Recent Posts

1251

General Software Discussion / Re: BeyondCompare 3 Released

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 07, 2008, 06:18 PM »

I still have version 2 installed. Anyone know if there is a plugin for version 3 to add the same shell features as version 2 ?

-Carol Haynes (August 07, 2008, 04:26 PM)

Are you talking about the explorer context menu getting the "Select left side to compare..." and "Compare to xyz" items?

If so, go in the BC3 Options panel in the Startup category.  There's an "Explorer integration" area in the bottom half.

1252

Living Room / Re: Why is all audio on websites so freakin loud?!

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 06, 2008, 11:35 PM »

Just an FYI on IndieVolume - the developer has returned.  He's posted an update version 3.0.71.137 that so far has the major improvement for me of not crashing when Flash spits out some audio.  The new release still has some issues (particularly with attempting to mute applications), but as far as I'm concerned this update makes it usable for my purposes.

http://www.indievolu...olume.3.0.71.137.zip

1253

Official Announcements / Re: August 2008 Discounts

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 06, 2008, 05:21 PM »

Which once again makes it cheaper to buy a new license (pro) than to upgrade .. guess that will be my 3rd one then.

-Jibz (August 06, 2008, 09:39 AM)

Note that the DC discount is stackable with the upgrade - you can upgrade from BC2 to BC3 Pro for $21 (or upgrade to BC3 Standard for $9 I suppose).

1254

General Software Discussion / Re: BeyondCompare 3 Released

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 06, 2008, 04:34 PM »

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

-mwang (August 05, 2008, 10:30 PM)

Just applied the upgrade and DC discounts to the Pro version and it worked fine.

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

Hey - thanks to Carl for arranging the discount, to mwang for suggesting that both discounts might be stackable and Carol for verifying that!

An upgrade to BC3 Pro for $21 is a nice deal.

1255

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: InstallSafe $7.50

« Last post by mwb1100 on August 04, 2008, 01:30 PM »

The outfit selling InstallSafe (Cadence Data Soft) also had a different product (Network Copy Protection) sold on BDJ back in February '08:  http://www.bitsdujou...copy-protection-102/

Back then their website worked only in IE - trying to access it with Firefox or Opera resulted in a blank page.   Now they have nothing but a '"Coming soon..." page.  An outfit that can't even get their website to a basic level of functionality is one I would not consider risking even a measly $7.50 on.

1256

General Software Discussion / Re: Dumb question re Website Watcher

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 30, 2008, 04:33 PM »

so maybe the program itself would tell me that the license was about to expire? I don't know.

-Curt (July 30, 2008, 09:14 AM)

Heh - when installed it does initially have a configuration that monitors the update announcement webpage.  I also missed out on the most recent update by one day - I knew of the update from when it was posted, but just didn't get around to downloading it.  When I went to try, I found that my subscription had expired the day before.

Oh well - I'm not sure how important the update is.  At some point I'll look to see if the paid upgrade will be worthwhile.

edit: removed reference to BitsDuJour - turns out I didn't buy it through BDJ

1257

Living Room / Re: Anyone Here Using a Drobo?

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 19, 2008, 04:38 PM »

I wonder if the first recursive acronym is GNU (GNU's Not Unix) which Stallman came up with in the mid-eighties.  Anybody aware of an earlier one?

1258

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt 6.0 released

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 18, 2008, 09:19 AM »

There's TCExplorer, which is a regular, user-mode application that opens container files

-mwb1100 (July 18, 2008, 12:24 AM)

This is a year old, and TC has introduced a whole new way of encoding its containers. I can't imagine that it works on containers that have been upgraded to work with TC 5 (let alone 6).

-CWuestefeld (July 18, 2008, 05:25 AM)

Looks like you're right - only TC 4 containers are supported.  There's some indication that the developers might be updating the support, but it's unclear to me how much interest there really is:

 http://sourceforge.n...&forum_id=705177

1259

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt 6.0 released

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 18, 2008, 12:24 AM »

Does anyone know of an application like this which allows encrypted drives to be transported and opened on a system via a thumb drive?

-Josh (July 17, 2008, 07:05 PM)

There's TCExplorer, which is a regular, user-mode application that opens container files (FAT only) similar to the way zip utilities deal with zip files as containers.

http://www.codeproje...iles/TCExplorer.aspx
http://sourceforge.n...projects/tcexplorer/

A couple caveats:

• I have not tried this software
• when using files inside a TC container with this utility, the file will be copied to a temp directory (on the same drive as the container, I think) - take whatever precautions you might feel necessary to ensure the data is not recoverable when you remove the container

1260

General Software Discussion / Re: Anyone Know of a Multi-Monitor Simulator for Software Testing?

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 14, 2008, 10:28 AM »

SplitView does this (note - I have not tried this software), but it's not free  - $40:

http://www.splitview...iew-Personal-Edition

1261

General Software Discussion / Re: TrueCrypt 6.0 released

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 08, 2008, 09:04 PM »

Spiffy encryption widgets make you look interesting enough to poke around a bit, if that turns up anything your screwed. The first two guys you talk to, won't be that (IT) bright ... But the third guy that shows up...

-Stoic Joker (July 08, 2008, 06:57 PM)

While it may be true that using encryption makes you look interesting to customs (or whatever agency you're dealing with), it really shouldn't be.  I use encryption on my portable devices simply because the device could get lost or stolen and I don't want to have whoever might be on the receiving end to get access to that data (some of which isn't even mine - it belongs to my employer).  I'd hope that this would be the more usual case, but given the news stories that pop up about lost/stolen devices with sensitive data it seems that this is not true (yet).

1262

General Software Discussion / Re: Extract files from a .pst file

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 08, 2008, 01:11 PM »

Apparently, Outlook express won't touch it and now I'm stuck for a solution.

-Edvard (July 08, 2008, 11:56 AM)

You need Outlook - which is completely different from Outlook Express.  If you have Office, you might already have Outlook (it's in some of the Office Suites, but not all of them).  If you don't have it, installing a 60 day trial should enable you to get the documents you want.  Note that MS does not seem to have a trial for Outlook itself - they want you to trial Office 2007 Pro to trial Outlook, so I'm not sure what it'll do for any Office applications you might already have installed.  I suppose you should be prepared to reinstall them after you uninstall the trial, if that's the route you take:

http://us1.trymicros...ro&culture=en-US

Of course there are 3rd party tools to deal with PST files (as EDOlsson suggested), but I have no experience with them.

1263

General Software Discussion / Re: Using URL-catching technology to save lives

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 02, 2008, 08:51 PM »

Mmmm, can you explain why the site has a search box for a webring that lists the best drinks and drinking sites?

-Lashiec (July 02, 2008, 08:04 PM)

Well, FWIW the name of the group is Underage Drinkers Against Drunk Driving, so apparently they're all for the drinking part, just not the drunk driving part.

1264

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Jungle Disk Mini-Review: offsite data storage

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 02, 2008, 07:43 PM »

lWill probably get Jungle Disk anyway cause I think it allows SFFS to use partial file update
Also, it's great to be able to browse your backups & keep an overview and have it all so accessible

-tomos (July 02, 2008, 04:07 PM)

I'm not sure whether or not JungleDisk will allow SFFS partial file update to work (but it might). Usually partial file update requires some corresponding software running on the server, but maybe SFFS can get around this somehow by keeping a database on the local machine.

What I do know is that with JD Plus you get partial file update automatically (but JD Plus is an additional 1.00 per month).  JD Plus runs the server component on the Amazon EC2 service, so the local JD software communicates to the JD Plus server (and you pay for that bandwidth, which should never be more than what you'd pay to directly store or retrieve a file directly from S3).  The JD Plus server then deals with the S3 storage, but Amazon does not charge transaction or bandwidth fees for EC2 access to S3.

1265

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Jungle Disk Mini-Review: offsite data storage

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 02, 2008, 12:12 PM »

my question is
Anyone in Europe using American storage for S3 ?

-tomos (July 02, 2008, 10:58 AM)

I'd suggest doing some research before using the European S3 servers with JungleDisk (on the JD website/forums).  I know that Euro S3 servers were not supported initially, and I believe that there are still some items that are not supported (I think that JD Plus currently does not support the European servers).

1266

Living Room / Re: Evernote Icon - what the heck is it? Anyone actually like version 3 ?

« Last post by mwb1100 on July 01, 2008, 03:53 PM »

The splodge is an elephant, they never forget.

-Grorgy (July 01, 2008, 07:44 AM)

Seriously funny .... I want to save a note so where is the elephant?

Why not ...

-Carol Haynes (July 01, 2008, 07:46 AM)

Getting way off topic - the elephant icon reminds me of my favorite old floppy disc marketing from way back when:



http://home.comcast..../~kevin_d_clark/ems/

1267

General Software Discussion / Re: Can't install Comodo... winzip error - need help

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 27, 2008, 04:05 PM »

Mouser is right that you have the 64 bit version (which is for 64 bit XP or Vista).  In all likelihood you simply need to download the 32 bit version (which is for 32 bit XP or Vista).

On Comodo's download page they have a large button to download the 32 bit version and a simple link to download the 64-bit version - you want the big button.

1268

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 27, 2008, 02:16 PM »

However, remember that not any SSL certificate is considered acceptable for the purposes of code signing.  The certificates accepted for code signing are different from the certificates that browsers accept for SSL.

As far as I know, there are no free code signing certs.

1269

Developer's Corner / Re: Digital Signature to verify Publisher...

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 26, 2008, 11:48 PM »

I've never actually done it myself, but have worked at companies that signed their code - apparently it's a little complex getting set up, but once you have the scripts and certificates in place it's all basically automatic.

You can get started and test things using tools in Microsoft's SDKs:

http://msdn.microsof...aa379872(VS.85).aspx

But to sign code for public release, you need to purchase an official code signing certificate, which apparently costs at least $80/year:

http://www.wintellec...han-you-thought.aspx

1270

General Software Discussion / Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 17, 2008, 12:06 PM »

To me it sounds a lot like "we will pay you more if we can all agree to pretend we never did anything wrong".

-mouser (June 17, 2008, 09:05 AM)

I think it's more because such an admission would open them to potentially more liability (maybe even criminal).  And if the 'disclaimer' were not part of the settlement, the settlement itself could be used as implicating evidence.  I think the worth of those disclaimers in terms or PR is pretty much zero.  They are strictly a legal necessity (for want of a better word).

1271

General Software Discussion / Re: IDEA: CD-RW/DVD-RW emulated drive?

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 12, 2008, 04:54 PM »

What I don't really understand is why the same company produce two competing products (they also sell VirtualCD)

-Carol Haynes (June 12, 2008, 04:29 PM)

You know, I read the article (or at least scanned it) and didn't clue in to that fact. 

1272

General Software Discussion / Re: IDEA: CD-RW/DVD-RW emulated drive?

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 12, 2008, 03:47 PM »

I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by a CD/DVVD writer emulator.

-xtabber (June 12, 2008, 02:50 PM)

The idea is that there are some applications like iTunes or Media Player that have a built-in burn to CD function, but do not contain an option to write to an image.  So, for example, if you want to convert some of your songs purchased in the iTunes store to MP3 you could burn the song to a CD then rip the CD to MP3's.  If you have a virtual CD writer you can save time and discs.

1273

General Software Discussion / Re: IDEA: CD-RW/DVD-RW emulated drive?

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 12, 2008, 11:54 AM »

Interesting find.  There's also VirtualCD which claims to support a virtual CD/DVD burner function and it has been avaiable for a while (though I have not tried it):

http://www.virtualcd-online.com/

However, it does not claim to be able to support BlueRay or DVD-HD.

1274

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Take Command v9 New $20 off, Upgrade $10 off,TC/LE $10 off

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 12, 2008, 10:18 AM »

For my needs, all I've ever really looked for in a command line tool is the ability to do things like paste the contents of my clipboard at the cmd prompt (I can't believe MS didn't allow this in Windows command line through XP - no idea about Vista. At least it's available in PowerShell)

-Darwin (June 12, 2008, 09:07 AM)

A mouse right-click will paste in cmd.exe, but you have to have the "QuickEdit Mode" option selected in the Command Prompt Properties (it's on the Options tab) selected.  That option has been available since at least Win2K, but was off by default then.  I thought that the option was on by default in WinXP, but I could be wrong.

What you get with QuickEdit mode:

• left mouse click lets you select text by dragging
• right mouse click copies to the clipboard if there's a selection, otherwise it pastes what's in the clipboard

1275

General Software Discussion / Re: Interesting Approach by the Profiteering Malware Author

« Last post by mwb1100 on June 11, 2008, 07:09 PM »

Maybe if the FBI or some other 'three letter agency' were to get infected...  I think this scheme would be 'broken' in short order.

-mwb1100 (June 11, 2008, 06:51 PM)

The RC4 perhaps, but from a conspiracy theorist's point of view, were the government capable of breaking 1024 bit RSA in short order, it would be in their best interests, regardless of whatever information was encrypted, to keep that fact a secret.

-Ehtyar (June 11, 2008, 06:59 PM)

I meant more from the point of view of being able to track down the blackmailer and using old fashioned methods of getting the key.