Recent Posts

1151

General Software Discussion / Re: Trying to switch to Opera: Need help, tips

« Last post by Dormouse on March 01, 2011, 04:26 PM »

I use Lastpass and AdMuncher (not free). Both work fine on Opera, or any other browser I fire up.

1152

General Software Discussion / Re: Software to share To-Do lists?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2011, 11:59 AM »

Does what you ask.

And a whole host of other things, should you ever need/want them.

Abstractspoon's ToDoList2

1153

General Software Discussion / Re: SpiderPlayer Pro Becomes Free

« Last post by Dormouse on February 13, 2011, 04:01 PM »

Very sad as it is my favourite music player.

The developer stopped developing it once before (felt he had added all the features that it wanted/needed), but then started developing it again. Was on BitsDuJour on 18th Nov, and I got my last update at the end of December, so this looks like a recent, sudden decision.

OTOH, it works very well at what it does & I can understand him wanting to leave it as it is. And the free version was always very functional, and the Pro version very cheap, so I assume he never made much money from it. Or even seemed to want to make money from it. I'm quite happy carrying on with it just as I am.

1154

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by Dormouse on January 17, 2011, 05:19 AM »

and v4 (Part 1) pre-release beta is now out! 

Details HERE

1155

Living Room / Re: R.I.P. MySpace

« Last post by Dormouse on January 12, 2011, 11:04 AM »

Like the guy who won and lost $100K in a poker game, it must be incredibly depressing to live with the certain knowledge you HAD it -and totally blew it.

-40hz (January 12, 2011, 08:23 AM)

I don't know. They had it - and they sold it (for a pretty good price, given that they were already losing out to Facebook).

It's Murdoch taking the loss (& the responsibility for its decline). 

1156

Developer's Corner / Re: "competitive upgrade" - is it ethical?

« Last post by Dormouse on January 11, 2011, 04:32 PM »

You have to realise that people who have bought a competing product are a group of potential customers who have particular characteristics:

• they have already spent money on this type of product and spending the same again may be a step too far
• but this investment shows that they have a real interest/need for your type of product and may well be serial upgraders if you can get them and keep them happy
• if they have even just looked at your offer, you know they are at least somewhat dissatisfied with what they have

And the reason you offer upgrade deals anyway is because people in general are very unhappy about paying the full price on a regular basis. I can certainly see why competitive upgrade offers are seen as being a good strategy.

And there are swathes of the IT industry where attracting other vendors customers is the only game in town.

I also think it is B/S to think that this works better for larger vendors. Software usually has a relatively limited maintenance cost per customer, so each sale is pure extra money unless a discount just reduces the price for a sale that would be made anyway. My guess is that customers of other companies will relatively rarely want to buy your product at full price (unless it is a low price area where some people (naming no names) are happy to build up a whole collection of licenses). BDJ type sales may lose a few full price sales, especially for companies that do them regularly, but I think it would be very rare for this to be the case with competitive upgrades.

1157

Living Room / Re: Why I love product reviews....written by NON-TECHS

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2011, 09:32 PM »

This guy rocks - Ken Rockwell.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/

His reviews are fantastic. But he's RARE. There are not many people like that out there. He's the sort of person that you want to read reviews from.

-Renegade (January 10, 2011, 08:36 PM)

You do need to understand his biases though.

1158

Living Room / Re: Are You Ready to Switch to GNU/Linux?

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2011, 09:28 PM »

This is an area where English is simply deficient and Chinese excels. Where a single pronunciation and spelling in English is ambiguous, Chinese characters differ and make the exact meaning clear. We really need to be verbose at times in English in order to not send the wrong message.

-Renegade (January 10, 2011, 08:10 PM)

 

You then go on to give some examples that clarify the meaning rather than using the word "free".

As a constantly evolving and highly flexible language(s), English gives a vast range of options to its speakers. Ranging from words that define meaning precisely, to usages rich in allusion or insinuation, to usages (frequently colloquial) that almost seems designed to allow the maximum range of meanings to be eked from limited vocabularies. Precise meaning can come from the individual word or word groups or can arise from the context.

The whole "free" thing arises from people enjoying the word play the word 'free' offers.

Admittedly, it also seems to have been deliberately misused in this thread to imply things that were never meant. "Free market" and "free speech" are usages where the meaning is defined in the specific word pair rather than the word 'free'  as an adjective. Just as there is a misuse of the concept of 0 in an equation. Simply people having fun, I assumed.

1159

General Software Discussion / Re: Your most used SPECIAL programs

« Last post by Dormouse on January 05, 2011, 11:58 AM »

From what I have read (I've not tried it) Outline 4D seems to be aimed at screen writers. I did also note a comment somewhere that it was basically a 2005 program that hadn't been updated since (except for something very marginal) and was freshened up by being given a new name - but still the same program underneath. Not really a problem,, I suppose, if it is already as good as it needs to be.

1160

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your preferred server OS for home use? And Why?

« Last post by Dormouse on January 05, 2011, 11:50 AM »

I've had a NAS for many years. Set up with hardware based RAID. I've also used backup programs for many years.

Increasingly, though, I have become concerned about how much security they really bring. I've not had a failure with either (yet); at least, that I know about. And it is knowing about it that I really want to do. A backup is always a worry unless you check every time that it has everything and you can read it. I'm now much happier just syncing all my data files, and periodically copying them in their entirety to other drives/places (with copies of various stuff in places on the net). It is very easy to copy TrueCrypt volumes too. It means I can check or use either set of files in normal use; I always sync in one direction only (feeling that gives me a bit of extra protection against something going wrong), so I have to remember to save everything on to one drive only, but that is not a problem. I also image my OS/App drive regularly. I know most of them are OK because I do check from time to time, and I can always rebuild from scratch if necessary anyway.

And my NAS? Well, when I get around to it I will just copy everything off it, reformat it without RAID and use it as separate drives. I just don't see that RAID is bringing me anything I need right now. With the current price and speed of usb3/sata3 drives & SSDs, it seems best to just add them as I need them.

PS I voted for FreeNAS, because that is all I would use a home server for. If I wanted a real server, I'd go Linux. Much more familiar with Linux servers than Windows Servers.

1161

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PDF to EPUB $39.95 -> $00.00

« Last post by Dormouse on December 30, 2010, 07:15 AM »

I'll be interested to know what you make of it.

Mixed info HERE at least by the end of the thread.

1162

Living Room / Re: Not backing up will cost you!

« Last post by Dormouse on December 25, 2010, 06:47 PM »

I have to agree with all the concerns about using RAID; reflects my own thinking. I still have a NAS set up with RAID. I'm not especially anxious about it as I have everything duplicated elsewhere (& not had any problems with it so far) but redoing it without RAID is on my list of things to do. I feel that multiple copies, in multiple places is the best way to be sure you don't lose all access to your data.

1163

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Image-Line FL Studio 50% OFF

« Last post by Dormouse on December 25, 2010, 06:39 PM »

I've also seen it pointed out that the free updates have pushed them to sell a lot of plug-ins that they might otherwise have bundled, putting them into competition with plug-in developers. Which may, or may not, be a good thing. You could think that it might also lead them to put more effort into plug-ins rather than the central product. I'm all in favour of lifetime licenses, but they aren't viable for all vendors in all markets; and I think that this is one of the markets where it's not viable. Very competitive, still developing fast.

An interesting comparison in this market is with Reaper. A very transparent and fair license system (eg the current very fair and explicit pricing for their impending new version giving new customers a chance to buy now or wait); a fully functioning 30-day trial (unlike FL which only offers a demo) that never actually expires (though I daresay they might consider changing this if they thought it was really hampering the development of their product and community). And still much cheaper even than the discounted FL prices for a more comprehensive and faster developing DAW (except for commercial licenses).

OTOH, there are some things that FL does well, and this is an attractive price for it and it can be used in another DAW just for those things. Just under a week to think about it; hmmm ...

1164

Circle Dock / Re: uninstalling?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 24, 2010, 04:21 AM »

Unless, you have the original version (ie the one currently available).
This version doesn't install and you can simply delete the folder(s) and it will be completely gone.

1165

General Software Discussion / Re: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 18, 2010, 09:42 AM »

AFAICT, by paying $9.95 for the first year, I am entitled to use Roboform Everywhere on any machine/USB thumbdrive but standalone (IE not sync'd to the cloud) installations are $20 a pop to upgrade from 6 to 7? Seems like a no brainer to me, from a dollars and cents perspective, but it also seems too good to be true.

-Darwin (December 18, 2010, 08:44 AM)

I'm not sure why you feel $9.95 in first year and $19.95 annually thereafter is too good to be true.

1166

General Software Discussion / Re: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 17, 2010, 08:35 AM »

There's no temptation for me to upgrade since I haven't used it in quite a while.
They are probably having to get a lot more out of each active user/customer now since I suspect the number of users has dropped a lot since the coming of Lastpass.

1167

General Software Discussion / Re: Liquid Story Binder: Excellent

« Last post by Dormouse on December 10, 2010, 08:30 AM »

I used to own a copy of LSB some time ago. I got it as a free one-day promo from the GOTD website. Unfortunately, I didn't realize the license was only for that version. So when I innocently upgraded it to the new edition that came out a few weeks later, I lost the free license.

-40hz (December 10, 2010, 07:04 AM)

Actually, iirc, the GOTD promo also gave a lifetime license. He changed the license code system soon after and you had to send an email to get a new code. Really good guy and deserves the support from people buying the prog.

1168

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to create a video cd/dvd on a windows machine?

« Last post by Dormouse on December 09, 2010, 03:03 AM »

Personally, I use Scenalyzer Live for transferring DV to the computer - nothing comes close to the ease with which this program works.  If you use MiniDV at a consumer level then quite frankly, I don't know how you can not use this program.  It makes the first step of choosing what to keep/remove so much easier.

-4wd (December 09, 2010, 01:00 AM)

Do you use the free or shareware version. I note that even the paid version is five years old & pre Vista & 7.

1169

Living Room / Re: Connections problem has me stumped ...

« Last post by Dormouse on December 07, 2010, 12:04 PM »

What do you use to download? Have you tried a download manager?

1170

General Software Discussion / Re: Fastest Audio Converter

« Last post by Dormouse on December 07, 2010, 11:36 AM »

If you control the whole chain, could you not record directly into mp3s?

1171

General Software Discussion / Re: Fastest Audio Converter

« Last post by Dormouse on December 07, 2010, 04:21 AM »

Today we only offer our sermon recordings as "1 sermon = 1 CD".

-Curt (December 07, 2010, 04:09 AM)

That could be a very long sermon indeed if its done as a low quality mp3 

1172

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Sagelight Image Editor - pay what you want promo (Apil 2010)

« Last post by Dormouse on December 06, 2010, 03:05 PM »

If you are concerned that v4 might never see the light of day, you could always wait for the pre=release to come out. The implication seems to be that the new pricing will only come with the actual release. OTOH, the lifetime offer could go any time.

1173

Living Room / Re: iPod - tell me why I should buy one

« Last post by Dormouse on November 17, 2010, 02:08 AM »

Phones are a bad way to go. Their batteries just don't stand up enough for media playback. Especially video.

-Renegade (November 17, 2010, 12:01 AM)

 

I carry a spare battery and & have a charger in my car. Rarely need to use either (Android phone - HTC Desire). Listen to music on it much of the day, though don't often do videos. The GPS probably drains the battery faster than anything & I use that quite a lot some days if I'm not in my own car. The saving of weight & number of gadgets to carry is well worthwhile. Calls automatically interrupting/resuming the music is a good bonus which saves extra faffing around. I wish I'd done this earlier.

1174

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the best The BAT! version?

« Last post by Dormouse on November 09, 2010, 01:20 PM »

For me, there is nothing better nor worse with the version that I use to 4.0.34

1175

General Software Discussion / Re: What's the best The BAT! version?

« Last post by Dormouse on November 08, 2010, 02:34 PM »

I knew that posting about Outlook would be controversial ...  So be it! I like Outlook 

-Darwin (November 08, 2010, 08:03 AM)

I don't know about controversial, just something I've never quite been able to understand. And you are in good company, because Carol also likes it, IIRC. For me, it has always caused headaches or frustrations on a reasonably regular basis which other progs haven't. But, if that's not your experience, then it certainly makes sense to use something you have already installed. And if you LOVE it, you won't want to be without it anyway - for better or worse