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General Software Discussion / Re: Why Everything 1.2.1.451a still Alpha?
« on: August 21, 2012, 10:33 AM »
A search in the Everything forum for the author's username, "void" (aka "David"), yields his last forum post dated Dec 6, 2011.

Per one of the most active Everything forum users ("therube"), registration in the forum seems to be closed, with the last user to register being on Apr 7, 2012; but there doesn't seem to be any official announcement about closing the registrations.  I have attempted several times to find a way to register and cannot find a link to do so anywhere, nor any option to contact anyone without being registered.  (If anyone here at DC is already registered in the Everything forum, maybe you can see more than an unregistered visitor can see. (?)

Changing the login URL (http://forum.voidtools.com/ucp.php?mode=login) to http://forum.voidtools.com/ucp.php?mode=register yields a page that says, "Creating a new account is currently not possible." (Thought it was worth a shot in case the links were simply missing or messed up, but the function might still be available... ...but no such luck.)

From reading all the threads about the stalled development, I get the impression that no one in the forum knows what has happened to David Carpenter or how to contact him.  I hope he's OK and will resurface sooner or later.

BTW, AFAIK, the last version posted is v1.2.1.452 (Nov 29, 2009) mentioned above, and described Nov 21, 2011 by David as the most stable version (http://forum.voidtools.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1288&p=4376#p4376) just a couple weeks before his last post on Dec 6, 2011.  (I originally couldn't find a link to v1.2.1.452a after I noticed it mentioned in a different thread, so I just tried modifying the URL for v1.2.1.451a and was able to download v1.2.1.452a.  But I tried additional modifications of the download URL with later iterations of the versioning schema and came up with nothing.)

Regarding the "alpha" designation, it seems Everything was being pretty actively developed up until v1.2.1.452a, with v1.2.1.442a on Oct 23 2009, v1.2.1.445a and v1.2.1.446a both on Nov 19 2009, and v1.2.1.451a on Nov 24, 2009, then stalling after v1.2.1.452a on Nov 29, 2009.

Nearly 2 years later, on Nov 25, 2011, David indicated "I still have much to implement before the next release" (http://forum.voidtools.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1453&p=4382#p4382).  It's already a dynamite program, and I hope we'll all get to see and enjoy the next release at some point. :)

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General Software Discussion / Re: home-buying decision tool
« on: August 21, 2012, 08:42 AM »
Don't know if this is what you had in mind, (and it probably won't be of much help unless you can find it on some abandonware site), but in about 1989-1990 I used a very nifty program called Buy Your Home (IIRC).  I'm not a programmer, but at the time I recall thinking it was probably just a fairly simple GUI shell for a spreadsheet engine.  (Cost was about $20 US at the time, IIRC.)

It was primarily intended to allow comparing renting vs buying, but was easily adapted to compare buying this house or that house, etc.  It allowed you to enter assumptions about your projected annual income and expenses, income increases, rent amount, home selling price, mortgage amount and payments, interest rate, taxes and deductions (pertaining to buying vs renting), projected appreciation (or not), how long you expected to stay in the place (renting often financially better than buying if only staying a few years), etc., etc.  IIRC, it also must have had some basic tax estimating functionality built in, based on existing U.S. Federal tax regs at the time.

The way it was set up, you could also use it to compare different projected income and/or mortgage amounts for the same home purchase, e.g.:

• projected income if spouse works or not
• paying only the required mortgage payments vs paying more than required each month
• interest only w balloon vs fixed or ARM
• minimal downpayment with higher mortgage vs larger downpayment & lower mortgage
• different loan terms (e.g., 15-year fixed vs 30-year fixed)
• investing more available funds in a more expensive home vs a less expensive home with the difference in funds invested elsewhere
• how much difference it would make over x years to buy down a loan half a point when setting up the mortgage
• etc., etc.

I'm pretty sure I still have the program on a 5.25" floppy (which might have deteriorated beyond use by now) somewhere in my storage unit (hour and a half round trip and a couple hours of searching), and probably on an old HDD somewhere in storage, but my current circumstances don't allow me to go look for it.

I didn't find it online just now in a quick Google search, but if it is no longer being marketed, you might find it on some of the abandonware sites.  if you can't locate it anywhere, you might be able to find or create a spreadsheet template that would allow you to plug in various scenarios along the lines of those I've mentioned or whatever might better fit your circumstances and needs.  Seems like asking in some of the Office/Excel forums might be a good place to find a template that could be readily adapted to your needs. ...(Unless Perry Mowbray above is volunteering to write one :P)

Good luck! :)

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General Software Discussion / Re: Any better Clipboard program.
« on: January 02, 2011, 01:56 AM »
The best program I've found so far (and have used for years) to capture the text from error messages is NirSoft's SysExporter.  ... it isn't nearly as convenient as a clipping program would be.
-gdv22 (December 24, 2010, 03:28 AM)

Yes, it has its uses, but if the computer was busy, with lots of windows open, I found it a real pain to scroll a long SysExporter list to find the one I wanted.  Even then, a bit more manipulation was required to clip the text.
-rjbull (December 26, 2010, 04:14 PM)

@rjbull:

I'm a little slow in replying, but thought I'd mention that as of v1.50 NirSoft added a "target" icon (like the one in SysInternals Process Explorer) that you just drag to the window you want to capture, which makes SysExporter MUCH more convenient to use (no more scrolling through the list to find just the right window).

And I don't know how long ago you tried it, but I remember long ago having to do some extra manipulation to get the text (seems like maybe I had to use the menu to save to a file then open the file to copy/paste ???) but now with nearly all of his programs you can simply click on whatever lines you want (or the typical Ctrl-Click to select several individual lines, or Shift-Click to select a range of lines, or Ctrl+A to select all lines) and copy to the clipboard with Ctrl+C.

So it's definitely been improved, but still not as convenient as a clipping program would be.  :P

I'll try some of the other text scraping programs you mentioned as soon as I get a chance!

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General Software Discussion / Re: Any better Clipboard program.
« on: December 25, 2010, 03:14 AM »
Ohhh, yeah... ...Bummer!!! :down:

I just checked the SysExporter page, and as soon as I saw his Notice for Win7 users, I remembered seeing it before (several months ago, I think).  But I'm still on WinXP and had forgotten.  So I'm glad you pointed it out for the Win7 crowd.  ...Hopefully Nir will be able to work around that at some point.

I assume it still works for most other windows, but I'd be curious to hear from any Win7 users who've tried it.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Any better Clipboard program.
« on: December 24, 2010, 03:28 AM »
...On some versions of Windows, all you have to do is put the focus on an error message box and press Control-C.  That copies the text to the clipboard.  For versions of Windows where that doesn't work, it's worth trying CopyMessageBox, freeware by thyanté Software...
-rjbull (December 22, 2010, 01:54 PM)
I've also been frustrated at times trying to get the exact info from error messages without having to manually type it out (and it seems like Ctrl+C only works on maybe 20-30% of them), so my eyes lit up when I saw this link.

CopyMessageBox looks like a slick little utility with a nice, simple design.  Unfortunately, it didn't capture the text on the first error message I tried it with.  It did capture a nice screenshot of the message, but only has the option to save as a JPG file (I'd like to save as PNG for posting in forums, etc. ... but can easily convert JPG to PNG any number of ways, if necessary).  Then it skewed the image 45 degrees horizontally on the second error message snapshot I tried (and didn't capture the text), so it's got some limitations.

The best program I've found so far (and have used for years) to capture the text from error messages is NirSoft's SysExporter.  It often works when Ctrl+C doesn't, but I would estimate it still only captures the text from about 60-80% of error messages.  (I don't have enough programming knowledge to figure out exactly what is different about those it doesn't capture --- it seems to simply not detect them.)  Also, it isn't nearly as convenient as a clipping program would be.  But if Ctrl+C doesn't work and I REALLY need to capture the text, it's the first thing I try.

As an aside, SysExporter can actually be used for capturing the text of nearly any type of window currently visible on your screen (e.g., ComboBox, Label, ListBox, ListView, StatusBar, TextBox, TreeView, etc.).  So you can easily capture the ListView from nearly any program that creates lists of any kind but doesn't provide an easy way to save those lists.  From Regedit, for example, you can easily copy the ListView of your RunMRU commands or your Regedit Favorites.  Or from Explorer, you can easily capture a tabulated list of all the files in a folder, with whatever columns you have set up to display in Explorer (Name, Size, Date Modified, Date Created, etc.), ready to drop into Excel for further manipulation.

Should you ever have a need for it (I haven't yet :P), you also could capture the current Regedit TreeView or Explorer folder TreeView (if you have Explorer set up to display the folder tree).

But like I said, it's not as convenient as a clipping program, and it doesn't capture text from some error messages.  So I look forward to trying some of the other recommendations here.  If anyone already knows which (if any) are particularly good with capturing text from error pop up messages, I'd appreciate a heads up! :)

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