Recent Posts

1301

Living Room / Re: Which is better windows mobile or android os or iphone os?

« Last post by Dormouse on March 20, 2010, 06:46 AM »

My problem with the iphone is that I will have to jailbreak it to make it useful for me,

-Musubi (March 20, 2010, 04:36 AM)

But surely this is a big problem. You can do it, but you then tie yourself into a cycle of jailbreaking, getting jailed, and jailbreaking again. A constant fight between you and Apple.

Seems to me that you either commit your fortunes (literally) to Appleness, go elsewhere or have to fight a constant guerrilla battle against the Sith.

1302

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: ABBYY Screenshot Reader 4Free

« Last post by Dormouse on March 20, 2010, 06:39 AM »

This makes it a no-no for me. I really don't like the idea of programs that disable themselves if they can't phone home. Too much scope for things going wrong.

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General Software Discussion / Re: Dell: No refunds for Linux users who reject Microsoft's OS EULA

« Last post by Dormouse on March 20, 2010, 06:34 AM »

The issue is about abuse of a monopoly.

Monopolists can and do abuse their market power by providing their product "free" (or at a price lower than the production cost) and this shuts out potentially cheaper products from the market. This is what is actually happening here. MS tries to get as much money as it can from OEMs, but knows that it needs Windows pre-installed on most machines and will charge nothing if they have to (as in netbooks when Linux had a large part of the market). OEMs will take that as it keeps people buying their machines. The people who make claims for not using Windows are doing so because they disagree with this (and because they don't use Windows, and because the licensing terms for Windows allow/force them to reject Windows but not the machine) rather than because they just want to get some money back. It is the same issue the European Union had with MS over Internet Explorer being pre-installed. Dell has to be the target for the user rather than MS because the user's contract is with Dell and not MS.

This is a well trodden path and they have usually paid up. Seems to have gone quiet for a while and now they are saying 'No'. They probably feel that there is less negative traction in the publicity now that W7 is the OS rather than Vista.

1304

Living Room / Re: Facebook urged over 'panic button'

« Last post by Dormouse on March 16, 2010, 08:21 PM »

Im 16 and I think I`ll know if a freaking pedophile tries to rape me virtually or in real life.

-RedPillow (March 16, 2010, 03:46 PM)

I think the girl in the example knew too.
But by then she was on her own with him and it was too late.

1305

Living Room / Re: Yay, Upgrade time! - Inspire me with hardware I can buy =-D

« Last post by Dormouse on March 16, 2010, 03:19 PM »

I really think you're better off spending a little more

-JavaJones (March 16, 2010, 03:01 PM)

I generally find I am better off spending a little less, or rather spending a lot less and preferably nothing at all.

The gain from not spending is always guaranteed and countable - the gains from spending are always uncertain and, with hindsight, often virtually non-existent.

1306

What's the Best? / Re: Best file archiver/compresser

« Last post by Dormouse on March 15, 2010, 09:53 PM »

May be some will uninstall 7Zip, Winrar and change to FreeArc but most will only use it when better compression is required

-Bamse (March 15, 2010, 08:34 PM)

But on the table cited on the FreeArc page, FreeArc does not have the most compression (marginally less even than WinRar) just fast compression. And they only claim themselves to have the fastest compression (to the same level of compression as the others).

1307

General Software Discussion / Re: Kaspersky IS: How to optimize speed?

« Last post by Dormouse on March 15, 2010, 10:32 AM »

I came to the end of my KIS contract a month ago (replaced with the good deal on Online Armor, having got KIS on a very good 3-year deal in the first place). Most of the time KIS did not have a significant impact on performance - but was sometimes the problem when stuff suddenly slowed. I really hated the way it would freeze the computer when updating and the way it got confused when different programs relied on different versions of the same dll/java etc. So, I can't help really - you're describing a constant problem where I had an infrequent one. OTOH, all these security programs do hit speed to some extent as they tend to filter/examine almost everything that happens. So long as you have the firewall up, you can disable almost everything else if you are on a known safe site only and not using email, and have used it to do a system scan before. That will give some idea of the maximum improvement you can expect from turning modules off and you can turn them on/off as necessary thereafter to get an idea of which ones give you the greatest hit on performance.

1308

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by Dormouse on March 12, 2010, 05:02 PM »

I was under the impression that you also get revenue just for displaying the ads? Might get more from a click-throug, though.

-f0dder (March 12, 2010, 04:24 AM)

All depends on the ad and the contract you have with the advertiser, agency, Google.

Most consumers have unlimited internet plans, these days - and the size of an ad is hopefully going to be just a fraction of the content you want to view.

-f0dder (March 12, 2010, 04:24 AM)

Not sure about the % of users, but most plans I see here are capped, not unlimited - and most ISPs throttle unlimited plans anyway, and most users have limited speeds (especially if the connection is being shared with a whole family), so I don't see that much unlimited really going on.

And it does make a difference. More than one site I visit, loads all the ads before the content (and often stutter/stall if the ads are blocked) and pages can take quite a few seconds to load. It can be a real irritation, if you then try to click on a link before the page has fully loaded just as it redraws and you end up on clickin on one of the ads. Of course, I tend to avoid those sites as much as possible or use a browser with heavy duty & effective ad blocking on those sites; I usually don't bother much since they don't distract me much on most sites & Google ads don't bother me at all.

1309

Living Room / Re: Ars Technica on the problem with adblocking

« Last post by Dormouse on March 11, 2010, 05:15 PM »

If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue

This shows no sign of being bothered that their ads consume our bandwidth, distract our attention and give us nothing we want in return.

If you never click on the ads, even when you see them, there's absolutely no point in wasting bandwidth (both ways) by having them onscreen. So the argument isn't really about whether the ads are blocked but whether they produce enough revenue, and there's an assumption that adblockers will be clickers if only they could see the ads. I suppose the next stage, if there isn't enough ad revenue after eliminating adblockers, is to make bigger more intrusive ads or to ration pageviews to users who click often enough.

1310

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I pay to go from 3.0 to 3.1?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 24, 2010, 07:13 PM »

the worth of the upgrade lies (for a huge part) in the perception of the one that has to make the purchase.

-Shades (February 24, 2010, 06:59 PM)

I agree with this completely. I don't care if the upgrade is a .1 or a 1. or 1 year or 6 years or a complete renaming. I'll only pay the money if I think the cost is low enough for the benefit I get. I'm quite happy sticking with old versions or only taking up one upgrade in 5. (And that's another source of difference: some software will offer the same upgrade discount however old your version is, others grade it carefully or only give upgrades from the version before.) What most irks me, is when I'm asked to pay for an upgrade when I made my purchase less than a year ago - I really don't care how big an upgrade is, I will resent that even if I pay. I see all the .1s & 1.s frequently just as figments of the developer's imagination ("I'm getting bored with th 5.01, 5.23 etc, I just make the next one 6.0" or "People seem to think I'm not developing very fast, I'll change the version number" or "I need a bit of cash right now, so I'll up the version").

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General Software Discussion / Re: Should I pay to go from 3.0 to 3.1?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 24, 2010, 06:26 PM »

1) If it is only an UPDATE from 3.0 to 3.1 (which is what a .1 increment is) than I should get it free if I own 3.x. Period. End of sentence. I paid for 3.x. It is mine.

Only true if that was the upgrade policy when you bought.  Just because the most common policy now seems to have 'minor' version upgrades free with 'major' versions costing doesn't mean you can assume it will be true for all software. They seem currently to be operating a policy where upgrades are free for a year. It's up to them what the policy is (and I've certainly seen much meaner policies than this). And .1 increments on some apps are as big as 1.0 increments on others.

1312

Circle Dock / Re: UAC Issues - Vista/Windows 7, 32 & 64-bit

« Last post by Dormouse on February 23, 2010, 05:19 PM »

Program Files are only for installed programs. I've never heard of anyone placing a portable program in there.
And even if someone did, they could simply move it elsewhere when they realised it was causing a problem.

1313

Circle Dock / Re: UAC Issues - Vista/Windows 7, 32 & 64-bit

« Last post by Dormouse on February 23, 2010, 03:36 PM »

UAC comes into play whenever you install a program into "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files (x86)" and that program (attempts to) modify its own configuration files

-Markham (February 23, 2010, 04:41 AM)

Does that mean a portable version would be unaffected?

1314

Living Room / Re: Google does no evil; kills reMail

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 06:47 PM »

They were innovative in the way they did search - but basically that was just a better search and there were many examples of search working before them. There's a lot since that didn't exist before they did it - or at least not in a way that affected many people. Of course, if you avoid everything they do you might not notice it.

Lots of people seem to dislike Google now, and they have got very good at making money. But their ability to do that has been fuelled by innovation.

I dislike Apple and refuse to use any of their products any more (many years since I did) but I can't deny that they have been innovative in a number of areas that have paid off big time for them.

1315

Living Room / Re: Google does no evil; kills reMail

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 06:13 PM »

It' not just free, it's also the focus of a lot of the innovation that is having an impact on large numbers of internet users. There's not much sign of innovation from MS any more - just the development of their products.

1316

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 05:18 PM »

IDimager does have a wide range of editing options, so it might do a lot of what you want for the average photo.
I also forgot to mention that the upgrade from v4 to v5 comes at a 60% discount - so that feels much better. It's pretty amazing how much the price of this type of software appears to have gone up each cycle - though I have to admit the feature count is doing more than keep pace. I assume its because photography is an expensive hobby & so keen amateurs are happy to pay the relatively low prices for software, and professionals just have to have the best because their time is money.
The IDimager manual is massive and pretty clear (though took me a long time to get my head around some proportion of its functionality) & this time a user is/has produced a detailed workbook which may make it even easier to get into it (I've not tried it, yet at least).

It has good import/export options so you can always move your catalog to a new program without loss (and it is all the work put into the catalog that's where the real cost is in the end). The developer has always helped people who want to export IDimager catalogs to other programs with any problems they have; so there's no feeling of being tied in. AFAICS, far more come than go (and after trying all the major competition) but some users do seem a very flighty lot who seem to have a need to keep switching from one prog to another - I assume they do that with cameras and lenses too. I chose what seemed the best program at the time, and I've never had any reason to switch away though I do keep up with reading about the competition.

1317

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 01:27 PM »

Digital Asset Management

As in Krogh's book

1318

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 10:44 AM »

IDimager really needs to be used quite a lot, or you will only remember a small number of the features you would want to use if you remembered what they were and how to work them. And it is primarily a DAM product rather than an editor.

1319

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 09:35 AM »

One of the big non-feature differences between idImager & ACDSee is that the IDI developer is extremely responsive (& each new version goes through a long period of beta testing available to all).

1320

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is it so hard to find a decent image organizer?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2010, 09:08 AM »

IdImager_
v4 Nov 2007, v5 Dec 2009.
Upgrades tend to be pretty major rewrites/feature additions.
Superb product, very well supported.
Zoner may be cheaper, but it's not the same level of product. I suspect it is upgraded more frequently too since it is now on v 12 and 11 was described on one site as being new in March 2009.
Of course, Zoner may be quite sufficient for you. idImager is relatively approachable for a heavy duty program - but it is still a heavy duty program.

1321

Living Room / Re: Google does no evil; kills reMail

« Last post by Dormouse on February 21, 2010, 01:34 PM »

btw.. if anyone has read things like 'the secret' or 'think and grow rich' you will notice that google's tag line does the opposite of what is intended.

-higherstate (February 21, 2010, 01:15 PM)

So you think the writer(s) of 'think and grow rich' know more about growing rich than the founders of Google?

1322

Circle Dock / Re: Deleted folder afther uninstall

« Last post by Dormouse on February 21, 2010, 06:29 AM »

I don't see how that issue would have arisen with a portable version either.

With a portable version there are no issues relating to installation or uninstallation. There is no 'Make Portable' because it is always portable. Moving or copying the program from one folder to another is just a question of cut/copy and paste. If you have a problem, you know it cannot be from installation/uninstallation/make portable processes so even if Lotheilian's problem had not originated with them, then neither would he have thought that they might be.

1323

General Software Discussion / Re: Why OpenOffice? Why Microsoft Office? Each one makes their argument

« Last post by Dormouse on February 20, 2010, 01:49 PM »

Talking mostly about Word:

I'm in favour of OO in theory, but agree with the comments of its being slow and clunky. And it doesn't really seem to be getting any better. I'm really not sure that duplicating MSOffice is what they should be doing. So, I always have it installed, but don't ever choose to open it - except on Linux. Used to a few years ago, but not any more.

I get MSOffice extremely cheaply, so cost isn't an issue. But, again, I find it slow - and it doesn't do what I want it to do (or at least the focus is on stuff I'm not interested in and stuff I do want like Outlining is atrocious). So I have it, but often only use it to print out or edit documents sent to me.

I use Textmaker (I got 2008 free and haven't felt the need to upgrade) much more, simply because it is faster.

In practice I do most of my writing in other programs, especially TreeDBNotes. I do have a lot of portable word processors which I use from time to time.

Within MSOffice, I do really like OneNote and no other suite has a similar application. I don't do a great deal with spreadsheets but prefer to use Excel because it leaves me with nil concern about compatibility: that would be different if I knew more people using OO, but they mostly don't. Access used to be OK, but I'm surprised it is still alive; database emphasis seems to have moved onto mysql, SQLite etc. Powerpoint seemed better than Impress last time I used them.

1324

Circle Dock / Re: Deleted folder afther uninstall

« Last post by Dormouse on February 19, 2010, 08:07 AM »

And, of course, an issue that would not have arisen at all with a portable version.

1325

General Software Discussion / Re: Installing Linux over ME, is it possible?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 18, 2010, 08:41 PM »

In my experience, inexperienced users get on fine with Linux unless there are setup problems (at least so long as they don't get confused by having to use Windows a lot in another environment).

But the critical issue is knowing what they do, and want to do, on a computer and what software they currently use. If they are running Me, it should be easy enough to find better programs than they have now but you need to work out what the options are. And that will guide you towards a choice of distros. I would agree with the suggestion of starting with LiveCDs.