Messages

351

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: CPUBalance Pro [free GOTD]

« on: March 15, 2017, 07:03 AM »

^ CPUBalance is from Bitsum, the makers of Process Lasso. CPUBalance is available as $0 FREE or as $10 PRO
https://bitsum.com/portfolio/cpubalance/

This application is a SUBSET of the technology found in Process Lasso. It is slimmer than Process Lasso and designed to do one job really well – ProBalance.

CPUBalance is unique in that it can either run independent of Process Lasso, or along-side Process Lasso, offering extended functionality over the ‘base’ ProBalance algorithm.

If you already have Process Lasso v8, you do not NEED this application, but as a side effect of having it, do get these benefits:

    Newer tech than is in Lasso v8, but Lasso v9 will eventually have that tech.
    A different system tray icon for specific ProBalance interactions.
    A new Frequency of Action (Restraint) metric, which is pretty cool.
    Note that these features are all planned for Process Lasso v9 – so no removal or reduction of features here!

-Bitsum CPUBalance

-Curt (March 15, 2017, 04:32 AM)

The Pro was available free before the giveaway expired.  Now when I go to the same download link it says $9.95.

352

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: CPUBalance Pro [free GOTD]

« on: March 14, 2017, 03:20 PM »

btw, I am trying surfing with Firefox to see what a difference this utility makes.  So far Firefox seems to load off the HD and run snappier than without it.  Those of you lamenting the sluggishness of FF recent releases may want to give CPUBalence Pro a try. At least on my Laptop it seems to smooth it out quite a bit.   

353

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 14, 2017, 02:54 PM »

It takes forever, but even without the verification step, doing a full image took a long time.

-cyberdiva (March 10, 2017, 01:19 PM)

I used to do full images and restores only myself.  I guess that habit is what made me think only the server edition had the rapid restore capability.  You should try it just for grins if you have a guinea pig PC lying around.  It is kind of fun the way it restores in such snappy fashion. 

354

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 14, 2017, 02:49 PM »

Are you talking about leaving town, just DC, the planet, or what?  heh heh

-MilesAhead (March 09, 2017, 05:56 PM)

Ether or.

-cranioscopical (March 10, 2017, 08:29 AM)

Hmm, I guess it depends the partic-ular wave you catch when surfing the space lanes.  But speaking of ether, am I still the only one who wonders why they put ether in the mustard sauce in Cantonese Restaurants?  I hate that stuff even being in the same room.   

355

Found Deals and Discounts / CPUBalance Pro [free GOTD]

« on: March 14, 2017, 02:39 PM »

As of post time there is still 12 hours and 20 something minutes to get CPUBalance Pro for free.  I have been running it for about an hour.  So far I like it.  What it aims to do is avoid the bogging of the process that has the focus by limiting CPU hogging programs running in the backgroud.

The main pleasant result I have seen so far is running SuperAntiSpyware scan in the background while surfing the web with Firefox in the foreground.  Ordinarily Firefox is a bit jittery when SAS is scanning in the background.  This time with the CPUBalance Pro running, FF ran smoothly at the cost that the background scan took a bit longer.

The only glitch I have seen is when run it pops up an error message that it cannot save a scheduled task and therefore it cannot be started at login with elevated privileges.  I don't care about that since I prefer to start it manually.  I just wish I could eliminate the error message. But I suppose I will have to bite the bullet and hit Enter after running it.  (My Laptop is a bit quirky.  You may not get this error.)

It comes with one year of updates.  There is some stuff in the readme about registration but afaict there is no way to register it.  Just install it and you are good to go.  In any case I did go to the web site and enter some info because I was not aware I did not need to.  Here is the link:

https://www.giveawayoftheday.com

356

General Software Discussion / Re: Quotidian Folders 1.4.2.2

« on: March 14, 2017, 01:06 PM »

Nice indeed !
 

-Contro (March 11, 2017, 01:29 PM)

Thank you.  Glad you find it useful.   

357

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 09, 2017, 05:56 PM »

Too bad I don't have an image backup from when I was 25.  Youth is wasted on the young.  I know what I'd be doin' if I knew then what I know now. 

-MilesAhead (March 09, 2017, 01:08 PM)

If I knew then what I know now I wouldn't even be here... and wouldn't that be a relief for all of us    

-cranioscopical (March 09, 2017, 05:50 PM)

Are you talking about leaving town, just DC, the planet, or what?  heh heh

358

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« on: March 09, 2017, 02:21 PM »

alternative facts

-IainB (March 09, 2017, 08:59 AM)

https://en.wikipedia...ki/Alternative_facts

Hmm, I think I prefer Ron Zeigler's "That statement is no longer operative."   

359

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 09, 2017, 01:08 PM »

When I actually worked for money everything was backed up pretty much as it happened.

-cranioscopical (March 09, 2017, 10:33 AM)

Sounds like Miami.  Everything is backed up as it happens.  I can't delete anything if I wanted to.  heh heh

-MilesAhead (March 09, 2017, 11:35 AM)

Try to reverse the trend?

-cranioscopical (March 09, 2017, 12:52 PM)

Too bad I don't have an image backup from when I was 25.  Youth is wasted on the young.  I know what I'd be doin' if I knew then what I know now. 

360

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 09, 2017, 11:35 AM »

When I actually worked for money everything was backed up pretty much as it happened.

-cranioscopical (March 09, 2017, 10:33 AM)

Sounds like Miami.  Everything is backed up as it happens.  I can't delete anything if I wanted to.  heh heh

361

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Site Spinner Pro at $20

« on: March 09, 2017, 10:07 AM »

I haven' tried RocketCake but if I ever have to do another web site I am going to.  Totally free wysiwyg editor.  Of course I don't know if it actually works until I try it.  But from the write-up it sure seems cool.  It may come up short for coding an online store.  But for personal sites it should be a quick way to publish something that looks good.

362

General Software Discussion / Re: Opt-in before January 31, 2016 to keep your current OneDrive storage size

« on: March 09, 2017, 08:46 AM »

That was to let you keep the 15GB, reading the notification above.  The only additional storage you get to keep is the camera storage for a total of 30GB.  How did you have 125GB?

-wraith808 (March 09, 2017, 08:09 AM)

When I first signed up I got 25 GB.  Then there was some MS promotion.  I forget what it was.  But I had to click a link or whatever to get an additional 100 GB of free storage.  When I did the Opt In I got an email back saying they would not reduce my storage.  Of course I can't find it now.  But anyway, it occurs to me this is just a setting in the user's quota.  IOW, if I am only using 10 GB and am happy, why set my quota to 15 GB and piss me off?  This is a lame PR move.  If they were smart they would wait until I got over 25 GB and sent me a note "Gee we are sorry but we can't afford to carry the 125 GB anymore.  How about we give you this (some software or other promo whatever) instead?

The disk space isn't used until I use it.  It was just a number at the bottom of of the OneDrive panel that said "10 GB of 125 GB used."  But see they want to just cut the quota in an automated way to make sure nobody gets to use any of the storage.  A more live person to live person approach would be way better PR.

363

General Software Discussion / Re: Opt-in before January 31, 2016 to keep your current OneDrive storage size

« on: March 09, 2017, 07:08 AM »

Hmm, I just checked my storage and it is only 15 GB total capacity.  It was at 125 GB when I did the "Opt In" BS.  Looks like they just chop you when you are not looking anyway!

Guess it's a good thing I happened to be under the 15 GB limit in usage.  I hate how they just use a scythe like was are the front lawn instead of customers.

Edit: I see the "contact us" on the OneDrive page has been set up to reply to keywords in what you send them.  Meaning there is no way to just send a note with the one line description of the issue to a human being.  Instead it is badminton with "did you mean this?" and some description that has nothing to do with your problem, coming back over the net.  Somewhere there has to be one guy with bifocals who actually reads the communications.  It is finding out his email address that's the problem.

364

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool that immediately shows boot time problems?

« on: March 09, 2017, 06:59 AM »

This page gives a simplified approach to boot log analysis:
http://sourcedaddy.c...alyze-boot-logs.html

If the system successfully boots, but is slow to do so, I would just count the lines that start with
"did not load driver"  when booting in normal mode as those will time out.  Control f in notepad. 

365

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 08, 2017, 04:27 PM »

I've had some trouble with Malwarebytes 3 which, among other issues, blocks both my MS Office and Acrobat X from launching. That might have thwarted Reflect so I have more trials to run.

-cranioscopical (March 08, 2017, 04:04 PM)

I would not be surprised if any "real time protection" type software interfered with imaging.  As it is, Macrium uses Shadow Copy Service to allow the in use system files to be backed up.  Anything else that messes around at the system level at the same time has a good chance of being the fly in the ointment.  But from what you say it sounds as if you got MBAM 2.x to peacefully coexist in the past. 

366

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 08, 2017, 04:17 PM »

^^ I don't think I have ever done the verification step with any backup imaging program.  I started to once, then after a few minutes I killed it.  I used to do a complete partition image(full) and restore every time.  Now I am hooked on incremental and can't go back to the slow way. 

367

General Software Discussion / Re: Any tool that immediately shows boot time problems?

« on: March 08, 2017, 03:01 PM »

One thing you can do with the software already on the system is set msconfig to enable boot logging.  If your friend has some half uninstalled programs there may still be entries in the system to load drivers that have been deleted.  Each time one of these in encountered the system waits until time-out seconds before moving onto the next item to load.  My guess is the time out is 15 seconds.  So every 4 items not found adds a minute to the boot.

After you enable boot logging and boot, the system will create a file in the Windows folder called Ntbtlog.txt.  It is basically what you would see scroll up the screen if you booted with no gui.  If you see a bunch of files not found then you may only need to run a registry cleaner(such as Wise portable reg cleaner free) to get rid of them.  If stuff is left over from AV programs like Norton you may have to run the appropriate removal tool and/or Revo Uninstaller, once you know which programs have left crap behind.

I recommend backing up the registry before doing anything to fix it.  The Wise cleaner should do it automatically but check the setting is enabled(I believe it is by default.)

Also you can use AutoRuns to track down something autoloading from a non-obvious place.

If the problem is not the system trying to load non-existent files the next thing I would look for is anything requiring network access such as a mapped network drive that is not mapped.  If there is only one PC then this is a lot less likely. 

Myself I would watch the HD access LED if possible, during boot.  If it hardly flickers but there are delays then it is likely time-out issues.  If it is going crazy then there may be a whole bunch of unnecessary crap trying to load.  There may be some automatic analysis freeware but I am not familiar with such software.  Seems like to work it would have to boot the system and look at the system logs.  Just saves you from using msconfig.  But there may be more sophisticated stuff I am not aware of.

368

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« on: March 08, 2017, 12:41 PM »

I just heard Mike LeDonne live playing Hammond B3.  But I found this hip piano bass duo tune on Youtube while looking through his vids:

369

General Software Discussion / Another browser bytes the dust (Cyberfox)

« on: March 07, 2017, 09:40 AM »

Along with the Cyberfox 52.0 release was text of the direction of Cyberfox.  To sum it up they have switched to ESR mode for 12 months.  After that, nada.  All gone.

A shame because through all the Firefox 64 bit working/not working seesaw, the Cyberfox 64 bit version trod along with no problems for the most part.

The other thing a bit weird, the new updater apparently uses .NET.  Since I am on Windows 8.0 and do not have .NET 4.6.1 installed, after a download that took 20 minutes, validating hash etc. it comes up and tells me it cannot run because the minimum .NET is 4.6.1.  Duh. How about checking the required .NET version at the beginning?

But anyway, sorry to see it go.

https://8pecxstudios...viewtopic.php?t=1756

370

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 07, 2017, 06:50 AM »

Thanks VERY much, MilesAhead, for your very helpful account.  It sounds as if version 7 is ready for prime time.

-cyberdiva (March 06, 2017, 09:15 PM)

Cool.  If you have any issues please follow up. 

371

Living Room / Re: Movies you've seen lately

« on: March 06, 2017, 06:26 PM »

The TV series I am enjoying lately is the Korean show Chief Kim.  The characters are likable(except for the heavy of course) and it is done with good humor.  I am waiting for the finale, episode 13.  The actor who plays Chief Kim gives his take on why the show shot up in popularity here:
https://www.soompi.c...s-chief-kim-popular/

372

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 06, 2017, 05:15 PM »

So what sayeth ye about Macrium 7?

-cyberdiva (March 06, 2017, 02:31 PM)

I haven't done any comprehensive testing.  But I did a full backup.  That seemed to go just like v6.  Then after copying an additional 300 MB or so of files onto the same partition, I did an incremental backup.  That also felt just like v6.  So my feeling is if they have improved the rapid restore at all then they are definitely moving forward rather than backward.  Oh, and while I was doing the full backup I clicked "Hide" and surfed with Firefox.  Reflect showed no hint that it wanted to crash or do anything else weird.  Then when the full image was nearly complete, I killed Firefox to let the backup get over with quickly.  It seemed very stable and solid just like v6.

The main issues I have seen on their forum have been problems updating and installing.  I guess they went to an update scheme where you could migrate to v7 right inside v6.  So there are bound to be a few issues.  But I used Revo Uninstaller(mainly because my system has issues with Windows Installer and Macrium uses that for install and uninstall) to remove v6 and the v7 install went smoothly.  Revo Uninstaller free version is quite formidable when it comes to removing all the registry junk and files from failed installs/uninstalls.

My feeling is unless you see some scary issues with WinPE or the Restore not working I would have confidence in it.  Please just don't sue me if something weird happens.  After all, there are two ways of looking at it.  Some people say "Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal" and others, especially if they look like Chico Marx in A Day At the Races, say "who ya' gonna' believe?  Me or your own eyes?"   

But I take that it ran with Firefox hogging a lot of the resources, without complaint, as a good sign.   

373

General Software Discussion / Re: Macrium Reflect v7 release on Feb. 27th

« on: March 06, 2017, 11:45 AM »

I have RollbackRX Pro on my system.  The Macrium Trial installer seems to be hard wired to the same directory where I have Macrium Reflect Server v6 installed.  But since I could put the server back on just by restoring a snapshot using RollBackRX, I decided to take it off and install the v7 Home trial.

The backup speed of v7 was comparable to v6.  They say there is a new "Changed Block Technology" system in v7 that is supposed to be faster.  I did not try a restore.  But in my case I use it as disaster recovery.  So I am not likely to be doing a lot of restores.

For my purposes I see no need to upgrade.  The only way I could tell the difference between v6 and v7 was by going into the Help Menu and clicking About Macrium Reflect.  But if my system worked correctly, meaning System Restore, Windows Update and Windows Installer, then I would be unlikely to have purchased the Rollback program in the first place.  In which case I might rely on Macrium for file restores or whatnot.

The other thing I would try if my system wasn't hamstrung is the mechanism to create a VHD from a Macrium image and boot it.  I have tried many times and this Laptop just will not boot a VHD.  It starts to boot it, then hangs.  No real need for it.  But I like to play around with stuff like that.  Maybe if I get a newer lighter Windows Laptop I can try those things out.

374

Site/Forum Features / Re: Adding back an Ignore Thread feature?

« on: March 02, 2017, 08:42 AM »

Sure, everybody else ignores what I say so why shouldn't I ignore it too?

-cranioscopical (May 15, 2016, 02:28 PM)

Hmm, I must have been ignoring this post without realizing it.  It has taken me almost a year to reply.   

375

Non-Windows Software / Re: Android: (Wired) File Transfers from PC

« on: February 28, 2017, 09:01 PM »

^^^   
Ialready have a usb keyboard.  The mouse us easier.