Messages

151

General Software Discussion / Re: The Great Software List.. For Linux

« on: August 29, 2008, 08:01 PM »

Maybe you would consider adding Beyond Compare 3 to the list, another great sync'er now with Linux support, and not a beta.

152

Living Room / Re: Request for suggestions: Group Bookmarking Tool

« on: August 29, 2008, 07:58 AM »

I tried Delicious, Simpy, and ma.gnolia before settling on diigo. Don't remember why exactly I gave up on ma.gnolia anymore, but I just love the highlight tool of diigo toolbar. Diigo is also superior in bookmark management functions, though all of them are still short in this regard, IMO. Can't really comment on the "group" aspect, though, for I don't use that part yet.

153

General Software Discussion / Re: In search of ideal backup utility

« on: August 29, 2008, 07:49 AM »

The GBM Pro is the world most extreme software. It has fast zip engine, it is unicode aware

-tslim (August 21, 2008, 01:58 PM)

Last time I tried, GBM Pro v.8 did backup and restore files with unicode filenames fine, but its search function couldn't find them in the zipped archives. Zip format doesn't have native unicode support, and GBM has to change the filenames before storing them. When searching, however, it didn't handle this conversion properly.

Not sure if it's still a valid observation, but be sure to check if this is important to you.

154

General Software Discussion / Re: Do you have a multi-lingual music collection and how do you organise them?

« on: August 18, 2008, 09:44 PM »

sometimes when i'm listening to music in one language, another will intrude with no warning.

-lanux128 (August 18, 2008, 10:18 AM)

I don't listen to audio books or news clips, but I do enjoy music of various languages (operas & pop songs for the most part). And yet I'm not sure I understand you here. You pick what you listen to, don't you? How does this "intrusion" happen?

155

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: August 18, 2008, 02:18 AM »

So Archivarius is out unless there is another way to purchase.

-J-Mac (August 18, 2008, 01:09 AM)

According to their order page, orders can be made over phone (toll free), fax, or postal mail, if that's acceptable to you.

156

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« on: August 12, 2008, 02:14 PM »

Scrapbook simply saves html pages, so any search program will index them. But all the pages are named "index.html". Scrapbook's built-in (non-indexed) search returns page titles rather than file names, which is fine. But the search programs I use (Archivarius, WDS) don't offer this option, so every search of Scrapbook pages just brings back a list of "index.html" pages -- you have to view each one to find what you're looking for. I'd like to find a search program that offers the option to view page titles for HTML files rather than filenames.

-johnk (July 24, 2008, 05:40 AM)

In Archivarius, click "Switch list" at the bottom and the list will be changed into a style that shows a few lines of extract for each file.

157

General Software Discussion / Re: BeyondCompare 3 Released

« on: August 06, 2008, 10:36 PM »

Just applied the upgrade and DC discounts to the Pro version and it worked fine. Both discounts are listed on the receipt. Great.

-Carol Haynes (August 06, 2008, 12:53 PM)

Awesome! I'm on my way.

158

General Software Discussion / Re: BeyondCompare 3 Released

« on: August 05, 2008, 10:30 PM »

Any chance the DC discount can be used together with the upgrade discount?

Not that it'll affect my decision to buy, but the version I want (dual-system pro) is so expensive that every bit of discount helps.

159

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox 3 - A visual guide to the new features

« on: June 14, 2008, 05:48 AM »

Yes, it's currently the top news at Mozillazine: http://www.mozillazine.org/.

160

General Software Discussion / Re: More on Super Flexible File Synchronizer; Updates Anyone?

« on: May 21, 2008, 12:03 PM »

I'm a new user. Never used v3 before. I felt quite at home with v4 from the start, and paid for it after a couple of days. Sure, there are almost too many options, and I had to go to help to learn what many of them actually does. But it's flexible and reliable. It runs non-stop in the background at all time on my system, and never causes any problem.

Another plus, Tobias is extremely fast at attacking bugs. Report one and it's fixed in a day in my experience (several times now). Amazing!

161

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 21, 2008, 11:48 AM »

Hi Fedorov,

I love FireGestures. In fact, a simple "Down" gesture does the same trick here (the default from the extension, I believe), even simpler than an "L" shape move.

That said, I still use middle click on a tab to close it more often, for my mouse rarely ventures far off the toolbar/tabbar area (I use wheel scrolling or auto scrolling to read in Firefox), and thus a middle click is quick. More importantly, middle clicking to close a tab is now almost standard behavior in most MDI applications (most what I use, i.e.), while few of them take mouse gestures. I certainly hope more will do.

162

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 21, 2008, 11:36 AM »

Oh?! It would be nice to know a little more about these novelties.

-dantheman (May 20, 2008, 06:45 PM)

Just check the "show experimental add-ons" option when browsing extensions and you'll see them, but you have to register to use them.

163

General Software Discussion / Re: LoudTalk - anyone tried this?

« on: May 20, 2008, 12:24 PM »

I don't feel like bothering other people's computers (as Skype does with its P2P infrastructure) with my LAN-based in-house talking. Same reason against Loudtalk. So I went with Teamspeak, which is open source, free, and works very well. Better yet, it has a Linux version, so it should work if I do make the move to a Linux desktop this coming summer.

164

General Software Discussion / Re: LoudTalk - anyone tried this?

« on: May 20, 2008, 10:48 AM »

I installed it when I was looking for some sort of a walkie-talkie like system between PCs within my home LAN. Turned out it required one to register for an account. After that I suppose you could talk with other registered users over the Net. Not really what I wanted, so I didn't register and uninstalled it.

If that's what you want, it should work, and it's highly rated on fileforum.betanews.com, if that means anything to you.

165

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 20, 2008, 08:48 AM »

OpenBook i find offers more options to adding bookmarks, keyword field for example.

-dantheman (May 19, 2008, 09:35 AM)

I think you get that with the standard Add Bookmark dialog with FF3. No?

I'm using Diigo's bookmarking system but somehow still prefer FX's, especially with new tagging method and Foxmarks beta which supports this new bookmarking way. It always faster to find what your looking for now with the url field acting like LocationBar2 and more!   

-dantheman (May 19, 2008, 09:35 AM)

I'm also using Diigo, and I like it in general, but not sure if I'll stick with it yet. The new bookmark system of FF3 is apparently giving ruse to a horde of new extensions. Many of them are now marked as experimental. We'll see how many of them mature in the end.

With extensions checking disabled, i now have an issue with tabs interface.
The "x" to close them no longer appears and i don't feel like going through the safe mode process to find out which extension is giving the problem. Have work to do!

Update: by chance, it turns out a skin was making the "x" disappearing from the tabs.

-dantheman (May 19, 2008, 09:35 AM)

Does your mouse have a middle button? I close tabs with it all the time. Not sure what makes it working, though: Firegesture, Tab Mix Plus, or something else.

166

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 19, 2008, 09:20 AM »

Of course, one of those three that fail to work is my fav OpenBook... 

-dantheman (May 19, 2008, 04:22 AM)

I don't use OpenBook anymore. More precisely, I don't use FF's builtin bookmark system much anymore.

To be sure, FF3's bookmark system is better than FF2's. Most of what OpenBook does are now built in, e.g. But there's one notable omission -- the "remember last folder" option, which is very typical of FF3's bookmark system -- good intention, half-hearted execution. I like, e.g., the new tagging system, but its usability lags far behind what most social bookmarking sites provide.

I've therefore reluctantly moved to a social bookmarking solution for my bookmarks, while waiting for FF3's bookmark system to mature, perhaps with helps from extensions.

FX3RC1 seems to chew up more on CPU than FX2 (with extensions compatibility check off, even more).

-dantheman (May 19, 2008, 04:22 AM)

Chewing up CPU? Hmmm, haven't noticed that so far. Though, again, I'm on nightly, not RC1.

167

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 18, 2008, 10:18 PM »

I'm using FF3 nightly (2008051806 at the moment), and the only addon on my system that fails compatibility check is AutoCopy 0.8. FireGestures 1.1 works without a glitch.

Turning off extension compatibility check then even AutoCopy works just fine.

I decided to go with nightly after getting impatient waiting for RC1, and beta 5 had an annoying bug that caused problems to Zotero. So far so good.

168

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 14, 2008, 08:06 AM »

that's why there is a built-in safe-mode and this is repeated on the release notes.

-lanux128 (May 14, 2008, 01:56 AM)

I knew that, but I wasn't sure dantheman did and thought it might worth mentioning. Not many people read release notes, though hopefully more people here do.

169

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox extensions for Minefield

« on: May 13, 2008, 11:02 PM »

to newly install an older and incompatible extension, one might have to turn off the compatibility checking within Firefox.

-lanux128 (May 13, 2008, 08:56 PM)

No, that won't do it either. Go to the homepage of an extension -- if it has one -- to get it if you really want it. Though less convenient, doing so would also give you a good chance to find an updated beta version for FF3 not available on addons.mozilla.org yet.

And be cautious when turning off the compatibility checker. You should at least know how to bring FF back to life should it crash at startup due to extension incompatibility. The checker is there for a reason.

170

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Portable vs Regular Firefox

« on: March 23, 2008, 07:53 PM »

I usually do what Eóin does, except I put my profile on my data partition (which is synchronized with my notebook and backed up regularly). With a good sync'er, I could leave out some files that I don't want them sync'ed. (E.g., I save passwords with my home desktop, but not with my notebook.)

Performance hit will be there if you put firefox profile on a flash drive, unless you move the cache folder to a HD. If you use Firefox3, more dynamic databases (those sqlite files) are in the profile folder.

I don't use portable Fox, though, so I don't know if it has any special design to minimize these potential performance penalties. And as Eóin said, if you want to use Firefox on computers you have no control of (with no Firefox installed), I guess the portable version is the only way to go.

171

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« on: November 05, 2007, 02:58 AM »

(It's my impression that trying to test drive a shareware program for a second time usually doesn't work.)

-mwang (November 04, 2007, 05:49 PM)

You mean technically or psychologically? Technically you don't need to worry with XYplorer: it does not use the registry, so there's no trace of it on your computer, so you can try it again without any problem.

-DonL (November 05, 2007, 01:04 AM)

Technically, of course. Many shareware programs would refuse to run when re-installed after the trial expires. At least that's my impression. Good to know XYplorer doesn't do that. I'll pick it up again, then, when I see anything unicode-related in your beta announcements, which I do monitor every now and then. Good to know it's on your to-do list. Thanks!

172

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« on: November 04, 2007, 05:49 PM »

Or have I forgotten anything, mwang?

-DonL (November 04, 2007, 07:42 AM)

I don't remember the specifics anymore, sorry. I removed XY when the trial period expired, and I'm not sure if I could try again. (It's my impression that trying to test drive a shareware program for a second time usually doesn't work.)

I vaguely remember some issues when dealing with files whose paths contain unicode characters, and some with mixed languages (e.g., Japanese and Chinese). There's also a line in my file manager comparison note (when I was comparing XY, DOpus and X2) that says "no unicode in address bar", though I'm not sure what that really means anymore. (It's done a few months back.)

If you want to address the issues someday, I'm happy to help debugging.

173

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: XYplorer File Manager

« on: November 04, 2007, 05:55 AM »

I tried XYplorer a while back, liked it very much, and almost paid for it before settling for Directory Opus. (My apologies if I sounded not too enthusiastic for DOpus. It's great, in fact, but it's a little too pricey for me -- especially considering cost of upgrades in the future.)

XYplorer had almost everything I wanted except one minor flaw, but that minor flaw killed the deal for me.

No, it's not the dual-pane thing everyone talks about. It's the lack of unicode support. I've endured the inconvenience of working with several East Asian languages in an ASCII-centric environment for 20+ years and I cope and manage as best as I can. But in this day and age, a file manager that can't handle unicode file/path names properly is simply unacceptable to me, no matter how great it otherwise is. (It's the same reason why I've never tried Total Commander, another highly respected FM.)

I almost took the plunge for the $30 lifetime license a few weeks back before Don raised the price. Didn't do it for I wasn't sure when, if ever, Don was going to solve the issue. The new UDC thing and other improvements all look very promising, but I can't help but think that unicode support really isn't high on the to-do list.

174

General Review Discussion / Re: UltraEdit Review and Giveaway ($50 value)

« on: October 24, 2007, 11:12 AM »

I'm afraid I'm not as enthusiastic about the upcoming v7 of EmEditor as you do, Zaine. Took a peek of the planned features list a while back and didn't see the thing I wanted the most -- full column editing capability. Don't have time to check out the betas at the moment, though, so I'd be happy to be surprised.

175

General Review Discussion / Re: UltraEdit Review and Giveaway ($50 value)

« on: October 22, 2007, 09:25 AM »

Same here: Column mode and hex editing are the reasons I've kept Ultraedit on my computer. For everything else, I've gone to EmEditor, which is much faster, and has much better scripting support. Ultraedit's macro capability is inadequate, IMO, though I believe it's progressed since v9, the last version I have a license for.

Now with Emeditor doing half-decent column editing, and various other ways to view files in hex mode (I rarely need hex "editing" anyway), I'm using Ultraedit less and less.

Emeditor is far from perfect. For me, however, its deficiency isn't big enough to justify the cost of another editor.