Recent Posts

2276

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 01, 2009, 06:37 PM »

could something actually infect your computer withohut the live scanner catching it?

-superboyac (September 01, 2009, 05:04 PM)

Yes - if it is a new virus infiltrates your system before the AV vendor updates their virus database is updated. Future scans would detect it.

Trouble is it is a cat and mouse game.

It is unlikely that you will get a virus with decent AV software without regular full scans but not impossible - somebody has to be the one to identify a new virus! That is where heuristics are important - just a shame they aren't generally bright enough to be foolproof when it comes to false positive.

If you are looking for a free antivirus (i.e. for non-commercial use) the three I would choose in order of preferences are:

AVAST
Avira
AVG

I went off AVG a bit when the nag screens started and also had some clients with problems with network connections from AVG 8 upgrade from 7. I come across people who use it and they seem generally happy but I don't recommend it any more because of the number of issues I have encountered.

Avira is a good AV but I didn't really like the interface for the free version and it suffers from lots of false positives.

Avast hasn't caused me any problems so far on my laptop - light on resources and doesn't seem to to have bad false positives stats. There are no nag screen and it is pretty transparent in use.  I have recommended this to many home user clients and so far have not come across any issues or complaints. Avast is also very frequently updated (often 2 or 3 times a day).

2277

Living Room / Re: Donation Credits

« Last post by Carol Haynes on September 01, 2009, 04:25 PM »

The PayPal fees partly depend on region and the status of DonationCoder as a PayPal member.

In theory fund transfers unrelated to business are charge free (I received such a transfer today in the UK from another PayPaly user without being charged a transaction fee). If it is considered a business transaction then I think it is 3.4% + a small standard fee (I think 30p in the UK, probably similar elsewhere).

2278

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 31, 2009, 05:39 PM »

Nirsoft stuff often causes false positives simply because of the utilities' functions. If you have an app that recovers passwords it can be used for password stealing if you are so inclined. Just shove all your Nirsoft stuff in a folder somewhere and tell your AV to ignore the folder.

2279

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 28, 2009, 06:12 PM »

In AVAST the default setting for how aggressive the resident scanner is is 'Normal' if you set it to High heuristics are enabled so yes you can switch of heuristics.

2280

Screenshot Captor / Re: NOD32 False Positive

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 28, 2009, 04:36 PM »

I like AVAST too (the free version) - seems very light on resources to and haven't had any false positives from it.

I also use NOD32 on my work PC and am getting frustrated with long pauses again on archives. This used to be an issue a long time back in version 2 but it recently seems to have reappeared in the latest build. Annoying - sometimes it can lock the browser for 20 seconds or more at the end of a download.

2281

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody bids farewell to Yorkshire and a final day out to remember ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 28, 2009, 06:55 AM »

Probably did yes - I also only noticed when I opened the tissue paper in the box that he has a dollar coin!

PS. I forgot to mention that Hogan is a little bereft now that his new friend has left - here they are saying goodbye ...



Sob, sob

2282

Adventures of Baby Cody / Baby Cody bids farewell to Yorkshire and a final day out to remember ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 28, 2009, 06:11 AM »

The sad day has arrived and Baby Cody has flown away to visit Ampa in Hemel Hempstead. I am sure he will have a great time.

If anyone else would like a visit in the UK don't forget to sign up on the UK thread here otherwise he will be flying off to a new and exciting country after Ampa (you can start lobbying now if you like!).

I had all sorts of plans for Baby Cody's visit but the weather has not been kind (and BC seems to be a fair weather bird) so caving and climbing haven't happened. Finally we had a nice day - but the light wasn't especially good for photos (humid and warm meant it was misty and the sky was a uniform white). We did go for a walk yesterday straight out from my house so you can see a little of where he has been and what he has been up to:

The following pictures were all take within 1 mile of my house ...

Cody poses on a footpath sign pointing back to the village where he has been staying:



He was keen to try his flying again and landed in a hawthorn tree (not a good idea as it is very prickly - but he didn't seem to notice):



As we walked away from Carperby the view opened up and Cody was surprised to see a castle on the hillside. Bolton Castle (in the small village of Castle Bolton) is a medieval castle which still has many features intact (in fact a friend had her wedding there a few years back). The castle's most famous resident was Mary Queen of Scots who was imprisoned there for a time (click on the second picture to see it full size).





Wending our way downhill, towards the River Ure, Cody discovered some of the Yorkshire Dales' famous dry stone walls (he also picked me some wild flowers - very gallant of him):





Lower in the valley we entered some woodland full of Rowan Trees all covered in berries. Cody was ecstatic and tried to eat the lot ...



Having dragged Cody away from his feast, we walked through the woods to a surprise view of Wensleydale. The large hill in this panorama is Penhill. Click on the thumbnail to see the full panorama [Edit: unfortunately the picture is to wide to fit on screen so you will need to scroll from left to right to see it all and the scroll bar is out of view right at the bottom of the post so I have repeated the full panorama at the end of the post to make it easier to see.]



Cody was particularly impressed by all the new friends he met on the walk (the ponies were tired because it was a very hot day, the sheep is the local Wensleydale breed):







Finally Cody helped me to edit the photos for this page - here is a photo as we prepared to say goodbye:




Panorama:

2283

Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: make the taskbar shift through a range of colors gradually

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 24, 2009, 07:55 AM »

I'm still waiting for scolling/changing wallpaper (whilst still having  the use of desktop icons ...)

-Carol Haynes (November 02, 2005, 04:14 AM)

Seems to have happened in Windows 7 - just started using Windows 7 Professional (the proper version coming out in October) and I have to say I like it a lot. One of the features is desktop wallpaper slide shows. Nice.

2284

Developer's Corner / Re: PayPal fee change dust-up

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 23, 2009, 08:02 AM »

I don't know what the differences are between EU and US PayPal T&Cs but I have always paid a cut of any money received into PayPal since I joined (apart from charging up my own account from credit card or bank account) both on my private and business accounts - even if it is just a cash transfer and nothing to do with goods and services.

2285

Post New Requests Here / Re: How can I "turn off" (not disable) extended monitor

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 22, 2009, 03:42 PM »

Depends on your graphics card software. I have an nVidia setup and you can use the nVidia Control Panel to switch off either monitor.

2286

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 21, 2009, 07:56 AM »

I don't think it is as simplistic as that - the whole point of XML is that tags are user definable. It is something to do with the way MS embed stuff within the XML schema.

2287

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 20, 2009, 06:09 AM »

Interesting idea. Although how i4i could have done that before Microsoft came up with MS-OOXML is anybody's guess. 

-40hz (August 20, 2009, 05:43 AM)

That's simple - i4i came up with the idea and sensibly patented it, MS used it and then claimed it was their idea and patented it and as usual claim that i4i had a time machine and only placed the patent after MS came up with the idea.

2288

General Software Discussion / Re: What kind of this Virus and how to clean the USB

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 11:58 PM »

True but if his computer isn't infected (and he didn't say it was) the formatting the USB drive should clean it. If the computer is infected he should deal with that before worrying about a USB stick.

2289

General Software Discussion / Re: What kind of this Virus and how to clean the USB

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 11:49 PM »

Can you format the device?

2290

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: USB Safely Remove for Free

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 04:29 PM »

You reboot?  I click Remove a couple of times then pull the thing!! 

-MilesAhead (August 19, 2009, 01:28 PM)

Trouble is I have done that with a USB hard drive and ended up having to run a full CHKDSK to fix the errors caused!

2291

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: USB Safely Remove for Free

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 01:18 PM »

Thanks for the heads up - looks like a useful tool. Nothing more frustrating than wanting to remove a USB device and having to reboot because it won't be released!

2292

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 09:11 AM »

I don't think it would kill the U.S., and may not even hurt it much

-steeladept (August 19, 2009, 07:39 AM)

I don't know - if MS pulled the kill switch on Windows (which it could easily do via in Vista since it has a kill switch, and through the backdoor in Windows XP that they use to illegally install 'updates') practically the whole of the US economy would stop over night.

2293

General Software Discussion / Re: MS Word: Live by the patent, die by the patent? (rant)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 07:28 AM »

As I understand it the company bringing the patent suit have a legitimate argument. They will never win though because MS will drag it out until the crack of doom. The EU have been trying to tame MS for many years and even with an unlimited budget they can hardly be said to have won the war yet.

The recent issue about MS winning a patent on XML as a format for wordprocessing ducuments becomes a bit clearer now - presumably MS will now argue that they own a patent preventing the company suing them from inventing their own patent retrospectively. The whole system is mad but it will be interesting to see is MS are actually forced to withdraw Word from the maket - even for a day!

Personally I am amazed that MS haven't simply bought a large island somewhere (say Australia), call it Microsoftland and invent their own local patent and trading laws that means they can legitimately flood all markets worldwide with what ever they want. If they were an independent nation they could easily set the rules and so many countries and companies are so tied into their products they would easily win the right to trade on their own terms. If MS moved out of the US and refused to supply or support their products in the US market America would be a third world nation within days! (Some would argue that it has already happened in some states.)

2294

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: Adreamsoft PDF to Word 2.0_Convert the Read-Only PDF file to Word easily

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 19, 2009, 05:08 AM »

Here comes the spam ...

2295

Adventures of Baby Cody / Re: Baby Cody In Yorkshire with Carol (and a new friend) ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 17, 2009, 09:11 AM »

He is off down to Buckinghamshire next - but I still have a few plans for him!

I had planned to take him to the Lake District at some point, possibly rock climbing and my other plan was to take him caving (but it is absolutely foul weather here at the moment so I don't want to be underground!).

He'll be moving on in the next couple of weeks.

2296

General Software Discussion / Re: Multi OS Boot Loading

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 17, 2009, 09:09 AM »

Thanks - maybe I will treat myself to a new toy at some point.

2297

General Software Discussion / Re: Multi OS Boot Loading

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 17, 2009, 04:15 AM »

Does EasyBCD deal with Linux? It only barely deals with earlier versions of Windows (try installing Windows XP after Vista and you are in for a rocky ride).

The other problem I had with EasyBCD is that it is extremely buggy (I would say it was more akin to a partially finished 'alpha' than really usable software).

2298

General Software Discussion / Re: Multi OS Boot Loading

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2009, 09:20 PM »

Thanks for that - looks like an interesting product. Slightly worrying (and not surprising) that they actually say on the sales website that the 'long term future of the product is not guaranteed'.

I'm sure Apple has a long queue of lawyers drooling with excitment.

I'm sure your right - the simplest solution for the odd bit of Mac work is to buy a Mac Mini - at least then you don't have all the hassles. Out of curiosity can you use a standard PC monitor etc. with the Mac Mini (I presume that is the thing that looks like a white brick?).

2299

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Free WinUtilities 6.2!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2009, 07:58 PM »

Has anyone actually tried Perfect Utilities? Going to the original link the same company seem to be selling WinUtilities 7 and giving away Perfect Utilities 2 for free but from what I have read they are identical (apart from the WU skin pack).

Are these good products or are they best avoided? (Yeah I know most RegCleaners should be avoided unless you are REALLY discriminating in what you let them delete but what about the rest of the tools).

2300

General Software Discussion / Re: Multi OS Boot Loading

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2009, 07:36 PM »

If your quad core has hyper-v support why not install the free VMware ESXi virtualisation and run all your OSes concurrently from within there?

Alternatively install your OSes in the right order and it should take care of itself. Basically install your Windows OSes first as they are least tolerant of mucking about with the boot sequence and install them in date order (oldest first) then each version of Windows will be added to the latest boot loader for windows and give a multiboot system. Finally install your Linux OS and opt for Grub as your manager during installation. It should sort out a multiboot for Linux and Windows, when you choose windows you get the normal windows multiboot screen.

How you install OSX on a standard box is anyone's guess as there doesn't appear to be a standard way of doing it unless your are using Apple equipment. If you find out how to do that I would be really interested. I tried Hacintosh in a VM machine and never managed to get it working properly.