Messages

151

General Software Discussion / Re: ReNamer: The best freeware file renamer? (yes says cybernetnews.com)

« on: September 18, 2007, 01:15 PM »

Ryan over at cybernetnews.com has a post up on his favorite file renamer, called appropriately, ReNamer.

-mouser (September 09, 2007, 07:37 AM)

Version 5.05 of this program, Denis Kozlov's ReNamer, is now out, dated 17th Sept. 2007.

-rjbull (September 18, 2007, 05:05 AM)

Thanks for the heads up 

152

General Review Discussion / Re: Free PDF tools review?

« on: September 18, 2007, 12:53 PM »

jzippo, here's a pdf with attachments made by Xchange Viewer so you can see how well they work in different readers.

As you can see, I've abandoned taste and slapped in lots of different styles 

Warning: this file is BIG - 660kb. The original pdf was only 16kb so the annotations do add a heavy load. Maybe that's why it's free 

153

Living Room / Re: How much RAM do you have on your PC?

« on: September 17, 2007, 04:30 PM »

4 GB - though I'm on XP so only get 3.25. But at the prices these days why have less?

-katykaty (September 17, 2007, 02:19 PM)

There is no reason why you should settle for 3.25 Gb of your 4Gb on Windows XP. I posted a number of articles in another thread about WinXP memory management which says you should be able to use the full 4Gb. You may need to set a boot time switch though (although I think it is default).

Some motherboards restrict memory access so it may not be a Windows fault - but losing 0.75 Gb seems a bit excessive which makes me suspect this in't the problem here.

-Carol Haynes (September 17, 2007, 03:28 PM)

It's because the 4GB limit is the maximum of all memory. That includes a bit for system stuff and the graphics card memory. And my graphics card has 512MB.

154

General Review Discussion / Re: Free PDF tools review?

« on: September 17, 2007, 04:13 PM »

My understanding was that PDF-XChange Viewer Free wasn't simply a reader but also useful for annotating PDF-documents. My experience of such software is that is not free, and if it is free it comes with some kind of limitation so as to provide an incentive to get the non-free version. I am of the opinion that one should always try to exercise caution when something seems to be too good to be true. The reviews from snapfiles seems to be extremely positive, and that too triggers my critical mind, but I guess I will have to find out for myself now. If it does provide good annotation capabilities for free and with no limitations, then that is all that I need.

-jzippo (September 17, 2007, 06:18 AM)

I've used PDF-XChange Viewer for about a year now and I've had no problems with it.

The annotation tools seem to work fine for me, though I don't use them all that much and don't tend to share the annotated documents so I'm not sure how well other readers will cope.

155

Living Room / Re: How much RAM do you have on your PC?

« on: September 17, 2007, 02:19 PM »

4 GB - though I'm on XP so only get 3.25. But at the prices these days why have less?

156

Living Room / Re: Internet Forum Lightbulb Maintenance...

« on: September 17, 2007, 02:17 PM »

I've diarised this to 18 March 

157

Living Room / Re: Microsoft patches applied - EVEN WHEN AUTOUPDATE IS OFF

« on: September 13, 2007, 03:20 PM »

Poll updated to reflect your tastes

-Carol Haynes (September 13, 2007, 03:03 PM)

Can't vote again unfortunately 

158

Living Room / Re: Microsoft patches applied - EVEN WHEN AUTOUPDATE IS OFF

« on: September 13, 2007, 01:57 PM »

Can you add another option:

They shouldn't really do it, but life's too short to care

 

-katykaty (September 13, 2007, 01:40 PM)

True - but I think you are stuck with Don't Care or Buy me a beer

-Carol Haynes (September 13, 2007, 01:45 PM)

Well, I hate beer - vodka and cranberry's my fave at the moment - so it looks like I'm the lone voice championing 'Do not care'! 

159

Living Room / Re: Microsoft patches applied - EVEN WHEN AUTOUPDATE IS OFF

« on: September 13, 2007, 01:40 PM »

Can you add another option:

They shouldn't really do it, but life's too short to care

 

160

General Software Discussion / Re: Switcher2: Expose Clone (Window Arranger) for Windows

« on: September 11, 2007, 04:17 PM »

Hey, I didn't know Intellitype did that 

Now I know why I bought a mouse with 5 buttons 

161

Living Room / Re: Anyone know how to capture video + audio (uin good quality) from WMP ?

« on: September 11, 2007, 03:57 PM »

If you can find a copy of FairUse4WM that might work - I've successfully stripped the drm off BBC iPlayer and C4 4OD wmv videos.

It'll only work if you actually have the license, of course.

162

General Software Discussion / Re: ReNamer: The best freeware file renamer? (yes says cybernetnews.com)

« on: September 10, 2007, 02:05 PM »

I'm really happy with ReNamer. 

Whoever designed the user interface for Bulk Rename Utility shouldn't be allowed near computers 

163

General Software Discussion / Re: Realtime Screencasting Software

« on: September 06, 2007, 01:24 PM »

I use www.webex.com which is ideal for what you want

There are loads of alternatives too like

www.gotomeeting.com/
www.powwownow.co.uk

164

General Software Discussion / Re: web mail client

« on: September 04, 2007, 02:35 PM »

I'm using Thunderbird to access my free gmail, hotmail, and Yahoo pop3 webmail accounts.

You need to install a couple of extensions, but it's only just slightly trickier than falling off a log.

165

Living Room / Re: Keeping track of software license/serial keys

« on: September 04, 2007, 02:26 PM »

I use Password Agent from Moon Software

http://www.moonsoftware.com/pwagent.asp

I've also downloaded something from Comodo (iVault I think) but haven't tried it out yet.

166

Screenshot Captor / Re: Why I gave up on it

« on: September 02, 2007, 04:26 PM »

Trouble with 'lite' versions is maintaining two builds - by having an option to turn of advanced features and the updating mechanism which reduces the download size it means there is only one version to maintain. It also means that a user can switch on the extra features if they find they need them without having to download and install a new version.

-Carol Haynes (September 02, 2007, 04:15 PM)

Or to harp on about profiles - if there were standard profiles for the basic different types of capture users could get up and running with those, and only need to delve into the more coplex stuff if they needed to 

167

Living Room / Re: Bloons Tower Defense - Very Well Done

« on: September 02, 2007, 04:20 PM »

Interesting approach hamradio 

How did you get the image in the spoiler section? And how did you rename the button labels?

168

Living Room / Re: Tower Defense Game of the Week: Budapest Defenders

« on: September 02, 2007, 03:33 PM »

I like this one - except that your snipers never shoot the raiders closest to the embassay, even though the AI is smart enough to work out the best route there 

Haven't quite managed to complete expert without any losses but I'm working on it 

Some of the high scores posted are a bit dubious too 

169

Living Room / Re: Bloons Tower Defense - Very Well Done

« on: September 02, 2007, 03:23 PM »

But it cost you 15 lives 

Here's a shot just before the end of the last stage - obviously no danger of any of the remaining bloons getting past the tack towers at bottom left (i'd post the final shot but the congratulations message covers the locations of my defenses).

And don't click below if you don't want to know how I did it 

Click for proof :)

Spoiler

Didn't use ice or supermonkeys - in fact, didn't sell anything- what you see is what i bought.

The trick was to build up the monkeys first, then the tacks, then the bombs.

Concentrate on locations which cover parts of the track that are actually far separated from each other, that's why the central column is so useful, and the north regions are useful because you hit bloons early but still have a lifeline for any that get through.

When you build your monkeys, go west, central, north, west, central, north.

With the monkeys, don't be tempted to upgrade them until you've got all 6. Then upgrade monkeys. Once you're on to the tacks upgrade as you buy, though you don't need the extra range for some of them.

I thought it was a pretty good game, though it'd be nice to have an expert mode. Wasn't keen on the other bloon games though.

Good find   


Edit: resaved with the image in spoilers - thanks hamradio

170

Living Room / Re: Batch file - start service, run program, stop service ?

« on: September 01, 2007, 06:21 AM »

Perfect 

Thanks OGroeger

This is what I ended up with within 5 minutes of installing Autohotkey for the first time:

[Select]

runwait, sc start "O&O Defrag" , , hide
RunWait "C:\Program Files\OO Software\Defrag Professional\oodcnt.exe"
runwait, sc stop "O&O Defrag" , , hide

which seems to work.

I'm going to find out more about Autohotkey to see what else it can help with.

Thank you 

171

Living Room / Re: Batch file - start service, run program, stop service ?

« on: August 31, 2007, 06:48 PM »

Thanks mwb1100 - no luck with that though 

start /wait did start an instance of the program, according to Task Manager, but there was no UI so it wasn't much use!

I may just create a couple of batch files and remember to run

start.bat.
program shortcut
stop.bat

in the right order 

172

Living Room / Batch file - start service, run program, stop service ?

« on: August 31, 2007, 06:01 PM »

Can anyone help me with this?

O&O Defrag insists that a service called "O&O Defrag"  is running before working. But it's too dumb to start the service if it's set to manual 

And since I'll only be using it occasionally I want my memory for other things.

So I want to create a batch file (or similar) that does:

[Select]

net start "O&O Defrag"
run O&O (as if I'd double clicked on the xp icon)
waits for O&O to finish
net stop "O&O Defrag"

Oh, and does it all invisibly so as far as I'm concerned I'm just double clicking an icon, and closing the program as I usually would, and ending with no program and no service running without any command windows cluttering up the place.

Is that easy to do for someone with no programming skills? I.e. me?   

Thanks 

173

Screenshot Captor / Re: Initial Recommendations

« on: August 30, 2007, 12:50 PM »

I can't remember if I previously suggested profiles - not filenameing profiles, but options profiles.

E.g.

1. 96dpi, gif, include cursor, automatic save & filename
2. 300dpi, jpeg, no cursor, open preview

That kind of thing.

And I know I've suggested this before but just a gentle reminder    - better object detection

174

General Software Discussion / Re: Anger Management: living with Windows XP + lot of software

« on: August 29, 2007, 02:43 PM »

Buy a second cheap PC to test out new stuff?

175

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone Using OmniPage and PaperPort?

« on: August 29, 2007, 02:36 PM »

I use Omnipage 15 Pro at work. The OCR seems to work pretty well, though its page formatting is pretty rough.

I still haven't really got my head around the interface so it's possible I could do things to improve the formatting, but then that's the software's fault for having a rubbish interface, not mine for not knowing how to use it 

It runs pretty quick too.

But the best thing about it - and what I wouldn't even have known about if I hadn't delved into the installation CD - is PDF Converter and PDF Create (both version 3). Every time Acrobat fouls up someone else's machine I can't help sniggering 


The big question is: what do you actually want it for? If you just want OCR, then you might find that the freebie software that gets thrown in with scanners does the job - my Canon 70 had a cut down version of .... Omnipage