Recent Posts

3526

Living Room / Re: the award for most clueless pc user ever - my candidate.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 18, 2008, 04:50 PM »

Ooo - I bet you were popular.

Actually I would have thought it would blow the switch if anything ???

3527

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 18, 2008, 02:40 PM »

Looks like I have one too - I keep looking and drooling

To really benefit though you need to get a Gigabit router and wire up your house

3528

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 18, 2008, 07:14 AM »

If you make the pagefile first and make sure the max and min sizes are the same (just use the recommended size it says in the dialogue box) then it will be created on a freshly formatted drive without significant fragmentation (a 3Gb file on a 4Gb drive will be fragmented simply because the MFT is in the middle of the partition so you page file will have at least 2 fragments). Reboot and them move the temp files etc.

3529

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 18, 2008, 06:04 AM »

That is good!

Have you tried using it as a printer server? If not is there any chance you could try it when you get it back and let us know how it works out?

3530

Living Room / Re: If you get angry about frivolous lawsuits by big company bullies you'll love

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 18, 2008, 06:02 AM »

I was taught in school that you determine whether or not to use "an" or "a" depending on how the beginning of the next word sounds. If the beginning of the word after "a/an" has a vowel sound, then you use "an" but if it has a consonant sound, you use "a." For example, "an idiot," or "a moron."

-Deozaan (April 17, 2008, 09:00 PM)

It also depends on how the vowel sounds. For example:

an umbrella
a unified theory

I think the h rule basically works on the principle of whether the h sound is needed so

a Hotel
an ... otel

the second pronunciation derives from the French origin of the word (but is consider pretentious).

Since hero requires the H sound you can't use 'an'.

You think English is bad - French spelling goes out of its way to disclose Latin roots - which is why time is spelled temps but pronounced completely differently!

3531

General Software Discussion / Re: Who used up the bandwidth/allocated traffic for the month ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 06:23 PM »

Netmeter looks very nice - remarkably similar to DUMeter (except for the price )

3532

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 06:14 PM »

Actually in the one drive scenario described above you can still make the Windows drive C: and the page drive whatever you like.

You just need to prepare your hard disc in advance.

The easiest way to do this is to

• use a partition manager rescue disc (such as Acronis DiskDirector - Partition Magic doesn't recognise some of the newer SATA drives if you still have that)
• delete all the partitions on the disc (unless you want to keep the ubiquitous recovery partition - though personally I would back it up and delete it)
• create a small primary partition on the drive but use a format that isn't used by Windows (anything will do except FAT, FAT32 and NTFS) but you don't need to bother formatiting it
• use your Partition Manager to set the partition to Hidden.

Now install Windows (creating a new primary, active partition during setup). It will install as drive C:

Once windows is installed

• boot from your Partition Manager disc again
• unhide the page partition and format it with NTFS
• reboot windows
• use the disk management utility to relabel the page partition drive letter to whatever you want
• create a data partition and label that and you DVD whatever you want.

Personally I don't think it is worth the hassle though - just install Windows on the first partition and set your page file to be a fixed size and do a boot time defrag of the pagefile. If the pagefile is fixed size and defragmented it doesn't fragment again so there is little advantage in setting aside another partition on the same drive.

3533

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 11:44 AM »

Drive letters are assigned somewhat differently.

It really depends how you set up the partitions. If you have a primary partition on both drives followed by an extended partition with logical drives inside windows usually assigns:

Drive1: C: (primary) E: F: .... (logical)
Drive2: D: (primary) G: ... (logical or where ever you got to in the extended partition on drive 1).

There is a simple way around this ...

From empty drives when you install Windows from the first time:

1) Create an active partition on drive 1 for Windows to install into (set the size you want).
2) Install Windows

From within Windows create the other partitions as you want them (you can use the Disk Management tool in the management centre - START > RUN > diskmgmt.msc

When you create a partition in the disk management bit you can select the drive letter. Just right click on the new partition and choose "Change Drive letter and Paths ...". You will get a warning that it will potentially screw up your system but you can ignore that since the partition is empty. You can also do this for other drives - CD/DVD, multimedia etc. The only drive letter you can't change is the one assigned to the Windows installation.

If you do this immediately after installing windows you should have no problems. The one exception is if at some point in the future Windows asks you to install your installation disc (driver installation, additional programs or to fix a corrupted file) it will expect you to use the CD/DVD in the same drive letter it used during installation. Easily solved though as you can select an alternative drive.

By the way if you want to put all the temp files with PageFile.sys in the first partition on drive 2 I suggest you use a fixed size page file.

Note it is also worth keeping a page file on C: of at least 64Mb - that way if you get BSODS in the future the errors will be logged in the system event logs. If you don't have that small page file available Windows can't save Crash Dumps at all and there will be no error messages in the logs to help with trouble shooting. Again make it fixed size.

Once you have set up your system use something like Perfect Disk to do a boot time defrag so that your C: and page file drives are optimized.

3534

General Software Discussion / Re: Should I get my new laptop with hard drive partitioned?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 11:21 AM »

If you can arrange it make a small partition (3 x memory size should be enough) and place the page file on there by itself. Ideally make this the first partition on the drive (the fastest part of the disc).

3535

Living Room / MOVED: A nice creative challenge and a near perfect 1 task website: blipfoto.com

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 09:36 AM »

This topic has been moved to Mini-Reviews by Members.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=13075.0

3536

General Software Discussion / Re: Who used up the bandwidth/allocated traffic for the month ?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 08:36 AM »

DUMeter (not free) logs all your traffic (in and out) and gives you reports, running totals etc.

3537

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 06:26 AM »

Thanks Perry - that is helpful.

3538

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 04:37 AM »

Looking at the products I thought the 207 looked pretty good value for money - don't forget though you need to buy the hard drives too!

3539

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 17, 2008, 03:30 AM »

I agree they look brilliant - anyone any experience playing with one?

It also isn't very clear what support is provided for printers - is it just basic printing support of can you use other functions such as printable CDs ? I notice it doesn't support multifunction printers but I suppose that is pretty reasonable.

They could do with a more technical description on their website (at least I couldn't find anything other than the general features - but I didn't look very hard as I am finding it hard to focus with feeling pretty crap over the last few days). It doesn't, for example, make it totally clear what you can use the multiple USB sockets for on the back panel, or the eSata connector. Presumbly the eSata connector is for backing up files from the installed drives or running as an external mirror.

3540

Living Room / Re: If you get angry about frivolous lawsuits by big company bullies you'll love..

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 16, 2008, 07:17 PM »

Maybe he should counter sue for defamation - I bet he'd win.

Brilliant letter

3541

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 16, 2008, 06:24 PM »

So a single disk system wil work just fine, and the reviews at Amazon are writter by End Users ... and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt. I'll wager that over 90% of the ones that "Lost all their files", caused the problem by panicking. <-I see this kind of crap in the field daily...)

-Stoic Joker (April 16, 2008, 05:08 PM)

OK they say single disc systems work BUT there has been more than one report (including in the reviews on Amazon) that automated 'set it and forget it' backup led to corrupted files. I don't know for sure as I have never used the product (and am unlikely to). Having said that if MS admit that the file types that screw up are most of MS Office and Windows Media Player (ie. precisely the sorts of files that the system is designed for) then it is difficult to recommend it as a system with any sort of confidence!

3542

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 16, 2008, 08:31 AM »

WHS works just fine for that, and is as close to a set & forget setup as you can get.

-Stoic Joker (April 16, 2008, 06:19 AM)

If you read the reviews at Amazon you will see that WHS is great when it works but the unfixed bug mentioned in the first MS KB article also affects the backup routine. I guess if you are lucky then it works fine but if you install it and find you are one of the affected people you have basically but a lot of rubbish (until it gets fixed).

The bug has been mentioned in these forums before but there is widespread dissatisfaction on the web with MS's response to the bug. In any other system it would be deemed critical and get fixed quick - even by their own estimates it is going to be at least 6 months from acknowledging the fault before it is likely to see a solution. Pretty indefensible in any operating system but for a server it makes it useless until it is fixed.

3543

Living Room / Re: British money is about to get really cool

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 16, 2008, 04:05 AM »

All the motor trade still measure in terms of how many horses it would take to prosuce that much power. Still I'd like to see them strap 400 horses together and see if they can get them running at over 200mph.

Units are damn silly things. As a teacher kids have been taught in the metric system in the UK exclusively for about 30 years and yet we still have 'keep the hundredweight' brigade kicking up a fuss because bananas at a market stall by law have to be labelled in kilos (they can still put imperial measures beside if they feel like it). Not so long ago a market trader in the UK went to prison rather than use kilos on his stall - which says something about the stupidity of the British mentality. Naturally he was treated as a hero by the press and public.

Life become even more complicated when you consider that just as Americans can't spell English their distance, weight and capacity measures are also based on the English system but use different quantitative sizes for these measures.

The classic confusion has to be NASA mixing up metres and feet in the shuttle - we're talking about scientists for gods sake who learned ISO units at their mothers breast and probably carry a photograph of the caesium clock used to establish many of these de facto standards in their wallet!

3544

Living Room / Re: Home Network Recommendations?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 16, 2008, 03:52 AM »

Personally I can see little point in home servers - especially if you plan on a Wifi only network as any connections (even with 802.11n) are going to be too slow for general file shifting. I suppose it is sometimes conventient to have a central place where you can have a printer(s) and extra storage. Sharing stuff, such as photos and video, in one place (and available all the time) is one reason.

If you want to see why MS think you should go down the Home Server route see http://www.microsoft...eserver/default.mspx

Here is one of their FAQs:

How is Windows Home Server better than home Network Attached Storage (NAS) products?

Windows Home Server provides unprecedented simplicity for home users and it was designed to solve problems for households with multiple PCs.

More than just storage, Windows Home Server uniquely provides a single pool of storage for your content and pre-defined shared folders, such as "Music" or "Photos," making it easier to organize and find your files. Windows Home Server also makes it easy to add more storage, provides built-in search capabilities, monitors the health of your home computers and allows you to stream content to other devices in the home, such as Xbox 360.

In addition, as a development platform, Windows Home Server offers partners great opportunities to create solutions for the digital home. This means that a wide range of applications and tools that integrate with and take advantage of Windows Home Server will be available.

The only feature that I can see that may be useful is that family and friends can log in and share your photos (or you can when away from home). Fair enough I suppose that could be useful but it is possible without Home Server anyway, and you don't need to do it through a Windows Live account! The other problem is that most ISPs (at least in the UK) limit upload speeds to pathetic levels - I have an 8Mbs broadband connection (in theory as it maxes out at about 2-3 Mb) which is comfortable in use but my upload speeds rarely get beyond about 50Kbs which is SLOW! Trying to use a home server when away from home (or allowing others to access your server) is viable but can you imagine the frustration level if more than one person is using it - you'd have analogue modem speeds!

If you have a very fast network (such as a gigabit network) I can understand there are some advantages - it would be practicale to use the server for back and recovery of client computers but over WiFi it would just be too slow (if it works at all as most WiFi needs specific drivers in the client to function and if you are performing disaster recovery they might not be available - wired network connections often work without drivers).

If all you want to do is share files and possibly a printer I would go down the NAS route - it is far cheaper. Lots of NAS type devices are expandable (buy bare bones and install the drives you want, many come with USB expansion for adding an extra drive externally later, and lots support a USB printer - or get a router that supports a shared printer). The whole thing will cost you less than a single copy of Windows Server 2005/2008 (just the software - overkill, complicated and probably cost more than your entire network) and I am not sure but I think Windows Home Server only comes as part of a hardware package (unless you buy the OEM version which is $200 at Amazon you could buy a bare bones NAS device and a hard drive for that price).


Finally before considering Windows Home Server you might want to check out the following two articles:

http://support.micro....com/kb/946676/en-us
http://support.micro....com/kb/943393/en-us

The first article is really worrying as there is no solution on the horizon - note the programs they say are related to the corruption problem include Windows Media Player, iTunes, OneNote (both 2003 and 2007), Thunderbird, Excel ... the list goes on.

Would you really want to trust data to such a system - even if it does only happen rarely. Also note the original article was published before Christmas and there still isn't a solution! [Oops sorry - they may fix it by June ... big of them]

3545

Living Room / Re: British money is about to get really cool

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 15, 2008, 07:33 PM »

Most of the more mature economies would do well to get rid of the lesser coins.

-Renegade (April 09, 2008, 09:34 AM)

The UK has already done that twice in the last 50 years.

When decimal currency was introduce in the 70s the smallest coin was the new halfpenny (worth around 1.2 old pennies) so the old half penny effectively disappeared. Also as a corollary all prices effectively went up because every value was rounded up. After decimalisation the new half panney was removed from circulation.

Of course I don't quite remember farthings but they were worth a lot in their day

Personally I don't want to see pennies go as it will just hike prices again for no good reason and us Brits are already ripped off. Yesterday I drove past a petrol station (gas station to N. Americans) and diesel is now £1.20 per litre (~ $2.36US, $2.40 CAD or 1.49 EUR).

Incidentally how long have US and Canadian dollars been on a par?

3546

General Software Discussion / Re: Vista Aero vs. Linux Compiz

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 15, 2008, 06:57 PM »

And seeing through the edges of windows can help you find things below the active program

-wreckedcarzz (April 15, 2008, 06:30 PM)

Haven't windows transparency options been available since Windows 2000 ?

3547

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 15, 2008, 06:55 PM »

I hope they did the same with WMP, which is becoming less and less configurable with each version.

-Lashiec (April 15, 2008, 06:41 PM)

Really I like WMP 11 more than previous versions. Maybe I am not very demanding but I think it works pretty well. I certainly prefer it to iTunes as a music and video player, and (at least on my system) it loads quickly (with about 30Gb of music and video in the library), has an instant search and sounds as good as anything else I have tried. Granted I don't use it for tagging (MP3Tag rules for that) - what else am I missing?

3548

Living Room / Use illegal Vista - go legal - make a profit !

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 15, 2008, 06:47 PM »

I found this slightly amusing as a way to save money if you want to buy Vista ...

So a full copy of Vista Ultimate can cost you less than the upgrade price????


See the full article and discussion at: http://blogs.zdnet.c...=427&tag=nl.e589

3549

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 15, 2008, 07:14 AM »

Ugh, would you please stop spreading that piece of false information? It really isn't. If you (on old enough hardware ) time first- and secondary launch times of IE, you'll see a speed difference. People are all confused over this issue because things like the common controls were introduced with IE, but quickly became a set of core windows controls, used by many other apps...

-f0dder (April 15, 2008, 06:17 AM)

I was under the impression that Windows Explorer contains most of the core code for IE - which is why you can use IE to browse folders and WE to browse websites (OK with IE 7 the site opens in a new IE tab) ? Since explorer.exe is in memory from startup the iexplorer.exe just adds a thin veneer when IE is used - or am I completely wrong on this?

I was also under the impression that this is why MS said it was impossible to remove Internet Explorer from Windows (not least in the anti trust cases in court) and why using the remove option in the default apps options (such as replacing IE with MSN Explorer or Firefox) doesn't actually remove anything at all but just hides IE from the user's view.

3550

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Firefox 3.0 the "Fat Elvis?"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on April 15, 2008, 04:14 AM »

Not the version of Firefox I know. Having just reinstalled my system from scratch it took me less than 10 minutes to get FF2 resintalled from scratch - and that included downloading the latest build and the handful of add-ons I find essential.

In some ways I find it pleasantly surprising just how fast FF is at the moment. It still opens faster than IE (with 5 tabs) even though IE is essentially preloaded into memory at Windows startup.

One of the big problems in all Windows systems is that EVERYTHING gets slower over time - even when you make the effort to keep your house clean and tidy. The only reason I can think this might happen is the registry as you can clean off all crap from your system and defragment, clear out unused apps etc. but after a while it just doesn't seem to make any difference.

I also hate the way dependencies build up over time ... I just installed Office 2007 but Outlook 2007 demands Windows desktop Search be downloaded and installed to provide the search functions. This is understandable because O2007 was designed for Vista and Vista comes with WDS as part of the OS. Having said that XP is now running much slower again and there is a lot of disk thrashing after startup. I decided to uninstall WDS and use alternative methods to search Outlook data but when I came to uninstall it I was presented with a list of about 20 applications that COULD potentially be affected if I decide to uninstall. Personally I can't see why most of them would be affected but who knows what sort of DLL hell I might enter into if I risk it. The upshot is I have a slower system now than I had and a piece of crap I don't want to remove in case it has knock on problems. I have had enough issues in recent months and having spent a few days reinstalling I don't want to do it again!

The upshot of all this is systems slow over time and become more complex and less responsive in some sort of organic fashion. It is easy to blame particular software (such as Firefox as I have above and in the past) but now I am not so sure.

FF is not perfect but when installed on a clean system it isn't as fast as Opera but it is pretty responsive. Having said that the expandability of Firefox makes it much more functional and adaptable than Opera.

All the Opera fans go on about how fast and good Opera is.  In some ways it is a bit like MacOS - if you are prepared to restrict your options by locking down the system (in Opera's case by banning extensions, in Mac's case by only allowing a small subset of available hardware) it is easy to make a system that retains its stability and speed but it is the open market place of Firefox (and even IE) and Windows hardware that make those platforms ultimately more trouble but also much more adaptable for users and attractive to developers.