Recent Posts

3251

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Let's Bundle Our Orders For Software995 Toolset

« Last post by Darwin on January 31, 2008, 12:43 PM »

Looks like it's just you and me, Chaim. I guess we're in a class unto ourselves. The question remains, though, as to whether we are part of the elite or pariahs 

3252

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by Darwin on January 31, 2008, 12:37 PM »

Still sounds like a good idea to me, Steven (and that's exactly how I understood your original post) 

3253

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by Darwin on January 31, 2008, 11:36 AM »

Tracked the problem - once you've set a delayed start in WinPatrol you need to DISABLE the "start with windows" setting in the respective programme's options, otherwise the next time you modify the programme in any way it will re-insert itself into the startup sequence.

BootLogXP IS useful and I am slowly figuring out how to use it to analyze my system start. Academic licence is $14.95 and they offer a 30 day no limitation trial. All licences come with free upgrades for life. I'll keep playing with it. Nice find, lanux  I'll be interested to read J-Mac's experience with it, if he tries it out.

BTW - boottime with Spysweeper "correctly" delayed was 314 seconds. Of course, the "diagram" generated by BootLogXP *seems* to indicate that this time SpySweeper started loading at 63.626 seconds and that it took 4 seconds to load. WinPatrol is *supposed* to be delaying it for 5 minutes 30 seconds after boot. The other odd thing, evident in the screenshot that I posted earlier, is that it is identifying the path to my program files folder as lying on D drive, when in fact it is on C drive, along with my Windows folder... 

3254

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by Darwin on January 31, 2008, 10:54 AM »

Hmmm... funny how looking at a screenshot of your system on the web can force you to see things you'd otherwise miss... Unless I'm not reading the "diagram" correctly. Spysweeper is starting within seconds of my system starting up, not the 6 minutes I specified in the latest version of WinPatrol (14.0.1.2007) [offtopic] The latest version of WinPatrol has remedied the CPU resource issues that forced me to uninstall version 11   [/offtopic].

I'll have to investigate this... Of course, rational people would simply remove SpySweeper from the boot sequence altogether. I'll probably do this and run scans with it manually.

3255

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by Darwin on January 31, 2008, 10:50 AM »

J-Mac - I just installed the demo for BootLogXP and it worked! This following an attempt to use ProcessMonitor (which resulted in me having to boot into SafeMode to recover from  ).

My main complaint so far with BootLogXP is that the documentation is WOEFULLY inadequate, which makes interpreting the results difficult.

Here's a screenshot:



Note that the more than 10 minute boot time is reflective of the fact that I have SpySweeper set to start 6 minutes after other programmes have started. I run BitDefender in RealTime mode and scan at 5 pm with it and use SpySweeper to monitor Spyware and to do a full scan at 12:30. Overkill? More than likely...

3256

General Software Discussion / Re: What is your boot time?

« Last post by Darwin on January 31, 2008, 08:47 AM »

I'm in the same boat as mouser and f0dder. Actually, I am a reformed paranoid when it comes to boot time. I'd say from pressing the power button to log-in screen is about 30 secs and then to desktop with all programmes loaded another 2 to 3 minutes. But, like my "boat mates"  , I reboot relatively infrequently and don't sweat this anymore.

3257

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by Darwin on January 30, 2008, 08:35 AM »

I was envisioning a child board of Found Deals and Discounts called something like: "Daily Deals". Perry's idea is good as well, though - have a Bits du Jour child board and a GiveawayoftheDay childboard. But then what do you do with short term deals from other sites/vendors?

3258

Living Room / Re: What's Your Favorite Smilie?

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 10:19 PM »

Ha ha - that's VERY cute, CodeTrucker - worth the wait!

3259

Living Room / Re: Did dual-layer recordable dvd discs ever make it mainstream?

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 08:52 PM »

Since I'll be turning thirty-eleven tomorrow...

-CWuestefeld (January 18, 2008, 03:50 PM)

Sorry I missed your thirty-eleventh birthday on the 19th, cwuesterfield. Hope you had a great day!

3260

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: DirectAccess - Text Expander program for free today at GAOTD

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 06:29 PM »

So, Tom, how are you finding DirectAccess, then?

3261

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Let's Bundle Our Orders For Software995 Toolset

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 06:27 PM »

Hey - didn't notice this posting earlier. Single purchase/single user price is already reasonable, but if we can get 5 or 10 people interested it becomes downright embarrassing (as in, we'd almost be stealing the licences)! Add me to the list, oh ye of alloyed mandible and denuded cranium 

3262

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits Du Jour and GAOTD one-day deals

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 06:22 PM »

I didn't read Steven Avery's original suggestion as others have interpreted it. I thought all he was suggesting was a separate board for these types of postings. They could still be posted as new topics with opinions and responses... I kind of like the idea, for the reason mentioned in my first response as much as anything else (though give me time and I'm sure I can come up with other entries into the "plus" column for this idea).

3263

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 06:17 PM »

Hi Curt - I was trying the Free version. I put my issues with it down to my anaemic and geriatric processor - there really isn't much grunt left in it... On a more powerful system (ie with a more powerful CPU or, even better, a Dual or Quad core CPU) the momentary blip caused by Online Armor is probably imperceptible. On my machine, though, it results in a delay that I notice. It may NOT be 5 seconds long, but it is long enough for me to have gotten fed up with it!

3264

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: List of disc catalogers

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 02:32 PM »

Hi Jim,

The big complaint about Collectorz centred around their decision to switch from a lifetime licencing model to a paid upgrade model on or around November 14, 2006. The controversy arose because this decision was taken and implemented without any warning to existing or new users and wasn't accompanied by any significant changes to their websites, so that there remained many references to lifetime licencing. This led to many people to continue to buy licences for various of their products on the assumption that they were purchasing lifetime upgrades when in fact they were only buying point release updates. Anyway, they quietly "settled" with a number of malcontents, myself included, and also quietly removed the references to lifetime licencing from their website. That storm in a teapot seems to have blown over. My main beef is that a number of their applications have had no updates/upgrades whatsoever in over a year. However, when updates/upgrades are released they are very prompt in issuing a new serial number to unlock it, so no complaints on that front. Also note that the applications work very well, whether updated recently or not. There is only one outstanding issue with one application that I feel is long overdue for a fix (folder view in Photo Collector), but it's not a deal breaker...

I purchased Where Is It to catalogue my data CD's, DVD's, and external harddrives and it is excellent for this purpose. Because I already owned four of the dedicated Collectorz cataloguers (Book, mp3, Music, and Photo) I haven't felt the need to try Where Is It for these types of files.

Don't worry about giving me the third degree - I'm working on my third degree! Punny, but I simply could not resist 

Hope this rambling missive helps...

3265

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 12:03 PM »

Update: I lack patience... I've uninstalled Online Armor. Everytime I opened up a new browser tab everything would freeze up for 5 or more seconds and TA reported OA using upwards for 30% of my CPU. I'm leaving the paranoid camp, for now...

3266

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 11:40 AM »

f0dder, I am inclined to agree. I'm seeing serious performance hits with Online Armor installed and running and am fed up. I've yet to have a problem on the run (without a 3rd party software firewall) and am tempted at this point to give this grand experiment up. Might as well enjoy the resources this will free up as well! However, will give it another day or two and will also check out the Online Armor forum, as directed by ciderman (thanks!).

3267

General Software Discussion / Re: The great defrag shootout

« Last post by Darwin on January 29, 2008, 12:36 AM »

No - I haven't tried anything other than Diskeeper and PerfectDisk (well, those and the built-in, Diskeeper based defragger in Windows.

PerfectDisk is now perfectly behaved so I'm happy, for now. There's only one process running and it consumes 2186kb of VM...

3268

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 11:46 PM »

Yup - agreed Armando. So far, so good.

Carol - you're likely right. However, my only computer is a notebook and I am often on networks other than my own as I teach at two different college campuses and definitely feel that I need the extra protection afforded by a software firewall. Of course, at home I am behind a hardware firewall.

3269

General Software Discussion / Re: windows security - what's really necessary?

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 11:41 PM »

Well... I think an AV package is absolutely essential and while I personally feel more comfortable with AntiSpyware/AntiMalware installed, I often suspect that the threat is more "marketed" than real.

I'm struggling with the software firewall. I surf behind a hardware firewall at home and only feel the need for a software firewall when I'm away (ie on someone else's network). This most often is at work, which is a college and means that I do feel that I need the extra layer of security afforded by a s/w f/w. I'm still looking for the right one...

NB If my computer was a desktop that stayed at home I definitely wouldn't run more than XP Sp-2's firewall.

3270

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 06:11 PM »

Update - first two hours with OnlineArmor have been a bit rocky but it has settled down now. First reboot was a long, protracted, and frankly worrisome affair. I haven't repeated that part of the experiement yet but hope that now that OA has configured itself it won't be so bad. Will report back tomorrow - if present level of resource usage and "intrusiveness" is representative of how its going to behave, I can happily live with it.

3271

General Software Discussion / Re: Spam filtering

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 05:56 PM »

I've been using the SpamBayes (Open Source) for years - it's almost 100% accurate and NEVER mis-labels Ham as Spam 

NB it works with a range of e-mail clients, though originally only with Outlook. The webpage still reflects this, but dig deeper and you'll find that it works with others as well.

3272

Official Announcements / Re: January 2008 Software Drawing Winners

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 03:42 PM »

How about...

The more you win, the greater the chance of winning again until one lucky member simply receives every piece of free software? 

-cranioscopical (January 28, 2008, 09:36 AM)

Works for me 

3273

General Software Discussion / Re: Best free firewall for Windows?

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 03:41 PM »

Hmm... thanks for the link, Armando. Bummed. Looks like I'll be putting Online-Armor Free through its paces now...

3274

General Software Discussion / Re: The great defrag shootout

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 03:31 PM »

Hi bugis - first, I haven't changed a thing in the last few days and have had no further problems, so it *may* have been an isolated "event". My computer (1.4Ghz single core Centrino notebook with 2GB 266 Mhz RAM and 120 GB 5400 rpm HD) was unusable because PD was leeching all the resources and I managed to recover from it gracefully (well... I'll never be accused of being graceful - my computer recovered gracefully  ).

3275

Living Room / Re: Anyone Getting a Spamalanche Lately?

« Last post by Darwin on January 28, 2008, 08:45 AM »

Yes - I too have noticed a real spike in the amount of spam that I've been receiving lately  I had put it down to letting a teenager "check her e-mail" and finding that she'd been on some Korean social networking site as well. Looks like it's part of an overall pattern, though...