Recent Posts

1926

General Software Discussion / Re: Quicksilver Goes Open Source

« Last post by Darwin on November 02, 2008, 08:56 AM »

I've installed the dictionary, spotlight, text and other plugins... I'm on my Vista machine, so can't remember! I'll fire up the iBook and get back to you. I *know* that I have too many plugins installed (same problem with FARR under XP), and need to pare them down. One thing I have done, as I only have 576MB of RAM, is run without any Dashboard widgets opened. I miss iStats Pro and the weather widget, though. As I haven't really noticed much of a performance boost, I think I'll leave iStats Pro running.

I'm also running Office 2008, despite dire warnings on various boards not to with my specs. It loads faster than NeoOffice 2.25 and there's no lag when I am typing text into Word (as there is on NeoOffice). Note that PaintShop Pro X and X1 both opened a good deal more slowly under XP with a gig of RAM, so I can live with it! Especially given that the main motivation in getting the computer updated was to play with Quicksilver! Sorted...

Spotlight IS impressive. I was completely unaware of it indexing in the background and it finds text within pdfs, word documents, excel files, etc. If it's possible to do so (?), I'll install WDS 4 under Win2k and report back - I can do this in a virtual machine AND an 8 year old notebook.

All this experriment is accomplishing, at the end of the day, is making me want a new(-er) MacBook! Doh 

1927

DcUpdater / Re: "get version failed"

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 06:13 PM »

OK It's working now... don't know what was wrong before!

1928

DcUpdater / Re: "get version failed"

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 05:57 PM »

PS did try setting the firewall to "allow all traffic". Didn't seem to make much difference 

1929

DcUpdater / "get version failed"

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 05:40 PM »

Anyone else having difficutly getting DCUpdater to retrieve information from the web? All I've been getting since last night is a "get version failied" error message for each application/plugin in the list. Occasionally, I'll get three or four "update needed" messages but I cannot download them. Is this a server problem, settings problem, or a "darwin" problem?!

PS XP Pro Sp-3 (32-bit), Windows Firewall enabled, Webroot Internet Security Essentials.

1930

General Software Discussion / Re: Codeweavers - no good deed goes unpunished

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 04:23 PM »

"Use us or lose us"

-40hz (November 01, 2008, 04:16 PM)

Very apropros...

Right then. If I can ever get xubuntu 8.1 downloaded, I'll load up Crossover and see what happens... Of course, no good reason not try it under Ubuntu 8.04... except that the machine that it is installed on limps along on 192MB RAM; trying to run anything else will tax it to the point of it being useless, I fear.

1931

General Software Discussion / Re: Turning Windows 2003 Server into a workstation?

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 04:19 PM »

Hmm... I have a couple of spare 40GB harddrives kicking around... maybe I should just swap out my XP Pro drive and swap in one of the 40GB drives and see what happens... I've nothing to lose! Will definitely try this in the coming weeks (lot on my plate right now, so will defer it).

1932

General Software Discussion / Re: Codeweavers - no good deed goes unpunished

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 04:04 PM »

Heh, heh - nice post, 40hz  I grabbed a copy of Crossover for Linux and had my wife grab one for Mac (though as it turns out, the product only works on Intel based Macs. C'est la vie). I really hope that Codeweavers survives this - I like their sense of humour and style. If I find the product indispensible under Linux, I may well buy a copy to support them. Hope others do the same...

1933

Living Room / Re: Why social networks are a threat to life as some know it

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 12:35 PM »

For example everytime I raise this issue, someone would call me paranoid or overly sensitive and try to show me as a crack head.

-kartal (November 01, 2008, 11:12 AM)

I think that you're just being overly sensitive about this - possibly paranoid 

1934

General Software Discussion / Re: How do you launch stuff?

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 10:11 AM »

Now that I have a new notebook running Vista Sp-1, I've gone nuts with my XP Pro machine. I'm indulging my software addiction on it and have LOTS of stuff installed (whereas the Vista machine stays lean so I can work with it). Thus, I have numerous file managers installed, numerous office suites, numerous... you get the picture. So... in addition, I have FARR, DirectAccess 2 beta, Dash Command, ActiveWords, and Humanised Enso installed and alternate between them. I also have QuickSilver installed on a Mac running Tiger and am very impressed by it, as well...

At the moment I am playing with Humanised Enso and am pretty impressed by it. Holding down the CAPS key isn't nearly as "bad" as I thought it would be, now that I've given it a chance and read the rationale behind it. Discovering that you can just select text, hold down the caps key and type "upp" and have Enso covert it to upper case removes my objection about occasionally needing the CAPS function.

1935

General Software Discussion / Re: Quicksilver Goes Open Source

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 10:07 AM »

I now have my geriatric Dual USB iBook G3 running Tiger and have the latest Quicksilver build installed and running. Wow. I'm also impressed by Spotlight for indexing my files. Very nice! Bit of a learning curve involved - I've barely scratched the surface of its abilities...

1936

General Software Discussion / Re: Turning Windows 2003 Server into a workstation?

« Last post by Darwin on November 01, 2008, 09:19 AM »

OK I find myself with a copy of Windows 2008 Server Standard and am intrigued by this. I'm going to install it to a virtual machine and play! Thanks for the links to the guides, justice! Reading through them now.

1937

Living Room / Re: Why social networks are a threat to life as some know it

« Last post by Darwin on October 31, 2008, 11:00 AM »

On the web, nobody knows I'm really a dog!

-40hz (October 31, 2008, 10:04 AM)

Sit, 40hz, sit!

1938

Living Room / Re: Why social networks are a threat to life as some know it

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 08:53 PM »

Stupid enough that one wonders if this isn't engineered... But I prefer to believe that it really happened. Makes for a much better story!

RE: sacking. Yeah, probably not enough to get fired over (though someone near and dear to me lost her job at a Movie Theatre in Savannah, GA for calling in sick and getting caught out on the town), but certainly would result in some sort of disciplinary action I should think (no toilet breaks over an 8 hour shift, for example  ).

1939

DcUpdater / Re: Coming Next: Support For Optional Beta Downloads and Stable Rollbacks

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 08:50 PM »

Sounds great, mouser  I like playing with betas but often find that I want to go back to the last stable release. Adding this functionality to DCUpdater will make doing so MUCH easier.

1940

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 44

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 08:48 PM »

Actually, what does everyone think about those slightly off-topic articles?

-Ehtyar (October 30, 2008, 07:02 PM)

I like 'em, but I digress...

1941

Living Room / Re: Why Facebook is a threat to life as some know it

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 06:48 PM »

  That's brilliant, thanks 40hz 

I love the last missive from the errant Kevin, er Kyle...

Trying to defraud the company is grounds for dismissal round here... wonder what became of Kyle?

1942

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 44

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 06:45 PM »

Another fine newsletter. Many thanks, ehtyar! Scary about the increase in malware attachments in e-mail - must warn my parents to be vigilant.

1943

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great *FAST* HD search tool!

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 04:51 PM »

And no wanting to beat a dead horse - altho I have probably already done that - I thought that a PDF file where you could SELECT the text (ie, not an image) would contain the text as text - with other stuff around it - so a phrase search might not work - but I thought a simple text search would. But ya' learn something new each day ...

-kronhead (October 30, 2008, 04:05 PM)

Well, yes BUT Locate doesn't index file contents but rather file names.

1944

LaunchBar Commander / Re: My Computer and maybe a bug

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 12:56 PM »

Out of curiosity, are you using Vista? I ask wrt the border as Vista makes it difficult, amongst other things, to run a secondary monitor without a black border on the desktop. Probably unrelated but I thought I'd ask anyway)...

EDIT: split infinitives - I hate 'em!

1945

Living Room / Re: Printers that print on paper-roll ?

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 08:39 AM »

From what I've read, Canon's Win98 drivers (for those printerst that they produced them for, including the i9000) did support banner printing while the NT basted OS drivers do not...

Crazy!

Good luck with this - it still might be worth trying to call Canon (though I imagine that you'll need to block off a LOT of time for this as no doubt you'll bounce from rep to rep while they scramble to answer your question   ).

1946

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 07:50 AM »

Jim - I use WinPatrol to delay various programs at startup. As Dormouse notes, it allows you a high degree of control over startup.

I have the latest version of Task Manager Pro installed as well. It's more simplistic in that it allows you to list a bunch of applications to start after windows is loaded (you can specify how long TM Pro waits before starting to load them - default is 60 seconds) and then loads them at a set number of seconds apart (default is 30). This is in contrast to WP, which allows you to set the delay on a per application basis. This is nice if you know that a particular app needs more time than others to load.

As you note, it also duplicates mousers ProcessTamer to a small degree. However, like the startup delay there is not as much end-user configuration possible  - it's a system wide blanket setting, not a per application setting.

1947

Living Room / Re: Printers that print on paper-roll ?

« Last post by Darwin on October 30, 2008, 07:41 AM »

Hard to tell if this forum posting from 2004 is still relevant (refers to the i9000 and i9900). Noteworthy is this observation:

So Canon basically admits to crippling their own 'professional' printers because it does not yet produce its own line of Canon brand banner paper! This affects their entire large format line, the S9000, the i9100 and the i9900. I do further research and find that many people are angry with Canon for this intentional lack of functionality, and others make additional references to Canon's lack of banner paper being the reasoning.

Looking at the paper sizes available available from Canon for the iX4000, it looks like the max is 19" in length.

Googling for the info, as I'm sure you've discovered is VERY frustrating as well...

Have you tried contacting them by 'phone (not that that is likely to be a very rewarding experience!)?

1948

Living Room / Re: Things your kids will never know - old school tech!

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2008, 11:58 PM »

Yes, you're right. I used to have nightmares about the Soviets nuking us

-Darwin (October 29, 2008, 05:16 PM)

I glad to have forgotten (almost) growing up in a London full of bomb craters, where virtually every street had gaping holes that once had been houses, and where food rationing was severe. Everybody had lost somebody.

-cranioscopical (October 29, 2008, 10:44 PM)

Some things there can be no nostalgia for, no regret that the youth of today are unfamiliar with them... However, the danger is when society forgets the lessons learned in the past and succeeding generations are forced to learn them for themselves...

1949

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Game Review: Cortex Command

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2008, 11:08 PM »

I was on the receiving end of scancode's generosity as well... Haven't had a chance to play it yet, though (long story) 

Anyway, FANTASTIC review - I'm going to have to give this some time ASAP!

1950

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 29, 2008, 10:58 PM »

Oh! And of course. Startup Delayer does this very well as well...