Recent Posts

2126

Living Room / Re: How to tell if your cat is plotting to KILL you

« Last post by rjbull on January 07, 2009, 04:43 AM »

Anyone know if there's any history between Sparta and Persia?

-Deozaan (December 20, 2008, 04:31 AM)

Not half - never heard of Thermopylae?

-rjbull (January 05, 2009, 09:57 AM)

I'm guessing that's what the movie 300 was about?

Aware that they were being outflanked, Leonidas dismissed the bulk of the Greek army, remaining to guard the rear with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespian, 400 Thebans and perhaps a few hundred others.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

(emphasis added)

-Deozaan (January 06, 2009, 09:59 PM)

Looks like it.  Not exactly standard Hollywood fare, though?  They all get killed in the end; it was one of the most famous last-stands in history. 

2127

Living Room / Re: How to tell if your cat is plotting to KILL you

« Last post by rjbull on January 05, 2009, 09:57 AM »

Anyone know if there's any history between Sparta and Persia?

-Deozaan (December 20, 2008, 04:31 AM)

Not half - never heard of Thermopylae?

2128

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 28, 2008, 04:24 PM »

But as I'm in the UK, my PayPal account is PayPal Europe, which is in Luxemburg.  So Newegg  could still say that it's a "foreign" payment.  Oh, well.

2129

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 23, 2008, 09:22 AM »

Have you tried a virtual debit/credit card such as paypal's?

-Dormouse (December 23, 2008, 06:37 AM)

I didn't spot a PayPal link, though I wasn't looking for one.  Did I miss it?

@Darwin: the bottom of the Newegg page says "Shop by Region: United States  Canada  China"  so you should be all right.  Are Newegg confused about their own policies?

2130

General Software Discussion / Re: New duplicate file finder... I am open to features suggestion

« Last post by rjbull on December 23, 2008, 09:07 AM »

search for duplicates of those files in folder A where they are found ion B,C, or D .... BUT not between the latter (I.E. between B and C).

This allows for quick checks without having to re-do the entire thing.

-hpearce (December 23, 2008, 05:51 AM)

If I understand it correctly, DoubleKiller does this with the concept of "fresh" and "library."  Files in the "library" areas are assumed to be free of duplicates (i.e., you already checked them), so they don't have to be compared amongst themselves.  The "fresh" ones are the new ones you don't know about yet, which have to be checked both against each other, and against the "library."

2131

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 23, 2008, 03:46 AM »

Last week I recall Amazon.com and Buy.com advertising PDF Converter Professional 5 for about $62 shipped. Newegg has a downloadable version for $64.99.

-cchian (December 11, 2008, 02:24 PM)

@Darwin & cchian:

I'm in the UK.  I read the Newegg FAQ, contacted them about what it said, and this is part of their reply:

Unfortunately Newegg.com does not ship internationally at this time; we only deliver within the United States and to Puerto Rico. Perhaps in the future we will open our virtual shopping cart to other parts of the world but, at this time, we do not have the processes or man power to do so. We apologize greatly for the inconvenience this has caused.

Since we do not ship internationally, we also do not accept international credit/debit cards. We only accept credit/ debit cards that are issued in the U.S., from a U.S. Bank.

This despite the offer being a download rather than physical shipment.

2132

Living Room / Re: Photography Questions

« Last post by rjbull on December 22, 2008, 04:12 AM »

Tripod - I use a Manfrotto (probably Bogen to you?) 055.  It's a good solid tripod, but by the time you've added a head, FLM CB38FT in my case, plus Manfrotto quick release, it weighs about 6 lb, which she might find too heavy.  Tripod is rated for 7 kg, though, more than your specification.  There's someone on eBay UK who sells ex-demo Velbon carbon fibre tripods, which might get the price and weight down.  My "photo guru" in Wales says the Velbon magnesium ball  head is very good - I think he means the bigger one.  Don't skimp on a tripod: it's not just about stability and sharpness, it's about slowing you down, making you think, and giving you the chance to look all round the edges for the little things that ruin your composition.  In other words, wherever it's reasonably possible to use a tripod, use it to help you make the most perfect picture you can make.  Take a look at some of Freeman Patterson's books, especially the instructional ones, for advice on tripods, including what to look for in a tripod you travel with as well as use in a studio.

Meter - the Sekonic is popular and seems OK and to work well, though I haven't used one.  I have an old Weston, great with Invercone for reasonable light, and a Gossen Digital Sixtomat Flash, which is excellent, small, light and easy to use.  They no longer make the flash version but only the ambient-light one, fine if you don't want flash, or the more expensive Digipro F that I haven't tried.  I recently bought a secondhand Pentax Digital Spotmeter but haven't had much experience with it yet.  It was very popular model with the Zone System brigade.

2133

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 16, 2008, 05:02 AM »

PS to rjbull - should have noted that you can often pick up boxed versions of Nuance apps in places like Staples cheaper than the on-line discounts.

-Darwin (December 11, 2008, 12:27 PM)

We do have Staples in the UK, but I hardly ever get to places like that.  In fact I think I'd more or less forgotten about buying software from a retail outlet, expecting everything to be done online, and certainly anything worthwhile.

Thanks for the heads-up.  I'll try to make a detour next time I'm anywhere near a Staples, just to see what's on offer.

2134

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 15, 2008, 04:39 AM »

what's worse about Nuance (unless they've changed their tune of late) is that they won't let you run a trial of their software

-Darwin (December 08, 2008, 08:12 AM)

They've changed their tune!  They just told me they now offer a 15-day trial, and also that it's a personal license to this extent:

The software is licensed per user so as long as it's no concurrent use you could use it at home and at work as long as it was licensed to the company.

   

2135

Living Room / Re: Recommendations for good sources of astronomy photographs, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 11, 2008, 04:18 AM »

That lot should keep me happily clicking for quite a while!     Thanks, folks! 

2136

Found Deals and Discounts / Text Monkey PRO discounted at Bits du Jour 11 Dec. 2008

« Last post by rjbull on December 11, 2008, 04:15 AM »

Text Moneky PRO by Boxer Software on 34% discount at Bits du Jour today, 11 Dec. 2008.  That's $29.99 down to $19.99.

Don't you hate it when
> >> >> your emails look like this?
>> JAC> DH2> JAC> Or like this?

Or when you've found a block of text you need but it's filled with HTML markup that you don't want.

Or when you realize you've misspelled your new boss's name 12 times in the email you're about to send.

Text Monkey Pro, by Boxer Software, lets you quickly and easily clean up or perform dozens of conversions on your text. You won't need complicated replace strings and you won't need to learn about regular expressions or syntax. Just pick from Text Monkey Pro's easy-to-use buttons, and get your text just how you want it. Because Text Monkey Pro works on the contents of your Windows clipboard, it works with every program you run.
Written by Roger Thomasson
Text Monkey PRO lets you:

    *

      Clean up overquoted emails. Change:

          > > >..>A dog walks into a bar and says,
         > > >..>"Give me two carrots and a martini!"

      into:

          A dog walks into a bar and says, "Give me two carrots and a martini!"
    *

      Strip out HTML tags and named characters.
    * Sort and number (or renumber) lists, replace strings in any program, convert tabs to spaces (and back), remove duplicate lines and extra spaces, count words or characters, switch letter case and even intelligently capitalize words, and much more!

Over 40 text conversions for text in your clipboard.

But don't forget freeware applications with overlapping functions - Clippy by Way Out There Software, and our own mouser's ClipboardHelp+Spell   

2137

Living Room / Recommendations for good sources of astronomy photographs, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 10, 2008, 10:50 AM »

Does anyone have a recommendation for good sources of astronomy photographs, please?  I'm mostly thinking of the outer planets and their moons, for desktop background etc.

Thanks...

2138

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA batch/deferred printer

« Last post by rjbull on December 09, 2008, 09:57 AM »

Have you looked at PrintFile by Peter Lerup?  You might find it helpful:

PrintFile is a freeware MS Windows utility program that will enable you to print files fast and easily. The program recognizes plain text, PostScript, Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and binary formats. Using this program can save you a lot of paper and thereby also saving valuable natural resources.

Selection of which files to print can be made by the normal Windows file selection dialog, or by Drag and Drop operations with one or several files. The latter facilitates batch printing of files.

PrintFile can also act as a print spooler, watching a specified directory for files. Whenever a file appears in that directory it will automatically be printed.

When printing text files PrintFile makes a configurable page layout of the text contents. Several logical pages can be placed on one page of physical paper (referred to as n-up printing). There are also several other configurable options controlling the layout. Text files can be printed on any printer that has a Windows printer driver. Text copied to the clipboard can also be printed in the same manner as text files. PrintFile can also do user configurable Pretty Printing of text files. Keywords and comments can be highlighted using different font styles and colors. This function is primarily intended for source code files.

Non text files are sent files directly to a Windows printer. In this case the program can be seen as a Windows replacement for the DOS command "copy/b filename LPTx" . However, unlike the DOS command, PrintFile works well with network printers that do not have a connection to any LPTx. Although this function is mainly intended for printing PostScript files, it could be used just as well for any file created by the "Print to File" option available for most Windows printer drivers. Such a print file can for instance be created on a PC without a printer and then be moved to another PC that has a printer, and there be sent to the printer using PrintFile.

The text file printing function is also something that can be used to enable old DOS program to print to USB printers that only works with a Windows printer driver.

2139

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 09, 2008, 03:55 AM »

In both cases I bought the software only to be offered large discounts at a later date, so I simply returned them and bought them again 

-Darwin (December 08, 2008, 10:52 AM)

 

UPDATE: AFAICT there is no replace feature. However, you can both Find and Search throughout a document - Find functions more or less like Find in Word while Search reports back with a list of all occurences of the search term:

Thanks for checking!  Find sounds helpful.  At least you can easily get to the next point where you need to make a change.  There's nothing like that (AFAICS) in the current version of the Foxit PDF Editor.  Sounds like Search is like a grep.

2140

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Internet Download Manager - special Christmas discount

« Last post by rjbull on December 08, 2008, 10:21 AM »

<sigh>  I got suckered again     by a dishonest discount advert.

It's a good download manager, but I wish it would work with proxy.pac proxies.  Some people think ReGet is the best, but I haven't tried that.

cf. these threads:
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2403.0
https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=8874.0

2141

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 08, 2008, 10:16 AM »

Well... what's worse about Nuance (unless they've changed their tune of late) is that they won't let you run a trial of their software - you MUST buy it.

-Darwin (December 08, 2008, 08:12 AM)

I admit I did that with Instant Text, and haven't regretted it (other than wishing I had it ten years ago).

The upside is that they've got a generous 90 day no questions asked return policy, which I have used without fanfare or drama twice.

Twice???   

BTW, they should have most of their stuff on sale over the next two months - you might want to hold off in anticipation of that...

If I can: my hand may be forced.  Do Nuance routinely have a winter discount?  Price is $99 as of this morning.  Unless you visit their UK site, in which case the price is £99, about $147   

I took a very quick look at a couple of their videos, but couldn't see what I was looking for.  Does the program have an editor-style search-and-replace, or would one have to work on every repeated text object separately?  In the latter case, it would probably be better to convert to Word .DOC.

2142

General Software Discussion / Re: New duplicate file finder... I am open to features suggestion

« Last post by rjbull on December 08, 2008, 04:03 AM »

I like DoubleKiller, but setting it up is a bit of a PITA! I use it *just* infrequently enough to forget its idiosyncracies and have to fiddle around with it for a while before I can get it to return the result in which I am interested.

-Darwin (December 05, 2008, 07:03 PM)

I don't think I quite understood your original point about indenting   

You're more or less voicing  a "problem" I have with any dupe deleter in that (a) I don't use it very often anyway, so I have to semi-relearn it each time; and (b) since its main purpose is destructive, it's hard work to test exhaustively because your target disappears and you have to keep re-copying test set originals.

DoubleKiller's interface is somewhat unusual, but it's very good at what it does, and features like being able to look inside archives for files they contain that are duplicated on disk, can be a real bonus.

2143

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 08, 2008, 03:53 AM »

Nuance's PDF Converter Professional 5

-Darwin (December 05, 2008, 09:21 AM)

Thanks, I'd better take a look at it.  I hate these systems that won't let you download without you fill in a form and an e-mail address, though.

2144

Found Deals and Discounts / Internet Download Manager - special Christmas discount

« Last post by rjbull on December 08, 2008, 03:45 AM »

Buy the full-featured Internet Download Manager TODAY from Tonec Inc. for a special Christmas price of $24.95 (instead of $29.95).

Author's blurb:

 Internet Download Manager (IDM) is a tool to increase download speeds by up to 5 times, resume and schedule downloads. Comprehensive error recovery and resume capability will restart broken or interrupted downloads due to lost connections, network problems, computer shutdowns, or unexpected power outages. Simple graphic user interface makes IDM user friendly and easy to use.Internet Download Manager has a smart download logic accelerator that features intelligent dynamic file segmentation and safe multipart downloading technology to accelerate your downloads. Unlike other download managers and accelerators Internet Download Manager segments downloaded files dynamically during download process and reuses available connections without additional connect and login stages to achieve best acceleration performance.

Internet Download Manager supports proxy servers, ftp and http protocols, firewalls, redirects, cookies, authorization, MP3 audio and MPEG video content processing. IDM integrates seamlessly into Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape, MSN Explorer, AOL, Opera, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Firebird, Avant Browser, MyIE2, and all other popular browsers to automatically handle your downloads. You can also drag and drop files, or use Internet Download Manager from command line. Internet Download Manager can dial your modem at the set time, download the files you want, then hang up or even shut down your computer when it's done.

Other features include multilingual support, zip preview, download categories, scheduler pro, sounds on different events, HTTPS support, queue processor, html help and tutorial, enhanced virus protection on download completion, progressive downloading with quotas (useful for connections that use some kind of fair access policy or FAP like Direcway, Direct PC, Hughes, etc.), built-in download accelerator, and many others.

Version 5.15 adds IDM download panel for web-players that can be used to download flash videos from sites like YouTube, MySpaceTV, and Google Videos. It also features complete Vista support, YouTube grabber, redeveloped scheduler, and MMS protocol support. The new version also adds improved integration for IE and IE based browsers, redesigned and enhanced download engine, the unique advanced integration into all latest browsers, improved toolbar, and a wealth of other improvements and new features.

Hmmm...  didn't support proxy.pac proxies last time I looked, but I haven't checked recently.

2145

General Software Discussion / XY 7.90 released!

« Last post by rjbull on December 08, 2008, 03:39 AM »

XY 7.90 released!

XYplorer 7.90 has been released on 08-Dec-2008. Here's a quick introduction to the main new features:

1) Here's a killer feature for you: Mini Tree!

It's an extremely simple idea, but it might change your way of browsing the file system forever: The Mini Tree displays only the paths you have actually used.

This makes browsing blindingly fast (it's instantaneous even with deeply nested subfolders), it makes the tree ridiculously small, and it makes you feel like being back in control (because you look at just the folders you are actually using, instead of being avalanched by all the folders that have accumulated on your drives over the years).

2) Quick Searches now support multiple locations. For example, you may paste a line like this into the Address Bar...

[Select]

E:\XY\;C:\Temp\;D:\Backup\?*.gif

... and E:\XY\, C:\Temp\, and D:\Backup\ are searched for GIF files.

Quick Searches are remembered in tabs and across sessions, you can save them as Favorites or assign Keyboard Shortcuts to them.
[/color]

2146

General Software Discussion / Re: New duplicate file finder... I am open to features suggestion

« Last post by rjbull on December 05, 2008, 05:18 AM »

- Possibility of several "levels" of similarity between files. For example: a) exactly the same, b) same name, different size, c) similar name, same size, same date, and so on

-city_zen (December 04, 2008, 11:16 PM)

Add to that, same root name but different extension, so you can flag e.g. ZIP and RAR archives that are really the same.

2147

General Software Discussion / Re: New duplicate file finder... I am open to features suggestion

« Last post by rjbull on December 05, 2008, 05:16 AM »

I'd like results to be returned "nested" like this:

1. File name
----------->Location One
----------->Location Two
Etc.

I'd also like to see some sort of colour banding utilized so that differentiating between files is easier.

-Darwin (December 04, 2008, 04:59 PM)

You mean like DoubleKiller   

2148

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 05, 2008, 05:01 AM »

I've wound up switching to Scansoft PDF Converter Pro.

-Darwin (December 04, 2008, 02:16 PM)

Is that the Nuance one?  I seem to remember someone complaining about problems with it?  Have you compared it with Able2Extract?

2149

DcUpdater / Re: DcUpdater Feature Requests

« Last post by rjbull on December 05, 2008, 04:44 AM »

any feature requests are welcome now.

-mouser (December 05, 2008, 12:24 AM)

Dunno about "welcome," but the feature I'd like is the ability to cope with network configurations that use proxy.pac files.  Inability to cope with those means I can't use DCUpdater at the place where I work.

2150

General Software Discussion / Re: Editor for PDFs: recommendations, please?

« Last post by rjbull on December 04, 2008, 10:36 AM »

FWIW Serif PagePlus version 11 is advertised @ $29.99 at this link.

-cranioscopical (December 04, 2008, 09:09 AM)

£19.99.  Even stranger, they're offering 10 and 11 at the same prices.  Very hard to find your way around their latest and greatest offers.

I'd be interested to hear anyone's experiences of using Serif PagePlus 11 for editing PDFs, as if it works, it would be an unusually cheap approach.  Foxit PDF Editor is $99, for example, about £67.