Recent Posts

3151

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2008, 09:15 AM »

Here is what I get with Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro (see attached)

I get the same with FinePrint too.

I'd guess there is something wrong with the CSS stylesheet on this website designed for printing this.

Why not just highlight what you want and then use Print Selection?

I have also attached the PDF output from IE7 - which seems much better. Maybe the CSS is optimised for IE7 ?

Why not just install IE Tab extension in Firefox and add that site to the filter that always opens it into an IE tab?

3152

General Software Discussion / Re: New Linux Distro specifically designed for programmers

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2008, 07:51 AM »

Baraccuda seems to be primarliy a webserver.

I am looking at Openfiler in VMWare. It looks interesting but the really annoying thing is that there is no documentation without having to cough up $59 !!!

Update: Enough already ... I have given up with Openfiler. I can't get it to work and without documentation don't stand a chance. Reading the community forums there seem to be a lot of people who have no idea how to get this to work and those that do are complaining about bugs and inconsistent updates that confuse people. Part of the problem is that there is an assumption that you understand all of the jargon around SMB and LDAP (which I don't) and it also seems to assume there is an external server to log in to (though that be me getting even more confused).

3153

General Software Discussion / Re: New Linux Distro specifically designed for programmers

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2008, 06:39 AM »

Thanks I will have a look

3154

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2008, 06:00 AM »

LOL - I know what you mean but having bought various books and musical scores I don't want to change my content of the essay. It has become a matter of pride to track the b**** down!

3155

Living Room / Re: Advice: Never use your ISP provided email address

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 16, 2008, 04:06 AM »

I haven't seen any ads in gmails either!

I have seen ads in a number of ISP based emails though.

It is strange that people wonder which is more secure - all ads pass through company servers and almost all companies use advertising to bolster their revenue ... none more so than ISPs who need to raise money to support their subsidised prices. We all forget that ISPs (even the expensive ones) don't cover their costs by monthly subscriptions. I bet every email that passes through their servers is used to collect advertising data anonymously.

Google may not be perfect but at least they are very up front about what they are doing and they provide a good stable service. Google also provide secure https access which is more than any ISP I have ever used. ISPs generally send emails over the internet totally unprotected in plain text or HTML so that anyone can read them - that goes for Yahoo and Hotmail too - how secure is that?

3156

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 07:56 PM »

See http://support.mozil...m/en-US/kb/Safe+Mode

3157

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 07:51 PM »

Thanks Phil,

I have looked at the Society site and it only seems to refer to Schumann's period in Dusseldorf. Maybe I need to write to them.

The Zwickau site couldn't help (I emailed them)

The other two sites are beyond my German (which is pretty non-existant but I have a tame German teacher ... at least when she gets back off holiday!).

3158

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 06:02 PM »

LOL

3159

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 03:33 PM »

Thanks 40Hz - yes I have tried both of those. I am exchanging emails with someone from the Byron Society which may lead to some useful info (not yet though). One of the people is a US University Professor who pointed me at some helpful essays. Unfortunately the Byron Society are probably more interested in Byron's original version than a German translation or an adapated version in German. The Schumann House were helpful but couldn't supply copies.

I have bought a number of CDs in the hope that I could find one with the text but they are all in German without even the German text (let alone an English translation). I even had a German specialist music shop looking for a suitable CD and they failed.

The original pblisher was Breitkopf & Härtel in Weisbaden. I have written to them to see if they can find it in their archives (awaiting a reply).

Darwin ... I have problems with libraries because I live in a remote area of the UK. The nearest academic library is about 40 miles away and they won't let me borrow books. With the current fuel prices it would cost a lot to drive there repeatedly - and I can't realistically photocopy dozens of pages (even if they would let me). Inter-library loan is not much use - last time I tried it it took them 6 months to get me the wrong book! I tried the British Museum but they wanted £24 per page to make a copy - it would be cheaper to pay for cloning technology to resurrect Byron!!!!

Actually days of 'googling' has been quite productive as I have found loads of journal articles that are relevant research for what I want to write. I can get copies through the Open University library online journal access - but unfortunately their search engine is nowhere near as good as google. You are supposed to be able to do full text searches of all journal articles but it is very hit and miss what it actually finds. Generally I can get the articles I find on google by looking for the relevant journal issue, but library searching of the same journals generally finds a fraction of the hits for the same words and phrases.

Thanks for trying guys - no winner yet though

3160

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 11:56 AM »

OK this is way off beam for DC.com but I know there are helpful people out there ....

I am trying to write an end of course essay about the relationship between literary texts and musical settings of those texts.

One of the works I have chosen (stupidly) to focus on is Schumann's Manfred Op 115 which is a setting of Byron's dramatic poem of the same name.

I have found loads of stuff to help me write the essay BUT (and it is a big BUT - like mine) I am short of two things:

1) The full German text Schumann used in the final work. I have a conductor's score which includes the sung text but there is a lot of spoken text as the work is a dramatic reading with music, solos and choirs.
2) The German translation Schumann used as a basis for his adaptation. The translation he used was a mainly literal translation of the Byron text by Karl Adolf Suckow (a Lutheran Pastor) also known as Posgaru.

I have spent days trawling Google and haven't managed to find either of these texts. I can't even find a book I can buy with the texts but they must exist somewhere as Manfred is occasionally performed and lots of people have written essays and Journal articles about it!

Anyone got any ideas or fancy a challenge as I am about to put a fist through my monitor!

TIA

$20 in DonationCoder credits to the first person to find them both (or I'll split it if you find one of them!)

3161

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 05:45 AM »

Quote: In MP3 Collector's case, it's still around, but hasn't really been updated in ages (besides very minor things) and, at least to me, it seems to be on its way out also.  As it stands, I think it is by far the least popular of the Collectorz.com suite anyway, which doesn't help motivate the authors to work on it vs their other programs. End Quote.

Hi all, Sytske here from Collectorz.com. I admit that MP3 Collector hasn't been updated in ages but it's absolutely not on its way out as suggested in this topic. On the contrary: we are planning a huge update for MP3 Collector this fall. We're now working on updates for Comic Collector, then Book Collector and next is MP3 Collector. Big plans for it which will make it an awesome app once again.

-Collectorz (August 15, 2008, 05:07 AM)

Hi and welcome back. Can you confirm/deny what was hinted at earlier in the thread that Music and MP3 Collectorz are going to be combined? If so what will the upgrade policy be for lifetime upgrade users of Music collectorz only?

3162

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 05:39 AM »

Start Firefox in safe mode then you won't have any add-ons and see if it is a Firefox problem!

3163

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 15, 2008, 03:36 AM »

Another approach you could try is to resize the PDF page size the printer driver produces. Then When you print it scale the printout.

3164

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2008, 07:29 PM »

Evernote has the disadvantage that it loses all page formatting for web pages (even the new version has that problem).

SnagIt 9 doesn't allow you to export to editable DOC or RTF formats but it does give complete control over what you capture and the quality of the output. Trouble is that any capture from a screen will give realtively poor print output because the image it is capturing is limited to 92dpi.

Another approach you could try is save pages you want to print to MHT files in Internet Explorer. They are just a capture of the HTML and so retain full text and image quality of the original page.

Lastly if you want to save web pages as RTF files just cut and paste into Word and then save it as DOC/RTF is probably just as simple as using a virtual printer driver. OK it isn't automated (most printer drivers aren't either and often do a terrible job) and CSS based formatting tends to get messed up but at least you get an editable RTF or DOC file when you have finished.

3165

General Software Discussion / Re: New Linux Distro specifically designed for programmers

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2008, 02:10 PM »

Out of curiosity is there a distro that is aimed at being a pure minimalist Samba server. I would like to set up a file server on my network but don't want to have the hassle of installing a full distribution as I don't really need hardware support beyond keyboard, mouse, monitor and discs. Any ideas?

3166

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2008, 09:44 AM »

You can still buy RiscOS computers but I don't think they have been developed much since the 90s.

Now Risc OS on X sounds interesting. Time to play in VMWare I think ... esp. as it appears to run under Windows, Linux and MacOS !

3167

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 14, 2008, 08:48 AM »

One of the best OSes I have ever used was designed by Acorn Computers for their Risc based computer systems in the 80s. Unfortunately they couldn't compete.

Software installation was simplicity - just copy the software folder to the hard disc. All dependencies were included with the application and during load each app simply checked to see if the required dependencies were in memory (or newer version) and if not. All dependencies (inc. OLE) were totally modular. The best bit was to run the application you simply double clicked the application folder (which could be placed anywhere you like). Each folder had a !Run text file included which told the folder how to behave on double click (great because it meant you could easily design your own apps to work in exactly the same way).

The OS came as a set ROM chips - quick and easy to install, superbly fast boot times (practically instant) and no chance of the core system becoming corrupted by viruses/malware etc. just reboot and you have a clean system.

A very simple and easily extensible scheme.

Some ideas were used by MS when they released Windows 98.

Their desktop interface was very good too - no menus to clutter the place up. It used a 3 button mouse with the middle mouse always bringing up the application context menu.

Shame it disappeared but a small UK company couldn't compete in the PC market. They are now ubiqutous though throughout most electronics as they became ARM Ltd which seems to produce most of the world's RISC based chips for cell phones, PDAs and all sorts of devices.

3168

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 13, 2008, 03:20 AM »

This page may help too:

http://www.slipstick...com/outlook/sync.asp

I had forgotten about slipstick but it is THE website for all things outlook.

3169

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

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 12, 2008, 04:57 PM »

How about simply importing the PST files from each computer onto the other? If I remember correctly the import function has the option to ignore duplicates.

The other alternative (for emails at least) is to install MailStore Home on both systems and allow it to import data from both installations. It doesn't duplicate emails. You the have a very quick searchable backup of all your emails that can be periodically burned to disc. OK it won't sync your PST files but you will have quick easy access to all your email.

If you want to use MailStore Plus I would suggest that on each machine you create an extra profile in Outlook which loads the PST file from the other machine. You never need to look at the profile but it does mean that MailStore will always be able to sync emails when required.


A further idea for email sync depends on how you collect your email. If you use POP exclusively then it is simple. Tell both versions of Outlook to leave the email on the server for 90 days (or whatever time you want). That way when you Send/Receive in either version of Outlook it will leave the email to be collected by the other copy of Outlook. Again it doesn't answer other components in the PST file but it is cheap and effective. The only thing it doesn't sort out re. email is email sent in Outlook which will stick on the computer it was sent on. A way round that would be to use the Google SMTP server to send email. All email you sent is duplicated in the Sent mail folder on the google server and you can simply tag it as inbox to get Outlook to download sent mail.

You could use PIM software to sync calendar and Task lists in a similar way.

3170

General Software Discussion / Re: KDE 4 out, and my, it looks gorgeous!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 10, 2008, 07:21 PM »

Haven't tired it - but the 4.1 article posted by jgpaiva above looks interesting .... although am I the only person who thinks it looks remarkably like a Vista clone?

3171

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux is Not Windows

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 10, 2008, 11:09 AM »

Has anyone ever thought of writing a graphical tweaking tool for Linux that could update all the etxt file settings etc with a clck of the mouse. Strikes me if such a tool were written in a non-geeky and accessible way it would spoil the geeks fun but actually make Linux a lot more approachable to the average user.

3172

Living Room / Re: Vista / Windows Server 2008 (all versions) network problems

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 10, 2008, 06:39 AM »

Talked my client through disabling unused network interfaces on the phone and now hiw wireless connects properly.

What a total cock-up from MS - how on earth haven't they issued a fix for this in over 12 months?

The strange thing is that it is even a problem when two network adaptors are active but one of them is unplugged. You'd think Vista could detect the unplugged status and ignore that device for network detection purposes?

3173

Living Room / Re: flash-card programs to learn a new (human) language. What's the best?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 09, 2008, 07:45 PM »

I have been playing with PrismaCards and creating my own database. I would like to embed files (PDF etc) as described in the manual. Anyone get this to work - I drag and drop files as it say but the icons don't appear (just the file names) and when I run the cards in a test none of the additional info appears ?

3174

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Mini-Review of Fineprint (Virtual Printer)

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 09, 2008, 04:50 PM »

That's what I thought when I looked. Are the changes just limited to the new interface and a few bug fixes?

3175

Official Announcements / Re: DonationCoder/Veign Programming Contest Results Posted

« Last post by Carol Haynes on August 09, 2008, 05:48 AM »

Brilliant collection of ideas - well done all.