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2226

Living Room / Re: 10th Anniversary - long time member check-in thread

« Last post by IainB on May 12, 2015, 09:56 AM »

Somewhere along the line we also seem to have lost touch with beloved member 40hz, last seen in february 
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-mouser (May 11, 2015, 03:58 PM)

yeah,
that's been a notable absence. Hopefully he's doing okay (and just taking a break as Edvard says he was talking about).
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Remember his turtle avatar was slowly fading?  That was a hint.
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-Edvard (May 11, 2015, 06:34 PM)

I hadnt noticed that -
I see it's gone completely now - and his signature is gone too! - Wish him the best and tell him come visit sometime.
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-tomos (May 12, 2015, 04:51 AM)

You never know, it could be station drift, or maybe he's been switched to another frequency, or fallen foul of one of those Russian jamming signals, or gone thetan, or something.
There's a whole spectrum of possibilities for us to meditate upon.

2227

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: compressed archive NSE (7Z/RAR/ISO etc)

« Last post by IainB on May 12, 2015, 09:19 AM »

The pic looks great - I mean, the viewing plugin is working fine on the .7z folder - to all intents and purposes the compressed files look almost like files in ordinary folders.

2228

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by IainB on May 12, 2015, 02:55 AM »

I wasn't sure whether this came under the category of "silly humour" or "Snowdengate", but either way it made me smile:
Microsoft Invests In 3 Undersea Cable Projects To Improve Its Data Center Connectivity | TechCrunch

I guess this sort of thing is increasingly likely to happen, as US Cloud-hosting corporations attempt to at least give things a semblance of "wanting to be seen to be not in league with the NSA" and so start planting their data centres offshore of the North Americas.
It will be interesting anyway. There could be far more capacity in those cables than MS would be likely to need...
Maybe MS is about to offer telco services too?    
Some people (not me, you understand) might query whether the NSA will be connecting to these cables as they are being laid, or afterwards; however, I couldn't possibly comment.

2229

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: compressed archive NSE (7Z/RAR/ISO etc)

« Last post by IainB on May 12, 2015, 12:56 AM »

^^ @umeca74: Thanks for that!

This is a comparison set of views:

2230

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Malwarebytes FREE and PRO/Premium - Mini-Review.

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 10:30 PM »

Update:
2015-05-12 - note re McAfee Stinger.(Refer: How it compares to similar products):

2015-05-12: Also see ghacks post about Stinger and a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Program) here - McAfee Stinger installs McAfee Validation Trust Protection Service

2231

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request: SC to freeze the on-screen display prior to clipping an image.

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 11:34 AM »

Nothing to be embarrassed about.  Another possibility is that if you haven't used SC in a long time, but you've been doing other things, windows may unload it from memory even if it's running in the system tray.  So in some cases this could mean that there is a slight delay between hitting the PrtScr button and having SC actually trigger the capture.  Maybe that's what happened before.

-mouser (May 11, 2015, 10:51 AM)

That's possible. SC is a really useful tool, and I sometimes leave it running in the background, ready for when I might need it. It's still there when my laptop goes to sleep/hibernate, and when it awakes from those states. I shall be more aware of this possibility now, and monitor things more closely.

2232

Living Room / Re: Interested in doing my own car maintenance.. Advice?

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 10:31 AM »

I learned to avoid draining more than one thing at a time, so as to minimise the potential for making any really careless mistakes - for example, such as (say) in refilling the drained engine oil with transmission oil or brake fluid.
With family/children around there can sometimes be many distractions, on top of which I can become very absent-minded sometimes when performing longer mundane tasks. My body sort of goes into automatic mode and my thoughts can become far removed from whatever I am doing and time ceases to exist for me. When that happens, it can give me quite a shock when I come back to reality a few hours later.

2233

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: DiviFile from Qnomad - Mini-review

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 09:54 AM »

Following the 2014-08-07: Minor update edits/corrections to the review, which included:

• (a) An email from @Qnomad indicating that he has been focussed on a new project (not DiviFile).
• (b) No subsequent updates to DiviFile.
• (c) This is probably not really a finished product (though it seems to work OK AS-IS).

- I have heard nothing from Qnomad since, and so have removed DiviFile from my browsers.
Sadly, I still reckon this working concept had tremendous potential.

The last entry on Qnomad's blog was dated January 31, 2013  - http://happynomad121.blogspot.com/.
The Qnomad website  - http://www.qnomad.com/divifile/ - looks unchanged since its post re DiviFile version 1.0.7.
I would presume DiviFile is abandonware.
I hope his "new" project works out OK.

2234

General Software Discussion / Re: Fax Software

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 08:41 AM »

Yes, I gather it's the printhead that dries out and gets clogged with successive "cleaning" cycles, not the cartridges.

2235

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request: SC to freeze the on-screen display prior to clipping an image.

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 08:37 AM »

...This is repeatable. ...

-IainB (May 11, 2015, 06:15 AM)

Erm, well that's no longer true...   
Having rebooted the laptop, I am pleased, but embarrassed to report that the apparent "constraint" I was moaning about no longer applies. In both cases, SC captures the stuff after nicely freezing the screen.

I'm now wondering if it ever was a constraint in SC, or just in fact a problem in my own laptop's system.
The only thing I can think might have caused it was my TouchPad mouse, which had been behaving very strangely, so I uninstalled it and restarted the laptop, whereupon the TouchPad was auto-reinstalled. The TouchPad is now working fine, and so is SC.

My apologies for a false alarm and wasting your time.

2236

Screenshot Captor / Re: Feature Request: SC to freeze the on-screen display prior to clipping an image.

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 06:15 AM »

I was using the region-capture mode Shift+PrtScr, but the pop-up window(s) in all cases closed before SC froze the screen. The cross-hairs then capture the screen after the pop-ups have closed. This is repeatable.

This is in Win8.1-64 PRO, using Classic Start Menu's Taskbar to pop up the little Systray "Show hidden icons". In Customise, there was another information pop-up - all as captured by OneNote, in the image above.

It seemed to me that the keystrokes to engage the capture were closing the pop-up message before SC engaged.

I observed this difficulty in SC some time ago, but it was only today when it got in my way that I thought to mention it.

2237

Screenshot Captor / Feature Request: SC to freeze the on-screen display prior to clipping an image.

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 04:09 AM »

Feature Request: SC freezes the on-screen display as soon as it is invoked, allowing the user to take their time to frame the section clip.

I am putting this in as a feature request as I can't see how to get SC to do this using the existing settings.
(See the emboldened/italicised bits in the cross-post, below.)
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Re: NoteFrog Pro (clipboard information manager) - Mini-Review

I have already sent Berry 2 test reports and have just now sent him a third - the latter about what I have termed "the Systray problem".
The symptoms are that sometimes, after being minimised/closed to the Systray, NF disappears from the Systray, though the process appears to continue.
The collage of screenshots below is intended to explain it, and what I could find out about it.



I am providing the screenshot not so much as to describe an apparent error/bug, but rather to demonstrate how useful Screenshot Captor can be in problem analysis cases like this - where "a picture is worth a thousand words".
The picture is comprised of a sort of collage of different screenshot bits, starting with the first - which was of the Task Bar and Process Hacker window (which were side-by-side) - and then overlaying other screenshot clips and adding a text box and arrows, and expanding the canvas in SC (Objects-->Expand canvas to fit objects).
I'm sure I could have made it look nicer, if I took the time, but the thing is it would have been difficult for me to do this without using SC. SC really is a superbly crafted and useful tool for such purposes.  

The only constraint in using SC in this case seems to be in taking any screenshot of an area of the screen which contains a system pop-out window - and there were 2 such instances in this case. SC couldn't take such a clip without closing the pop-out window first, every time I tried it. The Windows Snipping Tool and the ABBYY Screenshot Reader weren't any better, but the OneNote Screen Clipping tool did the job just right as it freezes the on-screen display as soon as it is invoked, allowing the user to take their time to frame the section clip.

I shall cross-post this in the SC discussion forum, as a request to add similar functionality to SC.
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2238

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: NoteFrog Pro (clipboard information manager) - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on May 11, 2015, 03:49 AM »

I have already sent Berry 2 test reports and have just now sent him a third - the latter about what I have termed "the Systray problem".
The symptoms are that sometimes, after being minimised/closed to the Systray, NF disappears from the Systray, though the process appears to continue.
The collage of screenshots below is intended to explain it, and what I could find out about it.



I am providing the screenshot not so much as to describe an apparent error/bug, but rather to demonstrate how useful Screenshot Captor can be in problem analysis cases like this - where "a picture is worth a thousand words".
The picture is comprised of a sort of collage of different screenshot bits, starting with the first - which was of the Task Bar and Process Hacker window (which were side-by-side) - and then overlaying other screenshot clips and adding a text box and arrows, and expanding the canvas in SC (Objects-->Expand canvas to fit objects).
I'm sure I could have made it look nicer, if I took the time, but the thing is it would have been difficult for me to do this without using SC. SC really is a superbly crafted and useful tool for such purposes.  

The only constraint in using SC in this case seems to be in taking any screenshot of an area of the screen which contains a system pop-out window - and there were 2 such instances in this case. SC couldn't take such a clip without closing the pop-out window first, every time I tried it. The Windows Snipping Tool and the ABBYY Screenshot Reader weren't any better, but the OneNote Screen Clipping tool did the job just right as it freezes the on-screen display as soon as it is invoked, allowing the user to take their time to frame the section clip.

EDIT 2015-05-12 0146hrs: Having rebooted the laptop, I am pleased to report that the apparent "constraint" in SC no longer applies. In both cases, SC captures the stuff after nicely freezing the screen.
The only thing I can think might have caused it was my TouchPad mouse, which had been behaving very strangely, so I uninstalled it and restarted the laptop, whereupon the TouchPad was auto-reinstalled. The TouchPad is now working fine, and so is SC.

2239

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on May 10, 2015, 10:34 AM »

...Money.  It blinds the eye, and this is just another example of that.

-wraith808 (May 10, 2015, 09:51 AM)

Well, it's an inability to see all right, but an inability to see reason, and the cause is arguably attributable to just not thinking things through - a human trait that we may all share until we've learned to do otherwise. A backlash would otherwise have been a pretty predictable likely/potential outcome, and thus it would seem unsurprising that that (amongst other things) is what happened. It was unwittingly self-inflicted harm.
Any CEO who approved taking steps like that without considering the potential marketing consequences (which is apparently what happened) would arguably need to have rocks in his head. I think that's what is cynically referred to as a "career-defining moment", or something.

2240

General Software Discussion / Re: The Best List of Free Windows Security Software on the Web

« Last post by IainB on May 09, 2015, 11:06 AM »

Thanks. Great list.
Odd. I have FF v38.0 beta, and it makes no objection to the absence of an "s" in the URL prefix http://...
It never has objected to it either, as far as I recall.

I live in a 5th floor apt. Not sure if that might make a difference.

2241

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.29.0 - Apr 28, 2015

« Last post by IainB on May 09, 2015, 10:55 AM »

On 2015-05-09 using CHS v2.29.0, I got a spurious error:

Access violation at address 0080DF94 in module
'ClipboardHeIpAndSpeII.exe'. Read of address 00000008.

I was busy editing notes in CHS at the time.
The error did not stop the CHS process, but I closed CHS down and restarted it anyway, just in case, and then got CHS to Verify, Repair, Optimize database .

2242

Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on May 09, 2015, 03:15 AM »

The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again...
(Rather tongue-in-cheek article below, copied sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Keurig CEO Blames Coffee Pod DRM For Falling Sales | TechCrunch
In what amounts to a win for the anti-DRM crowd, Keurig CEO Brian Kelley said the 23% drop in sales came from his move to prevent coffee lovers from using unofficial K-Cups in its 2.0 machines. After the company’s patent on the K-Cup expired, the company added a lock to its new machines to prevent the use of refillable cups and cups from outside manufacturers. Users also filed a lawsuit after the company introduced the new cups.

The share price also dropped 25% since the beginning of 2015.

The new 2.0 machines required a specially coded coffee pod, thereby locking competitors out of the coffee pod game. One pod maker, the Rogers Family Company, fought back by offering a free plastic clip that simply convinced the machine that it was perpetually using the correct pods.

Although the way forward for 2.0 users isn’t yet clear, the company is reintroducing the My K-Cup device which allows users to put their own coffee into a reusable pod. “Quite honestly, we were wrong. We underestimated the passion the consumer had for this,” said Kelley in an analyst call regarding the cup. They are also hard at work at a presumably non-DRMed cold brewing solution.

2243

Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"

« Last post by IainB on May 09, 2015, 02:10 AM »

PRODUCT FAIL:
The Samsung GT B2710 ruggedised mobile phone.
Branded as being near-indestructible, this phone:

• Can withstand being dropped repeatedly from 3 meters onto hard concrete, with no significant damage, and function normally afterwards.
• Can be left immersed in water, yet still ring when called whilst under water and function normally afterwards.
• Can withstand being driven over by a car, repeatedly, with no distortion of the case or significant damage, and function normally afterwards.
• Has an incredibly hard, scratch-resistant display.

I tested all of these aspects of the phone, and found them to be true.
However, a major design flaw was exposed when I discovered a couple of weeks back that, if you wrap the phone in a towel and put it in a microwave oven and radiate it for 20 seconds, then it produces acrid, vile-smelling smoke and cannot function afterwards - though the SIM and memory card seem to be OK.

"Ruggedised" my #rse.    

2244

General Software Discussion / Re: Fax Software

« Last post by IainB on May 09, 2015, 01:46 AM »

...Many programs assume they can write files in the folder where the exe is.  I usually create an .ini file for my AHK programs in the same folder as the AHK utility.  From Vista on the system has gotten progressively more persnickety about writing to Program Files folders.  To avoid running everything As Administrator on W8 I took ownership of all the files in the Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders.  It's a pita.  If the error occurs in XP then it is likely some other issue.
It is not recommended o take ownership of either all of C: or the Windows folder.  Just in case anyone was considering that as a quick solution. 
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-MilesAhead (May 08, 2015, 03:19 PM)

^ That's why I install almost all software to a custom folder instead, although that obviously doesn't solve every permissions issue.
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-Vurbal (May 08, 2015, 05:51 PM)

^^ +1 for that. I've tended to do that (install to custom folders rather than in Program Files) more and more over the years, to combat the increasing lengths the user has to go to, to defeat the growing number of seemingly unnecessarily restrictive system "security policies" and bugs therein.

2245

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G930 - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on May 09, 2015, 12:08 AM »

That's curious. The issues I had were with what was the "latest" version at the time, not the more recent version which you refer to. However, one thing I made a note of was that the versions prefixed "LGS" did not seem to work, whereas those prefixed "G930" did seem to work - albeit imperfectly.

One of the things I need is the control panel display for the headphones, and the newer software didn't seem to operate that properly or as well as the older versions.

2246

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Dayu Disk Master Pro giveaway

« Last post by IainB on May 08, 2015, 11:21 PM »

^^ Yes:

• GOTD = Risky. Potentially nothing but trouble. Untrustworthy. Dayu Disk Master offer probably a case in point.
• BitsDuJour = usually pretty straight up and down, reliable, and informs the user of what they will be getting - but always read "the fine print" so as you get no surprises.

2247

DC Gamer Club / Re: A Few Hundred More Retro Games To Enjoy For Free.

« Last post by IainB on May 08, 2015, 11:06 PM »

... This is going to be fun...
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-Edvard (May 08, 2015, 08:44 PM)

That's what I thought too.

2248

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Logitech Wireless Gaming Headset G930 - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on May 08, 2015, 11:39 AM »

@lanux128's comments reminded me to update the mini-review.
2015-05-09: Updated software/driver version and some review notes, after having used these headphones for about three years now.
You will notice that I am using a relatively old software/driver version compared to the latest version available. This is because the older version seems to work better than the newest version.

2249

General Software Discussion / Re: sharepoint question

« Last post by IainB on May 08, 2015, 07:44 AM »

Not sure if this will be of any use, but I recall from implementing a Sharepoint site for a client several years back that, if the Sharepoint site is within an Intranet, then it is possible to view the files as being on a mapped drive in the network attaching to that Intranet - assuming you have the access rights.
This was handy for fast loading of files up into the Sharepoint system. I think it also worked the other way too - for downloading files from the Sharepoint to a local PC on the network.
Not sure whether this would work the same across the Internet to a Cloud-based Sharepoint site, though I would presume that, if it was all part of a virtual Intranet, then it should work the same.

2250

General Software Discussion / Re: Fax Software

« Last post by IainB on May 08, 2015, 04:26 AM »

The above suggestions look pretty handy to me, but they are not cheap and @brahman seems adamant that he wants free software, and for it to run using his existing "Agere based LSI USB modem".
He's already using Windows Fax and Scan, but he "cannot send a fax because of some write protection BS message."

Yet @40hz says "Personally, I just use Windows Fax & Scan ... never had a problem with any write protection stuff on Windows XP, 7, and 8."

So @brahman already has an apparently perfectly good modem, and the appropriate and $FREE software - and that all should meet his requirements.
However, it's apparently not working properly on send fax.
So, maybe we are looking at it all wrong, and simply need to eliminate the cause of the error "write protection message".

I don't know much about that modem, but I would presume that:
(a) IF the modem device had all the necessary and up-to-date firmware and drivers for that modem, and was suitable for whatever version of Windows he was using, and
(b) IF the Windows Fax & Scan was up-to-date, then
(c) there should be no error or write protection message.

So lets help him get up to that state and see if the problem goes away, and, if it doesn't, then we carry out some problem analysis with him.