Messages

176

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ideal backup utility

« on: August 21, 2008, 07:03 AM »

Hi,

Ok! I will give it a try and will let yoou know how.

Thank you!

177

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ideal backup utility

« on: August 21, 2008, 04:27 AM »

Hi Tomos,

I can't use Synchronizer type of utility, in fact, I also don't consider them as backup utiliy.
There is a very fundamental different between Synchronizing and conventional backup (be it incremental or not). In fact, I do need to create full backup with rolling set numbers. i.e. every backup is full set, but the utility keeps a fix/max number of backup set.

I did evaluate a synchronizer type of utility (well, that was when I really desperate), FileBack PC, I like the interface so much, to me it scroces 100% for my 3), 4) and 5) requirements.

I just couldn't understand, the backup utility world seems to still stay in the 80s.
How nice it will be if Backup4All supports unicode and registry keys backup or I were the interface designer of Genie Backup Pro...<sigh>!

Btw, Tomos, I forgot to tell you, Genie backup manager pro does support registry keys backup.

178

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ideal backup utility

« on: August 21, 2008, 04:09 AM »

Hi cmpm,

No offense! I think we two have very different perception on what is data backup and an utility to do it.

I am using Ghost ver 11.5.0.2113 which can start from a DOS boot HDD, aware of USB drive, Vista NTFS ver 6 supported and so on... and I am using HDD rack to slot in HDD to hold Ghost image, whereas, for ordianry (daily, weekly, ... you name it) backup I directly them to a drive on a HDD permenently stay in PC.

Trust me, besides Ghost, don't use any software tagged with the label "Symantec", you are going to regret.

179

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ideal backup utility

« on: August 20, 2008, 11:11 PM »

Hi,

Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image are not backup utilities. Even though they push their sales very hard with Backup idea.

Their main function is cloning and is far from a true backup utility with sophisticated functions that I am looking for.
Of course one can clone the whole drive(s) and kept the clone-image(s) as backup, I did that twice a year, but I can't imagine doing that every month if not week.

In my case, on my main working PC, I got 4 active HDD (use daily) that sum up to more than a TB of storage, 60% of them are used, that is about 800GB used-space. On a weekly, monthly basic backup or random case that I start certain backup job manually, then a backup job or group jobs might only involved few hundred Mb of data. I feel stupid to backup all HDD(s) every time when I need to backup... it is like burning my house when all I need is just to kill a mice.

180

General Software Discussion / In search of ideal backup utility

« on: August 20, 2008, 09:19 AM »

Hi *.*,

I have been looking for years but still I am unable to find a backup utility that fulfill all the 7 requirements as listed below:

----------
START LIST
----------
1. A modern and fast backup engine - supports multi-core cpu and 64 bits O/S.

2. Support Unicode / Unicode aware
   i.e. Able to backup/restore files or folders names in multiple languages, irregardless of how Windows language is set.

3. Efficient and easy backup job setup with filter.
   A backup job is typically a definition of what are the source items (folders and files) to be backup to certain target (a backup archive on certain storage).
   A filter in a backup job means a mechanism to define what are the source items (to backup) by file or folder name patterns.
   Backup job filter should:
   a) Support wildcards and/or regular expression - thus able to automatically include future folders or files which match certain name patterns.
   b) Support a way to easily define a "include all and exclude few" or the other way round "exclude all and include few" scheme.
   c) Or even a folder-treeview with checkbox on every tree-node. Just tick to select.
   The challenge here is not to simply provide the a), b) and c), but also integrate them and make sure they work together nicely. An intuitive user interface is very crucial such that user won't get confused when using more than one of the a), b) or c) at the same time.

4. Able to group backup jobs and act (backup/ restore) base on the group.
   For modern backup utility, the ability to backup/ restore base on a backup job is fundamental requirement, in practice, we need more powerful/ flexible feature - that is the feature which allows user to group multiple backup jobs and acts on (meaning to backup or restore) the group.

5. Efficient user interface.
   I understand that Wizards/ wizard-like interface are very helpful especially for newbies/ general PC users, but a more sophisticated and centralized interface, where one can do almost everything or access every feature is a must for serious/ power users.

6. Able to selectively backup registry key(s) rather than just backing up the whole Windows registry like an ordinary files.   
    i.e. besides folder and file, I think the registry should be treated as a collection of registry keys and individual registry key should be a candidate of a backup job.

7. Advanced Data Stream and folder junction aware.
   Able to backup ADS is so crucial for user with multimedia files that tagged with ADS.
   It should be user's choice whether folder junction should be treated just like other source item (say treat it like a shortcut LNK file) or as an ordinary folder (that contains folders or files).
---------
END LIST
---------

and I am very sad, I can't find a backup utility which does all the above...

If anyone knows any backup utility that fulfill all the above requirements, please kindly quote it here, and I thank you in advance!

181

General Software Discussion / Saleen Video Manager

« on: February 04, 2008, 09:31 AM »

For years, I have fail to find a video/digital clips manager software (especially one that catters for home-produced-digital video clips). The other days, after several hours of hard searching, I finally find one video manager program which closely meet most of my dreamed features -- Saleen Video Manager... unfortunately, it is still a beta (IMO,an alpha) version.

Like one of the poster in the program forum have stated:
"All other's are focusing mainly on managing/cataloging commercial movies and connection to IMDB, and downloading of covers from Internet, and neglect the documentation with own screenshots."

If anyone here are also keen on this kind of video manager software, please pay the site a visit and encourage the author to quicken the development. Here http://www.saleensof...om/VideoManager.aspx

182

General Software Discussion / Re: Interesting: Tag2Find, Tagging for All Filetypes for Windows

« on: June 27, 2007, 03:30 PM »

"However Explorer's copy does not (meaning if you copy or move the file, the data is lost -- maybe vista does this better?)."

NOT true.
(Note: WinXP 's Explorer does copy and move ADS, on drive with NTFS format of course)

However, Total command (even the latest ver7.01 as of this writing) fits the above description. Ironically, its plugin can do a powerful search in ADS... sigh!

In term of handling ADS, I find xPlorer2 is the best explorer alternative.
Ironically, it is unable to search in ADS... sigh!

DOpus does not even has any column for standard ADS (tags like title, subject, author and so on). Ironically, it is aware of tags in MP3 files ... sigh!

As of today, I find no Explorer alternative utilty handles ADS perfectly and seriously... None! That makes me feel lonely as though I am the only one in the world who use ADS to tag my files...

Btw, regarding FASTCOPY, I remember, not long ago when I try it, it does NOT copy ADS... and I can't find the option (you have mentioned) from the options list at the FASTCOPY site... ???

183

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9

« on: May 06, 2007, 01:12 PM »

I was quite excited when I found xPlorer2 (at least there exist such utility that) can displays those ADS values correctly in columns as well as move/copy these values along with the host file.

The author of xPlorer2 has put up a poll for user requested features, among which "search in ADS info" is one of them. I suppose only few of those features with highest #votes will be implemented in xPlorer2 Ver 1.7

My very BAD NEWS is, "Searching in ADS" feature get ZERO vote as of this writing...

And for TC, I read their forum and learn that TC 6.5x is not unicode ready and the author says it won't be so until (probably) Ver7.5
The funny thing is TC can "display" and "search" ADS info in multiple languages but it simply can't copy/move those values along with the host file...
I mean if it is not unicode ready, how come it can display file and folder names in multiple (more than 3 diff) languages at the sametime?
If TC can search in ADS info why can't it move/copy it with the host file....????

Btw, Nudel, thanks for your info.

184

General Software Discussion / Re: Directory Opus 9

« on: May 06, 2007, 01:15 AM »

I use ADS intensively to keep info of hundreds of movie clips (in mpg format). I try 3 programs, total commander 6.53, xPlorer2 V1.653 and DOpus V9 all offer the ability to add addtional columns: "Title", "Subject", "Author", "Category".

1) DOpus does not has the "Category" field.
2) TC and Xplorer2 display all the above 4 fields correctly but DOpus DOES NOT! (Those fields if added in DOpus as columns, they will simply be blank columns, nothing shown at all)
3) When copy/move a file with ADS info, xPlorer2 is able to copy the ADS stream along, for TC the ADS info is dropped... I have not tried this copy/move test with DOpus before I uninstall it, I am quite disapointed in DOpus, if it can't extract the ADS info, why put those fields there...??? Am I missing something?

Note:
I am using WinXP+Sp2, my ADS data has characters from multiple languages: English, Chinese simplified, Chinese Traditional and occasionally Japanese.

How good if I can have the flexibility + user friendly GUI + superior in handling ZIP/RAR of TC and the Decent power of xPlorer2 (especialluy in unicode and ADS handling) in a single program... sigh!

185

General Software Discussion / Re: Changing properties of multiple files in WinXP?

« on: May 06, 2007, 12:35 AM »

Wht not try MetaChanger:
http://www.tilti.com...php?id=2_metachanger

186

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« on: February 23, 2007, 05:53 AM »

1. Fast and reposnsive. I'm working with over 10k pictures

-MrCrispy (February 19, 2007, 12:20 AM)

Me too, close to 10k picture

All I want from an image organizer is -

1. Fast and reposnsive. I'm working with over 10k pictures
2. Ability to select a folder in the tree view and see all pics in that and its subfolders
3. Tagging support for XMP and IPTC. Import and export
4. A proper way to organize/filter views based on tags
5. File monitoring for new folders/pics
6. A nice UI with support for multiple zoom levels

-MrCrispy (February 19, 2007, 12:20 AM)

And I use AcdSee 8. I have tried ver 9, and have found that it supports IPTC.
Except for XMP support (which I am not sure), I think the rest of your 1 to 6 requirements are already there in ACDSee 9.

To be fair to ACDSee, I think it is excellent in term of flexibility and speed (with some minor stability problem), from early ver of ACDSee to ver 8 this program is being geared towards an image organizer rather than a super-speed image viewer.

However, IMHO, I doubt how much better the future of this program can be:
Technically:
1) It is ridiculous that a database centric image organizer fails to provide a smooth path for user to transfer its database from ver to ver (and they are not new in this business). I can imagine the kind of FEAR of those non-technical-literate users in loosing their image database when doing upgrade.
2) The program is not unicode ready. This means under WinXP you can have only 2 diff languages supported (i.e. the native language of your Windows XP, the other one via non-unicode language setting)
3) In spite of frequent request of many users for a support of "NOT" in Boolean expression (when doing search or filter) the author simply ignore that eager and crucial feature. Longtime/experience users might know to play trick with its combination of "Selective browser" and "Uncategoried" category to archive some "NOT" expression, but it is not straight forward and thus is slow and inconvenient.
4) Newer ver make user like me feel that they are changing direction again. They now want to gear towards image editor direction (from an image organizer).

Marketing:
I don't know how many have the same feel as mine, a recent example, the company's claim of a "new" version 9 is rather insincere. I mean that ver is simply a minor upgrade/update (from user's perspective) especially in term of organizing images.
I personally have seen the down of many software applications when they start practising this kind of marketting strategy, especially when there are many competitors in the same field...
The more you play trick to squeeze money (from supporting users), the more users you are going to lost and normally that situation will quickly go into a deteriorate cycle... My advise to their marketting group is to revise their marketting strategy seriuosly before it is too late!
um... I am glad to see more competitors come into the field... IDImager ... ExifPro ... eheheh...good news!

187

General Software Discussion / Re: MOVAVI,avoid this company like the plague

« on: February 01, 2007, 08:45 PM »

Please share my condolence:

From me on 21 May 2006
------------------------
I have just bought 2 product licenses from you on 19 April
2006 (last month):

1.TMPGEnc MPEG Editor ver 1.3.2.98
2.TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress

Now less than 1 month from my purchase, you have TMPGEnc
MPEG Editor 2.0 up, am I entitle to a free update from
TMPGEnc MPEG Editor 1 to 2?

The support answer on 24 May 2006
-----------------------------------
Hello Lim,

Thank you for your email.  Unfortunately, there are no free updates from
TMPGEnc MPEG Editor.  It is quite unfortunate about the timing, although we
had made an announcement that MPEG Editor 2.0 was coming.  There is a user
discount for all of our existing users which you can utilize.
We apologize for this inconvenience.

Thank you once again for your email, and please feel free to contact us
again if you have any additional questions.


TMPG Inc.
 (Kenny S.)
 Support Section


Note:
-----
After I receive the reply, I revisit thier site and notice the "announcement that MPEG Editor 2.0 was coming", though I don't recall seeing that at the time I try to purchase.

My reply
--------
It is not just a matter of unfortunate timing, as a customer, I am badly
impressed by your practice.

I have purchased lot of software online and I know the common practice of
how software vendor gives free upgrade/update to registered user. Yours is
the worst I ever come across!

I am really regret that I bought your products (what the f...k, I even buy 2
products in 1 day), I should have gone for VideoRedo Plus!

You are losing me as a potential customer for your other products or future
upgrades, I suggest you forward my request to someone (if any) who has the
authority to reconsider my request.

With anger,
tslim


Note:
-----
I spent USD 86.00 for the 2 products and only get 1 time free minor update from 1 of the product, that ends my free upgrade period.

I couldn't help but really want to trash this TMPGEnc company as hard as I can...

188

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodness! Is there NO Win utility to do "DIR /S/B C:\ZZZ\*.JPG > RESULT.TXT"?

« on: January 08, 2007, 11:23 AM »

Thank you to all who are trying to help!

If you read the "subject" of my initial post, you should realize that I already got what I want with the "DIR" in a DOSBOX (of course)

I started the thread just to express my feel of missing power in today's O/S (when task orientated matters are involved)

In the DOS day, things like DIR and RENAME are very easy and to get their function extended, one just need to add few more parameters. They are just commands of the DOS (not even a stand-alone utility). But look at Windows utility nowaday, we need a "Multi-Rename" tool just to "rename" easily... If it is not through Rjbull's recommendation (the LS) I don't even know where to get a Windows utility that can do the DIR thing (as in the title).

I am not saying the trick played by D.Opus and xPlorer2 are bad one, they are simply shell to DOS function and is DOS dependent. In a way, new guys who are born after the DOS day, do you want them to learn DOS again just to be able to do the DIR thing?

189

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodness! Is there NO Win utility to do "DIR /S/B C:\ZZZ\*.JPG > RESULT.TXT"?

« on: January 07, 2007, 09:15 AM »

In this case, I won't want to go back DOS unless I have no choice!

Ordinary DOS can't see NTFS drive (yes I am aware of NTFSdos, which allow so), does not handle long file name (again I am aware of DOS way to make it does), can't see drive bigger than 2 Gig and so on and so....

Even though DOS is still better (than Windows) way to go when you want to do something "task orientated" rather than "object orientated" (like my case), but most of us have given DOS up many years ago and now we have problem doing something which was nothing in the old DOS day.

190

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodness! Is there NO Win utility to do "DIR /S/B C:\ZZZ\*.JPG > RESULT.TXT"?

« on: January 07, 2007, 12:27 AM »

How nice if LS lets user add a phase at the beginning or append a phase to end of every item it outputs.
I believe there could be a TC plugin for what I want to do, but isn't it a main feature that should be IN the TC program itself rather than an optional plugin?

191

General Software Discussion / Re: Goodness! Is there NO Win utility to do "DIR /S/B C:\ZZZ\*.JPG > RESULT.TXT"?

« on: January 05, 2007, 02:32 PM »

Hi Veign,

Thanks for the seeker link!

I just find out D.Opus actually can do what I want. After the search result is up, from the menu Edit->Copy Filenames->As full pathname (to the clipboard) then paste to notepad and save as a txt file.

I don't understand why the above is designed in that way? Why can't it simply offer a way to save search result to file in the "find panel" 's user interface or something like from right-click menu?

192

General Software Discussion / Goodness! Is there NO Win utility to do "DIR /S/B C:\ZZZ\*.JPG > RESULT.TXT"?

« on: January 05, 2007, 12:03 AM »

What I want is just the "search result" on a folder-tree for certain type of files be printed (path+file or full filespec) to a text file! That simple!

WinXP's search can't be printed; I try (but never study in depth) and find that Total commander, xPlorer2 and D.Opus all just can't do exactly what I want????

I have to do it the DOS way, ah! ha! ha! ha!

t.s.lim

193

General Software Discussion / Is there utility to obtain optimal cluster size

« on: December 11, 2006, 02:23 AM »

Hi greating to everybody,

I have a 250GB SATA hard disk (full of data files but no O/S on it) under FAT32 format.
I am replacing it with a 400GB hard disk and is going to use NTFS, and yes I know the pros and cons of having bigger or smaller size cluster when formatting a hard disk... but I would like to be more serious this time, is there any utility/software which helps one to determine the best/optimal cluster size to use by analysing existing files on a hard disk? 

194

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander 7.00 public beta 1 is available

« on: November 04, 2006, 10:02 PM »

> - Sort by additional columns, e.g. by size, then by date/time: Ctrl+click on additional columns

I wonder whether this new ver sort subfolders.
I remember my previous test on TC 6.xx, when I click on [Date] column, only files are sorted by date, the subfolders are not.

195

General Software Discussion / Re: NOD32 update - does auto update work?

« on: October 18, 2006, 12:33 AM »

How is your Type of Update configured?

My setup:

Virus databases:            automatic
Program components:    automatic

Perform program component upgrade if available
Offer computer restart if necessary

-Cloq (October 17, 2006, 07:51 PM)

Mine is
Virus databases:            automatic
Program components:    offer

Btw,
I check again and can't find record for automatic Program components update from the event log of NOD32...
I am sorry for rushing into conclusion that automatic update is working, I think I have manually updated it in mid April 2006.

196

General Software Discussion / Re: NOD32 update - does auto update work?

« on: October 17, 2006, 04:18 PM »

Just check mine, automatic update is working, I have ver 2.51.26

197

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP Myths

« on: October 15, 2006, 10:35 PM »

I am a lazy man who prefers staying at home (as much as possible) than travelling around (especially by driving on my own) and I take very little care of my car (I can't recall when was the last time I wash it). I always describe my car as: "All components are either malfunction or not in the right shape except for those mandatory/must have parts which make my car moves"

The othe day, I send my little poor car for repair because of a major part problem, guess what, the 50 years old (I guess) mechanic throws at me (in bad tone) words like "I can't believe it, your car is in such a sh-t condition, the xxxx is gone, your yyyy is so bad and ..." And this is before he start repairing my car (i.e. he might loss me as a customer and make no money) But I just smile in response to his "father teaches son" style of comment (and I pay as much as he claimed after the car is repaired), the reasons are simple:

1) He is a car mechanic - a good one, I suppose, because he love my car more than my money...
I believe the better a mechanic the more he/she loves to see a car in good shape, though he/she might express his/her techinical love badly!

2) If I get angry with him, dispute with him, I am quite sure at the end he will make no money from me but what is next?
I will have to drive miles further (which I don't think I will want to) to get another mechanic who really understands what is "Customer is always right" . Anyway, I normally will need to pay more to this kind of mechanic for the same service.

I am not saying someone is like the old mechanic nor hinting that he is as old as 50, I just feel his eagerness to get things techinically right is as great as the old mechanic and he expresses it as bad as the old mechanic.
Also, I don't mean to urge the party who argue with him to instead smile to him like what I do to the old mechanic, I only wish to point out that there is no gain in a moody argue.[link from boingboing]

198

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP Myths

« on: October 13, 2006, 11:07 PM »

Win95 is good
Win98 is better
WinMe is even better
Win2000 is close to the best
and
WinXp is the best
Because they are all from MS, they are perfect!
When MS come up with service patches for any of the above, they are all mean to correct bugs or problems in hardware drivers from the hardware manufacturers, it is their fault not MS's
If you  get BSOD, blame the hardware manufacturer like Acer, NVidia, Intel and so on or at least blame yourself for not understanding what the message on a BSOD is trying to tell you...
Technically, let's say you get N BSOD on WinXX using machine A and M BSOD from WinYY using machine B, you may take A and B as factors which contribute to N and M but please DO NOT take XX or YY into account, they are suppose to be exempted.

In brief, the whole world can be wrong except MS, especially when O/S is concerned!
If you don't agree with me for the above, the fault could only be yours not mine.

I am sorry for wasting anyone's time to read till this point...
IMHO, this is the perfect point to close the thread!

199

Living Room / Re: Aghh -- they've done it again ... avoid Agnitum Outpost 4 (at least for now)

« on: October 11, 2006, 10:24 AM »

Can someone recommend a good and stable version 3.x of Agnitum?

And maybe a link to the installer too since I can only find the current version on Agnitum webpage.

-Black Mamba (October 05, 2006, 04:24 AM)

A little late on the response but a response none the less.

http://www.oldversio...am.php?n=outfirewall

-tinyvillager (October 11, 2006, 06:22 AM)

I am using "Outpost Firewall Pro ver. 3.0.557.5918 (437)"
It is the last ver which allows change to preset.lst and is stable (at least for me)

Due to the encryption of preset.lst, for Ver 3.5xxx, ***"disabling DNS client service to prevent unauthorized applications from calling home" is impractical if not impossible.

I am lucky that I hold a lifetime license of outpost pro, i.e. I can afford a long wait.  Agnitum's Outpost Pro ver 3.5xx is no other than a big letdown simply because I can't compromise the *** for any new feature they have added.

And now I heard about ver 4 which brings the *** back (in a new way), but my past experience tells me, DO NOT install a new ver of Agnitum Outpost Pro unless it is a release (shortly after a long-waited one) for patching purpose. I have fallen victim twice in the past for Agnitum's flawed installation set, they both took me days to rebuild the firewall's settings from scratch...
Trust me, Agnitum either has no QA department or their QA team has zero knowledge in one crucial area - how to prepare a working installation set of their firewall - especially one which can properly upgrade old version for existing users.

The fundamental conditions to be a happy user of Outpost Pro are:
1) Avoid installing a major version (a long-waited one)
2) Forget totally about Outpost Pro's online "Automatic update", never ever put in any hope that it will work.

200

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows XP Myths

« on: October 10, 2006, 10:32 PM »

so in summary...

the hosts file is used for blocking domains you want no contact with, ever

firewall to block ip's you want no contact with, ever

and zones for sites & ip's you want contact with, but you want them to be broken.

-app103 (July 16, 2006, 11:26 AM)

I think using Host file to prevent threats is not a good idea, here is how I feel, to help avoiding car accident:
Driving slower and carefully is one of the good/right measure, but
"Don't ever drive in these or those blacklisted areas at all" and "keep adding this and that area into the blacklist" is not.
To me, the trouble of avoiding threats using the latter is as great as cleaning infection... especially if I am the one who maintain the list...

I remember a case where a trojan/worm (but I can't recall its name) infects a PC and writes to the Host file to block most of the popular antivirus sites (Symantec is one of them) which provide cure/cleaner. I am the one who did the cleaning, since then, I rather the Host file is permenantly locked and no change is allowed, ever.