Messages

2776

General Software Discussion / Re: What do you use to keep track of your installed software?

« on: August 14, 2007, 02:40 AM »

I'm running the trial for SoftCat Plus right now and yes, it will do drives (rather then merely a drive). It also allows you to create and access multiple databases, which is useful if you play around with different s/w configurations and freqently create drive images.

-Darwin (August 11, 2007, 08:20 AM)

Sounded great.  However looking at their forum I saw where someone had asked a few good questions. One was whether softCAT only scans the All Users and Users Start Menus for the program listing, or does it also scan the registry and elsewhere for those programs not listed in the Start Menus.  The developer replied that only those listed in the Start Menus are scanned.

A little bit of a bummer. I have found by copying and pasting program scans from BelArc Advisor, jv16 Powertools 2007, and CCleaner's Installed Programs list into Excel and comparing that there are lots of programs (on my PC, anyway) that are installed but not listed in the Start Menus. IMO, it would be a lot better if it scanned the whole PC and not just the Start Menus.

Jim

2777

General Software Discussion / Re: Warning about a new software company scamming people

« on: August 14, 2007, 02:23 AM »

BTW, if you use the SiteAdvisor extension in Firefox, or the add-on in IE, here's what you see:  SiteAdvisor Site Review for interactivebrands.com

Jim

2778

General Software Discussion / Re: Text Maker Software

« on: August 14, 2007, 01:56 AM »

I would not purchase software through ShareIT for a while because of their currency exchange inaccuracies. They insisted that their policy was not to charge anything extra for currency exchange, but when they converted Euros to USDollars, it looked high to me. I checked at several international banking websites and it turned out that they were adding from 4% to as much as 9% to the price when converting! I wrote to ShareIt and to their parent company, Digital River to complain, but they said they could not comment.

Additionally, prior to that discovery, whenever I did purchase through ShareIT, American Express would call me at home and ask me several questions to verify that I indeed was making a purchase using ShareIt, and ti ensure I was aware of exactly what they were charging me. This always made me apprehensive also.  A written request as to why they did this got me a response that a very high incidence of fraud had been experienced with ShareIt purchases.

Now if I must use them I use PayPal, which Digital River added as an option to ShareIt purchases a few months ago. PayPal allows me to pay in US Dollars and then THEY make the conversion.  Works for me!

But if you are in the US and using a credit card with ShareIt, check the conversion rate very closely!

Jim

2779

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is The Bat! e-mail app better than Mozilla Thunderbird (or other e-mail

« on: August 14, 2007, 01:16 AM »

I tried The Bat! about two years ago but found it a little too restrictive for my taste.  Particularly their trepidation of allowing HTML through in messages.  I did use Pocomail for several years and finally tired of it for that same reason.  A number of commercial email clients were very careful with HTML way back in the day when it was truly a concern.  However in my opinion that day has long since passed and way too much of my necessary email traffic is newsletter-type messages that require HTML viewing or the messages are virtually unreadable.  Plus with the security toolset available to me nowadays, HTML is no longer a real threat to my PC.  It was a good security hedge at one time but I think it is more of an inconvenience today.

BTW, if The Bat! no longer insists on replacing the native HTML of messages with their own inferior brand of HTML like they once did, then I apologize, as I have not tried it lately.  Another issue that I had with Pocomail was that the developers still refused to allow it to use MAPI, which again I feel is outdated thinking.  Their line is that if I were to become infected then by not permitting Pocomail to accept MAPI requests they would be saving the world from my unwitting spam.  I like to think that I am responsible enough to handle any such security concerns through my own use of judgment and PC security applications, and not have such rules mandated by my email client's developer.  Does The Bat! allow MAPI interface yet?

Anyway, just my opinion.  After switching back to Outlook 2003 for as long as I could hold my breath, I tried Thunderbird for the fourth time and, since 2.0 was released, I can definitely live with it.  Very good set of features.  Also, to alleviate any potential issue with an overly large mail database, I use MailBag Assistant by Fookes Software to archive past messages and I keep my Thunderbird mailboxes at a size that works well.  MailBag Assistant has search capabilities that are faster and more comprehensive than any I have found within an email client. For example I can quickly search through 15,000 messages to match several criteria, and then have it automatically extract all the addresses into a separate database, and other similar tasks.

Thanks for listening!

Jim

2780

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your music player of choice?

« on: August 10, 2007, 12:28 AM »

Lately I have been using WMP11 -- they finally have it almost right.  However I was using MediaMonkey, the free version, which is about the best I've found for organization of music tracks.  I still use MediaMonkey a lot for the MP3 tagging, plus it has a lot of user scripts available for things like scanning all tracks and moving the "The" to the end of groups' names, etc.

2781

Official Announcements / Re: Site of the Month for August 2007: NirSoft.net

« on: August 04, 2007, 08:36 AM »

Yup, see FAQ http://nirsoft.net/faq.html

-PhilB66 (August 04, 2007, 03:49 AM)

Yeah, I didn't even have to see that -- it's happened before with other files.

Hey - I was able to download a lot of files there; NOD32 didn't touch them.  Though sometimes it doesn't do anything until I attempt installation.

Thanks all!

Jim

2782

Official Announcements / Re: Site of the Month for August 2007: NirSoft.net

« on: August 04, 2007, 02:03 AM »

maybe turn off nod32 "heuristic" guessing option.

-mouser (August 04, 2007, 01:34 AM)

mouser,

That, of course, will stop the heurisitic guessing. However the password recovery apps are grabbed because they are seen as established threats - not heuristically.

Thanks,

Jim

2783

Official Announcements / Re: Site of the Month for August 2007: NirSoft.net

« on: August 04, 2007, 01:26 AM »

mouser - or anyone...

Before I even try to download some of the Nirsoft programs, I am trying to think of a way to be able to not only use, but even download the password recovery applications without NOD32 grabbing them immediately and locking them up tight. I recently gave up on one of PC Magazine's latest utilities because before it could rename a temp file it creates NOD32 would grab that file and declare it a "possible threat" based on heurisitics alone. I kept restoring it but NOD32 kept grabbing it. Even shutting down NOD32 doesn't help -- it keeps an eye on things and as soon as it is active again it would find and grab that file no matter where I hid it nor what I renamed it to!!

How are some of you able to download and use such programs?

Thank you!

Jim

2784

General Software Discussion / Re: WOW - Zoner 90% discount on all titles ... this is VERY good value ...

« on: July 26, 2007, 11:20 AM »

Panorama Maker is redundant if you have Studio Pro as it is fully incorporated.

-Carol Haynes (July 22, 2007, 01:25 PM)

Ouch!

I see that now. They don't make that very clear at their site. 

2785

Find And Run Robot / Re: Long Time to Find Programs

« on: July 23, 2007, 02:06 PM »

as soon as i type tot then total commander is selected, should take about 0.2s at the most.

-justice (July 22, 2007, 12:00 PM)

Same here - as long as it is not the first time I was looking for that particular program.  It takes much longer when it is the first time.

....do you have farr sitting in the system tray as it should? and on the general tab does inactive memory use say "stay in memory longer"?

-justice (July 22, 2007, 12:00 PM)

Yes.  That is selected.

definately should be instant. Maybe you have loads of folders on your desktop?
See my capture using FARR to run Total Commander: http://www.screencast.com/t/DBSgdcOIKP

-justice (July 22, 2007, 12:00 PM)

Nope -- two folders on my desktop; one is a "Downloads" folder, and the other is actually a "virtual" folder for my PPC.

I am talking about "finding" programs for the first time.  I realize that if it has to do the searching the first time you look every program, that would understandably take some time.  However -- and maybe this is actually a feature request -- I am talking about FARR polling the selected Search folders upon installation and noting all program locations.  That would eliminate the delay when finding a program for the first time.  Except, of course, newly installed programs.  But even they could be automatically updated within FARR -- I think!

Thanks.

Jim

2786

General Software Discussion / Re: WOW - Zoner 90% discount on all titles ... this is VERY good value ...

« on: July 22, 2007, 08:20 AM »

Just bumping this to remind people to take a look.

Photo Studio Pro 9 is quite nice as a photo organiser/editor and has built in simple panorama software. It also deals nicely with RAW images.

I also decided to give their Draw program ago (at <£3 it seemed worth buying without even trying!). It looks quite neat and does a lot - definitely worth a trial download if you are interested in vector graphics.

-Carol Haynes (July 20, 2007, 05:55 AM)

Wow!

I'm buying it now.  I have to admit I never heard of Zoner before.  But as one who has a number of graphics/photo applications I can never have too many in my toolbox!  Looks nice.

Thank you Carol!

Jim

2787

Find And Run Robot / Re: Long Time to Find Programs

« on: July 22, 2007, 12:41 AM »

Oh - which Start Menu does it search? User Start Menu? Or All Users?  Or both?

Thanks.

2788

Find And Run Robot / Re: Long Time to Find Programs

« on: July 22, 2007, 12:39 AM »

farr is meant to search the start menu, not program files.

-mouser (July 22, 2007, 12:31 AM)

OK -- then does it pre-inventory all in the Start Menu upon installation? Or does it search fresh each time I enter a name?

Thanks

2789

Find And Run Robot / Long Time to Find Programs

« on: July 22, 2007, 12:25 AM »

Why does it take FARR so long to locate a program when I enter it?

I am running FARR 2.00.126 on a Windows XP Pro SP2 machine, a pretty quick one usually.  I did have to go into the settings and select Program Files as a folder to search when I installed it. (I would have expected that folder to the first one automatically configured for searching for programs, if any. But it, along with several others, like My Documents, was not selected at installation).

I kind of thought that FARR would go and perform an initial search and cache all found program files as soon as it is installed, but apparently it searches anew every time I type in a keyword. And that is if I know the exact program executable name. If the program has a name that does not match the nominal title of the program, it then takes FARR an extremely long time.  (E.g., Total Commander actually starts with cecmd.exe).

Is this configured all wrong on my PC? Or is this normal behavior?

Thanks.

Jim

2790

General Software Discussion / Re: Which MP3 player/management software do you use?

« on: July 21, 2007, 11:18 PM »

I use MediaMonkey, but I had to disassociate all music files.  MediaMonkey removes the icons and gives all music tracks -- regardless of file type -- the same icon and file type name - MediaMonkey file. So it is difficult to distinguish as to which are .mp3 files, which are .wma files, etc.  Someone came up with a very long drawn out way to reverse this but it is overly complicated and doesn't "stick".

MediaMonkey is good at tagging and organizing - as long as you don't care which types of files are which!  (BTW, this has been a feature request for about two years that I know of, but no indication from the developer.)

In the meantime I have all sound files associated with WMP 11.

2791

Screenshot Captor / Re: Wow! Goodbye SnagIt

« on: July 17, 2007, 02:36 AM »

That's pretty much how I have it setup now, Katy.

But to be honest, I haven't opened SnagIt since installing Screenshot Captor!

2792

Screenshot Captor / Re: How to hide all stuff in main window except menues ?

« on: July 15, 2007, 02:26 PM »

I'd like that also.   

Jim

2793

Screenshot Captor / Re: [Bug] v. 2.32.02 - Button Off-screen on License Key Confirmation Dialog

« on: July 15, 2007, 02:25 PM »

Odd, I am not seeing this at all on Windows XP Pro SP2.

And I usually get hit with every little bug like that even when most others aren't!

Just out of curiosity, are any of you using any Stardock shell-altering applications?  (E.g., WindowBlinds, WindowsFX, DesktopX, etc.)  Whenever I have run into odd display issues disabling one or all of those has solved it.

Just a random thought...

Jim

2794

Screenshot Captor / Wow! Goodbye SnagIt

« on: July 15, 2007, 02:19 PM »

I never bothered to download this application because I already have a license for SnagIt, the screen capture program that seems to hold almost every online award available. However SnagIt has had a number of problems ever since the 7.2 release, I think.

First they changed the installer package that they use, from Installshield to Microsoft Installer 3, and they did it rather poorly.  Errors in their installer package that centered around the Windows SxS DLLs sent a lot of Windows PCs spinning, including mine! Once you have installed a program with a faulty installer package like that you get errors that are almost impossible to fix until the developer rebuilds their installer package to correct the errors -- or reinstall the OS. TechSmith didn't acknowledge this FUBAR for about six months, leaving a lot of users hurting.

Next, they reworked the program to comply with Microsoft Logo Certification, and to get ready for the Vista release. And SnagIt has never been the same -- at least for me. One issue is capturing cascading menus -- very simply, it doesn't work anymore in snagIt in most cases. Occasionally I can get it to work almost by accident, but never when I really need it.

I needed it for the last few days.  I purchased True Launch Bar using the Donation Coder discount and installed it. Everything seemed fine until I restarted -- and TLB did not. When I started it again, my configuration was gone and I had to start again. After that it would start with Windows, but it did not have everything that I configured.  It loses the separators and will not retain the order I set up. I wrote to their support group and they asked me for a screen capture of my TLB -- which meant capturing the cascading menu, of course!  I tried with SnagIt for three days: an hour or two until I'd get too frustrated to deal with it anymore for a day. Then I'd try again, only to get more of the same.  (Disappointment, that is...)

Finally today I had an "Aha" moment and remembered Mouser's Screenshot Captor.  Downloaded and installed it, and while I still have a LOT of configuration to do, the simple fact is that I had the screen cap of the cascading True Launch Bar about 2 minutes after I installed it. That fast with nothing set up and customized yet!

I just wanted to shout out what happened to you all, and to thank Mouser for this program  (Another donation coming!!)

There is literally no end to my amazement at the programs I have found on Donation Coder.   

2795

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you a hardcore software fanatic or a poseur?

« on: July 13, 2007, 12:59 AM »

J-Mac, you look like you need a virtual machine for all that testing. It would save you some time of cleaning hassle

-Lashiec (July 12, 2007, 03:55 PM)

Recently did just that!   

However I would still have quite a few apps installed.  E.g., I have about a dozen different graphics/digital photo applications.  Some overlap features, and when I finally admit that I am not using one hardly at all, I uninstall it. But I do use most for different functions.

When I had this PC built, I had four drives installed in it, dual processors, a bevy of optical drives, etc. I became disabled/virtually housebound a little over two years ago and so a lot of my time is spent on new-found interests: digital photo and video authoring and editing. Lotsa tools for that!

2796

General Software Discussion / Re: Are you a hardcore software fanatic or a poseur?

« on: July 12, 2007, 03:22 PM »

Add another hardcore member to the group.  I just looked and there are 381 programs listed.  What I did was open CCleaner, Tools>Installed Programs, Save as .txt File.  I use NoteTab Pro for my text files (among other files) and it is setup to show line numbers on the left.  381 lines -- each representing one program listed on the Add or Remove Programs menu.

I have to agree with gjehle however, in that all are not truly installed programs.  Some are programs that I installed to one or more of my Pocket PCs via Activesync, and most of those get listed in the Add or Remove Programs menu.  Some have multiple skins and they are often .exe files that are executed on the PC but place the skins themselves on the Pocket PC.

I also beta test a lot of programs, however when the testing is complete -- if I decided it is not for me, or if the developer perhaps does not offer a good price for the full license -- I do uninstall them and then run jv16 Powertools 2007's Registry Cleaner to try and clean up the registry a bit.  I also scan regularly with JAM Software's TreeSize Personal version to find left behind files and folders that I can delete.

But ultimately I still have quite a few programs installed.  Some I use very frequently; some only when I really need to.  All are either utilities that are necessary for running a Windows XP Pro SP2 machine cleanly, some are necessary security applications, but most are programs that I like and wanted to have.   

Jim

2797

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« on: June 22, 2007, 11:09 PM »

Just out of curiosity, are any of these programs better than Acrobat? I have Acrobat v7 Standard, which I got with a scanner. Is there any reason I would WANT to use anything else to work with my PDF files?

Thanks, Ken

-KenR (June 22, 2007, 05:06 PM)

Ken,

Scansoft's PDF Converter Pro (Current version is 4, though I have version 3) is very good working with PDF files, when it works.  But it is pretty buggy IMO. Actually quite a few users are having similar experiences; look at user reviews for it at Amazon, Newegg, C-Net, etc. and you'll see an unusually high number of users seeing it terminate suddenly and unexpectedly. However when it works, it works very well.  At least for what I need from it.

My main reason for purchasing PDF Converter Pro is to edit and/or type directly into existing PDF documents: I am pretty much housebound, and I am required to complete PDF forms for my insurance company, as well as my prescription mail-in insurer.  They have the PDFs on their sites for download and I am expected to print them and handwrite on them. But they don't have enough space for handwritten input. With PDF Converter Pro I can type right into the documents, and then print and mail them. I also save them for minimal input on subsequent forms. Works well for that.  However in almost every instance when I try to open a form from the File menu or toolbar icon. the program crashes. I have found that if I set this app as the default handler for PDFs and then double-click on files that are not in deeply nested folders they open fine.

I also use PDF Converter Pro for the following: converting PDF files to MS Word documents; consolidate several different PDF files into one file; similarly, I also extract pages from PDF files, or break larger files into several smaller files.

It has a nice feature set, but crashes often. And Nuance doesn't offer any support for it, neither free nor paid, which is pretty sad.

I initially had wanted to purchase Acrobat, but their most inexpensive license a couple of years ago was over $300!  As I only use it sparingly at home -- compared to business users -- I thought that they might offer a reduced price version for home/personal users. I wrote Adobe and asked about that, but the tech who replied said that they only offer the pricing models on their site. $300 is too much for me to pay for occasional home use only, so I sought less expensive alternatives.

2798

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« on: June 22, 2007, 10:52 PM »

The reader 

-elpresi (June 22, 2007, 06:13 PM)

Thanks. I figured that; after all Foxit only has a reader I think.

I know the thread is about readers.  I was just hoping to avoid creating another thread by asking about that in this one, but I don't think many folks will see it here. 

Thanks again!

2799

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« on: June 22, 2007, 05:24 PM »

I like PDF-Xchange, but I have noticed that its cpu and memory usage while scrolling is much, much higher than Foxit's (100MB+ vs 25MB ...)

-elpresi (June 22, 2007, 04:16 PM)

The Pro application?  Or are you talking about the reader?

Either way, I didn't like Fox-It the few times I tried it. It did some things nice, but now and then it would render kinda weird. Also, it would print OK, then out of the blue it would print something way off. I have a feeling it depends on what Acrobat version it was converted with, something like that.

Thanks.

2800

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Quality Comparison: 8 x freeware PDF Readers / Viewers

« on: June 22, 2007, 12:38 PM »

Build 1.017 of PDF-XChange is now available with Forms support + some other new/extended features and more to come in the next 10 days or so when build 1.018 is released.

-stoufville (May 24, 2007, 02:42 PM)

Has anyone tried using PDF-XChange Pro? The version that has the Forms support included?  I am interested in hearing just how well the Forms feature works.

I presently use Scansoft's PDF Converter Pro 3. Besides converting most any other document-type to PDF format, it allows me to edit existing PDFs and also fill forms on them. Really great for filling out PDF forms that you normally have to print out and manually write on, and then mail. Problem is that PDF Converter Pro is about as buggy as I have ever seen. After fighting with it for over a year, I purchased a new PC and thought that might solve any potential conflicts. Turns out conflicts aren't the problem. The application is just that buggy!! (Reviews all over agree). They released a Version 4, but without many added features at all -- its main claim was that it loads and converts faster. However reviews indicate that it is just as buggy as version 3. Plus, Nuance (Scansoft changed there name but for some reason they still insist on calling this program "Scansoft's PDF Converter Pro) does not support the program at all. They sell support plans for the rest of their products, but not this one. And they do not provide any free support for any of their programs.

So I would like to try another similar application. I wrote to the developers of PDF-XChange Pro and they said that the Forms feature can only work by using MS Office "Web Forms". I asked if that means that MS Office must be installed on one's PC, or if that is a feature that can be used independently, and also if using that format changes the structure of the document in any other way, but they didn't respond.

Anyone here use PDF-XChange Pro for typing directly into existing PDF documents?

Thanks!

Jim