are annoying to pay back, understanding overhead costs, etc. Also, for what it's worth, Railroads seems to be on Steam for $9.99. Pretty sure it'd work with more than 2 GB of RAM. There's also a bundle with Railroad Tycoon…

Railroad Tycoon is a more advanced game. Railroads was very easy to get into and more fun-oriented than Railroad Tycoon. I could never get into Railroad Tycoon. It's also a nicer looking game, being newer than any of the Railroad Tycoon games. Before you fork out any money for Railroads, make sure you research the crashing [1]. This link is from 2015 with the latest update being two months ago with people still discu…

I first thought you were talking about trains crashing, which is part of what Choo Choo Steam Trains is about, rather than about the game crashing.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#802

Post by hrez »

anotherevan wrote: post #511

Xmarks Being able to pretty seamlessly synchronise bookmarks across browsers was awesome. Its shuttering was the final impetus that made me move away from the decaying mess that is Lastpass. (Hello BitWarden!)

https://www.xbrowsersync.org/

Optionally you can host your own server.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#803

Post by seektable »

rmprescott wrote: post #22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Improv n-dimensional spreadsheet with a logical data model (including hierarchies) rather than rows and columns: Net Worth := Assets - Liabilities

Almost any modern BI tool supports formulas; if you're interested exactly in n-dimensional data model try https://www.seektable.com

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#804

Post by IshKebab »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #786
IshKebab wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes. The pictures I found made it look like it didn't have a proper display but it actually does. Definitely not e-ink though.

It is e ink... the screen is always on, works in bright light and lasts 30 days+

E-ink is a specific technology. Not just any daylight-visible low power display.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#806

Post by Hopka »

mceachen wrote: post #630
dcminter wrote: post #31

Picasa (desktop app). It hit a sweet spot for me - linux compatible, very easy to do the majority of simple edits (crop, rotate, colour tweaks), and a few other nice features. The only significant failing was that it couldn't handle removable media at all well. Shotwell is the best I've found so far, but it's not quite the right feature balance for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasa https://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

I missed it too! After the Nth photo sharing website that I'd early-adopted decided to close up shop, I determined I wanted to own the next solution I invested time into, and I founded PhotoStructure. I've got 20-odd hard drives from laptops and servers and backups. No software that I tried, either open or closed source, would do what I wanted: organize everything into a nice, timestamped, deduped folder structure. M…

I still use Picasa, because it is so fast and easy to just copy an SD card somewhere to my hard drive and have it show up at the top of Picasa seconds later.

Then I browse the pictures, star the ones I like and process them.

An no other software I have tried so far comes close in terms of speed and UI efficiency.

So I would also love to try PhotoStructure and have signed up via your landing page.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#807

Post by culot »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #696
culot wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windyws Phone's tile setup is still the best home screen setup for mobile. As I peep at my Android home with pretty wallpaper with acres of bhank space and uninformative icons, I pine for the informative, intelligent WP tiles. Ms Image Composer was unbeatable for digital and web stuff back then. Photoshop was rather clumsy in comparison. As for email clients, I do keep wondering how Thunderbird can be so slow , how i…

>Windyws Phone's tile setup is still the best home screen setup for mobile. As I peep at my Android home with pretty wallpaper with acres of bhank space and uninformative icons, I pine for the informative, intelligent WP tiles. So download widgets to show what you want?

I've invested a lot of time trying to find solutions in that manner and have always ended up with hacky results, usually hideous as well. There is no cohesive solution for that Android that I've been able to find.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#808

Post by pharaohgeek »

I'd have to say OS/2. I remember vividly asking -- BEGGING! -- my parents to buy me a copy of OS/2 2.1 for Windows for Christmas when I was a teenager. (It was OS/2 that used a copy of Windows you provided, rather than its own internal Windows runtime) I thoroughly enjoyed running it on my PC, much more than I did Windows itself. A modern version of OS/2 -- one that focused heavily on user experience, security, and integrating cloud-based services -- could really give Windows, macOS, et al a run for their money.

Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?

#810

Post by mixmastamyk »

ajdlinux wrote: post #800
mixmastamyk wrote: post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly, hard to know over this medium. I’ve never encountered the problem, but added the tasks to my cleanup command.

Not to denigrate the hard work of developers (particularly open source developers) who work on very complex application software like Thunderbird, but software designed for regular users needs to cope without cleanup scripts. (Yes, yes, I know that reinstalling Windows from scratch is a time honoured tradition...)

Sure. My cleanup script however does multiple things, tbird maintenance is only a tiny part.
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