Messages

76

Living Room / Re: Laptop hard drive... 5400 or 7200 ?

« on: December 28, 2007, 05:00 AM »

5400.  On the notebook you will NOT notice the difference, except for the price. Not worth the cost, in money and battery duration.

Jim

-J-Mac (December 28, 2007, 02:43 AM)

When I got my notebook with a 5400 hard drive, I reformatted and reinstalled drivers & software to my liking.  But I still wasn't satisfied with the performance, so I ordered one of the newer 7200 Seagate notebook drives and I can say there is a night & day difference (for me).

77

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommendations Destroying Storage Media??

« on: December 27, 2007, 05:55 AM »

I am moving in the next few days. I am throwing away everything I can bare to throw away so I need no move it. This will include several Compact Flash, USB memory sticks, and hard drives. I will be physically destroying all of them, but I still want to wipe them first. I was looking at Eraser. Has anybody used it? There is plenty of freeware and open source programs of this type, so I don't want to pay for anything. What do you recomment?

-tinjaw (December 23, 2007, 12:01 PM)

My personal favorite <a href="http://www.dominopow...603/00001737001.html">How to destroy a hard drive (on purpose)</a> (includes disassembling).  I did this with all of my old drives.  Just lovely, and some great fridge magnets when you're done.

78

Living Room / Re: Ideas to make DC even better

« on: December 26, 2007, 06:35 PM »

If people don't like ads, they should get an "Ad Muncher"     I say give it a try again.

79

General Software Discussion / Re: Which MP3 tagger do you use?

« on: December 24, 2007, 11:54 AM »

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ ...Hands Down.

80

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« on: December 20, 2007, 03:09 PM »

Does anyone else get the feeling certain users (yes, plural) may be suddenly posting on behalf of GemX here (albeit rather softly)? Hmmmm, new, with less than 10 posts and all positive about GemX (...or am I just delusional)

81

Living Room / Re: The Beatles Cover Stairway to Heaven

« on: December 20, 2007, 04:50 AM »

There was a TV show here in Australia, with a guy called Andrew Denton who was inspired by Rolf Harris and his version of Stairway to Heaven, each week he would have a different person in to do their versions of it, some spoken some sung.  He compiled a CD of it all eventually, about 50 different versions of Stairway to Heaven (edit--more than 25 but i cant find a pic or exact number and i'm too lazy today to look any harder).  Now that is overkill, lol

-Grorgy (December 20, 2007, 12:37 AM)

Is this the Cd to which you speak?  (http://wc01.allmusic...;sql=10:0cftxqrhldhe)

Thanks for posting Rolf's version Carol, that dude is a trip, I love it the more I have thought about it.

82

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« on: December 20, 2007, 04:45 AM »

closing down sale maybe ?

-tomos (December 20, 2007, 03:23 AM)

I would say that sounds more accurate. 

Removal of the user forums was one of the first things WinOrganizer did before it came to a crawling halt in development.  Leaving a message eerily similar to the one on GemX's announcements page.  As has been discussed here before, all it takes to maintain user forums is some keen individuals with a sort of responsibility about them, and a vested interest in the product.  Not hard to find among any popular software's community.  You don't just remove all your forums and not respond to peoples inquiries.  Unless the whole company was a one man shop and he/she passed away or their computer was stolen for like about 5 months - or maybe they just installed Vista, that would explain everything.

83

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« on: December 20, 2007, 04:35 AM »

No, that's actually just to give hope to potential buyers and cash in on a little Xmas $$flow$$.   This company has already made their play, by responding to nothing.  Their website can "say" whatever it wants, everyone knows they have been MIA, how convienent (for them) to show up in time for a lovely little Christmas promotion. 

84

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« on: December 20, 2007, 02:24 AM »

I got a "Christmas" mail from them
(must have downloaded some trial at some stage but dont have any of their stuff)

In the spirit of Christmas and New Year celebrations, we have just started a limited time BIG special offer - 50% discount on all GemX applications. Please visit http://www.gemx.com for further details.

...

-tomos (December 19, 2007, 05:50 PM)

I got that too, unbelievable.  The nerve.  I guess sending a promotion like that out and not being able to respond to support issues or maintain a product forum tells all one needs to know about this company.

85

Living Room / Re: TOP 10 DonationCoder Threads in the year 2017

« on: December 20, 2007, 01:48 AM »

Good list, although I liked your others better, personally.  I liked the Top 3 and #10 is priceless, that one should be in the top 4 for sure.  Thanks for the chuckles.  Again.

86

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com Yearly Fundraiser for 2007 - Advice Requested Please

« on: December 19, 2007, 04:36 PM »

But make sure that the five posts have to come from wallflowers! Perhaps people who have not posted recently (3 months, 6 months, ever or something like that).

-Darwin (December 18, 2007, 05:43 PM)

Or newly registered people, so no one is left unencouraged.  I think everyone else that is fairly regular here has already won something at some point.

87

Living Room / Re: Laptop hard drive... 5400 or 7200 ?

« on: December 18, 2007, 11:53 PM »

7200 drive all the way, it definitely makes a difference.  Read the reviews out there on sites like NewEgg.com to get the most RELIABLE.

88

General Software Discussion / Re: My Stupid Windows Question for the Day!

« on: December 18, 2007, 04:20 PM »

I hate how so many programs just decide to store their setting and other junk under My Documents by default.  Sometimes there is no option to change this as the directory.  I feel like My Documents have been completely hijacked, so I can either quit using the program or find a new place to relocate all of "My Documents" to.  So my question is, assuming I don't want to keep my documents on an external drive, does placing them under C:\Documents and Settings or C:\Program Files offer any extra protection from viruses, trojans or hackers than putting them in any random folder on my computer like just C:\My Docs ?

89

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com Yearly Fundraiser for 2007 - Advice Requested Please

« on: December 18, 2007, 04:08 PM »

What about a special software drawing (of the better giveaways) for people who have been active in the forum with at least 5 posts (or something like that) in January, to draw some people out.

90

Living Room / Re: 100,000 users!

« on: December 18, 2007, 04:05 PM »

#141 here.  Anyone wanna trade? looking for 28, 69 or 151!

91

General Software Discussion / Re: Top 3 programs you use

« on: December 17, 2007, 11:59 AM »

foobar2000
Ad Muncher
SlickRun

92

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you 'capture' a BSOD?

« on: December 16, 2007, 11:16 AM »

I recently faced some hardware issues with my dual monitor setup. Anytime I ran a graphics intensive program the display would get garbled before completely freezing, forcing me to hit the power button. On one of these occasions when I waited a little longer to reset the PC, a BSOD flashed very briefly and the PC complete froze again with a garbled display. I tried to emulate this a few times with a camera in my hand (feeling like a complete idiot, as you may have guessed) and having absolutely no luck. The problem was finally sorted out  but maybe I could have solved the matter a lot earlier if I could have viewed the BSOD. Are these pretty babies recorded somewhere (I looked for error.log or similarly named files to no avail) or is there some other way of getting this info?

-nosh (December 16, 2007, 02:17 AM)

I had a laptop that did this for someone a couple years ago, i pulled out my camera and let it capture video till it BSOD'd.  It was just a fraction of a second, but when I looked at the video frame by frame, there was the entire BSOD message.  Good luck.

93

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Cables, etc.

« on: December 15, 2007, 08:21 PM »

I get all my cables from Monoprice (http://www.monoprice.com), pretty sure they are the best value around.  Nice deal from Directron though

94

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite eBay/auction helping software?

« on: December 12, 2007, 06:39 AM »

I really need a software to monitor for newly added ebay items of specific category and keywords...

also to notify if there is a 'buy it now' item with less than specified price

thanks

-kalos (September 22, 2007, 02:23 PM)

You can set up these type of eBay searches (available in the form of RSS for over a year, check the bottom of your results page to get the link) in an RSS Feed reader like FeedDemon (or a free alternative, ie. Great News).  Then have it set to refresh at various intervals, even notify you in some programs. 

As far as the topic applies, I use eBay's Turbo Lister to list my auctions, it's quite simple and free.  I have also been using Auction Sentry Deluxe for the past 3 years, it has only failed me once in that time (over 200 snipes) and that was due to eBay changing the way the handle various activities, which does happen from time to time.  Before I used Auction Sentry I was an avid Auction Tamer user, it was just too clunky though.

95

Seedling's Software / Re: Updates and Latest Beta Versions Here

« on: December 11, 2007, 10:55 AM »

I'm not much for making mix tapes, but Wavpack support owns (I too am a big Wavpack fan, formerly of FLAC).  Most people that are familiar with Wavpack & FLAC, find Wavpack to be superior.  Excellent move adding support!

96

General Software Discussion / Re: Which app stays open on your desktop all day?

« on: December 09, 2007, 07:46 AM »

Keynote 1.6.9 / WinOrganizer 4.0 build 1049 (Can never make up my mind which I am using)
foobar2000 0.9.5 beta 7
SlickRun 3.9.8.4 (alpha)
Em Editor Pro 6.00.4
Firefox 2.0.0.11
Miranda IM 0.7.3
mIRC 6.31
Newsleecher 3.9 beta 11
Screenshot Captor 2.37.03
Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1
Orbit Downloader 2.4.3

-vegas (December 09, 2007, 06:49 AM)

OMG how did I forget XYPlorer, all day, every day (thanks Zaine, for reminding and recommending a while back). Although I do miss a dual-paned interface.

XYPlorer 6.60.0052

97

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« on: December 09, 2007, 07:43 AM »

Yes, I've been using KeePass for years - once you get used to the extra work required to set-up the auto-type information for each important password, hitting a hotkey populates the data just as Roboform does.  I use KeePass for a lot more than just passwords though - registration codes can be kept in the notes section, along with an attached copy of the original email.  You can also store all your bank details and other private information there too.

I still use Roboform for holding my contacts list though, which is very useful functionality.

My only concern is the .NET development path that KeePass 2 is heading down, altough is no big deal as Password Safe can easily import a KeePass file if this ever becomes a problem.  Would love to move to Password Safe, but it just doesn't quite have KeePass' functionality and usability yet.

-mnemonic (December 09, 2007, 05:37 AM)

And what exactly are the negative concerns with .NET framework in use?  Seems many useful programs have gone this path... (I am seriously asking as I am just an end-user)

98

General Software Discussion / Re: Which app stays open on your desktop all day?

« on: December 09, 2007, 06:49 AM »

Keynote 1.6.9 (Freeware) / WinOrganizer 4.0 build 1049 (Can never make up my mind which I am using)
foobar2000 0.9.5 beta 8  (Freeware)
Ad Muncher v4.71 Build 28140/1790
SlickRun 3.9.8.4 (alpha)  (Freeware)
XYPlorer 6.70.0000
EmEditor Pro 6.00.4
Firefox 2.0.0.10  (Freeware)
Miranda IM 0.7.3  (Freeware)
mIRC 6.31
Newsleecher 3.9 beta 11
Screenshot Captor 2.37.03  (Freeware)
Media Player Classic 6.4.9.1  (Freeware)
Orbit Downloader 2.4.3  (Freeware)

edit: attributed freeware, added XYplorer, added Ad Muncher (duh@!)

99

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 1 Terrabyte Western Digital Drive for $264 USD

« on: December 08, 2007, 08:01 PM »

It was vegas posting here: https://www.donation...60.msg89251#msg89251

Wordzilla's search tweaks are just AWESOME! I guess I'm showing my "DC Age" when I say: "Yup. I remember when searching the Donationcoder forum was a waste of time".

-Darwin (December 08, 2007, 06:01 PM)

Yeah, I read alot of website/user reviews and forums on computer stuff.  Also StorageReview is a somewhat informative site.  The 1 Terabyte drives seem worse off than the 750gb models (there are a couple models of these that show some promise).  But all in all neither are as mature as the 200gb, 300gb, 320gb, (400gb, 500gb) drives (not that any of them are as good as they should be).

Now what is this Wordzilla search tweak(s) you are speaking of?  I could use a tool or two to help with searching here...

100

General Software Discussion / Re: ghacks post: "Why I decided to uninstall my Antivirus software"

« on: December 08, 2007, 04:58 AM »

I haven't had a full-time virus scanner running in 5+ years.  The only thing I ran was Nod32 for a month or two (which wasn't bad, but it's less intrusive with no scanner running)

I use a router as my firewall.
I do not open email attatchments in outlook express (if I get any that might be worth reading I forward them to a webmail account).
I run AdMuncher on all computers at all times.
I will occasionally run Autoruns, SpywareBlaster, and check for viruses once a month or so,  I have only ever had one virus or problem in the last 5 years running like this. 
I keep a LAN icon on my desktop so I may disable my network connection when I am away for extended periods of time (sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't).
Note I do not surf to porn, or other questionably trusted sites, only reputable software gets installed. I do not use filesharing programs or the like (with the rare exception of uTorrent when needed).  Most of that is what the newsgroups are for.

Essentially just using general common sense, I think can keep you protected most of the time. And don't forget to backup occasionally!
On a side note, if there is a solid virus scanner that can be run from a usb/portable drive, could someone give that a mention, cuz that would be handy for when I use other peoples computers and move files around.\

edit: grammar (as usual)