Recent Posts

2276

Living Room / Re: USB Flash Drives: What to look for or avoid.

« Last post by J-Mac on April 13, 2008, 01:28 AM »

Do keep in mind that the GT models are plenty faster, that's why you're paying a premium for those.

-f0dder (February 27, 2008, 05:58 AM)

NOT faster, really, in the 8 GB flavor. Read the more recent reviews - they have switched their GT models from using SLC chips to the more standard MLC chips - and there is not much of a speed difference at all from their regular drives. Reviews have gone straight down (esp. for the 16 GB drives), and users are returning them left and right. Newegg stopped selling them for the time being. Most users are crying that Corsair is now mislabeling - and overpricing - them since they switched to the MLC chips and lost the speed advantage they once had.

In fairness to Corsair, they most likely had to switch to MLC - it has been adopted as the standard by whatever group regulates the drives - or so I have read. But people are still fuming because they kept the GT name and price.

Jim

2277

General Software Discussion / Re: User friendly . . .

« Last post by J-Mac on April 12, 2008, 10:59 PM »

I understand.

Flickr's Pro account really has nothing to do with features - I have had a Pro account there for three years now, along with a Power account at SmugMug. I just don't put and pics of the kids on Flickr anymore, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to grab the rest of my photos! So they're on Flickr. Pro just gets you more bandwidth and storage. At SmugMug it gets you the ability to change the CSS and other web page attributes on your site, and it gives photographers selling features.

I have plenty of storage at home but I still like all my data in other, remote places. Mozy Online for all data, SmugMug and Flickr for photos. They have redundant backups so my chances of losing my images are not as great as for some. My first online photo account was at Club Photo, which really sucked for features, but they were around for a long time and were considered to be very stable - right up until they were purchased by another outfit which promptly closed the site without warning, taking all the photo albums with them!!!

So I like to spread it around now among the services that appear to be the most stable. But you never know! I have somehow become the repository of the entire family's old family photos, so a lot of people are expecting me to safeguard their "treasures". Wish they would help pay the fees...

Jim

2278

General Software Discussion / Re: User friendly . . .

« Last post by J-Mac on April 12, 2008, 09:26 AM »

iphigenie,

Remember, Flickr self-promotes as a "photo sharing" site, even more so than an online photo storage/album site. Look at their latest "feature": the Friend-Finder.  Users who have sent you a Gmail message, or received Gmail from you, can now find your photo pages by using your email address -- even if they are (so-call) private. Flickr does not offer any truly private space for your photos. Instead they simply make it a little more difficult to find them using Flickr's search box.  It's called "Privacy by Obscurity". A Google search can find your "private" photos. IOW, there is no actual encryption used on your private photo pages. BTW, the new Friend-Finder automatically makes all Flickr members' accounts "active" and searchable and allows you to opt-out, rather than make it opt-in. Even those who opt out are still findable: the code that "protects" those who opt out was broken in under 12 hours. Here's one link about that:  http://www.readwrite...rivacy_violation.php .

Smugmug, on the other hand, does offer truly private galleries and photos. They always had a privacy setting, but they have also allowed you to password-protect your photos and galleries. "private" there used to be similar to Flickr's in that they could still be found if determined. After a blogger challenged them on this in January they changed that and now use GUID's as well as passwords.

Now I know that some serious hacker could probably spend some time and money and eventually break anything, but I personally feel a lot safer with my photos an Flickr. Smugmug caters more to the folks wanting to store their albums online for family and even more so to professional photographers. Not primarily for sharing, which is Flickr's mission.

Jim

2279

General Software Discussion / Re: User friendly . . .

« Last post by J-Mac on April 11, 2008, 11:20 PM »

I'll add a plug for real privacy pf your photos at Smugmug.  Important if you are uploading photos of your children or grandchildren. Flickr and a lot of others have a "privacy" setting that does just about nothing to safeguard the kiddies' pics. Smugmug has some serious privacy, allowing you to hide your private photos even from Google searches, and to password protect galleries and even individual photos.

That was important to me - especially when I saw on Flickr that someone had marked some pics of my granddaughters as his "favorites". When I looked at those photos I noticed that they were always of the girls in their underwear or bathing suits.  (They were 2 and 3 at the time). I checked that site and it was full of porn and pics of little girls. Not exactly what I had in mind when I had set them as "Private" on Flickr.   

Just one of my reasons for using SmugMug now.

Jim

2280

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on April 10, 2008, 01:28 AM »

If you need a very fast commander try this one. Small and fast 2 pane commander

Commander
http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/

-kartal (April 10, 2008, 01:04 AM)

Well, with licenses for Directory Opus, Total Commander, and now XYplorer, I think my file manager toolbox is pretty well stocked for now!!

Thanks!

Jim

Edit:  PS, trying to keep up with the "Darwin" in the Nuclear Software Proliferation Arms war...   (Most likely a losing proposition!!    )

2281

General Software Discussion / Re: Drafting/Architectural Software?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 09, 2008, 07:07 PM »

Hey, I'll take a look - you never know!

Thanks Tom!

It's just that 3D Home Architect has bounced around from Broderbund to Punch to Encore and now to yet another company. They start releasing "new" versions with different numbers than what I have and I purchase the "upgrade" and find out it's the same version I had two years ago...  Got my money back but it is getting crazy with this software!

It gets the job done, but barely. I'm hoping to step up a notch or two - not to a $4,000 AutoCAD program, but something a little more polished and quicker than 3DHA.

Jim

2282

General Software Discussion / Re: FileBox eXtender now works under Vista

« Last post by J-Mac on April 09, 2008, 11:52 AM »

Huh - I didn't see that there.

Thank you.

Jim

2283

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Locate 3.0 - great *FAST* HD search tool!

« Last post by J-Mac on April 08, 2008, 10:59 PM »

After reading much praise of this application for a long time here at DC, I finally had the time and nothing in particular else to do yesterday afternoon  (before some other storm hit the fan!), so I downloaded and installed Locate32.  Beta version.  And of course since I had never installed a "stable" version, which includes the Windows installer, I had to figure out where to put which file and what to run to get the DB in place, etc., etc.  (What an idiot I am! Figured it out and ran the installer with the released version on my notebook after this and it was much easier!).

Anyway, I haven't had a chance yet to run through any serious searches - what I lovingly call my "PANIC searches"!! - what I have done so far was pretty darn impressive based on both speed and on the items it did find.  For example I searched using the first five characters for a file that I know is buried pretty deep and that there is only one possible result for those characters, and it had the result before I even finished typing!  Of course I type extremely fast; about 15 to 20 words per minute!!  If I look at the keys the whole time.... But Locate32 had the filename sitting there in the results box by the time I looked up from the keys.  Very quick.  I also tried searching for a filename that I knew positively was repeated exactly 10 times on my PC.  Of course it found about triple that - pre-fetch and the like.  But all results were that filename I knew about and references/links to that same filename elsewhere.

So at first blush, Locate32 is impressing the heck out of me!!

Thanks!

Jim

2284

General Software Discussion / Re: GAOTD & Virus

« Last post by J-Mac on April 08, 2008, 10:46 PM »

In my experience with "freeware" download sites - and most that I have dealt with were for handheld device software, primarily Palm and Pocket PC - they have generally had a much larger amount of "bad stuff" packaged with their downloads than more well-known licensed software developer sites. Of course since then I have had more Yahoo junk try to install while being packages with paid software downloads than anything!  (Yahoo Toolbar and Yahoo Music mostly - and I call "junk" anything I don't want hiding in another's installer setup!) I don't know if anyone has ever studied this but the results would be kind of interesting.

....nobody blames CNet or Tucows for buggy software they host...

-vradmilovic

I do - it's all part of CNET's quest for world dominance!!  (Aren't they Chinese too?!?     )   -   -   - (Kidding, for any too-serious readers...)

Jim

2285

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on April 08, 2008, 10:58 AM »

Oh, I'm not disputing that, ad-min! I'm making the purchase.

But I do so love my apps with a discount even more!   

Jim

-J-Mac (April 04, 2008, 11:19 AM)

Proud new XYPlorer Lifetime License holder! 

Now to spend some time figuring it out and configure, configure, configure.

Jim

2286

General Software Discussion / FileBox eXtender - Stopped Working?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 06, 2008, 03:47 PM »

Sorry to open this 3 month old thread, but I just have one question about FileBox eXtender:

It has stopped working for me on my desktop computer running XP Pro SP2.  The only change I recently made was to add one program to the Exceptions Pane in Options - I had to add SlingPlayer because the icons that FileBox eXtender places on Windows covered the standard Close and Maximize/Restore icons on SlingPlayer and it wouldn't move them. So I added SlingPlayer to the Exceptions - the first and only program I placed there - and now FileBox eXtender no longer shows on any windows nor download dialogs. Nothing I do in Options gets it working again.

Has anyone else seen this?  There is no longer a support forum at the Hyperionics website - developer says he took it down because of spam. So I can't ask about this there.

Thanks for any advice with this.

Jim

2287

Site/Forum Features / Re: Saving Personal/Private Messages?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 06, 2008, 02:28 PM »

Cool!  Well, that resolves that for me - and the email idea is a great one. I usually delete the notification emails after clicking the links in them. Now I guess I'll save the ones I want.

Thanks mouser.

Jim

2288

General Software Discussion / Re: CD Cataloger

« Last post by J-Mac on April 06, 2008, 02:26 PM »

Some love MP3 Collector at Collectorz.com, though I'm just a little gun-shy because they haven't developed it much lately and I am waiting to see if they are gong to continue to improve it or abandon it. Then again, I might be a little too cautious here - so it is certainly worth a look!

Just so you know, this - as most pure cataloging applications - will not go onto the Internet and grab tag info for your MP3's; you would have to use another tool for that. MP3 Collector, as I understand it, will take all your MP3's and catalog/inventory them into a database for you.

Jim

2289

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on April 06, 2008, 02:15 AM »

I believe that the descript.ion comment area is present in files on any NTFS drive.

-J-Mac (April 06, 2008, 12:36 AM)

descript.ion files are not standard Windows things - they were invented (I think) by JPSoft for their 4DOS product and have become a sort of third-party file manager standard of sorts:

http://www.jpsoft.com/ascii/descfile.txt

-mwb1100 (April 06, 2008, 01:37 AM)

Thanks for that tidbit!

I thought I had read somewhere (Here?) that they were part of NTFS - guess not! But I do know I can use them also in Directory Opus and Windows Explorer.

Jim

2290

Site/Forum Features / Re: Saving Personal/Private Messages?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 06, 2008, 12:39 AM »

The mod might be nice, mouser. Like I said, I probably have less PMs than most of the long-timers here. Just would hate to open the mailbox one day and find they had all been purged!  Is there a limit, mouser?

Thanks!

Jim

2291

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on April 06, 2008, 12:36 AM »

Not sure, but I believe that the descript.ion comment area is present in files on any NTFS drive.  Nice that you can access them using TC, but you can also access those in the native Windows Explorer.

Jim

2292

General Software Discussion / Re: PDA Integration with (PIM - Email, Calendar, Tasks, Memos,Etc.)

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 10:24 PM »

Agendus and Outlook is probably about as good as you will get using a Palm, other than the default Datebook PIM and Palm Desktop.

BTW, Slaven quit on both Palm and Pocket PC/Windows Mobile syncs mostly because he doesn't currently know how, and Poco Systems Pres., Jim Papa, is not likely to add anymore resources to help him. That's the very short version, which is about as far as I'll go with that...

CodeTrucker - It's pretty difficult to lose your messages en masse like that in Pocomail or Barca. They are all in either the Program Files folder or your user Application Data Pocomail folder. Plus it automatically backs up all messages and attachments as often as you select - every time you close the program or every 5th time, which is the default unless you change it.

Of course if you deselect that setting, well...  I'm pretty sure that you value your messages too much to do that!!

When I used Pocomail - about five years of usage - I purchased Mailbag Assistant from Eric Fookes Software. It archives all your messages, keeping the mailbox/folder structure and also archives the attachments with them.  You can archive them as generic .mbox archives or as .eml files.  I always do both. Then you can also perform all kinds of exotic searches, filters, and extractions with the data.  I still use it with whatever my email happens to be.

Jim

2293

Site/Forum Features / Saving Personal/Private Messages?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 10:03 PM »

I have a number of PMs in my mailbox - not as many as I'm sure some of you have, but enough to get me concerned about if and/or when are the mailboxes purged. Some forums I belong to purge all PM messages above a certain amount. And some, I think using Invision PowerBoard, have a stated limit of messages you can keep in your mailbox, but they do allow you to archive your messages by selecting them with a checkmark and then download them to your PC in .csv format.

So I guess I have two questions:

• Is there a maximum number of PMs you can have in your PM mailbox here at DC?

• Is there a download or export feature in the SMC forum software that can be "turned on"?

Thanks!

Jim

2294

General Software Discussion / Re: PC Games that DON'T Use an "Arcade"-Type Portal?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 09:12 PM »

Thanks guys.  I'll check them out.

Jim

2295

Living Room / Re: Microsoft extends XP--for budget laptops only.

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 01:14 PM »

New notebook with Vista Ultimate and even though this notebook was built to Vista standards (even with 4 GB mem!!), it is still not exceeding fast in some things, while blazingly fast in others. And it DOES definitely take a lot of space up. More than any OS I've ever used.

That said, I haven't yet had any real difficulties running it yet.  Now Office 2007 is another story altogether....     (I'm STILL looking for some commands in Word and Excel!!)

Jim

2296

General Software Discussion / Re: CD Cataloger

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 01:08 PM »

Don't know of any, but there have been a lot of threads on CD and MP3 cataloging applications lately. Have you tried a search?

Jim

2297

General Software Discussion / Drafting/Architectural Software?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 03:09 AM »

A request for recommendations for another application:  A drafting/architectural application for home/personal use.

I have used 3D Home Architect for a number of years, but it has been bounced around from developer to developer so many times that at this point "upgrades" seem sometimes to be just a name change to indicate new ownership.

Back around version 4 or 5 the program came from Broderbund. That lasted for two or three versions and then it became a part of Punch Software, a maker of more professional drafting applications.  Then to a company that might have been affiliated with Punch that called itself 3D Home Architect, and now it has moved again.

Oftentimes that software is sold without the mailing list and I have to search around after a couple years to see who has it!  And support is a group with a whole new large learning curve each time it moves. I used to be able to get help from one support tech who moderated one of the various forums that hosted 3DHA at one time or another, but he moved into a position last year that does not allow him to do this anymore.  (I can still get some help from him on the sly now and then, but very sparsely).

I mostly use it for projects within my house and property, but it is a 100+ year old monster and most of the building/architectural elements in it are very much different from these contained in the various catalogs of elements that can be used with these drafting programs.  The latest version of 3DHA seems to have made it a much longer process to modify elements to make them match what is in this old house. So I am hoping to find something that is more amanable to such customization.

Most of the stuff I have looked at the last week or two make a jump from the approximate cost of about $70 or $80 for 3DHA Deluxe Suites to several hundred - or even a few thousand for what is mostly professional-grade software.  I can't quite do that, plus that is much more than I need!

Thanks for any help and advice.

Jim

2298

General Software Discussion / PC Games that DON'T Use an "Arcade"-Type Portal?

« Last post by J-Mac on April 05, 2008, 02:52 AM »

What is the best source for PC games that do not use a portal, like RealArcade or similar?

My wife doesn't use a computer very much at all, but she does love to play games on the PC! Last tear I subscribed to Real Arcade for the singular purpose of obtaining the type pf games that she likes. She isn't into any of the heavy-duty 3D games like Halo or Splinter Cell - and no RPG's with 6 million levels or anything. Mostly just minor arcade-type games.  Wheel of Fortune, Deal or No Deal, various card/casino games.  (Me? I'm purely a puzzle/brain teaser type!)

Real Arcade could be decent if it really wanted to be, but they are pushing more and more games at you all the time - a good 20% or more of her time was rejecting downloads for "…games we have selected just for you…" offers thrown across the game she's playing.  I abandoned Real several months ago and hacked the downloaded games so that she could open them like any other application and play them without the Arcade. But Real must have little time bombs that render the games unusable after a time and they must again be downloaded via the Arcade.

I looked at a few other sites that did not appear to require a portal but once you get ready to purchase a game they let you know about their own arcade-type setup.   

Anyone know of a site with these arcade-type games that can be purchased on a standalone basis?

I thank you, my wife thanks you, and anyone who has had contact with my wife shortly after Real has scarfed up her games yet again also thanks you!!

Jim

EDIT:  BTW, when I say I "hacked" the games to allow them to be opened independent of the arcade portal, I am speaking of games which were purchased from Real for $20 apiece.  Just thought I should clarify that!  --- Jim

2299

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on April 04, 2008, 11:19 AM »

Oh, I'm not disputing that, ad-min! I'm making the purchase.

But I do so love my apps with a discount even more!   

Jim

2300

General Software Discussion / Re: What's your preferred File Manager

« Last post by J-Mac on April 04, 2008, 01:01 AM »

Btw, XYplorer 7 just came out last week and has broad scripting abilities. You can roll your own commands, routines, and do all kinds of other wonderful crap. I wrote a very simple command script that combines the work of four keyboard shortcuts all in one keystroke — awesome, baby!

-zridling (April 03, 2008, 09:32 AM)

Yeah, I've been looking hard at it. Too bad we no longer have a discount there -- I'm going to have to pay full price for it!

Jim