Messages

351

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.103.01 - Nov 13, 2011

« on: January 07, 2012, 12:26 PM »

I just got a new gadget. It's a USB microscope, came in a box that looked like it had been sat on by a small elephant so it only cost £1... that's what? Maybe $1.60? Anyway, although it comes with software that knows how to capture images from it, it's primarily for image editing and, frankly, not a patch on software I already have.

So... how about ScreenshotCaptor gaining the ability to look at connected cameras (interface-wise, this looks just like a webcam and is supported by native Windows drivers) and capture stills from them?

Yeah, yeah, like you needed to find something new to do.

352

General Software Discussion / Re: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit

« on: January 04, 2012, 08:22 AM »

Check out the various Downloads / Tutorials areas on the Opus forums for people's shared configs, advice, etc. Lots of good stuff there.

-Nudel (January 03, 2012, 06:46 PM)

Part of the problem is, I think, knowing what you want to do/knowing what can be done.

It's difficult -- this isn't restricted to Opus, by the way, in case that's not obvious -- to work through the "I have this wonderful tool I can use for lots of things" jungle to "here's a specific thing I'd love to be able to do if I only knew how."

How many times have you watched people writing things down off their computer screen because they don't have the understanding that data, once it exists, can be copied elsewhere, printed, stored, emailed, whatever if you just have a certain bit of basic understanding? And a basic toolset, of course.

That's what I think the problem is with a lot of s/w like Opus. "It's a file manager." "Yeah, so? So's Explorer, and I got that already." "But it does this, and this, and this." "Huh? What use is THAT?" And so it goes on. You don't know what someone will find useful and they believe there's lots of useful stuff, if they but knew how to get at it.

I like Mouser's video tutorials for this stuff. Seeing somebody else do stuff with a bit of software is often what it takes to start your own thought processes off -- I can't use that, but there's this similar thing I'd like to be able to do, I bet it will if I just work with those features" and THEN you've got your answers -- but they're often all but unique to you.

An example in this thread; on the very rare occasions that I might want to pretend a folder with a CD's contents copied into it was a drive, for the sake of an install, I'd run up a command prompt and do a SUBST. (Yes, yes, I used to use CP/M too. ) But the script would be useful for someone who (a) needed to do that sort of thing more often than once in a blue moon, and (b) didn't know about SUBST, let alone how to compose a command using it without Windows going "What on EARTH do you think you're going on about?" or whatever the relevant error message is. But backtracking from that; I'd have to know that it was possible to install CD-based software from something other than a CD and to think that might be a useful thing to do long before I started wondering if that might be something I could expedite with Opus.

I'm wittering, I think. It's harder to explain than I thought it'd be when I started writing.

353

General Software Discussion / Re: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit

« on: January 03, 2012, 06:03 AM »

I've been using DOpus since v8 (which I bought into after picking up a freebie copy of v6, as I recall) and I've never really done much customisation beyond putting the stuff I use most on the toolbar.

My biggest bit of proper customisation involved beefing up the Multiview plugin so that it could do absolutely everything I threw at it -- which in my case involved .DBF files, which nothing I'd had since Quickview had been able to do.

A bit of general advice: if you want to put program shortcuts on a toolbar, you'll probably be better off having buttons that open menus and putting the shortcuts in the menus. That way you can organise in the way your mind works (or in categories based on your personal various operating modes, or whatever suits) rather than a toolbar that gradually becomes increasingly cluttered.

A thought-about and organised list of favourites is also A Good Thing if, like me, you have a zillion folders serving different purposes and want to be able to zip between them.

Some other tiny things:

If you don't have a button that toggles checkbox mode on and off, add it. Appallingly useful any time you're picking up files from a folder that can only be grouped by your brain and if you're -- like me -- occasionally inclined to click instead of ctrl-click and zap the list of 87 disparate files you've carefully selected over the last ten minutes.

Your default downloads folder: add the "relative age" to the shown columns, sort it (in reverse) so the newest files are always at the top and save the view for it (and optionally, all subfolders). That way, if you're picking stuff up off the net, intending to get to them later, you'll know that the top handful of files are the ones you'll be playing with when you get to them. The relative age bit is a brilliant visual indicator for things that are getting old enough to delete on the odd occasions you go through your downloads to tidy up all the stuff you don't need anymore -- old GiveAwayOfTheDay downloads you forgot to delete after the relevant day passed, all that sort of cruft.

If you use zipfiles to keep/archive stuff in, you can create a new/empty zipfile, open it on one side of a dual-pane lister, navigate the other side to the place the source files are coming from, select the source, hit the "move from source to destination" button and you're done. I don't like the way pretty much every other archiver manages its interface in comparison -- although I grant they have their strengths for people who like drag'n'drop.

Um. Set it to load at startup, not to display the splash screen, get used to the bit of advanced wonderfulness of having a lister there when you need it just by double-clicking the desktop.

Opus just gradually takes over. I'm quite sure I haven't used (or even mentioned) any of its more advanced features, the bits of scripted cleverness above are beyond anything I've ever tried to do...

354

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« on: December 31, 2011, 05:19 AM »

...and I have to say that the Wikipedia entry for The Starlost doesn't treat it particularly kindly -- although I can see the conceptual appeal!

Oh, and completely agreed on "...Ticktockman."

Mostly, Ellison infuriated me for writing less than I felt he should, and flirting with Hollywood and TV too much. Despite the latter, he still seems to slip under many people's radar...

355

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« on: December 31, 2011, 05:09 AM »

I was a fan of his other little known 1973 TV series The Starlost.

-40hz (December 30, 2011, 06:34 PM)

Just a quickie, since I'm about to read the entry: the link should be The Starlost

356

Living Room / Re: The Christmas arms race

« on: December 31, 2011, 04:51 AM »

If you just want (or need) to get drunk, that's what vodka's for. (Trust me. I'm of Russian descent, so I should know!  )

-40hz (December 30, 2011, 07:08 PM)

Indeed.

But...

Take one bottle of Stolichnaya and put it in the freezer for a couple of days.

Remove from freezer. Pour (yes, it should still pour, although it might flow a bit more slowly) into a cold shot glass.

Drink slowly.

Now tell me again that vodka's only for getting drunk with?

357

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« on: December 30, 2011, 05:22 PM »

An author I enjoyed that wasn't a big name was A. E. van Vogt.

-MilesAhead (December 30, 2011, 05:12 PM)

I remember picking up one of his books that had, under his name, "The Slan Man." Sure suggested he was at least a reasonably big name

I went through a phase where I'd have read pretty much anything by anyone John Campbell was prepared to put in Analog. Pretty sure Van Vogt fell in that category...

I was also a big fan of Harlan Ellison. Some great titles: things like "The Beast Who Shouted Love At The Heart Of The World" and "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream." (He wrote one of the best Star Treks ever, too.)

358

Living Room / Re: The Christmas arms race

« on: December 30, 2011, 12:39 PM »

A nice bottle of Lagavulin 16 year old single malt with some nifty 'rocker' glasses (so your glass can be as tipsy as you are).  I haven't tried it out, yet.

-mwb1100 (December 29, 2011, 02:17 PM)

You'll hate it. Honest. If you need help disposing of it, please let me know and I'll pass on my postal address.

Spoiler

Okay, okay, it's my very favourite single malt. I also can't afford to drink it very often.

The kit also came with some 'whisky stones' to use instead of ice - I don't drink my scotch with ice, but it'll be interesting to try with the stones.

You should always add a tiny splash of water to most decent whiskies -- it opens up the flavours no end. (But stop adding water before you've seen it splash.) Ideally, water from the home of the relevant place -- but some of those Scottish islands are quite a hefty trip. And yes, ice is generally a mistake, as it kills the flavours just as neatly as chilling cheap wine does. (There are people who suggest that Jack Daniels only manages to be popular because most people drink it over ice. I, of course, am far too diplomatic to hold such a view.)

Trying to be serious for a moment: Talisker (which is also an excellent single malt) is perfectly fine and if you like it, you'll probably find Lagavulin completely acceptable at the very least and one to never deviate from again at best  It's very smoky/peaty and definitely not a malt to rush -- but then, which of them are? 

My wife organised Christmas presents for some of the people she works with. She found out their delivery driver likes Glenfiddich, so she bought him a sampler pack of 3 5cl bottles -- one of which was an eighteen year-old. Glenfiddich is pretty ordinary, as single malts go, but I did my best to steal the 18-y-o out of the box before she wrapped it. (Sadly, I was spotted.) They always say that that's the age where ordinary stops and spectacular starts... 

359

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« on: December 29, 2011, 05:02 AM »

The reminiscences I've just had has brought back another memory. This is probably ultra-obscure, but it puzzled me for ages and I find myself wondering if anyone knows anything...

My dad had a book of sf short stories. I don't remember anything much about it now, but it might have been a Readers' Digest book.

One of the pieces in it claimed to be an extract from one of Keith Laumer's Imperium books, written in the early 1960s. (Keith Laumer might be best known for a series of books featuring that most pragmatic of diplomats, Retief. I urge anyone unfamiliar to seek them out -- pure, unbridled entertainment.) The extract was a description of a sequence made by moving sideways through a series of parallel universes that started out with a gardener hoeing around a plant, gradually changed into some sort of dreadful battle between a warrior and a huge and fearsome sentient vegetable and then gradually changed back into a gardener and some sort of sprout with some sort of minor deviation from the original scene -- maybe the gardener now had horns or tentacles or something, I don't really remember.

Anyway, while the book I originally read that piece in has long disappeared, I spent ages trying to find the book in which that sequence occurred. My memory said it was "Worlds Of The Imperium" but I tracked down a copy (with the aid of a library), read it and failed to find it.

So I've always wondered if my memory was faulty. Maybe it wasn't KL. Maybe it was, but not that book. Maybe KL wrote it specifically for inclusion in that collection but it was just based in the universe(s) of the Imperium rather than actually being an extract from the book.

I think the piece might have been called "Sideways [or maybe sidewise] In Time"

Anyone recognise any aspect of the above?

360

Living Room / Re: You like science fiction, don't you? Of course you do!

« on: December 29, 2011, 04:37 AM »

I have also been listening to the Foundation series -- whiled away a long car journey with it, going to visit my son a couple of days ago -- and apart from some nasty contrasts between relatively quiet dialogue and some surprisingly loud electronic squeaks and whistles courtesy of the BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, found it an absolute delight.

My first sf was Asimov: my dad lent me his copy of "I Robot" in, oh, probably about 1970, and I became a sf enthusiast almost instantly. (I was 8 or 9, just the age when things get lodged the deepest.) The Foundation trilogy followed soon afterwards and, probably because I lacked the critical facilities that made older commentators criticise the lack of character depth and the various other things that Asimov's been accused of, over the years, I absolutely loved it. (It's also responsible for one of the aphorisms that I still think should be a motto for every leader everywhere: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.")

I must also declare here that I was a huge fan of the Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy, loose ends and all, and can be inspired to quote chunks of it at people even now with only the tiniest incentive. (The radio series that started it all was still the definitive version, for me. The one that has the original name of the poet who was worse than the Vogons -- later changed, presumably because there was a real poet of that name, although I don't think I ever knew for sure.)

I can't listen to The Eagles' "Journey of the Sorcerer" without expecting to hear Peter Jones (The voice of the Book) to cut in at any moment...

So thanks for the pointers, App103 and MaxEvilTwin: you have made an old fart very happy. 

361

Living Room / Re: The Christmas arms race

« on: December 29, 2011, 04:12 AM »

A 6 week-old Boston Terrier puppy!

-kyrathaba (December 28, 2011, 07:50 PM)

You are going to HAVE to post a picture, you know that I hope?

362

Living Room / Re: The Christmas arms race

« on: December 29, 2011, 04:10 AM »

I just keep repeating the exact same resolution each year that I have for the past twenty. I figure I'll either eventually succeed - or die trying.

-40hz (December 28, 2011, 05:32 PM)

I've never made a resolution, I don't think. I tend to figure that if there's something I ought to do, or something I ought to quit, I'll do it (or quit it) when the time is right for me, rather than a relatively arbitrary date just because a number has incremented.

For instance, I quit smoking on (I think) December 12th 2005. (Or it might have been 2004.) Not a resolution, as such, it was just the right time to do it. (And because it WAS the right time to do it, I didn't start again, unlike all the previous times I'd tried to give up.)

This year, when it came to gifts, our entire family skipped getting presents for the adults for a variety of reasons not worth going into.

We decided that a few years back. But it seems the only adult in my entire extended family is my dad. 

The kids, however, made out like bandits.

Don't they always! Most successful kid present this year: some weird toy involving a "build your own predator" electronic thing and a water-filled tank containing a model of the predator that moves in response to stuff happening in the electronic game AND can communicate via infrared with another similar. So you CAN answer questions like "who would win in a fight between a shark and a velociraptor?" (Okay, so maybe it's not the most scientific of answers but what the heck!)

Our nephews, we're told, haven't been able to put them down. Always a sign of a good present!

363

Living Room / The Christmas arms race

« on: December 28, 2011, 08:21 AM »

As Christmas 2011 starts its slide back towards the dim and distant memories occupied by all its many predecessors, I feel it's only right to start the traditional post-Christmas "what did YOU get?" arms race.

Anybody here who received a Ferrari, a fully equipped palace or an entire debt-free nation can leave now, please: this is for those of us whose credit cards start quivering slightly in fear, somewhere around the start of November every year...

No lists, either. What was your FAVOURITE present?

I may have to duck for cover when I start the list off: I got a Kindle. (Not the 3G version.) I know, I know, I've always said anti-Kindle things, done the luddite "I'd rather have a REAL book" stuff... but actually, it's very good. I haven't quite got to the point where it vanishes and all I have is content, but I can feel the move in that direction. 

364

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Listary Pro for $9.95 on 17 December

« on: December 23, 2011, 04:11 PM »

I've used Listary far more than DF, but I think Listary has more features, without their getting in your way.  It's an excellent piece of kit.

-rjbull (December 23, 2011, 03:32 PM)

I am gradually coming to the same conclusion. I suspect my initial issues with it were to do with the fact that it just doesn't work like FileBX and I wanted it to.

365

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Listary Pro for $9.95 on 17 December

« on: December 23, 2011, 04:07 PM »

Besides, it has a bug (user must navigate before naming & saving file).

-Curt (December 23, 2011, 12:08 PM)

There's another that occasionally happens to me: the auto-resize of columns fails miserably and they all end up about half a character wide. I think it's when the filenames it's trying to list are particularly long, but I always sighed, resized manually, forgave it and carried on.

366

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Listary Pro for $9.95 on 17 December

« on: December 23, 2011, 11:29 AM »

@Oblivion; are you using FileBox eXtender version 2.01?

-Curt (December 23, 2011, 11:05 AM)

Hm. The version I have on my work (XP) box is that but I suspect from what you say that the version I tried at home and that failed to work as it should may have been older. And if it's as recent as last February, it looks like my impression it had been abandoned may also be wrong.

Hmf. Oh well...

367

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Listary Pro for $9.95 on 17 December

« on: December 23, 2011, 10:26 AM »

Nice find!  I love tools like this.  I'd like to see how it compares to my current favorite, Direct Folders.

-superboyac (December 18, 2011, 06:17 PM)

I'm now using both: DF I think is marginally the better product but that might just be because I'm more used to it. Listary is, if anything, even less obtrusive than DF but it has at least one major advantage for me: it'll run portably and the Pro license lets me use it at work in that mode.

I've been using FileBX on my work machine but am under pressure (from the standardisation dweebs) to uninstall it; Listary gives me most of the stuff I use (although I like and will miss FileBX's ability automagically to push a file listing in a dialog into details mode, autosize the columns and sort it for me by date. FBX doesn't work well under anything later than XP and is no longer under development, though.)

Odd: I first tried Listary when PortableApps made a wrapper for it; tried it, couldn't get on with it, gave up. I must not have been persistent enough; it does actually deliver a lot of useful stuff.

368

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: P-FANCI: Petition For A New Cody Image! POST HERE!!

« on: December 22, 2011, 10:05 AM »

a) Mayan calendar - the round thing.

-nudone (December 22, 2011, 09:49 AM)

I like that one. It's colourful. (Or "colorful" if you don't speak British.)

b) Mayan stone carving - the thing with the acid chicken at the top.

On the other hand, Rhino finds the concept of acid chicken interesting in a odd sort of a hey! purple clouds!

369

Found Deals and Discounts / O&O DriveLED4 Pro Christmas giveaway

« on: December 22, 2011, 03:35 AM »

Not sure how useful this is to the average hardened techie perusing DC, but, in exchange for your email address, O&O are giving away their disk monitoring package for Christmas:

http://www.oo-software.com/en/special/xmas2011/

370

Living Room / Re: Sound problems

« on: December 20, 2011, 01:04 PM »

You could try uninstalling the sound card from device manager (sometimes something corrupts a driver/setting whatnot) and reboot. Windows should automatically detect and reinstall the drivers.

-Cloq (December 20, 2011, 11:14 AM)

Windows did. I tried all that -- reverting to older drivers, updating, reinstalling from source -- to no avail. Updated everything I could find, looked for all the usual problems, nothing. Like I say, it appears to have been related to the performance monitor service: with that running again, it's pretty much perfect. (And if I use Tune-Up Utilities Turbo mode -- a one-click way to temporarily turn off a load of other stuff that eats speed -- that seems to fix even the few in-game sound stutters I had left.)

371

Living Room / Re: Sound problems

« on: December 20, 2011, 10:57 AM »

I think I may have found the problem. (Yes, it took ages. Mostly because I stopped worrying about it and lived with it.)

I switched off the performance monitor on the PC ages ago, and promptly forgot I'd done it.

Fast forward a bit... I put Process Tamer on my netbook, found it didn't work, eventually discovered that it needed the performance monitor service to be enabled in order to function, switched it back on, PT worked, all was well with the world. Well, the netbook, anyway.

I remembered this, randomly, while I was watching Process Lasso updating itself on my desktop machine last weekend. PL seemed to work (on Vista) but in the early days of my ownership of my netbook, I tried PL and it actually crashed at install time. Tried it several times, consulted with PL's author, couldn't fix it, gave up. Found myself wondering if that was also something to do with the performance monitor service, even though PL seemed okay on the desktop box.

So I switched the service back on. No obvious difference. Except that Mediamonkey now plays MP3s perfectly.

I still get occasional stutters in games, but it's only when the system's VERY (graphically) busy and nothing that's particularly unusual -- particularly in a nearly 5-year-old machine.

So I think that was it. File it away: whatever they tell you, the performance monitor service does stuff that helps everything else work better. And the odd bits of advice out there on the net that say that if you don't use it, you don't need it are just plain misguided.

372

Living Room / Re: Three little words

« on: December 20, 2011, 10:24 AM »

Everyone else: irritating smart ass.

Me: Not that smart...

373

N.A.N.Y. 2012 / Re: P-FANCI: Petition For A New Cody Image! POST HERE!!

« on: December 20, 2011, 10:11 AM »

My two cents will be delivered by my representative...

374

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WinPatrol lifetime $5

« on: December 09, 2011, 01:58 AM »

If you do not have a lifetime WP on your puters, this is close to a no-brainer.  

-Steven Avery (December 08, 2011, 09:39 PM)

Already got, but I'd +1 it a zillion times. Probably the most useful (and best behaved!) bit of security/utility software in the known universe.

The family pack's a good deal too -- but sadly, right now, the ordering process for it is broken.

It's up and going now. For those of us who end up having to maintain every single PC in households of every family member, I'd say it was a very good choice.

375

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: New Humble Bundle: Introversion

« on: November 23, 2011, 02:05 AM »

Haven't played the others but if you haven't played Crayon Physics it is worth it for that alone.

-Carol Haynes (November 22, 2011, 02:34 PM)

I picked that up with a previous bundle and can only agree.