Messages

551

General Software Discussion / Re: Ipod Recovery Program

« on: April 14, 2010, 08:42 PM »

IiPod recovery program - for recovering iPod users.

My name is Bob and I'm an iPodoholic.

552

Living Room / Re: building reputation: great o'reilly book and blog

« on: April 11, 2010, 07:18 PM »

That book was O'Reilly's book deal of the day last Monday.

Not my idea of an interesting read, but if it's yours, you can probably still get the ebook version from O'Reilly for $9.99 by using the discount code DDBWR.

553

Living Room / Re: File Size vs. Size on Disk: Why such a difference?

« on: April 07, 2010, 09:11 PM »

Don't know about Linux, but in Windows, you can use Treesize from JAM Software to find out exactly how much space is used/wasted by files on any FAT or NTFS formatted drive and how that would change under different cluster sizes. Treesize Pro has long been one my most often used utilities (it does a lot more than that), but I think the free version will give you the information you want.

Treesize free is at http://www.jam-softw...freeware/index.shtml .

554

Found Deals and Discounts / Super Flexible File Synchronizer Pro 1/3 off from SWREG

« on: April 07, 2010, 12:45 PM »

Super Flexible File Synchronizer Pro is currently available from SWREG for 1/3 off the regular price - $39.95 instead of $59.90.
This price includes 2 years of upgrades.

http://dr.bluehornet...0CC058506B788D62535C

The email notification says the offer is only good for a short time but provides no indication as to how long the discount will be available.

555

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 07, 2010, 08:55 AM »

IBuying the iPad as a book reader would be ridiculous. Of course, I don't think that is what you were suggesting, and the review certainly isn't either, but I've heard/seen it suggested enough to feel compelled to comment.

-Darwin (April 06, 2010, 10:28 PM)

Less ridiculous than as a newspaper reader, which is how the New York Times has been promoting it daily in full page ads since the launch. Both the NYT and USA Today were ready on day one with subscription apps that display their front pages full-width on the iPad.  For my own purposes, the iPad's drawbacks far outweigh any reasons I can see for buying one, but then, I still read dead tree editions of newspapers and magazines.

I certainly can't see anyone buying an iPad primarily to use as a book or news  reader, but many of those who do buy it will take advantage of its capabilities to use it that way, at least some of the time. I'm amazed at the number of young people who read books on their iPhones -- a 25 year-old relative whom I've never known to be interested in literature was reading "Pride and Prejudice" on his when I visited his parents home at Christmas. Can't argue with that.

556

Living Room / Re: First iPad Reviews Are In

« on: April 06, 2010, 09:47 PM »

Here's a useful review of the iPad that concentrates on using it for reading (as opposed to playing games or other fanboi activities): http://www.the-ebook....com/apple-ipad.html . If you are interested in ebooks and ebook readers in general, this is a good site to explore.

For another, cautionary, discussion of the pros and cons of actually using an iPad, this one is also worth reading: http://www.theregist...being_uses_the_ipad/

557

Living Room / First compelling reason to switch to Windows 7

« on: March 12, 2010, 05:44 PM »

This is the first really compelling reason I have seen for switching from XP to Windows 7:

http://arstechnica.c...fun-for-xp-users.ars

558

Living Room / Re: Browser Wars: Why did you choose yours?

« on: March 05, 2010, 01:36 PM »

I use Opera, Firefox and SeaMonkey for different purposes, but Opera is what I use for regular everyday browsing.  Aside from being fast and flexible without having to rely on extensions, it also works equally well on my newest systems and some older ones.

I have an old iBook G4 running OSX 10.3 (The OS can't be upgraded and most current Mac software won't run on it - yet another reason I prefer Windows to Mac) which runs Opera 10.10 just fine, allowing me to keep it in my living room for quick browsing needs.

Likewise an 8 year old Panasonic Toughbook CF-R1, with 256M Ram and a 20GB HD, on which Firefox 3.6 feels like swimming in mollasses, but Opera 10.10 runs beautifully. As an aside, it's too bad Panasonic stopped selling the CF-R line outside Japan after that model, because it remains a far superior ultra-light to any netbook sold today - 2.2 lbs, a brilliant 1024x768 screen and nearly indestructible ruggedized construction - I can toss it in a bag and carry it around without straining my back or worrying about dropping it.

559

Living Room / Re: Nice site found while looking for right click/copy path extension

« on: March 05, 2010, 12:56 PM »

You should also check out ClipName http://www.mainsoft.fr/en/downloads.htm

We also use ExecParm from the same site.

-kwacky1 (March 05, 2010, 04:11 AM)

Those are by Patrick Phillippot. He wrote some really nice utilities for PC Magazine which used to be free downloads, complete with source code, but aren't anymore, alas.

560

Living Room / Re: Yelp Website Accused of Extortion -- More Examples of Corrupt Review Sites

« on: March 02, 2010, 06:06 PM »

If you are on the USA. Extortion is one of the pillars of our society. Just look at the IRS, one might think they invented it

-rxantos (February 25, 2010, 08:24 PM)

Not true. The IRS only enforces the tax laws devised by our elected representatives.

My experience is that, as long as you are honest in dealing with them and don't try to bend the rules, the IRS can be tremendously helpful to people in business for themselves.

I wish I could say as much about our elected representatives.

561

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: O'Reilly Ebook Deal of the Day

« on: February 08, 2010, 12:41 PM »

Now that's what I call perfect timing!

I recently bought "R in a Nutshell" (dead tree edition) and was thinking of getting it in an ebook edition too. I prefer reading real books, but ebooks have the advantage of making it easy to carry a bunch around and usually to search or cut and paste from.

562

General Software Discussion / Re: Paragon Virtualization Manager 2010

« on: February 08, 2010, 12:25 PM »

This is also included as part of the Paragon Backup & Restore 10 Suite, which does have a free trial.
http://www.paragon-s...ftware.com/home/brs/

563

Developer's Corner / Re: Is a website login script something people on DC need?

« on: February 07, 2010, 10:21 AM »

The domain name for this is www.quadodo.net but the links to documentation provided  on the download page (http://www.quadodo.net/downloads.php) use www.quadodo.com, which redirects you off the site (in my case, to a bad URL collection scam site).

Even if the product itself were bulletproof, this is the kind of thing that scares me away real fast.

564

Found Deals and Discounts / Paragon Backup & Restore 10 Suite at Bits du Jour

« on: January 18, 2010, 10:53 AM »

Bits du Jour ( http://www.bitsdujour.com/ ) has the Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Suite today for $34.95 (50% off).

I have been a long time user of many Paragon products but had been using Acronis True Image for my regular backups. Unfortunately, as Carol Haynes has pointed out elsewhere, True Image 2010 is a buggy mess. I can't even get it to install on my main work computer. While the images created by Paragon B&R 10 are not quite as compact as those created by Acronis, the program itself is faster and much more reliable. 

The suite offers many features not included in Paragon's free b&r or Drive Backup Pro, including a P2V utility. For a full list, see: http://www.paragon-s.../brs/comparison.html

565

General Software Discussion / Re: At last: MP3 Lossless!!!

« on: January 13, 2010, 10:07 AM »

ut actually I was favorably surprised by another point, the mp3 encoder.  I used to rely on EasyCDDA, encoding my CD @ 192 kbps ABR.  With Jetaudio Plus I chose 192 kbps VBR and I was astonished by the difference (on the same Sony Walkman, a NWZ-S738F).  The music seems "clearer", "richer" than with EasyCDDA with a similar compression level.

-MerleOne (January 12, 2010, 04:56 AM)

Hm, couldn't find mention of which MP3 encoding engine EasyCDDA uses; the closest "official" info I found in any obvious place was a link to mp3dev.org, which seems to be an old site for LAME? - some review does say it uses LAME, though. And afaik, LAME is pretty much the highest-quality encoder on the market?

JetAudio doesn't mention it's codec either, but a 2007 thread on their forum implies Fraunhofer... I hope that they've either changed codec since, or that Fraunhofer has improved their codec, since it used to have worse quality (except for very low bitrates, but who use 96kbps for their audio? )

-f0dder (January 12, 2010, 06:12 AM)

Easy-CDDA uses LAME. Don't know about JetAudio, but since the free version does not include MP3 encoding, they probably pay for their MP3 codecs, and since they bundle MP3 and MP3pro together, I'd guess they license them from Thomson.

Setting VBR rates is a lot more complicated than just picking a bitrate. You need to set maximum and minimum filters and various options. LAME provides a number of optimized presets which you can use as is or tweak yourself. These are available only in the registered version of Easy-CDDA, IIRC. ABR is VBR with averaging between frames to achieve a consistent file size, so the final quality may depend on how much compression is actually needed for a given source.

Here's a reasonably comprehensible description of VBR vs ABR: http://wiki.hydrogen.../index.php?title=ABR

566

Living Room / Re: Are my EBook Reader dreams going to be answered in 2010? A full size reader?

« on: January 07, 2010, 04:08 PM »

One of the earlier descriptions I had seen stated that you would not need the Skiff Reader to access Skiff Store content, but the Reader itself would be limited to Skiff Store content. That seems to be confirmed by the web site. See: http://www.skiff.com/skiff-service.html

Unless Hearst and whoever else is backing Skiff plans to give the device away to subscribers, I just don't see that kind of closed environment gaining any kind of traction in the market. Both Apple and Microsoft/HP are introducing general purpose tablets this month and I expect that strong competition will force the cost of e-ink readers supporting PDF and other open formats to drop substantially this year.

567

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone still using WordPerfect?

« on: January 05, 2010, 10:30 PM »

Writemonkey bears an uncanny cultural resemblance to the DOS-based XYWrite wordprocessor. XYWrite, in turn, was based on the ATEX word processing program which ran on mainframes way back when. ATEX was the wordprocessor for its time. ATEX was used extensively by major news agencies and newspaper publishers such as the New York Times.

-40hz (December 22, 2009, 06:54 PM)

In DOS days, the New York Times, and many others, also used XyWrite as their standard PC word processor,. until Microsoft leveraged Windows integration to make Microsoft Word the de facto standard. XyWrite on an IBM PC-XT was faster than MS Word 2007 is today on just about any current personal computer, which is why it was beloved of those who wrote for a living.

ATEX and XyWrite were based on a markup language not unlike HTML and used style sheets, allowing for greater separation of content and presentation than any other word processing system. That also meant that one could concentrate on writing and add the styling later, instead of trying to format as one types, as is encouraged by programs like Word. Although XyWrite itself is long gone, it lives on as the core of Nota Bene, a word processing system specifically designed for academics.

568

Living Room / Re: Are my EBook Reader dreams going to be answered in 2010? A full size reader?

« on: January 04, 2010, 03:12 PM »

The Skiff Reader is being developed by the Hearst Corporation and is obviously what I have heard some Hearst insiders (including the executive editor of one of their publications) refer to cryptically as the device they expect will save the newspaper publishing industry from being destroyed by free news on the Internet. To me, that says that it will be crippled by proprietary DRM. Reports also say that the software running it will allow advertising to be "injected" into content.

It does look great, but looks aren't everything.

569

Living Room / Re: Are my EBook Reader dreams going to be answered in 2010? A full size reader?

« on: January 01, 2010, 03:42 PM »

Acrobat Reader on a PC has the ability to scale any document, whether text based or scanned, to fit the window size on screen.  I don't know if ANY ereaders available today do that, but I do know from anecdotal reports that many do not. That's a software issue, and as I said before, the software on all of these devices appears to be primitive. Sincee most are Linux based, one should expect better.

Screen resolution is the most important element in being able to read pdf documents that do not flow text, like journal articles. 1024x768 was the standard resolution for many laptops and CRT monitors, and that is pretty much the absolute minimum resolution that I would ever consider. However, since I would want to use an ereader in portrait mode, I would like to have at least 1024 for the shorter dimension, so I'm thinking more of 1024x1280 or greater.  As a yardstick, consider that low fax resolution is 100 dpi, so faxing a full 8.5x11 page at low res requires 850x1100 dots.

Here is a site that provides a comprehensive and frequently updated overview of what is available in ereader technology: http://wiki.mobilere...E-book_Reader_Matrix

570

Living Room / Re: Are my EBook Reader dreams going to be answered in 2010? A full size reader?

« on: December 31, 2009, 07:17 PM »

My desires are:

• 8.5x11" Screen
• Native PDF rendering
• Reasonably fast page turning
• Basic ability to add notations

-mouser (December 29, 2009, 03:53 PM)

I can agree with points 2-4, but why are you so hung up on the idea of a physical 8.5x11 screen? The only thing I can think of is that you might want to trace images from the screen onto a standard letter sized sheet of paper.

Size certainly matters to those of us of a certain age -- I'm certainly not going to read books on an iPhone or Droid, as my nephews do -- but given a reasonably large screen (e.g., 8x10"), what matters far more to me is resolution, competent software and the ability to organize the contents of the device so I can find what I want easily.

My main interest in an ereader is to read journal articles and technical books, and these are nearly always in PDF format, but they are not all text files -- many are scanned -- which is why my priorities are, in addition to high resolution, the ability to zoom and pan. Also, since the greatest attraction of an ereader is the ability to carry a lot of reading material around, I simply don't understand why none of the current devices provide a folder tree to organize contents.

571

Found Deals and Discounts / Free Plus Pack with Acronis True Image Home upgrade

« on: December 29, 2009, 04:06 PM »

Acronis is offering a free copy of Plus Pack for users of earlier versions who upgrade to True Image Home 2010, through January 10, 2010.  Plus pack adds several features present in True Image Workstation (restore to dissimilar hardware or virtual image, dynamic disk support and WinPE support) to True Image Home.

https://store.acroni...mp;lid=2&uid=100

The cost is $29.99. Since Plus Pack costs $29.99 by itself, you can look at this either as a free Plus Pack with an upgrade or a free upgrade with the purchase of Plus Pack.

572

Found Deals and Discounts / Axialis software 50% off until 12/31/2009

« on: December 29, 2009, 03:51 PM »

Axialis software - Icon Workshop, Screensaver Workshop and Cursor Workshop - is 50% off until December 31, 2009.

http://www.axialis.com/

573

Living Room / Re: Are my EBook Reader dreams going to be answered in 2010? A full size reader?

« on: December 29, 2009, 03:21 PM »

This is the only tech product i've really been craving badly for years.. I've been waiting so long to be able to read full sized 8.5x11" academic papers.. This just can't come fast enough for me.

-mouser (December 29, 2009, 06:28 AM)

I read somewhere (don't remember where) that the Plastic Logic QUE will be an 8.5x11" tablet, but the screen size will be 10", whatever that means (diagonal? length?). We should know soon enough since Plastic Logic will be unveiling it on January 7 at CES.  Given that it is supposed to be aimed at business users also indicates that the price will be high.

In any event, while my aging eyes demand a bigger screen than those available in ereaders today, what I consider far more important than physical size is screen resolution. An 8.5x11" screen with 1024x786 pixels is not going to be as useful as an 8x10 screen at, say, 1280x1024, or even a wide screen that can rotate.

The biggest problem I have with all the ereaders I have seen is primitive and poorly designed software. They all flow text, but none can zoom and few can pan, both of which are essential for reading many PDF files.  Also, most have minimal organizing ability and little or no search capabilities.

I have little use for buying books via a cell-phone network, à la Kindle, but would like to have WiFi access to my own computers and the Internet to download materials.

574

General Software Discussion / Re: Text editor with filtering of lines

« on: November 26, 2009, 12:46 PM »

Kedit does this, and much more in that vein. For example, you can restrict the view to those lines that contain a target pattern, then mark a rectangular block in the visible scope and modify, copy or move it elsewhere.  But Kedit is most definitely not freeware.

575

General Software Discussion / Re: Which MP3 tagger do you use?

« on: November 19, 2009, 12:09 PM »

I use Mp3tag when editing tags, but since a lot of my tagging is done when I rip or convert audio, I should add Easy CD-DA ( http://www.poikosoft.com ) to the list. It's an audio ripper/converter/burner, but it also handles tags nicely while dong so.