Messages

126

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote Pro 50% Off Thru January 31

« on: January 26, 2014, 08:42 PM »

rjbull: I agree completely about Local Website Archive. I have had the pro copy for a number of years and it does make webpage copies as close to perfect as almost anything I have seen. However if I am capturing a webpage for a topic that I am researching I like to have it in the same program as the rest of my research notes.

BTW, the Firefox extension Scrapbook captures webpages as well as Local Website Archive IMO. If RightNote cannot capture a page - which occurs a bit more than I expected - I just capture it with Scrapbook, click the notification link to open the page in another tab, and then use RightNote to capture the Scrapbook page. This is especially handy when the webpage is a receipt or anything else that requires a secure login. Most programs have difficulty logging in and capturing such pages while Scrapbook scrapes them up perfectly.

Jim

127

General Software Discussion / Re: RightNote version 3.0.0 released

« on: January 26, 2014, 12:08 PM »

Hi diva.

I asked Neville about a discount - like maybe a reduced subscription rate for the first year - for users of the current Surfulater and he replied that he hadn't thought about it but that he would give it thought. That was a while ago on Bits. I haven't heard anything further about this though. Also I believe, IIRC, that Neville has stated that he plans to allow cloud storage or local storage, though I don’t know if he has that in the Next Gen version yet. No word on when it will be released, or at least I haven't seen anything about that yet.

Linkman! You mentioned tags in Linkman. I presume you are talking about the keywords? I have used Linkman for a few years now though I must admit I don’t use the keywords much anymore. Rather than a separate field for users to enter keywords, Linkman takes the keywords that the website builder uses for search bots or whatever. And Linkman pulls all of those in for each URL saved. I have some bookmarks that must have 200 to 300 doggone keywords! A lot of sites put everything in their keywords imaginable, which I don’t much like. I used to highlight and delete all the keywords that come in with the bookmark and then enter my own, but that turns bookmark saving into a PITA, in my opinion. I wish the Linkman developers would give us a separate field for our own tags/keywords, independent of the long lists that a lot of sites have. Actually if they would make importing the sites' keywords a user-configured option I'd be tickled!

Thanks!

Jim

128

General Software Discussion / Re: RightNote version 3.0.0 released

« on: January 25, 2014, 11:07 AM »

I notice that no one has mentioned Surfulater, a program I have used and liked VERY much for several years.  I've never tried RightNote, UltraRecall, or others mentioned here, but they sound quite similar to Surfulater.  That's why I'm surprised no one has mentioned it.  It's kinda pricey ($79 for use on up to five computers), but it's occasionally discounted, and even at full price it seems to me well worth it, though I can understand that the price may be a dealbreaker for some. 

-cyberdiva (January 25, 2014, 09:44 AM)

I think the main dealbreaker has been the developer's blog posts about the future of Surfulater. Back in late 2011 - early 2012 Neville sounded somewhat uncertain as to the direction of continued development, and that always causes consternation among the users. In early 2012 he posted that he would have to re-code Surfulater in order to make it able to have mobile versions. He soon christened that re-write as "Surfulater Next-Gen". That has been in development since early 2012 and is still in development now, AFAIK. Latest version of Surfulater available now is 3.42.1, I believe, and that was released in Feb 2012 - just shy of two years ago. Whenever Surfulater is available at Bits DuJour some questions are posted there about the current version vs. the "Next-Gen" version. It currently appears that the Surfulater you have now will not be upgradeable to the new version. Next-Gen will be subscription-based and BTW: no more folders; Surfulater Next-Gen will use hierarchical tags instead. Methinks all that might have something to do with "deal-breaking"!

Jim

129

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote Pro 50% Off Thru January 31

« on: January 24, 2014, 10:50 PM »

For somebody new to note-taking software, what would be the main advantages of Rightnote over Evernote?
Thanks in advance!

-Lutz_ (January 24, 2014, 10:14 PM)

To start you off, see this Mini-Review authored by rgdot. It's a bit dated but since RightNote hasn’t changed much since the review it is pretty up-to-date:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=29681.0

Jim

130

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote Pro 50% Off Thru January 31

« on: January 24, 2014, 09:59 PM »

You can view the history here http://bauerapps.com...ote-release-history/

-Scott_Y (January 24, 2014, 04:45 PM)

Yes, I am familiar with the release history. However such histories commonly contain the main highlights of each release. I guess I could have been more clear:  I was hoping that if there were other new features or improvements other than the Evernote sync and someone here at DC was aware of them, they could tell me about them.
 

Clearly all the recent development has gone into Evernote sync. Although RN is truly useful software and very well done, the interface is sometimes awkward. I'm hoping Rael will also work on improving that -- for example, making the note tree auto scroll to always focus the current note.

+1. Also there are a number of other tweaks that RN could use IMO. Some I mentioned above but there are more that I didn't list.

Rael, am I correct that the discount applies only to new orders, not to upgrades from v. 2?  Thanks.

-wocius (January 24, 2014, 08:34 AM)

Why not just buy a new license at 50% off? I think upgrades for any software are rarely better than that, and often at a lower percentage discount.

Same price AFAICT. The January 2014 discount and the upgrade pricing are both 50% off, so there's no additional savings.

Actually I would spring for the upgrade at that price IF there was a compelling reason, like new features or major improvements. Either or both are to be expected in a "major upgrade". But if it is only improvements/changes to the Evernote sync, that doesn’t justify it for me. That might be more than enough for some users or even most users. Personally I would much rather see the current improvement needs and deficiencies addressed before adding major features, which will naturally take up all development time available and leave the other stuff at the bottom of any priority list or roadmap.

Thank you.

Jim

131

General Software Discussion / Re: RightNote version 3.0.0 released

« on: January 24, 2014, 10:59 AM »

Running the same discount this month - January 2014.

Unfortunately the items I mentioned in my above post that are missing are still missing.

• No note attributes are available, which is important to me.
• Plus no improvement in moving notes, which is really poor at this time. When capturing web content I often capture it to the wrong page. Pages are like sections with each item on a page being notes. With many pages opened as tabs across the top, I would need to first open the RN window, navigate to the correct page, and only then perform the capture. I find it easier to just capture at will and then move the captured notes later, when I have more time. The weak "Move Note" feature - cut the note from one page and paste it into another - makes this a more time consuming process.

Also, the Help file is fairly sparse. It reads more like a feature list than a true Help file. And there is no forum for RightNote, so you really have no resources to assist you with the program, other than submitting support emails. I can't call this poor service, since Rael has been responsive to requests for support. But a lot of times I would like to throw an idea or question out to other users; things that don’t really belong in a support request. But there isn't anywhere to do that.

Thanks!

Jim

132

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: RightNote Pro 50% Off Thru January 31

« on: January 24, 2014, 10:43 AM »

I purchased RightNote Pro v.2.x back in Feb. 2012. When v.3.0 was released I didn't upgrade. Mainly because the only changes I could see shown on the website was some tweaks in the Evernote sync feature. I haven't had much luck using the Evernote sync so I couldn't see the need to pay for what they are calling a "major" upgrade just for the Evernote sync changes. So I am still using v.2 for now.

Is anyone here using RightNote v.3? If so, can you tell me if there are any other changes/features/improvements over v.2, other than the Evernote sync changes?

Thanks!

Jim

PS- @wocius: I don’t know if the discount applies to upgrades or not... although that would make me very happy too!  However I doubt it; discounts are usually put out there to attract new users; developers usually expect to receive regular revenue from existing customers paying for upgrades.

133

General Software Discussion / Re: jv16 Powertools 2014- Endorse Study Results Before They're Published?!

« on: January 24, 2014, 10:30 AM »

OK - the fog is starting to clear, but just a little.

I received a message from Macecraft today announcing their Indiegogo crowdfunding page. Target is $100,000 to go "Open Source"! Wow! Link follows:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jv16-powertools-as-open-source

Interesting point is that the fine print states that they get to keep all funds whether or not the target is reached.

Flexible Funding
This campaign will receive all funds raised even if it
does not reach its goal. Funding duration: January
22, 2014 - March 23, 2014 (11:59pm PT).

That's a lot different than the Kickstarter campaigns I have funded. Those all stated that my money would not leave my PayPal account and go to the sponsor unless the Target was reached. If the target was not reached in the time allotted, no funds would go to them at all. Apparently Macecraft is playing with more favorable (to them) rules. They get to keep all funding regardless of the target being reached. Sweet deal indeed - for Macecraft!

Why have I not seen other programs that go Open Source doing this? Or is it fairly common and I just missed it?

Jim

134

Living Room / Re: Why George Orwell wrote 1984

« on: January 14, 2014, 11:17 PM »

Kinda hard to tell exactly what W3C is including since the studios' requirements are being kept confidential. So the studios have indicated their "secret" requirements to the DRM vendors and W3C and W3C is providing an API that allows the DRM vendors the ability to include the solutions that meet those requirements. Whatever they end up with I fear that nothing will be quite the same. And with DRM being ingrained in the browsers methods for defeating it will be tough to come by.

Jim

135

Living Room / Re: Why George Orwell wrote 1984

« on: January 14, 2014, 09:19 PM »

Well, the facts mentioned in it are true. As for his analysis, that's an opinion. A somewhat informed one, though it seems a bit extreme. Or is it?

Jim

136

Living Room / Re: Why George Orwell wrote 1984

« on: January 14, 2014, 11:19 AM »

Interesting little post by Cory Doctorow on his Tumblr page. It mentions Orwell in its title though its not related other than being generally "Orwellian".

http://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/72759474218/we-are-huxleying-ourselves-into-the-full-orwell

Here's the text, hopefully in good "fair use":

We are Huxleying ourselves into the full Orwell.

Try as I might, I can’t shake the feeling that 2014 is the year we lose the Web. The W3C push for DRM in all browsers is going to ensure that all interfaces built in HTML5 (which will be pretty much everything) will be opaque to users, and it will be illegal to report on security flaws in them (because reporting a security flaw in DRM exposes you to risk of prosecution for making a circumvention device), so they will be riddled with holes that creeps, RATters, spooks, authoritarians and crooks will be able to use to take over your computer and fuck you in every possible way.

As near as I can work out, there’s no one poised to do anything about this. Google, Apple and Microsoft have all built proprietary DRM silos that backed the WC3 into accepting standardization work on DRM (and now the W3C have admitted the MPAA as a member - an organization that expressly believes that all technology should be designed for remote, covert control by someone other than its owner, and that it should be illegal to subvert this control).

Once this is standardized at the W3C, all the alternative browsers (eg Firefox) will also have to ship closed, opaque, illegal-to-report-vulnerabilities-in software to support it.

And it’s basically all being driven by Netflix. Everyone in the browser world is convinced that not supporting Netflix will lead to total marginalization, and Netflix demands that computers be designed to keep secrets from, and disobey, their owners (so that you can’t save streams to disk in the clear).

We are Huxleying ourselves into the full Orwell.

I’m not kidding about any of this. I can’t sleep anymore. I think it may be game over.

Jim

137

Living Room / Re: PC Shipments Drop Precipitously in 2013

« on: January 10, 2014, 09:15 PM »

Hope you're right. I have an iPad and it gathers much dust. I don’t plan to give up my desktop computer. If Windows keeps turning toward touchpads and if Microsoft keeps going with their SAAS stuff then I guess I'll be learning all about the various Linux distributions.

Thank you.

Jim

138

Living Room / Re: Why George Orwell wrote 1984

« on: January 10, 2014, 01:28 PM »

Oh my...  only 10 days into the new year and you guys are getting me depressed already. Well, that is, you guys AND any news article/program/etc.  (And on my birthday, no less!)

I know that all this crap was still there back in the 1950s and 1960s, but I was too young to be anything other than blissfully ignorant of all of it.   

Now let me go to my room and draw the shades, turn out the lights, and weep quietly in the knowledge that I have spent an entire lifetime without being able to change anything significantly.

Jim

PS- OK, OK... so the part about my room and weeping, etc. was crap. I actually went downstairs and ordered a pizza.   

139

Living Room / PC Shipments Drop Precipitously in 2013

« on: January 10, 2014, 12:29 PM »

Article by Woody Leonard at InfoWorld shows the Gartner PC shipment numbers for 2013... and it ain't good. Gartner's estimate from a year ago with regard to PC shipments was that it would be a lackluster but tolerable year. But it turns out that PC shipments dropped by 10% in 2013. So I imagine this is a good time to buy your dream PC 'cause it might not be available too much longer.   

http://www.infoworld.com/t/desktop-pcs/pc-shipments-in-2013-dropped-precipitously-and-the-futures-murky-233951?page=0,0

Jim

140

General Software Discussion / Re: BrowserID - Mozilla's solution to the password problem

« on: January 07, 2014, 01:03 AM »

And to be honest, OpenID isn't much better currently with regard to the number of sites using it, unfortunately. I like OpenID but I don’t get many chances to use it.

Jim

141

General Software Discussion / Re: Cloud-storage - safe & secure? Consider Wuala (it's encrypted as well).

« on: January 02, 2014, 02:29 PM »

Have you contacted Dropbox Support? I've used Dropbox just about since it started and every time I had a problem it turned out to be my fault. Actually it's difficult to lose a document from Dropbox; they keep any files accidentally deleted on their servers for a fair amount of time after deletion. You need to contact them and possibly resurrect any files that were deleted.

Jim

142

General Software Discussion / Re: Linkman 8.80 released

« on: December 27, 2013, 12:22 PM »

It is true that Outertech is not very communicative with its users. E.g., there is no auto-update feature and no notification when updates are available.

However I will say that whenever I have needed assistance or support they have been very responsive and helpful. So I would say that this model sure beats the opposite. (Which would be lots of noise but no substance!)

Thanks!

Jim

143

General Software Discussion / Re: jv16 Powertools 2014- Endorse Study Results Before They're Published?!

« on: December 23, 2013, 11:27 AM »

More news from Macecraft Software, and it is almost as cryptic as the above news.

I just received my first email from them since the above referenced debacle and this one states that they are going back to offering jv16 Powertools free AND making it open source. jv16 hasn’t been free for almost 10 years now. Since they decided that they had to monetize it in order to continue development back then, I have to wonder what makes it available for them to offer it free once again.

One little condition is noted however....  anyone wishing to help them go open source and offer the program free again must connect our social media accounts to their "Thunderclap campaign" (whatever the hell that is). Supposedly this will allow them to fund the program via "crowd speaking and crowd funding". Huh? I understand this even less than their last message, which was that they wanted me to endorse and support their latest version via my social media accounts before I could actually see/try the new version.

Here's the link that was included in the email message:

http://www.macecraft.com/lets-go-open-source/

And here is a quote from that page:

The future of jv16 PowerTools – open source software via crowd speaking and crowd funding?

We have been developing jv16 PowerTools for well over 10 years. Now we think it is the perfect time to make history and take the program to the next level by releasing jv16 PowerTools as free, open source software.

To do this, we need your help. To start with, we need your help to spread the word. We will be doing this by crowd speaking. Crowd speaking is when a group of people send out the same message at the same time to amplify the power and reach of the message. This can be done using a free service like Thunderclap. You can join in by connecting your social media accounts to our Thunderclap campaign and you will be building up on the impact and social reach that is already established, helping jv16 PowerTools to become open source by letting as many people as possible know of the upcoming fund raising.

After our message is heard, we will start the next step which will be crowd funding. Crowd funding is when you set a goal for raising funds in a defined period of time. Everyone who wants to contribute will make a pledge to pay any sum of money they want. It can be as little as one dollar. If enough people join the crowd funding campaign, jv16 PowerTools will be released as open source. But for that to happen, we first need to get the word out about this. We must let the world know about this initiative and for this reason, we are inviting you, the reader, to join the “thunder” and make it clap so hard that it will be heard on every continent!

As soon as there is enough social reach, we will publish the crowd funding campaign and raise funds required to make this vision a reality!

Join us!

Click here to connect your social media accounts to help jv16 PowerTools build the social media reach it needs to become open source!

Jim

144

Living Room / Re: Any one else have a bad Window update?

« on: December 22, 2013, 12:05 AM »

I disagree. Don’t install IE11 just yet. It is very buggy and many programs that use IE internally will stop working till they are updated to work with IE11. You won't miss anything sticking with IE10 for now.

Jim

Edit: IE11 apparently has problems with Flash also. See:  http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/ie11-leaves-flash-media-hanging-youtube-more-major-sites-231544

145

Living Room / Re: Any one else have a bad Window update?

« on: December 20, 2013, 03:01 PM »

See this article:

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsoft-windows/botched-black-tuesday-patch-kb-2887069-freezes-fails-configure-triggers-bsod-andor-zaps-sound-drivers-232

Jim

146

Living Room / Re: Best Storage Option for Ripped DVD Movies?

« on: December 19, 2013, 11:36 PM »

Thanks wraith!

A little confused; I thought that the Synology DS212J was a NAS. Either way, your solution sounds good. I have looked at that product on both Amazon and Newegg more than once. When you say you use a 2TB drive internal to the device and a 4TB drive external, I assume you mean that one is inside the Synology unit and the other connects to it via USB cable?

Also, you must be converting your DVD movies to AVI or MPEG formats. That DVDs I have ripped so far are in the original DVD files format and take up 6 to 7.5GB each! However that format won't play directly on my TV so I am having to convert then again anyway.

Thanks again for the info!

Jim

147

Living Room / Re: Best Storage Option for Ripped DVD Movies?

« on: December 19, 2013, 10:54 PM »

seems to me you're putting the cart before horse here.

what is it you want to do?  do you simply want back up copies of the collection, or some sort of HTPC solution, or some sort of networked library, or something else altogether?

the answers to all of these questions may overlap, but the best solution really depends on your end goal (and bear in mind that it's likely to change as you find out what options area available to you )

FWIW I think the RasPi is a great way to approach this - add a hub and some external drives (you probably already have at least one) and you're good to go

-Target (December 19, 2013, 04:34 PM)

Cart before the horse? I thought my post and the thread title were fairly clear: I am looking for storage options for my ripped DVDs.   

I figured that I would get replies that address storage options as well as streaming, etc., but my question is really about storage. HDDs or NAS. I have used external HDDs for a long time, but have never used an NAS. Most that I have looked at offer a load of features - many of which I would probably never use. But NAS might still be a better storage depot - I really don’t know at this point.

I currently can watch movies on my TV using a USB flash drive; I have also just started using the Plex channel on my Roku devices which allow streaming from a networked PC. So streaming from a media server is not needed - but if it is easy to set up it would still be worthy of consideration.

But primarily I want to get the rest of my DVDs ripped and am wondering what the best storage media is.

Thanks!

Jim

148

Living Room / Best Storage Option for Ripped DVD Movies?

« on: December 19, 2013, 12:10 AM »

I have a fairly large DVD collection. Well, large for me, anyway. A little over 500 titles comprised of about 1500 disks. (A lot of TV series included which contain multiple disks).

I have a number of them ripped and stored on an internal HDD (3TB SATA drive), and all are backed up presently to an external 2TB USB 3.0 drive. I'd like to get the whole collection ripped but I am debating the best way to store them. More external USB drives? A NAS? Or one of the Media Servers I see advertised? I have seen comments in the past about just setting up a separate computer for them, but I don’t think I'm quite ready for that yet.

I would appreciate advice/comments on which storage media you think is best; that is, at a reasonable cost! What's reasonable to me? Currently that equates to hundreds of dollars, not thousands. NAS looks pretty good but most seem geared toward backups and using RAID, which I don’t want to do right now if possible. Of course I may be way off with that thinking. Maybe an enclosure that holds four or so internal drives? My technical level is very high with regard to ripping the DVDs, but about the lower end of intermediate as to what storage option to use and how to properly set them up.

I appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks!

Jim

149

Living Room / Re: You're a sly one. Mr.........Disney?

« on: December 18, 2013, 11:56 PM »

The fact that it was a Disney movie is not surprising at all. After all, Disney releases most of their movies on DVD for a set time frame and then pull all copies and you can't get it again until they decide to have a "limited release" again in the future.

Shrewd marketing, I guess... but nasty IMO.

Jim

150

Living Room / RIP Billy Jack (Tom Laughlin)

« on: December 16, 2013, 12:17 AM »

Remember these lines?  (I only quoted Billy Jack's side of the conversation here).

"Well, it doesn't look to me like I really have any choice now, does it?

You know what I think I'm gonna do then? Just for the hell of it? 

I'm gonna take this right foot, and I'm gonna whop you on that side of your face... 

...and you wanna know something? There's not a damn thing you're gonna be able to do about it."

RIP Billy Jack  (Actor Tom Laughlin, August 10, 1931 – December 12, 2013)

Jim