topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Friday March 29, 2024, 12:40 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - xtabber [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: prev1 ... 19 20 21 22 23 [24] 25next
576
Here's a useful comparison of several free image backup programs, including Paragon and Macrium:

http://dottech.org/headline/11628

577
Most of the relatives who ask me about PCs have very basic needs - word processing, email, web browsing - and minimal computer literacy. Since they are going to call me to handle anything that goes wrong anyway, I prefer to set up a system for them in a standardized manner, so that I can troubleshoot most problems over the phone and, if all else fails, easily recover from whatever they have managed to screw up.

My PCs of choice are IBM refurbs purchased directly from IBM. They are certified by IBM, have a 7-day no questions asked return policy (including return shipping), and a 3 month warranty.

http://www-304.ibm.c...&subject=2576394
 
These are usually systems that were leased to large corporations and are better made than most of what you can buy in electronics stores, which means that once I set one up, I don't have to worry about hardware problems. Also, because they were business systems, they come with a legal copy of XP Professional instead of Home, a recovery partition on the HD, and have good downloadable documentation and support from the IBM/Lenovo web site.

The refurbished IBM desktops are so cheap that it's almost like buying a legitimate copy of XP Pro with the hardware thrown in for free. The notebooks are not as much of a bargain.


578
General Software Discussion / Re: At last: MP3 Lossless!!!
« on: November 15, 2009, 07:21 AM »
my problem is I like to know the frequencies are there even if I can't hear them.

If you are a discerning listener, you will readily notice the difference if they are missing, even if you don't actually hear them, because the lack of harmonic resonances in the higher frequencies dulls the tone of the sound in the range you do hear. That's why music mastered at a higher resolution (96Khz, 24 bit) sounds better when reproduced on a CD (44Khz, 16 bit resolution). It's also why violinists can continue to play beautifully long after they are no longer able to hear directly the highest tones they produce.

While this is true of acoustic music, I don't know if it applies to tones generated electronically, but then I don't listen to much electric music anyway.

That said, high bit rate MP3 (256-320 kbs, VBR) should be nearly indistinguishable from CD sound if properly encoded, and I listen to a lot of music that way, but I usually rip it or convert it from lossless myself. In-ear headphones also help make up for some of the upper frequency hearing loss.

579
Living Room / Re: You have a computer backup plan.. but does it work?
« on: October 30, 2009, 11:16 PM »
Given today's huge drives -- and the huge amount of data that tends to fill them up (nature abhors a vacuum),  I don't think full drive imaging is a good solution. If it takes too long to image one's drive, it just won't get done often enough to provide proper protection.

My suggestion is to partition the drive into at least two logical drives. The C: drive should be relatively small (say, 30GB on a 500GB drive, 50GB on a 1TB drive) and should be used only for software installations (a pain to restore) and data that is critical and changes frequently, such as email, current work, etc.. Everything else should go on the D:, etc. drives.

The C: drive can then be easily imaged regularly. The D:, etc. drives don't need to be imaged, but rather should be mirrored or synced to one or more external drives, or a backup computer.

I have 4 logical drives on my primary work desktop system, with D:, E: and F: used for different types of data and storage. I create a full image of C: on another partition at least once a month and always before installing anything that might scramble something. At the end of each month, I image C:, copy the image file to a bootable DVD and store that in a fireproof safe in my basement.

On my working notebook (which has no built-in optical drive), I have two logical drives and regularly image C: to D:. I also keep a copy of the most recent image of C: on a bootable USB flash drive, from which I can restore the system to a working state in case of disaster on the road.

I use Acronis True Image Home (currently 2009) for my imaging and UltraISO to create my bootable DVDs. I never use incrementals (too fragile and slow to retrieve) but keep current work and critical data synchronized between a couple of systems (at the minimum, my desktop and notebook).

580
General Software Discussion / Re: Anybody Here Use SeaMonkey (2.0)?
« on: October 28, 2009, 06:25 PM »
I use both SeaMonkey and Firefox -- Firefox as default browser, but clearing cookies and other info between sessions, and SeaMonkey for email and browsing with persistent cookies -- but the browser I use most of the time is Opera anyway.

The browser in SeaMonkey 2.0 is essentially Firefox 3.5.4 with a SeaMonkey look to it (and SeaMonkey type preferences) and the email client is closer to Thunderbird, so the memory footprint is equivalent to either of those, but if you use both the email client and browser at the same time, you'll see substantial savings.

My checks showed that Seamonkey 1.1.18 browser by itself used about 20MB RAM on startup, Firefox about 32MB, and Seamonkey 2.0 about 30MB for either the browser or email client alone, but only about 38MB for both at the same time. I didn't do any serious testing to see how they compared when actually loading web sites, although sites that worked with Firefox but not SeaMonkey 1.1.x do work with 2.0

One thing to be aware of is that 2.0 stores profile data like Firefox and Thunderbird, not like 1.1.x. If, as I do, you store your data in a non-standard location to allow easy syncing between computers, you'll need to take some extra steps.  On first run, let SeaMonkey import everything from your 1.1.x profile into the new profile location, then move the contents of the new profile folder where you want it to reside and edit profile.ini in %APPDATA%/Mozilla/SeaMonkey to point there. See http://support.mozil...+up+your+information for more information on moving profiles.


581
Cost is not an issue.

If it is someone else's money, AND you don't have a choice about what to use it for, I would go for a Lenovo ThinkPad W700 -- they start around $1500 but will probably run you around $3K to $5K with all the trimmings you seem to want. You can even get a version with dual screens built in (SW700Ds) if you want. 

I consider ThinkPads to be by far the best laptops made (Macbooks may be sexier, but not as well made) , but my personal preference is to buy used/refurbs that are a few years old (same for cars) because the difference in performance is not as important to me as the difference in price.  ThinkPads are supported pretty much forever, in my experience.


582
General Software Discussion / Re: What is your preferred font?
« on: September 05, 2009, 08:15 PM »
For a proportional on-screen font, I like either Arial or Verdana, both of which are better optimized for the screen than any of the better looking print typefaces.. Arial is tighter spaced than Verdana, so the choice depends on the application, e.g.,  Arial for writing, Verdana for reading web pages.

For a  mono-spaced font, my choice has long been Andale Mono, which I find far easier on the eyes than any Courier variant, and which also makes it easy to distinguish between O (Oh) and 0 (Zero), and between 1 (one) and l (lower-case L).

583
My aging eyes find printed output much easier to read for many things, in particular, long articles, and certainly much easier to edit (unless you like applying a pencil to your screen).

The last 16-bit utility I still use with any frequency is Dan Bricklin's Page Garden, released in 1989 and quickly sold off and abandoned by him, a command line batch-oriented page description scripting language for HPL and PS laser printers. I have yet to find anything as good for making long code listings easy to read and work with. The main drawback is that it only recognizes 8.3 file names.

584
my conclusion is that when they come out with one with a full letter page sized screen, i might take the plunge.

For a mere $895, you can buy the iRex reader 1000S which features a full page (10.2") screen with 1024x1280 resolution, native PDF support and the ability to write on the screen.

Product page: http://www.irextechn...ogies.com/irexdr1000

For a less than enthusiastic recent review, see: http://www.reghardwa...gtal_reader_dr1000s/

iRex is supposedly coming out with a version that includes WiFi (like their smaller iLiad, 2nd edition), but there has been no release date specified.

585
General Software Discussion / Re: the best hand-held pdf reader?
« on: July 23, 2009, 08:57 PM »
The Register has a review of the iRex Digital Reader 1000S on their site today: http://www.reghardwa...gtal_reader_dr1000s/

586
General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 evaluation
« on: July 14, 2009, 03:13 PM »
Randall Kennedy has just posted a 3-way comparison of XP/Vista/7RTM at Infoworld

http://www.infoworld...ge-windows-vista-982

He has good things to say about W7 and sees it as the future of Windows, but the bottom line is that XP still runs faster and uses far less resources on existing systems. If one has a computer that runs XP well today, there is no compelling reason to upgrade to W7. On the other hand, if you are planning to buy a new computer, it makes sense to wait and buy a system with W7 already installed.

587
Living Room / Re: Looking for a newsgroup news reader
« on: May 29, 2009, 08:49 PM »
For downloading multiple binary files, I like XNews, but for browsing and reading newsgroups, I have yet to find anything that compares to MicroPlanet Gravity, once a commercial app, but now open-source and free.

http://mpgravity.sourceforge.net/

588
You should be able to accomplish what you want with a Planex GW-AP54SP-P 2-way access point, although I've never used one myself, so I can't vouch for it. Take a look at the manual and see if it looks like it could be made to work.

http://www.planex.ne...less/gw-ap54sp-p.htm

Finding one might be more of a problem, since it seems no longer to be sold by anyone.

589
General Software Discussion / Is Windows 7 RC spyware?
« on: May 07, 2009, 12:27 PM »
The FAQ for Windows 7 RC on the Microsoft download site states that there is no need for users to report to Microsoft on their experiences in using W7RC because it collects a variety of data and automatically sends it back to Microsoft for analysis (MS refers to this as "Telemetry).

http://www.microsoft...s/windows-7/faq.aspx

The Windows 7 RC Privacy Statement is the usual boilerplate that says Microsoft can use this information for just about anything it wants, and can change the rules just by posting updates on its web site. A supplement provides a long laundry list of details and links on specific items that would take a good size law firm to fully analyze, but I did not see any explicit summary of the information collected nor any indication as to whether it is possible to turn off this "feature" altogether.

This sure sounds like spyware to me.

590
General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors
« on: April 28, 2009, 11:25 AM »
Very nice review but I wonder does any of them have my dream-like functionality: live filter with column mode
-fenixproductions (April 27, 2009, 05:24 PM)

Kedit does that, although whether or not it meets your ideal may depend on just exactly what kind of filtering you want to do.  I work a lot with fixed field flat file data and this ability allows me to perform editing functions within a field (defined as a vertical column) without affecting the surrounding data in a record (i.e., on each line).  You can also restrict editing to a rectangular selection box within a file.

Kedit's macro language is a version of REXX and you can write programs to do just about anything REXX can handle within a column range or in a rectangular box.

I find I need at least two editors for everyday use because stream oriented editors (the vast majoriity) cannot do the kind of columnar/block editing that I need much of the time, whereas line-oriented editors (Kedit, THE and a few others) cannot do things I need at other times (reflow the display of text without reflowing the text itself, multi-line pattern searching, etc.). These are limitations of basic editor design more than anything else.

My primary (and favorite, by far) editor is Kedit. For when I need a stream-oriented editor, I have tried many over the years, but have recently settled on EditPadPro. I kept SlickEdit up to date for many years but always found it too cumbersome to use as an editor and not quite enough as an IDE and gave up on it altogether sonme time ago.

For working with C programs, I use either Understand (from Scientific Toolworks - $495 and up! Ouch!) or Source Insight from Source Dynamics ($239).  Both are editors with extensive integrated source code analysis capabilities. Understand is much more powerful and handles more languages, but Source Insight works better for some things.

591
I've been using Neil Rubenking's InCtrl5 for years to track software installations. It's an old PC Magazine utility and used to be free, but now costs, $7.97 (or you can get unlimited PC Mag utilities for free for a year with a $19.97 subscription). It was written for W2K and earlier but works just fine with XP and, from what I understand, with Vista (I don't use Vista, so I can't verify that).

Full details at: http://www.pcmag.com...2/0,2817,9882,00.asp

592
Living Room / Re: Best programming books ?
« on: April 24, 2009, 02:44 PM »
Although the syntax looks similar because most derive in some way from C, C is conceptually very different from object-oriented languages like Python. The critical essence of C lies in the programmer's control over memory management and data structures, both of which are handled for you in most "modern" languages.

While Kernighan & Ritchie, "The C Programming Language" laid the foundation and is a remarkable book, I really would not consider it the best way to learn C. Probably the best introduction to C, if you have some programming experience, is Kenneth Reek, "Pointers on C" which does a superb job of explaining how C works. A good and thorough tutorial approach is Stephen Prata, "C Primer Plus"  5th edition. If you get serious about programming in C, you will want to get Harbison & Steele "C: A Reference Manual" which is exactly what its name indicates.

My choice for "best" book on programming, as opposed to using a specific language to program, would probably be Kerngihan & Pike, "The Practice of Programming" which is somewhat C-oriented, but very general in application and unsurpassed, IMHO, at elucidating the fundamentals of good programming practice.


593
I actually bought EditPadPro recently because there are times when I want to use a stream-oriented editor reather than a line-oriented editor like Kedit, and it seemed to have the best combination of features along with excellent speed and a light footprint, unlike some of the other editors I have worked with (e.g., SlickEdit).  Although I haven't given it a good workout yet, I find it very impressive so far and am very happy with the choice.

That said, folding in EditPadPro is not at all the same as selective editing in Kedit, because folding affects only the display, not the underlying document. In Kedit, you can restrict the editing scope to the visible lines, so that when you mark a rectangular block in the displayed text and copy that block elsewhere, the copied block will contain only the text that was visible in the restricted display. With folded text, the hidden lines would be included in the copy. You can also incrementally add or remove lines from the restricted display by specifying additional targets.

Restricting editing allows you to do things like right or left justify the contents of a rectangular block without affecting the text on the same lines outside of the block. These capabilities make Kedit an unequalled tool for editing flat file ascii databases and tabular data.  On the other hand, you can't search for a pattern that spans multiple lines, as you can in a stream-oriented editor, which is one reason I sometimes need one of the latter.

594
Living Room / Re: Samsung's 24 x 220MB/s SSD RAID
« on: March 13, 2009, 06:59 PM »
Opening many programs simultaneously was probably chosen specifically to make the SSD RAID configuration look impressive. A more realistic benchmark for most people would be copying several large files from one area to another on a single drive. I suspect that would not be quite such a slam dunk for a SSD as opposed to a HD, regardless of configuration.

595
Living Room / Re: I can haz LOLMouser plz?
« on: March 13, 2009, 08:34 AM »
Perhaps a comment on the increasing subtlety of this thread???

http://www.gocomics.com/lio/2009/03/13

596
FWIW, Foxit Reader 2.3 and 3.0 had the same security flaw (JBIG2 Trigger) as Adobe Reader, so replacing AR with FR did not remove the threat. Foxit released a patch today (http://www.foxitsoft.../reader/security.htm ), while Adobe is still saying that theirs will be released on Wednesday.

I recall reading somewhere that one could protect against this particular exploit by disabling Javascript in Adobe Reader, but I don't know if that is in fact true.


597
General Software Discussion / Re: registry editor
« on: March 07, 2009, 09:44 PM »
I've been quite satisfied with Reg Organizer ( http://www.chemtable.com/organizer.htm )  currently $39.95.

598
InfoWorld did a comparative review of VMware WS 6.5 vs. VirtualBox 2.0 in September 2008. You can read it at: http://www.infoworld...-workstations_1.html


599
General Software Discussion / Re: What's your mouse of choice?
« on: February 20, 2009, 01:07 PM »
I use a Logitech MX620 cordless and like it very much. It has the same scroll wheel as the MX Revolution, although you change the scroll properties with a switch under the mouse rather than by clicking on the wheel itself.

The MX620 has an extra button on top, near the left edge (see picture), which by default is set to invoke an Internet search, but can be assigned through software to just about anything you want, including a middle click.


600
This is IMO one of the funniest gag sites ever put up: http://www.usbwine.com/

Although you don't need to know French to enjoy the video "commercial" here is a link to a YouTube version that has English subtitles added: http://www.youtube.c.../watch?v=CRL1SeTJ1rk


Pages: prev1 ... 19 20 21 22 23 [24] 25next