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1676

General Software Discussion / Re: [HELP] broke a (HP) Printer by pulling USB Plug -when it was trying to print (?)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 30, 2011, 03:02 PM »

Sorry - they have obviously changed their driver packs making it even harder to sort out the problems their drivers cause by not providing the removal tools on the CD any more.

Good luck!

1677

General Software Discussion / Re: [HELP] broke a (HP) Printer by pulling USB Plug -when it was trying to print (?)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 30, 2011, 05:30 AM »

I may be wrong but I don't think XP drivers will install and work through USB in XP Mode - the USB support is pretty basic and probably won't support installing devices. Best bet is to get host drivers and use printer sharing in XP Mode.

Actually I don't think any of the desktop VM apps will let you do that - I would be glad if someone can prove otherwise.

1678

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 29, 2011, 10:51 AM »

I really dislike Joomla.  I've found the setup process to be quite convoluted and more complex/tedius than it needs to be (This is working from the ground up, not tweaking pre-existing templates). The code it generates if awful, littered with nested tables. The backend is a mess with a higher learning curve than [I feel] its featureset really warrants.

-allen (January 29, 2011, 09:52 AM)

There are some good and simple template design tools out there (try Artisteer which creats templates for Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and DotNetNuke).

Tables are only there if you use tables for layout yourself or the template uses tables. No reason why Joomla shouldn't be table free.

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General Software Discussion / Re: [HELP] broke a (HP) Printer by pulling USB Plug -when it was trying to print (?)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 29, 2011, 04:08 AM »

Printers are by far the buggiest most crappy appliances known to man,

-worstje (January 28, 2011, 05:14 PM)

Especially HP printers - their software is truly awful. Lost count of the number of homes I have visited to remove and reinstall HP software.

DON'T EVER TRY TO INSTALL HP SOFTWARE OVER EXISTING DRIVERS UNLESS YOU WANT TO REINSTALL WINDOWS- you have been warned.

Using a different USB port is likely to cause offence.

Having said that using the printer seems to cause offence to HP!

If you can't get it working do the following:

In Add/Remove programs remove ALL HP software and drivers (and be prepared to spend a good hour doing so).

On the installation disk there is a folder called CCC - find it (sorry can't remember where it is). Inside are 4 files UninstallL1..4* - execute them in sequence (they remove all remaining traces of the HP software - since HP's uninstallers don't work).

Make sure you restart your computer and unplug the printer.

Reinstall the software but don't plug in the printer until it tells you to.

*If you used the original CD supplied with the printer that is fine. If you have since upgraded make sure you use the uninstallL1...L4 from the actual version for drivers you have installed. If you use the wrong ones they don't work (brilliant bit of design).

I will give the same advice I give all my customers - next time buy a Canon printer. They are the only printer company I know that seem to write good drivers and software that work. I have had endless problems to sort out with HP but Brother and Epson aren't much better.

While I am in rant mode - can someone explain to me why HP All-in-one drivers are often around 300Mb to download - and why is their automatic update likely to cause issues almost every time. Finally why is there always an error in the system logs about HP Cue? It doens't seem to matter which printer or which version of windows there is always a service that won't start!

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Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 28, 2011, 03:39 AM »

Carol, I think you put the last nail in the coffin for Joomla for me. If they're in beta for a year, and have major breaking changes, then I'm not interested. It would make upgrading a nightmare.

-Renegade (January 28, 2011, 03:14 AM)

So are you only prepared to use a CMS that has finished development?

The reason it has been in beta for a year is because they made a lot of changes that users have requested.

As for upgrading - you are correct at the moment it is a nightmare but I believe an upgrade script is on the way. There have been a lot of complaints about this but I am absolutely sure it will be ironed out - otherwise 1.6 simply won't be adopted by the existing user base which would be catastrophic for the project.

For what it is worth I used to use WordPress and swapped to Joomla because it is more flexible and a good library of extensions.

Actually looking at the original message again to get a clue what you are planning to do you are rather limited because as far as i understand it neither Joomla or WordPress will work with SQL Server - they both require MySQL and most of the common CMSes require PHP5/MySQL.

You might have to look at something like DOTNETNUKE if you want to stick with Windows/SQL Server.

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Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 28, 2011, 02:56 AM »

I use Joomla for all of my websites these days. If you need a hand finding your way around let me know. It's not as complicated as it first appears.

Just a word of warning - don't try version 1.6 yet if you want to use extensions.

It has only just been released and whilst I think it is supposed to be a big improvement on 1.5 in terms of logical layout etc. it is also a big change (a major rewrite that has been in beta testing for the past year) and it is going to take a long time to get extensions converted/rewritten for the new version.

I'm sure it is stable and worth a look - and if you don't need extensions might just do the job well.

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Living Room / Re: Hosting in the UK

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 26, 2011, 08:51 AM »

nativespace.co.uk works very well, has a good feature set and their support is excellent.

1683

Living Room / Re: Sony v. Hotz: Sony Sends a Dangerous Message to Researchers -- and Its Customers

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 26, 2011, 07:08 AM »

ah bless - so naive ... 

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Living Room / Re: Sony v. Hotz: Sony Sends a Dangerous Message to Researchers -- and Its Customers

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 26, 2011, 03:16 AM »

Just listening to the news - UK government promised when it came into power to remove the 'detention' laws currently in force in the UK.

All they seem to have done is put a limit of 2 years on it and relaxed the use of the internet for detainees.

This is a law that allows the UK government to put anyone they like under house arrest without charge or even saying why they are being charged.

Doesn't democracy give a warm glow!

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Living Room / Re: Sony v. Hotz: Sony Sends a Dangerous Message to Researchers -- and Its Customers

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 25, 2011, 01:12 PM »

I sure hope laws like that never make it here to europe.

-Eóin (January 21, 2011, 09:20 PM)

Remember, this is only Sony's interpretation of what they want the law to mean. It's not actually the law unless a court agrees with their interpretation. 

-app103 (January 22, 2011, 01:30 AM)

They have already - it is illegal in the UK to buy or have access to any software that CAN be used to circumvent copyright protection. You don't have to use the software to actually do that.

This means that technically you could face criminal charges for owning a software debugger because it could be potentially used (as one part of a toolkit) to work out how copyright protection works.

Presumably it also means it is illegal to use software to allow you to rip certain copyright protected CDs to media players because it has to circumvent the protection.

The Sony Rootkit debacle was an example of software protected in law in the UK. Technically once you have inserted an offending Sony audio CD if you remove the rootkit from your computer (or even attempt to and don't succeed) you are guilty of a criminal act - even though you never installed it, asked for it to be installed, or agreed to any license to allow its installation and that it effectively acted as a virus subverting the normal running of your computer. Presumably if you look for instructions on the internet on how to remove the rootkit and download those instructions to your computer but never actually use them then you are also breaking the law.

It strikes me as madness that UK law is now designed to favour foreign corporations over the thoughts of its own people. Brave New World is here - and has been for some time.

1686

General Software Discussion / Re: How to create a shortcut for the "wireless network connection" in Windows XP?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 24, 2011, 01:20 PM »

Drag the connection to the desktop

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Living Room / Re: why is it so difficult to pick out a new computer?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 24, 2011, 04:02 AM »

Thanks - yes they are and pretty quick and cheap to set up from the bare bones package.

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Living Room / Re: why is it so difficult to pick out a new computer?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2011, 05:34 PM »

I did a google search in the US and came up with a few - which is where I got the price from. Having said that I can't find it on the ASUS USA site.

This is the one I was looking at http://uk.asus.com/p...lkouN&templete=2

You can import them because they are dual power (but you might have to supply a power cable).

I was impressed with the BB because it has a nice looking case and the mobo has reasonable expandability and also has AT style keyboard and mouse connectors if you want to keep your USB ports free. It also worked out quite a bit cheaper than a mobo/case/psu bought separately.

1689

General Software Discussion / Re: Checking for available domain name = giving it away?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2011, 09:58 AM »

Happened to me too - looked for a domain name in the morning went back next day to buy it and it had squatters.

In the UK cybersquatting is now illegal - why can't the US do the same with .com domains?

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Living Room / Re: why is it so difficult to pick out a new computer?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 23, 2011, 09:52 AM »

Try building from a barebones system upwards - all you have to add are CPU, Memory, HD and DVD drives plus an OEM version of Windows.

I have found I can build new machines very quickly and can make a reasonable profit charging similar prices to Dell and HP. Difference is my machines are higher spec: quadcore AMD CPU, 8Gb DDR3 RAM and 1Tb Hard disk. Comparably priced machines are usually dual core, 3 or 4 Gb, 0.5 Tb.

The other advantage is that I know exactly what has gone into the build.

A good barebones unit is ASUS V6-M4A3000E (about $140 US) which comes with case, PSU and motherboard with  integrated Radeon 3000 graphics and 7.1 surround sound. Ideal for office work or internet machine. You just plug in CPU and heatsink, memory and attach a hard disk and DVD drive (one SATA cable supplied and one PATA cable supplied with a few screws). Could do with a slightly more powerful PSU if you want to add a separate graphics card but is perfectly adequate as a standard build. Also runs near silent and cool. Windows 7 installs all hardware automatically so setup is quick and easy.

1691

Living Room / Re: I need advice: which laptop to buy?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2011, 04:59 PM »

Been flogging a lot of Samsung HD laptops recently (eg. R540). Reasonably priced, well made and nice screens with the advantage of a full size keyboard. Main drawback is battery life is not up to the hype.

Depending on how much you want to spend Sony do some very nice HD laptops and generally are ugradeable to 8Gb RAM and have Core i3 processors which are quite nippy. Cost a bit more for the BluRay versions but they are really solidly built and have a decent battery life.

If you are looking at Thinkpads be aware that they are very crap heavy out of the box and make sure you avoid models with bloody stupid button/joysick type mouse instead of a touchpad (awful to use - unless you only ever plan to use a wireless mouse).

1692

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2011, 02:18 PM »

The account system would only used for people who choose to use services - not the search engine. Giving reactions to bad search results could be restricted to confirmed registered users - that way any abuse of the reporting system could be followed up.

1693

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2011, 10:22 AM »

One simple innovation would be to have a thumbs up and a thumbs down link in the search results page for each link so that rubbish can easily be reported*.

There is a way to get around this, if someone codes a bot to thumbs up their own site across multiple IP's ? Trust me, google can't even detect autblogs, let alone catch multiple IP's.

-mahesh2k (January 22, 2011, 08:51 AM)

Simple make sure that only signed in and verified users see the voting system and take well publicised action against abusers of the system.

In an interesting development I was helping a client set up a gmail account and they now require a real mobile phone number to complete verification.

This raised a problem because the client didn't own a mobile phone and they wouldn't accept a landline number.

Google should insist on proper verification of user accounts - preferably by post or by landline telephone number - this would stop massive numbers of bogus accounts being created and mutliple accounts from the same number can be grouped for manual checking and deletion if no verification response is made.

PayPal have an effective way of verifying users so I can't really understand why Google can't do it properly. They could charge a small fee to cover any admin costs. It would also provide an effective way of banning abusers.

1694

Living Room / Re: Google? Spam? Ads? No... No Conflict of Interest Here...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2011, 07:48 AM »

One of the things I need to find is technical info on various laptops.

Try find a manual or upgrade information for a Dell or Toshiba laptop (or any other laptop manufacturer).

I chose those two because they both publish information about their computers beyond the usual user manual (including service manuals).

The results of any search you make in Google ALWAYS come up with the same websites trying to sell freely available stolen information - and often they don't actually have the information you need on the page you are looking at - it is just spam filler to get a result from the search engine.

Conspicuous by their absence are the manufacturer's websites.

Why is that google NEVER EVER points you at a manufacturer's web site in the top ten results even when you put that manufacturer's name as the first search item - and doesn't even do a particuarly good job when you use site:.... to sepcify the site to search manually.

I think advertising and incompetence are rapidly making google's results unusable.

One simple innovation would be to have a thumbs up and a thumbs down link in the search results page for each link so that rubbish can easily be reported*. Bad sites could quickly be identified - and maybe they could then ban those people from the Google Ads system too - oh but that would affect the bottom line so there is no chance of that happening!

* Yes I know this could be abused but there could be safeguards introduced.

1695

General Software Discussion / Re: LastPass - What are your thoughts?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 22, 2011, 05:54 AM »

LastPass seems a little odd after RoboForm but after a few days I really like it.

Some observations (sorry if they are obvious but I only noticed by accident):

First - the single button approach is neat and compact - but if like me you are used to the RoboForm tool bar you can go into the LastPass options and get a similar toolbar to show easily enough.

Second - my transfer from RoboForm to LastPass went very smoothly. However a few websites don't seem to get picked up LastPass. I think is is because it is stricter on the URLs recognised. If/when this sort of thing happened in RoboForm doing a search was laborious - but in LastPass ust click on the My LastPass link in the toolbar - your entire vault is opened in a new browser window (whether you are online or not) and simply start typing the website you need to find and voila it appears instantly. A little judicious tweaking of the fields fixes the problem permanently. I thought this was going to be a laborious process and timeconsuming but so far with thousands of logins it hasn't really proved a problem at all.

Third - I wanted my passwords on my computers - not just in the ether. That is precisely what I have with LastPass. If I disconnect from the internet I can still access all of my data (so things like notes etc. or access to passwords where my computer is not connected for some reason are still available).

All in all I am impressed with the free version of LastPass and I am considering paying the $12 subscription to have access on my Blackberry and also to store passwords for desktop apps.

1696

General Software Discussion / Re: Upgrading RoboForm from v6 to v7: worthwhile?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 20, 2011, 07:40 PM »

Added my 2p on BetaNews

1697

General Software Discussion / Re: Dual Booting Win XP and Win 7

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2011, 04:49 PM »

But suddenly that's a great idea, Installing Xp and then Win7 in Virtual  PC.  Their would be no reason to Dual Boot , instead use it on Virtual PC.

-hulkbuster (January 18, 2011, 11:33 AM)

That's doing it wrong.

-f0dder (January 18, 2011, 02:27 PM)

I agree - Win 7 needs more resources than XP so installing XP as a VM inside Win 7 would be my choice.

1698

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: United States of America

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2011, 04:38 PM »

Topic now locked as BC has left the US. If you'd like a visit next time he returns to the US check out the new United States thread

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Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody arrives in Berlin, Germany

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2011, 04:32 PM »

There is a booking system in the Baby Cody area - there are other people who requested BC a long time ago and he has already been the the UK.

See stick topics at https://www.donation...ndex.php?board=283.0

Can I suggest you start a new UK visit thread and post a request there (United Kingdom Visit 2 or similar) and let me know so that I can make that thread sticky too.

While he is in Germany gjehle expressed an interest in a visit to Stuttgart, perhaps when he has finished his travels in Berlin he should go there next.

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Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody arrives in Berlin, Germany

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2011, 02:57 PM »

OK Housetier now added to the map: check it out at http://plarker.com/map/BabyCody