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Messages - mwang [ switch to compact view ]

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26
Has anyone heard of or tried Farstone DriveClone Pro, currently at v.7.0? I was skeptical at first about a commercial product that seemed relatively obscure at its 7th incarnation, but was pleasantly surprised after trying it. Almost paid for it. Still might do.

A little background first: Since Win 7 I have been using a combination of Image for Linux (IFL)/Bootit NG (both from TeraByte Unlimited) and Rollback Rx v9.1 as my system recovery solution. The way I go about it is to install my system in stages, and at the end of each stage I image the system partition with IFL. After I've set up the system the way I want, I install Rollback Rx for everyday protection, for it's much quicker at taking system snapshots, and restores in seconds (not counting time to reboot the system), similar to Windows' system restore but much more reliable.

In general I like Rollback Rx. There're some nagging issues with its current version, however. Given my low expectation on their service, I decided to try something different when I had to restore my desktop to a stage before Rollback Rx was installed two days ago.

I was tempted by the Shadowprotect discount, given the high regard it gets here and elsewhere (Wilders Security, e.g.). Another disk imaging tool was nevertheless not really what I was after, and it's still pricey for me even after the discount.

When scouting for alternatives I ran into Farstone DriveClone Pro 7. As I said I was skeptical. It seemed to offer everything Shadowprotect had to offer, including hardware independent restore, plus file backups, plus what really attracted me -- "snapshot recovery".

The snapshot recovery feature uses similar technology as Windows System Restore (saving system changes to a hidden place), but it's just as reliable as Rollback Rx, without the issues I have with the latter. I also tried its disk imaging function, and it's fast, with reasonably good compression, and the restoration was smooth (I tried just one restoration, though). It has a pre-OS environment, so unless the system disk is damaged beyond repair, you don't need a bootable rescue disk to restore. (Can't create the boot disk in trial version.) Didn't have spare hardware to test the hardware-independent restore feature.

One disappointment, though. While it's a total package, the disk images it creates doesn't contain the hidden virtual partition which hosts the snapshots. So after restoring from a disk image would loose all the snapshots. (It's the same with Rollback Rx, so it's not really a point against DriveClone, but I expected more from an integrated solution.)

I haven't decided to purchase it because:

1. I've only recently paid for Rollback Rx; and

2. Rollback Rx gives me more flexibility in going back and forth among snapshots. With DriveClone, you loose later snapshots after going back to an earlier one.

If Rollback Rx keeps giving me issues, however, I'll definitely reconsider. With its asking price ($47.77), it seems a bargain for a total file backup/disk imaging/snapshot recovery solution, if everything works as advertised. BTW, they now also sells the snapshot recovery part independently, for $10 less.

27
Found Deals and Discounts / DisplayFusion 50% off till January 5th
« on: January 01, 2010, 06:16 PM »
Spotted on their homepage just now.

Many have migrated from Ultramon to DisplayFusion after getting impatient with the former's extremely slow development, including me. They still have their respective strengths and weaknesses, and DisplayFusion is a .NET program, which might scare some people away. So far I have no regret, however. DisplayFusion is indeed more actively developed and its author is more receptive to suggestions and feature requests.

28
General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs
« on: December 27, 2009, 08:24 PM »
You could do this with AutoHotkey.  But you'd have to write the code.
I know, and likewise with AutoIt (which has x64 support), I suspect. Coding is the hard part, however. Powerpro has a rather stiff learning curve, but it's relatively easy to master for a tool this complicated. No coding is involved for things I described, and that's why I've a hard time replacing it. It took me quite a while to learn Powerpro's scripting language, when I was a student. Now, I can't afford the time.

Thanks for the suggestion anyway. It's appreciated.

29
General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs
« on: December 26, 2009, 08:39 AM »
Macro Express supports macro activation by clicks on the various Window Parts (Title Bar, Scroll Bars, etc). Also by clicks on specific screen coordinates, which can be used to designate any rectangular area on a window if the window location is either first calculated or placed at specific location.  This could be used to designate certain places on the Title Bar which when single/double left/middle/right button clicked would activate a particular macro.

Thanks for the suggestion. Just downloaded the pro version and had a brief test run. On the positive side, it surely is mighty, providing more functionality than usual macro tools. It can't replace Powerpro for keyboard/mouse click macros, unfortunately, for two reasons:

1. Powerpro allows me to define the following mouse click shortcuts with ease:

  • middle click the left half of a window's caption (title bar) to close it.
  • middle click the right half of caption to maximize/restore a window (same as standard Windows behavior as double click on caption).
  • right click the left half of caption to minimize a window.
  • right click the right half of caption to tray minimize a window.

All of them can have exceptions. E.g., there're programs I never want to close, so they're exempt from the standard "middle click left half of caption" action, with other actions defined instead.

By letting the user to define an area (in pixels) where a click could trigger an action, Macro Express pro allows even finer divisions of the caption, not just the two halves of a caption. It becomes much more involved to define a shortcut, however. Moreover, hard-coded pixel range makes it hard to accommodate windows of different sizes.

2. Macro Express pro is also a 32-bit program, and it has even worse x64 support than Powerpro from what I can see during the brief test. E.g., I defined a test macro that lets me left click on some part of a caption to minimize the window (roughly equal to what I do with Powerpro). It worked with 32-bit windows, but not with x64 ones (e.g., Emeditor x64, Directory Opus x64). The mouseclick shortcuts I use with Powerpro work across the board without such issues.

I'm certainly not suggesting Macro Express (pro) isn't a good product. Power tools like these all have their strengths and shortcomings. It's just that for the last 2-3 years I've been trying very hard to replace Powerpro, and I do get a new clipboard manager in Ditto that I'm reasonably happy with. But for its other functions, I've had little success finding good replacements. Suggestions are still welcome, of course.

30
Jim, what I said certainly didn't mean to be a rebuttal. Sorry if it came across that way.

I totally agree, when it comes to note taking, nothing beats hand writing in convenience. And yet it's a huge problem for someone as inept at sorting paper stuff (in ways that can be retrieved later) as I. I don't have a scanner, and I doubt how often I'll use it should I have one.

I started using Freemind for note-taking only a few months ago, and have found it to be surprisingly useful. I used to rely on Emeditor or Word for the job. Emeditor (or any text editor) is too limited due to the lack of basic highlight tools, and can't make simple drawings. While Word is more capable, it's slow, and drawing simple diagrams is Word is never easy for me. Since the kind of drawings I make at work are usually concept maps, Freemind is excellent. XMind is even better (for allowing floating nodes, among other things), but it's slow.

31
I guess I of those who use a mind-mapping tool (Freemind to be exact) for note-taking, though not exclusively. I also use such tools (XMind mostly, though Freemind will do) for presentation, as I mentioned in the "must-have programs" thread.

32
General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have Windows Programs
« on: December 25, 2009, 10:58 AM »
After browsing through my system (win7 x64) setup log, here's my list (only those not yet mentioned have links):

1. must-haves that I hate or have been trying hard to replace, but still can't:

MS Word - Other programs of the Office suite can be easily replaced since I don't use them that much, but not Word. I need my VBA scripts to get my job done. Besides, neither OO Writer, Softmaker Textmate 2010 or Abiword handles East Asian text as well as Word. I missed the days when Amipro was a viable--even better--alternative.

Powerpro - used to love it, even paid for it before it turned freeware, but it's showing its age. It has no unicode support, no x64 support (quite a problem for a system utility), and only very limited multi-monitor support. Does anyone know another utility (non-free ok) that can allow me to assign different actions to mouse clicks when clicking on different part of a window's title bar?

Bootit NG/Image for Linux and Rollback Rx: all quirky programs, but together they let me administer my system the way I need, and give me fewer headaches than the alternatives.

Internet Explorer - all my banks require it. What can I do?

Directory Opus - still think about going for XYplorer, but the lack of drive bar, true breadcrumb and x64 support is holding me back.

Archivarius 3000 - quirky interface and all, but it's fast, and it index unicode text better than all that I've tried.


2. must-haves that I also enjoy:

Firefox
Thunderbird 3 (Thunderbird 2 was in the previous category, but I'm quite happy with ver. 3 so far.)
Emeditor - though I also paid for HippoEdit and occasionally use it, Emeditor is my everyday editor
Freemind / XMind - surprisingly useful for presentation; I don't use Powerpoint anymore.
SpiderOak - beat Dropbox easily IMHO.
Beyond Compare
Everything
7-Zip

3. Special honor for programs that provide unicode (East Asian language) support better than their competitors:

Ditto - It's funny that none the non-free (and mighty) clipboard managers - Clipcache, Clipmate, Acetext, etc. - is unicode ready, while several free gems are. Among them, I like Ditto the best.

Moneydance.

Irfanview - though I'm looking forward to XnView MP.


33
Found Deals and Discounts / Re: (un)OFFICIAL BLACK FRIDAY Thread
« on: November 27, 2009, 05:13 PM »
Rollback Rx 9.1, for $29.95 (Black Friday only, a few hours left).

Not a personal endorsement of the product though. I had some issues with its older versions (I stopped using it after v. 8.1). The just released version (out a week ago) does seem to be compatible with Windows 7 as advertised, but I've only used it for a couple of days.

34
Welcome, miva2. Are you (ethnic) Japanese by any chance? (For those wondering, "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" is a Japanese greeting.)

35
General Software Discussion / Re: MAILSTORE EMAIL ARCHIVER
« on: October 13, 2009, 08:16 AM »
I've tried every major release of MailStore Home since I first heard it here. Sadly it's never handled Asian language mail properly. V4 is no exception.  :(

36
General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?
« on: October 09, 2009, 01:17 PM »
Indeed AutoVer's development has stalled for quite a while. The author admits as much:

30-01-2009 AutoVer development had stopped for a while. I have started on the next version, more features, some fixes etc. No ETA yet.

And it wasn't as stable as FileHamster on my system when I tried it (1.2.2).

37
Thanks for the heads-up, Paul. I haven't visited diigo for ages, however, and don't plan to. Bookmarking and saving things online are just too slow, after getting used to doing those things locally.

38
General Software Discussion / Re: Special Clipboard
« on: September 17, 2009, 09:48 AM »
I am looking for a special clipboard to sum the text passed to clipboard o allow to select discontinous zones of the text in the same operation to the clipboard.
...
P.D. Perhaps an autohotkey script with Ditto ?

If you're using Ditto already, wouldn't its multi-paste function suffice? (Select the entries from Ditto's popup menu and let Ditto paste all of them in sequence.)

I would also like to be able to have an option to insert a separator string, like so: " - "

Exactly what I like the most about Ditto's multi-paste. Contro wants a newline ([Enter]) between the clips, and you prefer " - ". When I'm copying citation information from Amazon (author, title, publication date, etc.) to put into a footnote for an academic paper, however, I want a ", " between the items.

Contro, sorry I don't understand your 2nd request.

39
General Software Discussion / Re: Dual Boot Win7 - Win7
« on: September 16, 2009, 06:33 PM »
I doubt it's related, unless you have a pci raid card or whatever else that controls HDs. The fact that it appears before the boot option screen and you can boot without problem indicates it's a different issue.

What PCI controllers do you have? (Chances are I can offer little help even if you tell me what you have, but there are plenty more knowledgeable people here.)

40
For those who are keen to try beta versions, the newest is 1.2.1.425b, taken from this thread on their forum.

41
Yes, MR Tech Toolkit should do the trick. Or, if you don't want to install a 300K extension just for the purpose, then you may disable extension compatibility check manually in about:config or in prefs.js. The item to look for is "extensions.checkCompatibility" (you have to add the item manually if you're editing prefs.js directly for it doesn't exist by default).

42
General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?
« on: September 10, 2009, 07:04 PM »
If you really want to stress-test FileHamster, and if this is anywhere close to how you would be using FH, try copying a large number of (small) files to a folder that FH is monitoring.

OK, tried it twice just now, 1st with the bubbles turned off, then with bubbles on. I used a folder consisting of 1500+ html files, totaling 17+ MB. Process Explorer's System Info. window stayed open on the 2nd monitor so I could monitor the "treads" value, along with other things.

First try (no bubble): the copy went swiftly, as expected on a reasonably fast system between local HDs. CPU usage shot to 80+ percents but thread count remained steady. After dropping the folder in DOpus, I went back to Firefox, and didn't feel any slow down. Background music kept playing all this time without the slightest interruption. FileHamster window was unresponsive for a couple of min., but recovered soon enough.

Second try: the copy again went swiftly. CPU usage shot up again but still no obvious changes in thread count. And again there's no slow down in Firefox, Word, or any interruption in music playing. The bubbles started coming up, 5 at a time (per default limitation in FH).

It got quite annoying after a few around, so I tried to shut the bubbles off for otherwise there would be 300 rounds to go with 1500+ files. FH's tray icon was nevertheless non-responsive. After several tries (during two min. or so), the context menu finally came up, allowing me to went into "preferences" and suspended the bubbles.

There's now a FH icon on the taskbar. Pointing the mouse at it would pop up a thumbnail of FH's main window (aero peek). Clicking on the icon, however, would fail to bring up the main window. Well, the window did appear but it shrank right back in split second, as if I minimized it right away (I wouldn't be able to minimize a new window with my mouse that swiftly if I tried). Since FH was unresponsive for a couple of min. in the first test, I waited this time, but it remained so after 15 min. or so. I eventually right clicked the icon and closed the window. The tray icon was still there, and double clicking it brought up the main window without problem.

So, for the most part FH is OK. There's no excessive thread usage. And I have little use for the bubbles anyway.

A side note: I wrote Tobias Giesen, the developer of SFFS yesterday, asking for the "tiered versioning" feature. He replied that he'll consider it for v5, on which he should start working soon.

43
General Software Discussion / Re: Dual Boot Win7 - Win7
« on: September 10, 2009, 05:53 PM »
It would by far be the most comfortable solution - virtual machines (especially with disk snapshots!) are so much easier to maintain than dualbooting, and it's much nicer just booting the VM than having to reboot your system.
Agreed. My secondary Win 7 (not actually 2nd system since it's installed first) was my only Win system before I got the SSD, and is kept for maintenance purpose. I boot into it only when I need to image or restore my main system, or when I need to wipe the SSD clean. OCZ's "sanitary erase" tool only work in Windows.

czb, assuming you still want to try, the "bcdboot" that comes with Win 7 should work. Boot into the 1st system, and execute "bcdboot e:\windows" should do it (assuming the 2nd system is on e: when seen in the 1st system). Try the "/m" option if bcdboot can't find your original system. The GUID can be found with EasyBCD. And I agree that the "Vista / Longhorn" option in EasyBCD should really work just fine.

How many physical HDs do you have? (Are the partitions on the same HD or on different HD?) If you have more than one, are all of them MBR disks? (Any of them GPT?)

44
General Software Discussion / Re: Export TheBat -> unix MBOX format
« on: September 10, 2009, 05:26 PM »
I also prefer Thunderbird's simpler UI. The only thing I really miss about TheBat is the "read filters", filters that sort mail after it's read. Well, I liked MicroEd as well, but it never worked with Chinese text so it's pretty much moot for me.

Another new mailer to try, if you don't mind it's non-free, is Postbox. Its development team is lead by Scott MacGregor, the creator and for the most time before the Thunderbird reorganization the lone developer of Thunderbird, before he left abruptly. It's based on the Thunderbird codebase, but somehow it's shareware. I assume they've cleared the licensing issues. I haven't tried it myself, though.

45
General Software Discussion / Re: Dual Boot Win7 - Win7
« on: September 10, 2009, 06:51 AM »
I also have two win 7 installed on two different partitions. There are two ways to make this work:

1. set up the 2nd system from within the 1st win system. I.e., boot into the 1st win 7, and run win 7 setup there. The setup program should create the boot loader menu you need. There will be only one boot loader, residing on the 1st win system's base hard drive.

2. set up the 2nd system by booting from the win 7 DVD (or thumb drive). There will be two boot loaders, each on each win system's base hard drive. There's no boot loader menu to choose from the two system. Instead, you choose which system to boot into by telling the BIOS which HD to boot from. Most modern BIOS allows you to do so, I believe, by hitting a hotkey (F8 for my ASUS motherboard/AMI BIOS).

Win 7 setup program searches for a current Windows boot loader on the default boot drive when setting up a new system, and adds to it if it finds one. For the 2nd method to work, as a result, you need to set the 2nd HD as the "default boot drive" (1st priority) in BIOS when setting up the 2nd system, otherwise win setup would find the boot loader on the 1st HD and add the 2nd system to it (creating a boot time menu). The result would be the same as the 1st method. That could be what you want, but if that's the case it's easier to do it the 1st way (installing from within the 1st system), for it installs faster that way.

Note that you can create a separate boot loader on the 2nd HD afterward even if you use the 1st method with the "bcdboot" command. So that should be preferred. I took the 2nd route only because of a special condition. My 1st system is on a HD, while the 2nd is on an SSD. Win 7 has some special optimizations for SSD, but I found it didn't apply those optimizations when I install it from within the 1st system.

46
General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?
« on: September 10, 2009, 06:15 AM »
You could grab sqlite.exe / sqlite3.exe from here and have a look-see at what tables those files contain :)

It seems too formidable a tool for me, command line only and such, so I used Firefox's Sqlite Manager extension to open the two biggest databases instead. As far as I can tell, your guess (of SpiderOak storing checksums/hashes locally) is probably right. A screen shot of partial database structure is attached below, for your entertainment. It's only partial for that's the most I could get on one screen, but should be enough to give you some clues.
spideroak_sqlite.PNG

47
General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?
« on: September 10, 2009, 04:45 AM »
What's a good alternative to filehamster?
it crashed on my windows server 2008 64 machine, and it was a tad too pushy to get the pro version anyway...

Back to urlwolf's original issues. I'm testing FileHamster 1.7.0.3573 after learning of its new tiered versioning feature (called Dynamic Revision History in FH lingo). So far it hasn't pushed anything yet, and I can turn off the huge banner at the top even with the evaluation version, something I couldn't do the last time I tried (more than a year ago).

They also have just announced new product tiers: Basic ($29), Advanced ($79, but currently at $49), and Enterprise ($99). Not sure how they compare to the old scheme. Is Basic = old "free", and Advanced = old "plus" (was $30 or so)? Seems quite a price hike if it is. (Haven't visited their web site for a long time, so I might have remembered the old price wrong. Sorry if that's the case.)

(edit: missed "how" before "they compare" in the above paragraph.)

It's stable, no crash so far after some 40+ hours on my Windows 7 x64 machine. Time will tell.

48
General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?
« on: September 09, 2009, 09:33 PM »
One solution I could think of would be to store checksums/hashes of each block of a file locally,

Indeed that could be the case. SpiderOak maintains a huge "pandora_sqliite_database" (117 MB at the moment). In addition there are several .db files, mostly small, but the largest one--snapshot.db--is 52 MB large.

49
General Software Discussion / Re: Export TheBat -> unix MBOX format
« on: September 09, 2009, 01:15 AM »
30,000 doesn't sound like a huge no. (I've 100,000+), and I think any decent email client today should handle that amount of mail reasonably well. I did use and enjoy TheBat for a few years, and was an active participant on their mailing lists. But the promised unicode support never came, which was acceptable when I was in the U.S., not after I came back to Taiwan. I check out their newest version from time to time since I left in 2002, but it's still not materialized.

After TheBat, I moved to Becky for a short while, which I still use occasionally today. Then I took the plunge and built myself an IMAP4 email server on linux using spare hardware, a decision that has paid off handsomely. Nowadays I'm free to try any email client as I please, without being held up by any proprietary databases.

50
General Software Discussion / Re: alternative to filehamster?
« on: September 08, 2009, 08:57 PM »
Here's an alternative: 12Ghosts Backup.

Tried this one as well (v. 9.0). No unicode support.  :(

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