Topics

251

General Software Discussion / List of Vector Illustration Alternatives

« on: June 12, 2007, 09:42 AM »

Inspired by Xara Xtreme and Xtreme Pro upgraded to 3.2 - Proceed with caution: Info-rant!

Here's a list of vector apps from a disillusioned Freehand lover - not me, although I qualify too.
(we all seem to be getting disillusioned at the moment  )

It's from a guy called Darrel Austin,
posted at MNteractive.

Unfortunately it does sound like Freehand is on the way out.

Recently Divorced Freehand users searching for romance with another Vector application… Tue, May 29, 2007 2:27 pm Darrel Austin Now that Freehand is officially dead I figure it’s time I start playing the field again and look for a new love. Here’s the list of potential candidates I’m aware of. Has anyone had a fling with any of these options? If so, please share your thoughts. And please add any that I’ve missed. Adobe Illustrator. Of course, this is the one Adobe is trying to hook us all up with. “AI has a great personality” they say. I’m not buying it*. It’s just the ugly, mean step-sister of Freehand, IMHO. (* And by that, I mean, yea, I probably will buy it at some point. Can’t live with out the CS suite, right?) Inkscape. Open source! I want to love this one, and have been fooling around with it on the side even while I was committed to Freehand. It has a lot of potential. It’s no where near Freehand’s level at this point, but seems to have a lot of momentum–some great features on the horizon based on the Inkscape Roadmap include: PDF export, AI import, CorelDraw import, CMYK support (!!), multi-page (not sure what that means, but hope it’s like Freehands multi-page support), and some tech-drawing enhancements. LineForm. LineForm is a new player on the field, and seems to have a lot of Buzz and a robust feature set (according to their handy chart). OSX only. Stone Works’ Create. Stone Design was one of the first companies to offer OSX-native DTP applications. Alas, I’ve never heard much about their programs. They do suffer from some horrendous application icons, but the promise of ‘free upgrades for life’ seem to outweigh that minor issue. Corel Draw. Corel Draw was always the 3rd place finisher behind AI and FH. That said, it seems to have a very loyal fan base. They no longer offer OSX versions (maybe the death of FH will get them to reconsider?) but it’s definitely a mature product. It also comes with a large font library, which is always nice. It also seems to have a little-mentioned ability to create fonts. Huh. Xara Xtreme. I don’t know a lot about Xara, other than I hear it suggested often when the topic of alternatives to Freehand pop-up. Windows only. Canvas. Another application I don’t know much about, but hear mentioned quite a bit. Comes in both OSX and Windows flavors. It also appears to have custom feature sets targetting cartographers and tech illustrators. Cenon. Jesse mentioned this open source option in the comments below. It appears to be a bit more CAD/CAM centric moreso than DTP centric, but, that said, it does have a Desktop Publishing module, so it’s likely worth a look-see. Interestingly, it also has a dedicated Astrology tool. I imagine that’s fairly unique in the vector illustration world. ;o) Microsoft Expression Design. I had completely forgotten about Microsoft new weapon in the Adobe vs. Microsoft wars. The Expression line of products is based on software MS aquired about 2 years ago. It comes in a couple of flavors (’Web’ being DreamWeaver’s opponent) and Design is the one focused on vector illustration (amongst other features).

http://mnteractive.c...y-divorced-freehand/

Personally I'm going to avoid Illustrator unless they speed things up a LOT -
I get the impression Illy evolved for use where people do a lot of work on one file,
close it,
then do a lot of work on the next file - e.g. a lot of graphic designers*,
& somehow Adobe got the impression people had incredible amount of patience - it might be okay if you grow up with it -so to speak- but if you're coming from a fast app like Freehand or Xara, it's heartbreaking! 
Me, somedays I might have to make minor variations to a hundred or more files -
I've tried that in Illy & it's bad for my health is all i can say..

 * mind you, the designers who have used Freehand seem to miss a lot of it's capabilities in Illustrator as well, judging by the Freehand section of Adobe Forums. Sample thread title: Illustrator CS3 - still 5 years behind FreeHand

252

General Software Discussion / RAID explained ?!

« on: May 31, 2007, 05:40 AM »

RAID storage explained

by George Ou at TechRepublic. Link

RAID was originally defined as Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives, but RAID setups were traditionally very expensive so the definition of “I” became Independent.  The costs have recently come down significantly because of commoditization and RAID features are now embedded on to most higher-end motherboards.  Storage RAIDs were primarily designed to improve fault tolerance, offer better performance, and easier storage management because it presents multiple hard drives as a single storage volume which simplifies storage management.  Before we start talking about the different RAID types, I’m going to define some basic concepts first.

-
-
I've been trying to get my head around RAID for a while now
I think this is a good article - in spite of the fact my eyes start glazing over after the first half page -
that has more to do with my capacity for technological info than anything else ...

253

General Software Discussion / KatMouse Query

« on: May 15, 2007, 04:26 AM »

I know there's a few people here who use KatMouse

Purpose The prime purpose of the KatMouse utility is to enhance the functionality of mice with a scroll wheel, offering 'universal' scrolling: moving the mouse wheel will scroll the window directly beneath the mouse cursor (not the one with the keyboard focus, which is default on Windows OSes). This is a major increase in the usefullness of the mouse wheel.

I'm trying it out & like it a lot

BUT
I got rid of the try icon
(I believe that was an option in properties if i remember correctly)

& now
I cant seem to find how to get it back, or, more importantly how to get to properties.

Any ideas there?

I have wrote the author but am an impatient geezer so thought I'd ask here  
thanks,
tom

254

General Software Discussion / Converting Spreadsheet to Table in forum

« on: May 12, 2007, 02:29 AM »

I'm trying to convert a (LARGE) spreadsheet file to a Table that will post here

e.g. from the Mini-Review Tamplate

App Name	Name of app reviewed
App URL	Link to the app's homepage
App Version Reviewed	Version being reviewed

which actually is

[Select]

[table]
[tr][td][b]App Name[/b][/td][td]Name of app reviewed[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][b]App URL[/b][/td][td]Link to the app's homepage[/td][/tr]
[tr][td][b]App Version Reviewed[/b][/td][td]Version being reviewed[/td][/tr]
[/table]

I was wondering, using some sort of find & replace &
some way of adding prefix/suffix to lines
could I convert the seperators in a .CSV file to the appropriate table "td" thingys 

I'm sorry the only way I can show this is as code -
otherwise it forms crazy tables & cant be read properly.
Makes it hard to read but you could cut & paste it elsewhere

[Select]

I thought I was being very smart -
I saved file as .csv file and tried to use [tr][td] instead of a comma as a separator.
But
only the first character "[" came through

But got me thinking
would there be a way of
prefixing each line with "[tr][td]"
suffixing each line with "[/td][/tr]"

and then using some sort of find & replace function to replace the separator with "[/td][td]"
(I could do that in Freehand but I'm sure some text editors would have it)

I would then at the end of each line have "[/td][td][/td][/tr]"
where i think the first two "[/td][td]" would have to be removed
but
I could live with deleting that "by hand" if I could get the rest automated to a certain extent ...

I can live without this but found it an interesting challenge - if you do too, please help if you can   

PS I did try pasting html table in post but it looses format, see dc thread here

[EDIT: solution I used is here, post#27/30  thanks, crono!

255

Living Room / gmail slowing down??

« on: April 24, 2007, 05:34 AM »

anyone else having problems with gmail?
for me, it's been very slow to send mail of late, sometimes will only go on second attempt [EDIT: using email client]

I dont think it's my connection,
or client (Thunderbird)
as I get mail from other sources without problem (in fairness though I dont use other addresses as much)

Just thinking though I send all my mail from gmail and thats where the problem is noticable -
just sent test mail with attachment from another address - no problems sending

So, how is it going for gmail and you??

256

General Software Discussion / AutoHotkey scripts - what to do?!

« on: April 17, 2007, 03:05 AM »

Basic Autohotkey question:
I know I could go to Autohotkey forums, maybe should even.

But,
there's so many helpful Autohotkey scripts here that I thought I'd ask here 

If you have an *.ahk file -
I believe if you simply open it, (with Autohotkey running) it will work/run/do whatever it's supposed to do.
Or often theres *.exe versions of the scripts. But if one can run various scripts through AHK it would naturally be a lot neater.

What I want to know is if you can simply add contents of the .ahk file to the default .ini file that loads with AHK
or would it be better or
can you make it load with AHK as well as the default script

257

General Software Discussion / Batch image optimisation from Ashampoo

« on: April 02, 2007, 03:55 AM »

Ashampoo Photo Optimiser

Features at a glance:
» Photo optimisation with just a click of the mouse.
» Fully automatic improvement of contrast, brightness, colour
   intensity, sharpness
» Picture preview possibility to undo the picture optimisation any time
» The untouched original remains as a backup
» Batch processing of all pictures in one folder is possible
» Turn picture to right or left

Quoted price is $14.99

Maybe there's other programmes do this?

There was some thread somewhere lately where people were looking to optimise scans/photos of documents - I've no idea would this be good for that, but if it were    it would be good - wouldn't it?

258

General Software Discussion / Xara Xtreme Pro / New(ish) Version

« on: March 22, 2007, 06:35 AM »

I got a mail today about a new version of Xara Xtreme Pro - 

I don't think it's that new -
they say: "The retail version has arrived"

Anyways couldn't find any post about it here so this is what's new:

Flash animations use vector graphics. Unfortunately existing Flash tools have a reputation for being unintuitive, difficult to master and over complex. As a result Flash has been restricted to those willing to dedicate substantial time to mastering these tools. On the other hand, the Xtreme drawing tools have the reputation of being extremely easy to learn and slick. So now we bring the ease of Xtreme to Flash animations.

Xtreme Flash animation doesn't use complex time-lines. Instead it's more like traditional animators art, where you produce snap-shots or key frames of your animations at points in time. Xtreme automatically produces in-between frames to create smooth, really compact Flash animations.

Note: Xtreme Flash animation does not support complex advanced features such as scripting, sound or embedded movies. Instead it's Flash animation for the rest of us.

don't know anything about flash myself, but the PDF export sounds very good 

Xtreme Pro now includes class leading PDF support including these features:
•  Choice of PDF version from version 1.3 through to version 1.6, as well as PDF/X-1a 2001, x-1a 2003, X3-2002, and X-3 2003 standards.
•  Full support for vector transparency (PDF version 1.4 or later)
•  Font embedding and font subsetting options
•  Export any selected page range
•  Optional down-sampling of large bitmaps (reduces the size of PDFs for designs containing large photos)
•  Full control over bitmap embedding options and compression (native, Flate, JPEG)
•  Full control over bitmap transparency flattening, bitmap effect rasterization, to any required resolution and compression type
•  Embedding of native JPG files for lossless JPEG transfer
•  Support for Adobe Reader Layers. For PDF 1.5 and above you can now output and control Xtreme's layer visibility in Adobe Reader
•  File embedding. You can embed .xar files into your PDF and launch them from Adobe Reader
•  Full pre-press PDF/X support including:
    •  Embedding page crop and printer's marks
    •  ICC color profiles, including all the common paper stock options (e.g. US Web coated, ISO, etc)
    •  Embedding of custom ICC profiles
 
•  Document encryption, with full control over document permissions:
    •  Password protect any PDF file, with 40 or 128-bit encryption
    •  Control over exact permissions, e.g. allow / disallow printing or commenting or text copying or extraction.
 
•  Spot color support

and here's a screenshot of multiple page file.




[EDIT: if you are thinking of buying (any Xara product) do use the link in Carol's signature below!]

259

Mini-Reviews by Members / List of disc catalogers

« on: March 14, 2007, 02:47 PM »

EDIT See post # 2 for a list of over 200 Catalogers compiled by Crush

Here is a short list of disc cataloguers, their websites and related threads in DC.

They are listed in alphabetical order with screenshots and info for the better, or better known ones.
But this shorter list is not very scientific, so if you're looking for recommendations it's probably best to read through the couple of pages and see what people say 

If you make any suggestions I will probably add them to the longer list-post #2 below.
Feel free to add visuals to your post

If anyone want to do a review/reviews they're welcome to use this if it's any help.

[Prices as of March 2007,
Euro prices hopefully include VAT but unfortunately this often not clarified until you order]


PROGRAMMEs:
in alphabetical order


Analinx Filookup
http://www.analinx.c...s/filookup/index.htm
[$20]


Advanced CATaloguer/Pro
http://www.evgenysoft.com/
[$40_basic-personal/$60_pro-personal\basic-commercial/$65_pro-commercial. euro=dollar for euro price!]
Listed as Shareware at Snapfiles


Advanced Disk Catalog
http://www.disk-catalog.com/
[$20/€14/£10/ 30day trial - not full]

Advanced Disk Catalog hasn't been updated since 2004. It has many good features but lack some basic ones. Like being able to copy the name of a file in the database. I have made a AutoHotKey script to get around that, so if someone else is using ADC and wants to copy filenames then check this out -Nod5 (post 9 below!)

Argentum MyFiles
http://www.argentuma.com/myfiles.html
[Shareware - $35/€29/£19]


Broken Cross Disk Manager
http://bcdm.broken-cross.com/
[$24/€19/Lifetime upgrades /"Demo" only catalogues 30 discs per database]


Catalog Max
http://www.lionmax.com/features.htm
[$20]


Catdisk
http://www.swconnect...sk2000/features.html
[$39]


CatFish
http://www.equi4.com/catfish.html
[freeware]

This creates small sized catalogues, but it creates (or created in 2003) one file/CD, so it's not so easy to manage a CD collection with it. - rockyhacker (post 11 below)

Cathy
http://www.mtg.sk/rva/
[Freeware] Runs without install / Also has associated commandline utility

For basic CD cataloging I use Cathy. - elpresi, 2005-10-21

CD Bank Cataloguer
http://www.qunomsoft.com/
there is development in alpha stage that can be downloaded

CD Catalog Expert
http://www.zero2000....expert/features.html
[$30]


cdTree
http://www.vbknowled...Pages/pgProducts.htm
[Free/Share-ware $18]


CDVista
http://www.gentibus.com/index.html
[Free/donation-ware]


CDWinder
http://www.cdwinder.de/about.html
[Circa $30/€20_"personal"-no network access/€75x2xBusiness]


CDWise
http://www.freedownl...tilities/CDWise.html
[Freeware] no further info

Deductus
http://www.aolej.com/dedu/why.html
[$29 Shareware- 30 day unlimited trial]


Disk Explorer Pro
http://www.tjelinek....m/main.php?section=d
[$29/ Free for personal use]

most of the plugins used by the application come for [Salamander]  - Lashiec, 2006-09-16

DiscLib (see review thread below)
http://lyrasoftware.com/disclib/
[Freeware]

Disclib is nothing spectacular. In fact, it has a lot of caveats and it seems like an unfinished project.
Its interface needs a redesign and I don't feel right using it - Lashiec, 2006-09-15

EZ Cat
http://www.loggytronic.com/ezcat.php
[Freeware]

see mini-review here


InsideCAT lite/profesional
http://www.vgtsoftwa.../disc_cataloguer.htm
[freeware/$24.90/€19.90]

It's capable of looking inside archives. On the other hand, I'm not sure if you can turn of this feature. At least back in 2003, I didn't turn it off for some reason when I compared some cataloguers.  - rockyhacker (post 11 below)

MyLib
http://linesoft.org/en/projects/mylib/
[freeware] no installation required


SuperCat
http://no-nonsense-s...ftware.com/supercat/
[$35/€29]


VisualCD  (see thread below)
http://boozet.xepher.net/viscd/index.htm
[Freeware]

A couple of people had problems with this one:
This program keeps causing my machine to hard boot. /
VisualCD does not work on my PC either. I posted  a note about my problem in the forum (now dead?) and never got a response... (see thread below)
See also Snapfiles User Reviews

WhereIsIt
http://www.whereisit-soft.com/
[$40/Shareware -14 day Trial / Lifetime upgrades]

(perhaps the best known and most respected?) - mouser
see also Reply#15 below

WinCatalog Standard\Light
http://www.wincatalo....com/standard.html#1
[$40 / €30 / £25 / Light = Freeware version]

see posts#21-24 below


OTHERs

Snapfiles freeware - "Disc Cataloging"
http://www.snapfiles...ystem/fwdiskcat.html

Snapfiles shareware - "Disc Cataloging"
http://www.snapfiles...ystem/swdiskcat.html




THREADs:
top of list = most recent

Your experiences with disc catalogers and most wanted/used features
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=7183.0

Looking for Disk Catalog Program with simple UserInterface like Picasa
https://www.donation...pic=7756.0;topicseen

DiscLib Review
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=5230.0

Re: Visual CD is pretty incredible catalogue software    
https://www.donation...index.php?topic=1270

260

General Software Discussion / correction of distorted grid in image ??

« on: February 14, 2007, 11:24 AM »

does anyone know of software that would correctly align a grid in an image:

What I would use it for:

Say I have a photo or scan of a drawing on graph paper. The graph will be more or less distorted depending on means of capture. (Also sometimes the graph-paper itself doesn't have an accurate grid cause of age etc, or sometimes it's photocopied or simply cause it's paper)

The ideal software would atomatically recognise the grid & correct any distortion in the image.
But of course manually marking points on the grid wouldn't kill me 

There is stuff like this for correcting lens distortion in digital cameras but this requires more then "just" that correction.
I know photogrammetry uses software to align points in an image in order to correct an image of, say, the face of a building, but beyond that .. (also prob. very expensive as geared to 3D as well)

thanks for any suggestions, tom

I've also posted that in http://www.imaging-resource.com/ forums. It's a good site for camera info but not so busy on the software front.
I would also appreciate any ideas of where I might get ideas for this.

261

General Software Discussion / "intelligent" multisession burn

« on: January 27, 2007, 04:55 AM »

You know the way with synch software you get the choice to
delete files in destination directory that dont exist in source -
or not 

SOURCE:
file_A
file_D

DEST:
file_B

so you'd have the option to end up with all three files in Dest - i.e. file_B would NOT be removed from destination.

I'm not familiar with much burning software,
but basic multisession burning software does not allow this.

Does anyone know of software that does?
(here I say a prayer that it wont involve installing a bloated NERO - that's kindof an apt name when you think of the excesses of the original ..  )

262

General Software Discussion / "Word" liscence query

« on: December 29, 2006, 08:48 AM »

I use word processers very little (is that even what the're called?  )

I'm giving up on Open office - probably mainly cause I use it very little - it's starting it is such a pain !! but also its been pretty buggy for me & considering how little i use it I dont want to be spending lots of time trying to sort out stuff ...

I was given a copy of MS office years ago (it would suit my current requirements fine) by a company I was working for at the time (as selfemployed)
I always presumed as such it would be an illegal copy, hence I eventually got rid of it & moved on to various free/open source*

I'm now wondering if it really is an illegal copy.
Is there a way I can check without actually installing it - it would be a pain just to have to uninstall it again (I remember having major problems trying to uninstall some version of office..)
I do have the serial number

anyone got any tips?
thanks, tom

*the best one I've found so far (not free, but very reasonable) is Polyedit but it doesnt seem to have a page layout view so youve no idea where your pages begin/end. (I just posted a query at their forum)
Abi Word seems to have a lot of trouble opening Word docs - layout changes all the time (maybe I can change the margins of the default document .. will go look)
I know Zaine raves about some word/excel replacement for around $80 I think, which sounds great - but when you literally hardly ever use the thing its MONEY!

263

Living Room / merry chrismis y'all

« on: December 23, 2006, 10:14 AM »

well the title says it all,
maybe the pic helps too

264

Best E-mail Client / changing email client - old mail goes?

« on: December 07, 2006, 02:41 AM »

I downloaded DreamMail the other day, installed it yesterday.
Seems much nicer than Thunderbird (the only email client I've ever used !)

But I've realised two things -
1) I dont seem to be able to export my mail from Tbird/ import Tbird mail to DreamMail
2) it doesnt seem to be possible to export my mail from DreamMail

Am I missing something here (often the case    but here too .. ?? )

Bit of a catch 22 if thats how it is.

Not happy with current, & cant take my mail with me
&
dont want to change to a client that I cant change from (that make sense?)


What do other people do in this situation - multiple choice:
A) find a client that can export ?
or
b) pray youre gonna love that new programme for ever
or
C) give up to a certain extent on all your old mail & make a fresh start (possible - not a bad idea actually but could be messy too - two programmes with mail to search if looking for something)

I remember reading in some thread Carol saying that she backed up mail by the year, december now ...

265

Living Room / AVG [STILL] free 2007

« on: November 14, 2006, 02:00 AM »

AVG anti-virus are bringing out a new version (7.5, cost $29.95)
&,
as of 15th January 2007 are discontinuing the current free version. [edit: see post]

http://www.grisoft.c...g-75-free-free75cnv/

[didn't know should this go in software or living room  ]

266

General Software Discussion / SCRIBUS - Open Source Desktop Publishing

« on: October 13, 2006, 03:19 AM »

"Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout.

Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation."

Recent Screenshots here
Heres a screenshot from an older* version:



There's been regular updates this year,
It seems to be a good website, good FAQs (I found them helpful anyway - I don't know much about page layout myself ...)

Take note!:
I just installed this but got told i should have Ghostscript installed first

*Needed to get permission to show the recent screenshots from their website. (aint got the time for that )

[edit] jgpaiva: please use attachthumb=# instead of attach=# when using large images, i own a small screen [/edit]
[edit] tom: okey dokey  [/edit]

267

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / GETTING ORGANIZED EXPERIMENT - WEEK SIX ASSIGNMENT

« on: October 11, 2006, 12:29 PM »

GOE: THE GREAT DONATIONCODER.COM 2006
GETTING ORGANIZED EXPERIMENT
- WEEK SIX -


"A WEEK OF REFLECTION"


The deadline for this assignment is October 16.
(click to read intro to GOE and all assignments)

STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING,
take a moments time in the hustle-bustle of Getting Organised and Getting Things Done,
a moment to reflect and contemplate, and yes, you can even meditate if you want

Brew a coffee or scald a teapot, put the ol' feet up -
and ask yourself:
"How'm I doing?"

Let it all rattle around there for a while ..
...
have a look at the questions below,
and then post:
and
let us know how you're getting on with this project,
- and all the other projects you're supposed to be doing, or, wishing you were doing   
__________________________________________________________________________
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

     So,

• How am I getting on ?

• Are you still enthusiastic ?
  (If so , about what in particular)

• Have you noticed your old (unhelpful?) ways creeping back in?

• What habits do you find particularly difficult to change?

• Have you actually implemented any new methods in your life, or are you just absorbing the knowledge still?

• Which methods do you find particularly difficult to implement?

• Strengths:
  What were you already good at in terms of organisation and getting things done before you started this project?

• Weaknesses:
  What were your challenges (i.e. what were you struggling with) when you started this project ?
  
  What has helped you so far to face these challenges ?
  
  What difficulties continue, or have you new "struggles" ?
  (Where would you like to be helped)

• What tips so far have you found especially helpful ?

• What has been your most surprising discovery so far -
  e.g.
  about getting organized and/or the way you work;
  about trying to implement new systems/time management
  about yourself (getting personal!),
  about life in general (getting philosophical..)

_____________________________________________________
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
    Share!    Let us know how you're getting on!
_____________________________________________________
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

thanks to nudone for half the questions!

268

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Getting Organised: management of workspace/projects/paper

« on: October 05, 2006, 03:49 AM »

I've been trying to implement time-management without great success. I have realised that first I needed to implement some sort of a system for organising my workspace.

The following post is a (slightly edited) copy of a post made here by Martin Ternouth describing his management system.
(It's about a quarter ways down the page, dated December 15, 2003. I came across it referred to here at 43folders.com)

It the first thing I came across that seemed to offer a complete system for coping with day to day work/paper/projects.

This might not be relevant to people who dont generate lots of paper, or to people who already have functioning systems in place, but for me, it's a dream.

These benefits alone help me breathe a sigh of relief

Being able to find any document within seconds

Never losing any documents

Not having to sort filing into alphabetical or any other order

Arriving at a clear desk in the morning

************************************
************************************
Its a long post the next one
so maybe I should give a brief summary here:

To start there's your WORKSPACE:
You can only have one project at a time on it. Clear space end of day!
Where to?
to CURRENT TASK tray which holds, well, your current task 
WORK IN PROGRESS tray holds other current projects.

Then you have your InBox -
OVERNIGHT & TODAY which must be cleared by end of the day.
also
HOLDING tray - stuff from inbox can go in here - in practice I find its mostly things that need to be filed away or scanned - to be checked daily.

  It might not seem like anything new but where it works well i find is in working on only one task at a time - and having a home for that task & that task only.
Also he uses these see through plastic folders (coverslips) that are open on 2 sides only (I've read they're not so common in the States?) & says you must keep all documents/groups of documents in these (apart from InBox mainly) which keeps things much more under control I find.
There are other details that are very important to system & of course regular (planned) checks/reviews



Also, if you want to get a quick "view", have a look at the last couple of pictures & the summary of the rules end of next post.

[Edit: see post#3 for attatched PDF about the system from Martin Ternouth]

269

Clipboard Help+Spell / Text "size"/font in ClipHelp+Spell

« on: September 13, 2006, 06:16 AM »

I'm just getting to know Clipboard Help+Spell
&
enjoying the experience!

I guess its not meant as a text editor, but it is very handy to be able to reread something & edit it.
One thing I find a bit difficult is the size/visibility/readability of the text (monitor is set at 1024 x 768, I have no problem reading text in Editpad for example.)
I couldn't find anyway to modify the text in any way to this end. I know theres the "Modify/Format case" button - but that doesent affect spacing/leading/kerning & I know its just "text" so maybe its just a different font I'm looking for. Actually the font in the Modify/Format window is much easier to read (the "fixed font") but you cant edit the clip here.
Can it be changed? (Font)

and
if not

Could it be changed? (Font or possibility of editing in Modify window, or an "Edit" window?)

270

Mini-Reviews by Members / Disclib - a library of your CD/DVD contents

« on: September 12, 2006, 04:59 AM »

Basic Info

App Name	Disclib
App URL	http://lyrasoftware.com/disclib/ http://lyrasoftware.com/
App Version Reviewed	Version 2 Build 50
Test System Specs	Basic! XP, 512MB RAM
Supported OSes	Platform - MS Windows (2K,XP tested)
Support Methods	forum: http://groups.google.com/group/disclib/  email: Q&A: Stamen Delikostov:   [email protected] or                                  [email protected] or                                  [email protected]
Ware	Freeware
Author Donation Link	Couldnt see any at their webpage

Intro:

Platform - MS Windows (2K,XP tested)
Add filenames from any folder tree (CD, DVD, HDD, floppy, any windows folder tree) to the catalog
Categorizing
Search, specify categories in search
Customizable exporting (reporting)
Parallel tree - better categorizing
Tags
Multilanguage (Customizable) [current available: English, Italian, Bulgarian, Russian, French, Galego, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese(Brasil), Portuguese(europeu),Danish, Swedish, Catalan, German, Czech, Hungarian, Korean, Romanian and Chinese Languages]
Free

Disclib is a CD collection organizer program. It may be used as a catalogue of CDs. After creating the catalogue, disclib stores file and folder names and tree, allows user to categorize folders and files, and allows searching all the files from the collection CDs without need to place them in CD reader. Disclib may place in the catalogue any windows folder not only folders on CDs. Disclib has a customizable Multilanguage functionality. The program also extracts mp3 info.

Basically, it scans your CDs & DVDs and saves a "Table of contents" in a database or databases.

Each database can be organised into different "collections".   
For example I have a database for general backup, which is divided into different collections by project/job.
I use a second database for photos.

The database is simply an alphabetical list of contents.
You can simultaneously view database ("Volume") list and "Collection" tree.


Then there's "Categories" whose main advantage seems to be that you can search just one.
"You can automate your searching in database by creating special list of categories"

There is what seems to be a reasonably good search facility - so far I've only done general searchs of the whole database, but you can search by category, date - I cant figure out if or how you can search by collection.
(I can't say I find the search intuitive, but to be honest I rarely use search facilities & am usually a bit daunted by them)


Who is this app designed for:

Anyone who wants to keep track of their discs, be they backup, music, photos ...


The Good

Easy to use - you simply dive in without too much reading/studying of help etc.
It's able to read contents of zip files


The needs improvement section

I am quite happy with it so far, but I haven't been using it that long & I have been using it in a fairly limited way - I dont use my computer for music so I have no idea how it works with mp3s etc.
".. does support mp3 tag information and more ...  The program also extracts mp3 info."

I'm struggling a bit with search - don't know if its me or the programme!
Definitely the help fails here (for searching)

What would be nice would be if it could make thumbnails of images (see How does it compare to similar apps below)


Why I think you should use this product

why not
... your inner senses will tell you if this would be of use to you ...


How does it compare to similar apps

This month CD Bank Cataloguer is among the great Donation Coder discounted software list
(September discounts for members).
CD Bank Catalogue does seem like a better application
and @50% off for DC members...

Storing files and folders list (name, size, date)
Calculation of all folders size
Multipage search results browsing
File previews and thumbnails creation:
For text files, for descriptions files like "file_id.diz", "descript.ion", "files.bbs"
For HTML and RTF files (extracting text)
For MP3 (reading author, album, genre, MPEG and other tags). Read more...
For pictures (creating the small preview for .bmp, .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .pcx, .png, .tif, .tiff, .tga, .ppm, .pgm, .pbm, .psd image formats)
For ZIP and RAR files (reading archive contents)
For executable files (reading version information)

Program: CD Bank Cataloguer
Website and Info: http://www.qunom.com/
Discount Amount: 50%
Expires: 30th Sept 2006


Conclusions

I like it, its a great poor man's backup accessory (see also next post)


Links to other reviews of this application

Couldn't find any!
I heard about this programme in a newsletter from Gizmo:
http://www.techsupportalert.com

271

General Software Discussion / keeping/saving cloned files

« on: September 08, 2006, 09:04 AM »

Sounds like some type of genetic zoo 

does anyone know if theres a way to keep cloned copies of a file (in Dopus you can have a virtual copy* but i want a hard copy)

Say I could clone a file & place it in two different folders, then if i work on & save a file from one folder I want it to update automatically** in the other. (They would be on the same drive)



Don't know will the following help or hinder your understanding, but sure here goes:


I'm working on drawings that I get in mixed batches (they are of archaeological sites in different counties) which eventually have to be filed according to what county they're from.

I work on them in the "Batch" folder (cause thats how they will initially have to be delivered)
but
I keep loosing track of whether I have the most recent version of the file in the "Final" folder (which is by county name).


*As i say I'm aware this can be done with virtual folders but for a couple of reasons cloned copies would be better for me. (mainly my backup procedure)

**Backup software wouldnt really be feasible for this - I'd have a different path for each file

Also I could just look at changing "the [filing] system" (from within!)

272

General Software Discussion / Situation re: unsupported software

« on: August 01, 2006, 11:51 AM »

Greetings,
I'm wondering what the situation is when a piece of software is no longer sold or supported.

Can that software then be freely copied (or might that even vary from country to country?)

One example would be Windows98,
but I'm actually asking cause of Freehand (Macromedia) which has been taken over by Adobe.
I'm using version 9 & was considering upgrading this summer\autumn\year..
macromedia.com is now redirected to adobe & when you click on the buy link for Freehand MX you just get a blank screen.

now this may just be temporary, but i suspect its the end for Freehand which is a shame cause I'll need twice as much time to do the same amount of work on Illustrator & probably a computer thats twice as powerful as i have now ..
(I did try out ZaraXtreme {& Inkscape} but while the difference isnt that great in terms of quality, if you're working with it all day the little things can make a huge difference in terms of time, etc.)

Anyways FH is still on sale on Ebay & not particularly cheap either (except for one so cheap I presume its a copy or whatever they do)
So I'm wondering if I "aquired" a copy or update will I be BREAKING THE LAW - these days all my software is legal & I'd like to keep it that way, cause even though I'm not very successful & working from home, I am registered as a business & as such presume I could be checked out at any stage. (Also its feels good )

From a gut point of view I couldnt care less about Adobe here cause its the one area I've always felt they've been going down the wrong road (with illustrator I mean) and now the b#$*§ds are burying my beloved freehand ...                                                                                                     

273

General Software Discussion / Browsers, Bookmarks, & synching

« on: June 28, 2006, 05:37 AM »

what with imperfect browsers and so on
I end up using (at the moment and depending on requirements etc.)

Opera
Firefox
Avant (I.E.)


I wondering does this exist, (or could it?!!):

A (portable?) programme that you can save your bookmarks to , say with a universal hotkey, or from the context menu.
Then you dont have to be thinking, now where did i save that.

Or maybe something that can import bookmarks from diff browsers, synch them, and export them or save them in format for import back to browser

I know theres online stuff & I've only tried delicious with FF, but if youre working on a different computer & you dont have the plugin installed its a pain I found.
Maybe I'm just being too impatient (or not understanding ...)

What do you people out there use?

274

General Software Discussion / programmes that use little system resources.

« on: June 09, 2006, 05:02 AM »

hi
I'm trying to help someone with an ancient computer (64MB ram, dont know bout processer, Win98)
Well, they're learning to type at the moment using some note programme, but also want to go in internet.

What I'm looking for is recommendations for programmes (preferably free ) that use little system resources.

Came out with AVGantivirus after reading this thread:
https://www.donation...40.msg25840#msg25840

am using foxitreader for PDFs -
Wondering if its better in general to use "portable" software - eg if using Firefox, would portable version be leaner?

With browsers was thinking K-Meleon might be lighter than FF. Opera is bigger programme size but i guess that doesnt mean much?

also wondering about "writing" software. Openoffice is very slow to start on my computer i find, but it might be better if I just installed the write part. Then theres Abiword. Any othr ideas there ?

Will prob just start trying things out but would be very happy to hear any recomendations
thanks
tom

275

General Software Discussion / special virtual desktop wanted

« on: May 26, 2006, 09:20 AM »

Hi y'all

what I want to have~do are a selection of desktops with different shortcut icons on each

say

1 Graphics, Photo
2 Tools
3 Notes, Office stuff

ideally maybe to be able to change them with a hotkey

I've downloaded a couple of Virtual Desktopmanagers(?) but they seem to concentrate on people with 20 programmes open at the same time and each desktop shows progs from a particular group in the taskbar.
I think these programmes can possibly do what i want but the're complicated (Virtualdesktop) or Forums in German (Dexpot)
Just found VirDsktop forum so will try post there as well

But i wondering for what i want is there a) a way, or b) software anyone can recommend
thanks,
tom