Just wondered if John knows about this site, http://www.democrakey.com/ ,it looks like he is redistributing the menu with John's branding. Wondered if this is OK, as looks a bit suspect to me!
Depends on the license that the menu has I suppose, and of course John might be involved, but if not, though I'd let you know!
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A condom for your computer....does that mean it comes with a reservoir tip???
I just had to say that....
Going to download it and see what it has....
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Pressure - It can turn a lump of coal into a flawless diamond, or an average person into a perfect basketcase
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Pressure - It can turn a lump of coal into a flawless diamond, or an average person into a perfect basketcase
for the 2.0 beta it says "based on the work of Portableapps.com"
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
A PortableApps Suite with Menu, Backup, Clamwin, Thunderbird+GPG and a torparked version of Firefox 2.0. Aside from potential Portableapps license-violations, I think its a violation of Mozillas license.
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
It appears to be the regular PortableApps Menu, PortableApps Backup, ClamWin Portable, Thunderbird Portable + GPG packaged with a modified version of TorPark. So, there's nothing really new there. (I haven't downloaded it myself, so I can't be sure)
This looks like it may be an attempt to commercialize TorPark. Not sure how Mozilla is gonna like that since TorPark is an unauthorized modification of Firefox without being recompiled without the Mozilla trademarks (and technically illegal).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
That's what I felt - I didn't really like the way the menu still has the portableapps.com branding on it, as it implies that it is linked to this site.
and erased it after I saw what it is
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
Email the host? (apparently Bluehost)
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Ryan McCue
Person 1: Oh my god. You will never believe what just happened.
Person 2: What?
Person 1: I can't remember, I've forgotten.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
It doesn't seem like it was malicious. I think the author has good intentions so, if possible, I'd like to see if we can get him involved rather than just getting it taken down. I'll drop him an email this weekend.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
You are usually right...
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Ryan McCue
Person 1: Oh my god. You will never believe what just happened.
Person 2: What?
Person 1: I can't remember, I've forgotten.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
I applaud your attitude John.
It's one of the things that keeps me coming back here and praising your work elsewhere.
This does seem similar to a concept my wife and I are working on.
She is a college professor who is trying to incorporate 21st century tools into her music classroom. One of the issues she currently has is an inconsistent level of software availability to her students.
That is, while almost everyone has a PC, not everyone has matching software or the tech skills to install and maintain software on their own.
So, since there are portable packages of quite a lot of opensource tools available, I thought that if each student were given/bought a USB key from my wife with the software already on it, then we're on our way to a solution. The only purchase would be the key itself, but then the School book store sells keys anyways, yadda, yadda...
This would be in essence a "suite" of PortableApps, but with a twist for the music students.
Package so far:
AudacityPortable
ClamWinPortable
Digital Guitar Tuner
Frequency Analyzer
OpenOfficePortable
PortableAppsMenu
PowerEnc
ShotGenius
VLCPortable
VMKeyboard
X-Solfege_3.6.5
So, I think that I'm in the same boat, in that I certainly don't want to offend John and his wonderful work, but at the same time would like to "publish" this setup as an official(?) suite for music students.
Clearly bits I need to have before I'm totally happy are a way to manage software updates automatically for the students (which I understand is being worked on), and a way to repackage those that aren't .paf already into the .paf format easily (which I also understand will be part of the next incarnation of PAM).
So, how would I get official blessing for what I'd like to do, and are there any suggestions on how to actually "publish" it (should John host it, should I host it, etc...)
BTW, Thanks to all the developers for a wonderful concept and piece of software.
Michael D. Shook
you have a couple options:
1) Don't distribute your pack. But it sounds like you don't want this option.
2) Use a different menu program. If you search around on this site you should be able to find links to PStart and ASuite, and probably a couple others. You should also get rid of the PortableApps.com-branded splash screens that the programs show when they start. Either substitute your own or just delete the splash screen file and disable the splash screen in the <Application>Portable.ini file. It may also be a good idea to get rid of any PortableApps-ish names: For example, PortableApps Backup should probably be changed.
3) This would take some training of the students, but I've done some experimenting with a live Linux-on-CD distro called Musix. It has Audacity, Ardour (full-featured DAW), effects plugins, MIDI synthesizers, a drum synth, basically everything you'd ever want in a music distro. It also automatically discovered and configured my studio-quality card (other distros sometimes have problems with it). The only downside is that, although Ardour is extremely powerful, it does have a somewhat steep learning curve. Plus, I don't know if your wife's students would have the ability to reboot the machines they would record on. Musix would require that.
4) Attempt (and probably fail) to make a version of Musix that runs within Windows (something like Damn Small Linux has). Chances are, that would introduce enough latency and other problems that you couldn't record music on it. But it would be an interesting project.
5) Ask John really nicely whether he'd make such a suite (you've already done this above--once is good enough). Chances are, he's too busy, but you've asked, and if he's interested, he'll pick up on it. In the meantime, I'd suggest working on one of the other options because John is really busy and probably doesn't have time to work on another suite.
Once you're done (and legal), I'd be interested in seeing what you have. If you can't tell from my post, I'm something of an audio junkie. I'd love to take it for a test drive and see what it can do.
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chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
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chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
1) Well, ummmm not much point if I don't distribute it.
2) Nope, ain't gonna happen. If I can't create/manage/use this suite with John's approval, it won't go forward. PortableApps is the ONLY USB key manager that I feel is simple enough and easy enough for students to use who have zero computer skills. I fully expect them to come back to this site to get additional software they they might want. I have no intention of locking down the USB Key, I just want to give them all the same matching starting point.
3) As you surmised, running an alternate OS on the schools PC's violates policy. Also, like above this is far beyond reasonable expectations of the skills of the students. Keep in mind too that I figure most of the kids will use their own PC, so having the applications just "plug in" is really the best way to go. This does look very interesting though. Perhaps this would be appropriate for the advanced composer/recording students. I'll have to keep this in mind.
4) Same as above
5) This is what I'm hoping for. I have no idea how John "bundled" the suite together into a single installer, but I feel with guidance that I could manage the Suite on my own.
Thanks for your input, and I'll be sure to post here if/when I get it ready. I'm hoping to have something by the start of the Fall semester.
Michael D. Shook
re: 2) It really wouldn't be that hard to just get rid of PA.com logos and a couple names of programs. If you wanted that. The hard part would be keeping track of new releases and un-PA.comifying them (let's just pretend that was English) and running some sort of updates mirror for them. As for the PAM, if you search around here, someone made a C++ version of the PAM which isn't trademarked.
re: 5) Bundling the software into a "Suite" turns out to be really easy. All you have to do is install the packages you want into a directory, and then use 7-zip to make a self-extracting (SFX) archive of everything in that directory. Or you could get fancy and write an NSIS installer...
Since this is getting a little off topic, we should probably switch this over to a different thread. Or, if you're interested, give me an email at chris @t oremusmusic period net. If you'd like, I could help you develop whatever you end up deciding to do. I've done a small amount of PA development and a huge amount of audio work, so I might be able to help a bit.
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chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
__
chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
seeing that people are still posting on this thread...
Two weeks after John's post (above), they're still offering PAM to download. Don't know if it's a concern to anybody, but there it is.
Depending on the type of person you are, get some lawyers to file some papers, get a big thug named Mugsy to put a horse's head in the guy's bed, or just do nothing about it.
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chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
__
chris
It is not your audience's responsibility to puzzle out what you intended to say; it is your responsibility to express yourself so clearly that no one with a modicum of intelligence and good will could possibly mistake your meaning.
Does anyone know if the "Torpark Democrakey mod" is in fact any different from the standard Torpark? Anty extra features, etc,?
Thanks,
Jim
"Trust is an outcome of fulfilled expectations."