Recent Posts

2226

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 09:20 PM »

@rjbull:

I visited the LinkStash site but was immediately turned off - I couldn't find much of the information that I would need before making a purchase. So I clicked on the feedback link and was taken to a page that first wanted me to choose whether I would need a reply or not - before I could submit any request.

How would I know??  They would have to answer that - it depends mostly on the answer!

So I visited their forum, but you are required to register there before even being able to read anything.  That's plain ignorant! I shouldn't be required to register for anything prior to being a user of the software!

So that program is out based on general principle.

Jim

2227

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 09:14 PM »

I just downloaded and installed Linkman on my notebook running Vista Ultimate. First thing I did was import my Firefox bookmarks.  However it does not seem to read subdirectories with the Firefox Bookmarks file.

E.g., I have a folder on the Fx Bookmarks Toolbar called "Firefox & Mozilla Information", and within that directory are a few subdirectories, such as "Firefox Tweaks/Help" and "Firefox Extensions" that contain more bookmarks.  Yet after Linkman imported them those subdirectories are just blank files, not subdirectories.  I guess the bookmarks within them are lost (to Linkman, that is).  Why don't those bookmark subdirectories show as subdirectories?  Doesn't Linkman support anything beyond one subdirectory level? If not, I don't know that I could use it, having a number of subdirectories like that.

Also, my Firefox browser window was shortened up due to Linkman opening up at the bottom and forcing the browser up.  Is there anyway to stop that and just have Linkman show as a deskbar?

Finally, Linkman was only open during the time it took me to inout the first two sentences of this Reply to Post. When it opened in that that 'bottom of browser" window, it apparently also placed a rather large logo in the middle of my desktop that forces itself on top of everything else - or at least on top of Firefox.  That logo was sitting right across the text I was inputting at the time and so out of frustration from not being able to get it out of my way to complete this post, I immediately closed Linkman!

I realize that I have not yet read anything to show me how to configure the Linkman UI, and that I need to do that.  But no application should place parts of its user interface right across open applications like that from the very start. That is the kind of UI "feature" that should have to be user configured.

Thanks for any help with these problems.

Jim

2228

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 01:33 PM »

That is unusual, Carol.  It is usually not the router that cannot cause the computer to wake from Sleep or Hibernate mode, but Windows itself.

Jim

2229

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 11:36 AM »

I wouldn't forget homeplug electric wiring based options either, especially if you don't want to be running cables. The new home plug units can integrate with a regular network at relatively decent speeds. Their advantage over wireless is that you can use wake-on-lan (just like with cable) to let your server power down when its not in use (no wake-on-lan with wireless). Then you can hide your server someplace out of the way without having to run a cable to wherever that server is.

-phillfri (April 24, 2008, 06:31 AM)

I already have an Insteon Home Automation lighting controls network, a Slingbox Pro Turbo-ethernet Powernet network, and security surveillance cameras on a PowerLine network. Not sure I have enough circuits to support any more!

Jim

2230

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: MiniReview of Linkman URL Organizer and Search Tool

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 02:10 AM »

I notice that on the Outertech site it syas that there is an Internet Explorer toolbar but does not mention a Firefox extension nor toolbar.  Does either exist?  If not, will it?  It also mentions that it directly supports Internet Explorer Favorites, but doesn't say the same about Firefox's Bookmarks.  Sounds like it was developed strictly as an Internet Explorer tool and Firefox has recently been added as an afterthought.  I hope not.

Thanks!

Jim

2231

Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for April 23rd - Codename "Summer Feathers"

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 02:03 AM »

OK - I'm going to have to try mIRC sooner than later!

I did notice that Outertech posted that they were hit with a DDOS attack tonight, and that KenR's review is loading very slowly - but it is the hot-linked images from Outertech that appear to be the problem on the review page.

Is it possible that all the links you added today to Outertech are part of the problem?

Jim

2232

Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for April 23rd - Codename "Summer Feathers"

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 01:54 AM »

j-mac, I just added a link at the end of section 3.

-mouser (April 24, 2008, 01:50 AM)

I just finished reading it - nice review!

BTW, Is the site having problems tonight? Couldn't get here at all earlier, and even now it is very slow - took this page 2.5 minutes to load on a 16 Mbps cable connection!!  Other sites are as fast as ever.

Thanks!

Jim

2233

Older Newsletters / Re: --> Newsletter for April 23rd - Codename "Summer Feathers"

« Last post by J-Mac on April 24, 2008, 01:45 AM »

I'm hunting around for KenR's minireview now - a Link would be great!!

Thanks!

Jim

2234

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 23, 2008, 12:28 PM »

This may be redundant, but have you ruled out hardware issues?

I had a lot of freezing/crashing issues with one of my XP machines until I ran MS's memory testing utility and found that one of my RAM chips was failing some of the tests. Replaced it and my system's been much better ever since.

Bad hard disk sectors could also cause issues like you describe.

-Jimdoria (April 23, 2008, 09:31 AM)

I haven't ruled anything out yet. Brand new, and just starting to give me trouble.

Oddly enough it sounds like you and I just went through very similar hardware issues - but on my desktop PC (the other one I whined about in the first post!)

However the blog post by Ed Bott that Carol posted a link to mentions that a lot of users are seeing very similar issues and only solve it by reinstalling the OS.  Also, I am finding a LOT of folks posting the exact same Event Viewer.MMC Snap-in problem as I am seeing.

Grrr...

Thanks!

Jim

2235

Living Room / Another Reason to Hate DRM - Microsoft nuking MSN Music DRM Keys

« Last post by J-Mac on April 23, 2008, 11:57 AM »

According to this post on Ars Technica, Microsoft is shutting down the music DRM license server for the now-defunct MSN Music service.  Any music you purchased there will now be limited to playing on the particular computer(s) that you have them installed on.  Change your OS (like an XP to Vista upgrade), and it will no longer play. Even though you paid for it.

Somehow I don't think this was the intent of DRM - though I personally hate it passionately.

This is just pointing out how truly sick a concept DRM is...

Jim

2236

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 03:00 PM »

Vista problems:
Was reading a bit about them on Ask Leo the other day. Try a reinstall of Vista. This isn't just the usual "try rebooting advice", retailers are finding that they have to reinstall Vista as a pre-delivery on all computers since otherwise they have way to many fail like you are describing.

The article is pretty recent on www.ask-leo.com, so it should be easy to find. Hope that helps.

-Fred Nerd (April 22, 2008, 07:09 AM)

Sorry Fred:  I have searched high and low on the Ask Leo site and cannot find the article you mentioned.

BTW, navigation and search there is, well, kind of primitive. Not any fun looking for stuff there.  Pet peeve:  search results that are RSS feeds but not identified as such.  Grrrr.  Clicking on a result auto-opens FeedDemon and tries to subscribe to the feed.  Not that Leo's site is a bad addition to my feeds, but I generally don't like it when URL's aren't identified as RSS; my RSS reader can get way overfilled that way!

Thanks!

Jim

2237

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 12:49 PM »

Thanks Tom!  If not, I'm going to find myself back using pen & paper again!

Jim

2238

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 11:03 AM »

Fred, Carol:

At least I'm not alone, then!

As for disk imaging software - I already do have it.  But as I think this OS was already crapped out when I got the machine, I can't see mounting an image that is most like bad itself.

Thanks!

Jim

2239

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 11:01 AM »

I like whining so I'll jump in.

-mediaguycouk (April 22, 2008, 04:05 AM)

Oh, then you'll love me!

My other half has just got a M1330 and it is lovely. Currently quick, she likes the fact that her old games are working on it despite being unsuitable for Vista and she has got the hang of vista quickly.

My recommendation for your laptop? Get your discs out and put Vista on it again, install your apps and get yourself a copy of Ghost / TrueImage / etc and make yourself a nice rescue disc. Partition your space to give you a applications and documents on different hard drives and then you can recover a new operating system any time it goes bad.

It probably won't, but it just gives you the oppotunity to thrash and trash the OS whenever you like.

Reinstalling Vista is exactly what I am doing.  However I just wanted to vent a little!

Thanks!

Jim

2240

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 02:20 AM »

BTW, I was so sick of Dell that I shopped for a nice custom-built PC. That's how I decided on Falcon Northwest.  Reviews of their machines are always perfect.  Leave it to me to get a lemon.

And I wasn't about to get another from them when I was shopping for a notebook.  Dell has upgraded their notebooks quite a bit since  I jhad last purchased, and this XPS was on sale.  Ha!

Jim

2241

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 02:17 AM »

Nope - desktop is a Falcon Northwest Mach V purchased in June 2006; that one has had some time to really drive me crazy.  Already replaced two Seagate SATA internal 500 GB drives, the multimedia cardreader three times, the graphics card - an nVidia Geforce 7900 GTX was just replaced last month with a GeForce 8800 GT, and the Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Extreme Music was replaced six months ago.  Never saw so many damn parts fail.

Dell notebook is less than two months old.

Jim

2242

Living Room / Re: Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 22, 2008, 01:49 AM »

if you had these problems right from the beginning then it is time to bring Dell into the matter.

-lanux128 (April 22, 2008, 12:59 AM)

I will.  But Dell and I have a history, so I was hoping to avoid it.  Having a long purchase history there over the years and seeing their product quality and support go downhill, I was not looking forward to this.

Jim

2243

Living Room / Windows is Trying Hard to Push Me Over To a Mac...

« Last post by J-Mac on April 21, 2008, 11:43 PM »

Frustration level is about at the boiling point all the time now with Windows.  If not one version, then another.

My desktop PC has been the absolute buggiest piece of expensive junk I have ever owned - and I've had some real junker cars in my time.  Lots of Windows issues along the way using XP Pro -- but then again this machine seems to have a myriad of hardware gremlins also.

Now it's my new Dell XPS M-1330 notebook.  Pretty high-end computer, and also not cheap. Decent dual-core Intel processor, 4 GB RAM, lots of other fancy crap on it. And Vista Ultimate along with Office 2007.

First, the fingerprint login disappeared.  Stayed away for three or four startups.  Then returned as if nothing had happened.  Also, a handful of icons on the desktop went away - gone from the computer altogether!  Fixed that manually - the hard way.  I also noticed that a number of shortcuts in the Start>All Programs menu are bad.  All those had to replaced manually.  Some fun on a new machine.

Next, Microsoft Updates.  What else.  It has had 2 critical Office 2007 updates for me for two weeks now, but installation fails every time I install them.  One is Office 2007 SP1.  No good reason noted anywhere for failing.  Just tells me the the installation failed.  Actually it tells me this every time I turn it on.  Of course it always checks my patches, sees that those two are missing, and tries to install them again.  But they have failed 16 times now, so I ignore the update notification.  Pretty persistent, though.  I have searched the MS site, the MSDN site, and everywhere else, but though it seems a lot of users are getting this, there are no good fixes for it.  Reinstall Office, Windows, sacrifice a live chicken and dance around swinging it over my head - no deal.

Next, my brand new, very light Firefox 2.0.0.12 installation crashes often all of a sudden.  If I am on this PC for an hour Firefox will crash 6 or 8 times.  After plenty of troubleshooting, I am using Opera on the notebook.  Can't use RoboForm or other extensions, but at least it isn't crashing.

Then yesterday shortly after starting the notebook I got a good, old-fashioned BSOD!  Damn!  Couldn't see what it said because it restarted too quickly.  So I figured I would look at the Event Viewer to see what happened.  Nope.  Event Viewer cannot start.  Service has not started.  Try to start that manually - won't do it.  Again, I searched high and low, and though a lot of users are seeing this, there are no official solutions from MS. Event Viewer WAS working just fine before.  Now it appears to be gone.

I did read, from a poster on a forum somewhere, that NOD32 was causing similar issues with the latter Vista betas.  So I figured I would shut it down for a while and see if things worked any better.  Guess what?!?!  Can't shut down NOD32!!!  I can on my XP Pro machine.  But not on Vista.  Searched for a workaround for that.  Only solution is to remove it from the startup folder!!

Man, this machine is only a month and a half old!!

When I think back to all the trials and tribulations of Windows 95, 98, and Me, I fully realize that....  it is not rose-colored glasses that are blinding me;  none of those were actually as buggy - at least for me -- as these two computers!!

Sorry - Just needed a good whine.

Jim

2244

General Software Discussion / Re: EverNote beta 2.2.0.372 has some nice new features

« Last post by J-Mac on April 21, 2008, 02:46 PM »

Yes, but they also have put a limit on saved searches, done away with the category intersections, and a lot of other features that used to make Evernote more powerful.

If you are in favor of a much "dumbed-down" experience, go for it!

Jim

2245

Living Room / Re: Fujitsu Scansnap S300 - Looks Nice; Anyone Using One?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 21, 2008, 02:07 PM »

If you need properly portable, then the S510 isn't it.

Otherwise the difference in numbers makes the S510 much more usable as well as sturdier. I'm not sure I'd trust it to do 50 sheets at a time - but that probably means I wouldn't trust the S300 to do 10.

If your projected usage is low enough to make the numbers for the S300 seem OK, then do you really have enough need to justify the expense at all?

-Dormouse (April 21, 2008, 02:00 PM)

I don't know that I will need something like this forever, but I could sure use something like this now.  I have about 400 - 500 documents that I need to get into electronic format.  I have been using my Canon MP 830 A-I-O, but while that does photos very well, it is not very fast at all for documents.  And it does not scan both sides at once.  The Ccanon requires a lot of user input along the way.  Selecting whether to save as image or PDF, whether all pages should be included in one PDF or separate for each page. No way I can see to set this to occur automatically.

The Fujitsu scanners look to be much more suited for pure document scanning and organizing.

Thanks!

Jim

2246

Living Room / Re: Fujitsu Scansnap S300 - Looks Nice; Anyone Using One?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 21, 2008, 01:36 PM »

I know that they have several better models (Fujitsu) available, but the cost is a bit higher.  Plus, the S300 is ultra-portable. Lightweight (half the S510's weight), and it can be powered from a notebook PC's USB port, which is cool.

Quick comparison below:



Decisions, decisions....   

Jim

2247

Living Room / Re: Fujitsu Scansnap S300 - Looks Nice; Anyone Using One?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 21, 2008, 01:39 AM »

Thanks patteo!

Actually I do already have a Canon, which is a decent scanner. But...  for the kind of very fast document scanning and filing away of a large number of documents, the Canon's not so good.

Jim

2248

General Software Discussion / Re: Carbonite Online Backup

« Last post by J-Mac on April 20, 2008, 09:13 PM »

I use Mozy - have been for one year.  Paid account is truly unlimited, I guess unless you get way crazy with it.  I currently have a backup of just over 60 GB!  Cost me $54.45 for the first year, paid in advance. I just resubscribed for two years @ $103.95.

No problems at all so far, and support has been very responsive to my questions.

First backup took a little over three days running 24 hrs a day at "Normal" priority when idle, and "Low" priority when I was using the computer.  Now it updates the files once daily and takes about 15 minutes.

Jim

2249

Living Room / How Do You Use Your USB Flash Drive(s)?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 20, 2008, 03:14 PM »

Just curious as to how different folks use their little tiny tremendously useful USB Flash drives - the little "keychain" drives, as opposed to full-size external drives.

I have about a half dozen of these little buggers, and I could not tell you exactly what is on which!  I used to use them for transporting files from one PC to another - especially when I was working.  However now I use my home network and other online storage dumps to move most of what I need to move.  Some of mine have photos on them, some simply have something I wanted to back up quickly before trying a certain software when I was concerned that it would mess up some data.

But I have so many redundant backup methods now that it is difficult to imagine all failing at once. But occasionally it is still convenient to just pop the flash drive onto a USB port and load it up with some stuff I'll need when I'm heading out to work on another computer somewhere.  Another example is that I have all of the Nirsoft and other similar software on one flash drive. These are the programs that NOD32 eats up and deletes whenever it finds them on my PC. Some programs aren't even remotely threatening, but NOD32's heuristic analysis doesn't like them and deletes them even when I have them listed as exclusions in the settings.  I just turn NOD32 off, download and transfer these all to a flash drive, and then remove it. Then I restart NOD32. This way they are always available to me. If I need to use any of these I first must turn the A-V off.  But otherwise I can't keep these on my computer at all.

Surely there are other cool ways people are using their flash drives.  Let's hear 'em!

Thanks!

Jim

2250

Living Room / Re: Cool but strange web comic

« Last post by J-Mac on April 20, 2008, 02:37 PM »

I love it!  I'll have to check out the other links.  I am left wanting more of the same!

Jim