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Messages - pmcg [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: [1]
1
Living Room / Re: Amazon.com == AMAZING!
« on: March 12, 2010, 05:07 PM »
In regards to shipping of HDs... I wrote Western Digital and got this reply back:

-----begin email reply----
22 Feb 2010

Good Morning Mr. McGovern,
 
Thank you for your interest in and support of Western Digital and our hard drives.  Your clear experience in the use and installation of hard disks over the years, and your loyalty to WD, is admirable and appreciated.
 
Your email is quite timely. WD has, over the past 6 months, engaged in an exhaustive review of our online and distribution partners re-packaging of WDs products, and come to the same conclusion you have: the packing and shipment of our world-class hard disks needs to be much more consistent, reliable, and up to standard specifications that Western Digital tests and sets for our products in terms of handling, shock/vibe, etc. WD ships to our direct distribution partners in factory-sealed master packs (20 or 50 depending on form factor) and then the distributor, e-tailer, or online reseller puts them into single-pack boxes (referred to as single kits or single packs).
 
So, in the interest of the providing a reliable and consistent customer experience, WD will, effective April 1, 2010, be implementing a requirement for our WW Distribution accounts to use ONLY a WD-approved single-pack box for all online retailers (to include but not limited to Newegg, Tiger Direct, Amazon, Dell, CDW, PC Connection, PC Mall, Zones, Insight, others). These online partners have been notified of this change and will be purchasing their WD drives in these new packs from the distributors in mid- to late-March.

... (sales hype about WD drives paragraph left out)

I hope I have provided you with a satisfactory explanation and outlined our plan to resolve the packaging issues you’ve discussed.  It is always our pleasure to serve your storage needs, and I hope that you will also try our other products that are designed to enhance your digital life, like the new WD TV Live.  Take a look at www.westerndigital.com.
 
Best regards,
Rick
 
PS: We have addressed the packaging concern with Newegg directly and they have assured us that they have modified their procedures even in advance of the new WD-required boxes.  Also, Amazon, Tiger, Dell, and CDW have improved their processes following our discussions with them.
 
Rick Vogel
Sr. Sales Manager, Americas E-Channel
Western Digital Technologies, Inc.
------end email reply------------

2
Living Room / Re: Amazon.com == AMAZING!
« on: March 10, 2010, 10:30 PM »
I'm also a prime member and use Amazon whenever I can. I buy everything from them from coconut oil, to Sharpie DVD Markers, to computer parts, etc.

The only gripe I have with them is their shipping of fragile electronics. Hard disks in particular should only be shipped in a way that prevents all six sides from drops by the carrier. I have seen photos people have posted (even recently) of Amazon shipping hard drives in cardboard envelopes with no wrapping other than the thin bubblewrap liner of the envelope. New Egg is no better, btw. The only vendor I have found to ship hard drives properly is Zip Zoom Fly. They encase the drive securely in a foam enclosure that protects all six sides.

I recently ordered an Epson v600 scanner from Amazon. The scanner box was placed in a larger box with *no* padding. It was basically rattling around inside the big box. Fortunately it seemed fine..but I was not happy.

I still love Amazon and buy everything from them except for fragile electronics.


3
Living Room / Re: Best. Shop. Ever.
« on: December 24, 2009, 10:35 PM »
Oh The suspense!

4
I look forward to this and read every issue! Thanks!

5
Happened to me today also. Suddenly your program has been deleted by Eset. Argggghh!

6
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Macro Express - MiniReview
« on: April 06, 2009, 11:54 PM »
I've also been using Macro Express since the 90s. It's one of the ten apps I wouldn't want to live without. I'm another who always makes sure this app gets installed right away on new builds. And then I import my saved macros. I use this program umpteen times a day...especially for text input. I have shortcut keys for most of my frequent web sites, phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses, etc.

Plus its *fun* to set up a complex macro and watch it work. I got hooked on macros back in my Kaypro days. When I switched to DOS I ran Borland's Superkey TSR which did the same thing basically. Macro Express will reproduce text, mouse movements, and allow you to introduce delays as well as wait for specific or general user input. It will also recognize when specific windows open. And that's just scratching the surface. If you wanted to, you could immerse yourself in the depths of this program for weeks. Definitely a keeper.

The only complaint I have is that it occasionally loses it's keyboard hook and then I have to try to 'restore keyboard hook' from its tray menu or shut the program down and start it again. This happens *very* rarely and so is not a big deal.

Peter McGovern

7
Hi,

Teleport Pro

I've been using this program since the early 90s and I loved it. I haven't used it for about five years so i can't vouch for it now. It's not free but if it still works the way it used to and you need to mirror all or part of a web site from the net to your HD it may be the program for you. The support page says that it will work on all versions of Windows including Vista but not Win 3.1 or earlier.
----------------------------------------from the web site below--------------------------------
About Teleport Pro
PC Magazine's Editors' Choice for offline browsers, Teleport Pro is an all-purpose high-speed tool for getting data from the Internet.  Launch up to ten simultaneous retrieval threads, access password-protected sites, filter files by size and type, search for keywords, and much more.  The most fully-featured and robust webspider available, Teleport Pro handles today's more complex websites flawlessly.  Capable of reading HTML 4.0, CSS 2.0, and DHTML, Teleport is the only webspider that really finds all of the files on all of the sites.  And with server-side image map exploration, automatic dial-up connecting, Java applet support, variable exploration depths, project scheduling, and relinking abilities, Teleport Pro is quite simply the best there is.  Teleport Pro can--

    * Download all or part of a website to your computer, enabling you to browse the site directly from your hard disk at much greater speeds than if you were to browse the site online
    * Create an exact duplicate, or mirror of a website, complete with subdirectory structure and all required files
    * Search a website for files of a certain type and size
    * Download a list of files at known addresses
    * Explore every website linked from a central website
    * Search a website for keywords
    * Make a list of all pages and files on a website

No more waiting for slow pages to download.  No more clicking on links for hours, only to find garbage at the end of your trail.  Read on for a comprehensive list of features, or download a free evaluation version you can try out today! 
------------from the web site above -----------------------------

Peter McGovern

8
GOE 2007 Challenge Downloads / Re: SMAU - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry
« on: December 08, 2007, 07:39 PM »
Hi,

When I try and run this it says it says could not find vcl100.bpl.

Thought you might like to know.

Cheers,


Peter McGovern

9
This is a great thread. Whatever happened to it? Is it still being implemented?

Right now I'm looking for "the best" freeform database to keep track of disparate pieces of information. Microsoft OneNote has this idea, but almost any Microsoft solution these days requires more of a commitment to using the program than it is worth. I'm looking for something small and possibly portable and easily searchable.

10
General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?
« on: September 27, 2007, 02:17 PM »
Here yah go, Sri. This is the left half of my widescreen. That's the PowerPro toolbar at the top with all those tiny icons. I used Truelaunch for a while, but it irritated me just like Quicklaunch did as it kept popping up when ever my cursor hit the screen side. PowerPro is small enough and out of the way enough so that that doesn't happen.

But PowerPro is not plug and play easy. It took me a little while to configure the placement of the toolbar and to figure out how to get icons on it. There is plenty of documentation, but it's one of those programs that does so much that it takes a while to extract the information you want from the documentation. For someone who loves to fiddle with configuring things though, the payback is well worth it. I think I read at the site that the author was stopping further development of it.

http://powerpro.webeddie.com/

11
General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?
« on: September 26, 2007, 09:49 PM »
I mostly use PowerPro because it's the only one I know. FARR sounds like its worth a look since so many of you use it. PowerPro is cool because it is so configurable and yet easy to use. I've got a small tiny toolbar full of icons on autohide that pops up if I move the mouse to the top of my screen. It pops up in the middle of the whatever maximized window is on my screen and usually doesn't block anything. It's working fine on Vista. Each icon can hold three programs (L,M,R mouse clicks). The program can do all other kinds of programmable things, but I use it solely to launch apps.  It's become kind of like a tiny QuickLaunch on steroids for my system.

12
General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager
« on: September 26, 2007, 05:29 PM »
Once I got DO on my machine there was no looking back. The only thing I HAVE to add to it is FileBox Extender so I can get to the folders I need to when I am saving something. Whenever I feel a little restless or need cheering up, I can always discover a new feature in DO that can be added to one of my toolbars as a button and that does the trick.

I grumbled when I had to pay the upgrade also. I use DO on four machines and so that was a bit spendy when I went to Vista. I kind of sympathize with the author though, as upgrading something as powerful and interactively complex as DO with something as unwieldy and not-ready-for-prime-time as Vista must have been a PITA.

The idea for this poll was a good one as it draws attention to a class of apps that are worthy of discussion. I'm curious now to take a look at some of the others.

The only real irritation I have with DO at this point is that it requires a 'Shift' key press for context-menu extraction of RAR files and yet manages to natively support context-menu extraction of ZIP files. But I'm not sure that is DO's fault as it may be some problem with the proprietary RAR format vs the more open ZIP format.

For anyone who wishes they could modify the feature-set of their file manager to more effectively do what they need to in Windows, DO will not disappoint!

13
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: List of disc catalogers
« on: March 30, 2007, 03:04 AM »
I've been using Whereisit for years. I use it to catalog my hd backups, and my current HDs. I also use it to catalog every cd and dvd I've burned. So far I've used it to catalog over 4500 cds. I can load ALL those catalogs and search through them and in a matter of minutes locate almost anything I want from a font file to a game executable  I played 12 years ago.

It's stable, fast, and the author keeps it up to date all the time. I paid for it about ten years ago and have had to pay for an upgrade only once. The thing has so many neat bells and whistles that it would be worthy of an in depth review if someone (not me) had the time to do it.

It searches inside archive files (or not), comes with tons of customizable file-type filters, and indexes across networks, etc.

But most of all it is ELEGANTLY coded. The program settings and features are logical, well organized, and accessible.

If I were teaching a utility-writing class at a university, I would use this program above all others to demonstrate how it should be done.

Please note that I am writing this from the perspective of an END USER not a coder. I do not code. But with 22 years of daily computer use behind me, I can tell when I have fallen in love with a program that is worthy of recommendation.

For those that care about this kind of thing...the program was written in Delphi.

Thanks for reading this.

Peter McGovern

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