Recent Posts

1426

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

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 10:45 PM »

Thanks, Jim   That's disappointing as the formatting in Evernote 2.2 works very well, as far as I can tell. I actually came to Evernote because development of NetSnippets ceased, for reasons I've never understood. I keep thinking about InfoQube as well... Like you, I've never immersed myself in it and am not comfortable with it, yet. I'm on Firefox 3 as my default browser now, so should really look at... the name is gone! It's a free plug-in that doubles as a bibliographic tool. I *think* it will clip web pages as well. My main interest in web clippings is to archive receipts and other transactions until confirmation e-mails are sent. Zotero - I remembered! Right, off to take a look now...

1427

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

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 10:26 PM »

Thanks, Paul  I've not tried Evernote 3 yet. I have 2.2 Pro and really like it. I keep toying with the idea of trying Evernote 3 on my main computer but wanted to get some "up to the minute" opinions before I do 

1428

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

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 09:52 PM »

So, any updates to peoples' impressions five months on? Allen - are you still a fan? Carol, Jim and others have you given up or soldiered on, perhaps falling in love with Evernote 3 afterall...?

Inquiring minds want to know... I want to know!

1429

Living Room / Re: How to make an external HD SHUT UP?!?!

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 04:09 PM »

PS I'd also consider getting a powered USB hub and connecting the drive to that when needed. I'm very leary of leaving a USB harddrive connected and powered fulltime... even 3.5" jobbies (too many bad experiences).

1430

Living Room / Re: Monster.com and USAJobs security breach

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 04:07 PM »

Wonderful. I'm not affected in any way (I hope) not having used either site... However, this story serves to remind us that it's wise to change your passwords frequently... Of course, I don't, having several hundred different passwords stored in Roboform. This has me sufficiently scared, however, that I might block off some time to change the passwords on those sites that are sensivitive: credit cards, banking, eBay, etc.

Thanks for the heads up, 40hz 

1431

Living Room / Re: How to make an external HD SHUT UP?!?!

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 04:04 PM »

"Have you tried staples?"

Sorry, couldn't resist - completely out of context, but one of my favourite movie quotes (an update of "A Christmas Carol" starting Bill Murray as a top TV executive. His network is putting on a lavish Christmas special and for reasons that escape me a woman is trying to tie little antlers on mice...).

Back on topic: have you tried a face cloth or a hand towel? I'd carefully fold a handtowel up and then use a couple of hefty elastic bands to attach it securely to the HD, preferably in the vertical orientation and see if that helps. Elastic bands are optional, of course, but the towel should isolate the drive from your cabinet enough to dampen the vibration.

1432

Living Room / Re: Going Into Frugality Mode -- What are your Tricks and Tips

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 03:57 PM »

Ah yes, I cancelled cable on Jan. 1... potential savings?

How does $730 a year grab ya? We had the top of the analogue package with no pay-tv options (move channels, pay-per-view, video on demand), which amounted to about 65 channels. 99% of the week the only channel that the tv was tuned to was Treehouse (young childrens' programming - Franklin, Little Bear, Dora the Screeching Explorer, etc.), so we decided to save money off our childrens' backs   

1433

Living Room / Re: Going Into Frugality Mode -- What are your Tricks and Tips

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 03:45 PM »

bicarbonate of soda

-mnemonic (January 26, 2009, 03:22 PM)

For those in the darkest reaches of North America, bicarbonate of soda = baking soda!

1434

Living Room / Re: Gadgets that make you look like a jerk

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 08:43 AM »

Holy Carp, Batman! That there is a real t-shirt! Check out the washing instructions:

Washing Instructions

   1. Carefully peel animated decal from front of T-Shirt
   2. Unplug ribbon connector behind decal and remove decal
   3. Unplug battery pack and remove it
   4. You can leave the ribbon cable inside the shirt
   5. Machine wash gentle cycle on cold
   6. Hang to dry
      Please Note: If you plug the connector into the battery pack backwards the shirt will not animate properly. It will not damage the shirt. Simply reverse the connector.

Wouldn't wanted to jump in the pool wearing that... you'd really look like a jerk if  you did 

1435

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on January 26, 2009, 08:36 AM »

Free would be nice... deeply discounted reasonable... I still half wonder if Windows 7 beta isn't a variant of the Mojave experiement on a grand scale. Whatever their longterm plans, this is a sharp marketing move. I don't remember so many people beta testing a new windows release in the past and they've managed to generate a heck of a lot of interest in it. Caveat: they'd better deliver this time, because there was a lot of excitement about Vista (without, to my mind, the extensive beta testing base) that turned into excrement being heaped on it 

The blog nontroppo linked to yesterday is a good read about this:

Scott Finnie ain't singing the Windows 7 anthem either:

http://blog.scotsnew...-1-im-not-impressed/

He doesn't see the performance boost he saw with Win 7 alpha, suggesting this is a classic cycle where the MS OS gets slower as it marches to RTM... And homegroup can be less than ideal to setup. Why can't Windows 7 interoperate, it can't play with any Macs on the network, yet Leopard can see both Macs and PCs. Bonjour is open-source and wouldn't kill MS to extend its interoperability.

-nontroppo (January 25, 2009, 05:36 PM)

1436

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on January 25, 2009, 07:36 PM »

God I hope that Windows 7 doesn't derail a Vista Sp-2 release (or an Sp-3 release for that matter...). Not that I'm complaining about Sp-1, mind you. I love it, but I'd hate to see the product dropped completely after only a couple of years.

1437

Site/Forum Features / Re: Longtime DC Member JoTo is in hospital again -- address for sending postcards

« Last post by Darwin on January 25, 2009, 07:31 PM »

Crap. I mean, er, great! The crappy thing is that this is the SECOND time I neglected to make good on my promise to send JoTo a postcard 

So... WELCOME BACK JOTO! I'm glad that you are back on your feet and look forward to seeing more of you around DC 

PS as embarrassed as I am, I hope that no further opportunities to rectify my negligence present themselves...

1438

Living Room / Re: Gadgets that make you look like a jerk

« Last post by Darwin on January 24, 2009, 09:04 PM »

I've got one - a gadget GUARANTEED to make you like a jerk:  the Opti-Grab...

1439

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Direct Access - text expander and application launcher (and much more)

« Last post by Darwin on January 24, 2009, 11:30 AM »

OK - I've updated the minireview to reflect the changes made in version 2 of DirectAccess. I didn't update the screenshots because it looks like doing so after the fact is more trouble than it's worth! FWIW, the changes to the GUI are subtle. They can be seen at the nagarsoft's website, where Andrea has posted a screenshot overview: http://www.nagarsoft...taccess/screenshots/

1440

Living Room / Re: Have you used IE 8?

« Last post by Darwin on January 23, 2009, 08:15 AM »

I have used windows exporer 7 and have had to recently upgrade to windows 8 because i kept getting error data execution errros. The only way I was able to fix it was to upgrade. No have not even heard of the other one .Have you used IE 8? 

-moonlight (January 23, 2009, 03:36 AM)

Assume that in the first line you mean Internet Explorer 7 and an upgrade to Internet Explorer 8, no?!

1441

Living Room / Re: Gadgets that make you look like a jerk

« Last post by Darwin on January 23, 2009, 08:14 AM »

Well... I agree with most of the list you've reproduced, Zaine (except for Linux, of course! Don't know about TiVo and Blackberry, either...).

1442

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a Desktop Search through the network

« Last post by Darwin on January 21, 2009, 10:14 AM »

PS Software995 also offers SearchWithin in a freeware (ad supported) version:

The free version of SearchWithin will display a sponsor page in your web browser each time you launch the software and every fourth search. If you would prefer not to see sponsor pages, you may download a license key for $9.95. SearchWithin never transmits any personal information or query information. Please see our FAQ for details about our software license or to contact us.

1443

General Software Discussion / Re: Using a Desktop Search through the network

« Last post by Darwin on January 21, 2009, 10:10 AM »

dtSearch is another option - but, like the ValixSoft offering, it's pricey. Works well, though (I've got a copy and have used it numerous times over my small wireless network.

Archivarius might be worth a look as well...

1444

Living Room / Re: TV via broadband ?

« Last post by Darwin on January 20, 2009, 11:55 AM »

Incidentally, a lot of these streams won't work if you have ad-blocking enabled... just FYI!

1445

Living Room / Re: TV via broadband ?

« Last post by Darwin on January 20, 2009, 11:43 AM »

If you're not in the states, you'll have difficulty watching some of the US programming (assuming that you care!). You'll need to use something like UltraSurf to enable you to watch US stations such as ABC (perpetually over subscribed lately it seems), NBC, and CBS.

1446

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Darwin on January 18, 2009, 06:58 PM »

For most browsers, you can also use middle-mouse-button (scrollwheel, whatever) clicking to open a new tab, so you don't need to use a keyboard modifier.

-f0dder (January 18, 2009, 06:50 PM)

 

Didn't know that one, either...

Ctrl-Click works in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome.

The only differences I can see in their behaviour is that IE and Chrome group new tabs alongside the parent tab (so if you Ctrl Click the new tab is placed immediately to the right of the current tab) whereas Firefox and Safari always place new tabs at the extreme right of the tabs list.

-Carol Haynes (January 18, 2009, 06:45 PM)

My only defence here is that Maxthon had utterly spoiled me and I never went looking... (yes, I specialise in lame excuses).

1447

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Darwin on January 18, 2009, 05:14 PM »

Carol - OMG, I can't believe I hadn't discovered that one on my own  My excuse is my years of IE use where it is SHIFT-Click that opens a new window - when I moved to Maxthon, SHIFT-Click opened a new tab... Of course, as nudone notes, in Maxthon I got used to just using Maxthon's built-in mouse gesture to do this.

CTRL-click? Who knew?

Thanks!

PS as readers may infer from the above, I've switched to Firefox 3...

1448

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Word Question --

« Last post by Darwin on January 18, 2009, 11:06 AM »

Yeah, thanks Shades! I was unaware of that keyboard shortcut - how useful 

1449

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Darwin on January 18, 2009, 11:04 AM »

Here's (a minor) one: I'd like to be able to click on a link on my "Unread posts" page and have the link opened in a new tab. Ditto for the main "Forum" page, actually... it would be nice to be able to keep the Forum page open and have any boards or messages that I click on open in new tabs.

1450

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: StarBurn 11 on GiveawayoftheDay today (Jan 11 2009)

« Last post by Darwin on January 18, 2009, 09:51 AM »

StarBurn Professional costs a mere $9. Can anyone explain, why?

-BCHOWDHURY (January 18, 2009, 04:11 AM)

One thing differentiates it from StarBurn Free (support level) and two from StarBurn Enterprise (support level and Recording to remote CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD burner over TCP/IP), which is $49. The level of support, and presumably the number of ways in which you can contact support, increases with each version - the free version is free and comes with Silver support, Professional is $9 and comes with Gold support, and Enterprise is $49 and comes with Platinum support. The Enterprise version was featured on GAOTD a few days ago.