Messages

4651

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Deleting posts in My Personal Area?

« on: November 07, 2006, 09:48 AM »

all posts in private area are sold to google, that is why we can't allow them to be deleted

So that's your credit-card number I've been using. Thanks very much, the Lambo's in the garage!
Now that I'm here you'll doubtless also want to implement the universal 'delete asinine comment' button.

4652

Living Room / Re: What's better: modern built-in motherboard sound chip or old sound card?

« on: November 06, 2006, 09:02 PM »

The kids these days, they don't appreciate what they have.

And those damned policemen keep getting younger, too!I'm using on-board sound with the machine I'm running now.  It's the first time I've not installed a separate sound card:
C-Media CMI9880 High Definition Audio solution with
7.1-channel CODEC
1 x Coaxial S/PDIF out port
1 x Optical S/PDIF out port
Supports Dolby® Digital Live™ Technology
Suits me fine for sound from a computer. Game sound is satisfactory. If I want to sit and really listen to music there are other systems for that. 

4653

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Quick Thumbnail (an online approach)

« on: November 06, 2006, 03:49 PM »

FWIW
Nikon CoolPix 8700.
It defines 'Basic' as 1280 x 960 (1M)
and 'Normal' as 1600 x 1200 (2M)
I don't often use those, though. I certainly might (or lower) if I knew it was destined for the web and I was going to take advantage of your generously-provided site. I think your idea is to allow for people who didn't know that when they released the shutter, though.

4654

Living Room / Re: Mobo dying .... suggestions please on upgrading my system ...

« on: November 05, 2006, 09:48 PM »

1) Bite the bullet, dig out the credit card and go for it!

Absolutely! FWIW, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the best action is to acquire a new machine and hope to get 2 (maybe 3) years out of it before a combination of obsolescence and desire for new toys moves it down the chain, to be replaced by another. 
  Thus, a brand new machine becomes my main machine; my main machine turns into reserve box 1; reserve box 1 goes to my wife (who has absolutely no interest in a machine for its own sake and wants only a minimal, stable platform); my wife's box turns into back-up machine; backup machine goes to wherever seems like a good idea at the time (as long as that's not the store-room that used to have about 10 others in it).
  Despite this view, last year I made the mistake of upgrading parts of my wife's machine and wound up spending as much on subsequent piecemeal upgrades as I would have on building a modest new box to suit her needs. A new machine would have been better than what she ended up with and might even have cost less. In the end, I wound up stripping and junking the 'upgraded' machine and buying her an entirely new one -- you'll notice I couldn't quite bring myself simply to toss out the whole thing, sigh.
  For me, things are moving too fast these days to make most upgrades cost effective. The pain of an intial purchase is a one-time thing. The pain from a 'Band-Aid' upgrade can last much longer.

4655

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Quick Thumbnail (an online approach)

« on: November 04, 2006, 10:47 PM »

Nice work!
This could be less trouble than doing some things directly on my own machine. 

4656

General Software Discussion / Re: gPhotoShow Pro - A Nice Screensaver Maker

« on: November 04, 2006, 06:13 PM »

The talk of multi-monitor displays and screen savers prompts me to mention Ultramon which I find a very useful multi-monitor utility.
www.ultramon.com

4657

General Software Discussion / Re: OCR/Text Recognition in a .pdf document? How do I do this.

« on: November 04, 2006, 05:07 PM »

...scanned into a .pdf file, but what I didn't understand, I went to search for something within the file and results actually came back...
Do I have to buy Adobe Acrobat to do this or is other software used?

Searchable text is certainly an option with Acrobat (not the reader).
I think there's at least one other .pdf 'handler' out there that claims to do the job. Unhelpfully, I can't recall what it is right now. If my brain starts working again (unlikely) I'll let you know the name. Probably others here will fill in the blank, anyway. It's certainly a useful feature.

Try looking here:  http://searchable-text.qarchive.org/

4658

General Software Discussion / Re: IE7 Rant

« on: November 04, 2006, 08:37 AM »

How is everyone else finding IE7 so far? Better than me I hope.

I don't have the programming skills to bump up against the kinds of issue that you define.
I was mildly amused/annoyed when, after downloading and installing final 7, the next appearance of automatic updates insisted that it wanted to install... final 7. (I know I could have forbidden that but didn't feel like sorting out whatever mess might have ensued.)
Off topic, but while I have your ear, I was using floating ruler yesterday. Thanks for that.

4659

Living Room / Re: Microsoft Releases SyncToy 1.4

« on: November 03, 2006, 11:22 AM »

Thanks for the info, I find the earlier version works quite well as a quick-and-dirty safety net when I'm working on a bunch of projects.

4660

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for good external hard drive solutions?

« on: October 31, 2006, 11:11 PM »

I think I prefer Seagate's new 7200.10 line

FWIW I have one of these in and running because I just began a program to replace smaller drives in the box I use most. Response/transfer is fine, and the noise level's no problem (in an Antec P150 case). I can't help but think you'll be pleased if that's what you buy -- good value for money, too. (What a contrast there is between the noise levels of older and newer drives! One of my old machines, a PIII that's still doing sterling service as a back-up, has four 10,000 SCSI drives in a very large tower case. When that one's on it sounds like a Harrier jump-jet spooling up.)

4661

Living Room / Re: Where to find barebone case with 5.25" bays?

« on: October 30, 2006, 11:30 PM »

What about a case intended for CD multiple duplication?

4662

Site/Forum Features / Re: Google checkout method removed from the donation page

« on: October 30, 2006, 01:03 PM »

Compliance Officers are close cousins to tax inspectors and parking enforcement practitioners   
That said, I'm pleased to see Google's presence here diminished.

4663

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Super Efficient Extended Hotkey Mapper

« on: October 30, 2006, 11:14 AM »

All I was really trying to do was find out if TapTap would see the (in fact, any) key that I remapped to winkey as winkey.  If not, I'm locked out of some TapTap potential as your config says "(letters&numbers can only be used with W)".  I don't want some esoteric conversion from one control key to another, that was just my trying to discover what would work on my own keyboard. 
I'm a long-time user of Macro Express, so I can do pretty much all I want with that.  Double-tapping is a nice addition.

4664

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Super Efficient Extended Hotkey Mapper

« on: October 29, 2006, 10:23 PM »

I set TapTap to use:
keymap      RA+F2      :   F1
that should work, right? It's pointless but I thought I'd use your example line from the config, just as a test.

That does nothing other than give me an 'available' beep (odd?) and open the start menu (due to R-Alt's role as winkey).
However I set R-Alt, it responds on key-up, not key down.  I'll have to dig around and recall by what means I set up R-Alt to be winkey.
Let me do some more checking...

4665

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Super Efficient Extended Hotkey Mapper

« on: October 29, 2006, 08:16 PM »

there is only one way to know and that is to try

Oh, sure, leave me to do all the work. 

I have mapped my R-Alt key to Windows-key (not using your utility).
That remapped key won't behave as Windows-key with TapTap.  That's a shame because "letters&numbers can only be used with W".

Before you ask the obvious, I'm using Northgate OmniKey keyboards with my computers.  I've had these keyboards for at least 10 years and haven't found anything to match them in terms of durability and, most importantly, tactile feedback.  I'm not about to trade them for something with a windows key.  A phrase about "cold dead hands" springs to mind.

4666

Site/Forum Features / Re: Going to try google adsense on the pages for 1 week

« on: October 29, 2006, 06:30 PM »

I take your point about being unable to replace $100/day.

At $8 is it unfeasible to get 365 people each to donate $8 extra, annually?

4667

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Super Efficient Extended Hotkey Mapper

« on: October 29, 2006, 06:24 PM »

hotkey can't map left control to winkey (although i actually could add something like that in a future version - maybe map right control to winkey?)
so if you dont have a winkey, it means your options are limited

Sorry, I didn't explain myself clearly.
I posit using XP's ability to remap keys (not your utility).
First I would use that to remap, say, l-ctrl to be winkey.
Presume that I have done so, and that the system sees l-ctrl as winkey (I've remapped other keys to 'windows' keys successfully in the past)
Will TapTap now also see my remapped l-ctrl as winkey or will it still see it as l-ctrl?

I've only used l-ctrl as an example. It works just as well for me if it is, for example, r-alt.

4668

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Super Efficient Extended Hotkey Mapper

« on: October 29, 2006, 04:16 PM »

From the .ini file:

// double right shift to Control F1
keymap   DRS      :   F1

1) I don't understand this.  How does that get control-F1? Typo?
2) My keyboard has no winkey so;
  a) Do I have to remap another key (easy enough, I'm using XP) to get letters and numbers?
  b) If I do remap another key, which key will TapTap 'see'? 
      E.g., suppose I remap left-control to be winkey, does TapTap see l-ctrl or winkey?
TIA

4669

Site/Forum Features / Re: Going to try google adsense on the pages for 1 week

« on: October 29, 2006, 03:44 PM »

I don't feel that I even have the right to object and I don't anyway.  I'm more concerned with the possible perception created. Given Google's recent propensity for attracting unwelcome press, the juxtaposition of Google and Ad on a site that emphasizes no advertising of mentioned products seems... out of keeping with the stated principles.

4670

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« on: October 27, 2006, 11:52 PM »

THANKS everyone!

I tried a few things and, since I have good back-ups, decided that the fastest route would be to nuke the lot and start over.

Even then it took me a while to get Roboform to install for 2.0 and not 1.x.
Now 2.0 is doing what it should. I'm obliged to you all for the help.

I've not had cause to tweak FF since just after it first came out (other than by using various extensions). I played around a lot with it at one time but found that I was happy with most of the defaults and let it go. (A bit like one's first PDA... install every piece of software under the sun, then gradually revert to a handful of really useful applications, then leave it alone.) Now I'll follow some of the good ideas posted here.

4671

Screenshot Captor / Re: I just want to say...

« on: October 27, 2006, 08:38 PM »

mouser:

i can't tell you how nice it is to hear that today

Okay, then I love it too. How's that for a day enhancer?

4672

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« on: October 27, 2006, 08:34 PM »

Thanks to Carol, dk70 and NeilS for giving me some ideas to pursue.

I do have the correct version of Surfulater FF add-in, but perhaps not Roboform (I'd assumed that its latest version gathered through 1.5.7 would be the right one for 2.0).
As for compatability, I assumed that was an FF mis-spelling, so entered it verbatim with an 'a' not an 'i'. I did set it as boolean.

I'll see what I can do based on your suggestions, up to and including erasing the whole thing, in order to start over.

4673

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 2 hints and tips

« on: October 27, 2006, 04:49 PM »

Carol Haynes:
Type about:config in the address box and press return
Scroll down to extensions.checkCompatability and double click the value (True) it should change to False. Then restart Firefox.

That doesn't work for me.
I didn't have that value, so I entered it in the file.  The item now appears, and toggles true/false without any problem, but FF still checks and then disables some of my favourite plug-ins.

Among others, 2.0 rejects both the latest AI Roboform and Surfulater.
Is it mandatory to uninstall 1.5.x when using the final 2.0?

Has anyone another idea?

BTW, Carol, shouldn't that be Pancakes for England?

4674

Mobysaurus / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - Mobysaurus Thesaurus - 1.0.36 - Oct 24, 2006

« on: October 25, 2006, 03:36 PM »

I will try a couple of other firewalls in a bit and see if they alert and also cause Moby to crash

FWIW this doesn't happen with 1.036 if I forbid access (using Sygate.)

4675

General Software Discussion / Re: Multi-Document AND Multi-View Text Editor?

« on: October 22, 2006, 08:51 PM »

wondered if it was possible to "fold cells" in MS Excel

It certainly is possible.
In your Excel help, look up
Display or hide rows or columns
I use Excel 2003 and cannot recall if this works in earlier versions of Excel, but try querying your Excel help...
Good luck, let us know how you get on!