Recent Posts

3426

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 06, 2006, 03:17 AM »

ah, Carol, you've just reminded me of what happened in the image manager shootout. it was adobe 'album' that was tested, not photoshop elements.

i have to agree with you on acdsee, picassa, etc. being managers/organisers first and editors second and that 'elements' and, of course, photoshop are primarily editors with organisation windows added on. not that this means that they can't be good managers (elements certainly sounds better than bridge for tagging) but it does appear to explain the quicker startup speeds from the 'proper' managers.

3427

Official Announcements / Re: Contest - Make a new Banner for Website

« Last post by nudone on April 06, 2006, 02:39 AM »

well, i still like the clouds and the sunny letters theme. it's the most positive banner we've had so far - maybe it doesn't match perfectly with the rest of the forum colour scheme but maybe it doesn't have to.

the majority of the other banners have seemed rather cold and uninviting so far - am i reading too much into all of this?

3428

Living Room / Re: A personal note about DonationCredits

« Last post by nudone on April 06, 2006, 02:26 AM »

okay, it's early days but i think the credit system is potentially amazing. it must have all been said within the irc channel about how this could develop. i sincerely hope that this 'little' experiment becomes the first of many around the web. i know we participate in forums with the good intention of helping others and only really expect acknowledgement as reward - but this credit system will allow us to demonstrate our gratitude just that little bit more (for those of us that often think that just saying 'thanks' isn't really enough).

thank you to mouser and all those involved in the testing process.

3429

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: reduce corner area sensitivity to prevent taskbar showing

« Last post by nudone on April 06, 2006, 02:15 AM »

skrommel to the rescue, again and again.

a thousands thanks for that - and i think a few DC credits are in order too.

fantastic job.

3430

General Software Discussion / Re: VistaGlance

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 01:22 PM »

i don't think i'll be using 'vistaglance' for much longer. unless i'm just not trying hard enough, i can't figure out the shortcut keys to move around the floating bar.

seems a bit retarded to type in a search term and then have to resort to the mouse to open up the file/folder within the results. if that is how it has to work then i may as well just click through windows explorer (or whatever file manager) with the mouse without resorting to using the keyboard.

3431

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Maya for Free

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 01:16 PM »

it's certainly a great program but i think you get a watermark over your rendered images. if you can live with that then it's a bargain.

3432

Post New Requests Here / IDEA: reduce corner area sensitivity to prevent taskbar showing

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 01:12 PM »

i better explain what i was trying to say in the 'subject' line:

i have the system tray at the top of my screen with autohide and always on top enabled. this is something i've only just started doing but i kind of like it.

there is something that is beginning to get tiresome and that is when closing a maximised window i tend to overshoot the 'X' icon and the system tray appears (my fault, as i've pushed the cursor too far into the corner).

what i would like is something that would 'kill' the 'sensitivity' in the top right corner of the screen. it would need to be an area with a width similar to the system clock and then about 2 to 5 pixels in height.

this would allow me to throw the cursor up to the top right of the screen without the system taskbar being activated but i could still activate it when moving the cursor to the top anywhere else.

i think there is already a util that will delay the 'hover' activation time for the taskbar to appear (anyone remember the name?) but i'd really prefer it if it worked in the method stated above.

thanks for your time...

3433

General Software Discussion / Re: VistaGlance

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 12:31 PM »

well, that's about 15 minutes i've been playing with 'vistaglance'.

mixed feelings so far. i'm not entirely sure if i'm just not using it properly or it doesn't fully work.

the floating toolbar appears to work fine and is a great little tool: just type in the name of the file/folder you want and a list of matches appear - with a handy popout window with buttons for cut/copy/paste amongst other things.

there are also toolbars that integrate with windows explorer and your windows taskbar but i can't get these to do anything like what the floating toolbar does.

i'm still wondering if this is a major improvement over the more common desktop search programs. the potential is certainly there and you can see that a lot of thought has gone into the program - you can even add 'tags' to your files to provide even more ways to search for things (this tagging method appears to break if you move the files from where you first tagged them).

what 'vistaglance' demonstrates more than anything is what 'find and run robot' could be doing in the near future (i know people have requested it). with the addition of a database to store file data and a few tricks, such as tagging, i think we'd all see desktop productivity go into hyperdrive.

(the database appears to be about 25 meg which is a dramatic difference to what you'd expect from the well known desktop searchers.)

i'm going to give 'vistaglance' a try as i've never really got on well with things like google desktop search (etc). and, i'll be keeping my fingers crossed that maybe one day 'find and run robot' will incorporate something similar.

3434

General Software Discussion / Re: VistaGlance

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 12:02 PM »

i've just installed it. it's now scanning my hard drives to create it's database.

so, it appears to be something similar to google/msn/yahoo/etc/etc desktop search - but without the massive database it seems...

it scanned 3 hard drives in less than 2 minutes (that's about 400 gig of files).

i'm now about to put it to the test, here goes.

3435

Site/Forum Features / Re: Unsubscribing a topic...

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 08:30 AM »

good point, Carol.

3436

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 08:29 AM »

Can't help feeling the APE will take longer than Bridge to load as it has to load the whole of APE (including font tables and startup plugins).

-Carol Haynes (April 05, 2006, 05:24 AM)

well, i've not tried it yet, but if photoshop elements is going to be slower than bridge then i won't be trying it. i may as well just confess it's not the tool for me.

3437

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 03:07 AM »

your views on photoshop elements has been very illuminating. i'm beginning to get an urge to try it again. i tested it when doing the shootout but i may have been unfairly biased against it. the tagging method you've described certainly sounds like a good organising method. the start up speed would annoy me if it's slower than acdsee as i tend to open and close programs very often rather than leaving them running all day. or, more importantly, i may just want to check a single image for a few seconds and then move onto other things - i certainly wouldn't want to wait for photoshop elements to open up just for that.

also i guess i'm not much of a tagger - though, i do see it the way of the future.

maybe i'll give photoshop elements a quick once over but as i gave up using adobe bridge because of it's startup delay i think acdsee is probably what is most suited to me.

perhaps we just sit in different camps - there are those of us that still feel most comfortable with the logic and order of a tree hierarchy and then there of those of us that appreciate the power of the tagging system.

3438

Living Room / Re: Out for a bit -- not a byte

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 02:43 AM »

.

3439

Site/Forum Features / Re: Unsubscribing a topic...

« Last post by nudone on April 05, 2006, 02:24 AM »

it would be nice for 'notify' to change to 'don't notify' but did you know that clicking 'notify' in a subscribed thread will allow you to disable the notify feature?

sorry if i'm stating the obvious.

3440

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 11:38 AM »

i've already uninstalled it. i haven't the patience to figure it out at the moment, which isn't really fair on the software but i just couldn't use it straight after install so it had to go.

if a review of pro graphics file managers comes around then imatch will definitely be part of the shootout.

3441

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 09:26 AM »

iMatch looks quite nice. it would be candidate to include in the next image management shootout but that's not planned any time soon.

i'll give imatch a few days test drive and see if i'm inspired to write more. thanks for pointing it out, david.intp.

3442

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 05:50 AM »

or you could use the 'hidden' attribute which can be turned on and off quite quickly inside acdsee - not very good for how you'll have to view files throughout the rest of your operating system.

i was trying to figure out a way to do more selective searching/viewing using '-' to in quick search to exclude categories but it doesn't really do the job of what you want. you could try this as it half helps...

create 'keywords' tags: 'exclude' and 'include'

assign 'include' to ALL your images and then also assign 'exclude' to the files you want to keep out of the viewing panel. if you then 'quick search' using: include -exclude

you'll see all images bar those with the 'exclude' tag.

3443

Older Newsletters / Re: Newsletter for April 3, 2006 - Codename 'Happy Birthday to Us'

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 04:12 AM »

ah, i remember back when there were just a handful of posts made each week. things were so much simpler then, non of this rss thingamabob to contend with, non of the swarms of current forum activity. hell, there wasn't even a DC irc channel. seems like a lifetime away now. we were so young and full of dreams... [stares into distance and eyes glaze over].

happy birthday to DC and all those who sail within it. may captain mouser lead us on another stimulating journey over the next 12 months too.

3444

General Software Discussion / Re: enhanced simple php gallery

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 03:02 AM »

nice.

3445

Living Room / Re: Memory probs ... any ideas?

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 02:59 AM »

i've had similar problems in the past. put two sticks of ram in a particular machine and whoops. take out a stick, it works. swap the sticks around, it works. swap the slots over, it works. put both sticks in another machine, it works. put back the two sticks in the awkward machine and whooops, blue screen when it feels like it.

there was a slight difference to your situation and that is neither stick displayed any errors when running ram tests using dos based scanning software. i just accepted it as just another of those weird pc problems that don't make any sense.

3446

Living Room / Re: for the dual monitor dudes

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 02:52 AM »

i can't say for certain but when i tried a few years ago what you are describing i 'think' the agp remained the dominant card. maybe this sort of thing depends on the bios setting - there's usually an option for main display device but whether that would help i really can't say.

(if you don't encounter any problems) you can always select from inside windows how you want the two graphics cards to be treated, i.e. which will have the 'main' monitor on it.

i still think if you just plug everything in you'll be up and running within a short period of time. your low end pci card should be detected automatically and if a suitable set of drivers aren't found by windows, you should still be able to see that things are working albeit in a low resolution and colour space.

3447

Image Manager Shootout / Re: Where is Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0??

« Last post by nudone on April 04, 2006, 02:38 AM »

thanks for the explanation. it's very interesting to hear the comparison between acdsee and photoshop elements. when i've got a moment i'll try and see if there is a method of using acdsee that is more akin to what you are used to.

i'm just looking at this quickly but i'll look closer if you need the help.

it seems you've got 'show all files' enabled under the 'filters' setting. if you disable that i think you'll get rid of a lot of the thumbs. if that doesn't work then it looks like a weird problem.

there doesn't appear to be a way of quickly excluding specific files from the database. you can exclude entire folders but i doubt that is what you want to hear. would creating an 'exclude' tag work?

just a quick edit: with the 'exclude' tag, you'd still have to use a folder method i think, i.e. everything that's in the excluded category would have to be in a particular folder(s) - not really what you are after i admit.

3448

Living Room / Re: Why Macs Suck

« Last post by nudone on April 02, 2006, 06:52 AM »

the will to fiddle and toy with a device endlessly, rarely producing anything.

-zridling (April 02, 2006, 06:19 AM)

that is a remarkably accurate description of the symbiotic life i share with my pc.

3449

General Software Discussion / Re: remember 'broadpage' browser - here's 'tablane'

« Last post by nudone on April 02, 2006, 12:25 AM »

you're right about maxthon, Darwin, it's just not as much fun as the way 'tablane' does it. since i made this post i've not really used 'tablane' at all. i'm still using the browse many pages by clicking on tabs method so i guess that pretty much sums everything up - perhaps that's why 'broadpage' vanished - no one cares to browse that way, not even me and i thought it was a good idea.

3450

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone use PocketPCs

« Last post by nudone on April 01, 2006, 06:54 AM »

i use a pocketpc (5500) when i remember to make the effort. it's never really lived up to what i was expecting from a 'portable pocket computer'. things like entering notes and reminders, etc. are too cumbersome compared with just jotting things down on a bit of paper.

what a Luddite. maybe it's simply down to the ipaq 5500 not being the lightest of devices and i have an extra battery pack/case/4 gig drive attached to it so it resembles something more like the filofaxes of old, i.e. it's like a leather cased brick.

things like 'calligrapher' i've tried, then uninstalled, then tried again, then uninstalled, then tried again, then uninstalled. i would probably keep it on but i've never found it to be 100% accurate - maybe i need a faster pocket pc.

i'll dig it out later and report back what's on it.