Messages

126

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone know of a good File splitter app?

« on: August 11, 2005, 05:37 PM »

For putting stuff back together I use simple file joiner http://www.peretek.com/sfj.php which is free and works pretty well for my requirements.

127

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: AdMuncher 20% discount code (advertisement blocker)

« on: July 23, 2005, 03:40 PM »

admuncher is a great piece of software, I can't recommend enough.

128

Living Room / Re: Scripting utility suggestions?

« on: July 22, 2005, 06:40 PM »

I'll see your evil (perl) programing and raise you a 'un-normalised'relational database!

129

Unfinished Requests / Re: EXISTS - IDEA: Regular Expression Helper

« on: July 18, 2005, 05:51 PM »

I bought regex buddy http://www.regexbuddy.com/ but whatever problem I have with regex (perl specifically) I can also extend to figuring out how to get regex buddy to produce useful results. I always end up surfing for (and finding) the answer in groups/forums.
Now, if I spent more time (any time) actually organizing what I do write into code snippets then I really would save myself a lot of bother. I will have to try the 2 free ones listed, maybe one is as obscure as my thought processes.

130

Living Room / Re: Remote control for PC

« on: July 14, 2005, 06:01 PM »

Thanks mouser, I hadn't seen that. I'm tempted even more!

131

Living Room / Re: Remote control for PC

« on: July 13, 2005, 06:31 PM »

I'm thinking about one of these for my next htpc venture, works with girder too!
http://www.soundgrap...asp?m1d=1&m2d=11

132

General Software Discussion / Re: Open/Save Dialog Utilities - response to Nudone's Blog from May

« on: July 11, 2005, 08:03 PM »

variations on a theme, filebox extender is worth investigating:
http://www.hyperioni....com/files/index.asp

133

Living Room / Re: zaine's blog rocks

« on: July 11, 2005, 03:38 PM »

As a brit living in USA, you have no idea how refreshing I find that blog!

134

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Future Review (not this week): Graphics Viewers

« on: June 30, 2005, 02:59 PM »

Perhaps 'windows', 'web ', 'camera' or 'design' could be used for classifying the various formats?
Personnally I'm only really interested in the first two. RAW's nice but you probably have to have a digital camera that produces it to be of any use, same goes for having the programs that produce the 'design' formats.

135

Living Room / Re: Scripting utility suggestions?

« on: June 28, 2005, 06:06 PM »

I use automate at work and it's solid. To my mind they've priced themselves out of most individuals budgets. I bought v4/5 for $320 or so, to upgrade to 6 is $395 and a new license is $795!.
I think unisyn were bought out by 'network automation', hence the current ridiculous pricing. I think they ought to fail miserably for gouging their user base.

136

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Future Review (not this week): Graphics Viewers

« on: June 23, 2005, 05:51 PM »

well, I have v7.102 but I don't have the file you mention, it's just an empty directory. I've figured that the settings for what you exclude from the database are actually stored within the database (as opposed to the registry or an ini file). So removing all db info was actually reseting everything. Still prefer 'off' as an option (sulk).

137

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Future Review (not this week): Graphics Viewers

« on: June 22, 2005, 08:00 PM »

straying slightly...
With acdsee 7.0 I've tried excluding the root of each hard drive (and subfolders) from being thumbnailed but that doesn't work. You have to exclude the folders below the root or they disappear upon restart . In fact, being unable to switch the thumbnail/database thing off really is annoying. Despite that, I ponied up for the powerpack because I couldn't find anything better and I can force v7.0 to act almost (but not completely) like the classic version did. I have absolutely no use for the fotoslate app but the quick & dirty editor is good enough for my limited requirements, (cut, crop, clean).
Even with vast amounts of images I still prefer to [pgdn] through them all rather than view thumbnails. It's a preference that carries across all my windows usage. File managing is done with detailed view only and nary an (icon/picture) to be seen in any list/app.
So I give acdsee a bad mark for not giving you complete freedom with your browsing style.

138

Best Weather Monitor Tool / bad links

« on: June 22, 2005, 03:41 PM »

I'm sure someone knows this already, please delete if so:
all the picture links point to http://www.vmware.co...p/img/ws5_large5.gif

139

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Re: compared with Check and Get

« on: June 20, 2005, 07:39 PM »

I've been trying wsw, c&g and copernic tracker.
copernic was too limited for me and didn't last very long on the pc. wsw is lean and mean but overpriced (especially as I missed the discount). I didn't like the idea of paying extra for site archiving either.
I've saved the best 'til last, c&g v.3 beta most suits my needs. Seems to be quite fast too. v3b allows you to use regex for filtering changes which can't be bad. Also you can get the pro version for 39.95 http://secure.emetri...765587&DC=beta50 which was icing on the cake for me.
As far as I know this is the first beta but it's running really well.

140

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Idea for this week, 6/20/05: Graphics Viewers

« on: June 17, 2005, 05:23 PM »

When I don't have ACDSee open, there is no other application related to it running.  And if you don't want to use the database, just go to the Database menu and exclude everything.

-Scott (June 17, 2005, 03:57 PM)

Fair enough, what I mean is if I don't want to use the database feature then I would like to switch it off. It's my preference for running things as lean as possible. Does that include thumbnails?

141

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Idea for this week, 6/20/05: Graphics Viewers

« on: June 17, 2005, 03:52 PM »

I am currently searching for the best graphics viewer for my purposes.
I used to use acdsee 2.43 (or something like that) but I need animated gif support.
I currently use irfanview but it doesn't resize overly large pics very well ( I don't want scrollbars if it's taller than the screen, I want the pic resized).

I don't want thumbnails either and I REALLY don't want some database chugging away in the background. You must be able to switch this off.

I've had a serious look at acdsee 7 but I can't figure out how to stop the database part. If anyone knows then my search will probably stop there. Though acdsee 7 seems a bit expensive.

My list of requirements is much the same as mouser's apart from that, oh and I must be able to cut a selection and 'paste as new image' which I can then save in common formats.

I have looked at most of the viewers on zaine's site and not come up with 'the one' yet. Compupic (sp?) kept on crashing for me.

142

General Review Discussion / Re: What categories should we review next?

« on: June 14, 2005, 01:07 PM »

Speaking of FUD, there are many application types that are heavily abused by companies that prey on desperate customers by heavy advertizing within search engine results. The programs themselves are often stolen from developers who released their software for free. If not, then they either don't work or are over-priced.
Take for instance file/partition recovery software; anyone who googles for such an app faces pages of junk with the real gems hidden. There are many other genres that are afflicted, virus/spyware removal, password recovery, stuff that you usually need in a hurry.
I think reviews of this sort of software might bring in new donations and also be a huge benefit to some of those developers whose work has been stolen and is sold by disreputable companies as their own. Plus this loosely fits the theme of donationcoder (well, sort of).

143

Find And Run Robot / Re: Skinning?

« on: June 10, 2005, 07:06 AM »

I agree with ^, no skins, Ever! The resource usage overhead is completely unnecessary for a utility application. A sking for a program that pops up for a second or two??  hrrrmmph!

I bought approcket (unfortunately), before I found F&R to be much better. I worry about bloat as F&R gets developed more though. Approcket uses ~20mb on my PC! There's another program; 1st turborun http://www.turborun.com which is similar but less well implemented (I might add) that runs under ~2mb.
For me anything that sits in the tray has to be extremely light on resources.

144

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat! sucks for IMAP

« on: June 07, 2005, 05:55 PM »

I went to v2 for the IMAP support. Tried it for a very short while and found it impossible to work with. Of course when you have Email Chat and skinning, who needs IMAP?

145

Best ScreenCaster / Re: Next Review Topic - Best Demo Movie apps - 5/30 + 6/6

« on: June 04, 2005, 07:01 AM »

I don't know diddly about the programs themselves but as a user of what they produce (and that's just as important) robodemo has stood out enough among the ones I've watched for me to notice. (Used to love robohelp too when I had to write the stuff).

146

Living Room / Re: a better favorites manager?

« on: June 01, 2005, 06:06 PM »

I've been looking for the same thing myself, though it does depend on what one's interpretation of 'manager' is:

I used to use powermarks which was pretty good http://www.kaylon.com/power.html You can upload your favorites to The Web and retreive/update from home/work/where-ever.

I've been using approcket from http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/ It takes a lot of getting used to and uses far too much memory (that's .net for you) but it works very well for calling up any favorite, program or even an mp3 using the keyboard alone. I think it even learns a bit too and moves what you use often to the top of the list of possibilites.

An alternative to approcket is 1st turborun http://www.turborun.com/ Very small memory footprint, the free version does URLs only and might be just what you need. The paid version is not as versatile as approcket but it is small.

With both the above, the idea of typing a key combination and a couple of letters to get to the app/url/mpg you want is extremely attractive.

Bookmark Buddy and it's kin are just too fiddly for me and don't really improve a whole lot on what any browser provides. Linkman is a similar program.

I'm still on the lookout for the perfect manager, something like approcket with the size of 1st turborun and the ability to call upon an am-deadlink http://www.aignes.com/deadlink.htm type verifier.

Please excuse any meandering.

147

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

« on: June 01, 2005, 01:48 PM »

JP, have you ever met an app that was as customizable as EditPlus? Great program. Just wish it had more power!

-zridling (May 29, 2005, 03:21 AM)

I use it every day at work, mainly for perl coding. I don't use hardly any of the features though, the keystroke macros, column selection and ftp client are very handy. Ultraedit is the de-facto editor at work but I dislike it. Not the least for the PITA installation & registration (v10 era). It just doesn't feel right either. I've not had any problems with editing huge files with editplus so whatever the limit is; I've not reached it. As far as hex editing is concerned, I'd buy winhex. A text editor is not a hex editor to me.

Zaine, very impressed with your site btw, made a couple of purchases as a result.

148

Living Room / Re: Who are you & what do you do?

« on: May 30, 2005, 08:37 AM »

43, from UK.
Joined british army at 16. Became an electronic warfare operator, learnt (some) arabic, left in 88.
Truck driver for a while, then drainage engineer (no Job too big!). Spent summers working in France as an area supervisor for camping holiday company. Got first PC.
Called back to army in 91 for a brief waste of time.
Went fulltime with holiday company, running warehouse in winter and supervising in summer. Left in 94 to start a degree in Computer Science (systems). Did some contract PC engineer work for us army in Germany.
96 I was offered a job overseas as sotware support for british army. Had to leave university with one semester to do. Did that for 3+ years. Met my wife (to be) on Yahoo.
2000 moved to USA and got married. Got a job as Network Admin (read all IT) in small local company and been there ever since. Learning/using various languages. I remain a beginner at all of them. Jack of all trades, master of none.

149

Living Room / Re: Avoid bad software versions by reading their forums

« on: May 30, 2005, 07:58 AM »

I would have to stipulate that the forums are not moderated to the point that they just sing praises.
If you want to see the good and the bad then you probably need to view an independent support forum.

To pick an example program known to many here. There is a huge well of discontent regarding ritlabs (the bat!), mainly complaints about unfulfilled promises of what would be eventually included in a particular version and the cost to upgrade. I state here that I am one of those discontented. Their forums (such as they are) have no mention of anything like that.

Reading the reviews, it's a great program but is the support of the same standard? When you part with the cash, your're buying into the whole thing but you aren't necesarily aware of the whole picture through the forums.

150

Living Room / Re: "The Problem with Microsoft is..."

« on: May 30, 2005, 07:28 AM »

I despise how they suck in any decent software house that produces anything that has a good chance of being serious competiton and turn it into a POS.

I can say that about a lot of the big software corporations too.