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Messages - PlayPhil [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: [1]
1
A rather neat trick (I think) with the Quick Launch toolbar is to create a Folder, say ...\Quick Launch\Admin and drag it to the left of the QL menu area. You can also create Sub Folders under this Folder. I call mine "Admin" so it's alpha-first but it and the the sub-dirs can be any name.

One caveat, if at some time you selected "Sort By Name" for the Quick Launch menu you are stuck with an alpha-numeric name to keep the Folder visible at the left, whether "Admin," 0Cool (zeroCool) or some such.

Hold down the CTRL key and Left-Mouse-Click to expand the "Admin" Folder as a menu rather than opening it as a Folder. Works great, very fast. The "Admin" folder can contain as many Folders and Menu Items as you like.

I pretty much keep this to regularly used programs, specifically not as a substitute for the Start Menu system. The same programs (or Links) exist in my Start Menu. In fact, the shortcuts are copied from the Start Menu structure...

2
Living Room / Re: (Webfind) Programmer Personality Test
« on: September 27, 2007, 07:32 PM »
DLSB - the only way to fly :)

"a cohesive group of genius programmers" - like herding cats?

3
Living Room / Re: Internet Cartoon of the Day
« on: September 27, 2007, 07:24 PM »
ROFL, so true...

4
Hmm, according to my log files during this time I did not get these seriptitious updates...

In my Hosts file when WGA first started this (XP) nonesense quite a few months ago, I restored a just prior Image Backup and I added the following...

# Resent MS Joe Bob's wgatray.exe phoning home
# 192.168.0.1      is used to test connectivity to the host computer & can't be used
# 192.168.253.*    Not tested
#         So, max it up into the TOP unused Host IP
192.168.253.253      stats.update.microsoft.com      # primary
192.168.253.253      statsupdate.microsoft.com.nsatc.net   # also resolves to...
# /Resented :)

wurx4me....

5
Thx Lashiec - I just finished building a box last w/e and loaded Vista Ultimate to see whazzup. Sincerely hope Zaine is on holidays LOL

6
Thx for the direct link f0dder. Thunderbird eh :) Was thinking of pursuing that route, more so now after reading Ken's comment (Thx Ken).

There's only one feed (at the moment) I want to subscribe to so likely the best solution.

Also use theBat (V3) for emails. Will be interesting to see what version 4 brings, apparently not too far away from what I read yesterday.

7
Wondering if anyone here has tried Gravity v2.7 available for free from Steve Gibson's site (Gibson Research Corp) available on his Discussions page.

Have to admit I'm a fan of Steve's and he also supports (for community's sake) using M$ie's Browser & Ouchlook EggStress, the latter I refuse to use. Like others above I prefer text and at the same time not open a Pandora's box...

8
Living Room / Re: How do you organise your 'My Documents' folder
« on: September 03, 2007, 07:44 AM »
Interesting read. I follow a convention similar to Mouser and put extensive effort into filenaming. I avoid Default Permit (installs or otherwise) like the plague, for instance, anything to do with security is in its own dir structure on the C drive with an unusual name. My drives are partitioned with essentials only on the C drive (after 5-6 years an Image Backup is still only one DVD). Data is on the D Drive, nonessential programs on the P drive, Swap or page files on the S drive on Drive1 etc.

IMHO a good partitioning strategy is as important as file and dir naming conventions, esp keeping your C drive as tight as possible. That said, never have found the perfect strategies :)

Downloads go into a temp folder 1Dnlds on C along with all info/data pertinent to the download. It's then named and moved to my archive drive partition under a dir structure that's logical to me, for instance, W:\System\Tweak\TweakUI.zip or whatever the case. I use short names, and never use spaces preferring leading case or underscores and sometimes dashes.

I use the My Documents structure as a temporary drop folder when convenient, after which I move the files into my own MyDocs folder. It's organized simply, eg, Pics/Smilies, Docs/Humour etc and file type does not have a bearing. I have 6 partitions on Drive0 and 3 partitions on Drive1. My backup routine sweeps all partitions and puts 1+ copies on drive M (for mgmt), one copy is an exact replication, the + copy is for info I want to keep duplicate copies (not much) and is under a time stamp dir name.

The 8 partitions (not C) are mirrored on 2 180MB USB Hard drives during backup. I don't use indexing nor Windows Search (ugh!), rather I prefer searching if necessary. I like Agent Ransack as a freeware search util but use the Pro version on my main machine.

Some great food for thot in this thread, thanks to all who contributed :Thmbsup:

9
Sad but true. Having spent a great many years in mechanical design I've come to the conclusion there are 3 stages to a "good" idea...

1) It will never work
2) You're crazy
3) Next time you need another "good" idea like that, come and see me

Even more bothersome, for those who recognise and pursue good ideas they are soon labelled as rebels, trouble makers etc (& worse) in the group-think environment despite a history of successful accomplishments.

Somehow we muddle thru, but you have to wonder where we would be if it were not for those who will pursue good ideas, however & whatever it takes, the entrepreneurs.

10
General Software Discussion / Re: Top 3 programs you use
« on: August 29, 2007, 05:59 AM »
Interesting to see many here use The Bat  :Thmbsup:

11
General Software Discussion / Re: Top 3 programs you use
« on: August 29, 2007, 05:54 AM »
Well, I use more than three daily, but these 3 mostly...

NoteTab Text Editor

The Bat Email Client

SlimBrowser MSie Shell

12
Living Room / Re: Link Story: 100 things you can make yourself
« on: August 29, 2007, 05:43 AM »
Very interesting Jesse. As an avid DIY'r I've made many of the things on that list. Also, I like to cook and we definitely like the taste of my efforts over COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) goods, most of which is so blah tasting I can't believe people want to spend 500-10,000% more than it costs to make at home.

Don't think I'll be making soap tho, simple as it is ;)

13
Well, a day late, but looking forward to next year...

According to MapQuest it's a 6hr, 1 min drive for me. So Jesse, if your offering booze, food and accomodations, how about speeding tickets  :D

I'm sure I could shave an hour or more LOL


14
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Evrsoft First Page 2006 Reviewed
« on: July 10, 2007, 06:58 PM »
A while after the 2003 version was released there was some controvesy over the "Six Buttons" script and the concensus was it was not a virus.

Besides, the user must execute the script to get the message, otherwise it's benign, or at least, that's been my experience.

15
Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Synch Folders NOT files
« on: May 12, 2007, 07:54 AM »
If you are constantly sync'g a folder, for instance My Documents, you can also setup a shortcut...

%windir%\system32\cmd.exe /K xcopy "C:\My Documents" "H:\My Documents" /E/T

where H is a valid path to another drive in this case, a USB stick for example. Note the quotes are necessary when there are spaces in the pathname. I use quotes all the time whether there's spaces or not.

Similarly, a shortcut to use Skrommel's EjectCD script...

%windir%\system32\cmd.exe /C pushd "C:\Skrommel\CdOpenClose" && EjectCD.exe G

where /C closes the cmd wndo after completion, and G is the CD/DVD drive. I use 'pushd' since the path to the directory is not defined, ie, not in the path variable on my system. Also in the shortcut definition, the cmd wndo is run minimized, I use the icon from EjectCD and the shortcut resides in the Quick Launch menu - very handy, quick too :)

Amazing how many are not familiar with xcopy, yet it's fast, very functional and totally reliable

16
Tried your link Skrommel, did not work, but this page has the file  http://www.moonsoftware.com/files/Legacy

Thx for the tip...

17
I like and use RegShot but also Doug Knox has an excellent set of routines to re-associate the defaults.

That said, the easiest way, particularly if you are going to uninstall the app, is to roll back with an Image Backup, using Acronis or Image for DOS/Windows

18
Very nice util Justice. Ran a simple test, works as advertised, can't beat that :)

Thanks for the heads-up on the Unix/Win32 utils. Couldn't download from the site mentioned but Google quickly found a mirror in Germany where I could (seems to happen from time to time).

I'm thinking of writing a similar routine that would parse a tree & copy (or move) image files of a size, say 1024x768 into a flat folder, perhaps putting dups (1 of, in the case of several) in a subfolder in the case of moving.

Thanks for the outline  :Thmbsup:

19
Skrommel's Software / DelEmpty and a 137GB Data Archive
« on: May 08, 2007, 07:30 PM »
Recently built a new box for a family member (XpPro + Vizduh ready) replacing one I had built for them about 6-7 years ago (W2K). We live quite a distance apart so I sent an external 160GB USB drive to get a copy of all their data.

You can't imagine my surprise when it came back with 137GB of data, ~90,000 files. Exploring thru the structure I could see they had multilple copies of many files, empty directories all over the place, horrendously long path names, in short, a mess, but at least they did backups.

Sifting thru this much data is a real chore (esp when it's not yours) but the empty directory situation was becoming a nightmare. I Googled for some software. Any that I liked also required .net to be installed. I don't have an issue with .net other than on this computer it will not likely ever be needed again.

After a few quick searches I figured that it was a pretty good bet that I find something on DC, found DelEmpty in a few minutes and decided to give a try. By this time I have the data size just under 40GB, mostly by removing duplicate files.

On a copy of the data structure I ran the first pass. Took a while of course, 20-25 minutes perhaps, but well worth the wait tagging 2,200+ empty directories. File count and everything else is good and I was some happy, Ok, ecstatic :)

More work, more passes, more empty directories deleted. I'm about done at 22GB of data and approximately 3,500 empty directories were deleted in the process.

This would have been an otherwise impossible task without this superb util. That it is portable and available for zip makes it pricelessware and a keeper for my toolkit.

This is my busiest time of the year, but this Winter I'll be having a serious boo at AHK...

Thanks Skrommel :)

20
Best Text Editor / Re: Some more editors of mention...
« on: March 11, 2007, 11:39 AM »
I haven't tried them all, but my text editor of choice is definitely NoteTab Pro

I've been using it for 5-6 years and functionally very rich. Some of the advanced features can take a bit to learn, but very worthwhile.

Most friends use the Lite (and free) version and there's only a few advanced features not available.

Too many features to list, but one very productive one is writing your own paste clips, macros, libraries etc, very powerful.


21
Living Room / Re: Daylight-Saving Time Bug
« on: March 11, 2007, 10:59 AM »
Daylight-Saving Time Bug - W2K Hack

Some older operating systems that are affected are not longer supported and there is no patch available to correct it. (Windows 95, 98, ME, 2K)

Well, there may not be a patch for these o/s's but you can hack W2K's TZ settings.

For those interested, the MS links are:

Using a GUI...

Daylight Saving Time Help and Support Center for home users

Explicitly hacking the registry (not easy)...

How to configure daylight saving time for the United States in 2007

I'm just in the process and cannot confirm whether they work or not. I don't see why not, but...

I'll post back when I get a chance.

Also new to this board. If posting a reg hack or a link to one is frowned upon, delete my post, no offense taken...

22
Well, my needs for file syncing are fairly simple, updating my file archives primarily and specific directories on occasion. For this purpose I find Karen Kenworthy's Replicator to be all I need, easy to setup and use, and fast enough. I also like the fact I can easily filter out what files or file types I do not want included in the Data Backups (desktop.ini for example).

I also use Karen's "Once A Day" util (same page) to fire batch files when I bootup for incremental backups of a few specific dirs.

I might add I do not use proprietary compression formats (ZIP etc) for Data Backups, nor do I upload using FTP, so these utils may not suit those who do, or it's subsequent steps in your procedure.

23
Hmmm, very interesting, esp the command line version...  :)

24
Greetings, just joined. By far the best renamer I've ever used is Lupas Rename... :up:

http://rename.lupasfreeware.org/

Why he gives it away for zip is beyond me.

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