Recent Posts

2676

Living Room / Re: Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing at alrming rate?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 04:16 PM »

This is what it looks like on my system (formatting a floppy disc):



Note I only ever had Windows XP installed on this system.

The ability to format system floppies was reinstated after the complaints when MS removed the function in Windows 2000.

Alternatively see: http://www.bootdisk.com/

2677

Living Room / Re: Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing at alrming rate?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 02:12 PM »

If you have WinXP you can format a DOS disk in the same way as Win98.

If you have a Win98 installation CD boot from it and go into DOS then you can use format A: /S to format a DOS floppy.

Alternatively there are DOS floppy images that can be downloaded on the internet.

2678

Living Room / Re: Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing at alrming rate?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 05:53 AM »

Trouble is most manufacturers work on the principle that the only thing worth working on is what brings in instant cash ...

Few companies seem to have a long term view on retaining customers as a priority.

2679

Living Room / Re: Seagate's Barracuda 7200.11 drives failing at alrming rate?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 05:21 AM »

If you want to get to a DOS prompt format a system floppy and copy the flash stuff to the floppy and then restart your system with the floppy.

2680

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 04:53 AM »

Mouser, here is a complaint. Can we get rid of Carol?

-Josh (January 19, 2009, 04:30 AM)

Someone who has a bug as an atavar needs to take care not to get squashed 

2681

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 19, 2009, 04:08 AM »

For most browsers, you can also use middle-mouse-button (scrollwheel, whatever) clicking to open a new tab, so you don't need to use a keyboard modifier.

-f0dder (January 18, 2009, 06:50 PM)

Good grief - how did I miss that!

Now all I have to do is to work out how the scroll area on a touch pad can be used in that way

2682

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2009, 06:45 PM »

Ctrl-Click works in Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome.

The only differences I can see in their behaviour is that IE and Chrome group new tabs alongside the parent tab (so if you Ctrl Click the new tab is placed immediately to the right of the current tab) whereas Firefox and Safari always place new tabs at the extreme right of the tabs list.

2683

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2009, 03:46 PM »

I reported elsewhere that there seems to be a problem installing Win7 (32 bit and 64 bit) on some systems (you get constant reboots when it is getting ready for first use). This arose with some nForce motherboard with integrated graphics combos.

I discovered that swapping the graphics card allowed you to install and then once installed you could change the drivers for the most recent Vista drivers (at least this worked for nForce 630/GeForce 7 combined motherboards).

Someone has now suggested a simpler solution (esp. if you don't have a spare graphics card). Apparently if you are plagued with this problem and using a LCD monitor with DVI or HDMI connection then swaping to the D-Sub connector for installation (ie. VGA analogue signal) allows Win 7 to install, you can then find suitable Vista drivers and move to your preferred interface.

2684

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2009, 11:24 AM »

Darwin - just use control+click and you can do that now.

2685

General Software Discussion / Re: myrekrig.dk site isnt working

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 18, 2009, 06:51 AM »

I split this off as a separate thread as it was posted as a reply in an irrelevant thread!

2686

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 05:15 PM »

Actually making more/better use of the blog feature (which I consistently forget about) mights address some of those issues.

2687

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ashampoo Burning Studio 2009 Free Promo

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 03:36 PM »

edbro - If you have BS8 forget BS2009 - BS8 is an upgrade to BS2009 - see my post above.

2688

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Ashampoo Burning Studio 2009 Free Promo

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 12:44 PM »

It must be a backward step from version 8 because the opening screens of the installer say:

This is a full version!

To start the online registration procedure just select ‘Get Full Version Key’ in the ‘Internet’ menu. If you are not already online the program will prompt you to establish a connection to the Internet. Your free full version key code will then be sent to you to the e-mail address you provide. Select ‘Enter Reg/Trial Key’ in the ‘Internet‘ menu and enter the key code in the input field displayed. That's it!

Buy the Upgrade to Ashampoo Burning Studio 8!

As a registered user of this version you are also entitled to a special, low-price upgrade to Ashampoo Burning Studio 8! Just click on ‘Upgrade’ in the ‘Internet’ menu of the application.

(Emphasis mine)

It doesn't necessarily follow that it is less capable than BS8 as Ashampoo have a strange attitude to their application version numbers. If you do want to upgrade just wait a few weeks and you will get a cheap offer (or even name your own price) for the upgrade so there is no hurry.

Update - if you want version 8 just click upgrade now during the installation of v. 2009 and they already have a special offer (£7.49 in the UK, so about $8 US).

Also note - the serial key provided doesn't seem to be unique. I registered under an existing account and a new email address and both of those registrations (one on the German site and one on the UK site) are identical.


Further update - You can install this alongside an existing Burning Studio app (I have version 7 installed). It is all a bit confusing because BS2009 does an automatic update after installing and then reports (in Help > About) that it is version 2009 (8.04). There is no information that I can find that describes what the difference is between 2009 and version 8 that they want you to upgrade to !!

2689

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows editors - do they have to be so bad?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 11:49 AM »

You could try EditPad too at http://www.editpadpro.com/

There is also a free lite version (see the link at the bottom of the left hand menu)

2690

General Software Discussion / Re: Leaked images of MS Office 14

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 11:41 AM »

Another one for the ribbon (once you get used to it). If you want a simple solution to get back the O2k interface there are plenty of addins around that will do it with a couple of clicks - it ain't rocket science. Trouble is if you go back to the old interface you will never learn the new one - and what is the point of upgrading to O2007 or O14 if you don't want to use the new interface?

2691

Site/Forum Features / Re: New Member Map Mod for the Forum -- Configure Your Profile Location!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 11:35 AM »

Seems like a reasonable idea - but if the user is in a heavily populated area of the map it still woulldn't necessarily show where the user is without having to dig about.

If I click on an individual user map location it seems to make sense to me to only show that user - it is then very clear. If I want to see where everyone is I can click on member map.

2692

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder.com - Complaints, Problems, and Rooms for Improvement

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 08:58 AM »

The thought of porting a forum that has been active for a few years with many thousands of post to a new system is a little daunting.

If you don't like the licensing system can you explain why and also if you would like a move suggest an alternative forum with a license you do like.

2693

Site/Forum Features / Re: New Member Map Mod for the Forum -- Configure Your Profile Location!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 05:36 AM »

Looking good - and a heck of a lot nippier!

One nice feature would be to only show the one member location on the map when you click on the map icon below the member name in the forum - otherwise it is hard work to find their user name and it wastes a lot of time loading the whole database.

2694

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 16, 2009, 05:11 AM »

They are specifically designed for hot swapping drives and so it isn't surprising that they just pull out.

Looking at Digital Granite's website they do spare trays (so in theory you could have a number of drives mounted in trays and hot swap them instantly when you need to).

They also do racking systems - see http://www.granitedi...om/sataproducts.aspx

2695

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 15, 2009, 04:14 AM »

Personally I prefer the cleaner look of Win 7 as it is. I know you can set the task bar to hide but I don't particularly like to do that and something like you suggest would take up too much screen real estate. I can't see what you really gain by having thumbnails large enough to distinguish.

The other point is that applications are pinned to the task bar for ease of access - if only thumbnails get pinned you would have to find each app in the Programmes menu which partially defeats the objective of the redesign.

MS seem to have taken the idea of QuickLaunch one step further - and if you think of the task bar as being an amalgamtion of a taskbar and quick launch that is the underlying phiolosophy behind it.

2696

General Software Discussion / Re: WINDOWS 7 THREAD (ongoing)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 15, 2009, 03:42 AM »

I was thinking, I think Microsoft should take the thumbnail view one step farther: instead of using the program icons as the taskbar buttons, just use the thumbnails. Personally, I set my taskbar to auto hide, and I make it big (3 rows tall). I think it would be very cool to see all my running apps along the bottom of the screen. I'll make a mock-up...

-Hirudin (January 15, 2009, 03:32 AM)

That wouldn't work because there may be many thumbnails to one application taskbar button. For example open a word processor and then open 5 documents and you still have the WP icon on the bar but 5 thumbnails.

The other problem would be that the thumbnails wouldn't necessarily be distinctive enough - you would still have to hover to find out what they are.

2697

Developer's Corner / Re: How can i upload.......

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 15, 2009, 03:39 AM »

Try http://www.php-quest...com/phpfaq/answer164

2698

Living Room / Re: The last Mac vs. PC video?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 15, 2009, 03:27 AM »

So the Macs win by bullying .... and now in the real world ...

It is particularly nice that the Macs who bully are traditional 3 part PCs with enormous processor boxes - none of your namby-pamby slimline pretty white boxes.

2699

Living Room / Re: Please help me build my new computer, DC!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 14, 2009, 03:36 AM »

We want a photo of you standing inside it

I just hope all your cables are long enough. My case is very large too and I can't easily make use of the built in Firewire/USB/Audio panel connections because some of the fitted cables can't reach the bottom of the mootherboard where the connectors are!

2700

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft Songsmith

« Last post by Carol Haynes on January 14, 2009, 03:33 AM »

Remember "Band in a Box"? This seems similar to that, except this appears to fill in a harmony based on the melody of your voice.

-CWuestefeld (January 13, 2009, 08:32 PM)

Band in the Box is really quite cool software (and is still being actively developed). It is more like an intelligent loop based based composition system (like Acid) but you don't need to spend a fortune on loops. I bought a copy a while back (and since then there have been 2 new versions with huige numbers of improvements and additions) but only really scratched the surface of what it can do.