Recent Posts

1876

Word Processor Roundup / Re: Textmaker (Softmaker/Ashampoo Office) 2008

« Last post by rjbull on December 17, 2009, 02:53 PM »

I am pleased with Office 2010, but if you don't need to have the newest I would say Office 2008 may be a better deal; it is for certain worth every penny...:

-Curt (December 17, 2009, 02:06 PM)

Curt, please, what advantages does 2010 have over 2008 for you?

1877

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Breevy - Text replacer / expander and program / website launcher.

« Last post by rjbull on December 03, 2009, 02:57 PM »

Breevy is scheduled to be on BdJ at 57% off on November 29th.

-P.a.t.r.i.c.k. (November 01, 2009, 11:47 AM)

I see that went wrong, and has been re-scheduled for 3d. Jan. 2010.

I plan to make a post a week or so before that date.

I didn't see it,  but I don't log on to DC as often as I used to.  I set a reminder at BdJ for the January offer, though.

1878

General Software Discussion / Re: Text editor with filtering of lines

« Last post by rjbull on November 28, 2009, 03:56 PM »

Kedit does this ... But Kedit is most definitely not freeware.

-xtabber (November 26, 2009, 12:46 PM)

Not tried by me, but maybe The Hessling Editor, THE ?

THE is a powerful text editor modelled on the VM/CMS text editor XEDIT with the best features of Mansfield Software's Kedit.

1879

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by rjbull on November 08, 2009, 10:23 AM »

Currently reading Kate Elliot's  "Traitors' Gate," third in her Crossroads series.  She's a good fantasist, but this one isn't to my mind as good as her earlier Crown of Stars sequence.  Before finding that one, I'd begun to think that fantasies set in pseudo-Mediaeval pseudo-North European milieus were, however enjoyable, using a paint-by-numbers public domain background.  Crown of Stars changed my view on that.  She used the very early Middle Ages, and made it grittily real, rather than starting from unconsidered hand-me-down retellings of Arthurian legend.  The marvellous inverted version of Christianity is fascinating and the character development is excellent.

1880

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by rjbull on November 08, 2009, 10:09 AM »

I've recently been reading the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich - 15

-tanis424 (October 17, 2009, 08:24 AM)

I gave up on those when they all began to seem the same - off-sage hot sex and on-stage comfort food...

1881

General Software Discussion / Re: Wanted: SysAdmin-focused Account Information Keeper

« Last post by rjbull on November 08, 2009, 09:55 AM »

I use KeyNote from Tranglos for this task.

-aimshk (November 08, 2009, 06:56 AM)

In the same vein, the OP might consider Horst Schaeffer's MemPad.  It's portable, which can be an advantage.

1882

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by rjbull on November 05, 2009, 02:23 PM »

PowerCMD is on offer again on Bits du Jour for Tuesday 10th Nov. 2009, for $9.99 instead of regular $29.95.

1883

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a difference tool

« Last post by rjbull on November 04, 2009, 04:02 PM »

app103, take a look at TED Notepad, a small, very fast and amazingly feature-rich editor.  Press Control-Alt-M and you get boxes to type/paste your texts in.  Don't know if it will show the differences as clearly as you want, see image attached, but it's worth a look as an all-round useful "Swiss Army knife for text" anyway.

1884

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by rjbull on November 02, 2009, 02:28 PM »

I don't like Evernote's web version.  Not because of the features, but more because I strongly prefer using localized software.  I still use Evernote's version 2.

-superboyac (October 27, 2009, 11:05 AM)

Same here.  I didn't want my data held hostage on someone else's servers, forcing me to keep paying to access what I had laboriously gathered.  Besides, I'm in the UK, and don't really trust the quality of Internet connections.  Evernote 2 was the way to stay.

1885

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Hound: a grep-alike that searches inside PDFs

« Last post by rjbull on November 02, 2009, 01:49 PM »

Crud, Hound is sometimes leaving behind text files when I search PDFs  [...] Anybody else notice this?

-sajman99 (October 30, 2009, 06:07 PM)

I hadn't noticed, but, I don't use it very often.  Suggest you e-mail Fidel?

1886

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Breevy - Text replacer / expander and program / website launcher.

« Last post by rjbull on November 02, 2009, 01:46 PM »

Simplicity, ease of use, and speed.

-P.a.t.r.i.c.k. (November 01, 2009, 11:47 AM)

Sounds good, as long as it has enough features.  E.g., Instant Text has very good import features, including the ability to analyse a corpus of text and produce a set of abbreviations from it, also to make those abbreviations in different styles, e.g. John Knowles' ABCZ Typing Abbreviation System.  IT is expensive...  no wonder.

Breevy is scheduled to be on BdJ at 57% off on November 29th. I plan to make a post a week or so before that date.

Sounds excellent 

1887

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Breevy - Text replacer / expander and program / website launcher.

« Last post by rjbull on October 31, 2009, 05:06 PM »

There's a load of programs that do some of all of what Breevy does: e.g. Phrase Express, Typing Assistant, Comfort Keys, Instant Text, IntelliComplete, Type Pilot/Speed Pilot, and many others, plus roll-your-won with AutoHotKey.  Some of them are free, or free for personal use, others have been offered at DC or BdJ discounts  <hint>.  What do you see as Breevy's special strengths compared to the field?

1888

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: UltraRecall discounted on BitsDuJour.com today (2009-10-07)

« Last post by rjbull on October 13, 2009, 03:05 PM »

I hope development will continue at a reasonable pace, though I'm not sure (yet) what more I want from it.

-Dormouse (October 10, 2009, 06:17 PM)

I originally registered because I didn't like the way EverNote was going, and UR seemed a possible replacement.  In my experience, clipping from the Web isn't nearly as seamless as it is with EverNote.  However, it looks like UR offers many more possibilities for organisation of information.  I was beginning to wonder if I could use that to make bulletins in more graphical form than the plain text I used to use.  UR's royalty-free reader program might have been a useful extra, if I'd had to distribute knowledge bases.

1889

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: UltraRecall discounted on BitsDuJour.com today (2009-10-07)

« Last post by rjbull on October 10, 2009, 04:09 PM »

Whether it is really worth upgrading to v4 from v3, I'm not so sure - though it does bring compatibility with W7. Given that they had announced that they weren't going to develop UR any more, getting a new version and continued development is a good thing and they do need enough money coming in with it to make their work worthwhile.

-Dormouse (October 07, 2009, 01:11 PM)

I wondered why the installer I had gave an unregistered version on my new Vista laptop, until I discovered it was v4 and a for-pay major upgrade.  Kinook kindly pointed me to a v3 file, so I was able to get going again.  I was disappointed the BdJ offer didn't include a 3 to 4 upgrade.  Without an income now, I wasn't prepared to spend that much to update a program I've never (yet) got to grips with.  As you observe, they said they weren't going to update it any more, so I was surprised at a new major version.  But I was very grateful to get the old one back.

1890

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best Of: text editors

« Last post by rjbull on October 08, 2009, 10:44 AM »

In the recent EmEditor 9 beta, the author introduced the CSV mode which is very handy.
Most of my scientific data are saved in csv and EmEditor 9 is the only text editor can display it nicely. (except those sluggish spreadsheet program)

-cecilyen (October 06, 2009, 03:35 PM)

I think UltraEdit can instantly convert CSV into neatly-spaced columns.  For quick looks at small CSV files intended for import into Excel, I used to use List² (ListSquared) which is great for that job.  Warning - the ListSquared Web site is up and down like a yoyo.

1891

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a text scraper for Vista?

« Last post by rjbull on October 01, 2009, 04:00 PM »

I suppose you could always take a .tif screenshot and feed that to SI7.
Not quite the ideal solution, though.

-cranioscopical (September 27, 2009, 12:02 PM)

I thought of taking a screenshot and pasting it into EverNote 2.2.  Trouble is, EverNote will index text in a screenshot, but doesn't seem to make it accessible, even though it does that for handwritten "ink notes."

@Curt:
Thanks - I must have thought ScreenOCR was some sort of clone of Kleptomania (they use the same icon) but if it can do more, will be worth a look.  I e-mailed StructuRise, authors of Kleptomania, but so far don't seem to have had a reply.

1892

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a text scraper for Vista?

« Last post by rjbull on September 27, 2009, 10:59 AM »

I don't have Vista but how about Snagit, which has a trial version here?

-cranioscopical (September 26, 2009, 03:56 PM)

I have a license for the free but older 7.something version of Snagit, picked up in their fairly recent offer (I think from following a DC notice).  But Snagit say that particular version won't work on Vista - some people say it will,  but it didn't seem to for me - so I took that line no further.  In fact, the free license qualifies you for a reduced rate on the latest full version as being an existing user, so maybe I'll look into that.  At present though I'm trying to reign in expenditure... 

I should also have mentioned JOCR as well, but that will only work if you have M$ Office installed.  My laptop came with it, but I haven't licensed it, so don't know if JOCR will work.

1893

General Software Discussion / Recommend a text scraper for Vista?

« Last post by rjbull on September 26, 2009, 03:45 PM »

Kleptomania doesn't seem to work for me on Vista, treating everything as a graphic, despite reporting over 600 fonts in its database.  Please,

• Can anyone confirm this?
• Recommend anything that does work?

I've tried both Hypersnap and Nir Sofer's sysexp; both seem to work some of the time but not quite all (unless I misunderstood something).

Thanks...

1894

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for a AutoSave program

« Last post by rjbull on September 25, 2009, 03:50 PM »

I haven't tried this myself...  from Jimmy the Fork:

Helmet

   Clicks the save button on any program.

See the author's screenshot below.

1895

Living Room / Re: Best Laptop Input Device?

« Last post by rjbull on September 25, 2009, 03:41 PM »

Most laptops have some kind of mouse-equivalent built in.  My Win98SE laptop has a small rubber knob that sticks up between two keys, plus a couple of buttons below the keyboard; my new Vista laptop has a touch pad with scroll-wheel analogue built into it, plus buttons.  I've also seen small trackballs designed to clip onto the edge of a keyboard, though not for a long time.

1896

General Software Discussion / Re: An 'old timers' experience with InfoSel

« Last post by rjbull on September 22, 2009, 03:09 PM »

I loved Infosel and still do, I have been using it since 1999 and used MemoryMate in the mid and late eighties

-Khalid_FA (September 22, 2009, 01:37 PM)

I used both MM and IS for DOS; bought IS after MM, but went back to MM for most things because it was so clean and simple.

As far as the Mac the best close contender is DevonThinkPro Office and Eagle filer . But they are not all in one as InfoSel is , but then you can't compare a Windows to Os X .

Is it possible to run IS on a Mac via an emulator?

1897

General Software Discussion / Re: How "laplink" Win98SE and Vista Home Premium laptops?

« Last post by rjbull on September 19, 2009, 04:24 PM »

In fact I was hoping to do the transfer using Total Commander as I don't have "real" LapLink, but I don't think there's anything in the TC help file about how to use USB ports.  I'm probably OK for  now, having gone the clumsy but certain route, but I might look into dedicated transfer software just in case.
Thanks!

1898

Living Room / Re: How to use a parallel port printer on a PC without a parallel port?

« Last post by rjbull on September 19, 2009, 04:20 PM »

If you are going to shell out $20 for the cable adapter you might look around for a deal on Epson Stylus C88+ Printer.  It has both Parallel and USB connectors.

-MilesAhead (September 18, 2009, 04:05 PM)

I wondered about that myself, though as I'm in the UK the prices translate into UK pounds plus 

The only proviso is the Vista driver is on the machine.  No CD.

That's part of how they make cheap printers so cheap...

1899

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: app which creates instant backup of any file you save in excel

« Last post by rjbull on September 19, 2009, 04:14 PM »

Could you use one of the command-line archiver programs, telling it to store all XLS files complete with path and starting from the root, then rename the resulting archive with today's date and time?  And do that as a scheduled event?

Of course, I probably haven't understood the situation... 

1900

General Software Discussion / Re: How to migrate Palm T3 to Vista?

« Last post by rjbull on September 18, 2009, 03:49 PM »

Hmmm, that's two interesting thoughts, Hirudin.  I could try the first one without much trouble.  Thanks!