Recent Posts

2526

General Software Discussion / Re: Heuristic Antivirus

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 17, 2009, 04:32 AM »

I really don't understand ESET - their software has an update option for the application as well as the viurs databases etc. and yet it has never worked. I have been using NOD32 since version 2.5 and I have never once received an update notice either by the update function or by email despite opting in to their emails. The only communication with users they seem to be good at is reminding you that your subscription is running out.

2527

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommend a good freeware spam filter for Outlook 2007?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 16, 2009, 09:14 PM »

Vote 2 for Google Mail. Just make sure you check your spam folder regularly.

I used to recommend POPfile, and if you want to do all your email in Outlook and only in Outlook I would still recommend POPfile. It takes a short time to learn but once it does it is incredibly accurate and has the added benefit of allowing emails to be intelligently classified any way you want (not just Spam/not Spam but as many categories as you want).

I tried SpamBayes and it does a reasonable job but IMHO it doesn't learn as well or work as accurately as POPfile - it is also considerably less flexible.

2528

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com... again!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 16, 2009, 09:07 PM »

New email from Collectorz regarding the latest update to their Movie cataloguer.

This email says a lot about its attitude towards customers but you have to read the PS after all the glowing praise they shower on themselves. Users love this version so much and it is doing so well they are even offering three different upgrade paths (including for free - it must be doing REALLY well if they can't give it away). Heavens one of the free upgrade paths even includes free premium support.

I have always wondered what premium support is ... I'd guess it goes along the lines:

Caller: I have a problem
Response: No one else does
Caller: But I have a problem
Response: You are just being difficult
Caller: Can you help me?
Response: Click

Here is the P.S. ... interesting marketing and psychology here ...

P.S... URGENT NOTICE:  While Movie Collector is the fastest, most powerful
version we've ever made, it does not fit the cataloging methods or
collection styles of all of our customers. If you have an collection of
older films, mostly adult movies, or MUST have data from sources like IMDb,
this upgrade is NOT FOR YOU.  I repeat, if you fit into one of these
categories, then you are most likely not going to be happy with Movie
Collector 6.1.

Why?

Because in order to make our software easier, searches faster, and move
toward things like an online version and iPhone apps, we had to bring all
the search data into our in-house database. The Collectorz.com database has
over 100,000 movies, with almost 150,000 barcodes... and it continues to
grow, get faster, and be more complete everyday.  But it still does not
have very many older or more obscure movies.

Again, with Movie Collector 6.1 you will NOT be able to access info from
IMDb, DVD Empire or ANY OTHER external source.  Wondering if your movies
are in the new version?
Give v6.1 a test drive with the trial version and see.

Of course, you can continue to use Movie Collector 5 indefinitely, but
coming December 31, we will no longer support this version. Already all
development and upgrades have stopped on this out-dated version. I hope
you'll join us as we move forward, but understand if you can't.

The first paragraph is intereresting - basically they are saying if you are over 20 forget it (and if you are under 20 and like older films forget it).

Also they now seem to admit that the in-house database (which by the way is supplied by the users for free) is not designed with users in mind but rather with their market placement of future products for other hardware!

It is particularly 'good' to see that v.5 will have no more development for those users that paid for and need those features denied them by this model in new versions. So carry on using version 5 until the source sites change their search mechanisms (a primary reason for regular updates in earlier versions) at which point you are high and dry without an application.

2529

General Software Discussion / Re: Quicktime only available with iTunes

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 15, 2009, 08:04 PM »

Try the following:

Download the iTunes installer.

The installer is an archive file which can be unpacked - I am not sure which apps will do this but I have found WinRAR can unpack it to a folder.

Inside the unpacked folder is QuickTime.msi which allows you to only install QuickTime.

2530

General Software Discussion / Re: Heuristic Antivirus

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 15, 2009, 04:11 PM »

NOD32 seems NirSoft these days (at least the version I am running doesn't seem to flag issues and I don't have exclusions listed). I used to have odd problems with some of their Password stuff in NOD32 v. 2.7 but in V. 3 it seems to be fixed. In version 2.7 I added the offending files to the exclusions list and then it didn't trouble me.

To be fair I think flagging password utilities as potential password stealers is a reasonable thing to do - at least it means someone who has the software installed without their permission will get a warning and anyone who needs to use the software should know how to get round potential warning problems.

2531

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 14, 2009, 07:38 PM »

Who is apparently still chasing Cody over water in the Bearing Straight! Isn't it time they came home to Blighty?

-Carol Haynes (March 14, 2009, 01:59 PM)

What have a I missed? Is Nudone on a crusie around Alaska/Siberia?

-Darwin (March 14, 2009, 04:22 PM)

When last seen on  the member map Cody and Nudone were heading up the West coast of Greenland into the NW Passage. I haven't looked recently but surely they must have reached the Bering Strait by now!

Update - just checked ...



Cody is just North of Nudone ...

2532

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 14, 2009, 01:59 PM »

Who is apparently still chasing Cody over water in the Bearing Straight! Isn't it time they came home to Blighty?

2533

General Software Discussion / Re: Virus detected by AVG8 Free in DrWindowsSetup.exe

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 13, 2009, 04:24 AM »

The main problem with all these false negatives is that it means users become blasé about virus warnings because they think their AV product is overly sensitve and stupid.

At the end of the day it does no one any good to have these false positives - especially the AV companies who try to feed on paranoia anyway.

2534

Coding Snacks / Re: [Request] Consolidate files in the parent folder

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 12, 2009, 08:58 PM »

That wasn't the problem in the case - all the file names were unique.

Couldn't wait until morning - works great. Exactly what I needed in this case

A few pennies winging there way and on Target 

2535

Coding Snacks / Re: [Request] Consolidate files in the parent folder

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 12, 2009, 08:40 PM »

Thanks I will give it a try in the morning

2536

Coding Snacks / [Complete] Consolidate files in the parent folder

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 12, 2009, 07:04 PM »

I have an odd problem that I need to solve and I am not sure how to solve it.

There may be a simple tool in Windows or a function in DOpus that can achieve this but I haven't found it.

I have a folder full of many subfolders (actually a number of these folder structures) and each subfolder contains files.

All the file names are unique and I would like to move all the files up a level into the parent folder and then delete all the empty subfolders. Like this:

Before:

Folder
 .
SubFolder 1   ... SubFolder 2 .... etc
 .
File1                 File 2              etc.


After:

Folder
 .
File 1    Files 2  etc


I have tried using a command line but you can't use wild cards for folder names.

Anyone got any ideas?

2537

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Drive Backup 9 Special Edition For Free!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 12, 2009, 12:40 PM »

Sorry should have commented - merge done earlier today. 

2538

Living Room / Re: Samsung's 24 x 220MB/s SSD RAID

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 11, 2009, 12:08 PM »

Thanks yes - that works - don't ask how long it took, I gave up waiting and went and cooked dinner

2539

Living Room / Re: Samsung's 24 x 220MB/s SSD RAID

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 11, 2009, 08:11 AM »

I just put these lines in a batch file that I ran from the same folder in the start menu as the shortcuts

access.lnk
powerpoint.lnk
word.lnk
excel.lnk

-nosh (March 10, 2009, 03:44 PM)

How do you get it to do all four at once? I have tried BAT and CMD files but it loads the first app and only opens the second app when you close the first app window etc. ?

2540

Living Room / Re: Surfulater 3 - huge price hike (166%) + where is the Firefox add-on?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2009, 07:51 AM »

That's a change of stance - the original wording was free upgrade if purchased within the last 90 days but there was a time limit on previous purchase before which upgrade was not possible as an additional condition (I can't remember and no longer have the email but I think it was 2 years).

2541

Living Room / Re: Asus ships Eee Box PCs with malware

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2009, 04:28 AM »

thanks a lot Carol

oups - I meant the Ass EEE PC BOX - the "desktop" computer. I should stated that clearer (but it is in thread title!)

I had also meant to post the page where I had looked at specifications - which was what I was referring to with "they never..."
They never do say what a product doesnt have - I can understand it but I hate that approach to business

-tomos (March 09, 2009, 09:42 AM)

Sorry my senility quotient was high yesterday!

2542

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Partition Manager 9 Special Edition - FREE!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2009, 04:27 AM »

I don't know what mojo Paragon uses but I have used other tools (freeware) that didn't have this problem, so the blame is theirs. Of course, for the casual user this 4 partition limit will not pose any problem, but I am glad (ecstatic to be more precise)  to get rid of it.

-Shades (March 09, 2009, 08:36 PM)

That's strange - if they are limiting to 4 partitions (including logical partitions) how do they justify that given that drives are now enormous and many people take advantage of multiple partition drives?

Alternatively the 4 partition limit is actually a function of the partition table structure - which is why Extended partitions and logical partitions were introduced (effectively stuffing a bunch of 'virtual' partitions inside a single 'real' partition.

Were the missing partitions logical partitions or primary?

Have you contacted Paragon to ask if this is intentional - if it is a bug they need to get it fixed and fast.

Having said that I find Acronis DiskDirector is also a bit hit and miss when you use it from the Linux boot disc - I have had a number of occasions where it says the drive structure is correct but windows has failed to recognise a partition or Partition Table Doctor reports that the number of blocks on a partition is inconsistent. I haven't noticed the version that runs from within Windows having this problems and am beginjning to wonder if it is a problem with the version of Linux they use with their rescue disk. Again it is ironic that a Disk management tool can screw things up!

2543

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 10, 2009, 04:18 AM »

I have now removed locate and use Everything almost exclusively.

The only problem I have with "Everything" is that it doesn't seem to be able to cope with removing external drives.

I suppose I could tell it not to index external drives but it really needs a way to allow their removal without invalidating the whole catalog for all drives. At the very least it could do with a way of automatically regenerating its index when a drive is removed. The only way I have found to do that is to close the app and restart it - which is clucnky and only ever happens when I go to make a search.

2544

Living Room / Re: Asus ships Eee Box PCs with malware

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2009, 09:18 AM »

If you look at http://uk.asus.com/p...spx?l1=24&l2=164 you can get the specs of the different models from the ASUS website. There is no mention of a modem and looking at the pictures there doesn't seem to be a built in socket for one.

It took me ages to find a manual - I have attached one here for the WinXP version (unzip and the PFD is inside)

*** Edit failed to attach because it is too big *** sorry

They don't have a modem but they do have USB ports so you could easily add a USB modem.

2545

Living Room / Re: XP Password work around?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 09, 2009, 04:41 AM »

hirens boot cd does the job, (i heard)

-Coeluh (March 08, 2009, 12:54 PM)

Only seems to have a reset password tool.

2546

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Paragon Partition Manager 9 Special Edition - FREE!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 08, 2009, 08:01 PM »

You can delete partitions (except the system partition) in Windows XP and Vista using the Disk Management tool in the Management console (or Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc )

2547

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2009, 08:41 AM »

You should be able to upgrade the RAM very cheapy via the product identifier at www.crucial.com You can specify the make and model number if it was a bought PC or the motherboard make and model id (printed on the circuit board). Crucial will also tell you what size modules are supported and their memory is both cheap and is guaranteed for life if you place the order via their compatibility picker.

2548

Living Room / Re: XP Password work around?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2009, 08:38 AM »

fOdder is correct ... if when the user was setup the 'privacy' option was ticked then all the files will be encrypted and resetting the password will render them all inaccessible.

2549

General Software Discussion / Re: Making my life difficult - Windows 98 - advice needed

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 07, 2009, 05:40 AM »

Outlook Express is built in for email and perfectly adequate - why go looking for something else? Either that or just set her up with a google account and keep email online.

2550

Official Announcements / Re: MARCH 2009: It's the 4th Anniversary DonationCoder.com Fundraiser

« Last post by Carol Haynes on March 06, 2009, 07:29 PM »

Looks like you're going to need a bigger thermometer 

Can't believe I just typed that!