Messages

301

General Software Discussion / Windows Quirk

« on: November 04, 2005, 02:54 AM »

Quick question.. you know how you can use the keyboard to quickly select any item by typing its first letter in just about any situation (explorer - all folders, save dialogs, desktop, lists etc.)? Of course you do. We're at DonationCoder.com, after all. Now, what has bugged me for YEARS about this "feature" is the delay. Like all of us, I like to get things done fast when working in Windows, and sometimes I'm just typing away letters quickly.. but the delay of this feature forces me to stop and wait for at least 2 or 3 seconds. Sure, that doesn't sound like a long time.. but when you're trying to select something and then this delay forces you to stop and wait, it's extremely annoying.

Does anyone know if there is a tweak for this that would allow me to turn this delay off completely? Thanks!

302

General Software Discussion / Re: Lock a folder down?

« on: November 03, 2005, 10:09 PM »

Yeah. Encryption isn't hard to find.. TrueCrypt is amazing. It's far more advanced than I need it to be, and hell, I don't even use encryption. I wouldn't know what for . I probably will start using it to hide the nekkid pics on my HD from those occasional PC hoggers that come as guests...

Anyway.. it's hard to believe there is no free, easy to use app that will allow me to simply slap a password on any folder on the system. It seems so simple! It's all I ask.. a password that will keep any folder locked down. If double-clicked it should simply show a PW dialog.. if you enter the correct PW, it lets you in, if not, well, then not!

Simple enough? I'd think so.

303

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free world-time, calculator-calendar alarm clock

« on: November 03, 2005, 08:02 PM »

Is it any good? I need a bigger picture than that

Hmm.. then again, it's completely free, so why am I even asking. Heh

304

General Software Discussion / Re: Lock a folder down?

« on: November 03, 2005, 07:55 PM »

I guess when we start talking encryption software, this one's hard to beat: http://www.truecrypt.org/

My problem with it has always been that it seemed complicated to use and therefore hard to recommend someone like my sister who'd simply like to slap a password on any folder on the system. I'll have to give TrueCrypt another shot. And thanks for the suggestions.. but the first one isn't exactly what I'm looking for, and the second one is situated in a field that TrueCrypt seems to dominate without question. My conclusion: I need to re-check out TrueCrypt.

305

General Software Discussion / Re: Lock a folder down?

« on: November 03, 2005, 02:59 AM »

What happened to this..? Gotta bump it :/

306

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« on: November 03, 2005, 02:58 AM »

Sweet.. thanks!

307

General Software Discussion / Re: Find words as you type - on the fly searching, almost anywhere

« on: November 03, 2005, 02:57 AM »

I didn't like the website from the outset.. so I never tried it out. With this added info I won't even bother. If there's something I can't accept in software it's using software that nobody is looking after.

Thanks CarolHaynes.

308

General Software Discussion / Re: Find words as you type - on the fly searching, almost anywhere

« on: November 02, 2005, 11:39 AM »

Cool, I'll check it out

309

General Software Discussion / Re: Find words as you type - on the fly searching, almost anywhere

« on: November 01, 2005, 02:36 PM »

That would rock

310

General Software Discussion / Re: Find words as you type - on the fly searching, almost anywhere

« on: November 01, 2005, 02:26 PM »

$50! Yeah right. I have heard that it's great, but the price is outrageous.

311

General Software Discussion / Re: Expand Your Vocabulary

« on: November 01, 2005, 02:25 PM »

Yeah I know.. it's made by/affiliated with CNET... I suppose that's why I ask here

I haven't installed Interlex yet. I hope it will allow me to look at English-English word vocabs. I don't mean to learn a foreign language, I mean to expand my ENGLISH vocab.

312

General Software Discussion / Re: Expand Your Vocabulary

« on: November 01, 2005, 03:38 AM »

I found a good one!! I haven't installed it yet but download.com likes it more then Wordhacker and LearnWords isn't anywhere to be found on download.com. I haven't found any reviews of LearnWords. Anyway, Interlex is FREE and supposed to be great. I need to check it out

313

Site/Forum Features / Re: NEW SITE FEATURE: Drupal Pages

« on: November 01, 2005, 03:36 AM »

Cool! Now that sounds like a great idea. I really like the idea about collaborative review writing . It certainly would make things efficient, maybe speedier and certainly interesting.

314

General Software Discussion / Expand Your Vocabulary

« on: November 01, 2005, 03:05 AM »

I'm trying to find software that will help me expand my vocabulary by helping me learn words. A simple Google search using 'search words' turned up some pretty good results.

Particularly these two stand out:

• Learn Words
• Wordhacker

I'm in college, which means I read a lot. Being that English is my third language, I still find a ton of words I simply don't know about when reading much of the academic material I have to master. I find it tedious to read a book with a book dictionary next to me to look up any word I don't know on the spot, not because I'm too lazy to do it but because 1. it disrupts the flow of reading and 2. it makes the reading take many times longer.

I used to use similar software to what I'm looking for when I took French in school years ago and must say that it works very well. Think of index cards for learning, except in the form of software. The two programs above are good examples of what I'm looking for. I'm wondering what else is out there and that's what this post is about. I was hoping some of you may know more on this topic, in which case I would highly appreciate you pointing me in the right direction/s. Of course freeware is always good, but if a program really stands out from the crowd I wouldn't mind paying for it as the sum I pay will turn out to be negligible compared to what the product I get will give me in return in the long run.
What I do now when reading a book is to have paper and a pen with me at all times. Whenever I come across a word I don't know the meaning of, I simply write it down on the paper. After a while I end up with large lists of great words that I don't know the meaning of. I plan to take these words and create my own word lists so as to learn these specific words along with others the program might already come with. What I'm trying to say is that the solution I'm looking for should have some way of allowing the user to create his/her own word lists and definitions.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

315

General Software Discussion / Re: Lock a folder down?

« on: November 01, 2005, 01:23 AM »

To be fair, Folder Lock is supposed to be excellent. It's supposed to be very good at what it's supposed to do, so that's great. I was just wondering if there's anything in the freeware world similar to it in terms of function, and perhaps even quality.

316

General Software Discussion / Lock a folder down?

« on: November 01, 2005, 12:21 AM »

It's so simple, and yet I'm amazed I haven't found a simple way to do this yet. I mean, it's almost embarrassing! My sister asked me the other day about how she could lock a folder down so she could access it only after entering a password, and well, I couldn't answer that question. I've been looking for this kind of tool myself for months and never found anything that does just that and is secure. Well, nothing short of this, but it's not free :/ Is there no free alternative?

317

General Software Discussion / Re: Find words as you type - on the fly searching, almost anywhere

« on: November 01, 2005, 12:17 AM »

I'll check it out.. thanks

I've long been looking for something that could spell-check on the fly, anywhere where text is entered.. and haven't found anything yet. Spell-check, and, well, maybe such things as stored texts which one could activate with keywords... like, for example, if you type "btw" that it would actually put in "by the way". In some cases that could be very useful

318

Site/Forum Features / Re: NEW SITE FEATURE: Drupal Pages

« on: November 01, 2005, 12:15 AM »

Just wondering.. since I don't know what Drupal is, could someone just quickly tell me how exactly this is going to be useful to the site and its users? Thanks

319

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for finance app

« on: October 30, 2005, 08:58 PM »

great thread.

-mouser (October 30, 2005, 02:59 PM)

Agreed, even though it got WAY off topic.
I still have Quicken installed but haven't touched it in quite a while. I should buy it, I suppose, because it seems autoupdates of banking data is not supported unless you've purchased a copy and have signed up with Quicken's online services.

320

Living Room / Re: Anyone know of a Postal Mail Checker?

« on: October 28, 2005, 07:17 PM »

Great tip indeed!

321

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

« on: October 23, 2005, 11:49 PM »

There hasn't been an update to either Trillian or Trillian Pro in MONTHS. It's not very usual for Cerrulean to be so slow with updates and I'm wondering... what the hell is going on?

On a side-note.. was it due to my conection or due to the site that I just waited 22 seconds (!) between clicking "new topic" and getting to the edit page!?

322

Living Room / Re: have the urge to buy gadgets and stuff but dont have much money?

« on: October 23, 2005, 11:48 AM »

Regarding stuff to buy: let me quote from the great Fight Club movie:
The things you own end up owning you.  It's only after you lose everything that you're free to do anything.

-brotherS (October 23, 2005, 05:28 AM)

Sad as this may seem, that actually makes sense to me ...

Now for the bonfire ...

-CarolHaynes (October 23, 2005, 05:41 AM)

It's not so sad when you think about it for a while... many US folks now own so much stuff that they can't store it at home anymore. So they have to rent a place somewhere just to put it in there... that's a multi-billion business already! That is sad in my opinion... 

-brotherS (October 23, 2005, 05:50 AM)

Or eBay it and get money

323

Living Room / Re: have the urge to buy gadgets and stuff but dont have much money?

« on: October 22, 2005, 11:24 PM »

You call this a "gadget"? Hmmmm.. I call the stuff at thinkgeek.com gadgets , but to answer your question, I very much have the same problem :/

324

Living Room / Re: Anyone know of a Postal Mail Checker?

« on: October 22, 2005, 11:15 PM »

I'm already using those, but thank you for the awesome list you put together!

I just went to the individual shipment tracking sites and created a bookmark for each package and put them on my Opera personal bar. Now I can just click each one to see the status. Not bad

Thanks for your efforts

325

Living Room / Re: Anyone know of a Postal Mail Checker?

« on: October 22, 2005, 05:41 PM »

I've given up on those widget apps a long time ago.. too bad. I don't like that stuff eating up my resources in the background. I have too much stuff going on at startup that runs residently as it is.. don't need more in that department. I appreciate the suggestion though. Thanks