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You are welcome.  A new version of PerfectMenu has just been release (3.5). I can't see any obvious changes from 3.0.1 but there do seem to be few bugs that weren't in the earlier version (right clicking on files in Explorer e.g. brings up the usual context window OK but the PerfectMenu addons for some reason only appear on alterate menus ??? Strange bug).

There is onle bug that has survived through both versions which is to do with generating keystrokes. In theory you should be able to use sequences like <alt><numpad0><numpad2><numpad3><numpad3><alt> to generate accented characters but it doesn't work. I have reported the problem and  got pretty quick feedback acknowledging the problem and promising a fix in the next release. (In the mean time you can use Paste Text to work around this).

Should I be embarrassed that I've never heard of PentaZIP?

Of course you should  (welcome back)

Having said that who would pay $100 for a zip utility ???

Not surprising no one has heard of it at that price ...

carol was threatening to review msn desktop search but i think she's gone a-dancing tonight

Was I - news to me (MSN by the way).

Unfortunately dancing was out - the concert (http://www.joanarmatrading.com/) was excellent but the seating was really uncomfortable. I couldn't actually sit straight in m seat because the balcony wall was too close in front of me. Poor chap next to me was even more uncomfy as his legs were too long even sitting at an angle!

If you want to see her she still has quite a few UK dates and Belgium (!!!) (unfortunately the US and Canada dates were last month).

Good concert - for any fans out there she has a new DVD appearing on October 17th (2 DVDs plus a CD). In the UK it is £12.99 from www.play.com

A lot of people don't see ads as they use popup blockers and web page 'washers'. These have got quite effective now so I really don't see many ads these days!

Now sometimes getting:

Connection Problems
Sorry, SMF was unable to connect to the database. This may be caused by the server being busy. Please try again later.

Were you fiddling with the server?

where are the popadums ...


Have a good weekend everyone I am just off to see Joan Armatrading in Concert  - gotta get me glad rags on ... and get ready to boogy ...

How about an auction ?

I have found it consistently quite slow for the last few days. Whatever link I click on the Firefox status bar always says "Wating for ..." for a good few seconds. Pages load quite quickly when they load but there is always a protracted pause before it starts to load. Sometimes posting times out altogether.

How about one or two utilities that are only availble to people who promote DonationCoder.com in some way (website logo/link or wrting a review on one of the well known mirroring services etc.). Or possibly one of the giveaways based on some sort of user promotional effort.

As for user comments - you could have general 'Wow this is a great site' - type quotes on your home page, and a few user repsonses to individual progams on their own homepage ??

The word sieve springs to mind with IE 5 !!

Ah - I started blank and it is learning the sort of rubbish I type as it goes along ... I find that kind of neat, and almost entertaining seeing it try to guess what I am likely to type next ;-)

I am quite impressed at how quickly it seems to learn my habits

Bummer though if is going to slow down as it learns more and more, though I suppose when it gets reasonably accurate I can turn off the learn mode.

Having never used this sort of thing before I too would be interested in an efficient alternative (esp. if it had a spell check), but I am not sure I would want to pay a lot of money for it - IntelliComplete looked over priced to me.

you've probably realised by now Carol but you can have the new tabs open up above the current page you are looking at instead of underneath (in Maxthon).

it's the kind of program you need to play around with pretty much every option in the config to get the most use out of.

i know it took me a while to finally get the settings just how i like them.

I guess there is an option to do this somewhere but I haven't spent the time looking. I get really fed up with wading through pages and pages of options - I know it is nice that programs are customisable but life is too short ...

I think someone once said "there must be a better way of choosing options" .... can't imagine who

Offer valid in US only - so what's new ...

Hot cocoa and whisky ... especially when your out camping and its cold (but you can always use your imagination at home).

Recipe:

2 heaped spoons of Cocoa Powder (I love bitter Dark Chocolate taste - use 1 spoon if you like it blander)

A good slug of Scotch (cheap stuff is fine - no point in ruining a good single malt)

Mix to a smooth paste.

Add boiling water stirring all the time

Add milk and sugar to taste ...


Don't blame me when you don't get any work done afterwards ...

Interesting - let us know how you get on with this.

For future reference the only way I have found to embed images in the message body is to upload them to the web somewhere and then insert the image via a URL (there is an image button above the message wrtiting window).

If you haven't got easy access to webspace you could sign up for free space at Yahoo.com (just sign up for a free email account and then go to your user profile and set up a free Geocities account). I don't really like Geocities as a webhosting solution (too many ads on the pages) but as a repository for graphics it is fine

Just make a donation (however much you want) and you will get a key for any of the programs on the site which does not need to be renewed.

The link is at the top of the page "Donate"

DOS command lines, XTree Pro, TSRs, WordStar

Nostalgia .... glazed look ... the good old days 

I really like Maxthon (which I only discovered recently).

There are a few useful things they have hidden from the user (such as the File > Send to desktop link in IE) which are a bit frustrating but it is a much easier to use browser.

One thing I found took some getting used to is the way new windows open in the a new tab, but not in the foreground! It took me ages to realise the page was there -  just had to click on the new tab.

The other things is that not all IE toolbars are picked up. I use Canon Easy WebPrint a lot but Maxthon doesn't see it.

Just make sure you do a custom install and read the options carefully - otherwise you end up with changed home pages, toolars etc. that you don't necessarily want/need.

One further note - if you are still on dialup be prepared for long downloads! I used Audible on dialup to start with and is one of the reasons I got frustrated with Audible Manager as it was (at that time) the only way to download content and 90% of the time refused to automatically resume downloads (although it was supposed to). If you do use Audible Manager with dialup a top tip is to manually pause downloads regularly if you have an ISP that forces time limited cutoffs, and redial before resuming. This seemed to mork most of the time, but some of the files can take forever, many being over 100Mb.

On broadband this issue isn't a problem, but I consistently found Audible Manager using 100% of CPU after starting the program. It seems to run an automatic update when you start the program and this is what caused me the problem - after a while Update.exe exits and then all is fine but it was very annoying. I also found the built in Audible player regularly crashed (maybe it is a codec issue on my system).

With iTunes I don't have any of these issues, and don't lack any of the options. When the books are downloaded by Audible Download you can set it to automatically start iTunes when complete, and the files are automatically added to the iTunes library. The only disadvantage is that downloads have to be initiated from the website - but that really is a minor issue ...

Great .... thanks. DLL Archiver looks like a good reference ...

I downloaded LemMeType and am quite impressed. I have never used software like this before so it is going to take a little getting used to, but it seems to work pretty well, and for a freebie ...

Actually I tried most of them and found MSN to be the least intrusive (surprisingly for MSN) ...

I agree - I use Audible a lot too (insomnia and driving in my case). They have a truly huge range of books (both abridged and unabridged versions) available for instant download, and as a customer from the UK I am pleased that as well as American sourced audio books there are also a lot of UK sourced books which means you can often have a choice of accent. All books are sourced from mainstream audio book suppliers (such as Random House etc.) and so are of consistently good quality, though sometimes the encoding into a downloadable form isn't as consistently good, but I haven't come across anything yet that is so bad as to be unlistenable.

It is frustrating (but not insurmountable) that they use a proprietary format, but most books can be burned to CD so if you want a way to convert to MP3 there is a simple way to do it. There are also tools out there which allow conversion with varying degrees of ease and success!

Best of all at the moment is they have a special offer for members where all books on the website (a huge collection) are priced at $10.95. If you want to join up now is the time to take advantage of this great offer.

If you do join I would recommend using their download software for Apple iTunes. I find this far better than their "Audible Manager" software which I found rather flaky. Of course it means you need iTunes installed - but it is a free download and IMHO better than some of the alternatives out there.