Recent Posts

1976

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your prefered source of registry tweaks?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 12, 2009, 09:35 PM »

Don't try to use Black Viper's suggestions if you are going to use your PC in any kind of decent-sized network.

A former co-worker thought he'd optimize his workstation using Black Viper's guide. He optimized his way into not being able to see any of the file servers or be able to print to any of the network printers. That was a fun day...

1977

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: xplorer² file manager - $14.95 - Bits Du Jour 6/17/2009 - WEDNESDAY

« Last post by Innuendo on June 12, 2009, 10:15 AM »

Some thoughts...

This discount is a good price. However, checking the author's web site states that your purchase entitles you to upgrades and support for one year. Lifetime support and upgrades is an additional $19.95. If Bits du Jour can get us a discount on the full lifetime deal than this may be a must buy. If one still has to shell out $14.95 plus the additional $19.95 the must-buy rating drops to a solid meh.

While I was rambling around the author's site I ran across an announcement for a bug-fix update to his program to work with Windows 7.

http://www.zabkat.co...indows7-explorer.htm

I understand a new OS comes out and a few things in your program need to be tweaked. I also understand his position of "Windows Explorer bad. Xplorer2 good." However, he loses me when he gets down to the part where he's blaming deficiencies in his program on Vista and Microsoft.

The latest build taps into most of the new W7 features including libraries. It remains to be seen if they have fixed the vista bugs that intermittently crashed xplorer² during drag-drop.

Excuse me? I have used tons of programs with Windows Vista and at least a dozen were file managers and not a single one crashed during a drag-and-drop operation. Never. If everybody else's program is working fine and yours isn't the maybe it's a bug in YOUR code, Mr. Xplorer2 Author.

Reading the comments for this announcement was also an enlightening experience as well. One of his registered users had this to say in reply to this announcement:

I think you have reached a point in your life where you have started to resist change. Compared to early years of X2, in past few years Xplorer2 development has really slowed down and most of releases are just bug fixes. You require lot of convincing to add anything new or resist any X2 code rewrite. For any new feature request you suggest workarounds. You blame MS for change but MS is not going to stop innovating. As MS moves ahead some old things will break and its up to the old apps to do the catch up to stay current.

You may have your personal reasons and I may be wrong in my assumptions but as a long time X2 user this is what I feel and wanted to speak out.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see myself rushing into that kind of a relationship with a software author. If I want to surround myself with people who are resistant to suggestions and change I'll go hang around my workplace. 

1978

General Review Discussion / Re: Free Total Commander licences

« Last post by Innuendo on June 12, 2009, 09:47 AM »

Steven,
The reason why the level of enthusiasm is so high is first and foremost because of the capabilities of the program. Right after installing it the amount of tools and functions at your disposal is vast. Once you start adding plugins the amount goes from vast to near limitless in a hurry. Properly configured its abilities are near unmatched in file management on any computing platform ever.

The second reason is of course because of Total Commander's author. His vision of what a file manager should be started well over ten years ago and that he has been able to keep his code-base well-maintained to the point that even now ten years later he's able to add new features with ease to his code should be a testament to his programming ability. He, unlike other file manager authors, takes a very keen interest in what his users think weighing each suggestion they make very carefully rather than just dismissing it out of hand like other authors.

If you commit to learning Total Commander's power you may find yourself with more hard drive space as you uninstall programs because you no longer need them as TC does it as well or better than those stand-alone apps.

The only file manager that I can think of off-hand that rivals TC in features is FAR as it had huge amounts of plugins available for it as well, but it has been abandoned by its author last I heard.

1979

General Software Discussion / Re: linux hater is back?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 12, 2009, 09:32 AM »

Interesting read...Linux was never my thing & while I have heard about Linux on the desktop for years it has finally come to pass, but not in the way that was predicted.

My NAS and my router both run Linux & they both sit upon my desk so in a way Linux has finally reached my desktop, but I don't think I'm going to be running KDE or Gnome anytime soon.

1980

General Software Discussion / Re: MP3 Info Extension?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 12, 2009, 08:58 AM »

Mirage84, sounds like Vista has trouble with some variable bit-rate files. Hopefully, that's fixed in Win7.

1981

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on June 12, 2009, 08:56 AM »

Personally I switched this bar off few years ago

-fenixproductions

So did I...which probably explains why I just learned that trick. I didn't know there was more functionality than meets the eye when it came to this bar, but....I should have known better. Christian always has a trick up his sleeve.

1982

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 03:51 PM »

Here's a Total Commander tip that I just learned the other day.

If you right click on the "F8  Delete" button on the button bar at the bottom of the TC window it brings up the Recycle Bin context menu!

1983

General Software Discussion / Re: MP3 Info Extension?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 12:02 PM »

Andy, I understand what you're saying and that you're trying to be helpful, but all I'm hearing is "blah blah blah...quit being lazy!" 

No, seriously, that's a good idea & once I set that up in Total Commander I'll be sorted. I'll just miss the icons, though. There was one alternate theme (definitely NOT the default) that had absolutely gorgeous icons for all the different bit-rates.

Hopefully, one day someone will adapt that differing icon ability to Vista/Win7.

1984

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Total Commander licence - "Run for it event"

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 11:59 AM »

Congrats to you, Tomos! I think you'll enjoy your winnings. Total Commander is one of the most powerful programs I have ever seen. Every time I find a need for a program to do something very specific & I'm sure nobody has written a program to do suck a task usually a little searching on the Total Commander forum will reveal that TC can not only do what I was looking to do, but do it better than I expected.

1985

General Review Discussion / Re: Free Total Commander licences

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 11:55 AM »

No need for apologizing regarding something that was beyond your control. A person cannot rightly complain about the speed in which one is getting something free.

Thanks for organizing this, fenix, and sticking with it all the way through.

1986

General Software Discussion / Re: Ghost in the machine? XP wants to re-activate.

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 10:07 AM »

I have also had the same problem after removing security software (can't remember which one off hand)!

-Carol Haynes

Some security software do their thing by installing virtual network adapters to route all traffic through for monitoring which, when you uninstall it, has the same effect as when you enable or disable those unused network adapters you were talking about.

1987

General Software Discussion / Re: Ghost in the machine? XP wants to re-activate.

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 10:05 AM »

Here's my weird activation story...

I used to have a job where one of my job duties was to maintain all the company PCs on the premises. One day we have a power outage and when the power comes back up one of the Windows XP Pro machines was screaming about needing to be re-activated although it was activated before the outage.

I figure I'll deal with the re-activation later and do the mandatory scandisk on all the drives that we always do after power loss. This company was located out in the middle of BFE so power outages were frequent and although we have everything on UPSes we always try to verify data integrity after any unexpected event. Data loss is a bad thing.

Anyway, I tell Windows to scandisk all the drives, it reboots to do so, and I'm sitting there watching the process and according to the report there were no errors that needed fixed. After it boots back up, you guessed it, it was showing itself as activated again. This PC had no internet connection so I know it didn't re-activate itself, either.

Nowadays, I don't maintain anything but my own PCs and I keep all my licensed OS discs safely stored away and on my PCs I run the equivalent versions of those OSes that have had all the activation and WGA nonsense neutered. I have the warm feeling of not being a software pirate without having to deal with all the nonsense of being a legitimate customer.

I hear that the activation routines in Vista and Windows 7 are more forgiving, but MS had their chance. I'm not going to deal with activation and WGA if there's any way to do so.

1988

General Software Discussion / Re: linux hater is back?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 09:31 AM »

He's back? I didn't even know he was gone. Or, more accurately, I don't know who he is. Care to fill us in on some backstory?

1989

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 09:30 AM »

That's a shame about his last review...but I still agree with what he said in it both regarding Firefox and regarding BetaNews.

BetaNews was a good idea that was allowed to spiral out of control.

1990

General Software Discussion / Re: MP3 Info Extension?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 09:20 AM »

I remember this cool program. It's a shame it's abandonware. The neatest thing I thought it did, and no version of Explorer does this, was change the MP3's icon to show the bit-rate so you could have a window full of MP3s open and could tell at a glance which ones were the low bit-rate ones that needed replacing with better versions.

1991

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on June 11, 2009, 09:15 AM »

tranglos, I enjoyed your post. It was very informative as I didn't know a lot of that stuff & what made it better was fenixproductions came along and showed how you could do things a little more efficiently with some of the tasks you demonstrated.

fenixproductions, that was an awesome list and you better believe I'm going to be mimicking a lot of your plugin setup. My main problem has always been finding three or four plugins that do the same thing (read Office files, read PDFs, etc.). I think I can be pretty sure you have the best of each type in your setup.

urlwolf, Total Commander just as this amazingness about it that for whatever reason instills envy from people who use non-Windows machines. Not only does Christian get tons of requests from *nix users, but from time to time there are Mac users clamoring for it as well.

I've heard of people having success with Wine and CrossOVer. That puts extra layers of trust between you and your data, though. First you have to trust that Total Commander is going to interact well with an OS that it was not designed to run under and you also have to trust that the Wine/CrossOver people got everything right that TC needs to operate properly. In that equation I trust Christian completely. Those other factors? Not so completely. I'd definitely do some tests on some non-important data before trusting my entire system to such a setup.

1992

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on June 10, 2009, 02:56 PM »

btw TC 7.5 beta 4 lists files a lot slower. There's about .5 sec delay that wasn't there before. Anyone experiencing this? I don't remember having installed any new related plugin.

-urlwolf

Indeed the 7.5 betas do seem to be listing files slower than 7.04a did. I don't know why that is. 7.5 seems to be slower at connecting to network shares as well.

1993

General Software Discussion / Re: Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on June 10, 2009, 02:53 PM »

Take a look into Help file  

-fenixproductions

Well, yeah...but I was looking for tips like "be sure to set this setting to this value and that setting to that value to really boost your productivity and/or appearance."

There are too many things to write about...

Agreed...but when I was starting this thread I was hoping for people to pick what they thought was the best of the best to write about...not to write about everything they knew.

Obviously: that's not all but I don't really think I should try to copy http://en.totalcmd.pl/download or http://www.totalcmd.net/. I would rather leave the place for curious explorers.

I'm not against exploring, but often you will run into three or four different plugins that offer the same or similar functionality. A heads-up as to which one is the best (and usually there is one that stands head & shoulders above the rest) would be great without us having to duplicate a veteran's work by having to try them all out to see which one is best would also be a great contribution to this thread.

But I'm enjoying the thread...Keep things coming. I'm sure Darwin is learning as much as I am.

1994

Living Room / Re: Kodak (Complaint)

« Last post by Innuendo on June 10, 2009, 01:46 PM »

I just skimmed this thread so this may have been said before & I missed it. If so, I apologize but this bears repeating in case anyone does not know:

Today's Kodak is NOT the Kodak we knew growing up. The real Kodak went bankrupt years ago & today's Kodak cameras are just the product of a no-name, shoddy conglomerate that licensed the Kodak name to sell pieces of crap under. They have no real relation to the real Kodak company other than being bottom-feeders trying to live off of the good name of an old recognizable brand name.

Deozaan, what new camera did you get?

1995

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by Innuendo on June 10, 2009, 01:27 PM »

Wraith, that's a fair enough assessment for some people. Babylon 5 was a space opera on a massive scale. There was lots of groundwork for later plotpoints in early episodes that would leave you wondering, "What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?" and then 3 or 5 or 10 episodes down the line it'd be, "Ohhh! That's what *that* meant!!".

It probably wouldn't fare too well in today's climate of ADD-oriented, instant-gratification TV viewing.

1996

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: PowerArchiver 2009 at 50% discount on BdJ (2009-06-10) : worth it ?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 10, 2009, 01:23 PM »

I am one of those weird people who prefers my archive files to have different icons based on type. Iconographically (three cheers for making up new words!) speaking, there's something wrong in my mind with having my zip files share the same icon as my rar files. I like being able to tell at a glance if something is a rar or a zip. Why? Personal quirk, I guess. No real utility in knowing, I suppose, but back when I first started using PowerArchiver it was the only archiver app that could do it. Nowadays, others do, but I stick with what I know best.

Graphically speaking, it's one of the most visually appealing programs of its type available. Turning on Explorer View and using the modern ribbon interface makes for a very efficient UI and it handles more file types than most of its competitors.

For the security conscious, it's very versatile in its encryption capabilities and offers an array of choices of encryption methods.

Their forums are great & you'll get the same great answers for your questions whether you bought the program or not.

Offhand, I can't remember if it's limited to the Pro version or not, but your purchase price also grants you lifetime licenses to their excellent Outlook plug-in and a command-line version of the program that can handle just as many archive types as the GUI-based program.

One little feature that you'd think wouldn't make a difference that has really improved my productivity is in the last few versions they added MRU support for the "Extract to..." context menu command. I extract lots of files to the same few directories over and over so this has been a real time-saver for me.

I won a free license for WinRAR (Thanks, DonationCoder!) and I use that for all my archiving needs, even after getting that free I still bought a license for PowerArchiver Pro for all my unarchiving needs. (I took advantage of their crazy 80% off upgrade to the Pro version before they raised their prices.)

1997

General Software Discussion / Total Commander: Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

« Last post by Innuendo on June 08, 2009, 02:16 PM »

With a bunch of licensed copies flooding DC due to the kind generosity of Christian Ghisler I thought this might be a good time to start a thread where the grizzled Total Commander pros could post all their time-saving, optimizing tips and list out all the must-have plugins to install along-side TC.

I'm sure some of those contest winners have never used TC before and others are like me who have used it a long time, but have not fully tapped this app's power.

What say you, Total Commander experts? Can you throw us who are uninitiated in the eldritch wizardry of Total Commander a bone by wowing us with your prowess?

1998

Living Room / Re: Good TV series. What do you watch? I used to watch Lost to unwind need successor

« Last post by Innuendo on June 08, 2009, 01:48 PM »

If someone is a sci-fi fan and wants a far-reaching epic storyline and is willing to make a time investment look no farther than Babylon 5. With a non-static world where if something happens in one episode it is true in all subsequent episodes and story arcs that reach across seasons it's a very well-written space opera with a widely varied cast of characters with plenty of intrigue & cloak and dagger mystery.

1999

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by Innuendo on June 08, 2009, 01:42 PM »

I remember httpd.confused well. I had wondered what happened to him. While I didn't agree with everything he had to say I valued his opinions more than I did most on that site.

2000

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: MS Technet subscription

« Last post by Innuendo on June 08, 2009, 01:37 PM »

There are none, unfortunately. This was an anomaly in that one of MS's promotions for a select few escaped into the wild, but they came back and shut it down with a vengeance. I hear the people who got account access illegitimately not only got their accounts shut down, but any product keys that they were able to obtain were quickly revoked and put on the WGA blacklists.

Only way you are going to find a valid coupon code, it seems, is for MS to want you to have one & it'll appear in your email box. Otherwise, you'll be out here looking in with the rest of us poor schlubs.