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As Mouser said, if you're programming against .NET then go with C#.  Also, if you're doing this for personal enjoyment, then I'd suggest also going the C#/.NET route.

If you're looking for something that'll provide an income, then I'd suggest learning both C++ and C#, probably with a leaning toward C++.  I think that in most markets you'd do well to be conversant in both.  If you're looking for a web-based career direction, then I might switch that to learning both C# and Java.  As languages C# and Java are quite similar, what you'd be mostly learning is the frameworks they work in.

Of course, "best" is in the eye of the beholder, but here are some that top my list:

For Perl & Python, nothing I tried came even close to Komodo IDE (http://www.activestate.com).  It's the only IDE for these languages that I tried that had any semblance of a modern debugger (ie., one like Visual Studio for C/++).  It was able to debug my Perl scripts running in IIS with essentially no configuration on my part.  Any other tool basically didn't aupport IIS debugging or required configuring the security/account that IIS ran under or other such headaches.  Also it integrates very nicely into FireFox for debugging client-side Javascript.  The big drawback to it is that it costs $300.  I've heard good things about Eclipse for Perl, python (and pretty much any language out there), but I've never even tried it, so I can''t say.  There's a free variant of Komodo (called Komodo Edit), but it doesn't have the debugger, which is what the main attraction of Komodo IDE was for me.

For C/C++ and C#, I give the nod to Visual Studio (2003 or 2005) with the Visual Assist X add-on ($150 from http://www.wholetomato.com).  This thing just knows how to navigate C++ code smooth as silk, and it's probably impossible to beat the debugging (at least for Windows programming).  Visual Studio costs anywhere from nothing (for the Express version) to many hundreds of dollars.

Again, I've heard good things about Eclipse, which has the very attractive price of nothing.  But I've never tried it for more than a few minutes, so I can't say whether I should have saved my money on all those expensive tools (which I'm quite happy with).

So here's the list you asked for:

Perl & Python:  Komodo IDE, licensed per user (multiple machine installs allowed), closed source, $300 for commercial use, $50 for a non-commercial student license.
C/C++:  Visual Studio with Visual Assist X, licensed per user (multiple machine installs allowed), closed source, price varies.

Minor correction:  The correct link for Chameleon Folder is http://www.neosoft-tools.com/

Thanks for posting this - this happens to me every couple of weeks at work.  My fix so far has been to shutdown applications until things start working again.  Better than in the old Win9x days when this problem would likely render the machine unusable until you rebooted.

I must say, I find it surprising how much anger can be generated by someone who finds out that they need to get a key (at no cost) to supress nags in free software.

I can understand that someone might decide they don't want to bother, but to actually get angry over it simply amazes me.

For me it's in:

C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\vbc.exe

But this is from an install of VS 2005 Pro, which installs the .NET Framework SDK before installing the IDE.  The vbc and csc compilers come from the SDK installs.  I'm not sure if the Express versions do the same or not (but I suspect they do). 

If it's really not on your machine, you can get it for sure by downloading the .NET Framework SDK from:

http://www.microsoft.com/...c35dec&displaylang=en

Actually, I think vbc.exe and csc.exe are installed with the .NET Framework Runtime - you probably don't need the full SDK.  If that's correct, then vbc.exe must certainly be on your machine somewhere.

You might want to look at GnuPG.   It's been a while since I've used it, but you could encrypt using a passphrase with the command:

[copy or print]
echo testing123|gpg --symmetric --passphrase-fd 0 --output EncryptedFilename FilenameToEncrypt

If you want the encrypted file to be email-safe you can also have it ASCII-encoded:

[copy or print]
echo testing123|gpg --symmetric --passphrase-fd 0 --output EncryptedFilename --armour FilenameToEncrypt

Decrypt like so:

[copy or print]
echo testing123|gpg -d --passphrase-fd 0 --output UnEncryptedFilename EncryptedFilename

The echo command pipes the passphrase into stdin for the gpg command.  The "--passphrase-fd 0" option tells gpg to grab the passphrase from stdin.  They used to have a plain old "--passphrase" option that let you give it on the gpg command itself, but they considered that too insecure (what a pain).

If you leave off the "--passphrase-fd 0" option (leave off the echo command as well), gpg will prompt you for a passphrase.

You may want to see if disabling WinXP's built-in CD writing might help out:

http://www.microsoft.com/...e/bott_03september16.mspx

Just as another bit of info:  XYplorer was able to do a case-insensitive search on that data for "Volmouse" in about 8 minutes on my machine (I got hits for 10 documents - is that the right answer?) .   A case-sensitive search took about 3.5 minutes (but only found 6 documents).  That's certainly not the instantaneous result that you'll get from an indexer, but if you're only doing occasional searches of content it might be acceptable (especially if you're running into trouble with you indexed searcher or don't trust it's results.)

Update:  BareGrep, a free GUI-based Windows grep utility (http://www.baremetalsoft.com/baregrep/index.php), did the case-insensitive "Volumouse" search in less than 2 minutes.

For non-content searches (ie., searching on filename only), which is what I find myself usually doing, I use FindOnClick (http://www.2brightsparks.com/onclick/foc.html) which searches the whole drive in 6 seconds - without having to maintain an index (it uses the NTFS directory structure as it's index).

FYI - some Acronis TrueImage deals:

A Free version of Acronis TrueImage 10 is available for machines that have a Seagate or Maxtor drive installed:

http://www.donationcoder....um/index.php?topic=8639.0

It worked for me from Windows, but would not recognize that I had a valid drive when run from a BartPE boot.


An OEM version of Acronis TrueImage 9 is available from "NothingButSoftware" for $10 + $5 shipping:

http://www.nothingbutsoft...roductCode=36864&ai=0

Note that TI 9 is not supported for Vista.

I wouldn't worry about it.

I think those kinds of problems are very, very rare. You'd probably have a higher likelihood of problems if you had something that used an ancient device driver.

If you do encounter problems, there are several fixes/workarounds, including being able to disable the 2nd core in BIOS settings.

A less drastic approach can be found fromthe July 2006 issue of CPU magazine:

Kill The Core

If you have a dual-core system, you already know you can press CTRL-ALT-DELETE to open the Task Manager and keep tabs on both cores via the Performance tab. Task Manager has a few other tricks that will let you use both cores as efficiently as possible.

By default, Windows assigns process threads to each core so that the two balance the load as evenly as possible. This is great because spikes in processor usage don’t bring all running apps to a halt as they would in a single-CPU environment. Some apps refuse to run in this configuration, but it is possible to force particular processes to use a particular core. Select the Processes tab, right-click a process’ entry, and click Set Affinity. Uncheck the CPU box that you don’t want the process to use, and the app will only run on the core that remains checked.

Unfortunately, Set Affinity is a single-use fix. Shut the app down, fire it up again, and it will try to access both cores again. To permanently force a program to use one core, download RunFirst (free; www.activeplus.com/us/freeware/runfirst), which can permanently make any program use the first core. ImageCFG (free; www.robpol86.com/Pages/imagecfg.php) lets you force any program to use either core.

To recover the disc would require polishing out all the pits but that would be very difficult without specialist equipment and would probably make the protective plastic layer so thin that the recording surface would be damaged in the process.

The pits should be made on the label side of the disc - the recording layer rides between the plastic (polycarboate) and whatever's on the top of the label side of the disk.  This is why if you use stick-on CD labels, they'll often destroy the recording if/when they peel off (and one reason why many people consider stick-on labels a bad idea).  If the pits are made on the label side, they actually remove bits of the recording layer - no amount of polishing will bring that back.  I would expect that the 'CD shredder' would pit both sides to ensure the recording layer got destroyed.

Also, many paper shredders claim to be able to handle CDs.

I just cut then in half with a pair of scissors, but I never have to do more than a few at any particular time.

[did]

Well, after a updating multisession DVD, the most recent additions didnt show in the Plextor drive but did show in my other DVD drive

I'd check Plextor for a firmware update on the drive.

So you are not buying the software, you are buying a license to use it for one year. After that year is over, you can no longer use the software unless you purchase another license.

That's how I read the "1 year license" limitations initially.  However, after asking for clarification, the licenses allow perpetual use of the software, but they limit the upgrade window to 1 year (which is pretty common for the full-price software anyway).  I think that the 1 year limitation may also apply to minor updates that might normally be free (not sure about this - I think this depends on how the vendor distributes minor updates).  They have updated the descriptions for most items to make this more clear.  There is also some discussion about this on the forums.

It's not clear to me what exactly is meant by minimal support.  Some of this software has no on-line support presence (like a forum) - for example, UpdatePatrol does not have a support forum.  I usually like to see an active forum for software that I buy, since even if you don't have any problems you can often just get good ideas from reading how others are using the software.  However, there's no forum for UpdatePatrol whether you pay full price or not.

In this case since I could try before buy and the cost is $3, I figured the risk was pretty minimal.

That said, I remain a bit skeptical for some reason (if it seems too good...), but the entry cost was low enough (€5/$7) that I figured I'd take a bit of a gamble.  My guess is that the vendors are using this as a loss-leader of sorts and are banking on getting some real revenue from major upgrades after the 1 year.

I'm a bit hesitant to post this, as the site seems to be one of those 'too good to be true' situations.  But I've purchased a copy of Update Patrol (formerly DeltaSpy - http://www.updatepatrol.com/) for €2 (i guess that's about $3), and all seems well.

As I understand it, the licenses offered by Serial Dealers may have some limitations compared to normal, full licenses - not in functionality, but in support, transferability, no refunds, and limited upgrade lifetimes.

One of the products they have on the site is Direct Access (http://www.nagarsoft.com), which has received good press on DC.

http://www.serialdealers.com

But it seems that Safarp does the same, judging by Nighted's screenshot. Does it use a different method?

I think it does half of what ARP does.

I found the "Old New Thing" article f0dder mentioned: http://blogs.msdn.com/old...ve/2004/07/09/178342.aspx

So, I'm guessing that the info that safarp displays is simply read from the registry, and apps that don't have that info in the registry don't get that info displayed at all (which is how the ARP applet should act, IMO).

It's quite amazing the lengths that ARP goes through to get information that is more or less completely unreliable.

Does Safarp remove all relative things of uninstalled software ?

Safarp simply invokes the uninstall routine registered in Windows, just like the Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs (ARP) applet.

It's really just a lightweight version of ARP that doesn't take sooo...   long....  to....  load....   (what-the-#$% is ARP doing when it loads anyway?).

I liked the "Lava mono" best, where do I get it? I need it in Greek..

I don't think you'll get what you need - apparently the Lava Mono font was created by Nathan Sweet (http://www.n4te.com) by tweaking Vera Mono (see the last message on http://typographi.com/000744.php).

You can get what he's done at http://www.n4te.com/tools/LavaMono9.fon, but it's a 9-point bitmap font (so it doesn't scale well).  I have no idea if it has Greek characters.

I just read on Lifehacker (http://lifehacker.com/sof...ws-on-your-mac-267905.php) that Parallels can virtualize a Bootcamp partition.

So, you can set up Windows as a dual-boot system on an Intel Mac and run your resource intensive Windows stuff (read: games) natively  and when you're running from the OS X install you can still access & run your Windows stuff seamlessly.

Nice!

It's confusing cause the version is 3.8 but the more recent version from the homepage is 3.14
Guess the older one should be called 3.08

As an aside - in the GNU (or maybe Unix) world, versioning is usually done as a series of whole numbers separated by periods - the numbers are not read as decimal fractions as is often done in the Windows universe.

In other words, 3.1 is not the same as 3.10

So, the version number sequence would look like:  3.8 -> 3.9 -> 3.10 -> 3.11  etc.  This system more naturally lends itself to version numbers with more than 2 components.  For example, it would be (in my opinion) more confusing to say that version 3.1.126.5600 is equivalent to version 3.100.126.56.

Microsoft and other Windows software vendors usually (but not always) follows the scheme where the version number is read like a decimal (ie., 3.1 == 3.10).

I have also thought about getting a Mac when I move to new hardware, but instead of using Boot Camp to run my Win32 stuff I was thinking of running Parallels Workstation or the VMware Mac offering (which is still in Beta).  I'm figuring that would give the best of both worlds concurrently (I hate rebooting). I don't know if a Mac Mini supports enough memory to effectively run a WinXP VM.  1GB would be a bare minimum, I'd feel more comfortable with 2GB.

I've run Parallels on Windows (Parallels Desktop), but not nearly as extensively as VMware.  That said, it ran my Win2K installation just fine - I was impressed;  I've heard good things about their Mac offering (though I have not tried it).

my deranged uncle

"Sexy monkey" Zaine has a deranged Uncle?  I can't figure out if I should be scared or in awe!?!?

In case you decide to keep looking into the problem, here's an explanation of the UpperFilters and LowerFilters device driver registry settings, which are often the cause of CD related problems (especially with Roxio for some reason):

http://www.cdr-zone.com/forum/about4719.html

Caution: we're talking some serious low-level, kernel configuration stuff here.  Mucking around with that area of the registry can cause severe problems if something goes wrong - tread carefully.

First: make sure the disk you're writing to is not a DVD disc - I don't think the built in Windows XP burning supports DVD media - I think they added DVD support for Vista.

If that's not the case, try this:

1) open the properties for the CD Drive (right click on the drive letter in Windows Explorer and select Properties).
2) on the 'Recording' tab uncheck "Enable CD Recording on this drive"
3) Hit the Apply button
4) Check the "Enable CD Recording on this drive" box
5) hit OK

If that doesn't help, try enabling the IMAPI CD burning service (the following instructions are for Win Server 2003, but the same applies for WinXP):

http://www.petri.co.il/en...rning_in_windows_2003.htm

Finally, maybe fixing problems with ASPI drivers (some burning utilities use them) might help.  The Windows built-in CD burning facility does not use ASPI, but maybe if something else installed ASPI drivers and they got messed up somehow...

Adaptec ASPI drivers.  It also includes an 'ASPI Checker' program:

http://www.adaptec.com/en...pc/aspi/aspi_v471_exe.htm


Some people believe that Nero's ASPI driver is better than Adaptec's:

http://www.nero.com/nero6/enu/ASPI_Driver.html

I'm one of those who would probably have given Dopus a miss if not for the donationcoder forum

I've already purchased the upgrade, so a new discount would not apply to me, but I'm also someone who would not be a DOpus customer if it weren't for DC.  Hopefully, GPSoft will recognize the value of DC.