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Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

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Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#391

Post by jcrawfordor »

aerovistae wrote: post #322

VLC. There have been so many times I thought "man it would be great if there were this crazy hypothetical feature in my media player" only to find out it's like a stable long-established feature that's a keypress away from activation after a quick google search or glance at a dropdown menu.

I generally use VLC by default, but I've found that it frequently stutters in decoding files mounted via sshfs, particularly when I use the scrub bar. I'm guessing that's because sshfs introduces some latency on seeks that upsets the decoders, but other video players don't have the same problem.

So, just anecdotally, VLC isn't perfect, but I'd agree that it's generally quite close.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#392

Post by anotherevan »

jpatel3 wrote: post #244

pocket. It just works and saves lots of time from distraction without loosing what I want to read.

I use Pocket a lot because it has integration with my Kobo ereader. That said, I find it often fails to parse an article that Instapaper or Readability handle no problems. That is my only complaint with it.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#393

Post by RachelF »

SchizoDuckie wrote: post #123

Total Commander. I've been using it since the first versions that came out for Windows 3.1 and it provided a smooth Windows transition from Norton Commander for DOS. The changelog goes back all the way to 2002, but it's been there for waaay longer. ( http://ghisler.com/whatsnew.htm ) I hope he continues to make a healthy income from it. It's litterally the best piece of shareware in the world in my eyes, that i've ha…

Total Commander is an essential Windows tool.

TC ultima prime is a package with lots of useful Windows apps like Notepad++ included http://tcup.eu

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#394

Post by abeyer »

dmerrick wrote: post #375
abeyer wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless synergy has explicit support for WoL (it didn't last time I used it, but it's been years), it won't just work. You'd need to patch the synergy server to send a WoL magic packet[1] to wake up the client whenever it sends a message that might hit a client that's asleep. (some systems might support something other than the standard magic packet, but I don't know of anything else that works consistently cross plat…

Darn, that's what I was worried about. I wouldn't have anticipated it, but this is an critical feature for me. Without WoL, I need to have a mouse/keyboard attached to the guest machine, which completely defeats the purpose of using Synergy.

If you just need to be able to wake it up manually, use something like etherwake to send the wakeup packet. It's not integrated w/ synergy, but is the WoL equivalent of "wiggle the mouse and wake it up."

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#397

Post by nojvek »

lucb1e wrote: post #242

Windows: "Everything" (that's the name). A lightweight, fast and advanced (if you want it) file search engine. Linux: Most tools of course, as they are made with the Unix philosophy, but these days I'm most surprised by print drivers for Linux. Where in Windows the printer is always magically offline or slow, from Linux I can print and scan very reliably. Vim is also worth learning, it makes editing much more... rela…

Does anyone know how everything work? Does it hook into the NTFS filesystem with special apis? The indexing is insanely fast. I wonder how they make it happen.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#398

Post by CPAhem »

On Windows:

- Notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org is a superb text editor with support for almost every language and a great number of advanced and useful features.

- Everything http://voidtools.com is a great local drive search tool and is blindingly fast.

- Syncdocs http://syncdocs.com is a better Google Drive client that supports multiple users and a host of other advanced features.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#399

Post by nojvek »

mikestew wrote: post #100

In the vein of not "shaving yaks", my list is software that, when something goes wrong, it's almost always my fault. I don't care that it works well, but that it works consistently and predictably. Sadly, that's a rare trait based on some of the tools I have to work with daily. On to the list: vim - going on, what, thirty years of use and it rarely surprises me. bash - same thing. The only surprise is my own ignoranc…

I really wish there was a Json oriented db like sqlite. I really like making underscore like queries. db('x').table('y').getAll(prop:true).sortBy('propB').limit(100)

Or may be there is and I don't know.

Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using

#400

Post by scottlocklin »

Nobody has mentioned screen. This is unacceptable! screen is extremely reliable and useful.

I'd like to say emacs, but it's not really that "reliable" in that it often goes crazy and eats up a CPU, and I must maintain separate .emacs files for slightly different computers and vintages of emacs. It does work very well though.

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