Recent Posts

1526

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: GemX Crazy Summer Specials

« Last post by Dormouse on March 20, 2009, 08:45 AM »

Coming on BitsduJour - Do-Organizer price down to $25. Be interesting to see what they say about v4 upgrade price (or whether the upgrade will be included).

PS I noticed a few days ago that the forum website seemed to have been invaded by a malware planting prog. Haven't been back since to see if they have cleared it yet.

1527

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

« Last post by Dormouse on March 14, 2009, 03:24 AM »

For a lot of programs, I'd very much want a good forum, or some other reliable source of info and support. For TheBat!, I've never bothered except to check the forums occasionally after a new version is launched to see if it has stabilised yet and might be worth trying. I would think they get masses of critical comments at those times, so maybe there are a lot of posters who aren't banned but can't post anymore.

I suspect the post that gave offence was the MicroEd one. Doesn't matter to me one way or the other either, but I think someone there is very proud of it. At least they haven't deleted your posts, but it is never a good thing when developers limit negative comments on their forums beyond the point of removing insults, trolls, spammers etc.

As with Superboyac, it doesn't put me off using TheBat!, though it might if there were a program I found as good and had a much more supportive forum. TheBat's longevity would count for something even then though, so it might be 10 years before I switched. 

1528

General Software Discussion / Re: The Bat: Great program, terrible documentation and support

« Last post by Dormouse on March 13, 2009, 01:30 PM »

I don't think I've ever tried to open the help file

1529

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« Last post by Dormouse on March 07, 2009, 06:37 AM »

If there's any chance she'll get much spam, she'll probably be better off with gmail than outlook express+isp. Can always set outlook express/gmail up to automatically download emails if that is wanted. As long as she knows to check gmail spam box if stuff appears to go missing.

1530

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Surfulater 50% discount @ www.bitsdujour.com on Mar 4

« Last post by Dormouse on March 05, 2009, 02:05 AM »

There may be feelings of outrage at price increases, but it's up to each one of us to decide what a product is worth, and I don't really understand the strength of ill feeling. Let the market do its job and assess the price/value ratio.

Remarks about price really have no bearing on the performance of Surfulater, which I feel is very good.

-cranioscopical (March 04, 2009, 10:05 PM)

But this whole thread is about price - the 50% discount.

1531

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Surfulater 50% discount @ www.bitsdujour.com on Mar 4

« Last post by Dormouse on March 04, 2009, 06:30 PM »

But if I already have Evernote (2 & 3), OneNote and Ultra Recall, what extra would I gain from Surfulater?
And it does seem expensive.

1532

General Software Discussion / Re: New duplicate file finder... I am open to features suggestion

« Last post by Dormouse on March 01, 2009, 10:04 AM »

sure is beautiful looking.

-mouser (March 01, 2009, 06:26 AM)

Have to agree with that.

1533

General Software Discussion / Re: New duplicate file finder... I am open to features suggestion

« Last post by Dormouse on March 01, 2009, 10:04 AM »

I've tried dupe finders and do have a need for them - especially when trying to deal with a variety of recoveries from crashed disks. But I feel a need to be cautious about deletion, which means that I use them more sparingly than I really should. So my main requirement on top of those above would be for the option to move to a 'de-duped' folder with an ability to undo the move for each individual file (or episode of de-duping). And then the option to totally delete after a user-decided time period (I'd probably use 6 months) when it had become clear whether there was a reason not to have deleted that version of the file.

1534

Living Room / Re: Should I switch from Dreamhost?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 22, 2009, 03:45 PM »

If you are happy, why switch? Even if it is to a better or cheaper host it will require extra effort from you to move, require you to research new hosts and then give some anxiety that you might have made a mistake until everything gets going - and all to move from something that you are happy with.

I haven't used DreamHost but I have been using www.nativespace.co.uk for the last few months and they are fantastic.

-Carol Haynes (February 22, 2009, 12:14 PM)

But nativespace are more expensive for much more limited space and transfer etc.; and this may or may not be relevant. I have tested Dreamhost in the past, and they were OK; I think there are much better options (depending on your precise requirements) - but if you don't know that there are things you need to be better, it has to be worth staying where you are.

1535

General Software Discussion / Re: Spicebird - an open source e-mail collaboration application for Linux or Windows

« Last post by Dormouse on February 19, 2009, 05:08 AM »

I've used Spicebird for a long time now. It's not my primary email prog (that's The Bat!), but it has been very solid. Development and communication has seemed somewhat uncertain at times, but the prog has always worked as it should with me (they are fixing some bugs) and a new version (0.7.1) is coming out very soon. Certainly prefer it to TB.

1536

General Software Discussion / Re: Angry shareholders say Microsoft squanders billions on pointless R&D projects

« Last post by Dormouse on February 15, 2009, 06:35 AM »

Expenditure on R&D is about the only way to ensure longevity.

-Eóin (February 11, 2009, 07:10 PM)

To the extent that this is true, investors are still left with the problem of deciding whether the R&D is going into a bottomless pit that will never produce anything worthwhile or whether it will pay off in the end. History shows a lot of big and very profitable (at the time) companies developing vanity R&D progs that seemed to add to their prestige within the community but never developed business gains in the end - and those companies eventually shrinking as their cash streams dried up. Investors are very aware of this and alarm bells ring if they see a company of this sort with high R&D - their problem is that they very rarely have the info or expertise to know if the R&D being done is really targetted at the medium/long-term interests of the business.

In practice, one of MS's most common strategies has been to buy in new companies and technologies rather than develop its own, and most of its profits have come from establishing and exploiting monopolies. And a fair bit of the development in its own products has come from copying ideas from competitors.

1537

General Software Discussion / Re: Angry shareholders say Microsoft squanders billions on pointless R&D projects

« Last post by Dormouse on February 11, 2009, 09:24 AM »

The major MS income streams (Windows on desktop computers and Office and other apps on desktop computers) are under short-medium term threat so they need to reposition themselves. Not true for Apple or Oracle.

Apple's main USP is about design and much of the basic hardware R&D is done by other people. Oracle has a semi-monopoly in a specific niche and it is just a question of keeping it going and extracting the maximum $$$.

But MS has probably also got complacent and spendthrift from so many years of extracting the $$$ from their monopoly.

The other question I'd have is 'How much of the R&D spend is actually about buying our potential competitors or funding competitors to their competitors?'.

1538

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Dormouse on February 10, 2009, 06:23 PM »

Yeah, I don't know how professional photographers deal with all their photos.  Especially when they come back with hundreds of photos per session.  I'm sure someone has figured out a way of doing it.  I don't have that many photos, but if I did, I would almost have to use some kind of tagging system that had thumbnails in the cache so I can see a group of pictures very quickly.

-superboyac (February 10, 2009, 12:56 PM)

Aperture, Lightroom, iView, idImager, iMatch

Using the program to view, discard, rate and tag. Some pros claim to process each photo in a matter of seconds. And some people use some of these progs for tweaking the photos.

1539

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 11, 2009, 07:40 PM »

Just installed. Could someone help me? I can't find any way to simply copy any media, except building an image manually first. Is it me?

-yksyks (January 11, 2009, 11:45 AM)

No, I think it basically works through ISOs. If you just want to copy, you would need to do that separately - but surely you would use an explorer for that anyway.

1540

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 11, 2009, 07:38 PM »

Fretting?  I certainly wouldn't spend any seconds fretting about whether to install something from GAOTD. 

Starburn is wizard driven, with big buttons and lots of functions (grabbing, decrypting, shrinking, burning). More functions than many progs; works OK. You probably don't need it if you have Burning Studio. You very easily may not like its interface; it's the antithesis of techie, but there is an 'Expert mode' with extra settings.

Does more than ImgBurn.

I'm not saying anyone should try it. I have a lot of burning progs and could probably get by with any one of them. They all work a bit differently and I just use the one I fancy at the time.

1541

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

« Last post by Dormouse on January 11, 2009, 10:44 AM »

I got Starburn last time it was on GAOTD. I have lots of burning software, but tend to use Starburn a lot. Not that I do anything esoteric though.

1542

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for random map generator.

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 10:14 PM »

Hmmm. I suspect that if you start taking an interest in the mapmaking and software, a lot of potential writing time will be occupied with that.

If you want to use the software to make maps, you must first gather your images/textures. Can be done free but there are also libraries available for $$$.

RPG mapping progs, as Shades suggests, are probably the cheapest and easiest way to go.

CC3 combines vector graphics and bitmaps which means it is very good at scaling from small to very large areas. Best software if you will want to switch between different levels of detail. Fractal Mapper is also good for continents etc.

Free programs at this scale have idiosyncracies or aren't as easy to work with.
AutoRealm is not the easiest to use, but does come with a library of symbols.
MapX has a few idiosyncracies (eg no undo), but can be made to produce almost any type of map if you have the images available.

An alternative approach is to use Image Editing programs such as PhotoShop or The GIMP.

There are many subtle techniques for making very impressive maps as you will see from the CG site or Dundjinni Map Competitions. You can spend years just playing around with these, as I suspect many people do.

I would still suggest that you get yourself a map and concentrate on writing, if that's what your ultimate output is going to be.

1543

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for random map generator.

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 04:57 PM »

OK.

In my experience, random map generators aren't that good so I would tend to avoid them - though it does depend on the quality you want.
I do understand you not wanting to do it yourself - though it would not be that difficult.
In that case, I suggest that you borrow/pinch one from someone else that they have already done. It should not be difficult to get permission to use maps from most non-commercial map makers.
Two sites you might look at are Cartographers Guild and RPGMapShare. The first will contain plenty of links to other sites you might try.

1544

Living Room / Re: New here, is there's any accounting or billing software - here or elsewhere

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 01:06 PM »

I do have experience of big accounting type solutions (and still have Quickbooks and TurboCash installed) and there are areas where they really come into their own.

They are fairly essential if there is a lot of inventory to manage (especially  if they are, or form part of, products for sale), if there are lots of products, high numbers of transactions, a need to monitor balances, a general need for lots of reports, a need to keep on tax issues etc. They are OK for invoicing etc, but no better than many other solutions.

What I wouldn't use them for (again) is a situation where the business is essentially selling hours/minutes of time. Too complex, too unrelated to the main activity. So I might well consider TDL2 for this type of use in future. Or InfoQube (SQLnotes) if it has timers. Or one of the many commercial packages out there for that sort of job, if any of them met my sepcific needs at the time.

1545

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for random map generator.

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 09:43 AM »

Why do you want it to generate random maps?

What sorts of images/features/terrain do you want it to show?

1546

Living Room / Re: New here, is there's any accounting or billing software - here or elsewhere

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 08:57 AM »

I'm not sure if the free version of the MS app allows time tracking.

One frequently used free  open source accounting application is TurboCash

But you don't need an accounting application just to do timing, billing and recording receipts. You could even use a ToDoList prog like AbstractSpoon's ToDoList2; it has a timer; you can easily record a variety of activities and monies received or spent (but would probably need to export to spreadsheet for addition and reports) and bills - but links to them easily available in TDL. I'm not really suggesting you do this (what works best will depend on your overall needs), just saying that your list of needs is not necessarily best met by accounting progs as they have lots of features you may never use.

1547

Living Room / Re: eBook readers

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 08:26 AM »

what is the best suited way to read pdfs?

I constantly hear they are for printing

-Paul Keith (January 10, 2009, 07:30 AM)

... paper  

1548

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for Project management timeline software

« Last post by Dormouse on January 10, 2009, 06:13 AM »

Calimanjaro and Gemx and both looks like they are abandonware.

-kartal (January 09, 2009, 04:47 PM)

I agree about Calimanjaro - though he did reduce the price once, so it hadn't been completely abandoned,and can still be bought.

I think it is a bit unkind about GemX. The website, forum etc is a completely new version as is the pricing scheme. Forum is not very active and they don't respond as often as they might to questions (and no response to yours), but they do respond to some - and even put up some images of parts of the version in development (eg the mailer) in answers. So, I don't think it has been abandoned. I wouldn't buy it unless it does what you want now though even with its being the last day of their 2 for 1 sale today.

1549

General Software Discussion / Re: windows 7 beta available for free Jan 9 (!)

« Last post by Dormouse on January 09, 2009, 02:03 PM »

I thought I saw 3pm mentioned somewhere.

1550

General Software Discussion / Re: simple & easy way to exchange sensitive information?

« Last post by Dormouse on January 09, 2009, 03:23 AM »

Why not set up a free Fastmail email address setup

-nogojoe (January 09, 2009, 02:09 AM)

For me, I simply wouldn't trust the security of unencrypted email.