Recent Posts

2726

Living Room / Re: Anyone using mp3va.com ?

« Last post by tomos on May 29, 2015, 09:48 AM »

I know very little about downloading music - but IIUC this type of site doesnt pay anything to the musicians - so why not just download the music illegally?
Disclaimer: I'm not promoting illegal downloading - just wondering about the advantages of using a site like this.

Edit// of course if you cannot access certain sites...

2727

General Software Discussion / Re: why MS Word breaks format

« Last post by tomos on May 29, 2015, 09:37 AM »

Can you use a Clipboard Extender?
e.g. with mouser's CHS, you can paste clip as plain text which should stop it messing around with the formatting.

Another workaround might be to paste in a text editor and copy again. (I might be wrong but I'd presume a text editor wont copy any formatting.)

Edit// my word processor has the option "Paste Special", where I can paste as unformatted text. I presume Word would have something similar

2728

General Software Discussion / Softmaker Office 2016 released

« Last post by tomos on May 29, 2015, 05:35 AM »

Just a heads up that Softmaker Office 2016 has been released.
http://www.softmaker...english/index_en.htm

I havent upgraded myself yet, so not sure what changes.
Also, pricing appears to be different for German locations, so not sure what pricing you will see - probably 89.95 $/€ full price; 59.95 upgrade price (?)

Note:

• 1) there appears to be only the Pro version now
• 2) there's one upgrade price for all (even from free versions)
• 3) they have moved from eMclient to Thunderbird for email

Overview:
http://www.softmaker...m/english/ofw_en.htm

Features
http://www.softmaker...glish/ofwfeat_en.htm

Looks good to me, I will be upgrading at some stage in the near future.

2729

General Software Discussion / Re: cannot copy/paste in word

« Last post by tomos on May 28, 2015, 07:08 PM »

Might be worth looking at why they dont work -
An add-on?
Did you do a search on this one?
You might find something here - or in one of the links offered from there
http://answers.micro...7c-ad6e-750371048304

2730

Living Room / Re: When you make your 100'th Post

« Last post by tomos on May 28, 2015, 03:46 AM »

^


also:
missed wraith's 7,000'th lately, will have to wait for # 7777

2731

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by tomos on May 27, 2015, 08:42 AM »

In recent weeks my system tray has started acting up. It would stop displaying a whole lot of icons for software that are otherwise running. This is occurring randomly, i.e. after some rebooting or waking up the system tray either works properly or it doesn't.

-dr_andus (December 24, 2013, 05:36 AM)

I had that problem over the last couple of months with 7 x64 - seems to have stabilised now though FWIW. I did install a bunch of non-critical windows updates lately. Maybe one of them helped, but I really dont know.

-tomos (December 24, 2013, 07:34 AM)

having this problem again more often (it never went completely).
Does not seem to be related to Explorer - Windows Explorer has not crashed - not that I noticed anyways, and it's running normally as I write, with one icon blank in the tray, and about six others not showing at all.

-tomos (May 20, 2015, 07:41 AM)

I've noticed that if I leave Windows alone on startup, that all apps seem to show correctly.
I think what happens is that if I start using the machine before *everything* is loaded, then the tray display screws up.

Noticed that last week, I now leave the machine good time to start and have not had problems since, hopefully it will stay this way...

I dont use sleep or hibernate so cant comment on those situations.

2732

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia + resource links

« Last post by tomos on May 25, 2015, 07:43 AM »

Cheap and/or free international shipping is important to me, so thank you for those links
These days, I can get most English language books on amazon.de, but some can be expensive, and it is good to have alternatives.

In the past I have gotten a couple of bargains here:
http://www.kennys.ie/ - it's mostly new books, so might not be one for your list, but worth a mention down here, as also with free international shipping. Has a broad range of books, with some focus on books of Irish interest.

2733

Living Room / Re: Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

« Last post by tomos on May 22, 2015, 03:09 PM »

You have to visit the page to see, so no preview or snippets.

http://amphibian.com/169

Fun

-Renegade (May 22, 2015, 08:39 AM)

interesting - worth following the links
(look at Ren's comic one first!)

http://thoughts.amph...bitcoin-paywall.html
http://challengepost...itcoin-micropayments

easy ways to make micro-payments would be nice to have...
(apologies if that's a micro-spoiler...)

2734

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: need colors and other types of text formatting

« Last post by tomos on May 22, 2015, 02:17 PM »

This is actually related to Thunderbird. I dont know why, but it just copies plain text - and I dont know if that can be changed.

I did do a basic search, but kept getting results about pasting plain text *into* Tbird. Hopefully someone else can help.

2735

Community Giveaways / Re: Free graphics software

« Last post by tomos on May 22, 2015, 05:25 AM »

Looks impressive
http://cloudalpaca.com/en/

2736

General Software Discussion / Re: Batch PDF printing

« Last post by tomos on May 22, 2015, 04:19 AM »

It's still not really clear what exactly you want to do - and maybe more to the point, how often you want to do it.


No smart answers accepted

2737

General Software Discussion / Re: Antivirus: Quick Thoughts 2015

« Last post by tomos on May 21, 2015, 03:15 AM »

mouser was actually unhappy with ESET Nod32 and moved eventually - but I think the problem was the firewall in the full suite:
https://www.donation....msg349255#msg349255

2738

General Software Discussion / Re: Dumb question but maybe somebody knows how. Probably a form of Sync.

« Last post by tomos on May 21, 2015, 03:04 AM »

If you take a look at my other post about this you can see a pretty nifty script I came up with to look for and make a list of all zero length files on the entire hard-drive.  And surprise !  it works    and just one line too.  (or two lines in batch)

-questorfla (May 21, 2015, 12:16 AM)

where's that (dont see it above)

2739

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by tomos on May 20, 2015, 02:46 PM »

Or edit some DLL file to make Windows not so stupid about this.

-Deozaan (May 20, 2015, 12:29 PM)

the most recommended (and most recent) solution is a little higher up on that page:
http://www.winhlp.co...nd_complete_solution
  I'm considering...

related comments

2740

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: NordVPN: 2-Yr VPN Subscription - $39 regularly $120

« Last post by tomos on May 20, 2015, 02:39 PM »

There's another one there:
VPN Unlimited: Lifetime Subscription
also for 39$

Sounds more basic, and with 'lifetime', who knows?

2741

General Software Discussion / Re: Dumb question but maybe somebody knows how. Probably a form of Sync.

« Last post by tomos on May 20, 2015, 02:24 PM »

Syncovery will move the data - so source drive should be empty at the end if your settings are correct -
re the greyed out options - the author is extremely helpful so should be able to clarify what's going on there. There is a forum I think too.
It's not the cheapest, but it is (1) able to do almost everything** (2) very dependable, and, (3) the support is first class.

** takes a bit of time to setup - requires going through all the settings for the job

2742

General Software Discussion / Re: Dumb question but maybe somebody knows how. Probably a form of Sync.

« Last post by tomos on May 20, 2015, 08:13 AM »

Dopus doesnt do this.

Snycovery looks like it can do this - but for some reason it's greyed out here:



One problem with the larger file replacing smaller is if a more recent file is slightly smaller, it will get replaced by older version - but this may not be relevant to your situation.
Syncovery gets around that by only doing it for files that have the same datestamp.

2743

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Tray Management Utilities Mini-Review

« Last post by tomos on May 20, 2015, 07:41 AM »

In recent weeks my system tray has started acting up. It would stop displaying a whole lot of icons for software that are otherwise running. This is occurring randomly, i.e. after some rebooting or waking up the system tray either works properly or it doesn't.

-dr_andus (December 24, 2013, 05:36 AM)

I had that problem over the last couple of months with 7 x64 - seems to have stabilised now though FWIW. I did install a bunch of non-critical windows updates lately. Maybe one of them helped, but I really dont know.

-tomos (December 24, 2013, 07:34 AM)

having this problem again more often (it never went completely).
Does not seem to be related to Explorer - Windows Explorer has not crashed - not that I noticed anyways, and it's running normally as I write, with one icon blank in the tray, and about six others not showing at all.

I dont want to hide all icons behind one icon, so PS Tray Factory sounds like (the only?) possible solution. But not having been updated in five years now and with dr_andus's report below, I think I'll pass on it and see if restarting explorer fixes...

I kind of like what PS Tray Factory does and wish I could use that instead but unfortunately it does not work 100% on my Win7, 64-bit machine. Certain icons would just persist in the tray, even when I select them off, or there would be duplicates of some, with no way to deselect them. Plus some other glitches, which make me reluctant to shell out money for it.

-dr_andus (December 27, 2013, 04:21 AM)

2744

Finished Programs / Re: DONE: Volume Mixer instead of Master Volume Control

« Last post by tomos on May 20, 2015, 06:04 AM »

Please help me . I want to have volume mixer instead of master volume but I didn't understood What I have to do . Coul you place help me ?

-horroq (May 19, 2015, 07:52 PM)

hi horroq,
download AutoHotKey (AHK) from this page:
http://ahkscript.org/
(there's portable and installable versions there)

Now save the script below (click the copy or print link and save with a .ahk file-ending e.g. VolumeMixer.ahk

Please try this one

[Select]

#SingleInstance force
#NoEnv  ; Recommended for performance and compatibility with future AutoHotkey releases.
SendMode Input  ; Recommended for new scripts due to its superior speed and reliability.
SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir%  ; Ensures a consistent starting directory.

GotFocus := false

~LButton  Up::
Sleep 250
If  (WinActive("ahk_exe SndVol.exe") )
{
    Send,!x
    GotFocus := true
    Settimer, CheckFocus
}
return

CheckFocus:
If  (WinActive("ahk_exe SndVol.exe") )
    return
    SetTimer,,Off
    WinClose, ahk_exe SndVol.exe
return

-MilesAhead (July 04, 2014, 10:36 AM)

Open the script with AutoHotKey.
I havent used this script so not sure what it does.
It will show in the system tray - you can right-click the icon there for options

2745

Living Room / Re: Rethink Smartwatch

« Last post by tomos on May 19, 2015, 08:29 AM »

just came across this today:



http://xkcd.com/1420/

2746

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft "Hyperlapse" tech is finally available to play with

« Last post by tomos on May 19, 2015, 04:53 AM »

^ I enjoyed that drive
was impressive to see how quickly the elevation changed (I know it speeded up, but still).
And very apt music :-)

2747

Living Room / Re: Any difficulty in doing knots?

« Last post by tomos on May 18, 2015, 05:01 PM »

Um... wat?

I'm having a hard time following this one:

-Deozaan (May 18, 2015, 03:22 PM)

ah yeah, that does sort of jump from zero to 100

That's a knot that's used for climbing with rope and harness/belt (also with a carabiner).
I had a brief spell attempting to climb walls with a friend - I did learn that knot, but dont know if I could reproduce it now.**
The video doesnt help any - I wonder is that knot described elsewhere and they forgot to let us know about it.

** It is very important that the two strands dont 'overlap' each other. I *think* that's what they're trying to say in the last image ["Wrong"]: "a kink in the standing end is an error" - but I couldnt be sure there (standing end? - I never did learn the 'knots' vocabulary...)

2748

Living Room / Re: Cute jokes' thread

« Last post by tomos on May 18, 2015, 07:27 AM »

^ reminds me of a video a year or two ago, where the new technological idea of 'the book' gets introduced. Two monks, I think, one showing the other how it works. (I *think* it was another one from Scandanavia somewhere.) Anyone remember that one?

-tomos (September 05, 2014, 04:07 AM)

yes, "of course" ... but it was 8 years ago!

It was (very) Norwegian.

-Curt (May 17, 2015, 05:16 PM)

thanks Curt, I enjoyed that, again
(is that typical Norwegian humour then?)

2749

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Windows Defender (also Microsoft Security Essentials MSE) - Mini-Review

« Last post by tomos on May 17, 2015, 10:43 AM »

If you want a free alternative to paid solutions, give BitDefender Free a look. It has excellent detection rates & doesn't beat you over the head with advertisements to purchase the pro version.

-Innuendo (May 17, 2015, 10:09 AM)

odd, they dont seem to give any reason to buy the full version (or did I miss it?)
I mean why bother paying 60$ if the free version is so good?

2750

Living Room / Re: Any difficulty in doing knots?

« Last post by tomos on May 17, 2015, 04:11 AM »

Wasnt sure from the homepage why you posted that - but when you get to the actual knot pages it is very impressive:
they arent gifs, but it cycles through the steps of the knot -
you can vary the speed, you can invert, mirror, or rotate the whole set of images. Very well done


(the overhand knot)

Essential knots