Messages

7551

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free!

« on: April 05, 2009, 03:25 PM »

- thanks, MilesAhead. However, I have both R-Drive Image and Backup4all Pro 4, but don't really like any of them. I have tested many backup'ers but have not yet found the one to love. So I want to test Paragon 10, because MAYBE this is the one!

-Curt (April 05, 2009, 01:38 AM)

The thing about Paragon that drives me nuts is it seems as soon as I shell out some money they come out with a newer version that's cheaper and has more features.  Would be nice if they extended upgrades.. since they don't tend to do many minor updates.  For example, I bought Drive Backup 8.5 Personal for $50. Got maybe one minor update.  Now they come out with 9.0 Personal with folder exclusion features for $40.  No discount for me with version 8.5 so since it's a pita to move stuff to external before backing up to keep the backup small, I shell out the $40 to get folder exclusion.  I mean, the software has saved my ass a few times so it does work.  Just wish they'd give a discount on the same software instead of emailing discounts on other stuff I don't need.

The main thing I find now is I wish I had a faster interface to external drives.  Laying the image back on from an external USB @25 MB/sec is a bit like watching paint dry.

7552

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 04, 2009, 08:50 PM »

btw, afa themes go, I do have a few wallpapers free for download.  Most are fractal captures.  I'm trying to find a free fractal generator that can do transparencies for some cooler images, that doesn't take a PHD to use.  Fraqtive that I used to get these is fun to use but I've pretty much mined the more interesting patterns possible.

Still, some go well with themes that might otherwise be too dark if you used the wallpaper included with the theme.

Wallpapers1
Wallpapers2

7553

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 04, 2009, 07:38 PM »

I came after the green... my first monitor was 12" amber.  At least it wasn't teletype.  It did graphics, as long as you really like yellow. 

Since I put up with all the hassle of Vista I figure that entitles me to the exploding windows and transparencies.  So I usually go for a theme with glass. I use VistaGlazz and pretty much keep to .msstyles files.  Substituting too many system files can get you hosed.  I did try W7 beta and like everybody else with Vista I wish there was a way to get a Superbar that worked.  Instead I use a registry MinWidth tweak to just get icons in the taskbar. I use a double-height taskbar.  That gives me room to put a whole bunch of junk in my QuickLaunch and still have plenty of room.  For secondary stuff that I still use a lot I have a home-made toolbar.. and of course I use FARR.

The MinWidth tweak kills off the text labels for the toolbar folders so I had to use custom icons to represent the categoies.

7554

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: April 04, 2009, 05:54 PM »

ContextSearch and FEBE also seem to work ok.

7555

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free!

« on: April 04, 2009, 05:46 PM »

On another matter:
Do 'we' know for how long this beta offer has been active? Before joining I would of course like to get an idea about how dangerous it may be to test it.
 :tellme

-Curt (April 04, 2009, 04:45 PM)

This may be a bit ironic, but if you don't have a backup imaging program now, I would get the Paragon Drive Backup Express free version and make a backup image to an external USB drive.  The Express edition is the same as Backup 9.0 Personal with a few features removed.  I can attest that the restore actually works.  I've restored with Paragon Backup at least 5 or 6 times over the last year and never had a problem.  But where this one is a beta I'd have the backup using the tested and proven one in reserve.  The Express edition, same as Personal 9.0 has an image of a bootable CD for the restore.  If your drive gets hosed to where you can't get into Windows, hook up the external drive you used to back up, insert the CD and boot it.  Restore from external drive.

I just did a restore last week aamof after playing around too much with custom Vista themes got my system hosed.  The backup/restore of v. 9.0 does work.

7556

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 04, 2009, 04:43 PM »

I really hate the default xp theme so I removed that
(I know it wasnt necessary to actually remove it but I enjoyed that)

-tomos (April 04, 2009, 01:19 PM)

-cranioscopical (April 04, 2009, 04:25 PM)

Hmm seems those with XP put on a Vista lookin' theme, but if you have Vista you put on a W7 lookin' theme.  Guess if you get W7 Ultimate you have to put on a Windows 3.1 theme? 

7557

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free!

« on: April 04, 2009, 03:27 PM »

Yeah, from what I can gather they are shooting for an automated backup strategy.  I guess they expect people to kill off their restore partition since they will have backup images.  I wonder how many joe 6pack "I just want to use my PC not administer it" types will be willing to do that.. or maybe the wizard will do it for them.  Start the backup for the first time and a dialog pops up and says "Now your restore partition will be automatically hosed : ok with you? and Yes No Maybe buttons... and no matter which button you press, the partition is deleted!! 

edit: btw I have a feeling they want that simple setup because the Backup Capsule partition scheme they used will probably be automated.  A Wizard will just do it rather than depending on the user to manually click all the buttons to create a backup capsule.  Unless they leave all the manual controls it may be getting to the point where I won't want to upgrade.

7558

Post New Requests Here / Re: move mouse to active window

« on: April 04, 2009, 01:41 PM »

The first link seems to be in the thread I think.


Edit: I only have a single monitor system.  But playing around with the code I find, for myself, I like the mouse cursor to be near the origin.  If you try to go to the center of the window, it's interpreted differently in different types of windows.  Plus, since MouseMove by default moves relative to the active window, you don't even need to get the position of the active window to do any calculations.  In my modification I just use 16 as offset from the top left origin.  Here's my AutoHotKey variation:

[Select]

~!Tab::
KeyWait, Alt
KeyWait, Tab
MouseMove,16,16
return

7559

General Software Discussion / Re: accurate log file of uptime - even if power turned off

« on: April 03, 2009, 07:20 PM »

or change ">KillTime.txt" to ">>KillTime.txt" so you append the date/time to the file

-AndyM (April 03, 2009, 05:20 PM)

I don't see the advantage.  The last one is the only one that matters.  Also overwriting keeps the file small.

7560

General Software Discussion / Re: accurate log file of uptime - even if power turned off

« on: April 03, 2009, 04:34 PM »

You could probably use any launcher that has a periodic launch capability.
A simple .cmd batch file should be all you need.
Something like:
echo %date%  %time% >KillTime.txt

every time the batch runs it would overwrite KillTime.txt with the last
date & time.

Also it might be a good idea to flush the hard drive buffers so that the file
gets written after each iteration.  The free sync.exe from Sysinternals.com
should do it.  After the echo line just add the line sync.exe.  It just locks the
drive to force all write buffers to be flushed to the hardware.

7561

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 03, 2009, 12:58 PM »

You can get detailed info from this site:

http://www.boot-land...et/forums/index.php?

That's where I got the info how to do the VistaPE disc.  At least you can boot to a graphical desktop with a file manager thing.  Better than nothing.  It does a lot more if you have the install CD instead of using WAIK.

From what I understand if you have XP on your system you can slipstream whatever SP you have on it similar to how BartPE is done, and add stuff you want for a customized environment that boots off CD.

From what I gather with Vista MS had the OEMs quit putting all those files on the HD that allowed slipstreaming stand-alone OS bootable CDs.  Guess it made it too easy for freelancers to distribute XP on their own label.

7562

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite Firefox Theme(s)

« on: April 02, 2009, 10:01 PM »

Just found Aero Silver Fox.  I like the glassy blue scrollbar and the small icons for bookmark toolbar folders.  Pretty neat.

7563

General Software Discussion / Re: Favorite Firefox Theme(s)

« on: April 02, 2009, 09:54 PM »

hmm the Chromifox extreme looks kind of nice but I can't stand having to reach up over the toolbar to get to the tab bar.  To much like trying to write from right to left.

7564

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 02, 2009, 09:43 PM »

@4wd what I should have done is make an image after I cleaned off the crap and installed my most used apps, and burned it to a DVD set.  Thing is when you first get a PC you're distracted by trying to get all that crap off the machine.  Guess if I had a bunch of systems I'd develop a routine for creating lean setups.. but when you only buy one every few years you sort of fly without instruments.

7565

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: April 02, 2009, 06:45 PM »

btw just curious.. has anyone done any timings with and without FasterFox? I disabled it and it doesn't seem to slow it down afaict.  Just wondering what others experiences are.

7566

General Software Discussion / Re: System Restore Cleanup

« on: April 02, 2009, 06:28 PM »

One of the improvements in Vista, that isn't really advertised, is you can fine tune the storage without doing the percentage bit.  From an admin command prompt you can set the disk space to allocate.  I use 16 GB as max.

vssadmin Resize ShadowStorage /For=C: /On=C: /Maxsize=16GB

Esp. comes in handy in Vista64 since the Disk Cleanup thing doesn't clean off all but the last restore point like it does in Vista 32.  So I disable system restore, enable it, create a restore point, and I have a shortcut to a .cmd file with that command line to set the max to 16 GB.

Edit: speaking of restore points, here's a tutorial with a download link for an excellent script that creates a restore point when you click a shortcut. The nice thing on this one is it pops up an input box so you can enter the comment for the restore point.  Works in both my 32 bit and 64 bit Vista unlike some other .vbs scripts I've tried:

7567

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: April 02, 2009, 06:16 PM »

AutoCopy
SyncPlaces
NoScript
Mr Tech
Flashgot
Secure Login

Edit:  deskCut seems to work fine also

All seem to be good.  I'm using
today's build and it seems like the only
oddball thing is my favicons keep changing
to blue dots.  But that may be Aeon theme
doing it.

7568

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 02, 2009, 06:06 PM »

@40hz Thanks for the reply. But it's my understanding that XP is doable whereas Vista doesn't have what it takes on the HD to create the slipstream like you can in XP. At least with VistaPE I had to use WAIK just to get a boot Vista so I could mess with NTFS files on the HD(for instance to use ERUNT recovery or whatnot.)

7569

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3.1 [BETA 3]

« on: April 02, 2009, 02:29 PM »

Running FF 3.1 beta 3 and the thing I can't figure out, is the New Tab Button on the Tab Bar seems to appear at random. I thought I had it figured out that if I had the New Tab Button on the Toolbar, that it wouldn't come up, but I guess that was coincidence since now I open up and there it is again.  Seems to be no way to kill it off. (The one on the Tab Bar I mean, I can put up with the one on the Toolbar, at least it doesn't keep moving around.)

Any FF gurus know the Easter Egg to get this thing off off my psyche? 

7570

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 02, 2009, 02:21 PM »

siouxdax, there's a Mail folder underneath your Thunderbird profile. On my system the profile folder is "C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles"

under it you should see a folder with a funky temp name and inside it Mail.  Just copy the entire Mail folder to a folder for backup.  To Restore, if you already have to mail you'll probably have to open both Mail folders and manually mess with it. But try MozBackup restore first.  This is only a fallback if that doesn't work. Also there may be some Mail merge programs for Thunderbird if you google.

7571

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 02, 2009, 01:53 PM »

@siouxdax I've used MozBackup where it didn't properly install saved email, so it's good, esp. if you have an external drive, to make a folder with your emails and profiles.  Also in FF, as I just found out the hard way, there's a schism between 2.x and 3.x.  MozBackup claims to span all versions of FF from 1.5 to 3.1 beta but the format of bookamarks and some other stuff is different.  If you only have one profile and try to go back to 2.x after using 3.x it prolly won't work.  Not that it's that big a deal since 3.1 beta 3 seems stable enough to me to be default browser, but you can waste time trying to go back to 2.x like if you play with Minefield then want to get your settings back from a 2.x profile or something. It can get pretty confused.

So profile copy to a folder doesn't hurt. And if you play with Minefield, might be a good idea to create another user account with a separate profile so it doesn't step on your working stuff.

7572

Living Room / Re: OS Re-install Tips?

« on: April 02, 2009, 01:45 PM »

...
nlite/vlite trimming is a really nice thing, also because it allows you to easily integrate drivers, hotfixes/servicepacks and create unattended setups - saves a lot of time.
...

-f0dder (April 02, 2009, 09:39 AM)

Thing is on PCs I get the OS is preinstalled and they don't provide an install CD/DVD.  HP doesn't seem to go to any pains to tell you how to get one either. vlite insists you copy the install DVD to the HD afaik. Seems kind of risky to reinstall the entire OS just to find out, like if I bought such a DVD, if the thing works before I make a system image for reinstall.  Have you run into any work-around for us underprivileged that don't get the DVD with the machines?

7573

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Total Defrag 2009 For Free - Powerful but controversial

« on: April 02, 2009, 11:09 AM »

Then again you always see people out there saying "hey! I have 2 gigs free how come this takes so long?" then you find out they're defragging a 1.5 TB drive!  Some people have unrealistic expectations.

7574

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Shell extension which would let you choose which browser opens a hyperlink

« on: April 02, 2009, 11:05 AM »

@ewemoa it would be simpler if the link was in plain text and usable as is.  If digging out of a browser then the handler would have to read the page source and find the href=url that matches the underlined link.  Afa the Open With.. you could accomplish similar thing if you used a deskCut and right click and use SendTo menu.  Just add all your browsers to SendTo.

Guess the implementation depends most on the most-used app that would have the initial link.

7575

General Software Discussion / Re: eBook Reader alternate to Acrobat?

« on: April 01, 2009, 10:31 PM »

I use FoxIt.  I use a retro V. 2.0 from here:
http://www.oldversio...oxit-PDF-Reader.html

You can even go back to the 1.x versions.  Don't know if they'll work on Vista but 2.0 works fine on both 32 bit and Vista64.