Recent Posts

2401

Living Room / Re: Internet Explorer doesn't report it is running on Windows ???

« Last post by J-Mac on February 15, 2008, 04:01 AM »

Carol,

Also seems to have been noticed here:  http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Windows-XP-SP2-Mac-OS-X-62569.shtml

Jim

2402

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder Reviews at "My Free Review" Blog

« Last post by J-Mac on February 13, 2008, 01:04 AM »

Very nice web site, Barry!  I'll visit regularly. 

Jim

2403

Living Room / Re: Weird Mozilla Firefox Page

« Last post by J-Mac on February 13, 2008, 12:49 AM »

Wow - that old?!

Jim

2404

Living Room / Re: How many germs are living on your keyboard?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 13, 2008, 12:48 AM »

There are about 1,887,480 germs on your keyboard right now!
That's equivalent to the number of germs on 377 toilet seats.

Does that count me?? 

I think my dogs and granddaughters got me!

Jim

2405

Living Room / Weird Mozilla Firefox Page

« Last post by J-Mac on February 13, 2008, 12:24 AM »

OK, I've been using Firefox from quite early on, but this is a first for me!  This page appears to be simply a test page for standards compliance -- or at least I hope it is!

Take a look:  Type "about:Mozilla" into Firefox's address bar (Without the quotes, of course) and see what you get.

Some coders have a really strange sense of.... humor? 

Jim

2406

General Software Discussion / Re: XP Toolbar menu sort order

« Last post by J-Mac on February 12, 2008, 11:05 PM »

Andy,

Do you normally keep your taskbar unlocked?  Try always unlocking the taskbar prior to making any changes, and then lock it immediately after making the changes.  Then keep it locked normally and only unlock it to make specific changes.

Worth a try.

Jim

2407

General Software Discussion / Re: Do You Purchase Software on Impulse?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 11, 2008, 04:00 PM »

I just reinstalled Windows on Friday and am still reinstalling software.  Sad part is---> I have programs I just purchased within the last four or five months that I have no desire to install, which means I didn't need the darn things at all!!  Sad; truly sad...

Hi.  My name is Jim, and I am a software addict...   

Jim

2408

General Software Discussion / Re: XP Toolbar menu sort order

« Last post by J-Mac on February 11, 2008, 03:40 PM »

Andy,

Which menu are you asking about?

Jim

On second reading, it appears that you are talking about menus such as the Quick Launch menu.  I have always just used "drag and drop" to place each icon or item where I want it.  They usually stay like that.  Yours are auto-sorting to alphabetical?

Jim

2409

Living Room / Re: HELP !!! Outlook corruption

« Last post by J-Mac on February 06, 2008, 04:23 PM »

Thanks for that, Carol.  I'm sticking with SP2 here also.

Jim

2410

General Software Discussion / Re: Personal Movie Organizers - A quick rundown

« Last post by J-Mac on February 05, 2008, 11:30 PM »

Sounds similar to CloneDVD.  Except I can stop and configure which sound tracks I want, or titles to remove, etc. Then I can save it to my hard drive, if I choose, as an avi or Video_TS. AnyDVD just decrypts it on the fly, and streams it to CloneDVD as it transcodes it.  All invisible to me. AnyDVD strips the keys out and passes it to whatever burner software you use.

It's just too easy to use it for me to instead use a free copy program. Plus, I bought years ago when it was very inexpensive (not that it's that high now), and it is a lifetime license. They have remained true to that so far.

Jim

2411

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 05, 2008, 11:16 PM »

@mikiem:  I agree completely regarding the "feel" you get from the tactile feedback from the pen!  A whole new feeling in place of the mouse, to which we have become so accustomed.  Though I could not use the pen comfortably as yet for all purposes for which I now use the mouse.  That would take a lot if use to get comfortable.

@Darwin: I agree with you also about how much fun it is to use a Wacom Bamboo Fun!  As I posted once before, though: I love the tablet and pen with apps like Art Rage 2, but I still have a certain amount of difficulty using it to write notes on a smaller window, like in Evernote.

Jim

2412

General Software Discussion / Re: Personal Movie Organizers - A quick rundown

« Last post by J-Mac on February 04, 2008, 03:29 AM »

I purchased AnyDVD and CloneDVD years ago - lifetime licenses.  And the main reason I use them pretty often is that for copying DVDs, they are about completely self-running.  Now authoring my own DVDs, I use a number of applications - any and all that will make the cuts, blends, menus, transitions, etc. smoother and nicer looking.  But for pure copying, it's so repetitive that I don't want to spend any time at all in setup; those two just do it. Simple as that.

Jim

2413

General Software Discussion / Re: Personal Movie Organizers - A quick rundown

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 11:52 PM »

Wow - small avi's!  That's cool.  What do you rip them with?  Does it (whatever you use) auto-remove director comments, titles, FBI warnings, etc.? Some do that OK, and some do not. None seem to do it consistently well that I have seen.  I generally rip using AnyDVD, and if I burn them, I use a few depending on just what I am doing. Predominantly CloneDVD2 though.

Jim

2414

General Software Discussion / Re: Deleting Files From the ..\Local Settings\Temp\ Folder

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 11:10 PM »

I use TreeSize Personal version - a paid version, though they also have a free version.  Sounds like a similar program.

Jim

2415

General Software Discussion / Re: More on Super Flexible File Synchronizer; Updates Anyone?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 03:39 PM »

I'm definitely trying another synchronizer.  SFFS doesn't have any help file, and I can't find any manual. I know - why would I ever have any questions, right?

I have some profiles that are scheduled (though I'm not sure why - they rarely run as scheduled!)  But others I setup manually and ran that way - once. Now I select three profiles/sync jobs that I want to run today.  Click on "Run" and all profiles start running.  Appears I can either run one at a time - like I really want to sit here and monitor this stuff.  Or run everything, whether I need to or not. (Most others were just run this morning - don't need them to run again today).  And I cannot find any resource to offer help with this app.

Some fun, eh?

Jim

2416

General Software Discussion / Re: More on Super Flexible File Synchronizer; Updates Anyone?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 02:39 PM »

Per Tobias, he claims to have done some redesign to the scheduler, but not that you would notice. Not quite sure what he means. From what you told me, it is still the internal scheduler where SFFS must stay running, plus you cannot do anything within SFFS unless you stop the scheduler. (Worst config I've ever seen for a scheduler in an application!!)

Or the "Extreme Sync" service. No comment on that.  But no use of the Windows Task Scheduler in this version. Doesn't sound like much changed at all, except some GUI changes which just have you use more views to accomplish the same things.

Please yell at me if I am misunderstanding it.

Thank you.

Jim

2417

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 01:03 AM »

Cleaned up one of mine, too.

Now that is a true, dedicated Moderator!

Jim

2418

General Software Discussion / Re: Personal Movie Organizers - A quick rundown

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 12:53 AM »

I tried these programs and still haven't found one which will meet my simple needs. I have a disk full of all my movies ripped to disk. I want a program that will -

1. import all movies from a folder (about 200 movies), not make me enter the name/dvd codes

-MrCrispy (February 02, 2008, 04:50 PM)

Darn!  I know from experience that ripping a DVD movie results in quite large files!  If you then transcode and burn them to a blank DVD you are basically squeezing it onto a DVD5 disk.  So just for the sake of calculations, say they are as small as 5 GB each X 200 - at least 1 TB! That's some folder!!

Rather than a folder containing VOB's, I am guessing that you are ripping them to .avi format?

Is this so hard?

Well, no....

IF you have all of the following:

1)  Large enough completely empty hard disk - at least 1 TB.

2)  Software to rip DVDs

3)  Lots and lots of time on your hands!

Personally, I burn 'em to DVD5's and have the ripped files auto-deleted after burning!

Yet still, this does not give people what they are looking for in the way of a "Movie Collector" program. They just want to inventory - in great detail - all DVD titles they own, along with the artwork, credits info - i.e., director, cast, etc. With a nice UI for input of the DVD's and generous reporting/exporting features for the data.

at least that's what I was seeking, and I believe the same is true for others.  Of course I might be way off here.

Thanks!

Jim

2419

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 03, 2008, 12:42 AM »

It's a shame that there isn't a "lending program" for such items - we could really benefit from something like that!

-J-Mac (February 02, 2008, 03:45 AM)

Can't you hire one for a couple of weeks?

-cranioscopical (February 02, 2008, 06:24 PM)

Wish I could, but I've never seen any such program.

And if there were, like a rental company, I'd wager they would stick to basic nuts & bolts.  IOW, plain vanilla desktop and/or notebooks. I doubt you'd see a tablet.

Jim

2420

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 02, 2008, 04:31 PM »

Well suuuure!  First come, first served....

Anyone want a real deal - free high-powered Falcon Northwest Mach V?  (Works...... ( )....... as is - no returns!!  )

(Darwin should get a kick out of that!    )

2421

General Software Discussion / Re: Almeza MultiSet - Anyone Use It?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 02, 2008, 02:45 PM »

Wow - no replies at all?!    That's a surprise!!  Either not one DC member has ever tried this application... (Or no one who cares to respond, of course!)

Oddly enough, I wrote the developer to ask if this program requires the user to reinstall manually the first time, with MultiSet recording all actions so that you can then create a CD that can do it unattended on all subsequent occasions.  Or if it can just scan your PC, note the Windows version and settings plus all installed software, and then perform a reinstallation of all, without the user having to go through the process manually the first time.

The reply was Yes.  To all, I guess!  I wrote back asking for a little clarification on that!

Jim

2422

General Software Discussion / Re: Deleting Files From the ..\Local Settings\Temp\ Folder

« Last post by J-Mac on February 02, 2008, 02:40 PM »

... There are two on my system for sure that do this and I've only received a response from the $20 one... The $2000 hasn't deigned to respond!

-Darwin (February 02, 2008, 02:29 PM)

I almost hesitate to ask - but I'll go ahead anyway!

What the heck software cost you $2,000?!?!?! 

Jim

2423

Living Room / Microsoft Disavowing Vista?

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

Interesting article I saw in eWeek today:
 

http://www.eweek.com...c=EWKNLBOE020208STR1

Jim


edit by jgpaiva: added screenshot

(EDIT:  A hearty "Thank you" to jgpaiva for replacing the Tinyurl link I had posted to the eWeek article and going through the trouble of replacing it with a screenshot!  I didn't know about the tinyurl link rule, but I do now!  Thanks again! - Jim     )

2424

General Software Discussion / Re: Digital ink/tablet pc: worth the effort?

« Last post by J-Mac on February 02, 2008, 02:19 PM »

we need to have a thing where people on dc can give away their unused equipment to others.

-mouser (February 02, 2008, 11:29 AM)

Honest mouser - that's not what I was pushing!!  I'm not looking for anyone to give me or lend me a tablet PC!!

I'm not even saying that a way for people to try certain types of PC's is even something that should be available.  Just commenting about certain high-ticket products that all of us here have to purchase virtually sight unseen on a regular and ongoing basis.  It is strange when you think about it:  Most of us will sit and think very hard about whether or not we want to spend $30 or $40 on a program that we don't feel may be worth quite that much, while with computers themselves we plow right ahead based on "expert advice" from various web sites.  PC Magazine; PC World; Computerworld; and various others.  I see a lot of people - not necessarily here at DC but at many forums  where I am a member - who literally scream about commercial software, expecting that any and all applications should be freely available.  But they save their money and spend gobs on a new PC that they probably never once took a "test drive" in!!

Thank you.
Jim

2425

General Software Discussion / Re: Deleting Files From the ..\Local Settings\Temp\ Folder

« Last post by J-Mac on February 02, 2008, 01:46 PM »

I advise caution. Some naughty programmes place installation files in the user %temp% folder that are essential for the operation of the programme (and in their absence require re-installation) or successful uninstallation of the programme. Extremely irritating 

-Darwin (February 02, 2008, 08:25 AM)

Darwin,

I do realize that this is a possible consequence of deleting the temp files, but at 5 GB and still growing I really had to just bite the bullet and do it! As for those developers who put the reinstall files in there, well I guess I just won't be able to reinstall from there. And if I find any in particular I will definitely write them and let them know what I think of the practice.

Not that they will listen to me, of course. But it'll get it off my chest, and of they do hear that enough from their users, you never know - it might just affect their future behavior!

Thanks.

Jim