Recent Posts

2551

Living Room / Re: Anyone good with search engines - I am thoroughly frustrated!

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 02:13 PM »

Tried and failed  I'm ready to put my fist through my monitor after about 45 minutes - can't imagine what days must have been like. How much time do you have for this? Can you use interlibrary loans, or get photocopies, through the British Library?

2552

General Software Discussion / Re: The quiet disappearance of the top two mp3 cataloging software.

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 01:13 PM »

Ah, missed the collectorz is Sytske!

2553

Living Room / Re: Skimp or splurge?

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 01:11 PM »

check out Gorilla Glue as well.

-invenit (August 15, 2008, 10:48 AM)

This is the only thing I've found that provides a strong reliable bond with plastics. But I dislike its habit of foaming out from the seams.

-CWuestefeld (August 15, 2008, 10:57 AM)

Love it too... Only problem is that it expands (20% if memory serves), so you can't really use it to repair anything in which expansion will be a (negative) issue.

2554

Living Room / Re: Skimp or splurge?

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 08:30 AM »

Another useful thing is to have a little book in which you write down everything you really, really want and why you want it, even if you think you can never afford it.
It's quite chastening to look back at some of the stuff you once lusted after!

-JennyB (August 15, 2008, 04:41 AM)

Good idea! It's also cheaper than feeling chastened looking at the accumulated junk that you bought, used once, and never looked again...

2555

Living Room / Re: What do you do during your free time?

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 12:55 AM »

I read a lot. I go in cycles - I'll read one fiction author obsessively and then swtich to non-fiction and read in one subject area for a while, usually peripheral to, but sometimes spot on, my PhD disseatation topic. I also love to ride my bike in the early morning and spend time with my kids. Finally, I like to make clutter - I let it accumulate until it reaches a critical mass and then go a de-cluttering orgy because I really can't stand it (clutter - orgies are OK)!

2556

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 12:52 AM »

haha.. I intend to be late for my own funeral, so if you don't mind, I don't mind.

-Sugar (August 15, 2008, 12:48 AM)

It's all good!

2557

General Software Discussion / Re: What would your ideal Operating System be like?

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 12:49 AM »

Canada hasn't had a meltdown yet

-4wd (August 14, 2008, 08:17 PM)

You obviously haven't been paying much attention to the Olympics then! Ouch! Did I say that out loud?  ]

BTW Congrats on the 100th post!

2558

Living Room / Re: OK - lets get to know each other... who are you, what do you do, where from?

« Last post by Darwin on August 15, 2008, 12:46 AM »

Welcome, Sugar  (though it seems that it's a year or two late?!).

2559

General Software Discussion / Re: Any virtual printer for .doc or .rtf?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 06:34 PM »

Another option would be something like the now unsupported (and unavailable?) NetSnippets or Evernote, both of which will allow you to remove graphics and indeed whole sections of webpages saved by them. You could then print to pdf...

2560

Living Room / Re: Chandler V1 is officially out.

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 06:12 PM »

I've not yet looked myself, but I've been waiting for Chandler to "arrive"... by sounds of things it is a disappointment. My understanding of the original objective was the same as fenixproductions' - I thought they were after replacing Outlook and Exchange (OK, providing a free and powerful alternative to them, anyway). Pity.

2561

General Software Discussion / Re: What would your ideal Operating System be like?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 06:10 PM »

Wow! That's quite a vision of your ideal OS, f0dder  - you've given this some though, haven't you    Anyway, very interesting.

2562

General Software Discussion / Re: Any virtual printer for .doc or .rtf?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 06:06 PM »

I may be way off-base here, but have you tried Clickbook or Fineprint, either of which *may* address your problem?

2563

General Software Discussion / Re: Music files 101

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 06:03 PM »

Shades - can't comment on your specific question, but note that the RIAA also covers specific performances and associated media... so they'll STILL come after you!

2564

General Software Discussion / Re: The quiet disappearance of the top two mp3 cataloging software.

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 10:13 AM »

Ah ha! But the US dollar is on the rise... (and the Canadian dollar in freefall - great cheering from industry, long faces from the Canadian consumer  ).

2565

Living Room / Re: Skimp or splurge?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 08:17 AM »

Skimp: clothing

Splurge: shoes

I buy quality when I can (usually on sale) but then, that doesn't necessarily have to mean splurge, either, does it? Overall, I'm drawing a blank here. I guess I follow my dad's credo - shop around until you can get good quality at a good price. This way you buy once (or once every X years) instead of buying low quality items frequently.

2566

Living Room / Re: Breaking Word hyperlinks

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 08:11 AM »

This might be cumbersome, but you could try using USBDLM to set the USB drive to the same drive letter on each author's computer. I've done this on my home network (on three computers so far) so that I can sync data to an external harddrive from different locations without having to edit the synchronization profile to reflect changing drive letters.

At any rate, hope the relative hyperlinks option fixes this!

2567

General Software Discussion / Re: What would your ideal Operating System be like?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 08:05 AM »

No registry would be tops on my list while a clean and consistent UI would be right behind it. Other preferences near the top of the list would include realistic hardware requirements and, by extension, a small footprint. Free would be nice, but it is less important.

2568

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 08:02 AM »

Well... I am a little uneasy about the clothing optional suggestions...

Seriously, though, weren't the coding snacks weekends of old sort of DC Programming Olympiads?

2569

General Software Discussion / Re: Music files 101

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 08:00 AM »

Hi Sarah,

The legality of ripping the CDs to digital format is a grey area these days, depending on where you are... However, I'd suggest that no matter where you are, sharing them over the net with family will certainly violate copyright law, so tread carefully.
 
Having the CDs auto-recognized is usually pretty good in Windows Media Player. You could also try iTunes or Yahoo Music Manager (or whatever it is now called - I used MusicMatch Jukebox). The only other application I've tried is MusicIP Mixer. My experience with all of them has been that pop and rock CDs are generally recognized without fuss or fanfare while jazz and classical are far more hit and miss. Also, while it's been a while since I did this regularly, and I thus I may be out of step, I believe that all of the applications I mentioned access the same CDDatabase so you probaby won't have much luck switching from Windows Media Player. You could try seeing if you can try alternatives from within WMP (warning: I just took a quick look and couldn't find any option to do this on WMP 11 under XP Pro).

I'm sure someone here will provide a definitive answer shortly. Good luck!

2570

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« Last post by Darwin on August 14, 2008, 06:54 AM »

Why wear a swimsuit? Wouldn't the olympics be more interesting if the swimmers wore no suits?

-Josh (August 13, 2008, 03:57 PM)

I'd watch the female swimming and probably spend less time looking at Phelps. . . of course, protrusions (might I call them that?) probably wouldn't be conducive to aerodynamic form.

-allen (August 14, 2008, 05:55 AM)

Er... the swimmers or yours?! 

2571

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux is Not Windows

« Last post by Darwin on August 13, 2008, 04:48 PM »

PS I understand that XYPlorer is not dual-pane, but it is so well featured and thought out that it's HIGHLY useful! Having said that (and the points in the above post), I'm still playing with the new Explorer (though DOpus 9 is already installed and I have Total Commander, XYplorer, and others on my thumbdrive...).

2572

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux is Not Windows

« Last post by Darwin on August 13, 2008, 04:46 PM »

Ah, thanks for clarifying that, Zaine. Sorry I mis-read your original post! Crap - what have they done to Solitaire?! I haven't gotten that far in my Vista usage (and am on my XP machine at the moment...). I actually *sort of* like the new Explorer, but feel that they didnt' go far enough. I'm more retro - bring back the dual-pane philosophy from Win 3.x! I'm still trying to understand why they got rid of it in the first place... Thank goodness for XYplorer, DOpus, etc.

2573

General Software Discussion / Re: Recommendation/Advice requested - synching two Outlook profiles

« Last post by Darwin on August 13, 2008, 02:54 PM »

Heh, heh, sometimes the old way is the best way. I copied my pst to a thumbdrive, opened it in Outlook on my "other" machine and copied the three or so sent files over... I'm giving the third party software solutions a wide berth!

2574

Living Room / Re: Favorite part of the Beijing Olympics so far?

« Last post by Darwin on August 13, 2008, 02:49 PM »

The thing about the swimming that amazes is the world records. Here's a sport that's been essentially unchanged in modern times, but every olympics the athletes are resetting the records.

How is it that athletes are getting so much better? A gold medalist swimmer from, say, 20 years ago couldn't get into the finals today. But it's not that the rules have changed (like basketball and other sports), it's that they're executing the same task better.

What other sports are objectively improving in the same ways? I don't think cycling counts, because this is (at least in significant part) attributable to the technology of the bicycles.

-CWuestefeld (August 13, 2008, 02:39 PM)

I don't know how accurate some of these comments from the August 11th Answers That Work blog are, but check it out: http://www.answersthatwork.com/. The post is about the result of the mens' 100m relay.

This line in particular caught my eye:

Great Britain finished last in a time that would have won them the Gold Medal at the Athens Olympics !!!

2575

General Software Discussion / Re: The quiet disappearance of the top two mp3 cataloging software.

« Last post by Darwin on August 13, 2008, 02:17 PM »

So that means that if you purchased Music Collector before November 2006 IIRC you'll be entitled to a free upgrade to MuC 9.

-TucknDar (August 13, 2008, 01:48 PM)

I hope you're right on that, tuckndar. However, when I read the same post last week, I couldn't help but wonder if they're going to charge an upgrade fee to anyone who doesn't currently own a lifetime licence for both mp3 Collector and Music Collector...

[Edit ... corrected mismatched quote tags]