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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

#543

/bin/true Without fail, it has always done exactly what I wanted it to do. Simple. Solid. Reliable.

Also /bin/false. Its manpage describes too many of my weekends: false - do nothing, unsuccessfully

sounds like when i try to meditate sometimes

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

#544
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried MPC-HC? I haven't put it up to the test with KMP, but I do know it beats VLC for H265 playback.

All these players use the same code, you know. Here it is: https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/libavcodec/hevc... I'd be pretty surprised if there was a major difference between them. Maybe some bugs in the rendering path, or one player isn't doing threads properly?

They should run the same in theory - but they don't in practice. It is typically more noticeable on older hardware, on my current rig I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Maybe that's changed in more recent versions, but I no longer have my older rig to do comparison tests.

Also what gcb0 said is true as well - but not everyone needs subtitles for their videos. My 'expertise' in media player selection is based on getting the absolute best quality playback for my anime.

My primary reasons for switching from VLC were not due to efficiency - but due to shadow being washed out and the NVidia color issues. Both "fixable" in that you can "improve them" but not quite "remove them entirely". (Both issues are easily Google-able as well)

There are many, many, many image comparisons between VLC and MPC-HC (and sometimes MPV for Linux). The one thing in common is that MPC and MPV both look very similar while VLC always has a washed out look and occasionally faulty colors (by default). Unfortunately, many people are terrible at screenshotting the exact same frame but even from similar frames one can pretty easily spot the differences between VLC and MPC-HC.

Example of the shadow/color differences:

Side-by-side w/ CPU usage difference: http://i.imgur.com/xJnrS2f.jpg

http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/176895 (excuse the distortion, I was 1px off on my cropping)

E:

Some people prefer the washed-out look finding it more aesthetically pleasing. That's fine and I'm cool with that, long as I don't need to watch anything with them. Many people also "don't give a shit" because they'd never know the difference without seeing the side-by-side or comparison of the frame. That's fine too - but not something I personally agree with. :) I prefer better quality even if I have to looking for it.

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

#545
post #134

Omnigraffle is the software that originally convinced me to switch from windows to mac. I love it so much. Great features, simple UI that doesn't fiddle too much version to version and it basically never crashes on me.

Omniplan is indispensable for me as a project manager. I just wish there was something online as easy/fast to use with support for multiple project managers/projects.

Smartsheet. Or MS Portfolio Manager has a SaaS version as well.

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

#546

These are software I love to use. I don't assume they're the best, and if you have any similar suggestions I'd love to hear them. There's a heavy Windows OS slant to this list. SunVox - Sequencer and tracker. The user interface is a big evolution from more traditional trackers because of how visual it is. This reduces the barrier to getting started, but it also make using the program simply more enjoyable. http://www…

I'd recommend Sumatra PDF and WinCDEmu over Foxit and Daemon Tools.

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

#547

git is so reliable that I forget that reliability used to be a problem in version control (I've had to reconstruct CVS and Subversion repositories that got corrupted via various bugs and quirks of the system). It's also pretty fast. SQLite is an automatic, and easy, answer. It almost goes without saying at this point, I guess. vim is everywhere. I like knowing I can always run it no matter where I am or what server/V…

>Inbox I've had a heap of issues with not receiving notifications for emails that were miscategorised.. or just never popped up on my phone... I check gmail on my desktop every few days just to see if I missed something.

The Android app is consistently buggy for me. Typing jumps around when my keyboard corrects a word, and I've never been able to attach a photo to an email (no troubles with the Gmail app).

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

#548
post #28
post #15

For me, probably dwm. I almost forget that I'm using it, but in a good way. It has merged with my muscle-memory and never, ever fails.

I recently tried some tiling window managers, but the problem with those was that none of them provided basic default configuration and you have to configure them from scratch. For example you have to add a plugin for small things such as a battery indicator. The custom themes were too much bloated for me. I ended up installing shellshape for gnome. Do you know any tiling window manager which solves this?

This might not work for you, but the way I get battery indicator is to incorporate it into my tmux console. I always run a tmux on the first workspace, and can go there for time and battery. Each device is different, but here's battery code that works on my T460s (http://songseed.org/exhibit/20160629/thinkpad.battery.script)

A benefit of this is that it doesn't matter what window manager you use.

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

#549
post #497

All that 'yak shaving' makes me feel like Windows and OS X are poised to become legacy desktop operating systems. Every other popular consumer operating system today avoids that stuff somewhat successfully and none of us wish devops would disappear so we can manually do that stuff again. Security around traditional desktop operating systems is getting unfunny very fast too. Some of the software we like is so wasteful…

I bark to people all the time about how environmentally unconscious it is to do something on a million client machines which could have been done once on the server and cached. Namely client side JavaScript based document composition. If everyone is going to do the exact same thing, it's just a huge waste of cycles.

I'm going to agree, but sometimes it's a tough question what action is more environmentally conscious. While you could cache some value on a server to reduce the energy consumption of compute, requests to the server for the cached data will drive up the energy consumption of the network.

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

#550

MOC. Music on Console. I've been using it forever with no issues of any kind. It's immediate, it's lightweight, it never fails, it works with my files in my hierarchies, it has all the important functions mapped to individual keys. It's brilliant. My wife calls it "nerd mode," which obviously makes it even more appealing.

This looks similar to mpd, which I like more since it exposes a network API. With the right app, I can control music playback from my phone if my PC is off (with mpd running on the homeserver).
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