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SnagIt 9 is amazing. It's the only thing I ever use. It's a one-stop shop for screencapping *anything* and then editing the screenshot to suit whatever needs you may have.

My opinion is anyone jumping on this free license and then leveraging that into an upgrade to SnagIt 9 would be making a very good investment.

EDIT: In case anyone is curious. The upgrade pricing is $24.95 to upgrade to the latest v9.xx release which is quite a savings over the non-upgrade price of $49.95.

I noticed that Windows 7 is over 4GB. Bill Gates have mentioned that good operating system doesn't need to be more than 700mb.

Windows 7 is only over 4GB if you add together both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The latest version of Windows 7 I have checked (build 7137 32-bit) is only 2.38 GB on the install disc.

Bill Gates also mentioned that no computer in the world needs more than 640KB of RAM, too. Things change.

I can't help you with the chkdsk /r bug, but with World of Goo make sure you are using the latest version. There was a resolution bug with some of the earlier versions of that game.

Of course, if you are using the latest version then I guess they didn't fully fix the bug.

And I use descript.ion files in totally different ways:

1. I use Newsbin Pro to download things from usenet quite often. One of the options I can set Newsbin to automatically put usenet newsgroup, usenet poster, and/or message subject in the descript.ion file for those files. Sure helps when you have posters uploading zips and rars with totally random filenames. In Total Commander I can just hover over the filename and it tells me in a tooltip all the information that Newsbin Pro associated with that file.

2. I use Internet Download Accelerator as a download manager for downloading files off of FTP and web sites. IDA automatically tags the descript.ion file with the download URL for that file so that if I wonder where I got it I can easily see where I did so I can go back and get a new version or similar files if I liked the one I downloaded but had forgotten where it came from. IDA also allows you to enter descript.ion file contents on each file download and I use it a lot when a zip or rar is being downloaded that has an encrypted password. Nothing worse than having a file sit on your hard drive for six months, you finally need it for something and your archiver prompts for a password that you no longer know and have no idea where to go to get it.

When you set up your computer with multiple programs with descript.ion file support a whole world opens up to you with an entirely new way to attach information to files without having to clutter up and ruin the readability of the file's name.

I have to agree with f0dder in regards to performance. Windows 7 (and Vista for that matter) are definitely snappier than XP on my PC. Everything is very quick to run and screen updates are near-instantaneous and my computer is four years old.

I can only imagine how scorchingly-fast Windows 7 is on an i7, 6GB of RAM, and a video card like an ATI 4870/4890 or an Nvidia GTX 285/295.

Here's a useless/obvious observation...it'd probably be pointless to try to talk Rockstar into giving us a discount on this game based on the review here.  

Being curious: what error?

The error being that he has stated many times in the past that descript.ion files are useless and that he will never add support into his program for them. Am I mistaken that XYplorer still does not support them?

I rely on them far too heavily to move from a file manager that supports them (Total Commander and Directory Opus) to one that doesn't (just about everything else).

I still haven't forgiven ACD Systems from removing descript.ion support in ACDSee.

Useless tidbit of information: It was my "nagging"/"whining" that prompted the DOpus author to move to descript.ion file support when he was originally going to use a proprietary file format.

Nice to see the developer overcome his insane grudge against the dual-pane concept. If only someone could convince him the error of his ways regarding descript.ion files as well his product would become extremely interesting for my uses.

I played a lot of games when I was a kid, but there were two that stick out in my memory that when I got home with the games and loaded them up that was it. I stayed up all night playing them till I got them beat.

Elite on the Commodore 64. Elite is one of those rare games that there were many different versions of the game with many different features. It's a game that has been done for nearly every computer platform in existence & each one of those versions has varying degrees of features. The Commodore 64 version was one of the most feature-packed or the most feature-packed as was revealed in a review I read with the original programmer of the game.

It was one of the largest, most complex games ever. Definitely for its time period and in some ways even today it is unmatched. You started out with a small modest spaceship at a random space station in a galaxy full of hundreds upon hundreds of planets. Each of these planets had its own background and economy. You could decide to haul goods from port to port for trade to make your fortune or take on missions such as escorting ships and tracking down criminals. That's if you wanted to be a good guy. If you wanted to be evil there was plenty of contraband to smuggle from drugs to slaves. Or if you preferred the gimme approach you could just load up your ship for bear and take to piracy on the space lanes blowing up ships and taking their cargo by force.

If you by chance got bored with all those planets or wore out your welcome there you could later buy a hyperdrive and travel to seven other galaxies each with just as many planets as the first one.

You started out with a ranking of Harmless and as your exploits progressed you could become Mostly Harmless, Dangerous, and a bunch of other rankings all the way up to the ultimate ranking of Elite. Once you became (in)famous enough the military comes looking for you and you get the opportunity to do top-secret military missions and get access to military hardware for your ship.

There was even an alien race for you to fight. They'd attack at random times or sometimes your hyperdrive would misfire and you'd land in a nest of them. Destroy them and you'd get alien artifacts to sell and alien gear for your ship.

And finally there was the easter egg. The mother of all enemies. There was a ship from an unknown alien race that was traveling the galaxies that you may or may not ever run into. The cool thing about this ship was it was cloaked. Invisible. Track down that ship, manage to destroy it, and the cloaking device was yours!

I managed to achieve the ranking of Elite which was not easy. You had to literally kill something like 100,000 ships or so to achieve it, but I never did grab that cloaking device.

The second game was Dungeon Master on the Amiga. People who played in on the Atari ST had a similar gaming experience, but the PC version was crap due to limitation in graphics and sound on the PC platform at the time.

There's not as much to say about this game as Elite. Not that it wasn't as good, but it was not as complicated a concept. It was an epic dungeon crawler with state-of-the-art graphics and sound for the time. Take your party of four down 25 (I think that was the number) levels and defeat the Evil Bad Guy at the bottom. Inventive monsters, traps and puzzles made it an instant classic at the time. I replayed it a few times with different party combinations and tactics to make sure I didn't miss any secret areas or items.

Like I said, I played many games, but those are the two that stick in my mind as being instant play-till-dawn obsessions.

Steven, I hope you find what you are looking for. I only threw out Fookes because years ago I used their product Mailbag Assistant to move from one email program to another...it's been so long ago I don't even remember what the program names were.

Sorry I don't have more experience in this area, but I have always been adamantly against using Outlook for email for any reason. Outlook as a program has an unmatched feature list, but the PST file format has always struck me as being one of the most fragile file formats ever created by man. The internet's full of horror stories about PST files and you don't even have to look farther than this very forum to see Carol's trials and tribulations with the troublesome file format.

My emails are very important to me and I always refer to them as the timeline of my life. For me an email program best use a database to store emails for speed and it best provide tools to maintain, repair, check integrity, and compact that database. It's simply amazing how many results a Google search will bring up for a) people screaming for a way to fix their corrupted PST files; and b) products which will supposedly fix all your PST problems...for a small fee. This is something MS should have provided with an easy way to access it from within Outlook. Outlook sounds like a program in desperate need for a new database format.

While Googling for a solution to your problem I did run across this page that gleefully outlines why a person should never use a PST file ever:

http://blog.sembee.co.uk/...rchive/2009/01/26/92.aspx

One interesting tidbit I learned on that page is that Outlook 2003 and above use a new PST file format that is limited to 20 GB...so I guess the person referenced above using a 15 GB PST file still has some wiggle room.

Anway, hope you find what you're looking for.

GTAIV is a sandbox/action/roleplaying game where you take on the roll of Niko Bellic.

Okay, this is my OCD rather than a problem with you personally, but my OCD demands I type this for fear my head will explode: You take on the ROLE of Niko Bellic. Role as in role-playing (which you correctly spelled earlier) and not roll as in a kaiser or other bread product. Again, sorry...my pet peeve urge is strong.

Now, back to your review....I'm not a GTA player and never will be. It's not my kind of game. Give me something like Sacred 2, Fallout 3, any Silent Hill game, etc. and I'd be much happier than if I had to play GTA. My nephew, however, loves the series so I'll be relating his viewpoints regarding gameplay rather than my own.

GTA IV is a pig. Run it on the recommended requirements and it is a pig. Run it on top of the line hardware and while it'll run better, it's still a close relative to a pig. Run it on hardware that is below the recommended requirements for the game like you're doing, you're doomed to feeling like you're trying to push around a 30 pound concrete block around your living room using only your nose.

That's not a slam against you or your hardware. I've bought games before that had minimum hardware recommendations I didn't meet & I was always able to tweak the settings to get something playable out of it. Such is not the case with GTA IV. Optimizing the code in any significant way obviously didn't enter the minds of the Rockstar guys at all.

What's worse is that even if you are willing to put up with the sluggishness you are not left feeling rewarded for your efforts at all. It looks like a GTA game. It sounds like a GTA game. It plays like a GTA game. But it doesn't 'feel' like a GTA game. You're running around feeling like some of the magic is gone or that something you can't put your finger on got left out. However, my nephew has played all the GTA games so maybe he's got a jaded "been there, done that, seen it all" outlook, but I don't think so because he still plays GTA 3 a lot.

And  yes, of all the versions the PC version is the most poorly ported and the poorest performing. However, it's still the version to buy because in a year or two  when you get a new computer it's going to play the game more smoothly. The console versions are locked in time. They are tied to platforms that will never improve so the performance you are getting now is all the performance you will ever see.

Your list of gripes was long. It would have been nice to see a screenshot or two backing up your words.

Windows 7 is not going to beat you over the head with things that scream "OMG! This is so much better!", but there are going to be plenty of times when you will be doing something and little things will pop out at you prompting you to think, "Ooo...nice touch."

Most of your complaints about where the OS stores files were the same with Vista. Some of it has to do with the way 64-bit has been implemented and some has to do with the new UAC security model. However, most of the folders like Documents, Favorites, Desktop, etc. are trivial to move into more backup-friendly locations. There's a Location tab in their folder properties  with most of them and even if not Windows 7 is smart enough to see if you drag and drop those folders to a new location it will use the new location moving forward.

Moving from XP to Windows 7 is going to take some getting used to. I'm not going to say there's a learning curve as it's not that difficult of a transition, but before you make any decisions as to how much you like or dislike the new Windows you should use it for a week or two just to get used to The New Way Of Things.

I have been using Windows 7 a long time...even back before it went into beta plus I came to it from Vista so I've got a different type of user experience than you, but there is no way I could go back to Vista now and working on an XP system makes me feel like I'm dealing with something obsolete and archaic.

Oh, and once you get the hang of configuring and tweaking it, the SuperBar rocks.

My email client is running the entire time my PC is on. It checks each of my accounts once every minute to see if I have any new mail.

I keep telling myself I am exhibiting patience and restraint with that setting seeing as how my email client allows me to set the frequency down to once per second if I so desired.

Yes, I did mention that AntispamSniper was available for other clients, but what I did forget to mention was make sure you stop by the AntispamSniper forum & read one of the new version announcements. At the bottom of each one is a link to some black list rules you can download to import into AntispamSniper to make it even better.

Steven, you may wish to take a look at Aid4Mail from Fookes Software.

http://www.aid4mail.com/overview.php

Fookes Software has been around a long time and while I'm not a customer I have heard very good things about their support.

That was my thinking as well, Mouser. There are just so many options that without screenshots a person not familiar with the program will get lost. I don't think I have ever run across an anti-spam program with so many settings. Bundling some screenshots into collective images was also an idea, but again, I did not want to confuse.

Mouser suggested I email the author of this program and ask for perhaps a discount for DC members and maybe some licenses to give away and his reply was very receptive to the idea so he should be emailing Mouser soon to iron out the details for DC members getting some goodies.

Next review, if there is one, I think I'll tackle a less ambitious product....maybe something with just one setting: on/off.

EDIT: Seems the program author posted while I was writing this. Let's be nice to him, gang. He's truly a talented programmer.

And thank you for the compliment, Vetaltm!

Mouser, thank you for the kind words. If you (or anyone) has any questions regarding features in AntispamSniper For The Bat! I'd be more than happy to explain away any confusion.

f0dder, I agree. The pictures do make the review a bit long. Just no other way was going to show the full breadth of features and options of this program. And yes, I did skimp on some of the option descriptions for fear of the review becoming a techie alphabet soup.

I'll take the constructive criticism to heart, though. This was my first review. Ever. I'll improve in time, I think. I'm surprised I even managed to get the screenshots in the proper order. 

Well, the forum didn't break. 

Here's the (not-so-)mini-review:

http://www.donationcoder....m/index.php?topic=18488.0

Here's hoping I get me a free license. 

[Basic Info]

Basic Info

App Name	AntispamSniper For The Bat!
App URL	http://www.antispamsniper.com
App Version Reviewed	3.2.0.6
Test System Specs	Windows 7
Supported OSes	Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista x86/x64
Support Methods	Forum, Email
Upgrade Policy	Free Lifetime Upgrades
Trial Version Available?	Commercial Version: 30-Day Trial
Pricing Scheme	$19.95 Per License
Relationship btwn. Reviewer and Product	None, other than being a customer

1. Introduction

Once a person starts using the internet sooner or later one will reach out to another person or a company by giving this entity one's email address. There is nothing inherently wrong with this notion. Each of us craves contact with others and having one's email address in the right hands makes our lives easier and more enjoyable. However, invariably, sooner or later disaster is going to strike. Your email address is going to appear in front of someone who does not have your best interests at heart and the spam flood gates are going to be opened targeting your email account with more offers to lower your mortgage payments, correct your erectile dysfunction, and sell you as many fake degrees you need to cover any amount of wall space in your office and home. This, of course, is unacceptable, and if left unchecked will soon render your email account less than useless.

Many on this forum swear by the powerful email program known as The Bat!. It can keep track of literally tens of thousands of emails with nary a slow-down in performance while sorting and displaying your messages in almost any way possible. One may argue, though, that its true glaring weakness in email management is its utter lack of any practical way to deal with spam out of the box. Fortunately, there are many different choices for spam management available both as stand-alone programs and more specialized applications that make use of The Bat!'s plugin system. This review is is an analysis of one tool that can help stem the tide of useless crap into one's inbox.

Today I am going to be reviewing one of those specialized plugins called AntispamSniper for The Bat! by Good Vein Software. The author also offers versions of AntispamSniper for Outlook, Outlook Express, and Windows Mail, but this review will be focused on the version for The Bat! The flavor of AntispamSniper written for The Bat! differs from the versions for the other email clients in that it is the only one to offer both commercial and free versions of the plugin. The other email clients only have commercial versions.

While this review is going to be discussing the commercial version of the plugin most features discussed are available in the free version. I'll outline the differences later.

2. Installation

Installing AntispamSniper For The Bat! is a fairly simple affair. Running the executable downloaded from the author's web site presents the familiar install wizard found with installing most Windows software which allows you to choose the installation directory for the program. Once this is done it's a simple matter to make the plugin visible to The Bat!.

[attach=1]

The above image shows The Bat!'s anti-spam configuration screen. Clicking the Add button will bring up a browse dialog so that you can point The Bat to Antispamsniper.tbp which will be in the directory to which you earlier installed AntispamSniper For The Bat!. Once this is done the Configure and Delete buttons on the configuration screen will no longer be greyed out and will allow you to configure and delete the plugin respectively.

3. Configuration

AntispamSniper For The Bat! offers a rich arsenal of weapons to combat spam. All one need do is configure and tweak the preferences to suit your tastes.

[attach=2]

The above image shows AntispamSniper For The Bat!'s filtering tab which allow you to view and change the myriad of options at your disposal for fighting spam.

Training:

[attach=3]

White list of addresses:

[attach=4]

White rules:

[attach=5]

White list exceptions:

[attach=6]

Black list of addresses:

[attach=7]

Black Rules:

[attach=8]

Stop Words For Subjects:

[attach=9]

DNSBL:

[attach=10]

URIBL:

[attach=11]

Attachment Rules:

[attach=12]

Antiphishing:

[attach=13]

SpamNet:

[attach=14]

While most of these option screens are fairly straight-forward it is important to point out that both the white and black lists of email addresses allow use of the asterisk as a wildcard and that the white and black rules allow matching against regular expressions.

[attach=15]

The accounts tab as shown above allows the user to configure which email accounts will be monitored and whether or not to filter SSL connections.

[attach=16]

The options tab as you can see lays out where AntispamSniper For The Bat stores its configuration folder, the language of the interface, program shortcuts, proxy, and a neat synchronization feature which allows you to have all the computers on your network use the same trainable database and whitelist.

[attach=17]

The About screen shows the usual programming credits, support options, product web page, and a setting that allows the program to automatically check for updates.

4. Usage

Fortunately, using AntispamSniper For The Bat! is a lot easier than configuring it. Extreme accuracy in detecting spam will not happen till your email habits have been learned and you have trained the system, but even with no training AntispamSniper For The Bat! is using your configured options. Just the black list and DNSBL settings will trap most spam.

Training the plugin is easy. If a spam message misses detection just right-click on it and select "Mark as Junk" from the context menu. Its characteristics will be learned and the message will be moved to the Junk Mail folder. Training for messages that are mistaken for spam but are not is a similar process. Just right-click on the message in the Junk Mail folder and select "Mark as Not Junk" from the context menu. You can then move the misclassified message to the folder you wish to store it.

Users of the commercial version are given the convenience feature of an AntispamSniper toolbar added to The Bat!'s regular toolbar.

[attach=18]

Icons on the toolbar from left to right are Mark As Junk, Mark As Not Junk, View Log, Testing Mode, Delete Spam, and Options.

5. Testing and Results

As you can see AntispamSniper For The Bat! has an impressive array of options and settings. One could say there were almost too many settings, but the important question to ask is are this mix of tools and resources effective at performing the job they set out to do?

While I am sure there are probably some synthetic anti-spam tests available somewhere I'm also equally sure that they are probably no substitute for real-world testing. The old adage goes that one picture is worth a thousand words so without further delay I present a screen capture of my AntispamSniper For The Bat! statistics tab.

[attach=19]

The first thing I'd like to point out in this image is towards the bottom. These statistics have been ongoing since February 2nd, 2006. That's well over three years of data represented in these stats. As you can see that during that time period there has been a total error rate of roughly one-sixth of one percent. Further breaking that down there has been roughly one-half of one percent in false negatives and less than one-tenth of one percent in false positives.

Granted, over the span of three years the trained database has made these figures as good as they are, but straight out of the box with no training the statistics were not much worse than what they are now. Regardless, with such statistics I think nearly everyone would agree that they are very good & some may even dare say they were impressive.

6. Versions: Commercial vs. Free

The chart below outlines the differences between the commercial (pro) and free versions of AntispamSniper For The Bat!

[attach=20]

7. Conclusion

While AntispamSniper For The Bat! is one of the most powerful and effective anti-spam solutions on the market it is not without its drawbacks. Near-infinite options may confuse a non-expert and one is limited in which email clients one can use with this solution. However, if one takes into consideration its numerous advantages such as near-100% accuracy, a one-time entry fee with lifetime upgrades, and being able to tap into the huge anti-spam database known as SpamNet the benefits of becoming a registered user of this product becomes clear. This last statement is especially true once one discovers that SpamNet sells its own anti-spam solution that taps into the SpamNet database which costs $39.95 per year.

If you are a user of The Bat!, but find its anti-spam features lacking and would like a comprehensive, effective toolbox to keep your inbox clean then AntispamSniper For The Bat! is worthy of your attention.


The reviewer has no affiliation with the company who sells this program or the software author other than being a satisfied customer. No exclamation points were harmed during the writing of this review.

I'm putting the finishing touches on my review for submission to hopefully secure myself a free license to TC.

I only hope the forum can handle it. I kind of went a little crazy with review length and number of images to include. Hope I don't 'break' Mouser's web host.

So if you are using excellent tool with a lot of nice features and you think someone else would be glad to hear about it... write your review here.

Write the review where exactly? In this thread? In this forum? In the mini-review sub-forum?

I'm a little dense today.

I had never heard of ActiveWords before so I checked out their web site. The program looks to be very powerful & while ActiveWords looks fascinating I have to wonder if it is indeed $50 worth of fascinating.

That's a lot of money for a program launcher & scripting utility. Sure, the ActiveWords implementation is on steroids, but still...that's a lot more expensive than any of their competitors.

There is a simpler (and probably cheaper) solution these day - just buy an extra DVD writer and set each to different regions!

In case anyone doesn't know, nobody needs to do this in most cases. For most DVD readers and DVD writers it is possible to replace the factory hard-coded region firmware (known as RPC2) with region-free firmware (known as RPC1).

A good source for RPC1 firmwares is http://www.rpc1.org. Personally, I never buy a drive unless an RPC1 firmware is available for it.

EDIT: And to answer the original poster, you absolutely do not need AnyDVD to copy commercial DVDs, but it makes one's life so much easier to use it instead of competing solutions. However, I am really not a fan of their new pricing structures.

I would also put forward the suggestion of dropping a line to the program's author that the current way the program installs is NOT acceptable in this day and age of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

A text editor does not need admin levels of system access, IMHO.

You're a very unusual person, Darwin. Usually people either the DOpus way of doing things or the TC way of doing things, but not usually both.

DOpus had its origins on the Amiga & the odd thing about your post is that the Amiga version of DOpus was a really big inspiration for TC's author to bring that kind of power and customizability to the PC. What's odd is that TC is probably a closer relative of DOpus/Amiga than DOpus/PC and TC is probaby more true to the 'spirit' of that venerable program on the Amiga than its modern day descendant of the same name.

Back to PowerDesk Pro and Explorer Plus, for a minute...there's no possible way to find a retail copy of Explorer Plus anymore. Looking at the author's site seems to paint the story that Explorer Plus never existed. The trial you expertly tracked down is a poor substitute for the full product. Without delving too far into sketchy legalities I will say I just did a check and the 18.9 MB archive of the full retail product is up on a major P2P network.

However, I have to urge anyone who loves the PowerDesk way of doing things to take a good close look at Total Commander. It is, by far, the ugliest program on the face of the Earth when you first install it, but everything you see can be customized and changed even the menus so you could customize Total Commander to look and work exactly like PowerDesk Pro if it was one's inclination, but it is going to be a far more powerful program for file management than PowerDesk Pro ever was or most likely ever will be.