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1801

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 11:01 PM »

If you have multiple CPUs you can assign different tasks to different CPUs in Windows XP - or is that not what you are talking about? You can also give Tasks priortity (at least in a coarse way Idle, Low, Normal, High and RealTime).

I seem to recall a utility that a certain cat fancier made available on here called Process Tamer too ...

-Carol Haynes (November 27, 2008, 08:10 PM)

I do use Process Tamer. But I do tend to get a little (OK - a lot!) impatient when I try to pause indexing and the search engine just ignores me! Hate that!    All of the desktop searches can continue indexing when you don’t want them to do so, but Copernic 2 was the first that seemed to go out of control on me. Plus as I mentioned it wouldn’t find certain files at all, even though they were definitely in the index. MP3's for example.

I wrote to Copernic but got no reply, which was unusual in my experience with them. Then I noticed that there were a lot of posts around the various forums about similar issues. I think it might have been V. 2.5 right after it was released.

All of the desktop search engines seem to hit a point where the index gets corrupted and you have to dump the index and re-index all your files. Also, I have a few HDD's here, so it's a lot of data that they have to index on my desktop PC. I think that the larger the index you have, the more likely it is to get corrupted after a while.

X1 was always the best for me. It seemed to give me the least trouble of all I have tried. At least of the indexing type. But for some reason I cannot get a hold of them anymore! I used to be a member of their forum but earlier this year I tried and it said my email address was banned - I never posted more than a few innocent questions, so I don’t know what that is about. Since they don’t offer it free anymore I decided to purchase the Pro version but I can't login there and they haven't replied to my email requests. What's frustrating is that they still send me requests to participate in their web meetings!

Thanks!

Jim

PS - Carol, I never even considered separating the processes by processor. I've never tried that. Does it work well?  Thanks!  Jim

1802

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 10:50 PM »

Hm, I doubt CPU strain would be very high from file indexing (unless something is very wrong with the indexing application), and CD burning doesn't require a lot of CPU power anyway... but indexing of course has a lot of disk load (why oh why wasn't I/O prioritization added before Vista?).

BurnProof/whatever-each-vendor-calls-it does save you from coasters, but it's still best not to rely on it - burn quality is lower if BurnProof has to kick in.

-f0dder (November 27, 2008, 05:56 PM)

Agreed - it is never good to burn in a "stuttered" fashion like that. I prefer to have nothing else running when I burn; I let the burning app have all it might want!

Jim

1803

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 10:48 PM »

.... like burning a CD or DVD - I had to end Copernic's process because it would steal so much CPU and cause burns to fail.

-J-Mac (November 27, 2008, 02:21 PM)

You either have an extremely old burner or have disabled whatever burn-interruption-protection-mechanism it uses - I've never had a burn fail because the CPU suddenly didn't have enough time to do it.

I've had ImgBurn sitting in the middle of a burn waiting for 15 minutes so that HDD load, (was transferring files at the same time), could reduce enough to let the buffers fill - the burn finished and the disc was OK.

-4wd (November 27, 2008, 04:55 PM)

No, my burner is not brand new but it is not that old: Sony DVD RW DRU-820A w/latest firmware. And yes, it also tries to balance things out, but CDS2 would really jump the CPU quickly at times, and burning a DVD can definitely be affected when sudden changes in resources occur.

Jim

1804

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 02:21 PM »

My biggest issues when running CDS2 were that it indexed whenever it wanted to; I couldn’t stop it at all except by ending the process in Task Manager. If I wanted to do anything that was CPU-intensive, like burning a CD or DVD - I had to end Copernic's process because it would steal so much CPU and cause burns to fail. Also, the last version I had couldn’t find a lot of files even though they were indexed. I gave up on it.

Hope you have better luck!

Jim

1805

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 02:05 PM »

Hey Michael,

I just re-read the email from the developer after this happened to me in February - when I last reinstalled XP Pro on my desktop computer - and saw this little gem in there:

It is planned that this key file will work with all future versions of
PS Tray Factory. Should any changes be required,
I'll provide you with a new key file (free of charge, of course).

If you lose your key file and need to re-install PS Tray Factory, just
drop a note to [email protected] and I'll send it to you again.

So it would appear that the problem I encountered back then should not happen anymore! (I think I already knew that from reading that in February, but I was only remembering the problem I had leading to this email!)

Cool! I stand corrected, reprimanded, and properly back in my place!   - Well, it actually was correct info at the time of my issues with it.     But I should have been positive in my assertion, that it was still an issue. It is not!

Thanks!

Jim

1806

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 01:53 PM »

I just updated my vote, since I now use Copernic.  Seems to be the best jack-of-all-trades compromise between performance, beauty, ease of use, and stability.

-Ralf Maximus (November 27, 2008, 07:53 AM)

Really? I have had nothing but trouble with since the latter updates of Copernic 2. And now that they have started charging for it and crippled the Free version I don’t bother with it anymore.

Jim

1807

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 27, 2008, 12:13 AM »

That's odd. After reinstalling XP Pro earlier this year I could not register PS Tray Factory; kept saying my code was invalid. I wrote the developer and he sent me a new key and told me exactly what I posted above.

Jim

1808

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

« Last post by J-Mac on November 26, 2008, 03:17 PM »

I use PS Tray Factory on my XP Pro desktop, but I'm little surprised about all the comments here regarding their licensing scheme; what is so good about it? I must have missed something.

AFAIK, they limit you to using it on only one computer - can't install it on a desktop and mobile computer. And I do know that if you move to a different computer, or reinstall your OS, you must get a new registration code. Their registration code only works once - no reinstalling with that code.

Thanks!

Jim

1809

Living Room / Re: What is Donation Coder?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 24, 2008, 04:26 PM »

Yeah, I'm also against new members not being able to post links - I've often needed to do that as first-post when joining a new forum, for the same reasons tomos states. It would definitely help bring down spam, but... just how much spam do we get, and how much would it annoy legitimate users?

Limiting the edit capability to, say, X hours with under 10 posts would probably work out pretty well. Wouldn't be much trouble for regular users, and spammers are very unlikely to do more than a few posts at most.

As for edits showing up on "unread threads", I don't think it would be much of a problem, unless every edit would show up as an entry. Imho it'd be enough for a thread to be flagged as updated (only showing up in the list once), but probably with a per-thread "list of changes"?

This has to be done right - we don't want to flood the board with update thingies, and any new "tools" have to be easy to use

-f0dder (November 24, 2008, 04:04 PM)

Do you know of a plug-in that can do this?

A lot of good ideas, but if there is no effective way to implement them, how would you proceed?

There are certain filters built in to most forum software along with plug-ins and add-ons; I think that suggestions need to at least be doable. As an example, I am not particularly fond of limiting links but I do know that it is available for most forums. Editing can be limited in some forums, but most are just "On" or "Off"; you can allow or disallow editing. I don’t know SMF forum software; never had the opportunity to work with it.

Anyone here (other than mouser of course!) use SMF before?

Thanks!

Jim

1810

Living Room / Re: What is Donation Coder?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 24, 2008, 02:38 PM »

J-Mac: that would be very effective against spam, but also pretty annoying for legitimate users. After all, we do have the Announce Your Software/Service/Product section...

-f0dder (November 24, 2008, 02:33 PM)

Disable the filter for that and certain other specific forums. But to be honest, how many brand new users really have a need to post a link in their first 10?

Anyway it's just something I have seen done in other forums. I'm not certain that it is even available as an add-on/plug-in to SMF software.

Jim

1811

Living Room / Re: What is Donation Coder?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 24, 2008, 02:29 PM »

Hmm.  My suggestion didn't go over big at all, apparently. (Create a filter that prevents all new users from being able to post external links until after their 10th post).

I guess that no one liked that idea. 

Jim

The following is quoted from the InternetBusiness.co.uk web site:

3. Prevent new member links

An excellent plugin for vbulletin prevent new members from posting links according to a specific parameter, usually post count.

In other words, if you set the parameter on the plugin to “20 posts”, it means that new members cannot post a link until they’ve made 20 posts.

You can find the plugins here:
Forbid Users from Posting Links or Images if They Have Fewer than 15 Posts (NOTE: Only for vbulletin 3.5+)
Prevent Users With Low Post Counts Posting/PM’ing URLS (NOTE: Only for vbulletin 3.0.x)

Pros: This is an excellent way to prevent new member registrations simply to post link advertising on your forums.

Cons: It can be annoying to genuine new members linking to genuine third-party websites.

Additionally, some forum spammers add the URL without the http://, hoping they can get traffic from members pasting in the URL.

Worse still, some forum spammers will make “me too” posts in order to reach the required link count, then drop their ads. Combat this by ensuring a long delay between posts (ie, vbulletin Admin > vbulletin Options > Message Posting and Editing Options > Minimum Time Between Posts > 60) to make it least worth their while to do so.

1812

Living Room / Re: What is Donation Coder?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 24, 2008, 12:33 AM »

I don't like this.
Changing your post is a feature I really like about the forums.
A better idea would be to be able to see any changes made to a post. Kind of like a wiki.
As a rule. Things are usually better when you add features not when you take them away or limit them. So if the problem can be solved by adding a feature rather than taking one away, I'd go the adding way.
As far as spam goes. An edit is like a new post and should be treated as such. Nothing should be posted on a forum without a moderator seeing it.

-alivingspirit (November 24, 2008, 12:06 AM)

Problem with that is that I don’t believe there are any moderators with such permissions here - except mouser! Of course, if he has the time to moderate ALL posts here......  

Jim

1813

Living Room / Re: What is Donation Coder?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 23, 2008, 11:44 PM »

it's a pretty good idea i agree..
the only trouble would be those occasional posts where an update is useful, like changing a download link, or a first post of a thread which summarizes info, etc.

not sure how to strike a balance between the two.. maybe if by default editing was blocked after 24hrs, but a mod could reset it for a post on request?

-mouser (November 23, 2008, 09:17 PM)

Set a filter limiting all new members to posts without URLs in them. I know that this is possible with Invision PowerBoard. Don’t know much about SMF's forum software; never had the opportunity to setup a forum using SMF. Worth a look. 

Jim

1814

Living Room / Re: What is Donation Coder?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 23, 2008, 08:26 PM »

I was saying the other day that FARR does everything but make tea!

-CleverCat (November 23, 2008, 08:04 AM)

It probably could, but you'd have to wait toolong.

-cranioscopical (November 23, 2008, 09:54 AM)

Ouch!

BTW, I agree that this poster is a fraud; check Google here.

1815

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 23, 2008, 03:55 AM »

MS Bootvis, which is not supported by MS since XP was released, can do this for some users, but I have found that it cannot complete its goal if you are running a dual core processor, which I am.

-J-Mac (January 30, 2008, 11:27 PM)

Are you sure about that, Jim? Because I'm running a dual core CPU and Bootvis runs just fine 

-city_zen (November 23, 2008, 01:29 AM)

I'll find a reference for you tomorrow. (Late here now - need my beauty sleep!)

But I do know that bootvis is only for XP - never worked on Vista AFAIK.

Jim

1816

General Software Discussion / Re: How to make a local copy of an ancient Web forum?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 23, 2008, 01:20 AM »

I haven't tried these before. Can anyone provide an estimate for how much space it will take to download an entire forum/website on average? I'm wondering whether as a casual user, I'm better off with the Scrapbook Firefox extension though to be honest, I don't know much about capturing to a certain depth.

-Paul Keith (November 21, 2008, 08:27 AM)

That depends, Paul. What do you consider to be an average forum/website? "Average" is relative to each user, I've found.

However even a relatively small forum has tens of thousands of links and thousands of separate page views. I would guess that for most forums it would be more tha most users would want to store on their home computers. I'm talking here about the front-end views, of course. If you had access to a forum's back-end you could store just the database, which would be considerably smaller.

Jim

1817

General Software Discussion / Re: Notebook / Todo list manager

« Last post by J-Mac on November 23, 2008, 12:59 AM »

No current discounts for AM-Notebook. Martin Aignesberger does offer discounts here for his applications on occasion. (Though I believe that you must be a supporting member to take advantage of DonationCoder discount offers).

Jim

1818

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by J-Mac on November 22, 2008, 12:17 AM »

Downloaded and installed. What changes were made in 7.6.0.16?

Thanks!

Jim

1819

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 20, 2008, 08:36 PM »

Ah... OK, I've gone through two reboots to check this out and you're right, f0dder. Applying the settings suggested in the newsletter Curt pointed us to results in [NumProc]=2 being added to the boot configuration. When I removed it and rebooted the line is absent entirely.

If anyone else wants to confirm this (after changing settings in msconfig as outlined above) - run a Command window as administrator (Start - type 'cmd' into the search bar, right click the link that appears and select "Run as administrator", click "continue" and then type "bcdedit" at the prompt and hit enter). You'll need to reboot each time to see a change as any changes made in msconfig require a reboot and are not reflected in the BCD area until after a reboot...

-Darwin (November 20, 2008, 03:12 PM)

I really need to look into this! My notebook running Vista Ultimate initially had amazing startup and shutdown times. Much faster than anything I had ever seen on XP.

Unfortunately after installing Vista SP1, my start and shutdown times are now much longer. No added software; only the SP1 update. Startup time is moderately longer. It was scary fast before; now it is maybe 45 seconds to a minute - not bad by XP standards, but significantly slower than Vista prior to SP1.

Shutdown is where I am really seeing delays now. Before SP1 it was also scary fast - I mean within seconds after hitting the Shutdown button I could close the lid; all went dark quickly. Now it takes at least a full minute, maybe a bit longer. I'd have to actually time it to be more accurate. Again, that is without anything else new except the Service Pack running.

No idea what changed with SP1 that would cause this, but I miss the lightning fast starts and stops.

Jim

1820

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WaggleImage on Bits du Jour (Nov 18 2008)

« Last post by J-Mac on November 20, 2008, 08:26 PM »

Darn - I missed this one!

Bits is screwing up their daily emails again. After they stopped for a few weeks the admin posted about email server problems and said all was finally fixed. I did start getting their emails again, but usually about one email every other day or so. Plus, instead of the target email time of shortly after midnight EST, they sometimes come the following afternoon or evening - only hours before the deals expire.

Guess I need to drop them and try to remember to check the RSS feed from now on. Don’t know why but apparently they can't get a handle on daily email notifications at all.

Jim

1821

General Software Discussion / Re: Converting DRM protected music files: software recommendations

« Last post by J-Mac on November 20, 2008, 03:14 PM »

I've downloaded a few decent programs at GAOTD. Granted they are limited, but only in that you get that one shot to install and use it. If I have liked something I go to the vendor's site and upgrade it. I did that with Anvir Task Manager - I just upgraded to the Pro version and they gave me a discount code to use.

It's a good concept IMO. What some folks seem to want is to get commercial software along with forever updates for free. That doesn’t often happen in this world!

Jim

1822

General Software Discussion / Re: Converting DRM protected music files: software recommendations

« Last post by J-Mac on November 20, 2008, 03:02 PM »

I was just looking at this over at GAOTD and searched here to see if there were any comments. Doesn’t look like anyone here has actually tried it yet. Maybe I'll give it a shot. I have this damn .wmv file that I purchased for $30 that is DRM protected - needs a password in order to watch it. I watched about half of it and since then have never been able to watch it again. Won't take the password anymore. Writing to the web site was fruitless - no response. I did find a post elsewhere that had a link to an obscure page on that site that has the answer though: Uninstall WMP, run a cleaner to get all the bits off, then install the original WMP9 and don’t update it. Apparently that is the one and only version it will play on! Bull.

Only problem with this Daniusoft application is that I hate installing programs like this just to check them out because they sometimes install filters and codecs that interfere with other burning programs I use currently. Oh well -- guess it can't hurt too much!   

Thanks Curt!

Jim

1823

General Software Discussion / Re: advice needed.....FirstDefense-ISR, ShadowProtect, ShadowUser, Rollback Rx???

« Last post by J-Mac on November 19, 2008, 10:35 AM »

Edit:[/b]  I just checked my invoice: the added support package I purchased is as follows:

"Gold Support - 24hour response, email of updates, patches and new builds"

Ha! Some fools' "gold" I paid for, eh?

-J-Mac (November 17, 2008, 09:33 PM)

If you paid by credit card trying getting a refund because they are not providing the service and if that fails go to the credit card company for a refund.

I don't know where you are based but in the UK the Consumer Credit Act means that the credit card company is jointly responsible with the seller for sales and services bought on credit.

-Carol Haynes (November 18, 2008, 02:12 PM)

Nice thought, Carol, but I purchased FD-Rescue back in July. It appears to work as designed, but the fact that it must be installed on the system drive coupled with the fact that it will not allow you to exclude a lot of user data makes it get too large for my comfort.

The support issue is a disgrace but it is probably too late to get the money back from the credit card company.

Jim

1824

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: List of disc catalogers

« Last post by J-Mac on November 18, 2008, 10:42 PM »

Good man, Tom!

It actually looks pretty nice. However I am doing fine with SoftCAT Plus for my installed software catalog/database, Collectorz.com for DVD Movies, CDs, and Books, and WhereIsIt for all else. Can't fit anymore cataloging applications!   

Thanks!

Jim

1825

General Software Discussion / Re: advice needed.....FirstDefense-ISR, ShadowProtect, ShadowUser, Rollback Rx???

« Last post by J-Mac on November 17, 2008, 09:43 PM »

Greetings all,

I'm hoping to get a little advice here. 

From doing a little research, it looks like the "now discontinued" FirstDefense-ISR is the best of breed.
Is this still available for purchase at any distributors?

If not, what are the "2nd best" alternatives?


I have been using Acronis TrueImage, but would prefer something better/more flexible.

I've read that ShadowProtect is much better when it comes to differential backups,
and that Acronis is unstable for differentials.  Is this true?

Rollback Rx looks awesome, but stability?  and can you push all of that data off somewhere
on a server or DVD, or is it all locked in a hidden partition on your drive?
(I have a NAS device that I would like to push images/backups onto).

ShadowUser looks interesting, but you only get one "snapshot", and again, can you
push that data off to another location in case the whole system goes down.

Maybe there are even better alternatives???

Cheers!

-codemeister (November 17, 2008, 05:44 PM)

I completely agree with the comments on Acronis, if you are referring to the True Image Home version, either 10 or the newer 2009. Others here have said that the enterprise version is working fine, but the Home version is pretty bad! Acronis True Image Home 9 was great; 10 added a few nice features but it lost the ability to burn images to DVD for most users. (Hint: Save the image to an external drive and then burn it to DVD from there with your own burning software - that works).

Version 11 was pretty much broke from the time of its release, and Acronis never did fix it. Then they released the 2009 version and I didn't even try it. Look at the comments from long-time users at Wilders Security, where Acronis has their forum. After three years and purchasing three successive versions, I won't touch this one.

Haven't tried ShadowProtect but I have heard good things about it.

Jim