Messages

151

Living Room / Re: Show us a photo of your mutt or other creatures..

« on: July 09, 2009, 01:10 PM »

Alas, this is just a reminder, both the dogs passed away not too long ago. The tomcat Gandalf is not alone, though, my 16 months old son takes care of his "training".

152

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« on: July 05, 2009, 09:35 PM »

Thanks for an explanation. If it's not anything worse than a name collision... More info is here.

I also have beta4 here, but can't find the link anymore. I didn't try it though, I started directly with beta6 and I'm not going to touch it.

153

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« on: July 05, 2009, 04:23 PM »

Because FlashPoint was discussed here and because it turned my AAO from a useless toy to a quite usable device, here are some latest news:

We have stopped beta testing and distributing the software.
Hopefully, we will resume the distribution, soon!

Thank you.

-http://mydellmini.com/forum/dell-mini-9-discussion/5980-flashpoint-solid-state-drive-accelerator.html

The developer's site is not accessible anymore.

However, there's a mirror of part of the site: http://blog.ka-ki.ne.../04/flashpoint-note/

Or you can download the latest beta directly from http://rapidshare.co...flashpoint2009b6.zip

I can only recommend it, absolutely no problems so far. Enjoy it, but don't forget you can't use hibernation with beta 6.

154

General Software Discussion / Re: Text Form Fields in MS Office

« on: July 02, 2009, 01:46 PM »

If we are speaking about MS Word 2003:

• Right-click on any toolbar
• Select Customize
• Select Commands tab
• In Categories select Forms
• Drag any item from Commands to any toolbar or menu

155

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« on: June 22, 2009, 08:33 AM »

Just to inform how I solved the issue: The problem was not with the Acer Aspire One being slow, but there were unbearable delays every now and then. The PC stopped responding for a span from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. Also, while benchmarking the SDD (using the HD Tune), the results varied from 34 MB/s to notches of 0.1 MB/s, without any apparent pattern.

I browsed many forums about this issue, as I suspected the SSD or the controller to be failing, only to realize that this is a common problem. Some people reported significant improvement when using FlashPoint driver, as 4wd pointed out (thanks again!).

So I installed the latest beta and now I have a completely different machine! The benchmarks shows now a comb-like pattern varying from 34.3 MB/s to 30.8 MB/s. There are no delays at all! Of course, the machine has not a blazing speed like "big" notebooks with real hard disks, but that had to be expected.

At the moment there's only one small drawback—the current version of FlashPoint doesn't support hibernation.

Besides, I didn't notice any change in speed when using NTFS instead of supplied FAT32.

I don't know how the FlashPoint works, but it works really perfect. Kudos to the developers!

156

Living Room / Re: Strokeit : jeff is back

« on: June 20, 2009, 04:56 PM »

Perfect, thank you! Running on Google Chrome under Vista Business like a charm!

157

Living Room / Re: Betamax (a VoIP company) — a large-scale fraud?

« on: June 19, 2009, 03:18 AM »

The VopiBuster forum is up again, so I performed some research. It's nice that when you search for the word "error", you get the following answer:

The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: error.

Well, indeed.

Anyway, if anyone has similar problem with blocked account, here are two links:

https://forum.voipbu...iewtopic.php?p=50592
https://forum.voipbu...php?f=21&t=14586

I've just posted on the latter my request to unblock my accounts. I'll keep you informed.

158

Living Room / Re: Baby Cody Plushie is born

« on: June 16, 2009, 05:20 AM »

And how about Czech Republic then? It's close and I'm ready!

159

Living Room / Re: Betamax (a VoIP company) — a large-scale fraud?

« on: June 16, 2009, 04:09 AM »

As expected, Avira fixed its false positive recognition of VoipBuster.exe yesterday. However, the problem with blocked accounts remains. If you try to find out what the error code means, you get to this comprehensive explanation:

160

Living Room / Re: Betamax (a VoIP company) — a large-scale fraud?

« on: June 14, 2009, 12:20 PM »

I'm almost sure it's a false positive, VoipBuster was not updated for a while, and it was never reported before. Besides, Jotti and Virustotal reported only two suspicions, one of them was Avira. I'll post here if the situation changes.

But again, this doesn't help with the main trouble, which are all those blocked accounts. So if you still have some credit, use it before it's too late!

161

Living Room / Re: Betamax (a VoIP company) — a large-scale fraud?

« on: June 13, 2009, 02:35 PM »

You're right, I just changed the topic title to make it clear. Sorry.

162

Living Room / Betamax (a VoIP company) — a large-scale fraud?

« on: June 13, 2009, 12:44 PM »

Since I praised the VoipBuster (one of the Betamax clones) some time ago here, I feel obliged to post an apology and a warning now.

I was quite satisfied with the service until recently. All of a sudden any attempt to make any call ends up with a "General Error (CODE:33) / The other party ended the call due to an unknown error". This happened simultaneously on two accounts. One of them was in use for a some time without any change. The other was okay until I topped it up.

I searched the web for an explanantion and all I was able to find is the result that the Betamax company turned to nothing but a large-scale scam. There are hundreds of affected users of different Betamax clients in quite similar situation. They all have the same experience: there's never any response from Betamax, be it by e-mail, mail or fax.

For details see for example:

http://www.tipsity.c...mp%3B-nonoh-services
http://www.ripoffrep...0&submit2=Search
http://saunderslog.c...ip-accused-of-fraud/

It is still possible that some kind of technical problem is involved, but it seems more and more unlikely. I'd be happy to post an errata here. So, if you're one of the Betamax clone users, my advice is to use your credit while possible, and never top it up again.

I consider the following just a coincidence, but since Friday the Avira antivirus reports VoipBuster.exe as it "Contains a recognition pattern of the (harmful) BDS/Backdoor.Gen back-door program". I think this is just another false positive of Avira, though. I contacted Avira and submitted the file, but so far no response either.

Anyone else here?

EDIT: The VopiBuster forum is inaccessible since this morning. Doesn't add to trustworthiness...

163

Living Room / Re: Where did your DC user I.D come from?

« on: June 05, 2009, 01:41 PM »

I also revelaed my nick origin long time ago, along with the meaning of my avatar, if you're interested, you can read it again here.

164

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: GUI enhanced start up delayer

« on: June 05, 2009, 01:12 PM »

What I'm suggesting is more control when the application are starting up. It will give you last-minute intervention when the startup has begun.

-GSz (June 05, 2009, 12:57 PM)

I didn't get it, sorry. Anyway, the last-minute intervention using the Graphical Launch Type is not sufficient? I'm using it all the time.

165

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: GUI enhanced start up delayer

« on: June 05, 2009, 03:09 AM »

I'm using Startup Delayer for a long time and it perfectly saved me from many troubles. I'm missing just one thing--inserting an item, i.e.., shifting all entries from some point at once.

- provide check-boxes near each item, allowing on-the-fly disabling/enabling of startup apps.

Are we using the same version 2.5.138? The check-boxes are already there, exactly as you want them!

166

General Software Discussion / Re: Is anyone currently using Panda Cloud Antivirus

« on: June 03, 2009, 01:15 AM »

I spent 24 minutes watching the review video and saved much more by avoiding the subsequent installation. Too early, I guess.

167

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the Best Movie Collection Organizer Program

« on: May 29, 2009, 05:17 AM »

Thanks, Cosiness, this one was new to me and it looks quite nice. I tried it and it imported my current Ant Movie Catalog easily. I like some of its features.

However, it lacks the "Translated title" field, which is quite important if you have for example a lot of French or Italian movies and don't speak these languages. (Or did I miss something?)

Also, it sorts the movie titles wrongly -- all accented characters are listed at the bottom.

So for the moment I'm back at AMC.

168

General Software Discussion / Re: DM2 alternative for windows 7?

« on: May 15, 2009, 04:12 AM »

How about Pitaschio? It can fulfill many of your requirements, and it runs under Vista. I'm also completely used to middle- and right-clicking, but on the title bar, which seems to me even more comfortable.

169

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« on: May 11, 2009, 03:48 AM »

To 4wd: That's a nice setup idea. For the moment I'm going to stick with more or less standard setup, though, as it's not my PC.

To f0dder: I suppose when disabling the last access time timestamps improves significantly the performance of an HD, the more it should be apparent with SSD, right?

To Kamel: I don't think so. In my experience when I reformatted a bunch of old HDs, which I'm using now as external via USB, from FAT32 to NTFS, I got an increase in performace 5 to 10 times faster, both reads and writes. This might not apply to SSD, of course.

On the other hand, I prefer NTFS not only for speed, but also for those bells and whistles, like journalling, shadow copy, etc.

170

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« on: May 09, 2009, 03:41 PM »

I completely agree with both of you. EWF seems to me too dangerous. How about the FlashPoint? Is it worth trying? Some speeding up would be nice, but the data reliability is the highest priority, you know.

By the way, is there any significant improvement when disabling the last access time timestamps? I'll do this on the SSD, but how about normal HD? Any personal observations?

171

Living Room / Re: SSD File System Recommendations

« on: May 08, 2009, 01:58 PM »

Thank you, I've already read your post before. And thanks for other links, too.

I'm not afraid of NTFS because of shortening the SSD's lifetime, based on articles like this. In fact, I already decided to go for NTFS, especially with regard to synchronization to other machines which utilize NTFS, and would prefer to avoid having twice a year the havoc of all files timestamp shifting.

I'm just not sure about the cluster size. Is it really so critical?

172

Living Room / Re: it's been a while since i said those special words...

« on: May 08, 2009, 08:27 AM »

I absolutely second nudone's words. Every time my web searches lead me to some other forums, I just become aware again of how special this forum is, and how I'm glad I can be a member of this community. Thanks to all.

173

General Software Discussion / Re: Converting the middle/wheel click to drag-n-drop

« on: May 08, 2009, 06:33 AM »

You can use the free HotkeyP to easily accomplish this and many more.

174

Living Room / SSD File System Recommendations

« on: May 08, 2009, 06:01 AM »

Recently I got my wife an Acer Aspire One notebook with WinXP, 1 GB RAM and 16 GB SSD. It's surprisingly nice little machine, especially with regard to its price (I got it for free when buying a lawn mower).

It was pre-installed and I'm surprised it has FAT32 file system. I've read many diverse and divergent articles, but it seems that converting to NTFS would be a good idea to speed it up a bit. But what about the cluster size? The only thing those articles seem to agree is that it's quite critical value for an SSD, but they don't give any unambiguous answer.

Does anyone here have any experience or piece of advice? Thanks in advance.

175

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Unicode-based texter program

« on: April 05, 2009, 03:19 AM »

There are no Prefix/Postfix options in the Clipboard cache folder. You have to create a new folder in the phrase tree and put the phrase there. Also, I'm not sure if it's a good idea running PhraseExpress in Sandboxie, or what is it. Setting Prefix and/or Postfix to "Any" works just like you described. You can set these either in the new folder properties, or, if you prefer, you can disable inheriting options and set them individually in each phrase below this folder.

The default paste method can be set in Tools > Settings > Expert options > Paste method. (You have to enable the Expert mode first, of course.)