Recent Posts

2851

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 04:10 PM »

Personally I always feel you get more bank for your buck with AMD CPUs - but I am not religious about it.

I have used MSI mobos in the past and they have always been pretty reliable. Try and avoid VIA chipsets though (or at least that was my experience).

Re. monitors - 24" and 21" are pretty similar in price these days so go for what space allows! The one thing I have discovered as screens have got bigger is that I can always use more space!

2852

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 02:13 PM »

I suppose I am still bleeding from my experience of bleeding edge 'flagship' ASUS tosh.

I have an ASROCK motherboard which I bought cheap to replace the lost board (I suspect ASROCK is just a division of ASUS) and so far no problems.

2853

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 02:02 PM »

From recent experience my suggestion is don't go for bleeding edge technology ... get something you know is going to be solid and stable.

Bleeding edge stuff doesn't really make any sense (unless you have a real need for what it potentially offers) - far better to have a marginally slower and less whizzo system that is stable and lasts a few years than a high spec system that causes problems.

The other thing to consider is that whatever you build it will be out of date within the month it was built so it isn't worth spending a fortune!

Sorry I am speaking from a slightly bitter point here - I just had to send an ASUS motherboard back under warranty. It was two years old with a three year warranty - what did the warranty mean? After two years the original supplier cannot replace the board but they offered a refund and since it was two years old they only offered 33% of the value of the board. It has cost me a fair amount of money in postage and a lot of frustration, expensive international phone calls and I have come out with it without a motherboard and not much money.

ASUS were particularly useless - they offer a 3 year warranty but as far as they are concerned customers can only work with the dealer they made the purchase from. They won't get involved in the argument even if the supplier is talking rubbish. The one thing I know is that ASUS have replacement boards in stock (they told me they keep stocks for this reason) and my supplier (overclockers.co.uk) won't obtain a replacement from ASUS to supply me.

Lesson learned:

• don't buy expensive motherboards (and then I don't have to worry about the warranty)
• don't buy from ASUS (the warranty process is hopeless and the boards are not made to a good standard - I have had three of these boards and they have all developed faults)
• don't buy from overclockers.co.uk --- their RMA system sucks (especially as you cannot speak to anyone dealing with RMAs it all has to be done via webnotes which they only half read), they don't honour warranties properly and they get things wrong (like sending me a wrong replacement board which I am still waiting for a refund on the return postage)

2854

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 01:17 PM »

Of course there is intrinsic value for our species to have water we can drink and land that we can live on and grow food from. I don't know anybody who wants another Chernobyl in the world. I don't know anybody who really just wants to cut down all the trees, dump toxic waste into the ground, and kill all the animals.

-Deozaan (December 15, 2008, 11:44 AM)

Which is what I said - no one you speak to wants that but it is the effect we are having.

A couple of charts showing an increase in the population means nothing except that population is increasing. Just because population has increased that does not mean it has become unsustainable given the Earth's natural resources and our ability to provide for ourselves. Even if the earth has never had this many human beings alive on it at the same time, that doesn't mean we've reached or surpassed capacity! It only means that it's more than it's ever been.

-Deozaan (December 15, 2008, 11:36 AM)

Yes that is what they show - but if you look at the first graph the population growth rates are (approximately):

11% in the first 50 years
29% in the next 50 years
31%
44%
139%

So in the last 50 years the population has increased by more than 139%

If the curve continues (and there is no reason to assume that it won't) how many people are going to be on the planet in 2050, 2100, 2150 ?

Currently deforestation is on a massive scale because people in the rainforest regions need to fight poverty by growing crops and there is a shortage of land able to support crops.

The rainforests supply a huge proportion of oxygen into the atmosphere and clean out CO2 - what is going to do that when all the trees have gone?

If population continues to grow and the desertification continues in the way it is at the moment where is the food growing to be grown. It is all very well saying that the world's population could fit into Utah - but if they all moved there what would they eat and drink - I hope they like cactus stew!

2855

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 11:06 AM »

Overpopulation is a myth?

Have a look at these:

World human population in millions (50-year intervals, since 1750)
(source United Nations and Bureau of Census)



World human population in millions (10-year intervals, since 1950)



Population growth are increasing exponentially and unsustainable.

2856

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 10:47 AM »

We are not excluded from nature - extinction for almost all species is part of nature.

I suppose the main difference with humans is that technology has distorted nature - and ultimately wars will occur when food/fuel availability drops. We can see that happening already in the world and we can see the human tragedy in Dafur.

I think that ultimately when things get really bad for the western world, ie. poverty and starvation, not to mention malaria creeping to northern latitudes (as it is already), war will become a bigger fact as the consuming western society go out to grab what they can from other countries. At some point someone will get nuclear capability and some sort of apocalyptic end will happen.

Incidentally I do see humans as evolved from primates (no problem there - I like bananas) but when you say:

I find it difficult to understand how it is so easy for you to deem human beings worthy of extinction while at the same time defending pests that, without keeping their population in control, will damage nature even more.

I think you miss my point in two ways:

First, I don't deem humanity worthy of distinction, it is just an inevitability in the natural course of events. Practically every species that has ever existed has become extinct, and very few have lasted more than a few million years. Why should the human species be any different to others?

Second, how do 'pests', as you call them, damage nature? They are part of nature - the only thing that they do 'wrong' is to damage human interests. I think Canada would be a lesser place without its otters, bears and wolves but go to Scotland where they were once prevalent and find a single example - they have all be exterminated. That is not nature it is barbarism and in this day and age we should be moving away from such practices rather than endorsing them.

If you want to take a religious view of this issue (personally I don't because I can't see how religion is relevant to life) then in the Judeo/Christian/Islamic tradition it is generally believed that God gave mankind dominion over the creatures of the world. Surely with dominion comes responsibilty - not just a right to obliterate. If I believed God existed I would have to wonder what he thinks of what human kind have done to creation - it isn't exactly an encouraging sign of respect.

2857

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 15, 2008, 05:44 AM »

Thanks mahesh2k that is a very good summary of my feelings.

It is all very well to say that humans are basically good. Most people I meet are kind, considerate, helpful in the extreme and thoroughly moral. There are very few people who seem not to be concerned with the destruction of the rainforest, mass extinctions and the awful pollution and physical devastation of the world.

The trouble is these sentiments don't inform the way people actually live (me included). Just as an example of where I live: I live in a beautiful oasis of apparent nature set aside as a National Park on a very crowded island (Britain). It all looks idyllic and everyone that comes here is impressed. What very few people realise is that the landscape as we see it today is wholly man made and is very little to do with nature. Gone are the forests, diverted are rivers and streams (which incidentally are polluted with chemical fertilizers and in some cases lead from a romanticised industrial past where children were forced to work in all weathers 14 hour shifts from the age of about 10). Every inch of the area is farmed in one form or another - even the wild open moorland (which impresses visitors with its wild bleakness) is farmed so that rich people can bring their shotguns and shoot grouse that have been especially reared for the privilege. Visible nature has suffered enormously (or to many eyes improved!) but there is a far more insidious effect on nature and that is that practically every wild animal is butchered to protect farming - badgers are gassed, foxes exterminated, rabbits infected with myxomatosis, stoats and weezles are trapped, moles are killed and strung along barbed wire fences, jackdaws are shot from the skies (and their carcasses hung in gardens to dissuade other jackdaws from coming near) ... the litany goes on and it is all purely to protect sheep farming. The moorlands are even worse treated. Practically anything that competes with the mega-buck grouse industry is exterminated - even birds of prey that have protected status, having been reintroduced by conservation groups, are deliberately poisoned.

As I say every single person (almost without exception) that do these truly awful things love where they live and would hate to see it 'spoiled', they love and care for their families, are good friends and neighbours and are thoroughly nice people.

The problems really arise with the way humanity has organised itself which leads to a political structure of rampant consumerism and greed (though few of us would admit to such vices) - how else can we explain the fact that the world allows the majority of African nations to live in abject poverty and in many cases starvation (unless of course they have oil reserves - in which case we'll take those without giving the benefit to the people and destroy their ecosystems in the process).

It is all very well to write off my view as cynical but try looking out at the world and see what is actually going on and you will see my views are mild by comparison.

The rate at which humans are consuming resources, breeding and destroying natural resource that we depend on (such as bees which are rapidly becoming extinct world wide and without which we don't get any food) means that humanity will be extinct or extremely impoverished leading to extinction in the foreseeable future. We have no one to blame but ourselves and the problem is intractable because there are simply too many vested interests who won't allow change - and generally they consume the most anyway.

As for the rest of the natural world it will recover, things will change. New species will emerge, the will be a geological remnant in 400 million years that a future species will dig up and ponder over as they find pockets of plastic - now that will be a challenge for any future species interested in geology to decode! I'd like to be there to see that.

2858

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 14, 2008, 08:18 PM »

Why is it bull - in the past 4.6 billion years there have been numerous mass extinctions caused by traumatic natural causes. There is currently a world wide mass extinction in progress (and more rapid than any of the others the world has witnessed). We have the dubious honour of being the only species in history that has modified the planet to such an extent that life for many species has become impossible or extremely difficult, and even when those endangered species are identified what do humans do - hunt them down and exterminate them.

I stand by my comment - the only real hope for most other species on this planet is human extinction - and the way things are going on in the world today I would guess it won't be long before that is provided by a religiously based nuclear holocaust.

I'm feeling cheerful tonight - at least the ants will survive!

2859

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 13, 2008, 04:12 AM »

Yep -that is correct. I have DVDFab and they quickly sent a new registration file when I asked - but it wasn't automatic.

2860

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 12, 2008, 06:40 PM »

[Carol]: Actually the one that pissed me off is FruityLoops. They SOLD lifetime updates and then changed the product name from FruityLoops to FruityLoops Professional and said it was anew product.

Josh is absolutely right: you gotta stay in business first in order to offer any license, whatever it is. But I would urge every developer and company not to offer any 'lifetime' option if you're not going to honor it. Remember, it was barely a year ago when Slysoft renamed AnyDVD as AnyDVD-HD, and then came back to us lifetime licensees to buy an entirely new "lifetime" license at full price, claiming that because AnyDVD-HD was an entirely different product with more features than AnyDVD, it required a new round of cash.

-zridling (December 12, 2008, 01:54 PM)

The reason I was so angry was that FruityLoops SOLD lifetime updates - they weren't included in the package price you had to buy a 'life time updates' product from them. THEN they moved the goal posts.

Life time updates is pretty meaningless - all a company has to do is to stop updating the product and sell a new product under a different name that uses the same underlying technology.

Basically when you buy software DON'T buy a lifetime updates package because it probably won't happen!

2861

General Software Discussion / Re: Another 'Lifetime' license bites the dust

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 12, 2008, 07:39 AM »

SlySoft also have a good marketting ploy here - tell all your friends, post around the web .... quick buy your stuff now with lifetime updates --- while you can!

Actually the one that pissed me off is FruityLoops. They SOLD lifetime updates and then changed the product name from FruityLoops to FruityLoops Professional and said it was anew product.

Very strange that when you installed it looked identical to the previous version.

Guess what --- they now SELL life time updates for that product too!

2862

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com Book Collector 6

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 12, 2008, 04:57 AM »

I think there is a reason - as the user base grew I bet sources like Amazon were not happy with all customers accessing their data directly. By going through a single portal it will only face one request per item because the data will then be stored in the Collectorz database for future searches.

I'd guess the reason for the change is that either the search sites were charging and Collectorz wants to cut down on costs, some of the search sites have told Collectorz to cease and desist in the old way of doing things or maybe they are moving over to a subscription model.

What is the bet that in a year or two the software will be free and the data base will be an annual subscription? It will get around the loophole for customers with lifetime updates because they will be able to argue that you have lifetime updates to the software but the database is now on a subscription which I am sure is still niggling under the surface (and why there is no mechanism for lifetime licensees other than to request a new key every time there is an upgrade).

2863

General Software Discussion / Re: Outlook & 2GB PST limit

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 11, 2008, 04:50 PM »

The 2Gb limit has been relaxed with the new format in Outlook 2007 - not that I am suggesting you should have anything like 2Gb PST files - but they are easy to archive, and with Windows Desktop Search integration it doesn't make sense not to archive in some manner.

As discussed elsewhere MailStore is a really good way to reduce the PST file and also remove Outlook dependence for the emails.

2864

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: And... The Ultimate Steal makes a comeback

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 11, 2008, 03:38 PM »

Hmm ...the comback continues and now they are including (with UK prices):

Office 2007 Ultimate Edition £38.95
Office 2007 Language Pack £9.95 (per language)
Visio 2007 Professional £36.95
Vista Ultimate (SP1) Upgrade Editions (both 32-bit and 64-bit editions available) £40.95 each

These are all downloadable editions but you can order media for each item at £9 each (except Language Packs which are download only).

You can only buy one copy.

See: http://www.microsoft...teal-uk/default.aspx

Available in 14 different countries

2865

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com Book Collector 6

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 11, 2008, 02:22 PM »

I think it is totally mad in this day and age to try and reinvent the book catalogue from user input. Everybook that has ever been written is already catalogued in countless libraries around the world (and many catalogues are easily searchable online).

Given the thousands of books that are released each year alone it means that the (I presume) relatively small user base of Book Collector 6 will never be able to keep up so users will be left with useless bar code readers and a lot of typing.

Even if they don't want to provide multiple lookups in the application surely it makes sense for the online catalogue to have a backend that can automatically search dozens of sources.

The other question they haven't (and certainly won't address) is what happens if Collectorz shuts down for some reason (e.g. copyright litigation sends them under - which doesn't seem unlikely in the long run as almost all of the material they are storing and distributing is copyright and I bet they don't pay royalties on every item they hold in their catalogues) - the single database version of the software will be just about useless.

2866

Living Room / Linux holds kids back - that's what the teacher says! Windows fundamentalism?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 11, 2008, 02:09 PM »

Interesting little spat:

http://linuxlock.blo...g-our-kids-back.html

Be sure to check out the 'twitter' updates on the story at http://twitter.com/helios17

It has to make you laugh (or else you'd cry).

2867

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 11, 2008, 04:06 AM »

Sorry to disillusion you but impacts and tidal waves won't destroy the Earth, and neither will global warming.

They may destroy humanity, maybe even life as we know it (impacts and global warming have done both in the past) but ultimately the only real hope for the planet and all other lifeforms is the extinction of the human cancer. It will come (probably sooner than humans think) and all the little furry and scaly things will learn to hold up a middle digit and laugh!

Edit - grief I got up in a good mood today .... mumble ...

2868

General Software Discussion / Re: Collectorz.com Book Collector 6

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 11, 2008, 04:01 AM »

As far as I know you can't use a v6 license for v5. If the program doesn't do the job, you should probably ask for a refund. Many things can and have been said about Collectorz.com, but they're pretty quick giving refunds to unhappy customers.

I too think the v5 was far better than the current version, especially since I could actually search the Norwegian National Library, which was very useful for me! The decision to drop pre-ISBN books in their database is pretty aweful, although at least they're not closing the door on a solution. I'll be very surprised if they really succeed with their new BoC and MoC strategy. At least I have lifetime licenses for both as well as for Music Collector...

-TucknDar (December 11, 2008, 02:00 AM)

Being cynical I think Collectorz are working hard to get rid of their lifetime upgrade customers by producing software aimed at another market. I don't know who that other market is and I am not sure they do either.

The irony is that they will not be able to use their own products - being based in Europe!!!

2869

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 10, 2008, 09:10 AM »

Carol Haynes will be attacking Microsoft for their poor OS quality

-Josh (December 10, 2008, 08:45 AM)

Shit - have I got to do that for eternity ... ARGHHH!!!! 

2870

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 10, 2008, 07:50 AM »

What's wrong with the 21st November 2012 ?

I really like palindromes ... 211112

or Armistice Day 2011 (that would be 111111)

Actually we all know it has ended already - we just haven't noticed yet!

2871

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 10, 2008, 04:11 AM »

And DNA would a proud father to the idea

2872

Living Room / Re: How will the Earth end?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 09, 2008, 07:54 PM »

Microsoft goes Open Source 

2873

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft updates - annoying folder proliferation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 09, 2008, 03:14 PM »

Thanks - it isn't me going mad then

2874

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft updates - annoying folder proliferation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 09, 2008, 01:50 PM »

OK ...

2875

General Software Discussion / Re: Microsoft updates - annoying folder proliferation

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 09, 2008, 01:03 PM »

Strange - how do you trace where they came from then?

Some of my drives are quite full - I suspect they are being used as temporary stores to unpack update files and they don't get cleaned.

Here is a screen shot of the file properties of the first file: