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2651

Screenshot Captor / Re: Way More Than Your Average Screen Capture Tool!

« Last post by J-Mac on December 13, 2007, 01:44 PM »

makes me very happy to read this.  Especially the part about how you read the pdf manual.. took a long time to write that big help file, it's nice to know someone has looked at it 

-mouser (December 13, 2007, 08:00 AM)

ehh, where is the pdf manual ?
am i having one of those blind it's right in front of me days 

-tomos (December 13, 2007, 08:52 AM)

Tom,

I'll have to look for it again.  I just downloaded it yesterday and can't find it again already!

Mouser - you have hidden it pretty well.  There are other threads where you provide a link to it, but they are all wrong!  And I had difficulty opening the file in Firefox when I finally found it.  Don't know if it is a problem with my Adobe Acrobat plug-in in Firefox or if the file is just placed improperly for downloading - if that is even possible!

I managed to get it with the Firefox Downloader extension - the sneaky way!

I'll post back when I find it again Tom.

Jim

PS - On second thought, try downloading from the link I just attached. Mouser - if you prefer not to have this here please remove it - only after Tomos downloads it!

2652

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by J-Mac on December 13, 2007, 01:31 PM »

All paid versions and all better at some things than the others, but none that seem to do it all well.
Someday I'll find that perfect note-taker!

-J-Mac (December 13, 2007, 02:02 AM)

Would you care to share what are the relative weaknesses of each of these 3 ?

-PPLandry (December 13, 2007, 07:29 AM)

No time for me to compose a mini-review right now, but here are some of the things I like (or don't really like) in these three programs:

Evernote:

•   Great search capabilities, but not exactly intuitive, at least I don't feel it is.
•   No tables or spreadsheet capabilities - they claim you can drag & drop tables and spreadsheets into a note but I have had mixed success. I guess it depends on the complexity of the table or spreadsheet.
•   It does support about as many categories as you could ever want, but no tagging. The explanation from users on their forum is that Evernote's search powers are so good and that tags basically suck anyway. Matter of opinion, I imagine; I don't have to have tags but I do like them.
•   The "endless tape" format is pretty cool when you start using it, and can be useful if you have the time to play, but at times, if I'm in a hurry, the "tape" format can drive me nuts!
•   A weird thing here - they have built-in icons that you can assign to categories. Many users at their forum have been clamoring for years for them to allow adding your own icons, but they say that would be too difficult. I don't quite get that. Besides, you cannot see the icons on your notes - they don't show there. Only on the category list itself. I don't get that either! Either support category icons, or don't. This in-between position is pointless, IMO.

OneNote 2007:

•   Probably the one I use the most, but mainly just for clipping from the web or any application
•   I don't like using it much if I am writing a note. Maybe it's the individual text boxes - or "note containers", as MS calls them -that it creates each time I start typing. Not a problem with it - mainly just a personal preference.
•   The odd file format that results from clipping - I don't know what in the heck it is but it usually cannot be used to paste into other applications. That really annoys me.
•   If I want to mail a note from OneNote 2007 it attaches a proprietary file to the message and a link to download OneNote 2007.  I hate this!! If I'm sending a note to someone I want them to be able to read it - right away.  Not show them an advertisement for another Microsoft product! Alternatively you can have it add an attachment that will open a browser window. But it asks first if you want it to open in your default browser. Mine is Firefox and if I click "Yes" it instead opens another instance of Thunderbird - no idea why! Then it switches and opens an Internet Explorer window. Too much trouble to view a note if you ask me. But if you are using it solely for your own use and never plan to send a note to anyone you won't have to deal with that.
•   Good tagging support, but you cannot add your own - something that can defeat the purpose of icons, which IMO is to allow finding notes at a glance due to instantly recognizable icons. Being heavily involved with the PPC/Windows Mobile platform for five years I came to appreciate category icons. I always created my own from client companies' logos. Then if I looked at the calendar I could see where I would be traveling to and whom I would be meeting with in any upcoming week by just glancing at the icons on my calendar page. So I prefer that if a developer has category icons as a feature they should always allow users to create and use their own.

AM-Notebook:

•   This one is my personal favorite for writing notes.
•   Tables and spreadsheets are built-in and handled nicely. Calculations, formulae, & advanced expressions in the spreadsheets.
•   Full rich text, extensive formatting options, clips & templates; I like how it handles these better than the others - once again, mostly personal preference.
•   Alarm clock and reminders, tabbed interface, excellent search facility, encrypted notes, link or bookmark between notes, create a new note using clipboard contents
•   ToDo's, built-in calendar feature to schedule tasks/notes, contacts, install to USB flash drive
•   And a big plus in my opinion: an active user forum w/good developer participation.
•   Big drawback -- no web clipping/screen clipping feature. For that I have to use one of the other apps. Also, a smaller drawback - no category icons.
•   Bigger drawback yet - no category support at all... Aarrgh!  I use the folder structure as a kind of ersatz categorization tool, but that's just crappy. Lack of categories of any kind is definitely a large miss, IMO.

As I said, a lot of the pluses and minuses are simply my own personal preference.  Many love OneNote 2007 for its ease of use.  Likewise with Evernote for its power searching and cross-categorization.  (Search more than one category together to narrow down and pinpoint specific results. - its single best feature IMO).  I just prefer AM-Notebook because it's easy to use, looks great, has an easy-to-reach developer who is very supportive, and to me it's kind of like having a mini (VERY mini!) office suite always open in my tray, and a mini PIM at the same time.

Now I'm sure that fans of the others will start shooting at me, but as I said, I have paid versions of all three of those (And a few others as well - I'm a note freak!), and I like them all for different things.  Just stating my personal reasons for liking one more overall than the others!  So I will refuse to argue with anyone looking for a "Notes" fight!!      

Jim

2653

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« Last post by J-Mac on December 13, 2007, 02:02 AM »

No problem! I'll have to check MonkeyPirateTidyWiki out for myself (though I'm awash in notetakers already  )

-Darwin (December 13, 2007, 01:03 AM)

You and me both!  Some started out as a free version but then offered me upgrade options too good to pass up!  E.g., I currently have the following three open all the time:  OneNote 2007, Evernote 2.2, and AM-Notebook.  All paid versions and all better at some things than the others, but none that seem to do it all well.

Someday I'll find that perfect note-taker!

Jim

2654

Screenshot Captor / Way More Than Your Average Screen Capture Tool!

« Last post by J-Mac on December 13, 2007, 01:48 AM »

Mouser:

Sorry for the non-informative post, but after using Screenshot Captor a few isolated times over the last few months, I decided to get the PDF manual and read up on everything it can do. All I can really say is that it blew me completely away! I had no clue just how powerful this application truly is!  Where do you get off creating such a program that blows all others like it out of the water?!

I've used SnagIt for a few years - I think since Version 5 or 6 - and since Version 8 was released I have had a lot of difficulties with it.  Techsmith's initial installer package for V. 8 was really wrecked and I don't know if my PC ever fully recovered from the resultant Windows Side-by-Side issues it caused.  (MS had released an auto-update in April of last year which caused this same problem for many developers who, rather than create new installer packages with MS Installer 3.0 when it was released, just took their existing MS Installer 2.X packages and imported them into V. 3.0 - big mistake with disastrous results for many users who installed with these packages).

I eventually got SnagIt working again after much repair, but lately it has had periods where it simply will not start. It's supposed to start with Windows and the correct processes show as running, but the app itself won't appear at all and worse - won't capture! Sometimes an immediate reboot helps, but mostly it doesn't. No errors show up in the Event Viewer nor in SnagIt's log file, so fixing the problem is not easy because you can't easily diagnose what's happening. I did discover - purely through trial and error - that placing SnagIt on the Windows XP Data Execution Prevention Exclusion list helped to reduce this behavior but it still occurs more often than not after a regular reboot of Windows.

Anyway, all that on SnagIt was just to lead up to me deciding to take SnagIt out of the Startup config and going full-bore with Screenshot Captor.  And since I had never really read up on Screenshot Captor, but had only used it occasionally when SnagIt was giving me problems, I took one good look at the interface window and Preferences dialog and knew I had a lot of reading to do so I could effectively use this program. And that's when the "Wows" started flowing from me uncontrollably!  Heck, my wife even came into my office to see "...what's wrong..." as she kept hearing Wow after Wow coming from there. I am certain it will take me some time to comprehend all the features and get used to the object handling features in particular, but do it I shall.  Because it's there, and I'm sure it will bring another wave of Wows when I master it!

So I just thought I would stop in here and comment.

Thanks!

Jim

2655

DcUpdater / How Many DCUpdaters Do I Have Here!?

« Last post by J-Mac on December 12, 2007, 04:23 PM »

OK - weird topic title, I admit!  But...

I am seeing two different windows of DCUpdater at different times on my PC and, while I know my machine sometimes has a strange sense of humor, I cannot figure out what it is doing this time.

I initially installed DCUpdater several months ago - I don't remember exactly when -and I have it configured to start with Windows using Chameleon Startup Manager.  When DCUpdater starts with the system and I view the window by right-clicking on the tray icon and then "Show Updater", most of the installed programs are not listed in the Installed Packages window, but are listed in the Available for Installation window.  If I then minimize that window - thus closing it to the tray - and immediately open DCUpdater again in FARR, all of my programs show correctly!

The obvious explanation is that I have two separate installations of DCUpdater installed, of course.  Yet both Chameleon Startup Manager and FARR are showing the same exact path:  C:\Program Files\DcUpdater\DcUppdater.exe.  And both are also showing identical paths to the same Startup folder entry:  C:\Documents and Settings\[My Username]\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\dcuppdater.LNK

I searched through my C: Drive with DOpus's search facility using the term "dcup*dater.exe" just to see if I somehow had the older version hiding somewhere - the one with only one "p" - or the latest version spelling - with two "p"'s.  Nope - only the one instance exists.

So how can DCUpdater show the incorrect info upon starting the first time, and then show the correct info when I re-open it?

Thanks for any help with this.

Jim

2656

General Software Discussion / Re: Mouse Gestures

« Last post by J-Mac on December 09, 2007, 12:56 AM »

I used Stroke It for several months and it does seem to be very good - and IIRC, it's free.  I removed it last year, and I don't remember all the specifics involved but I was having interface issues and a lot of difficulties with my PC display in general and was trying to diagnose several issues.  And besides Stroke It I had a number of other programs, like many of the Stardock applications, installed and it was near impossible to determine what was going wrong, so I had to uninstall all and start over again.

In the end it turned out to be a WindowBlinds beta version that was the culprit - it's drivers were driving just about everything else on my machine crazy.  And I just never got around to installing Stroke It again.  I'll have to download it and give it another try.

(BTW, Another program that DID cause me some problems was one that offers to autofill text systemwide - can't remember the name offhand but it was recommended highly by Gizmo - on his list of apps.  One unannounced "feature" was that it overwrote a number of Windows hotkeys, including Windows+S.  That's the screen-clipping hotkey for OneNote.  This program made it activate the "suspend" or "sleep" feature.  Every time I tried to clip a piece of the screen with Windows+S I instead blacked out my monitors and my PC went to sleep!!  Arrgghhh!)

Jim

PS:  The program that changes some Windows Hotkeys was PhaseExpress - finally remembered!

2657

General Software Discussion / Re: SyncBackSE vs. SuperFlexible

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2007, 05:41 PM »

Not a bad choice at all, DBC.  I use BackUp4All also, along with SFFS and FileHamster.  I love FileHamster for its ease and the fact that it just works so well - I will most likely purchase a Pro license shortly.

-J-Mac (December 06, 2007, 04:30 PM)

Do you know if there's a trial for the Pro version, Jim? It seems that only the free version can be downloaded. (I'll probably still try it anyway, still need to find a real-time-backup-on-change-with-versioning solution).

-tranglos (December 06, 2007, 04:44 PM)

Actually they call it FileHamster +Plus.  Here's a link: http://www.mogware.com/filehamster/upgrade/  Maybe you only see this after installing the free version?  I'm not certain.  It has some added features, like better support of external drives & network shares. Plus they claim there will be no further development on the free version; all future development/features will only be available to Plus users.

My real reason would be to help ensure the future of the application by supporting the developers.  I like to do that for free apps if possible.  It helps to keep them around for all!

Of the remaining two, I would make the same choice that you did.  BackUp4All is excellent.  I'll leave it at that...

-J-Mac (December 06, 2007, 04:30 PM)

Backup4All is excellent, despite of all I've said about it here Having tested nearly all of the backup apps discused on DC, I'm staying with Backup4All. It even saved my a** recently when the manufacturer of my NAS device sent me a beta version of their firmware, which corrupted every file copied onto the device (added 1 byte in front of every file!), and Backup4All complained immediately when it noticed something dicey was happening to its catalog files. It does have a number of quirks, and it's not the optimal backup tool in the ideal Platonic sense, but I'm just about convinved it's the optimal backup tool available today.

-tranglos (December 06, 2007, 04:44 PM)

What can I say?  I have had to write for help a few times already and I've gotten very quick and helpful replies from Adrian at BackUp4All.  Great product and service.  I recommend it to anyone.

Thanks!

Jim

2658

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2007, 04:33 PM »

Assuming not too much time has passed, you might consider using System Restore to get Windows straightened out.

-Ralf Maximus (December 06, 2007, 11:17 AM)

I mentioned that above -- I prefer not to use it if possible as I would lose too much else in the way of configuration changes I've made.  If it were a selective restore it would be great.  But it's not.   

Thanks.

Jim

2659

General Software Discussion / Re: SyncBackSE vs. SuperFlexible

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2007, 04:30 PM »

Not a bad choice at all, DBC.  I use BackUp4All also, along with SFFS and FileHamster.  I love FileHamster for its ease and the fact that it just works so well - I will most likely purchase a Pro license shortly.

Of the remaining two, I would make the same choice that you did.  BackUp4All is excellent.  I'll leave it at that...

Jim

2660

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2007, 10:26 AM »

Did you try to install another shutdown manager, given it the chance to override the bad manners from the previous one? I would try that.

-Curt (December 06, 2007, 04:20 AM)

Not yet, Curt.  I'd like to get the shutdown capability restored generally, first.

Thanks.

Jim

2661

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 06, 2007, 02:59 AM »

Thanks Ralf, lanux128.  I'll give these a try in a little bit!

Jim

2662

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2007, 03:03 PM »

Thanks Ralf.

Shutdown is still not working at all here, though, regardless of from where I try to initiate it.  Start menu, Task Manager, jv16 Powertools 2007, Process Explorer, command line....  All must point to the same Windows utility and since that is apparently not able to work none of the paths to get there are successful.

Sure am glad I have this darned Power button!  (Saves me from having to crawl under the desk to unplug the machine!!)

Thanks again.

Jim   

2663

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2007, 12:37 PM »

My favorite shutdown method:

shutdown -s -t 01

:-)

-Ralf Maximus (December 05, 2007, 12:23 PM)

Hi Ralf.

Questions about that:

1)  What does the '01' do?  Timing?

2)  Do you call up the command prompt for that from the Start menu?  Desktop shortcut?  Hotkey?

Thanks!

Jim

2664

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2007, 12:12 PM »

Yikes!!  Methinks I spoke too soon... (...or acted too late??)   Now I cannot shutdown or reboot my PC at all without holding the power button for five seconds - which I always considered to be a last resort. Now it is my only resort.

After installing Slawdog Super Shutdown Classic and reporting that it worked great, it stopped working the very next day.  Now that I have uninstalled Slawdog Super Shutdown Classic, I still have to use the power button to shut down my PC.

I checked the registry and only found a few innocuous keys left over from Slawdog, but removing those didn't help either.  (Or maybe it will after I reboot - which is the doggone problem!!)  Now I'm thinking that Slawdog must have installed - or removed or relocated - a needed DLL, or maybe altered the win.ini file.  I'd rather not use System Restore if I can solve this otherwise - too many other changes would be lost, I fear.  Wonder if I can view some settings from one of my many backup methods to see if I can find whatever Slawdog changed.

Any ideas out there?  Be reasonably kind!

Thanks.

Jim

PS - And wasn't I one of the winners of a year's subscription to Buffer Zone a couple of months ago?? Wasn't that me?      (Yes....it was......) 

(Actually, I had such a hard time getting the copy, and contacting the developer was so extremely difficult (and weird!) that I decided not to even try it.....  Oops!)

2665

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 05, 2007, 02:24 AM »

Yeah, I just uninstalled the Slawdog one.  It just stopped working and I have had to shutdown the last three times using the power button, because it disables the Windows shutdown commands.

Oh well...

Thanks,

Jim

2666

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on December 01, 2007, 11:36 PM »

I think the Smart Shutdown Classic it what I can use.  I installed that and it has the "force" feature which can mess up the hard disks, but it also has a feature that automatically clicks through any "end process" or similar messages that hang the shutdown until you click the OK button.  Three shutdowns now have run through in under 30 seconds - I can certainly live with that!

Thanks all for the input.

Jim

2667

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on November 30, 2007, 11:44 PM »

I think the methods mentioned in this thread all work only if you are manually shutting down.  If not, I apologize in advance.  (I'm going to try them after posting this)  Does anyone know how to eliminate such shutdown-stopping dialogs completely?

Thanks!

Jim

-J-Mac (November 30, 2007, 04:10 PM)

NirCmd (Parameters: exitwin shutdown force)
Sysinternals PsTools
Smart Shutdown Classic
Shutter
Switch Off

Shutter and Switch Off both have web interfaces.

-Nighted (November 30, 2007, 04:42 PM)

Nighted,

You posted the links, but do you know that these accomplish what I'm looking to do?  If so, darn - I have a number of Nirsoft apps but I have to keep them on a USB Flash drive - NOD32 keeps quarantining them if I keep them on the hard drive.

And I also have Sysinternals' PS Tools - I just haven't installed all the apps, as I already had the ones I use often installed individually. The others I haven't heard of before but I'll definitely give them a look.

Thanks!

Jim

2668

General Software Discussion / Re: Skin Your Shutdown...

« Last post by J-Mac on November 30, 2007, 11:41 PM »

If you want a noquestions asked type shutdown, just take a look at this:
http://www.xp-smoker.com/freeware.html

-manimatters (November 27, 2007, 09:51 AM)

i was curious about this program previously but after this discussion, i stopped using it.. just letting you know.

-lanux128 (November 30, 2007, 04:34 PM)

Yeah - I was a little worried about this one.  Even on that app's web site it mentions that:

SuperFast Shutdown

Have you ever wished there was a faster way to shutdown your Windows 2000 or Windows XP computer system? I mean instantly shut it down! Now you can! Just install Super Fast Shutdown and click on one of the desktop icons created to reboot or shutdown instantly.

Warning: Superfast Shutdown is extremely powerful! Use at your own risk! Although it has never been reported, regular usage could possibly cause disk corruption.

And I also don't want to bypass the normal shutdown activities -- I just don't want some warning popup "alerting" me that, in case I was not already aware, the SYSTEM IS SHUTTING DOWN!!!  And their app can't run for some odd reason when that happens!!  Of course delaying the shutdown until I acknowledge this nugget of wisdom.  I wish I could find the commands for these popups and comment them out of the .INI or .DAT file they're in.

Thanks.

Jim

2669

General Software Discussion / Remove Shutdown Warning Dialogs??

« Last post by J-Mac on November 30, 2007, 04:10 PM »

Wow - I was just going to start a new topic for my question, but this one sounds so close I think I'll hijack it for a moment if no one minds.

I have a few maintenance processes that need to restart my PC after running.  These are all scheduled tasks so taht I do not have to wait around for them to complete.

But.....  I also have a few programs that insist on throwing up a warning when the PC is shutting down - and of course they can delay or completely stop the shutdown process.  And I really hate that!!  One is a surveillance camera system I installed in my house.  When PC is shutting down the Command Center software for the camera system pops up a warning that the camera system will not be monitoring/recording if the PC shuts down.  And of course the always most-hated "dwin cannot start because the unit is shutting down..." or whatever that error reporting piece of junk says!  I have already "removed" the ability of dwin to even run using Microsoft's instructions (deleting the Aedebug registry key), but for the last 8 or 10 months that fix doesn't work anymore.  It still does this even without the reg key there.

I think the methods mentioned in this thread all work only if you are manually shutting down.  If not, I apologize in advance.  (I'm going to try them after posting this)  Does anyone know how to eliminate such shutdown-stopping dialogs completely?

Thanks!

Jim

2670

General Software Discussion / Re: Acronis release new version of TrueImage Workstation

« Last post by J-Mac on November 29, 2007, 10:48 PM »

Can't be much worse than True Image Home 11!  I ran Acronis TI Home 8, 9, and 10 and though they had their little idiosyncrasies they worked pretty well. TI 11 has not yet been able to write images to my external USB drive - a Western Digital My Book Essential 500 GB drive.  I didn't have the drive with TI 8, but TI 9 and 10 wrote to it without problems for a whole year.  TI 11 insists it is "poor media".

I have run a few diagnostics on the drive and it passes with flying colors. Plus I tried writing to an older Maxtor drive that has worked OK with everything I threw at it - TI 11 can't write to that drive either - "poor media" errors again.  Acronis Support says the WD drive is too slow.  Yet this same WD drive takes files synced by SFFS and written by BackUp4All with no complaints.

I'm about to uninstall and try installing TI 10 again.  I agree fully with Ralf's comment that their programmers are bored -- seems like you can always count on Acronis to mess around too much with a good thing!

Jim

2671

Living Room / Re: Excellent Editorial on IT Security Philosophy

« Last post by J-Mac on November 29, 2007, 10:43 AM »

So long as folks are clear on the distinction between White Hat Hackers and the Black Hats, I don't see a problem.  Educating the public has been iffy, but I *think* most informed adults recognize that hacking is often a positive, beneficial experience. 

If nothing else, hackers have replaced the stereotype of the crazy basement inventor in popular media.

Thus his rant on hackers and hacking is misplaced, IMHO.

-Ralf Maximus (November 29, 2007, 12:46 AM)

Remember, though - the article was written a couple of years ago.

Jim

2672

Living Room / Excellent Editorial on IT Security Philosophy

« Last post by J-Mac on November 28, 2007, 02:34 AM »

I just happened to find this article by Marcus Ranum, purely by accident as I was searching for another:

http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/

Not really earth-shattering or revolutionary -- just, well, the kind of common sense that we often forget we were born with.  (Or were we?!?!)

I thought I would share it here. If by some chance it happens to already be here somewhere and I just wasn't able to find it, sorry!

Jim

2673

General Software Discussion / Re: GoodSync free from RoboForm today (not)

« Last post by J-Mac on November 26, 2007, 04:19 PM »

You can be deceptive without outright lying. Yes. That is what I meant. If they are affiliated with these products or have an affiliates program with them, then fine, let them advertise their products. No one forces you to install them. Deceptive ads? Yes. Do they lie? no. Is this a reason to lose trust in a company? Not in my eyes. If this were the case, I wouldnt trust ANY download site due to the many affiliations they make.

-Josh (November 26, 2007, 03:10 PM)

To deceive IS to tell a lie...  Can't get much clearer than that.  Now, are there varying degrees of lies/deceptions?  Certainly, and you can make them as subjective as you wish.  Of course you can insist that there IS a Santa Claus too, if you wish.  But the verbs "to deceive" and "to lie" are considered to be synonymous, at least in US English. Look at any dictionary or thesaurus.

Have a beer on me while you're at it, Ralf!

Jim

2674

General Software Discussion / Re: GoodSync free from RoboForm today (not)

« Last post by J-Mac on November 26, 2007, 11:27 AM »

That's a new one!  I've been seeing the GoodSync crap for a few months now, after each update to RoboForm.  Optimize is a product - and not a very good one at that - that has been pushed by PC Pitstop for a few years now.  I believe it is actually their product, or perhaps they are just the best known affiliate seller if it.  The Optimize product page at PC Pitstop is here:  http://www.pcpitstop...m/store/optimize.asp  I am a PC Pitstop forum member- I used to frequent it a bit more back when it was a little more helpful, but traffic has dried up there in the last year or two.

Take a quick look at the forum for Optimize:  http://forums.pcpits...dex.php?showforum=29   It is full of complaints. I know that many support forums often receive posts only from users who are having problems, but Optimize's forum literally never has any complimentary posts.  It is (IMO) one of those scam applications that offers a free download for you to scan your PC and locate all the so-called problem areas that can cause it to run slow.  It will scan, but then it inevitably finds a lot of "problems" that it will solve ONLY if you purchase a full license. That's not even a trial version in my book; that's just an out-and-out scam!  Optimize also installs a program named Reminder.exe that is ostensibly for scheduling regular scans by Optimize. But many users post about difficulties uninstalling Reminder.exe in particular, and also Optimize itself is apparently difficult for many to remove.

These programs act like some sort of malware - or at the very least, like the rogue anti-spyware apps that always insist that they are finding all kinds of garbage that all other A-S apps are missing. Many times they actually install the malware themselves. I'm not saying that Optimize does that, for I have no evidence of such. But it certainly does act like those apps that do.

What makes this extremely frustrating is the fact that PC Pitstop has always been a stalwart in the battle against malware.  They have a full series of PC diagnostic/performance tests at their site that are actually pretty decent. And they still host a Hijack This (HJT) forum with dedicated moderators who do nothing other than help folks with infected PCs get them cleaned up.  It is truly sad to see a site that historically has been very helpful in the fight against malware stoop to selling this garbage!!

Jim

2675

General Software Discussion / Re: what does uninstall really mean?

« Last post by J-Mac on November 25, 2007, 02:16 AM »

Wow - this is really an informative post. The kind I always seem to find here at DC.  I learn more here just by reading the forum posts!

Glad you got it all sorted, nite_monkey.

Thanks to all!

Jim