Topics

1

General Software Discussion / Windows Explorer: Desktop, Desktop, Desktop,...

« on: August 23, 2011, 12:26 PM »

I've been getting this in Explorer's folder pane every once in a while, since back in the day of Win 98 or 2000:



All folders on the desktop are labeled "Desktop" in the folder pane.
Refreshing doesn't help. Have to close the Explorer window and open a new one.

Does anyone know what causes it and if/how it could possibly be fixed?

2

General Software Discussion / Strange encrypted key in my registry

« on: May 22, 2009, 05:29 PM »

When roaming my registry today, I found a suspicious key under HKLM\Software that was obviously encrypted, and the values inside were likewise:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\T96Pk0Px4ALJoXfi0l_v7CWW]
"vFFOg4JQG0r7wfUevNmW"="liC!t06Jas-jsKtpyH_zu!He2BWW"
"QoOAmAsdC!nFJ4o_pHP_oIyDenSBX4Yg-HfvaLwveEk0X49_xrNW"="QM-A3fRGekiQJfTPo_M_34cGCgSQh4kR-H1d34KdekiQI4U1TkNW"
"CJsPtCWW"="RkYa"
"lY3dqQGEpCWW"=""
"YQtOwAGbOFZW"=""
"YQtOwAGbOFXW"=""
"zjumvCWW"=""
"0jivbQZW"=""
"lY3FyXJjpCWW"=""
"5kz0"=""
"0UolLhZW"=""
"JklO"=""
"1PrvjaOW"="iZrIB_ZvTcH-dhBW"
"26_mic_K"="0BWW"
"rVfpxKGFeQGfh3j_f_XW"="0-WW"
"IrzxTG8uju_V-AnSRwzD"="0BWW"
"w0SPY6jKTM-W"="0BWW"

Well, I think I remember having read something about encrypting registry keys (e.g. to protect shareware), but I've never seen any legitimate shareware (or other software) really do that. I have no idea where this key comes from (and I like to know such stuff).
I decided to just delete this key (after backing it up), and afterwards tested all (!) my programs for error messages on startup (found none), but I'm still wondering:
What might have produced this key?
Is it really safe to delete it?
Is this a sign of malware? (Never had any, and just recently scanned the machine thoroughly.)
Is there an OS-supplied encryption system for registry entries? (that next to nobody seems to use?)

Since I know there are some pretty bright people in this forum, and especially some shareware authors, maybe someone could give me some pointers.

3

General Software Discussion / Locate32 crashing a lot

« on: February 14, 2008, 06:08 AM »

A lot of people here seem to love Locate32 as a search tool.

While it's certainly a nice program, It's crashing a lot (an unpredicably) for me, mostly when trying to open files from the results window or trying to open the containing folder. It happens so often that it's almost annoying. However, I haven't seen anyone mention that problem.

Am I the only one to experience that?

Win XP SP2, Locate32 3.0 build 7.7010c.

4

General Software Discussion / Wanted: Calendar/to-do manager with special repeat patterns (for students)

« on: January 02, 2008, 09:56 AM »

In another forum, I came across a very interesting question regarding calendars (or task/to-do management apps), their repeat patterns and students' needs wrt learning and repeating.

The request was to find a calendar (IMO, a task manager that somehow collaborates with a calendar would be better) that can repeat a task/event after one day, one week and one month, one time each.
All calendars I know of only allow a repeat pattern of either daily or weekly or monthly, not a mix of those patterns.
Many to-do apps don't even have repeats, and those that do have the same shortcoming.
I was unable to find anything that can match these patterns.

Does anyone know of a viable solution?

The ultimate solution would
- work closely with a good calendar app (e.g. Outlook) without cluttering it,
- have templates for quickly creating those task in one step.

If it's a standalone app, a calendar would probably be preferrable to a to-do manager. A standalone to-do manager should be able to display a timescale.

I could even imagine an online solution that's iCalendar-enabled, so tasks could be subscribed to in Sunbird, Outlook or Apple's iCal.

BTW: What exactly is the difference, in English, between "to-dos" and "tasks"?

5

Living Room / Need a small, closed (!) forum

« on: September 16, 2007, 10:13 AM »

Does anyone know where to find a place on the web to set up a small forum for discussions of a small group of people (4 to 5, ATM, but up to a dozen should be possible)? It should be organizable into different topics and threads (just like a real forum) and enable users to upload files and images, although I don't need lots of storage space for that.
Most importantly, it should be a "closed shop", not open to the public. Neither readable by outsiders (access should be password-protected) nor indexable by bots like Google's. The intended use is for a small workshop.

I don't have an own server to set this up, which would probably be best, so I need a hosted solution. Preferably free.

I looked at a lot of collaboration platforms (like Basecamp, Joyent), but none I found so far will let you organize messages by topics and threads like a real forum. Some include chat solutions (like 37signals' Campfire), but real-time chat is not what I'm looking for. Wikis (like pbWiki) can't be structured in the way I need.
There are sites that give you free forums (like freeforums.org or nabble.com), but the forums you can create there all seem to be open to the public.

Any pointers?

6

DC Website Help and Extras / Where are Nudones blog posts?

« on: July 27, 2007, 05:50 PM »

Having searched the forum (via the search feature) for any mention of TaskTracker (which I keep running into issues with), the only result I got was an older blog post from Nudone (about DialogXRsizer), but when I tried to follow the link, the page could not be found. The same is true for every link to Nudone's blog.

Why are those posts gone, although the search can find them?

And could the posts possibly be restored?

7

General Software Discussion / Good Web 2.0 Forum?

« on: July 16, 2007, 09:24 PM »

I have a question that may sound a little strange inside this community, but I'd like to know it nonetheless:

Does any of you know a good forum that discusses Web 2.0 apps (like 37signals, Netvibes or Zoho)? I've been searching the web for what seems forever, but could only find some blogs (like ITRedux) or general web sites (like TechCrunch) that discuss Web 2.0 apps. What I'd like to find is a forum that is to Web 2.0 what www.emaildiscussions.com is to E-Mail services or this wonderful forum is to fine Windows desktop software.

Any suggestions?

Please note that I'm not suggesting discussing those apps here, since I think this forum should, in general, stay focused on being a great resouce for good Windows software.

Disclaimer: I know that Web 2.0 apps, in general, suck compared to their desktop counterparts. They're still slow, under-featured and might disappear any day. But they fill a niche when you need something location-independent and not to be installed on your desktop (like when you're working in a corporate environment where you have no other choice).

(Didn't know if this is suitable here or should go into "Living Room" or somewhere else, sorry.)

8

General Software Discussion / ONLINE RSS Reader?

« on: July 03, 2007, 05:01 PM »

I know there is a parallel thread about RSS readers, but this is about web-based solutions only, which have - until now - not really been covered in the other thread.

There are some decent alternatives for your desktop, but I'm still struggling to find a satisfying web-based solution.

I want something that
- gives me all posts in one overview (no need to go through different feeds or folders), one long list of headlines (absolutely required for my job) and
- uses a three-pane layout (preferably) and/or
- (at least) lets me see the major content when hovering the mouse over it.
- No clicking and no switching to a different view or window required to see at least the summmary of the message.
- It has to be possible to bulk discard posts to get them out of the view but easily keep selected messages by tagging, starring or clipping them.
- And it should be free and not plastered with ads all over the place.

I tried all the big three: Google Reader, Bloglines and NewsGator Online. None did what I wanted. I also had a look at Netvibes, Pageflakes and wanted to try Gobits, but couldn't register for the latter.
Google Reader comes close but doesn't give you the mouse-hovering summary and I couldn't figure out how to bulk discard the unwanted 95% of messages across all feeds while saving the few "good" ones.
Netvibes and Pageflakes separate each feed as a module and make you switch views to see the complete list, and that's still separated by feed. Pageflakes isn't bad, but has a strange list view and doesn't work on Safari or any other Webkit Mac browser.
For my personal needs/interests I'll probably go with Netvibes (or desktop apps for Win and Mac that both sync with Bloglines), but for work I need that "everything in one, easy to handle list" model.

I know there are other online readers out there, but I'd like to ask here before I do any more experimenting.

Any opinions?

(Edit: I came across this too late, but what I mean by "all posts in one overview" is what Dave Winer calls the "River of News": http://www.reallysim...tion.com/riverOfNews, i.e. a real aggregator.)

9

Word Processor Roundup / TextMaker: Additions

« on: June 29, 2007, 12:00 PM »

I've been thinking about purchasing TextMaker for a while (and would have done so already if it were Win/Mac instead of Win/Linux), but now I probably will do it, as I found out two things:

- It can be installed as a portable version on your USB stick: http://www.softmaker...nglish/tipsof_en.htm
- It has ridiculously cheap academic/educational pricing (€14/$14 for students): http://www.softmaker...m/english/education/

10

Word Processor Roundup / Some Minor Errors

« on: June 29, 2007, 11:28 AM »

When I had a first look at it, I had already been wondering where Zaine would have found an offer of $35 for Papyrus.

Now I read it a second time and noticed that the passage 
"Affordable. At $35, this is a bargain for this word processor. 
Word count dialog is loaded with information, a boon to writers and editors."
can be found under both Atlantis (where the price probably belongs) and Papyrus. So it was probably an error due to copy/paste.

In addition, the words
"Full, working trial version. If you're going to try a new program — especially another word processor — it should be able to do everything it claims it can do without having to purchase it first. TextMaker loads everything for its 30-day trial."
can be found under both Textmaker and Atlantis, both times referring to TextMaker.

(Edit: There's also this under ThinkFree
"File. TextMaker is the most polished and refined of all the alternate word processors. Imagine taking the best and most-used features of Word 2003, vastly expanding its document creation power, and throwing in a healthy dose of perfectionism throughout the user interface. Forget your imagination and just check out TextMaker. I'm betting you'll love it because it will never slow you down.")

11

Word Processor Roundup / Papyrus Office

« on: February 10, 2007, 09:16 AM »

You should include Payprus Office (http://www.rom-logicware.com/) in the review.

The "Office" name is a bit of a misnomer, as it consists only of a word processor and a database.

This program has been around for a very long time (it originates from the Atari, and there is even still an Atari version). It's constantly updated (currently at v. 12.5 for Windows and Mac). It's not cheap ($99), but very stable with long documents, and it has a small but loyal user base, esp. in its native country of Germany.

Edit (premature posting): It's also portable (USB stick friendly), but no outline mode AFAICT.

12

Living Room / Internet "sideloads" other than Streamload?

« on: September 12, 2006, 05:35 PM »

Hi all,

at work, I'm behind a firewall that stupidly blocks (among other things) ZIP files and FTP. While I have a solution for FTP (http://web2ftp.com), that can pull ZIP files from an FTP server and repack it as .tgz (which I can download), my only solution for HTTP downloads of ZIP files was the service of Streamload (http://www.streamload.com, but don't bother to go there), which sucked mightily, but gave you the ability to directly upload files (of any kind) from HTTP servers to your account and enable you to rename the extension, and I was ready to download it to my machine.

Unfortunately, they "upgraded" their service to something called "MediaMax" (and lost 90% of my files in the transition, BTW), which dropped that feature completely.

Now I'm asking you: Does anyone know of a comparable solution (preferrably also free) anywhere? Please note that not only the uploading, but also the renaming part is essential.

Any ideas are highly appreciated, as this is kinda essential for me. TIA.

BTW: I remember seeing the term "sideload" for feature of idisk or xdisk back in the heydays of the .com boom; no idea if anyone could figure out from the subject what I mean...