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General Software Discussion / Reliable web page capture...
« on: July 11, 2008, 12:53 PM »
In my endless quest/obsession to find the perfect information manager, I've decided that one of the key features for me is reliable web page capture. Not pixel perfect. But close enough. There are lots of other features I'm willing to compromise on, but not that one.

Now you wouldn't think that would be a problem. But it is. Most of the information managers we know and love just are not as reliable as they should be. I have licences for three of the best -- Ultra Recall, Surfulater and Evernote. All claim that web page capture is part of their feature set.

And yet compared to the free Firefox add-on Scrapbook, their performance is variable, to say the least. Pictures speak louder than words, so here's a comparison of the three programs I mention above with Scrapbook, and web capture specialists Local Website Archive and WebResearch Pro.

I took a page from a mainstream site (BBC News) that I knew would present a decent challenge.

Firefox-500x455.png (original page in Firefox)

Scrapbook-500x455.png (Scrapbook) LWA-500x443.png (Local Website Archive) WR-500x463.png (WebResearch Pro)

UR-500x475.png (Ultra Recall) Surf attach-500x455.png (Surfulater) Evernote-493x500.png (Evernote)

As you can see the three programs that major on web page capture do an excellent job. Scrapbook is faultless as ever.

Ultra Recall, Surfulater and Evernote are all ugly and broken. Yes, all the content is there, but it's not as pleasant or easy to read, and not recognizable as the original page.

If a free browser add-on can manage faultless web capture, I can't see why the power user information managers can't do the same. Web Research Pro takes a lazy (but very clever) route to perfect pages -- it uses the Scrapbook engine to capture pages. Why can't other programs do the same thing?

I'm trying to reduce the number of programs I use. I want to use one program for web capture and information management. Seems logical and should be achievable. But I'm still looking...

EDIT: A new version of Ultra Recall improves web page capture -- see further post below.

7
Living Room / XP boot-up problem
« on: March 22, 2008, 12:05 PM »
My main PC (Windows XP SP2) behaves itself very well -- apart from when it boots up.

The desktop appears as normal.  However, for about 10 - 15 minutes after booting up, there are a lot of things the system won't do. Essentially, system files seem to be locked down.  The easiest thing is to give examples:

I cannot install programs (that write to the registry), or indeed edit the registry at all. I cannot use IE, or any program that uses the IE system files, but I can use Firefox. I can't access system management utilities (e.g. if I access Start Menu ->Settings->Network Connections, the menu will freeze on the screen until the system "unlocks").

So generally speaking after booting up I just leave the computer for a quarter of an hour or so. I know when it's ready to use, as my mail checker program bursts into life and all the shortcuts on the desktop "blink".

Obviously I've run plenty of virus/spyware checks. The Event Viewer doesn't seem to offer any obvious clues.

The only other odd system behaviour (not sure if it's a clue) is that, when copying/moving files, the system uses huge amounts of CPU activity, much more than other computers I use. In particular, when receiving files from other machines on my network, the system slows down badly and hits 100pc CPU activity, which is odd.  But this happens all the time, so I doubt it is related to my boot up problem.

To be honest I've been putting up with the boot-up glitch for many months because, apart form this, my system is amazingly stable.  I can (and do) leave the system running for days without any problem.  If I need to reboot, I just leave the computer and have a cup of coffee. So it's really not that big an issue. I'd just like to solve it....any ideas?

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General Software Discussion / File preview for TRichview (.RVF) native files...
« on: February 16, 2008, 11:07 AM »
Fairly specific this, but I have a feeling DC members might have an answer to this one...

I have recently started using AM-Notebook (http://aignes.com/notebook.htm). I don't think there's been a mini-review of this on DC yet, so hopefully I'll get around to doing one in the next few days.

It has features I have been looking for in a note-taker/note management program. I like the fact that it keeps each note in a separate file. It uses the TRichView components for display (http://www.trichview.com/), and saves files in TRichview's native (.rvf) format. I don't have a problem with that, as AM-Notebook can export to RTF or HTML. However I cannot find a way to preview RVF files in explorer. I can normally rely on Directory Opus to preview just about anything, but it doesn't handle RVF files. XP pleads ignorance.

In fact, the only file viewer I have found for RVF files is a plug-in for Total Commander, and I don't intend switching file managers just to preview one file format. All I'm looking for is a quick read-only preview in Explorer. At the moment I can only view RVF files by opening them in AM-Notebook.

I know the obvious place to raise this issue is the AM-Notebook forums, but for some reason they are closed at the moment. Any advice appreciated.

9
General Software Discussion / Software licences
« on: February 04, 2008, 12:38 PM »
I regularly use three computers -- two desktops and a laptop (and I'm very tempted by the Asus Eee...). I don't think that's unusual these days. But for individuals with multiple PCs, software licences are a headache.

When I evaluate shareware these days, one of the first things I look at is the End User Licensing Agreement (EULA).  And basically, if it's a single machine licence, I'm very unlikely to be interested, no matter how good the software is.

Of course, software developers can use whatever licence they wish. My main gripe is how difficult it can be to find out the licence details.

Two examples: I was interested in buying Backup4All Pro (http://www.backup4all.com/), but to get the licence details, I had to download the help file PDF and wade through that. And yes, it's a single machine licence.  So that would cost me $135 for my machines (excluding DC discount).  That compares to my current software, SyncbackSE, which costs $30 for a licence that covers up to 5 PCs.  Suddenly Backup4All is a non-runner.

I also recently trialled PageFour (http://www.softwareforwriting.com/) , the (excellent) text editor aimed at writers. I went searching for the licence details. Not on the web site.  Not in the help file. But I found it in the installation directory. And again it's a single machine licence. Which makes a reasonably-priced piece of software ($35) too expensive for me ($105).

In the case of PageFour, I was so impressed with the software that I emailed the author and asked him about the EULA. He was very positive, recognised the issue, and promised to look into changing it.  I offered him the wording from the licence for Second Copy 2000 as an ideal model:

"One registered copy of Second Copy 2000 may either be used by a single
person who uses the software personally on one or more computers, or
installed on a single workstation used non-simultaneously by multiple
people, but not both."

Which seems just about perfect to me.

The reason for this long-winded post? To suggest there should be some kind of licence scheme where shareware sites have a prominent "badge" on the home page that indicates whether they offer a standard, flexible licence (modeled on something like the Second Copy licence) so that users don't have to waste time investigating the licence for every bit of software they test.  Seems like common sense to me.

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Best E-mail Client / A new start -- IMAP, FastMail, Windows Live Mail
« on: July 12, 2007, 12:15 PM »
Once I decided to cut the strings with the awful Outlook 2007 (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=8770.0), I started to have a good look around at what I really wanted to do with my email.

Well, firstly I wanted to get away from linking my email with my ISP, to make it easier to swap providers. And I wanted to started using my own domain. And I wanted to have my email available everywhere, while using an email client at home/work, so IMAP seemed a good idea.

So to cut a long story short, I spent a lot of time in the wonderful Email Discussions forums (http://www.emaildiscussions.com/index.php) and decided on FastMail for my IMAP provider. A decent reputation (though not perfect -- they have had extended outages in the past), a lot of useful features, and a lean web mail interface.

I started using Thunderbird as the client, but although it had a good reputation as an IMAP client, I found it slow. Then I happened on a thread somewhere about "Windows Live Mail Desktop" (now just called Windows Live Mail (WLM)- http://get.live.com/betas/maildesktop_betas).

I normally keep a close eye out for new email clients, but I hadn't come across this (perhaps because I've tried to ignore the whole Windows Live thing, and I don't use Vista). WLM is generally billed as an update to Outlook Express, although it feels more like a cross between OE and Outlook -- but in a good way. It takes the features I liked from Outlook, including the space-saving two-line message list (the Outlook feature I missed most when I started using Thunderbird):

winmail n.png

Best of all, WLM feels much faster than Outlook, and is much quicker than Thunderbird at pulling down large numbers of headers when using IMAP (in my experience, at any rate). Thankfully, WLM appears to use the IE HTML engine rather than the Word HTML engine, as Outlook 2007 does. WLM is still in beta (although I think this may be the new, Google-style, never-ending beta). But it seems stable. I thought it was worth a mention, as there are so many OE users out there who might not realise they have a new option, which seems in many ways to improve on OE (WLM requires XP SP2 or Vista).

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