Recent Posts

1151

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by Darwin on April 03, 2009, 11:31 AM »

Hi! I'm from Tartu, hope everyone knows, where it is situated   
I'm a poor student, who is not very much fond of studing, prefers playing WoW and hanging around with some crazy estonian people  However, teachers at the university love me But it's all because i'm lucky to be full namesake of a great scientist 

-Jaan Tamm (April 03, 2009, 03:18 AM)

Ah... John Doe  Nice to meet you!

1152

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by Darwin on April 01, 2009, 11:44 AM »

he forum can get pretty busy so many people probably don't know how you stumbled onto the site as a new user of circle dock which was coded by Eric Wong as part of a donationcoder project, and then you proceeded to hang around *helping* others with issues they were having with the program.  that's pretty remarkable.

-mouser (April 01, 2009, 11:41 AM)

What I find remarkable is that with over 160,000 members mouser can recall these kinds of details about individual members. This is one of the "details" that makes this site so special 

1153

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by Darwin on April 01, 2009, 11:42 AM »

It's a bit late for this, but... when I saw the new thermometer for the first time I thought: ?! Did mouser close off donations already? Is this over? With 11 hours and change to go in the fundraiser, this may not be the message that DC wants to send  

1154

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PhotoFiltre - excellent raster graphics editing tool

« Last post by Darwin on April 01, 2009, 11:39 AM »

AFAICR, no, the free version does not support layers. However, it's been a long time since I tested it and I am not sure what, if any, updates have been made to the free version. As you'll note, the Studio version has moved on considerably (at least WRT release numbering  ) since my review!

1155

General Software Discussion / Re: Outlook 2003 - PST file corruption. Is it X1 ?

« Last post by Darwin on April 01, 2009, 11:37 AM »

zlatan24 - Recovery Toolbox for Outlook is not free, it's $49.95! Ironically, I downloaded and tried this software a couple of days ago because my wife needed to access a backup of her ost file on a non-Exchange computer and I was looking for ways to convert it to pst and open it. Recovery Toolbox for Outlook seems to work, but it only allows you to recover the first five items in an ost when in trial mode. In my wife's case, these five items were contacts, which is not particularly useful...

Two further points: at $49.95 this tool is easily $150 cheaper than its competitors (from my search of a few days ago) and two, a caveat, when you DO convert an ost to pst it seems to automatically insert the contents into your current pst. Thus, when I opened Outlook on my computer after running the tool, the five items from my wife's ost file showed up as new items in my inbox! I suspect that this is something that can be adjusted/controlled in the options when runninng the application, but it really shouldn't be the default behaviour. I would have thought that a pst file would be generated and that the user would be prompted for a save location and that it would then be up to the user to open the resulting pst file from within Outlook, without touching the default pst!

At any rate, I'd be interested if you are aware of a free version. I can't see it on the page you linked to, though...

1156

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PhotoFiltre - excellent raster graphics editing tool

« Last post by Darwin on March 31, 2009, 10:37 PM »

Thanks for posting that link, PhilB66 

1157

General Software Discussion / Re: When was your last BSOD? I'm betting it was a long time ago

« Last post by Darwin on March 31, 2009, 03:51 PM »

I think it's actually a testament to the stability of Windows recently that the much parodied 'classic' BSOD dates back to 9x versions.

-Eóin (March 31, 2009, 03:46 PM)

Well, overall I’d say you’re right. I *did* manage to get XP to Blue Screen on a number of occasions over my four year relationship with it but cannot say that I remember having had a BSOD on Vista (32 bit or 64 bit). Very stable.

1158

General Software Discussion / Re: When was your last BSOD? I'm betting it was a long time ago

« Last post by Darwin on March 31, 2009, 03:43 PM »

What’s a BSOD? 

1159

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: PhotoFiltre - excellent raster graphics editing tool

« Last post by Darwin on March 31, 2009, 03:35 PM »

Just to update the thread a bit, Photofiltre Studio X has been released, with the following enhancements/bug fixes (from http://www.photofilt...dio.com/evols-en.htm):

Version X / 10.0.0 (Avril 2009)

- Better compatibility with Vista
- Adding precision to 1/100 for the Gamma Correction function
- New function Save in > PngData
- Adding precision to 1/1000 for the selection ratio
- Improvement of the function Transparent gradient / layer menu (8 directions)
- New button in the layer navigator to select a layer
- Better compatibility when opening PNG images
- Adding the option Animate selection (menu Selection)
- New menu group to setting layer order (menu layer)
- Improvement of the functions Perspective correction and Horizon correction
- Bug fixing on internal clipboard
- Adding the option Hue for the layer adjustement type
- Possibility to modify the background opacity in RGBA mode
- By default the images are opened in 16M (GIF with transparency are forced in RGBA)
- Icons in 16M and big size for Vista (48x48)

FWIW I no longer use PhotoFiltre as I’m on Vista 64bit and have gone into minimalist mode WRT software installations. I *was* running PhotoFiltre 9.x under XP until a couple of months ago, but uninstalled it before passing the notebook onto my mother. I never had an problems with it!

1160

The Getting Organized Experiment of 2006 / Re: GOE - GETTING ORGANIZED EXPERIMENT - DAY 1 ASSIGNMENT

« Last post by Darwin on March 30, 2009, 04:10 PM »

Hi Terflip - the latest GOE was in 2007. Mouser is looking for interest in a new one: https://www.donation....msg152699#msg152699

1161

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by Darwin on March 29, 2009, 05:17 PM »

Holy Carp, mouser-man!

w00t!

 

1162

General Software Discussion / Re: Rambooster. Junk?

« Last post by Darwin on March 27, 2009, 07:16 PM »

Steven - 100kb would be rather insignificant even on a 512MB system - how much RAM does your system have? I’m running 2GB on my XP systems and 4GB on my Vista machine. Even my 9 year old Win2k system has 512MB RAM and my 8 year old Mac has 640MB...

1163

General Software Discussion / Re: GemX - missing in action

« Last post by Darwin on March 27, 2009, 11:56 AM »

So... anyone using Do-Organizer or TexNotes Pro regularly at the momet? If so, I’d be curious to hear how people are finding it, how support is, etc. Now that things (should) have settled down at GemX following their re-launch late last fall I’m interested in how they are doing. I am on Vista 64 so haven’t been paying much attention (because of compatibility issues), but today’s Bits Du Jour offering got me thinking about them again...

1164

General Software Discussion / Re: Application like Dialog Devil?

« Last post by Darwin on March 26, 2009, 09:45 PM »

Can't you do that with ClickOff?

-PhilB66 (March 26, 2009, 07:10 PM)

Click you... 

1165

General Software Discussion / Re: Application like Dialog Devil?

« Last post by Darwin on March 26, 2009, 03:50 PM »

Well... not free, but there is also PTFB Pro, which has similar functinonality and is highly thought of.

1166

General Software Discussion / Re: Xobni beta - Outlook Mail indexer and organizer

« Last post by Darwin on March 26, 2009, 12:23 PM »

Just got an email announcement about this from Xobni that says, in part:

Version 1.7 dramatically improves the performance and reliability of Xobni. Users will observe the following improvements:
•   Outlook now starts 31% faster*
•   Xobni Profiles now load 42% faster*
•   Users can control how often and how much data xobni indexes
•   Users can control when Xobni is running
* Users with large inboxes will experience more dramatic improvements. We made these improvements for you!

1167

General Software Discussion / Re: Xobni beta - Outlook Mail indexer and organizer

« Last post by Darwin on March 26, 2009, 12:15 PM »

Hi BigJim - that's exactly why I ditched it - over a week period or so after initial installation it really started to ramp up resource usage. The blog posts I've seen (specificlaly Lifehacker) seem to imply that these issues have been tamed.

I'd still like to hear from anyone using it before I re-install - why needlessly mess with a sold setup (when I can let somebody else bork their system first!) 

1168

General Software Discussion / Re: Xobni beta - Outlook Mail indexer and organizer

« Last post by Darwin on March 26, 2009, 10:52 AM »

Well... Xobni is now officially out of beta. I haven't used it since early last year - anyone using it regularly now and care to share insights with us?!

1169

Living Room / Re: why did i leave my previous employment, ah, now i remember (youtube vid).

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 04:03 PM »

Heh, heh - thanks for sharing that! I had a similar situation when I was younger. Not a fancy job - just stocking shevles at a grocery store, but two of the three managers were JERKS. One was a schizophrenic who went off his meds every so often. Super nice guy when medicated - Arsehole from hell when not. His behaviour got more and more erratic and paranoid as time passed and ultimately, on one occasion, he was literally "taken away". However, the grocery store was an old-fashioned ma and pop operation and his parents were friends with the owners, so he came back after a few weeks. The other guy was an alright guy as well, but took his job too seriously. But then, he was in management and I wasn't - perhaps I didnt' take mine seriously enough! I just couldn't get over the artificial levels of stress - who cares if 341 ml tins of Smedley' Broad Beans are "out"? There're six other brands on the shelf! But no... the sky was falling... But I digress.

Tangential way of saying that I empathise with you 

1170

Living Room / Re: Linux vs. Vista for an absolute beginner? (+related Vista/hardware query)

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 02:59 PM »

The specs sound pretty OK for Vista, btw. RAM might be a bit in the low end, but I don't suppose they're going to be heavy users. Run the thing through vLite and they should be OK

-f0dder (March 24, 2009, 12:22 PM)

DDR2 RAM is ridiculously cheap anyway... My two bits are to go with Vista and install a second stick of RAM, preferably 2GB. Vista Sp-1 is sweet with 3GB RAM...

1171

Living Room / Re: why did i leave my previous employment, ah, now i remember (youtube vid).

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 02:56 PM »

hmm, when i first watched that i empathised with the bloke jumping over the table, but now i think about it, i was probably more like the one getting hit by a keyboard.

-nudone (March 25, 2009, 02:23 PM)

You were the agent provocateur, or the person you couldn't stand was a jerk that beat on you?

Do tell!

1172

Living Room / Re: why did i leave my previous employment, ah, now i remember (youtube vid).

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 02:11 PM »

Not hard to see how this became your "old job", nudone! Tsk, tsk, nudone - we should not try to solve our problems with our fists  . And the property damage

 

1173

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 01:33 PM »

Hmm... I never tried sending Outlook to PSTF as it was and remains one of the icons that I always leave set to appear in the system tray. I did successfully use PSTray Factory to control evernote 2.2 though. Granted, that was PSTF version 2.3 under XP 32-bit...

If you're on Vista (are you?), as am I, I don't see much reason to bother trying to get PSTF to work. When I realised that PSTF 2.x didn't play with 64-bit OS's, I was forced to configure Vista to hide icons and found that it works really well - much better (ie more consistent and reliable) than the "Hide inactive icons" feature in XP.

Just my two-bits...

1174

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 09:18 AM »

Ah, I misunderstood what you meant by minimize to tray. That does sound basic. Out of curiosity, how did you set the applciations to minimize to tray? I don't have PS TrayFactory installed anymore so can't post screenshots of what I'm after, but there is an option to minimize apps to tray within it's options tab and I *thought* that's what you were referring to. Sounds like you simply checked the radio buttons to have your applications' icons hidden within PSTF's context menu. I should mention that for some reason the default is to have this visible on right mouse click (like a context menu), but that you can swap the mouse buttons, which is what I always did...

1175

General Software Discussion / Re: IE8 on the loose!

« Last post by Darwin on March 25, 2009, 08:30 AM »

Thanks for the screenshot, Dirhael  If I recall correctly, there was a bit of a brouhaha when 2.8 was announced and the response was that a future release would allow users (possibly users who had purchased FeedDemon in the past?) to disable the ads. I wonder if FeedDemon 3 will be such a beast...?

At any rate, the ad pane is very small, so if I AM forced (or motivated) to update in the future it shouldn't be too bad!