Topics

251

General Software Discussion / Any SIMPLE dvd audio ripping software out there?

« on: November 22, 2010, 01:04 AM »

I have several really awesome concert DVD's.  I want to convert just the audio from these into mp3's so I can put it in my portable player and listen to it on the road.  I can't seem to find a good, simple solution for this.  Everything I've found (doom9, videohelp forums) is a complicated multi-software, multi-step procedure using a bunch of command line + gui interface things that is usually typical for this kind of stuff.  Do any of you know of a simple, one-click type solution for this?  This is the procedure I've used in the past:
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/DVDAGuide
it works, but it's a bit much for me.

252

General Software Discussion / How to remove the RSS feed and Bookmark icons from Firefox address bar?

« on: November 20, 2010, 06:08 PM »

I can't believe how hard this particular thing is.  i want to get rid of the stupid rss feed and bookmark icons in my firefox addressbar, and it seems to be a suspiciously difficult task.  I'm shocked there isn't an addon or greasemonkey script that just does this.  The solution I've discovered is to go in your user folder and do some code changes to the userChrome.css file.  So, I don't really want to do this because it seems like there should already be a button or something that takes care of this.

First of all, why would firefox have a file like that with the word "Chrome" in it??  How is that not a problem knowing that their competitor is the Chrome browser from Google??  Makes no sense to me.  Whatever.

253

Living Room / Advice on portable dedicated GPS devices?

« on: November 17, 2010, 12:48 PM »

Hi everyone, I'm looking into getting a portable GPS device.  I don't have a data plan on my cell phone (blackberry pearl), but I want GPS.  I was thinking of getting two things: the Garmin mobile app for my cell phone ($100), and a dedicated portable full size GPS device.  So I just wanted some advice on the devices available, what you guys think of them, which ones you prefer, etc.

My first point of confusion is regarding the Garmin high end and low end products.  The low end stuff is under $200.  The high end stuff is over $400.  What does the $400 really provide that is so much better?  I can't tell what that is.

Also, what is the verdict on Garmin vs. TomTom?  I don't want generalities.  I want specifics.  If there is some little feature that is particularly annoying, I want to know about it.  Those things usually make it or break it for me.  As usual, my primary focus is ease of use, speed (I hope these things aren't slow in response), nice interface.

Thanks!

254

General Software Discussion / My new favorite ftp client: Total Commander (yes, really)

« on: November 16, 2010, 07:39 PM »

After years of not really having a preferred ftp client, I've realized that Total Commander is the best for me.  My ideal ftp client should act just like my regular file manager as much as possible.  I used to use Filezilla for the most part.  I liked Cuteftp for a while because it was feature rich.  The biggest obstacles are usually in the connection issues.  When the dc server was changed to a more secure kind of server a while back, not all ftp clients had the features to connect to it.  So it really limited the options available.  Surprisingly, TC was well equipped for it.  And I think we have someone here to thank for it (I forget who) but he made suggestions specifically for the dc server on the tc forums as well as the forum here.  Anyway, it works really well, and once connected, you pretty much can treat it like any other folder.  I love that.  DOpus also has ftp features, but I'm not sure if it can handle the security here.  And even if it does, I'd have to pay an extra few dollars for the added feature.  I should actually try that sometime, I know the standard ftp featureset can't do it.  But TC works really well.  Very cool!

255

Mini-Reviews by Members / For non-programmers: Editpad is the best text editor (for now!)

« on: November 15, 2010, 12:02 PM »

http://www.editpadpro.com/
Well, I've flirted with text editors for several years, but I didn't really delve into it like I normally do with software until recently.  After a few months of playing around with a lot of the editors out there, I've settled.  Editpad is the best text editor for me.

I'm not a programmer, so my needs are different from most of the people here who discuss their preferred text editors.  I've cycled through EmEditor, Notepad++, Editpad, and Ultraedit.  But in the end, Editpad wins out.  Let me just briefly mention my favorite things about it, and maybe later I'll have to create a nice article for it on my website.

Editpad's interface is awesome.  I love this programmer.  It's clear that close attention has been paid to every little aspect of the interface.  The icons are crisp, the dialogs are clear and intuitive.  He's really gone out of his way to make it look good: I think he has programmed the visual elements on his own, and he didn't use stock stuff that programmers use.  You can tell because things like the document tabs, icons, and certain dialogs are not "normal" looking.  Very nice.

A lot of the text editors make handling all the different types of syntaxes, fonts, and visual elements too complicated.  I know that it's a difficult thing to implement for programmers because there are so many things to consider.  So I'm not saying the other programs don't do a good job, I just like the way Editpad Pro has done it.  Simple.

I may not know programming, but i can tell when a programmer goes the extra distance.  This guy goes the extra distance.  It's like he won't stand for just the standard default stuff.  He WILL custom code things to get it just right.  I love that.  He's definitely in my short list of preferred programmers.

256

AutoHotkey / Can AHK cut/paste excel cells into fields of another program?

« on: November 15, 2010, 10:51 AM »

I'm trying to automate a repetitive task I do at work.  I have an excel sheet with standard columns.  For each individual row, I need to cut and paste the cells into the fields of another application.  Can AHK automate such a thing?  I'm guessing it can, and I'm also assuming that i can figure out how to code it.  Some of the fields are drop-down boxes or fields with their own popup dialogs.  Is that possible to automate?  I just need to know up front before I start getting into it.

257

Living Room / Hold on!! Superboy badge?!

« on: November 15, 2010, 09:17 AM »

So I was casually reading the forums here, as I normally do in my mornings before coffee.  What do I see?  Look:

Now, my first thought was, "What?!  How come I don't get to have a superboy badge!?  That's my whole thing!"
So, I clicked on it to see what it takes to get a superboy badge.  Well, here's what I found:

Sadly, this badge represents the kind of person I have become.  Cantankerous, unreasonable, and the nitwit of the nitpickers.  Skwire is well-deserving of such an award (he does write kick-ass coding snacks).

I'm sorry guys, I'm working on being a more pleasant person.  I just can't help but be very specific when I ask for software.  It's largely for my own selfish reasons, but it's also because I have tremendous respect for the programmers.  I don't want to ask for something vague and create unnecessary work for others.  I always think that by being very specific, it's less work for the programmer.  They don't have to spend time trying to interpret a vague request, they can immediately understand whether or not they can do something.

Anyway, that was funny.  I got a kick out of it!

258

General Software Discussion / Any fluent Russians here? (Light Alloy related)

« on: November 13, 2010, 12:50 PM »

I still insist that Light Alloy is one of the best video players out there.  It's my favorite at least.  I'm glad to know that it is still being pretty actively developed, but only for the Russian community.  The only way I can follow is to google-translate the forums and do my best with the weird sentences that are converted.  I wouldn't mind if someone who actually spoke russian could just give me the basic jist of what was going on.  Here's the most recent version thread:
http://www.light-all...lloy_v4_5_build_519/

Anyway, like I said it's still being developed at a decent pace.  The program is well designed, I only have a couple of nitpicks.  Interestingly enough, I think the developer is considering adding all the codecs internally to the program (like VLC, KMP) so you don't have to search for missing codecs.  But he is weighing that against bloating the program and such.  In my opinion, I say package everything inside.  If it's just a matter of the install file going from 10mb to 30mb, who really gives a shit?  It's not like everyone doesn't have plenty of space and bandwidth to cover that these days.

259

General Software Discussion / Best PORTABLE video player?

« on: November 12, 2010, 11:17 AM »

I know there are several discussions here about video player software, I'm guilty of multiple ones.  So this one is specifically for PORTABLE video players.  Which ones do you guys like or prefer?  I'd love to hear.

From what I've seen, there aren't that many of them.  A lot of the good ones are actually hacks of non-portable applications.  Like, KMPlayer can be downloaded on the web as a hacked portable, but it wasn't specially designed for it.  So I'm more interested in the ones that are designed for it.

SMPlayer is portable, but it's kind of a quirky program, I don't like it that much.  VLC I don't like at all.  I don't Daum Potplayer is offered in a portable version.

I'd love a program like MediaMonkey to be portable.  There are instructions for it here.  But I'm just not a fan of needing "instructions" to set up a portable application.  I'd prefer it just "do it".  One of the challenges of such an application is keeping track of the media files.  At the very least, I'd like the manager to be able to tell if the files it is playing back is on the SAME drive as the portable application.  If that's the case, the program should be able to keep track of the files using a RELATIVE drive path.  So, if I set the application up on one computer, and then move to another (with all the files and program on the same flash drive), everything should work fine even if the other computers assign the flash drive a different letter.  It seems to me that most of these programs just record the actual letter of the drives.  So, I'm glad that the application works as a portable, but I'd like it to go the extra step and keep track of the files that are on the portable drive.

260

General Software Discussion / Download managers: Get your fingers out of my browser!!

« on: November 12, 2010, 10:53 AM »

I like download managers in general.  Most of them are pretty decent and I have no problem with them for the most part.  The only issue I have is that they make it VERY hard to control.  You all know what I mean.  Occasionally, you want the download manager to NOT get involved in a particular download.  Most of the ones I've tried make this a painful process.  First, most of them have a hotkey combo to bypass the download manager...but it doesn't always work.  I've felt they hardly ever work.  but that may be just me.  Fine.  Secondly, you may say "fuck it" and just exit/close the entire download manager application.  I don't mean minimize to tray...I mean really close it.  BUT...even when you do this, it always gets reincarnated as soon as you click a program to download.  Then you search through the options to try to turn that feature off, but it will not be clear which option controls that.  Then, after fiddling around for a while, you realize that it's not downloading anything at all now!

I just need a simple bypass option sometimes.  And for pete's sake, when I turn the program off...STAY OFF.  They all get reanimated like some bad zombie movie.  One of the few genres of programs that tend to do that universally.

261

General Software Discussion / Why am I having a frozen screen trying to install Windows 7?

« on: November 08, 2010, 08:14 PM »

I've never had problems before when trying to install an operating system.  Usually, when boot stuff tries to load, they do fine (for me) because they don't first have to get into my operating system which may be very complicated due to the way i use it.  With OS installs, there shouldn't be many problems because you're starting from scratch.  Anyway, here's my situation:
I created a partition on my main system drive.  I wanted to first install Windows 7 on it and play around with it before installing for real on my system drive (i.e formatting and starting from scratch).  But I can't even start the install process.  When I stick the windows7 cd in, it boots from it.  It gets all the way through the "loading files" bit, but freezes consistently at the screen when the colorful stuff first appear.  All you see is that fancy blue background and the mouse pointer, and nothing else.  Then I get a BSOD.  I don't understand.  It's a 64 bit OS, but my computer should be capable of 64 bit.  See my computer specs here:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=16186.0

What's more confusing is that I've been running windows 7 virtually on my current xp setup for a while now, and it's been fine...or not really.  I mean, I'm able to install it on vmware fine, but it runs really slow and has a lot of hangups which I've just attributed to not setting things up or the fact that I'm running 64 bit virtually on a 32 bit os installation.  I don't know.  Maybe it has something to do with all that.

Anyway, I'm ready to go to Windows 7, but this is bothering.  I'm worried that something about my system may not be good with Windows 7, which I would hate because it's a relatively new and expensive system.  I was also wondering if maybe I should try installing on a freshly formatted hard drive.  But before I do that, I want to know why this is not working.  I have a spare hard drive, but until I check the contents and stick it in my tower, etc., is a little more work than I wanted to do right now.

Any thoughts?

262

Living Room / ESPN not allowed to show more than 30 second highlights.

« on: November 07, 2010, 04:33 PM »

I've often wondered lately why ESPN rushes through the highlights so fast.  Not surprisingly, I get irritated because I'd like to soak in some of these highlights but they go through them so fast, you get no real sense of what actually happened.  So, knowing what I know, I was convinced that this MUST be a licensing thing where they are simplay not allowed to show more than a set number of seconds of highlights from each game.  So I launched tranglos' eStopwatch and started timing them.  yup.  They are all exactly 30 seconds long.  I tried looking up on google an article or information indicating that the NFL/NBA only allows 30 second highlights, but i couldn't find anything.  But I'm 99% sure that this is true.  Anyway, now you know.  Nothing terribly interesting, i suppose.

The interesting part to me is once again, they restrict this stuff to the point where the end user starts feeling a little bit shafted, whether they realize it or not.  All of this inquiry started from the fact that I've been watching the highlights lately and wondering why they go so fast from one major highlight to the next.  I mean, geez, let me enjoy that game winning touchdown for a few seconds!  Man.  Must we suck the enjoyment out of everything??

Oh yeah...and they wonder why people would download torrents of the games.  Is it to do something horrible and criminal with it?  No!  Just to enjoy a fucking touchdown pass from your favorite player or team, and be able to relish it.  Play it back.  Soak it in.  Hear the audience roar.  Watch the players celebrate.  Watch your rival sulk away.  i mean, cmon.  We have all this technology, and instead of being able to enjoy things like this, we are restricting it so much, we might as well NOT have it.

263

General Software Discussion / Format Factory TOTAL-BULL installation of Ask.com (warning: cursing inside)

« on: November 03, 2010, 09:28 PM »

So I was updating my Format Factory installation with the Ask.com toolbar.  I like this program, but since it's free, it has to offer to install the Ask.com toolbar and all that bullshit.  Well, right at the end of the installation when you get to uncheck all those ask.com boxes, as I was clicking to uncheck the box, it just finished the installation before I could clikc Next or uncheck the other two boxes.  It just finished!  Now, I have the fucking ask.com toolbar installed which I HATE because it's a nightmare to uninstall sometimes.  I hate this bullshit.  First of all, why are there THREE fucking checkboxes for the ask.com???  A bunch of assholes, all of this bullshit.  I hate it.  I know.  I said I was going to not rant and be positive.  but cmon, now it gave me a headfake at the end.  What the heck am I supposed to do?  Now, i can't even uncheck what they're allowing me to uncheck??

And maybe it's a bug.  fine.  maybe something weird just happened this one time.  but I find it funny that the part something would screw up on is the part where I'm trying to get rid of the advertisement.  A little too coincidental for me.  I hate all this stuff so much, it's unhealthy, I know.  I liked the program, too...everyone has to be such assholes.  man.

264

General Software Discussion / How do I fix my gibberish font in Firefox?

« on: November 02, 2010, 11:08 PM »

A few weeks ago, i started noticing some gibberish font showing up in Firefox in some places.  Here's an example:


Also, on Engadget, none of the Post titles show up.  All of the titles are blank, but if I move my mouse over it, I get the color changing mouseover effect, except it's just one big colored rectangle.  I must have done something to screw it up but I have no idea what it is.  Any advice?

265

General Software Discussion / How many times do I have to update my mutherf---ing Flash??

« on: October 31, 2010, 07:58 PM »

Ever since 10.1 was released, I am getting notifications to update Flash all over the place.  My home pc, my work pc, friends pc's, all my laptops.  And I swear i've updated all of them, even though I'm not really keeping track.  I just updated firefox, and after it reloads, it tells me that firefox is updated, but flash isn't.  Now, I know for sure I've updated my home PC, so I don't understand.  Either Adobe keeps updating Flash with weekly builds, or there is something wrong here.  Of course, they give no easy indication what version you are using and what the latest one is, nor when the last time you updated was.  All I know is I'd like to just stop hearing about my fucking flash being out of date.  I don't give a shit anymore.  if it's out of date, so be it...I don't want to hear about it until there's an issue I have to fix or something.  Now they're using version updates as an advertising method.  And since it's not a real ad, it makes users timid about turning it "off" because it's masked as a security risk or deadly issue.  I'm so sick of it all...

In my current condition, if I were the java update, I'd be afraid to show my face right about now.  I'd probably go nuclear on its ass.  yeah Java, you're next...don't be poking your head out anytime soon buddy.

266

General Software Discussion / Help me come up with a Windows XP-->Windows 7 transition strategy.

« on: October 27, 2010, 11:48 AM »

Hi everyone, I'm looking for a detailed way to transition my XP system to Win7 over a span of a couple of months.  I'll present my idea and concerns, and maybe you can address my issues.

My main PC is an XP system.  It's quite a beast.  I have TONS of software installed and when I transition over, I want most of it setup on the Win7 setup.  Now here's the problem:
When I go to Win7, i want the system drive to be C:.  Why is this an issue?  because my plan is to first install Windows 7 on my existing C drive as a dual boot thing.  But if I do that, because XP is already on there, so the Windows 7 will be installed on another letter like E.  That's fine for now, but when I finally transition over, I want the Windows 7 to be the C drive now.  Is that possible?  It seems to be more difficult than one would think.  I don't want everything in win7 to be referring to E and then I change over to C, and everything starts breaking.

Ideally, I'd like both of them to be C depending on which OS I've booted into.  So if I boot into XP, I want the system partition to be C and the other boot partition to be E.  But I want the same for when I boot into Win7.  I want the Win7 system partition to be C.  I just don't know if that is possible.

267

General Software Discussion / Which is the real KMPlayer?

« on: October 27, 2010, 11:21 AM »

KMPlayer is a difficult program to keep track of.  Which is the official website?
http://kmplayer.en.softonic.com/
http://www.kmplayer.com/forums/index.php
Those two seem the same to me.
If you go to those sites, the most recent version is like 2.9 or something.  BUT...if you go to filehippo, there's a version 3:
http://www.filehippo...m/download_kmplayer/

So I don't really know what's going on.  Do you?

268

General Software Discussion / Any third-party Outlook 2007+ tools to Auto Accept meeting requests?

« on: October 27, 2010, 09:54 AM »

I need a tool or method or something to automate to freaking meeting requests in Outlook.  Every time a request comes in, I have to accept it, and then click on send a response.  It's a pain, especially with a bunch of requests coming in.  Also, the way Outlook handles changing meeting information is horseshit.  It asks you if you want to send to just the new people that were invited.  You say yes...and it sends it to everyone anyway.  It's really quite a poor program given that it's so popular and has been developed forever and it's from the giant Microsoft.  embarrassing.

269

General Software Discussion / What the heck am I doing wrong with MS Word page numbering?

« on: October 26, 2010, 05:32 PM »

Word is driving me insane again.  Why does every seemingly simple task turn into a pain in the ass??

Anyway, I'm trying to do page numbering in the following way:
1) No header/footer on the first page
2) The table of contents will be numbered with small roman numerals (i, ii, iii, etc.)
3) The rest of the document will start at '1' and continue from there.

Now I had this working fine at first.  But I started fiddling around with the header/footer, and now the page numbering doesn't work anymore for some reason I can't figure out.  I can't restart the page numbering, so it's just staying as one continuous numbering system from the beginning.  I keep going to the freaking page numbering dialog box, I tell it to restart the numbering from the current position.  Does it do anything?  Of course not.  As soon as I click 'OK', nothing happens except it shifts my cursor all the way back to the top of the document (from where I was previously at in the middle somewhere).  So i don't know what the hell is happening there.

I've tried just about everything and used all the suggestions I've found on the web.  Nothing works.  Sometimes, i just hate MS Word. 

270

Living Room / I'm thinking about learning how to program.

« on: October 25, 2010, 03:27 PM »

Well...the tug is becoming a bit much.  I think I'm ready to start learning how to program slowly.  I feel too limited by my current computer skillset and I'm having way too many ideas and becoming too frustrated with how to deal with it.  I'm thinking of getting into dot Net and C sharp.  I think that's a good beginning for a newbie and the combo will mean fast applications I think.

I've held off on this for years.  I'm totally the kind of person that is drawn to programming.  I've become such a software geek over the years, I know exactly what I want in programs.  I programmed the TI calculators back in high school and got pretty good at it.  I took an introductory class in my freshman year in college for programming.  I did very well in that.  I've just never plunged in because of my other hobbies and I knew it was the kind of thing that would suck me in in a dangerous way.

One thing that I've learned over the years about taking up new things is to just dive in and do it.  I'm inclined to study a lot up front and ask a lot of questions before even getting my hands on something.  But as an adult, that can prevent you from actually starting and I end up in a perpetual state of learning and never doing.

271

General Software Discussion / "Search Everything" with saved searches would be cool.

« on: October 14, 2010, 12:40 PM »

We all know and love the Search Everything program.  It's awesome because it's super-fast, not bloated, and does the job well.  The one thing I'm missing from it is the ability to do some kind of saved searches.  For example, I'd like a one-click access to my main categories of files: music, videos, documents, etc.  It would be very beneficial to be able to save searches that are used a lot.  For Everything, i often have to go into the preferences to turn drives on/off when I don't want them to be scanned.  Even though it's fast, it does take a while to index several drives with several terabytes of data.  So it would be more efficient to have saved searches that are very easily accessible.

Does anyone know of a possible solution?  This problem reminded me of Archivarius.  In Archivarius, I like how you can set up different databases and choose the one you want to search in a simple drop-down box on the main window.  We need something like that for Everything.  I guess I can just use Archivarius, but I don't want a full indexer, just a filename indexer like Everything.

272

General Software Discussion / How to quickly autonumber text lists?

« on: October 13, 2010, 04:49 PM »

I'm looking for efficient ways to autonumber any kind of text list (in other words, I'm not looking for a file renamer).  Often when I write, I make lists.  I number the lists manually.  This is because the autonumbering features in Word are bad.  And I also number things in a lot of other programs manually.  So I need a general text-only way to autonumber lists.

I tried TextMonkey.  It has autonumbering features.  The problem with it is that I can't specify what characters (or tabs) to isnert between the number and the actual sentence.  I need to be able to control that.  Sometimes I want one space, sometimes two, sometimes a tab, sometimes a bunch of weird symbols.

I'm currently looking at the different text editors.  Sometimes, each program has cool, nifty features built in like this.  I haven't found one that can do autonumbering yet.  Can anyone recommend anything?

273

General Software Discussion / Please recommend a good "shopping cart" website widget

« on: October 09, 2010, 01:07 PM »

I'm looking for a shopping cart widget that can plug into a small business website I'm working on.  Can any of you recommend one?

The website is being deisgned using squarespace.com's design tools.  But they don't have a payment widget.  I'm looking for something that can process al the major credit cards and paypal, and maybe amazon and whatever else.  I don't know how all of this works.  I'm hoping that I can find something to just plug into the website and use easily.

Thanks.

274

General Software Discussion / What's a good way to embed video/audio in a pdf-like transferable document?

« on: October 03, 2010, 11:28 PM »

What is a good way to transmit a document over the internet to someone that is like pdf except I can also embed video and audio.  All in one neat package.  Meaning, I want to be able to write some text, and then have a video inserted in the middle of the text where I really want it to be.  Kind of like a portable web page.  I know a lot of our normal document packages support embedding video but they are problematic usually.  I don't want to get into the details of all the problems, but I'd like to hear some suggestions.

275

Living Room / Why do we go out of our way to be unhelpful in forums?

« on: September 28, 2010, 12:22 PM »

I already know this is going to start a fire, but I need to get it off my chest.  This is my favorite forum, so I won't do this anywhere.  This is partly to just have fun and provoke you guys into an interesting discussion, and partly to try to understand the situation.

OK...as google continues to fail me in my research, I continually have to turn to my trusted forums to find information.  I am disturbed by the trend of answers that I continue to see.  A lot of the time when someone asks a question, the answer given usually boils down to (more or less):
"Just google it"

Now, a lot of people don't say that literally, but that's essentially the meat of their answers.  For example, someone will ask a question about software, and someone will respond with a link to the developer's site and maybe even regurgitate some information found on the website.  To me, this usually indicates that the responder hasn't actually used the software, but just read the website and thought it would be helpful to post the information.  The intent is fine, but it's not really helpful.  I mean, we all know how to google, we all know how to read.  That's not the point.  What is it that YOU know that is not generic information available on product websites?  I mean, really?

Often times, people will also give a link to somewhere that may contain an answer.  That link may be to a forum thread, an article, etc.  But, if you truly want to be helpful, why not past the actual sentences that are helpful into the thread yourself in a quote or something?  By just posting the link, you are making the other person go through the work sifting through all the threads, posts, paragraphs to find the relevant info.  If you indeed saw the information, why not be a good person and post it for the person?

The answer (in my opinion) is that people who do that don't really know the answer.  The THINK the answer may be in that forum or article, but they probably haven't really read it.  it's like a guess.  Which is bad, because now you are sending the poor guy to read a bunch of stuff that may not lead to anything.  I just don't get that.  At the very least, say in the post that "this MAY have something for you, but I'm not sure."  But I think people are afraid to say "I don't know".

Anyway, just venting a little.  I'm sure you guys have noticed in a lot of the threads I've started recently a little more surly sentences and stuff.  For recommendations, I usually explicitly state that I want to hear of YOUR personal experiences and opinions with things you have actually used.  That is valuable to me.  Sending me around to read third-party reviews and such is rarely helpful at all.  I have no trust in the reviews that are out there usually.  i don't know those people!  Most of the time, people who write reviews just write based on first glance impressions.  It's not like they have used the stuff for a while and are posting their reactions.  No.  They usually just open a box, play around for a few minutes, and write a "review".  It's useless.  Same goes for a lot of software reviews.  They install, click around for a minute, then write a review regurgitating the same info listed on the website.  Nothing substantial at all.  Again, useless.

Why do we do this to each other?