INN OF LOST SOULS: general chit-chat thread

[MasterWuuf]

Ha. I need to hack Jan's email, change all his passwords,
then demand his dog (please tell me your dog is still O.K., Jan?)
as ransom for his passwords. (Sorry, I'm a Baaadddd boy)

[Jan]

please tell me your dog is still O.K., Jan?

Yes, he is, thank you for your interest. He's too OK, I guess, increasing steadily our "maintenance, repair and refit" budget.

I need to hack Jan's email

I don't think so. How would you like to hack into my a-mail if you can't even remember my surname which forms the "body" of my e-mail address?

Or - prove it! Prove that you can hack into it! We want less talking and more results!

*runs and hides*

[ian_scho]

Some forum weirdness is occurring today:
*http://91.204.209.3/~dmaster/forum/sear ... ive_topics*

instead of:
*http://www.dungeon-master.com/forum/sea ... ive_topics*

But hey, at least it's not under maintenance now!

[Ameena]

The site's moved to a new host, so the address has changed till Cows updates it or something. The site was running a bit slower earlier 'cause of stuff being updated but it's sorted now .

[Jan]

Some of you have lost your avatars.

[Ameena]

Oh I hadn't noticed mine had gone, lol. I think it's 'cause it's still at the old host or something and Cows or someone just needs to move the relevant info across. As far as I know, it's all gonna be done and sorted over the next couple of days or a week or some other relatively short time frame, so it's all good .

[ian_scho]

Thanks for the heads up, Ameena!

[Gambit37]

Yes, sorry, we didn't do a forum wide announcement about the change, should probably have mentioned that. It'll all settle down in a couple of days when the DNS records are updated.

[Jan]

Google and Yahoo Bots have been sniffing around all day now. They must know something. I'd bet they're looking for the solution to the CSB "Grynix" Scroll.

[Gambit37]

Those bots can't get into the forum, so forum posts aren't indexed. They won't find anything useful in their quest for the Holy Scroll!

[Jan]

I've been working quite a lot with MS Excel recently. I have to agree with Ron Gilbert here: "People don't get fired from Microsoft. They're just moved to the Excel department." It's an awful piece of software.

I've tried OpenOffice but wasn't satisfied. It's slow, the files are too large and - most importantly - it has some compatibility problems with *.xls and *.dbf files. It's sometimes easier to use than the MS Excel but IMHO the overall performance and possibilities are poorer.

Any ideas? What do you use as a database software? Remember that I need a 100% compatibility with *.xls and *.dbf formats and I don't have time to learn something too different and/or professional. I don't need too much complicated functions, only the basic ones. Thanks.

[ian_scho]

I bet MSExcel '97 would run fast enough on most computers AND possess the functionality you require

[Ameena]

I'm using Office 2000 - when I booted up my computer (back when I got it, about four years ago) and loaded up the version of Word that came with it (comp has Vista), I was kinda "wtf" at the layout - it was all weird, stuff moved about, I had no idea where stuff was that I previously knew about 'cause it had all been revamped. So I went downstairs and got the CD we have of MS Office 2000 and it's lovely and works fine . Mind you, I don't use Excel much - mainly Word. I don't see why I would want/need a new, revamped version of something that worked just fine as an older version and where I knew where everything was and how to use it .

[Jan]

You're absolutely right that the older versions are better and especially faster and easier to use. I tried basically all versions and - as ian_scho - I think that the 97 is the best. The newer version you use, the more icons you have to click on, the more complicated and slower the things are. In the future, the Excel will ask you "Do you really want to press '1'? Yes / no / cancel / help-dog / help-cat / help-staple."

Anyway, every version still has got many functionality problems, like creating mishmashes when converting XLS to DBF or vice versa, strings to numbers and vice versa, formulas to "hard" numbers, etc. etc. I'm sick of it. I'm using SPSS for more complicated analysis and calculations, but I need something basic to work with the data themselves, converting formats, creating graphs and outputs etc.

However, thanks for your help and suggestions.

[ian_scho]

I take my previous comment back as you're using an über statistics package, SPSS. Most of us normal people use excel for the SUM formula

The wife, who is far more stunning and intelligent than I, claims that converting between the two spreadsheet packages is fairly easy for her in what she does... In Excel she has to go to Options > International and change the decimals+thousand symbols before exporting. There are also only two data types in SPSS as well, apparently.

I've not used the DBF format/database tool... Can you export this stuff into CSV format and then import it from that?

[Jan]

I'm very sure that your wife is even more far more stunning and intelligent than I. I'm quite surprised to find anyone else working with SPSS around. I've never tried to use CSV format - I'll look at it and see how that works. Thanks for that.

The problem is that I have to use two softwares - statistical SPSS and geographical ArcView / ArcGIS. DBF is the only possible file format to transfer data between them. On the way between, however, I usually have to make some changes in the data, make charts and some other outputs etc, and for this I just need something simple, easy to handle. Unfortunately, I must be also able to accept data from my students and colleagues, most of them having problems to tell the difference between XLS and this stupid XLSX or what in the new Office. So I was actually looking for something like Excel, but with fewer glitches and issues, something that would be more user friendly for an "intermediate advanced user".

[Gambit37]

I'm off to Turkey for two weeks. Be good while I'm away

Byeeeeeeeeeee!

[beowuuf]

Bye!

[Jan]

Bye, have a nice time and make some photos for us!

@Trantor: You can crawl out of the hole and come back and go off topic again. He's gone for 14 days.

[Lord_BoNes]

Enjoy the trip to Turkey, Gambit. I hope you have a great time.

[ian_scho]

The DM PbP game has practically finished now, and I want to personally thank Beowuuf for 2+ years of fun! It's changed the way I visited the forum where I've been ignoring most of the rest of you (the sane ones) and had been waiting for Beo's or another players update. It was that good. The environment and atmosphere that Beo spun was wonderful and well related to Dungeon Master-verse making it all the more easily 'consumable' in my opinion. All of this was done using a version of the Dungeons and Dragons game engine, adding Beo's own little touches such as maps and horror a pencil and paper. He has a great imagination that each of the players built on and added to. It seems bizarre that things have moved so slowly using this phpBB board yet still there were moments of tension and what-ifery as the story progressed. Beo even managed to leave cliff-hangers on his friday updates even though all we did during the previous two weeks was try to squeeze through a hole... I even got to see a couple of ethereal screamers saving the life of the character I played. Yummy!

Cheers to Lord_Bones, Ameena, Money, Oh_Brother, Raixel for participating and adding sufficient 'noise' for the rest of you using the forum

There is now a 15 minute daily 'hole' in my life that needs filling... Thank you so much for the experience Beo.

[Jan]

There is now a 15 minute daily 'hole' in my life that needs filling...

One quick pint in the local... uh... local can fill this gap surprisingly easily.

[beowuuf]

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, Ian, you're gunna make me so embarrassed I won't be able to return to the forums for at least a week and a day!


Can I just echoe what Ian said - thank you very much to yourself, oh_brother, Ameena, and Money for having the enthusiasm to join in to the game, and for devoting as much time as you did despite all that was happenign in the background real life, for TWO YEARS! Even as Money's life became far, far more complicated he would still manage to make the time to pop back and do something memorable, and even recently with all that was going on with him he still had time to PM and hope to come back.

And thanks to to Lord_Bones and Raixel for actually requesting to join mid-stream, which is really nice to know that people outside of those actively invested were getting some enjoyment, enough to want to jump in. I really hope Raixel isn't permenantly gone, and that she might come back to carry on what had become a fun tradition of Dm PbP gaming. Think of Ian if nothing else!

[Ameena]

Lol Ian, what do you mean by "horror - a pencil and paper"? It's kind of a vital part of any DnD game if you're playing it "properly" (ie at tabletop) after all . Actually, so are maps, especially in combat .
Omg I feel as though I'm running out of games all of a sudden - Mouse Guard was dropped, this DM/DnD game has finished, the Skype-based Dark Heresy game is looking iffy due to a lack of people turning up on time/at all...well, I still have my DnD game on Skype and another DnD game being run by someone else at club. So I am getting my fix, just less often now, and now not at all via PbP.

[beowuuf]

Lol, and even then busy-ness has made our D&D game run less! I'll be away this weekend, might be busy the following weekend depending on how busy work is, and my mum's actually appearing the weekend after! Ok, that middle weekend will probably have some free time in it for resolving the after-combat stuff.

[Gambit37]

Wow, congrats on finishing! 2 years is pretty darn impressive. I'm glad you all enjoyed it -- and it will be great to have you all re-engaging with the wider forum again: it's been really quiet around here!

[beowuuf]

Nah, Ian's embarrassed me, I'm now going to leave the forum for a week and a day! I might get over it by next Thursday.


Bye all!

[Ameena]

Have fun in Cyprus .

[beowuuf]

Thanks

[ian_scho]

Enjoy the Mousakas!