Messages

26

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Executable Compressor Programs

« on: January 12, 2006, 01:25 PM »

Jibz makes a very good point (as always), there is much more to consider than size alone.  Personally with all of the computing power available today, size is not an issue, compatibility is key.  I used UPX for a long time and it really is a great util, but from the release of Visual Studio 2003 onwards it started having compatibility issues with certain executables that were not easily resolved.  These days I use PECompact simply because it is fully featured, stable and has great support from the author.  That being said, as any common sense you have may say, avoid compressing or releasing anything with the alpha/beta releases. 

27

Official DonationCoder.com Reviews / Re: Priority Master 2005

« on: January 12, 2006, 12:07 PM »

I might be wrong, but wasn't this program for sale at 5x the price last year?  In that respect it certainly is pretty good product to consider and perhaps even a bargain.  Thinking back in my cloudy and distant memory, the web site was appalling, the application was garish, yet that being said, it was actually a fully featured, powerful and competent package.

For $9.95 I think it may well be worth checking out for some people.  Ahem (mouser), I still use Process Tamer myself. 

28

Living Room / Re: psp region question

« on: January 01, 2006, 10:50 AM »

I'm not sure that the DVDs would work bacause there are two different formats of DVD - PAL and NTSC. In Hong Kong, they use the NTSC format - in the US, I think you use the PAL format. I'm not entireley sure because I live in the UK and I don't know much about American DVDs - I could be wrong.

-alecjw (January 01, 2006, 06:04 AM)

Bear in mind that the PSP doesn't use either PAL or NTSC, so all resolutions for all regions are the same.  You just need to set the correct transcoding settings in your chosen software to ensure the target resolution is suitable for the PSP.  The source resolution is irrelevant.

29

Living Room / Re: psp region question

« on: December 30, 2005, 12:35 PM »

There is no region locking at all for games on the PSP.  I brought mine last year in Hong Kong and I can confirm it works perfectly with both US and Euro games.  The UMD movies are region coded though, so if you do intend to buy official movies this may be of concern to you.  Frankly I prefer to encoded my DVDs to MPEG4 and view them via the memory stick.

As for languages, as all of the PSPs sold are identical (except the movie region) so you are free to choose whichever language you wish.

http://psp.ign.com/a...es/561/561098p1.html

Edit: Added link with further information

30

Found Deals and Discounts / VSO-Software 50% discount on all products

« on: December 26, 2005, 12:07 PM »

Including the famous BlindWrite and CopyToDVD.  More information here as well as a rather interesting post on the French bill to potentially legalise P2P file sharing: -

http://www.vso-software.fr/

Offer ends on the 28th of December.  Oh, and I believe that puts me on my 100th post.  I feel like a fully grown adult now!   

31

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: sweet game reviews

« on: December 26, 2005, 11:15 AM »

Yes I agree, IGN became horrific which is when I and probably 80% of the existing readers bailed from there.  Unfortunately some game publishers provide patch downloads via them which is a whole new kind of horror.  Unfortunately excessive advertising appears to be par for the course on most gaming sites these days.  Thank god for Ad Mucher.

Talking Nintendo DS for a moment, I'd honestly love a frank justification for purchasing the DS, so if vrgrll owns one I'd be interested in hearing her thoughts.  To me it looks like a 70's "game a watch" system, it lacks the power of the PSP, the compactness of the SP and I'm yet to remain convinced that any games effectively use the second touch-screen, or ever will.

At the same time I love my Nintendo SP dearly (working my way through Golden Sun 2: The Lost Age during any free moment this Christmas) so probably wouldn't take that much convincing to make me buy a DS for the price, though the pet simulator that massively boosted sales this Christmas won't be it. 

32

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: sweet game reviews

« on: December 26, 2005, 10:58 AM »

I'm a fairly avid gamer (when I'm able to find time) but I don't believe I've come across Eurogamer before.  I guess there is a lot of tough competition in the whole games site arena with a few big names dominating.  I does look rather interesting though so I think I'll be adding it to Website Watcher and it is nice to have a non American perspective on gaming now and again. 

That all being said, I'm still far from convinced to buy a Nintendo DS.  Did you just get one for Christmas or something mouser? 

33

Living Room / Re: nice article on procrastination

« on: December 26, 2005, 10:50 AM »

Hmm, maybe I'll read this later... 

I have to agree completely with the sentiments of the zen posted above.  If I'd had the strength to do that I'd be a much improved person now.  Oh well, back to slothful Christmas excess.

34

General Software Discussion / Re: Acquisition of Copernic by Mamma?

« on: December 26, 2005, 10:41 AM »

I've always liked the Copernic products (with the exception of that Copernic Tracker abortion) so I hope this all works out for the best.  Mamma.com is hardly a big player, nor do I know anyone who uses their services, hence filling their advertising/sponsorship/redirection/google-analytics coffers, so I'd have to question how they managed a buyout.  No doubt they have some serious venture capitalist backing to pull off this stunt and that rarely works out well for existing customers.  Oh well, I've waited so long for support of Google and Altavista in Copernic Agent that I never expected to see it anyway.   

35

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

« on: December 26, 2005, 10:25 AM »

After a couple of weeks of registered use I now love Directory Opus more than ever.  I briefly considered listing the reasons but frankly I'd be here all day.  In honesty Dir Opus is a frustratingly complex and confusing product, even with the numerous tutorials and product run-throughs on the web (thinking about it, this and the steep price is why I didn't purchase it in the first place), but trust me, with a little time to learn and a slight determination to nurture and customise it will exceed all expectations.  Is there anything that this doesn't do, or can be made to do with a little effort?  Would you believe me if I told you that it cooked my entire Christmas dinner?  Well it didn't, but next year this may well be a possibility.

For anyone considering a prospective purchase - You still have a few days left!  Use them wisely.... 

36

Older Newsletters / Re: Newsletter 2005-12-20 - Codename "brotherS gets it going"

« on: December 20, 2005, 03:30 PM »

Yep, informative and entertaining.  Great stuff.

37

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

« on: December 15, 2005, 10:24 AM »

I just popped back for a brief spell and find a big discount for something I've wanted to buy for ages, but could never quite justify on price grounds.  Not any more.   

Thanks mrainey, this was a really nice surprise!

38

Living Room / Re: Nero 7,will you be upgrading ,if not,are there any alternatives?

« on: October 28, 2005, 09:28 AM »

I've been a user and big fan of Nero since version 2.0 having moved from Cequadrat WinOnCD back in the 90's.  I guess I have the same disillusionment as everyone else - the product reached its functional peak certainly by 6.0 and everything else has just been filler.  I think it is the usual problem of business managers thinking "we have to diversify or die.  What else can we do with this product?" and losing all understanding of who the customer is, what they need to do and why.  Still, it has worked for them up to now as they have obliterated the competition.

In the past I have felt the need to purchase upgrades to newer versions of Nero, such as the move to 6.6 to support my latest DVD burner but the upgrade to 7.0 just to potentially support any future hardware I may purchase (blu-ray?) whilst getting a load of useless add-ons just doesn't interest me, especially for a hefty premium.  I don't need the ability to encode/decode/transcode a million different formats, I don't need home movie editing or wave/mp3 file editing and even if I did I doubt I would use Nero to do it.

It is worth noting that Nero has gone from a 5mb download with version 5.0 (I've just checked this and it was initially 4mb for early versions of 5.0!) to well over 100mb for version 6.6 and 7.0 with all of the features.  Bloated and directionless are words that come to mind.

Ahead should market and sell the core Nero burning program without the rest of the baggage, for a small cost, and I'll be interested (along with many other people no doubt).

I have since moved to Traxdata/Prassi ONES and despite the poor support I'm really happy with the product as it is simple, yet powerful and focused on the task of burning my CD/DVDs.

http://shop.traxdata.fr/

39

General Software Discussion / Re: What the hell is up with Cerrulean Studios?

« on: October 24, 2005, 02:21 AM »

Yeah, I've noticed this too.  The only releases in as long as I remember have been a couple of changes to the connection dlls to cope with changes to certain IM services.  I wouldn't mind that much apart from when you purchase pro you only get 12 months worth of free updates.  At this rate there will be users who do not even get as much as a single core product bug fix update.  Then no doubt they will be expected to pay to upgrade to 4.0.

40

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Divx.com Create Bundle free for one day only(!) Sep 28,2005

« on: September 29, 2005, 12:49 AM »

Great find mouser!  I only hope that with time it turns out to be as functional as Dr DivX was.  There was a lot of angry customers when one changed into the other.

41

Unfinished Requests / Re: IDEA: Large file generator

« on: September 28, 2005, 12:49 AM »

Thanks for all the hard work guys!  It is really appreciated. 

42

Unfinished Requests / Re: IDEA: Large file generator

« on: September 27, 2005, 09:01 AM »

Yeah, that's what I thought but I've not been having much luck finding one that allows the creation of files with a given binary value.  Here is one that is close, but no cigar: -

http://www.programme...e16/cat288/37062.htm

It seems to only allow creation of files with ASCII characters and only lets you input the file length in bytes, not bytes/kb/mb/gb.  If someone does know of such a tool I'd be interested. 

43

Unfinished Requests / IDEA: Large file generator

« on: September 27, 2005, 08:51 AM »

I would like a simple little utility for creating large test files rather like 'bigfile' under UNIX.

Basically all that should be required is to give the path/filename of the file to create, the file size in bytes/kb/mb etc and the byte to fill the file with from 0-255 (or 00-FF hex).

I have an old DOS utility which does a similar thing but DOS has a few size limitations so a native Windows utility would be great.

44

ProcessTamer / Re: ok finally about to do a round of work on Process Tamer - make your requests now

« on: September 23, 2005, 12:43 PM »

Excellent news mouser!  How I've waited for this moment.   

1. Ability to tame any processes not owned by the account ProcessTamerTray is running as and the ability to view/configure them in the Configuration screen.  This is the single most important feature to me and anything else is a bonus.

Other stuff I'd like to see but which isn't that important (in no particular order): -

2. Ability to automatically terminate any processes that have been 'out of control' (I'd term this as running at 100%) for more than a certain amount of time.  This would be configurable per process.

3. Ability to either take action or launch an exe/script if a certain issue arises such as a process taking too much processor time for a particular amount of time (as above) OR if it exceeds a particular memory threshold.  It would also be good if time of day coule be used in the determination.  e.g. if a service uses more than 50mb between midnight and 4am then ProcessTamer could launch as script to restart it.  I definitely think the ability to monitor memory usage would be a powerful addition and would put ProcessTamer within the Microsoft Resource Manager arena without the cost or bloat.

4. Automatically kill any predefined processes.  I think this might be useful to someone.  Maybe.

5. Do something or other with those annoying Tray Bubbles to stop messages for being displayed seemingly endlessly.  I'm not sure you can do much about this though (without a change of technology to something custom) as I'm sure the problems are very much Microsoft's.

6. Whatever everyone else has said - As long as it doesn't lead to a fat and slow application. 

45

Living Room / Re: Network problem - can anyone advise?

« on: September 22, 2005, 02:45 PM »

I would be strongly suspecting communication to the Win 98 box.  Peer-to-peer networks using Windows 95/98 are notoriously ropey.  I'd strongly suggest moving the printer to an XP box to see if this resolves your issue and if this isn't a practical solution at present (as you suggest) then get your management to invest in a dedicated print server such as a HP Jetdirect, Intel Netport or D-Link FEPS.  A cheap one like the D-Link will cost about £50 but hunt around you should be able to find one for much cheaper still.

I'd also suggest that you check the communication protocols in use on each of your machines and remove any IPX or NetBEUI you come across.  IP only is the only way to go these days but older Win 9X machines had a habit of throwing in everything by default.

A good place for networking advice is http://www.security-forums.com/ and for learning networking http://www.windowsnetworking.com/ is pretty good.

46

Living Room / Re: Blog Column query

« on: September 22, 2005, 02:22 PM »

Just enter a name and post your comment.  There is no need to enter website or email - At least not at the moment.  

I haven't tried Anti-Executable but quite a few people recommend Anti-Hook http://www.infoprocess.biz/AntiHook.aspx and my personal favourite ProcessGuard http://www.diamondcs...com.au/processguard/

Anti-Hook is free and ProcessGuard will run in a cut-down free mode if you don't choose to register it.

47

General Software Discussion / Re: Rebirth now free

« on: September 21, 2005, 01:00 PM »

Rebirth rocks and I'd completely forgotten about it.  So double thanks for reminding me AND letting me know that such a cool tool is now free. 

48

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Opera goes FREE!

« on: September 21, 2005, 07:09 AM »

Apparently they are already doing quite well from sales to hardware manufactures for embedding Opera into mobile devices.  This is likely to provide the bulk of the revenue for the foreseeable future.  No doubt they sat down with their financiers and worked out that many hardcore users will be happy to buy premium support and the increased level of use and ultimately revenue from searches generated from Opera going 'free' would actually make them more money than their existing Shareware model.

Good luck to them as it really is an excellent product.

49

Found Deals and Discounts / Opera goes FREE!

« on: September 20, 2005, 05:59 AM »

Today Opera Software have released version 8.5 of their Opera browser.

The good news is it is finally advert and registration free!  The press release is here: -

http://www.opera.com...eases/en/2005/09/20/

Edit: Oops, JeffK beat me to it here: https://www.donation...hp?topic=790.new#new although this topic thread may be a little more apt for the situation.

50

Living Room / Re: Mouser will be out of down until Sept. 15

« on: September 11, 2005, 03:23 PM »

mouser, relax and have a good time.  You deserve it.