Topics

126

Living Room / Seeking methodology (best practice?) for cloning dissimilar boxes ...

« on: April 29, 2010, 01:59 AM »

Folk,

This one's a bit unusual.  Have a naval buddy on deployment.  He just got two (2) new laptops a couple of days before the deployment.  Both are 64-bit with Win7 Home Premium.

Acer
AMD Athlon X2 dual Core L310, 1.2 GHz
4 GB RAM (3.75 GB usable)
Atheros AR5B93 Wireless (internal)
Realtek HD Audio
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

Gateway (red, btw)
Intel Core i3 M330 2.13 GHz (4 core)
4 GB RAM (3.68 GB usable)
Atheros AR5B93 Wireless (internal)
Broadcom NetLink Gigabit Ethernet (internal)
Intel Display Audio
Realtek HD Audio
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD

It has fallen to me to config these boxes while he is away.

The two boxes will be 80% identical insofar as software configuration.

The other 20% will be

• his - electronics, diagramming, & database software - he's the radar/electronics maven on his ship, also breadboards stuff as a hobby.
  
• hers - AutoCAD & games, prolly World of Warcraft - she's a draftsman and a game junky.
  

He'll use the Acer, but he's giving the Gateway to his SO (calls her his

Social Officer  ) as a surprise.  He left all the necessaries to install the special stuff, so that's no problem.

However, I don't want to spend a week or two (2) configuring one box, the doing the same thing with the other.

Equally however, I don't think I can do one box, then image it to the other, due to the disparity in CPU and other variations.

So, what do you think would be the best approach?  Is there a fairly reliable way to image dissimilar PCs?  Never ran across this in the corporate world, and I really don't want to learn the hard way if I can avoid it.

I'm using the Gateway right now, and it is [speedy] sweet!  (Although I'm seeing the application whiteout that I thought was just on my desktop - that's prolly another thread, though.)[/list]

127

Living Room / How do *you* tell when your OS is booted/ready?

« on: April 06, 2010, 07:14 AM »

While I was waiting on coffee to finish this morning, I happened upon a question - apparently a much-asked one - that intrigued me, "How do I tell when my system has finished its start up?"

The response was so inane that I had to search to see what other answers might be available.  This question goes all the way back to Win95  , and the answers I saw, some of them, were amazing.  Now, while these were mostly Windows-related, the question applies to any OS, I'd warrant.

So that got me to thinking.  How do I know when my system is ready for use?  Never really thought about it before.  Turns out, after a bit of cogitation, that I check the system tray [notification area?] for an icon count in Windows, and something very similar in Linux.  I used to look at CPU activity, but that's not so reliable as once it was.

Now I'm curious.  How do DCers decide when their system is ready for use.  Or, more properly, how do you know when your start up process is finished? When initialization is complete and the system is as idle as it is going to be?

128

General Software Discussion / In search of: installation tracker (akin to InCtrl)

« on: April 04, 2010, 01:52 PM »

Folk,

'Bout a decade and a half ago, PC Magazine published a VB (v3.0, I think) app called inctrl.exe.  It tracked all changes to a PC whenever new software was installed.  It had to be run before and after any given software installation, and was - to me - abominably slow.  But it did find any and all changes made as a result of the tracked installation.  The results could be logged to HTML, and the result reviewed at any later time.  (When I say any and all changes, I mean that it tracked file replacements (e.g., different .dll files), registry changes (both from and to entries, as I recall), new information written to disk, information deleted from disk - or registry, or start menu, or ... - basically, it recorded every single change made on the system.  I even caught a few malware installs in the process of using it.)

I'm trying to find something similar that will work with Win7, preferably both 32- and 64-bit versions - maybe two different app versions, but that won't matter.

The only thing I can find to date is some sort of uninstall software.  Unfortunately, a lot of such software does not create a reader-friendly change log.  And I'm not really looking for uninstall information, per se.  (I'm about to try Total Install - last free version - to see if it will perform to my needs.)

Example.
I've been using Dimio's Task Manager (DTaskManager) for ages.  When I switched to Win7 (32-bit), it quit working - gave an error on startup.  Then something I installed made it start working again.  OK, 1st thought is that some .dll was altered, a different version installed.  Then I installed something else and it started to error out again.  If I had installation tracking logs, I might be able to discern what file was altered that DTaskManager needed to use, and try reverting that file.

There are caveats here, in that the newly installed software might require the version(s) choking DTaskManager, but at least I'd be able to check that, ya know?  Then I'd have to decide which app was more useful to me <groan />.

So, then, I'm not looking for removal capability so much as for any and all changes any given installation makes.

Does that make sense?

Any recommendations?  (BTW, I'm not nearly so concerned with free vs. paid as with functionality:  cost, within reason, is not a significant concern.)

129

Living Room / New hardware recommendations?

« on: March 29, 2010, 10:46 PM »

Folk,

Seems as though I always return to DC when I find a conundrum or need to make a decide.  The breadth of knowledge here surpasseth all understanding when compared to what I can find elsewhere.

I'm looking at two (2) new pieces of hardware. 

My current LinkSys 350N router seems to be not-so-slowly giving up the ghost.  Since I have no viable way of testing/troubleshooting it for the [presumed] failure(s), I plan to replace it.  Currently looking at the LinkSys 400N and the D-Link DIR-685.  I like the dual-band capability of the LinkSys, although I may not be able to utilize that aspect right away.  On the other hand, the D-Link looks awfully good - but I've not had good luck with D-Link products in the past, mostly because of short life span(s).  D-Link and NetGear have pretty much been under my radar, until now, but as said, the DIR-685 looks awfully good.  Any thoughts or experience regarding either of these?  Or perhaps recommendation for something better?

Other piece of hardware is a new laptop.  Just got a Dell Vosto 1520 (?) for Baby Daughter, discount price.  That got me to kooking at a Dell Vostro 3700 (?) with an I7 processor, 4-6 G RAM.  I've always considered Dell to be a bit pricey, and this one is no exception, but it's the lowest price I've seen yet for an I7.  However, I've been out of touch with the laptop arena for a while - my last several were WinBooks, and they not made anymore <sigh />.  Again, any thoughts, experience, or recommendations?

130

General Software Discussion / Anyone familiar with Oops!Backup?

« on: March 27, 2010, 07:27 PM »

Or, perhaps, a related product?

Looking for something that will update files when a USB stick is inserted.  Needs to synchronize, not just transfer, as there could be multiple, bi-directional changes.  Transfer involves only two boxes at present time, but could be expanded to three, perhaps four.

Cannot use stick as primary storage, since data files may be in use when stick transferred.  Anything functional is going to be kind of a kludge, I'm afraid.

My hope is something that will run upon insert, then alert me if any of the data files are currently in use on that box.

I'm afraid my explanation is kinda cloudy, sorry.

131

General Software Discussion / Back again: focus flicker ...

« on: March 04, 2010, 10:19 PM »

Seems as though Ive been asking a lot of questions lately.  Prolly 'cause I have.

I've been dealing with this for a while, now.  However, what was a minor annoyance has become a major irritant.

I've been researching this for several months, but while I've found something like 1,110,000+ references - up by ~8,000 since last week or so - none of them seem to apply.

The problem is that when I change focus from one window to another, the focus doesn't stick.  It flickers from the selected window to another.  This can be a back-and-forth process, sometimes just once back and forth, sometimes as many as ten times, possibly greater.  Of the referenced million-plus pages, once I filter out Ford Focus, Logitech drivers, and other such kinda, sorta false positives, there are still more pages than I can begin to peruse in what's left of this year, much less in the next few weeks.

While this was not a serious problem before, now that I'm contracting again, there are several downsides that are not tenable.

One of 'em is that when I switch from, say, PHP to CSS IDEs, what I start typing may not end up in the right IDE  .  'Nother one is that when I work with a DVCS, I can't always depend upon the commands going to the right place.

The OS is 36-bit Win7 on a dual-core 2.8 GHz processor, 3G Ram, mucho disk space available.  Don't think this started with Win7, may have started with installation of Google's Chrome, but I think it was later.  Think I first noticed it after installing Prism HUD, a system resource monitor, but it doesn't seem attributable to Prism HUD. 

Oh, yeah ... the focus doesn't always switch back to the window I was in ... sometimes it flickers from the window I'm in to I wot not what.

Frankly, I'm at a loss to 'splain it.  I can, if I'm careful - and abominably slow - work with it, but I'd much rather work without it.

As usual, DC is my recourse of last resort.  Any ideas?

132

General Software Discussion / NoSQL database(s) - anyone familiar?

« on: March 01, 2010, 08:06 PM »

Folk,

In preparation to [re]enter the rat race, at least for a bit, I've been looking at database alternatives.  Ran across a reference to NoSQL , a class of non-RDBMS databases particularly suited to Web site utilization.  Searched the forum, via Google & via the internal search engine, but found no mention.

From what I've read, the concept is appealing, but I'd like to see some hands-on comments as to the advantages/disadvantages of the product and the implementation.  While there are some Windows binaries, the product seems mostly aimed at Linux servers.  But I've yet to find anything that says yea or nay about installing it on a shared server.

Anyone have any experience with NoSQL?

133

General Software Discussion / Versioning Systems, for Small Enterprise ...

« on: February 28, 2010, 12:00 AM »

Folk,

I've perused several threads here on the subject matter, as well as general search, but nothing I've seen to date seems to fit my needs/wants.  I'm about to get back into production trading code - PHP/HTML/CSS/JS/etc. - for money.  In view of that, I need to set up some kind of versioning repository - learned that lesson a couple of decades ago.  Back then, it was VB.  I started with v0.9x, kept up until v6.0.  At the time, I was using MS Visual Source Safe, but even that was overkill - I was an independent developer, not part of a team.

Now I need to set up something that will let me keep track of my errors - or progress, if any.  Mostly I see CVS/SVN, but that seems like real overkill.  However, I can't seem to find anything small   .  I'll be the only one coding, and the whole purpose of this is to:  a; recover when I really screw up, and b; possibly fork if I come up with a really nifty concept.  Since the major part of my work will be done on Windows 7 - some Linux, but mostly Win - I'd prefer a GUI interface.

This will, by preference, be installed on a NAS drive, so SMB compatibility would be nice (for the Linux), but not a game-killer if not available. 

So, the question is whether any of you know of any such beastie?

134

General Software Discussion / Audio moderator required ...

« on: January 04, 2010, 10:36 PM »

... in a couple of areas.

Folk, I'm looking for a couple of things, one software, the other almost certainly hardware, but they [will] both serve the same purpose.

I get a lot of email with embedded audio/video (a/v) over which I have little control.  Same thing with a lot of Web sites.  The audio portion starts automatically, with no concern as to my volume settings, and frequently w/o any controls to mitigate the volume or even stop the a/v.

Nothing I've encountered allows me to preset the volume on my machine such that all audio is presented at a consistent level, something between preset lower & upper levels.

Now, in line with that, I have a cable TV problem that is similar.  One channel comes in at a whisper, another at a boom.  While I don't expect a resolution for that, I thought I'd mention it.

Back to the PC issue, there are several apps that allow volume moderation during some ripping or conversion process.  However, there doesn't seem to be any sort of volume regulator that will take any audio input and apply specified min/max values.  This could be a significant issue were I to be working in the baby's room, or perhaps on the bed next to a sleeping spouse (neither of which I currently have, just painting a recognizable situation) and the sound flares up w/o warning.

So, since my search skills seem inadequate to the task, I thought I'd broach the topic here and pray for serendipity.

135

General Software Discussion / Aren't all _on_ events JavaScript?

« on: January 03, 2010, 05:28 PM »

Folk,

I have a client/student who swears she has seen on events, e.g., onBlur, onClick, onMouseOver, and the like, that are [X]HTML events, not JavaScript.

I keep telling her that they are all JavaScript and do not exist in any of the HTML iterations.

However, I have been unable, to date, to find any concrete statement to that effect.

Her argument is that if you don't have to enclose the event in script tags, it ain't JS.  Her favourite argument is adding the onLoad to the body HTML element.  I'd really like to find something to refute that concept.

Can any of you point me to some source that will unequivocally show her the truth of my assertions  .  Or prove me wrong, for that matter .

136

General Software Discussion / Quasi Post-It note utility?

« on: December 30, 2009, 04:09 PM »

Folk,

Back in the days of 98/98SE, I had a small utility that let me make quick notes about documents in almost any application.  If I was on a Web page, I'd store a comment - that comment would be resurrected if I revisited that page.

If I was reading a PDF and made notes, they would be would be recallable the next time I opened that PDF.

Same thing applied for almost every application I opened.  It even recalled notes I'd made on specific emails, whether Outlook, Pegasus, or HotMail.

It didn't work on every application, just on most ... I think it used the window title to identify notes, but not certain of that.

When I upgraded to Win2K, the little app came right along & worked just fine, to my surprise and delight.

Somewhere in the process of upgrading to XP, the app got lost in the shuffle, and I'd forgotten the name  .

Does anyone know the name of that little app, or perhaps know of one with similar functionality?

Basic functionality would be

• local storage
• small footprint
• automatic date/time (on/off selectable)
• adjustable font, colours, etc.
• editable after save
• printable list, selectable/sortable by tag(s) (preferred, but not required)
• portable (convenient but not requisite)

With the exception of portability, that's the list of capabilities that I recall.

The way it worked
While resident, it would place another element in the title bar of the active application, just to the left of the minimize symbol.  When that element was clicked, it would open a note window with existing notes, if any for that particular document, otherwise empty.  The note window had three options; Save, Cancel, Delete.  From the app itself, you could view notes, edit notes, print notes sorted/selected by tag, configure note appearance, export notes (also selectable by tag), or exit the app.

That's all I can recall about it.  It was extremely useful for quick product reviews, document suggestions w/o doing direct edits, & general brainstorming.  It was also great for keeping track of suggestions/corrections to my VB/database applications.  I suspect it was coded with VB or Turbo Pascal/Delphi, but don't know that to be factual.

Anybody recall this little app?  Or, perhaps, know of something similar?

137

General Software Discussion / Needful of opinions on graphics cards/drivers ...

« on: November 28, 2009, 02:48 PM »

Not certain this is the right place, but don't see anything obvious for hardware issues.  If this needs to be moved - it prolly does - no problem.

I've found myself in a position such that I need a 3rd monitor.  (Don't ask, it's a long story  .)

Currently have an nVidia 7300 GS card, with two outputs, been working fine, even with the switch to Windows 7.

However, while searching for video cards with 4-8 outputs (3-4 would be ideal), I cannot seem to find any legitimate reviews, performance analyses, & the like.

So, anyone have experience, a preference, in regard to such cards?  The leader, at least in find frequency, seems to be Matrox, with ATI next, but w/o valid reviews, it's awkward to decide.

Not a game player, so don't need WoW capability or the like, but this may involve a lot of graphic/video work.  Running Win7, 32-bit, at least until I get a newer system.  2.8G Intel dual-core CPU, 3G RAM.  Suppose the card should have a pretty strong GPU, but that'll have to be balanced against price/performance, I'd think.  It'll need at least 1920x1200 resolution & 3 - heads? - outputs, and I'd really like to keep it as far under $1,000 as possible.

I don't mind spending the coin, but at the prices I've seen, don't think I can afford to experiment very much.

'Preciate any feedback.

138

General Software Discussion / Need audio driver(s) for SigmaTel in Windows 7 ...

« on: November 24, 2009, 09:00 PM »

OK,

Disaster just struck.  Restarted Win7, & the audio drivers won't load ... been working fine under Win7RC and even under Win7 for the last week or so.  However when I attempt to reload the drivers, Win7 says the installer won't work - even though it did before <sigh />.  Thought I needed to download new drivers, but having a damnable time finding the right download.  Win7 won't identify the sound card, just tells me it's high definition.  None of the hardware recognition & listing software I've used in the past tells me anything more.  Finally reinstalled Belarc Advisor, and it tells me the sound card is SigmaTel, Inc. - C-Major Audio Version 1.0.5405.0 nd574 .  Unfortunately, I can't use that to find the appropriate codecs on Gateway or SigmaTel site(s).

Box is a Gateway GT5064, 2.8 G cpu, 3 G ram, terabyte drives, sound card embedded on motherboard, if any of that is significant.

W/O sound, I lose a significant portion of usability, i.e., alerts, warnings, audio & video tutorials, voice chat, teleconferencing ... you get the picture.

Does anyone have any idea how to counteract this situation?

(Actually, I was pretty fond of Win7 up until now, in spite of a few unwarranted - to my mind - restrictions.)

Please help if you can ... I'm open to just about any suggestion (no, not Linux ... that's on another partition <chortle />.)

139

General Software Discussion / Looking for tutorial material on CSS and on smarphone web design ...

« on: November 24, 2009, 12:54 PM »

Folk,

I'm in need of two things.  The first one is a decent tutorial, preferably online or PDF, on CSS and browser(s) interaction.  Used to have one, but it got lost due to an EMF surge, and I don't recall the Web site where I obtained it.  Been searching last three or four days, but nothing I've found quite fits the bill.  This is for a tyro who is familiar with HTML, but new to CSS ... he's mostly cut-and-paste for JavaScript stuff, as well.  He's coming to me for help - that's OK - but it's all over the phone, and he's having a hard time understanding some of the concepts.

The second thing is material - online or book(s) - on how to build/adapt a Web page to reasonably display on a smartphone.  Should be generic, not phone specific.  I've recently been told by one of my clients that they need their stuff phone-capable.  Since my forte is database & back-end design, I need to get up to speed on smartphone Web development.  A Google search on smartphone web development provides some twenty-six million plus pages, but no real instruction so far - still looking - so I though I'd broach the matter here, since  I've seen more real help on DC than on any other forum, even ones dedicated to a particular topic.

Oh, did find one book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but it's pre-release, and didn't find anything on O'Reilly.

'Preciate any assistance.

140

Developer's Corner / Partition manager for Win7?

« on: November 12, 2009, 10:34 PM »

Folk,
I'm looking for a partition manager that will work with Windows 7.  Sorry if I'm in the wrong place, but not certain where to put this.
I've tried

• PC Wizard (free) - abominably slow, and does not show hard drive(s), only CD/DVD & thumb drives
• Easeus (free) - won't install, the ubiquiitous Error 5:  Access is denied
• Partition Magic - old, v8.0 - never gets out of autorun
• GParted - Live CD - never implements
• couple of other home-grown elements

I need to merge a couple of partitions on an HD in order to install Win7, then move appropriate files from the RC version to the paid version.
Or, if there is a way to simply upgrade the RC version w/o losing installed software and data, that would work, but haven't found that.
TIA, barn.

141

General Software Discussion / Looking for a process monitor that may not exist ...

« on: September 08, 2009, 01:34 PM »

Folk,

Warning:  this may get a bit long.

I'm trying to find a process monitor that shows usages in near-real-time. 

It should show usage aggregates for 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes ...

Ideally 'twould show CPU activity, Disk I/O activity, RAM activity, GPU/graphics activity, traffic activity, maybe a few others, and log such as well as actively display.

Rationale.

Currently running Win7 RC (but have had similar problems with 2K/XP), and I'm running into periodic lockups.  Some are obviously CPU related, but others are not.  There tend to be three symptoms, although not always concurrent:  jerky, erratic cursor control; window/screen refresh issues;  hard disk i/o or network traffic issues.  I know - ? - that some of the lockups are GPU related, and suspect that some are read/write related.  (On the GPU side, I've enabled/disabled Aero, to no avail.)

There are a number of tools that will show real-time usage, but the changes tend to be too fast for these old eyes to record.  Back in the corporate world, a decade ago, there was a utility on a DEC LAN - VMS? - that would log activity history for CPU, disk i/o, & traffic.  I've yet to find any such tool for the current Windows world.  Thought I might find something cross-platform at FreshMeat, but, alas, that seems fated not to be.

So ... anyone have a reference to any such tool(s)?

142

General Software Discussion / How big is the HTML 'hidden' field?

« on: August 09, 2009, 06:43 PM »

Folk,

I've searched this for a couple of days, but cannot find any definitive answer.

I need to make a comparison between a hidden field and a text area in order to determine whether to update a TEXT (BLOB) field in MySQL.

But I don't know, and cannot seem to discover, what limit might exist for the HTML hidden field.  I've found several discussions on setting the MAXLENGTH property, but none on the max of that property.

I'd prefer to compare the textarea and the hidden field for changes rather than make several requests to MySQL, on the theory that local system RAM is [usually] less expensive than the requests to the host.

Please offer any advice/comments on size limit(s), or even on procedure - I'm amenable to change, should that be warranted.

143

General Software Discussion / Anyone have a preference for PHP desktop apps?

« on: June 20, 2009, 03:59 PM »

PHP-GTK is OK, I guess - I like the price - & it's cross-platform, but it has a learning curve that I'd rather avoid. 

NuSphere's PHPDock looks nice, but the $149 price tag is a bit more than I really wanna spend.

Those are the only two I've found with a casual search - although I'm still searching.  Anyone know of or prefer a different beast?

What I want to do is to is to create a quick app to store hosting & domain stuff - locally, on a private box - and have it available on the desktop while I'm in the browser.  Multiple browser windows would work, but that solution is not attractive.  I can design the MySQL database & create a PHP script to display & manipulate it - that's a piece of cake. 

I could dust off the VB CDs, I guess, but that's just more junk on the HD for a fairly trivial effort, and I'm not interested in upgrading to the latest & greatest version, so I might have some OS issues.

What I'd really like to find is a fairly simple app that will read the PHP, apply it, and sit on the desktop all by its lonesome, just waiting for action - preferably w/o a three-digit price tag.

144

General Software Discussion / How to find MAC address of 'invisible' hardware?

« on: June 12, 2009, 06:19 PM »

Windows - Win7 RC - is reporting an IP conflict, i.e., , two network elements with the same IP address.  When I check the Event viewer, the MAC address of the conflicting element is reported.  But I can't find anything with that address.

Anyone know of a utility that can find the inactive element?  Or, perhaps, where I'd look - registry? - to isolate the element, change its IP address?

Y'know ... once upon a time, I thought I was pretty good at this stuff <sigh /> ....

145

General Software Discussion / Is there a Gmail backup that will save labeling?

« on: June 04, 2009, 12:37 AM »

I've been trying to find a good backup for Gmail. 

There are several ways to preserve the existing messages. 

But I've yet to find one that will maintain the labeling that's been applied to those messages.

Since the labeling has gotten fairly complex over the years - started in 2005 - a lot of information will be lost if I cannot maintain the labeling along with the messages. 

Anyone found such a tool?

146

General Software Discussion / In need of a server-side email tool ...

« on: May 19, 2009, 07:07 AM »

Folk,

I seek a tool that will let me clear all the email account contents in a given domain w/o deleting the accounts.

I have a great number of email addresses.  I usually create a new address for any subscription or purchase, then forward that account to a central, unpublished account.  This has served me well in regard to identifying/quelling questionable sources.  However, those addresses do tend to accumulate mail.  While no more than 300-350 are currently active, there are probabably 500+ accounts all told.

The problem is that I need to delete most of the email on the domain server, which is stored as 20 here, 30 there, 100 in another account.

I had, several system crashes ago, an app that did that very thing for me ... I simply pointed it to the domain, and it deleted all current email w/o changing the account(s).  Unfortunately, I've lost that due to faulty backups.  I don't even recall the name of it, and searches via Google & other engines have not produced anything similar.

Without some such tool, I could spend a week doing nothing but deleting email - not an endearing task by any stretch of the imagination, and a task that I really do not have time to perform.

Do any of you know of any such tool?

[P.S.  Somebody is bound to tell me I'm a damned fool for doing this.  May be, but the procedure has served me well in identifying subscriptions that leak, loan, or lease addresses, and I simply cease to have anything to do with those sources.  My email spam has been reduced to about 20% of what it was prior to implementing this process.  It's a kludge, and I don't advocate it for most folk, but it works well in my particular case.]

147

General Software Discussion / How to subvert Big Brother's blocking of URL shorteners?

« on: April 19, 2009, 08:03 AM »

Folk,

I've just had to reinstall Win (XP Media edition, SP3).  It's on a new 1TB HD on a 185 GB partition.  Not much has been installed so far, just the [kinda, sorta] bare essentials.  However, a problem has reared its ugly head:  the inability to access sites from shortened links.  For instance, if I click http://tinyurl.com/d7d3av, Firefox errors with, "The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.  The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again."  (Note, IE v7.0.5730.13 chokes also, but with different error, and I've been having other problems with it, as well, so cannot say at this time whether it is affected by this problem.  It seems to be, but cannot be certain.)

Did a couple of quick searches, but nothing found was applicable.

This has happened often enough in the last few days to be seen as some software helping, or protecting me.  Question is, which one(s)?

Zone Alarm Pro is installed, as is Avira AntiVir (free), both of which recently updated.  Also have several Firefox extensions which recently updated, but don't have any idea which ones - perhaps a dozen or so over the last few days.  These seem the most likely culprits to me, but I don't have a really good way to test which one is saving me from myself.  Or, to discover what other piece of software might be so solicitous of my online health.

Part of the problem is that not every shortened URL is affected.  So even the basic method of shutting one of the suspects down to see if there is a change is problematic ... futile, as well, if I'm wrong about the program(s) causing the problem.

Anyone have an idea or three of where/how to start?  I'd really hate for this to take a month or two to resolve.

'Preciate any thoughts on this.

148

General Software Discussion / Note-handling applications redux ... (I lost one) ...

« on: January 05, 2009, 05:26 PM »

Well, it seems I'm going to have to request aid from the DC folk.  Usually don't have to do that, 'cause my problems have typically already been broached and solved, but I don't seem to be able to lurk on this one.

I've spent the last few days searching, but to no avail.

A while back - say, two system rebuilds ago - I tried out a[nother] note-tracking app.  This one used a different approach than most I've seen.  There was a two-pane window.  The pane on the right listed the title of each note.  The pane on the left, however, did not list the usual tree ... instead it listed tags with checkboxes.  every time you checked one of the tags every note that had all of the checked tags was displayed in a list in the right pane.

For instance, check the tips tag and you'd see a listing of all notes with that tag; check the linux tag, and you'd see only the notes that had both tags; check the display driver tag and you'd see only the notes that had all three tags, probably only one or two notes, at most. 

It was a reasonably nice little app, but I didn't like the way tags were assigned - typed in each time, rather than accessed from a list - so I quit messing with it.  Don't even remember the name of it.

And that's the problem.  I've now encountered a support situation where that app would be ideal, free-form tag entry and all.  It has no learning curve to speak of, and it's fairly low in resource usage, if memory serves, so it can be left up in the background for near-instant access.  But I cannot, for the life of me, remember the name of the application.

I know it's on a hard drive here, but it takes a while to search through half a terabyte of files.  Even then, if the folder/file name doesn't jog a brain cell, I'll likely miss it.

So, cap in hand, I wonder if any of you DC folk might be familiar with this little app?