Recent Posts

2301

General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe Lightroom V2.0 Beta — Killer Photo workflow

« Last post by J-Mac on April 03, 2008, 02:27 AM »

Nah, not expensive at all - I'm always looking for a deal!!

I've used Paint Shop Pro since, I think, Version 6. Got a full boxed retail copy on Ebay very cheap and from then on I just bought at the upgrade prices offered by Jasc. Version X was the first by Corel after they purchased it from Jasc, but from that point on it got "dumbed-down". Lotta frilly menus and wizards added but most users seemed to feel the tools didn't change much. So I'm staying with PSP X. But I never paid even 50% of retail for it.

ACDSee - I purchased at V.7 very shortly before 8 was released, on a great promo price combo with FotoSlate 4 thrown in. So I got the upgrade for V. 8 at no added cost. Then they introduced the "Pro" version about two months later, IIRC, and offered it to existing users of V. 8 for way below retail to placate them - so they didn't feel cheated by having paid for Version 8 and then having to upgrade again to the new Pro version so soon.  Ultimately I ended up with ACDSee 7, then 8, with FotoSlate thrown in, and then to the Pro version for less than the initial price of the Pro product.

And Photoshop Elements was free altogether. Version 5 came free with the Wacom tablet, and I just got Version 6 already installed on my new Dell XPS notebook, along with the Premier Elements. Part of a promo package price. Removing that software from the notebook didn't alter the price, so I left it on there.

Altogether for all of these I paid less than half of the Lightroom price.  Told you I'm a deal-hound!

Jim

2302

General Software Discussion / Re: Adobe Lightroom V2.0 Beta — Killer Photo workflow

« Last post by J-Mac on April 03, 2008, 12:09 AM »

Good news for the avid photogs!

For me - though I would love to use it - it's still out of my price range.  Much better priced than CS, though.

An amateur like me will have to make do with the combination of tools I have managed to collect:

• Paint Shop Pro X
• ACDSee Photo Pro 1
• Photoshop Elements 5/6

I just added Photoshop Elements on the cheap - Version 5 came with my Wacom Bamboo Fun Tablet, and Elements 6 came pre-installed on my Dell notebook. 

I still prefer ACDSee for organizing and photo database management for now, but I think when I get up to speed with Elements ACDSee will fall by the wayside.

I imagine that you are in your glory right now with the new Lightroom!!  (Hopefully you are prying yourself away from it now and then??  ) I take it you work mostly with RAW images?

Jim

2303

General Software Discussion / Re: All My Google Search Results Now Showing Redirect Page

« Last post by J-Mac on April 02, 2008, 11:57 PM »

Hmmm...

Only happening in Firefox.  Opera and IE6 / IE7 are not having this problem.

All better - for now.  Blew away all Google-related cookies and it is no longer occurring, though I did read a few blog posts saying it is happening to others using Firefox 2.0.0.12 & 13.  seems to occur whenever you search in Google and are also signed in to another Google service on another tab, like Gmail or G-Cal. Cookie fix has worked for most but I did see a few where it returned later.

Grrrr....

Jim

2304

General Software Discussion / All My Google Search Results Now Showing Redirect Page

« Last post by J-Mac on April 02, 2008, 11:15 PM »

Grrrr...

This is what I am seeing tonight every darned time I click on a search result in Google:



Nothing I knowingly did should be causing this. Granted I have seen this - or similar redirect notices - very occasionally in the past, but this is every single search result link I click on.  With the exception of any results that lead to another Google page of course.  And it is not to suspect pages; I have gotten it tonight for the Red Cross, Wikipedia, and even DonationCoder!

Any idea what could be doing this?  Is anyone else seeing this just today?

Thanks!

Jim

2305

Living Room / Re: Gmail's "Custom Time" April Fools Feature!

« Last post by J-Mac on April 02, 2008, 04:05 PM »

And I just noticed this one for Google Calendar: Google Wake Up Kit

-Deozaan (April 02, 2008, 12:02 PM)

Yeah, I saw that but it seemed to be much more obvious -- at least to me!  I'll bet more people fell for their "Custom Time" gag..

Jim

2306

Living Room / Re: Gmail's "Custom Time" April Fools Feature!

« Last post by J-Mac on April 01, 2008, 11:09 AM »

LOL!  The "e-flux capacitor" didn't give you a clue?

Jim

2307

Living Room / Gmail's "Custom Time" April Fools Feature!

« Last post by J-Mac on April 01, 2008, 02:15 AM »

Take a look:   http://mail.google.com/mail/help/customtime/index.html

It is accessed via a new link at the upper right of the regular Gmail screen, saying, "New! Gmail Custom Time" next to the Settings link.

I actually read the first line or two and got a "Huh?" out before I remembered what day it was!

Jim

2308

General Software Discussion / Re: mp3 Audio OUTPUT volume normalizer? Any such thing?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 30, 2008, 11:44 PM »

MediaMonkey, a great media player that has both a freeware and "Gold" (pay) version, has a volume normalizer setting in its menu.  Seems to work well, at least for me.

Jim

2309

General Software Discussion / Re: How often do you reinstall Windows?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 30, 2008, 11:39 PM »

Too often...

Yet not quite often enough!

Jim

Edit:  OK, I should clarify that.  By not often enough I mean that I have twice reinstalled Windows on four different machines in about 10 years.  But at the time of each I felt that even once was too often by the time I was done.

2310

General Software Discussion / Re: Cause of Vista crashes

« Last post by J-Mac on March 30, 2008, 01:18 PM »

I'm not at all surprised that nVidia drivers can cause a lot of crashes in any OS.  I have often had problems that track back to their drivers.

Plus, an inordinate number of programs state that their software will not run correctly if you have nVidia's Desktop Manager running. Results can be a real pain!

Two examples that quickly come to mind are Ultramon and Super Flexible File Synchronizer (SFFS).

Jim

2311

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 30, 2008, 01:13 PM »

Windows Desktop Search  cannot even search outlook express contacts or thunderbird emails, kind of useless for me. I uninstalled it from my machine also because it runs all the time. It was not like you could disable it like copernic

-kartal (March 29, 2008, 01:22 AM)

I had to lose WDS 3 for the same reason -- I could NOT turn it off, period.  I was using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for text input and WDS would continually steal focus and trash whatever I had dictated for however long it was before I noticed that WDS was in focus. Aarrggh!

There is no setting to pause or stop indexing. And it runs as a service, so I went into services and manually stopped it. Of course it restarted in a few seconds! I changed the Restart tab in services properties from 'Restart' to 'Do Nothing', but it STILL restarted!  Turns out is has a number of dependencies that, if you stop those it wreaks havoc on your system. So I had to chuck it.

I requested help with this at the Microsoft newsgroup for WDS and a couple of MVPs replied and confirmed that there is no way to stop it from indexing.  Just another case of "Microsoft knows what is best for you and your machine".  Ugh!

Jim

2312

General Software Discussion / Re: Professional Task Scheduling/Task Management

« Last post by J-Mac on March 30, 2008, 01:03 PM »

I know that you said it cannot be an online program, but just in case that changes in the future Backpack by 37 Signals is ideal for what you appear to want.

It is a month to month subscription and gives you either 100 or 1,000, or even unlimited number of web pages as your own personal intranet.  Includes a nice calendar with reminders, lists, notes, images,etc.  As I said it is basically a lot of web pages available to you with easy to create content, all geared toward managing your life, either professional or personal.

Jim

2313

Living Room / Re: Kodak (Complaint)

« Last post by J-Mac on March 27, 2008, 09:50 PM »

Deozaan,

First of all, I really feel for you -- this behavior is inexcusable!

Second, I agree wholeheartedly with Carol: Go with Canon for your next digital camera.  After a series of Konica-Minolta cameras over the years (all of which were very nice, BTW), I have now purchased three different Canons and there is no comparison. Excellent in just about every way I could want!

Third.....  drop the email approach!  It's time to write a good old-fashioned letter.  Anyone can write an email and quickly send it off - and they do! Probably tens of thousands a day to Kodak alone. It's a bit much to expect that yours will make such an impression that it will get a reasonable response; that is, more reasonable than any of the others that pour in daily.  A letter typed neatly and addressed to as many of Kodak's management team, as well as their corporate officers, as you can identify, stands a much better chance of getting the attention of someone who can and will actually do something about your case.  Even better, if you took any pictures of the condition the camera as it was upon its return from that so-called repair shop, make sure to attach them to the letter.  (Assuming, of course, that you had access to another digital camera - a working one - with which to do that!)

It has worked for me too many times to be just a fluke!

Jim

2314

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for finance app

« Last post by J-Mac on March 27, 2008, 09:16 PM »

Old, old thread we're posing in here!  Since it was "resurrected" last moynth, I haven't seen any mention of Expensr.com.  It is an online Web 2.0 app that mimics - to an extent, I'm sure, what Quicken and Money do from your desktop.  I took a quick look but I was hoping to find some feedback from those already using it before I gave it a real try.

I've used Quicken since about 1998, but on and off.  I was using Quicken 2006 Deluxe up until early February of this year but then it somehow got corrupted. (More on that in a separate thread).  Before I reinstall Quicken I thought it was a good time to look around and see what else was out there.

Has anyone used Expensr.com?

Thanks!

Jim

2315

Living Room / Re: Notebook display issue - ATI Radeon 200M

« Last post by J-Mac on March 27, 2008, 03:04 AM »

Either that or rip the remainder of the stickers off and then say, "Stickers?  What stickers?"   

Jim

2316

General Software Discussion / Re: Easiest replacement for windows system restore?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 26, 2008, 06:17 PM »

Shadow Protect ought to be good, it is twice the price of Acronis, or three times if yuo use version upgrades.

-tymrwt33 (March 26, 2008, 06:03 PM)

Yeah, I'm just getting a little nervous about the comments made in the PC Magazine review where they stripped it of its "Editor's Choice" status. Sounds like if you try to restore your system after having installed new hardware (like a new disk drive, for example), it fails miserably and fouls up the works. I haven't tried that but it is certainly a way I would hope to use it.

I stopped by the Acronis forums at Wilders and it does appear that a lot of users aren't happy with it anymore - more so than the usual number of support complaints.

Jim

2317

General Software Discussion / Re: Easiest replacement for windows system restore?

« Last post by J-Mac on March 26, 2008, 03:52 PM »

…
Beware of Rollback. TWICE it completely trashed my system.ShadowUser is MUCH better. Never had a problem with it.

-dlazarus (March 26, 2008, 08:51 AM)

I don't know about ShadowUser as a System Restore replacement, but I might take a good long look at ShadowProtect Desktop 3.1.  PC Magazine recently gave it their Editor's Choice rating, knocking Acronis True Image Home 11 out of its previous spot.  The reviewer, Ed Mendelson, found some fairly serious bugs in Acronis that put him off, but he raved about ShadowProtect Desktop. Though it doesn't have the vast feature set that Acronis does, he feels that for just plain old drive imaging it does a much better job.

Worth a look.  If you create an image daily you will effectively have the same thing that a working System Restore gives you.

Jim

Edit:  I added a link to the ShadowProtect Desktop web page.

2318

General Software Discussion / Re: Share Large Files Immediately With Eatlime

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2008, 06:54 PM »

Yeah, I'm losing trust also.

As for the Google ads, I have seen that so often I choke: When asked why they provide some programs free of charge, the developers respond that the advertising is how they make their money. Really? A few little Google Ad-Sense ads? Makes me wonder what other kinds of ads are supporting them. Like maybe the ads generated when they sell our email addresses and/or other personal info?

All in all, I somehow DO tend to trust private developers whose software I pay to use more than the freebies. Although I'm pretty sure that this concept is also very wrong - thinking that because I pay for their products that they are somehow more worthy of my trust!

Jim

2319

General Software Discussion / Re: Does this program exist - Video Splitter/video Screen capture program

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2008, 06:09 PM »

I'm not sure if you are looking for strictly free apps or if commercial is OK, but I think that Applian's applications can probably do most if not all that you want.

My only issue is with the way the spread the features out over so many separate programs. I even purchased their A/V Capture Suite and cannot use the various programs they have added to the suite since I first purchased it. I have to buy each added "piece" individually. 

I must say though that everything I do have from Applian works well and has gained me many, many videos and music tracks that I would otherwise not have been able to get easily or at all.

Jim

2320

General Software Discussion / Re: Share Large Files Immediately With Eatlime

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2008, 06:01 PM »

…Our goal is simple, to offer the most basic file hosting service so you can share your stuff quickly.

<<snip>>

Why is FileDropper doing this?
To make the process a lot simpler, and because we know how annoying it is to not be able to share files.[/color]

-Dormouse (March 24, 2008, 05:13 PM)

None of these services are doing this just because they like us.  I do wish that companies providing free applications or services would come clean and tell us how they're making their money from their respective applications/services.

Statements like the above by Filedropper always make me feel a little itchy for some reason!!   

Jim

2321

General Software Discussion / Re: Share Large Files Immediately With Eatlime

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2008, 05:56 PM »

Another issue I have:  I can't seem to access their Privacy Policy.

-J-Mac (March 23, 2008, 01:18 PM)

I don't know that I would worry too much about privacy if I were using this sort of service. I'd always make sure that anything I uploaded was very well encrypted and that should be that.

-Dormouse (March 24, 2008, 05:20 PM)

So it is OK for them - or any online service - not to have a privacy policy because we should all be careful? I disagree; it is still a matter of trust to some extent! My opinion anyway.

Jim

2322

Living Room / Re: Weird Mozilla Firefox Page

« Last post by J-Mac on March 24, 2008, 03:39 AM »

Aha!  I just saw something about this on LifeHacker, and I now see the problem:

You have to type in "about kitchensink" (without the quotes, of course), not "about:kitchensink".

Whomever else was having trouble with this, try it with just a space between "about" and "kitchensink". Worked for me then!

Jim

2323

Living Room / Re: Weird Mozilla Firefox Page

« Last post by J-Mac on March 23, 2008, 07:13 PM »

I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.12 and I just get a small popup saying the URL is not valid.

Jim

2324

General Software Discussion / Re: Share Large Files Immediately With Eatlime

« Last post by J-Mac on March 23, 2008, 01:18 PM »

I don't know -- I tested it and it worked great here also; but I didn't think to try and delete it!

Another issue I have:  I can't seem to access their Privacy Policy. When I click on it the page jumps a bit but nothing happens. The page is excluded from Ad Block Plus and I allowed popups for the page; no dice. I didn't have time to try Opera or IE yet.

Jim

2325

Living Room / Re: Weird Mozilla Firefox Page

« Last post by J-Mac on March 23, 2008, 01:16 PM »

about:kitchensink

-BuBBy (March 23, 2008, 06:22 AM)

OK - you got me!  "Bad URL, cannot be loaded.   

Jim