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1926

Living Room / Anyone Else Stop Getting the BitsduJour Daily Emails?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 13, 2008, 03:04 PM »

I just re-subscribed at their web site. I was getting their email announcing their current deal every day up until about a week or so ago. Then they just stopped. I scrub my junk mail folders regularly and do not empty them until I give the contents a quick review.

Also, I was actually getting two such emails daily: at two separate email addresses! I guess that I had at some point subscribed using both emaill addresses. Plus my Fastmail account messages are auto-fetched by a Gmail account (for search purposes), so I actually saw three daily.

The daily emails to both addresses stopped at the same time, so if one got caught in a spam folder and I missed it, it is hard to believe that I missed it again for the other account. I have a feeling that they somehow purged their mailing list - either accidentally or intentionally.

Just seems like a weird occurrence that all emails from them have stopped being delivered to two separate email accounts at the exact same time! (Or maybe it was something I said?!?    )

Thanks!

Jim

1927

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your music player of choice?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 13, 2008, 01:38 PM »

@bugis: WMV? Is that a typo or am I just being dim?

I've tried many media players and have settled on two: MusicIP Mixer and WMP 11. I'm happiest just using WMP though... Windows Media Centre under Vista is nice as well, but I don't tend to play music much on my Vista machine so haven't really explored it (or the differences between in at WMP).

-Darwin (October 13, 2008, 08:40 AM)

I WAS using WMP11 quite often until it hit me with a DRM problem!! I have a Rhapsody subscription (I know, I know - I have reasons for it!), but I did not reinstall the Rhapsody player after the last reinstall I did of XP. Planning to drop the subscription and the player has gotten a bit too intrusive for my taste.

But now WMP11 refuses to play ANY of my Rhapsody music tracks because it doesn’t detect Rhapsody installed on my computer. Huh? I DO have an active subscription for it, and I would think that WMP11 could contact their server and confirm that. After all, it does contact most DRM servers as far as I can tell. But even though contacting the Rhapsody DRM server would confirm that the tracks are all legal, it refuses because Rhapsody isn't currently installed. I relaize that might be a Rhapsody requirement - but I can't tell for sure. It's still aggarvating though.

And I know I can burn them all and re-rip them to remove the DRM, but its just a lot of aggravation for nothing IMO. Of course I just opened my MediaMonkey (with lifetime Gold license) and palyed them all there without so much as a DRM peep. Still stuck in my craw, though!

Jim

1928

General Software Discussion / Re: Magic Jack Phone ?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 13, 2008, 02:30 AM »

K!

Sorry Claire. I don’t think anyone meant any ill will toward valid DC members. But take a look above and you will see a number of posters who joined just to post their "testimonial" here - no other interest in the site. Plus this product has a well-known reputation of what is called "astro-turfing", which is basically spamming forums wherever a thread mentioning the product is found. Search Google and you will find many such threads. Most of the spamming is done, or instigated, by resellers of the product.

Odd that you suddenly decided to come out of your busy "hibernation" to post here too, BTW. What woke you up? Did you happen to see a comment about this thread elsewhere by any chance? I'm just curious.

Jim

1929

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 12, 2008, 02:02 PM »

Deozaan,

Rare? I have a heck of a lot of subfolders in My Pictures and My Music - not too rare, actually.

Jim

-J-Mac (October 11, 2008, 08:29 PM)

Hence the "Apply this Template to all subfolders" checkbox in the Customize Folder tab of the folder properties dialog.

-Stoic Joker (October 12, 2008, 09:53 AM)

I can't say for sure now which of those items on the MS dialogs doesn’t work, but one of them does not. Known issue in XP. I used to use a small utility called FV3 (for Folder View Manager 3) written by a Microsoft MVP (Windows XP Shell User) named Keith Miller. When I find the documentation I'll post back about it. All I know is that folder views in Windows have been a pain - one of my reasons for loving DOpus so much!

Thanks!

Jim

1930

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista Immersion Experiment

« Last post by J-Mac on October 12, 2008, 01:49 PM »

StoicJoker & Darwin:

For backup of my data AND my system itself I use the following:

• System integrity:  Acronis True Image 11 for regular full images of my C: Drive
• System Integrity:  First Defense - Rescue for a complete, separate bootable copy of my C: Drive
• Data:  Genie Backup Manager Pro for backups of ALL data files to two separate external drives
• Data:   Super Flexible File Synchronizer for syncing all data folders to an external drive
• Data:  JungleDisk with their Plus Service (Web Access) for ALL data files backed up to Amazon's S3 online storage
• Digital photos:  Flickr and Smugmug Pro Accounts.  All my digital photos ( >15,000) are uploaded and stored on both services

IF I do have that lapse that Stoic mentioned about when he was racing, I feel that I have enough redundancy built-in so that I can recover from any possible "Oops" moments I may experience. Worst case, I wipe and restore.

(I didn't say that I haven't learned anything in all those years of computer experience!!     )

Jim

1931

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2008, 08:29 PM »

Deozaan,

Rare? I have a heck of a lot of subfolders in My Pictures and My Music - not too rare, actually.

Jim

1932

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2008, 12:56 PM »

You'd have to show me (on my system, of course) what extensions need more than three characters. I don’t see them.

-J-Mac (October 10, 2008, 08:11 PM)

The problem is that when a developer wants to come up with an extension for their application's data files they want to make it unique across all applications so there's no conflict on anyone's machines, not just yours.

-mwb1100 (October 11, 2008, 11:49 AM)

Then that is the developer's problem IMO. If developers are required to stick with a standard extension length that wouldn’t be a problem. asit is, any developer can make an extension as long or short as he/she desires. Which can be a problem, at least for me!!

Or - with so many software applications now that apparently need to create their own special, unique, important (Read: proprietary - to make them more $$$), then set a standard for a 4 character length for file extensions.

But the way it is now it's getting kinda silly in some cases.

Thanks!

Jim

1933

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2008, 12:50 PM »

I realize, though, that doing this throughout all my thousands of folders will never be done. Maybe just a few key folders, I guess.

-J-Mac (October 11, 2008, 12:00 AM)

Doing what throughout all your folders?

You should only need to configure the columns once, then go to tools -> folder options -> "View" tab and "apply to all folders"... unless I'm super dense and it's something else you're talking about

-f0dder (October 11, 2008, 09:19 AM)

No way! Currently I, like many Windows users, have different directories configured to show different details and view styles. My Pictures, My Music, Program Files, etc. And then all subdirectories within those. If you use "apply to all folders" ALL folders will show only the exact details that are shown in the specific folder you save it from.

I've done that in the past and then realized that any and all customizations to all folders are lost for good! Unless of course you go through every folder that was customized and do it all over again.  Not me!

Thanks!

Jim

1934

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista Immersion Experiment

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2008, 12:31 PM »

I have UAC turned off completely on my Vista notebook. And before anyone complains how crazy that is, I am the one and only user of this machine, and I have used every Microsoft OS they have ever released without an infection by being careful and using the computer wisely. So, no - I am not "living dangerously". It serves no useful purpose that I can determine other than to make users stop and think before they act. And I believe that I do that myself. If not, well I will pay the price, correct?

As for why some have so much difficulty getting UAC turned off, is it possibly limited to certain editions? I have Ultimate installed on my notebook.

Jim

1935

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 11, 2008, 12:00 AM »

OK, I installed the Extension app - I'll see how that works after my next restart.

I realize, though, that doing this throughout all my thousands of folders will never be done. Maybe just a few key folders, I guess.

Thanks!

Jim

1936

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 10, 2008, 08:13 PM »

I don't think there's a way make explorer show file extension rather than file type - if you right-click the column header you can select which columns to show, but there's only "type". Somebody might have made an explorer extension to handle this, though.

-f0dder (October 10, 2008, 06:24 PM)

Little hint:
http://www.xrayz.co.uk/extension-column/

-fenixproductions (October 10, 2008, 06:46 PM)

While that program will add the Extension column to Explorer itself, will that also propagate to other applications? I'd hate to download, install and try it just to find out I'm still screwed in Excel et al!

Jim

1937

Living Room / Re: Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 10, 2008, 08:11 PM »

I don't think there's a way make explorer show file extension rather than file type - if you right-click the column header you can select which columns to show, but there's only "type". Somebody might have made an explorer extension to handle this, though.

Personally I use xplorer² and show extension rather than type, so I'm a happy little camper

I disagree with "Three letter extensions are more than adequate.", btw. There's a lot of extensions that don't make any sense and there's too big risk of name collision for the ones that do make sense. This might not have been too bad if we still lived in the DOS days, but since we're using GUIs and like being able to double-click a file to open/edit/whatever, this is important.

-f0dder (October 10, 2008, 06:24 PM)

You'd have to show me (on my system, of course) what extensions need more than three characters. I don’t see them.

Also, I use DOpus and also have Extensions showing rather than Type. But that doesn't change it in Explorer, and Explorer is what feeds all other applications that show file types - like a report from TreeSize Pro exported to Excel, thus requiring a column width of 34!!

Jim

1938

Living Room / Why Does Microsoft Make File Type Names So Long?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 10, 2008, 06:08 PM »

To wit the following:

.wmv (Windows Media Audio/Video file)
.dvr-ms (Microsoft Recorded TV Show)
.asx  (Windows Media Audio/Video playlist)

And software developers don’t do much better:

.pdf (PDF-XChange Viewer Document)

Then there is the usual "Stating the Obvious" names:

.cmf (CMF File)
.DMP (DMP File)
.bin (BIN File)
.hdmp (HDMP File)
.dat (DAT File)
.edb (EDB File)
.onecache (ONECACHE File)
.IMD (IMD File)
.sqlite (SQLITE File)
etc., etc., etc....

Why oh why do they have to add these parenthetical descriptions to every darn file type?!?  I'm no advanced techie type but I can get by with just the extensions, honest. And it is those descriptions in parentheses about which I am complaining, not the extensions themselves. Although I really could do without the .ONECACHE or the .dvr-ms. Three letter extensions are more than adequate. Why make a nice, compact, narrow column and make it take up half the page?

I was just working in Excel 2007 on my Vista notebook, setting the column widths. I used the "Automatic Width" feature and then immediately clicked on the "Undo" arrow. A lot of default file names are way too long also, but the File Type column is what catches my eye first.

Windows XP was bad enough with these file type descriptions, but in Vista I guess that Microsoft decided to be even more "helpful"! Using Directory Opus it is simple enough to edit these to just show the extensions, but so time consuming. There are a LOT of file types here! And frankly, I have better things to do with my time than spending hours editing file type descriptions.

I just spent a good 20 or so minutes searching for a better solution on Google and at Microsoft.com but it is difficult to find any search results that are not focused solely on changing file extensions on files. I guess that not enough people have searched for this issue so there are few or no results for this. I was hoping for a hidden Windows option to drop the description altogether and just show the extensions. Or even a batch file of some sort that will remove all the descriptions. I am NOT going to play with any Search and Replace utilities and end up deleting all my file extensions!  (I already thought about that and the mind picture of me trying desperately to get all my extensions out of the Recycle Bin woek me up real fast!)

Anyway if anyone knows of a quicker or easier way to remove all the parenthetical descriptions after the file types, please do tell. If not, then this was just a chance for me to whine about it!

Thanks!

Jim

1939

General Software Discussion / Re: Best search and replace software discussion

« Last post by J-Mac on October 08, 2008, 07:56 PM »

There is a search and replace tool called MultiFind.
It is a pretty handy application that places several searches in different tab pages. This can be usefull if you make search/replace in same folders from time to time. MultiFind understands regular expressions, unicode files, and can hide in tray.

-Evanal (October 08, 2008, 01:59 PM)

Are you by any chance associated with that web site?

Jim

1940

General Software Discussion / Re: File synchronization: moving away from incremental backup (HELP!)

« Last post by J-Mac on October 07, 2008, 11:17 PM »

For file synchronization [link removed] i use <removed> - simple and effective. Very recommend

-Cleaner007 (October 02, 2008, 12:59 PM)

Cleaner007 are you affiliated with Moleskin Software?
- all your four posts are promoting products from that company

It's not a problem if you are - just that you're supposed to say it.
This place is full of people who write software & recommend it - you'd actually come across a lot better if you were affiliated (and stated that) - now your posts just look like spam and have a high chance of being removed

-tomos (October 03, 2008, 09:35 AM)

Yes - check Google:  http://www.google.co...1B3GGGL_enUS261US261

Mod should can him/her.

Jim

1941

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista Immersion Experiment

« Last post by J-Mac on October 07, 2008, 04:36 PM »

I was OK with my Vista Ultimate notebook, purchased in late March this year until I lost my event log (event viewer in XP) after about two weeks. Searched around and though I found a lot of others with the same problem - no fix. Also, I could not install SP1 - failed in eight attempts. Grrrr.  Contacted the Microsoft Vista SP1 support team, especially formed for problems like this. Two weeks of tests and tweaks with no fix. The tech gave up on it.

Then I found a thread on the Microsoft Support users forum and a guy there diagnosed the issue as changes to the Access Control List caused by two successive MS Auto-Update patches. After a bunch of testing he fixed his and posted the method here. I did the same fix and got it fixed myself.

Great! Got my event log back again and all is exceedingly faster than XP ever was. I'm happy - for a short time.

Then I installed SP1, which now worked thanks to that fix. And now my startup is at least twice as long, as is shutdown. What the hell happened? Worse yet, the Windows SxS folder has suddenly grown to just under 8 GB! Looked around and I find that this is.....NORMAL??? For SP1??? What is normal about that? Can I delete it - got a very emphatic NO from Microsoft. Does it benefit me? No, said they. It just is. Period. Deal with it - after all, I was told, with HDD's so large nowadays what's 8 GB? (Not joking there - that's what I was told.)

So now I am kinda wondering if I should reinstall and go the same route that lost me my Event Log, but left me without SP1. Actually ran much better then.

Jim

1942

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Liuxz Sync Now! Beyond Sync?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 06, 2008, 03:30 PM »

Sharp eye, Curt!

Here's the Whois info for each:

BeyongSync:

[attachthumb=#1][/attachthumb]

and SyncNow:

[attachthumb=#2][/attachthumb]

 

Jim

1943

Living Room / Re: Stephen King's "N." - 25 Short Videos

« Last post by J-Mac on October 06, 2008, 03:20 PM »

Nice!

Betcha no one can start and then not finish all 25 videos!

Thanks!

Jim

PS - The reverse order problem is a pain!!

1944

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on October 06, 2008, 02:23 AM »

Just F'n Google It!

-4wd (October 05, 2008, 10:54 PM)

-Darwin (October 06, 2008, 01:16 AM)

I almost missed that - I thought the link was just the Google search results!

Jim

1945

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 06, 2008, 12:47 AM »

Pierre,

I'm curious: Is the new portable version taking the place of the regular installed version? I see that 0.9.23.7i is the latest version but it is only available as a portable version, while 0.9.23.6 is the latest version available with an installer package. Are there new improvements, features, bug fixes, etc. available ONLY in the portable version? Are you abandoning the installer version?

Thank you.

Jim

1946

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 05, 2008, 11:24 PM »

I'm still pining for some kind of documentation!!  I get pretty lost without instructions - usually break things!

Jim

1947

General Software Discussion / Re: SQLNotes...what is it exactly?

« Last post by J-Mac on October 05, 2008, 08:27 PM »

Sounds good Pierre!

Yes, I am still quietly working with SN. Nothing big, but a bunch of little items. (Baby steps for me!)

Jim

1948

Screenshot Captor / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - ScreenshotCaptor - 2.43.01 - Oct 5, 2008

« Last post by J-Mac on October 05, 2008, 01:28 AM »

mouser,

I am not certai if that is on my notebook computer or not, but I did notice earlier tonight that - after a couple months of SC opening in a normal sized window in Vista - it started opening in a tiny ~200 x 200 px window again.

I'll check the version tomorrow.

Thanks!

Jim

1949

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free uCalc calculator just for trying the new animated tutorial

« Last post by J-Mac on October 03, 2008, 01:05 PM »

I never made it to the testing...


What may be missing on a fully updated XP??
- I am not going to click OK until I have an idea of what this is about.
 (see attachment in previous post)

-Curt (October 03, 2008, 08:21 AM)

Well, it sounds like the application installer package wants to update system files - but you knew that!

Personally, I wouldn't want any application's installer pack to be updating my system files. Some older system files might be there because another installed application needs them to run. I've seen this before on my computer.

Plus uCalc is not telling you which files it wants to update. So if this updating of system files happens to leave your machine a mess, you will have to do a fair amount of diagnostics before you could even begin to try and fix it. If it by chance renders your machine unable to boot up, you'd better have a nice, new image of your system available to boot from!

Jim

1950

General Software Discussion / Re: Best search and replace software discussion

« Last post by J-Mac on September 30, 2008, 03:11 AM »

http://www.regular-expressions.info/ is a very good beginners guide, though watch yourself for all the shameless PowerGrep plugs. Also, if anyone has a nice free regex composer, I'd really like to hear about it.

Ehtyar.

-Ehtyar (September 30, 2008, 02:40 AM)

Believe it or not I found that site right after I posted. Actually, though, I don't code at all - I am looking mostly for enough to perform Regex searches, and/or script writing.

Thanks!

Jim