Recent Posts

3251

Living Room / Re: Gizmo's Tech Support Alert Newsletter Merges with Windows Secrets

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 15, 2008, 04:51 AM »

Ditto - I don't hold out any hopes for the new combination.

Experience seems to tell that when people merge with WS they start to take a back seat (or just don't get much space). Fred Langa wrote brilliant newsletters but hardly contributed anything useful to WS.

I have come to find WS (and it super heavy advertising - even in the paid premium version) very irritating.

In the days of Langalist I read every word the day it arrived. Most of the time now WS gets binned before I even bother reading it - it is just depressingly uninspiring and I have come to expect no better. I won't be subscribing again next time it comes to renewal - and am seriously considering unsubscribing to avoid disappointment each time.

3252

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for an alternative to Nero Recode

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 15, 2008, 02:59 AM »

What are you trying to do Masu? For DVD ripping CWuestefeld has given some good ideas. There is also DVDFab?

I wasn't sure this is what you wanted though as ReCode does more than just compress DVD9 onto DVD5 or rip discs to images or MPEG-4.

There is a free version of TMPGEnc (I think it is version 2??) see http://www.free-code...download/TMPGEnc.htm

The free version is not as easy to use as the commercial versions of their software or as flexible (it has a completely different interface and is mainly concerned with MPEG production) but if you look around the internet there are lots of tutorials.

3253

General Software Discussion / Re: Looking for an alternative to Nero Recode

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 14, 2008, 12:50 PM »

Depends what you want - I really like TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0

It isn't free and isn't especially cheap but it produces excellent quality output in a variety of formats. There is an evaluation version of the software you can download.

http://tmpgenc.pegas...n/product/te4xp.html

3254

ContextMenu Commander / Re: ContextMenu Commander

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 14, 2008, 08:30 AM »

Does this article help achieve what you want:

http://mc-computing....egistry_ShellNew.htm

3255

General Software Discussion / Re: Nero - WHY?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 14, 2008, 03:28 AM »

Thanks for the link but I never have problems with single layer DVDs and I have plenty of sources for cheap ones - it is dual layer discs I have problems finding at a reasonable price and consistently burnable.

For example - yesterday I burned 4 dual layer DVDs with ImgBurn (I thought I would give it another go). The third disc burned but wouldn't verify so I burned it again in Nero where it burned and verified correctly. This has been my experience in recent months with ImgBurn - regular unverifiable discs which burn fine in Nero. I rarely get a duff Nero disc. Trouble is that a 30% failure rate in ImgBurn is probably about what I expect now (with DL discs - SL discs are fine). And that is unacceptable because the discs are so expensive in the first place.

3256

Living Room / Re: Mobo Mystery

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 12, 2008, 12:18 PM »

Actually come to think of it I did opt for a replacement rather than a refund and so ended up with two (now two systems 'cos I had enough spare parts lying around to build a second machine apart from a cheap CPU)

3257

Living Room / Re: Mobo Mystery

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 12, 2008, 11:02 AM »

ASUS guarantee is 3 years on mobos and it is with ASUS not the reseller. They may prefer you to use the reseller network but if the reseller is gone they still have a contract with you the buyer.

If you can't get any joy from ASUS dk try contacting their main office direct (preferably by telephone). If you still don't get any joy try asking another local reseller to submit the RMA on your behalf.

If all else fails go to your local trading standards office and get them to negotiate on your behalf.

I have to confess when I had an ASUS board ho duff on me they told me (in the UK) they had an 8 week turnaround on mobos which is ridiculous and totally unacceptible. I am not proud of what I did but I simply bought a new mobo from a reseller and returned the old one as faulty for a refund! Didn't bother them and sorted out my issue instantly. Of course if the mobo is no longer in production or the version number has bumped this may not work!

3258

Living Room / Re: Mobo Mystery

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 12, 2008, 04:43 AM »

Not a dumb question, but I have tried that. Removing the video card results in the proper beep code (1 long - 3 short). Removing the memory results in the proper beep code (1 long repeating). I can't remember what it did when I removed the CPU and tried turning it on.

I have just filled out the webform for tech support from Asustek. I'll let you know what they reply. The auto reply claims a 48-hour turnaround.

Thanks for all the help. I suspect my ultimate answer will be, "It's dead, Jim". Oh joy. Time to built the server from scratch all over again. 

-tinjaw (March 18, 2008, 09:24 PM)

If it is dead have a look for the same mobo / CPU on eBay - you can often pick up these things dirt cheap and if it works you won't have to rebuild your system after it is up and running.

3259

General Software Discussion / Re: roboform2go or sticky password?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 11, 2008, 03:45 AM »

That is by design and is user configurable. If you have a global password in RoboForm you can set the number of minutes you allow before you have to enter it repeatedly. If you want to enter a password every time just set the time to 0. Rather defeats the point of the program but it does mean that no one can ever use your passwords without the global password - even if you leave you USB stick plugged in and unattended.

3260

Living Room / Re: Where's my TCP/IP?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 10, 2008, 08:39 PM »

Bummer ... but I suppose at least you have a system that is working and running smoothly. Have you managed to retain all your useful data?

Uninstalling a netwiork device really shouldn't have that effect - something seriously screwy was going on. If it wasn't malware I wonder if you had a corrupted registry. If you remember a while back I had a problem with my system constantly rebooting - swapping motherboards, memory and CPU failed to fix the problem - I reinstalled and all was OK again I can only conclude there was a registry or driver corruption. Sounds like you got hammered by the same thing.

I sometimes wonder if this sort of thing happens when a drive block goes bad in a critical area of the disc. Windows is really crap at reporting that sort of thing (I have never understood why MS can't put a disc error message up when a disc block becomes dodgy - and sometimes not even CHKDSK picks up the problems.

Anyway you have had a bad experience but hopefully you can relax again now!

3261

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 09, 2008, 08:22 PM »

Sorry but I didn't realise your life was so grim ...

Therapy needed - we have to get you out of that closet! 

3262

General Software Discussion / Re: What is the currently best Desktop Search software?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 09, 2008, 12:26 PM »

I think X1 Pro (the paid for version) supports indexing network shares but the free version doesn't.

3263

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 09, 2008, 12:25 PM »

I now have Quad Monitor Cody Wallpaper (thanks Nick!):
 (see attachment in previous post)

-mouser (July 09, 2008, 11:32 AM)

I am going to report you to the American Humane Society ... poor little chap's legs won't take it!

Actually anyone figured out why Cody can't fly?

3264

General Software Discussion / Re: Extract files from a .pst file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 09, 2008, 08:39 AM »

Eyes POP out on stalks, spring back and throttle my tonsils ... WTF ???

3265

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 09, 2008, 02:38 AM »

ok i admit it, dust is invisible to me.. i live in a world which is covered with a thin layer of dust.  when i say clean i mean clean of all unwanted particles large than a grain of sand.

-mouser (July 08, 2008, 11:59 PM)

""After four years you don't notice the dust." Quentin Crisp on cleaning

More memorable quotes from QC:

• Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. It's cheaper.
• If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
• It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give enough.
• It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style.

3266

General Software Discussion / Re: Extract files from a .pst file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 09, 2008, 02:32 AM »

Hmmm PowerControls must be expensive - not listed in the buy online page and if you go tot he product's own page it doesn't tell you how much anywhere - just asks you to contact further info!

3267

General Software Discussion / Re: Extract files from a .pst file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 08, 2008, 05:04 PM »

Glad you got a solution. Out of curiosity which solution did you use?

3268

General Software Discussion / Re: Extract files from a .pst file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 08, 2008, 03:36 PM »

I think MailStore actually use Outlook to extract the emails - which means you would need Outlook installed to use it.

Not sure but I think Thunderbird can import from PST files.

Check http://kb.mozillazin...rg/Import_.pst_files seems to have a number of Windows and Linux converters for PST without needing Outlook installed.

3269

Living Room / Re: Where's my TCP/IP?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 08, 2008, 11:24 AM »

Try uninstalling all network adapters in device manager and remove any connections from the Network Connections folder and then reinstall the network adapters again with known good versions of drivers (don't just reinstall what is in the Windows folder) and allow the system to rebuild the Network Connections.

You could also try removing all the network components in Add/Remove Programs > Windows Components and then reloading them from the installation disc.

If that doesn't work try creating a new user account in case it is your user profile that is screwed up.

My initial reaction to that screen was have you got a virus or some other malware taking over network traffic in some nefarious way?

3270

Living Room / Re: Show us your (physical) desktop

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 08, 2008, 11:15 AM »

My new desk and workspace: (see attachment in previous post)
Compare to old: (see attachment in previous post)

-mouser (July 07, 2008, 11:17 PM)

You coult at least get decent sized monitors - now 4 x 60" screen - plus a back projector .... you coul go for total immersion and never have to see the real world again

And I thought I was doing well having just upgraded to a 24" monitor for the first time!

3271

General Software Discussion / Re: Advice on fixing a boot problem with XP Pro

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 08, 2008, 05:15 AM »

My wife's machine had Acronis True Image Home 10 on it.
I didn't like it and uninstalled it (it seemed only to cover the first HD, didn't want to talk to the second HD)

-cranioscopical (July 07, 2008, 09:16 PM)

I have never seen that happen with Acronis? (Having siad that I haven't used the Home version for ages).

TrueImage should see all partitions on all attached drives - ATA, SATA and attached USB/Firewire devices.

If it doesn't you may find the partition table has been damaged and it can't read it - have you tried checking the partition table on the second drive?

FWIW - TrueImage (IMHO) is great but I avoid the Boot Time 'helper' which I found a right PITA (just don't install it) and I don't use the Secure Xone approach for backups. If you want to reserve a chunk of a hard disc for backups just create a partition in that blank space and save your backups there - it is much more flexible and less full of frustration.

3272

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: First website for a client

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 08, 2008, 04:50 AM »

Yes I must admit she is my favourite - she is rather smily in the photo that you click though

3273

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: First website for a client

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 07, 2008, 08:01 PM »

If anyone would like to see a video of the children singing checkout the home page (if you don't see instructions above the main image refresh your browser window).

I am going to add a number of videos over the coming weeks.

3274

General Software Discussion / Re: Does it make sense to disable the windows swap file?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 06, 2008, 09:20 AM »

Adobe apps use their own page file system anyway - which is why you can edit huge files (bigger than memory). I suppose if you are working on small files and don't have huge numbers of 'history' entries it may all stay in memory.

3275

General Software Discussion / Re: Does it make sense to disable the windows swap file?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on July 06, 2008, 07:40 AM »

You shouldn't have no swap file at all - and you should have a small swap file on the windows drive (64Mb minimum). Without a 64Mb swap file on the OS partition you won't be able to use any debugging messages from Windows when there is a problem. In order to trace system faults Windows needs to produce a 'mini-dump' and can't do that without at least a 64Mb Pagefile.sys on C: (or whichever drive windows is installed to).

I have 2Gb of memory for Windows XP Pro and use a PageFile on a separate drive. I work on the principle that windows is fairly optimised to use RAM if possible but it doesn't hurt to have idle applications sitting on the swap file. If you only have RAM everything has to sit in memory. Certainly if you use large apps like PhotoShop etc. you would be disadvantaged with no pagefile - especially if you want to run multiple large apps.

If you want to get rid of the swap file you need to run your machine lean and mean. Get rid of everything form the system tray and only load it when you need it. Don't use loads of Explorer addins - once they load they take up memory even if you don't use them. If they are idle they are precisely the sort of stuff that gets swapped and quite correctly.