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1276

General Software Discussion / Re: Video player: What's the quickest (fastest/lightest)?

« Last post by J-Mac on December 17, 2009, 01:31 AM »

There's pretty much nothing that KMPlayer can't do.  But Light Alloy is significantly faster in starting up (double-click launch).

-superboyac (December 16, 2009, 07:23 PM)

KMPlayer is just awesome. When i need fast nothing is faster than hitting F3 in Total Commander.

-Innuendo (December 16, 2009, 10:29 PM)

Hmm...  I thought pressing F3 in TC was View File? Is that a custom config? Or are there features that I don't know about?

Thanks!

Jim

1277

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 16, 2009, 11:24 PM »

It is the standard approach of ACDSystems - if you report bugs they will always 'be fixed in the next version'.

-Carol Haynes (December 15, 2009, 03:26 AM)

A little bit off-topic:

Carol, Since I am looking for a new photo manager/organizer that does work on Win7 I remembered Zoner Studio. I purchased all of Zoner's products back a couple years ago when you recommended them and they were having a 90% off sale. Never used them much though since I was using ACDSee for organization and PaintShop Pro X for editing. Now I'm looking for both a photo organizer and editor, since ACDSee 2009 isn't running on my box and PSP X isn't Win7 compatible. I might just pick up the latest PSP but that's only good for editing; PSP doesn't have an organizer. They used to offer PaintShop Photo Album but it was truly terrible.

Are you using Zoner at all? I would give Lightroom a try but that will have to wait for a while; personal budget restraints.

Thanks!

Jim

1278

DcUpdater / Re: Dcuppdater.exe crashes multiple times daily in W7...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 15, 2009, 02:37 PM »

mouser,

I don't know if this could be causal, but I find multiple messages in the Event Viewer: some reference DcUpdater, while others reference DcUppdater.

I remember that at one time the app was simply named DcUpdater - with one "p"; at some point you changed that to two "p"s - DcUppdater. I think at the time you were trying to isolate a problem. Anyway now as I said, there are references to both spellings throughout.

Could that be part of the problem?

Just wonderin'   

Thanks!

Jim

PS - I'm seeing this also; a whole lot!

1279

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 15, 2009, 11:47 AM »

My first purchase was, I think, ACDSee 7. I had registration/activation problems and couldn't reach their support. Eventually after much difficulty I managed to reach someone on the phone - it took finding an employee and getting an internal number from him. Their excuse for no support response? While the company is located in Canada, their server with support info was in Miami, FL and they claimed a hurricane had knocked out their server there. (However I lived in Miami for 8 years and still have a lot of friends there - no such damaging hurricane during that time frame)

They had no support available for almost 7 months after that. I knew I was in for a real treat then.

Thank you.

Jim

1280

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 14, 2009, 10:47 PM »

Not probably - they have already told me that. Though I had to call them and hold a long time to get that tidbit.

Jim

1281

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 13, 2009, 11:51 PM »

And then there are some developers who are apparently trying but it simply isn't working. I use - or use to use up till a few days ago - ACDSee Photo Manager 2009. Worked fine on XP and Vista, but won't work for many on Windows 7.

-J-Mac (December 11, 2009, 06:24 PM)

I'm not doubting your words. However, I have personal knowledge of 8 installs of ACDSee Photo Manager 2009 on Windows 7-based computers & laptops of varying ages and none of them have anything to report other than smooth sailing.

This problem must be a very tricky one indeed to track down. I'd be lost without my ACDSee. I started using it way back in the v2.x days and the ACDSee way of doing things is too ingrained in my being to ever switch picture viewers. Every attempt to check out others results in me missing the ACDSee workflow.

-Innuendo (December 13, 2009, 10:57 AM)

It's not everyone, but check their forum to see that it's a lot. Just in case you didn't see this:

This used to show Windows 7 as a compatible OS.

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

And this is from the knowledge base.

[attachthumb=#2][/attachthumb]

Jim

1282

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 12, 2009, 03:40 PM »

Poorly programmed isn't the same as crapware.

-f0dder (December 12, 2009, 12:46 AM)

True, but when the apps I mentioned were called "poorly designed", I usually associate that with a similar term that I wanted to avoid - "sh*tware"...  so I hedged!   

Jim   

1283

General Software Discussion / Re: Video player: What's the quickest (fastest/lightest)?

« Last post by J-Mac on December 12, 2009, 12:12 AM »

VLC Player was OK - I mainly used it for certain file types that didn't seem to want to play on anything else. Then with the versions right before 1.0 it got a lot better at just about everything on my PC. But Version 1.0 iddnt work very well at all for me and I was about to abandon it altogether. But the next two versions were about perfect IMO. UI is pretty bland, I agree, but it just seems to kick ass on files that I cannot get to play elsewhere. WMP11 is fine except for that doggone DRM. I had a number of downloaded tracks from Rhapsody that were perfectly legal; while the tracks were subscription-related I still had an active subscription to Rhapsody (heavily discounted on a deal with Comcast) and therefore the tracks should have been legal for me to play. But the latest version of Rhapsody Player at the time was real buggy and so I had not yet tried reinstalling it on a freshly reinstalled XP Pro. WMP11 would not play any of the tracks, saying that I must hafve Rhapsody Player installed before playing them. Other players played them anyway, so I gave up on WMP. I don't need that kind of policing.

VLC, since their 1.0 release, can now rip/burn DVD movies, believe it or not. My only big gripe is that if I'm watching a small video - wmv or avi - and don't want to open it up full screen, it keeps reverting back to the default size even though I set it to 2x. Every time a scene would change it would jump right back to small. So now I have to use the hotkey - Ctrl+4 - to make the size 2x and stay that way throughout the video. Plus, VLC has very decent frame-by-frame features, jump ahead or back short, medium, or long times. It just does a lot that other free viewers do not. At least that I have found.

Thanks!

Jim

1284

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 11, 2009, 06:24 PM »

And then there are some developers who are apparently trying but it simply isn't working. I use - or use to use up till a few days ago - ACDSee Photo Manager 2009. Worked fine on XP and Vista, but won't work for many on Windows 7. For months ACD Systems was totally silent on the problems but recently they finally posted a warning that the program isn't working for "some users" on Windows 7. However it is certified as Windows 7 compatible by Microsoft. If you had looked at the Windows 7 Compatibility page for ACDSee just a few days ago it showed ACDSee Photo Manager 2009 as fully compatible. Yet some were claiming that the number of users who could not use it on Win7 exceeded 50%, though I don't know of any valid statistics on that. Suffice it to say that the ACDSee forums and other image software-related forums have a heck of a lot of posts about it. It seems that after installation the software runs fine the first time. Then it never runs or runs poorly and usually crashes the system every time after that. Something to do with the file locations and permissions that it uses. Microsoft says it "should" work, and indeed it does for many. But it crashes a lot of folks also.

Anyway that program stayed on the compatible list for months and was just removed yesterday or the day before. Now it shows ACDSee 10 as "Coming soon". Which means I guess that they are not going to fix whatever is causing problems in the current version. And that isn't he only developer with issues like this. So ACDSee gets by UAC because it is officially pronounced as OK, while others, mostly from private developers who can probably least afford the additional programming, get honked by UAC every time. It needs work. No one should need to either install all programs to a different drive than C:\, nor set up programs to start as scheduled tasks to get around this "annoyance".

Jim

1285

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 11, 2009, 03:58 PM »

Carol, Stoic: I didn't say I was going back to XP!! Nothing that drastic. And I am using the user account that was automatically setup for me by the system. I believe that has admin privileges when needed to elevate an app but most of the time does not use them. And I think that is indeed a great idea. About three PCs ago - which would be five or six years I guess - I was using the Administrator account. At the time I didn't realize how dangerous it was. The system - either HP Pavilion or Dell Dimension, can't remember which specifically, was preset-up that way and I didn't know enough to change it. When I did learn I started to change it but do you know how hard it is to set up a new user and then actually use it? Clean desktop, none of my apps available to me. All would need to be uninstalled/reinstalled according to their support people, so I left it like it was for another six months till I got a new 'puter.

I prefer it like it is now, though I am certain there are people who still prefer to use Admin account. Their loss, if you ask me. Inexperienced users wouldn't know how to switch and use the Admin account for the most part. UAC is supposedly aimed at such inexperienced users. Anyway, mine is now off. 

Jim

1286

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 11, 2009, 02:54 PM »

f0dder, Josh:

I can't seem to use the "quote" button here now - tells me it cannot complete verification, so anyway this is on reply to your most recent posts above:

I don't give a flying **** if those two apps are "poorly programmed" as you two call them. Chameleon Startup Manager and Everything have worked flawlessly for me since I first discovered them - here on DC as a matter of fact! They perform their respective functions exactly as promised, and are exactly what I wish to use. And the two of you are going to tell me that I'm using crapware? Bullshit!

What have they programmed so poorly? Their apps work very well. Is it that they did not add in code to satisfy the UAC program? If that is all they have done so poorly, then I can live with that. If one or both suddenly - after all the use I have given them - rip up my system, well then it's on me. I paid for this damn OS, I paid for the computer and all associated hardware connected to it. And I'll damn well run whatever I please on it, Microsoft be damned... and worse if need be! What do you suggest? That I look around and find something that might be able to replicate what those two apps can do but also made a point to go get their Microsoft Logo Certs? Not me.

Hey, I run only licensed software, I pay for every damn app I use regularly - whether by price or by donation (and I'll match my total donations to independent developers, and not just here at DC, against anyone here) - and I run my machines with licensed Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, plenty of diagnostics and system monitors, and I try to practice smart and safe computer usage. I usually customize my systems, but only within my capabilities; I don't download a lot of crap from torrent sites and cross my fingers that they aren't so dirty that they infect my refrigerator, TV, and washer and dryer, too  (  ). But I will not abandon the use of some of my favorite utilities and go buy certified ones because they fail in only one single aspect - getting by Microsoft's admitted "annoyance" alert program UAC.  Ain't happening!!

And dat's da truth...   

XXOO

Jim 

1287

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 11, 2009, 01:11 AM »

Annoying it is!

I think I might have to reinstall the damn thing. Not sure which app did this, though I suspect one of two - CloneCD from Slysoft or, believe it or not, Thunderbird 3 - but one of them borked the system something awful. Had to go into safe mode and ended up restoring a System Restore point. Decided it was probably CloneCD so I went ahead and installed T-Bird 3 again and got the same problems. Basically the system, after restarting, wouldn't go any further. Couldn't access the taskbar or anything else. Spinning thing stayed forever, and no activity according to the lights on the case. Tried bringing up the Task Manager and the screen goes dark. So, started in safe mode again, uninstalled T-Bird 3, and restarted yet again. All seemed OK except the resolution was not quite restored correctly. All icons smaller, text in all programs way too small. Resolution values are correct: 1920 x 12xx (forget exactly), but text/icons off, and I cannot get them back like they were before all this, which was just the damn default that Win7 set up. Setting text size is a percentage. I have it set at what is the claimed default, 125%, but it is still too small, and that's after logging out/in, restarting... Just can't seem to make it like it was. Damn it!

BTW, during all that stuff above, Windows performed a system repair after the first time in safe mode - that's actually when the text size got screwed up. If it were XP I'd have it sorted by now, but Win7 doesn't have everything in the same place, plus it doesn't want to let me do much of anything on my own. F**king presumptive bastards!

Do I sound a little, tiny bit pissed?   

Jim

1288

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 — first impressions

« Last post by J-Mac on December 10, 2009, 11:10 PM »

OK - only three days on Windows 7 and already I am turning UAC off. It does NOT only pop when an installer is started; it pops every time I open Everything, and many times again when I simply try to maximize Everything from the system tray. Same thing for Chameleon Startup Manager, and a few others. I tried setting them as opening with admin rights, didn't help w/the popups.

There is no reason for me to be irritated in this way. Sorry folks, I've read about as much as I can on UAC, but it's getting the fourth option here.

Jim

1289

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by J-Mac on December 10, 2009, 05:12 PM »

OK, you sound much too somber in that last post, Josh. I tried to include enough smileys to make it clear I was just..... joshin' with you!

(Pun intended!) 

Jim

1290

Living Room / Re: do you know good photo collection hosting site

« Last post by J-Mac on December 10, 2009, 03:01 AM »

Like, say, Facebook?   

Look, the more money they find in Social/Sharing behavior, the more they will push users into publicizing their content rather than keeping it private. I had it happen on LiveJournal. I had a journal set to private, they changed their settings pages and all of mine were automagically set to Public. It'll probably only get worse.

Just know what you are getting into, and that anything you ever post online is ultimately public. No getting around it, really.

Jim

1291

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by J-Mac on December 09, 2009, 09:23 PM »

People on forums who feel they need to reply to every single post in every single thread. Or in a similar instance, people who reply to every post in a post they initiate even when their input is not required.

-Josh (December 09, 2009, 05:49 PM)

I don't feel the need to post in every thread, but most of the time I will reply to posts if I initiated the thread. I usually ask for advice or assistance, and if someone gives it, I feel I should thank them - whether Josh is annoyed by that or not!!         

Jim   

1292

Living Room / Re: do you know good photo collection hosting site

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2009, 11:23 PM »

However if privacy is a concern, just forget Flickr. Your photos can be found and grabbed by anyone on the internet regardless of your privacy settings.

-J-Mac (December 04, 2009, 11:52 PM)

That's interesting, I didn't find anything about such problems back when I was first looking at Flickr .. do you have a link to any information about it?

-Jibz (December 05, 2009, 05:15 AM)

Link? No - I'm sure a simple Google search will give you that. I had problems myself. I have a lot of photos of my grandkids there, supposedly set as "private", meaning only people I designate as Friends and Family can see them. Yet I was going through them one day and found a setting where you can see if people have marked any of your photos as their "Favorites". Several of mine had been so marked, but I noticed that all of them were photos where the kids were in their underwear. So I found my way to the user's site and here it was a "restricted" site, meaning it has pictures that, well, let's just say that kids shouldn't see. I had to change my own settings just to view their pics and I found that their albums were made up entirely of sex photos - what you would call soft porn - mixed with pictures of children who are either naked or in underwear. Young kids, like age 2 to 5. I complained to Flickr - nothing. Upon investigating I found that my "private" photos were not really protected but were simply not listed in the "Explore" and similar pages. It was enough that I made sure to remove all pics of my grandchildren unless they are really very fully dressed. And I opened a SmugMug account!

Jim

1293

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2009, 10:43 PM »

This may be a bug in the Linkman installer. To install the extension (LinkmanFox.xpi) the installer reads the path value from $APPDATA\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini, [Profile0] section.

It gets a value like this: Profiles/l2qwtl3g.default

/ is replaced by \ and LinkmanFox.xpi copied to $APPDATA\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\l2qwtl3g.default\extensions.

When Firefox is (re)started it loads and installs the xpi file.

As I said on a freshly installed Windows 7 + Firefox 3.5.5, the installation works without any problems.

-Outertech Support (December 06, 2009, 10:10 PM)

This IS a freshly installed Windows 7 (an hour and a half after installing Win7), and Firefox 3.5.5.

p.s.

We have put LinkmanFox.xpi as a manual download on Outertech.com. You may try to skip the Firefox integration in the installer (uncheck the option) and then drag & drop LinkmanFox.xpi manually to the Firefox window and report if it works.

-Outertech Support (December 06, 2009, 10:10 PM)

I'll give the drag/drop method a try. BTW, I don't see the Firefox extension download anywhere on your web site....

Also, a suggestion: Listing the FF extension on the Mozilla Addons site would avoid problems like this; they review all extensions and make sure that mistakes like this are few, if any.

PS - regarding the email issues: a simple acknowledgment that you received them and are working on it - you could even use an auto-responder - would at least let users know that it is not a "server problem" that will take 3-4 months like before.

Thank you.

Jim

1294

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2009, 04:41 PM »

I received the post notification and since I'm here I might as well say something:

Linkman Pro has really become a mainstay for me! When I first purchased it at the time of the review that started this thread there were a lot of little things that gave me difficulty. Some just products of my own ignorance of how Linkman worked, but also some which were truly a problem using especially with Firefox. However at this point I can confidently say that Linkman is one of those programs that is among the very first I install on a new computer, or after a Windows reinstall. It is indispensable here.

Thanks Outertech dudes!   

Jim

-J-Mac (June 18, 2009, 11:54 PM)

Well, the last line of my post above mentions that Linkman will be one of my first apps installed on any new computer, meaning I consider it one of my top programs. I had the chance to prove that yesterday after performing a clean install of Windows 7 and ran into a major problem: The Linkman Firefox extension borked my Firefox installation somehow. After installing Linkman  - with Firefox closed so the extension could be installed - I reopened Firefox and no Linkman extension. It didn't show up, though. Every time I opened Firefox after that the Linkman extension tried to install but failed each time. Worse yet the extension installing features of Firefox also disappeared! The last several extensions I had just installed now said that they would install after restarting Firefox. Huh? Tried that several times but Firefox had dumped most of the extensions and would not install anymore. After about an hour and a half of troubleshooting I gave up and uninstalled Firefox.

Reinstalled Firefox today and all is well - though I have not tried to install the Linkman extension again.

I wrote to support about it but I don't expect any help from there. I waited more than three months last year for a reply from Outertech support and finally got a reply (Which said simply "Screenshot would help"). That was explained away by claiming "server problems". Lately, though, things don't seem to have improved: I wrote to support on November 18 and never heard a word. And yes, I capture all junk mail and check it daily. Nothing from Outertech.

Has anyone else had a problem with the Linkman Firefox extension on Windows 7? (I am using Firefox 3.5.5)

Thanks.

Jim

1295

General Software Discussion / Re: Forte Agent reaches 6.0, now with "hide quoted text"

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2009, 02:00 AM »

I've used Forte Agent Pro for years, but I didn't upgrade this time. I just found I rarely open it anymore. Too easy to find just about all I need without going to Usenet anymore. A shame, really, because their product hasn't fallen behind; the way things are oganized on the web now is just different enough to make Agent unnecessary IMO. Still great at what it does though.

Thanks!

Jim

1296

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Babylon 7 - Free 1 Year Subscription ( $ 60 Value ) ( key valid for V8 too )

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2009, 01:47 AM »

I attended Berlitz classes when I moved to Miami - figured I would get a lot of opportunities to practice there. Which was true to an extent, however a lot of the Cuban folk didn't want me to speak Spanish to them - they had worked hard for the opposite: to learn English - and didn't want people to feel they had to learn Spanish to speak with them. Kinda weird, but I did learn a lot.

Unfortunately we lost our house around us in Andrew back in 1992 and moved back to Pennsylvania after 8 yrs down there. And in Pennsylvania there are only three persons who speak Spanish: my high school teachers for Spanish I, II, & III respectively, so I don't get much opportunity to polish up my Spanish.  Now I can hardly speak it anymore...   

Jim

1297

Living Room / Re: Google Wants to Speed Up the Web: Launches Its Own DNS Service

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2009, 01:39 AM »

I haven't looked at it or read anything else about it yet, but no doubt Google has added their own error referral page for misspelled URLs, like all the others.

Jim

1298

Living Room / Re: do you know good photo collection hosting site

« Last post by J-Mac on December 04, 2009, 11:52 PM »

Really depends on your needs. What are you looking for? If pure sharing is your goal, Flickr is definitely the most ubiquitous site for this. Everyone has heard of it and Flickr has the most users of that ilk.

However if privacy is a concern, just forget Flickr. Your photos can be found and grabbed by anyone on the internet regardless of your privacy settings. Smugmug is the best with privacy I have found. However SmugMug is also considerably more expensive. Photobucket is another possibility. Easy to use, very easy to link to images from there for a blog, etc. And Photobucket, like Flickr, has nice pricing.

Hope this helps!

Jim

1299

General Software Discussion / Re: a Privacy policy "as amended from time to time" - huh?

« Last post by J-Mac on December 01, 2009, 03:22 AM »

This is exactly why I paid a measly $9.95 for a Spamex account!

Jim

1300

What's the Best? / Re: What's the best Journal (Diary) software?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 30, 2009, 12:47 PM »

It's definitely different- seems like he's going for a more standard commercial view.  But yeah- I like J4's appearance.

-wraith808 (November 30, 2009, 10:35 AM)

The worst thing is that...  Not much else changed! No real improvements in functionality, other than your journal volumes can now exceed 2 GB in size.

No improvements in placing images within text columns; same old clunky (IMO) organization structure... I could have just stayed with TJ4 and been none the worse off.

Jim