Messages

76

General Software Discussion / Re: Why doesn't Explorer have an interface for creating hard links?

« on: September 30, 2009, 05:05 AM »

The explanation is not satisfactory. There is plenty of unintuitive stuff crammed into explorer, and junction points are used liberally within Windows. It would be trivial to add say a column in details view (along with the 100's already in there) which is not present by default but can be added by the user. Backup programs use the Windows API and can do whatever they want, it has nothing to do with the shell. This is in fact an excellent reason why so many programs in Windows don't make use of the features in the platform - because the shell is crippled.

77

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you touch-type or hunt-and-peck?

« on: September 25, 2009, 02:53 AM »

We were never taught to type where I grew up. So I'm a hunt and peck typist, but years of programming have made me pretty quick :-)

78

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox - new window - can you remember the google search you opened with

« on: September 25, 2009, 02:50 AM »

Get the TabHistory addon. I usually do a search and then open the result in a new tab. With this addon each new tab/window preserves the history so you can go back and see what you did.

79

General Software Discussion / Re: video player software.

« on: September 25, 2009, 02:47 AM »

On the topic of KMPlayer, there haven't been any new versions since it was sold to Pandora.tv. The developer has since moved on and is now writing something called PotPlayer, which is supposed to have even more options. Unfortunately since he is not an english speaker there is no english version, but you can find rough translations if you do a search.

KMPlayer continues to amaze me to this day, that guy deserves a lot of money and respect!

80

General Software Discussion / Re: Program Whose Time Has Come: virtual folders, collections, file baskets...

« on: July 30, 2009, 01:28 AM »

Great ideas and great post. I've said this before, WinFS was supposed to accomplish much of this, esp the part about having having a database backed file store, rich metadata and programmatic access to it. Its a real pity MS decided to scrap it.

I think this could be done more efficiently by writing a file system driver which would hook into NTFS as well as a windows service that would work at organising tags, collections etc in the background. Obviously this is not a trivial task and I'm guessing it would need OS integration to really work well.

81

General Software Discussion / Re: bookTome the book organiser

« on: July 14, 2009, 12:34 AM »

I'm interested why you'd not use an online service like Goodreads?

-Perry Mowbray (July 13, 2009, 04:05 AM)

Thank you for that suggestion, I love to read and that's a great site.

82

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 27, 2009, 11:08 PM »

I'm sorry, I should have read the on demand report as well. Now OneCare doesn't look so good after all. I myself don't use it anymore (switched to Avira) but it was simple to use and had integrated backup etc.

From the remove-malware.com review, MSE does seem to handle the latest threats very well, so it looks like a good start.

83

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« on: June 26, 2009, 04:44 PM »

I made a collection (using the Add-on Collector which is great) here -
https://addons.mozil...0d-64d0-0911e73407cd

84

General Software Discussion / Re: Is it time to start a new AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite review thread?

« on: June 26, 2009, 04:39 PM »

I'm going to be watching this new AV from Microsoft with keen interest. Their last AV product didn't have a stellar record with its detection rate, but I'm hoping they got their act together this time so I have one more free option to recommend to people who are reluctant/unable to pay for an AV program.

-Innuendo (June 24, 2009, 08:35 AM)

This is not true. Defender and OneCare, when they started out didn't match the detection rates of the big guys, but have improved a LOT.

According to the latest AV-comparitives report, which you can read here (http://www.av-compar...ret/avc_report22.pdf), OneCare got their highest award and performed better than Symantec and McAfee.

The engine in MSE is better than OneCare's as it also does dynamic updates, at this point I would trust it more than any product except maybe Avira.

85

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best TV Show Renamer Around (afaik):theRenamer

« on: June 05, 2009, 01:00 AM »

This is awesome! And to think I spent hours doing this by hand in other renamers.

86

General Software Discussion / Re: you tube downloader for a non techie

« on: June 01, 2009, 11:34 PM »

Is there any software/website that will let me download all the videos uploaded by a user, or saved playlists. Youtube has been deleting a lot of content lately (mostly due to policing by networks) and I'd like to save my favorites.

87

General Software Discussion / Re: Would you recommend friends to use XP or Vista?

« on: May 10, 2009, 06:08 PM »

I don't recommend XP unless they are running really low end hardware. For everyone else, its either Win 7 RC or Vista. Win 7 is a much better OS, but in some cases there may be incompatibilities etc. Vista/Win7 are much safer than XP, have more functionality and support more devices. What's not to like?

88

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« on: April 27, 2009, 04:08 PM »

Well, as you know Vista was supposed to use .NET for the shell and all apps. Until they realized they couldn't get it done, performance was too slow, and we got the infamous Longhorn reset which also got rid of a lot of cool features.

You probably also know of Singulariy (kernel) and Midori (OS built on top of it) which are written in managed code. Singulariy is MSR and Midori is in active development. Who knows if one day they will replace Windows, but this statement -"it's not like they're going to rewrite the kernel for dotNET anytime soon, and I bet the framework ultimately ends up calling win32 and not the NT native API" is certainly not going to be true for long

IMO .NET apps have large memory latency due to the JIT and GC, which is most visible as increased startup times. But runtime performance is almost as good or better than native code.

89

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« on: April 27, 2009, 03:51 PM »

This is a great move which was long overdue. I'm pretty sure managed code is the ultimate goal for Microsoft both in the OS (Midori) as well as for apps. It will take a while to happen, and even if it isn't, this opens the way to modernise the API and not have to support all the legacy cruft in Win32.

Disk space and resources are cheap and virtualization is only going to get better. In fact I would like Windows to support native sandboxing for any app - something like SandboxIE, or Protected Mode for any app, not just IE. It would let you run any app you want virtualized, and flag it as suspicious if it tries to cross system boundaries. This would be an awesome feature for both home users and IT.

90

General Software Discussion / Re: Tool for editing mp4 videos

« on: April 23, 2009, 01:47 PM »

I would like something like this too - a program that can handle h.264 (mp4, mov as well as containers like mkv), has simple NLE editing (trim, cut, copy, timeline) and does no transcoding if its not required.

91

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« on: April 06, 2009, 03:41 PM »

I replaced Roboform (which I bought 2 licenses for) with Lastpass on all my pc's. It easily imported all my Roboform data and works just as well. The synchronization and being free are 2 big reasons I recommend it over Roboform now.

92

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite Firefox Theme(s)

« on: March 31, 2009, 03:44 PM »

NASA Night Launch!!

There can be no other.

93

General Software Discussion / Re: When was your last BSOD? I'm betting it was a long time ago

« on: March 31, 2009, 03:41 PM »

Last night! To be fair it was while trying to install Windows (Windows home server, based on Server 2003) on a new pc I built, and it was due to missing SATA drivers, but it still counts. And I wish Windows had a better bootloader than the prehistoric ntldr that only understands how to load drivers from a floppy that my pc doesn't have, and I didn't have to try and build a slipstream dvd now.

Ok end of rant 

And I've never had a BSOD in more than a year of running Vista, and now Windows 7, on my dekstop and laptop.

94

General Software Discussion / A fantastic new Windows 7 feature

« on: March 21, 2009, 02:40 AM »

http://www.winsupers...7/ff_pcsafeguard.asp

Short summary - Windows SteadyState is now a feature of user accounts, and can be used to prevent a 'Guest Mode' account from making any permanent changes/damage to the system.

This is a cool and useful feature, I can already imagine it being useful for some of my friends and family members who manage to keep infecting their pc's. I would set it up so that programs that need to write data can do so to an unlocked drive, and the system drive remains clean. For many users its more harmful to give them the ability to install any random crap they want.

95

General Software Discussion / Re: Official players - What is the big deal?

« on: March 16, 2009, 08:28 PM »

Shark codec pack (shark007.net) + KmPlayer is all you need for every possible type of media.

There are other solutions (MPC-hc, VLC, Gomplayer, good old WMP), as well as manually installing codecs (ffdshow + QT and Real alternative is all you need in 99% of the cases), but none are as easy to use and no player approaches the beautiful UI and extreme customizability of Kmplayer!

96

General Software Discussion / Re: Has anyone had experience buying from www.buy.com ? Is it reliable ?

« on: March 14, 2009, 03:42 AM »

I have bought from buy.com many times without any problems. You have to be careful, on the checkout pages they sometimes have offers you can signup for, but I don't think any are selected by default.

They do have good prices from time to time and good shipping.

97

General Software Discussion / Re: VMWare Workstation 6 released today!!

« on: March 03, 2009, 03:12 PM »

How is the performance of the latest VMWare vs VirtualBox? I use VB for a few test VM's and found it the simplest to setup and fastest.

98

General Software Discussion / Re: WDS and huge index files?

« on: February 26, 2009, 09:59 PM »

You could limit the WDS search to just the OneNote files (limiting it by file type or by folder location) and then have the best of both worlds. On one of my old pc's I have WDS set to only search the start menu.

99

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for simple backup software

« on: January 28, 2009, 09:56 PM »

This is going to be for a laptop for my parents who I don't get to see that often. I'm setting them up with a laptop and an external hard disk and a backup routine that will keep their data on 2 pc's safe. Image backups are probably too much.

I will look at NH, syncback (didn't know it can backup when a device is connected) and the others. Thanks.

100

General Software Discussion / Looking for simple backup software

« on: January 26, 2009, 07:19 PM »

I've read many articles/threads on backup/imaging but still haven't found something that is simpe enough for a novice yet powerful. What I'm looking for -

1. define backup profile like backup a certain folder/drive
2. detect external drives based on their unique serial numbers, not drive letter
3. automatically run the backup when the external drive is connected
4. be able to monitor the backup location for changes
5. keep multiple revisions
6. keep backup files in a native format, so I can use the backup drive anywhere
7. be integrated into explorer, like previous versions. So I can right click on a file/folder and say, show me the last 2 revisions

Many programs do 1,4,5 but I haven't seen anything which combines all the above.