Messages

2151

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: January 07, 2006, 01:40 PM »

When it comes to launch bars there are two kinds...There's TrueLaunchBar....and there's everything else.

Seriously, if anyone is looking to program a launch bar program then TrueLaunchBar is truly the one app above all others that needs to be studied very closely. What it can do out of the box is amazing. What it can do coupled with the plugins that have been written for it is nothing short of mind-staggering. TLB is the best of show in this category of apps and is the one to beat. It's greatest strength, IMHO, is that it starts with what is familiar to everyone (Quick Launch) and builds upon it with tons of functionality without becoming intrusive or obstructive. It's so good that even my stinginess had to relent and purchase a license the last time it was on sale.

I really love the projects that Stardock put out...in spirit. However, in practice, when I install one of their apps it always starts making other stuff act weirdly. I don't know if I would call it bugs, but more along the lines of oddities. For example, I installed WindowBlinds 5 and then I lost the ability to minimize Firefox to the system tray. Uninstalled WB 5 and I got my minimize functionality back. Stardock specializes in programming nifty ground-breaking apps that are perpetually "almost there."

2152

General Software Discussion / Re: Sharing files: How to P2P with password among few friends?

« on: January 04, 2006, 09:43 PM »

Some FTP servers are drop-dead easy to set up & you are guided by wizards. However, if a personal web server seems to be more your bag then you may want to try WWW Share Pro at http://www.wfshome.com/.

For those who are super-paranoid, then doing a google search on WASTE may be beneficial.

2153

General Software Discussion / Re: Ad Muncher - Does it block embedded flash ads?

« on: January 03, 2006, 09:05 PM »

Perhaps the best features, or at least one of the best, that no one has mentioned is that Ad Muncher works with all programs that access the internet. That means no ads in ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, P2P programs.

I've been using Ad Muncher going on 3 years come this February & I haven't seen a Flash ad in all that time.

My personal Ad Muncher stats:

Ad Muncher Usage Statistics for v4.7 Build 20836/1260 *BETA*
Adverts removed by Ad Muncher:  194,056
Approximate bandwidth saved:    1,516 MB
Counter started:                February 20, 2003

And I know there are people out there who have much higher numbers than me.

2154

General Software Discussion / Re: Sharing files: How to P2P with password among few friends?

« on: January 03, 2006, 08:59 PM »

By far the easiest is to just set up an FTP server. Different FTP server programs offer different levels of features and security. Shop around.

2155

General Software Discussion / Re: Core Force

« on: December 30, 2005, 07:39 AM »

I'm sure this is meant to be used alongside a firewall instead of as a substitute for one. Layered security is the trend right now with the idea being if The Bad Guys make it through one of your layers of defenses they probably won't be able to make it through all of your layers. Also, different programs have different strengths so ideally you would choose programs that built built off the strengths of one another while alleviating the weaknesses that Program A has by using Program B alongside it.

2156

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat!: two questions

« on: December 30, 2005, 07:34 AM »

I can't help you with the second one at the moment, but the first one is easy. See that View pull-down menu in your screenshot? Select that...and go down to Message Header & you'll be able to select any/all of the message headers you'd like to display. This is universal throughout The Bat! wherever message headers can be displayed so you could have different headers appear in different areas.

2157

Living Room / Re: nudone's new pc

« on: December 23, 2005, 10:47 AM »

nudone,
You should have examined the manufacturer's/seller's dead pixel policy before you bought that puppy.

For example, Dell has an excellent policy in that regard. They will exchange the monitor till you are happy with it...even if there is only one dead pixel.

Fortunately, dead pixels are starting to become a rare problem as manufacturers get the kinks out of their manufacturing processes.

2158

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall SPECIAL INTRO PRICING $14.95

« on: December 23, 2005, 10:38 AM »

I didn't like CounterSpy, either. It's GUI was a little strange and their pricing structure is not the best, either if I remember correctly.

2159

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall SPECIAL INTRO PRICING $14.95

« on: December 22, 2005, 09:09 AM »

That's a good price from a good company. I don't know if everyone knows the story of Kerio, but they are the guys who were the original team behind the wildly successful Tiny Firewall back when it was tiny. Those programmers left Tiny & formed their own company (Kerio) and Tiny had to bring in a new team for their firewall & that's when the bloat began and the ease of use declined.

I've never used any of Sunbelt's stuff, but I hear good things about their products as well. The way Sunbelt is handling this acquisition should be a lesson to others who love to do corporate take-overs....are you listening Symantec??

2160

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Possible Large Directory Opus Discount

« on: December 18, 2005, 07:32 PM »

I just spent the afternoon working with the latest version of Directory Opus....and by working with I mean I worked it hard. As extremely powerful as it is it just doesn't work the way I work.

I suppose I have the Norton/Total Commander way of doing things ingrained upon my brain.

2161

General Software Discussion / Re: Has any one held off on upgrading to Firefox 1.5?

« on: December 18, 2005, 07:28 PM »

tinyvillager,
Don't know what you were on to exactly, though...nearly all software has bugs & there will always be bugfixes until a program is abandoned.

2162

General Software Discussion / Re: Has any one held off on upgrading to Firefox 1.5?

« on: December 17, 2005, 08:57 PM »

Most people who are sticking with 1.07 and pushing it iinstead of 1.5 are doing it because of what BrotherS has alluded to...they have extensions that will not work with 1.5.

I had a few that wouldn't work, but easily found replacements for the few that didn't work.

2163

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Possible Large Directory Opus Discount

« on: December 17, 2005, 08:38 AM »

I didn't want to start a war with that remark. I just wanted people to know that the author is a bit full of himself. I used Directory Opus way back when on my Amiga & it was brilliant. He's brilliant, too, actually, but how brilliant he thinks he is is reflected in his product pricing. The price for upgrades is rather steep as well. What you pay now with this 40% off code you will probably pay around the same price when Opus v9 is released.

Everyone will need to decide for themselves if this is a financial road they wish to take.

And f0dder, he's not really arrogant...he's just confident his software is the best in its class and proudly prices it as such. Both guys who run the company are as nice as can be when corresponding with them via email.  I say this because I don't want anyone to misinterpret my remarks above as me thinking he's a pr-ck because he's not.

Bottom line...I like the guys who run the company & I like the software...I just don't like the pricing structure.

2164

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Possible Large Directory Opus Discount

« on: December 16, 2005, 10:54 PM »

mrainey,
This is a brilliant find....The author nearly never ever puts Directory Opus on sale & when people complain about the high price he usually acts like his program would be a bargain at twice the price.

I'll have to mull this one over. Don't know if I'm going to bite or not, but definitely an excellent discount code.

2165

Living Room / Re: The Great Firewall Hunt ... frustrating ...

« on: December 08, 2005, 10:48 AM »

Well, if we are all going to talk about Linux-based and OpenBSD-based firewalls then I guess I'll mention m0n0wall. A lot of people swear by it though I have never used it.

2166

Living Room / Re: Sushi USB Drives

« on: December 08, 2005, 10:45 AM »

BrotherS,
When looking at your picture of sushi drives the first thing that popped into my head was, "Fish sticks!"

2167

General Software Discussion / Re: Interfaces we love

« on: December 08, 2005, 10:43 AM »

patteoks,
If you are so fond of the Norton Commander way of things then why haven't you moved to Total Commander yet? It's like NC except turbo-charged.

2168

General Software Discussion / Re: get avi and mpeg video file on Video-CD/DVD

« on: December 07, 2005, 10:18 AM »

BrotherS,
To answer your question from the Deals & Discounts thread regarding DVD Rebuilder Pro, and I'm not exactly sure why you chose this thread for me to answer you in, one would use this program when one wanted to back up a DVD9 to a DVD5 while retaining the highest quality possible without having to resort to having to process everything by hand.

It supports quite a few recoding engines such as Cinemacraft Encoder & Canopus's ProCoder. Those are quite expensive, however, so there are a couple freeware encoding engines supported such as HCEnc (which is in early beta but is really impressive) and ReJig.

Extras & menus can be eliminated entirely or compressed at a different ratio than the main feature if you would still like to keep them, but give more bandwidth to the main program. Ads, trailers, copyright warnings can be removed or shown as still-frame to save bandwidth as well.

Carol mentioned Doom9 and that's where the DVD Rebuilder Pro forum calls home. The author is very active in answering questions & very receptive to suggestions and requests.

At $29.95 with lifetime updates it's a heck of a deal. I bought when it was in beta & $10 got you lifetime updates. I feel like I stole it at that price!

2169

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 40% off Alcohol 120% through December 23rd

« on: December 05, 2005, 09:09 PM »

Incredible find, mouser & Mr(s). Anonymous!

Thanks!

2170

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: True Launch Bar is on sale

« on: December 05, 2005, 11:46 AM »

vegas,
Glad you saw this in time...you pining for a good deal on a Home license was what prompted me to post this in the first place.

f0dder,
Thanks for the URL help....I sometimes forget to list stuff like that.

2171

General Software Discussion / Re: Worst. Interface. Ever.

« on: December 05, 2005, 11:40 AM »

f0dder,
I can afford wasted screen space as I scaled that down from 1600x1200 and I wanted all that open space so I could see extra-long filenames. However, everything can be customized. The icons, columns, etc. are all customizable & there are hundreds of plugins available that add even more functionality.

Anyone who says Total Commander is ugly either hasn't bothered to customize the interfacer or is not aware that it is possible to customize the interface. People have been trying to get the author to change the default out-of-the-box look for years unsuccessfully.

2172

General Software Discussion / Re: Worst. Interface. Ever.

« on: December 05, 2005, 09:49 AM »

Speaking for old MS-DOS curmudgeons everywhere I'll make this vague, sweeping generalization of a statement....If a program doesn't have keyboard shortcuts for at least all major functions then it has a crummy user interface.

Out of the box Total Commander does not look very attractive at all. However, it is very customizable and if you master its potential you will be able to perform file operations tens of times faster than any mouse jockey. It's brilliant.

Directory Opus is brilliant as well. I used the author's programs on the Amiga and he definitely knows what he is doing. I just think he's a little out of touch when it comes to product pricing and pricing of upgrades.

Here's a screenshot of Total Commander as I have it configured & I don't think it looks bad at all.

2173

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free copy of snapstream beyondtv 3 after 50$ MIR

« on: December 04, 2005, 02:08 PM »

Oh, I wasn't being snippy...and I do apologize if I was coming off as such.

Just a boring Sunday afternoon over here & I was just making conversation. Didn't mean to turn on the kitchen light and get the cockroaches worked up into a frenzy.

2174

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free copy of snapstream beyondtv 3 after 50$ MIR

« on: December 04, 2005, 01:57 PM »

Serves me right for replying to week-old threads.

Apologies.

2175

Found Deals and Discounts / True Launch Bar is on sale

« on: December 04, 2005, 12:56 PM »

TrueSoft is running a Christmas promotion right now.

They are selling personal licenses (1 computer) for $14.90 which is $5 off the normal price.

They are also selling the home licenses (4 computers) for $29.90 which is $20 off the normal price.