Topics

251

General Software Discussion / Macrium 5 Free and Easus ToDo free 5.3 on my HP machines

« on: November 26, 2012, 02:16 PM »

I just ran tests on the latest Macrium Reflect 5 free and Easus ToDo Backup free on my 2 HP machines.  Just thought I'd post the results in case someone is using similar hardware.  This mainly concerns SIIG USB 3.0 PCI Express card.  The card uses the standard NEC driver. For that reason it may give a clue if USB 3.0 support will work for you.

The test was only using the Linux restore CD made from the image included in both products. I did not try WinPE restore discs. Prior to performing a boot with each disc I brought the systems down and killed the power. You can get a false sense of security if you just shut down as the device can be initialized by the driver since the last boot.

The 2 HP machines I have are HP M9515y Tower and HP AMD 5200+ Tower.  Both have identical SIIG USB 3.0 add on cards.

The M9515y machine has the handicap that it uses a software raid driver that can hide the system HD and optical drive from some boot CDs. This is a royal pita because when you boot the CD all you can see is the 1.44 MB boot image that the BIOS knows about.  Floppy boot compatible crapola iow. In this case, both the Macrium and Easus ToDo detected the drive through the fake raid.

The difference is the SIIG.
The Macrium Linux restore CD did not recognize the USB 3.0 card in either machine.
The Easus ToDo Backup 5.3 recognized the USB 3.0 card on both PCs.

My conclusion.. if you are running an SIIG USB 3.0 PCI Express card and wish to be able to restore at the higher USB 3.0 speeds, the Easus ToDo Backup Free is the choice between these two softwares.  The Macrium Paid version likely has USB 3.0 support but I would do a similar test with the Trial version before buying. I believe the Trial will let you burn a Linux Restore CD.  Of course if you do the WinPE you have the option of including Windows drivers. I tried this route once but it turned out the WinPE did not have native support for my fake raid. So it was a hassle to store a copy of the driver on a USB stick yadda yadda.  I'd rather just use a Linux boot that does the job out of the box.

Some may say so what? Just restore at USB 2.0 speed. Unfortunately it's an all or nothing deal. Either the driver works with the USB 3.0 card or it doesn't. You don't get USB 2.0 out of the USB 3.0 card. You get restore program does not recognize it at all. So then you're stuck doing slow copies to USB 2.0 drives to make sure you can restore in an emergency.

Note this is device specific stuff. I'm not saying one software = good other = bad.  Just thought I'd save some time for the SIIG users in the crowd.  If I'm the only one then at least it's some exercise fighting with the spell checker.

252

General Software Discussion / TEncoder 3.1

« on: November 19, 2012, 12:53 PM »

I've been using TEncoder free video encoder now and then for some time.

Entry on VideoHelp

SourceForge Home Page


I just upgraded to 3.0 and it seems to be improving nicely. The main reason I'm posting is 3.0 has a CPU Meter that's very handy. It displays percentage of CPU used in a fluctuating progress control. But the nice thing is now I don't have to run Core Temp and add up the percentages from the cores. This shows a simple percentage of the total CPU. It seems the code has been improved too. I use FFMPeg.  I can't speak to how well it works with MenCoder as the encoder.  Lately I have been doing remuxing to another container processing only the audio.  The video set to Direct Stream Copy.  The throughput is very fast and plays well on my WD set top box.

It still has a few quirks. I'm waiting to see what the author says as to why WD preset (mkv) has output container of MP4. I have to make manual tweaks.  But the processing seems to be done all inline.  There's no stages of splitting off the audio, encoding, remuxing as with some other encoders.  Just writes the output file as the progress bar moves along.  Very fast. I guess that's the way FFMPeg works. If you prefer MenCoder I'm not sure exactly what happens.

253

General Software Discussion / Back to Firefox - sudden loud noise

« on: November 06, 2012, 08:37 PM »

After doing Chromium for some time I'm back to Firefox/Waterfox as my primary browsers. Anyway, Chromium did have a built in multi-media blocker. Just disable all plugins.  I don't know what you guys are using, but Stop AutoPlay seems to work.

Just thought I'd post because when I first tried to get it on mozilla, it showed it as discontinued by author. But it's still available for download from Softpedia:

Stop AutoPlay Firefox Extension

You may want to try it before it's pulled down.

I've just started using it. One thing I noticed is download of audio files, like for radio shows that make podcast and mp3 of the show available, may be blocked also unless you add the site to the white list. (The links where you would normally "save link as" don't even show up if the files are blocked.)

254

Living Room / General av and anti-malware discussion

« on: October 29, 2012, 10:57 PM »

General discussion of ins and outs of MBAM and other popular anti-malware, anti-spyware, av utilities etc..

255

General Software Discussion / Skwire: MediaInfo author loves Playtime

« on: October 28, 2012, 04:58 PM »

https://sourceforge....5469625/index/page/1

Someone on the MediaInfo forum on Sourceforge asked the author for a feature to total the media times for every media file in a folder. I pointed out you had already implemented it using the MediaInfo DLL. I just thought you'd like to know it was well received.

256

Living Room / New AHK Forum Software

« on: October 27, 2012, 05:48 PM »

They were down for site maintenance.  Then next time I went there I did a double take!! I thought I was on the AutoIt3 Forum!!

http://www.autohotkey.com/board/

http://www.autoitscr...com/forum/index.php?

It's bad enough I edit both languages with SciTE4_yaddayadda but now I have to keep looking at the logo before posting. Make sure I'm talking about the right language.

257

Found Deals and Discounts / Powershell Plus Free

« on: October 24, 2012, 10:55 AM »

I haven't gotten into Powershell. But I do check out Gizmo's site for news. In Hot Finds there's a notice Powershell Plus IDE is now free.  Here's the link to the article:
http://www.techsuppo...ing-ide-now-free.htm

and here's the page for download:
http://www.idera.com...ols/PowerShell-Plus/

When you click the Download Button it asks for an email address. A Hotmail address works fine. The next page has links for both 32 bit and 64 bit versions.

I haven't decided if I'm going to get into PS programming. But I have the IDE zip files just in case.

258

General Software Discussion / Backspacer

« on: October 22, 2012, 05:36 PM »

Backspacer special.  Control-Backtic  sends 4 backspaces  Alt-Backtic sends 7 backspaces.

Hover mouse on try icon for the info above.

259

General Software Discussion / PastePath 1.5.0.1

« on: October 22, 2012, 11:12 AM »

PastePath 1.0.0.0 PastePath initial release.  Hotkey that sits in Tray. Control Right Click in Edit of Standard Open or SaveAs Dialog pastes the path from the most recently active Explorer Window that's currently open. See About Box for info regarding Explorer Window selection if more than one is open.

It's just a simple hotkey to avoid drilling down in Open and SaveAs Dialogs.  The dialog must be a "standard dialog" meaning Windows gives it the window class #32770. Also the caption must start with either Save or Open.

The trailing backslash is included in the path. This should force most dialogs to display files in the target folder if you hit Enter.

See the included Readme.txt and About Box for more details.

You may download from this page:

http://milesaheadsoftware.tk/

260

Found Deals and Discounts / MakeMKV beta 1.7.8

« on: October 15, 2012, 10:13 PM »

MakeMKV beta 1.7.8 What makes this release different is that it has a means to encode the .mkv using ffmpeg.  In Preferences General Tab if you enable Expert Mode, then an Advanced Tab appears. You may select WDTV profile.  Seems it requires you to set the path to ffmpeg on your system.

Change log

I haven't tried the WDTV profile mechanism yet.

261

General Software Discussion / use google bookmark sync in firefox?

« on: October 15, 2012, 12:50 PM »

I'm using Sign in to chrome to sync my bookmarks across my 2 chromium browsers. I'm using SyncPlaces to do the same across my 2 Firefox browsers.  In the past I migrated bookmarks from Chromium to Firefox using Xmarks. But that always involved a half hour of fixing the scrambles, lost favicons and dupes.

In an effort to get away from Xmarks I'm looking for an alternative to manually adding a FF bookmark every time I add something to chromium.  Chromium is primary. I use FF about 1/4 as much. Since I'm only using the chrome sync to sync bookmarks I was hoping there was a way to tap into it with FF.

I tried GMarks addon.  Maybe there was something I missed. But I set it up and hit Refresh. I got an empty Dialog with a splitter.  It's not clear if it goes to google account or what.  Man this is a real time waster!! There's got to be a solution.

262

General Software Discussion / AHK_L tray code to clear orphaned icons that actually seems to work

« on: October 06, 2012, 11:30 AM »

This is not my code. The author has generously granted permission to distribute the utility with your programs. If your app is written in AHK_L then you could just include the function. For apps implemented in other languages, compile as a stand-alone exe and run the exe when you wish to clear the task tray of dead icons.

As one example, I wrote a hack for my own use that launches Giganews accelerator, then runs my Newsreader and waits.  When I close the Newsreader app, it kills Giganews, then runs the orphan killer app to clear the GA icon from the tray.

NoTrayOrphans

263

General Software Discussion / Anyone using Puran Utilities 1.0.2 ??

« on: September 14, 2012, 06:00 PM »

I noticed Puran Utilities 1.0.2 announcement. I regularly use Puran Defrag. But I never tried any of the other tools. Is anyone using it regularly? If 2 or 3 of the other utilities are good then I'll give it a try.
 

264

General Software Discussion / Firefox 15 less of a memory hog

« on: August 29, 2012, 10:50 PM »

Firefox 15 less of a memory hog.  Speed-dial got hosed. But I didn't like it much on FF anyway.  LastPass I had to update to 2.02 to get it going again.  At least now it uses a lot less memory than Chromium.

edit: hmm, mistake updating LastPass. Messed up Opera so it wouldn't even load. Had to do restore point. Turns out I don't see any big memory savings anyway. Back to 14.01 for me.

265

General Software Discussion / Ginger free spell/grammar checker extension for chrome

« on: August 25, 2012, 06:35 PM »

Ginger Free Grammar Checker

I'm using chromium 23.x snapshot now. A cursory trial of Ginger seems to indicate it's not flaky. It picks off grammar errors such as what it be, and spelling errors using a wavy green underline. There aren't many free grammar checkers around that don't require pasting into a web site.  So far I haven't detected any side-effects typing with Ginger active as I have with some other checkers. For these reasons I'd say it's worth a test drive.  Especially if you use a chrome based browser as default.

There are also desktop versions of Ginger for non-chrome browsers.

Note that when I first started typing, Ginger didn't seem to do anything even though I deliberately typed in some "dis and dat" verbiage. However once I clicked the toolbar button it seemed to wake up.

266

Living Room / Coffee Mug or when Plastic is done right!

« on: August 20, 2012, 05:33 PM »

Just hit upon another thread looking for DC coffee mug art work. It reminded me of my favorite coffee mug. Unfortunately I can't find a replacement anywhere. When it dies it's gone.  I can't afford to bid on E-bay for memorabilia. I've never seen a plastic coffee mug designed as well as this.

Note the width of the mug. When it's on the desk you don't have to worry about knocking it over. Low center of gravity.



Also the brilliance of the design is to use air as insulator, rather than heavy ceramic. Note this mug keeps my coffee hot much longer than any ceramic or other mug I've used.




Plastic end pieces shown.  The dark blue sippy piece is softer than the shell of the mug body. It's very comfortable.



and the shot from the other side for completeness.



I've looked all over the web and I've never seen this exact design.  Too bad the promotion was one per customer or I would have gotten back in line to rent more movies.

267

General Software Discussion / Why Everything 1.2.1.451a still Alpha?

« on: August 14, 2012, 03:01 PM »

Just wondering why this Everything release is still Alpha. I've been using it for quite awhile with no problems.  People get antsy(or is it ansi?) when you send them to a forum page instead of the product's main download page. Seems like it should be on the main download page by now?

268

General Software Discussion / SciTE regex replacement

« on: August 03, 2012, 05:21 PM »

I can't seem to get SciTE to regex replace for me. All I'm trying to do is stick a '_' in front of every line where the start of the line has [a-zA-Z].

If I use ^[a-zA-Z]   in the search field, it pics it up. But no matter what I put in the Replace field after the underscore, it replaces the first character with the underscore instead of sticking the underscore in front. I think the '^' denoting start of line is messing me up.

Seems like it should be something simple that's done all the time.  Damned if I can figure it out though.

Here's an example.  I have functions like

MyFunc(param)
SomeFunc(param)
ThisFunc(param)


After the replacement I should have

_MyFunc(param)
_SomeFunc(param)
_ThisFunc(param)

Why is it so difficult?

269

General Software Discussion / WinDim 1.1.4.0

« on: July 23, 2012, 05:25 PM »

WinDim 1.0.0.4 is a hotkey to get the dimensions of the active window and optionally save them to clipboard. It can also set the dimensions of an active window from the clipboard save, if the target has sizeable border style.

You may download from my Hotkeys Page

It creates no .ini files or Registry settings. Just copy the exe to a folder in your path. Click on Tray Icon for usage dialog.

270

General Software Discussion / Firefox 14.01

« on: July 19, 2012, 03:47 PM »

I was happy running FF 4 but I noticed this article about FF 14.01 sending google searches via https. Not sure how much difference that makes, but you don't have to set anything to do it. It comes that way. I just updated over 4 and my google search does in fact use https to get the goods.

I'm using it now. I just updated a few minutes ago. So far it doesn't seem like I have to do anything. The AddOns that were disabled I don't think I need anyway. FDM I don't need the plug-in. Just drag download to the desktop target. FF is my secondary so that's why I'm less concerned.

The main thing is LastPass works.

So far so good.

edit: Whoops. Forgot to post the Addictive Tips link:

Firefox 14.01

271

Living Room / Search engine "search in results" besides Control-f?

« on: June 04, 2012, 03:43 PM »

Is it just me or do none of the major search engines provide a "search in results" input box that only searchs the last results?  Seems like it should be easy but I can't seem to get there from here.

272

Site/Forum Features / hmmm [image][/image] tag no work no more?

« on: June 02, 2012, 05:28 PM »

Hmmmmmmm I used to stick in smileys from 3rd party smiley pages just by using image tags. Now it just shows the text.  For example

[image]http://smileys.smilchat.net/emoticon/expressions/surprise/3d-surpris.gif[/image]

Doesn't show the smiley.

273

General Software Discussion / chrome renderer process limit

« on: June 02, 2012, 05:10 PM »

I'm running chromium 21.x
that was posted on Softpedia recently

Seems to run fine but it sure uses a lot of processes. I was looking through the chrome command line switches and noticed --renderer-process-limit and tried it.

By default Task Manager showed a process per tab plus a process per enabled extension plus 2 or 3 or even 4 more. With --renderer-process-limit=4  on the shortcut Target line, now no matter how many tabs I open I seem to max out at 7 copies of chrome.exe running.

So far I can't feel any difference.  Just wondering if anyone else is experimenting with this setting?

274

Living Room / Movie Title question for film buffs

« on: June 01, 2012, 06:14 PM »

I'm trying to remember an old black and white movie I saw years ago.  I can't remember the lead actor. It's an English language movie.  I have the impression it's an American film. It was probably made in the 1940s or 50s. All I can remember is the general plot:

An "ordinary man" is given absolute power to rule the world.  He tries to put several policies into effect that seem like good ideas.  But the effects are always contrary to his intentions. He seeks advice from famous leaders of history. From statesmen to tyrants they line up in the waiting room and he consults with them in turn.  That's about all I can recall. It's one of those "democracy allegory" flicks. It's the type of flick that should star Claude Rains. But I checked his filmography on IMDB.  No dice.

Anyone know this one? I posted on a film board with a sub-forum just for these types of questions. 2 weeks and no response.

275

General Software Discussion / MoveIt 1.5.1.0

« on: May 20, 2012, 04:39 PM »

MoveIt 1.5.0.0

New Download Page:

http://www.milesaheadsoftware.org

See Readme.txt included in the zip for details and revision history.

( Note:  ShapeShift functionality has evolved into the MoveIt utility. )