Recent Posts

176

General Software Discussion / Re: Privacy solution for external USB drive?

« Last post by JeffK on April 20, 2006, 05:07 PM »

I take it back lockngo requires Admin access as well.

Aha!!!  I've finally stumped the donationcoders? 

PS I tried lockngo.  Appears to work OK but will only do a complete disk not a partition leaving some of the disk available for non-encryption.

Jeff

-JeffK (April 20, 2006, 02:57 PM)

177

General Software Discussion / Re: Privacy solution for external USB drive?

« Last post by JeffK on April 20, 2006, 02:57 PM »

Aha!!!  I've finally stumped the donationcoders? 

PS I tried lockngo.  Appears to work OK but will only do a complete disk not a partition leaving some of the disk available for non-encryption.

Jeff

178

General Software Discussion / Re: Privacy solution for external USB drive?

« Last post by JeffK on April 20, 2006, 05:17 AM »

Well Ive had a good look and I'd have to say I haven't found quite what I want among encryption or folder lock type programs.

I need something that resides on my external drive and is independent of the computer I attach it too.  Most of the solutions require admin access to the target computer or want to load or leave a driver on the computer and won't work if they can't or leave the decrypted file visible unless I remember to delete it.  I found "folderhideking" which is a so called green installation but it is a very fragile looking piece of software at this stage.

I'm not on Linux BTW.

Jeff

179

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by JeffK on April 19, 2006, 10:29 PM »

kd and Roy Orbison singing Crying.  IMHO the finest example of popular singing of the last 20 years.

Isn't kd lang from Alberta?

-JeffK (April 18, 2006, 10:20 PM)

Sure is.  And a Leonard Cohen fan, to boot KD is great.

Welcome, Tricia!

-allen (April 19, 2006, 09:07 PM)

180

General Software Discussion / Privacy solution for external USB drive?

« Last post by JeffK on April 19, 2006, 05:29 PM »

I've been looking at a way of protecting about 1.5GB of files on my 40GB USB external drive from being edited by others but to be used at home, work, (where I don't have admin privileges), church (you'd be amazed at what the audiovisual volunteer can do with a Powerpoint presentation for a children's story; like make it unusable) and potentially other computers.  Also for use on my 256k USB memory stick.

I've looked at TrueCrypt and Dekart Private Disk Light as well as some others and haven't been able to quite settle on a solution.

My criteria are

simple to use (although I tend to be turned off by totally no frills interfaces interfaces)
small
portable
not requiring administrator privileges on possible machines I might need to use
when a file is decrypted I don't have to encrypt it again to maintain the protection (actually it doesn't have to encrypt at all just be able to lock/hide a folder but not require installation on target machines ie runs off the drive or memory stick).

Any ideas?

Thanks,  Jeff

181

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by JeffK on April 18, 2006, 10:20 PM »

Isn't kd lang from Alberta?

Jeff

182

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 07:41 PM »

Do you put your Prognew etc directories on your non C: drive? 

Jeff

183

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows Tweak Tool?

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 07:34 PM »

Has anybody tried Tweak-XP Pro from www.totalidea.com.  I'm fascinated by the interface.  I have X-Setup Pro but usually struggle to find what I want.

Jeff

184

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 05:51 PM »

I didn't mean to kill discussion on this so if people have any more ideas/advice or info about what they do I would welcome it.

Jeff

185

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 11:01 AM »

Thanks for that - plenty to think about.  I had a system crash just before Christmas, where I had to reinstall the OS (Win XP) and I have only just now had time to go through my D: drive and check that all the apps still work.  This is the sort of rework I am trying to avoid.

Jeff

186

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 10:53 AM »

"my wprg-YYYYMMDD.rar"?  What is that is that a backup of your registry?  Do you have a workable way of distinguishing between applications that do or do not require reinstallation?

Jeff

187

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 10:45 AM »

If you have the OS and your applications on the one drive/partition would you potentially lose your installed applications if the OS goes bad and needs reinstallation.  Perhaps not because the reinstall would leave the applications alone anyway.  Still have to reinstall the apps where their settings are overwritten but that's necessary regardless of what drive they are on.

Jeff

188

General Software Discussion / Re: Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 10:31 AM »

Actually I've probably gone a bit overboard in that respect.  My setup is

Drive C: OS and things such as the startmenu files
D: Applications related to the management of the computer itself eg my backup software
E: regular applications eg MS Office
F: data, My  Documents etc
G: downloaded software
H: essential downloads (stuff I've purchased and backup more carefully)

And that's just disk 1.

Jeff

189

General Software Discussion / Backing up to protect against operating system or hard drive failure

« Last post by JeffK on April 16, 2006, 08:01 AM »

I want to access the thinking of all you gurus here regarding this subject which is somewhat perplexing me.

I have had my current computer for I suppose five years.  I have had Windows XP on it for about a year after it was released so my original disks predate Service Pack 1.

In that time I have had computer problems which required me to reinstall XP about 8 times.  On four of those occasions I have done a "repair" reinstall which has left my registry settings and documents intact.  But on the other occasions the problem have been so severe I have had to do a complete reinstall thus losing access to both documents and installed applications because registry settings are overwritten.

This is becoming more and more problematic as Windows XP needs to be updated with the service packs as well.

I have a backup regime sorted out.  I use Paragon Drive Backup to take images of each of my partitions and Genie Backup Pro to take file backups.  The images are on a second internal hard drive, and the file backups are on external USB drives

However what will happen if my OS or the hard disk fails again.  How will I use these backups to restore the OS as it was with my settings intact.  Or in other words what backup should I make of the system partition, so that if the OS fails and I cannot boot I can restore that partition as it was with as little fuss as possible?

Any comments and advice would be appreciated.

Best wishes (and by the way Happy Easter to Donation Coders),

Jeff

190

General Software Discussion / Boot optimisation software

« Last post by JeffK on April 14, 2006, 05:32 PM »

I am thinking about having another go at speeding up my Windows XP boot time following complaints from my wife and daughter that the computer is too slow to start up.  I suspect the main culprits are Quicktime and the Bit Defender virus scan which occurs but can't be sure.

In the past I have tried to use Bootvis to work out what is going on.  However I associate these attempts with at least two fatal computer crashes where I have had to rebuild my software setup from the ground up.  So I am very reluctant to use it again.

Can anyone suggest a good boot time optimiser (or analyser)?

Any help would be appreciated.

Jeff

191

General Software Discussion / Re: Synchronisation tools

« Last post by JeffK on April 13, 2006, 05:49 PM »

I would like a program that sort of ties in synchronisation and duplicate file finding together.  The synchronisation wouldn't be just between manually selected source and target folders but would also answer the question "Does this "source" file also exist in the target directory or any on its subdirectories?"

Jeff

192

General Software Discussion / Re: Real time disk space monitor required

« Last post by JeffK on April 12, 2006, 06:22 PM »

Thanks for the ideas.  Freemeter looks like it might be OK.  I don't need someting all the time - just when I'm doing HDD cleanups.

Jeff

193

General Software Discussion / Re: Real time disk space monitor required

« Last post by JeffK on April 12, 2006, 03:19 PM »

Thanks, I wasn't even aware of that application.  I will check it out.

Jeff

194

General Software Discussion / Real time disk space monitor required

« Last post by JeffK on April 12, 2006, 02:56 PM »

Any one know of any cheap/free programs that will give a realtime display of disk space/free space.  I have been using a trial of Disk Watchman and it is ideal but it is a bit expensive for intermittent use.

Thanks for any help.

Jeff

195

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Fusemail - Professional E-Mail Service

« Last post by JeffK on April 12, 2006, 02:42 PM »

I have had a fusemail account for a long time and they certainly are feature rich.

Just a note though concerning their web interface that users may want to check out before purchase.  Check that it's compatible with your browser and also that it loads quickly enough.

Jeff

196

Living Room / Re: Happy birthday Carol H.

« Last post by JeffK on April 11, 2006, 05:58 PM »

Happy Birthday, Carol.  Thanks for all the work and input on this site.  Much appreciated.

Jeff

197

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Confine Mouse to Specific Monitor in Multi-monitor setup

« Last post by JeffK on April 11, 2006, 03:47 AM »

Haven't tried them yet but thanks for the hints above.  I'll give them a go.

Jeff

198

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Confine Mouse to Specific Monitor in Multi-monitor setup

« Last post by JeffK on April 09, 2006, 07:10 PM »

I would be interested in this too.  We have a set up at church where one monitor has Powerpoint Presenter running and the other feed is to a data projector showing the presentation.  Often the mouse disappears into the presentation and requires a huge amount of horizontal scrolling to get it back.  A way of limiting it to the first monitor would be good.

Jeff

199

Living Room / Re: What are your favorite Soundtracks or Scores to listen to

« Last post by JeffK on April 03, 2006, 04:31 AM »

I have loved the barn building music from "Witness"

Jeff

200

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH SOFTWARE DRAWING RESULTS - POSTED!

« Last post by JeffK on March 30, 2006, 05:30 AM »

Thanks for the prize.

JeffK