Messages

101

General Software Discussion / Re: word and excel shortcut

« on: February 07, 2010, 03:10 PM »

so, I suppose there is no shortcut to do what I want and the closest is to click the right arrow and then ctrl+up

-kalos (February 07, 2010, 08:30 AM)

If this key sequence does what you need, then record a macro, assign a hotkey to it and you're done.

102

General Software Discussion / Re: word and excel shortcut

« on: February 07, 2010, 07:43 AM »

In MS Excel you can put cursor on top/bottom/leftmost/rightmost cell of contiguous data block using Ctrl-Up/Down/Left/Right keys.

In MS Word you can cycle between lowercase/UPPERCASE/Titlecase using Shift-F3. In case of a single word you don't even have to select it, just put the cursor in it.

The complete list of shortcuts is best found in the help file, just press F1 and type "keyboard shortcuts". That's how I learned these.

(Applies to MS Office 2003 and older, I don't know the latest versions.)

103

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Faster boots combining hibernate and restart (Boot Snooze)

« on: February 06, 2010, 01:34 AM »

megablue: You might be interested in HORM (Hibernate Once Resume Many) feature. Details can be found here or in this forum, too.

104

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: National Characters

« on: January 20, 2010, 01:27 AM »

@tranglos:

Again, I fully agree. I also tried several others and sticked with Ditto for the same reasons.

The problem appeared with the new version, which I installed because some issues of previous build on Vista (I can't recall the details, though). However, on Vista it runs quite fine, maybe I should downgrade on XP machine.

105

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: National Characters

« on: January 19, 2010, 01:39 AM »

@tranglos:

I absolutely agree and I'm using Ditto, too. However, czb and myself are not the only ones experiencing this bug, see the Ditto forum post, unfortunately without any response. It happens from time to time (say, once a month), slowing down the whole system to such an extent (even the mouse pointer stammers) that it's easier and faster to press the reset button.

106

General Software Discussion / Re: ToolTipFixer 2.0 for Windows < Vista

« on: January 11, 2010, 07:15 AM »

Not at all. In fact, it urks me, too (I just learned a new word, thanks!). I'm sure someone will explain.

107

General Software Discussion / Re: ToolTipFixer 2.0 for Windows < Vista

« on: January 11, 2010, 06:46 AM »

To Josh:

No deal with me, I'm not one of the .NET haters, but I know here are some, so I just wanted to post an alternate solution, which I'm actually using.

The user makes the choice at installation whether to install the program as a service or as a stand-alone manually-activated-only program.

-Curt

That's good to know for lucky people (like me) who meet this issue only once in a while. I didn't see it for months now, so there's no need to install a service.

108

General Software Discussion / Re: ToolTipFixer 2.0 for Windows < Vista

« on: January 11, 2010, 02:58 AM »

As this happens only occasionally on my machine, I'm using just the simple nircmd command:

[Select]

nircmd win settopmost class "tooltips_class32" 1

(found here)

Besides, beware of .NET requirement of ToolTipFixer.

109

General Software Discussion / Re: Disable close button?

« on: January 08, 2010, 01:21 AM »

I prefer Pitaschio, because it uses for these tasks not the small buttons, but the whole title bar, which is easier to reach. I'm completely used to right-click the title bar to minimize, middle-click to close, etc. Not application specific, though. Works with Chrome, too.

110

DcUpdater / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - DcUpdater - 1.26.01 - Jan 6, 2009

« on: January 06, 2010, 07:45 AM »

The latest version reports itself as 1.25.02, thus requiring update over and over. Otherwise no problems on  WinXP and Vista.

111

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is there no eps plugin for ACDSee?

« on: December 31, 2009, 02:55 AM »

It could be quite time consuming or inaccurate to render the vector image, however, nowadays it's quite rare to find and EPS file without embedded bitmap preview (see Wikipedia).

Of course, Adobe Bridge can handle these embedded preview bitmaps, but the same can do ACDSee without any plugin, at least version 4 (which I stopped using long time ago, but it's still installed). I'm not sure but I remember there was some plugin utilizing GhostScript to render EPS previews.

112

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs

« on: December 29, 2009, 03:29 PM »

To cyberdiva:

I began experimenting with the desktop icons on my old Win2000 machine, where the delay of redrawing all the icons was really serious. The icons are cached by the system, but sometimes, usually after not displaying the desktop for some time, the cache gets refreshed. On startup they are usually read from the cache, though.

I don't think there's a significant delay caused by displaying the folder icon, but for many different applications scattered all over the disk the delay was noticeable even on newer WinXP machine, so I decided to get rid of them all. Since then I'm quite happy and used to the tidy desktop, and FARR does the rest.

Maybe on Win7 the caching mechanism is better. I just tried to enable the desktop icons temporarily and on my WinXP machine it took over 30 seconds of heavy disk activity to display them all (some 150, or so), and on my Vista notebook about 15 seconds (some 100 icons).

(Sorry for off-topic.)

113

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs

« on: December 29, 2009, 08:20 AM »

Dormouse, you're not alone. All my computers' desktops are just empty areas filled with a solid color, no icons, no pictures. Since then my systems are more responsive, which was the primary reason to get rid of everything there. However, I let all important applications create theirs icons on desktop despite they are not visible, because FARR can find them faster.

114

General Software Discussion / Re: Any freeware alternatives to Faststone MaxView?

« on: December 21, 2009, 03:25 PM »

Just found FastPictureViewer Professional for free at ghacks.net Christmas Giveaway. Still valid for some 13 hours! (And it's available for all this time, no drawing or contest.)

Anyway, I'm not that happy with it--no PSD support, for example. I'll probably stay with the last free version of FastStone MaxView, which is similarly fast, can handle PSD files and has more sophisticated zoom tools.

115

General Software Discussion / Re: Alt-tab replacement ?

« on: December 16, 2009, 02:43 AM »

Working on Windows XP and multiple monitors recently and I can say that Alt-Tab Thingy appeared to be the best. And that is thanks to the possibility to limit shown applications to current desktop only (determined my mouse cursor position).

-fenixproductions (December 15, 2009, 11:26 PM)

VistaSwitcher has the same option: Preferences > Behavior > Show tasks only from the active monitor.

P.S. Mouser, please, make Spell Check window a little bit higher to be not cut off in Opera.

-fenixproductions (December 15, 2009, 11:26 PM)

The same in Chrome.

116

General Software Discussion / Re: Alt-tab replacement ?

« on: December 15, 2009, 03:12 PM »

Because I personally prefer minimalistic design, I'm still using SmartTab on WinXP, but this one is not developed since 2006, so I didn't dare to try it on Vista. VistaSwitcher seems to be a good alternative (of course I'm using it with "no preview" option). I like the possibility to select an application using the numeric keys. Quite handy if you have a lot of running applications. SmartTab is a bit better in this, but its window is sometimes too narrow.

117

General Software Discussion / Re: Alt-tab replacement ?

« on: December 15, 2009, 08:18 AM »

Final version 1.1.0 of VistaSwitcher was just released. Seems to be very good.

118

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: National Characters

« on: December 07, 2009, 02:18 PM »

I had the same experience (with the same language) and went back to Ditto because of this.

@mouser: Unicode would be fine, but most of us would be happy with just the system locale codepage support. Would that be easier to implement?

@czb: I had the same problem with Ditto on XP and Vista. I managed to fix it (at least for some time) by deleting some large clips and then performing "Compact and Repair Database".

119

General Software Discussion / Re: ghacks christmas 2009 giveaways

« on: December 01, 2009, 02:11 PM »

It brings up an interesting issue in terms of words though -- because "raffle" and "lottery" are not really appropriate -- they usually imply to most listeners that one has to PAY to have a chance, and this is not like that.  And a contest implies that the "winner(s)" will be chosen based on some criteria, rather than randomly.

-mouser (December 01, 2009, 01:19 PM)

You don't pay, but you have to enter a valid email address, and this is not a zero value. So isn't this a raffle?

On the other hand you're required to write why you’d like to win the license. It implies that somebody would evaluate the answers. So isn't this a contest?

 

Anyway, my understanding of the term "giveaway" was also supported by the Giveaway of the Day policy: everyone has a chance to get the item, no drawing lots, no probability involved.

EDIT: Dormouse beat me to it.

120

General Software Discussion / Re: ghacks christmas 2009 giveaways

« on: December 01, 2009, 01:13 PM »

10 is more than we usually giveaway on dc, plus this is just for one day of their event -- with more giveaways throughout the month.. can't see what anyone could possibly complain about(!) yksyks you must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed this morning

-mouser (December 01, 2009, 05:24 AM)

I have to apologize, I suppose. It was a misunderstanding caused by my poor English. I was convinced that "giveaway" means "something given away free" (at least according to Webster's Dictionary). I don't complain, I just wasn't aware that the term "giveaway" covers also what I'd otherwise call a lottery or a contest, perhaps, which I'm not interested in at all. One has to learn all the time...

121

General Software Discussion / Re: ghacks christmas 2009 giveaways

« on: December 01, 2009, 05:09 AM »

Actually it's not a real giveaway, it's a kind of lottery:

We have ten Winzip 14 Pro licenses for you. If you want to win one of the licenses reply to this thread and let us know why you’d like to win the license.

Ten licenses? Not worth a try.

122

General Software Discussion / Re: LogMeIn

« on: November 24, 2009, 05:38 AM »

... There is a slight security concern as all traffic is tunneled through their servers instead of being true p2p, but not something that bothers me.

-MrCrispy (November 24, 2009, 04:28 AM)

I'm not that sure. If I connect from one PC to another on the same LAN, the traffic rate far exceeds the capabilities of my limited DSL line, so there must a p2p connection.

123

Post New Requests Here / Re: Switch to window while alt tabbing

« on: November 23, 2009, 04:38 AM »

If you can live without the icons try Alt-Esc for cycling between applications (and Alt-Shift-Esc for cycling backward).

(Sorry for mentioning this, but I know from my experience that people are often completely amazed with this "unknown" shortcut, built in Windows for ages.)

124

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Keyboard cleaner

« on: November 18, 2009, 01:10 AM »

Thanks for Kid-Key-Lock, I've never heard of it. Just in the right time, my son learned how to shut down BabySmash...

For simple keyboard cleaning I highly recommend Pitaschio, which does a lot more, though.

125

Living Room / Re: Looking to "mirror" some videos

« on: November 17, 2009, 10:42 AM »

Virtualdub doesn't read MPEG2, as far as I know. You could try an older, but possibly working version at http://home.comcast....er/stable/index.html.