Messages

26

Living Room / Re: Go dark for IE - October 26, 2012

« on: August 21, 2012, 12:51 PM »

I was thinking more about all the poor public schools—at least in our country—that can’t afford anything new and are desperately grateful for some rich bank donating them a couple of PCs freshly recovered from a trash bin. So they are condemned to WinXP, thus IE8, as usually there’s no one capable or willing to install something more “civilized” on all the school machines.

Well, s**t happens on that day, just hundreds of upset children.

In the end, it might be a good lesson for the pupils. At least they would see for themselves that Internet is the same as the real society—full of hatred, bigots, and freaks of all kind. Definitely not the intended outcome, but if that helps them to get more careful in cyberspace, then well done.

27

General Software Discussion / Re: Ripping My DVD Collection

« on: July 29, 2012, 01:17 AM »

If you want a plain copy (not ISO, just the plain file structure) and without any recoding/transcoding, you can use the good old DVD Shrink. It removes the encryption and UOP as well. Re-authoring is also possible (extracting just the main movie).

28

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Progress Bars re-visited.

« on: July 14, 2012, 12:36 AM »

PixelWindow might help here. Free, quite simple and useful.

29

General Software Discussion / Re: Checking Bad sector in HDD and ExtHDD

« on: June 26, 2012, 07:08 AM »

No offence, but I think it is very inappropriate to advocate the idea that HDD with bad sectors (or clusters) can still be healed ... by whatever program, you named it.

-tslim (June 25, 2012, 11:58 AM)

It's quite easy to condemn a program you apparently never tried. Never mind, I'm not connected to its author, and—sorry to say—I'm still using it in the demo mode. Okay, don't use it, don't believe me. I just wanted to share my experience. I simply cannot afford to purchase a new HD at the very first symptom of its failing—and even the best ones do fail. All my critical data are well backed-up regularly, and I'm repairing failing disks when necessary. Also, it's not a bad practice to refresh the slow sectors from time to time, even on a healthy drive. This approach saves me from this sort of problems for years now. Hope that helps someone else as well.

Of course, a dropped drive is something different, and I'd trash it as well after recovering the data, if possible.

30

General Software Discussion / Re: Checking Bad sector in HDD and ExtHDD

« on: June 21, 2012, 12:20 PM »

DRevitalize works on a physical level, so now you don't have any bad physical sectors, but there still might be some logical sectors marked as bad. There are some utilities for it, somebody here will for sure know. Unfortunately DRevitalize should have been run first, I'm afraid that the previous attempts to recover the data destroyed them for good. At least you now have healthy drive... Also pay attention to the Slow sectors and try to refresh them (read the tutorial first), they might be symptoms of sectors that are going to fail soon or later. On the other hand, under Windows you never know if this is not caused by the system being busy during the test. For a serious work it's better to run the DRevitalize for DOS, or boot another system, like BartPE and run DRevitalize for Windows from there. This is the must for the system disk.

31

General Software Discussion / Re: Checking Bad sector in HDD and ExtHDD

« on: June 20, 2012, 10:11 PM »

I had repeatedly excellent experiences with the DRevitalize. I successfully managed to recover several HDs that were already trashed, and they still serve well since then. This all without any data loss. After using those undelete programs it's probably too late, though. Anyway, you can try it, even the demo works well (you just have to wait a bit).

32

Living Room / Re: Ads in Skype

« on: June 18, 2012, 12:36 AM »

Maybe it's time to switch to ooVoo. Didn't try it by myself, but some of my friends are quite happy with it. So far free (with 12-way video chat, instant messaging & more)—until some other giant buys them as well...

Any experiences here?

33

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Compare locations and remove duplicate folders

« on: June 11, 2012, 01:16 PM »

Autechre folders are different in "A" and "B", the subfolders are different (Amber vs Anti EP). So imagine if theses "Autechre" were marked as duplicates, they would be removed in "B", no matter if the subfolders are different.
This is why I say folders without files shouldn't be compared.

-dikiz (June 11, 2012, 04:26 AM)

Oh, I see. I didn't notice the difference. I'm afraid this is not possible in ZTree, because in the above described case you compare the names of directories only, regardless of theirs contents. I though that's what you wanted. If you need to compare the complete subdirectories structure, it would require a recursive approach, or whatnot. Or just one level would be enough? However, there are other comparing options in ZTree, try them out.

34

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Compare locations and remove duplicate folders

« on: June 11, 2012, 02:13 AM »

Thanks
Well it is actually a good thing for me if this program doesn't compare a folder without files, but it should if it contains subfolders.

-dikiz (June 10, 2012, 03:20 PM)

Exactly. In essence this is what I reported to the author.

In the example above, "Autechre" should not be considered as a duplicate (no files inside, only folders)
Do you think it is possible to acheive this with Ztree?

-dikiz (June 10, 2012, 03:20 PM)

I don't get it here. In my opinion both the "Autechre" folders are duplicates, according to theirs names, aren't they? They even contain the exactly same subfolders. Anyway, for the time being you can experiment with ZTW with a workaround by putting one small file into each empty "Autechre" folder.

There's also FreeCommanderXE, (which looks better IMHO ):

-4wd (June 11, 2012, 12:10 AM)

Never heard of it, looks interesting. Not that I'm going to even try, though. ZTree is addictive. It's not an eye candy application, it's targeted on keyboard maniacs like myself, who prefer productivity and speed. I bet nothing can beat it in this regard.

35

General Software Discussion / Re: Popup Translator Shootout?

« on: June 10, 2012, 03:09 PM »

Sure, I know. I've just found funny that something named Google Translate uses solely Microsoft Translator.

QTranslate apparently parses the—so far still free—web interface of Google Translate instead of its API.

36

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Compare locations and remove duplicate folders

« on: June 10, 2012, 03:02 PM »

First, you're right, there's a problem with directories with no files in them—I've just reported this to author.

Second, to compare the directories, you have to sWitch to Directory mode (press W, and on one side is enough), because you don't want to work with files, but directories only. Then press Enter to display the contents. Then Alt-F4 for compare, then Enter, and key "I" repeatedly until you reach "tag: Identical (name )". That should do, provided the relative roots contain any files. This for sure will be fixed soon, the author is very active in fixing problems.

37

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Compare locations and remove duplicate folders

« on: June 10, 2012, 11:06 AM »

ZTreeWin can do this regardless of the folder contents, it can compare only the folder names. You'll need some of the beta version though (the new final release will be available soon), which work with the directories.

Here you can see the results after the comparison. The blue lines means that the folders are "tagged", so you can do any global operation with them, like deleting, moving, or renaming.



If you're interested and need more info, let me know.

38

General Software Discussion / Re: Popup Translator Shootout?

« on: June 10, 2012, 08:54 AM »

Wow, that's funny: I just had a look at the Client for Google Translate, and it currently offers a free version that supports only "translation from Microsoft Translator". Nice, isn't it?

Anyway, QTranslate's capability to quickly switch between different services, along with the back translation window seems to be unbeatable at the moment. Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on the language pair. I'm using Portuguese/English, and Google is usually a bit better than Microsoft, but not always. Also the Prompt service gives sometimes valuable results (and sometimes a complete nonsense).

39

General Software Discussion / Re: Popup Translator Shootout?

« on: June 10, 2012, 12:43 AM »

The QTranslate is a fantastic tool. Thanks for heads-up. I especially appreciate the instant "Back translation" feature, it's very useful to make sure the machine "got" your sentence right.

There's also a new version available (3.5.0).

40

Living Room / Re: Keyboard keys 'stuck' (software???)

« on: May 13, 2012, 01:47 PM »

Don't you happen to use TapTap Hotkey Extender? It sometimes causes exactly this behavior.

41

General Software Discussion / Re: yet another file manager thread...

« on: April 09, 2012, 12:29 PM »

I can't imagine working without my beloved ZTreeWin. If you're keyboard freak like me, I bet nothing can beat it regarding the speed and effectiveness of work. I'm bringing it everywhere with me on a flash disk.

The new upcoming version (at the moment in beta), includes mode for bulk managing directories. Definitely worth trying!

42

Living Room / Re: Main hard drive in my PC died today suddenly

« on: February 04, 2012, 11:37 AM »

Regarding recovery: I had a very good experience with the DRevitalize utility, even in the demo mode (it just takes more time). Also, searching and refreshing the "slow sectors" helped me to recover several failing HDs, keeping the data intact, and they are still in a good shape. The HD must be of course recognized by the system as a disk unit, despite it might not be accessible. It worked even on some cases when the HD just made the clicking sound and nothing could be read.

Regarding full system backup: I ceased to make any more since on my two PCs the motherboard died. The full system was of obviously of no use. Backing up just the data is much easier (using Dropbox at the moment).

43

Unfinished Requests / Re: idea: time between two time & dates

« on: January 20, 2012, 04:19 AM »

Strange, nobody mentioned 1-4a Datestat (but it doesn't work with time, just dates):

By the way, this screenshot shows that mouser registered on DonationCoder forum 2503 days ago...

44

General Software Discussion / Re: Nasty NTFS issue ?

« on: January 15, 2012, 06:42 AM »

Regarding Sophos: They require to enter my phone number to download. This was enough for me to stop entering any more details. However, I've already entered my mail, and name on a previous page form, but that was not enough for them. I don't know why they need my phone number. Collecting data, perhaps? What else?

So, if you're sensitive about your private details, don't even start filling up the form.

45

General Software Discussion / Re: Nasty NTFS issue ?

« on: January 14, 2012, 12:56 AM »

Recently I stumbled upon a couple of discussions about similar strange problems, and they suggested to perform thorough tests on rootkits. Also fixing MBR might help.

An easy step could be reinstalling the MS Office. If it keeps crashing then some rootkit or serious system damage is likely the cause.

46

Finished Programs / Re: SOLVED: Copy Text From Error Windows

« on: January 13, 2012, 12:20 PM »

... would it help to make a screenshot and paste it into Evernote or maybe OneNote? Can these apps OCR such a screenshot well enough? (It's probably faster to just type the text yourself most of the time anyway.)

-tranglos (January 12, 2012, 04:18 PM)

As for Evernote—you can't. It does some OCR, but only for the sake of searching, because it's rather ambiguous. You can't get the text back to copy it, or so.

47

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Copy Text From Error Windows

« on: January 12, 2012, 01:39 PM »

It seems just a few people know this quite old trick. It's not very logical, you wouldn't expect the copy shortcut to work on these dialogs. I'm glad I could help a bit. The MS Office 2003 is a lost case in this situation. Why would Microsoft use the standard Microsoft Windows dialogs...? 

48

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Copy Text From Error Windows

« on: January 12, 2012, 11:20 AM »

On applications using standard Windows dialogs you can just press Ctrl-C and you get for example:

[Select]

---------------------------
Notepad2
---------------------------
Save changes to "Untitled"?
---------------------------
Yes   No   Cancel   
---------------------------

This doesn't work with MS Office 2003, though, which is probably your case. On MS Office 2007 it works fine.

49

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera: The web browser I have been dying to love

« on: January 01, 2012, 05:39 AM »

I'm using Opera since version 3, with a short digression to Chrome, but now I'm safely back.

Auto-complete is an area that I have always felt opera has been lacking in.

-Josh (December 28, 2011, 07:28 PM)

I'd probably leave Opera for good without the AutoComplete extension.

50

General Software Discussion / Re: Question about extra-large JPG

« on: December 26, 2011, 01:00 PM »

Definitely this is a result of the recovery, or possibly the camera might be faulty as well. Looking into binary contents of the large file revealed many times repeated string "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT". If this is the camera model then it looks like a part of firmware, which should not appear on the memory card, in my humble opinion. Fortunately all the viewers/editors I tried were able to dig through this pile of debris and get the valid data. The last file (0065.JPG) is overwritten with this kind of garbage completely, so there's probably nothing to restore.