Messages

51

General Software Discussion / TheBat, calendar and MS Outlook

« on: February 02, 2008, 05:44 AM »

Hi all,

I'm currently switching away from MS software... After some research and some testing, I've decided to use TheBat as my email client (for both work and personal accounts). The only issue at the moment is how to manage my calendar. Some people (quite a few actually) around me are using Outlook extensively, especially to send meeting requests (which are actually emails containing vCalendar data).

TheBat has no built-in calendar application (which I'd love to see)... I'm considering using Google Calendar, but I've not yet found the right way to integrate it with TheBat, and especially manage as seamlessly as possible the Outlook meeting requests I'm receiving. I might also consider using an external Calendar/PIM software as long as I can integrate it with TheBat (through a plugin maybe?)

Anyone in a similar situation willing to share his/her setup?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers  /jerome

52

Living Room / Re: The Rule of 3 Drives: How to Build your Next PC

« on: January 06, 2008, 05:15 PM »

Thanks for the advice mouser, I couldn't agree more.
However as I'm thinking about my next pc, I'm wondering if anyone considered using Solid State drives?
Ok, I know these are still a bit expensive!...
By the way, Samsung recently announced a 128Gb SSD

Cheers  /jerome

53

GOE 2007 Challenge Downloads / Re: SMAU - GOE Challenge 2007 Entry

« on: December 06, 2007, 04:46 AM »

I like the idea... I'm using remind at the moment, but I will have a look at SMAU...

Cheers  /jerome

54

Living Room / Re: Techlife Blog

« on: December 04, 2007, 04:08 PM »

very nice one... thanks mouser!

Cheers  /jerome

55

General Software Discussion / Electric Sheep: Great and unique collaborative screensaver

« on: December 03, 2007, 09:09 AM »

Hi all,

Following a recent thread, I'd like to share this with you great folks at DC!
I've never been too fond of screensavers, most of the time I simply used the default windows screensaver... but recently a friend of mine showed me Electric Sheep. It generates beautiful animated sequences (some might call them hypnotic!)...

In the creators' own words:
"Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep."

Some screenshots (taken from their web site):







Enjoy!

Cheers  /jerome

56

Living Room / Re: Name the screensaver.

« on: December 02, 2007, 02:08 PM »

This is slightly off-topic, but the only screensaver I can accept on my machines is http://electricsheep.org/
Beautiful, hypnotic videos... Note this uses your CPU idle time (when screensaver is running) to calculate these images and share them with other members of the community. Enjoy!

Cheers  /jerome

57

General Software Discussion / Re: RoboTask for free...

« on: September 28, 2007, 10:43 AM »

Apologies, I should have checked before...

Cheers  /jerome

58

General Software Discussion / RoboTask for free...

« on: September 28, 2007, 09:52 AM »

The program RoboTask, which seems to be a powerful automation tool, is given away for free today on GiveAwayOfTheDay... I thought you might want to know...

Cheers  /jerome

59

General Software Discussion / Re: Good parental control software

« on: September 26, 2007, 11:04 AM »

Thanks for all suggestions. I've just read on this excellent tech blog gHacks about a piece of software by Microsoft named Windows Steady State(formerly known as Microsoft Shared Access), which is not per se a parental control system, but can be used as such.
I'll give it a try and let you know my impressions.
For those interested in this topic, I'd also like to share this nice hack about restricting web sites access on IE.
Hope that helps.

Cheers  /jerome

60

General Software Discussion / Re: Good parental control software

« on: September 12, 2007, 07:57 AM »

Other people have recommended Windows Live Parental Control (or whatever the funky name might be) to me, I'll give it a try. I'll also have a look at Naomi, mentioned earlier in this thread.

I do agree with f0dder in the distrust this kind of software instills. I'm planning to use it at home for my 4 kids (aged 13,12,7,6), my elder son don't need it any more (he's 19)... As a father, I think you should not rely exclusively on a pseudo-automatic system, this should not prevent you from educating your kids (also explaining why you're using a parental control system).

Thanks all!

Cheers  /jerome

61

General Software Discussion / Good parental control software

« on: September 11, 2007, 11:20 AM »

Hi there,

I'm looking for a good (potentially free) parental control system that can be installed on a child pc, that would allow parents to control web access as well as instant messaging software, and the like... Im looking for a system that could allow white or black url lists as well as content-based filtering with either auto-updated (multi-language) or custom keywords lists...
Any suggestion welcome!

Cheers  /jerome

62

Clipboard Help+Spell / AutoCopy ?

« on: August 27, 2007, 10:39 AM »

Hi there,

Just wondering why the 'Try to AutoCopy on Mouse Select' option is grayed-out for me?
By the way, I'm not sure I totally understand what the option 'Auto Invoke Ctrl+C Copy on trigger' means?
Thanks again for this wonderful piece of software mouser!
I'm becoming mouser-dependent!

Cheers  /jerome

63

General Software Discussion / Re: Dumb question re Website Watcher

« on: August 24, 2007, 04:49 PM »

Thanks all, this gives me a few ideas how to use WW. I've got the strange feeling that I'm missing something if I don't use it. Mouser, I'm a great fan of yours, and you seem to use WW extensively, so I have to like it! 

I'd be interested in other usage scenarios anyway.

Cheers  /jerome

64

General Software Discussion / Dumb question re Website Watcher

« on: August 23, 2007, 05:43 PM »

Hi there,

It seems like several people are very fond of Website Watcher (http://www.aignes.com/), however I've downloaded the trial version, and I can't seem to find the right way to use it, even though it seems to be very powerful. I'd be interested to get some usage scenarios from people who are using it on a daily basis.
Personaly, I get most of my information through RSS feeds (I'm using Google Reader as my main rss reader). I'm just afraid I might be missing something with Website Watcher, advice welcome !

Cheers  /jerome

65

General Software Discussion / Re: Window Arranger Software

« on: January 18, 2007, 11:17 AM »

you might also want to check this roundup 'Optimize your Screen Space with this Freeware' http://tech.cybernet...-with-this-freeware/ from the great guys at CyberNet News...

66

General Software Discussion / Re: Paperless Home: Need document management software

« on: January 18, 2007, 11:13 AM »

Is that an artificially set date or do you marry/divorce/start your own business/... on Feb. 1st?

-brotherS (January 16, 2007, 08:51 AM)

somehow artificial, as I'm going to work for a new company on Feb. 1st after 8 years in this one...

67

General Software Discussion / Re: Paperless Home: Need document management software

« on: January 16, 2007, 08:43 AM »

Been away recently, I'm still not sure which system I'm going to start with.
I've downloaded a trial version (15 days) of ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Pro, I've used it on my last bank statements, and the OCR did a great job (maintain layout, multi-page PDF). I may give a try to Paperport, but I'm not sure I'll need all the functionality.
Both (Paperport and Finereader) are quite expensive solutions ($150 range) and have comparable features. I need to get going and start something soon, my goal is to go paperless at home on Feb. 1st.
I'll keep you posted.

68

General Software Discussion / Paperless Home: Need document management software

« on: January 13, 2007, 09:29 AM »

Hi dc'ers,

I'd like to try implement something close to a paperless office, what I'd like to do is:
1. Scan all paper documents received at home (bank statements, letters,...)
2. Use OCR if applicable (maybe, I'm not sure whether it's a good thing to do at the moment)
3. Store the scanned document in the right format (multi-page TIFF, multi-page PDF, other?)
4. Use a clever document storage (filesystem with nice/clean directory structure, dedicated database/revision management system,...)

Interesting user story: http://www.onlamp.co...ment_management.html

Possible software I've seen so far:
PDFFactory : http://www.fineprint...dffactory/index.html ($49.95 or $99.95 for the pro version)
ABBY Fineprint Reader Pro: http://www.abbyy.com...reader8/?param=44890 (~$160)
Perforce (see article by Jason Hunter referenced above) : http://www.perforce.com/ (free version available, limited to 2 clients)

Any comments on this? Has anyone set up a similar system?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers  /jerome

69

Find And Run Robot / big, warm thank you to mouser

« on: December 04, 2006, 01:53 PM »

I'd like to say a big warm "thank you" to mouser for giving us Fin&Run Robot. For years, I've been using powerpro as my launch-tool-of-all-trades, I've built some complex bars, I'm now using Find&Run as my main launch tool, I just realized I was loosing way too much time with my mouse.
Thank you mouser, you're the man.

Cheers  /jerome

70

General Software Discussion / Re: My favorite software! What's yours?

« on: November 19, 2006, 04:14 PM »

Now, my list:
  - powerpro: can't live without it for years
  - autohotkey: might replace powerpro if I can rewrite my shortcuts and scripts
  - al ex-sysinternals utilities (mostly: ProcessExplorer, PsTools, Handle.exe), now property of Microsoft
  - maxthon: so time-saving, can't imagine browsing without it
  - IZArc: clean, fast, reliable
  - IrfanView: what else?
  - FileZilla: easy, efficient
  - ScreenshotCaptor: no other screenshot tool can match it
  - VisualStudio 2005: mostly because of intellisense (as mentioned earlier in this thread)
  - DeepBurner Pro: burning made easy
  - Orb: access my pictures and music from everywhere
  - Vim: spent too many years on Unix machines to work without it
  - EmEditor: slowly replacing vim on my boxes

71

General Review Discussion / Re: Review suggestions

« on: November 04, 2006, 02:45 PM »

I don't think it's been suggested yet...

  Best RSS Feed Reader (with two categories: online readers and offline/client-mode readers

Cheers  /jerome