Recent Posts

2376

General Software Discussion / Re: Imagine

« Last post by J-Mac on March 07, 2008, 01:18 AM »

I can't access their home page either. I get a "Critical error".

Jim

2377

Official Announcements / Re: The site is now back online (March 6th, 2008)

« Last post by J-Mac on March 06, 2008, 08:50 PM »

Ahhh - Finally back up!  Great work mouser and Gothi[c]!!

And Carol is right -- the withdrawal pains were massive!  I need a good, long fix now. You don't know just how much you miss something - until it's not available.

Again, thanks for the hard work to get the site back up.

Jim

2378

Skwire Empire / Re: Compressing files into multiple .zip archives with each .zip being independent

« Last post by J-Mac on February 27, 2008, 12:45 AM »

2. I am sending to this customers many games (hugh sized) which are more that 2 GB each.

-testgames (December 12, 2007, 09:54 AM)

Is it just me, or does this sound just a slight bit fishy?

-f0dder (February 26, 2008, 09:55 AM)

Or signing up just to ask for source code?

2379

Living Room / Re: USB Keyboard not available during windows boot sequence

« Last post by J-Mac on February 25, 2008, 12:55 PM »

Carol,

Try the F5 key and see if that does it. F8 doesn't work with an Asus motherboard, at least with the American Megatrends BIOS; they made it F5 instead - for who knows what reason.  Also, if the F5 doesn't help on your PC, try waiting a bit longer in the bootup sequence.  Like after the bootup screen - checking devices, etc. - appears, then hit F8, several times, if necessary.

I also discovered, when I found the F8 key problem, that once you have a USB keyboard or mouse installed, P/S2 mouse will no longer work. (Not sure about the keyboard, though) Wasted a measly $5 on a Logitech serial mouse.

Worth a try or two.

Jim

2380

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 24, 2008, 07:53 PM »

a_lunatic,

Sounds a lot like PC Mag's Startup Cop 3!

Jim

2381

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 24, 2008, 02:54 PM »

Slow people, and jackasses who walk through stores talking to themselves on phones. I start cursing, hoping we'll both be offended. Or how about the guy who talks on the phone in the public restroom?

-zridling (February 24, 2008, 10:46 AM)

Or coworkers who come into the restroom and start asking you questions while you are in a stall?   

Jim

2382

General Software Discussion / Re: How many active DC member are there? 150? (Dunbar number)

« Last post by J-Mac on February 23, 2008, 11:36 PM »

…Then if I have 900 threads, see how many members have participated in those threads. That wouldn't show my dunbar number, but just how many people I have directly interacted with...

-tinjaw (February 23, 2008, 07:09 PM)

Yes, but some threads have very large numbers of posts/replies; are you really interacting with all of them?  Or are you only interacting verifiably with those to whom you are directly replying, or who are directly replying to you?

Hard to say how the forum data corresponds to number sequences.  Are there any set protocols for such studies? We are probably getting way off the track statistically.  Any statisticians here?

Jim

2383

General Software Discussion / Re: How many active DC member are there? 150? (Dunbar number)

« Last post by J-Mac on February 23, 2008, 03:05 AM »

I'm in now.  Long way to get to 150!

Jim

2384

General Software Discussion / Re: Another System Explorer

« Last post by J-Mac on February 23, 2008, 12:54 AM »

That's one factor - developer or product info - but should it be the only one?

E.g., Martin Aignesberger's programs - AM Notebook and Web Site Watcher - both show as suspicious and they are generally pretty well thought of otherwise.  Likewise for Super Flexible File Synchronizer and their task scheduling service, ExtremeSync.

coolswitch.exe and taskswitch.exe are part of a Microsoft Powertoy, TaskSwitch.  Those are not officially supported by Microsoft but they are created by Windows programmers and hosted on Microsoft's main site.

I will concede that both shicoxp and lauchsrv are listed by many services as suspect", but they are actually installed with any multi-card reader and are required to distinguish between the types of media/memory cards inserted in various slots.  If you've ever seen that "CAILI service did not start..." event in your EventViewer then you also have these running, most likely.

I just wonder what other task managers/system info explorers use to determine "suspicion".

Thanks again!

Jim

2385

General Software Discussion / Re: Another System Explorer

« Last post by J-Mac on February 23, 2008, 12:29 AM »

What kind of method are you using to determine the safety of a given file? Checking up if certain details are present in the file (name of the product, developer...), or something more complex?

-Lashiec (February 22, 2008, 12:30 PM)

There are few basic rules in actual version. Will be improved in future.

Rules:
1) Process running from %windir%\system32 with no Company Name or no Product Name has 0%
2) Process without Sign Certificate -10%
3) Process without Company Name -20%
4) Process without Product Name -20%

If you have any suggestions, Let me know. Thanks

-mistercz (February 22, 2008, 01:02 PM)

Hi mistercz.

I did notice that some applications that are definitely safe are shown as "Suspicious" or "Very Suspicious".  As for how else to determine a proper score, I have no idea how to do that.  However other explorer/system info programs don't designate these as Suspicious.

Thanks!

Jim

2386

Living Room / Re: What annoys you to no end?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 22, 2008, 11:29 PM »

What annoys me is people like that stupid woman driver who almost caused an accident this morning due to her blatant disregard for others - because she was trying to apply her eye make-up while driving down the highway.

She drifted way too close to my lane.  That caused me to have to swerve a bit and I squeezed my jelly donut too hard, causing the insides to squirt out onto my pants!!  And when I looked down to see how much of a mess the jelly caused my cell phone slipped out of its comfortable position - nestled between my shoulder and ear - and fall....right into my coffee mug FULL of coffee, which was sitting on the driver's seat between my legs.  And the coffee just erupted and went all over the keyboard of my notebook PC, which was balanced sooo nicely on my knee, kind of.  Then because the hot coffee was really HOT, I wriggled around a lot and that caused the notebook, already smoking from the coffee that spilled on the keyboard, to fall completely off my knee!!  As I leaned over to try and pick up the notebook my cigarette slipped right out of my lips and down the front of my shirt, making these weird looking burn marks all over my chest!

I mean, this woman could have killed me!!  The FOOL!!

Worst part was -- I really wanted that darned jelly donut!!  That was really annoying.

Jim

2387

General Software Discussion / Re: Best program to manage information collections?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 20, 2008, 11:39 PM »

…As I said in another thread, I have reached the conclusion that I am over-engineered for my needs (I am sure many people on this forum are in the same situation -- I imagine I'm not the only one who ends up using software because it's cutting edge stuff rather than based on a real need).

-johnk (February 19, 2008, 08:27 AM)

Huh?   I have no idea what you are talking about here!?!?  (Hehe - Then again...        )

So I am trying to simplify. Find one quick, light, flexible, robust program to cater for all my information management needs. Easier said than done.

I thought that maybe I could live in a note-taking program (so long as it has a robust structure and global search). I am trying that out with AM-Notebook -- a nice program, there's lots I like about it, but I think if I'm going to limit myself to one program, a simple note-taker won't be the one.

-johnk (February 19, 2008, 08:27 AM)

I do use AM Notebook, and have been using the Pro version for a couple years now.  I really like it as a notes application, except the lack of clipping capability cripples it WRT information gathering.  Of course Martin's Local Website Archive and Website Watcher help to gather info for me.  (Again... So many applications, so little time!!)

I also have Evernote 2.2 Pro and OneNote 2007 for clipping.  Why so many note-taking apps?  Oh.... I don't know -- doesn't everyone?   

Jim

2388

General Software Discussion / Direct Access Question - Line Feeds?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 20, 2008, 12:50 PM »

Hello all.

I purchased Direct Access about a month ago and I am really enjoying it as much as I can.  Excellent application, and a great developer -- very supportive and quick to act on requests whenever possible.  (Wish there were more like Nagarsoft and Andrea!)

I noticed an issue recently with any autotext commands that I had set up that are on more than one line:  For me, they work in some applications, but not others.  I used the Enter key to insert line feeds but as I said, in some - actually most - programs in which I input text the phrase shows all on one line.  Yet in other programs it shows on multiple lines as it should.  I have corresponded with Andrea of Nagarsoft about this and she indicated that this is unusual.  She did offer me a workaround but I am curious to know what I have on my PC that is causing the line feeds not to occur in certain applications.  Therefore I am asking anyone using Direct Access to let me know what behavior they are seeing in the applications listed below.  What I am seeing after executing the command with a line feed is also shown.  To test the line feed function I used a street address and an email signature.  For example:

Street Address:

• Name on first line
• Street and number on second line
• City, State or Province, Postal Code on third line.

Email Signature:

• Name on first line
• Email address on second line.

The results I get are as follows:

• Microsoft Word (in Office 2003 -------> Working - Text shows on multiple lines
• Notepad ----------------------------> Working
• Fastmail's Webmail Interface ---------> Working
• NoteTab Pro v. 4.95 -----------------> Not working - all shows on one long line
• Wordpad ----------------------------> Not working
• AM-Notebook Pro, v5 beta 3 ---------> Not working
• Evernote Pro 2.2 --------------------> Not working
• OneNote 2007 -----------------------> Not working

Of course I know that not everyone will have all the same applications, but if you get a chance please try multi-line commands in whatever program you have in which you commonly enter text and see how this works for you.  If anyone has the same or similar issues, maybe we can determine what other programs we have installed and/or running that may be contributing to this behavior.

Any help at all is appreciated!

Jim

2389

General Software Discussion / Re: Request from Blueberry for BB Flashback v2 Beta Testers

« Last post by J-Mac on February 20, 2008, 12:10 PM »

I just sent an email to Blueberry about the beta testing.

Thanks for the heads up, mouser!   

Jim

2390

General Software Discussion / Re: Why is my computer hiccuping every 60 seconds?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 11:38 PM »

And here I was going to recommend that you have your PC drink a glass of water upside down, and then scare it suddenly.   

Actually I had similar issues with SpySweeper over a year ago. I tried Version 4.5 on my main PC and it was nice; worked very well and no overly heavy hits.  I purchased three licenses - one for each of my main PC, my wife's PC, and my notebook.  Then they released V.5 and sent it out as a free update, and Wham!  It started using 50% CPU on all PCs and would not let it go.

Webroot support would not even acknowledge the problem, just saying it must be a "bad install" and to uninstall/reinstall.  CastleCops was filled with users moaning about it for quite a while. Eventually I just wrote them a letter saying what I thought and uninstalled from all PCs. I won't touch it again.

More recently I had an issue more like yours.  If I didn't use the keyboard or mouse for a couple of minutes, when I tried again the mouse would move but all else was frozen solid. Tabs on the taskbar could not be clicked, tabs in Firefox couldn't be clicked. I could not close any programs, nor access the task manager 0or Process Explorer.  I could not find any indication of what was doing it. Nothing in Event Viewer, and if I left Process Explorer open and showing on my second monitor it showed nothing out of the ordinary.  I had to go back to when I believed it had started - about two weeks - and determine exactly what software I had installed, removed, or updated. One I suspected was Clipboard Help+Spell. I had installed that at the right time and it was always running in my systray when Explorer was freezing - at least I surmise that it was Explorer based on the symptoms.  I made the list of installed apps since that date and disabled them one by one. Turned out to be a program called FastCheck, which is a notifier for Fastmail's webmail service. I could enable it and see the freeze soon afterward, and then disable it and see everything free up. I subsequently found several users post about it on their forum. The developer admitted it but his response is to have users make several configuration changes in Windows to alleviate it. I figure that's HIS job, so it's gone!

Jim

2391

General Software Discussion / Re: The definition of "bloat" - RE: Software

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 11:21 PM »

Without getting into any specific programs for now, I see as bloat any application that increases its overall size (mainly in memory, but also in CPU usage) primarily because it can, and to add so-called "new features" for the purpose of marketing and to be able to release a new version "on schedule" - meaning at least annually - when they do not have enough truly improved or added features to justify a new release.

Like adding a new, pretty UI, if the existing one is functional, purely because the disk space is there.  And they have no or not enough new features for a new version.  Hmm... I will mention one app after all:  Mind Manager 7 comes to mind in that MindJet overhauled Mind Manager's UI and made it a Ribbon that matches Office 2007.  And not much else in the way of functionality.  Why?  Well for one, they were required to do so in order to maintain their Windows Logo Certification.  That's an internal problem as far as the end users are concerned, as it doesn't really add functionality to the product.  But they also had very few new features developed yet.  And it was that time of the year when they always release a new version.  Revenue must increase, or at the very least, not decrease. Regardless of what they have to offer to users.

So that is one example of what I consider to be software bloat.  As disk space and memory becomes less expensive and thus more widely available, software developers make their products expand to fill it.  Used to be for some that the programmers were happy to be able to do things they could not afford to include in the past because the benefit did not justify the memory and disk space hits. That accounted for some early bloat.  Now it is the marketing and accounting folks finding reasons to add just about anything they can without expending a lot of programming time so they can release and make more money.

Jim

2392

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Process Kill Killed FARR

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 02:51 PM »

Hi Tom.

It's true that FARR appeared to be running when it was updated with that plugin.  I would have thought that DCUpdater would have shut it down when it installed the plugin.  Not sure why it didn't. I just installed Windows less than two weeks ago, so I haven't seen any shutdown problems since then.

Thanks!

Jim

2393

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Re: Process Kill Killed FARR

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 01:58 PM »

Well it did here!  I'm looking for logs for FARR but I don’t seem to see any.

Here's what is in the Event Viewer:

Event Type:   Error
Event Source:   Application Error
Event Category:   None
Event ID:   1000
Date:      2/17/2008
Time:      9:51:29 AM
User:      N/A
Computer:   JMCGO92504
Description:
Faulting application findandrunrobot.exe, version 2.0.0.140, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, fault address 0x01c1afac.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft....om/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74   Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c   ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 66 69 6e   ure  fin
0018: 64 61 6e 64 72 75 6e 72   dandrunr
0020: 6f 62 6f 74 2e 65 78 65   obot.exe
0028: 20 32 2e 30 2e 30 2e 31    2.0.0.1
0030: 34 30 20 69 6e 20 75 6e   40 in un
0038: 6b 6e 6f 77 6e 20 30 2e   known 0.
0040: 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 61 74   0.0.0 at
0048: 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 20    offset
0050: 30 31 63 31 61 66 61 63   01c1afac
0058: 0d 0a                     ..     

Beats me. 

Jim

2394

FARR Plugins and Aliases / Process Kill Killed FARR

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 09:02 AM »

I just noticed a blinking DCUpdater icon in my SysTray. Turns out it was showing an available update to the Process Kill plugin for FARR.  I clicked on the "Install All Available Updates" button and just as the update was completing an error message popped up saying FARR had to terminate due to an undefined error. I started it up again and all seems to be OK.

Possibly a planned restart after updating? Just an odd message.

Jim

2395

General Software Discussion / Re: "Interrupts" - killing my CPU!

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 12:59 AM »

I used to be at around 98% most of the time my PC was idle, but now that I use DOpus I haven't seen that for a while. DOpus seems to constantly be at around 4 - 5%.

Jim

2396

General Software Discussion / Re: DcUpdater question

« Last post by J-Mac on February 17, 2008, 12:48 AM »

rpiz,

Dcupdater generally does not any DC programs that do not have a *.dcupdater file in its Program Files folder.  When you have Dcupdater install the program it places one in there for you. Otherwise it is up to the program's developer to have that file in their program setup. If you are using older versions of DC programs they will definitely not have the required *.dcupdater file included.  A lot of the newer ones are also missing that file.

I just rebuilt my machine and installed all my DC programs - all latest versions. But DCupdater did not see most of them. I just went to the second tab on Dcupdater and had it download and install each program it said I did not have - they install right over the one that is already installed.  After that the Updater sees all of them.

Jim

2397

General Software Discussion / Re: XP Toolbar menu sort order

« Last post by J-Mac on February 16, 2008, 01:54 AM »

Andy, I did search the heck out of this and it does appear that there have been problems at various times with Quick Launch sorting since they added it. Last time it was widespread seems to have been in 2004 - 2005.  I found tons of posts about it then, but not a whole lot since.  Weird!

Sorry I wasn't able to help.   

Jim

2398

Living Room / Re: Would anyone want a free DonationCoder.com bumper sticker?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 16, 2008, 01:50 AM »

OT - OK, who just added a funky image or link in their sig?  For some reason some of the DC forum pages are taking a long time to fully load. Last time this happened it was a new graphic sig someone added that was not completely resolving.   

Jim

2399

Living Room / Re: Would anyone want a free DonationCoder.com bumper sticker?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 16, 2008, 01:47 AM »

Please, just no "My DC.com is an honor student" or "DC.com does it with better coding" or anything!
Jim

2400

General Software Discussion / Re: Time to Wipe this Machine! Clean install? Or XP Repair?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 15, 2008, 11:47 PM »

I too have built a few and the only thing I can say is a reinstall from scratch is definitely in order.  If you can't get a better response out of the system, it could be the parts just aren't AS compatible as one would hope.  I have heard of (and actually seen in one instance) where hardware and drivers conflict with one another.  That is one of the good things about going with an brand name machine instead of a custom build.  Although, I still prefer custom builds as this is becoming more and more rare.

-steeladept (February 15, 2008, 12:53 PM)

Well, would you consider Falcon Northwest to be off-brand? Hopefully you're not saying that, say, Dell or HP outs together better components than Falcon.  No, I got all first rate components, and all tested to be compatible. Except - I think - for a few, like the TV Tuner card and multi-media card reader. Those are not components that Falcon commonly installs.

No, it is just that some of these components - like the Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX has had driver issues since it was released, and rather than fix those, Nvidia just developed newer and more advanced ones. This card, while not a bottom or even middle class card, has had more issues with most users than most other of their cards - for whatever reason. And Nvidia doesn't really have to pony up with fixes because if you check their support site you'll see that they do NOT offer support to end-users at all unless the user purchased the Nvidia card at retail directly from them or an authorized reseller.  If the card was placed in the box by either a custom builder or a mass-market builder, then they send you back to them. No support whatsoever for anyone who purchased a PC with the Nvidia card already installed in it, regardless of how high quality or priced it is.  Now the PC builders can put pressure on a manufacturer like that, but they don't have a strong incentive to do so.

The majority of PC's are only warranted for one year, which means that they will most likely be able to hold you off for the few months you might complain about it. After that you can tell them you want any card replacement you want and they will gladly provide it!  At their price, of course!

No, Falcon generally has a great track record, mostly among gamers. But even they can put out one that is a dog now and then I guess.

Jim