Messages

851

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Corel PaintShop Pro X - 4 Free

« on: July 18, 2009, 08:22 AM »

It's a fairly common practice for companies to make old versions of their software available for free and then "invite" you to upgrade to the most recent version.  Two examples that come to mind right away are the makers of SnagIt (who offered version 7, I think, for free, and then offered version 9 at a discount) and Ashampoo, which bombards me with offers for a zillion additional products/versions/whatever.  I don't mind an occasional offer of this sort, but Ashampoo's efforts are excessive, annoying, and hence counterproductive.  I'm now much less likely to buy any product from them.

852

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder loading funny in Firefox - colors missing - proportions strange

« on: July 16, 2009, 08:25 PM »

Hi, Steven.  I'm using Firefox 3.5 and have not experienced this problem.  Do you have any extensions that might interfere with the css file?  I'm afraid I have no idea which ones, if any, might be problematic.  Just a thought.

853

LaunchBar Commander / Re: McAfee again. Don't ask.

« on: July 15, 2009, 10:34 AM »

Nobody should have to use McAfee. Ever.

-Innuendo (July 11, 2009, 03:50 PM)

-f0dder (July 15, 2009, 09:42 AM)

I can't believe I'm about to defend McAfee.  I mean, even though I get McAfee Enterprise Edition free from my university, I've come very close to uninstalling it several times and installing something like Avast instead.  McAfee is a major league resource hog, and it has seriously interfered with a couple of other programs I've tried to use.  But every time I read about problems people have had with false positives from their AV program and viruses and other malware that have managed to get past their AV programs and onto their computers, I wimp out and keep McAfee.  In all the years I've had it, I've had a grand total of one FP and (knock on wood, salt over my shoulder) no viruses. 

854

General Software Discussion / Re: Desktop/email search program

« on: July 12, 2009, 06:55 PM »

It looks like Aid4Mail and Mailbag Assistant would both be necessary. Apparently Aid4Mail can do a lot of archiving, but cannot display, search, reply .. while MA is the opposite.  Still possible, it would be nice if it was one master-tool. (Aid4Mail may be the simplest, cleanest conversion tool, checking a bit more and as a converter it could have a simpler archiver role .. "converting" the older mail to the same format.  Ok,  I take back the harumph about one tool.)

-Steven Avery (May 28, 2009, 01:05 AM)

I'm travelling right now with limited Internet access, so I can't check, but I've used Mailbag Assistant for several years to archive and search my email.  My normal email client is Mulberry, and I was delighted to find that Mailbag Assistant would work with Mulberry and a huge number of other clients.  I now also own Aid4Mail, but only because I was trying to convert my email to a format that AskSam could deal with.  I was not successful in that attempt (the problem was with AskSam, not with Aid4Mail).  However, my point is that I never felt the need for Aid4Mail to use with Mailbag Assistant.  I probably haven't explored the overwhelming majority of Mailbag Assistant's features, but it works fine for me for archiving and searching my email.

855

LaunchBar Commander / Re: LATEST LaunchBar Commander VERSION INFO THREAD - v1.108.01 - June 28, 2009

« on: July 08, 2009, 02:14 PM »

PDF Version of help file:
https://www.donation...unchBarCommander.pdf

-mouser (July 08, 2009, 10:23 AM)

Wow!  Thanks very much, mouser!  Have you also created software to keep you going at top speed and efficiency without any sleep?  If not, I don't know how you do it!  (And if you have created such a program, please share it with the rest of us  )

856

Find And Run Robot / Re: Help for a new user please

« on: July 08, 2009, 08:51 AM »

Thanks from me as well.  And if in your abundant spare time you could also make one for LBC.... 

857

Find And Run Robot / Re: Help for a new user please

« on: July 07, 2009, 09:54 PM »

mouser... you have a PDF manual for FARR???

actually the help program i use (the great Help+Manual) can easily make pdfs from the same source it uses to make .chm files, so it's easy to do -- i just figure few people care enough to bother mentioning it.. i wonder if i should make clear links to them?

-mouser (July 07, 2009, 07:25 PM)

Mouser, people keep telling me to RTFM, so yes, I'd love links to the FMs  

858

Living Room / Re: What's the best registry cleaner? Ask Leo says: none

« on: July 06, 2009, 07:45 PM »

Wondering .. was SAS involved in your unruly school children fight ?

-Steven Avery (July 06, 2009, 05:33 PM)

Hi, Steven.  No, actually, it was another highly regarded program, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro.

As for registry cleaners, probably the best single thing to do is to uninstall with Revo Uninstaller rather than only Add/Remove.  After each uninstall you will end up deleting a couple of paths and/or registry entries that would have been left over.

Yes, I've been using Revo, thanks to many enthusiastic recommendations here on DC.  I'm very pleased with it, but I do have two minor reservations.  One is that at times I can't tell whether the Registry keys Revo wants me to delete are the right ones.  I think my confidence was undermined a bit by one time where I really felt that it was giving me incorrect advice.  I no longer remember what that situation was.  But since then, I've been a little uneasy, though I usually do follow Revo's advice.

The other reservation has to do with its setting a restore point each time it uninstalls a program.  On the one hand, that makes sense, but on the other, I've set my computer to allot relatively little room to restore points, and there are times when I fear I could use up my self-imposed quota just by using Revo multiple times in a day or two.

The situation with registry and drivers are similar .. when your system is running smooth and decent, a good way to bring that smooth running to a screeching halt is to do an auotmatic software-directed "cleaning" (registry) or a software-directed "update" (drivers).  And the registry is the more dangerous of the two.

I'm sufficiently superstitious that I don't want to declare publicly that I've never had a problem with my registry clearner, but... 

859

Living Room / Re: What's the best registry cleaner? Ask Leo says: none

« on: July 06, 2009, 04:22 PM »

Or, run your os in a sandbox. I swear by Returnil. Muck it up as much as you want then simply reboot and you are fresh again.

-edbro (July 06, 2009, 03:42 PM)

Well, I do occasionally use a sandbox, but one problem is that you don't get an idea of how a piece of software behaves during bootup.  I was testing one anti-malware program that worked fine...until I rebooted.    It then apparently got into a pissing contest with my anti-virus program, with the result that I couldn't even complete the boot process.   I've kept the anti-malware program on my system, but only to run scans, not to work in real time and not to start at startup.  But testing it in a sandbox wouldn't have revealed this very important problem.

860

Living Room / Re: What's the best registry cleaner? Ask Leo says: none

« on: July 06, 2009, 01:26 PM »

It's been MANY years since I used the free version of JVPowerTools, so I don't recall the specifics.  I do know that as far back as 2005, the paid version had two settings: Normal and Aggressive.  The number of items found was greatly increased if you used Aggressive.  I almost always used Normal.  The current version (JVPowerTools2009) has a four-point scale for you to select from. It goes from "Emphasize safety of the Registry Cleaner engine over both scan speed and the number of found errors" on one end to "Emphasize number of found errors and speed of the Registry Cleaner over safety and accuracy."  Of course, in all cases you are asked whether you want JV to make a backup of items before fixing them.  I always say yes, but fortunately I've never had to make use of the backup.

I can't comment on Innuendo's view that registry cleaners are usually unnecessary.  There do seem to be two camps about this.  All I know is that I'm forever installing and moving and renaming and uninstalling files/programs/whatever, and given how I use the computer, I tend to think that using a Registry Cleaner can be helpful.  But I don't know enough to be certain about this.

861

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Updating did me in again

« on: July 06, 2009, 09:35 AM »

Just a quick note to let everyone know that, once again, mouser came to the rescue.  I'm not sure exactly how/why the problem occurred, but mouser's email instructions quickly fixed it.

Many, many thanks, mouser!   

862

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Updating did me in again

« on: July 05, 2009, 03:50 PM »

Thanks, mouser, for your response.  I'm not quite sure what you mean by "open LBC and close all files."  If I put my cursor over the LBC icon in the system tray, it says "launch1".  If I then click on that icon, all I see are the three default entries--Control Panel and the other two.  I also looked at the LaunchBarCommander.ini file, and there's no mention of MyFirstLaunchbar.  I've sent you the launch1.mcf file, the .ini file, and one more via email. 

Again, many thanks.

863

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Updating did me in again

« on: July 05, 2009, 03:24 PM »

Just a quick follow-up to say that I tried rebooting, and that made no difference.  I also tried starting LBC from the Start menu rather than the system tray.  All that did was prompt another message telling me not to use MyFirstLaunchbar as the name of my file, followed by the same essentially empty launchbar.  Somehow, it seems that LBC is assuming that MyFirstLaunchbar is my set of nodes.  There IS a file called MyFirstLaunchbar left over from when I first set up LBC, but all my nodes are in launch1.mcf.  I tried moving the MyFirstLaunchbar file out of that directory, but that didn't help.

I am becoming rather frustrated, since I depend upon LBC to launch my programs.  I've removed many of the desktop icons I used to use because I no longer needed them...or so I thought.  Sigh.

864

LaunchBar Commander / Updating did me in again

« on: July 05, 2009, 08:28 AM »

I updated recently to version 1.108.01.  When I started my computer today, I was surprised to see a box telling me that I shouldn't use the same name for my LBC files as the sample, MyFirstLaunchbar.  Well, I DIDN'T call my LBC file MyFirstLaunchbar, I called it launch1.  I wasn't sure why LBC thought I had called it MyFirstLaunchbar, but I didn't give it much thought.  Then I clicked on the LBC icon in the system tray and got a more unpleasant surprise: it claims it's looking at launch1, but all it shows are the three entries that came with the program, My Control Panel, My Documents, and Start Menu.

I then went into the LBC folder in Program Files, and found lots of backup files (sigh).  I want to get rid of almost all of them eventually, but right now my more pressing problem is how to restore my REAL launch1.mcf file.  The one listed in LBC seems to be the right size, 5.78MB (as are all the backups), but for some reason LBC isn't showing me any of my nodes.  I have no idea what's gone wrong here and would welcome some help.

Thanks in advance.

865

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3.5 [FINAL]

« on: July 03, 2009, 05:03 PM »

Thanks very much, Innuendo, for your kind offer to help.  I'm happy to report, however, that once I followed your instructions, including going to the developers' websites, I got almost all the extensions to work.  The only one not resolved is Scrapbook.  If I decide I want to continue to use it, I'll switch to Scrapbook+, which apparently does work with 3.5.

Again, my apologies for my panicky earlier note, and many thanks for your very helpful suggestions.

866

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3.5 [FINAL]

« on: July 02, 2009, 04:45 PM »

Thanks VERY much, Ehtyar!  Of course, after I posted my message, I began to realize that I hadn't completely followed Innuendo's advice.  Once I did that, I got most of the extensions to work, and then, of course, I felt foolish for having posted my panicked message  .  Oh well, it isn't the first time, and it probably won't be the last  .  Anyway, there still are a few problematic extensions that are supposed to work with 3.5, and I'll try to deal with them via your about:config suggestion.  That should prove useful in the future as well.

Again, many thanks!!

867

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3.5 [FINAL]

« on: July 02, 2009, 03:58 PM »

Manually check yourself for updates to your extensions. There have been a ton of silent updates on http://addons.mozilla.org where the ability to work with 3.5 has been added, but the version number was not bumped so the Addons auto-update won't catch them.

Also check authors' web sites. There were two extensions I use that had been updated to work with 3.5, but they weren't on http://addons.mozilla.org and auto-update wasn't catching them, either.

-Innuendo (July 02, 2009, 10:49 AM)

I took your advice, Innuendo, and checked manually.  I found that just about every extension I use can work with 3.5, so I went ahead and upgraded.  However, Firefox 3.5 claims that a bunch of them WON'T work, and so it disabled them!  I don't know what to do now.  I really want those extensions.  Can you or anyone else tell me what I have to do to get the extensions to work?

Thanks in advance for your help.

868

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Too many backups

« on: July 01, 2009, 03:12 PM »

Hi, again.  Just thought I'd report that I did install 1.108.01 and then went into the LBC directory and deleted about 60 backup files, mostly from the past few days. SIXTY!   

869

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« on: July 01, 2009, 01:16 PM »

Moranacus, I don't want to urge you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.  All I can say is that the site only leaves one cookie (which I remove when I leave).  It does try to load three pop-ups, but Firefox blocks them, and I have no idea what they are.  Since they're blocked, I'm not all that concerned.  But, like you, I tend usually to err on the side of caution (though perhaps not quite so much caution as WOT.  ).  I suspect that the info the site provides is available elsewhere.

870

LaunchBar Commander / Re: Too many backups

« on: July 01, 2009, 01:06 PM »

i must admit that LBC is a bit excessive about backups.  one thing it does it make a backup every time you upgrade LBC and before you do any maintenance operation like clean-up unused icons.

why don't you upgrade to most recent LBC, then delete all the old backups, then keep an eye on the backups and tell me if you find it making backups when it shouldn't -- maybe i can reduce it.

-mouser (July 01, 2009, 11:37 AM)

Thanks, mouser, I'll upgrade and get rid of all the clutter.  It's really pretty oppressive and counterproductive right now--I can barely see what's in my directory, since it's filled primarily with backups.  I'm not sure why that is.  I don't clean up used icons.  At times, I've moved a node from one place to another, or added a node, but that's about it.  Just the most recent day's backups would be enough, I think, or--since joby_toss obviously thinks differently--perhaps an option to have zillions of backups or just the most recent day's. 

871

LaunchBar Commander / Too many backups

« on: July 01, 2009, 11:03 AM »

I took a look today at my LBC directory and was dismayed to find it filled with backup files, often more than one per day.  On one day, there were six for LaunchBarCommander alone!  I see that you've made some change to the frequency with which backups are made, but I'm finding this really excessive.   How can I stop all these backup files from accumulating?  I don't mind having the most recent backup files, but I don't want my directory cluttered with all these older ones.  And no, I don't want them simply moved elsewhere.  I appreciate backups, but I really don't think I need more than the most recent, or at most the backups from the most recent date.  I'm running version 1.105.02, simply because I saw no need to upgrade.  I'd be happy to upgrade if that would cure the backup accumulation.  Will it?

EDIT:  I just noticed something else strange.  My file containing all my nodes and the like (I think) is called launch1.mcf.  The most recent launch1.mcf file is dated 6-29-09, but there are 4 backup files for launch1.mcf that are more recent--2 from 6-30 and two from 7-01.  I don't understand why this is so.  I'm also a little concerned, since I think I may have updated launch1.mcf yesterday, but the file is dated 6-29.  I'm not SURE I updated it yesterday rather than the day before, but I kinda think so. 

Sorry to raise more problems.  Thanks as always for this wonderful program and for your help.

872

General Software Discussion / Re: Is There Anyway????

« on: July 01, 2009, 09:50 AM »

I know nothing about this site except that it seems to offer information about how to get rid of DRM on different sorts of media, including stuff from iTunes: http://www.antidrm.hpg.ig.com.br/.

873

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3.5 [FINAL]

« on: July 01, 2009, 09:30 AM »

Also, it may be my computer, or DropMyRights not playing nice with Firefox, but a cold start is significantly slower than with 3.0. And when I say, "significantly slower" I mean it. A warm start is much faster than before, though.

-Lashiec (July 01, 2009, 09:02 AM)

Oh, say it isn't so!    I've been hating how slow a cold start is in version 3.0.  Opera is so much faster!  The thought that FF may be even slower to start from scratch in version 3.5 may be enough to keep me from upgrading for as long as possible.  I guess I won't know until I try, but I won't try for a while yet, until it's likely that the extensions I care about will work.  Sometimes I hate progress!

874

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR can't find .exe file - Newbie question

« on: June 29, 2009, 07:26 PM »

Thanks very much, mouser.  Your instructions about duplicates took care of that problem.  The "remove duplicate links to same target application" hadn't been checked.  Once I checked it, the duplicates were gone.

As for the other issue, I'm using Windows XP Pro with SP2.

875

Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR can't find .exe file - Newbie question

« on: June 29, 2009, 06:14 PM »

Mouser, there was no way to scroll past the last of the two tiddlywiki entries.

And I've just looked pretty closely at the properties for the two sets of duplicates.  I can see absolutely no difference between the two.  The status bar gives the same location for each twin as well.