Recent Posts

1551

Living Room / Re: Anti-Necrospamming

« Last post by J-Mac on March 28, 2009, 11:21 AM »

How many "necro-spams" has the forum received lately? Any kind of hindrance to usability would be an over-reaction, IMO.

-nosh (March 27, 2009, 01:41 AM)

Agree.

Either our forum moderators   are exceptionally good at getting rid of spam before most of us see it - or I'm going blind blind, because I haven't noticed all that many spam messages being posted.

Are we actually having a problem with this at DonationCoder? Mouser? Carol? JGP?

-40hz (March 28, 2009, 11:17 AM)

It seems to come in fits. I'll suddenly see five or six sneak in, then none for a while. Not really a big problem IMO.

Jim

1552

Living Room / Re: Anti-Necrospamming

« Last post by J-Mac on March 27, 2009, 03:44 PM »

Something similar to the warning that appears if another post is made between when you started writing your reply and submitting it.

Jim

1553

Living Room / Re: Anti-Necrospamming

« Last post by J-Mac on March 27, 2009, 03:36 AM »

Two Points:

1) If spammers are the target, what makes anyone think that they would heed a clearer reminder that they are reviving an old thread?? If plain old thread necromancing is the problem, fine. Spammers won't care.

2) Didn't we discuss moderating threads/posts for spam reductions a few months ago? (Too late for me to find and link to it now!)  IIRC it was a very long thread and absolutely nothing came of it after all.

So why hash it all out again if the result will be the same? Unless we're serious this time... 

Jim

1554

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 26, 2009, 02:09 AM »

Keepass 2 beta is piece of s...t at the moment. It is the buggiest application I ever used, at least on my xp 64bit system.

I have Roboform and Keepass and a variety of vaults, but Lastpass seems really interesting to me as an Opera/Chrome in preference to FF/ie user.

-Dormouse (March 23, 2009, 06:21 AM)

-kartal (March 25, 2009, 11:25 PM)

Latest version is working better than ever here on my XP Pro X86 machine. Previous versions were pretty bad here too. Deleting or even editing an entry would then throw you to a random item in the database. However I only use Keepass as kind of a backup repository of all my password-related items. Using it to actually login to a web site is not simple to do.

Jim

1555

General Software Discussion / Re: IE8 on the loose!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 25, 2009, 06:05 PM »

Dirhael - would you be willing to post a screen shot of how bad FeedDemon looks with northmay.com blocked? I’m quite happy where I am but if, in future, I decide to update it would be nice to have some control over what the GUI looks like...

-Darwin (March 24, 2009, 10:26 PM)

Absolutely, here's a screenshot for you
 (see attachment in previous post)

Right now I am OK with 2.7. Google Reader doesn't do anything at all for me, so I won't miss that integration in 2.8.

Thanks!

Jim

-J-Mac (March 24, 2009, 10:47 PM)

I don't use Google Reader all that much either, but it's fantastic for reading feeds on mobile browsers seeing as it can also adapt linked pages for viewing on such devices.

-Dirhael (March 25, 2009, 07:11 AM)

Actually I use Feedemon for Blackberry. I was a beta tester for Feedemon for Windows Mobile and was given both mobile versions free when they were released. I don't even know if they are offering those anymore. All of my Newsgator feeds are synched to my BB and if I want I can open the web page for any article.

Jim

1556

General Software Discussion / Re: IE8 on the loose!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 10:47 PM »

Right now I am OK with 2.7. Google Reader doesn't do anything at all for me, so I won't miss that integration in 2.8.

Thanks!

Jim

1557

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 10:46 PM »

Not a problem. In Opera pretty much everything is named a little differently. Always has been. But if you take a good look at each of the toolbars you can see what is there and what you can do with them. The Personal Bar looks identical to Firefox's Bookmark Toolbar, and Opera has had it for much longer actually.

Jim

1558

General Software Discussion / Re: New version: Copernic Desktop Search 3

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 10:18 PM »

This article gives complete info on the older version and what is missing in the new version.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copernic_Desktop_Search

Since my main Windows is XP Pro I continue to use Copernic version 2 build 18. 

-saintsatinstain (March 24, 2009, 09:08 PM)

Thanks fir the link saintsatinstain (or... Mr. Anagram!).

One other feature that Copernic seemed to lose was any control over indexing. Configuring what and when to index used to be fairly compliant, but starting with - I believe - V.2.5, Copernic would index any time it pleased, or so it seemed. I know that it was indexing at times when I had specifically set it to not index. And the indexing could get extremely CPU intensive. I kept knocking down the task priority with Process Tamer but the next restart would have it higher again. It seemed to be able to get around the Process Tamer rules somehow.

Thanks!

Jim

1559

General Software Discussion / Re: Best password manager?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 05:57 PM »

#2 - At some point, a box opened up on the page; it said:  "You're on LastPass.com.  If you haven't already installed the bookmarklet, you need to drag the bookmarklet (link you clicked on) into your 'Links' or 'Favorites' bar, then go to the site you want to Login or FormFill and click the bookmarklet."  Duh#2 -- I could find no Links or Favorites bar in Opera. 

-cyberdiva (March 23, 2009, 07:45 PM)

Don't "Duh" before you look. The Personal Bar in Opera is what Firefox calls the Bookmarks Toolbar. Works the same and it holds bookmarklets just fine - has for a few years now.

Jim

1560

General Software Discussion / Re: IE8 on the loose!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 05:53 PM »

....I am still on FeeDemon 2.7.0.0 (last version without Ads).

-Darwin (March 20, 2009, 11:50 AM)

Me too - and there I'll stay!!

After paying for another year and then having it go free, I am not also gonna get their damn ads!!   

Jim

1561

Living Room / Re: What would it take to create and then sell a very successful website?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 05:48 PM »

At first I thought that you must be talking about domain names, not actual web sites. Extremely few people have made it big with a "web site", though there was a time when many became wealthy by buying up domain names and then auctioning them off. You can't do that easily anymore for any trademarked, or even just famous name, though a few celebrities have recently sued and lost to get back domain names with their names in them.

As for an individual starting a social network, forget it! All of the current "biggies" started out with major investments and have picked up even more since then. It takes at least a couple of million dollars (US, anyway) to get a site off the ground and keep it going until it can start pulling its own weight.

Jim

1562

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Gracefully close Firefox on PC exit

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2009, 02:01 AM »

Tom,

Just an update - Neville replied that he has had reports of this same problem and that upcoming changes in how Surfulater's data is stored - specifically to start using an SQL database - will eliminate the problem.

Jim

1563

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Gracefully close Firefox on PC exit

« Last post by J-Mac on March 23, 2009, 03:38 PM »

Curt:  I tried it and my machine simply would not reboot at all. Had to force a reboot. I didn't bother trying it again after that.

Tomos: Yep - no reply yet from Neville though. Just posted it a day or so ago.

Thanks!

Jim

1564

General Software Discussion / Re: Similar program to Ps Tray factory that works on Vista 64-bit.

« Last post by J-Mac on March 22, 2009, 11:21 PM »

Hmm.. Tray icons can be customized now. Click on Properties and replace the icon with your own. What other customization could be needed? Color change? Most are the program's icon and I don't see changing the color of it as, well... never mind.

Thanks!

Jim

1565

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 22, 2009, 11:17 PM »

PS How would allowing customers to access more than one database drive sales down?!

-Darwin (March 22, 2009, 10:37 PM)

Another thing - Alwin keeps insisting that Movie Collector 6 sales are way up, much higher than ever, and all due to restricting users to their own less-than-sufficient database. Whether or not the user posting claims that they are losing sales, he keeps making sure to herald that his sales are up soooo high that he's just, well, delirious.

Why on earth would Alwin care so much what unhappy users are saying in the forum that he insists on shouting out how much his sales are up? Certainly not necessary, unless he is just dying to gloat about it and shove it in their faces. Personally I have no idea what his sales are like, and to be honest I haven't a care about it either. However, methinks he doth protest too much!

His personality seems to be such that he must lash out against any criticism whatsoever, damn the consequences! I am trying a few other products so I can move my data to something new. Who knows if the new program I decide to use will last long either, but Alwin has already stated that he will be shutting down all support for MoC5 sometime this year, and seeing as to how venomous he is, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him shut it down very quickly and unexpectedly - maybe right after his big upgrade plea this past weekend. He would see anyone who did not upgrade as his tormentors and figure that he'll show them. Truly sad.

Jim

1566

General Software Discussion / Re: Similar program to Ps Tray factory that works on Vista 64-bit.

« Last post by J-Mac on March 22, 2009, 10:57 PM »

Just thought I'd post to let everyone know that PS TrayFactory 3 has been released. I used one of the recent beta builds and it worked flawlessly. I'm running without it these days, though - see my comments above about Vista's "Hide Inactive Icons" feature. To summarize, it just works...

EDIT: PS obviously the point of this is that it now works well with 64 bit versions of Windows...

-Darwin (March 22, 2009, 05:28 PM)

Hi Mikey!

OK, I'm a little confused - which I guess is a heck of a lot better than BIG confused! What's different in this version?  (Other than getting absolutely NO notification of the new version other than your post here). The PS Tray Factory version that was available right up until this V.3 release - V.2.5 - was released a looong time ago: November 10, 2006. Two and a half years ago. I can't find any information about what is new in Version 3. The screenshots look pretty much like my current version, 2.5. The FAQ is identical to Version 2.5's. And the online Help pages still have no images - all blank image placeholders - and it covers only up to Version 1.94, which makes it at least five years old. And what about an Upgrade policy for existing license holders? The FAQ states that there is a "significant discount" but I see no way to obtain an upgrade discount; only purchase at full price.

I think I might just stick with the current version here until something comes along that is more actively developed.

Thank you.

Jim

1567

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 22, 2009, 02:14 PM »

I downloaded DVDProfiler. Feature set looks good, but I'm not in love with the GUI. What the heck is that programmed in? E.g., I right-clicked on the Toolbar and clicked "Customize" to see what I could do about the humongous toolbar & icons. Unfortunately the "Customize" dialog had a drop shadow on the right and bottom - and they never did go away. Whatever I looked at after that had four black lines in the center: two from where the dialog initially opened, and two more at the location where I moved it to.

Didn't go away until I rebooted. I've seen this before and I hate apps that do that. Is it a Java app? Anyone know what does that?

Thanks!

Jim

1568

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Gracefully close Firefox on PC exit

« Last post by J-Mac on March 22, 2009, 12:14 PM »

Sorry to activate an older thread but I figured this would be the best place to ask about CloseToQuit.

There are always a couple of programs that do not respond well to the OS call to quit when restarting the computer. One that has suddenly started to give me fits is Surfulater 3: for the past several days it opens with Windows but throws up a dialog stating that it did not close properly the last time and therefore must recover the last saved copy of the DB I use. Perhaps when I restarted those times it just caught Surfulater at a time when it wasn't ready to close for some reason. I have a few apps that are always sitting in the systray and I let them close with Windows.

It doesn't appear that many folks have commented about CloseToQuit here. Is it working OK? Causing any problems otherwise for anyone? Safe to use?

Thanks!

Jim

1569

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 21, 2009, 12:25 PM »

And yet another email pushing the new, unimproved version. This is getting silly!

Jim

1570

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 20, 2009, 10:30 PM »

Can you use a barcode reader with it?

-Carol Haynes (March 20, 2009, 04:16 PM)

Which barcode scanner do you use, Carol?

Thanks!

Jim

1571

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by J-Mac on March 20, 2009, 03:18 PM »

J-Mac: DVD Profiler

-Josh (March 20, 2009, 02:38 PM)

Any other info on that? Are you using it? Are you recommending it? Or just an informational link?

Thank you.

Jim

1572

General Software Discussion / Re: Backup software à la dropbox (backups differences in file - revisions)

« Last post by J-Mac on March 20, 2009, 02:33 AM »

File Hamster? That saves new revisions any time you save changes to a file - any file that you tell File Hamster to watch.

Jim

1573

General Software Discussion / Re: Someone MUST make a new PowerMarks program.

« Last post by J-Mac on March 18, 2009, 11:49 PM »

You might want to spend a little time with miTaggedMarks. It's the closest thing to Powermarks. Michael has put a lot of thought and work into the program, and his tag handling is actually more sophisticated than that of Powermarks.

-twinkler (September 11, 2008, 02:48 PM)

I recently uploaded the latest version (2 beta2) of miTaggedMarks (www.miTaggedMarks.com).

Main new features in version 2 are
- build your own toolbar for miTaggedMarks in nearly any browser, using bookmarklets.
- Combine tags with boolean operators (AND,OR,NOT) in an innovative easy-to-use interface, with immediate feedback,
and especially for (ex-) users of PowerMarks
- a more PM like search facility, with search for several text fragments.
- improved import from PM

See website or help file for the full list of new features and improvements.

Suggestions for further improvements are welcome.

Michael

-mtm (March 18, 2009, 08:39 AM)

Hi Michael!  Thanks for alerting us to this beta.

A suggestion: DonationCoder.com has a forum to introduce new software applications. You might want to post a thread there announcing miTaggedMarks. I know there are folks here who are very interested in a replacement for Powermarks.   

Jim

1574

Living Room / Re: dvd burner crisis

« Last post by J-Mac on March 18, 2009, 11:38 PM »

A few weeks ago my DVD-ROM refused to read a DVD. The machine is two and a half years old and both the DVD-ROM and DVD-R/W drives (Sony) were current with firmware. I was able to get the DVD-ROM drive going again by cleaning the laser as well as I could but it subsequently became intermittent with its read ability. I just decided to replace both rather than spend any more time on it. I got two Lite-On drives at Newegg - one for $17 and the other for $22. Now I can't believe I even spent the little amount amount of time on the old ones that I did! Replacement is extraordinarily simple and they work great.

Believe me, it's not worth the effort of troubleshooting older drives - that is if they are two years old or more.

Jim

PS - I thought I would mention here that I accidentally purchased the wrong connection type for the DVD-ROM drive at first. I looked at one Lite-On and then a few others. When I placed the Lite-On in my cart I failed to notice that the IDE and SATA drives had almost exactly the same model number - they are one character off - and though my drives are both SATA I got the IDE DVD-ROM drive.    Not to fear, though. I called Newegg so I could return it for an exchange and was told cheerfully that they do not exchange items but they would issue a refund/credit to my card account and I could then order the correct one. When she saw the price of the wrong drive ($17) she told me to just keep it! Not worth the cost (to ME!!) of shipping it back. What a deal!! Kudos to Newegg!

1575

DcUpdater / Re: Eight FARR Plugins Are Failing on DCUpdater

« Last post by J-Mac on March 18, 2009, 02:28 AM »

czb,

I wasn't whining about how it is done; that's not why I said I'm removing them. I don't use a lot of FARR's plugins - only a few, actually. I mostly just launch programs with FARR. I've never taken the time to figure out how to use FARR for other types of searching. It's just easier for me to get them out of FARR because chasing down updates isn't really worth the effort for me.

Thanks!

Jim