Messages

6401

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: February 17, 2006, 10:44 AM »

Hmph! My previous attempt at posting this didn't get posted - apparently I'd already done so... No evidence of that, though.

At any rate, I used Filehand over a 6 month period 18 months ago or so, and really liked it. Haven't used it since so can't comment on the latest versions, but I found Filehand to be very quick and accurate. Don't remember what its footprint was like but I am sure that it was lighter than Yahoo Desktop Search, which I am using now. YDS is X1 minus the ability to search some e-mail filetypes - Eudora, for example. I use Outlook 2003 as my e-mail client so this is a non-issue for me. I like YDS because of its use of Stellent filters to preview 230+ filetypes - it makes finding the information that you are looking for precise and quick. Plus, the Stellent filters can be used by DOPus' (www.gpsoft.com.au) Multiview plug-in to preview files from with Dopus. You don't even need to keep YDS on your system - just move the Stellent folder out of the Yahoo directory and direct the DOpus plugin to it and you're set. YDS, while out of beta, is still prone to the odd crash and error message, but it recovers well - no loss of its database, for example - and considering how quick its searching is and its advanced file previewing, it's pretty light on resources.

Watching the US women play Sweden for a gold medal berth in Olympic hockey. I LOVE watching the women's game - I missed Salt Lake City in 2002 (no coverage in Britain) so this is my first exposure to women's International hockey. It's far more exciting and dynamic than the men's game.

2-0 USA on the powerplay early in the second. Canada faces Finland in three hours. I'll be a couch potato today...

6402

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Uninstallers (a very short look at what I've tried!)

« on: February 16, 2006, 09:15 AM »

Nice review, Redhat. I've been using Your Uninstaller! since version 2004. I purchased it with lifetime upgrades on sale about 18 months ago and am now running the 2006 version. I used Ashampoo's Uninstaller Suite 2 prior to that and won't go back, not that it's a bad product (I quite like it) but you have to be VERY careful in using it. If you have software running in the background, for example, when you install an application with Uninstaller Suite, you are asking for trouble when you uninstall the app the same way - the uninstaller will likely delete registry keys associated with the unrelated application that was running duiring install. This pretty much guarantees that you're going to have to reinstall that app. This can affect more than one app. This got tiresome because I am lazy and forgetful (about shutting apps down before installation). I suppose the safest thing to do is to boot into "safe mode" when using Uninstaller Suite, but I found installing applications with US to be painfully slow to begin with. Don't know if this is a problem with Total Uninstaller as well, but both it and the Ashampoo product work in a similar fashion (from what I can see).

If I understand you correctly, you're looking for the uninstallation package to keep a log of all the changes that are made to your system when you install software? From my experience, this is indeed something that you're not going to get with Your Uninstaller. It does offer a details view which shows you registry changes made by the apps installer but that's about as robust as it gets. For myself, I don't need that functionality and find YU to fit my needs very well. It's very quick and thorough - I've yet to run into any problems using it and the extent of my involvement post uninstallation is to check Application Settings and Common Files folders for settings folders which have been left behind. Oh, one thing I love about YU is that it runs the applications uninstaller first, before going to work. The nice thing is that if the application's uninstaller has been corrupted somehow, YU can still get rid of it for your. I'm rambling...

6403

Backup Guide / Re: Hello from Genie-soft (and info about discount)

« on: February 15, 2006, 01:54 PM »

I second Carol's note about GBP - it's replaced a cocktail of different backup scripts that I used to run. I'm looking forward to version 7 as I qualify for the upgrade for free!

Welcome to the forum, Dr. Hammad. Incidentally, I've found Genie-soft's support to be first rate and have received several responses to queries direct from yourself, which I've found very impressive.

Keep up the good work!

6404

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« on: February 15, 2006, 01:51 PM »

Just bought PS TrayFactory myself, after demoing it for about 16 hours. Easier to set up than XP's native method and the settings "stick". What really decided it for me was the restore icons after explorer.exe crashes and the ability to sort the visible icons... I'd say thanks for the review, Josh, but it cost my $16 so we'll call it a draw! Seriously, thanks for drawing this to my attention. It's a small thing but it makes a big difference when you sit in front of a computer for 12+ hours a day.

6405

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Fewer system tray icons?

« on: February 14, 2006, 07:44 AM »

Thanks guys, between Josh's review (don't know how I missed that one) and mouser's comments above that clears things up for me nicely!

6406

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Fewer system tray icons?

« on: February 13, 2006, 08:16 PM »

Sorry, I've had a cold for over a week and am literally quite "thick" tonight, I am also thick as in I am not getting how this kind of app is going to be useful on an XP box? I used TrayManager when I was on 2k but as noted by Kniht in this thread, XP's system tray options mean that on the face of it, these apps are duplicating functionality that's already present. I've looked at the websites for all of the apps mentioned in the thread and still can't see what additional functionality these would provide under XP, other than system tray recovery following an explorer.exe crash - a feature I really found useful in TrayManager when running 2k... I installed the demo of PS Tray Factory but a cursory look at the options and playing around with it hasn't cleared this up for me.

Can anyone comment on the uses that these apps can be put to under XP?

6407

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: TopDesk

« on: February 10, 2006, 01:05 PM »

PS Entbloess runs, with reduced feature set (no live previews, for example) under win2k...

6408

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: TopDesk

« on: February 10, 2006, 01:02 PM »

Thanks for the excellent review, m_s.

I've been using Entbloess2 (http://www.entbloess...ex.php?page=features) for about a year. After reading about TopDesk I downloaded it again (I trialled a number of Expose clones before Christmas of 2004) and loaded it up. It has some nice features but none that would compel me to switch over. Not to knock it at all - I completely expect and accept that trialling Entbloess is unlikely to compel m_s to make the switch the other way. They both seem to be good products and at the end of the day, despite some different features, they look about 98% IDENTICAL in real world usage.

Three things about Entbloess stand out for me, in comparison to TopDesk: LivePreview, lighter footprint, and much sharper preview images. I do like TopDesk's F11 key function of "lowering" open windows to reveal the desktop and the 3-D view is interesting but not very useful seeming to me (though I haven't tried it yet).

I should note that the footprint issue is not really very significant as Entbloess is currently consuming 15 mb of working set memory and just under 13 mb of VM while TopDesk was running at about 23 mb of working set memory and 19 mb of VM before I unloaded it and reloaded Entbloess to compare. These figures were both obtained after invoking each program by hitting the F9 key with Outlook 2003, Maxthon, and Dopus 8.2 running. The differences in resource usage are even less significant when one is running a gig of RAM or more...

Just my two-bits. Excellent mini-review m_s and thanks! I haven't looked at anything other than Entbloess in over a year so was happy to revisit TopDesk. The strongest thing in its favour is its ongoing development (Entbloess hasn't been updated since that fall of 2004 - but it works flawlessly, so I guess there isn't much "need") and the fact that new features appear to be being added on a regular basis. Entbloess is $1.98 cheaper, though

6409

General Software Discussion / Re: SPAMPAL replacement

« on: January 17, 2006, 09:16 AM »

Rover - I wouldn't worry too much about the SpamBayes warning. It simply reflects the way in which SpamBayes trains itself. Over a period of regular usage the warning goes away. I started out in the other "direction", i.e. about 80% ham and 20% spam and after about two weeks that message disappeared (even though the ratio reported on the info page seemed to be about the same). SpamBayes just needs some time work out what you consider to be ham - right now it looks to it like everything (just about) is spam.

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General Software Discussion / Re: SPAMPAL replacement

« on: January 15, 2006, 12:09 AM »

I use SpamBayes and am very pleased with it... Highly configureable, light on resources and easy to use.

url: http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

6411

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Corel Paint Shop Pro 10 for $69 through 31 JAN 2006

« on: January 12, 2006, 07:15 PM »

Welcome back Zaine! I hope you're going to be sticking around as this place just hasn't felt the same without you.

6412

Official Announcements / Re: DECEMBER SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS

« on: January 12, 2006, 07:12 PM »

Hi, I haven't noticed this thread before but as one of the winners of File-Ex I just wanted to add my "thanks" to the list. I now have XFilesDialog on one machine and File-Ex on the other (I bought XFilesDialog several years ago).

6413

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 12, 2006, 05:27 PM »

Hi Sentinel,

Thank you for your remarks. To be honest, I don't think I care to proceed with this. I've made my case and they've outlined their position to me and provided me with a letter of destruction which is essentially a green light to proceed with a refund request. I don't think that they're going to do anything more than this.

I've kind of shot myself in the foot with this issue anyway as I didn't come out of the box with a clear statement of what I want/expect. I simply noted my annoyance. I should have demanded an immediate and free upgrade to the Premier edition. Live and learn.

The customer services rep has offered to send me the CD version if I decide not to request a refund. I think I'll take him up on that and get on with my life!

6414

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 12, 2006, 01:13 AM »

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the support! No worries, I'll just have to continue to be vocal and annoying! I'm pretty good at annoying... however, I've entered into a civil dialogue with a customer services rep who is playing his cards pretty close to his chest. He's indicated that he's letting his higher ups know of my concerns, so we'll see where this goes. Unfortunately, I *appear* to be the only one that is making any noise about this - I've been googling the issue since just after Christmas and haven't yet come up with any hits. I would have expected some of the tech forums to feature discussion of this if other people were caught in the same way. I figure that if this is true, my job is going to be that much harder.

Patteo - thanks for trying, I really appreciate it.

I'll keep you posted.

6415

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 11, 2006, 08:36 PM »

Well, I'm not recovering anything older than today...  because, as I've just remembered, I ran CleanCache 3.2 yesterday with secure wipe enabled C'est la vie. Unless, of course, patteo has a cached copy he'd be willing to e-mail to me? It's an html file entitled: dk10comparison.htm. On my machine it is in the ZBZU39QY folder under C:\Documents and User Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\ConentIE.5. It's a long shot, but to paraphrase Richie Brockelman "what the hey?".

6416

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 11, 2006, 08:11 PM »

Crud! Mon dieu! I didn't think of that AND I've cleared my cache However, Recover My Files to the rescue (I hope).

Thanks for the suggestion. So simple I can't believe I didn't think of it (before clearing the cache...)!

6417

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 10, 2006, 05:52 PM »

Well... I have now received a response and a "letter of destruction". The thrust of the response is that the upgrade pricing for Professional v.x to Professional v.y has been constant for 8 years, that iFAAST is part of a brand new product so that the price I was quoted is a discount price on a new product and not an upgrade price, it is based on my current ownership of v.10, and I was directed back to the (amended) comparison chart showing that iFAAST is NOT included in the Professional version of Diskeeper. Nice dodge on the entire issue of representation, I thought.

Anyway, while I've responded and restated my case, I guess the ball's in my court.

6418

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 10, 2006, 05:05 PM »

Oh, and yes, I appreciate the need to give them some more time. It's frustrating, though... ("patience? yeah, yeah, how long will that take?")

6419

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 10, 2006, 05:02 PM »

Medieval... ha ha! I like that . Actually, I don't do medieval very well. Indignant, belligerent, obtuse,  certainly but I tend to give up before an issue advances beyond that

6420

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 10, 2006, 01:28 PM »

Yup, I followed the link provided by Patteo yesterday and there is was: a big yes next to iFAAST for BOTH Diskeeper Professional and Diskeeper Professional Premier. I confirmed it again last night around 6:00 pm PST and it was still there. This morning the "yes" has been replaced by a "no"... I e-mailed "calling" them on this about an hour and a half ago: no reply. Maybe I have an inflated sense of "self" but at this point I would have thought a personal phone call to me would be in order... However, again, they seem very confident that losing me as a customer, and disgruntling me in the process, won't negatively impact their business. I'll give them until this evening then I'm asking for a refund. If they give me any grief about that, I'll have to take this to the next level (what's the next level? I'm not sure - I was hoping someone here had some advice about that !)

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General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 10, 2006, 12:15 PM »

UPDATE: Interesting, mute silence from Diskeeper but they have changed their comparison chart. I am really going to go to town on them on every forum that I can think of if they don't give me some sort of satisfaction.

6422

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great HD search tool

« on: January 09, 2006, 08:33 PM »

I use Windows 2000 Pro (don't like XP that much)

I swapped from W98 to W2k and then WXP and I must say I was reluctant at each step (familiarity I suppose) but I have grown to like WinXP.

-Carol Haynes (November 13, 2005, 08:04 PM)

Funny, I took that exact same route, kicked and screamed the whole way but find that I wouldn't back now. I find Win2k tolearble (very stable) but LOATHE Win98 now and can't believe I was so reluctant to leave it!

6423

General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 09, 2006, 08:28 PM »

Well, it's been 12 hours since I e-mailed three departments at Diskeeper reiterating my concerns outlined above and pointing out the inconsistency of their own comparison chart clearly showing Diskeeper Professional as featuring their "new, breakthrough iFAAST technology (thanks Patteo!)" and NOTHING. Not even acknowledgement of receipt of my e-mail. As I am in the same timezone as the company this is absolutely unacceptable and I've written advising them that I have purchased the cross-upgrade to PerfectDisk 7, that I expect a refund to be issued on request and that I will NOT be recommending Diskeeper to anyone. They must really be confident that pissing off end users like me won't affect their sales in the long run...

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General Software Discussion / Re: Software license upgrade experiences: pricing, support & the stuff that matters

« on: January 09, 2006, 08:50 AM »

Hi Patteo,

Thanks for the response, and thanks for the link to the comparison chart! That adds fuel to my fire and ammo to my argument. If only I can get them to respond...

I purchased the upgrade on Dec. 6 so doubt I'll have *as* easy a time with the refund. However, I'll point them to my unheeded e-mails.

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General Software Discussion / Re: What's your favorite launch bar? Your favorite features? Missing Features?

« on: January 09, 2006, 08:40 AM »

Hirudin - well done!