Recent Posts

376

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Bits - Ultra Recall

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 13, 2012, 10:06 AM »

Does anyone know how Ultra Recall compares with Surfulater?  Does one program have any advantages or disadvantages over the other?

377

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome feature: How to Pronounce English Words

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 09, 2012, 08:45 AM »

Many thanks, daddydave and Curt, for the clarification.

378

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome feature: How to Pronounce English Words

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 07, 2012, 04:08 PM »

-the difference may have been be caused by my Mr Tech Toolkit add-on:

direct link! http://mrte.ch/toolkit  for Firefox 8.01

-direct link for xpi addon

But as I remember it, you want to use Opera? I've found nothing except an extension for Twitter only.

-Curt (January 07, 2012, 03:19 PM)

I'm not sure I follow you about Mr. Tech Toolkit.  It seems to show something in red ("direct link") in the graphic you posted, but I'm the one who had in red the statement about Pronounce not being available for FF 8.0.1.

Also, although I do use both Opera and Firefox, FF is my default browser.  I wasn't concerned about whether Pronounce was available for Opera--I went to the Mozilla page to see whether Pronounce also deals with languages other than English.  I found it doesn't, and I was no longer interested for myself.  I posted the message for the possible benefit of other people on the DC forum.

379

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome feature: How to Pronounce English Words

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 07, 2012, 11:20 AM »

-they really just should say "have not yet been officially tested with Firefox 8.01". However, on my version of the page they are saying, "May be incompatible with Firefox 8.0.1", which I think is similar. "Red letters"; is your version of the page different?

-Curt (January 07, 2012, 11:04 AM)

Yes, it is.  The statement is in red and it says "Not available for Firefox 8.0.1."  I'm trying to include an attachment, but I'm not sure whether it has worked, since the preview doesn't show it.  [Well, apparently it worked, though I would have preferred it AFTER the message's text.]

380

General Software Discussion / Re: Chrome feature: How to Pronounce English Words

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 07, 2012, 08:56 AM »

Curt, I went to the Mozilla page to see whether Pronounce works with languages other than English.  It doesn't, but I was astonished to see in prominent red letters a statement on the page (i.e., not just in the comments) that it doesn't work with FF 8.0.1.  Since you've obviously gotten it to work with that version (and fortunately have added a comment to say so), why would Mozilla put such a wrong-headed comment on the page?  If I were the developer, I'd be furious.

381

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Giveaway of the Day - InPaint 3.1 (for Windows and Mac)

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 07, 2012, 08:45 AM »

Iain, this is a terrific program, and I'm glad you've mentioned it.  But I'm surprised that they're giving away version 3.1, since I already have version 4.0.  But I should add that I was also very enthusiastic about version 3.  Photoshop CS5 made a big splash with its Content Aware feature to remove unwanted items from photos, but I've found that InPaint is just as easy, just as effective in most instances, and infinitely less expensive (even when it's not on GAOTD). 

382

General Software Discussion / Chrome feature: How to Pronounce English Words

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 06, 2012, 03:57 PM »

Martin Brinkmann has a piece on ghacks.net today about an extension in the Chrome browser called "How Do You Say" that will pronounce English words, phrases, and even sentences that you either add manually or highlight on a web page.  As far as I can tell, the feature is available only for English.  Brinkmann was moderately enthusiastic about it, though it's limited to just the words it has in its database.  Still, since Donation Coder has a large international membership, I thought this might possibly be of interest.  You can find the article at http://www.ghacks.net/2012/01/06/learn-how-to-pronaunce-english-words/ (and yes, pronounce is misspelled in the URL    ). I don't use Chrome, so I wasn't able to try it out.  I might add that I first did a search of the forum to see if this has already been mentioned.  I searched on pronounce English words and received no hits, but the forum search software did provide the following feedback:

Adjust Search Parameters
You may have meant to search for pronounce Englisher words.
 

383

General Software Discussion / Re: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 05, 2012, 08:17 AM »

I should also mention Steve Banham for starting the Opus Resource Centre web forums (which I admin these days,...)

-Nudel (January 05, 2012, 05:47 AM)

Leo, "admin" doesn't begin to get at the amazing work you do on those forums.  You provide an immense amount of help on everything from newbie questions to complex problems, and always graciously.  I thought I'd take this opportunity to express my thanks.  

384

Best E-mail Client / Re: E-mail client recommendations

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 04, 2012, 11:06 PM »

One thing that keeps me using Mulberry is its "Cabinets" feature.  I use sieve filters to filter my mail on my two university accounts into a variety of mailboxes, depending on various criteria.  I have a Mulberry cabinet that shows me just the mailboxes that are able to receive new mail, so I can see at a glance which mailboxes have new mail.  Mail in some mailboxes I know I want to look at right away, whereas others can wait.  When I use Thunderbird, I have to scroll through my MANY mailboxes to find which ones have new mail, and I find that rather inconvenient.  I also have a cabinet that holds just those mailboxes that I want to synchronize with mailboxes on my computer. With IMAP, I don't have to download messages, but I have 18 mailboxes whose contents I want to save on my hard drive.  Mulberry's Auto-Synchronize cabinet makes it very easy to do this.  Yet another cabinet I use is Copy Messages To.  It simply lists all the mailboxes in which I might want to move a message after reading it.  I haven't found this "cabinet" functionality in other email clients.  It's not the only reason I stay with Mulberry, but it's one that I really don't want to give up.  If there are more modern email clients that do have a similar feature, I'd like to know about them.

385

General Software Discussion / Re: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 03, 2012, 08:15 AM »

A bit of general advice: if you want to put program shortcuts on a toolbar, you'll probably be better off having buttons that open menus and putting the shortcuts in the menus. That way you can organise in the way your mind works (or in categories based on your personal various operating modes, or whatever suits) rather than a toolbar that gradually becomes increasingly cluttered.

-oblivion (January 03, 2012, 06:03 AM)

In general, I don't mind having to right-click on a file and scroll down to choose the non-default program I want to use to open it.  There are just a few programs where I prefer to skip the scroll step and have the file open immediately in the non-default program.  Thus, I'm in no danger of having too many program icons on the toolbar.  If I put menus on the toolbar and had to select a program from the menu, I might as well use the right-click context menu and skip the toolbar.

386

General Software Discussion / Re: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 02, 2012, 07:22 PM »

Frankly, it's usually all I can do just to learn how to use DOpus as it is, without any tweaks.  But I did make one small tweak to the Toolbar: I added several icons for programs such as Photoshop and InPaint and set them up so that if I selected a photo file (or several) and clicked on, say, the InPaint icon on the toolbar, InPaint would open with that photo file loaded.

To add a program to the DOpus toolbar, you first right-click on the toolbar and select "Customise."  While in Customise mode, you can simply drag a program's shortcut to the toolbar.  Then, to get the program to open a selected file, while still in Customise mode edit the program icon (Alt+left click) and add {allfilepath} to the end of whatever is already in the Function box.  Thus, my Function box for InPaint now contains the following: @async:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Inpaint4\Inpaint.exe"{allfilepath}

387

General Software Discussion / Re: Configuring Directory Opus for Fun and Profit

« Last post by cyberdiva on January 02, 2012, 04:52 PM »

Innuendo, I assume that when you say the DOpus Resource Centre, you mean the forum.  If so, you've found a great source of information.  I don't think they have a Tips & Tricks section, but any time I've wanted to know how to do something, either I've found the answer by searching the forum or I've asked a question and had it answered knowledgeably. 

388

General Software Discussion / Re: Lifetime license from Audials+GAOTD: no good

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 28, 2011, 10:45 PM »

 

389

General Software Discussion / Re: Opera: The web browser I have been dying to love

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 28, 2011, 10:43 PM »

Thanks, Josh, for saying so many things that I too have thought for a long time.  I started using Opera back in version 3, I think, and for years it was my default browser, even though other browsers were free and Opera at that time was not.  But more and more sites didn't really work well in Opera.  The company and the fanboys always insisted that the problem was that the sites used bad code.  That excuse became pretty tired after a while.  I finally decided that a browser that rendered most sites well was worth more to me than one that insisted on code purity, and I switched to Firefox as my default.  I've still kept Opera on my computers, but Firefox's add-ons have given me increasing numbers of reasons to stay with Firefox, even though Opera always feels faster and more agile.  Today, any time I'm tempted to switch, I think of the add-ons that I depend on and couldn't use, such as Lazarus and the add-on for Surfulater.  I've written to the developers of both of those add-ons, but both have told me that Opera's market share is simply too small to warrant the amount of work it would take for them to create an add-on.  And so I stay with Firefox.

390

Best E-mail Client / Re: E-mail client recommendations

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 28, 2011, 02:34 PM »

I have used Mulberry for more than a decade, and I can't remember it ever crashing or corrupting my message store (perhaps in part because I use IMAP).  I still feel that it handles IMAP better than any other email client I've tried (and I've tried quite a few), and it offers some features that I haven't found elsewhere.  Still, it hasn't had any substantial development in five or six years, and its approach to graphics and unicode is frustratingly primitive.  For those reasons, I can't really recommend it even though I love it, and I continue to look for an email client I'd like better. 

391

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 28, 2011, 02:23 PM »

Curt, I too usually have a very stable connection, but too often I've had the experience (though not on Donation Coder) of sending a message to a forum or a blog and not having it appear for one reason or another, or I push the wrong button by mistake and my message goes off into the misty purple, never to be seen again--except by Lazarus.    It has saved my bacon enough times that I've donated to the developer.  

392

General Software Discussion / Re: Firefox Extensions: Your favorite or most useful

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 28, 2011, 08:18 AM »

I no longer remember why I removed Lazarus, so forgive me for just asking:
How is it with Lazarus on Firefox 8? Do I need Lazarus 2.3, or 3.05"Beta", or?

-Curt (December 28, 2011, 03:46 AM)

Curt, I have Lazarus 2.3 [646] on my computer with Firefox 8.0.1 and it works fine.  I've never tried the Beta.  In general, I stay away from Betas unless there's a compelling reason to try one, and I had no compelling reason with Lazarus.  I'm under the impression that the Beta is of most interest to people who use the Chrome browser, which I do not.

393

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: WS_FTP Professional 60%OFF (FTP client)

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 27, 2011, 10:31 AM »

I used WS_FTP happily for years, but when I bought a Win7 64-bit computer earlier this year, I couldn't get my old copy of WS_FTP to work with it.  I then installed the freeware program FileZilla to see whether that would work.  It did, and I've been using it ever since.  I'm very pleased, and so I've ignored the emails I get from time to time offering me WS_FTP at very substantial savings.

394

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 2 gifts from Abelsoft

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 26, 2011, 11:30 PM »

Funny that...I think I was the one way back when who recommended Lazarus to you. 

-Innuendo (December 26, 2011, 09:01 PM)

OMG, I didn't remember that!  Well, let me say very belatedly that I am VERY VERY grateful to you.  Lazarus is my most indispensable FF add-on.   

395

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 2 gifts from Abelsoft

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 26, 2011, 07:20 PM »

Duh...it was right in front of my eyes.  Oh well....thanks muchly. 

I almost never find that I want to undelete a file that I've deleted.  I often want to recover stuff that I've written, but not in a file, usually in a forum or on a form.  That's why I'm so crazy about the Firefox add-on Lazarus.  But I think when it comes to files, my problem is just the opposite--I should get rid of more files than I do. 

396

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: 2 gifts from Abelsoft

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 26, 2011, 04:38 PM »

They continue to flee!  I just went to the home page and was told that "precisely 14.314 users are missing...."

Also, where did you find any information about the program, other than that it causes people to run in the opposite direction?  Or was that what you thought might be useful? 

397

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Babylon discount

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 26, 2011, 12:35 PM »

You're right, Curt, your link works and carries the same message, except that it says 50%.  Duh.  That seems so typical of Babylon--the left hand often doesn't know what the right hand is doing.  If I had more time now, I'd be tempted to try version 9, though I'm quite happy with version 6 except it doesn't have the ability to define words when I right-click, or whatever it was I used to do.  I'd like to have that capability back, though if Babylon 9 still doesn't work in FF 8.0.1, it surely won't work in later versions.  Thanks very much for letting us all know about the 50% offer.  One of these days, I may give Babylon 9 a try.  I doubt that this is the last we've seen of 50% discounts.

398

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: Babylon discount

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 26, 2011, 11:44 AM »

Curt, I just went to the Babylon web site and what I found there was "Last Sale for 2011 - 35% Discount."  Perhaps they'll go back to 50% in 2012? 

399

Living Room / Re: Adware is not freeware, right?

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 24, 2011, 09:45 AM »

I have seen these automatically added links on many web sites, it has been here for years. But it is nice to see that people are noticing it.

-vlastimil (December 24, 2011, 07:17 AM)

I've certainly seen links on, say, periodicals' sites to words in an article, and occasionally I wondered why certain links were there and whether the author put those there or whether they were generated by the periodical. I confess it never occurred to me that it might be some company that had nothing to do with the periodical except a financial arrangement.  But I don't think I've ever before seen links added to an individual's post.  Certainly I've never had that experience before with anything I've posted on any forum.  It feels invasive and slimy.

The forum owner is most likely getting cut of the profit from VigLink or another link-broker company. If it is some kind of free forum (running on a sub-domain), the moderator is most likely not the owner though.

-vlastimil

I think it's a free forum running on a sub-domain, and I doubt that anyone connected to the specific forum is getting a penny from these slimeballs.  [Did I mention that I was not happy with them?    ]

BTW are you sure you did not give your permission when agreeing to the forum TOS?

-vlastimil

Well, one can almost never be sure about such things.  I joined that forum almost seven years ago and have participated moderately often.  Yesterday was the first time I encountered this practice. 

400

Living Room / Re: Adware is not freeware, right?

« Last post by cyberdiva on December 23, 2011, 07:34 PM »

I just had an experience that I think is somewhat relevant to this discussion.  On another forum, I posted a message about a podcast that I had found useful.  I provided a link to the podcast; I didn't make the word "podcast" a live link but instead wrote out the URL and made it a live link.  Later, someone quoted my message and thanked me.  I noticed that in his quoting, the word "podcast" was a link, not to the podcast but to itunes.apple.com.  Then I saw that in my original message "podcast" was also a link.  I was perplexed, and I sent a message to the forum explaining that I had not made that link.  Sure enough, my message explaining this contained even more links to itunes.apple.com.  I put my cursor over one of the links, and it said "Link added by VigLink."  Apparently VigLink is a company that places these links in people's messages whether or not they want them.  The top hit to VigLink in Google said "Your links can be doing more. Unlock the power of your site's links and earn extra money from your site automatically, transparently and honestly."  Transparently?  Honestly???   I wrote to one of the forum's moderators, but I doubt that it's the forum that is making $$, and I also doubt that they'll be willing to move to a different host.

Is this adding of links to stuff that people write without their permission widespread?  I confess that I had never encountered it before, and I strongly object to it.