Recent Posts

1101

General Software Discussion / Re: what kind of keyboard you use?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 09:10 PM »

Right now I use MS Natural Keyboard Multimedia. It was the only ergonomic keyboard I could find in any store. 

-wr975 (March 28, 2006, 03:04 PM)

Ever heard of online shopping?

Good: Ergonomic layout, quite large, heavy. Bad: F-lock keys (thanks someone made a registry patch), layout for home, end, del,...  Don't use the multimedia keys at all.

I'm using the Logitech Cordless Desktop Comfort (see photo below), your hands deserve a comfort/natural keyboard!
Good: ergonomic layout, good to type on
Bad: heavy (I like to put it aside and grab it again often)

The layout for Home, End, Del etc. isn't the standard one here neither, but I got used to it, no more problems.

1102

Screenshot Captor / Re: capture a menu and sub-menu

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 09:00 PM »

If you want to capture something like...

...the timer option is helpful too!

1103

General Software Discussion / Re: Why subscription-models for software suck

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:45 PM »

In his blog, Jan Goyvaerts discussed this briefly (most of the post is about his EULA, which is rather progressive itself).

I ’m also happy to promise free bugfix releases. They’re essential to keeping customers happy anyway, not to mention keeping them recommending our products to everybody they know. Fixing bugs costs time and money, but not nearly as much as acquiring new customers through means other than word-of-mouth. And those new customers would just be as dissappointed about the same bugs. Yes, it does happen that we can’t resolve a problem. For those situations, there’s my personal money-back guarantee.

-allen (March 28, 2006, 11:51 AM)

That is so true! It still amazes me to see how little some coders/companies focus on fixing bugs...

1104

Living Room / Re: DNA: do you really want to know?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:41 PM »

I'd read about these services a few years back in Wired -- the one thing that really sparked my interest was mention of a specific gene -- if you don't have it, you can't/won't get lung cancer -- period.  As a happy smoker, I'd be curious to know if I was/wasn't prone to cancer.

Before anyone says anything, I know -- "if you're worried, quit, then it doesn't matter" -- but I doubt knowing would change my behavior, it's more a matter of morbid curiosity

-allen (March 28, 2006, 12:00 PM)

Well, if you really are the guy from your avatar you *are* one of those who has to go down smoking 

1105

Living Room / Re: Living for 41 hours in Wal-Mart

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:39 PM »

Cool idea, anti-climactic in his delivery.  He should have stuck it out until told to leave.  It's a 24/7 store, he was purchasing the merch he took -- it was all legal.  You need more than 40 hours to make for anything truly interesting, I think.

-allen (March 28, 2006, 12:09 PM)

Exactly... that Japanese guy that stayed for 48 hours in that 24/7 restaurant (never got to the check-out where he SHOULD have paid) before thrown out was more funny

1106

Living Room / Re: what happened to "Old Requests"?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:33 PM »

Here it is: https://www.donation...index.php?board=37.0

Maybe mouser could rename "Fulfilled Requests" to "Fulfilled and Old Requests" to make it more obvious?

1107

General Software Discussion / Re: Alertbear - the *different* RSS reader - free!

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:30 PM »

While I do believe I have a good idea of how AlertBear works, I should certainly try it out first before judging it, which, admittedly, I have not done yet.

-moerl (March 28, 2006, 10:13 AM)

"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Lets see how many DC users act and try it for a few days

1108

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Startup Delayer

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:26 PM »

So what's the consensus on this one.. is this REALLY useful? And why?

-moerl (March 28, 2006, 11:56 AM)

That question is kinda funny IMHO

I love it, it's great to delay the start of the programs in your startup folders. Every pro DC user probably has more than a dozen there, Startup Delayer is perfect to delay the startup of the non-vital entries, so you are able to use Windows faster after you start it up.

1109

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Why Miranda might blow you away (do you use IRC, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, Google.talk..

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 08:19 PM »

yeah, you know, I don't think I have access to do this from work.  I think they've blocked off any kind of chatting.

-superboyac (March 28, 2006, 12:29 PM)

If you are working for a big employer there's a chance they are not only trying to block it but also recording every single key stroke for profiling purposes - in that case you only should use Miranda at home.

1110

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Why Miranda might blow you away (do you use IRC, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, Google.talk..

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 11:15 AM »

I think you just need to read http://bluescreenofdeath.co.uk/Miranda/ - that has the link to the server-list (that you don't seem to have installed yet) and other hints for setting Miranda up for IRC.

If that doesn't help, scream for more help!

1111

General Software Discussion / Re: Alertbear - the *different* RSS reader - free!

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 10:10 AM »

That brings me to what I identified as AlertBear's main problem: if the idea behind it is to have a constantly updated river of news, what happens when you spend a whole day out? You miss all the news of the day! And even if you're thinking of being able to PAUSE the news stream in AlertBear and then press PLAY when you return, just imagine how many bubbles you would end up with with AlertBear if it had to display all the news of one day at once... on the other hand, AlertBear may really cut down the time you spend on RSS daily in general with the River of News concept.

-moerl (March 28, 2006, 07:11 AM)

Alertbear doesn't work like that, there's no PAUSE button. But you can bring up the stack (see screenshot in the first post above) at any time (by assigning a keyboard hotkey or by clicking the tray icon) to scroll 'back and forth in time'.

The tray icon also offers a "show history" entry, which will bring you to a more standard (old-fashioned) interface where you can sort and filter the feeds. Anyone vaguely into RSS feeds should really install and try it for 3 days, then you'll get a *real* idea about it!

1112

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Tweak Tool?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 05:58 AM »

I just wrote up this fat and great post about this... and then Opera crash-closes on me on spell-check. OMFG. I could KILL someone right now.

-moerl (March 28, 2006, 12:30 AM)

Like mouser, I made it a habit to always copy big texts to the clipboard whenever I type more than just a few lines. Very helpful. Google Mail does automatically save the text you type every x seconds (saving the email as a draft), lets see when the forums start to copy this helpful feature.

I'm looking for the best Windows tweaking tool. I used to think that's X-Setup Pro, but there are several annoying this about it. A brief list:

Those aren't that annoying, http://fileforum.bet...etup_Pro/933525917/1 is probably still the best choice for pro users.

I'm familiar with TuneUp Utilities 2006 as well. Most of you must have heard of it before. While it's great for what it does, it's pretty obvious its target user audience are clueless computer users who find themselves right at home with the pretty colors and nice icons and the easy interface. It's Windows tweaking--the Fisherprice way.

Hehe, nice description

1113

Living Room / Re: DNA: do you really want to know?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 05:05 AM »

(467 words/2254 characters)

-brotherS (March 28, 2006, 04:55 AM)

Good idea, to display the size of the article! I wouldn't think of it

-jgpaiva (March 28, 2006, 04:58 AM)

Thanks I never like it to stumble over an interesting topic, open the page - only to find out it'd take 30 minutes to read while I have little time right now.

1114

Living Room / DNA: do you really want to know?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 04:55 AM »

Here's the thing: You pay anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars for a genetic test, but what you're really buying is a sense of control. You want to know your dread future and prepare for it - or even prevent it. But with most big genetic scares, like a predisposition for colon cancer, heart problems, or diabetes, what will the doctors tell you? Eat better, stop smoking, get more exercise. You don't need the Delphic Oracle to figure that out.

From an article over at http://www.wired.com....04/start.html?pg=10 (467 words/2254 characters)

1115

General Software Discussion / Re: Alertbear - the *different* RSS reader - free!

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 04:35 AM »

Please discuss "GreatNews vs. FeedDemon" in https://www.donation...ndex.php?topic=502.0

Thanks

1116

General Software Discussion / Re: Best Registry Cleaner?

« Last post by brotherS on March 28, 2006, 01:18 AM »

https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1188.0

1117

General Software Discussion / Re: Alertbear - the *different* RSS reader - free!

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 03:50 PM »

And I think it runs a bit heavy on its own - 35mb at the moment on my system.

-m_s (March 27, 2006, 03:21 PM)

Oh? Less than 5 MB here...

Nice looking - particularly like the feed history panel, which is neatly arranged and simple.  But I haven't yet found a RSS reader that beats GreatNews...

Well, I already quoted them above: "We also believe that RSS is not email" - so they are using a different approach. So far, I like it.

Thanks for sharing their EULA with us! 

1118

General Software Discussion / Alertbear - the *different* RSS reader - free!

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 03:05 PM »

We believe that RSS should be usable by anyone. We also believe that RSS is not email, feeds should simply wash by, commonly called the "river of news". Alertbear takes both of these concepts and introduces The Stack:

I just installed it and it makes a great first impression already, since it's only version 1.03 yet I think it's going to get even better!

Give it a try, you don't need to know anything about RSS feeds to get started after you installed it: http://www.alertbear.com/

1119

Living Room / The Most Expensive PCs

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 02:41 PM »

Got some ~$300,000 to spend and own already 4 cars? What about a new PC?

Got some ~$800,000 to spend and your house is already big enough? What about a decadent display?

http://blog.wired.com/expensivepcs/

1120

Living Room / Re: Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music v2

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 02:19 PM »

Really a great guide!! 

1121

Living Room / Re: BitTorrent - why bother?

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 05:55 AM »

It just so happens that that slow download, however, is faster than no download -- and torrents are often the only thing I can find them in.  So it's slow or nothing   Took me over a week to download a 1 gig file.

-allen (March 27, 2006, 05:35 AM)

Reminds me of the pre-BitTorrent era, when it once took me a MONTH to download a 500 MB file... 

1122

Living Room / Re: BitTorrent - why bother?

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 04:48 AM »

Thanks for that - I have uninstalled Azureus and tried utorrent. That seems to zip along quite nicely and it is SO much less cluttered & minimalistic. Great.

-Carol Haynes (March 27, 2006, 03:59 AM)

It doesn't use Java like Azureus, so it's smaller. But it also mostly just copies the new ideas that show up in Azureus. BT newbies might prefer utorrent, I prefer to have all those options and plugins in/for Azureus.

1123

General Software Discussion / Re: Must-have apps in the System tray?

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 01:15 AM »

Free Ram XP Pro - http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/
Freeware application to free and optimize your computer's RAM (Random Access Memory), resulting in an increase in system performance and productivity. Automatically configures itself for ease of use and also features advanced options and customizability.

-scruffdaddy (March 25, 2006, 12:28 PM)

I used to believe in this tool too... now I second what has been said about it above. A better vmem config really does work better.

1124

Living Room / Re: BitTorrent - why bother?

« Last post by brotherS on March 27, 2006, 12:53 AM »

Actually I have downloaded the latest build of Azureus and am now getting decent speeds (at least some of the time, it seems very variable). Strange 'cos last time I used Azureus I wasn't esp. impressed with the speeds acheived.

I have set it up bith the basic 'beginner' settings, the only change I made in the options was to change maximum number of simultaneous downloads to 0 which seemed to bump up download speeds terrifically.

-Carol Haynes (March 26, 2006, 05:04 PM)

Using Azureus was a good choice, but setting simultaneous downloads to 0 isn't. I suggest you use the "IRC" option in the plugins menu and ask for help there regarding your setup - only after you are through http://azureus.aelit..._high_download_speed of course.

Good luck! It's only a bit confusing at first 

1125

Living Room / Re: BitTorrent - why bother?

« Last post by brotherS on March 26, 2006, 01:06 PM »

It is so frustrating as I don't seem to be able to get speeds consistently above 10K/sec

[...]

Why do people rate BT technology so highly? Is it just me having this crap experience?

-Carol Haynes (March 26, 2006, 12:13 PM)

You must be doing something (very) wrong...

Please read http://azureus.aelit..._high_download_speed