Recent Posts

2051

Living Room / Re: Rats! MS Auto Updates Got Me Again!

« Last post by Darwin on October 18, 2008, 08:53 AM »

Am I the only person who has NEVER had a problem with an update from MS?

-Josh (October 18, 2008, 01:14 AM)

Josh - please pick, at random, 6 numbers between 1 and 49 and PM them to me. I want some of your luck to rub off on me! 

2052

Living Room / Re: Tech News Weekly: Edition 42

« Last post by Darwin on October 18, 2008, 08:46 AM »

Awesome, ehtyar  I'm with Tom on "Australia sounds like a scary place these days" comment... What's next? Canada? Probably... Our PM has already been caught lifting verbatim chunks of a speech by John Howard 

2053

Living Room / Re: Selectively Print Only What You Want From Webpages

« Last post by Darwin on October 17, 2008, 02:18 PM »

Have you looked at/tried GreenPrint?

Courtesy of Free Download A Day...

2054

Living Room / Re: Eggnog season is upon us!

« Last post by Darwin on October 15, 2008, 05:22 PM »

Hobgoblin is an impressive ale as well 

2055

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Darwin on October 15, 2008, 08:59 AM »

Is it my imagination of is Windows 7 (now the prosaically official title of the new OS - see here) just going to be a charged update bugfix (new bugs) to Vista ?

Windows 7 = Vista SP2/3 or am I missing something?

-Carol Haynes (October 15, 2008, 08:44 AM)

Starting to look that way  Looks like they've taken a page out of Corel's playbook (witness the annual paid upgrades for PaintShop Pro that do little or nothing more than fix bugs from the previous version and introduce a bunch more bugs to be fixed in the next paid release!). Now, if they go the Apple route and release a single package that provides all versions of the software for about $120 I don't have a problem with this. However, they are more apt to add several new versions and charge a substantial amount even to upgrade from, say, Home Premium to Home Premium. REALLY hope I'm wrong about the latter, "onto something" with the Apple analogy, and wrong about the Corel analogy...

2056

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 15, 2008, 07:51 AM »

Overall, WMP11 is pretty good! I mean, it does everything I want a media player to do (I also use it to playback DVD's in XP despite having WinDVD Platinum 8 installed) and is relatively light on resources. I did try WinAmp (and even liked it - kept it around for a few months) and had formerly used MusicMatch (for about 7 years) then XMPlay. I just decided to reduce the number of programs that I have installed for mp3/wma/ogg playback... Kind of goes back to about 18 months ago when I decided to get rid of iTunes, forced me to look at the other stuff I had floating around (KMPlayer, GOM Player, DivX Player, QuickTime, etc.).

2057

Living Room / Re: My computer is older than YOUR computer!

« Last post by Darwin on October 14, 2008, 07:06 PM »

I've got the oldest and most complex computer of them all: the human brain (mine hasn't weathered the past 40 years all that well, though, and takes a long time to boot up and fusses and farts through pretty basic routines...) 

2058

Living Room / Re: One answered question before you died

« Last post by Darwin on October 14, 2008, 07:04 PM »

Google Sapir-Whorf and check out some of the college/university websites that show up - you should get a decent discussion that way... The hypothesis is essentially that language guides our thinking - provides us with ways of viewing the world - and so, in a sense, "creates" or "dictates" our reality. An alternative name for Sapir-Whorf is "linguistic relativitism". The opposite view is that language merely reflects our reality... I've oversimplified this... er, A LOT!

2059

Site/Forum Features / Re: New Member Map Mod for the Forum -- Configure Your Profile Location!

« Last post by Darwin on October 14, 2008, 04:05 PM »

Me three...

2060

Living Room / Re: Eggnog season is upon us!

« Last post by Darwin on October 14, 2008, 04:05 PM »

Thanks! I've added my vote: Doesn't matter, drink up!

I don't really drink, either (I'll have, at most A beer or A glass of wine when socializing). Blame a misspent youth (as in, I got drinking out of my system a long time ago). I've not heard of drinking eggnog and rum warm - I'll give it a shot (no pun intended) this festive season 

2061

Living Room / Re: Eggnog season is upon us!

« Last post by Darwin on October 14, 2008, 03:26 PM »

I love it - cold straight out of the carton OR on the rocks with some rum... Thus, couldn't really vote 

2062

Living Room / Re: Should Microsoft become an OEM (PC manufacturer)?

« Last post by Darwin on October 14, 2008, 12:21 AM »

If MS and the public's perception of them remain true to form, will be more like Durian...

2063

Living Room / Re: Cortex Command Giveaway

« Last post by Darwin on October 13, 2008, 08:50 AM »

Two e-mail addresses? Billing e-mail and actual e-mail? Is there a difference?

-Deozaan (October 13, 2008, 02:26 AM)

Actual e-mail: [email protected]
Billing e-mail: [email protected]

-scancode (October 13, 2008, 08:36 AM)

  - why didn't I think of that!

2064

General Software Discussion / Re: CCleaner Or Not?

« Last post by Darwin on October 13, 2008, 08:47 AM »

Welcome to DC, capture  We're practically neighbours!

I don't bother with these cleaner programs much anymore, beyond running them to see what's hanging around. A lot of software drops installer/uninstaller files into Temp folders. Even if they don't, if you're not paying attention while running the likes of CCleaner you run the risk of deleting files that are required for the continued use or the uninstallation of various applications... Thus, I am pretty circumspect when running cleaning applications (or at least in letting them delete anything).

As for Acrobat Reader 8 and 8.1, have you tried searching for an installer and running it? This works for me sometimes when I'm trying to remove a particularly obnoxious application - just run the installer and select "uninstall" or "remove" if those options exist. If they don't, just install and then run the uninstaller after a reboot. ALWAYS select a Custom install if you have to do the latter to avoid having the installer mess up your file associations and startup behaviour.

2065

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

« Last post by Darwin on October 13, 2008, 08:40 AM »

@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).

2066

General Software Discussion / Re: Iobit smart defrag vs o&o defrag pro

« Last post by Darwin on October 13, 2008, 08:38 AM »

I use PerfectDisk 2008 on two machines (Win 2k and XP Pro) and Diskeeper 2008 Pro Premier on a third (Vista) and I am happy with both products. I keep meaning to compare the resource consumption and effectiveness of both, but haven't done so in ages (did with earlier versions of each). Main beef with Diskeeper: it's much more expensive and with the latest version they've changed licensing to one machine vs. three for PerfectDisk. Diskeeper would cost $99 per machine whereas PerfectDisk is three for $39.95...

2067

Living Room / Re: Cortex Command Giveaway

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 10:32 PM »

Done! E-mail sent - thanks again, scancode 

2068

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista Immersion Experiment

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 05:02 PM »

Yeah... I use Acronis True Image and Super Flexible File Synchronizer to keep everything backed up, too, and have both AV and AS installed so don't fear messing my system up as I can just go back to a working state.

2069

Living Room / Re: One answered question before you died

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 05:01 PM »

What is it that informs us that each individual's perception of reality is, in fact, an individual experience not directly sharable? I've often heard that point being asserted, but I've never never heard an explanation as to why that assertion should be so.

-40hz (October 12, 2008, 11:46 AM)

Well, for one thing, check out the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which basically says that our language and vocabulary shape the way we perceive reality. So since everybody has a different vocabulary, or even different understandings of the same words, we all perceive reality a bit differently than others around us.

-Deozaan (October 12, 2008, 03:08 PM)

I was thinking of Sapir-Whorf when I wrote my original question. However, there is a whole debate that rages back and forth in linguistics about linguitic relativity. AFAICT, at the moment, Sapir-Whorfian models are in general "favour", but this hasn't always been true and there is still a vocal opposition to this type of modelling.

2070

General Software Discussion / Re: Dopus - adding buttons to toolbar help needed

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 04:57 PM »

Weird - it "worked" in my installation of Dopus 8... But then, all I did was try creating the "Install Font" button as per the Resource Centre Link that edbro linked to... It created the button complete with icon. I didn't think to confirm that it created a functioning button before I removed it.

NOTE: didn't try this with teracopy because I don't have it installed on that machine. When I have a moment I'll install teracopy and give it a go.

tsaint - I'm glad all is well!

2071

General Software Discussion / Re: Qliner Hotkeys (open source): Hotkey program with visual keyboard

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 10:13 AM »

But I'm holding out for this:
[url]http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/

-Ralf Maximus (October 08, 2007, 12:07 PM)

This should be cool, but my goodness! The price...  $1600 for a keyboard!

BTW - where is Ralf? I miss his posts and his top 10 lists...
BTW
BTW -

2072

General Software Discussion / Re: Qliner Hotkeys (open source): Hotkey program with visual keyboard

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 10:09 AM »

Unfortunately doesn't work on 64bit windows - I suspect it's the same type of problem that CircleDock had.

-f0dder (October 12, 2008, 09:17 AM)

I suspect that the answer will be "either".
f0dder,
Forgive me for asking, but is that 64 bit XP or Vista.
Ken

-KenR (October 12, 2008, 09:52 AM)

2073

Living Room / Re: One answered question before you died

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 10:05 AM »

Thanks for the responses, guys! I'm aware of what science says about this, but was trying to think more metaphysically, because we can't "get into" the head of another person or organism to experience their reality (even if we can be pretty confident about what we'd find if we could).

2074

General Software Discussion / Re: The Vista Immersion Experiment

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 09:50 AM »

I have UAC turned off completely on my Vista notebook.

-J-Mac (October 11, 2008, 12:31 PM)

I'm not sure what I think about this. When I bought my own Vista notebook, I intended to downgrade the XP Pro. Then, when I started playing with Vista in advance of that, I intended to disable UAC but never did. So far, the worst thing about UAC is the constant harping about doing (pretty much) ANYTHING in DOpus 9 (I haven't tried the Administrator switch that's part of DO 9 yet). I'm still dithering, because while I appreciate the function it is intended to serve, I also feel that, having survived the past 14 years with every version of Windows save 95 and ME, I am in the same company as Stoic Joker and J-Mac: more than capable of making these decisions for myself... I guess time will tell. For now, I'm leaving it alone (it stays enabled and I don't run NortonUAC or TweakUAC).

2075

General Software Discussion / Re: Dopus - adding buttons to toolbar help needed

« Last post by Darwin on October 12, 2008, 09:40 AM »

OK - this works in Dopus 8, which raises the question: why didn't it work for tsaint?

tsaint - did you copy the two xml codes separately (ie one for copy, one for move)? Just a thought...