Messages

101

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you keep two computers synchronized? i.e. work + home. If so, how?

« on: November 01, 2008, 04:48 PM »

I use Microsoft Groove 2007 for my local networked computers, but it still keeps them synchronized across the intertubes (laptop when at school, etc.) which is nice when working on an essay or programming something. But it really isn't meant for large scale synchronization.

It has a 2GB folder limit, but you can synchronize as many folders as you want. So it's kind of like having an infinite number of Dropbox accounts, except you can use any folder on your computer, and the data doesn't have to be saved in the same path on each computer. For example, I might want to keep my essays on my computer in a "D:/School/2008/English/102/Essays" directory. But on my wife's laptop, just in the "My Documents/Essays" directory for easy finding.

My only real complaints about Groove are that you can't filter files by anything other than what Microsoft Office determines to be good or bad. And it's all or nothing. Meaning that if you want to update exe files, you have to disable the filter and allow all files in the directory to be shared. It would be great if I could add individual exceptions to each directory as needed.

Other than that Groove is awesome!

-Deozaan (September 17, 2008, 04:22 PM)

+1 for Groove (a.k.a. Microsoft Office Groove 2007)

2 free alternatives for file folder syncing
http://www.collaber.com/
http://www.collanos.com/

these are also great for teamwork. They are similar to Groove.

-kartal (September 17, 2008, 05:45 PM)

At the risk of being repetitive (I already praised the software in this thread), I think that Collaber may be even better than Groove, for the following reasons:

- It seems it doesn't have the 2 GB per folder limit
- It's not a Microsoft product 
- For now (its current status is Release Candidate 1, IIRC) it's free. And all accounts created during the beta period (I'm assuming that RC period is included also) will remain free.
- It's being updated MUCH more frequently than Groove. So new features, like file versioning, are likely to be implemented in coming releases. And, of course, bugs fixed.

Collaber is definitely worth being taken into consideration.

Please note that in all of theses solutions (Groove, Collaber, etc.) your data remains in your computer/s. Their servers are only used temporarily for synchronization purposes. And, at least in the case of Collaber (I haven't checked the other's FAQ), all data is encrypted during transport.

Disclaimer: I am in no way, shape or form related to the Collaber development team

102

General Software Discussion / Re: Screen Stream - Broadcast your live desktop stream to others (free)

« on: October 29, 2008, 11:09 PM »

Is there any other software like this that does work in real time?

-HankFriedman (October 29, 2008, 12:38 PM)

Vyew looks good

103

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone uses MediaMonkey? I need your advices.

« on: October 26, 2008, 05:14 PM »

Please  test if this is my local or a general problem?

-Curt (October 26, 2008, 05:39 AM)

A little off-topic, but I can't avoid mentioning a useful site for this kind of situation: Down for everyone or just me?

104

Living Room / Re: Why no screensaver?

« on: October 25, 2008, 05:59 PM »

Has anybody ever seen this behavior on an XP system?

-CWuestefeld (October 25, 2008, 05:11 PM)

I have (half) the same problem. My screensaver does work, but my monitor never goes to sleep. If I go into Control Panel -> Energy Settings and change the interval to something else, and then change it back to the previous setting, it starts working again ... until the next reboot. The whole set-reset thing gets old real quick after a couple of attempts, so I've temporarily given up on it. Didn't do too much googling on it either.
I guess I'll have to develop the same habit as Ehtyar and start turning my monitor off when I leave it.   

105

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple Image Slideshow Viewer with PAN capability

« on: October 25, 2008, 12:28 PM »

cityzen -- are you saying you are the coder of MotionPicture screensaver?

-mouser (October 25, 2008, 01:16 AM)

Oh, no, I wish I was 
What I meant was "the screensaver I use" 
My "coding" abilities don't go much further than hacking a Firefox extension to make it compatible with the newest version 

Thanks a lot, city_zen 
That's exactly what I was looking for 
When I posted, I thought I had close to 1% chance of actually finding it.. I was just checking out my luck 
You made me feel lucky 

-anjan_oleti (October 25, 2008, 01:17 AM)

I'm glad I could help 

106

General Software Discussion / Re: Suggestions for switching from Vista (64-bit) to XP (32-bit)?

« on: October 25, 2008, 12:50 AM »

For the true tweak-animals amongst us, find a freeware version from the tool: xq-setup

-Shades (October 25, 2008, 12:17 AM)

Last freeware version: X-Setup 

However, I think the imaging software alternative (making an image of the drive with the fresh, updated and tuned Windows XP) is a better solution

107

General Software Discussion / Re: Writing to two folders simultaneously. Possible? Tired of running synch progs

« on: October 24, 2008, 11:56 PM »

Any ideas?

-urlwolf (October 23, 2008, 12:45 PM)

This may be a different approach, but it'd achieve the same thing: use Microsoft Office Live Groove or one of its free clones (I'd recommend Collaber)

Actually, if all you want is synchronizing your 2 PCs you may even be able to use Office Live Groove for free. I'm not sure if this would be acceptable under Microsoft's License, though, so you'd have to check it out. Otherwise, it's $ 79 for the first year. As I said, Collaber is free.

To get all your docs synchronized you'll have to leave both PCs on (and online, of course). Synchronization would be automatic and instantaneous. Besides, each PC would serve as a backup of the other. Also, notice that all the information would remain in your PCs, NOT in Microsoft's servers, so you'd be able to work on your docs even when you're offline (they'd just not get synchronized with the other PC until you get back online).

I think it may suit you.

108

General Software Discussion / Re: Simple Image Slideshow Viewer with PAN capability

« on: October 24, 2008, 11:38 PM »

a simple tool (for Windows) which shows a slideshow of all images in a specified folder.
Also, it should have the ability to pan the images, smoothly ..i.e. the Ken Burns Effects

-anjan_oleti (October 24, 2008, 01:04 AM)

My screensaver does precisely that: MotionPicture screen saver

It's no longer developed and of course it's a screensaver, but you can run it on demand. It's completely customizable and very small too (436 kb).

109

General Software Discussion / Re: Suggestions for switching from Vista (64-bit) to XP (32-bit)?

« on: October 24, 2008, 11:03 PM »

You may find a number of useful tips in this article by Ed Bott

110

General Software Discussion / Re: Spam filtering

« on: October 24, 2008, 10:41 PM »

So, er, what do you do? Set up all your pop mail accounts to be filtered through GMail and then set your GMail account as the only incoming e-mail account through Outlook? Then use rules to sort from there?

-Darwin (October 24, 2008, 09:22 AM)

That's exactly what I'd do in your place.
But let me mention a potential downside to that approach: you'll have to check GMail via web once in a while to check GMail's Spam folder and make sure there are no false positives there. Admittedly, it's very unusual, but it's happened to me a couple of times.

Two other spam-fighting techniques that I've found effective:

• Using my hosting provider's bayesian antispam service (I'm not sure which engine they use, but I think it's SpamAssassin) to flag messages suspected to be spam and then mix that "flag" with my e-mail program's own bayesian filters. It sounds more complicated than it actually is, and it's been very effective for me. Of course, this only applies if you have a hosting provider and manage your own domains and e-mail addresses. BTW, my e-mail program is Barca
  
• Never EVER fill an online form with a real/permanent e-mail address. I use SpamGourmet to automatically create temporary addresses that forward a certain number of messages to one of my real e-mail accounts before they "self-destruct" 
  

By using all of the above (incluiding Google's filtering on my GMail account) I'm currently achieving around 99% efficiency at spam filtering, and less that 15% of the messages I receive are actually spam.

Just my 2 cents ...

111

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Member Map not working? Or is it just me?

« on: October 22, 2008, 11:23 PM »

Oh, ok, great to hear that! 

112

General Software Discussion / Re: OCR too expensive? Try freeloaders!

« on: October 22, 2008, 10:44 PM »

No s'entiende, che! 

(Hey, we don't get it!)

113

DC Website Help and Extras / Member Map not working? Or is it just me?

« on: October 22, 2008, 10:41 PM »

I've just realized that the Member Map isn't working for me anymore (blank, empty page). I'm sure it did work (for me) a week or two ago. For the record, I haven't made any radical changes in my PC, OS, browser (Firefox 3.0.3) or anything like that. Plus, I've tried using the IE rendering engine on it, via the IETab extension, and it wouldn't load either. The only "suspect" I have left may be the Flash Player which was recently updated to version 10. But I (think I) was running a v.10 beta before, and I could use the Member Map without problems.
Does anyone else have any kind of trouble with it? 

114

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3.1

« on: October 19, 2008, 02:12 PM »

There's also this addon which adds a new tab button similar to IE's to Firefox.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (October 18, 2008, 09:18 PM)

I was just going to post about "New Tab Button on Tab Right". Unfortunately, it is not compatible with TabKit, the extension I use to get multirow tabs, so I can't use that extension to add a New Tab button.

115

General Software Discussion / Re: 55 free online tools

« on: October 18, 2008, 01:25 PM »

Small typo: it should be .html at the end, not .htm

So it's: http://www.emmaalvarez.com/2008/04/recommended-55-free-online-tools.html

Otherwise you get a 404 "Not found" error

116

General Software Discussion / Re: Third Party Check Disk replacement?

« on: October 15, 2008, 09:28 AM »

Any tips or suggestions for such a solution?

-Deozaan (October 14, 2008, 09:44 PM)

Two programs worth mentioning are HDD regenerator and Spinrite

I have NOT tried either of them so I can't really comment on their performance. Both programs seem to have their share of supporters and detractors (f0dder being one of them   ), so you may want to investigate a bit further before trying either.

What I definitely DO advise you to do is to take a look at the S.M.A.R.T. info from that drive (Speedfan is a great program for that), particularly at the "Reallocated Sector Count" value


Update: the free HD Tune also has an Error Scan section

117

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your music player of choice?

« on: October 13, 2008, 06:11 PM »

AIMP v. 2.50 FINAL has just been released

Changelog (in English, my Russian ain't that good  )

118

General Software Discussion / Re: powerpoint to dvd software

« on: October 13, 2008, 05:12 AM »

Here's a blog post that describes four different methods (plus a fifth one for Mac users) to convert a Powerpoint presentation to DVD:

5 methods to save PowerPoint onto DVD

The most expensive method is $ 299, and the cheapest one is ... free 

119

General Software Discussion / Battle of the Free Online Storages

« on: October 12, 2008, 07:01 PM »

I was searching the forum for the latest info and reviews of free online storage services. I found a couple of recent topics on the subject (SpiderOak offers 10Gb free online data backup account with promo code, Six Free Online Storage Services). I wonder if anyone has further information about these services. How's the user experience, limits you may find when using it, support, etc.

While googling this subject, I also found a very interesting post at This Could Be Living: Battle of the Free Online Storages, which includes a comparative chart and mini reviews of 13 such services.

P.S.: I'm not sure if "General software Discussion" is the right place for this topic, feel free to move it if it should go somewhere else

120

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy remote access to my home pc?

« on: October 11, 2008, 10:20 PM »

Remote Desktop Connection has an exception in the XP Firewall.

-Deozaan (October 11, 2008, 06:06 PM)

One more idea: did you check that the scope of the Windows Xp Firewall exception is "Any computer (including those on the Internet)" instead of "My network (subnet) only"?

121

General Software Discussion / Re: Iobit smart defrag vs o&o defrag pro

« on: October 11, 2008, 12:27 PM »

As for the free alternative, there's nothing I'd recommend above JkDefrag. It's very fast, does a great job and offers you various defragmentation strategies depending on your needs. If you want an easier way to configure it, look no further than JkDefrag GUI.

-Dirhael (October 11, 2008, 10:41 AM)

I second that 100%. I use JKDefrag GUI and I'm very happy with it.

122

General Software Discussion / Re: RegBench - Registry Benchmarker Utility

« on: October 11, 2008, 12:19 PM »

Well it is not all about access speed. The Registry is loaded during system start and a smaller Registry is loading faster thus reducing system load time.

-ghacks (October 11, 2008, 02:22 AM)

In theory, yes; in practice, not so much ...
I've just made a full backup of my registry and it shows a total size of 98 MB ( , I guess I should start cutting down on software evaluation  ). Let's say that an effective cleaner/defragger can reduce that size by 10% (unlikely). That'd be a 10 MB reduction. If an average HDD can provide 40 MB/s read speed, that translates as a 0.25 second reduction in system startup time. It could be a little more considering fewer seeks due to the defragging, but I guess that the maximum improvement could be in the order of half a second in system startup time.

Anyone times windows start times before/after?

-nontroppo (October 11, 2008, 05:55 AM)

No, I didn't time Windows start time before and after, but I'd be surprised if it made a measurable difference.
By the way, let me mention a little known tip that improves system startup times: the undocumented "-b" switch of defrag.exe . Supposedly Windows does the same thing every three days during system idle times, but you can force it to defrag boot files by running "defrag.exe c: -b"
This is basically the same thing that BootVis does (minus the driver delay analysis, of course)
 

123

General Software Discussion / Re: RegBench - Registry Benchmarker Utility

« on: October 11, 2008, 02:10 AM »

OK, looks like I'm first here

I'll show you mine if you show me yours 

Here are my results before and after using jkdefrag's Registry Optimization and the difference in % :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE         
         
Average random access time per entry   0.012500 ms   0.012810 ms   2%
Average random read time per byte      0.000200 ms   0.000210 ms   5%
         
HKEY_CURRENT_USER         
         
Average random access time per entry   0.009380 ms   0.009370 ms   0%
Average random read time per byte      0.000040 ms   0.000020 ms   -50%
         
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT         
         
Average random access time per entry   0.027350 ms   0.027180 ms   -1%
Average random read time per byte      0.000470 ms   0.000470 ms   0%
         
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG         
         
Average random access time per entry   0.006090 ms   0.006250 ms   3%
Average random read time per byte      0.000000 ms   0.000000 ms   0%
         
HKEY_USERS         
         
Average random access time per entry   0.010000 ms   0.010160 ms   2%
Average random read time per byte      0.000030 ms   0.000040 ms   33%
         
         
AVERAGE OF ALL HIVES         
         
Average random access time per entry   0.013064   0.013154   0.7%
Average random read time per byte      0.000185   0.000185   0%


It actually made it worse, if only by 0.7 %

But let me mention that I had run jkdefrag a couple of days ago, so that may explain the minuscule difference

I also tried to run Tuneup Utilities' Registry Defrag afterwards, but it told me that "my registry didn't need defragging"

In any case, it looks like you can at most improve your registry access speed by a millisecond ... hardly worth it


Thank you for the link, Mouser. It surely is an "enlightening" little utility.

124

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy remote access to my home pc?

« on: October 10, 2008, 07:25 PM »

My guess is that you haven't configured your router to forward outside connections on port 3389 to your PC's internal IP. That'd be step 3 of 4wd's list:

-city_zen (October 10, 2008, 10:36 AM)

I've done that, too.

-Deozaan (October 10, 2008, 03:33 PM)

Yup, sorry, I hadn't seen that you'd mentioned it already.

This page has a few additional tips about troubleshooting Remote Desktop Connection problems

125

General Software Discussion / Re: Easy remote access to my home pc?

« on: October 10, 2008, 10:36 AM »

I can connect via LAN, so I think I've done all that. And I do have XP Pro. But for some reason when I'm trying to access from outside my LAN, it's a no go.

-Deozaan (October 09, 2008, 02:41 AM)

My guess is that you haven't configured your router to forward outside connections on port 3389 to your PC's internal IP. That'd be step 3 of 4wd's list:

3) Ensure that port 3389 is able to get through any firewall/router on both PCs and that if you use NAT that port 3389 is forwarded to the server PC.

-4wd (September 15, 2008, 07:44 AM)

The way to do that depends on each router's settings screen, but it's usually under "Port forwarding", "Virtual Servers" or the like.
My advice would be to choose a random port (for example 48379) for external connections and then tell the router to forward incoming connections on that port (48379) to port 3389 of your PC's internal IP (which probably looks like 192.168.x.x). The way to connect to your PC from outside (=what you have to type in the RDC dialog box) would then be: deozaan.dyndns.org:48379 (I'm assuming you chose DynDNS as dynamic IP service and "deozaan" as username, change accordingly with your real data)

I hope I didn't confuse you further   

Let us know if that solves it.