Beyond Compare. An amazing/cheap file comparison tool. - http://www.scootersoftware.com
That's one piece of software that has almost everything right.
Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
401–410 of 666 posts
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#402A month ago, I would've put Winamp on this list. Unfortunately, the lack of updates to it has made it impossible to read on my new 4K laptop. Huge pity, otherwise, as I still love the thing. I wish they'd just open source it so someone can future-proof it for Hi-DPI displays.
I remember it had a 2x option, to double the size. Did you try it? Still small? Foobar works for me, it has a small memory footprint and it's very customisable
I noticed a scaling option in the Window preferences and tried setting it to 200%. It's not perfect, but I think I might be able to resize it and disable some elements until it works. Thanks for the tip!
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#403Vagrant, Ansible. I'm slowly reducing our scattered flock of precious little snowflake servers to nice, boring, version controlled configs. Being able to sleep for 8 hours every night is glorious; I will never take that for granted, for the rest of my life.
First I SSH into local VMs to prototype a minimal cluster. Then once I'm done making mistakes, I write out the playbook. Spin up some EC2s, add them to the inventory, and deploy.
Reading through a Git history of playbook changes beats the hell out of searching for an email thread from a sysadmin who no longer works with us. I guess Git is the real hero here, I keep forgetting that there was a time before git. Those were dark times.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#404Synergy. It's a keyboard and mouse sharing client/server application that runs on every platform I use. I don't know if better alternatives exist because it has just been rock-solid for the last 12 years that I've been using it. I've used it in multi-monitor and machine desktop setups (e.g. an Apple laptop paired with a Windows desktop and linux desktop for enterprisey cubicle development), as well as to let me drive…
I try Synergy every year or so. Depending on how my home setup is. Sometimes I'm wanting a lot of machines, then I want to consolidate. Then I go back to more, etc.
I've never found it to be reliable in any configuration. I've bought it at least a couple of times on different accounts. Love the idea, and when it works, it is fantastic. But I can't say that it is reliable at all.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#405VLC. 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.
The file access module allows you to modify the buffer - change it to something very large and let it sit for a bit after hitting play.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#406This might sound nuts, but if you're using LabVIEW to control National Instruments hardware, and you don't write bad code, you've got a surprisingly fast and powerful system available at your hands. You can measure, drive, control, whatever verb for whatever piece of equipment you're using, with surprising speed, accuracy, and reliability. It's a pretty expensive stack for doing some pretty particular weird stuff but…
Goodness gracious, I love LabVIEW. It's so gratifying to be able to watch the data flow from VI to VI, checking what arguments are passed. I used it for FIRST Robotics, and writing code with LabVIEW was a dream compared to its hobbled Java-1.3-like counterpart.
Interfaces are great, in terms of putting together "75% tools" (ones that aren't perfect or polished, but get the job done). Being able to pull all sorts of data from an active robot and relay it to the users in an easy-to-design interface was awesome.
I still wish there were a good open-source version of some parts of LabVIEW.
(I also was not paid to write this. I just loved the dev environment. I never looked at data quite the same way again.)
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#407VSCode - Not too light, not too heavy. JS development and debugging is a breeze.
VLC. Related Popcorn time. Great interface.
RethinkDB - RQL is a great query interface. I wish there was an embedded version like sqlite.
Chrome-dev-tools: As a JS Dev, love what they've done.
Whatsapp - Their focus on simplicity and doing one thing very well.
PowerShell
Bash
Charles Proxy
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#408VLC. 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.
> 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
I just want simultaneous display of multiple subtitle tracks. :(
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#409Sublime Text Files auto save, so a crash, or even accidental close will not cause you to lose anything. Also handles massive files, which is nice. On top of being a nice, very configurable code editor,
Second vote for this.
This is hands-down the best and most reliable piece of software I've encountered. It's insanely flexible (hello, org mode!), and it is pretty much where I live at work.
Almost never fails me. And if a job changes or a work policy changes and I have to switch from Windows to Mac to Linux or whatever, it makes no difference. I clone a repo with my settings and packages, and I'm pretty much done. Maybe change the path to my repls or node, but for the most part, I can be up and running on a new machine and ready to dev in a few minutes.
Absolutely love this, and never have stability problems.
Re: Ask HN: Examples of reliable software you enjoy using
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't matter what filetype it is...it just runs them all, instantly, like magic. I have never missed Windows Media Player for even a moment.
"Doesn't matter what filetype it is...it just runs them all, instantly, like magic." Does it play DVD ISO files ? Can you use the menus, etc. ? Just curious ... XBMC back in 2004 could do this (navigate and use DVD menus in a DVD ISO) but then that feature actually went away in the following years, never to return ...
antisthenes notwithstanding, VLC does play DVD .iso files and you can use the menus.